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"Flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes." - Airplane Ron Wanttaja

My '46 Willys Jeep (and the '51 that followed) had a manual choke, manual throttle, and both the starter button and the dimmer switch on the floor. North Dakota winters were a pain. Had to put de-icer in the fuel tank or it'd rattle and bang. Had a hard time starting it, too (no heater in the...

So fact-checking politicians is frowned upon, and all jokes have to be historically accurate? Lemme make a note of that.... Ron "How did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" Wanttaja

Heck, check out the early remotes. Had tuned bars in them like a doorbell (only ultrasonic). That's where the remote got the nickname "clicker," back then, when you pressed the "Channel Change" button, it actually clicked as it struck the bar, Sometimes, you could get the channel to change by...

That's the upside to vacuum-tube radios. They have a working voltage of 100V, vs. 12v in your modern radio. Could get a LOT more volume fed to the earphones.... Ron Wanttaja

As long as a bony hand has punched through the crust of this particular Necropost, I'll share the results of a study I did a couple of months ago. There are about 293,000 total aircraft in the US registry. But of that amount, only about 144,000 are the typical GA aircraft that the program is...

Actually, it reminds of the "Dollar a year men," in the first half of the 20th century and especially during the World Wars. Nothing in the historical record about hours actually put in on the job. Ron Wanttaja

"Elon Musk's new Department of Government Efficiency posted a job listing saying they are looking for people willing to work eighty-plus hours a week for no money. You can't be surprised that the White African guy's first idea is slavery." - Michael Che, "Weekend Update", 11/16/2024 Ron Wanttaja

Returning to the basic question, does anyone know Musk's attitude towards recreational aviation? We know he's in favor of "General Aviation", but what about personal flight below the bizjet level? Remember that limits on personal aviation are likely to have popular support...after all, we're...

Paperweights. Needed when offices weren't air-conditioned, and windows were open to the breeze. Needed something to hold down the loose sheets. Ron Wanttaja

Minimizing the amount of exposed skin. Ron Wanttaja

Agree with the last half, not so much with the one before it. In my career in the space industry I worked only one program that took less than two years from start to launch. It was a set of microsatellites, each smaller than a box of Kleenex. Everything else was multiyear, from two and a...

I suspect the major findings of DOGE will be a recommendation for reduced regulations on: 1. Private space companies 2. Electric cars 3. Social media companies Ron Wanttaja

Replacing an experienced employee with someone whose main qualification is political loyalty is not efficient. Ron Wanttaja

What should be the criteria that establishes whether it's effective? What metrics will be used to score it's results? From what understand, it'll have a multimillion dollar budget and no authority. It'll suck money in, and produce nothing but advice. It's basically just another beltway...

Probably will completely kill MOSAIC. If the FAA has to do a "2 for 1," there are other things they'd rather protect than something relaxing standards. Ron Wanttaja

Attack using an Icy B. M.? Ron Wanttaja

THE LAST OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE By Rudyard Kipling There were thirty million English who talked of England's might, There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade; They were only shiftless soldiers, the last...

I consider mine a waste. Every two years, I have to fly an airplane with over twice the horsepower, four times as many seats, a digital panel, with CG concerns (mine is almost impossible to load out of range), and that requires attention to approach airspeed. My first "landing approach" in...

My boss at Boeing had earned his tuition by working ore freighters over the summer. He had a ship painting on the wall behind his desk. Took me quite a while to realize it said "Edmund Fitzgerald" on the bow. Wasn't just a song, to him. Ron Wanttaja