The comments got me to thinking. My grandfather, born in 1885, lived in a time when the fastest a man had gone was on horseback. when he passed 99 years later we had broke the sound barrier by a few times and walked on the moon. And we, like him, take it in stride but society as a whole doesn't always accept things as well as a reasonably intelligent human does. And reiterate Budd, please don't stop writing. Your musings are always interesting and make my mind sit up and pay attention.
Thanks and glad to know someone is actually reading this.
Next week's is going to be really interesting because a friend of mine, a retired Lt. General and former commandant of USMC aviation is going to give us the straight skinny about modern military fighter acquisition and evaluating. For once, Thinking Out Loud is going to have a true expert at the helm. Stay tuned!
This, in a backwards way, reminds me of our local radio station. At graduation time they used to list things this year’s graduates have always known in their life or things they never experienced. The list used to shock the daylights out of me every year. I would argue with the radio, “ NO WAY” but in circumspect, they we right
Time comes ripping past and we don't realize what we've become accustom to. I did a blog on this a while back. If you were born after 1960, you graduated in '77 or so. Apple went into business in '78. Prior to there there were "kinda" computers (Commadore, Sinclair, etc.) but nothing that functionally impacted our lives. The Class of '78 and onward never knew life without computers. If graduating after about '93, email was part of life and by around '97 or so (which seems like last Wednesday to a lot of us), you always had Google to fall back on.
I got my first cell phone when 50. It was a Motorola brick. 2inches thick, 2inches wide and about 10 inches tall. I just replaced my phone and got a iPhone 13 Mini. It disappears into my pants pockets.
I dad was born five years after the Wright brothers did their thing but saw his first airplane when a young teenager. As a youngster, there were more horses in the small town than cars but the Model T changed all that. My hometown removed the last four hitching posts from in front of the town courthouse in the '80s. My dad got all four of them and one of them is on the steps into my house. He saw his first mountain in his early 20's!
Seems like every life has a section of it the next generation has never seen or can't relate to.
All very true, but we are starting to see something a friend predicted 20 years ago: that the parts that are failing in restored antiques now (most prominently in Jimmy Leeward's crash at Reno) are the "nickel and dime" parts - the pins that hold things in place, the screws that move a screw-jack, etc., the little things that are now going on 80 years old.
In Jimmy's case, it was tracked down to someone re-using a lock nut on part of the trim mechanism and it failed at exactly the wrong time. Voodoo had the same thing happen some years earlier but he was level on the back straight and it put him out when it pitched so hard it put him out but it pulled up giving him time to come to. Jimmy was in a turn. Exactly the wrong time for a trim failure. The stuff I was flying, mostly Burchinal's, wouldn't be allowed to fly today because none had been restored. They were just kept flying to bubble gum and BandAids. Remind to tell you about his -6 quitting cold over the airport because of a stray, loose cotter pin shorting out the mag switch. Times have definitely changed.
"This whole airplane age thing has haunted me forever." So true; me too. But there is comfort to be found in the fact that our creations will outlive us. Maybe not Parthenon-style, but 100 years is something to be proud of when it comes to airplanes. As to the time-to-get-there truisms, like many things they look good on paper but the reality is somewhat different. I recently completed my longest cross-country flights to date; PTK to BRD and back with one fuel stop enroute each way (SAW and MGN, respectively); a total of two roughly 600nm trips each. The RV-8 made it relatively easy with 150-160 knot groundspeeds and performance that kept me above the clouds when needed. But I'm learning all about how tight a tandem cockpit can be (preaching to the choir here) when I'm all strapped in and there's no "pulling over" in the sky. If I'd been looking at an extra 1.5 hours of flying each way, that would have required at least another ground stop each way (for either fuel or bladder), which would have added a lot more than flying time. So in that realm, performance is an advantage that cannot be denied.
On my first deployment to the Persian Gulf as a flight engineer in 2003, I flew all my missions in the C-130E, many of them built in 1963. My last deployment in '08, only a handful of missions were in E models, most of them were in H models built around 1993. Now they're sending H models to the boneyard and the J model has made me a dinosaur. :( Don't get me started on the 'wisdom' of getting rid of half the brains and eyeballs in the flightdeck. Sure, it makes financial sense for commercial operators, but in a threat environment? Nope!
Yep, there are two P-factors in aviation and we to get good at managing both (Davisson: 2023).
bd
The comments got me to thinking. My grandfather, born in 1885, lived in a time when the fastest a man had gone was on horseback. when he passed 99 years later we had broke the sound barrier by a few times and walked on the moon. And we, like him, take it in stride but society as a whole doesn't always accept things as well as a reasonably intelligent human does. And reiterate Budd, please don't stop writing. Your musings are always interesting and make my mind sit up and pay attention.
Thanks and glad to know someone is actually reading this.
Next week's is going to be really interesting because a friend of mine, a retired Lt. General and former commandant of USMC aviation is going to give us the straight skinny about modern military fighter acquisition and evaluating. For once, Thinking Out Loud is going to have a true expert at the helm. Stay tuned!
bd
This, in a backwards way, reminds me of our local radio station. At graduation time they used to list things this year’s graduates have always known in their life or things they never experienced. The list used to shock the daylights out of me every year. I would argue with the radio, “ NO WAY” but in circumspect, they we right
Time comes ripping past and we don't realize what we've become accustom to. I did a blog on this a while back. If you were born after 1960, you graduated in '77 or so. Apple went into business in '78. Prior to there there were "kinda" computers (Commadore, Sinclair, etc.) but nothing that functionally impacted our lives. The Class of '78 and onward never knew life without computers. If graduating after about '93, email was part of life and by around '97 or so (which seems like last Wednesday to a lot of us), you always had Google to fall back on.
I got my first cell phone when 50. It was a Motorola brick. 2inches thick, 2inches wide and about 10 inches tall. I just replaced my phone and got a iPhone 13 Mini. It disappears into my pants pockets.
I dad was born five years after the Wright brothers did their thing but saw his first airplane when a young teenager. As a youngster, there were more horses in the small town than cars but the Model T changed all that. My hometown removed the last four hitching posts from in front of the town courthouse in the '80s. My dad got all four of them and one of them is on the steps into my house. He saw his first mountain in his early 20's!
Seems like every life has a section of it the next generation has never seen or can't relate to.
bd
The phrase "Twas Ever Thus" leaps to mind...
All very true, but we are starting to see something a friend predicted 20 years ago: that the parts that are failing in restored antiques now (most prominently in Jimmy Leeward's crash at Reno) are the "nickel and dime" parts - the pins that hold things in place, the screws that move a screw-jack, etc., the little things that are now going on 80 years old.
In Jimmy's case, it was tracked down to someone re-using a lock nut on part of the trim mechanism and it failed at exactly the wrong time. Voodoo had the same thing happen some years earlier but he was level on the back straight and it put him out when it pitched so hard it put him out but it pulled up giving him time to come to. Jimmy was in a turn. Exactly the wrong time for a trim failure. The stuff I was flying, mostly Burchinal's, wouldn't be allowed to fly today because none had been restored. They were just kept flying to bubble gum and BandAids. Remind to tell you about his -6 quitting cold over the airport because of a stray, loose cotter pin shorting out the mag switch. Times have definitely changed.
"This whole airplane age thing has haunted me forever." So true; me too. But there is comfort to be found in the fact that our creations will outlive us. Maybe not Parthenon-style, but 100 years is something to be proud of when it comes to airplanes. As to the time-to-get-there truisms, like many things they look good on paper but the reality is somewhat different. I recently completed my longest cross-country flights to date; PTK to BRD and back with one fuel stop enroute each way (SAW and MGN, respectively); a total of two roughly 600nm trips each. The RV-8 made it relatively easy with 150-160 knot groundspeeds and performance that kept me above the clouds when needed. But I'm learning all about how tight a tandem cockpit can be (preaching to the choir here) when I'm all strapped in and there's no "pulling over" in the sky. If I'd been looking at an extra 1.5 hours of flying each way, that would have required at least another ground stop each way (for either fuel or bladder), which would have added a lot more than flying time. So in that realm, performance is an advantage that cannot be denied.
On my first deployment to the Persian Gulf as a flight engineer in 2003, I flew all my missions in the C-130E, many of them built in 1963. My last deployment in '08, only a handful of missions were in E models, most of them were in H models built around 1993. Now they're sending H models to the boneyard and the J model has made me a dinosaur. :( Don't get me started on the 'wisdom' of getting rid of half the brains and eyeballs in the flightdeck. Sure, it makes financial sense for commercial operators, but in a threat environment? Nope!
Good information and advice. Thanks. We dinosaurs have to stick together.
bd