Category: Aviation

This poker craze is really getting out of control. Oh, it starts innocently enough. A casual viewing of a few World Poker Tour episodes. Maybe a game or two with some friends. Perhaps you even win a couple of bucks. The next thing you know, you’re in a garage somewhere in Orange helping stretch felt over the frame of a… Read more →

Every pilot learns to perform short-field landings. Indeed, we take pride in demonstrating the skill with which we extract maximum performance from our aircraft. But a ‘narrow field’ landing? Who ever heard of that? And in a Boeing 747? There’s something you don’t see every day. Yet that was the task facing the flight crew of this South African Airways… Read more →

What’s this? A bit of good news on the California education scene? I hardly know what to do with myself. By pumping money into a few select departments and aggressively recruiting top researchers, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine have hauled in more Nobels in recent years than UC Berkeley and UCLA, the system’s traditional centers of scholarship. University leaders… Read more →

Glenn Reynolds has a good article on the legislative shenanigans in Congress on commercial development of space flight. Glenn pointed out correctly in an email to me that the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation has been behaving itself thus far. But even so, I cannot help but feel that if history is any indication, the FAA will soon be… Read more →

I was out at Hemet-Ryan Airport today continuing toward my commercial glider rating. Man, I love going out there. For one thing, it gives me an excuse to fly. Not that an excuse is required, but it’s nice to use the aviation system for personal transportation. I’ve made the trip out to Hemet by car before, and it’s no fun.… Read more →

The Rutan team (aka Mojave Aerospace Ventures, Scaled Composites, TierOne, or SpaceShipOne ) claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize victory today with a second flight outside the earth’s atmosphere. But forget the money. You know you’ve really made it big when Google puts you on their search engine banner. Not only did SS1 claim the prize, but also set… Read more →

When a few colored lines on a weather chart from a location two thousand miles away freaks you out, it’s a sure bet that something nasty is happening. Is this graph off the chart (no pun intended) or what? Notice how the atmospheric pressure drops like a rock as the wind speed picks up. Makes me wonder if Daniel Bernoulli… Read more →

So I’m preparing for an intensive two week CFI (flight instructor) training program in Las Vegas this December. Ooooh, Las Vegas! you’re thinking. Time for some gambling, a bit of sun out by the pool, maybe catch a show. Not quite. It’s more like fourteen straight days of round-the-clock flight training, three checkrides with the FAA, then high-tail it back… Read more →

I’m clearing a few old items off the shelves now that Tweety’s gone. Anyone need a service manual for the 69-76 Skylane series? I’m asking $35 plus $6.50 for shipping. I looked up what I paid Cessna for it in 2001, and it shocked me. It was $104.37 — quite a bit for a bundle of paper, eh? Welcome to… Read more →