Halcyon Days

[2ndsegment]

When I was being treated for prostate cancer this August I chose radiation and the machine was a "Halcyon". I looked this up online and found the mythology is about the time in mid-Winter when the winds are quiet and the Kingfisher or Halcyon builds her nest on the waters. After some wild times with the aerobatic and light aircraft in MS-FS 2020 in the fall, recently I have made flights from Lakeway, Texas to Marfa and yesterday in Brazil up the coast to score 300 n-mi credit with a propeller aircraft with the ICON and then the Extra. The Lo-IFR winds in Brazil were 1 and 2 knots and all over the world shown 270 degrees at 5 knots on the surface at the airfields. What other mystique do I have here? My mother bought me a battleship Monogram "Kingfisher" plastic model I never built and is still here in cellophane. I, to honor the linac in the x-ray machine that knocks out the double bond of the Cancer DNA with Compton scattered and collimated electrons more recently bought a EFA-18G "Growler" Hasegowa." 1/72nd kit with the ECM pods I had met at Raytheon Santa Barbara in 1967 which feature Traveling Wave tubes (TWT).

[2ndsegment]

I have stopped trying to fly my MS-FS 2020 since Christmas Day when it told me I had to make a mandatory update. Exactly where the bottle neck is I have not been able to get it past the little teaser video that says "click any key to start." I am not surprised or unhappy and will continue to try each day and to fly using the same joystick to fly MS-FSX. I did notice a runway wind of 10 degrees at zero knots in real weather mode at Cherry Point, North Carolina. 9:54AM EST

[Doering]

A great read and wishing you all the best for 2021! Hope everything works out. Please do the mandatory update and get back in the left seat.

[2ndsegment]

Now that I have a new start available, I am being prompted by what I can do and can't do that I have a B-36 Flight manual in my art cabinet and a book "R-4360 Pratt & Whitney's Major Miracle" by Graham White Specialty Press 2006 in my bookcase. Now since all of my posts actually have a person or persons as their giants to stand on the shoulders of, These two are in a comment by the guard at McDonnell-Douglas building 35 South door in 1977; "You and Obie have had it!" as I walked in through the buzzed open gate. Obie was frequently overheard over the low hexcell paperboard walls talking about the "corncob" he used to put sparkplugs in when he was in the Marine Corps. Looking it up I would say he was talking about the FG-1 version of the Corsair.

He also was overheard talking about the "Combat Zone" in Boston. Jumping to Pratt & Whitney RCA facility in 1979. A security guard is talking to a female employee and she is raving about the Jai Lai last night. In 1980 I had a chance to be a Field Service Representative for the F-100 augmented turbofan that was in what I had known as the FX and also the LWF. The head of Field Service soon to be the assistant was "Ski" Kamenski. He had in his mind a major role in the use of the 4360 Wasp Major in the USAF. To keep this narrative going now requires I report that like my earlier friend Russ Schleeh, "Ski" was a former alcoholic. Me!? I went to Lake Hospital for Rehabilitation in 1981. Russ was the former Exec and wingman of General Curtiss LeMay.

Now to give any sort of balance to this narrative I have to jump again to 2009 and I am at the Tail Hook Reunion. I brought along renders of 3D models I had made that had as inspiration R.G. Smith art I had seen when he made paintings for Douglas Aircraft. His daughter was there selling prints and I bought one. She commented on the one I chose which now hangs above my desk. "Skyhawks Over Lady LEX" is a bit shifted as Lady LEX was the first Lexington and the carrier in this one is the replacement built during WW-II and used as a training carrier. I told Bob's daughter that one of the two TA-4J's was Carroll Simmons and the other was Angus Jacks. That peaked her interest as she said almost half of the paintings she had in her inventory say "commisioned by Mr. Angus Jacks." I told her Angus was a former US Marine who was at Midway and was a Sales Representative at Douglas Aircraft and later McDonnell-Douglas who used to let me read his double bookshelf of the yearly Defense budget one shelf was Appropriations and the other shelf was Authorizations, Senate and House full testimony.

So picture this: I take my model I made of the Wasp Major and add two turbochargers to it for the B-36 and my J-47s jet engines in double nacelles from my B-47 model and begin the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would put it. The Harvey Building in West Palm Beach was once the tallest building in Florida at the corner of Datura and Narcissus. I got sent there after Rehab and on the day before Christmas I found back by the men's room a stairway going down straight several floor, no landings or flights to the Church of Scientology next door. I just finished reading "On a Clear day You Can See General Motors" from 1979 about John Z.DeLorean that my grandson did not want in 2016. Convair was the fuselage producer on the DC-10. What could stand in my way?

Certainly not B & B. I really saw my future more with supersonic. The B-58 and it's flight control designer who contacted me as I was leaving Eglin, the F-102 and George W. Bush and even the B-1 whose headquarters was across the freeway in a new building from my house and neighborhood from 1971-1978. Yeah! I have books on them I recently read.

There is a B-36 at the USAF museum where I just recently joined the foundation as they began using the C-17 in STEM classes. Another one is in the open in the Southwest Pima Museum. Everyone and their brother was making Corsair models when I first got a PC in 1994. I flew one in one of the MS-Simulators in the 90's from Bad Axe airport where I grew up out over Port Hope and Lake Huron.

The Boston/Combat Zone comments I responded to with a trip one morning after I woke up in my car and went to what seemed to be the proper Irish area where I bought a donut and then drove up to Lynn, Massachusetts where GE Military engines was and I found a parking lot chained off with tin foil on the chain and a little further a sign announcing the State of Maine. The F-18 ended up with a GE-404 and the C-17 did not get a GE engine after the YC-5 had had the GE/SNECMA CFM-56.

The Jai-Lai, oooo, Whitey Bulger "The Rifleman" assassinated the chairman of TELEX which Field Service used for overseas communications who was also the owner of the Jai-Lai. He fled to Santa Monica, California with his girlfriend and was discovered about 20 years later.

[2ndsegment]

I have 420 hours invested in this MS_FS 2020 before the current attempt to upgrade in the midst of Christmas purchases by whoever. I have used the AI to discern it's capabilities as well as the sincerity of it's inclusion in the program. Here's something to test if you bought the Deluxe upgrade and the Premium which gives you a 747-8i. El Paso departure South to somewhere in Columbia. The same problems you might have found flying a Learjet from Boeing field out among the masts of the ships in the harbor to score points flying through gates in the sky appear as you raise the gear and try to get the flaps up before hitting the retraction speed limit in the AI it simply backs off the throttle as the big beast rolls to the left (always the left or it wanders off) and slowly turns to fly on the planned route. ooops! too far, as it makes a nice 3/4 circle into the dirt and the fan jets are behind the power curve as they cycle on and off... I hand flew that one off and on all the way. Which bird do I like the best? The 787 though an update dereated the engines since I flew to Tokyo from San Francisco and my favorite from Bogota to Tahiti.

[2ndsegment]

Hydro power-VFR Olympic National Park - Charter Flight/DHC2 Beaver - Elwha River Restoration Story - 4K I went off to where I knew in on the Thunder Bay River West of Alpena, the 4 mile dam and the 7 mile dam and the fletcher flood water and one downtown, all low head hydropower and still going. Then to Luther dam on the Little Manistee where my father had a lot for his trailer and mostly folks fish with no hydropower. It got taken out by flood water twice and now i being rebuilt or ... My own look was at the Sierras where the head was about 1000 feet and used to power Pelton wheels. That was in 1980. More recently the age of the power lines to join the dams to the grid have been blamed for starting wild forest fires. I like your story and the flight better.

[2ndsegment]

While the winds were still high and the light aircraft were rocking all over the sky until a update to MS_FS 2020 I discovered that one goal was to fly every aircraft 300 n mi. This cannot be done by leaving out the cruise portion and just taking off jumping to the approach and landing as some do to demo or even jumping to final. But then I found a better description of the goal. You only have fly the aircraft in the Basic edition not the Deluxe or Premium and silly me it is the 747 that is Premium not the 787 for example. OK, This maybe still could happen in Winter winds. At this point I have only the Robin 10 CAP to go. Until the simulation gets out of Microsoft and Asobo's hands I cannot explore the world for 300 nautical miles of suitable winds to allow a somewhat aerobatic aircraft to simply cruise quietly enough that I ... I went way beyond on some that were not required as they were Deluxe or Premium and I didn't want to repeat some routes I had flown with other aircraft so in spite of a really nice night flight over the Caribbean with the Pitts on a North and South route I did not want to repeat that course with the last Robin.