Author: Paul Handover

Fate is the Hunter, part one

A theme about flying, pilots and fate.

Many, many pilots whether civil or military or private, have read the book by Ernest K. Gann entitled Fate is the Hunter.  Ernest Gann was born a little under a hundred years ago, on October 13th 1910 and died, aged 81, in 1991.  HeGann is known, in the main, as an aviation writer and airline pilot pioneer but achieved much more besides.

Fate is the Hunter is a book about the workings of fate. And this Post is more than a reminder of Ernest Gann’s book and the message it carries, it is also about fate, as Part Two published tomorrow reveals.

Fate or serendipity has happened along to cause a number of recent Posts to be about flying.  We had the Post about low-level RAF flight training in North Wales – Mach Loop.  Then we had three Posts about air carrier operations prompted by the PBS Series, the first one being published on the 2nd October.  Today, circumstance brought me to the Blog  of another naval aviator, published by Neptunus Lex.  More about him and links to the Blog later.

I want to set the scene by using the words of Ernest K Gann as he starts the preface to his book.

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Defence forces and integrity

A personal reflection on the emotions stirred by the PBS series on the USS Nimitz

The last three days have seen Posts on the USS Nimitz.  On the 2nd there was the first part of air carrier operations specifically looking at the challenges of a pitching deck.  On the 3rd came the second part as the pilots and crew operated into night, still with the deck of the USS Nimitz pitching significantly. Yesterday, the Post carried links to background information including the excellent web site that PBS have on the USS Nimitz series.

So why raise the question of integrity?

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Carrier landings: “A perishable skill!” Notes

Background information behind the YouTube Background videos shown on Learning from Dogs

Many will have found the  video extracts about carrier operations on USS Nimitz thrilling, fascinating and superb watching.  The first was shown two days ago and the second yesterday.  In fact they come from an brilliantly executed

USS Nimitz
USS Nimitz

10-hour series from PBS in the US called Carrier.  The film has an associated web site including the ability to watch all ten episodes in full. [NB – it has been discovered that the PBS videos may not be available in all countries due to licensing issues.]

The USS Nimitz was launched in 1972 and has an overall length of nearly 1,100 feet.  WikiPedia has a good summary.

The final Post on this topic will be published tomorrow and will explore the questions of integrity and ethics that are associated with the emotions raised by the videos.

By Paul Handover

Carrier landings: “A perishable skill” Part 2

Carrier pilots learn about pitching decks, in the dark!

Yesterday we published the first of two 10 minute videos on YouTube about carrier operations on the USS Nimitz.  Here’s the second video.  Warning: Once you start watching you won’t be able to stop until the very end!

By Paul Handover

Carrier landings: “A perishable skill!” Part 1

Carrier pilots learn about pitching decks

A fellow author of this Blog, John Lewis, was chatting to me about a whole variety of items surrounding the Blog and future topics, etc.  Our conversation strayed into flying and John asked if I had seen the YouTube extracts from the PBS Film about the USS Nimitz.  I had not.  They are gripping.  Here is the first of the 10 minute videos.  The second one is here.

A perishable skill? Watch and all will become clear.

By Paul Handover

Very few really saw this crisis coming; are we still in the dark?

Who really understood the forces of destruction building up in the global economy?

(This Post is longer than usual but doesn’t lend itself to being divided into multiple Posts – trust it is worth the read.)

Part One – How investing in the 80s was so hit and miss.

My education with respect to the sound management of one’s wealth came from a propitious mistake by a global insurance company, one of Britain’s largest insurance companies as it happens.  Here’s the story.

Read the rest of this Post

Another one of the few who saw the crisis coming.

Steve Keen – Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney.

I know didly squat about economics.  I know a lot about the effect of economics in the sense of government policies, of inflation and debt, international trade and much more only in how they have impacted me over a lifetime of working, buying homes, raising a family, running a couple of businesses and now contemplating retirement.  I can sum up my personal strategy – LUCK!  I have been lucky.  The other Post out today shows an example of that luck.

Frankly, economists haven’t figured widely in my role call of people that I admired, probably because I don’t really understand what they are talking about.  (That’s why this Blog has a real live economist as part of the team, to help educate me and all the rest of the readers who come to this Blog!)

The other Post on this subject spoke of David Kauders, who clearly saw it coming.  Now here’s an economist who also saw it coming, Steve Keen.

Read more about Steve Keen

Septembers

How clear, crisp September days echo 1940.

I was born in London some 6 months before the end of World War II.  The echoes of that tragic event in human history rang around the torn roadways and ripped buildings of London for many years, certainly for sufficiently long that I was able to remember as a young boy, away on his bicycle, the bomb sites and and the gaps where once buildings had stood.

Sometimes, when the September weather is as it was during the Battle of Britain, it’s almost as though those echoes can still be faintly heard.  Maybe all Londoners over a certain age hear them?

Read more about September days

Richard Noble and a 1,000 mph car!

There are cars, fast cars, extremely fast cars and the Bloodhound SSC.

Thanks to a thread on Flyer Forums for this.

Richard Noble of Thrust SSC fame is at it again.  This time fitting a ‘car’ with the engine from the Eurojet Typhoon fighter.  The ambition is to break the 1,000 mph hour mark and up the land speed record set by Thrust SSC by more than 30%.  Thrust SSC set the world land speed record in 1997 at the astounding speed of 763.035 mph (1221 km/h) or Mach 1.02.

More details about the project may be read here.

One aspect of the engine caught my eye,

In the middle of the BLOODHOUND SSC is the MCT V12 800 bhp race engine which doubles as our APU delivering hydraulic power as needed, starting the EJ200 and of course pumping the High Test Peroxide EJ200(HTP) through to the Falcon rocket. The pump has to move a ton of HTP through to the rocket catalyst in 22 seconds and at 1200 psi.

As someone said on the Flyer Forums, “So they’re not going for maximum mpg then…”

By Paul Handover

Growth of eBooks

Expansion or replacement of the traditional book?

My guess is that most people still value the convenience and sheer pleasure of holding and reading a traditional paper book.  It is difficult to think of a more pleasurable activity than browsing the shelves of a book-store or library.  But the eBook also is carving out a valuable niche, it appears.

Thus it was a delight to come across a ‘store’ devoted to eBooks.  Based in Paris, that virtual store is called Mobipocket.  New to me but, perhaps, not to many others (I can sometimes be a little behind the new technology drag-curve!)

Nevertheless, a veritable labyrinth of virtual book shelves with prices often well below print prices.  Here’s the WikiPedia background.

By Paul Handover (who has no commercial interest in promoting Mobipocket, not even a cent is earnt if you click through.)