This week I have been re-installing all the programs on my computer – finally decided to install Windows 7. You may have seen a weird post come out in the RSS feed – I got it in my feed. I usually write these posts using Live Writer and that temporary post was the new installation of the software retrieving the website theme. Sorry about that.

I took part of today off and went out to the airport to say hello to the Swift. It was just one too many nice days to ignore. I got up in the air for an hour – just flying around the area. I headed up toward Susanville, CA (KSVE).  The route is to the NE of Stead. The direct line is a bit over 50 nm, put up here in the mountains you rarely go in a straight line unless you want to climb up in the teens and/or don’t care what the terrain looks like under you.  I wasn’t in a hurry, so I pulled the power back and just held 140 MPH/121 KTS indicated. Heading NE the GPS said I was doing 170 mph over the ground – of course on the way back it was a proportionally lower speed.

It was a pretty nice day and surprisingly smooth flying considering the winds. I was by myself in the pattern for a change. It’s nice when you get to fly your own pattern rather than having to adjust for other aircraft.

It was another sparse week for aviation articles with only two that caught my eye…

An aviation buff writes the history of O’Hare Airport.
This is from the Chicago Tribune. Mike Branigan lives and breathes aviation. He grew up under the traffic pattern of Chicago’s Midway Airport and has held aviation-related jobs at both Midway and O’Hare. It sounds like he has tried to keep it centered on history rather than opinion. It’s probably a good book. Available on Amazon. Here’s my affiliate link to the book: A History of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport

A little black aviation history before the Tuskegee Airmen
This article is from the Official Website of the U.S. Air Force. William Powell was born in 1897. He was attending the University of Illinois studying engineering when WWI broke out. He interrupted his studies, joined the 370th Illinois Infantry Regiment and fought in France where he was injured in a gas attack. He returned home, finished his degree and, after being rejected by several flight schools was finally enrolled in the Los Angeles School of Flight in 1928. He was a pioneer in the early days of aviation – before the Tuskegee Airmen.

1910 Curtiss Pusher. Photo Credit: Christopher Chen: Flickr:CC

Here are some flying articles you may have missed this week:

A teen with a future.
This is from Geek Wire. Zach Sweetster, a seventeen-year-old from near Seattle, sounds like a really grounded individual – well, except for his love of all things flying. It sounds like he’s already working on several career options.

Aviation History in Cleveland.
This article is from The Cleveland Daily Banner. It sounds like the Daily Banner is running a series of articles dedicated to aviation history in and around Cleveland. The subject of this one is aviator Charles K. Hamilton. He was trained the art of flying by Glenn Curtiss. He brought one of Curtiss’ biplanes to Cleveland in 1911.

Havelock, NC and the Marines
This article is from the Havelock News. A little more aviation history, this time with a military twist. Read on to get the connection between Havelock and the Marines. (Fruit is involved… sort of).

Here are some flying articles that you may have missed this week:

Going to be around the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum?
This is from the Washington Post. The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum is opening a new exhibit dedicated to Marine Aviation. The exhibit, called Fly Marines! The Centennial of Marine Corps Aviation: 1912-2012 opened on January 7th. It sounds like it’s a great display of Marine Aviation History.

The Living Legends of Aviation Awards will be presented tonight in Beverly Hills, CA.
This article is from the Sacramento Bee. I mention this, not so that you can rush out and get your ticket for the event, but so that you can read the list of attendees and award recipients. I would imagine that you will recognize a few of the names…

Mechanics had Red Tails, too.
This is from the Fort Wayne, IN News Sentinel. James Lattimore, now 90 years old, was a Tuskegee Airman, but he wasn’t a pilot – he was a mechanic. With the Red Tails movie released yesterday, it’s also important to realize that it wasn’t just the pilots who were pushing the social envelope.

Meet a Vietnam Ace.
This is from the Macon, GA Telegraph. “Chuck” DeBellevue is one of only five fighter pilots during the Vietnam conflict who were designated as an ace. He was a Weapons system Officer (WSO) and later an F-4 phantom pilot who served with the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron. He is credited with 6 MIG kills during his 220 combat missions.

WAI Pioneer Hall of Fame Inductees
This is from AOPA Online. The Women in Aviation International conference will be held in Dallas in March. During the conference the organization will honor a new batch of inductees into their Pioneer hall of Fame. This article lists this year’s inductees and describes their contributions to aviation.

A Tuskegee Airman pilot tells his own story
This is from The Daily Beast.com. One sentence from the opening paragraph tells the story…Dr. Roscoe Brown, 87, squadron commander of the 332nd Fighter Group, tells Marlow Stern about being a real Tuskegee Airman.

The history of an airport
This article is from SeaCoastOnline.com. The Sanford, ME airport construction began in 1930. For a time it was used by the Navy to augment the Brunswick Naval Air Station. Pilots trained in the Vought Corsair using both Brunswick and Sanford. Since then it has continued in operation and has provided service to celebrities, Senators and occasionally a President or two – and, of course, a world-renowned Uncontrolled Airspace podcaster.

And a happy Friday the 13th to all of you. I hope you all made it through the day with a minimum of scars.

Here are some flying stories that you may have missed this week:

It flies like a Cub, but different.
This is from the online edition of General Aviation News. David Nixon recently purchased a 1941 Piper J-5A Cub Coupe. This is the story of getting his ‘new’ plane back to his home field in Hubbard, OR. Fine folks and fun flying.

This guy has some stories to tell.
This is from The Daily Record in Wooster, OH. Bob McCarter is one of our ‘Greatest Generation” survivors at age 88. He was taught to fly by Roscoe Turner and had his pilot’s license at age 14 (1937). He went on to be an enlisted Naval Aviator. The article relates several of his experiences and also includes about a 12-minute video interview. Well worth your time.

Another chapter from Richard Taylor
This is another of AVweb’s  Skywritings articles, just in case you missed it. Avweb has been publishing Richard Taylor’s memoirs for some time now. This one is dated back in the first part of December and covers Taylor’s 1956 ‘visit’ to Randolph AFB in San Antonio, TX for advanced flight training. The article has some nice archive photos of the B-29. .

A ‘Jug’ pilot reminisces
This is from the Muncie, IN Star Press. Bud Robertson enlisted in the Army Air Force Reserve when he was 21 years old. Before long he found himself flying P-47s in France. He talks with the author about some of his experiences. It looks like the Star Press is going to make this a weekly column, named Freedom’s Faces, to honor our rapidly dwindling WWII veterans. A nice effort.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all flew from airports like this?
This is from Sonoma, CA, just north of the San Francisco Bay area. I have several friends at this airport, one who is mentioned in the article. This is a true general aviation airport.

Here are some flying stories that you may have missed this week:

Museum Entry – $1.30 USD
This is from the English version of China’s People’s Daily Online. The Shanghai Aviation Scientific Promotion Museum opened recently. The inside exhibits occupy a 2000 square meter area while the outside exhibits have 10,000 square meters. It sounds like they have a Cessna simulator and an Airbus A-320 simulator, both available for visitors to use for a reasonable extra fee. It was interesting to read that the museum is associated with an educational program leading to a pilot’s license – with the flight training conducted in the United States.

Will we see practical hypersonic flight in our lifetimes?
This article is from the BBC News Magazine. The European Space Agency’s goal is to create a hypersonic passenger plane. The article looks into the progress made and the problems that are yet to be solved.

Closure 69 years later.
This is from Florida Today. In November of 1942 Bob Willett’s cousin was flying a C-47 over “The Hump” for China National Aviation Corporation. The flight had dropped off cargo at Kunming, China and was headed back to it’s home base in India but it never made it. Now the family finally has a little closure…

Who was Tony Jannus?
This is from the Seattle PI. Tony Jannus was one of the pilots for the world’s first scheduled airline by airplane (airships were first used in airlines). There are several memorial plaques erected to commemorate the airline’s operation between Tampa and St. Petersburg.

A valiant goal for 2012
This is from The Advertiser Tribune of Tiffin, OH. One of the Tiffin residents, one Ken Snyder has set as his goal for the year the restoration of a 1951 Piper Tri-Pacer. Sounds like a great idea to me. He’s been at it for a while, but this is the year…

Planes of Fame
This is from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Southern California. The author, Joe Blackstock, interviews Ed Maloney, one of the founders of the Planes of Fame aviation museum at the Chino, CA airport. Nice article…

Sounds like an interesting way to spend a winter afternoon.
This is from the Seattle PI blog. The article is a mini-review of the Carolinas Aviation Museum complete with several photos. This museum is the final landing spot for the A-320 that made the successful landing in the Hudson River. It looks like they have a nice collection of well-restored aircraft.

A son is putting his father’s magazine on the web.
This article is from the Sacramento Bee. Way back before there was an FAA, Leighton Collins launched a magazine called Air Facts to share aviation safety information with the growing number of pilots. Now, with the sponsorship of Sporty’s Pilot Shop, Richard Collins is putting Air Facts on the Internet for pilots to access for free. Check it out at AirFactsJournal.com

A Lucky Pointer
This article is from Telegram.com in Worcester, MA. There is no introductory information on this article, it just goes right into some letters the author apparently sent to his parents while he was in Naval Flight Training in the 1940s. An interesting article. It would be nice if it had links to his previous stories.

A final comment about the the media’s coverage of the 2012 Reno Air Races.
I have seen several articles, tweets, posts or whatever that have stated that the National Championship Air Races will be held this year. I guess those headlines get more people clicking on them and generate more ad revenue, or the authors are just printing what they think people want to hear. Half-truths seem to be the norm in journalism these days.  What they meant to say is that Some Kind of Aviation Event will be held at Reno this year – that is what Mike Houghton, CEO of the Reno Air Racing Association(RARA), stated in his press conference this week. They want to operate the Races as they have been run in the past, however, they still do not have the permits from the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority (RTAA) ( the entity which owns/operates the Reno-Stead airport)  and they do not have the required waivers from the FAA to allow the races to be conducted. Nothing was mentioned about the insurance to cover the event. All of these steps are being actively pursued by the folks at RARA – and with a bit of luck they will be successful. If they are not, if the races cannot  be conducted as they have in the past, there will still be a RARA-sponsored aviation event at Stead this year, but it will be the last one.