Note to self: Try not to set airplane on fire

by philg

The latest issue of AVweb opens with a story about how airplanes like my Cirrus SR20 are catching on fire, with the fires starting inside the wheel pants due to overheated brakes:



there are no design or equipment faults at work, and for Cirrus this leaves only “operator error” as the cause. Unlike many aircraft pilots may be transitioning from, Cirruses have a free castering nosewheel and are steered only with differential braking, plus some positive or negative contribution from the rudder


The Diamond Katanas in which I trained and the Diamond DA40 that I formerly owned both had the free castering nosewheel and as far as I know, no pilot ever managed to set one of those on fire.  Cirrus chose to put the parking brake lever way down underneath the panel where it isn’t in one’s line of sight.  That might be a factor (the Diamond parking brake is right up by the throttle).  Otherwise, it is tough to say.  To folks learning to fly the Cirrus:  remember to push the rudder all the way in before resorting to a light tap on the brakes.  If you feel that you must tap both brakes to slow down when taxiing, it means you’ve got too much throttle in.

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Current Reading: The Great Bridge

by philg

Current reading:  The Great Bridge by David McCullough, one of my favorite historians.  I’m loving the book so far, especially as it takes us back to an age when engineers were heroes and engineering fascinated the public.


Travel plans:  Flying down to Washington, D.C. (GAI) tomorrow in the Cirrus SR20.  Doing full-down autorotations on Friday at Advanced Helicopters in Frederick, MD (FDK).  Hanging out with friends and family.  Returning to Boston, weather permitting, on Saturday, Dec 31.

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A bus driver is harder to replace than an air traffic controller?

by philg

The New York City transit strike has me puzzled.  The right to unionize and strike, and the requirement that an employer negotiate with a union, is an artificial right created by the government, along with copyright and patent.  The government does not allow certain workers, such as police and firemen and, in this case, transit workers, to strike.  The transit workers strike was illegal.  A typical analysis of transit worker pay shows that they get at least 30 percent more than they would in a competitive market.  The pensions are particularly expensive for New York City taxpayers, providing for retirement at age 55 with 50 percent of the final year’s compensation (typically this works out to 100 percent of a normal 40-hour-per-week salary because a worker will get a lot of overtime shifts in his or her last year and the pension is based on whatever was earned in those final 12 months before retirement, including overtime).


Consider an employer with a 54-year-old worker.  The guy is getting paid $70,000 per year to do a job that a young immigrant would be happy to do for $25,000 per year.  In one more year, assuming he is still on the payroll, you’re going to incur an obligation to pay this 54-year-old guy $70,000 per year for the rest of his life (30+ more years times $70,000 is more than $2 million).  He does something illegal, thereby giving you a pretext for firing him.  There are 140 qualified young applicants for his job, folks who won’t want or need a pension for at least 25 years from now.  What do you do?


Ronald Reagan faced a similar question during his first year in office, when the nation’s air traffic controllers went out on strike.  He fired them all (cnn story), and replaced them with younger, cheaper workers (there was no disruption in service, as supervisors picked up the load and worked overtime).  One would naively imagine that it is easier to replace a bus driver or a subway car cleaner than an air traffic controller.  New York City is more strapped for cash than the Federal government.  Regardless of the merits of the transit workers’ demands, it seems unfathomable that Mayor Bloomberg resisted the opportunity to fire all of the workers who stayed out.  What is different about this strike than the ATC strike of 1981?

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

by philg

Last night, along with the 10 other people in Boston who hadn’t seen the latest Harry Potter movie, I trundled down to the Fenway 13 for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  I did enjoy the fact that I was saving myself days of effort by not having to read the book, but otherwise I can’t understand why anyone went to this movie or read the underlying book.  The entire movie is about some sort of high-school wizard competition, that is wholly unnecessary and apparently rather risky.  I could understand why someone in, say, Springfield Public High School, would care about their team and the Big Game with Shelbyville.  But in general people don’t get excited about high school sports that aren’t at their own school.  Why do people think that this is a worthy successor to the preceding Harry Potter books and movies?

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How Massachusetts defies gravity

by philg

With the temperature dipping below 20 every night and the cost of a house running 2X what it might be in the Sunbelt, one wonders how the Massachusetts economy stays afloat.  This article claims that nanotech is part of the secret.  I link to it because it features Xtalic, a startup company on whose Board of Directors I sit.  As much fun as nanotech and being on a company Board might be, however, I’m looking forward to leaving on January 13 for Hawaii (finishing up my helicopter instructor rating).


[Note:  My advice on the subject of Xtalic’s Web site was not solicited.]

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Vox populi: “Programmers are the most boring people in the world”

by philg

A couple of notes from my most recent commercial airline flights.


On a flight from BOS to SFO, I sat next to a woman who said that she was going out specifically to attend a big party in San Francisco.  “That sounds fabulous,” I said.  “Not really,” she replied.  “Most of the people who will be there are computer programmers and they are the most boring people in the world.”  [She herself worked in software marketing and lived outside of Boston with husband and kids.]


On a flight from BOS to Long Beach (LGB), I sat next to a woman who had recently graduated from University of California Berkeley with a degree in English.  What kind of a job did she get where she could use her finely honed intellect?  Selling home mortgages to folks with bad credit, same as that recent MIT graduate we checked up on a month back.

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Last-minute college application tip

by philg

A lot of young folks are finishing up their college applications right now.  Here’s a last-minute application tip:  don’t be shy about checking the “Hispanic” box.  I met a Harvard undergraduate at a party last night, pleasant, intelligent, and quite blond.  Her mom was half-Hispanic, so she checked “Hispanic” when applying to Harvard, which now claims her among their minority students.  The only awkward moment was just after she was admitted, when she was invited to come from her high school to campus for a visit and stay in a dorm suite with a Harvard undergrad.  The Harvard bureaucrats thought that she might not be comfortable staying with a non-Hispanic white or Asian undergrad, so they asked her if she wanted a “minority” host.


At no time was she challenged on her ability to speak Spanish or the question of how her skin and hair came to be so pale.

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