Tankers for USAF Part III

It's official. Airbus has pulled out. Was in the Wall St Journal the other day.
The urge to jazz up the aircraft is still running strong in the heart of Boeing. They plan to warp the newer 787 instrument panel into the older 767 they are proposing.
Cost enhancement is hard at work.

Franconia Town Meeting

We still do it the old fashioned way in Franconia. None of this new fangled SB-2 stuff for us. After the overflow crowd at town hall last year, town meeting moved to the larger Lafayette school gym. Turnout was decent, better than 150 people. The standard town warrent articles, budget, purchase of new vehicles, library appropriation, and such all passed on voice vote with little discussion. The first controversial article was a proposal to relocate the town police department from the big tin building they currently share with the fire department and the life squad into the cellar of the town hall. The town's infrastructure committee recommended this plan. A citizen asked the police chief to comment on the plan. Turns out the chief was against it for a number of good reasons, and then the cost was $480,000 and that plan got tabled.
Then the greenies got a tax break for "alternate energy" (wind, solar, and wood heat). That was a close vote.
Then we got to really controversial, a resolution approving the naming of rt 18 up three mile hill after police corporal Bruce McKay who was murdered in the line of duty right in the center of town a few years ago. A secret ballot was adopted after a show of hand vote defeated a motion to table the matter. Surprisingly, after voting to keep the issue before the meeting, the town voted down the proposal 92 to 70.
Then a plan to have the town cough up $40K to fix the clock tower on the Dow Academy building was tabled after a good deal of discussion. The clock town is nice and scenic and all that, but it isn't town property.
The last controversial article was a resolution to support a state wide referendum on gay marriage. It was voted down. After that vote a large number of people got up and left. Things wrapped up at 11 PM, a couple of hours later than last year's town meeting which approved the massive water project.

Poor Groveton

I spent yesterday poll watching in Groveton NH. It's a smallish town about 30 miles north of Littleton. The reason for Groveton's existence was the big Groveton paper mill. Well, the mill closed recently and it's been a disaster for Groveton. The mill used to provide 700 jobs, just everyone in town used to work at the mill. It used to pay serious taxes and a serious water bill. No longer.
The Groveton natives at the polls talked of little else than economic disaster, closing of local businesses, sky rocketing taxes, declining school enrollment. It's too bad, Groveton has wonderful scenery and everyone in town seemed to know everyone else.

Do potatoes possess a biological clock?

If not, how come they know to sprout in the spring? Sitting in the bottom of my veggie drawer, hob nobbing with the onions, kept at room temperature, in the dark, no contact with the soil, my super market potatoes know it's spring and sprout furiously.
If yes, how does it work? I mean these are potatoes. I can slice 'em and dice 'em and never does the knife disclose anything other than potato.

I am not "addicted" to oil.

And it irritates me every time NHPR accuses me of "addiction". I just buy enough gasoline to drive to work, and enough furnace oil to keep the pipes from freezing. This is not "addiction", its frugal purchasing of essential fuel. Trading my $9K used Detroit car for a $35K Prius is beyond my means. Plus the Detroit iron gets 27 mpg highway. My house is heavily insulated, I keep the heat way down, I have a lot of solar gain from south facing Anderson windows. There ain't much more fuel economy to be squeezed out of either the car or the house.
I'm tired of having my modest fuel use described as "addiction". Let's explore for more oil and gas so my children won't have to freeze in the dark.

Tankers for USAF Part II

Pentagon paper shufflers are about to release the new Request for Proposal (RFP in mil jargon) on a replacement tanker. USAF is currently still flying the KC135's bought in the Eisenhower administration. Good planes and all, but they have been flying for 50 years and its time to buy new ones.
USAF would like to get a bid from Boeing and a competing bid from Airbus. They figure two bidders will get the government a better price than a sole source buy. Plus the Air Force doesn't like Boeing much, and would be happy to give the job to Airbus. They tried just that two years ago but Boeing had good lawyers and got the contract award overturned.
Technically the job is straight forward. Buy 179 jet airliners, take out the seats and install tanks. This is not rocket science.
For some reason, Airbus is balking. They say it will cost them $100 million to do the bidding paperwork and the RFP is slanted toward Boeing. Presumable Airbus figures they won't win this time, and in that case, why go to all the trouble?
One thing is clear, the Air Force thinks its doing a design and development of a brand new aircraft. They have a list of 372 requirements that the design must meet, 93 more optional requirements, and a fancy computer program (Ifara) that will "evaluate" performance on a variety of missions. This attitude is a guaranteed cost enhancer.
An air liner is an airliner. Airbus and Boeing will propose existing airliners. Either plane would work just fine, both of them have been flying paying passengers for years. Both planes performance (speed, take off weight, range, engine power, instrumentation) is well known and well documented. Both aircraft compete successfully in the international air liner market, which means one is about as good as the other.
The Air Force should procure the standard run-of-the-production-line aircraft. They should not ask for modifications of any kind. These planes don't need modifications, they work fine just as they are. Modifications are expensive, and the expense lasts the live of the aircraft. Standard aircraft can use standard spare parts, widely available and in stock to support the civilian fleet. Modified aircraft need special spare parts which are not stocked commercially. Uncle Sam will have to buy, store, and maintain these special spare parts at taxpayer expense.

Z1485 Kodak Easyshare Digital Camera gotcha

If you take pictures with the memory card removed, be sure to copy the pix off the camera into your computer BEFORE reinserting the memory card. Any pix taken while the memory card is out are stored in the camera's limited internal RAM. Re inserting the memory card wipes the RAM and the pictures go the the great bit bucket in the sky.
How do I know this? I pulled the memory card out of the camera and stuck it into the computer to copy new pictures off the camera. I had an attack of the stupids and forgot to put the memory card back into the camera. Took the camera in my pocket and snapped a few pictures.
Being of a suspicious turn of mind, I copied the pix off the camera using the USB cable first. Then I put the memory card back in the camera. Sure enough, the new pix disappeared from the camera.
I don't believe the manual talks about this gotcha.