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Cockpit Chronicles: Anatomy of a 26 hour delay. {Gadling}
Feb 3rd 2009 10:44AM Question for Kent: when you are inbound to Logan and end up doing a wx diversion, where do you usually head to? And what determines your choice of alternate? Typically when NE airfields get socked in, the aircraft seem to head for BDL, and ground calls me up for bus support. I end up running up with a motorcoach in the middle of the night to ferry the pax home. I get some grumpy ones, but usually they are so wrung out by that hour that they are grateful to be just on the road home, and not spending the night sleeping on the concrete floor. Makes for interesting work! When you fellows stop flying, that is when the bus guys start driving!
Work Spouse {AOL Jobs}
Jan 26th 2009 12:03PM Not only that, but AOL is charing me TWICE in two separate hits on my credit card each month! And there is no way to contact them and nobody to complain to. This is theft, pure and simple. So now we know what "Inc." really means: It means, "when the cops come, nobody's home." Just lovely.
Galley Gossip: A question about being a flight attendant and having a young child at home {Gadling}
Jan 25th 2009 6:32PM Further to your comment on unaccompanied minors, I suspect I still hold the record as the youngest UM to fly the Atlantic both ways. I was sixteen months. It was October 1947 and exchange controls on the currency kept my parents from going with me. I was tossed onto a KLM aircraft in Amsterdam and sent on to LGA, a 24-hour marathon in a triple-connie doing perhaps 240, by way of Shannon, maybe Iceland, certainly Gander, then LGA. Then interlined onto somebody else to go onward to PHL. And then all the way back. That stunt made all the newsreels and front pages of the New York papers; I was carried on and off the aircraft by the flight attendants.
Just to make sure flying stays in the family bloodline, I took my young son flying three months before he was born - New Haven to Pittsfield in a Beech single, with a few stops in between on 1800 ft strips just for practice. Mom did fine on the controls! (her first try at it).
At about age 10, I did the run again, also as a UX, also a KLM Connie. The starboard inboard caught fire somewhere over the blackness of the Atlantic - quite spectacular. That was my first diverted landing. Hopped another Connie in Newfoundland to get back home. Been flying ever since; but sure love that old Connie. Fond memories. Nowadays you just can't toss infants onto those trans-Atlantic flights. Oh, well.
Man gets off plane via exit door: Did he wait for the ding? {Gadling}
Jan 25th 2009 5:27PM As an inter-city bus driver, I am a bit disappointed that "Aviatordream" the "pilot" would wish to send his most diesgruntled pax off onto my bus. If you think it is tough to fly at 26,000 ft with five miles of separation, try doing it on the I-95 with 40,000 motorists of marginal skill next door at at 3 feet of separation (and in lousy wx). Incidentally, please do note that there is no part of the airport known as the "tarmac." Those areas are properly the "apron" or the "ramp." "Tarmac" is an abbreviation for
"tarmacadam," a road-building material aggregate developed in Scotland way back when. Illiterate newspapermen trying to demonstrate how erudite they are consistently try to show off by sprinkling "tarmac" into their paper articles. Awful. Let's not copy the dummies and deteriorate the language.
Checker Motors files for Ch. 11 bankruptcy {Autoblog}
Jan 22nd 2009 1:37PM What you are seeing here is the "slow-motion" collapse of American manufacturing. At its root, Checker falls due to two prongs: (1) Govt. mandates in areas of design, emissions, and mileage (without any waivers); and (2) their customers, the US auto industry, running out of cash and unable to pay theor suppliers. I do hope you folks out there recognize how catastrophic this is. Far more people work in the parts-supply chain than at the auto plants. And thos parts plants consume the output of the machinery builders such as Cincinnati Milacron. Each successive wave of collapse will fall back onto the next level, and that wrecks the entire base of the US.
Ironically, although NYC was the big market for the Taxi version of the Marathon, even a reconstituted Checker could not be sold there, as Mr. Bloomberg has instituted standards for cabs that effectively eliminate from consideration anything other than a hybrid. Although he means well, what he is forgetting is that a small builder such as Checker will not have the capital resources to re-tool to a hybrid drivetrain; they have to buy it out, and that means somebody else has to be willing to sell it to them, at a reasonable price. So once again the US builder becomes hostage to foreign source restrictions.
We have to get away from this or our national wealth, created in large measure by smart guys in manufacturying, will be dissipated to the Third World. Are you really going to work each morning so as to enrich Mr. Tata over in India? Right now, you are (surprise!).
I sure hope the new secretary of Transportation recognizes this, takes over such bankrupt companies as Colorado railcar, and force-feeds the domestic manufacturing chain. Or else we all starve.
Jan van Eck, Connecticut
Passengers sue airline for 32 hour delay from hell {Gadling}
Jan 13th 2009 11:50AM Running a bus operation in New England that focusses on emergency substituted service for air-carriers, I can assure you that long (slow) runs during foul wx is entirely predictable. If the roads are icy then reduced speeds of 25 or 20 mph are the order of the day. Toss in the notoriously lousy roads in Eastern Europe and it does not surprise me that it took 12 hrs to do the run. There is nothing more reckless than speeding drivers on poor roads in ice. If you are determined to "go skiing" on vacation in an obscure part of the world where infrastructure is marginal, then don't be surprised if your trip becomes an adventure.
A windmill and the wonderful way it works {Gadling}
Dec 15th 2008 2:51PM The gear-teeth on those old windmills were hand carved from oak pegs. The "grease" as apparently cow tallow (fat). Notwithstanding the inherent losses in this design, a mill like this can generate about 250 shaft hp. in an 18-knot wind. Such windmills could cut an entire tree log into 16 planks in one pass - a good example of industrial power from mechanization leading to productivity. This "free power" led to the rapid industrialization of Holland and put the country in the forefront of the mercantile nations in the 1500-1600 period. We can learn a lot from this.
Carjacker Thwarted by Manual Transmission {Asylum}
Nov 24th 2008 10:53AM The photograph showing a right-hand drive automobile is not "flipped." If it were originally taken of a left-hand-drive auto, then the wheel would obscure the console and shift lever. Since it is quite unlikely that a woman in Kansas City would have purchased and be driving a right-hand-drive car, it becomes apparent that the "photo" was for illustration only, not of the actual auto.
Canada rules obese get second seat free on flights in Canada {WalletPop}
Nov 23rd 2008 5:13PM What the Supreme Court of Canada apparently did not consider is that our "morbidly obese" and disabled person that needs two seats will most likely not be able to evacuate the aircraft in an emergency, particularly through the over-wing hatches. When the hatch plugs, then everybody else dies. Better to simply advise the obses that they will have to take the train, until the weight is reduced.
Personally, I would remind readers that the "FAR's" [Federal Aviation Regulations] specify that the Pilot in Command is the final authority over all aspects of the aircraft. If the P-I-C determines that a morbidly obese person represents a safety danger to rapid evacuation, he has both the authority and the responsibility to deny boarding to that person. The problem with the Courts is that judges now set themselves up as instant experts on all matters technical - but they are not flying the aircraft. Judges should butt out and let the carriers - through their proper representatives, the pilots - make boarding and seating decisions.
As a historical footnote, I would invite anyone who takes the view that being morbidly obese is "glandular" or "genetic" and not a function of over-eating the calories to take a close look at any historical photograph of Auschwitz or Birkenau labor camps when they were liberated by the Allies. You didn't exactly see any fat people. Yet it remains more probable than not that people with "glandular" or "genetic" factors were equally represented in those camps, as to today. What does that tell you?
Cramer on BloggingStocks: Fix the home glut {BloggingStocks}
Nov 14th 2008 12:00PM The ONLY way to cut through the CDO tangle is to press your Congressman to pass a bill changing the 2005 Bankruptcy Code changes (ghost-written by attorneys hired by MBNA Bank, incidentally) that would allow bankruptcy judges to unilaterally re-write mortgage Notes as to principal and interest. They already can do this for commercial properties, and even vacation and second homes and homes held as rentals, but NOT for primary residences. Once the Code changes, then the borrowers have leverage against the CDO outfits to re-formulate their Notes. If the CDO does not, then the bankruptcy court judge will - and probably on worse terms for the CDO. That gets the properties out of the foreclosure mill and stabilizes the housing market. So press your Congressman!
Yes, I have an axe to grind here. Some clown "bought" my Note for ten bucks, registered it on the land title records, and is trying to "foreclose" it for $375,000. Not bad for a six-month purchase cycle. He is being sued, of course. But that is another story.
