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Category Archives: Flying
Headwinds
My wife and I spent a wonderful evening with friends Saturday evening and then had to drive home north along Interstate 95. As we drove home steadily at 70 miles per hour, I looked up to my nine o’clock position … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flight Instructing, Flying, Life in General
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Tagged bucking a major headwind, groundspeed, Headwinds, Joe’s Maxim, simple math, smooth air, tailwinds, turbulence, wonderful evening
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Bad Week for Jet Engines
Airbus and Rolls Royce are having a bad week this week, Qantas Airlines, too, to a degree. On Thursday Qantas Flight 32 departed Singapore’s Changi Airport shortly before 10 a.m. enroute to Sydney, Australia. Six minutes after takeoff, the number … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flying, Life in General
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Tagged Airbus, aviation industry, Bad Week for Jet Engines, Changi Airport, engine parts, FAA, NTSB, Qantas Airlines, Rolls Royce, Singapore, Sydney Australia, Trent 900 engine, uncontained engine failure
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Luvin' Speed
Speed is a very relative concept. Airplanes go fast – and slow. Many consider sailboats slow, but yachtsmen can sail them fast. Cars simply take forever to get anywhere, unless the driver is a teenager. Then it is probably just … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flying, Personal
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Tagged airline pilot, airliners, airplanes, crazy drivers, go fast, jetstream, low-level attack pilot, Luvin' Speed, military, Navy, pulling g, risk management, sailboats, speed, teenagers
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Luvin’Speed
Speed is a very relative concept. Airplanes go fast – and slow. Many consider sailboats slow, but yachtsmen can sail them fast. Cars simply take forever to get anywhere, unless the driver is a teenager. Then it is probably just … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flying, Personal
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Tagged airline pilot, airliners, airplanes, crazy drivers, go fast, jetstream, low-level attack pilot, Luvin' Speed, military, Navy, pulling g, risk management, sailboats, speed, teenagers
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First Flight
If you are a pilot, or if you are not but have a serious interest in history, you owe it to yourself to visit First Flight on the outer banks in North Carolina. This is the place where the Wright … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Aviation History, Flying
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Tagged aerodynamics, air screw, December 17 1903, First Flight, flight experiments, gliders, history, Kill Devil Hill, kites, Kitty Hawk, Neil Armstrong, North Carolina, Orville, Otto Lilienthal, outer banks, pilot, propeller, Wilbur, Wright Brothers
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The Perfect Flying Season
The perfect flying season is here. There are two times the flight weather environment becomes perfect and those times are fall and spring. Fall more so than spring, but still, spring is good. What makes fall and spring the perfect … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flying, Life in General, Personal
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Tagged checkpoints, clear skies, fall, flight weather environment, flying conditions, frontal activity, light winds, outside air temperature, spring, sunrise, sunset, The best time to fly, The Perfect Flying Season
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Ed’s Hotrod
Occasionally one of my students will ask me which airplane I liked flying the best in the Navy. The answer I always give is, “Depends. If I was going out to deliver weapons, no question – it is the A-7. … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flying, Life in General, Personal
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Tagged A-4, A-7, air combat maneuvering, attack pilots, dogfight, Ed Heinemann, Ed’s Hotrod, fighter pilots, formation flying, Gulf of Tonkin, naval aviators, Navy, North Vietnam, Pratt & Whitney J-52, shooting guns, Vietnam, wings of gold
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Remember When
Remember back when traveling by the airlines was something really special? Everyone dressed in their very best to “take a flight” somewhere. Passengers were well mannered, the food was good, the airline employees were happy, and massive radial engines made … Continue reading →
Posted in Aviation, Flying, Life in General
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Tagged 18-cylinder radial engines, Eastern Airlines (EAL), Howard Hughes, Lockheed Constellation, Orville Wright, P&W Wright R-3350, Pan American World Airways (PA), Pratt & Whitney, president of TWA Jack Frye, Remember When, Trans World Airlines (TWA), traveling by airliner, TSA, “Connie”
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2 Comments
Impressions
I remember the first time I saw the Blue Angels. I was working the line fueling airplanes at the St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport, so I was standing atop my fuel truck. I watched the team arrive and fly their practice … Continue reading →
Navigation
Getting around the world is a fascinating exercise. At first, a person’s total awareness of his or her environment is the extent of as far as they can see, usually not much further beyond their crib or bedroom at first. … Continue reading →
Posted in Flying, Life in General, Personal
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Tagged A-4, backyards, Caribbean Sea, Cuba, degrees, globe, GPS, Guantanamo Bay Cuba, Haiti, Hawaii, Jamaica, nation, nautical miles, navigation, neighborhood, Pacific Ocean, seeing beyond the horizon, sextants, state, statute miles, TACAN, the ancient Polynesians, the South Pacific
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1 Comment
