Lex Anteinternet: Dueling Agendas

Lex Anteinternet: Dueling Agendas: 

Dueling Agendas

November 23, 2020

The United States has withdrawn from the Open Skies Treaty.  The 2002 treaty allows for unmanned areal flights over member nations territories, a concept first proposed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1955.  The treaty allows such flights under controlled conditions.  Interestingly member nations avail themselves of them much less than might be supposed, and each flight is extremely expensive.  Both the US and the USSR have accused each other of cheating on the treaty.

As a practical matter, the treaty matters less and less every year as intelligence satellites get better and better.  Indeed, it's notable that it was drafted in 2002 at which point intelligence satellites were already excellent.  Therefore the treaty is really of more value to the less advanced nations that are part of it.

Lex Anteinternet: November 16, 1920. Qantas formed.

Lex Anteinternet: November 16, 1920. Timely advice, then and now. ...: 

November 16, 1920. Timely advice, then and now. Airlines, then and now. Beersheba.

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The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, Qantas, was formed on this day in 1920.  The third oldest airway in the world, its now the Australian national airline.

Qantas' first office.

Blog Mirror: Airmail puts Laramie on the map in the 1920s

Airmail puts Laramie on the map in the 1920s

Lex Anteinternet: October 20, 1920. Trips and Monarchs

Lex Anteinternet: October 20, 1920. Trips and Monarchs:   

October 20, 1920. Trips and Monarchs

 

Nicholas Longworth and his wife Alice, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt with President Warren G. Harding. Also in the photographs is Frank B. Willis, a candidate for senator for Ohio.  October 20, 1920.

On this day in 1920 Yugoslavia's government voted to become a monarchy with the Serbian  Karađorđević dynastic family as its monarchs.  A king would not be installed for a year.

British Columbia rejected national prohibition of alcohol, an option available to Canadian provinces.  It was the first to do so, but it wouldn't be the last.

Joseph Sadi-Lecointe sets a World Aviation Speed Record flying a Nieuport-Delâge 29V 302.53 kilometers per hour.  He's go on to become an aviation official in the French government, resigning that post after the defeat of France in 1940 as he would not serve the Vichy government.  He was active in the resistance and arrested by the Gestapo in 1944.  He was released after being held for two months, but died as a result of injuries received from torture while a prisoner.

On the same day the Army's Black Wolf Squadron returned to Mitchell Field in New York after having flown all the way to Ft. Davis at Nome Alaska and back.

Potomac Park including Hains Point, as well as the Naval Air Station Anacostia (upper left) and the Army Air Service's Bolling Field. October 9, 1920.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Casualties of the COVID Recession

Lex Anteinternet: Casualties of the COVID Recession: October 1, 2020

United Airlines, which served the largest airport in Wyoming, is furloughing 13,000 workers.  American Airlines is furloughing 19,000 workers, although it held out hope of reversing its decision if Congress votes to aid the airlines.

Congress set to name "B47 Ridge"

In 1962 a B47 bomber crashed into an unamed ridge in the Paradise Valley region of Montana. All four crewmen were killed in the crash.

Shortly, the ridge will be named in remembrance of the event.

A BILL To designate a mountain ridge in the State of Montana as B47 Ridge.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

 

SECTION 1.

SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the B47 Ridge Designation Act.

SEC. 2.

DESIGNATION OF B47 RIDGE, MONTANA.  

(a) DESIGNATION.  

(1) IN GENERAL.

The unnamed mountain ridge located at 451440.89N, 1104338.75W 5 that runs south and west of Emigrant Peak in the 6 Absaroka Range in the State of Montana, which is 7 the approximate site of a crash of a B47, shall be 8 known and designated as B47 Ridge. 9

(2) REFERENCES.

Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the ridge described in paragraph (1) shall be deemed to be a reference to B47 Ridge.

(b) AUTHORIZATION FOR PLAQUE.

(1) IN GENERAL.A plaque that memorializes the crash of the B47 (including denoting the names of the victims of the crash) may be installed on B 18 47 Ridge.

(2) FUNDING.

No Federal funds may be used to design, procure, install, or maintain the plaque authorized under paragraph (1).

Shoot, I'd try it. . . The Airplane Restaurant

 The Airplane Restaurant in Colorado Springs, built in a converted KC-97.

Wyoming Air Guard 153rd AW activated again for firefighting

Wyoming Air Guard 153rd AW activated again for firefighting: CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The Wyoming Air National Guard's 153rd Airlift Wing has once again been activated by extension to support fire suppression efforts in California.One C-130 Modular Airborne

An organization has been retracing the route of the first U.S. Air Mail flights, something that we marked the centennial of here this past week.  Their website for the endeavor is here:

Air Mail 100

Air Mail 100

They were in Cheyenne on the route yesterday, September 10.

Lex Anteinternet: September 8, 1920. The start of Air Mail

Lex Anteinternet: September 8, 1920. The start of Air Mail:

September 8, 1920. The start of Air Mail

On this day in 1920, the U.S. Post Office inaugurated Air Mail in the United STates with early morning flights taking off from New Jersey and San Francisco, ultimately bound for the other location, and with distribution stops and refueling stops along the way.  Cheyenne was one of the cities on their flight path.

As the Cheyenne paper noted, unusually spelling it out, the reason for the numerous stops was that the Airco DH4 airplanes dedicated to the project didn't carry sufficient fuel not to make numerous stops.  The DH4 was a British designed World War One bomber which the US had ordered in sufficient numbers to make the United States the largest customer for the aircraft. After the war they were placed into mail service, which they'd continue to perform up until 1932.  Indeed, as late as that year the US seriously considered purchasing an updated variant.

On the same day an Italian crises continued as the Italian Regency of Carnaro, effectively declaring Fiume to be a city state, was proclaimed by Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet and wartime Italian army officer.  The move sought to formalize the Italian control over the city of mixed ethnicity but went beyond that in the formation of a proto fascist state.  It's independence would be more formalized the following year, but would be brief, as it followed a treaty with Italy that sought to incorporate it within the Kingdom of Italy. That effort lead to a brief war which Italy obviously won.

And this peaceful photograph was taken.

Y.M.C.A. Island & playground, Lynchburg Virginia.