Gamekeeper turned poacher
 

Love it!

Air inspector, 78, banned for flying under a bridge

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...cfba3019e0a374

At the age of 78 I don’t blame really her for doing it just the once.

I suppose it was a “suspension” bridge?

Lovely. What a way to satisfy one's long career.
With all that lifetime's experience, can you imagine it was done without giving it some considerable thought ?
No. Just a good, reliable and familiar aeroplane, the hand of skill and margins to satisfy even the most unusual possibilities that could spoil the afternoon.
After all, it wasn't as if it hadn't been done before. And if it had been for some Cruise movie, the FAA would have cleared it without batting an eyelid.
Well done, Ms.Lunken.

For the ill-educated, Major Chris Draper DSC. aka The Mad Major, flew under 15 of the 18 Thames bridges on the 5th.May, 1953. It didn't help his career either. One of a number. Why though do non aviation people fail to understand that it can be done with little or no risk ?


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(Photo courtesy of the Daily Mail and Alamy)

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Air inspector, 78, banned for flying under a bridge

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It was my understanding that the "ban" was the result of an alleged intentional disabling of ADS-B out. Isn't it a bit soon to be re-writing history?

Martha has gone and done it this time - those who read Flying regularly will know all about her...... quite a character but she's been getting less and less happy with the restrictions I think

She knew exactly what she was doing for sure.

Correct, there is a more comprehensive article here: https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/...-b-revocation/

Been done for years, flew with a formation of perhaps a dozen helos under the Sydney Harbour Bridge at the opening of the Opera House.

Had a local cropduster of some renown, especially with the aviation authority, who was up before the beak for allegedly flying under a bridge on the local highway that was of very little height above terrain. Couldn't be done says he to the judge, the aircraft wingspan is greater than the distance between the pylons. Charge dismissed, what wasn't said was that it was done by having a great deal of sideslip.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ca174f9057.jpg



https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4655febb28.jpg
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or those who don't know of her here's her biog.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....eef4cd2ea9.jpg
For no apparent reason, Martha fell in love with airplanes at age nine and she learned to fly an Ercoupe in the early 1960s while attending college in her hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Armed with a degree in English Literature, she became a flight instructor and operated a flying school at Cincinnati's Lunken Airport for seven years. She married Ebby Lunken, for whose family the airport was named.
After a divorce and far too much time instructing, Martha reluctantly accepted a job in 1980 as an Aviation Safety Inspector with FAA's Flight Standards Division at DuPage Airport in Chicago. Eight years later she made her way back home via the Indianapolis FSDO and ran the FAA's safety program in southern Ohio ... when she wasn't on suspension.

She has an ATP, airplane single and multi-engine land and sea, and a commercial hot air balloon rating. She's type rated in the Lockheed 18, DC-3 and SA-227 aircraft. Martha owns a 1956 Cessna 180, half of a J-3 Cub and has 12,000+ hours flight time. For a long time she was one of the few FAA DC-3 check-pilots

I would not take the FAAs word for the fact that the ADSB was off, they have had sufficient time to doctor the evidence.

FAA lawyers are physics challenged and have trouble realizing that a transponder only replies when interrogated. Once there's terrain between the radar and transponder antennas (as down in a river valley below a bridge spanning it) the antennas can't see each other.

Interesting example of an "anti-authority" mindset. I used to sometimes read her column in Flying and it got a bit erratic in recent years e.g. when she hand-propped a Cub with no chocks and it zoomed off, and then she did it again but that time it hit another plane. Clearly she's an experienced and even distinguished aviator - she should set a better example.

She argued her ADS-B transponder was intermittent due to a couple of hard landings..
This was also strike three, not a standalone event.
Taxi incident and a runaway hand prop event upon which she was asked to surrender her Examiner authorization.
Stories have it that she’s always had a bit of a contentious relationship with the FAA.

My feelings exactly - obviously a great person to know but she's sounded like she was fraying at the edges recently - time to step back from flying on your own I think...............

There are many "showboating" things that can be done safely in an aircraft (ie "with little of no risk") given the right equipment and a competent, trained pilot.

There are many "routine" things that cannot be done safely in an aircraft (like landing, taking off or flying in cloud) given the wrong equipment, a poor, or poorly trained, pilot or any combination thereof.

Through the judicious and commonsense use and application of rules and regulations (like "though shalt not fly under bridges") you lessen the opportunity for the latter to go "showboating" and that way less people die.

Anybody who does not get this simple flight safety truism has no business referring to themselves as a professional aviator.

Perfectly stated. Many lives lost showing off.

Even better, do it with an audience.

Did I see construction machinery on the bridge? Was it closed to traffic so no risk to public? An arranged display, by a pilot showing real skill.
Not comparable to an unauthorized flight requiring little skill.
Several foreign pilots have done high bridge flights in Scotland and had explanations accepted by the court, or not been investigated.
If a Scottish pilot did it they'd be jailed.
(Looking at how road traffic and marine cases are disposed of.)

Calm down old chap.

well its all fine and dandy until someone hits the bridge........................... :(

Better still, take off along a bridge first:



It's a shame the Red Bull air races have been discontinued.