Air-Minded: Get Your Motor Runnin’ (Updated 11/6/19)

I’ve been thinking about the different methods of starting aircraft engines. Today you start almost all aircraft piston engines the same way you start your car: by turning on the ignition and engaging an electric starter motor. Of course this wasn’t always the way. In the beginning you had to hand-prop them. If you own […]

Air-Minded: Douglas F3D Skyknight

This Air-Minded post is from March 2014. I was thinking about the Douglas Skyknight yesterday, and after reviewing what I had written about it earlier, decided to move the post to the top of the queue. —Paul Woodford There’s a Skyknight on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, where I […]

Air-Minded: Bitchin’ Betty (Updated 4/25/19)

When Sexy Sally started warning B-58 Hustler crews about engine fires in the 1960s, it was a major innovation, and using a woman’s voice was considered a brilliant stroke: human factors researchers thought a woman’s voice—rarely heard on the radio and never on the intercom—would cut through other chatter and get the crews’ attention.

Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog II

In lieu of solving the nation’s problems and revealing brilliant new insights on life, I’ll share a few photos I took today while wandering around the outdoor exhibits at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, where I work as a volunteer docent. I’d heard the restoration team would be moving several aircraft […]