Archive for Aviation - page 3

The Boeing 747, one of the world’s most recognizable aircraft, was the first wide body jet built and revolutionized air transportion.  When it was introduced in 1970, it carried twice as many passengers as then current airliners.  It’s cavernous cargo capacity brought airfreight into the realm of financial feasability.  During it’s development it was designed to be easily converted to cargo hauling because the conventional wisdom of the day was that subsonic aircraft like the 747 would soon be rendered obsolete as passenger liners due to the imminent introduction of supersonic airliners.  The predicted proliferation of the supersonics never materialized – the lone SST, the Concorde, has come and gone.  Boeing expected to sell 400;  As of April 2014, 1487 have been built with another 51 on order.  The “Queen of the Skies” still reigns.

I am awed by the fact that a machine this large can fly – it can have a takeoff weight nearly one million pounds, and a range of over 9,000 miles!  Amazing!  Click here for tons of pictures.  Here are some clips of the bird in action – enjoy!

My post over at Men Out Of Work Blog

I haven’t written lately about the diappearance of the Malaysian Airline Boeing 777 for awhile since there was really nothing new to report.  As of my last post, the plane was presumed crashed in the Indian Ocean, with all passengers and crew lost even though not a trace of wreckage has been recovered.   The presumtion of a crash and also the presumed crash location (vague as it may be) have been inferred by analysis of communication signals between the plane and  a satellite done by the satelite’s owner, British telecommunications company Inmarsat.  Authorites have based their search on the assumption that the plane was somewhere within a large area of the Indian Ocean where no possible landing could have occurred when the signals stopped and this assumption was based on the sattelite data analysis done by Inmarsat. Since no trace of the airliner has yet been discovered, outside experts are attempting to confirm Inmarst’s analysis – and they are finding inconsistencies which call into question the accuracy of the analysis that all investigative assumptions have been based on so far – mainly the assumtion that the plane took a southern flight path over the Indian Ocean instead of north toward Pakistan.

Apparently since I am over 50, I am a dinosaur as are most of my family and acquaintances.  I know this is true because when I tell people I know to read my blog, they say “what’s a blog?”  I am so screwed – since I don’t write about Beyonce or Justin Bieber no one under thirty will ever read this and no one over thirty knows what a blog is.  So let me tell you a little bit about how I found out about blogs, became a reader of blogs and then went on to blogging.

I have never thought of myself as an early adopter of technology but I have been using the internet since the early 1990’s.  Thinking about it now, it was the dawn of time.  My chosen portal: AOL, now just a footnote to history.  I started out reading what they called “newsgroups” which were kind of like discussion boards where someone would post an article or website adress, people would read and discuss.  Usually I would “lurk” in these newsgroups, a term that means to look in, read the article and discussion but not participate – if you don’t speak up, no one knows you’re there.  This evolved into general web surfing and a few sites helped fuel that, mainly The Drudge Report (which started out mainly as movie industry news and gossip) with it’s many links to news stories.  Another was Lucianne.com founded by Jonah Goldberg’s mother, Lucianne Goldberg.  It’s still around.  Finally, sometime in the early 2000’s a Radio Talk Show host I listen to named Hugh Hewitt began talking about this new thing on the internet with a funny name.  Blobs?  No, that can’t be it.  BLOG!  That’s it – internet lingo shorthand for weblog.  Weblog = weBLOG = BLOG.  He wrote a book about it.  Anyway, the amount of information and perspectives on information available to me online took a quantum leap with that revelation.  There are blogs about everything you can think of.  I zeroed in on politcal blogs mostly, but also branched out into Law, and Science as well as general interest.  Many bloggers write about other subjects in addition to their area of expertise if they have one.  When 9/11 happened, I started reading the military blogs or MILblogs.  Yes, the blogosphere has covered the War on Terror.  Over the course of years, I came to admire some of these bloggers (whom I have never met, nor communicated with) and at some point decided that imitation would be the best form of flattery.  On the sidebar to the right you will see a heading that says “Some Blogs I Like”:  Click on any of those, they are worth your time.

The subtitle of Hewitt’s book sums up the what Blogging is to me and why I decided to become a participant instead of just an observer:  “Why You Must Know How The Blogosphere Is Smashing The Old Media Monopoly And Giving Individuals Power In The Marketplace Of Ideas”.  I have decided to exercise my power and transform my exploration of life into a creative exercise – and to invite you along.  If you are lurking here, your journey has already begun.  Step into the light, introduce yourself and we can all continue our journey together.

I write about anything that happens to be of interest to me, and the subject matter is varied.  The posts are  in chronological order, the newest at the top – you can keep scrolling down to the bottom of the page and keep going back to view older  posts, all the way back to the beginning of time…err.. when I started this blog in February of 2014.  If you like what I write about some subjects but don’t care for others, look on the sidebar to the right.  You will see “categories”.  All my posts fit into one or more of these categories.  Click on the category you are most interested in, and you will see only posts in that category.  Simple.  Within my posts I often link to additional information and/or another blog or article that inspired the post.  When you see a word in red text, that is a link to additional information.  Click on it and the link will open in a new tab.  Any pictures within a post can usually be viewed in a larger version by simply clicking on the picture.

Please comment! To the left of the title you will see a box with the date and below it a box that says comments.  Click there and a dialogue box will open where you will be able to write comments on the article. This is how I know you’re reading and I welcome all feedback on my writing. You will be asked for your name and e-mail adress but don’t worry!  You can use an alias if you don’t want to disclose your name and your e-mail adress will not be displayed, nor will I spam you.  I moderate all the comments so I will see your comment.

Thanks! and Enjoy!

R.I.P., James Goodson.

My father was a WWII pilot and were he still alive today, he would be 96.  There are not many left of The Greatest Generation and we lose more every day.  God rest their souls – they were faced with a horrific task and they did their duty.

Sidenote:  We learn from Goodson that smoking is good for you:

That June, he was in his P-51 making a strafing run over a German airfield when he was shot down. He fled into a birch forest before collapsing from injuries. He eventually was caught by the Germans and threatened with execution.

He recalled that one captor asked him if he wanted a drink or another indulgence before being shot. Mr. Goodson spied a box of Havana cigars, asked for a stogie and began to blow smoke rings, which he said shocked the German and led to a conversation about their mutual interest in cigars.

“The guy had never seen anything like that,” Mr. Goodson once said in an interview, “and I started teaching him how to blow smoke rings.” Instead of being shot, he was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.

“People say smoking costs lives,” he said. “It saved my life.”

Godspeed,  Lt.Col. Goodson.  Rest Well.

Hat Tip:  Althouse     Crossposted at: Men Out Of Work Blog

The New Straits Times (Malaysia) is reporting that Malaysia Air Flight 370’s Copilot attempted a cell phone call after final radio contact and after the plane diverted from it’s planned course to Beijing.  I have seen this reported nowhere else.

The source for the story is an anonymous person inside the investigation.  The source states that the co-pilot’s cell records are being examined (as I assume would be the pilot’s, flight crew’s and all the passengers’) and the examination shows that the phone was powered off about the time that the crew boarded the flight.  This is considered normal.  However, after the flight departed, after the final radio contact with ground controllers and after the flight changed course, the phone was turned on and a call was made or attempted.  The source declined to give further information as to whom the call was attemted or if it was indeed completed.  I will be interested to see if this story is picked up by other media sources.

I write about anything that happens to be of interest to me, and the subject matter is varied.  If you like what I write about some subjects but don’t care for others, look on the sidebar to the right.  You will see “categories”.  All my posts fit into one or more of these categories.  Click on the category you are most intersted in, and you will see only posts in that category.  Simple.  Within my posts I often link to additional information and/or another blog or article that inspired the post.  When you see a word in red text, that is a link to additional information.  Click on it and the link will open in a new tab.  Any pictures within a post can usually be viewed in a larger version by simply clicking on the picture.

click on the picture to see it larger

Please comment! To the left of the title you will see a box with the date and below it a box that says comments.  Click there and a dialogue box will open where you will be able to write comments on the article. This is how I know you’re reading and I welcome all feedback on my writing. You will be asked for your name and e-mail adress but don’t worry!  You can use an alias if you don’t want to disclose your name and your e-mail adress will not be displayed, nor will I spam you.  I moderate all the comments so I will see your comment.

Thanks! and Enjoy!

You may not “get” this if you are not an aviation enthusiast or borderline aviation freak like I am.  It probably stems from my childhood as an Air Force Brat and the son of a WWII pilot.  I practically have a compulsion to look skyward whenever I hear aircraft overhead and identify it.  Since I live under one of the departure routes of the airport in my city, I look up a lot.  Southwest 737 eastbound…Delta 737 eastbound…American MD-80 eastbound… and so on.  Now my neck won’t be so sore.  Once I hear a plane I can go to Flightradar24.com and see the aircraft type, airline, departure point and destination.  Just click on the little plane icon and the flight info is displayed.

screenshot

Awesome.  I can’t believe I didn’t know about this already.  Now I do.  And so do you.

In any situation, being aware of potential dangers and having a plan for what to do if the potentials are realized is a good idea.  Typically the most dangerous situation any of us find ourselves in is driving or riding in a car.  But if you ask people what is the most dangerous thing they have done they will usually say flying in a plane.  So, because I care about you here is an article with 10 tips that could save your life in a plane crash.  Click on the link and go read the whole thing (or RTWT as we say in innernet lingo).  Or if you don’t want to I’ll give you the best three out of 10.

• You’ve only got 90 seconds to get out.  Here’s the scenario – the plane’s crashed and your still in one piece.  Good.  You’ve survived the crash and if you don’t want to die in a fire then you’ve got 90 seconds before smoke and/or fire makes it impossible for you to escape.  Forget your luggage, haul ass to the nearest exit.  And to that end…
• Remember the 5 row rule.  If at all possible never sit farther than 5 rows from the exit.  When you buy your ticket, if the airline allows you to choose your seat pay attention to where the exits are on the diagram and get within 5 rows of one.  If flying on a “cattle call” airline (i.e. Southwest) you may wish to consider paying the extra $20 or so for guranteed early check in.  This will usually get you close enough to the front of the boarding line so that you can get within 5 rows of an exit,  Personally I always try to sit in an exit row, as I am willing to help others out in exchange for being right there at the exit.  Also I feel better knowing that my wife will be the first one out the door.  Bonus – exit rows are usually a few inches wider and so more legroom.
• Overcome the “normalcy bias” by having an action plan:  Look around and imagine what you will do if sh*t gets real.  Know where the exit is and have a plan for how you will make it to the exit if you can’t see because of darkness or smoke.  Be ready to take immediate action and don’t expect much help from the flight crew, chances are they will be in as bad or worse shape than you.  Also you are less likley to panic if you have a plan and execute it.

Seven more good tips at the link.  So happy flying!  In the event of a crash you will probably be killed instantly anyway (just kidding!).  But seriously, according to an NTSB Report, from 1983 to 2000 the survival rate of crashes was 95.7%.  Remember, you survive your daily commute so you can survive a plane ride as well!