Friday, October 28, 2016
Heat makes light
The blockbuster announcement by the FBI today that they are re opening the Hillary email case is a result of heat applied to the FBI. Enough heat will make some light.
Old USAF Cliche
"Any landing you can walk away from is a GOOD landing." I never really appreciated this cliche until the time we ground looped in a Gooney bird at Takli Thailand. We passengers were VERY appreciative and we all shook the pilot's hand.
Betcha Mike Pence understands the old cliche now.
Betcha Mike Pence understands the old cliche now.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Rail vs Air travel?
Europe and Japan take great pride in their high speed passenger rail. I've been to both places, ridden the trains, and they are slick. You board the trains in the center of town, no $100 cab ride to the airport, and you get a fine view of the passing countryside, and they drop you off in the center of town, where you can walk or take the subway to your hotel.
Why don't we have trains as nice in America? Simple, the US is too big, train takes too long to get anywhere. When I had business on the west coast, I could board a jet liner at Logan and be in California before lunch. That's 3000 miles at 600 mph. Even a science fiction 300 mph train would take all day. A practical 21st century high speed train (150 mph) would take a day and a night.
The only place in America with cities close enough for train travel to compete with air is the Boston-Washington corridor up the east coast. And, we have Acela, a medium high speed train. Not as fast as the French TGV or the Japanese Hikari superexpress, but fast enough. Acela can do the Boston New York run fast enough beat airline time, you can skip the taxi to the airport and the hour to get thru security. Funny thing, Acela fares are higher than airline fares.
Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown out in California is trying for high speed rail the length of California. It's gonna cost billions. Real passengers will fly anyhow. Good luck California taxpayers.
Why don't we have trains as nice in America? Simple, the US is too big, train takes too long to get anywhere. When I had business on the west coast, I could board a jet liner at Logan and be in California before lunch. That's 3000 miles at 600 mph. Even a science fiction 300 mph train would take all day. A practical 21st century high speed train (150 mph) would take a day and a night.
The only place in America with cities close enough for train travel to compete with air is the Boston-Washington corridor up the east coast. And, we have Acela, a medium high speed train. Not as fast as the French TGV or the Japanese Hikari superexpress, but fast enough. Acela can do the Boston New York run fast enough beat airline time, you can skip the taxi to the airport and the hour to get thru security. Funny thing, Acela fares are higher than airline fares.
Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown out in California is trying for high speed rail the length of California. It's gonna cost billions. Real passengers will fly anyhow. Good luck California taxpayers.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
They voted for this or that awful thing
Hourly now, I have negative TV ads claiming that this candidate or that candidate voted tax breaks for big oil, or supported the "special interests" or some other just plain awful vote.
Never do these ads mention the name or number of this dreadful bill the target is accused to voting for, or the date of the vote, or anything that would allow you to fact check the claim.
And in this age of Democratic footdragging in Congress, that puts off voting funding bills until the last minute and then voting thru a 5000 page "omnibus spending bill" to keep the government running for another three weeks, it's meaningless. The Congressperson can vote for the omnibus and keep the government funded, and lay himself open to all kinds of charges, because an omnibus bill contains all kinds of bad stuff. In 5000 pages they can and do hide funding for damn near anything. Or he/she can vote against it, and get trashed from all quarters for shutting down the government. All the feeders at the federal trough will rise up in righteous anger against anyone who threatens to derail their gravy train.
So I ignore all the "Did you know so-and-so made some dreadful vote" ads.
Never do these ads mention the name or number of this dreadful bill the target is accused to voting for, or the date of the vote, or anything that would allow you to fact check the claim.
And in this age of Democratic footdragging in Congress, that puts off voting funding bills until the last minute and then voting thru a 5000 page "omnibus spending bill" to keep the government running for another three weeks, it's meaningless. The Congressperson can vote for the omnibus and keep the government funded, and lay himself open to all kinds of charges, because an omnibus bill contains all kinds of bad stuff. In 5000 pages they can and do hide funding for damn near anything. Or he/she can vote against it, and get trashed from all quarters for shutting down the government. All the feeders at the federal trough will rise up in righteous anger against anyone who threatens to derail their gravy train.
So I ignore all the "Did you know so-and-so made some dreadful vote" ads.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
New engines for the B-52 fleet?
Aviation Week had a short piece lobbying for a B-52 re engine project. From a technical standpoint, this might make sense, it would certainly give a nicer B-52 with more range, better takeoff power, and lower maintenance. Especially if a modern engine with enough power were selected that would allow the B-52 to fly on four engines instead of the current eight. As an old flight line maintenance officer, I can tell you, that maintaining four engines is a helova lot easier than maintaining eight engines.
But, speaking as a taxpayer, is it worth it ? Engines are the most expensive part of an aircraft. For a new airliner, the engines are a quarter to a third of the overall flyaway cost. The Aviation Week article didn't breathe a word about cost. The B-52's are old, so old that we ought to replace them all, right now, on general principles. Does it make sense to plow serious money into a plane that ought to be retired, and probably will get retired in the foreseeable future? Especially as the engines on the B-52 work, are reliable, and are efficient enough to give the old B-52 better range than any other USAF bomber, either in service or on the drawing boards.
But, speaking as a taxpayer, is it worth it ? Engines are the most expensive part of an aircraft. For a new airliner, the engines are a quarter to a third of the overall flyaway cost. The Aviation Week article didn't breathe a word about cost. The B-52's are old, so old that we ought to replace them all, right now, on general principles. Does it make sense to plow serious money into a plane that ought to be retired, and probably will get retired in the foreseeable future? Especially as the engines on the B-52 work, are reliable, and are efficient enough to give the old B-52 better range than any other USAF bomber, either in service or on the drawing boards.
Shed a tear for the business jet business
Great Depression 2.0 put the kibosh on bizjet sales. Aviation Week shows a graph with a big peak in 07 and 08 followed by a steady decline. Naturally, as an industry spokesmagazine, Aviation Week is all in favor of more bizjet business.
In actual fact, the bizjets are mini airliners, nearly as expensive as a full size single aisle airliner. Expensive to own and expensive to fly. Only the biggest and richest companies have the money to play with them. For the top brass of a big rich company, a company jet is a very nice perk. Tax exempt too. For the shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders, a bizjet is money wasted that could have gone to expansion, new product development, dividends, wages, and plenty of other useful ends. In actual fact, the company brass can jolly well fly commercial, everyone else does. And since Great Depression 2.0 struck, the company stakeholder's views are prevailing over the views of top management.
In the real world, jet aircraft are so expensive that only air carriers who will fly them everyday can make economic sense for ownership. No corporate flight operation is going to fly a bizjet as hard as a real aircarrier will. If for some obscure reason the company bigwigs cannot fly commercial they could charter a bizjet for a lot less than it costs to own one.
And Aviation Week goes on at length about new and advanced bizjet models that might revive the market.
In actual fact, the bizjets are mini airliners, nearly as expensive as a full size single aisle airliner. Expensive to own and expensive to fly. Only the biggest and richest companies have the money to play with them. For the top brass of a big rich company, a company jet is a very nice perk. Tax exempt too. For the shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders, a bizjet is money wasted that could have gone to expansion, new product development, dividends, wages, and plenty of other useful ends. In actual fact, the company brass can jolly well fly commercial, everyone else does. And since Great Depression 2.0 struck, the company stakeholder's views are prevailing over the views of top management.
In the real world, jet aircraft are so expensive that only air carriers who will fly them everyday can make economic sense for ownership. No corporate flight operation is going to fly a bizjet as hard as a real aircarrier will. If for some obscure reason the company bigwigs cannot fly commercial they could charter a bizjet for a lot less than it costs to own one.
And Aviation Week goes on at length about new and advanced bizjet models that might revive the market.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Voting machines
The first all mechanical voting machines were introduced in the 1930's. At that time it was thought that the machines would reduce scams like ballot box stuffing. And the machines counted up the votes and displayed the sums on the back of the machine, so vote tallies were available as soon as the polls closed, and the poll workers didn't have to know how to add, subtract or count. Lotta places bought them, and they lasted for decades. I never heard of anyone trying to hack one. Tools were needed just to get the covers off, and under the covers the maze of little whirring moving parts defied all but the most skilled and trained mechanics.
After decades of service, the mechanical machines started to wear out, and the manufacturers had gone the way of the buggy whip makers. As cities and towns looked around for replacements, because after voting on machines, going back to paper ballots seemed primative, and a horde of eager beaver vendors (Diebold!) were offering electronic voting machines. These gadgets are basically low end desktop computers. A program displays the candidates names to voters and records the touches they use to vote. Groovy. But these voting machines have all the weaknesses of Windows computers. Anyone with access to the machines, before or after the election, can change the programming to help his party. And this scam is undetectable. They is no paper trail. The machine's program is unreadable. With the old fashioned paper ballot, the ballots were saved, and could be recounted in case of challenge.
We ought to go back to paper ballots. Up here in NH, we still use them. Works fine. If counting all the ballots in a big city is too much work, buy ballot reading machines. They work like the test scoring machines used in school and if the machine score is challenged, the paper ballots are still available to be hand counted.
After decades of service, the mechanical machines started to wear out, and the manufacturers had gone the way of the buggy whip makers. As cities and towns looked around for replacements, because after voting on machines, going back to paper ballots seemed primative, and a horde of eager beaver vendors (Diebold!) were offering electronic voting machines. These gadgets are basically low end desktop computers. A program displays the candidates names to voters and records the touches they use to vote. Groovy. But these voting machines have all the weaknesses of Windows computers. Anyone with access to the machines, before or after the election, can change the programming to help his party. And this scam is undetectable. They is no paper trail. The machine's program is unreadable. With the old fashioned paper ballot, the ballots were saved, and could be recounted in case of challenge.
We ought to go back to paper ballots. Up here in NH, we still use them. Works fine. If counting all the ballots in a big city is too much work, buy ballot reading machines. They work like the test scoring machines used in school and if the machine score is challenged, the paper ballots are still available to be hand counted.
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