Flying Archives - Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

Self-driving cars will make piston-powered aviation even more ridiculous?

December 7, 2025December 7, 2025 by philg

It’s International Civil Aviation Day (an odd day to choose when you consider what else aviation accomplished on December 7…). Let’s look at whether self-driving cars will make piston-powered aviation even less defensible as a transportation tool.

Last month I embarked on a day trip to Orlando for Free Play Florida. It’s a 2:15 drive from our house, nearly all of which is on roads that GM Super Cruise or Ford BlueCruise could handle as well as, of course, any of Elon Musk’s creations.

Much to my surprise, I was able to do this 150-mile trip via Cirrus SR20 in only a little more time than it would have taken, door-to-door, by car. The Cirrus was more fun, I guess, and saved me from the monotony of staying in a lane on Florida’s Turnpike for two hours (the autopilot handled nearly all of the enroute flying). Let’s look at the cost. Driving:

300 miles round-trip at IRS rate of 70 cents/mile = $210 (and that’s the marginal cost for someone who already owns a car; day trips aren’t for the working class anymore, thanks to the miracle of coronapanic shutdowns that made cars cost more than $50,000 and the open borders that keep their wages low)

Flying:

I drove 50 miles round trip to the airport so that’s $35 at IRS rates
Two hours of Hobbs time in the old Cirrus round-trip at flight school rates (which include fuel) is about $1,000.
Three $20 tips, one at each FBO encounter: $60 (not required, but I enjoy saying the no-longer-ironic “This will pay for half of your next Starbucks” and, also, I like to reward people who go to work every day in what has become a work-optional society)
Rental car in Kissimmee (KISM) plus gas = $130. (Would presumably have been cheaper at MCO, but the general aviation fees there are higher.)

Piston GA is thus slower and about 6X the cost ($1,225 total). It was more fun because I interacted with some nice people at both Stuart and Kissimmee (other pilots, line guys, front deskers, the Go Rentals gal). Tesla FSD users say that they find the fatigue level from monitoring the self-driving system is only about one third of what is when actually driving. So the trip could have been done via FSD at the same fatigue level as a 50-mile-each-way excursion. Also, most Americans love to consume alcohol. More or less everyone at the Columbia restaurant in Celebration (Disney’s New Urbanism community) was drinking sangria and I could have indulged in a glass if I hadn’t needed to fly back later that evening (Grok says that I could have three drinks before getting close to the legal limit, but I’m a lightweight so my practical limit is one drink).

(Maybe alcohol will ultimately be banned in Celebration, though? In a 15-minute walk around the lake I observed at least three burqa-clad Muslims and I don’t know why they’d want their kids to see women in halter tops drinking margaritas at outdoor tables. There are plenty of dry towns in Maskachusetts. It would be tougher to implement this in Florida according to Gemini because FL Section 562.45(2)(c) prevents a locality from stepping on the state’s regulatory toes.)

Separately, I want to give a small shout-out to Signature (formerly “The Evil Empire”) for mostly keeping piston GA alive by waiving nearly all fees with the purchase of a minimal amount of 100LL at nearly all of its locations (not KTEB!). It’s an unwelcome economic event, I’m sure, when a piston aircraft shows up but Signature does a good job of hiding its disappointment.

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Taxpayers must fund, but cannot enjoy, the Blue Angels

November 14, 2025November 9, 2025 by philg

Today was when hundreds of thousands of taxpayers had expected to enjoy an air show.

“NAS Pensacola cancels annual Blue Angels air show because of government funding uncertainty” (Stars and Stripes):

Naval Air Station Pensacola canceled this year’s Blue Angels Homecoming Air Show due to uncertainty regarding government funding. Officials said the ongoing government shutdown, limited funding and the time needed to arrange for performers and necessary support contracts are key reasons for canceling the annual two-day event, according to a Facebook post by NAS Pensacola. The show was originally set for Nov. 14- 15 in Pensacola, Fla., and expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Pensacola might be the best place to learn about the relationship between peasants and rulers in the U.S. See Two-year anniversary of National Naval Aviation Museum’s temporary coronapanic closure (2022) and “US government shutdown closes NAS Pensacola to the public, including aviation museum” (October 1, 2025) and “National Naval Aviation Museum to reopen to public” (AOPA, May 4, 2023):

Access to Naval Air Station Pensacola, home of the museum as well as the Pensacola Lighthouse and Maritime Museum, and Fort Barrancas, had been restricted to Department of Defense cardholders since December 6, 2019, when a terrorist opened fire at the military base, killing three and wounding eight.

Wokipedia:

On the morning of December 6, 2019, a terrorist attack occurred at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida. The assailant killed three men and injured eight others. The shooter was killed by Escambia County sheriff deputies after they arrived at the scene. He was identified as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, an Air Force aviation student from Saudi Arabia. … On January 13, 2020, the Department of Justice said they had officially classified the incident as an act of terrorism, motivated by “jihadist ideology.”

On February 2, 2020, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the shooting. In an audio recording, emir of the Yemen-based group Qasim al-Raymi said they directed Alshamrani to carry out the attack. On May 18, 2020, the FBI corroborated the claims.

In response to the domestic jihad, the government excluded taxpayers from the museum for about 3.5 years and then opened the border for any other jihadi who might want to settle permanently in the U.S., e.g., “Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan national who entered the US on September 9, 2021, via humanitarian parole (later applying for a Special Immigrant Visa). In October 2024, he was arrested in Oklahoma City for plotting an ISIS-inspired Election Day mass shooting attack targeting large gatherings. Tawhedi purchased AK-47 rifles and ammunition from undercover FBI agents, communicated with an ISIS facilitator, and planned to die as a martyr. He pleaded guilty in June 2025 to conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and attempting to acquire firearms for a terrorism offense” (Grok).

One of my photos of the Blue Angels from the Reno Air Races 2016 (the races themselves were shut down by “the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority citing regional growth and safety concerns” (source)):

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Why won’t airlines give interest-free loans to air traffic controllers who are working without pay with pay

November 6, 2025 by philg

Due to the government shut down, air traffic controllers who are 100 percent guaranteed by law to be paid for 100 percent of hours worked are calling in sick so that they don’t have to “work without pay with (delayed) pay”. Now the FAA is cutting back on total volume so as to maintain safety with a reduced number of controllers who show up (CNBC):

Note the misleading statement about “gone unpaid since the shutdown began”. That would be like saying that a worker who has paid monthly has “gone unpaid since the start of the month”.

Cutting flights will cost the airlines a fortune due to the need to reschedule crews, passengers, aircraft, etc. Maybe a 6:00 am flight is only half full, but if it is cut the crew and plane won’t be where they need to be to operate a 9:00 am flight.

What if the airlines got together and offered interest-free loans to every controller, secured by the massive payday that all government workers, those who showed up and those who didn’t (the lucky “nonessential” ones and also the fake-sick ones), will receive as soon as Congress settles its differences? It could be done through the federal government, even. The airlines give the money to the Feds. The Feds issue paychecks as usual. The Feds then reimburse the airlines when the government reopens. Alternatively, the airlines could make the loans privately and directly to ATC employees.

Is it unconstitutional to pay federal workers for not working during the shutdown? (Equal Protection clause question)

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A visit to the United Flight 93 crash site

September 11, 2025September 11, 2025 by philg

As part of the return trip from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) this year, we stopped at the Flight 93 National Memorial. It’s a 30-minute drive from the idiot-proof ridgetop airport that serves Johnstown, Pennsylvania (see Climate Change Reading List: Johnstown Flood).

The architecture is moving and designed around a walkway that follows the flight path of the airliner that jihadis had hoped to turn into a weapon against the U.S. Capitol. The path picks up after you go to a lower section of the memorial where the Boeing 757 actually crashed.

The building itself contains a lot of information about 9/11, not just the Flight 93 history. Visitors can listen to three phone messages to family members left by passengers on Flight 93.

Here are some of the outdoor signs:

A Harley is parked just outside the main building and includes Todd Beamer‘s final recorded words: “Let’s Roll”.

The walkway to the Wall of Names:

There’s a 93-foot-tall Tower of Voices of wind-driven chimes that look like aircraft parts (audio recording).

It’s a fitting memorial to a group of people who gave their lives in order to spare the lives of Americans on the ground.

Here’s the Hollywood version with the “Let’s Roll” line about 4 minutes in:

RIP especially to the crew: Lorraine Bay, Jason Dahl, Sandra Bradshaw, Wanda Green, LeRoy Homer Jr., CeeCee Lyles, and Deborah Welsh. Airline crews enable us to live richer lives by assuming a higher level of risk every day than those of us who earn our wages by flying desks.

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The revolution in oil-powered general aviation is at least three years away

August 19, 2025 by philg

Happy National Aviation Day to those who celebrate.

One thing that you’d expect the Experimental Aircraft Association, with revenue of more than $60 million per year, to do is fund the development of new powerplants. There has never been any significant progress in aviation without first an improvement in engines. A low-power high-efficiency turbine engine, for example, would enable the creation of all kinds of dramatically superior aircraft. But none of the kit companies or even the certified four-seat aircraft companies can readily afford to invest what is required.

Enter Turbotech, a startup in the Islamic Republic of France. They say that they have a 140 hp turboprop engine that burns fuel at approximately the same rate as a 140 hp Rotax (piston) engine:

How long before this can be dropped into a certified airframe? The founders said that if everything goes perfect and nothing at all has to be changed in their current design, the engine could be EASA/FAA-certified in three years.

An analysis with some numbers (I disagree with the price discussion):

I don’t think it is Turbotech, but the Canadians claim to have a “turboshaft engine” in their Janus-I Flying Suitcase:

The ultimate license plate for light aircraft enthusiasts (a car parked at Oshkosh and, presumably, that will seen at Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland, Florida in April:

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Wright Brothers, 2SLGBTQQIA+, and Islam in Dayton, Ohio

August 18, 2025August 11, 2025 by philg

We visited Dayton, Ohio on the way to Oshkosh this year, primarily to see the USAF Museum (see previous posts) but also to visit some of the Wright Brothers historical sites.

The place where the Wright Brothers did some of their earliest work in aeronautical engineering is preserved to some extent by the National Park Service, their final bicycle shop building having been purchased by Henry Ford and moved to Greenfield Village in the Islamic Republic of Dearborn, Michigan (represented in Congress by Rashida Tlaib). The sidewalk celebrates the Wright Brothers as well as the equally important Phyllis G. Bolds:

The museum celebrates the two Wright Brothers on equal footing with their friend Paul Dunbar (or maybe Paul Dunbar is 2X as important as either Orville or Wilbur individually since it is the “Wright-Dunbar Center” rather than the “Wright-Dunbar-Wright Center”?).

The Feds remind us not to forget Alice Dunbar Nelson, Paul Dunbar’s widow:

Here’s the neighborhood; note the $200,000+ G-Wagon in a city not famous for economic vibrance.

You can live in a brand-new (except for the shell?) 2BR, 3Ba condo in the neighborhood for about the same cost as the G-Wagon that was driving by.

Dayton is enriched by migrants according to an official city web page:

The city notes that “Between 2014 and 2019, the total population in the City of Dayton decreased by 0.2% while the immigrant population increased by +25.9% during the same time period.” In other words, the native-born population is shrinking while the migrant population is growing and, of course, it would be inaccurate to refer to this as a “replacement”.

After spending some time in a few of these Rust Belt cities I’ve come to the conclusion that the politicians who run them are passionate about immigrants because most of the native-born Americans who habitually work and pay taxes have moved to other parts of the country. The politicians hope that immigrants won’t be quick to figure out that the U.S. is a work-optional society and that these folks will pay taxes to replace the tax base lost to North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. If the immigrants choose to refrain from work, on the other hand, the Rust Belt city can still thrive via the federal cash infusion of Medicaid, Section 8, and other programs (it would be inaccurate to refer to these as “welfare”, of course).

Dayton seems to have been significant enriched by Islamic migrants. We found Halal restaurants both in the city and suburbs. Google Maps shows a variety of mosques (masjids). The International Grocery Halal Market was near our hotel:

As part of Dayton’s commitment to welcoming these observant Muslim immigrants, much of the city was covered in sacred Rainbow Flags (July 13, shortly after Pride Month and Omnisexual Visibility Day and just before Non-Binary Awareness Week). Here is a sampling:

A restaurant flying the Biden-style trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag (note also the Black Lives Matter banner in front of the Black-free restaurant in a city where 38 percent of the residents told the Census Bureau that they identify as Black):

The field where the Wright Brothers did a lot of flight tests in 1904 and 1905 is preserved on the grounds on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (no need to drive through the base gates to see the sights, though). The locals funded a monument at the crediting the Wright Brothers with the invention of ailerons, which was the basis of their patent infringement lawsuits:

Here’s what our Google AI Overlord has to say on the subject:

Ailerons, used for controlling an aircraft’s roll, were first conceived by Matthew Piers Watt Boulton in 1868, who patented a system of lateral control using movable wing surfaces. While Boulton’s design laid the groundwork, the Wright brothers are credited with pioneering the use of wing warping for roll control in their 1903 flights. However, the modern aileron, as a separate, hinged control surface, is generally attributed to Robert Esnault-Pelterie, who used them successfully in 1904. Legal battles over the invention and its patent rights ensued, but ailerons eventually became standard on aircraft, particularly after their widespread adoption during World War I.

The actual field is dotted with explanatory signs:

Although the city’s leaders value migrants, the prairie is preserved as special because it is “native”:

On our way out of town we found a world-class Mooney paint scheme:

Too bad that nearly all of today’s GA pilots are too fat to fit comfortable in this speedster!

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EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) Airshows 2025

August 15, 2025August 8, 2025 by philg

The daily airshows (and two night shows) at EAA AirVenture this year were awesome as usual. The announcer pointed out that Philipp Steinbach was a remarkable exception to today’s division of labor. He’s the designer of the GB1 Gamebird. He’s the aerobatic demonstration pilot for the machine at airshows. He’s the founder and CEO of the company that builds the machine.

Minnesota governor and erstwhile Kamala Harris running mate Tim Walz contracted PTSD during his deployment to Italy. It’s fortunate that Mr. Walz wasn’t present during the Wisconsin National Guard’s demonstration of its F-35s, Black Hawks, and tankers all while blasting off artillery rounds (blanks, I hope!) every 15 seconds (the video below doesn’t capture the impact of the artillery sounds). If this is only one state’s Guard it would definitely be smarter for a foreign enemy to find a way to take over the U.S. other than via frontal assault (maybe have an army of soldiers walk across the southern border and claim asylum?).

It was great to have Randy Ball back with his MiG-17, whose afterburner is beautiful at dusk. Nathan Hammond in his Super Chipmunk was amazing in the night airshow with LEDs and fireworks coming off the windtips.

Australian Pitts pilot Paul Bennet was new and interesting:

Also in the Pitts and also new to AirVenture, the Northern Stars Aeroteam (strange choice of vertical video; trying to appeal to youngsters on their phones?):

Not new to AirVenture, but frightening to watch… Skip Stewart:

Rob Holland had been scheduled to perform, but instead there were various tributes to him from other performers. (Rob died in April due to a mechanical failure potentially attributable to a small modification made to his plane (FLYING).) Very sad.

The skies were so filled with warbird trainers that it was possible to get a decent photo even with an iPhone:

Blimps also make a decent iPhone airshow subject:

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National Museum of the US Air Force, Hangar 3

August 13, 2025August 7, 2025 by philg

All of the third building is devoted to the Cold War:

Highlights of this hangar include the 10-engine B-36 “Peacemaker” and more familiar but still awesome machines such as the B-1, the SR-71, and the U-2. The primary heroes of the Cold War identified as “women” (as the term was understood by the primitive people of the 1950s and 60s):

The Air Force reminds us that “women are responsible for countless discoveries and inventions” (e.g., female engineer Kelly Johnson of Lockheed who led the P-38, U-2, and SR-71 design teams). The next hangar in the tour (building 4) has many reminders of the terrible ideas perpetrated by the inferior sex. Here’s a Canadian flying saucer, for example, and the Goblin fighter that would be dropped from the B-36 Peacemaker to fight then would return to the bomber mothership.

Here’s another “parasite” idea:

Men also came up with some terrible tilt-rotor ideas:

The Cold War hangar also showcases the contributions of mighty piston-powered aircraft. Who knew that the USAF operated the Grumman Albatross?

Imagine bragging about being an Air Force pilot and then being exposed as trundling along at 100 knots in a Cessna 195 on floats!

Speaking of feeble piston-powered machines, what about the Cessna 172? The museum describes the plane’s heroic role on September 12, 2001, shortly after the successful jihad against the World Trade Center:

The uniform and “Nikon” of a C172-flying hero:

The museum highlights the heroism of other Civil Air Patrol officers:

For folks who love engineering, a cutaway F-86 (more relevant to the Korean War, but in the Cold War hangar):

Also in the Cold War hangar, though describing a 2019 event, the Air Force highlights its refusal to follow Sharia and its prohibition on females leading worship of Allah for mixed-gender groups:

There are some outdoor exhibits as well, including this “simulator” that simulates flying by… flying.

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National Museum of the US Air Force, Hangar 2

August 12, 2025August 12, 2025 by philg

Continuing our tour of the USAF Museum (post 1) in Dayton, Ohio…

The second hangar is devoted to the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Walking into the hangar we are immediately reminded that it was American women who did the heavy lifting in the Vietnam War:

Turning 180 degrees we find the Korean War exhibit. The floor signs remind us that, as of July 14, 2025, we’re still fighting our War Against SARS-CoV-2:

Our brave young warriors are also protected from COVID-19 by simple non-N95 cloth masks:

The Twin Mustang was our favorite plane on exhibit in this section:

Tough to believe that these were actually used in combat!

Progressive Democrats have complained about the sometimes-too-cold and sometimes-too-warm air conditioning situation in Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, where noble undocumented migrants spend a few weeks in the UNESCO World Heritage treasure of the Everglades awaiting deportation. USAF pilots and mechanics deployed to Korea spent a year or more in tents without A/C or reasonable heat:

Returning to Vietnam, we lost the war because of failed political leadership:

Dogs and helicopters are appropriately recognized:

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National Museum of the US Air Force, Hangar 1

August 11, 2025August 7, 2025 by philg

We visited the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio on our way to Oshkosh. This is a two-day museum if you want to read more than half of the signs and absorb the history and technical information that is being communicated (vastly more detail than at the Smithsonian Air and Space). The experience starts with words from President Nixon:

The curators are less prone to the Wright Brothers worship that pervades Dayton:

A Jenny is exhibited and also explained:

The museum seems to be run by a separate foundation so they’re perhaps not required to follow Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to refrain from dividing military personnel according to victimhood group. The museum celebrates Eugene Bullard, for example, not for being a military aviator but for being the “first Black military aviator”:

The drones that have transformed today’s battlefield were initially developed in Dayton, Ohio during WWI:

Here’s the only surviving Martin B-10 1930s bomber, out of 348 built:

The other side of the first massive hangar is devoted to more familiar World War II aircraft. Visitors are reminded that it was women who fought and won the largest battles, e.g., against bias, of World War II:

Here’s a less-familiar Douglas B-18:

At least in the signage, there are few mixed feelings regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. The B-29 that devastated Nagasaki is on display: