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When a pilot enters heaven…

A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy who’s dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans.

Saint Peter addresses this guy, “Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?” The guy replies, “I’m Joey Shasta, retired pilot, of Pittsburg, PA.”

Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the pilot, “Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom.”

The pilot goes into Heaven with his robe and staff.

Next it’s the minister’s turn. He stands erect and booms out, “I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary’s for the last 43 years.” Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, “Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom.”

“Just a minute,” says the minister. “That man was a pilot and he gets a silken robe and golden staff. How can this be?”

“Up here, we work by results,” says Saint Peter. “While you preached, people slept; while he flew, people prayed.”

Own a 1/10th share of an original Supermarine Spitfire

The Boultbee Flight Academy, the only accredited Spitfire training academy in the world located at the Goodwood Aerodrome in Chichester (West Sussex), has just announced a unique opportunity for pilots to purchase a 1/10th share in an original Supermarine Spitfire in flying condition.

Any syndicate members who wish to undertake training to fly the aircraft themselves will need to hold a current Private Pilots License and then learn to fly on one of the academy’s two seat Spitfire TR9s. Once an owner has mastered the basics, he or she can complete further training in order to display the aircraft at their own private events or even airshows.

The Spitfire itself will be based at the Goodwood Aerodrome, formerly RAF Westhampnett, which had been a Hurricane and Spitfire base during the Battle of Britain and World War II. Each share is expected to cost in the £250,000 (around US$380,500) range and can be purchased by pilots and non-pilots alike. And since the Spitfire is classified as a wasting asset, it will avoid capital gains taxes.

A quick look at BoultbeeFlightAcademy.co.uk reveals a number of cool resources, including the following short video:

And if owning a 1/10th share of a Spitfire is beyond your budget right now, a price list for learning how to fly one (or other aircraft like a Tiger Moth) along with a list of related merchandise is available here.

Should you teach your spouse to fly?

Ron Rapp, the blogger behind the House of Rapp blog, has written about an interesting question that has no doubt come up in the minds of many married pilots: Should I teach my spouse how to fly?

To begin with, Ron mentioned how he has been married more than 3 1/2 years and his wife is now starting to show interest in learning more about flying as she has been doing stick-and-rudder work on their flights and on her own initiative. In fact, it sounds like she would like to have Ron or has been pressuring him to teach her how to fly.

Since Ron is an instructor, learning how to fly is expensive and the Rapps live in Southern California where air space restrictions make flying complex, it makes sense for him to give his wife most of the basic instructions she would need to learn how to fly. In fact, he figures it would save them over $6,000 if he did the flight training himself. And then there is the ease of scheduling a lesson and the fact that he knows his wife better than any flight instructor would – meaning he probably knows how to best teach her something potentially complicated.

However, Ron also pointed out there is a case against teaching a spouse how to fly that was outlined by Flying columnist Lane Wallace with the summary: “Is it possible to teach your spouse to fly and stay married? Bob Sharar says yes.” In the piece, Lane wrote:

On more than one occasion, I’ve written that if there is an iron-clad piece of advice I’d offer to anyone, it would be that under no circumstances should ANYONE attempt to teach their boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other or spouse how to operate ANY piece of heavy machinery, let alone an airplane. And that people violate this dictum at their peril.

He also added:

The reasons for this advice seem obvious. Intimate relationships entail so many loaded dynamics of power, acceptance and rejection, vulnerability and baggage that attempting to impose a teacher/student relationship on top of that — especially where performance is critical and misunderstandings can be catastrophic — is generally a really bad idea.

Nevertheless, Bob did teach his wife how to fly and they stayed married, but he added:

“I just made it clear, and she understood, that when I was instructing, I was in charge,” he said with authority. But after Phyllis got her license, the person who was “in charge” was whoever was in the left seat. “We trade off legs,” he said. “So it balances out.”

With that said, Ron did note that it seems quite common for a parent to teach a child or grandchild to fly, but that’s a bit different due to the nature of such relationships not being a “marriage of equals” as one is a figure of authority.

Near the end of his post, Ron wrote that his inclination is to “teach her myself, but with a clear understanding that if we encounter problems or it doesn’t seem to be working out, either one of us can suggest switching to a third-party instructor before any unpleasantness destroys her enthusiasm for flying.”

Ron’s inclination seems to make the most sense to me, but what about to you? Moreover, have you or anyone you know faced the same dilemma Ron is facing over whether or not to teach a spouse to fly?

An aviation dictionary…

Airspeed: Speed of an airplane. Deduct 25% when listening to a Navy pilot.

Bank: The folks who hold the lien on most pilots’ cars.

Cone of Confusion: An area about the size of New Jersey, located near the final approach beacon at an airport.

Crab: The squadron Ops Officer.

Dead Reckoning: You reckon correctly, or you are.

Engine Failure: A condition which occurs when all fuel tanks mysteriously become filled with air.

Firewall: Section of the aircraft specially designed to let heat and smoke enter the cockpit.

Glide Distance: Half the distance from the airplane to the nearest emergency landing field.

Hydroplane: An airplane designed to land on a 20,000 foot long wet runway.

IFR: A method of flying by needle and ripcord.

Lean Mixture: Nonalcoholic beer

Nanosecond: Time delay built into the stall warning system.

Parasitic Drag: A pilot who bums a ride and complains about the service.

Range: Usually about 30 miles beyond the point where all fuel tanks fill with air.

Rich Mixture: What you order at the other guy’s promotion party.

Roger: Used when you’re not sure what else to say.

Service Ceiling: Altitude at which cabin crews can serve drinks.

Spoilers: The Federal Aviation Administration.

Stall: Technique used to explain to the bank why you car payment is late.

Lawn chair balloonist’s flight goes amiss

Joe Barbera, a 60-year-old semiretired engineer in Washington, attempted to fulfill a lifelong dream to fly as well as to set a record by taking flight in a lawn chair using helium-filled balloons. Joe was inspired by the 1982 voyage of “Lawnchair Larry” Walters, a Californian who ascended to more than 15,000 feet in a lawn chair lifted by 45 helium-filled balloons.

Lawn chair balloonist's flight ends earlier than he hoped However, Joe’s balloon flight did not go exactly as planned because Joe had intended to use an oxygen tank, but he was forced to leave it behind along with his camera, shoes, all of his food and some of the computer controlled ballast due to defective balloons.

Joe took off early last Saturday morning with about 80 balloons outside his home hoping to travel 268 miles in order to set a record by landing somewhere in Oregon. He rose to about 21,000 feet (much higher than he intended). So he popped some of his balloons which caused his GPS equipped contraption to land in a tree 24 miles away. Joe was unhurt, but he was able to radio that he sitting in his chair stuck high off the ground in the middle of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

An entire group of self-described “redneck engineers” had been working on the lawn chair contraption for a little over a month and even managed to clear the project with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). However, the crew lost track of an unmanned test balloon earlier this month, and one member of the crew admitted they were “making this up as we went along….”

How London’s “levitating” magician really flies

Dynamo, a magician who recently caused a stir in London by appearing to levitate alongside a double-decker bus, was not actually levitating but performing an illusion. That’s pretty obvious, but how did he do it?

A crowdsourced investigation conducted on Australia’s news.com.au Facebook page determined that Dynamo’s “arm” was actually a steel prosthetic fastened to the bus while a harness was used to lift him into position (with his hand tucked inside the “arm”).

This was determined by the lack of any movement of the fingers on the “arm” and the lack of anyone seeing Dynamo when he hovered up to the bus plus the arm looks like a fake:

However, he is hardly the only illusionist to enjoy “hanging around” using fake arms as Johan Lorbeer, a German street performer, likes to hang off walls using this arm captured in an Agence France-Presse photo:

Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts