"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
What was (and might have been)
The golden age of air travel dawned with the advent of pressurized commercial airliners that could fly above the weather and turbulent air closer to the surface, flourished under FAA control, and ended in October 1978 when the Carter administration deregulated the industry.
In 1979, when I was stationed at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands, Prince Claus and two of his boys came to visit. I was on air defense alert that day with Jim Kellogg. We were pretty sure the Dutch would arrange a scramble for the royal family. Sure enough, the klaxon went off and five […]
Aerial refueling: also called air-to-air refueling and in-flight refueling. You can’t send a B-2 from Missouri to hit a high-priority ISIS target in Libya without it; nor can you deploy an expeditionary air wing to a combat zone in Afghanistan or the Middle East. Aerial refueling allows receiving aircraft to fly long distances or stay on station […]
A few years ago I wrote a short post about the B-36 Peacemaker bomber. Here’s an excerpt: … even though I was around during the B-36 bomber’s heyday I never saw one in flight. It’s not something you’d forget: it would have been akin to seeing the Hindenburg or a tidal wave. They say the ground shook […]
Looking for photos to add to my Promise of Air Travel folder on Pinterest, I came across this: It’s a Speedpak, a conformal cargo pod or pannier designed by Lockheed for its Constellation aircraft. It wasn’t used for passenger luggage but for extra cargo. It appears to be the grandfather of the conformal cargo pods […]
I corrected a couple of minor errors in the original post. I have since learned more about early presidential aircraft, and will share that knowledge in a separate post, coming soon. —Paul When I read the president-elect’s now-famous tweet a few days ago, my thoughts turned to two presidential fleet aircraft I show visitors at the Pima Air […]
On a motorcycle trip in April 2015 I visited and photoblogged the Planes of Fame Museum in Valle, Arizona. The Arizona facility is an annex of the main Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. This time around I pointed my Honda west toward Los Angeles and dropped in on the main facility. As with the […]
Early on Election Day, I got on my motorcycle and headed out on a six-day trip. I knew I’d hear no news until arriving at my first night’s destination, but was confident that by then Hillary Clinton would be on her way to a landslide victory, a blue Senate sweeping in with her. So here we are, one week later. […]