Running for US Senate in the Northwoods

.  Jeanne Shaheen had a prominent piece on the Littleton Courier's editorial page last week complaining that Scott Brown won't sign an agreement to limit out-of-state political contributions. Which is interesting inside baseball, but it doesn't really matter to me.  I care about what the candidate, if elected, might do for me, rather than where his/her campaign money comes from.  With Scott Brown, I figure I'm getting a reasonably dependable vote against Obamacare.  With Jeanne Shaheen, I know she cast the vote that gave us Obamacare.  This is the stuff that matters, what the candidate[s] did, or might do, in office.  Whether the candidate raises out-of-state money or not just doesn't matter.  At least not to me. 

   And let's be real, Scott Brown undoubtedly has a whole bunch of Massachusetts friends who just might chip in a little money to his campaign up here.  I don't see anything wrong with that.  After all, I sent Scott a modest campaign contribution back when he was running for Senate from Massachusetts.      

Fantasy Model Railroading

Model railroad hobbyists used to be sticklers for prototype accuracy.  The models had to match the prototype exactly, and long discussions would ensue among hobbyists regarding such matters as the proper style of headlamp on this or that type of steam engine, or the proper shade of paint  for certain rail cars. But, hobbyists would be more fanatical fans of certain railroads,  more fanatical than baseball fans. 
   And so, we now have model companies offering models of up to the minute locomotives painted for railroads that went out of business generations ago.  Truly fantasy modeling. 
   My latest copy of Model Railroader contains an ad for ultra modern GM and GE diesel locomotives painted in the tuscan-with-five-gold stripes scheme of the Pennsylvania RR and the green and cream scheme of the Erie RR.  Both the Pennsy and the Erie went out of business in the 1960's.  The locomotive models didn't go into production until the 1990s.  Talk about anachronisms.  Oh well, its a hobby.

Retraining airline pilots

Fundamental duty of a pilot is to keep the plane in the air.  "Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down" the truckers say.   When an aircraft slows down, the air flowing over the wings slows down, reducing the lift.  To keep the plane in the air, you pitch the nose up, tilting the wings up (increasing the angle of attack) which makes the wings take a bigger bite of the air.  This can go on for quite some time, but sooner or later, the wing stalls, airflow becomes turbulent, lift vanishes, and the plane falls out of the sky.  This is a stall.  They have been known since Wilbur and Orville's time, and they are very dangerous.  If the plane keeps falling, it will hit the ground.
   In 2009 there were three bad fatal airline accidents, all caused when the aircraft stalled, the pilot was unable to recover, and the plane hit the ground.  In all three cases, the pilot's failed to fly out of the stall.  You fly out by pushing the stick forward, lowering the nose, trading off some altitude for speed.  The extra speed gives you more lift,  the reduced angle of attack reduces drag, which makes you go faster.  The worst case was the Air France crash in the South Atlantic.  With three pilots on the flight deck, they had the stick pulled full back right up until the plane hit the water.  Not one of the three pilots attempted to push the stick forward, get the nose down, and get some airspeed. 
   Investigation found that stall recovery pilot training emphasized adding power and not losing any altitude, rather than putting the nose down to gain speed.  Trouble with the add power strategy is simple, the engines probably don't have enough power to increase airspeed much.  By the time the aircraft is close to stalling, it already has pitched up quite a bit, increasing the angle of attack, which increases drag as well as lift.  The engines of airliners don't have the kind of power you find in fighter planes, they lack the power to accelerate the plane at high angles of attack.  In USAF we called this "Getting behind the power curve". 
   Anyhow, the industry is revamping pilot training, telling the pilots to push the stick forward, get some airspeed, and accept a loss of altitude. 

Its snowing up here, again

Spring must have been traveling on Malaysia 370.  It hasn't got here yet.

Why Obama's executive orders can overrule acts of Congress

Well, it's 'cause most of 'em are delaying bits of Obamacare that nobody likes.  I think people would raise a bigger stink should Obama overrule something everyone likes, say the first amendment, or the second for that matter.  
  At least I hope so.  It's frightening to see so much personal rule by decree from an American president.

Atlas V booster flies on Russian engines

Atlas V, one of America's three big booster rockets,  is powered by RD-180 rocket engines supplied by NPO Energomash in Russia.  Aviation Week ran a piece speculating upon the effects of a Russian embargo upon these engines.  Due to worries about the reliability of Russian suppliers, USAF maintains a two year stockpile of the engines.  That's gotta be expensive, although Aviation Week didn't comment upon the expense.  Anyhow  Atlas V could keep flying until the stockpile is exhausted.  And  launches could continue using the Delta IV rocket, which is powered by US built RS-68 engines.  Both Atlas and Delta are built and operated by United Launch Alliance, a spinoff/merger of the booster operations of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.  Pentagon sources say it would cost $1 billion and take five years to set up production of the Russian RD-180 in the US.  Which is prohibitively costly.  They would scrap Atlas V before spending that sort of money. 
   Elon Musk of SpaceX says that his Falcon 9 booster could handle all the launches.  Falcon has made several successful flights to the International Space Station carrying supplies.  USAF is "certifying" Falcon to launch national security payloads.  Certification could happen anytime USAF feels like it.  It's just a paperwork exercise. 
   All three boosters, Atlas, Delta and Falcon are in the same class.  They can all boost the same payloads, give or take maybe 10%.  So loss of Atlas isn't the end of the world. 
   The Russian have made no threats to cut off RD-180 engines.  Presumably they are making good money selling them to the Americans, and they don't want to ruin it.  I doubt that the Russians want to let a little unpleasantness over the Crimea mess up a good thing. 

Group of 8 now back to Group of 7

The world's rich country club, originally the US,France,Germany, Italy, Japan, and Canada, just black balled its newest member, Russia, over the Ukraine invasion. 
So it is back to being the G7.  There is  room for more members.  Brazil and India come to mind.  Brazil's GNP is actually larger than Russia's.  India's is right behind Russia, and ahead of Canada's.  Both countries are democracies, and believers in the things we care about, like freedom, capitalism, free markets, human rights, self determination, and not invading other countries.  And they are friendly to us.
   The other potential member, based on GNP size is of course China.  Unfortunately, the Chinese do not believe in the things we deem important, and in fact are actively hostile to them.  And they are not very friendly, to us, or to anyone else for that matter.  So,  we don't have to invite them in.