Your post reminds me of an old story. Back in the olden times when KVNY was more like KWHP and less like KLAX a few unlimited air racers were based there. Mr. Awesome was a Yak-11 with a turbo-compound 3350 (everyone told them it was a bad idea but they didn't listen) that was hangared there. Apparently one night some folks were having a moving AK-47 gunfight on Roscoe Blvd and because criminals aren't normally proficient with their firearms their spent rounds ended up going into some of the hangars and the airplanes housed inside of them. Mr. Awesome was a casualty in that debacle. The folks that were working on it inspected the airplane and the hangar and repaired any of the damage they'd found caused by these criminal actions of fatherless young men. But they missed one thing, I'm not entirely certain of the details because the story of that airplane has always been a bit murky, but from what I understand they they test flew the airplane and flew it up to race at Reno and it had an engine failure. Apparently one of those errant rounds found it's way into a valve purposed with the oil system, the oil cooler and how that that temp was regulated and no one noticed. It was a horrible idea from the jump. That much airplane can't handle that much engine successfully. This was when folks were all about trying to put big engines on tiny airframes, Mr. Awesome was not the only example, Wildfire was a T-6 with a R2800 and a "laminar flow" wing.
Yeah, like that passenger revolt a couple of years back in Puerto Rico.
I watched Miss Ashley II crash in 1999, that freak of a P-51 with the Learjet wing and a RR Griffon.
I was also there when that happened. That was probably the most aesthetically beautiful air racer I'd ever seen, our airplane was significantly faster but looked as if it'd been hobbled together from a bunch of parts compared to MAII. They had an aviation paint company as their main sponsor and that airplane was turned out! It looked like it was going 500mph on the ramp. Cross pollination amongst the teams was very common and that wasn't limited to needing a part or some knowledge when someone needed help, the folks that support the folks that are actually working on the planes are irreplaceable. There was a group of folks, mostly female, that were the backbone of every team. Every team had someone that would tell you to knock it off for a few minutes and insist you eat a sandwich and drink some water. These ladies were always conspiring amongst themselves, sharing ingredients, sandwiches and anything else they could to keep the Circus Of The Rodeo running. Our den mother and MAIIs den mother were tight friends and after the accident she came to our trailer and she was broken. I've seen people die racing airplanes more than once but the thing that hit the hardest to me was walking back into the pits on Sunday and the only evidence of the MAII team being there was a memorial in their pit, they cleaned up everything in the middle of the night and left.I watched Miss Ashley II crash in 1999, that freak of a P-51 with the Learjet wing and a RR Griffon.
Miss Ashley II - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Apparently there's enough demand to make it profitable. Airlines park airplanes if it's not. Who is going to Haiti I don't know, who is coming back on the return flight might require a bit of scrutiny. When the dude who overturned the government is nicknamed Barbecue because he was photographed eating the dismembered thigh of a burned body I'd agree with you and suggest we probably shouldn't be flying in there. It's amazing that there's a border on that island and the Dominican Republic half doesn't have these issues. Why is one side a tropical paradise and the other a tropical hellscape? It's an honest question, I don't know much about it and I'm curious. Why is Haiti so dangerous and the Dominican Republic is "safe"? It's the same island, is it the Lord of the Flies and Piggy didn't die? Why are they separated? Why is their apparent economic situation so disparate?
