Wanted: STC for Machine Guns

I went to my local airport to go flying for a little while. It was overcast and there was enough of a chill in the air to warrant wearing a jacket.

The airport is an uncontrolled airport, which relies on the pilots observing courtesy among each other, announcing their positions on the airport's Unicom frequency (except for airplanes without radios). Usually it works pretty well, but every so often you wind up dealing with a pilot who is either ignorant or arrogant.

This is a standard traffic pattern:


Generally, you fly left-hand patterns. You enter into the pattern on the 45 leg to the downwind, though it's accepted to come in on a crosswind, an upwind (flying the runway heading at pattern altitude) or an extended downwind. Everyone sequences themselves and usually it works out OK.

It doesn't work so well when some jerk decides to drive in on a long final and force himself into the flow of traffic. Sometimes they get upbraided on Unicom. Forcing one's way into the airport on a long final is not only rude, it is unsafe as there are airplanes without radio in the pattern.

Today, though, I saw what may have been the ultimate in pattern rudeness, this time by a helicopter. There is nothing in the procedures (that I am aware of) which gives helicopters the right to fly wherever the fuck they want.

It was one of these beasties:


The driver (and, I'm told, his instructor), departed across the active runway and then headed towards the base leg of the traffic pattern. At an airport that has noise-abatement procedures to keep peace with its neighbors, his departure took him right over a cluster of homes at about 300' above them. He climbed out, through the base leg of the traffic pattern and went on his merry way.

I so much want to get an STC for machine guns, even if they are .308s. One in each wing would be fine.

Or people can send me a couple of million smackeroos and I'll buy a Spitfire.


A burst of tracers from eight .303 machine guns ought to have that goddamn Robbie driver crapping his pants. If he lives long enough, that is. And yes, I am using the word "driver" here to be deliberately insulting.

On a happier note, the Stinson I blogged about earlier here and here, has been flown to its new home for full restoration. And it seems that an Ercoupe, which has also not flown for years, is the next candidate for for being returned to flight.

This is an Ercoupe: