(March 2011) TOSSING OBJECTS FROM flying machines, stuff like flour bombs, candy, inflated balloons, the ashes of friends, rolls of toilet paper and Tootsie Pop wrappers (yeah, I know that’s tacky), an art reserved to pilots of relatively simple, unpressurized airplanes, is surely one of flying’s greatest joys. C’mon, what kind of fun can you have in a Bonanza or Cirrus when a popped side window or unsecured passenger door is such a big deal you punch a button and make a beeline for the “nearest” airport? Rest assured that dropping things from an airplane is squeaky-clean legal if reasonable precautions are taken to avoid injury or damage to persons or property … except maybe over New Jersey.
Way back when the Mead Paper Co. installed a potty in its shiny new Beech 18, the chairman’s wife gushed to company pilot Lloyd Fuller about how pleased she was that “facilities” were available on their airplane. Obsessed with keeping the airplane as pristine as the day he took delivery in Wichita, Kansas, Lloyd considered this honey bucket retrofit an obscenity. Of course he agreed with Mrs. Mead, but he went on to explain that the device involved, well, fallout. Since they were always “on radar,” anything deposited in the little commode was ejected overboard and therefore clearly visible to air traffic controllers. The toilet was rarely if ever used.
