The Wandering Minstrel

The Better Half snapped this (clickable) image in traffic today as we headed back to the California house after a very busy day. Shown is a 1952 Chevrolet sedan all fixed up with sun visor, dual exhaust, white sidewall tires and the all-important little blue jewel in the center of the tail light lenses. The latter gives the appearance of purple taillights when viewed from a distance.

The Better Half caught this (clickable) image of the state line between Ehrenberg, AZ and Blythe, CA, directly over the Colorado River. I’m not saying that there is NO graffiti in rural Arizona, but once you cross the border into Kalifornistan, there are orders of magnitude more instances.

Beef Stroganoff over noodles with poached asparagus spears. Yum!

Back to the football games . . .

When we used to live in Torrance, CA, there would be about 15 Robinson helicopter flights per day over or near our house. The house is roughly on a line between Torrance Zamperini Field and Compton airport, a popular (no-tower) airfield for helicopter training.

I read an article today posted in The Daily Breeze reporting on the 10,000th helicopter delivery. The (clickable) image above is the new Robinson R-66 turbine-powered helicopter. Even though these cost around $800,000, Robinson has a backlog of 360 orders for the new aircraft. Congratulations to Robinson for being able to have a viable enterprise in the hostile Kalifornistan business environment.

I flew a Robinson R-22 once with a buddy of mine years ago. I was used to flying Bell and Hughes helicopters and didn’t think much of the Robinson, but they are certainly popular today. There is one based at the Wickenburg Airport and we see it flying once in a while as opposed to daily overflights in the old place.

We have a lot of files, photos and videos stored in our on-line servers. I was rummaging through those today and ran across this video from 2007 of the “Aluminum Overcast,” a nicely-restored WWII B-17 bomber.

The Better Half and I drove to the Torrance airport and waited at the approach end of runways 11 for the bomber to land. After the aircraft landed, we drove to the ramp to watch as passengers got off and more got on board. The video frame rate makes the props look like they’re going backwards at certain engine RPMs.

Received in a email from Frank N.

By now, most of us have seen the Nissan pickup truck commercial where the little truck drives under a jetliner’s damaged nose gear and “rescues” the plane. Well, I’m here to tell you that the commercial is total bullshit - most of them are, I guess.

Image - Nissan pickup “saving the day”

First, let’s discuss the touchdown speed of a Boeing 767. In landing configuration, full flaps and gear down, the airspeed is about 124 knots, or 143 miles per hour. I seriously doubt that a small pickup can reach such a speed.

Then there is the matter of the maximum landing weight of a 767 being equal to 175 tons, or 348,390 pounds. Being very generous with the distribution of 80 percent of the weight being carried on the main landing gear, the 20 percent carried by the nose gear would be upwards of seventy thousand pounds. That would totally squish that poor little truck like it was a bug.

The only thing lacking on the commercial is the “Demonstration - do not attempt” disclaimer. And, don’t get me started about that Nissan Leaf commercial where everyone has appliances that are powered by internal combustion engines. What a bunch of unmitigated bullshit!

I snapped this today while walking the dogs on the road in front of the new house. The temperature was a brisk 42° so the dogs and I finished our business and went back inside the cozy house seen in the (clickable) photo.