Category: History

Welcome to America

A meaningful Thanksgiving at so many levels.

In September 1620, a small ship, the Mayflower, left Plymouth, England carrying a 102 passengers.  After a difficult crossing lasting 66 days, the Mayflower anchored near the tip of Cape Cod. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at a new Plymouth.

In November 1621, having produced a successful corn harvest, the settlers organised a celebratory feast.

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" By Jennie A. Brownscombe.

In December 2007 a Virgin flight pushed back from the stand at Gatwick Airport in England en route to Los Angeles airport.  On board was yours truly. Two days later, a Aeromexico flight, again with me on board, pushed back from the stand at LAX for the short flight down to Hermosillo Airport in the State of Sonora, Mexico.

That same afternoon, around 2pm, I was met by Sue at Hermosillo airport ready for the relatively short drive down to San Carlos.  I was there for a Christmas holiday courtesy of Sue and Don, her husband.

With Sue to meet me at the airport was Jean, a good friend of many years standing.  Jean was originally a Londoner, having been born just a few miles from where I was born.  Now she was settled in San Carlos after her American husband died in 2005.

Sue and Jean

We all headed off in Sue’s car for the journey to San Carlos.

Little did I know that just a few days later at a local dinner and dance spot in San Carlos when I got up and asked Jean for a dance something magical would happen when I put my arm around Jean’s waist.  That evening was a 20th.

Fast forward 35 months, not only to the day but practically to the hour and that magic in our lives is still there in abundance.

For Jean and I were married in St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Payson, Arizona on the 20th November in front of the Reverend Dan Tantimonaco.

Mr and Mrs Handover

That marriage gives me the right to apply to the US Government for Resident status and so, today, Thanksgiving Day 2010, Jean and I will also have our first celebratory feast in gratitude to starting our married lives as new Americans.

By Paul Handover

And more on silence

Trying silence out.

Jon’s post yesterday about how silence in more general terms is so important for good mental health got me musing about this.

The first thing that struck me was how good dogs are at doing nothing.  They are naturals at being in the present, especially when being in the present means nothing more than just laying around.

Just doing - nothing!

OK, one could come up with an intellectual rebuff of that.  Dogs aren’t humans, don’t have to go to work, don’t have to struggle to make one’s way in the world, etc., etc. No argument in that, is there.  Or is there?

Let’s take monks. Clearly being a monk is a spiritual vocation that appeals to a very small number of people. But they prove that the ‘work, rush around, struggle with life’ scene is NOT hard-wired into mankind, ultimately it is a choice.

Just read this about a day in the life of a monk at Downside Abbey. Don’t react to what you read, just go through the text and notice how frequently words of silence, faith, reflection and prayer come up.

Now I am not suggesting that we all give up our present daily lives and become monks, but I am underlining the importance of balance, and for the sake of our private and public worlds that probably means spending more time doing nothing!

Let’s take North American Indians, in this case the Navajo.  They too understood the huge importance of meditation and prayer.  This video is just 3:40 long – see if you have the stillness in your mind to watch and listen to this for these few, short minutes.

How did you do?

Now let’s go back to 1966, the year when Simon & Garfunkel released the song, words written by Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence, that later became a huge, global hit.  Here are the lyrics – read them slowly and reflect on the meaning in those words.

The Sound Of Silence (3:08)
P. Simon, 1964

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence

For your sake, and therefore for the sake of all those around you – find your silence.

Faith in a (new) future.

“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things – with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.” Corazon Aquino.

Yes, I cheated.  I looked for a quotation to suit the mood of this post and came across the above.  Corazon Aquino was the woman who led the revolution which toppled the authoritarian regime of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines.

Anyway, to the theme of this Post.

Those that are regular readers of Learning from Dogs know that at one level I am not optimistic about the future over the coming years.  A quick trawl through this Blog will find quite a few articles showing that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

One of the forecasters who has consistently been on the money, so to speak, is Gerald Celente.  He runs an organisation known as Trends Research Institute.

Here’s 14 minutes from a recent interview on the Alex Jones Show.  Do watch it to the end.

Despite being US focussed this interview still has massive implications for the rest of the world.

This Post is about faith.  Around minute 10:30 in the above video, Celente talks of those people that have the faith in themselves to bring about change.  Celente talks that from all great disasters comes change.  He talks of the Black Death that in the three years from 1348 wiped out up to 50% of Europe’s population.

From the Eye Witness to History website:

Coming out of the East, the Black Death reached the shores of Italy in the spring of 1348 unleashing a rampage of death across Europe unprecedented in recorded history. By the time the epidemic played itself out three years later, anywhere between 25% and 50% of Europe’s population had fallen victim to the pestilence.

 

Plague's progress

 

So here’s the point.  In the Celente interview, he predicts that 20% of Americans will reject the way that they see their society going. Fascinating!  That 20% figure.

Dr David Hawkins in his seminal book Power vs Force writes on page 77:

… 85% of the [world] race is below the critical level of 200, while the overall average level of human consciousness is approximately 204.  The power of the relatively few individuals near the top counterbalance the weakness of the masses towards the bottom to achieve the overall balance.

Hawkins is saying that 15% of the world’s population has the integrity required to bring up the level of consciousness of all the rest.

I have the faith that we are on the verge of another renaissance for mankind, one based on integrity and truthfulness, honesty and love.  In my faith, I see this next renaissance being born in America, still the land of the free.

 

"Sacred and Profane Love" by Tiziano Vecellio, otherwise known as Titian

 

Titian was born in 1488 just 100 years after Europe was ravaged by the Plague.

Keep the faith – there is a wonderful new world just around the corner.

By Paul Handover

Commodity trading

Something really disquieting about this.

I don’t know about you but I’m picking up more and more ‘vibes’ from all over the place that strongly suggest an increasing awareness of the need for real change in society.  Anyway, more of this another time.

My article today is base on an editorial in the Mole Valley Farmers Newsletter

 

MVF logo

 

for October 2010 (no. 557).  First some background to this organisation.

Mole Valley Farmers is described on their web site thus:

Mole Valley Farmers was started in 1960 by a small group of farmers around South Molton* who were concerned by the discriminatory practices and the large margins being taken by many of their input suppliers. From the outset it was decided to treat all members equally, subject only to quantity allowance and that the Company would operate on the minimum margin to allow continuity and growth. Today it remains one of a few true co-operatives in the supply industry.

Mole Valley Farmers consists of:

  • Nine branches in the south west supplying a vast range of goods to farmers and the public alike. These range from farm requirements to clothing, footwear, garden supplies, pet food and accessories, domestic goods and power tools
  • Our own feed mills for all animal feeds
  • Fertiliser blending plants
  • A specialist mineral plant
  • A quality farm building division

Of special importance are our farmer customers who purchase animal feed, fertilisers and minerals, all manufactured to a high specification by Mole Valley Farmers and delivered direct from point of manufacture to farm or to branches for collection in small lots.

* South Molton is in Devon, England about half-way between Barnstaple and Tiverton and the history of this interesting firm may be found here.

I have to declare a certain interest in that when I lived in Harberton, Devon for a number of years, we were non-farmer Members of Mole Valley Farmers for feed for our chickens and ducks and later on for Pharaoh.  So when I arrived to stay recently for a week with friends in Brixham, Devon,  my eye quickly picked up the familiar look of the MVF Newsletter lying on the table.

This is the editorial, reproduced in full with the kind permission of the Newsletter editor, from the pen of David Burke, Chairman of MVF.

Commodity trading

Until relatively recently, the price of food was set by the forces of supply and demand for the food itself, which worked reasonably well in developed countries able to purchase in times of shortage.  For the last century farmers have been able to reduce some of the market risk by forward selling crops to a trader in that market, at a price that fair to both parties.

This type of trading was tightly regulated and only those who were directly involved could participate and it worked well.  At some time in the mid-90s, Goldman Sachs, with other financial institutions, successfully lobbied for the regulations to be abolished.

Forward contracts became derivatives, which could be bought and sold repeatedly by traders, which enabled the financial institutions to become involved.  This type of investment really took off when the American and European pension market collapsed, together with that for normally traded derivatives like metals, prior to the recession, although actual food supply and demand remained relatively in balance.  Last year Goldman Sachs reportedly made £3.2bn profit from derivatives trading.

In spite of Russia’s grain export ban and some other weather affected harvests, both the EU commission and the International Grains Council report more than adequate reserves of grain to meet demand and that the carry-over stocks are likely to be the second highest for years.  The rumoured (but non-existent) wheat shortage that is driving up all feed prices, is entirely due to actions of the world’s principle investment bankers and their investors, which have serious implications throughout the globe.  Whilst few in the developed world mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, will go hungry, it is a growing tragedy for the poorer countries in the Southern Hemisphere where three-quarters of the world’s population live.  According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, one third of the population lack food security and 792m people there are undernourished to varying degrees of starvation.  But most damning of all, some 12m children die annually of malnourishment.  Derivative speculation, which pushes up the cost of grains and in particular wheat, is responsible for food inflation that is proportionally greater for the impoverished nations.

Re-regulation of the basic food market to prevent a recurrence of the spikes of 2007 and 2010 would go some way to stabilising global food costs and help with developing nations, though without a great deal of pressure from compassionate people, this will be difficult, given the influence that the world’s richest investors have over governments.  Alternatively, primary food producers worldwide are paid a high enough price for their produce to enable them to invest in research and best practice, as well as in efficient equipment.  This concept received the approval of the European Parliament on 9th September and although they are considering legislation to ensure farmers receive a fairer share of the consumer price, it may be difficult to implement other than through a properly funded and regulated CAP.

Well said, Mr Burke.

NB.  The web links in Mr Burke’s article have been inserted by me, they were not in the original article.

By Paul Handover

No, it’s not only me!

The power of human networking.

My article published yesterday referred to a post on Baseline Scenario entitled After The Recession: What Next For The Fed? Do go across and read it.

I had been in a bit of a rant mood and contributed a comment to that Post.  I wrote:

I don’t have the knowledge to respond to Simon’s excellent Post in detail but his comments reinforce what feels like a constant throbbing in my mind – how can the citizens of so many countries have abdicated so much interest and concern in how they/we are governed. Wish I had even a clue as to the answer to that question.

Significant social unrest would be very scary – the ‘law’ of unintended consequences and all that – but there are times when I wonder if this, in the end, might be the only form of real progress for the hard-working, tax-paying majority.

End of rant! 😉

Interestingly, that stimulated some replies which were, in my opinion, worth sharing with you; kind reader of Learning from Dogs that you are!

Sir, you raise a sad but true point when you ask how a majority of us citizens, on a worldwide basis, could have lost true “by the people” control of our own governments.

For most of us the loss of healthy economic functioning has been the main consequence of this, something that has been very painful. But I also find myself reflecting on the unspeakable genocides in our collective human history. One gets an awful sense of how such things were permitted to arise…ZeroInMyOnes

And

Well spoken Paul Handover. The system cannot and will not be changed politically or judicially because the malevolent forces who conjured the system own and control both the political and judicial operations and operators. Those operators work to advance the interests of the predatorclass whose operations, operators, and structures are malevolent.

The people are the abused victims of predatorclass criminal enterprises bent on total control of the earths wealth and resources, and the enslavement or eradication of the rest of the population.

The peoples only hope for implementing the changes necessary to form a more perfect union is best described here:

(“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”) TonyForesta

And

Paul Handover, that was not a rant. You are simply talking common sense.

Scary is right. And it’s scarier by the day.

We have to try to work constructively for change. I keep urging people to check out the potential for an economy based not on constant growth, which is impossible on a finite planet, but on some sane principles of equity and sustainability.

If you go to http://www.steadystate.org and look at their position statement, you can see that people from all over the world are signing on–yes, just three or four people a day–but they are from every continent and just about every country.

Now, can you help this “go viral”? Carla

These are strong, powerful views.  I have joined Casse, the organisation referred to in Carla’s comment – see second Post from me today – and Tony’s comment motivated me to look up the history of the United States Declaration of Independence, the subject of a separate article on this Blog.

Powerful stuff!

By Paul Handover

Sullenberger and US Airways Flight 1549

Not forgetting First Officer Jeffrey Skiles

There has been much written and published about these two heros who enabled the stricken Airbus A-320 to ditch on the Hudson River with no loss of life.  That was Flight 1549 on the 15th January, 2009.

However, at this year’s Oshkosh, Sullenberger and Skiles were presented with a wonderful memento from Jeppesen who publish among other products instrument approach charts for aircraft.  They did something very creative in producing the following.

Hudson miracle approach chart

Here’s what was said by Jeppesen:

Englewood, Colo. | 27 Aug 2010

Jeppesen, known in the aviation industry as the worldwide leader in navigation and charting services, recently presented “Miracle on the Hudson” pilots captain Chesley Sullenberger and first-officer Jeffrey Skiles with a specially designed approach chart and engraved Jeppesen chart binders to commemorate the remarkable ditching of US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009.

Entitled “Hudson Miracle APCH,” the one-of-a-kind chart includes several light-hearted notations that honor the famous water landing that saved the lives of 155 passengers and crew on board the flight disabled by bird strikes.  In the “briefing strip” section of the chart, instructions include: “After water landing, oversee evacuation of ALL SOULS from airplane. Float via HUDSON RIVER to RESCUE point. Once everyone is SAFE aboard rescue boats, secure passenger list and double check cabin. Captain is last to exit. Give THANKS.”

The chart documents the historic five minute flight with a unique graphic, beginning with departure from LaGuardia Airport, followed by a “Cooked Goose Transition” point and “Hudson River Approach,” which is then followed by “Splash” and “Rescue” points on the water.  The humorous chart also salutes the career achievements of the crew of flight 1549, including Sullenberger, Skiles, and veteran flight attendants Sheila Dail, Donna Dent and Doreen Welsh.

Along with the commemorative chart, the pilots were presented with a special Jeppesen chart binder, engraved with the famous fortune cookie advice kept in Sullenberger’s flight bag: “A delay is better than a disaster.”  The items were presented by Mark Van Tine, Jeppesen president and CEO, during the 2010 Gathering of Eagles fundraiser dinner and auction held during the EAA AirVenture fly-in and air show in Oshkosh, Wisc.  The EAA Young Eagles event raises funds and awareness for youth involvement in aviation.

To view the commemorative US Airways flight 1549 chart, please visit this page.

A fellow pilot, Martin Thorpe, sent me the chart shortly after the Oshkosh event but it seemed appropriate to let some water flow under the bridge, so to speak, before I mentioned it on Learning from Dogs.

By Paul Handover

Colbert Good, Keynes Not So Smart

Another hugely interesting article from Patrice Ayme

Patrice is a good friend of this Blog so it pleases me very much to point you towards a recent article on Patrice’s own Blog.  Here’s the abstract:

Obama is well on his way to become one of the most unaccomplished presidents of the USA, ever. This is made worse, because we are at a crucial juncture of history, and the USA is in leadership position. When the car is travelling fast, and the leader is asleep at the wheel, it will not just end in the ditch.

The little smoke and mirrors Obama threw up, will be easily reversed by the republicans, as planned. So, in the end, Obama will turn up as just an extension of Bush, without the smirk… nor the originality. By choosing the same ideological, Goldman Sachs team, that implemented plutocracy under Clinton, Obama asked those who put the car in the ditch, to get it out, not understanding that they were still drunk in their quest to selfish profit.

This story presently unfolding has been seen before; it was Great Depression II, the great depression of the 1930s. It was the stall after the deliberately engineered bubble of the 1920s.

The West got out of it by massive state enforced job programs, started under president Hoover (Hoover dam, Empire State building, etc,) and pursued by FD Roosevelt (Grand Coulee dam, etc.) and Hitler (Autobahn system, copied by Eisenhower in the 1950s, and everybody else since).

Millions got employed directly by the government and the massive mobilization of WWII did the rest, followed by the GI Bill in 1945. Europe had massive state organized and financed economic activity, led by the US Marshall plan (Marshall was the US chief of staff during WWII, and Secretary of State of Truman). Europe, traumatized by what had happened also made important institutional changes, oriented towards welfare, such as free health care. Sully’s plan of circa 1600 for a “Very Christian Council of Europe” was also implemented.

clip_image002

(Labeling used on aid packages.)

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program,ERP) was the primary program of the USA for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for the countries of Europe (1947–51). Efforts focused on modernizing European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models (themselves learned from French industrialists to implement American production of the 75mm gun, the mainstay of French artillery in WWI).

All this help and investment, in the USA and Europe, was paid bymarginal tax rates on income as high as 90% in the USA (under US president Ike).

Right, now, instead, the richest Americans pay the lowest tax rate (15%), and wealth has not been so concentrated in a century (a century ago, great spaces and freedom were another form of wealth, at least in the USA, which have now disappeared).

Starting in 1996, a succession of ever larger bubbles, following part of Keynes’s ideas, has injected more and more money in the economy, money which came neither from savings nor production, but mostly borrowed from aliens, and, increasingly, the Chinese.

Robert Reich (UC Berkeley), who lost to Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs) the debate on the economic strategy to pursue in the Clinton administration, wrote an essay in the New York Times, “How to End The Great Recession”, reflecting the approach that wealth needs to be redistributed. Reich mentioned what I have long observed: the real (inflation adjusted) median income has been going down for thirty years now. This is worse than what happened during Great Depression II. So this is Great Depression III, not just another recession.

I approve of Reich’s anti plutocratic approach, of course. As he says: “The Great Depression and its aftermath demonstrate that there is only one way back to full recovery: through more widely shared prosperity.”… However, this is not the whole story.Redistribution is good, however production is necessary.Keynes, as we will see, is about throwing money to the people, as the Roman emperors invented. That is not about meaningful employment.

Obama’s ineptitude is not all his fault. The economic advice he got, even from his opponents, has been terrible. For example, Krugman, whom I approve a lot of, wanted, like Romer (the ex-chair of economic advisers) a bigger stimulus. And so did I.

But stimulating what? How? To which aim? Most of Obama’s stimulus was wasted on short term alleviation of long term structural defects, exactly the sort of trap one does not want to fall into (French socialists fell into that very trap in the recent past, with the result that the income tax started to fully go to paying the interest on the French national debt).

The USA stimulus ought to have targeted to jump start a big energy infrastructure first, followed by a massively innovative scientific industry, modeled after the military industrial complex (the only thing the USA does really well nowadays, besides plenty of hot air). Instead, the debate in economic theory has been pretty much Keynes (somewhat of a neo-stupid, see below) versus Hayek (a pro-plutocratic neo-fascist who influenced the Chicago school’s meta principle that GREED, AND ONLY GREED, MAKES GOOD).

However, the military-industrial complex of the USA, by now, by far, the most competitive part of its economy, is not run according to Hayek, or Keynes. It is run along the lines defined by Jean Baptiste Colbert. That ought to be a hint, but no main stream American economist has picked it up.

American economists in good standing do not know who Colbert was, perhaps because he thrived when Indians were outnumbering European colonists in North America, and studying history is not as important than learning sports, and to learn to agree with one’s peers, in American schools.

Colbert started his career, and this is overlooked, overlooking the military, at the grand old age of 21. Colbert branched off into economy and finance much later, after helping to send the hyper rich “superintendent of finances”, Fouquet, to jail, for life.

The American economist Paul Kennedy, in a book about The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers, basically expounded, as his theory, what was pretty much Colbert’s theory and practice(unsurprisingly, Kennedy does not talk about Colbert too much, and got rewarded with a prize for his depth and originality).

Colbert had perfectly understood that Great Power status necessitated a Great Economy. Thus Colbertism could be viewed as the highest form of militarism. Just like the USA is itself the highest form of militarism which ever was. Notice the rapprochement. Not to make fun of it: the position of Europe and the USA is unstable, just as the entire world economy, society and military situations are all simultaneously unstable, and military superiority is what keeps thing together, right now (unfortunately it is courting defeat in Afghanistan).

Colbert was actually following the model implemented, with spectacular success, by Henri IV and his economy and finance minister, Sully, a protestant military engineer, around 1600 CE, with state financed canals, silk factories and free markets.

Why are great powers great powers? Because they have achieved a technological superiority gradient, and have enough numbers to sit on top of it. Numbers are not everything: the Mongols carved the world’s largest empire in a few years, and with 200,000 warriors. “Technology” here is meant in the full etymological sense: any specialized discourse.

If we want to keep a superior lifestyle in the empire of the West, and a stable planet, it is high time to recover such a gradient, which is, basically, an intelligence gradient. Thus it is high time to redistribute the sort of economy which makes the military industrial complex of the USA so superior, namely COLBERTISM MODERNIZED.

***

The full article is here

Well worth reading.

By Paul Handover

Light from the past

An amazing find near Colchester in Essex, England

Once again indebted to Naked Capitalism for including a link to a piece on the BBC website about a unique Roman find in that part of England known as East Anglia.  It caught my eye because during the 80’s my business was based in Colchester quite close to the Sudbury, the place mentioned in the BBC report.

But before going to that report, yet another compliment from me about Yves’ Blog, Naked Capitalism.  Here’s what James Kwak of Baseline Scenario wrote on the 5th explaining that he was going to have to make some other areas of his life a greater priority than the Blog.

In my defense, most of the high-volume economics bloggers are either tenured professors (Cowen, Thoma, DeLong, Krugman) or people whose job is to blog (Salmon, Klein). (Yves Smith is an exception; how she finds the time I don’t know.)

My italics.

Anyway, I digress somewhat.  Here’s an extract from the BBC report:

Rare Roman lantern found in field near Sudbury

A metal detecting enthusiast has found what is believed to be the only intact Roman lantern made out of bronze ever discovered in Britain.

Danny Mills, 21, made the find in a field near Sudbury in Suffolk.

The area was dotted with plush Roman villas and country estates in the second century.

The object, described as a rare example of Roman craftsmanship, has been donated to Ipswich Museum where it is now on display.

In the autumn of 2009, Mr Mills, a metal detector user, found a large bronze object whilst metal detecting in a field near Sudbury.

Read the full report here.

Here’s a picture that the BBC included.

Roman lantern found in Britain

By Paul Handover

Stonehenge, again!

As yesterday, travelling demands make it impossible to find creative time for the Blog.  Thus a repeat of one of the most popular Posts from the last year.

Incredible outcomes from the dig in 2008

Stonehenge is one of Britain’s most famous historical sites, deservedly so because Stonehenge was one of the most important places in ancient Europe.

Stonehenge
Professors Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright are the world-renowned archaeologists who believe they have cracked the conundrum of Stonehenge's original purpose.

But evidence from a dig that was authorised in 2008 has shown that not only is Stonehenge a much older site of human habitation but that it’s purpose is altogether different to what has been assumed.  It was, indeed, a healing place, possibly the most important in Europe.

Those living in the UK can watch the Timewatch programme on the BBC iPlayer.  But for those living outside the UK then the following web site has reams of wonderfully fascinating information.  That site is here.

By Paul Handover

Bob Hoover, the best stick and rudder man in the world

Demonstrating the joy of being really good at what you do!

Before I get to the subject matter, just another word from me about the Posts being published on Learning from Dogs just now.  As I mentioned earlier, I’m presently away from home and back in England for as long as it takes to complete all the necessary procedures at the US Embassy in London.  All part of me being allowed to become a resident of Payson, Arizona and the husband to my lovely Jeannie.

Anyway, I’m posting items that catch my eye and don’t require the normal amount of time to prepare and write, simply because to have a new Post every day means keeping the pipeline going to cover the times when I shall be in darkest Devon and away from internet coverage!  Trust I have your support during this period – I just love seeing so many readers of the Blog!

OK, to the article.

Bob Hoover

Bob Hoover is well known to many besides pilots because for years he has demonstrated the huge skill in managing the energy of a flying aircraft – with both engines stopped.

Thanks to Peter Kelsey, a Facebook contact, who recently posted a YouTube video of Bob flying his famous display.  But more about the man.  Here’s an extract from Wikipedia:

Robert A. “Bob” Hoover (born January 24, 1922) is a former air show pilot andUnited States Air Force test pilot, known for his wide-brimmed straw hat and wide smile. In aviation circles, he is often referred to as “The pilots’ pilot.”

Bob Hoover learned to fly at Nashville‘s Berry Field while working at a local grocery store to pay for the flight training.[1] He enlisted in the Tennessee National Guard and was sent for pilot training with the Army.[2] He was sent to Casablanca where his first major assignment of the war was test flying the assembled aircraft ready for service.[3] He was later assigned to the Spitfire-equipped 52nd Fighter Group in Sicily.[4] In 1944, on his 59th mission, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 off the coast of Southern France and he was taken prisoner.[5] He spent 16 months at the German prison camp Stalag Luft 1 in Barth,Germany.[6]

He managed to escape from the prison camp, stole an Fw 190, and flew to safety in the Netherlands.[7] After the war, he was assigned to flight-test duty at Wright Field. There he impressed and befriended Chuck Yeager.[8] Later when Yeager was asked who he wanted for flight crew for the supersonic Bell X-1 flight, he named Bob Hoover. Hoover was Yeager’s backup pilot in the Bell X-1 program and flew chase for Yeager in a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star during the Mach 1 flight.[9] He also flew chase for the 50th anniversary in an F-16 Fighting Falcon.[10]

What Bob shows is that true professionalism, in whatever one does, work or play, always comes over as an underplayed, understated skill.  Just look at this video for proof of that:

Well over 1,700,000 viewings at the time of writing this Post!

Remember  Gordo Cooper in the film “The Right Stuff” poses the question, “Who’s the greatest pilot you ever saw?”  Most pilots of all sorts would elect Bob Hoover for that honorable position.

The Smithsonian seem to agree as well.  If you can, settle back and watch Bob Hoover’s talk at the 2010 Smithsonian Charles A Lindberg lecture.  The video at that link is a long one and Bob doesn’t come on stage until minute 20.

But the flying scenes in the introduction include some historic footage and the talk by Bob Hoover, now nearly 90, is just wonderful.  That link also includes the following summary of Bob Hoover:

Robert A. “Bob” Hoover is a fighter, military, and civilian test and air show pilot of legendary proportions. Using his superb piloting skills to fly aircraft to the edge of their performance capabilities, Hoover has left an indelible mark in aviation history. During his Air Force and North American Aviation careers, he flew 58 combat missions (and as a WWII POW flew himself to freedom), served as back-up pilot on the Bell X-1 and tested a wide array of fighter aircraft. As an ambassador of aviation, Hoover flew aerobatic routines in a North American P-51 Mustang, the T-39, and the Aero Commander fleet, culminating in the Shrike Commander 500S, at more than 2,500 civilian and military air shows. Bob Hoover will discuss his career in aviation and some of the pilots he has known including Orville Wright, Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh, Jacqueline Cochran, Neil Armstrong, and Yuri Gagarin.

By Paul Handover