Halfway

Today marks the midpoint between soaring seasons. Have you made your Spring flying plans yet?

Heat transfer

Here's a picture of Gordon demonstrating what happens when you toss a cup of hot water into the air at -25°F.

News from Alexander

Sonny received a post card from Alexander and the photo here is of him plowing a field in Norwich this past year.


He wrote that he's now back in California at his family's farm and not sure where he'll be next year.

-Andy

Breakfast season has started

Andy, Christopher, Mike, Paul, Paul, Rick, Steve, Sue, and Thomas kicked off the breakfast season at EBA's on Sunday morning. The new 9am rendezvous time was fairly well tolerated, and that left enough time to go flying. Three airplanes made it into the air later that day, despite some squally conditions.

Rick, Tim, Andy, and Rich are all looking for passengers (i.e. shovelers) to assist in flight operations this winter. If this sounds familiar, it should. Come out and fly with us.

The next breakfast is scheduled for Sunday, January 16, at Mickey's in Enfield NH. Be there.

The full breakfast calendar is here.

Blanik update

The worldwide campaign to get the Blanik flying again has been noted by the factory. A few days ago we received an update describing their progress toward developing a suitable means of inspecting the wing spar. Good for them.

Their plan of having an inspection ready for certification by "early 2011" seems to be falling behind, however. This is bad news because even if a factory approved inspection were released today, it would have to be sequentially masticated by two torpid bureaucracies, EASA and FAA, before we could fly. Our chances for this summer are anybody's guess.

As pilots, we can't do too much about the schedule. I can think of only two things.

If your name isn't already on this list:

2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, 48, 57, 140, 182, 295, 386, 499, 504, 517, 610, 612, 887, 1280, 1281

then put it there.

The other thing you might consider doing is to write a letter to our pusillanimous, apathetic, hypocritical, useless Blanik dealer and tell him what you think of his level of customer support and how much you are looking forward to doing business with him in the future.

Don't forget to be polite.