This guy makes a lot of sense. I guess you can count me as an evil capitalist.
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Flight Review
N33354 at Bentonville, AR
I have a flight review today. They are required every two years, but I have not had one in 5 or 6 years. What gives? You can meet the requirement for a flight review by taking a check ride for a new pilot rating or license. So, I satisfied the flight review requirement 4 years ago by getting an instrument rating and 2 years ago by getting a commercial license.
I did not get around to adding a new rating within two years this time, hence the need for a flight review. I am looking forward to the actual flying, but the temperature this afternoon will be around 102 and there is no air conditioning in the airplane. Dealing with the temperatures – mainly the comfort factor but also its effect on aircraft performance will be the most difficult part of the day I suspect.
Opinion or Fantasy?
Dorothy Rabinowtz has an opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal online edition titled “The Republican Who Can Win.” Her main thesis is a Republican who “scares” people cannot be elected prsident. Instead they need to address pocketbook issues and not discuss abstractions like budget deficits or lack of funding for social security.
I do not agree, and I think she is underestimating how much the average voter is upset about the upcoming shortfalls in one-third increase in federal government spending in the last two years with nothing to show for it but a huge debt.
The passage that seems the most wrong-headed to me is:
The Republican who wants to win would avoid talk of the costs that our spendthrift ways, particularly benefits like Social Security, are supposedly heaping on future generations. He would especially avoid painting images of the pain Americans feel at burdening their children and grandchildren. This high-minded talk, rooted in fantasy, isn’t going to warm the hearts of voters of mature age—and they are legion—who feel no such pain.
I don’t understand “… are supposedly heaping on future generations.” Is she saying social security is fully funded so it will not be running a deficit, or is she acknowledging it is not funded but someone other than our children and grandchildren will cover the deficit?
But what really bothered me was “This high-minded talk, rooted in fantasy…” One of us is fantasizing, and I think it is the one of us that thinks everything is copacetic.
I think people outside NYC/DC understand how messed up this is, and they do not want to heap debt on their kids and grandkids. If a politician explained this clearly and asked everyone to sacrifice, they would gain credibility and electability.
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You might be a bad driver if…
Traffic
One of my pet peeves is clueless drivers who interfere with the free flow of traffic and even create traffic hazards. I think the problem is people who just do not think about what they are doing and how it affects the other drivers and pedestrians around them. With that in mind, here is my checklist of things to watch for.
You might be a bad driver if you like to merge onto the freeway by creeping up the on-ramp at 20 mph then stopping at the end and waiting for a gap in the traffic before proceeding. You also might get rear-ended.
You might be a bad driver if you pass me, pull into my lane in front of me, and then slow down slower than I was driving. Couldn’t you have slowed down behind me? Corollary, you might be a bad driver if you pull out of a side street in front of me and drive slowly when there was plenty of room behind me.
You might be a bad driver if you stop at the first fuel pump at the island when they are all open instead of pulling all the way forward. Sure, I can go around you, but are you really that clueless?
You might be a bad driver if you and your girlfriend drive your scooters down the left shoulder of a four lane road. Especially when I am making a left turn and don’t know to look behind me to make sure you are not coming up behind me on the shoulder. Luckily for you, I saw you at the last second and slammed on my brakes. They way you continued talking and laughing, I don’t think you realized how close you came to getting run over.
You might be a bad driver if you are talking on your cell phone and are so absorbed in the conversation that you drive into the middle of an intersection before you realize the light is red, so you stop in the middle of the intersection – and continue talking on your cell phone while other traffic honks and tries to maneuver around you.
You might be a bad driver if you drive a Saturn. I can’t prove it, but I have piles of anecdotal evidence.
And my favorite – you might be a bad driver if you drive in the left lane of the freeway when you are not passing anyone. You can remove all doubt about your poor driving skills if you stay in the left lane and drive right next to another car in the adjacent lane as if you were a Blue Angel flying in tight formation, forming a slow moving roadblock so no one else can get past.
There, I feel better now that I have gotten that off my chest. I would get more immediate satisfaction by honking and gesturing, but Texas is a concealed-carry state, so I think it is better to be polite and friendly on the roads. Which might also be a good reason to correct any of these bad driving habits you might have.
Flying pictures from this weekend
Flew from Fort Worth to Brownsville this weekend and went to South Padre Island for sightseeing. There was a pretty good south wind – about 40kts at 3,000 feet – so the trip down took about 4 hours while the trip back north took only 2 hours and 45 minutes.
Other than the wind, the conditions were nice for flying but not that nice for sightseeing. There was an overcast layer at 2,000 ft MSL with tops at 3,000 ft MSL at Fort Worth and that continued as overcast or broken down to about Victoria where the clouds spread to scattered to broken. So for most of the trip the only scenery was clouds.
Here are a few pictures from the trip.
Overcast skies south of Fort Worth
AH-64 Apaches on the ramp at Victoria
After a quick fuel stop at Victoria, I continued on to Brownsville via Corpus Christi.
Padre Island
Barges on the intracoastal waterway
After arriving at Brownsville, which was exciting in itself since the winds were 150 degrees at 27 kts gusting to 35, I drove over to South Padre Island and went to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center. They are located on the Laguna Madre side of Padre Island and have some convenient boardwalks built over the marshy areas of the island and out over the bay.
Baird's Sandpiper
Note, I am not a birder. I like looking at birds, but I do not know a lot about them. I am looking them up at http://www.birdfinder.com and allaboutbirds.org, so the names I am giving them are very possibly wrong. Feel free to add corrections in the comments.
Red-wing blackbird
Solitary Sandpiper
Tricolored Heron
Least Tern with fish
White Ibis
Kildeer
Great Blue Heron
Black-bellied Whistling Duck
North of the birding center, the sand dunes are reclaiming the road.
Sand dunes reclaiming road
Top of dunes looking towards Gulf of Mexico
Not a bad trip, and a lot easier and more fun in a small airplane than in a car or the airlines.
New Aviation Exhibit Coming to Fort Worth Museum of Science and History
A new exhibit, “Ascent… When Dreams Defy Gravity,” is coming to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History beginning on May 28th. It highlights the place of North Texas in aviation history.
I’m not sure everything they will include in the exhibit, but Fort Worth and the North Texas area do have a lot of aviation history, including:
Lockheed-Martin Aeronautics is headquartered in west Fort Worth. Aircraft produced at their factory include the B-24, B-36, B-58, F-111, F-16, and F-35.
F-35C over North Texas on its first flight.
Bell Helicopter is located in east Fort Worth.
American Airlines is headquartered in Fort Worth.
The Globe Aircraft Company, manufacturer of the Globe Swift, was located in north Fort Worth.
The first nonstop around the world flight started and ended at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth.
The first around the world flight in a helicopter (by Ross Perot Jr.) started and ended in Fort Worth. (The linked article says they started in Dallas, but they actually started at the Bell Helicopter plant in Fort Worth.)
So there is a lot they could include. I am looking forward to the opening of the exhibit to enjoy their displays and see what else they have uncovered about local aviation history.
Posted in Flying, Fort Worth
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Blue Angels at Fort Worth
As I posted previously, the Blue Angels were at NAS Fort Worth JRB this weekend for Air Power Expo 2011. It was a beautiful day for an air show, if a bit windy. Don’t know where Blue Angel #4 was today, but the other five of them put on a nice show.
A few pictures from the air show:
Harrier approaching to land.
Blue Angels' solo pilots
Bottom of loop with landing gear, flaps, tailhooks, and speed brakes extended.
Echelon formation
Coming down the back side of a loop.
Low speed, high alpha pass
Blue Angel #5 coming in to land.
SMU Honors Convocation
I went to the SMU Honors Convocation last night to see Jill recognized for the University Honors Program and the Civil and Environmental Engineering Award for Excellence in Design. Way to go Jill!
Jill with R. Gerald Turner, SMU's president
Her design team also won the student design competition at Texas Water 2011, a regional water conference sponsored by the Texas Section of the American Water Works Association. They designed an addition to the Tres Rios water treatment plant in San Antonio to accommodate future growth while minimizing disruption to existing plant operations. Next they move on to the national competition at WEFTEC 11, the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference.
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Blue Angels are coming to Fort Worth
NAS Fort Worth JRB is hosting Air Power Expo 2011 on 16 and 17 April. The highlight of the show this year is the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy flight demonstration team.
I saw them fly at Sun ‘n Fun 2011 last weekend. As always they put on a great show. Here are a few pictures I took at Sun ‘n Fun:
Fat Albert, the Blue Angels' support plane
Fat Albert is the C-130 support plane for the Blue Angels, but it is also part of their air show routine. It demonstrates a maximum performance climb, high speed pass, and steep approach to a short field landing. For such a large airplane, the C-130 is very maneuverable and can land in an impressively short distance.
Blue Angels Diamond Formation
The Blue Angels fly 6 F-18’s, 4 of them in a 4-ship formation as shown above and 2 solo pilots that fly a combination of opposing and formation passes. You can tell from the photo above, the Blue Angels fly close together! They stay in tight formation through a variety of aerobatic maneuvers and sometimes even change formations in the middle of a maneuver.
Blue Angels solo pilots
This is one of the formation passes by the solo pilots. Of course, they cannot do things normally – that would be too boring – so one of them is right side up and one is upside down. They also like to sneak up on the crowd from behind, coming in low, fast, and loud.
The air show is Saturday and Sunday, but the Blue Angels arrive in Fort Worth around 10am on Thursday. They will be practicing on Thursday from 2:45pm to 4pm. On Friday, all the air show performers, including the Blue Angels, will be practicing from 11am-4pm. The air show on Saturday and Sunday runs from 11am-4pm.
If you are pilot, be aware there will be a TFR around KNFW on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. No west departures from Meacham! Here is the NOTAM:
!FDC 1/5889 ZFW TX.. FLIGHT RESTRICTION NAVAL AIR STATION FORT WORTH JOINT RESERVE BASE, FORT WORTH, TX. DUE TO THE U.S. NAVY BLUE ANGELS, U.S. MARINE CORPS AV-8, SPECIAL OPS PARA COMMANDOS PARACHUTE TEAM, AND VARIOUS OTHER HIGH PERFORMANCE AERIAL DEMONSTRATIONS DURING THE 2011 AIR POWER EXPO, EFFECTIVE: 1104141700 UTC UNTIL 1104142100 UTC, 1104151500 UTC UNTIL 1104152200 UTC, 1104161500 UTC UNTIL 1104162200 UTC, 1104171500 UTC UNTIL 1104172200 UTC. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91.145, MANAGEMENT OF AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS IN THE VICINITY OF AERIAL DEMONSTRATIONS AND MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS, AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS ARE PROHIBITED WITHIN A 5 NMR OF 324656N/0972624W OR THE RANGER /FUZ/ VORTAC 238 DEGREE RADIAL AT 14.7 NM, AT AND BELOW 15000 FT MSL UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY ATC. RALPH ROYCE, PHONE 713-408-0633, IS THE POINT OF CONTACT. THE NAVAL AIR STATION FORT WORTH /NFW/ ATCT, PHONE 817-782-5742, IS THE COORDINATION FACILITY.
Agivator 