I ran across this quote from Paul Harvey that just seems to be a fit for our times: “When little men cast long shadows, the day is almost ended”

How Ironic

Given the path we are on in the United States I find it ironic where I am now. The harder I work, the more I earn. The more I earn, the more I pay in taxes. The more I pay in taxes, that faster the takers and politicians destroy the country, bringing reduced living standards to everyone. So, the best way for me to have a better future is to work less and earn less,but if everyone decides to do that then we end up with reduced living standards also.

Sigh, it sure was a lot more fun when America was great.

Memorize this chart

In 2025 when prosperity, innovation and the ability to get ahead in the United States is totally dead you should have this image firmly in your mind so you will understand both why things are that way and how it was totally predictable 15 years earlier that it was going to turn out that way.
A few things to notice: the real problem started in 2008, the year the liberals took over congress. It accelerated at an incredible pace once the liberals controlled both congress and the presidency. Finally, these charts are based on the optimistic projections from the CBO and the president's budget office so things will probably be worse, and most likely, much much worse. Just like dates have a life of their own, such as 9/11 and 12/7 ("A day that will live in infamy") so too will the world look back and mark 11/4/2008 as the day the United States died.

Everyone believes in a higher power

In watching the vitriol and half truths from all sides in the year long debates on health insurance reform and the underlying world views of freedom versus control versus responsibility, it once again became quite obvious that everyone, yes everyone, believes that human affairs are governed by a higher power. The only difference is that some people believe that power is located in heaven, some believe it is located in Washington D.C. and some believe it is located in the collective wisdom of the markets and masses. Of course, as with all this debate, the bottom line is that these are irreconcilable differences of opinion. Things should continue to get even more vicious as time goes on.

This idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite, in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly, "We have to choose between a left or right." Well, I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: Man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
Ronald Reagan, 1964

Although back then the country did turn from darkness and failure to the light and success on 11/4/2008 we turned back to darkness and failure, This time I am afraid it will be too late to save the country as the forces of totalitarianism will now do whatever it takes to consolidate and maintain their power. Those who feel otherwise today, check back in with me in 4 years and tell me how it worked out.

Spending more won't save the country

I had in mind a simple thought experiment. Now that we have all decided that being rich is evil and "the Rich" should pay for everything I wanted to see just how much we can rip out of their bloodsucking, evil, selfish hides. At first I thought the best way would be to just put the marginal tax rate at 100% for all income for everyone on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America and then I thought, "you know, that is not enough. Obviously since these people have money at all it means that they stole it all from the poor so the only right thing to do is to take everything they have and leave them poor. Serves the bastards right." So be it. The sum total of all the wealth of the top 400 is $1.27 trillion (as of the 2009 list). Oops, that won't even cover the 2010 deficit! It covers less than 1/3 of the US budget for 2010! Obviously we are going to have to dig deeper. Since in this exercise we have already cleaned out the top 400 and they will now be living under an overpass somewhere there is a whole new group of the richest 400 so let's take all their money too!
Hmm, I see a problem though. If one plots the net worths of the top 400 it looks very much like a power curve of some sort. As an indication, the top guy has $50 billion and the bottom guy a measly $950 million, a factor of over 50! If we assume the power law follows the next 400 down the #800 guy has less than a $130 million and the total net worth of the #400 to #800 is somewhere around $160 Billion (I will be doing more modeling of this using the 400 data and the household wealth data from the US govt). OK, so we have cleaned out the top 800 now and still have not covered the deficit for 2010 so that means we must dig even deeper! Let's wipe out the next 20,000! Oops, that only comes to about another $24 billion! Oh shit, we need to go EVEN DEEPER! Of course it becomes clear that the end game here for a budget that is roughly 25% of the GDP is that you have to dig well into the group formerly known as the Middle Class and obviously must now be known as the Middle Rich in order to justify cleaning out all their net worth too. Of course one problem with this model is that once we have cleaned someone out they won't be paying much in taxes the next year and they have nothing left to take so we will just need to keep moving the line further down. Of course most of those cleaned out will probably not be inclined or able to keep a lot of employees around so those newly unemployed will not be paying any taxes either. It will only take a few years (less than 10 I would estimate) before all the wealth of the country has been spent by the government. Oh well, at least then we will all be equal! Pity the poor suckers in year 11 since not only the country but all of it's citizens will be flat broke by then.

Here is a graph of the Forbes 400 net worths:

How far we have fallen...

In 1962 JFK said:"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Today our president says:
"we choose not to go to the moon because it is hard" (paraphrase). As far as change goes, this one really sucks.



Here is the entire test of the JFK speech:
"President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.

I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you.

John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962"

Healthcare users should read this

If you are involved with or impacted by the health care debate (which means everyone) and there are only two things you read it should be the following two articles.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4327012.html and
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334282143887974.html

A few relevant quotes:

from Dean Kamen: “We now live in a world where technology has triumphed, in many ways, over death. The problem with that is that it's enormously expensive. And big pharmaceutical giants and big medical products companies have stopped working on stuff that could be extraordinary because they know they won't be reimbursed, according to the common standards. We're not only rationing today; we're rationing our future. “

from Anthony Daniels aka Theodore Dalrymple : "I also want, wherever I am, the Americans to go on paying for the great majority of the world’s progress in medical research and technological innovation by the preposterous expense of their system: for it is a truth universally acknowledged that American clinical research has long reigned supreme, so overall, the American health-care system must have been doing something right. The rest of the world soon adopts the progress, without the pain of having had to pay for it."

I have been wondering how long it was going to take to people to start understanding the real long term impact of moving to a centralized command and control of the healthcare system would have on the rapid progress that we so much take for granted. All the people in the rest of the world must be looking on with horror as we move on plans that will kill the progress that they have been getting for free. Remember, once the United States is gone, there isn't any other "United States" that will be able to rescue us.

Personally, I don't want a 1950s computer, I don't want 1950s Internet and I certainly don't want 1950s health care. When I am looking back in 2050 I want to be able to say "Thank God that we don't have 2009 computers, 2009 internet or 2009 Healthcare". If we continue down the path the chosen ones in Washington DC have decided for us then we won't be able to say that about healthcare.

The real reason our economy has crashed

The real reason our country is in the mess it is in (from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, 1850):
"Micawber Principle":
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Amazing achievement

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20081223
HAWTHORNE, CA – December 23, 2008 – NASA today announced its selection of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS) Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract award. The contract is for a guaranteed minimum of 20,000 kg to be carried to the International Space Station. The firm contracted value is $1.6 billion and NASA may elect to order additional missions for a cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion...

Although this hasn't seen a lot of major press it is a pretty amazing announcement. (given the other matters around predicting the end of the economy, capitalism, and democracy I guess it didn't deserve the attention:-). Not only are they doing launches for 1/4 the cost of the government/taxpayer provided alternative, they are the first company to get to a usable rocket platform on private money. No government agency specing the design and backing the risk. There will be others, probably quite a few others, but Elon Musk and his team deserve a huge amount of kudos for pulling this off.

That didn't take long: Impeach Obama

http://www.obamaimpeachment.org/

TARPed and Feathered

Well, I just read that there is a move afoot to eliminate the use of corporate aircraft headed up by Barney Frank (which brings to mind another Barney from awhile back, Barney Fife. For those too young to have seen him, this Barney was an incompetent but lovable deputy on Mayberry RFD who was so bad, that although he was allowed to carry a gun, he was not allowed to have it loaded and could only carry one bullet at a time. Said bullet he kept safely in his buttoned shirt pocket until the time of dire need. When he did decide to use it he ended up shooting his foot, the sheriff’s hat, a nearby flowerpot or any and everything else except the intended target. Kind of like when our modern day Barney tried to help out low income renters buy homes by forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give out loans to people who previously were not qualified for them, assuming that magically the basic laws of finance would somehow be shot dead. That is one bullet I am sure we all wish Barney would have left safely buttoned away in his shirt pocket). Anyway, as I was saying, some fools gave Barney a new bullet and he has now decided it is time to blow away corporate use of General Aviation aircraft. This got me to doing a little mental experiment. All the companies that will be getting TARP funds were (and presumably still are) incompetent in one form or another. They were either naïve, stupid, greedy, unaware, lazy or what have you, but for the ease of the experiment let’s just call it incompetent. Also, let’s ignore the positive effects for these companies that throwing hundreds of billions of hard earned taxpayer dollars at their feet will have (that is the great thing about mental experiments, you get to really simplify). In this experiment we have some possible scenarios. First, Barney stopping their use of these aircraft saves them money and thereby makes them more efficient or effective and they recover nicely. But I was thinking, since they are already known to be incompetent since they will be getting TARP money, forcing them to stop using airplanes may make them survive longer because it will let them be less effective in their incompetence. Instead of going and fouling up three sites in one day it will now take them all week to spread their damage to those three sites. It just may help. When I first saw the outrage of the Detroit Three using jets to get to the bailout hearings, as a shareholder I was outraged at the outrage! I want the people of companies I own a part of to be as effective as possible and use whatever tools they can to make them so. I would not tell a one of them that they can’t use a cell phone or a Blackberry because I don’t like them or because they cost too much or because I don’t get to use one (which by the way brings up: is Barney going to tell Nancy Pelosi to stop flying the taxpayer provided Gulfstream V between San Francisco and Washington DC? Might be a good idea!). Anyway again, I then thought back on the actual performance of the Detroit Three in the hearings, where they couldn’t form a coherent sentence and did not know even the most basic numbers behind their businesses and I thought “Gad! Not only do I not want them using jets to be more effective, they were so bad that they shouldn’t have even been allowed to drive back to Washington for the second round, they should have been forced to walk”. That would have kept them out of the office for a long time and, while decreasing their ability to do more damage, may have even allowed some competence to sneak into their companies while they weren’t around and start fixing things instead of going yet again to Washington asking for a handout or a tariff or a new law to save them from their own bad performance yet again.
Of course the real outcome will most likely be that the companies not asking for TARP money will continue to make appropriate use of corporate aircraft, thereby further increasing their effectiveness and further increasing their lead over the incompetent, TARPed and now walking competition. Oh well, survival of the fittest I suppose.

By the way, one thing I am not discussing here is the 1.2 million people employed in the General Aviation industry nor the $150 Billion per year of business they do. It does make me want to go check to see if Barney was involved in the very Barney-like attempt awhile back where some Washington bone-head decided those fat cats in their yachts needed to be punished for being so successful so they tacked a 10% surcharge on the sale of all new Yachts. Almost overnight the Yacht business stopped and about 150,000 people were forced out of work, costing far more in unemployment compensation than ever was planned to have been collected in the surcharge taxes, not to mention throwing an entire industry into a turmoil that took it years to recover from. Sure sounds like something a Barney would do. Heh people, let’s stop giving them new bullets!

A social experiment we can all try

A friend of mine is doing his own homegrown social experimentation. Here is his first test and results.

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a
sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I
laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on a
"Obama 08" tie, and again I laughed as he had given
away his political preference -- just imagine the
coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the
server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama
redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in
disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute
his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless
guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I
went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to
thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the
money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution
experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the
money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that
I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual> recipient needed the money more. I
guess redistribution of
wealth is easier to accept when gaining rather than losing.


Looks like something we can all try. Think of how much more effecient it will be than having some middle man in Washington DC do the spreading and of course keeping a little bit for their overhead.

Latest big trip

 

 We flew from Seattle to Denver to Dallas to Iowa City with stops in Billings, Rapid City and Spokane.
We covered about 3,700 miles and I got to log 18 hours. The flying part of the trip was only 3 days out of the two weeks we were gone. This trip shows how light aircraft can be superior to airliners on trips with many stops in out of the way places, plus, it was a lot more fun!

History- A Condensed Version

Condensed Version of History

INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundations of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals
2. Conservatives
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can had been invented yet, so while our early ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is now known as the Conservative Movement. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jack-Ground Rules.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men.
Most social workers, personal injury lawyers, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get something for nothing.
Here ends today’s lesson in world history.
- author unknown -

A fun week

Well, after 10+ years at Amazon I finally have hit the retirement button. The celebrations started on Saturday when we took the Meridian over to Montana to see how things were going with some work we were doing at the house. I finally got to take a few pictures of the Lektro Tug that Eric Paulson had painted to match my airplane (thanks Eric!). It looks and works great!.

Next, we had a surprise party at my house given by the folks at my church. Tuesday there was a party at work with tons of folks and a very neat crystal airplane momento. Thursday was a breakfast get together farewell where the gang gave my an Apple Air! To make it even better, Jeff joined us for breakfast to say farewell, what a great guy to have worked for. We plan to finish up the week with my daughter, her husband and a friend coming up for the weekend and going to a concert with Celtic Woman, Then next week we go to Denver to visit relatives and dear friends and have another week of fun and celebration. I'm not sure how the actual retirement is going to be but it sure is starting out with a bang!

Sammamish Baptist Church

If you are looking for a new church to attend in the Sammamish, WA area a good one to try is the Foundation Baptist Church.
It is a very nice church in startup mode so not only do you get to hear great preaching and have great fellowship, but you get to be the part of creating a new church in one of the most un-churched areas of the United States.

Where are the Eclipse jets?

OK, I obviously have not been paying much attention to this blog. Maybe 2008 will be a better year for blogging!

Anyway, here is a photo of my new Lektro tug that they painted to match my aircraft. Cool, eh?!
Question for the day:

I have a few bookmarks set up to track various aircraft and aircraft types on FlightAware.com (such as flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/P46T for Meridians)
I notice that during a typical day I will see a dozen or so Meridians in the air at any given time (out of a fleet of about 300), 6 to 12 TBMs, a few dozen PC-12s, 2 to 4 Cessna Mustangs (taking out the demo planes) and almost never an Eclipse. My idle question is, if Eclipse supposedly shipped 100 of their aircraft in 2007 where are they? Cessna claims to have shipped 40 Mustangs in 2007 so one would think that there ought to be 2 to 4 or more Eclipse Jets flying at any given time (which seems order of magnitude consistent with Meridian and TBMs too) (Of course the real outlier seems to be the PC-12, those guys really use their aircraft a lot!)

Trip to Colorado Springs

My wife and I took a trip to Colorado Springs for the week of 9/10 for the annual MMOPA convention. 4 hours total time in the air on the way down with one fuel stop in Pocatello, Idaho. Perfectly clear and smooth the first half of the trip and although we did many deviations to avoid buildups there was not a single bit of turbulence on the second half either. We have decided though that we need to find fueling stops that have easy access to restaurants, either within a short walk or even better, right at the FBO like at the Denver Jet Center at APA near Denver, Colorado.
The trip back was also uneventful although we did spend about 45 minutes in some stratus clouds (smooth). The fueling stop for that trip was in Boise, just for a change of scene. Western Aircraft provided a free crew car to go into town and get some lunch. Even with that, the total time on the ground was only about 50 minutes.

A Day at the Races

Here is a change of pace from airplanes. As a graduation gift I gave my son a day of race training in a Lotus Elise at Pacific Raceways near Seattle.

One more trip

We have been doing quite a bit of flying but not a lot of blogging lately. The weather here has been great for flying. This past weekend I popped over to the farm in Montana for the weekend and came back early Monday morning. Nice commute if you can get it.
When I landed at BFI there was an 8 knot tail wind while landing on 31R. Since SEA and BFI and so close they need to coordinate runway changes so you will many times land with a tailwind at BFI when it isn't quite enough of a tail wind for the big jets going into SEA to worry about.
Anyway, I decided I was going to nail this landing so I did a modified short field technique, max reverse thrust and moderate braking and managed to get of at A10 taxiway even with the tailwind.
For those not familiar with the airport that is a distance of a little over 1,000 feet. That is a nice thing about the Meridian: you can land in pretty short distances if needed. Of course the only way you could lift off in that distance is with a crane...

Sporty's Comes Through, sort of...

I did get a response to my email I had sent to Sporty's. It came via snail mail, had a $25 gift certificate and was from an Exec VP, I presume in charge of customer service. He did say that he was relaying the issue to their website folks so they could make the policy more clear.
Have I flipped my opinion? Well, I am no longer going to cancel all my subscriptions for chart updates like I was going to do this weekend but I have learned that I have to be a much more wary consumer and understand all the details of the deal I am getting. I still may cancel all the subscriptions and buy elsewhere since the effort was appreciated but was not of much substance. Be careful out there.

Don't buy from Sporty's !

Bottom line: You can't trust them and they will rip you off. For the rest of the story, continue reading.
Oh, they will not respond to your email either, but I digress…
I originally thought I should send Hal Shevers and the other members of the Sporty’s gang a letter to try to get this information across but then I realized that I don’t want to spend my time, effort and a 39 cent stamp trying to clue THEM in, I want to spend my time, effort, emails and blogs to try to clue YOU in, my fellow aviation consumers looking for good and safe places to shop. If you find this tale helpful in your buying decisions, please forward it around.
This tale starts when I decide to get another set of Bose Aviation X headsets. I have tried them all at this point and firmly believe that Bose makes the best ANR headset and that it really is worth the extra money. Since I already had a pair and did not need to be sold my main shopping consideration was to find the place with a good price and that I could trust would deliver. I also try to bias my decisions to local stores if possible, but nobody locally carried them so that did not need to be explored further.
If you search the internet for Bose Aviation X headsets you will find many vendors offering them for sale. You will see that they all offer them for the same price (this is Bose’s policy to the dealers to be an authorized dealer). The only differentiation will be how much they charge for shipping. You will find that it ranges from free shipping up to around $40 with Sporty’s being near the high end. But, I foolishly thought, I can use my AOPA card and member number to get a 5% discount from Sporty’s! I found the detail page, which is very long and pretty much contains all the same information that the Bose website has (remember this as it is important to the story). In the buy box right above the Add to Basket button there is a claim that they offer the best price and promise to match the advertised price, etc. Note that this is pointless since Bose does not allow any authorized dealer to advertise a price less than full retail so although their statement is true it is also deceptive. Anyway, I clicked the Add to Basket button and merrily started my path down the checkout trail. I get to step 2, shipping is $18.95, or $35.90 if I want it next day. Pretty close to the high end, but that is OK, I’ve got my AOPA discount to more than offset that. Next page, Step 3 all is cool, there is the area to enter my credit card info and my AOPA member number with a little note: (Needed for 5% AOPA Credit Card Discount). Cool! I enter the info and click confirm order. I get the order complete page and notice that the discount is not shown. Hmmm, wonder what is going on. I use their contact customer service feature to inquire as to why this is. They don’t answer. Next day I log onto my MBNA account and see that they have charged the full amount with no discount applied! I try another customer contact email and still get no answer. I now figure I had better call. They aren’t 7X24 so I have to call the next morning (two days into this saga). Of course the headsets have already shipped by this time but I get a human, they look up the order and I ask why the discount wasn’t applied. The immediately respond with “The Bose headset isn’t eligible for the discount”. I explain that I never saw that disclaimer anywhere in the order pipeline or when I was at the Add to Basket phase and if I had I would have bought them elsewhere. They agree, it isn’t shown anywhere in the checkout process because it doesn't need to be since if I would notice that if I scroll way down on the detail page in the product information box (you know, the same info I saw on the Bose website and that I didn’t need to read because I already own one pair of Bose headsets and already was convinced I wanted to buy the second pair) I would see a small print disclaimer saying “AOPA Discount not available on the Bose Aviation Headset X”. They whipped out this answer so quickly and smoothly that I assume that I am not the only one who has been stung by this “feature”. They then said, this is required by Bose. Interestingly the FTC banned MSRP price fixing scams a long time ago and now all a manufacturer can require is a Minimum Advertised Price (commonly referred to as MAP price) which limits what a retailer can show for pricing in advertisements but the retailer can sell it for whatever they want to. Take a look at sites like Amazon to see how they handle this. Basically, they show the MAP price with a note that to see the actually selling price you need to add it to the cart. Weird, but it does follow the MAP rules. One more layer of deception and untruth added to this transaction.

Now finally, to add insult to injury, if I had bought this from one of those sites offering free shipping and used my AOPA MasterCard I could have gone to the MBNA site and gotten the 5% discount applied to the purchase but alas, since Sporty’s offers a 5% AOPA related discount on some of their merchandise ALL of the purchases from their store are ineligible for the discount from MBNA/AOPA so I ended up paying about $68 more for this headset just for the pleasure of doing business with Sporty’s.

Buyer beware and shop safely out there!

So again, don’t buy from Sporty’s, Preferred Living, Wright Bros. Collection, Men’s Collection or Tool Shop. They don’t sell anything you can’t get someplace else, you will pay too much and you can’t trust them.

I imagine Sporty’s has a kennel full of trained attack lawyers so here I should probably mention that Sporty’s, Preferred Living, Wright Bros. Collection, Men’s Collection or Tool Shop are probably trademarks or service marks or some kind of mark of Sportsman’s Market, Inc. or some other mega conglomerate retailing overlord.

Annual is all done

N46ME has come through it's first annual. Still waiting for parts and information for a few minor things but that is the nature of airplanes.
I did the check out flight today and all checked out fine. It was nice to get back in the air and it was a beautiful morning to go flying. A lot of other people thought so too as I could see by my onboard traffic detection.
Not much else to say today.

To Watsonville and Back

We flew from Seattle down to Watsonville this weekend to visit my wife's mother for her 86th birthday.
I didn't take any photos but have included one above from when N46ME was being created at the Piper factory in Vero Beach.
The flight down was as normal as could be. Headwinds almost the entire way and in VFR conditions except leaving BFI and the last little bit for the approach into KWVI. In the clouds at about 4,000 feet and broke out on the LOC RWY 2 approach at about 1,200 feet MSL (about 1,000 feel AGL). Landed straight in on RWY 2 even though the small amount of local VFR traffic doing landing practice was using RWY 20. Thanks for the very nice folks there for extending their downwinds slightly and letting me land the wrong way. I am typically doing between 100 and 120 knots on final so it was very quick for me to land, clear the runway and get out of everyone's way so they could go about their circuits and bumps.
Interestingly, on the approach I had to slow down a bit because there was a Piper Comanche also on the approach ahead of me and he had to land and cancel on the ground before I could be cleared for the approach. It turns out that it was my good friend Joe Shelton returning from a morning soccer outing with his kids. He is based at KWVI and so far the last three times I have flown in there, he was also just arriving or just leaving.
The trip back was also routine. There had been 500 foot overcast all morning but by the time we left at 1:00 PM it had cleared to the coast. Nor Cal approach was busy so I decided to leave VFR and pick up my clearance to BFI in the air. All went smoothly and in the 2 hours and 59 minutes in flight the closest we came to being in a cloud was during vectors to the ILS at Boeing Field where we just skimmed over the top of a cloud. One gets a real sense of the speed one is flying at when that happens.
Finally, during the arrival we picked up traffic on our IHAS system at our altitude (FL260) about 5 miles ahead of us. Our distance apart never changed until we started our descent. He was going to PAE (Paine Field in Everett where the 747, 767, et al are made). After we landing I looked it up and it was a Pilatus PC-12 based at PAE. Other folks have told me that pretty much the PC-12 and the Meridian cruise at the same speed and the PC-12 only pulls ahead in the descent since it has a much higher Vmo speed than the Meridian. Of course the Meridian climbs faster so in a long flight it all works out to be the same. The big difference is that the PC-12 is much roomier and has quite a bit better range (although 3 to 3.5 hours is about my limit for sitting). Oh yes, that and the PC-12 flies like a truck. Word is that they have improved the handling with the 2006 model. The Meridian is a delight to fly by hand whereas the PC-12 is just a lot of work and not at all pleasant to fly by hand.

Down to Scottsdale

We recently took the Meridian down to Scottsdale, AZ for both recurrent training and a week's vacation in the sun (there is not a lot of sunshine in Seattle during the winter). Travel distance: 991 nautical miles. Flight time: 4 hours 34 minutes. One hour and 20 minutes of that was in the clouds but that was smooth. About 45 minutes of it was in light chop (minor, bumpy turbulence, sort of like driving on a rough dirt road). If the distance had been 140 miles less we could have made it in one stop but in order to have safe fuel reserves we stopped in Elko, NV to refuel. For this trip we almost exactly matched the time involved in taking a commercial flight direct. My rule of thumb has been that for any flight of 1,000 nm the Meridian and the airlines will take the same amount of time. Anything over that and the airlines win, anything under that and the Meridian wins. The main reason is the massive amounts of ground time involved in flying commerical flights today. Of course that is only for direct flights. If you have a stop over or connecting flight in a commecial flight, or even worse, you can't get a commercial flight to where you want to go, the time goes up dramatically and the Meridian is faster on even longer flights.
The only mechanical problem was that the weather radar stopped working. In discussing this with the avionics repait shop, it is common for a new aircraft to need adjustment of the radar transmitter frequency after things settle in. Of course I still had doppler radar up link, stormscope, the ability to talk with flight watch and air traffic control about storm locations. That combined with the total lack of any thunderstorm activity anywhere near where we were flying made it a total non-issue.
The biggest plus was that our flgiht path took us right over the Grand Canyon. That is an awesome sight.

Trip to Montana

At long last all my training is done and we finally got a break in the weather so we could use N46ME to fly over to our farm in Montana. It was a beautiful day, cool, calm and clear, and a quick flight over. 1 hour and 20 minutes vs. 7 hours 45 minutes to drive the same trip. If we didn’t have an airplane we would have sold the farm as the drive was getting to be way too much to deal with.
Some friends were waiting to meet us at the airport and to see the new airplane. Since the airport is at 2,460 feet in a valley and the minimum vector altitude is 10,000 feet in the area the arrival can be fun. This trip we got cleared direct to THM. About 7 miles from the airport at 10,000 feet on a course for straight in to runway 7 we had the runway in sight so we cancelled IFR. Now all we had to do is lose 7,500 feet in a little under 7 miles while going about 130 knots. That means we have got about 3 minutes to get the job done. Here is where a turbo prop is better than either a jet or a piston aircraft. Just pull back the power lever and that big propeller out front becomes a huge speed brake. Drop the gear, point the nose down and easily descend at 2,500 to 3,000 feet per minute in complete comfort and control without gaining any speed (pressurization is very nice in these situations too!). You can even slow down in this kind of descent profile if you need to. Anyway, the unexpected side effect was that the folks on the ground had never seen an airplane descend that fast so they thought something was wrong and they were about to be witnesses to a crash! At 2 mile final we intercepted the VASI glidepath, added power, slowed down, added flaps and had gentle touch down. In the Mirage that same situation would have required a circling descent of about two turns adding an extra 4 minutes to the flight and having us maneuvering near an airport, generally a bad idea.
Given the relative economy and increased flexibility of a single engine turbo prop over the soon to come new Very Light Jets it will be interesting to see how the mix goes over time. Beech (a.k.a. Raytheon) still sells a lot of King Airs at a price equal to the jet alternative. If they had continued the Starship program and continued to make improvements in that aircraft they would probably be doing even better.

Flexible Hamburgers

I’m a little late on posting this blog but thought it still might be entertaining. On January 15th of this year we had endured many weeks of rain and overcast weather and were a bit weary of it.
One nice thing about a fast climbing pressurized aircraft like the Meridian is that you can usually get above the clouds into clear sky and bright sunshine in short order.
We started our adventure filing IFR from BFI (Seattle, WA) to AST (Astoria, Oregon) which was supposed to have a letup in the rain in time for a planned lunchtime arrival for one of those famous $100 hamburgers (with a turboprop they become more like the $400 hamburger but that is another story).
Once we were above the clouds at about 8,000 feet MSL we started looking at the uplinked weather to see if the weather was behaving as expected. It wasn’t. So we started looking at current and forecast weather for anywhere in the entire Pacific Northwest (another nice thing about a fast airplane is that your lunch runs can be pretty far away and still be doable). The only place with any breaks at all was Hoquiam, WA. so we asked ATC for a change of destination with an IFR approach into HQM. The only drawback was by the time we made the decision we were 5 miles from ULESS intersection which is the IAF for the approach into HQM! When cruising along at 180 KIAS that 5 miles goes really fast. We were able to prep for the approach quickly and made a nice approach and landing in full sunshine. The picture shows me and N46ME on the ramp at HQM. After a nice lunch we filed back to BFI, got onto again at 7,000 feet and watched with our eyes and the uplinked weather as the clouds all closed in, the rain returned and the entire northwest, HQM included, was back to making everything green. We landed at BFI in moderate rain.
What a nice but brief break from the rain!

The Plane is Back

N46ME is back from it's first maintenance checkup. Although the process took 30 days only about 18 of those were in actual maintenance, the rest where used in in transporting the aircraft back and forth.
Two parts that are needed are backordered but are not critical so we will just have fun flying until they come in.
Aircraft are still hand made and even with new planes with advanced processes like the Eclipse 500, they are still mostly hand made. There just isn't enough volume there to justify to capital investment it would take to make factories like Toyota has. This does illustrate some interesting change technology has brought to our society: Hand made is now the lower quality alternative to factory produced. You want an exclusive prestige car, you can buy a hand made Rolls Royce. You want the highest quality car with all the latest technology, buy a Lexus. I suppose those who want both could buy a Lexus and use the money they save to have someone glue gold coins to the outside of the car...
First flying after maintence was fun, stayed "low" (which is 16,000 feet for a Meridian) and had one great landing in Spokane and one very challenging landing at Boeing Field (strong, gusty crosswinds).
Not much else to say here.
gene

Time for a Checkup

The dealer I bought my Meridian from, Intermountain Air in Salt Lake City, wanted to have the aircraft in at between 50 to 100 hours of hobbs time for a complete checkout and to fix all the squawks (problems) I have had.
I had quite a list (shown below). Nothing that compromised safety or canceled a flight but it does show how far aircraft have to go before the ownership experience is equivalent to a high end automobile like a Lexus. I have had this discussion with many aircraft dealer and manufacturer folks over the years and most of them just don't get it. Given that a modest aircraft like a Cirrus SR-22 costs 5 times what a top of the line Lexus costs one would think that it would be obvious. I imagine that Japanese manufacturers like Honda will redefine this industry the same way they did the automobile industry.

the squawks:
1) Check rigging. Needs too much left rudder in cruise ? (3 degrees)
2) Check struts, especially starboard.
3) Pilots overhead light. Unable to open little door
4) Check upper door alignment
5) Makes funny grinding noise when starting. Startup noise and shutdown noise (sheet metal against sheet metal sound) Happens before prop starts to spin so it may be something related to the starter.
6) Loose part inside lower door (rattles around when opening door)
7) Install Teflon tape on flaps
8) Comply with SB 1154 ?
9) Gear/stall warning horn is WAY too quiet. Must be defective (other Meridian owners agree when compared to theirs)
10) Whistling noise in cabin when at altitude. Air leak?
11) Configure both GTX 330 transponders to enable the Automatic ALT/GND mode switching so the flight timer automatically resets and starts counting up on takeoff. (Flight timers do not automatically start counting)
12) Various external stickers on the belly need replacement.
13) Air conditioner fan sometimes has very low output.
14) Too much heat output from env control system. Try setting knob to 9 o’clock position. Controller bad? Valve bad? Related to item #13 ?
15) Hydraulic pump cycles every 10 to 20 minutes (25,000 ft, -25 degrees C)
16) Turn coordinator ball is not centered when aircraft is level (Meggitt balls are fine)
17) High pitched whistle in both headsets from both radios when receiving when avionics dimmer is in a dim position (as opposed to completely off)
18) Right rear microphone jack is intermittent.
19) Light bulb on switch that swaps transponders is burned out
20) Please add 2 quarts of turbine oil to the engine

Gene

Utility

Some of you may have heard about SATS (http://sats.nasa.gov/) or read James Fellows book "Free Flight: From Airline Hell to a New Age of Travel" .

For many trips that reality is here today. Private aircraft can beat commercial flights in many cases.
Let's look at a trip from Seattle, WA to Chico, CA my wife recently made.

The best one can do with commerical carriers is:
12:32 pm Depart Seattle (SEA)
4:54 pm Arrive Chico (CIC)
Duration: 4hr 22mn
This involves connecting with a shuttle flight in San Francisco, CA. The cost is actually pretty good at $377 round trip but when you add in showing up at the airport 90 minutes before departure for the obligatory strip search and waiting at the arrival end for 30 minutes for them to smash your luggage the total car to car time becomes almost 6 hours 22 minutes! Pretty much the whole day. She ruled out this visit because she didn't want to spend 2 days of travel for a 3 day visit.

Contrast this with the trip she actually took in our Meridian N46ME.
Leave Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA at 10:00 AM.
Arrive Chico (CIC) at 12:30 PM (strong headwinds on the trip down, otherwise it would have been a 2 hour trip)
Show up for depature 5 minutes before 10 AM.
On arrival, pull the luggage out of the airplane and put it into the rental car (which has been pulled up to the airplane by the FBO) 5 minutes.
Total time from car to car: 2 hours, 40 minutes, a time savings of almost 4 hours and turns it into a very doable trip.
The downside of course is cost, but the bargain price is no bargain if the utility is zero because you couldn't make the trip due to the high travel time overhead.

Bottom line is that today for trips under 900 miles in length you can most likely beat the airlines time and oftentimes beat it by a lot. It is just going to get better and less expensive from this point forward. The airline dinosaurs will become smaller and less relavent to travel in the United States so the quicker they go out of business and stop sucking on the US Treasury (aka taxpayers like you and I) the better off we will all be.