Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts
As Amelia Earhart said, you can either be a passenger or a pilot. Janeen Kochan is definitely a pilot in this best and broadest sense. Also an instructor, examiner, mechanic, bomber pilot, human factors expert and role model. Read my interview with Janeen Kochan on my Forbes column.
Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, on European expansion:
"Germans will crawl f***ing-naked over broken glass to get low fares!"
“Plane Speaking: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael O’Leary” by Paul Kilduff, published by Aurum Press is available from Telegraph Books for £8.99 plus 99p p&p.
Air Facts Journal has been doing a special series about the declining general aviation pilot population with one of the articles in the series being written by Adam Smith – who was born and raised in northern England where he managed the Scottish National Museum of Flight before eventually moved to the USA to manage the operation of the EAA AirVenture Museum. In the article, Adam recalls that when he first went to the USA:
We were completely blown away by the aviation environment we found in the USA–compared to the UK it felt like arriving in paradise! Half price airplanes, fuel at one-third the price, airports everywhere, free weather briefings, affordable hangars, no charges to fly in controlled airspace and, get this, no landing fees, anywhere… wow, this was the place to be!
However, things are changing for general aviation in the USA and its changing for the worst. Adam noted a research study by a graduate student at MIT that used a large amount of statistical data to confirm what pilots already know from their observation – general aviation has been in a slow and steady decline for around three decades. Adam quoted a line from the study that said:
…as the pilot population declines, in part due to increasing costs, the economies of scale in all aspects of cost in general aviation will diminish and will push costs up even more, creating a crippling positive feedback loop.
In other words and as Adam noted, what happened in the UK is now happening in the USA. Adam gave some suggestions for how to reverse this trend (e.g doing something about the 80% drop out rate in flight training as moving the “needle even 10%” would add thousands of new pilots every year) but it will be a daunting challenge.
The research study itself is well worth reading along with the other articles in the Air Fact Journal series and it would be interesting if any pilots left in the UK were to post a few comments to them to add a British perspective to the problem.
If you are looking to redesign your office space or give it an aviation feel, MotoArt has just created a unique series of Stearman Wing Conference Tables with each being a custom size in length up to 24 feet. Clients can also determine the final colors of the wooden spruce spars and base support legs with finishing touches including tempered glass that is custom cut to maintain the shape of the wing:
A quick look at the MotoArt website reveals a whole series of aviation inspired conference tables along with other types of tables and numerous other aviation themed pieces of furniture or accent pieces like a F-4 Ejection Bar Stool:
And then there is this G2 Gulfstream Conference Table that would definitely be the closest most general aviation pilots get to owning an actual Gulfstream!:
Then again, I don’t see any prices listed on MotoArt’s website as one needs to inquiry directly with them regarding pricing – meaning their bigger products could well be beyond the budgets of most general aviation pilots! With that said, MotoArt does have showrooms or sales offices in California, Maryland, Reggio Emilia (Northern Italy) and Amman (Jordan) where would-be decorators can see their aviation themed items in person or they can browse the company’s website. Likewise, the video below tells a little bit more about MotoArt’s design philosophy and “the art of being green with a strong historical presence…”
Both the Daily Mail and the Independent have both reported that Chief Constable Alex Marshall has stated that it would be a cheaper and more efficient to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or so-called drones rather than manned aircraft to police British skies. Specifically, the Chief Constable stated:
We don’t use them in mainstream policing at the moment but they may well offer something for the future. They can stay up longer, they’re cheaper, they can do things that you can’t do having people in the air.
However, he was quick to add that:
The debate that still needs to be had – it might be cost- effective, you might be able to keep it up longer, but is it acceptable to the citizens of the UK to have them in the air?
Of course, its not acceptable to privacy advocates who worry about “Big Brother” watching them (then again, “Big Brother” is already watching you if you are in Central London…) and currently the only UAVs or drones approved for use are small radio-controlled devices that are only allowed to go up to 400 ft in the air and up to 1,600 ft away from the on-ground “pilot” who must maintain visual contact with them at all times. There are also potential issues with operating UAVs or drones when civilian aircraft are around.
Hence, we want to know what any UK based pilot reader thinks about the use of police UAVs or drones in British airspace: Should they be allowed and if so, what restrictions (if any) should be place on their usage? Feel free to tell us in the comments section.
Our headline ran: "Virgin screws British Airways." We’d have rather preferred “British Airways screws Virgin,” but we had to run with the facts…
— News Editor, “The Sun” newspaper.