A step back for Eclipse?

I've always been one of Eclipse Aviation's biggest fans, and have stood behind anything Vern Raburn and Co. have done. When I needed help with a photo shoot involving an Eclipse 500 this past summer back at Oshkosh, it was Eclipse's Media front man, Andrew Broom, who helped me out in a very professional manner. They are a class act, and I hope that one day Eclipse Aviation becomes a worldwide powerhouse, selling jets as fast as they can make them.

I have no position in their delivery schedule, no “dog in this fight” so to speak. But I can think of about 2,500 people who want very much to see some very positive news come out of Albuquerque very soon. It's those same people – who have all dropped deposit money on their E500 delivery position – who will not view this as a good thing:

Eclipse has parted ways with avionics supplier Avidyne, who provided the pilot interface to Avio, the jet's integrated electronic flight control and information “Central Nervous System”. Avidyne was the supplier for such mission critical parts as the dual Primary Flight Displays and Multi Function Display, keyboard, autopilot control panel, and navigation and communication radios.

Eclipse stated recently that they have been “working with other suppliers behind the scenes for months” and said the transition would have no effect on aircraft production or delivery. But a story found today on amtonline.com states that it's Avidyne that Eclipse blames for several delays in getting the E500 to market.

That same story lists Avidyne as the supplier of Avio's software, which would scare the hell out of me if I were waiting patiently for my Eclipse to pop out of the factory door. In this high-tech world that we live in, having to switch software – the brains behind the entire jet – can never be easy or quick. Doing that while you are anxiously waiting for FAA's green light to crank up production on a brand new jet design sounds like a nightmare scenario.

When will Eclipse start delivering their 500? That is a question that private owners and also the air taxi industry wants answered right now. I can only suspect that the patience of those 2,500 buyers must be wearing thin, and the news of a Eclipse/Avidyne split at such a critical time in Eclipse's history can only be viewed as a step backwards.

This news begs me to ask this question: Would you write Eclipse a check tomorrow to buy into a delivery position north of 2,500? Or, would you hold off and play the “wait and see” card? That may be one of the hardest decisions ever made for those future bizjet buyers who were ready to grab a sack of cash and jump into the VLJ horse race yesterday, and now might be re-evaluating their options.

To the Moon.

Since I was a kid, one of my all-time favorite magazines has been Popular Mechanics. When their writers get into a story, they jump in with both feet, and the result is sheer delight.

So when I began reading this great article on NASA's return to the moon via the Orion vehicle by their very competent David Noland – I could not stop “turning pages”. O.K., I know you don't “turn pages” anymore, it's more like scroll, click, scroll, click, but after reading a lead like this, you will not be able to stop either:

One hundred and eighty-five miles above the planet, suspended between curving, blue horizon and starry blackness, a four-man spacecraft floats in low-Earth orbit. The year is 2020, and the situation routine. Suddenly, a bright tongue of flame erupts from the rear of the craft, signaling a maneuver that hasn't been attempted since before most living humans were born. The craft thrusts sharply forward, away from the marbled orb. Five minutes later, streaking at 25,000 mph, it breaks free of the Earth's gravity and heads out into the void.

Whoa. If there was ever a 'graf written that aims to suck a reader in, this is it. But the rest of the article only gets better:

In addition to placing Orion at the top of the rocket and away from falling debris, NASA's return to a vertical "stack" architecture permits a launch abort system (LAS) that can blast the capsule to safety. According to the agency, this capability will make Orion 10 times safer than the shuttle. The heart of the launch abort system is the abort motor. In case of a problem, this ATK solid-fuel rocket, with four outward-canted reverse-flow nozzles at its apex, will automatically fire for 2 seconds with some 500,000 pounds of thrust — more kick than the Atlas rocket that boosted John Glenn into orbit. In a launchpad abort, this brief 15-g jolt would yank the Orion off the top of the rocket and clear of any fireball, propelling it to 600 mph and 6000 ft. Meanwhile, eight attitude thrusters and two small adjustable wings, called canards, would steer Orion east from Cape Canaveral out over the ocean to a spot 5000 ft. offshore. Parachutes would deploy at about 4000 ft. for a splashdown next to waiting recovery boats.

I'm not going to tease you with any more of Noland's exquisite prose, but you really owe it to yourself to go visit popularmechanics.com and read the entire article. I've been waiting for a good dose of reporting that explains exactly what the next generation of NASA's endeavors will look like, and this story delivers the goods.

And if you've been neglecting the almost required reading found in Popular Mechanics for too long, join me as we again return to one of this nation's truly great publications.

United,
We Stand,
Divided
We Sit..
and wait...
and wait

Brothers and Sisters, I come before ye today to tell of an unspeakable dilemma, one of pain, of suffering, of pretzels far too stale for the mouths of babes. Yes, I am speaking of the conditions that afflict our beloved nation, a nation of delayed airliners, of broken promises, a nation of stranded passengers.

In the mighty Congress of Ye Olde United States, the honourable Democrat Senator from California, Barbara Boxer, hath joined arm-in-arm across the dreaded aisle with the honourable Republican Senator Olympia Snowe from the Great State of Maine to put forth upon this body the "Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act of 2007," legislation to ensure that travelers can no longer be unnecessarily trapped on airplanes for excessive periods of time or deprived of food, water or adequate restrooms.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear ye, Senator's Boxer and Snowe hath cometh to this Congress with a mighty sword, aimed at the throats of the airlines that too often hold our citizenry hostage, who lock us up, held prisoner against our will, deprived of the very sustenance we need to survive the ordeal.

O.K., enough B.S. If you've been reading the papers, you no doubt have heard about a high number of passengers trapped for hours on the tarmac of airports all over the country this Winter. From what I can gather on the Internets, this is not a new situation, only one that has come front and center because of massively increased media attention.

The Boxer/Snowe “Bill of Rights” contains a number of very sensible “clauses”, but the star of the show is this:

The legislation requires airlines to offer passengers the option of safely leaving a plane they have boarded once that plane has sat on the ground three hours after the plane door has closed. This option would be provided every three hours that the plane continues to sit on the ground. The legislation also requires airlines to provide passengers with necessary services such as food, potable water and adequate restroom facilities while a plane is delayed on the ground. There are two exceptions to the three-hour option. (1) The pilot may decide to not allow passengers to deplane if he or she reasonably believes their safety or security would be at risk due to extreme weather or other emergencies, and (2) if the pilot reasonably determines that the flight will depart within 30 minutes after the three hour period, he or she can delay the deplaning option for an additional 30 minutes.

Of course, the ATA and the airlines are spitting fire over this. And you can be sure they would really lose a lung if they had to adhere to MY version of this bill:

(Article I) If a passenger is not returned to the gate and deplaned within three hours of door closing, the airline will offer everyone aboard a brand new Eclipse 500, so they never have to deal with this crap again...

(Article II) A lost piece of luggage means that the CEO of said airline must stop his Bentley at Brooks Brothers and/or Nordstroms and buy (a) a new set of Swiss-made luggage, and (b) fill it to the top with fine apparel...

(Article III) Any airline that overbooks a flight will get a visit from the FAA's Death Squad who will storm the carrier's office and forcibly rip the line's Operational Certificate to shreds, grounding them forever...

(Article IV) The Airlines will determine a seat/mile value that allows them to make a profit, and then charge each passenger the amount equal to that figure multiplied by the actual number of miles on the route...even if the ticket is bought at the counter on the day of the flight.

(Article V) Each carrier will employ a team of Quality Assurance Officers to verify that the little bags of snacks that are passed off as “food” were manufactured in this century. Any carrier caught serving “biscotti” after 12 noon will be required to pass out Hooters gift certificates to any passengers who demand them.

There you have it, a real Bill in the Senate worth it's weight in Gold, and my own, which is pure horse poop. But you get the idea...we need to reign in the airlines and bring some degree of sanity back to air travel.

Or, we can all buy our own planes and solve the problem for good. I'll bet the airlines might have an “attitude adjustment” in five years when 1,000s of those high rolling pax who used to fly first-class are sipping bubbly in the back of their own PJ, VLJ or LJ. Having a bunch of really plush but very empty seats in the front of their airplanes might get their attention in a way that hundreds of screaming passengers trapped for hours in a rank, stinking tube cannot.

Before they
are gone.

Will there be a day in my lifetime when the last 747 is pulled from passenger service? The venerable Boeing jumbo that defined wide-body air travel will surely be replaced by some future generation of mega-airliner, one so efficient it will pump much-needed profits into the major international carriers. It will not happen tomorrow, or next year, or even next decade...but it will happen. Someday, the only guys left flying the -47 will be freight haulers launching over the Burma Hump to deliver palletized cattle deep within the Chinese mainland.

I realized the other day that I have never flown on a 747. Not that I haven't wanted to, mind you, but it just has never happened. But my personal “history” with the -47 goes back to at least 1968, when at age 12 I took my first long airliner ride aboard a United Airlines 707, FAT to SEA.

When I returned from that trip, I wrote a long typed letter to the President of United Airlines, dropped the envelope into the U.S. Mail and forgot about it. But then as if my magic a couple of months later, I received a package from – guess who – the President of United Airlines! He must have been blown away that a 12-year-old snot from Fresno actually could type and spell correctly, and must have been impressed with the proper business letter format of my inquiry. Yes, even back in my 'tween years, I could still wow 'em with words.

Along with the President's personal letter thanking me for my compliments about his airline was a ream of what I considered “inside information” on the “new” 747 that United was putting into service. There were black and white photos of the factory, a media kit with booklets showing every possible specification and performance number, charts, diagrams, seating arrangements, and a full history of the 747 project. I still have it all somewhere, most likely “archived” under my stairs in a box.

The moment I laid eyes on this package, my hot love affair with the famous Boeing jumbo began. These days, when I'm in a CRJ as it taxis into the gate at SFO, I am still mesmerized by the sight of the 747...in my world there is no finer sight at any major airport. The -47 stands taller then the terminal, dwarfing any lowly flying machine that has the guts to park nearby. It is magnificence in airliner form, it is the King Of All Airliners, one that all others must bow to as they lumber by, never quite worthy enough to live in the shadow of a four seven.

But this summer or early fall, I might finally get the chance to – as they say – consummate the marriage. Julie and myself will be celebrating 20 wonderful years together with a trip to Tuscany and Vienna, Austria...a trip that at some point will require the use of a very large airliner to hop the pond. In planning the trip the other night, Julie quietly asked me that if I had my choice, would I prefer an airline that flies the 777, or a 747?

Silly girl. After 20 years, you'd think she'd know the answer to such an obvious question. I'll take JFK to Florence, Italy on a proud and mighty -47, thank you very much. I want to make that trip before the four-sevens are all gone because that will be a sad day indeed.

And the -47 we take over the Atlantic better have at least one spiral staircase, some sort of piano, and an enormous amount of takeoff thrust, because to me, this will be the ride I've been anticipating for 39 very long years.

UPDATE #1: 022607@1151A: If you are a fan of the Goonie like I am, you have to LOVE this anonymous comment about the above post:

When the last B747-400 is broken up and sent to the scrap yard the pieces will be carried in a DC-3.

Love it, love it, love it.

A World Flight
Worth Following

The world of aviation needs more people like Barrington Irving, a 23-year old senior majoring in aerospace at Florida Memorial University. Later this spring, Irving will climb into a single-engine plane he calls "Inspiration," and embark on a round the world flight that will make him the first person of African descent and the youngest person ever to fly solo around the globe.

As is always the case, this story starts with the generosity of another pilot inspiring a young man or woman to live their dream:

As a teenager in inner-city Miami, Barrington and his friends shared a sense of hopelessness about their futures, as there was little incentive or opportunity for minority youth to pursue professional careers. He earned good grades in high school but saw a football scholarship as his only route to college. Then one afternoon, working in his parents' Christian bookstore, Barrington began talking with a customer, a Jamaican airline pilot, Captain Gary Robinson, who invited him to the airport the next day to see the cockpit of the Boeing 777 jet he flew for United Airlines. That day changed the young man’s life forever.

So far, Irving has lined up some major-league sponsors for his trip, doing so in a way that is brilliant:

The Columbia 400 aircraft that will carry Barrington on his World Flight Adventure has its own story. In 2003, Barrington began calling aircraft manufacturers with the unlikely request to borrow, lease, or donate a plane he could use to make aviation history. When no one said yes, he decided to ask manufacturers of the various components to donate just one of their individual products to him; he also asked Columbia, an aircraft manufacturer, whether they’d agree to assemble the plane if he could produce the parts. During the next year, with support and guidance from Miami Executive Aviation, he visited aviation trade shows throughout the country and secured more than $300,000 in donated components—the engine, tires, cockpit systems, seats, and so forth—and Columbia built him the world’s fastest single-engine piston airplane, ready to be modified with extended fuel tanks a few weeks before the global flight.

I love this story...it is the very essence of what being an aviator is all about. Barrington's determination to achieve a very lofty aviation goal is proof positive that general aviation is very much alive and well, and shows we still have the ability as aviators to impact the lives of those much younger than us.

This is a story I will be following in this blog. And if you feel the need to help out, click here to learn about becoming a sponsor, or download the sponsor contribution form here.

Serious Validation
for Commercial
Space Travel

As the age of commercial space travel barrels toward us at warp speed, you all knew that it was inevitable that something big was going to happen soon.

It has.

Many of the wire services are reporting this...a jawdropper no matter which way you slice it:

Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, has announced plans to work with NASA to design its next generation of space planes. The space agency hopes one day to use the commercial planes to launch small satellites and carry out scientific research. Virgin Galactic is in the final stages of developing Space Ship Two, a spacecraft that will take paying customers to the edge of space for a price. There they will experience six minutes of weightlessness before gliding back to Earth. The first flight is scheduled to take off in 2009 from the Mojave desert in the western US.

Whoa...NASA! Jeez Louise, you just don't get any more serious validation then the guys who invented space travel. And when you team up Richard Branson, Burt Rutan and the brainchildren at NASA, really awesome things can happen:

William Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said NASA scientists would work with his company on potential technology for Space Ship Three, including designing hybrid rocket motors and hypersonic vehicles capable of traveling at more than five times the speed of sound. NASA also plans to buy seats on Space Ship Two for astronauts on its training program.

One of the main things NASA's scientists want to find out are what the effects of space flight on people who have not had specialized training. According to NASA, only 470 people total have ever been to space, and all of those were hand-picked, extremely well-conditioned astronauts. NASA has very little data collected on the real impacts of going to space are going to be on Average Joe and Jane as they blast off for the “E” ticket ride of their lives.

I have absolutely NO DOUBT that when my future grandchildren are attending a fine university somewhere around the year 2027, jaunting off to the moon via Virgin Galactic will be where the kids will want to go for spring break.

I just wonder what the beaches might look like at Tranquility Base.

The President Speaketh,
we thou shalt listen.

As a blogger, I'm pretty adept at homogenizing the news, adding proper attribution and then regurgitating it into some form of commentary worthy of a post here on one of the Internets. But when it comes to AOPA's work fighting the battle against user fees, I am taking a different approach.

In order to make damn sure their message gets delivered correctly, I plan to run a series of posts verbatim from aopa.org's wonderful site. This issue is just too important to fool around with running anything else then the exact wording from AOPA, and I'm sure they'll appreciate me passing this 411 along.

Here is the first installment, a plea for your help from AOPA President Phil Boyer:

What can I do, Phil?
by Phil Boyer

I've heard from a lot of you since the Bush administration revealed its plan to coddle the airlines and kill general aviation with a 70-cents-a-gallon avgas tax, user fees for flying into Class B airspace, and new or increased fees for other FAA "services."

Many of you know that I try to reply to every e-mail I get, but this week I've received much more than usual. So, I hope you'll understand why I'm going to answer some of your general questions, rather than trying to respond individually.

Most of you want to know what you can do right now to fight this harmful FAA funding proposal. I'll get to that in a moment.

Don't despair

"I'm going to sell my airplane now, Phil, and give up flying because I won't be able to afford it anymore," wrote one, echoing the feelings of many others.

Well, let me tell you — after saving up for years, I now personally own two single-engine airplanes, and I'm not ready to give them up yet. I know in my heart we can win this fight, and we'll do it with the power and assistance of more than 410,000 AOPA members. So don't despair.

Strategic battle plan

We have a battle plan, and it's much more sophisticated than just asking all of you to write your congressman or senator immediately. Our strategic plan calls for bringing pressure to bear on certain members of Congress at specific times.

In the coming months, each of you will be called to help, but in a highly segmented fashion. And when the final bills are up for vote by the entire Congress, we will issue a national call to action.

The airway ahead

Let me explain how this battle will progress so that you can understand when and how you will be called upon to help us fight. What the administration calls the "Next Generation Air Transportation System Financing Reform Act of 2007" is, at this point, nothing more than a proposed bill sent to Congress.

And the first place it will be vetted is by the aviation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the aviation subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. (See "Point of Order" for more detail and animation of how the proposal will move through Congress.)

The House aviation subcommittee has already scheduled hearings for March 14, and they'll call me to testify on behalf of our members.

Your AOPA legislative affairs staff and I have been lobbying hard for more than two years against the administration's claim that it needs user fees. Now that we have a concrete proposal to work with, I'll begin calling on all of you to help with the fight.

Within a short time, I'll be asking some of you who reside in certain districts to contact your elected officials. These officials are members of key committees in both the Senate and House.

As the proposal moves through other committees, we will call on others to weigh in at the most effective times. And a lot of committees will have interest in this bill, including the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, plus committees with jurisdiction over the military, homeland security, etc.

Talk to your congressman and senators

While some of you have already proactively written to Congress, right now it's time to "talk."

Congress is in recess this week, and most of the senators and congressmen are back home meeting with constituents. If you have the opportunity to talk with your elected representatives, do so. Let them know how important this issue is to you. (Click here to see a short video from Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri to understand why that face-to-face contact is so important.)

If you do choose to write your representative or your senators now, your communication will be more effective if you send it as a letter or fax. (See our "FAA Funding Debate" to get addresses for your representatives.) Letters carry more weight than e-mails and are more likely to be seen by the member of Congress, rather than be answered directly by a staffer.

Keep AOPA informed

Whenever you send something to Congress, please send me a copy (e-mail to FAAFunding@aopa.org or fax to 301/695-2352), and more importantly, send me whatever response you get. We are tracking every single member of Congress. We will hold each one to their promises.

And now my promise to you. We will use every resource we have to defeat the administration's FAA refinancing bill. And, keep in mind, AOPA members have responded to our call for Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions, giving us a war chest of funds to help fund the reelection campaigns of "our friends" in Congress. We will win. And we will do it with the help of each of you, the 410,000-plus members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Phil

P.S. — If you do not receive our weekly AOPA ePilot newsletter, it is very possible we don't have your e-mail address. It is essential we use the speed, efficiency, and geographical targeting capabilities of e-mail to contact you. So make sure we have your e-mail address by visiting "My AOPA Membership" and updating your personal information or by calling our toll-free hotline 800/USA-AOPA (800/872-2672).

The Natural
Evolution of
Commercial
Air Travel

A couple of days ago, Bombardier announced the launch of its 100-Seat CRJ1000 Regional Jet, the next major step in the evolution of the CRJ Series aircraft family, the world's most successful family of regional aircraft.

There was a time – way back in 'the day' – when RJs were a brand new concept, and were truly “regional” in their capabilities. But in recent times, the Bombardier RJ family has grown longer and longer legs, with carriers like Skywest now flying them across the nation with increasingly longer routes. So the specs of the new CRJ1000 will be great news to them:

With a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 91,800 pounds, the CRJ1000 aircraft will offer a maximum range of 1,691 nautical miles with 100 passengers, under certain operating conditions. The new CRJ1000 regional jet is scheduled to enter service in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2009. First flight is scheduled for the summer of 2008.

I think this is brilliant for Bombardier, filling a market gap that is not currently served by any new airliners. From Aero-news Network:

At the moment, the 100-seat market is all-but-dominated by aged DC-9s, and the variations of the MD80-series. Boeing's 717 (a.k.a. MD95) is very similar to those planes, but with more fuel-efficient turbofans. None of those aircraft are produced today.

The CRJ1000 regional jet combines the proven platform, reliability and flexible cabin configurations of its predecessors with its closest competitor having up to 15 percent higher trip cash operating costs. Compared to the aforementioned older generation aircraft of similar passenger capacity currently in operation, the CRJ1000 will also respond to today's environmental needs by providing substantially lower fuel consumption and achieving up to 30 per cent reduced carbon dioxide engine emissions.

So let's review...the CRJ1000 carries a profitable amount of bodies, goes far enough to service profitable routes, and does so burning less fuel while spewing less CO2 emissions. That all sounds like the perfect recipe for the big carriers to embrace as they continue to scrape themselves off the bankruptcy court floor and generate enough green to again move their bottom lines from red to black.

Nice job, Bombardier! I've always been a huge fan of the RJ concept, and will look forward to my first ride in the -1000. I'll make a prediction here and now that it'll be a smooth, comfortable ride on a ship that climbs like a homesick angel and gets me where I need to be precisely when I need to be there.

Great news
out of Duluth

Regular visitors to WoF know of my passion for Cirrus airplanes. And after flying one late last year, I'm even more driven to push my agency forwards in 2007 by acquiring enough new national aviation advertising business to justify owning an SR22 to serve those accounts. Everyone says you have to set goals really high to attain life's pot o' gold, and with this quest for an SR, my personal “bar” is about as high as its ever been.

Yes, I have Cirrus fever really bad. It's like this: Some guys dream of a naked frolic with all of the Desperate Housewives – which would be a gas – but I'm visualizing myself opening the hangar door at EUG and saying good morning to my new bright and shiny fun machine. Sure, sex with TV Goddesses is always a worthwhile fantasy, but turning the key in my very own SR would be like aviator's Viagra...'nuf said on that.

So I woke up elated to find out this news in my morning scour of the Internets:

Cirrus Breaks Delivery And Sales Records Again: With five straight years of record-breaking deliveries and sales, Cirrus Design Corporation has reported their best-ever delivery results, and continue to hold the accolade of being the manufacturer of the worlds No.-1 selling aircraft. For 2006, Cirrus reported total year-end deliveries of 721 deliveries, up 20% over last year's record breaking deliveries.

Man, this is GREAT..I thought...the number one selling aircraft...who-hoo! But as a journalist, reality quickly set in as I began to wonder how that compares to what Cessna sold in 2006. Cessna's numbers must have been less, I suspected, or they'd claim the “world's No. 1 selling aircraft” title, right? So with a bit of digging, I found this on Avweb:

Wichita, Kan., February 6, 2007 – Cessna Aircraft Company, delivered 1,239 aircraft last year, maintaining its leadership position as the world’s largest manufacturer of general aviation aircraft. “We did very well with our single-engine line,” said Jack J. Pelton, chairman, CEO and president of Cessna, “with 865 piston aircraft and 67 turboprops delivered”

Time out I shouted...call in the ref, we need a replay on this one! Being really confused, I called upon someone who could sort this out, Kate Dougherty, the Public Relations contact at Cirrus. What I found out is really quite simple:

The Cirrus numbers refer to the SR22 model, of which 721 were verified to be delivered right there at the factory in Duluth. The Cessna numbers are for the entire Cessna single engine line, a total of 172s, 182s, 206s and Caravans sold.

So when Cirrus makes the claim to being “the manufacturer of the worlds No.-1 selling aircraft”, it is a true fact, since no other single engine model can touch the sales figures for the SR22.

I finished a very fun conversation with Kate by making a promise to take her up on her offer to come to Duluth and tour the Cirrus factory. Maybe it was the wide-eyed kid in me, but I swear I also heard an offer of another test flight too, which would be worth the ticket back to Minnesota. If she throws in a couple of brats and a very cold O'Doul's Amber, I'd start walking through waist-high snow tomorrow to make the pilgrimage to the birthplace of mass-produced composite flying machines.

Another win
for AOPA

Those guys and gals up in Frederick that are the backbone of AOPA must never sleep, because every time I log into aopa.org, I see something else from them that just blows my mind...like this:

Trips to the doctor's office for aviation medical certificates just got a lot easier. The federal air surgeon has determined that aviation medical examiners (AMEs) may now accept printouts from AOPA's TurboMedical, as long as the printouts are signed in the presence of the AME or AME's staff. Until now, AOPA members who used TurboMedical had to transcribe the information from their printouts to FAA Form 8500-8.

AOPA Director of Medical Certification Gary Crump had this to say:

This is a tremendous benefit and advantage for our members. The enhancements should really speed up a pilot's visit to his AME and reduce the number of errors caused by faulty transcription. FAA aeromedical officials were satisfied with some changes AOPA made to the TurboMedical layout, which eliminated confusion in the FAA's Aerospace Medical Certification Division. The one catch is that it needs to be attached to a blank Form 8500-8 for tracking purposes.

Major league hat tip to AOPA for this. Up next, will they be successful in getting FAA to extend the driver's license medical now used for Sport Pilot to Private Pilot as well? Would that be a good thing? While I can see obvious benefits to allowing more pilots to fly when they otherwise would have lost their medicals, do we really want to share the skies with them?

For instance, there are plenty of legal prescription drugs that can impair a driver's ability to drive a car, but there are no actual restrictions...only “recommendations” to avoid driving and operating "heavy machinery." There in lies a major gray area with the driver's license medical. Trying to drive the family D8 Caterpiller to the store after dropping a quart of Nyquil down your throat becomes a really bad idea. But is it illegal? What about someone who is getting a little too friendly with handfuls of prescription meds? This country's dependency on too many pain killers usually only comes to light when young starlets die or crash their Bentleys, but the truth is, far more regular Joes and Janes eat far too many meds that are freely offered by their doctor. This very unhealthy activity keeps them from flying under Private Pilot, but could easily be hidden under Sport Pilot with a driver's license medical.

I believe the solution to easing Private Pilot medical requirements is to simplify the process much like AOPA has. But instead of still having to see an AME, wouldn't it be nice to see your regular family physician for your yearly checkup and have them verify all is true on the TurboMedical form before signing you off?

Or is this just too obvious to ever become reality?

We must
expect better.

Even without ever boarding one of their flights, I am a huge fan of JetBlue. But the recent delays at JFK – up to 10 hours – that trapped pax inside those sealed tubes simply is unacceptable in commercial air travel:

Ten JetBlue flights were loaded with passengers on board. Some made it to the runways only to run into icing problems that kept them grounded. Some of the planes at the gate became frozen to the ground and passengers weren't able to disembark. JetBlue apologized, saying that the delays were caused when half of its 550 flights were cancelled because of a winter storm that also caused massive traffic and transit delays throughout the Tri-State area.

Now up here in western Oregon, we always get one whopper ice storm a year...and the TV weather guys can even see them coming two days out. It's pretty easy for any aviator to see it coming to. Here's what happens: When you have very cold surface air trapped in an inversion layer, the upper air can sometimes be much warmer, driven by a tropical jet stream. When that river of warm air blows a front across the forecast zone, rain falls, and then freezes as it drops through the cold surface air...coating everything with a solid sheet of ice.

So I am at a complete loss to come up with a reason why JetBlue's dispatchers and also JFK's own traffic handlers missed this obvious call. If they knew the ice storm was coming, why load the passengers aboard in the first place? If they did not know the ice was coming, shame on them...that is WX forecasting 101, not rocket science.

We need to expect better from our airlines. Because if their forecasters can miss this kind of easy call, do we really want that kind of dispatcher working a flight that is already in the air, headed for nasty WX? My guess is that the weather guys were screaming about the danger of these 10 planes departing, and someone in Corporate might have chosen to override their decision to save money.

So many people dropped the ball on so many levels here. Luckily, nobody got injured or killed, so there most likely will not be any kind of formal FAA or NOAA investigation. And we will never know for sure, but I sincerely expect the Top Brass at JetBlue to dig deep into what happened here and roll some heads to make a point about safety and the importance of proper weather forecasting.

And if they haven't already done so, there are about 10 planeloads of souls who should all get free first class upgrades to anywhere the airline flies. That is, if those peeved individuals will ever get on a JetBlue flight again. Spending 10 hours held hostage is always a sure way to ruin a carrier's credibility...at least for those stuck in the steaming tube, being forced to breathe air permeated with the stench of overflowing toilets.

Pushing Forward
at Terrafugia

By far, one of the most exciting aviation projects out there today is the Terrafugia Tranasition, a “roadable airplane” being developed by a group of MIT graduate students. If you scour the Internets, you can still find the occasional post offering skepticism about the chance this group has for success. These naysayers have never meet Team Terrafugia like I did back in Cheese Country USA in July, '06, because if they had, it would be hard not to support this project.

There have been some positive project developments lately...here's a taste:

• Their 2009 production slots are sold out, and projected 2010 deliveries are beginning to be filled. You can reserve your Transition™ airframe number today by following the deposit reservation instructions found here.

• Terrafugia closed its first round of external financing on December 21, 2006, generating funding that will be used for further development of the Transition design and prototype. This event marked a significant milestone for the Terrafugia Team.

• 2007 Events – Terrafugia recently represented entrepreneurship in the United States at the Powerful Ideas Summit, held at the end of last month in Valencia, Spain. Upcoming events include the FAA Airports Division, Southwest Region in Texas in March and Northwest Mountain Region Annual Conferences in Seattle in April, and, of course, EAA AirVenture the last week of July 2007 in Oshkosh, WI. They're also participating in the SAE AeroTech Congress and Exhibition this September in Los Angeles, CA.

For anyone who still thinks “Team Terrafugia” is just a bunch of dreamers without the chops to complete their mission, I ask you to consider their resumes before reconsidering that opinion:

Carl Dietrich: CEO, CTO – Carl received both his SB and SM degrees from the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, winning all four out of four design competitions available to him in the process, and will receive his PhD from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics. He also holds a private pilot certificate.

Anna Mracek Dietrich: COO – Anna received her SM degree from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as her SB from the same department, with memberships in Sigma Gamma Tau and Tau Beta Pi honor societies. Anna has worked at Boeing Phantom Works in Advanced Combat Aircraft and at GE Aviation, and also holds her private pilot certificate.

Samuel Schweighart, Ph.D.: VP Engineering, Chief Engineer – Samuel received his SM and PhD from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and his BS with highest honors in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Alex Min: VP Sales and Marketing – Alex is currently an MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, focusing on entrepreneurship and marketing. Prior to MIT, Alex served in the US Marine Corps as an attack helicopter pilot. Alex received his SB in Art and Design from MIT. Alex holds commercial pilot certificates with instrument ratings for single engine land fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft.

Arun Prakash: VP Business Development – Arun is currently an MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to MIT, Arun received his MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University and his BS in Aerospace Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology. Arun also holds a private pilot certificate with an instrument rating.

Milo Mracek: Senior Engineer – Milo spent 37 years at the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, serving as Chief of Design Engineering and making significant contributions to the development of fighter aircraft, space programs, and missile systems including the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle Orbiter, F-4, B-52, and the Harpoon missile programs. Milo is lead engineer on the design of the TransitionT wing folding mechanism.

David Bentley: Senior Engineer – David spent 19 years at the McDonnell Douglas Corporation serving as a senior design engineer on such projects as the DC-10, the Space Shuttle Orbiter, and various guided missile and satellite systems. He is lead engineer on the design of the Transition power train system.

Andrew Heafitz: Senior Engineer – Andrew received his SB and SM degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, and he was also a previous recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. Andrew is the lead engineer on the design of the TransitionT fuselage structure and suspension systems.

This group will succeed at many things in life, and delivering the Transition will be one of their finest accomplishments. Their outstanding resumes and enormous intelligence are only overshadowed by their incredible drive to see this project though to the end.

If you would like to arrange for someone from Terrafugia to speak at your meeting or event, please let them know by emailing here.

Surf's Up @ FAA

If you are like me, you only visit www.FAA.gov when you need to get immediate help with some sort of issue buried deep within the FARs. So I thought it would be a fun exercise to go there and just “dink around”, and see what I could find of interest.

What I found astounds me. There is far more information available to the public then I realized. Here are just a few that stood out:

US Airspace status: A nice and clean US map with clickable icons of all major airports showing real-time status of the National Airspace System.

Comair 5191 Accident Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tapes: You can listen to the actual ATC tapes from the 08-27-06 crash at Lexington, KY. Two notes: (1) I didn't confirm this, but the site says that the conversation begins 6 minutes, 30 seconds into tape; (2) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Local time at Lexington, KY on August 27, 2006 was UTC minus 4 hours. For example, 0944 UTC is 5:44 am in Lexington.

What to do with really large aircraft: Technical Reports on big ships like the A380 can be found here, such as “Impact of New Large Aircraft on Airport Design” and “Unresolved Issues Make it Difficult to Determine the Cost to Serve New Large Aircraft” from the U.S. General Accounting Office. There is also a whole section on wake turbulence that will be an issue once these really, really heavy planes enter service. I liked the “Airport Plans” section, describing what airports like San Francisco, Atlanta, JFK, Los Angeles, Orlando and Memphis are doing regarding the A-380. (note...Memphis? I thought FedEx was going Boeing. Might be worth a look for a future post - dp)

Commercial Space Travel: If you think the FAA is not thinking about the day when Average Joe can blast himself into space via any number of commercial space carriers, you'd be wrong. There is an endless amount of data and information on this coming wave of private space travel, all of it very interesting.

General Aviation's
Secret Weapon

I've said it before, and as the pilot community dwindles, now seems like the perfect time to say this again:

The key to sustained growth in GA and increased student starts is to attract more women and young girls to the left seat of the training aircraft out at the local field on the edge of town. The gender gap in GA is so wide, it's as if females were not welcome in our skies. That – to be sure – would be a false statement.

According to Women In Aviation, International (citing FAA figures), of the nearly 700,000 active pilots in the United States, less than six percent are women and only slightly more than two percent ATP rated. Women account for only 2.13 percent of the more than 540,000 non-pilot aviation jobs in the United States.

Now there was a day – back when movies had but two colors, black and white – when most male pilots thought that the cockpit was no place for a lady. Sure, they could shoot rivets into WWII warbirds...but actually flying them was out of the question. Those chauvinistic attitudes were alarming, and today, they have been reduced to just an ugly part of aviation history.

I am not the only one who thinks cultivating more female pilots is GA's secret weapon. There will be thousands of like-minded people in Orlando, Florida this weekend who will gladly jump that bandwagon:

The 18th Annual International Women in Aviation Conference will be held from Thursday, February 15 through Saturday, February 17, 2007, in Orlando, Florida. This year's Conference will take place at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort at Walt Disney World®. With the theme of "Imagining Your Future," participants in the 2007 WAI Conference will be immersed in the tactics and strategies necessary for successful aviation careers. More than 3,000 women and men from all segments of the aviation industry are expected to attend.

If you live anywhere near ORL and have an interest in seeing that GA gender gap close a bit, your appearance at the WAI conference would be appreciated.

Extreeeeme
Skywriting

I'm always on the lookout for aviation news that falls just a hair this side of weird, and this story certainly hits that mark.

As I've mentioned before, FlightAware.com is the class act for flight tracking sites, and provides more data then you can imagine, for free...certainly a price that is hard to negotiate downwards. So last week, I stumble upon this item on a site called flightglobal.com:

Astute aircraft watchers using flight tracking software, FlightAware, watched the Savannah, Georgia-based business jet manufacturer Gulfstream spelling out an aircraft name, GV, at 40,000ft and 487kt airspeed across the upper Midwest portions of the USA on February 6th. The cursive took more than 8h to complete. Far from being an environmentally insensitive publicity stunt, Gulfstream says the flight had a valid purpose – to “cold soak” the newly built large cabin jet. It was likely the aircraft was a G500, an aircraft previously known as the GV. Test pilots take newly finished aircraft from Gulfstream’s Appleton, Wisconsin, completion facility, up for large chunks of time to make sure everything fits properly at high altitudes and low temperatures. The “GV” route, apparently, is used on a regular basis for those proving runs.

Now being in the aviation advertising business, I'll admit to being a forward thinker, but this is damn cleaver. Someone at Gulfstream's flight department had to sit down and plan this out, file as planned, and then fly it with precision. Publicity stunt? Maybe, but at least they didn't have to shut down Boston to unplug a bunch of little digital men flipping you off.

Now if the GV was trailing a nice fat line of airshow smoke oil, the folks down there in West Cornrow, Nebraska could have looked up from their combine and enjoyed a taste of what might be some sort of world record for skywriting. Remember that...skywriting? It's when a couple of Piper Cubs blowing Linseed (or various other types) Oil out their exhaust, working in tandem, would spell out 'BURMA SHAVE” over an America that regrettably now seems so far back in our history.

And before you shoot me “this was a hoax” emails, I contacted FlightAware to verify the story and received this back today:

The GV flight path did happen.
Daniel Baker, FlightAware

So keep Flightaware bookmarked for those days when you need to know the exact routing for every 737 currently flying, or may be curious about how many King Airs are in bound to your field. It is an amazing site, and I've never even delved into their pay service, which at the very most is $39.95 a month. For that, I suppose you could do a search and find out what flavor of stale pretzels a specific airline and flight number is serving tonight.

Photo credit: Courtesy of FlightAware

E is for Ecstasy.

All right, cue the soft Luther Vandross music, dim the lights, light a few candles, because baby, I am in luuuuuuuv...

Flying somewhat under the radar has been the serious upgrade that Pilatus is busy certifying for their venerable PC-12, the airplane that seems to do it all. This new version will be called the “E” model, and features the most beautiful panel every flown. (imho)


The new cockpit environment has been designed by BMW Group Designworks USA and if the sheer sex appeal of this panel doesn't make you sweat, maybe this will:

The Next Generation PC-12 will feature state-of-the-art Honeywell Primus Apex avionics, with four large displays – including two PFDs and two MFDs – providing an unprecedented amount of viewing area and integrate flight information, engine monitoring, aircraft configuration, pressurization, and environmental controls. Flight and weather data, charts, aircraft system information, and trip planning functions are all within easy reach, while a new sets a new standard for ergonomics and aesthetics.

But wait that's not all. Even though the PC-12 already had the power to lift off from just about any patch, the Swiss watch of aviation will get this upgrade under the cowling:

Higher performance comes from the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67P, which delivers 15 % more thermodynamic power for faster climbs and higher cruise speeds by utilizing single crystal CT blades and a new compressor configuration.

Other improvements include a new advanced digital dual-zone Environmental Control System for increased cockpit and cabin comfort, a fully automatic digital Cabin Pressurization Control System which requires no input from the pilot, and a fully redundant Power Generation and Distribution System.

I will always remember the first time I laid eyes on a PC-12 in flight. I was driving home along Belmont Avenue east of Fresno, CA. When I saw a -12 low and slow, flaps down, crossing overhead south to north. I was near the Harris Ranch race horse ranch, and I had watched Harris' pilots drop his Cessna 210 into a very short one-way strip on the ranch. Laid out on about a 34/12 heading, there are tall trees blocking the approach end to 34, so all landings must be made usually downwind to RWY 12.

So I pulled over and sure enough, the Pilatus was inbound to Harris' place all right...there he was on short final, slow and dirty. At first, I was blown away that such a large plane would be attempting to land downwind on what is really just a tight little cropduster strip, no wider then about three rows of orange trees. As the –12 crossed the point where the numbers would be at the far end, there didn't seem to be ten feet of space on either end of the Pilatus' 53-foot wingspan. But Harris' pilot had the PC-12 down and slowed to a gentle taxi easily at the midway point.

I spoke with one of the top Pilatus Dealers in the country, and found out the PC-12 is still a very popular aircraft to sell. If you drop a dime today on your order for the sexy “E” model, they “might” be able to get you into the left seat of that sleek BMW-engineered cockpit in Fall, 2008 after the aircraft is certified near the end of 2007.

Sign me up.

Using the “U” word.

We've all been tap dancing around this issue, but the heat is obviously on when the Bushies start throwing the “U” word out there, that being the “U” in user fees. Or maybe, is it for the “F–– You” that they are really saying to GA?

In a Reuters story out of Canada today, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters finally actually said it when commenting on the breaking news that our lovely U.S. government may look to “financial institutions and other investors” to help finance the multibillion-dollar modernization of the air traffic system:

"We're looking at a lot of options," Peters told reporters after a House of Representatives committee hearing that examined the administration's proposals for air traffic funding. One option would be if the private sector would be willing to bring the capital forward and build the system and then be paid back through user fees or taxes or whatever way we ultimately decide to fund the system."

Whatever way? So maybe they have something even more out there then user fees planned. It is really scary to think about what our airspace system is about to become with dishonest people involved who completely botch up anything they touch. Just what we need, the "Katrinization" of the FAA...

And just like Iraq, it appears W doesn't need Congress to tell him how to run his White House, or “his” nation's airspace system:

The White House on Monday proposed a new system of user fees and fuel taxes to help pay for Federal Aviation Administration's nearer-term operating expenses, including air traffic services.

And if you read this graph, it appears this is a done deal up on 'The Hill”:

Congress, however, is more focused on the Transportation Department's plan for meeting the FAA's budget needs over the next several years through proposed user fees for airlines and likely higher fuel taxes for business jets and private pilots. Details of the plan are expected to be released next week.

God, we are so screwed.

NYT breaks
down what
it's like to ride
in the A380

O.K. admit it, you've all been wondering just what it must be like to fly in the behemoth Airbus A380, the jetliner roughly the size of a small country. Well, I did not get invited to the media flight today above the snow-capped Pyrenees near Toulouse, France, but The New York Times' Mark Landler did, and he writes a very good article about the ride here.

Here are a few of the more delectable tidbits:

You can fit 35 million Ping-Pong balls in an A380, according to John J. Leahy, called a “master salesman” at Airbus. He also stated that the plane weighs about the same as 500 Volkswagen Golfs. Landler also points out that the A380 has a fuselage as long as eight London double-decker buses, that the 62-foot wingspan has enough room to park 70 cars, and that the plane, loaded for takeoff, is 118 TONS heavier than a Boeing 747.

Landler tells it like he sees it too about a couple of A380 cabin “features”:

The overhead bins were not roomy enough, and the laminated safety cards are designed to ensure they are read only by children. One mystery, on a flight buffeted by gusty wind: there were no airsick bags in the seat pockets.

As the A380 lumbers towards its first official deliveries, I imagine more and more people will grow to accept its enormity – but I will not be one of them. I believe there is a limit to how big you can build a jetliner, and with the A380, Airbus has crossed over into unknown territory.

Yes, it flies, and yes, it can carry lots of people. But will the experience be any better, or will the tickets be any cheaper because they were able to cram over 800 souls into the pressurized tube? And if something this big carrying this many bodies does ever go down, no matter what the press releases say, it will be a textbook cluster f**k trying to get out when that many terrified pax have the same idea about emergency egress.

Sorry, but for my money, I'd stick with Boeing's business model. Smaller, more fuel efficient jets like the Dreamliner are my vision of tomorrow's commercial air travel, not a flying version of Cleveland.

(editor's note: This post was only up for a couple of hours before the news broke that Bush had released his budget, so I am bumping this to the top again - dp)

Who among us
will build them?

Aviationweek.com is running an excellent article right now asking a question with an alarming answer: When today's baby boomer aerospace engineers retire, who will take their jobs and build the flying machines of tomorrow?

As we experience the “graying” of the aerospace engineering workforce, many in the trade are wondering if there will be enough new brainchildren to fill these kinds of gaps:

By next year, an estimated one-in-four U.S. aerospace workers will be eligible to retire; nearly one-in-three civilian scientific and technical workers in the Defense Dept. have already reached that milestone. And the full impact of the graying workforce hasn't hit yet. In 2011, an 18-year-long wave of baby boomers will start collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits. Another problem: massive layoffs during the consolidations of the 1990s that left the defense industry with a shortage of middle-aged talent.

Now you might think that there are schools out there like MIT that crank out the talent annually, and you'd be right. Currently, the Cambridge, Massachusetts campus is “home” to a very talented group of graduate students who are building the Terrafugia Transition, the roadable airplane that if all goes well will begin appear in garages around the country towards the end of 2009.

But MIT is a rarity...and the ugly truth is that our university systems have not kept pace with the rest of the world. These numbers confirm that bright, young A & D engineers are few and far between:

In 2005, U.S. universities awarded 70,000 bachelor's degrees in engineering and 41,000 master's and Ph.D.s, according to the Education Dept. While most of the bachelor's degrees went to Americans, just over half of the advanced degrees were earned by citizens of other countries. A growing number of those graduates are taking their brainpower back home.

Meanwhile, the number of engineers graduating overseas is rising dramatically. Raytheon Chairman/CEO William H. Swanson is quoted as using a “conservative” estimate of 400,000 Chinese engineering graduates a year, and other sources put India's engineer output in the neighborhood of 350,000 grads.

So let's crunch some numbers, shall we? Last year, just 624,000 U.S. workers produced $184 billion in sales, according to aviationweek.com. If all of the 156,000 engineers they say are eligible to retire chooses to buy an RV and drive off into the sunset (at a slow speed) to go fishing, and if ALL 35,000 of the American kids who graduate sign up for what should be a “pick your job” kind of career, that still leaves an enormous hole of 121,000 empty cubicles:

With China and India rapidly producing so much fresh engineering talent, it doesn't take Sam Walton to see where this is all going. Like everything else today, it is going offshore, building up the economies of those countries as it tears down ours.

And, do we really want the Chinese designing our airplanes? Nothing against the Chinese – I love their food – but what happens when they get pissed off at us and decide that they'll stop building our stuff someday...just because. We're screwed, that's what.

While I do not claim to be an economics guru, some things are really easy to figure out. We need to do whatever it takes to reverse this trend of less and less young people choosing aerospace engineering as a career path, especially girls and young women. If it means not bombing a couple of innocent countries for a few years so we can free up those billions to offer thousands of free scholarships, let's do it.

Because smart young minds should not be wasted. Today's late teens and twentysomethings are tomorrow's whiz kids who are charged with keeping America's proud aerospace community up and running. If we ever let those jobs be shipped to Bangladesh, brother, we're toast.

Bush FY 2008 budget
called “toxic” by NBAA!

While not a card-carrying member of the National Business Aviation Association, I am as high on their organization as I am on AOPA. And when NBAA talks, I listen. So it was with wide eyes that I read the following quote from NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen:

“After more than a year of intense lobbying by the nation’s big airlines, the White House has decided to introduce a budget that shifts airline costs to other segments of the industry and gives airlines more control over the air traffic system. NBAA and the rest of the general aviation community will oppose this toxic mix of higher taxes, new fees and airline control.”

Toxic...now there's a word that ought to get your attention big time.

The issue of user fees cannot be covered properly in this venue, it is just too complicated. But in a nutshell, both AOPA and NBAA have been warning us for a long time that this administration and the FAA was up to something ugly regarding GA and user fees, and now Bush has played his hand. How surprising that he is coddling big corporations while screwing the little guys...he does this same crap with big oil, big drugs, big coal, big everything...so why should he change course when he has a chance to pad the pockets of his airline buddies too?

Are we really that screwed? I say no, cautiously. Will the democratically-controlled Congress be able to decipher truth from fiction when it comes to future FAA funding? The answers to those questions lie in the excellent record AOPA and NBAA has with informing “The Hill” about what is really what. And since both sides of the aisle are bashing the Prez on just about everything as the 2008 elections loom, maybe – just maybe – they will see through the smoke and mirrors that W is shoving down our throats.

For great background on the FAA funding debate, check out the websites of AOPA and NBAA.

If ever there was a developing story, this be it...

Fat, Dumb
and Happy
might get
you killed.

There you are, just lollygaggin' along in your Cessna 150, adding some time to your logbook as you see sights in the general vicinity of Miami, Florida this coming Sunday. You're not really a sports fan, but you've kinda sorta heard that some big game is going on. But who cares, right, because you're all alone up there converting dollars into altitude.

Except there's a REALLY angry guy at your three o'clock flying the U.S. Army Blackhawk gunship. What's his problem, you ask as a seriously fast-moving bizjet flown by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Department blasts by your nine o'clock at warp speed.

Well dumb-ass, you'd be in the loop if you had read the NOTAM published for the Super Bowl:

6/9015 PART 1 OF 3 FL.. FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS DOLPHIN STADIUM, MIAMI FL. PURSUANT TO TITLE 14 CFR SECTION 99.7, SPECIAL SECURITY INSTRUCTIONS, ALL AIRCRAFT FLIGHT OPERATIONS ARE PROHIBITED AS FOLLOWS: WITHIN A 30 NMR OF 255728N/0801419W OR THE FLL214008.4 UP TO BUT NOT INCLUDING FL180. EFFECTIVE 0702042100 UTC (1600 LOCAL 02/04/07) UNTIL 0702050459 UTC (2359 LOCAL 02/04/07). WITHIN A 10 NMR OF 255728N/0801419W OR THE FLL214008.4 UP TO BUT NOT INCLUDING FL180. EFFECTIVE 0702042100 UTC (1600 LOCAL 02/04/07) UNTIL 0702050459 UTC (2359 LOCAL 02/04/07).

Looks like gibberish, you say? I might tend to agree, so if you can't make heads nor tails out of a Notam like this, just stay in the coffee shop or better yet, watch the game.

There is so much security for the game, you'd think a certain relative of the Jebster was scheduled to tell us his "lies du jour" from the fifty yard line. The massive police force in place for Super Bowl XLI has thought of everything too:

One wild card in Miami is whether there might be celebrations, or even rioting, among the thousands of Cuban exiles in the city if Fidel Castro dies before the game. The Cuban president has been seriously ill since midsummer, with some reports indicating he might be near death. NFL officials and government officials say there is no plan to postpone the game or any of the numerous related events if Castro dies, and dealing with any disruptions triggered by such an event won't take away personnel or assets from Super Bowl security.

Whoa. Castro bites it and the Bears win it all...sounds like a recipe for disaster, unless of course you're the developer buddy of His Majesty the President. Because the minute Castro flat-lines, we know that'll be the minute you-know-who sends troops into Havana to “liberate” the island in the name of the all-mighty condominium.

Bet on it.