Month: June 2012

Ever since watching the movie “Always” I’ve wanted to fly  fire bombers.  It’s just the kind of flying I love, down, dirty and dangerous.  And with a purpose.  I could go on and on about flying old equipment one hundred feet above a mountain ridge, thru smoke, turbulence and downdrafts being something that most pilots with any sense would stay far away from but you don’t get much of an adrenalin buzz flying a DC-9 to Fresno.  If you want adventure you’ve got to hang it out a little.  Flying jumpers is sort of the same thing only we drop meat bombs instead of water bombs, it’s as close as I’m going to get for now but who knows?  Maybe my wife will let me get my air attack card and spend three or four months a year out west flying with the boys…….riiiiiight.  I think I’ll go fly my Queen Air this morning and get my old twin in the air before work.  It’s something at least.

 

 

A report in the British newspaper the Daily Mail says Boeing, Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin will unveil concepts for supersonic business jets capable of 2,500 mph and a London-to-Sydney flight time of four hours at the Farnborough Air Show next month. The newspaper quotes unnamed sources as saying the aerospace heavyweights have partnered with NASA to come up with designs that muffle the sonic boom, a key consideration in the marketability of such aircraft. An unnamed Gulfstream engineer is quoted as saying the result is “closer to a puff or a plop.”

 

Gulfstream has been working on its X-54 quiet supersonic concept aircraft for four years and has kept it under wraps. It’s believed to be an evolution of experiments conducted with NASA starting in 2005 to reduce the sonic boom to an acceptable level. The curtain may be pulled back a little on it at Farnborough. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have experience in supersonic designs but not in business jet-type aircraft. There are other hopefuls in the supersonic bizjet race but none have built an actual airplane yet.

 

If anyone has any connections with Boeing or Lockheed Martin let them know I’m available to ferry fly the first model to wherever they need it to go , or test fly it, or, or, wax it maybe, you know, whatever.

I took seven international flights last year and while sometimes the person sitting next to me wasn’t the best seatmate at least they weren’t in the process of decomposing.

After seeing a hypnotist to help me dig up repressed memory’s from the darkest corners of my mind I remembered the horrible flight to Australia last fall.  On that flight I was pressed into the side of the airline by the overflowing abundance and horrible stench of the man sitting next to me.  If it wasn’t for the fact that he moved every once in a while I could have been convinced that he’d been decomposing for weeks.

 

A woman who was forced to sit next to a deceased man for several hours on a Kenya Airways flight from Amsterdam to Tanzania has been given a partial refund by the airline.

And apparently, that suits her just fine.

The Australian, citing an article in the Swedish tabloid Expressen, reported Lena Pettersson, a journalist, boarded the flight and noticed a man sweating and having seizures.  Despite this, the plane took off and the man died during the overnight flight.