I Continue to Have Hopes That theToyota TA-1 Will Someday Rise Again!

Beginning sometime in 1998, Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites secretly worked with 40 aerospace engineers (many hired away from Boeing and Raytheon) to launch what I think was one of general aviation’s most important test flights.

The Mojave operation – which looked a little like Lockheed’s Skunk Works – lasted four years, and produced the Toyota TA-1, a four-seat, single-engine piston plane with a carbon fiber/resin composite fuselage. And on May 31, 2001 at California's Mojave Airport, Toyota’s entry into the GA market took flight for what is known to be its only flight, lasting about an hour.

Articles and information about the plane and Toyota’s ambitions for manufacturing the TA-1 are hard to find. The most complete article I could find was one in Embry Riddle Aeronautical University’s archives. The writer, Peter Pae, said this:

The short flight marked a major turning point for Toyota's ambitious goal of building airplanes that would be as simple to fly as driving a car, cost significantly less than the current generation of private airplanes and eventually be as ubiquitous as the automobile. The flight raised eyebrows within the aviation industry as Japan's largest auto manufacturer signaled it was making a significant move forward with its long-held but little-known plans to build light airplanes.

So let’s fast forward to today. I wonder out loud what ever became of the Toyota project, is it still alive or DOA forever? Maybe it’s like the Hondajet – rumors flew for years before Honda actually admitted to designing the plane, and now here we are on the doorstep of welcoming their beautiful jet into our world.

I make no apologies for my love of Toyota products. I drive a 1995 Toyota T100 truck not because it is a chick magnet (it isn’t), not because it’s fast (with a 4-banger in a full-sized truck, it’s on the anemic side), but because it is unbelievably dependable.

When Toyota decided to build a full-sized truck to compete head-to-head with the American makers, they over-engineered the T100 far beyond what was required. It is my third vehicle since 1977, all have been Toyota trucks, and all have been bulletproof. Things just don't wear out. I tuned it up at 190,000 miles – not because it was needed, it ran fine – but because I felt it was literally impossible for an engine to run that long without a tune-up. Now, at 230,000+ miles, it still has large, expensive parts that have yet to wear out. As summer approaches, I KNOW I need to have the air conditioning system serviced, but in the 15+ years since I drove this truck off the lot brand new, I have yet to do that, and the thing still pummels me with cold air with the flip of a switch.

So I've always been dismayed that Toyota never pushed on with the TA-1 project. If they could have married the luxury interior of their Lexus line to a composite airframe with performance to match a Cirrus or Columbia, you don’t need to be Burt Rutan to figure out they might have sold several boatloads of airplanes. I can promise you I would have been one of the buyers.

And while we may never know what could have been, this we do know: The damn thing would have been tough as nails and would have never left you stranded. After all, it would have been a Toyota, and if the engine was built to their usual high standards, could we have seen a 4,000 hour TBO?

Yes, think about that...4,000 hours between overhauls...Oh What a Feeling!

[Full Disclosure - In my never-ending quest for green blogging, the majority of the above post was recycled from an earlier 2007 post. Since this post originally ran, Toyota has caught some mighty bad press, some of it actually justified. But while the maker has had to deal with serious quality control and safety issues, I would still buy a Toyota tomorrow....that is, if they were to design a cute little "drop-top" hybrid or electric sports car to compete head-to-head with Tesla's Roadster - dan]

Our Legacy as Pilots:Do Some Good, Have Some Fun

We all go through life, and then one day – poof – we are past history. When that happens, we all leave behind a legacy, the footprint of what we did good or bad for humanity.

Here in activist-thick Western Oregon, we hear a constant song of people working alone to save the planet, or save a neighborhood park from developers. In other parts of the country, these kinds of lofty goals are often met with smirks and a “whatever” attitude, but in Eugene, people practice what they preach. There are long lists of people who have made their mark on this area in a very positive way, choosing one tiny slice of the community to improve.

As pilots, we are members of a very exclusive club. And as we plow through the sky chasing hamburgers or driving airliners full of vacationers, deep down inside, we all want to help keep aviation alive and kicking for the generation to follow ours.

Think about that for a moment. Can you really name one pilot who at one time or another hasn’t flown a Young Eagle’s flight, or taken a kid up to look at their house from 2000 feet AGL? But beyond turning kids on to flying, we all can leave a legacy of helping our local community, or assisting someone in need.

With our wonderful flying machines, we have the golden opportunity to serious effect lives, and here are a few ways you can do that:

AirLifeLine / Angel Flight - helps people in financial need obtain equal access to health care by coordinating free air transportation.

Challenge Air for Kids & Friends - offers motivational, inspirational and life-changing experiences to physically challenged children and youth through aviation.

Civil Air Patrol - flies more than 85% of all federal inland SAR missions directed by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley AFB, Virginia.

Corporate Angel Network - the only charitable organization in the USA whose sole mission is to ease the emotional stress, physical discomfort and financial burden of travel for cancer patients by arranging free flights to treatment centers, using the empty seats on corporate aircraft flying on routine business.

Emergency Volunteer Air Corps - promotes and coordinates effective and useful additional General Aviation volunteer participation in emergency relief efforts, especially following disasters.

Flying Samaritans - offers medical assistance and education to the people in rural areas of Mexico.

LIGA – The Flying Doctors of Mercy - provides medical, dental and eye care to impoverished people in rural Mexico since 1934.

LightHawk – provides pilots and aircraft for use in environmental campaigns, media flights, technical flights for image or data acquisition, and others.

Mercy Medical Airlift - a non-profit organization dedicated to serving people in situations of compelling human need through the provision of charitable air transportation.

Miracle Flights for Kids - improves children access to health care by providing free air transportation to hospitals across America, no matter what the personal or financial situation of their families might be.

Orbis - dedicated to the prevention of blindness, the saving of sight, the delivery of training, the transfer of skills, and the creation of a world where quality eye care, education and treatment are available to every human being.

Wings of Hope - staffed by over 300 skilled executives, pilots, mechanics and administrative personnel, Wings of Hope combats malnutrition, disease and harsh living conditions in remote areas of the world.

Wings for Greyhounds, Inc. - flies retired racing Greyhounds between Greyhound rescue organizations working at the Arizona race tracks and the outlying Greyhound adoption centers in the LA, Northern and Central California areas.

LifeLine Pilots - a private, non-profit organization that provides people in medical and financial distress with access to free air transportation on small, private aircraft for health care and other compelling human needs.

Northwoods AirLifeLine - a non-profit organization of volunteer pilots from Michigan 's Upper Peninsula and northeast Wisconsin who donate their time and aircraft to help patients and their families with urgent medical needs for services not found locally.

Wings of Mercy - provides free air transportation in the Midwest for people with limited financial means who need treatment at distant medical facilities.

Children's Flight of Hope - provides free private air transportation to and from distant medical facilities for children with critical medical needs in the North Carolina area.

SouthWings - uses flight in advocacy for sustainable solutions to restore and to protect the ecosystems and biodiversity in the southeast; collaborates with over 250 organizations and logs over 300 flight hours per year to educate civic, media and political leaders and to collect scientific data of vital ecosystems, forests, wetlands and riparian areas, and special habitats in the south.

Volunteer Pilots Association - a charitable non-profit organization providing air transportation to needy people who must travel to obtain medical treatment.

A few years ago, I created the Welcome Sky Aviation Scholarship Program, a non-profit program that mined cash donations from wealthy pilots who would not miss a few bucks, pooled the resources, and then paid for flight training for the best and brightest 16-21 year olds we could find. From my work with Welcome Sky, I know that three pilots up there got there because of my work.

Even though Welcome Sky is on hold these days, I still strive every day to fire up humanity about aviation. I write this blog, I write magazine articles, I help out at airshows, anything I can do to get the word out. In fact, what you are reading right now is part of my own legacy.

So…what will YOUR legacy be? I urge you to do something tomorrow to help push aviation forward. Click one of the links in this post, or call your kid’s elementary school and offer to make a presentation on flying. Trust me, everything you’ll ever need can be found here. And of course, AOPA’s Project Pilot is also a great resource to use as a way to give something back.

Pay it forward…a simple concept that works to perfection.

We Sometimes Forget Non-AviatorsDon't Get Revved up Over Airplanesand the Noises They Make

So many of us have the exact same tale, the same personal provenance that describes our entry into the world of aviation. With rare exception, if you get 10 pilots in a room and get them talking about how they began their personal lovefest with flying machines, the story will usually go something like this generic version:

"Somewhere between my fifth and tenth year of life, my dad/grandpa/older brother took me to an air show where I saw a bunch of neato airplanes. Next thing you know, I was riding my Sting Ray bike to the airport, hanging on the fence watching the stuff fly by. It was mesmerizing. When I was old enough to fly, I'd go hang out at that little field just outside of town, and wash airplanes in exchange for a few lessons. I was working towards my private ticket when I (a) went to college, (b) had a family to support and (c) never had the money to finish up. At about age 35 though, with a career in full swing, I was able to earn my private license and an instrument rating. I bought a Cessna 172 and when my company stock went through the roof, I bought a Bonanza A36."

Yes, we aviators are all pretty similar, and in many ways, fairly predictable. You can be guaranteed that the guy/gal in the hangar next to you will loan you their air compressor, or that on any given day, maybe 100,000 of us will be hanging at the airport coffee shop telling our tablemates wild flying tales of yesteryear, many of which are actually true.

But outside of the aviation world, it is sometimes clear that we aviators have little in common with humans who cannot fly airplanes. There are two breeds of people on this planet, those who regularly get to see the same side of clouds as God, and those who must buy a ticket in an airliner to do the same.

This weekend, I had an exchange with a non-aviator that I thought illustrates the differences well. It came down like this:

I was enjoying dessert in the lovely backyard of a friend, sharing the table with a couple of people I did not know. I mentioned as I always do that I was a pilot, and I was asked if I had a "jet fetish". I told him that yes, of COURSE I want to fly and own a jet, and that any GA pilot who says they don't is a liar. The guy mentioned that his grandfather had flown "old prop jobs" and he thought it was a DC-something, he thought it had a 3 in the name. I asked, "you must mean a DC-3?" "Yes, that was it," he replied, going for another forkful of double chocolate cake.

This was the opening I was waiting for, the chance to talk about flying. I'm always on the lookout to talk about my passion, but sometimes this can backfire big time. Here is a rough transcript of what happened next:

Av8rdan: "Oh, DC-3s! Hey, let me tell you about what's happening in Oshkosh this summer."

Non-aviator guy: "Oshkosh, you mean like 'B'Gosh? The overalls for rug rats? That Oshkosh?"

Me: "No, Oshkosh the world's largest air show, in Wisconson in late July. Bratwurst, Patty Wagstaff, cool aviation toys...THAT Oshkosh."

Him: "Oh." [blank stare]

Me: "Yeah, they are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the DC-3 with a formation flight of 40 DC-3s."

Him: "Forty DC-3s, is that a lot?"

Me: "Uh, yeah. It is huge, the biggest thing to happen at Oshkosh, maybe ever. The sky will be filled with aluminum, FORTY of the coolest vintage airliners wingtip to freakin' wingtip, maybe for the last time...ever! Oh, and a bunch of them will be C-47s."

Him: [no reply, just a blank stare]

Me: "It is going to be awesome. Can you even IMAGINE the sound of EIGHTY RADIAL ENGINES all arriving over show center at once? My God, one radial engine is enough to stop us pilot types in our tracks, and force us to stare up in the sky listening to that sweet airplane noise. No, I'm talking EIGHTY RADIAL ENGINES, all at once, same sky." I was almost hyperventilating describing the scene.

Him: "So, this airplane noise is a good thing?"

Me: "You have been to the symphony, right?"

Him: "Sure."

Me: "It is going to be like going to the symphony for pilots at Oshkosh on that day when the DC-3 formation flies over to open the show. Only times, like a million."

Him: [another blank stare]. After looking at me like I was nuts, he politely excused himself to go sit with other non-aviators who think airplane noise is something to be loathed instead of embraced.

O.K., this is a serious embellishment of what was really said. But I had to add the dramatic emphasis to make the point, and keep you reading.

The next time I am socializing with non-aviators, I shall do what's noble and try to hold back on the flying stuff...unless of course they ask. If they give me an opening, I might just unload with some good old fashioned, 100LL-fueled aviation talk. Maybe I will convince them that my world is worth exploring, a world where men and women soar like eagles in magical machines that defy gravity most of the time.

But I am sure that at some point I will again generate those same blank stares. It is almost a foregone conclusion when I am amongst non-aviators that I will let my guard down and start gushing over the way a P-51 sounds when it makes a high-speed, low pass over Oshkosh, or the way a Pilatus PC-12 can do carrier landings on a dime and give you .09 cents change.

Passion. It's what we aviators do.

Some of the Best Things in Life Really Are Free

We've all seen them, those cutesy flash e-cards that your granny sends you on Groundhog's Day. After a fun little animation of a puppy tap dancing on a Hippo's back, Granny's message appears urging you to stop being an ass, eat your peas and visit her once in a while.

There are a boatload of sites out there offering these fun little frolics through fantasy land, most of which are pretty far outside of the envelope most pilots I know live within. We aviators are an easy-to-figure bunch...give us an airport picnic table, some lukewarm coffee and a couple of Piper Cubs in the pattern and we're good. When we want to send each other greetings, we stroll over to the neighbor's hangar and help take some surplus beer off their hands.

But we pilots are also as much into the Internets as anyone these days. So it was with great delight that I recently stumbled upon the following:

Airliners.net is offering site visitors the opportunity to send any of their 1,225,790 photos as an electronic postcard! The front shows the chosen photo, while the back will display a very cool "Par Avion" imprint, along with your personalized message written in a very cool handwritten font. The recipient gets a link in his/her inbox aiming them at their card on the airliners.net server. And best of all, this is a totally free service. No strings, no registration, no spamware, no harm, no foul. Just free.

The photo above shows a card I sent myself for the purpose of showing off the airliners.net service. It shows a PA-28 – my regular readers will know why that particular airframe caught my eye – but there are plenty of other choices, so says the site:

Find a photo you like by browsing our database though our search engine that you will find on our frontpage. Some interesting categories include: Great Shots! • Classic Airliners • Military Aircraft • Warbirds • Seaplanes • Colorful Paint schemes • Cockpits • Cabins • Air to air photos • Helicopters • Night photos • Blimps, balloons and airships • or a random photo from our database.

I continue to me amazed at the quality and sheer volume of unbelievably great aviation photography found on airliners.net. As I have said before, this is easily the finest example of what happens when camera meets airplane. I have a collection of maybe 500 of these images that I use as a rotating slideshow on my laptop desktop. And when I am in the office running the Macbook next to my 22" LCD display in dual display mode, each screen changes to a new and even more swesome airliners.net shot every minute. On the left can be a DC-3 on final over Stuttgart and on the right, a shot of a C-17 Globemaster III low and slow over Airventure Oshkosh. I'm in Heaven, baby!

You too can enjoy these wonderful photos, as long as you stay strictly within the scope of their copyright release:

"All photos on airliners.net are protected by international copyright laws. You have limited rights to personally view the images with your web browser and to use them as your personal computer wallpaper (or background image) on your own computer. These photos may not otherwise be reproduced, distributed, cropped, resized, or otherwise altered without the written permission of the photographer. No commercial use of these photos may be made in any way. All rights are reserved."

That is very, very clear. So please, go here and send everyone you know an airliners.net electronic aviation postcard. They will love you for not sending them that stupid animated cartoon of a elephant balancing a birthday cake on his head while dancing to the tune of "Baby's Got Back."

How to Bring a Flying Machine to Life:Lots of Yellow Paint and a Big Smile

In part one of this interview with Mitch Carley, creator of Duggy "The Smile in the Sky", Carley explained how the sketches of a 12-year-old kid in Ohio can come to life. The way Duggy came alive and moved from a sheet of paper to an air show near you is an absolute perfect example of the power of this great airplane.

Here, in part two, we let Carley explain how Duggy has helped to launch the dreams of countless kids, and a few adults too, including myself.

World of Flying: Can a paint job and a big smile on the nose really change an airplane's personality? Describe the transformation from the old DC-3 to Duggy. Were you there as they painted him, and if yes, describe your personal elation.

Mitch Carley: I believe it 'released him' if you will. This airframe (N1XP) has rich history and I really believe it was his destiny. Robert [Odergaard] said this airframe ALWAYS flew the 'happiest'. Several other experts on warbirds that have flown N1XP, all agree. So, my answer is yes. In the air it validates this airframe's love for flying and on the ground – with kids – there is nothing like it, I will not even try to describe it here. I was in Goderich, Canada at SkyHarbor where and when Duggy was painted. The feeling is best described as seeing a birth…honestly. Unreal!

World of Flying: Tell my readers intimate details about some of Duggy's personality traits that will surprise them, and give examples of anything supernatural or weird that has happened inside or around Duggy.

MC: This plane brings out the best in people and also brings out their dreams. We have arrived in the morning to move Duggy and found child's drawings and notes left for us and or Duggy…just like they do with Santa…very heartwarming. We have found child's vitamins under his tires in the morning – to later find out that children have forgone chewing their vitamins in exchange for giving them to Duggy. One boy in particular walks the family back every night at Oshkosh to say some words to Duggy for a good night's sleep. Another girl who did not want to leave Duggy and was crying broke from her fathers grip to run back and hug his tire. Robert has said Duggy has leapt into the air from time to time as if he is jumping off the runway…again, unreal.

World of Flying: Why do you say Duggy is the luckiest airframe in the world?

MC: I often say that because, going from a cold auction block of a few DC-3's in Canada to the sunny state of Florida with kids loving him as they visit him…it is absolutely a blessed and in turn 'lucky' airplane. You have to join us at an air show and experience it, the way the kids react to him…it is truly hard to describe.

World of Flying: The mission of Duggy is to help make kids' dreams come true. Are these just aviation dreams, or dreams as a whole? Explain how this whole concept has been received by children across the USA.

MC: Dreams of any kind. I personally was a child that often tried out new things, hobbies, sports, outdoor adventures…really trying to find the next thing that made my mind happy. As I moved through school I had one great councilor and the others seemed invisible. I learned the value of finding a Dream, finding a Team and working it when I addressed a US Air Force recruiting Officer in high school. I discussed the fact that I was interested in flying a C-130 in the Air Force. He asked how my math grades were…they were bad. In fact I had nowhere near the schooling I needed to achieve that dream – it was too late. I have carried that 'chip' for years and with the introduction of the often 'bad' internet I realized – hey – Dream It, Team It, Work it…so we added a great search engine powered by ASK for Kids! on Duggy.com that is safe way to help kids find their dreams. Kids of all ages, incomes, languages and so on…anywhere in the world.

World of Flying: In your wildest dreams, what would be the ultimate success story for Duggy and the entire Duggy Dream Team project in the future?

MC: This world's success stories are so often fueled by media. So, I dream of the day that the media fuels Duggy's mission. TV Show, website, news, in-school teaching, home-school teaching, event teaching. Duggy the brand should define endless possibilities can come true, for kids worldwide. I see the Duggy Brand as a place a child could go on any screen, live event or location(s), like the Dream Hangar, to be happy.

Dream It, Team It, Work It: A Real-life Lessonin Creating Your Own Reality

Westerville, Ohio can be a "cold and wet place 4-6 months out of the year" says Mitch Carley, the creator and illustrator that was the original "dreamer" responsible for bringing the "Smile in the Sky" to life. And when playing outside is not an option, a young imagination has plenty of time to take dramatic, exciting journeys across the sky.

As a young boy several decades ago, Carley would sketch amazing drawings of a mythical flying friend, one that lived in his mind only. Some might have said the subject of these early sketches – a DC-3 called Duggy – might have been just a kid's harmless imaginary friend. How wrong they would be.

Every kid has imaginary friends, but not every kid succeeds in making those friends literally come alive. Had these drawings languished forever in a box, never to see the light of day again, Duggy might have been relegated to stay forever hangared in Carley's fertile mind, just a fantasy fling with the far side of imagination.

But, thankfully, it did not.

We all have seen Duggy at airshows around the country, but maybe you weren't aware of how this particular DC-3 came to be painted bright yellow with a gigantic smile painted wide across his nose. If you've ever wondered what this beautiful teaching tool represents and how it jumped out of Carley's sketchbook to entertain us all, sit back and read this exclusive interview with Duggy's creator.

In part one, we'll look at how Duggy came to life, and what stimulus was there to push him from paper to real-life. In part two, we'll look deep into Duggy's soul and learn why this airplane might be more alive than any one we have ever met.

World of Flying: Describe your personal aviation experience or interests, if you have any licenses, ratings hours, or airplanes flown. Tell my readers any future plans to earn licenses of ratings.

Mitch Carley: My experiences are that I grew up in a family where my dad specialized in rebuilding Cessna 120-140's as a summer and side 'personal' business. He taught A&P School in Columbus, OH for over 30 years. Each summer or two a fresh 120 or 140 would roll out of the garage and or basement. The center section and tail would be in the garage and the wings often would be refinished in the basement…quite a little factory. So, growing up assisting and enjoying the re-birth of these tail draggers really got my little mind running. My first flight would have been around first grade – or earlier. I flew as a right seater for decades…enjoying every minute, 1 dollar gas, no loans, low insurance, self-annuals and on…for my dad it truly was pleasure-flying. We traveled to air shows, Oshkosh, cross-country trips and so on.

I have soloed in a Cessna, gotten stick-time in an AgCat, P51 and even the rare F2G, Super Corsair, and so on. Raising two sons and being engaged with their lives at the time was so much more important. I do plan on getting fully licensed for single engine VFR type flying and would really enjoy a Cessna 180 if it all comes together. Believe me, if time and expenses where not an issue I would really train and work for a Twin rating, IFR and so on – I always have dreamed of piloting a DC-3...Duggy : )

World of Flying: Let's go to the very beginning. Where did the first thoughts of Duggy come from? Describe how old you were, and your interests in aviation and DC-3s at the time.

MC: Duggy was born in and around my activities as I explained above, comic books, Steve Canyon, Peanuts, Deal Wheels, BC…and on. All of those stimuli and the love of aviation (DC-3's) were brought together in my mind around 11 years old. I was given a report assignment "What do you want to be when you grow up…"

World of Flying: You obviously have plenty of illustration talent, but where did that come from? When you first started sketching Duggy, were others noticing your artistic chops at that age?

MC: Westerville, OH is a cold and wet place 4-6 months out of the year. No internet, no Cable TV. But hey, I had paper, in fact my Dad would bring home non-ruled paper from work for me to use…that was like handing a laptop to a kid now. I admired and used to write letters to my heroes (my mom walked me through how to address, stamp and properly mail letters, packages), Milton Caniff (Steve Canyon), Charles Schultz (Peanuts), Dave Deal (Deals Wheels), Johnny Hart (B.C.) and everyone of them replied with an illustration (or two or three over time) with words of encouragement as they too looked at the work I sent them…that is when I knew I was in my groove…it was and always will be a hobby of love. All of this got going in a serious way when I started to walk through the neighborhood selling drawings, like kids used to sell seeds…8-9 years old.

World of Flying: What happened with the whole Duggy concept between the time you made those important first sketches as a kid and when you pitched the idea to Robert Odergaard?

MC: I shelved the idea as I grew-up and became a father with several jobs within Advertising Agencies. I realized the only time I would mention this is if it felt right…it never did for over 20 years…or more. Ron Kaplan the Executive Director at the National Aviation Hall of Fame brought Robert and I together. Ron knew us both and felt there was a fit…a true blessing. So from 1971 to 2005 there was no tangible movement on Duggy aside from many drawings, a few stories and thoughts of him daily in my mind for over 30 years.

World of Flying: What was it about the Duggy project that convinced Robert to spend the money to re-paint his DC-3 to become Duggy? Did you have long personal conversations to convince him, or was it such a natural fit that he came on board immediately?

MC: We both had friends at the first meeting. My friend Rob Challans, a jumbo jet Pilot and Robert has his friend, a savvy marketer, Doug Anderson. When I completed about a 20-minute presentation, Robert look at Doug and said what do you think? Doug reacted favorably with his reserved manner. Then Robert stated…"Well which one do you want to use?" I was floored. Robert was referring to the fact that he had 2 DC-3's to consider. So the answer, Robert came on board immediately.

Forecasting the Weather? Just Follow the Arrows

If I could have picked another vocations I’d like to have taken on a career besides my current one as aviation ad agency owner, TV weathercaster would have been high on my list. I know I would have been able to nail it, because weather just isn’t as complicated as many people seem to make it.

As a pilot, I’ve become a student of WX, learning something new all the time. But when you boil WX forecasting down to nuts and bolts, it really just is a matter of…streams.

Let me ‘splain, Lucy…

Storms flow across North America in precisely the same manner that a stream of water would flow across the kitchen floor if I – being inept as a Carpenter – had built the house. My carpentry skills border on dangerous, and in that floor would be high and low points. In WXspeak, these are ridges and lows. Storms are then pushed across this uneven landscape by the Jet Stream, which flows West to East, generally.

So visualize the jet stream being poured into the United States. Like water, it will flow easily around the high points (ridges) to the low points. Look at three things and you will know what your WX will do soon:

(1) Look at either the GOES West or GOES East infrared satellite image to see what storms are in the area, especially to the WEST of your route,

(2) Check the barometric pressures at your home field and compare that to other areas nearby and along your route of flight. A great and easy way to look at all the METARS in any state is to go here and put @NY, @CA, etc. in the "text observations" box in the upper right corner.

(3) Look at the Unisys 300 mb streamlines plot and see how the jet stream is flowing. The jets will be pushing the weather in the direction of the arrows on the chart, towards areas of lowest barometric pressure.

Another way we aviators beat the TV guys every time are Pilot Reports. Check it out. Pilots know…and the PIREPS tell us what is really going on NOW. This was proven way back in the day when I lived in Central California and listened to KMJ AM 580. They had a WX guy named Sean Boyd who was the only guy in that market who used PIREPs to augment his NWS and NOAA data. When the competition was getting it wrong, Boyd could see by the PIREPs and other aviation data what was really happening. It was brilliant, and I never have been able to understand why all TV and radio WX people don't use the WX tools available to us aviators.

It is really just that simple. Weather forecasting 101, except on a blustery Oregon spring night like tonight...when it can't decide to blow hail, clear out, or rain buses and taxicabs. Tonight, any GA pilot report might just be...

"Seattle Center, Cessna 12345, Holy sh*t, we're upside down, engine's been ripped off by turbulence, lightning has fried the electricals, hail the size of volleyballs has blown out the windscreen...we're ALL going to DIE!!!!!...over"