Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog XVI

For the past few months, the restoration yard at Pima Air and Space Museum has been dominated by two huge Boeing airliners, a 747 and a 777. I’d point them out to visitors on my tram tour, joking that I didn’t know where we’d find room for them once they came out of resto. Well, now I know.

Air-Minded: Call Sign Protocol (Wait, What?)

From Military.com: Navy to Change Pilot Call Sign Protocol After Minority Aviators Report Bias: “The head of naval aviation has directed the creation of a new process for approving and reviewing pilots’ call signs after two African-American aviators at an F/A-18 Hornet training squadron in Virginia filed complaints alleging racial bias in the unit, from which they […]

Danger at the Door

Finally saw my first Kentucky Derby … actually my first horse race of any kind. Now here’s a televised sport I can endure while pretending to be as into it as everyone else in the room. I can do anything if I only have to do it for two minutes!

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.