Daily Pic

You folks sure have posted some great pics! I have lived my "flying life" vicariously though all the great shots over the last eleven months. I finally got some right seat time in our new to us plane. Fellow pilot and Commander Club member Bill H took time out from his vacation time and met me at Ocean City.

I'm still right seat until I get my transition training completed. Hopefully, that will start Monday, we shall see. I made contact with another CFII with Commander experience and he is available.

Our new to us plane...
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CONGRATS your plane looks great!!!!
 
Went to the Aviator Cafe in Hesperia (L26) for breakfast, and to get out of the haze in the basin. Later, overflew So Cal Logistics (KVCV) where they have 737 Max jetliners stacked like cordwood. The group on the ramp at left are all Southwest jets.

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Great restaurant, though the airport's runway is in pretty sad shape, with cracks, weeds, etc. The waitress told me they're opening another restaurant at Apple Valley (KAPV) so that's encouraging. Feels good to support the local business.

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Airport cafes can be some of the most comforting places to visit, especially if the food is good!
 
Snapped this on the ground on the morning of July 4th, 2004 at Dodge City (DDC). I was trying to get to North Carolina, but frustrated by a solid line of thunderstorms from the gulf coast all the way to Canada. Only ended up getting to St. Louis that day. Anyway, I was in the FBO pulling my hair out over the weather, and this older guy comes in wearing coveralls and gets on the phone to Flight Service. In a gruff voice, he sort of demands his weather from the FSS. I didn't think too much of it at the time.

A little later, talking to the guy at the FBO counter, I find out that it was Frank Borman -- the astronaut. The guy noticed his name on the credit card I think and asked him if he was like, an astronaut and had been to the moon. The reply was apparently something to the effect of "yeah, that's something I used to do."

That day, Borman was flying his P-51 back home to Las Cruces from an airshow somewhere in the midwest. He gave us a nice flyover departing the airport.

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Snapped this on the ground on the morning of July 4th, 2004 at Dodge City (DDC). I was trying to get to North Carolina, but frustrated by a solid line of thunderstorms from the gulf coast all the way to Canada. Only ended up getting to St. Louis that day. Anyway, I was in the FBO pulling my hair out over the weather, and this older guy comes in wearing coveralls and gets on the phone to Flight Service. In a gruff voice, he sort of demands his weather from the FSS. I didn't think too much of it at the time.

A little later, talking to the guy at the FBO counter, I find out that it was Frank Borman -- the astronaut. The guy noticed his name on the credit card I think and asked him if he was like, an astronaut and had been to the moon. The reply was apparently something to the effect of "yeah, that's something I used to do."

That day, Borman was flying his P-51 back home to Las Cruces from an airshow somewhere in the midwest. He gave us a nice flyover departing the airport.

su-su-ii-frank-borman.jpg


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Very cool! I've you haven't read Apollo 8, get a copy. It's a real page-turner.
 
American Airlines airplane taking on a load of Atlas beer, circa 1933, location unknown, but probably somewhere in the Chicago area for two reasons: (1) Atlas Brewing was based in Chicago and (2) I found the photo in the "Forgotten Chicago" group on Facebook.

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Travel Air 6000?

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EDIT: A friend found it. It's a Fairchild Pilgrim:

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Highly recommend 5d5 for easy but rustic camp experience. Easily will accommodate those of you with the third wHeel on the wrong end too! Seen coyote and other wildlife. Bikes available. So peaceful and quiet and stars were mind blowing with no real close light pollution.2AB809E9-8327-4F59-9A10-0991012CCBC6.jpeg0A03CB13-D46C-4C78-AC82-4C85C0911C7B.jpeg966EF010-2D50-488C-A590-3C6586A7ED56.jpeg150ED1C1-0ADD-42CA-9CAB-0BC597BDB428.jpeg
 
A couple of weeks ago I was flying back to the Phoenix area from Tucson. My passenger (our own esteemed @Mtns2Skies) said, "What are those big crosses down there in the desert?"

I remembered reading about the hundreds of giant concrete Maltese-cross-shaped markers arranged in a grid pattern over a huge area south of Casa Grande AZ. They were put there in the 1960s to calibrate the cameras of spy satellites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_Satellite_Calibration_Targets

https://www.npr.org/2016/10/11/4965...ry-put-to-rest-why-are-there-xs-in-the-desert

This diagram shows the arrangement of the markers; the ones still there (blue), those that are damaged (yellow) and those that are missing (red).




I took off early this morning on a mission to photograph a few of them:










Mission accomplished, I landed for (cheap) fuel at Gila Bend Muni (E63). There, another Cold War relic serves as a gate guardian:

 
A couple of weeks ago I was flying back to the Phoenix area from Tucson. My passenger (our own esteemed @Mtns2Skies) said, "What are those big crosses down there in the desert?"

I remembered reading about the hundreds of giant concrete Maltese-cross-shaped markers arranged in a grid pattern over a huge area south of Casa Grande AZ. They were put there in the 1960s to calibrate the cameras of spy satellites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_Satellite_Calibration_Targets

https://www.npr.org/2016/10/11/4965...ry-put-to-rest-why-are-there-xs-in-the-desert

This diagram shows the arrangement of the markers; the ones still there (blue), those that are damaged (yellow) and those that are missing (red).




I took off early this morning on a mission to photograph a few of them:










Mission accomplished, I landed for (cheap) fuel at Gila Bend Muni (E63). There, another Cold War relic serves as a gate guardian:


Very cool! I'll look for the markers when I'm out flying that-a-way.
 
Interesting story about the B-58.
Because of weight and balance issues with the aircraft, under certain conditions, a 150 (?) lb weight had to be hoisted into the nose when the plane was parked.
Without it the plane would tip back and cause serious damage to the aft end of the plane.
A young airman noticed a B-58 was starting to tip back because they had forgotten to hang the weight on the plane. He jumped up and grabbed the pitot on the nose and hung on for dear life until they could get the weight installed.
He received a commendation for his actions.
I worked for him my last 10 years at IBM. He had a picture of the incident on the wall in his office.
 
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