Monday, July 02, 2007
My interview, with questions by TUA
[Disclaimer: Hariseldon and I (TUA) have been close friends for a number of years, and share a fanaticism about most anything with wings, among other things. We email regularly. so it's a bit difficult to ask him questions w/o using personal info I know about him. But I'll do my best to play stupid and pretend I only know him from his blog. As he knows, I'm pretty damn good at it at times! Ed.]
1. Let's dispense with the obvious. Your blog is full of....well, stuff that goes through the air, and things that make a lot of noise, and leave black marks on the pavement. At what age, when and how did these love affairs start? Take as many pages as you need.
I remember falling in love with planes when I started hanging out at the Westport Library around 1960, when I was seven. I was looking through various sections in the adult area (I was lucky, there was a librarian that didn’t shoo me out of there, as many are wont to do.) when I stumbled across an illustrated book describing various types of aircraft, both military and civilian. I was immediately smitten. I thought these were some of the most beautiful and sensuous looking machines I had ever seen. Then, when my soon-to-be step dad was dating my mom, knowing my love of aircraft, he would take me down to the old Municipal airport in Kansas City to watch aircraft and talk. This was a long time ago, when you could park near the fence, and weren’t shooed away by security. The airlines were still using the Constellations and DC-7’s, airliners with four eighteen cylinder compound turbo-supercharged radials. These aircraft sound like no other, and if you’ve not heard one, I simply can’t describe it. It’s a sound like NO other. At full throttle, they’re deep, throaty and powerful. Jet’s were on their way in, and were cool to watch but the recip aircraft still hold a dear spot in my aircraft loving heart. I’ve been hooked ever since. In the summer of 1980, I decided to do something about it, and started the process of obtaining my private ticket. I was in heaven. I was finally able to join the other lucky bastards who fly. It was every bit as good as I thought it would be. And better. I felt at home. Then, after a couple of years, economic reality hit. Flying isn’t cheap, and I had to make some hard decisions. In addition to being put on the Ronald Reagan vacation plan in late 1982, my wife became pregnant with our first child. Kids aren’t cheap either. Now, to stay current, you have to do a certain amount of flying, including a prescribed number of takeoffs and landings, within a certain amount of time. I agonized over it quite a bit, and finally came to the conclusion that if I just flew the minimums, I’d be current, but I couldn’t consider myself safe. That was, and is, a big deal with me. I didn’t want to be one of those somewhat incompetent weekend warriors who smeared himself across the landscape that we read about. Now once you have your license, you don’t lose it. It just goes inactive if you don’t stay current. That means you don’t have to go through the entire training process again. You just have to visit your friendly local flight school, find a good seasoned instructor, and get some dual time in and bring your logbook up to date. When the instructor thinks you’re good to go, you get a review from an FAA inspector and once he signs you off, you’re back in business. This could take anywhere from 15 to 20 hours, depending on how rusty you are. My sons are in college, so money is still an issue. When they’re done, I’m kicking their asses out of the house and I’m getting back in the saddle.
That was the flying part.
While I’d had an abiding love of aircraft by then, I didn’t display the same infatuation for cars until my Dad’s brother brought his hot rod by. It was a 1940 Ford Deluxe Opera Coupe, with an Olds tri-power engine and a Lincoln Zephyr tranny. Primer red, with red and white tuck and roll interior. The first time he wound the motor up, dumped the clutch, and grabbed a couple of gears, I was hooked. My mom never quite forgave him for that. For a long time, it was just hot rods in general that I liked. In fact, I was partial to Chevys for a while. Then, in high school, a friend gave me a ride in his ’67 Olds 442. What a kick in the ass! It was refined, smooth, powerful, and no one else would race him. I became an Oldsmobile devotee, and have NOT forgiven GM for killing the marque. While I love all sorts of car racing, drag racing remains my favorite. I’ve since gone through a variety of cars. Oldsmobiles from the mid sixties remain my favorite, in both style and power.
2. There seems to be a dramatic increase in what's been termed "Pilot Error", that sometimes cost lives. You wrote here: ".....there was the case in Lexington Kentucky where a regional jet lined up on the wrong runway that was too short for the plane. The resulting crash killed 49 people. More recently, a Continental 757 lined up on the right heading, but landed on the taxiway next TO the runway instead. The next Monday, an Alaska Airways 737 used the wrong runway to take off."
Are these errors really the fault of the Pilots themselves, or is it the technology, the increased pressure by airlines on their pilots to adhere to schedule, "scapegoating", or other reasons? If you choose Pilot Error, please explain in detail.
All of the above.
Now, that may seem like I’m ducking the issue, but it’s been proven that in most cases, it’s not ANY ONE PARTICULAR thing that causes these incidents, but a whole combination of little things that all pile up and end in disaster. In the Kentucky incident, the pilots had flown out of that airport before. Familiarity can breed laziness and complacency. The transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder shows that these two were thinking about everything but the job at hand. They’d probably made this flight dozens of times before. But the taxiways had been recently changed because of work done on the main runway. They were flying early in the pre-dawn hours. They acknowledged clearance to use runway 22, but ended up using 26, a short runway not intended for night time use. By the time they realized they were in deep shit, they were so far behind the curve there was nothing they could do about it except hang on. The airport tower was supposed to have two controllers on duty, but there was only one. You get the picture. Just a whole lot of little things that all added up.
In other incidents, other factors include an increasingly antiquated ATC system, overworked controllers, airlines forcing less pilots to fly more hours, in many cases bumping up against FAA mandated monthly limits. (Can you say NWA??)
If automation does play a part, it’s when a crew becomes so involved in trying to solve a problem with something in the cockpit, they simply forget to fly the plane. That’s NOT unheard of. Most of the pilots flying US flagship carriers are very good at what they do. In spite of recent cutbacks by airlines looking to cut costs, US airlines still employ some of the finest pilots in the world. But their job isn’t getting any easier.
3. You wrote of an awful period of time with your Son's health, during which the possibility of losing him was very real. Now that he has fully recovered.....IF...you wish to answer: Did that have a drastic impact on your familly dynamics? If so, in what way, and what would you say to a parent facing the same type of thing?
If it had any impact that I can talk about, it had the effect of drawing us closer. This is particularly true with his brothers. Before, they had the typical love/hate brother relationship. Young men that age tend to think of themselves and others their age as being immortal. Something like this drives home the fact that life brings no guarantees to the table. Since then, they’ve been getting along better and arguing less. Now, it could be said that they’re simply becoming more mature, but I believe this made them realize that every day is a gift. This time also brought the wife and I closer together. We had to give each other a lot of support as we worked through this, and we learned more about each other in the process.
The thing I’m most grateful for is that my Son, ever the workaholic, is now taking more time to stop and smell life’s roses. Before, he was driving himself as hard as he could to finish the degree he was working on, pulling all niters studying, in addition to his job, and he had put himself under a lot of stress in the process. It turns out this stress may have partly triggered the seizure that revealed the condition. He was on about 3 hours of sleep, and hadn’t had any breakfast. Since then, he’s given himself permission to slow down a little bit and do things like sit on a bench in the middle of a park and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. At least for a few minutes. And I’m grateful he learned how to do that. Most people never figure that out. He has.
4. You've written occasionally that you like to cook. Where did you learn the art, what are a few of your favorite meals/dishes, and what would you have to say to the "Macho men stay out of the kitchen" gang?
My mom taught me a lot of what I know about the basics of cooking. She also taught me how to shop. A lot of the “fancy” stuff, like finger tip sushi and the like, I’ve taught myself. I’m not afraid to try anything in the kitchen. The first time I “fire roasted” peppers and tomatoes on the gas stove in the middle of the winter, I thought my wife was going to have a cat. (You put the tomatoes and peppers right on the open flame until the skin is seared and the meat starts to get slightly tender, then peel it under a cold stream of water. And yes, the fire alarms weren’t happy with me.
My favorite dish is chili. I also make a pretty mean batch of beef enchiladas. I really enjoy BBQ. Just this weekend, I did a turkey on the grill that turned out pretty darned good, if I do say so myself.
For the guys who don’t think they belong in the kitchen, fine. Starve your silly asses or eat raw hot dogs. Suit yourself. All of my sons know how to cook, and are pretty competent at it. Plus, their girlfriends seem to really enjoy watching me womp up a mess of food when they come over to join us for supper.
5. You just won billions in the lottery! You can have a whole fleet of airplanes to fly, and a lot full of cars to drive! But alas.....(: Your wife lays down the law and says "just one each and that's it!" Assuming you didn't get rid of your wife, what ones would that be, who makes them, and what made you choose them?
For cars, it would have to be the Chevrolet Z06 Corvette, with Lingenfelter upgrades, including twin intercooled turbochargers and 6 speed transmission. It would be “Write me a ticket Red” with approx 700+ Hp. Do you need that much horsepower? Hell no. Would it be fun to drive? Hell yes! American made muscle. ‘Nuff said!
For Aircraft, my plane of choice would have to be a North American P51 Mustang. They don’t make them any more of course, but that’s what makes them so expensive. They’re fast, good looking, noisy, and powerful. What more could a man possibly want??? There’s an old saying in aviation. “If it looks right, it’ll fly right.” The P51 looks good from any angle. I’ve studied models that I’ve made of them before. I’ve looked at it from all angles, and I simply cannot find a bad angle to this aircraft. Not one.
=========================================================================
Please be sure to include the following in the post you make with your answers.
Do YOU want to be interviewed?
Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview
someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.
1. Let's dispense with the obvious. Your blog is full of....well, stuff that goes through the air, and things that make a lot of noise, and leave black marks on the pavement. At what age, when and how did these love affairs start? Take as many pages as you need.
I remember falling in love with planes when I started hanging out at the Westport Library around 1960, when I was seven. I was looking through various sections in the adult area (I was lucky, there was a librarian that didn’t shoo me out of there, as many are wont to do.) when I stumbled across an illustrated book describing various types of aircraft, both military and civilian. I was immediately smitten. I thought these were some of the most beautiful and sensuous looking machines I had ever seen. Then, when my soon-to-be step dad was dating my mom, knowing my love of aircraft, he would take me down to the old Municipal airport in Kansas City to watch aircraft and talk. This was a long time ago, when you could park near the fence, and weren’t shooed away by security. The airlines were still using the Constellations and DC-7’s, airliners with four eighteen cylinder compound turbo-supercharged radials. These aircraft sound like no other, and if you’ve not heard one, I simply can’t describe it. It’s a sound like NO other. At full throttle, they’re deep, throaty and powerful. Jet’s were on their way in, and were cool to watch but the recip aircraft still hold a dear spot in my aircraft loving heart. I’ve been hooked ever since. In the summer of 1980, I decided to do something about it, and started the process of obtaining my private ticket. I was in heaven. I was finally able to join the other lucky bastards who fly. It was every bit as good as I thought it would be. And better. I felt at home. Then, after a couple of years, economic reality hit. Flying isn’t cheap, and I had to make some hard decisions. In addition to being put on the Ronald Reagan vacation plan in late 1982, my wife became pregnant with our first child. Kids aren’t cheap either. Now, to stay current, you have to do a certain amount of flying, including a prescribed number of takeoffs and landings, within a certain amount of time. I agonized over it quite a bit, and finally came to the conclusion that if I just flew the minimums, I’d be current, but I couldn’t consider myself safe. That was, and is, a big deal with me. I didn’t want to be one of those somewhat incompetent weekend warriors who smeared himself across the landscape that we read about. Now once you have your license, you don’t lose it. It just goes inactive if you don’t stay current. That means you don’t have to go through the entire training process again. You just have to visit your friendly local flight school, find a good seasoned instructor, and get some dual time in and bring your logbook up to date. When the instructor thinks you’re good to go, you get a review from an FAA inspector and once he signs you off, you’re back in business. This could take anywhere from 15 to 20 hours, depending on how rusty you are. My sons are in college, so money is still an issue. When they’re done, I’m kicking their asses out of the house and I’m getting back in the saddle.
That was the flying part.
While I’d had an abiding love of aircraft by then, I didn’t display the same infatuation for cars until my Dad’s brother brought his hot rod by. It was a 1940 Ford Deluxe Opera Coupe, with an Olds tri-power engine and a Lincoln Zephyr tranny. Primer red, with red and white tuck and roll interior. The first time he wound the motor up, dumped the clutch, and grabbed a couple of gears, I was hooked. My mom never quite forgave him for that. For a long time, it was just hot rods in general that I liked. In fact, I was partial to Chevys for a while. Then, in high school, a friend gave me a ride in his ’67 Olds 442. What a kick in the ass! It was refined, smooth, powerful, and no one else would race him. I became an Oldsmobile devotee, and have NOT forgiven GM for killing the marque. While I love all sorts of car racing, drag racing remains my favorite. I’ve since gone through a variety of cars. Oldsmobiles from the mid sixties remain my favorite, in both style and power.
2. There seems to be a dramatic increase in what's been termed "Pilot Error", that sometimes cost lives. You wrote here: ".....there was the case in Lexington Kentucky where a regional jet lined up on the wrong runway that was too short for the plane. The resulting crash killed 49 people. More recently, a Continental 757 lined up on the right heading, but landed on the taxiway next TO the runway instead. The next Monday, an Alaska Airways 737 used the wrong runway to take off."
Are these errors really the fault of the Pilots themselves, or is it the technology, the increased pressure by airlines on their pilots to adhere to schedule, "scapegoating", or other reasons? If you choose Pilot Error, please explain in detail.
All of the above.
Now, that may seem like I’m ducking the issue, but it’s been proven that in most cases, it’s not ANY ONE PARTICULAR thing that causes these incidents, but a whole combination of little things that all pile up and end in disaster. In the Kentucky incident, the pilots had flown out of that airport before. Familiarity can breed laziness and complacency. The transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder shows that these two were thinking about everything but the job at hand. They’d probably made this flight dozens of times before. But the taxiways had been recently changed because of work done on the main runway. They were flying early in the pre-dawn hours. They acknowledged clearance to use runway 22, but ended up using 26, a short runway not intended for night time use. By the time they realized they were in deep shit, they were so far behind the curve there was nothing they could do about it except hang on. The airport tower was supposed to have two controllers on duty, but there was only one. You get the picture. Just a whole lot of little things that all added up.
In other incidents, other factors include an increasingly antiquated ATC system, overworked controllers, airlines forcing less pilots to fly more hours, in many cases bumping up against FAA mandated monthly limits. (Can you say NWA??)
If automation does play a part, it’s when a crew becomes so involved in trying to solve a problem with something in the cockpit, they simply forget to fly the plane. That’s NOT unheard of. Most of the pilots flying US flagship carriers are very good at what they do. In spite of recent cutbacks by airlines looking to cut costs, US airlines still employ some of the finest pilots in the world. But their job isn’t getting any easier.
3. You wrote of an awful period of time with your Son's health, during which the possibility of losing him was very real. Now that he has fully recovered.....IF...you wish to answer: Did that have a drastic impact on your familly dynamics? If so, in what way, and what would you say to a parent facing the same type of thing?
If it had any impact that I can talk about, it had the effect of drawing us closer. This is particularly true with his brothers. Before, they had the typical love/hate brother relationship. Young men that age tend to think of themselves and others their age as being immortal. Something like this drives home the fact that life brings no guarantees to the table. Since then, they’ve been getting along better and arguing less. Now, it could be said that they’re simply becoming more mature, but I believe this made them realize that every day is a gift. This time also brought the wife and I closer together. We had to give each other a lot of support as we worked through this, and we learned more about each other in the process.
The thing I’m most grateful for is that my Son, ever the workaholic, is now taking more time to stop and smell life’s roses. Before, he was driving himself as hard as he could to finish the degree he was working on, pulling all niters studying, in addition to his job, and he had put himself under a lot of stress in the process. It turns out this stress may have partly triggered the seizure that revealed the condition. He was on about 3 hours of sleep, and hadn’t had any breakfast. Since then, he’s given himself permission to slow down a little bit and do things like sit on a bench in the middle of a park and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. At least for a few minutes. And I’m grateful he learned how to do that. Most people never figure that out. He has.
4. You've written occasionally that you like to cook. Where did you learn the art, what are a few of your favorite meals/dishes, and what would you have to say to the "Macho men stay out of the kitchen" gang?
My mom taught me a lot of what I know about the basics of cooking. She also taught me how to shop. A lot of the “fancy” stuff, like finger tip sushi and the like, I’ve taught myself. I’m not afraid to try anything in the kitchen. The first time I “fire roasted” peppers and tomatoes on the gas stove in the middle of the winter, I thought my wife was going to have a cat. (You put the tomatoes and peppers right on the open flame until the skin is seared and the meat starts to get slightly tender, then peel it under a cold stream of water. And yes, the fire alarms weren’t happy with me.
My favorite dish is chili. I also make a pretty mean batch of beef enchiladas. I really enjoy BBQ. Just this weekend, I did a turkey on the grill that turned out pretty darned good, if I do say so myself.
For the guys who don’t think they belong in the kitchen, fine. Starve your silly asses or eat raw hot dogs. Suit yourself. All of my sons know how to cook, and are pretty competent at it. Plus, their girlfriends seem to really enjoy watching me womp up a mess of food when they come over to join us for supper.
5. You just won billions in the lottery! You can have a whole fleet of airplanes to fly, and a lot full of cars to drive! But alas.....(: Your wife lays down the law and says "just one each and that's it!" Assuming you didn't get rid of your wife, what ones would that be, who makes them, and what made you choose them?
For cars, it would have to be the Chevrolet Z06 Corvette, with Lingenfelter upgrades, including twin intercooled turbochargers and 6 speed transmission. It would be “Write me a ticket Red” with approx 700+ Hp. Do you need that much horsepower? Hell no. Would it be fun to drive? Hell yes! American made muscle. ‘Nuff said!
For Aircraft, my plane of choice would have to be a North American P51 Mustang. They don’t make them any more of course, but that’s what makes them so expensive. They’re fast, good looking, noisy, and powerful. What more could a man possibly want??? There’s an old saying in aviation. “If it looks right, it’ll fly right.” The P51 looks good from any angle. I’ve studied models that I’ve made of them before. I’ve looked at it from all angles, and I simply cannot find a bad angle to this aircraft. Not one.
=========================================================================
Please be sure to include the following in the post you make with your answers.
Do YOU want to be interviewed?
Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview
someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.
Comments:
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do you make chicken wings? tua says you love everything with wings- and you cook- seems like a logical marriage of the best of both things. :) is it legal for me to ask a question?
betmo,
I've made chicken wings. Pretty simple, actually. Roast the wings, coat them with your favorite hot sauce, and crisp up on a hot grill for a couple of minutes. Easy.
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I've made chicken wings. Pretty simple, actually. Roast the wings, coat them with your favorite hot sauce, and crisp up on a hot grill for a couple of minutes. Easy.
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