University Daily Kansan / Monday, November 20, 1989
9
Lawrence pilot enjoys pontaneity of biplane flight
Love for gadgets brought him his plane and his corporation
By Mark McHugh Kansan staff writer
Gene Burnett, Lawrence entrepreneur and longtime benefactor of the University of Kansas, is not ready to park his biplane in its hangar just yet.
"For an old man, this is getting hard to do." he said.
Yesterday afternoon, Burnett cranked up the Stardust II biplane for the last time this year. Tightening up his Bell helmet around his neck, or his "brain bucket," as he called it, he bounded into the cockpit.
Burnett pivoted a few sharp turns across the fields, zoomed to the lake behind his house and slowed the plane down to about 50 mph before touching down on his 2,150-foot long runway.
Cruising down the grass runway about 45 mph, Burnett tipped the rudders back and set the plane into the air. The ride was only about eight minutes long, but it provided a unique view of the November-gray fields and contours of the land surrounding Lawrence.
"That's what's so fun about flying," he said. "It's spontaneous That's what it's all about."
He then pulled it to the hangar, where it will be stored for the winter months. He said although it was a windy day and he didn't initially intend to fly, he was glad he took it out anyway.
Gene Burn files his biplane about 300 feet above ground.
Flying for 50 years
Burnett, 69, started flying in the early 1940s when he joined the War Training Service Corps, a program intended for civilians. It was then that he first learned to fly biplanes. He continued working through World War II to aid the development of radar.
He found that gadgets interested him, so he kept tinkering with instruments and ideas. This eventually led to the birth of Burnett Instrument Co., which he sold in 1970. What started out as a one-man operation in 1948 had become a business corporation by the mid-1960s.
Because he wanted to give something to the medical world, he donated money to the KU Medical Center and helped after him and his wife, Barbara.
Burnett, who is retired, has flown so much that there are only four states in the continental United States he hasn't flown over.
In 1970 he bought plans for the biplane for $50 from a firm in California, and he finished it in seven years. He brought it to Bogany and canvas in his basement.
Burnett often flies it over downtown Lawrence, a trip that takes five minutes from his hangar. The trip is usually 25 minutes by car.
does not closely regulate pilots who fly in experimental planes, he said.
"You see to distinguish between experimental aircraft and commercial" nett said. "The Beechcraft on his plane) is commercially made approved by the FAA. They are to be approved and get a certificate to fly. Experimental aircraft can do anything we want other words, if she flies, it's youuck.
FAA doesn't run the restricition you like they used to. But I didn't shortcut anything, because we gotta do it right. Guys who pay too much attention to that are gonna get clobbered."
15 minutes by car. Barbara Burnett remembers flying Although the Federal Aviation with him when technology wasn't Administration has tight restriction as advanced as it is today, at a time on commercial pilots and planes, when some small planes didn't have
Nife stays grounded
radios.
Burnett says he will burn his biplane when he can no longer fly.
"Sometimes we'd come in for a landing, and they'd flash a green light if you could land and a red light if you couldn't." Barbara Burnett said.
But she doesn't like flying in the biolane.
"Gene is a good pilot; I just don't care for the open cockpit," she said. "I just don't care for the wind blowing in my face and that sort of thing."
Although Barbara hasn't taken to flying, her son has. He fled 12 years for Braniff until a medical condition caused him to be in a construction overseer in Montana.
"I gave him his first flying lesson," Burnett said. "We went to the airport, he learned to fly, he got his first credit rating and went to Braniff."
Burnett taxied the Starduster into the hangar for the last time this year, but he will take it out again once the weather warms up.
"As long as I can nail it on those short runways without scaring myself I guess I'll keep doing it," he said.
And when he does quit flying his biplane, he plans to destroy it because he doesn't want to be responsible for someone's death.
against those who build airplanes, when I no longer fly my airplane. I'm going to take the engine off, along with the wheels, and sell them," Burnett said.
"Because of all the litigations
"And I'll set fire to the rest of the airplane because I don't want to get stuck with a lawsuit," he said. "It sounds dramatic, but it's true."
KU student loan default rate stays within acceptable limits
Bv Doug Fishback
Kansan staff writer
Student loan default rates have received nationwide attention in recent years, but University of Kansas students' default rates have been within acceptable limits.
Jerry Rogers, director of financial aid,
said that borrowers defaulted on only 2.9
percent of the money issued under the
Perkins loan program at KU.
The default rate for the Stafford, or guaranteed student loan, program is about 12
percent of the total my loaned, Rogers said.
About 6,000 study on the Lawrence campus take out it each year, Rogers said. The averageount borrowed this year was $3,746.bed.
By federal government standards, a default rate of morhan 30 percent is considered high he is
Bob Thacker, vice president of the Bank of Horton, said he felt that students were becoming more richer of the responsibility that came with big out a loan.
The Bank of Hn last year loaned about
$425 million to students across the nation,
Thacker said. He said he had been told that
his institution was second in the nation in
terms of money loaned to students.
Carol Wirthman of the First National Bank of Lawrence said that her bank issued about 1,000 student loans each year, for a total of $63 million. The loaned loans was 13 percent, which she called low.
Thacker said that the Bank of Horton would not make loans to students of institutions with default rates of 25 percent or higher.
Schools can be penalized if their student default rates climb too high. Wirthman said that, under federal law, schools with default rates of 60 percent could be dropped from the GSL program. The federal government
insures repayment of loans made with this program
Student loan default also can result in stiff consequences for the individual borrower. A brochure distributed by the office of student financial aid warns would-be defaulters of a poor credit rating, possible court action and the loss of long-term repayment schedules
loan to realize that it was just that — a loan, not a grant.
Thacker said that he would advise a student who was thinking about taking out a
According to the brochure in the office of student financial aid, a student borrowing $15,000 under the GSL program will pay an additional finance charge of $3,249 during the maximum five-year repayment period. A student borrowing $10,000 under the Perkins program would pay a finance charge of $2,730 during a 10 year period.
Rogers said that many of the student borrowers on the KU financial aid roster would take out a minimum of $10,000 in loans during their years in school.