Tag: Passion

Remarkable people: Ann Daniels

Continuing the theme that extraordinary people are just ….. ordinary.

Another explorer …. who began polar exploration a little later than most of them, has a staggering story of “mind over matter”.

Ann Daniels is the only woman to have become a polar guide for groups walking to both the North and the South Poles. The stories on her web site are quite extraordinary and are told in such a disarmingly easy style that one needs to think Ann-Danielscarefully about what she is actually saying when recounting stories of:

  • considerable pain and amazing stamina
  • huddling for days beneath a tent which could not be pitched
  • carbon monoxide poisoning
  • winds lifting a person and 200lb sledge bodily from the ground and throwing them against a wall of ice.

Read more about Ann Daniels

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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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

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

More on that ‘passion’ word!

Passion may be the key to many, many areas of success.

Following John’s Post on Sunday about passion, two other items passed my virtual desk that seemed to resonate with the theme.

The first was my regular Sunday ‘newsletter’ from Philip Humbert.  Sometime it comes across as a bit too good to be true but that may be a little bit of cultural mismatch from an Englishman’s eyes. Philip describes himself as a “Personal Success Coach!” and offers a free weekly newsletter that is worth trying out.

Anyway, to the point of this Post.

Read more about Passion

Sunday smile … and passion in business

First impressions, reliable or not?

This joke that I received recently might amuse you:

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

That happens! In some cases, you might have preferred to retain the first impression and wish that they had never spoken!

But sometimes, this “don’t judge a book by its cover” effect can work in the opposite direction; as a result, I nearly missed out on enjoying a passionate presentation.
Read more about passion!