CNN is reporting that Goodyear’s west coast blimp just crashed.

Perhaps “crashed” isn’t the right word. As ususal in these cases, no one died. It’s pretty hard to get killed when your trusty steed is a giant airbag with a cruise speed of 30 mph.

These blimps are quite rare, even by aviation standards. Goodyear is one of the best known airship operators, and they only have three of ‘em. Well, two after tonight. And the one they just lost was barely a year old. Called ‘The Spirit of America’, it was a common site at Goodyear’s landing facility in Carson. The landing field is right next to the freeway, so you would often see the airship coming or going. And when it was moored at the airfield, it acted as a gargantuan windsock, always pointing into the wind.

It’s not exactly a speedy conveyance–heck, in a stiff headwind a pedestrian on the ground could literally outpace it! But for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved it. The Goodyear blimp is an old friend, a longstanding piece of the Southern California landscape. I encountered quite frequently. Flying overhead during an Angels game. Cruising down the beach in the summer. I even have a few friends who made their livings flying airbags for Goodyear.

A few years ago, I spent what felt like an hour holding short of the runway at John Wayne waiting for the blimp to make a simple touch-and-go. At 30 mph, it takes a while. It was interesting to watch, though. The gondola has a single wheel underneather it, so the blimp doesn’t land as much as it just sort of bounces. Then the pilot hit the gas. Full throttle! And they rocket away at the blistering speed of 20 mph.

They’re so bloody expensive to manufacture and operate. But I hope Goodyear has the financial incentive to repair or replace ‘The Spirit of America’. Los Angeles just wouldn’t be the same without it.

Yesterday I flew my first Angel Flight in quite a while. Angel Flight is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free transportation to people who are too sick or poor to use the airlines.

Angel Flight does a lot of other stuff too. We transported blood after September 11th. We fly human organs. Sometimes we’ll transport a terminal patient’s family or even a pet to be with them at the end. We fly disabled kids to special camps designed for them. And AF was recently tapped by the government to assist in future disaster relief efforts.

Yesterday I flew a very kind Ukranian woman from Sacramento named Ludmilla. She was in San Diego receiving treatment for cancer and my mission was to fly her home. Angel Flights are rewarding, but the days are quite long. Here was the timeline:

10:00 am: Obtain weather briefing, compute weight & balance numbers
10:30 am: Begin the drive to the airport
11:00 am: Arrive at the airport, begin preflight inspection of the plane
11:40 am: Takeoff from Corona
12:10 pm: Arrive at Montgomery Field in San Diego
12:45 pm: Load passenger & bagggage and taxi for departure
01:00 pm: Takeoff for northern California
03:00 pm: Arrive at Fresno/Yosemite Airport
03:30 pm: Deplane passenger & baggage, refuel, forage for food
05:00 pm: Return from lunch, preflight, check weather, and taxi out for takeoff
06:50 pm: Land at Corona, refuel and taxi to the hangar
07:30 pm: Leave the airport by car
08:00 pm: Arrive home

The winds were 15-20 knots out of the north, which meant a full-on headwind the whole way. It was a slow flight northbound. But I took comfort knowing that the return flight would be speedy. And was it ever! I decided to see just how high I could get the plane to go. At 13,500 feet, I was moving over the ground at 155 knots (178 mph) at 52% power. At 15,500 feet I was still climbing at nearly 400 fpm.

The air up there was thin and cold. And since I’d had only a few hours sleep the night before, I elected to decend to a more breathable altitude. I made the return trip in about an hour and forty minutes while watching the setting sun cast puffy shadows over the stratus layer two miles below me.

Angel Flight gets a lot of great press. Recently the Today Show has been running a series entitled “Who We Admire”. Katie Couric chose to do a segment on Angel Flight, and you can view it here.

AFW has a plethora of video clips archived from news channels around the country. I encourage you watch a few of them. If nothing else, check out this clip hosted by Lorenzo Lamas. It’s something Angel Flight put together a few years ago to explain what it’s all about.

I recently came across an excellent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. It’s fifteen months old, but I think it’s just as valid now. Maybe more so, because real estate prices have continued to escalate since that time.

Mr. Baker and I are in violent agreement about quite a few things. His study gives hard numbers to back up what I wrote here and here.

Ah, I love big anniversaries–they always bring out the crackpots and conspiracy theorists. Whether it’s the Kennedy assassination or the Wright Brothers first flight, there’s never a lack of entertaining material to read.

The 100th anniversary of the brothers’ achievement is a week from today and the press has run out of things to talk about. So CNN has picked up and given top placement to a Reuters article entitled “Was the Airplane’s Inventor Brazilian?”. They quote a taxi cab driver and apparent aviation history expert who contributed scintillating gems like:

“It’s one of the biggest frauds in history,” scoffs Wagner Diogo, a taxi driver in Rio de Janeiro, of the Wrights’ inaugural flight. “No one saw it, and they used a catapult to launch” the airplane.

Don’t quit your day job, Mr. Diogo.

The first flight was witnessed by five people. Wilbur Wright, Will Dough, Adam Etheridge, and Johnny Moore were there. And of course John Daniels was present. He’s the one that snapped the world famous photo of that first flight. So unless all five witnesses were lying and they somehow managed to forge a photograph in 1903 that has stood the test of time for a century, you’d have to admit that it did take place and plenty of people saw it.

Brazilians also claim that the Wrights launched their Flyer in 1903 with a catapult or at an incline, thereby disqualifying it from being a true airplane because it did not take off on its own.

The Wrights attempted a flight from a downward sloping hill on December 14, 1903, but the Wilbur stalled the aircraft and it crashed, damaging the canard. The flight on the 17th was from level ground. There was no slope.

And as far as the catapult is concerned, what does that matter? The question at hand is who was the first to achieve sustained, controllable, heavier than air powered flight, not who was the first to fly an airplane that could take off on its own. The Wrights made their first flight from sand dunes! Even today, not many fixed wing aircraft could take off from that sort of terrain.

“If we understand what the criteria were at the end of the 19th century, the Wright brothers simply do not fill any of the prerequisites,” says Lins de Barros.

Prerequisites? The only prerequisite was that it was heaver than air, sustained flight, and was controllable. The 1903 Wright Flyer did all those things.

Articles like this one are unfortunate, because the give credence to pie-in-the-sky nationalists who refuse to believe that an American was first. If you visit France, they’d probably tell you Clement Adler beat the Wrights. If you visit New Zealand, they will claim that Richard W. Pearse flew in March of 1903, nine months before the Wright brothers.

To those people I say: prove it. Show me an airplane, a witness, and a photograph. Show me a prototype. Show me a subsequent aircraft with improvements on the original design. Give me anything but a third-hand account published by a newspaper with an axe to grind.

The Wrights were the only ones to deliver an actual aircraft (which they stored for later proof), multiple witnesses, and a photograph. Not to mention telegrams, design studies, wind tunnel tests, and other paperwork. We also have the Wright gliders (which preceded the first powered flight) and the subsequent powered aircraft which improved upon the initial design.

Even the U.S. court system and Patent Office have passed judgment on this. Glenn Curtis built an airplane in the years after the Wright’s first flight using their technology. The Wrights warned him that if he tried to make money off an airplane using ‘three-axis control’, they’d sue him for violating their patent. He did, and as promised the Wrights sued. It got very bitter and lasted for many years. Wilbur died, and the Wright family blamed the stress from the lawsuit for his demise. Eventually the courts ruled in favor of the Wright brothers. Curtiss appealed and lost.

Curtiss’ next strategy was to try and invalidate the patents by demonstrating that the Wrights were not the first ones to construct an aircraft capable of sustained powered flight. In 1914 he dredged up the 1903 Langley Aerodrome and flew it. Unfortunately, he made about 30 modifications which greatly improved the Aerodrome. Without the mods it wouldn’t have flown.

In the end, the Wrights had a patent on 3 axis powered flight which survived all the legal challenges. So how is it that a company can manufacture aircraft today without paying a royalty to the Wrights? In 1915 World War I broke out and to help the war effort, the U.S. government established a patent pool so everyone could benefit from existing aviation knowledge and built better war machines. By the time it was over, things had shifted enough that the patents were never pursued by either side.

Ironically, Orville Wright sold the Wright Company and the new owners eventually merged it with the Curtiss Company. That’s how it became the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Which still exists to this day, actually.

So to those doubting Thomases around the world, I’ll leave you with a quote from Pulp Fiction: “If my answers frighten you, then cease asking scary questions.” Others flew gliders and balloons before them, but the Wrights were the first to definitively achieve sustained, controllable, powered flight.

Some people just can’t leave well enough alone. In this case, that someone would be me. So I came up with yet another Christmas skin for the site. What do you think?

The image was taken from the Christmas cards I used last year. The aircraft is a Cessna 185 Skywagon. This is what they look like in real life. Basically it’s the same as my Skylane, only with a tailwheel instead of a nosewheel.

I put this together because I wasn’t happy with the other Christmas skin. It’s not merry enough, though it does have a sort of “In the Bleak Midwinter” feel that is appealing in it’s own way.

Canada has banned fruitcake from their airports because it’s so dense that not even the latest x-ray equipment can see through it.

As if anyone needed proof that this “food” was unfit for human consumption, fruitcake now joins lead as the only substances x-ray machines cannot penetrate.

I have a feeling the Society for the Protecton and Preservation of Fruitcake is gonna be on the war path about this one!

Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill today putting a $15 billion bond measure on the March ballot.

I’ll be voting a big fat NO on that proposition. And if you live in California, I strongly encourage you to do the same.

Why? It’s quite simple.

1. I’ve been voting in California elections since 1989, and every single year there are tens of billions in bond issues on the ballot. This state now has:

• $65 billion of general obligation and lease-revenue bond debt
• $17.7 billion in energy bond debt
• $4.6 billion in tobacco bond debt
• $12.5 billion in short-term Revenue Anticipation Notes
• $11 billion in short-term Registered Reimbursement Warrants (RAWs)

That’s a grand total of $110.8 billion. Now they want to add $15 billion more? I don’t think so.

2. California’s bond rating is abysmal. Moody’s downgraded the state to Baa1. That’s three steps above “junk” level. It’s the lowest rating of any state in the union. That means bonds must be offered with higher interest rates. Guess who pays the high interest rates? You do. And if the bond rating ever reaches junk level, you’ll really see a disaster. At “junk” level, institutional investors can no longer buy them and most individual investors won’t want to.

3. State spending has been completely irresponsible. The budget for 2002-2003 is $100 billion. That’s a 44% increase in just four years. According to the Public Policy Institute of California:

California’s budget has grown by 44 percent since FY 1997-98 due largely to increasing income tax revenues (specifically, receipts from stock options and capital gains). Revenues from stock options and capital gains peaked in FY 2000-01 at $17.6 billion and accounted for 25 percent of general fund revenues. The following year, half as much revenue was raised from these sources, with the state receiving an estimated $8.6 billion in revenues. These revenues are not expected to return to peak levels in the foreseeable future.

A pretty good case so far, eh? But I haven’t even touched on the real problem yet. The primary reason spending doesn’t get cut is that all the big ticket items are sacred cows. No one in Sacramento has the cajones to even suggest touching them. On a Federal level the budget buster is social spending–Medicare and Social Security. Here in California, it’s education.

No one will ever entertain the idea of cutting education because it’s so ripe for political exploitation as “selling our kids down the river”. Please. With all due respect, $126 billion in debt is financial slavery. And that’s exactly what the next generation will be saddled with. At a minimum.

Let’s look at education spending. The California Budget Project has a concise Excel spreadsheet that shows 44% of the budget is spent on K-12 education and another 14% goes toward the UC and Cal State systems. That’s a grand total of 58% of the state budget spent on education!

The overall long term trend, both on a total dollar basis, per-student dollar basis, and percentage of the state budget basis, has been toward greater spending on education. So next time some one tells you we don’t spend enough on the schools, tell them that.

But enough with the numbers. I went to a college that turns out a lot of K-12 teachers. I sing with an educational outreach ensemble from the Pacific Chorale in schools all the time. Many of my friends are teachers. And I ask them all the same question: is the problem with public schools rooted in a lack of money?

They all answer the same way: no.

So what is the problem? Everyone tells me the same thing. First, teachers are too restricted in the classroom. Second, students are passed on to higher grades regardless of performance. That only puts them further behind and cements their failure. And finally, lack of parental involvement.

I am not anti-education. I attended California public school through the sixth grade and my grade school teachers were outstanding. There are infrastructure needs and the student population is growing. But education cuts should not be off-limits.

I don’t know what Schwarzenegger is thinking, but all cuts that have been proposed are in the wrong areas. For example, the governor has proposed cutting all new highway construction projects state-wide. Of all the things to cut! California sees 1,300 cars added to its highways every single day. The gridlock on the roads is already hurting the economy. The Santa Cruz Sentinel summarized it best:

The worst-case scenario laid out at Thursday’s commission meeting was that any new project could be delayed until the 2009-2010 budget year.

No new road construction in California for six years? This is the kind of thing that happens when 58% of the state budget is “off the table” when cuts need to be made.

The bottom line is that the state spends way too much and Sacramento is asking you to take out a high interest rate cash advance from a new credit card because the old ones are all maxed out.

Enough is enough. It’s time to say “no”.

I don’t use the word “hate” lightly. But I hate Signature Flight Support. I really do. And I’m not the only one. Look at these comments.

We’re headed to Las Vegas tomorrow. The plane is in great shape, the weather is good, and I want to fly. But we’re going to drive. I simply cannot bring myself to give this bloodsucking “business” my money.

Signature is doing more to destroy general aviation than just about anything or anyone I can think of. They now charge $55 per night just to park the plane. Plus a $35 “handling charge”, though that can be waived by buying 20 gallons of fuel–at $4.00 per gallon! That’s a grand total of $180 (plus tips) just to leave the plane there for 48 hours.

Did I mention that their service stinks? It’s the worst. And when I get back to L.A. I’ll still need another 30 gallons to top off the plane. At $2.20 a gallon, that’s $66.00.

Grand total: $246.00 for a round trip to Vegas vs. $40 in fuel to drive.

Another thing I hate is starting a vacation by getting pissed off. Grrrr.

Lesley and I just returned from Las Vegas. It’s such an interesting place. I’ve experienced Vegas so many different ways. I’ve been a resident there. A student there. A bachelor party attendee there. It’s been an Angel Flight destination for me as a pilot. And so on.

Vegas can be the most fun you’ll ever have. It can also be a truly unpleasant experience. For the occasional visitor, the two biggest factors that affect your enjoyment of Sin City are a) your hotel, and b) the time of week you visit.

In this case, we really did it right. We spent three days and two nights at the Bellagio. Now, the last time I was in Vegas it was for my friend Rich’s bachelor party. We stayed at the Imperial Palace, which is just about as polar opposite to the Bellagio as you can get! On a Sunday, it can take 30 minutes or more before an elevator reaches your floor at the Imperial Palace! I’m not kidding. For a bachelor party it’s fine since you’re never in the room anyway. But if you can stay at the Bellagio, do it.

Trust me.

Our room was freshly renovated. It had high definition flat screen TV, high speed internet access, the best view on the Strip, and the finest amenities. When you picked up the phone, an operator answered “How may I help you, Mr. Rapp?” When we heard some construction noise on our floor, the Bellagio responded by insisting we eat at one of the hotel’s restaurants–on them. Everyone was pleasant and friendly, right down to the valet who parked our car. And when it comes to the aforementioned elevators, the Bellagio has seperate elevators for each block of floors. So you virtually never wait more than 20 seconds for an elevator, if that.

I’ve put up a bunch of photos that tell the story pretty well.

Lesley had never gambled before, so I showed her how to play video poker. She won–as did I at the blackjack table. On Monday we both spent several hours at the Bellagio Spa. And that evening we had drinks at the Baccarat Bar. We ate far too much gelato, had coffee on the edge of the canal at the Venitian, and watched the fountains do their thing.

Every time we stay at the Bellagio I discover some new bit of service they provide. This time I realized the housekeeping stops by the room more than once a day! They do the mid-day stuff you’ll find any any hotel, but they return later to turn down the beds, tidy up, and leave mints on the pillows.

I mentioned “time of the week” as a factor in how enjoyable your Las Vegas visit will be. We arrived on a Sunday and left mid-week, so traffic on I-15 was minimal and the table limits in the casinos were low. The room prices were, too.

If you get on the mailing lists for the top hotels like the Bellagio, Venitian, Paris, etc. you’ll find they have respectable deals from time to time. That’s about the only way we were able to afford an extended stay at the Bellagio. Maybe it’s just because I’m getting older or something, but I’d prefer to spend one day there than a week at a lesser hotel. Despite the high cost, I always come away feeling that it was well worth the price. And I always look forward to returning.

The rumor on the street in Vegas is that the new Steve Wynn hotel is going to outshine even the Bellagio. I find that hard to imagine, but we’ll see. If nothing else, the competition will be healthy. Since Wynn sold the Bellagio and other Mirage Resorts properties to MGM, I’ve been waiting for the high quality of service at the Bellagio to decline. So far, I’m happy to report that it hasn’t happened.

Check this out:

Anthony Rapp is a musician.
Melissa Rapp is a musician.
Mark Rapp is a musician.
Ron Rapp is a musician.

And those are just people with their own Rapp domain names. I also found musicians Barry Rapp, Marcello Rapp, Tom Rapp, Michael Rapp, and Sandy Rapp to name just a few.

Even those Rapps I found on the Web who are not musicians are in some sort of artistic business. Charles Rapp is a talent agent, for example.

Maybe we should have a convention or something.

Time Magazine has chosen the American soldier as the 2003 Person of the Year.

I’ll give that the House of Rapp seal of approval.

I hope they print extra copies of the issue and send ‘em to the boys in Iraq. Sometimes I wonder if those who are deployed know how much support they have from everyone back home. Between email and satellite phones, you’d think there would be no doubt. But you never know how geopolitical news plays on the other side of the world.

Anyway, I bring up the Time article because my nephew Micheal just returned to the States from an extended deployment to Iraq. Don’t be fooled by the “nephew” part–he’s nearly my age. He’s currently a loadmaster on the C-130 for the Air Force and was just promoted.

Here’s a photo of Mike (far right) and fellow crewmen. I believe this was taken at Al Jabar in Kuwait, but don’t quote me on that.

I’m proud of you, Mike! Congratulations, you’re the Man of the Year.

I just love that name. It brings to mind images of the Founding Fathers. Or perhaps Mel Gibson defending his home against the British during the Revolutionary War.

The very title casts doubt upon the patriotism of anyone who would dare question it. Maybe that’s why this thing has been under my skin since the day it was announced. Maybe it was the fact that it was rammed through Congress with virtually no debate. Maybe it was the proximity to September 11th. Who knows.

But as I browsed the web this morning, I read something on a political web site claiming that most people who criticize the Patriot Act have never read it. No scientific evidence of this fact was presented. But it rang true.

And I’m embarrased to admit that I’m one of those people.
(continue reading…)

I do believe Rich is onto something with his article on “elite speak”.

One undesirable side effect of technology’s march has been the proliferation of abysmal spelling and grammar. We all spend a lot of time at a keyboard dealing with email, instant messages, and other forms of the written word. So it’s tempting to nix things like capital letters, punctuation, or coherent sentance structure to save time. Unfortunate, but understandable.

What I don’t get are things like “elite speak”. It’s not humorous or creative. It conveys no sense of intelligence, education, or wit. For lack of a better word, it’s pointless to a fault.

Thankfully, most people’s dalliances toward elite speak are nothing more than laziness. My own pet peeve is “e.e. cummings disease”–all lowercase letters. It’s surely a sign of advancing age that I’m really starting to respect those who craft the English language, not so much for their talent but simply for making the effort.

Perhaps that’s what it’s all about–the effort.

How ironic that the easier it gets to edit what we write, the less we actually do so. Think about it. It has never been simpler to correct a typo or revisit a poorly phrased sentance. No correction fluid, stuck keys, or worn out ribbon. No need to retype an entire page just to insert a paragraph. Computers will check our spelling, examine our grammar and even format a page automatically. Yet more and more we just let it slide.

“Elite speak” and its ilk only strengthen my resolve to avoid reinforcing the lowest common denominator when I write.

Lesley sent me a recent Washington Times editorial by Boeing 737 captain Tracy W. Price detailing yet another TSA fiasco, this time on guns in the cockpit. I can find no reason for the TSA’s behavior except to say that they do not even remotely understand who they’re dealing with–on either side of the cockpit door.

As far as I’m concerned, every airline pilot should carry a loaded gun once they start flying Part 121 (Scheduled Air Carrier) service. And if the TSA had thought this through, they would have to come to the same conclusion.

Pilots don’t reach the cockpit of an airliner quickly or easily. First they have to spend six figures and 3-5 years on training as the progress from student certificate to the coveted ATP certificate. Each certificates or rating involves many hours of flight time, ground instruction, and a three-part exam that combines a written test, practical exam with an FAA examiner, and an oral exam.

Then there are the medical certificates. Airline pilots are required to hold a first class medical certificate, and it only lasts six months before it has to be renewed. The medical examiners have the power to remove you from the cockpit, so it’s not exactly a low-stress affair.
(continue reading…)

Well, I’ve tried to warm up to Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

I’ve waited, watched, and read just about everything posted on his campaign web site and official blog. I’ve tried mightily to reach the conclusion that he’s an exciting new player with fresh perspective ready to fight for the right things.

But I just can’t.

The truth of the matter is that Governor Dean is the polar opposite–an unstable, angry candidate who lacks the consistency, diplomatic skill and relevancy to avoid joining the ranks of Mondale and Dukakis. Barring some completely unforseen turn of events, I just cannot support his candidacy.

In fact, I’m not even sure of its validity anymore. Everything coming from the Dean campaign has been straight outta Compton. One minute he’s accusing his fellow Democrats of being no different than Republicans. The next minute it’s:

He says he belongs to the tradition of “Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the first President Bush.” (Source: Slate.com)

In the beginning, it was forgivable. Governor Dean was new to the national political scene, and it’s a big move–even for a state governor.

Remember his June appearance on “Meet the Press”? He was ill prepared, unable to speak intelligently on the Medicare bill, couldn’t make up his mind on a balanced budged amendment, wasn’t sure if he was for or against the death penalty, didn’t know how many troops we had in the Middle East, and concluded by suggesting that fellow Democrats “needed a backbone transplant”.
(continue reading…)