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From open-fingered gloves with lights in them to a beenie with a portable "head light', inventors keep making stuff that seems "silly" - until one discovers a unique functionality to which this stuff can be utilized - like under the hood of a car in total darkness when you need three hands - one to hold the flashlight and two to work on the repair.

FLY NAVY!

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There's something about black and red airplanes

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DISCOVER FLYING

Along the leading edge of the vertical stab would be those words - "Discover Flying". For five dollars, you could go up in that airplane, and get a basic feeling of what it would be like to fly a genuine CESSNA Airplane.

This, of course, in the early 1970's, when a new C150 could be bought for $13,650.00. They don't make 'em anymore. Quit back in 1985-87.

Those were the dayz (as us old folks say). I sold the Aeronca Champ and bought a Cessna 120 - both for the same $6,000.00. They were both "used" and very old taildraggers (1946 for the Airknocker, and 1947 for the Cessna). AVGAS at the time was $1.83 a gallon. As a student pilot in 1969, AVGAS 80 was fourty-two cents a gallon - ten cents a gallon higher than the most expensive high-test car gas.

Capitalism is so fucking greedy. In 1972, the Oil Corporations slowed down the spickit, and AVGAS shot up to ninty cents a gallon. In 1979, Iran had a revolution, and AVGAS shot up to $1.83 a gallon. In 1997, it seems like everybody was on the "Shortage Bandwagon", and AVGAS crawled up to $2.29 a gallon. In the early two thousand's, King George II decided to start a couple of wars in the Middle East, and AVGAS went bonkers at up to $5.19 a gallon.

And now, for the "Grande Maule" - COVID, the gift that keeps on giving. Corporate wellfare was the highest ever. So was unemployment of "non-essential" workers. And let's not forget "Big Pharma", whose miracle vacines made them more than filthy rich, thsnks to the American Taxpayer. The price of AVGAS went as high as $10.00 a gallon, and eventually setteled to a saner(?) seven to eight dollars a gallon.

FLY NAVY !

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Gliders are a dying breed. Don't see too many of them around anymore, especially at airports with other general aviation traffic.

Gliders were fairly prolific in CONUS in the late 1960s, when I was just starting to learn how to fly. And it seemed like everybody was flying gliders during the original "Arab Oil Embargo" in 1972—even me.

So to save gas, I would fly my airplane from Auburn, Maine to the gliderport in Franconia, New Hampshire; where I'd take pictures and do a fifteen-minute hop in a 2-33 (pictured above), doing maneuvers logged as dual instruction in my now long-lost glider logbook.

I got some dual, and they got some photographs, plus a cover photo in SOARING magazine (April or May of 1973, I think).

FLY NAVY !

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Spot on, Will.

George Carlin is the philosopher of our time.

Ever since president, Eisenhower gave his final speech about the military industrial complex, the only person who could have had an effect on this was assassinated in 1963 .

FLY NAVY !

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THE JOY OF GERIATRIC PHOTOGRAPHY :

I have found the ultimate *"Crip Camera"- a Nikon P1000. It is the World's largest 'point & shoot' camera with the size and weight of a D850 with a Sigma Art lens.

 I no longer possess the slender, easy-moving, contortion-abled body of my youth. My lungs are shot from 40 years of smoking to the point I run out of breath when doing hard-core critical thinking. I'm a rolly-polly fat fuck in a borderline diabetic, bursitis, and gout-infused physique. I walk like a cripple for maybe a hundred feet before I have to either sit down or fall down.

"Falling down" is NOT an option! 

With the "Crip Camera", I have versatility in a small package :

- one camera instead of two.

- one non-interchangeable lens, vice four interchangeable lenses.

- a seven by twelve over-the-shoulder pouch, vice an eighteen by thirty backpack that opens on the 'wrong end' to protect all that heavy gear from being ripped off while you're walking with it. 

This picture (of either a 172 or a 182) at the south end of the ramp was taken from the north end of the ramp at the "T" line by the restaurant.The lens was zoomed to a focal length of 180mm - the 35mm camera equivalent of 990mm. It is also the same spot where I took a picture of a father and daughter by the wingtip of an orange SGS 2-33 glider (hereto forever known as the "Great Pumpkin"). It will be uploaded after processing (editing). 

The next project will be how well the "Gimp" photographs airplanes that are taking off and landing - showing the propellers as actually turning, rather than every airplane doing a "dead stick" landing.

Apparent sharpness will be critical as well (sounds like something Yogi Berra would have said).

FLY NAVY !

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I remember standing at the pond that day, somewhere between Warren and Barrington. What was I thinking? Or was I just not thinking at all. My Dad was taking pictures. Something he did quite often when we went out together. I hated wearing shorts because I thought my legs were ugly. The same thinking on my face while looking in the mirror. When I tried to make friends with a group of kids, it was instant rejection. They would call me "monkey". Tourette syndrome didn't help that situation. "It's a reaction from the drugs we gave him so he wouldn't drop dead from strep B", said the Doctor. "in due time, it will slow down and eventually go away".

It did slow down - a LOT; however, it did not entirely "go away"!

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A LITTLE RANT:

The function of a bureaucracy (def.) - a multifaceted administrative and regulatory agency (like say, the FAA), whose primary purpose is to make its subordinated users feel like a pirate who had a steering wheel stuffed in his pants and said: "Arrr, it's driving me nuts".

The thrill and fun of flight have been dulled by the hammer of over-enforcement from poorly-worded over-broad FAA regulations; which are "rubber-stamped" by administrative law judges along with the full board of the NTSB. No wonder airline pilots take up sailing as a hobby, rather than flying. Their license and career are on the line if they run afoul of any (real or perceived) infraction of FAA Regulations.

And now - the DRONES! Welcome, modelers, to the umbrella of the Federation Against Airplanes Amazon, UPS, Fed Ex, et al are pushing for legislation to allow them to deliver packages by ----- drones.

The FAA will regulate ALL drones (over half a pound in weight). There will be:

Mandatory registration.

Sticking your 'N' number on your drone.

Installing a 'remote ID' thingee (sorta like a "mini ADSB out transmitter).

Being approved by some local "community group" where there are locations and limitations in which you may operate your drone.

If for ANY reason you receive ANY compensation, whether invoiced or placed under your pillow from the "YouTube Fairy" while you were sleeping, there will be a requirement to be certificated as a "drone pilot" (or UAS pilot, or whatever). These requirements will be spelled out in the recently released Part 107 of FAA Regulations.

In the meantime, young, aspiring aviators can still experience the thrill of flying fixed-wing model aircraft, even in the apparent incoming IMC.

Enjoy it now, while you still have time>

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The trees are putting on their best "green" attire after being "naked" all winter.

Taken from the NWAAC clubhouse on the east side of the Scappoose Airport looking westbound, this local RV camping spot gives its temporary tenants a good view of the airport, as it snuggles up to the "numbers" on runway 15. It's the perfect spot to take pictures of airplanes landing and taking off - except for one problem.

Those damn fences …….

No matter how hard you try (even getting "touching-close" to that fence), you will never eliminate those chain-links from the foreground of your pictures. And you can forget the possibility of an open or unlocked gate to allow your access to this publicly-owned municipal airport; thanks in part to the policies of the FAA (the Federation to Abolish Airplanes), in concert with the Department of Homeland Security to create a "secure" parameter around all aeronautical operating areas, thanks in part to the twenty-first century "Pearl Harbor" - Nine / Eleven ! Airports have become "outdoor prisons". If you're not a member of that "special club" - access will be forbidden.

FLY NAVY !

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YOU CAN BUILD THIS AIRPLANE FOR AS LITTLE AS $800, INCLUDING THE ENGINE.

The airplane was a Corban Baby Ace, and was the world's first aircraft to be marketed as a homebuilt aircraft when its plans were offered for sale in 1929.

In 1952 Paul Poberezny, founder of the Experimental Aircraft Association bought the rights to the Ace aircraft for $200, and produced a sub-$800 Baby Ace that was featured in Mechanix Illustrated. The series of articles were in conjunction with a CAA effort to revitalize American aviation by promoting amateur built aircraft.

These articles in the magazine ignited a fire in the hearts of men (and women) of ordinary financial means, who now realized that with a plan and perseverance, the dream of flight could become a reality.

Fourteen years later, I followed a similar path when I realized I could save enough cash while "sitting on my hands" and studying for my PPL written exam (while deployed in the Navy). In March of 1969, I took the FAA written exam for Private Pilot and barely passed with a "70" (which they say is as "good as a hundred"). A month later I re-enlisted for another six years and a whopping fourteen hundred dollars. Combined with my savings, a month later, I purchased an airworthy 1946 Aeronca 7AC Champion airplane; and there, my eighteen-year flying career began.

FLY NAVY !

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A little casual volleyball game in "air-conditioned" luxury.

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The place to be during the (now) continuous Summer heat domes that seem to permeate the Southern States and Midwest.

This be Seaside, Oregon.

In the Willamette Valley, temperatures soar into the upper 90s to low 100s...... HOT!

Along the Coast this day, the temperature never went above 68.

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AN OLD FELLOW WALKING ON A RAIN-SOAKED TAXIWAY AT THE SCAPPOOSE, OREGON AIRPORT IN 2006.

May 12, 2022:

It's cold, windy and full of rain. A lot of drizzle and light rain with short bursts of "firehose" showers. Finally, it's starting to look like an "ops normal" for Oregon weather.

The ever-wet April has merged into the first half of flower-blooming, sunshine-sparkling, comfy-warming, breeze-blowing, allergy super-spreading springtime that is the month of May. Those who participate in this vast, eye-watering rapid-fire deep-throated sneezing, and involuntary "duck calls" (nose-blowing) have had a temporary reprieve.

May the remaining months of Year 2022 bring forth a cooler summer, wetter forests, smaller, less "wild" fires, fuller reservoirs, and a "white Christmas" without doing the "slippery-slide" ride along Highway 26 East.

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THE FISHERMAN

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It was 1949. There was "peace on Earth". The leading edge "boomer" was now pushing "3". It's been three years since VJ Day. The homeland war effort slowed to a trickle, and factories did a re-set into what was to become America's biggest peace-time industry at the end of the twentieth century - CONSUMPTION ! Time for the marketing department to drum up some ideas - like, fashion AND fishing.

Killing two birds with one stone, as they say. Dad took a secondary interest in the sport. Photography was his first. There was plenty of reading material for the subject at the local newsstand. Montgomery Ward had a whole section of fishing gear, AND things to wear for the big trip down the river.

There was a photo contest for picture-takers to submit their work to be used as a marketing campaign to promote the products of both the Sporting and Children's Clothing Departments. The plan was to submit a photo of a kid in "Monkey-Ward's" regalia of casual / sports clothing with a "fishing theme" that told a story.

Dad, in his usual "slightly" wordy, overly descriptive, flowery plethora of adjectival phrases submitted the following caption to the above photograph for consideration :

"The little kid was a shoo-in for Huck Finn. His stoic look camouflaged his pent-up feeling of excitement. He was holding his long rod, steadily cranking it with his tiny hands, faster and faster, in anticipation of that big catch slowly emerging with a gigantic splash of wet excitement just flopping all over the place in front of him."