Close pass. With men and women in the same work
environment, there are all these rules and subtleties of behavior
that you have to follow. Dan Dorr reports that at the Southwest
Airlines Training Center, a female captain was getting her annual
check ride in the simulator. It's a tight cockpit with lots of
activity when things get busy. During the 'flight', the check
airman reached for a switch and brushed her, um, chest. After
a moment of uncomfortable silence, she said "I think I just
passed my check ride." And the check airman said, "I
think you did". |
The spy photos that came in from the cold. Reuters reports that a British satellite enthusiast has discovered that anyone can tune in live to U.S. spy plane photo transmissions over the Balkans. John Locker said he picked up the broadcast from the Telstar satellite over Brazil on his satellite dish. He stressed that it was not a hacker/intercept, just free air programming. The pictures are real time within three seconds, and you can see troops on the ground and a helicopter whizzing underneath the camera. Locker is a freelance journalist who writes for satellite communications magazines, and when he alerted NATO, their reaction was "So what?" but American officials said plans were in hand to encrypt the data. |
Now we are 72. Harry Castermans got his Falco into the air on June 17, first by test pilot Rudolf Hankers, and then with Harry at the controls. This is the second Sequoia Falco to fly in Germany, and we should have a full report in the next Falco Builders Letter. |
Seeing is believing. A friend of ours in New Jersey reports on a family they know where all seven children have some form of mental illness. Four are bipolar, and three are schizophrenic. While you can't cure schizophrenia, you can medicate it, and one son had responded so well to medication he was able to have a normal life and even had a job as a truck driver. On September 11, he was driving near New York City and saw an airplane fly into one of the World Trade Center towers. He turned the truck around, drove it home, parked it and checked himself into the hospital. |
Fast bird. Dave Nason reports that his Falco is turning out to be a very fast airplane. He is now getting 221 mph TAS (192 knots) with 24/2400 at 7,500' and 23/2400 at 8500'. Both are with the throttle fully forward, but that's still a cruise setting. That's a full 40 mph faster than the factory Falco's advertised cruise of 180 mph with 160 hp engine. And with full throttle at 1500', he gets 233 mph TAS. Not bad. Not bad at all. |
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