Page 6 University Daily Kansan, December 7, 1981
Chief KU pilot flying high in job after 6 years
By CYNTHIA HRENCHIR Staff Reporter
People dream of the freedom of flight, envying the devil-may-care pilot who can remain the free-spirited individual, but for University pilot Demis Sooby.飞翔 is just a job, though it's the he would rather do than anything else.
"It ites to be old hat," he said, smiling.
Sooky learned to fly when airplanes were in their heeyad, when pilots were respected much as the astronauts are today. In 1945, while in high school, he started learning to fly at an airport in western Kansas.
"When I was a kid I thought it was the thing to do." he said.
Soby's first job was as a flight instructor at the same airport where he learned to fly. He began flying commercially in 1948.
"There have been a lot of improvements in airplanes," he said.
"The electronics are much more sophisticated than they were years ago.
"All the planes we fly now are turbos.
We were no turbos then, they were all propellers."
When Sooby came to the University as a pilot in 1975, the University of Kansas had owned an airplane for a year. This October he became the chief pilot.
HIS NEW responsibilities include coordination of flights, aircraft maintenance, which means making sure the planes can pass inspection, and
"The University plan is parallel to business-use–corporate airplanes," he said.
The University owns two planes. One is a Cessna 402B used mostly by the University of Kansas Medical Center for a program called Heal The People nurses and doctors visits townhouses in Kansas to provide health care.
The other airplane, a Beechcraft King Air, is for the Lawrence campus
and is maintained mainly for the chancellor's use. This plane can seat seven, including the pilot.
Any department is allowed to use the plane, Soohey said, as long as it is for official University business, and the chancellor, who has first priority on the airplane at all times, doesn't need it. Departments using it pay fees that the University has established for the plane's use.
plain case
L. Martin Jones, associate director of fiscal and business affairs, is in charge of the airline account.
"The chancellor, the Alumni Association, the chemical and petroleum engineering department and the athletic department have used the plane the most frequently this semester," he said.
SOBOY EXPLAINED that the Lawrence-campus plane made 75 percent of its trips in the state and that aided Mid Center plane 3 trips were in-state.
The cost of using the airplanes has gone up like everything else, he said.
"Gasoline used to be the cheapest thing you put in an airplane. Now it is the most expensive."
He estimated that the cost of airplane fuel throughout Kansas ranged from $1.65 to $1.75 a gallon.
Gasoline has become a problem, but the weather, which used to be a main problem, is now of less concern to the pilot.
"The King Aire can fly in any weather that the airline planes can," he said. "In thunderstorms we have radar飞虫 between the clouds and miss them."
"We can't fly through them, only around. Trouble can start when the storm is so thick I can't find a path."
KURT JACKSON/Kansan Staff
One planes are equipped with de-cing gear for cold weather, Sooby added. He said he thought the plane could fly in any weather except the extremes.
"If I feel we have more icing than the equipment can handle, we don't go," he said.
SOBOR HAS two pilots under his supervision, Bob Custer and Steve Drymon. Drymon was added to the pilot crew in 1982 and the University employed only two pilots.
Two of the three pilots are on duty every day. While they are飞ying, the third is available if there is an overland route and is responsible for that week's manerwork.
"If I were flying the King Aire today and there were a flight tonight, he would take that flight." Sooby said.
The number of trips the airplanes take weekly can vary greatly throughout the year. Some weeks the King Air will be in the air every day except Saturday, Sooby said. The Med trip is usually limited to weekday use.
Besides rising gas prices, the pilots are facing other problems. A new bangar is under construction at the Lawrence airport. The new building's construction has made use of the old dangar impossible. Sobay said, so the bangar have been re-assigned to other airports until construction is completed.
"We have the King Air at the Forbes Air Field in Topeka," he said, "and the Cessna is at the Fairfax airport in Kansas City. KS."
COMPLETION OF THE new hanger is not expected until sometime this spring, so until then the pilots are required to the other airports to get the airplanes.
The King Aire pilot, after driving to Topeka, must fly to Lawrence to pick up his passengers and begin the trip.
Steve Dryman, pilot
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Increasing costs may have put an end to many future pilots' dreams, but Sooby still sees the future of airplanes as bright.
He said that in deciding whether to fly, people had to balance the importance of their time against the cost of flying.
on campus
"It's not cost-efficient," he said, "it's time-efficient."
TODAY
THE STATISTICS COMMITTEE LECTURE will feature G. Bailey Price, professor emeritus of Math, at 3 p.m. in 119 Strong Hall.
THE KU BRIDGE CLUB will meet at 6:30 in the Trail Room of the Union.
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