"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
There I was at 30,000 feet
I’m working on the motorcycle today, so this’ll be a short entry. As an Air Force pilot I had to pass a complete flight physical every year. Under civilian rules, airline transport pilots are inspected even more often: two physicals per year, administered by FAA-certified doctors. So it’s unsettling that a pilot with obvious mental […]
So how’s the weather? Actually bad, for a welcome change. When Tucsonans complain about the weather, we’re usually griping about scattered to broken clouds, and, once in a great while, rain — weather that would be innocuous anywhere else, so don’t pay us no never-mind. When it snows, we act like the Apocalypse is at […]
Walking around the outdoor displays at the Pima Air & Space Museum (PASM) the other day, I stopped in front of a dusty relic, a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, America’s first operational jet fighter. I always think of the P-80 (later redesignated the F-80) as a Korean War-era fighter. It’s true that the P-80 first […]
GOP Debate Audience Boos Contraception. Oh give me a break! Nearly everyone in that audience uses contraception or has a spouse who does, and none of them are planning to give it up. So what are they really booing? They’re booing the other tribe: liberals, Democrats, progressives, those hippies down in Tucson. A rough translation […]
Project Boneyard is now on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum, where I volunteer as a tour guide. It’s an art project using old aircraft and aircraft parts as canvases. When I wrote about it last week, the exhibit hadn’t officially opened and just a few outdoor aircraft were on display. I thought […]
The aircraft boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB turned local artists loose on some old aircraft. The results are soon to go on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum. I watched them tow a few out into the yard this week and took some photos: There are more to come, and the exhibit, called The […]
I love the jet fighters of the 1950s. Built for speed, sleek and swept-back, they were the embodiment of the fantasy planes of comic book superheroes. The North American F-107, an orphan fighter-bomber abandoned by the USAF, embodies the go-fast exuberance of the period. The F-107 began life in 1953 at North American Aviation as a drawing-board […]
When I started conducting walking tours at the Pima Air & Space Museum a few months ago, I quickly realized I’d talk myself hoarse if I didn’t overcome a certain egotistical reluctance to use a portable voice amplifier and speaker. The museum had two but they were big heavy things, each one powered by eight […]