Wednesday, June 16, 2021

July 16, 1941. The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport opened.

It was the Washington National Airport in 1941.


The airport opened, obviously, just before the United States' entry into the Second World War, it's 1941 opening partially explained by a prohibition in airport funding that was lifted in 1938.

Washington National in 1944.

It was built on grounds near Arlington that had been part of a large plantation, but its location very much constrains it size, so it remains a shockingly small airport in spite of its signficance.


It was renamed for President Ronald Reagan in 1998.  

I've personally never flown into it, having landed at the nearby Baltimore airport once.


Tuesday, June 15, 2021

June 15, 1930. Bessie Coleman receives a pilots license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale

 


On this day in 1921, Bessie Coleman received a pilots license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, making her the first black person to be a "licensed" pilot.  As her grandparents were Cherokee, she was also the first licensed Native American pilot.

The event is a real milestone, but it's somewhat deceiving.  The US didn't require pilots licenses at the time and the global requirement was far from universal.  Pilots licenses would be introduced in the US in 1927.  This is significant here as Coleman's international pilots license was a real license, but one that was not recognized everywhere and, moreover, she was not the first black or female black pilots as is sometimes suggested.

She was a pioneering aviator however and earned her living as a barnstormer after taking up flying.  In that career she was also an advocate for African Americans.  She tragically died in 1930 at an airshow when her aircraft had catastrophic failure.

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday June 5, 1921. An accident claims the life of barnstormer, Laura Bromwell

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday June 5, 1921. An accident claims the life ...

Sunday June 5, 1921. An accident claims the life of female barnstormer, Laura Bromwell.

Laura Bromwell, a stunt pilot, became the first woman in that occupation to be killed in an areal demonstration.  The engine of her airplane stopped during a stunt over Mitchel Field, Long Island.

Czechoslovakia and Romania signed a treaty aimed at Hungary, which they feared  may seek to redraw its borders at their expensive.

Sunday, May 30, 2021

United Airlines and Southwest cut the booze

The mental image some passengers have of flight attendants.

Problems with passengers have become so prevalent since air travel started to resume as the pandemic eases the US due to the increase in vaccination that United Airlines and Southwest Airlines have banned the serving of alcohol on their flights.

I've frankly always thought this a bit odd in the first place.  Most modern airline flights are comparatively short and I don't know why you'd want to drink. . . anything.  I've actually posted about this on one of our companion blogs, but what I've learned over the years is that if you offer people something, for the most part people will take it.  

"Would you like a big steaming bowl of walrus blubber?"  

"Yes, please".

What some folks seemingly see when getting on an airplane.

I've been on flights so short that there would be really no way to consume any beverage without a dedicated effort.  None the less, I've seen, even on those, and even if they're in the morning, people take a drink.  One one memorable flight a gentleman in his late 60s or 70s took a beer and immediately needed to go to the restroom, which he couldn't as the flight was too short and there wasn't time.  Why do that to yourself?

Alcoholism may be one reason.  I once was on a flight that took off and the shaky man next to me ordered a beer as soon as he could. This was no later than 10:00 a.m.  Either he was scared to death or he had dependency on alcohol that was pronounced.  Indeed, serving customers in that condition may be the one thing that justified booze on flights.

I should note that I don't even take water, soda or coffee on flights.  They're not that long.  The current American "I must constantly be drinking" cultural trait that causes people to pack around 55 gallon drums of water all the time predates me, and I don't need to be constantly sucking down fluids and I don't want to on something that can be pretty bouncy.  Indeed, its inevitably the case that if I'm on a flight with mild turbulence the passenger next to me will order coffee and sit it on the seat tray, so I can then watch it bounce around and threaten to drench me.

Maybe there's still international flights. . . . 

Friday, May 28, 2021

May 28, 1921. An early disaster.

Showing both the rapid advance of air travel, as more people were able to fly, and in more comfort, than before, and that aircraft remained very much an unknown in some ways, the deadliest air accident up to that time occurred when a Curtiss Eagle of the U.S. Army's Air Service crashed in a severe thunderstorm at Morgantown, Maryland.

Curtis Eagle.

All seven occupants were killed.  The plane was serving as an air ambulance.

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Why Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are almost certainly not aliens.

 Allow me to have a large element of skepticism.

If you follow the news at all, you've been reading of "leaked" Navy videos of UFOs, followed by official confirmation from Navy pilots along the lines "gosh, we don't know what the heck those things are".

Yeah. . . well. . . 

What we know for sure is that in recent years, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena have been interacting with ships of the U.S. Navy as well as Navy aircraft.  Video of them has been steadily "leaked" for several years, and the service, which normally likes to keep the most mundane things secret, has been pretty active in babbling about it.

Oh. . . and not just that.

The Navy also has applied for a patent for technology that appears to offer impossible high speed drives for aircraft, and acting to force through the patents when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office looked like it was going to say "oh bull".  The patenting Navy agent, moreover, a mysteriously named and mysterious scientist, has written babbly papers that are out there, but not well circulated.

So, what's going on?

Gaslighting, most likely.

To those who follow international developments, the US and the Peoples Republic of China are, quite frankly, sliding towards war in a way that reminiscent of Imperial Japan and the US in the late 1930s and early 1940s.  China acts like a late 19th Century imperial power and is building up its naval forces in an alarming way.  China is a land power and has no real need whatsoever for a defensive navy.  The only real use of a navy for China is offensive, or to pose a threat as it could be offensive.

And China has been busy posing a threat.  It's using its navy to muscle in on anything it can in the region.  It's constantly at odds with Vietnam off the latter's coast.  It's threatening the Philippines, whose erratic president shows no signs of backing down to China, and its been so concerning to Japan that Japan is now revising its defense posture.  Most of all, it's been threatening to Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province which it sort of is.

The problem with a nation flexing its naval muscle is that sooner or later, it goes from flexing to "I wonder how this stuff really works?"  Almost all totalitarian powers with big navies get to that point and there's no reason to believe that China won't.  Given that, the US (and as noted Japan) have been planning to fight China.  

This has resulted in a plan to overhaul the Marine Corps with a Chinese war specifically in mind, and the Navy, upon whom the brunt of any Chinese action would fall, at least initially, has been planning for that as well. And the Navy is worried.

As it should be.

The United States Navy has been a aircraft carrier centric navy ever since December 7, 1941 when it became one by default.  And its been the world's most power navy as a carrier based navy.  Carries have allowed the United States to project power around the world in a way that no other country can.  But in the age of missiles, a real question now exists and is being debated on whether the age of carriers is ending.

Plenty of defense analysts say no, but plenty say yes.  Truth is, we just don't know, and absent a major naval contest with a major naval power, which right now there isn't, we won't know.  But China is attempting to become that power and it has the ability to act pretty stoutly in its own region right now.

So how does this relate to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena?

The U.S. military has a long history of using the UFO phenomena/fandom for disinformation.  It notoriously did this in a pretty cruel way in at least one instance in the 60s/70s in which it completely wrecked the psychological health of a victim of a disinformation campaign that it got rolling, even planting a bogus crashed UFO to keep it rolling.  Beyond that, it's been pretty willing to use the stories of "weird alien craft" to cover its own developments, with plenty of the weird alien craft simply being developments in the US aerospace industry.

Given that, and the fact that at the same time the service purports to be taking this really seriously, it continually leaks information about it, and it doesn't seem really all that bothered, the best evidence here is something else is going on, of which there are a lot of possibilities.  These range from the service developing some really high tech drones and testing them against the same Navy units (they're usually the same ones) again and again to just having the ability to make this stuff all up.

So why the leaks?

If the service is experimenting with high tech drones, and if the experiment is going well, leaking the information may serve as a warning to potential enemies, notably the PRC, that "look, we have something so nifty our own Navy can't do squat about it. . .let alone yours".  Being vague about it probably serves the US  interest better than simply coming out with "Nanner, nanner. . surface fleets are obsolete . . .".  After all, once we admit we have them, at that point the race to figure them out is really on.

On the other hand, maybe we're just making the whole thing up.  We have been worried in the past about other nations development super high tech aircraft, notably the Soviet Union, then Russia post USSR, and now China.  Running around patenting mysterious things and having weird things going on may be a disinformation campaign designed to make a potential enemy a little hesitant.  And they'd hesitate, because. . . .

Maybe we really have developed some super high tech craft, either manned or unmanned, that are now so advanced that we feel pretty comfortable testing them against a control set, that being, at first, the same U.S. Navy units again and again.  A recent report indicates that other navies are now experiencing the same thing, and we might frankly be doing the same thing with them.  There's no reason to believe that a nation that would do U2 overflights over hostile nations in the 60s, and then SR71 flights the same way, which tested the spread of biological weapons by actually spreading biological agents off of the coast of California, and which tested the intelligence use of LSD by giving it to unsuspecting CIA employees, might not do this.  

Indeed, it'd make for a pretty good test.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Lex Anteinternet: May 18, 1941. Airy Matters.

Lex Anteinternet: May 18, 1941. Airy Matters.

May 18, 1941. Airy Matters.

Flag of the Soviet Air Force.

On this day in 1941, Stalin's government began a purge of Soviet air force officers, which I'm aware of only due to this item:

Today in World War II History—May 18, 1941

By this point in 1941 the signs were there that Germany was getting set to invade the Soviet Union.  Eliminating air force officers was a bizarre thing to do, given the risk of impending war.  But much about Stalin's reign was bizarre.

Speaking of things airborne, the RAF inserted a company of British troops on the Baghdad road in Iraq by air, using Vickers Valentia's to do so.


If you've never heard of Valentia's, that's because its one of a collection of obsolete aircraft the British were still using in more remote areas at the time.

The German Navy commenced Operation Rheinübung with the Bismarck.  It would prove to be a short sortie.

It's mission was to raid British convoys.

Petty Officer Alfred Sephton would receive the Victoria Cross posthumously for his actions in directing anti aircraft fire on the HMS Coventry on this day in 1941.  The Coventry was aiding the Aba, a hospital ship under attack by German dive bombers.

More about that can be found here:

Petty Officer Sephton wins the Victoria Cross

Prince Aimone, the Duke of Aosta, was crowned the King of the Independent State of Croatia. He never went there, however, and refused to do so over the issue of Italian annexation of Dalmatian land, making him a particular odd character in that he was an Italian and an officer in the Italian navy.  Following Italy switching sides, he resigned his presumptive kingship and served again in the Italian Navy.  He resigned his ducal title upon the fall of the Italian monarchy.

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Lex Anteinternet: The Weary Business Travalers Comments on Air Travel

For some reason this old 2015 entry was in the top hits for May 16, 2021.  Given as its on air travel, albeit pre Pandemic air travel, I thought I'd link it in here.  It might actually be from back at the time as well.

Lex Anteinternet: The Weary Business Travalers Comments on Air Travel: .

The Weary Business Travelers Comments on Air Travel

Zone 2 boards a plane.

I suppose that this will come across as crabby, but I do a lot of flying, and hence, I see a lot of airports and the inside of airplanes.


We are told there was once an era when air travel was glamorous and romantic.  For some it still is, now doubt. But for the business traveler, those days are long gone. What air travel is, is convenient.


It's safe, relatively fast, and all that. But fun it isn't.  At least not after you have quite a bit of it down. And, quite frankly, while I like airplanes, I don't like riding in airplanes, so that impacts my view a fair amount, I'll admit.


But I'm sure I'm not alone. So, hence a few observations.

1.  Business travelers probably aren't having fun on the plane, aren't on vacation, and may be cutting their schedule pretty tight.

One of the things I generally note about people travelling in airplanes is they're very polite as a rule.  And there's good reason to be very patient, and people nearly always are.  Some people have a hard time getting on and off of planes, and that's perfectly understandable and most people, indeed maybe all people, understand that.

But conversely, it's not uncommon for a business traveler to have very little time leeway.  He needs to catch another flight, or a taxi downtown, or something, to make his schedule. 

I note that, as there's some casual travelers who are really oblivious to this. The other day, for example, I was on a plane in which a nicely dressed young woman and her very well behaved young children encountered another nicely dressed young woman and her very well behaved young children, and they recognized each other. With about a third of the plane still needing to disembark, they stopped and had a protracted reunion conversation.  Nobody yelled or screamed, but when she finally resumed her progress towards the door, I could hear the businessman seated across the isle saying, under his breath "don't stop, don't stop."  As this plane was late, and my connection not too distant, I shared that view.

2.  Zone 2 is the Thundering Herd.

Aircraft board by zone.  Generally, the first zone is made up of people who need help boarding and then a premium, or multiple premium, zones. Then zone 1.

Then zone 2.

For some reason, things generally go well until zone 2 boards.  I'm nearly always in zone 2.  Zone 1 forms an orderly line and progresses in that fashion. By the time they get to zone 2, every single person in the zone is convinced they're never going to get to board, and they star t pushing, cow herd style, towards the gate.

Everyone is getting in the same plane, and this makes no sense, but it's really common.  People cut in line, muscle their way in, etc.

Ironically, it's not uncommon for one of the herd to slow everything up, once he's on the plane. That's the guy who decided to bring his walrus for the overhead bin storage.  He can't get it in, and has to try and try while the rest of the herd is stuck behind him.

United Airlines, I'll note, does a really good job of preventing this by having extra places for zone 2 to line up early.  Once they're in a narrow line, they behave, again much like cattle.  It's having no line to form up in as zone 1 moves ahead that seems to create this problem.

3.  The window bogarters

I like to get a window seat, even if I don't like flying.  That's because I do like scenery. 

For some reason, however, there are people who take window seats, and them immediately close the shade.  Hey man, if you didn't want to look out the window, why take a window seat?

4. The stenchy messy food girl.

Recently I've been noticing a trend for messy eating young girls on planes. This is a new one.

When I came back from Toronto recently a young woman, nicely dressed, sat next to me. But she was an amazingly sloppy eater and had brought a sandwich on with her.  She made a mess of that, and to make it worse, left her drink bottle on the airplane floor when she deplaned.

Not cool.

On the way back from Atlanta the other day, a high school aged girl sat next to me. She was industrious, and was writing a report on All Quiet On The Western Front on the plane, but she also came on with an Italian food special she'd gotten in the terminal.  It was apparently the Spicy Noodle In Limburger Cheese Sauce special, and it was rank and stanky.  Uff.  Not good for an enclosed environment.

5.  The drink people.

Every airplane flight in North America offers a beverage service. I am sure that if there was a commercial flight from Casper to Douglas, it would offer a beverage.

I get that in part.  Flights are long, and people might need something to drink. And at least by common belief, some drinks settle the stomach, or so we're told.  I've always been told that ginger ale does that, and I see a lot of ginger ale being drunk in airplanes.

But there are a lot of people who take drinks, because they are free.  I"m always amazed when people take drinks routinely between Casper and Denver, for example. The flight is only 45 minutes long, having  a drink is hardly worth bothering with.

This is particularly the case because the last few minutes into Denver is often rough, and the area right around Casper often is, both due to the atmospheric conditions associated with mountains.  But, people trust their trays and place the drinks down even when the plane is bouncing around.  Maybe they should trust them too, as I've never seen a drink bounce off a tray, but I've worried about it.

6.  The talkative traveler.

I travel in aircraft a lot, and I always bring a book or work on the plane.  I don't like traveling on planes, and so this serves to distract me, I suppose, although looking out the window, which I also like to do, probably works against that.

Every now and then, however, you get seated next to somebody very nervous or very talkative, or both.  They want to talk, and they're going to.  I've had an oil field consultant quiz me on towns to live in, in depth, all over the Rocky Mountain west, as if I am well suited to tell somebody where they ought to live.  Some people want to tell you their life's story, or others, if you are reading a book, want to discuss it, rather than let you read it.

In other situations, I might find that interesting, but in an airplane, not so much.  Something to do with the plane, I'm sure.

7. The dimwitted joke people.

One thing I've noticed is that every time there's an air disaster, or even a natural disaster, somebody in line wants to make a joke based on it.  This is not amusing at all.

Recently for example I was in line when a passenger on a Delta flight tried to engage the Captain of the plane in some banter based on the recent suicidal crash caused by the Germanair co-pilot.  This isn't funny, and won't ever be funny.  I'd have tossed her off the plane, but he only gave her a nasty glare.  Clearly he's more of a gentleman than I.

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Lex Anteinternet: May 11, 1941. Things airborne

Lex Anteinternet: May 11, 1941. Things airborne

May 11, 1941. Things airborne

On this day in 1941 France brokered a deal with Germany for the release of POWs who were World War One veterans, save for professional soldiers, in exchange for German use of Syrian airfields in the German effort to aid Iraq.

Martin 167F bomber at Aleppo after being captured by the British.

Many of those French soldiers would only have been in their late 30s and 40s, well within military age, but not young men either.

German aircraft flew in Iraq for the first time on this day as well, although the Iraqis were already losing ground.

Hitler received the news that his second in the Nazi Party, Rudolph Hess had flown to the United Kingdom.  It came in the form of a letter from Hess.  Hitler was shocked.

The Blitz, as we noted yesterday, was over.