A "rash decision" on pilot retirement age.

The House Committee on Transportation, operating in a Boomer dominated era in which there's a persistent belief that nobody every gets old, voted to extend airline pilot retirement age from 65 to 67.

The Air Line Pilots Association, a commercial pilot's union, opposed the measure, stating:

The rash decision to move an amendment on changing the statutory pilot retirement age, without consulting agencies responsible for safety, or studying potential impacts of such a change as has been done elsewhere, is a politically driven choice that betrays a fundamental understanding of airline industry operations, the pilot profession, and safety.

The measure now goes to the full House. 

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, June 15, 1943. First flight of the Arado AR 234

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, June 15, 1943. Riots in Beaumont.: 

Tuesday, June 15, 1943. Riots in Beaumont.

It was the first flight of the jet engined German bomber, the Arado Ar 234.

The twin engined jet bomber was the first of its kind in the world, and would enter service in the fall of 1944, too late to be of consequence.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank:

Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank

The Pointblank Directive was issued by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff directing the implementation of Operation Pointblank, the round the clock Allied bomber offensive over Europe.  The order prioritized targets for the combined Allied air forces, starting with the German aircraft industry.

The order met with passive resistance from RAF's fighter command, which refused to provide escorts to the U.S. Army Air Force during the daylight, citing the inability to convert fighters for long ranges.  This would lead the US to study the conversion of P-51 Mustangs to that use.  It would also lead to considerable tension between the US and the UK on the topic of daylight escorts.

Sarah Sundin noted Pointblank on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 10, 1943: US & UK begin Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany; priorities for bombing targets are submarine yards, aircraft & ball bearings factories, and oil targets

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Famous Navy Crewman, A-36

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Radio broadcasts, Triple Cro...:

Paul Newman, having enlisted days before his 18th birthday, was called up for service in the Navy.

Newman wanted to be a pilot, but was taken out of flight school when it was discovered he was color blind.  He went on to be a torpedo bomber crewman.

Sarah Sundin noted Newman's enlistment, but also noted the A36:

Today in World War II History—June 6, 1943: North American A-36 Apache flies first combat mission in a US Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria. Future actor Paul Newman enlists in the US Navy, age 18.

We don't think much of the A-36, the dive bomber version of the P-51.  The odd aircraft only came into existence in the first place as the 1942 appropriations for new fighter aircraft had run out and converting the assembly line to dive bombers kept the P-51 line open.  Only 500 were built, with most used by the U.S. Army Air Force, but some used by the RAF.

A-36 in Italy.

Skywest to receive additional subsidy payment

The City of Casper has voted to approve a $50,000 supplement to the subsidies already provided to local passenger air carriers.  This subsidizes solely the Casper to Salt Lake City flight.  The subsidy will pay for a larger airplane for the flight, through the summer.

If SkyWest, the Delta provider, does not find that this makes the run more popular, it'll likely be cut, and air travel to Salt Lake will end.

NASA Opens Some UFO Files to Public

This was in its first public meeting.

I'm underwhelmed by this story.  In a world in which technology is getting so advanced that our own creation that we should avoid making, AK, will probably end us, these are almost certain many made.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 22, 1943. ME 262 and Escort Carriers.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 22, 1943. Comintern dissolves.: 

Sarah Sundin's blog reports:

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1943: USS Bogue’s TBF aircraft damage German U-boat U-569, which is scuttled by her crew, the first victory for an Allied escort carrier unassisted by surface ships.

She also noted that Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland flew the ME262 on this day and was impressed by it, as anyone would have had to have been.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, May 16, 1943. Dam Busters

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, May 16, 1943. Warsaw Ghetto falls, Dam Bu...: 

The RAF destoryed the Möhne and Edersee dams with a mere nineteen bombers in the famous "Dam Busters" raid.  At the time it was regarded as a success by the Germans, who were puzzled why the destruction of the hydroelectric dams by bouncing bombs was not followed up upon, while the RAF's Bomber Harris regarded it as a failure that wasted resources.

While the raids caused civilian loss of life, German civilians regarded the destruction of the hydroelectric generating dams as legitimate.  German authorities accurately reported the resulting loss of civilian lives.  Albert Speer wrote of the attack; "employing just a few bombers, the British came close to a success which would have been greater than anything they had achieved hitherto with a commitment of thousands of bombers. But they made a single mistake which puzzles me to this day: They divided their forces and that same night destroyed the Eder Valley dam, although it had nothing whatsoever to do with the supply of water to the Ruhr."

While enormously celebrated as a British success by the population, perhaps the reaction of Harris, who seems to have had a particularly cold view of the destruction of Germany from the air, isn't too surprising. In reality, however, the raid demonstrated a very clever deployment of British resources with a real understanding of how industrial infrastructure worked.

The raid did cause the British to switch aerial munitions, going thereafter for massive "Earthquake Bombs" which caused a seismic effect when detonated.

Eight of the British aircraft were lost in the raid.

When you are keeping the original barnstormers flying.

I've posted about this elsewhere, when I was really miffed about it, but Wyoming's Cynthia Lummis has introduced a bill in the Senate to raise mandatory airline pilot retirement ages up to age 67.

Lummis is 68.

Let's note the trend here.  Lummis is 68.  Wyoming's John Barasso is 70.  Wyoming's Congressman Harriet Hageman, at age 60, could nearly be regarded as youthful.

Joe Biden is 80. Donald Trump is 77.  Chuck Schumer is 72.  Mitch McConnell is 81.

This is, quite frankly, absurd.

The United States is, without a doubt, a gerontocracy.

Okay, what's that have to do with airlines?

We repeatedly here there's a pilot shortage.  What is obviously necessary to, in regard to the shortage, is to recruit younger pilots into the field. That requires opportunity and a decent wage.

Vesting the good paying jobs in the elderly is not the way to achieve that.  Indeed, depressing the mandatory retirement age would be.

 

A Wyoming highway closed for three hours so The Air Force could land planes on it

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claims the life of Gen. Andrews.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claim...: 

Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claims the life of Gen. Andrews.

Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews, for whom Andrews Air Force Base is named, died in the crash of the B-24 Hot Stuff in Iceland, when it went down in bad weather.

He had been on an inspection tour in the United Kingdom.

Only the plane's tail gunner, SSgt George A. Eisel, survived the crash.  Eisel had survived a previous B-24 crash in North Africa.  He'd live until 1964 when he died at age 64.  Married prior to the war, he and his wife never had any children.

Hot Stuff was the first B-24D to complete 25 missions, well before, it might be noted, the B-17 Memphis Belle did the same.  Hardly anyone recalls Hot Stuff, as the Army went on to emphasize the Memphis Belle following the crash of Hot Stuff and the death of all but one of its crew.  Of note, Hot Suff, predictably, had a much more salacious example of nose art than Memphis Belle, and it's interesting to speculate how the Army would have handled that had the plane been popularized.  At any rate, the story that Memphis Belle was the first US bomber to complete 25 missions is a complete myth.

Andrews was the CO of the ETO at the time of this death.  A West Point Graduate from the class of 1906, he had been in the cavalry branch from 1906 to 1917, when he was assigned to aviation over the objection of his commander.  A prior objection had prevented his reassignment in 1914.