Year: 2010

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!

Iceland’s ash casts an enigmatic spell over Japan

It seems that there has been nothing else on the news following the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajokull
in Iceland, which was of particular interest to me because on the 10th April I was flying from New York across the southern area of Iceland on my way to Rome, since which time I have passed through the UAE and Singapore on my way to Japan.

My work replacement was due to arrive on the 18th April after a holiday in the Mediterranean, but the flight which he was on was diverted into Paris because UK airspace was suddenly closed. He managed to continue his journey by train, ferry, car, taxi and bus but was then stuck in England. My duty had to continue but there seemed little point in propping up a hotel bar with other crews, so I decided to turn the situation into something positive.

After an exploratory trip into Tokyo, it was Paul, our Editor in Chief who put me in contact with his sister and her husband in the city, and another friend who suggested I should jump on a train and go to Hiroshima to see his son, who I know, so my travels started.

The transport system in Japan is extremely well organised with instructions and information well displayed in English along side Japanese. Everything is clean and modern, and runs to the second! At short notice I decided to make the journey to Hiroshima in this once in a life time opportunity, and there was the famous bullet train a monster of modern technology, which runs on banked rails at steady speeds of 400 kph.

We sped along through ever changing countryside. Initially the skyline was of mainly high rise buildings which changed to two story properties once we were out of town. The new leaves of spring and the famous blossom of the plum and cherry trees, and the quick glimpse of a Japanese water garden. Industry is mixed with small allotments, and tiny houses, roads and rail lines raised from ground level to make everything fit, and above that cables and wires, because of the threat of earthquakes, and past the stunning Mount Fuji, white with snow against a blue sky.

I never met such polite people, and on the train the guards and girls who pass through the carriage with drinks and food bow when they enter and leave. They are so well dressed and smart. No graffiti here!

Familiar Japanese trading names on local buildings, and strangely a huge Union Jack flag. I wonder how there can be so many buildings and parking areas full of cars ,but seemingly no people in view, but many large span bridges arching across hill sides to join places together.

Through Kyoto where there seemed to be a lot of energy being used, for purposes that were not immediately clear. College students in smart suits with white shirts and blue ties, passed quietly through the train. I noticed each time they had left the train at a station they took their rubbish with them, and put the seat back in the upright position!

At last after four hours we arrived at Hiroshima, which today it is a lovely modern city of which to be proud. There is just one damaged building standing in a stark fashion at the waters edge which is all that it takes to remind us of such devastation and the Garden of Peace, there to allow some quiet reflection.

I took a 45 minute boat ride to Mijajima, now a World Heritage site. This beautiful island is probably 15 miles from Hiroshima, and there amongst the beauty of the trees and a 500 year old shrine wander the deer, quite happy to sit as people pass by.

My thought as I came away from Hiroshima was that all leaders of any country with any connection to Nuclear weapons or power should be made to attend the A-Bomb Dome and reflect. As all the plaques say this must never be allowed to happen again.

By Bob Derham

Skydiving stunt or utter madness?

From the Daily Mail (UK Newspaper) online

A skydiver has pulled off an astonishing stunt by climbing out of a glider’s cockpit, crawling along the wing and then somersaulting underneath and stepping onto the wing of a second glider flying below.

Paul Steiner then moves back onto the main fuselage of the second glider while the first glider turns upside down and flies overhead so that he can reach up and hold the tail fin at 100mph, forming a human link between the two aircraft. He then leaps off and parachutes back to the ground.

The spectacular stunt, captured on YouTube, was carried out by the Red Bull skydive team 2,100 metres above the mountains in Styria, Austria. And they look mightily relieved as they returned to their airfield.

More incredible pictures here.

By Paul Handover

More on the SR-71, Part 2

The second part of the guest post by Captain Dave Jones. Ed.

Part One was yesterday which I introduced as follows:

The SR-71, a truly great aircraft

John’s couple of articles about the SR-71 here and here reminded me of the time that I was given an article by my instructor at Mojave. He was a military test pilot and ended up with NASA and he was one of a select few to fly the Blackbird as a civilian….a great chap to talk to… I continue with Part 2

     The SR-71 was an expensive aircraft to operate. The most significant
cost was tanker support, and in 1990, confronted with budget cutbacks, the
Air Force retired the SR-71. The Blackbird had outrun nearly 4,000 missiles,
not once taking a scratch from enemy fire. On her final flight, the
Blackbird, destined for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, sped
from Los Angeles to Washington in 64 minutes, averaging 2,145 mph and
setting four speed records. 

        The SR-71 served six presidents, protecting America for a quarter of
a century. Unbeknownst to most of the country, the plane flew over North
Vietnam, Red China, North Korea, the Middle East, South Africa, Cuba,
Nicaragua, Iran, Libya, and the Falkland Islands. On a weekly basis, the
SR-71 kept watch over every Soviet nuclear submarine and mobile missile
site, and all of their troop movements. It was a key factor in winning the
Cold War. 

 Read the final part of this great story

Greek Farce – Act IV, Scene III

P’sst! Got a dime?

This bloke needs a reality check. If he is not going to ask for the dosh “formally” how IS he going to ask for it? Over a pint

Greece Economic Woes — George Papandreou

at the pub?

And what exactly are “preparatory moves”? A long sidle up to the Treasurer standing at the bar? And how do you “prepare” to ask for 30 billion euros? Either you ask for it or you don’t? Oder?

Perhaps something is lost in translation ……

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has said his country is making “preparatory moves” to take advantage of a multi-billion euro rescue package.

He added, however, that Greece would not necessarily make a formal request for help.

STOP PRESS: Alex Brummer of “The Daily Mail” makes a very serious charge here in relation to Goldman Sachs and Greece’s financial status before entering the euro.

STOP PRESS TWO: The BBC are reporting that Greece has formally asked for the dosh!

By Chris Snuggs

More on the SR-71, Part 1

This is a guest post from Captain Dave Jones. Dave and I go back many years to the time when I was studying for my Instrument Rating, a flying rating that allows one to fly in the same airspace as commercial aircraft. He is what I call a Total Aviation Person! Dave read the posts from John Lewis about the SR-71 and mentioned that he had once had a instructor at Mojave Airport, California who had been a civilian SR-71 pilot. Ed.

The SR-71, a truly great aircraft

This is his article [broken into two posts because of its length. Ed.] with an intro from my instructor.

Awesome story about a truly great aircraft. I only let it go as high as Mach 3.27 once (the design speed was 3.2) but it could do all that is in this story, Cheers, Rogers

In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin
disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist
camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the
damage our F-111s had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a "line of death,"
a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra, swearing to shoot down any
intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed
past the line at 2,125 mph. 

        I was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's fastest jet,
accompanied by Maj. Walter Watson, the aircraft's reconnaissance systems
officer (RSO). We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn
over the bleak desert landscape when Walter informed me that he was
receiving missile launch signals. I quickly increased our speed, calculating
the time it would take for the weapons-most likely SA-2 and SA-4
surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5 - to reach our altitude. I
estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and
stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane's performance. 

 Read more about this amazing story

Greek Farce: Act III, Scene I

Greeks taking farce to new heights

Well, Ancient Greeks used to have tragedies; modern ones are better at farce, and so the “Shall we bung Greece billions of taxpayers’ money or not” farce rumbles on ….

It seems that the rising cost of borrowing for Greeks plus various warnings from people like George Soros about the possible collapse of the euro have pushed the EU (and in particular Germany) down a path they would have preferred not to go.

A vast loan at 5% has been offered, which is substantially below what the Greeks were having to pay before. So, crisis over? They can sleep well in Brussels again?

Errrmmmm …… hands up those who think Greece will ever be able to repay this money? Oh, at the time of writing (Monday 12th April) they haven’t yet ASKED for the money …. it really IS a farce rather than a tragedy, isn’t it?

Is there anyone on the planet who thinks they WON’T have to take the money? That they can get out of this mess WITHOUT it? No, nobody, except perhaps (as I speak) the Greek government itself. Well, they got the country into this humungous shambles in the first place so you’d hardly expect them to know what to do about getting out of it. This of course is in sharp contrast to the British government, which claims it is the ONLY party that can get out of the mess it itself created.

The reaction of German and British taxpayers to the bailing out of Greece (even though technically speaking it hasn’t yet occurred) is not yet clear ……. Neither is that of the other group of PIGS (Portugal, Italy and Spain). Incidentally, I am not sure how close the UK is to becoming a member of this rather grisly club, but as the country is still borrowing vast amounts at every tick of the clock it can’t be far off qualifying for full membership.

I did see a calculation this morning that the British taxpayer (I refuse to say government; all they do is pass on OUR money) will have to cough up around £600 million to help save Greece.

Of course, in return the Greeks will immediately start working as long and hard as we do, collecting taxes as efficiently as we do and avoiding corruption as well as we do. Yes, I am reporting from cloud-cuckoo land.

Well, we seem to be around Act III, Scene I in this farce, so there is plenty more entertainment yet to come, no doubt some of it tragic.

Today’s quiz question: What have lazy, corrupt, inefficient little countries in common with large, obscenely-rich banks? Answer -> They can’t be allowed to fail and some poor, hard-working mutt somewhere is going to have to bail them out, not that he’ll have any choice in the matter, this all being decided by the Great and Good (and Rich) in some posh office somewhere far away.

What you once couldn’t have made up now seems an almost daily occurrence.

By Chris Snuggs

No, No, No – STOP IT!!!

A suit was filed last week in the US against Goldman Sachs by the US government’s financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

GS is an example of all that is morally and practically wrong with capitalism. This is an obscenely-rich company whose ludicrously-rewarded executives do not actually do anything that I would describe as “work”. Their activities do not in

my estimation benefit the world in any meaningful way. They are parasites which feed off the backs of real workers (nurses, police, teachers, firemen, bridge-builders, electricians and so on) and – as in the recent shambles – end up practically killing the host.

There is a good case for forcibly putting them out of business and completely reorganising financial services, with the accent on SERVICES. A functioning society needs investment and jobs. Banks should be there to look after money and provide investment to companies, not shuffle around paper to make themselves obscenely-rich.

GS and others apparently have some sort of electronic system that operates automatically and instantaneously to market movements, allowing them to make vast sums by doing no work. NO WONDER bright graduates seek to join such leech-like firms instead of becoming teachers, researchers or otherwise seeking to do something useful for society apart from themselves.

If they are guilty, I hope we see the company broken up and put out of business. The criminal deception is no different from that at Enron, where people pretending (with already vast salaries) to serve the public were conniving to do criminal damage to put up the cost of their product. They were given a severe penalty, and it should be the same for any white-collar worker if found guilty. I don’t have much hope for the eventual down-to-earth-sizing of GS (they are well-connected and can afford good lawyers …), but I am not the only person angry about all this greed. Get past the cosy confines of Wall Street bars into the real America and there are plenty more who feel the same way.

By Chris Snuggs

Man proposes, nature disposes.

A salutary reminder of the power of nature

This is being written at 15:00 UTC on Tuesday, 20th April. It’s still anyone’s guess as to when the airspace that commercial aircraft fly in will be free from volcanic fallout.

Based in Arizona but planning to fly to the UK in about three weeks, it’s also very frustrating finding really good, accurate information to help one think through plans and back-up plans.

But here’s a web site for UK glider (sailplane) pilots that goes a very long way to providing really solid information. Check it out. (And, once again, thanks to Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism for finding the site.)

Well done GlideMet.

By Paul Handover (ex British Gliding Association pilot/instructor.)

This Month’s PAFF Award

Bob Dylan a serious threat to ….. only China knows!

Congratulations China. You win this month’s Paranoid Fascist Fatuosity award by refusing to allow an ageing Bob Dylan to perform in Beijing and Shanghai.

It seems you are concerned that he might inspire people, and no doubt mostly your youth, to revolt. And (apart from political freedom of course) revolution is the last thing on your mind, even though a revolution spawned you 60 years ago.

So Dylan will live on for Asians only on CD, but thank goodness for that! Michael Jackson may have been the self-styled “King of Rock”, but Dylan was astonishingly and iconically original and unique.

I say “was” of course not out of disrespect to today’s version, but with those amazing years of the 60s in mind when protest was in our very soul and played its part in the revolutions of 1968 and later the big one, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the USSR.

On second thoughts, perhaps the Chinese Communist Party is not so paranoid after all. As my psychiatrist once said to me: “No Mr Snuggs, you’re not paranoid; they really are out to get you.”

Still, what a pity. What a sad reflection on the so far failure of “globalisation” to penetrate far into CPP mindset. Where is the Chinese “Glasnost”? Where lurks the Chinese Gorbachev?

Just in case you’d forgotten, here are some of the words that apparently strike such fear into the Forbidden City. Just as in the British civil service, “change” is not something welcomed with open arms:

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,
And don’t criticise what you can’t understand.
Your sons and daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapidly aging.
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand,
For the times, they are a-changing.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast.
The slow one now will later be fast,
As the present now will later be past.
The order is rapidly fading,
And the first one now will later be last,
For the times, they are a-changing.

PS Most “serious” western newspapers did in fact report that the tour was cancelled because permission was refused by the authorities. However, just because the CPP is fascist – and of course all fascists maintain strong censorship – it doesn’t necessarily mean they are ALWAYS guilty. “The truth” is sometimes an elusive quantity. Well, re the Dylan tour, here is an alternative version of what happened …. perhaps the last page has not been told.

By Chris Snuggs

Amazing accuracy

Better navigational accuracy in the air may be approaching its limits.

For passengers travelling with scheduled airlines, times have changed, sadly, and no longer can you visit the flight deck, and see from there the views that pilots get.

It was not so long ago, that aircraft navigation was carried out using beacons on the ground, either on VHF, or Medium wavebands.

For longer trips with no ground aids a Navigator would plot your route using Astro (sun or the stars) navigation, until companies like Decca produced other radio systems to give you a position, but these from my memory had their problems.

Today in the modern aircraft we have Inertial Navigation Systems using laser gyros together with radio VHF back up, taking cross cuts from beacons, coupled with Distance measuring equipment to pinpoint your position, and now the magic Global Positioning System (GPS) with it`s startling accuracy.

Often with only 1000 feet between, you can see aircraft either above, or below you, often on the same track. This picture of an Emirates airline Airbus A380 was taken northbound over Turkey. The trails left behind are ice crystals which are left by the water vapour that passes through the engine, and freezes immediately at temperatures of some minus 60 degrees C.

The vortex from the wings causes the rotating trail from each engine to be disturbed, and if you pass through such disturbed air following the wake of another aircraft you often get a bump as your aircraft will be travelling at 500 MPH, some 7 miles per minute, a closing speed of 1000MPH if heading towards each other.

As the accuracy is so good these days, airlines have taken to introducing an offset of one or two miles to the left or right of track, just in case there is an error of timing, or in severe turbulence an aircraft could lose or gain the amount of separation which is between machines.

I think we get the best seats in the house!

By Bob Derham

[Bob is a Captain on a privately operated Airbus A319. Ed.]

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