Peter Garrison There may still be something to say about it. A few years ago, a sightseeing flight crashed in the Swiss Alps, killing all 20 aboard. The Junkers Ju-52 was attempting to cross a 10,000-foot saddle from south to north. The wind was out of the north, gusting toRead More →
Jean-Claude was in the left seat. He was senior to me, but I was flying. We were near the Equator, where Mermoz and Guillaumet – salut, old comrades! – had once flown. But they, poor fellows, had not been at 35,000 feet! We entered the clouds at what looked likeRead More →
In 1945, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, precursor of NASA and source of much of our knowledge about practical aerodynamics, published a hefty compendium of aerofoil data, NACA Technical Report 824, which later appeared in book form under the title Theory of Wing Sections. The names of the authors,Read More →
Peter Garrison Someone once suggested that if you want to know how you would feel crossing an ocean in a single-engine aeroplane, you should just fly out to sea for a couple of hours and then turn around and come back. There’s something about being out of sight of landRead More →
After 20 years of flying my second homebuilt, preceded by 9 years in my first, I wish I could say that most things that can go wrong already have; but the gods might think me insolent. At this point, however, I can at least say what has worked and whatRead More →
Peter Garrison I graduated from college in 1965. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and any able-bodied male who was not being educated was being drafted. I could have gone to graduate school, but instead decided to take my chances. I moved in with a couple of old friendsRead More →
Peter Garrison I take a miserly pleasure in finding big expensive books on sale at desperately low prices. A bookstore near me, another victim of Amazon, closed recently, disposing of most of its inventory, during its final weeks, at progressively more drastic discounts. I had admired one book in aRead More →
Guy Leitch How the FAA is Fixing Recreational Flying We often forget that South Africa still has some world class institutions that make our country a much better place than that supposed paragon of excellence – the USA. The American banking system is archaic compared to South Africa and ourRead More →
Peter Garrison Sometimes, late at night, I pass the time by searching for the names of friends and acquaintances on the Internet. The other day I entered the name of Betty Faux, and up popped this capsule reference (among various irrelevancies, including a different Betty’s “faux-artless smile”) in a longRead More →
Block that Coefficient! I have to admit that when I encounter equations in a book, I usually just skip over them. Often some phrase like, “It may be readily seen that…” precedes them, and so I figure that since plenty of other people must be readily seeing whatever there isRead More →
