Face of Defense: Marine Aviator Draws Forward Air Controller Duty

Face of Defense: Marine Aviator Draws Forward Air Controller Duty

Lex Anteinternet: Persistent Myths XIV: The Korean War Edition

Lex Anteinternet: Persistent Myths XIV: The Korean War Edition:  The Korean War, we were poorly armed with antiquated stuff, edition.   " U.S. Marines wounded at Kari San Mountain are evacuated...

Wyoming Air National Guard Static Display, Republic F-84 Thunderjet

This is a F-84 Thunderjet on a static display at the Wyoming Air National Guard's main gate at the Cheyenne Regional Airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The Republic Thunderjet was a very early USAF jet fighter, first entering service in a straight wing version and then being modified to be a swept wing version, like the one on display here. 

Plagued with various problems throughout its service life, the F-84 none the less was a very significant US combat aircraft during the 1950s and saw heavy use during the Korean War.  It later saw widespread use around the world and completed its service in Angola in 1974.  As can be seen from this example, it saw use by Air National Guard units as well as the regular United States Air Force.

Wyoming Air National Gaurd C130 Static Display, Cheyenne Wyoming

The Wyoming Air National Guard has this C130 on a static display at their gate at the Cheyenne Regional Air Port.  Cheyenne's airport is a major air national guard base.

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: I'll be with you, boys.

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: I'll be with you, boys.

You can't fly there from here.

 

 Over the Laramie Range.

Unfortunate news from the Casper Star Tribune:

CHEYENNE – A legislative committee chose not to move a draft bill forward this week that would have made fundamental changes to commercial air service in Wyoming.

I was really hoping that the bill would pass.

But I wasn't optimistic that it would.  Wyoming has never been very sympathetic to public funding of business unless its vicarious.  People support funding of highway construction, for example (although lately not so much in the way of school construction) and the legislature is keen on investing in "clean coal" development, even though the prospects for that appear to be rather remote.  But on a project like this, it would have surprised me if they'd supported it, even though I think it was an excellent idea.

I travel for work constantly and one of the questions I get from my out of state customers is "why don't you fly?"  And by that they mean, why don't you fly from one town to another, as in, why don't you fly from Casper to Jackson, or Cheyenne to Worland, or Gillette to Green River?

Well, you can't.

Oh, of course you can, but not easily.  For example, a person wanting to fly from Casper to Jackson would actually have to fly from Casper to Denver, or Salt Lake, and then from those cities to Jackson.  It'd be an all day ordeal.  It's easier, and much cheaper, to drive.

For us.

Because we're acclimated to it.

But that doesn't work that way for most people from other places.  So, when a company looks to relocate, let's say, from New Jersey to Wyoming, it looks at this stuff.  They figure that if they can fly anywhere on the East Coast, or the West Coast, or the No Coast, in a day hop, well surely they can do the same in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Well, outside of Colorado and Utah, not so much.

At one time, oddly enough, you could.  I can recall when I was young being on planes that went from Casper to Cheyenne or Casper to Billings, Montana. But all of that is long gone. And that fact hurts Wyoming businesses and the prospect s for business.

Well, the Tribune also reported:

But all sides agree the issue isn’t dead for lawmakers.

Hmmm, I bet it is.  And here's the reason why:

An appropriation between $29.5 million and $37.2 million out of the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account – commonly known as the “rainy-day fund” – to enact the 10-year plan would have been made under the bill.

As far as various governmental bodies around here are concerned, it never rains.

Sky Aviation Boeing CH-46 Chinooks. Worland Airport

A collection of CH-46s in Worland Wyoming.  These belong to the fire fighting company, Sky Aviation.

Our Pilot

One of the contributors to this blog, and the one who has contributed nearly all the recent photos, receiving his private pilot certificate and receiving the congrats of his trainer at Casper's Crosswinds Aviation

Hawker Sea Fury, Natrona County International Airport

These photographs are of a Hawker Sea Fury, one of the highest performance propeller aircraft ever made, at the Natrona County International Airport.

A beautiful, and amazing plane.  This one in Royal Canadian Navy colors.

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: For Our Aviators

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: For Our Aviators

Lex Anteinternet: The CST goes into the Sunday before Labor Day with a barrel of economic news

Only the third item in this longer item is relevant to this site, but it is relevant.  So we're posing that section here.

Lex Anteinternet: The CST goes into the Sunday before Labor Day with  a barrel of economic news

 3.  Wyoming to subsidize air travel?

 "The air liner "Hannibal" on the Alexandria aerodome"

In a really surprising story the Wyoming Department of Transportation is advancing a plan to contract with air carriers in Wyoming the same way that airlines do with regional carriers., this story coming in the wake of Allegiant saying "Tally Ho!" to Casper. That is, basically, they'll buy any seats the regionals don't fill.  It's an ambitious and surprising plan.  It basically accepts the reality of the situation, that being that Wyoming is too small of market, in the modern world, to support much air travel. Casper has what little there is, and even its services are being reduced.  Part of this is fueled, as the paper notes, by a new regulatory requirement that pilots for commercial carriers have a much increased number of hours in order to take that job.  This has resulted in a pilot shortage, which was coming on anyhow, and it's also meant that its more expensive to operate in the small venues.  A law of unintended consequences thing, sort of.

This plan would have to get past the legislature, of course, and I'm somewhat skeptical that in the current political environment that will occur.  The paper interviewed Chuck Grey with the nearly predictable result of Grey, who is a far right conservative fellow traveler with the Wyoming Liberty Group, not being keen on the idea. The surprising part of that was that Grey wasn't as hostile to the idea as I would have expected, even though he doesn't support it. Grey told the Trib; "We need to continue to look at the current situation and purse competition".

That isn't going to work, actually.  Regional air travel is limited here as its not economic.  Chuck feels the solution is to attract Southwestern which. . .isn't going to happen.

I can see the opposition to this plan and what it will entail already.  "Socialism!"  But the fact of the matter is that the American transportation infrastructure is already government supported, with the except of the railroads.  The poor railroads have to make it on their own for some reason but this isn't true of other things.  American highways and streets are not, after all, privately owned.  When you drive into your subdivision you likely don't  pay a toll to the homeowners association, and there isn't a Wyoming State Turnpike Company that owns the highways.  Nope, all subsidized.  Indeed, we're so used to this that we don't even consider the inequities in the funding of highways. Looked at that way WYDOT's plan is really farsighted.  The lack of intrastate air travel has long been known to be something that hurts Wyoming's economy.  The airports are barely making as it is. Some, like Natrona County's, are real gems.   What WYDOT is proposing isn't really any more radical than what the state and the towns are already doing with wheeled transportation.