Category: Flying

Stories about flying planes and helicopters, discussions of technique and teaching.

Who loves aviation and Boston weather in January?

by philg

Our MIT ground school class happens January 9-11, 2024. Why not come to Boston and spend three days learning everything that the FAA wants Private pilot certificate holders to know, plus some of the engineering behind the facts?

For this year, although MIT is not Ivy League, I’m going to try to apply standard Ivy League polices. You can be expelled from the class if you misgender anyone, but there will be no problem if you call for the elimination of Israel and the killing of all Jews (unless “the speech turns into conduct” says the Penn president). Please keep in mind that my pronouns are Absolutely/Fabulous. Depending on your financial circumstances, the course may be available at a $330,920 discount from the normal $330,920 cost of attending MIT for four years. Simply send a financial disclosure statement listing all of your checking accounts, your Social Security Number, and your online banking usernames/passwords to my records department in Lagos, Nigeria.

The student who scores highest on the final exam will win a new Tesla Cybertruck with a custom wrap:

Depending on your skin color, you might be invited to a party hosted by the Mayor of Boston:

A Wu administration official, on behalf of the mayor, mistakenly sent all Boston city councilors an email Tuesday inviting them to a holiday party that was meant exclusively for “electeds of color,” prompting an apology and mixed reactions.

Denise DosSantos, the mayor’s director of City Council relations, told the body’s “honorable members” that, “on behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu,” she was cordially inviting each of them “and a guest to the Electeds of Color Holiday Party on Wednesday, Dec. 13 at 5:30 p.m. at the Parkman House, 33 Beacon St.”

Approximately 15 minutes later, however, DosSantos sent out a follow-up email to city councilors, apologizing for the prior email, which was apparently only meant for those who were invited. The body includes seven white councilors and six of color.

“I wanted to apologize for my previous email regarding a Holiday Party for tomorrow,” DosSantos, a Cape Verdean Black woman, wrote. “I did send that to everyone by accident, and I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.”

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Proper burial for an aviator: Portal of the Folded Wings in Burbank

by philg

After a business trip to Pasadena, I caught a flight to Las Vegas (for 9 minutes of Formula 1) out of Burbank. On the way, I stopped at the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation. This 1924 structure is a fitting final destination for those who have tackled the challenges of flying. Here are some photos:

There is a Space Shuttle memorial in the front:

It’s California, so help yourself to whatever you want at CVS, Apple, or the Nike store, but don’t steal any flowers. That’s an actual “crime.”

Who are some of the people memorialized here?

John Moisant, who made it across the English Channel in a Blériot XI and died four months later on the site of the big New Orleans Airport shortly afterwards, and sister Matilde:

If you don’t mind your ashes being interred in a lockdown state, it looks as though there are still spaces available because folks who died recently are under the floor (I think):

I wonder if EAA could build something like this in Oshkosh. There is actually a cemetery right next to the airport:

Pricing at this cemetery is quite reasonable: $1,100 per plot.

If it’s just ashes, though, and a bronze plaque, maybe there could be a structure like this Portal almost anywhere within the annual EAA AirVenture event grounds or, perhaps, near the EAA Museum.

For aviators who did not appreciate lockdowns, perhaps there could be something like the Portal in the Florida Free State? Orlando has a rich aviation history, is 100′ above sea level in case Professor Dr. Greta #FreePalestine Thunberg, M.D., Ph.D. proves to be correct about future ocean height, and is a common destination for travelers who might wish to pay their respects to a departed aviator.

Who’s an expert on cemetery startups? If there are no full caskets/bodies, is it tough to get zoning approval? It could even be a monument with no ashes at all. Since the deceased were aviators, their ashes could be scattered in the air. Maybe airport management would then be happy to have it on airport grounds. Pay your respects, return your rental car, catch your flight out of MCO.

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Banner-towing of a Palestinian flag over Harvard for International Civil Aviation Day

by philg

Somewhat bizarrely, December 7, famous for Japanese naval aviation achievements in Hawaii, is also International Civil Aviation Day.

How was this day observed in Maskachusetts? “Plane flying banner with the Palestinian flag and the words ‘Harvard Hates Jews’ circles the Cambridge campus” (Daily Mail):

A plane with the banner ‘Harvard Hates Jews’ coupled with a Palestinian flag has been spotted circling Harvard University’s campus ahead of the first night of Chanukah.

Anonymous Jewish students were reportedly behind the stunt on Thursday – sending a message in response to Harvard President Claudine Gay’s contentious testimony in Congress.

The aerial campaign that made its rounds around Cambridge was initiated by a group called ‘Harvard with Hamas,’ as reported by the Boston Herald.

The message was meant to ‘respond to the runaway antisemitism on the campus and the shocking support for Hamas terrorism and rape obscenely vocalized by Harvard faculty and students following the Oct. 7th massacre in Israel,’ according to the group.

Gay and the presidents of UPenn and MIT were eviscerated for telling Congress on Tuesday that calls for the genocide of Jews do not violate their codes of conduct, causing ferocious backlash and calls for her to resign.

A Cessna 172?

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Modelo vs. Bud Light and the Reno Air Races

by philg

Modelo is America’s #1 selling beer (NBC). Meanwhile, at the other end of the rainbow, “Bud Light sales still down 30% six months after Dylan Mulvaney disaster, drinkers ‘lost forever’: expert” (NY Post).

What is Modelo sponsoring? Check these photos from Oshkosh 2023 of the Lockheed T-33 that they sponsor in airshows:

Note that this can be considered a “trans sponsorship” because the aircraft was assigned “fighter” at birth in 1944, but switched to identifying as “trainer” in 1948. In other words, a trans sponsorship need not hurt a beer brand so long as aerobatics and Jet A are involved.

Tranheuser-Busch was a significant sponsor of airshow performers decades ago. They famously had a BD-5J, just like James Bond (before James Bond spent most of his time in gay bars). Back issues of aviation magazines also show more conventional piston aerobatic planes whose sole sponsor was Bud Light.

Could Bud Light be revived with sponsorship? Let’s consider the example of Saudi Arabia, whose laws and values are not necessarily shared by everyone worldwide. Nonetheless, everyone cheers the soccer and golf teams and events that they sponsor.

If Bud Light wants to reclaim market share, should Tranheuser-Busch bring its checkbook to airshows? Due to residential encroachment driven by population growth (one of the many benefits of expanding our population to 450+ million via low-skill immigration?), the Reno Air Races (which start today) need a new home, which was challenging to find. Consider a typical American who welcomed lockdowns, school closures, forced masking of 2-year-olds, and coerced vaccination. He/she/ze/they meekly cowered in place for a year or two and now you expect him/her/zir/them to accept the risk of a 75-year-old P-51 flying nearby at 550 mph? Air racing requires infrastructure in the middle of nowhere and, in direct contradiction, proximity to a major population center with commercial airline service.

For 2024 at least, the plan is to race just outside of Las Vegas in Pahrump. This will cost a lot of money to set up and Tranheuser-Busch could supply it in exchange for the races being renamed the “Bud Light Not Trans At All Air Races”. Since the CEO won’t abandon his/her/zir/their passion for promoting Rainbow Flagism, one stipulation could be that all competitors be painted in the following scheme:

Rainbow yet not Rainbow?

Speaking of the T-33, here are a couple of photos from the EAA Museum commemorating a nun-piloted flight from Wisconsin to New Jersey:

Related:

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Jimmy Buffett: Airman

by philg

A multiengine seaplane pilot has gone west. Let’s have a look at James William Buffett’s pilot certificate, from the FAA Airmen Registry:

Jimmy Buffett was a resident of Palm Beach County, as far as the FAA was concerned. He was typed in the Grumman Albatross (C/G-111), three Dassault Falcon bizjets, and the original Cessna Citation bizjet (bird strikes from the rear). The “date of issue” being in 2019 could have been due to a change of address, a change of gender ID, or an added rating.

Buffett wanted to see a Democrat-run Florida and Democrat-run United States. In “Jimmy Buffett takes musical shots at Trump during concert” (2018), for example, Buffett was supporting Andrew Gillum in the governor’s race against Ron DeSantis. He got his wish in 2020 for the country, at least.

Buffett became a billionaire via real estate development, mostly in Florida, and most recently with 55+ communities, e.g., in Daytona (see this New Yorker story). At the time of his death, he was working on a $400 million project just to our southeast in Riviera Beach. I hope that the project is completed. Even if I’m more of a classical and jazz listener, I’m sure that it will be an improvement over everything else that has been going on in Riviera Beach.

Maybe we need to honor Buffett’s memory by getting multiengine seaplane ratings in a Grumman Widgeon in Alabama. Who wants to go this fall, as soon as the weather cools off a little?

Or we could go to Key West, Florida. Although Buffett seems to have spent more time in Palm Beach, he is associated with Key West and built a hotel there. The good news is that Hotels.com is ready to help with the challenge of finding a gay-friendly place to stay in Key West. Note the “LGBTQ welcoming” checkbox at upper left in this listing of places available for Nov 3-5:

Very loosely related… the pilot who managed a successful off-airport landing in a Boeing 737 retired a few days ago.

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A visit to BETA Technologies in Burlington, Vermont (eVTOL aircraft)

by philg

Earlier this month, I stopped into BETA Technologies, a $1 billion (financing) electric aircraft baby that has been growing in the unlikely crib of the Green Mountains. With offices and labs in Burlington (KBTV) and flight tests across the lake at Plattsburgh (KPBG), the company is pushing ahead on making all aspects of battery-electric aviation practical.

Much of the company’s effort seems to have gone into making better electric motors. Cooling is a challenge for a motor that puts out 200+ hp continuously and there have been multiple iterations of design. The 3D printers were all running when I visited while mechanical engineers labored at desktop PCs.

Does it fly? Yes! In fact, a test pilot told me about going more than 300 nm on one charge. The company is working on two aircraft at the same time:

The CTOL version on the left (“conventional takeoff and landing”) might be more interesting for the general aviation crowd. Why pay $1 million for a new piston-powered airplane that is trying to shake itself and you apart with vibration and deafen you and your passengers with noise when you can cruise in smooth quiet electric comfort? BETA is hoping for certification in 2025 (which means 2027?) and is also working on the ground support infrastructure to make these aircraft practical transportation solutions. Charging will supposedly take about one hour, which is inferior to refueling time, but my host posted out that electric aircraft don’t waste any time in startup/runup/shutdown. The company has a Pipistrel electric two-seater and he demonstrated that it is up and running within a few seconds after flipping four switches.

One area where BETA might have less certification challenges than competitors is that they’re not trying to create a fully autonomous aircraft. In the VTOL version, one of the four seats is for a pilot with a powered-lift type rating on his/her/zir/their certificate (maybe the CTOL version can be flown by a pilot with a single-engine land rating?). On the other hand, if a commercial operator orders 100 of these, the operating will have to fight United Airlines for 100 pilots.

Just outside their engineering hangar is an example of what the ground support station would look like. The left cube is a GPU that can be hooked up to run cabin heat or A/C. The center is for a massive charging cable to top up the 800V battery. The right cube is for cooling the battery (during charging).

The company has a “study hall” where local kids can come in to learn about how battery packs, inverters, and three-phase AC motors work.

There is also a non-motion sim right by the front door:

I came away impressed with the company’s spirit and cooperative energy.

What’s the competition? Boeing-owned Wisk had a booth and a demonstration flight at Oshkosh this year:

Considering that it has the same seating capacity as a Cessna 172, the Wisk machine is enormous. It the electric future is more efficient, why does the efficient vehicle take up four parking spaces? And dare anyone ask how much it will cost to put together this much carbon fiber and plastic?

The BETA eVTOL works like a DJI drone. The rotors are fixed, but may spin at different speeds. A pusher propeller at the rear can then push the machine to cruise at 120 knots or more. Wisk takes a leaf from the Boeing V-22 Osprey, which cost $30 billion in pre-Biden money to develop, and tilts the motors as necessary.

If Wisk can achieve its engineering, certification, and production goals, the customers won’t have to worry about hiring pilots: the tilt-rotor is fully autonomous.

Related:

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What we learned at Oshkosh (the talks)

by philg

The best talk that we attended at Oshkosh (EAA AirVenture) was by Mike Stevens, a Cirrus test pilot, on a verification flight for the parachute system in the Vision Jet. The FAA did not demand this test, but Cirrus decided to do it anyway. Landing under the parachute carries a risk of back injury and destroys the airframe, so the idea was to cut the deployed ‘chute away, as had been done on a Cirrus SR20 test flight two decades earlier, and then fly the airplane to a runway. Stevens showed us video of the SR20 flipping over after the cut-away and said “that’s a little sporty to do in a jet.” It was impressive to see what had to go into the planning of the operation, including, for example, nets to protect the engine inlet from sucking in fragments of the cords.

“Tumbleweed” gave us a good talk on the Burning Man Airport, including the prep, the surface maintenance, and the new-since-a-few-years-ago air traffic control facility (some of the same controllers who handle EAA AirVenture go out to deal with what in some ways is a bigger challenge). She has been the airport manager in various years so could speak to a variety of aspects of the operation. See also my article Burning Man for turboprop pilots.

The worst talk, by far, was by a federal government worker regarding a four-year struggle (or five?) to create a mobile-friendly version of www.aviationweather.gov. We lasted about 30 minutes and hadn’t heard anything about what the site could do for pilots. The entire talk was about the struggles of insiders, e.g., moving hosting providers. (Pilots still don’t have any simple source for a cloud tops forecast, which was formerly part of the “area forecast” that was discontinued in favor of these unusable web sites. If you can climb over the tops of clouds you’ll be ice-free in the Northeast and bump-free in Florida, so it is important to know in advance. (Elites in pressurized aircraft don’t care because they can always keep climbing.))

Russell Klingaman, a lawyer, gave a talk about the Wright brothers and their patent litigation (“the aileron wars”). For Klingaman, the Wright brothers are villains who held back aviation in the U.S. by 10-20 years. They had wanted to produce as few airplanes as possible and make as much money as possible via patent litigation.

Timothy Ravich, an aviation attorney at a big firm in Chicago, gave an overview talk on eVTOL. It was light on the practical and legal barriers these folks are going to face in getting their products FAA certified and heavy on the social injustice suffered by Americans who identify as “women”. In the slide below, we learn that women spend twice as much time taking transportation as men, pay twice as much when they do need transportation, and are more likely to die in a car crash. As Bill Burr points out, a lot of women do the hardest job in the world of being a mother and therefore shouldn’t have to incur much risk or cost of transportation (since staying home in pajamas is always an option). Nobody in the audience challenged any of these statistics. (AAA says that men spend more time driving than women; IIHS says that men are more likely to be killed in car accidents.)

Seth Washburne opened up about trying to transition from a Cessna 172 into a DC-3 restoration project that went off the rails and cost $2 million in pre-Biden money.

We didn’t make it to even half of the talks that sounded interesting. I’m especially sorry that I didn’t get to meet Zara Rutherford, who flew around the world VFR recently. There was also a talk on rebuilding a Boeing B-17. That’s what next year is for!

Let’s also not forget after hours. A few images from the SOS Brothers Beer Tent, across from our Walmart tent:

I’m sure that a lot of learning happens at SOS University!

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Overheard at Oshkosh

by philg

Some choice conversations overheard at Oshkosh (EAA AirVenture), with gratuitous photos mixed in as separators.

F/A 18 pilot: I’ve met 120 of the 30 people who flew in the first Top Gun movie. Any reference to that movie was a finable offense, but sometimes it was worth the $10. I expected to hate the new movie, but it wasn’t that bad.

  • Mechanic/pilot: I’m proud that both of my kids never had transgender surgery and aren’t addicted to opiates.
  • Jet owner/pilot: how old are they?
  • Mechanic/pilot: my son is 21 and my daughter is 23
  • Jet owner/pilot: did you manage to keep her off the pole?

Mechanic: my mother could have sucked the self-esteem out of a diamond.

Below: “We’re going on vacation in my private Boeing airplane.”

  • Pilot A: “Do you have kids?”
  • 36-year-old Pilot B: “no”
  • Pilot A: “you’ve gotta bank some sperm because ChatGPT programmed by the LGBTQ is going to tell the Boston Dynamics robot dog to bite your balls off.”

Below: the diabetes folks sell Pepsi and Mountain Dew:

  • “Do they have women’s chess?”
  • “Yes”
  • “doesn’t that prove right the guys who say women aren’t good at science?”

“Who came up with the idea of putting high-speed internet everywhere? Now nobody has to drive into these sh*thole cities where nobody gets arrested.”

62-year-old to 35-year-old: “don’t get married. Domestic partnership. Keep them on their toes.”

Below, the NGPA had booths in both a regular show hangar and in a special “WomenVenture” hangar (the latter equipped with blessed air conditioning):

(I texted the above to my pilot friends who happen to be gay; note the rare use of the rainbow flag by people who are authentically gay!)

On the subject of heterosexual interactions, one pilot suggested creating fake contraceptive patches that family court profiteers could wear and collecting 2 percent of the child support revenue. Another pilot responded by noting that a vasectomy would be a defense against this scheme. The first pilot pointed out that vasectomy carried an increased risk of prostate cancer.

Below: a Beechcraft Denali, not to be confused with the Pilatus PC-12 across from which it was parked, that had flown in. It will be at least 7 million Bidies when it finally limps out of the certification process in 2024 or 2025 (the planned cost back in 2016 was $4 million).

A jet owner who owns multiple properties in desirable off-the-beaten-track locations: “Starlink revolutionized vacation home rentals. I don’t even bother trying to find local Internet because it never works as well. There is no way to AirBnB a property if it doesn’t have Internet and Starlink opens up a lot of locations that weren’t previously viable.”

Below, a twin-engine seaplane made from a kit (Seawind). The second engine can be deployed into the water after landing to facilitate docking.

  • Pilot 1, to the bag check lady at an entrance gate: “What are you looking for?”
  • Bag check lady: “drugs, weapons.”
  • Pilot 2: “I smoked up all of my crack last night with Hunter Biden.”

Below: a privately owned MiG-29:

HondaJet pilot regarding the rudders: “there is a delay of two seconds after weight on wheels. Then the aircraft suddenly develops a turning tendency if pedals aren’t centered. The steering is as sensitive as a clitoris, but you don’t usually operate a clitoris with your feet.” There is a mode where the nose wheel can be set to free castor. Shouldn’t it be in that mode automatically after landing and until you’re down to some speed where the rudder is no longer effective? “I have a long list of ideas that would make the plane better”

Below: C-47 (DC-3), which cost $110,000 in 1943 and flew to support the Normandy invasion on D-Day:

If Magpie, an electric airplane company in which most of the trip is powered via aerial robot tugs, isn’t crazy enough for you… Aerial refueling for bizjets. “The Garmin software would line everything up and then all of these 1,000-mile light jets could go coast to coast.”

Below: one of the KidVenture stations where kids can learn a variety of practical skills.

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How much does aviation add to real estate values in vacation destinations?

by philg

Happy National Aviation Day!

I’m celebrating on Mount Desert Island, home to Acadia National Park, having arrived here via ghetto-class Cirrus SR20. I’m staying in a neighborhood of oceanfront houses that were worth $2-4 million pre-coronapanic. This evening, about 30 folks gathered for dinner two houses over. Everyone who wasn’t a full-timer had arrived by air, either private or scheduled, to the BHB airport. The lockdowns and Internet (lucky to get 80 Mbits down and 10 Mbits up here) added a lot of value to these houses, but I think that aviation is responsible for much of the value.

I can’t find any economic analysis of how much out-of-the-way vacation spots have increased in value now that they’re accessible by air. These places were worthless before the railroads. Bar Harbor became conveniently accessible via rail, it seems, in 1902 (Wikipedia). The place took a hit from the invention of modern air conditioning by pioneering female engineer Wilma Carrier ( A/C made staying in New York City or Washington, D.C. more tolerable) and then got a boost from improvements in aviation. The overnight sleeper trains from NYC might have been as comfortable as today’s Cape Air flights, but coming to Bar Harbor from Alabama (we met some folks at a restaurant who vacation in Acadia every year) was impractical.

[If we’re climate change alarmists, which I hope that we all are, we can also look at the benefits to Bar Harbor, Maine from CO2 emitted by aviation. Maine isn’t a pleasant place to swim yet, but if Greta Thunberg is correct this could be the next Miami Beach.]

Some over-sharpened iPhone pictures from a carriage road in Acadia:

View from my friend’s back yard:

Cars and Coffee at the Seal Cove Auto Museum:

The big hotel in downtown Bar Harbor:

The only rainbow flag that I could find downtown (note the lack of trans-enhancement):

What it has looked like most of this summer:

Climate change has brought a wet/cold summer to Vermont, Maine, and Quebec.

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Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at SFO: the country’s best airport terminal for gay people…

by philg

… and also the best airport terminal for straight people. The Harvey Milk Terminal began to open in 2019, but construction was paused for coronapanic and the $2.4 billion building is scheduled for completion in “late 2024”.

I visited at 10 pm on a Wednesday evening and the terminal benefitted by being only about 20 percent full. Due to the high ceilings, the claustrophobic Fall of Saigon feeling should be avoided even at 100 percent. The architects and planners put some effort into making the airport quiet and seem to have succeeded in the carpeted gate areas.

What if you’re stuck for a while and need WiFi and a desk? The free WiFi is available without an annoying advertisement or an acceptance of terms process:

How about the work surface?

(Nit: It’s been only a few years, but the power outlets (“loose like wizard sleeve”) and USB-A jacks (loose and/or broken) haven’t aged well.)

What if you want to lounge instead?

What if you want to play?

There are a lot of restaurants, but maybe not enough to deal with a capacity crowd:

What if you want to teach the kids about Harvey Milk? Certainly, the airport is more forthcoming than ChatGPT. If you ask, based on the Wikipedia article, “Was there anything wrong about Harvey Milk having a relationship with a 17-year-old boy?” ChatGPT says “This content may violate our content policy”:

The airport features larger-than-life images on the walls from which teenage boys are absent:

(Regarding Scott Smith, Wikipedia notes “18 years his junior” while the caption at the airport is silent on the age difference between Messrs. Milk and Smith.)

If you’d like to sip coffee while studying the exhibits…

Need a gender-neutral restroom after the coffee?

Thirsty again after learning about the importance of Harvey Milk? There are water-refill islands:

One proposal was to rename the entire airport “Harvey Milk International” (USA Today), but that was rejected. For now, therefore, it is only the magnificently designed Terminal 1 that bears the hero-to-almost-all-Californians’ name:

(Why not a hero to all Californians, full stop? See “Temecula school board president calls Harvey Milk a pedophile, sparks outcry” (June 5, 2023; even Governor French Laundry cannot eliminate hate in California).)

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