AV8NLVR's Blog

What do car radios, 8-track tapes, and Learjets have in common?

They were all invented by the same person - Mr. William Lear!  As an American inventor, Lear spent almost all his adult life coming up with new ideas and making them reality.

His first big idea was to create a way that a big vacuum tube radio could be used in an automobile.  He did this back in the late 1920s before the age of 30, back when automobiles were rather simple.  This was tied to the invention of another man, Robert Galvin, who came up with a way to power such a radio from standard current instead of batteries.  Lear sold his patent to Galvin and in 1930 the Galvin brothers introduced the first practical radio for the automobile, which sold for a little over $100.  In honor of this major invention Galvin Manufacturing decided to re-name the company, combining "motor" and "Victrola" to create "Motorola".

In the 1930s, Lear used the profits to start his own company to make electronics for aircraft.  Over the next 30 years, he came up with things like the first autopilot (the "Learmatic Navigator"), first fully automatic landing system that could allow pilots to land in zero visibility, direction finders, and the first radios for aircraft.  In 1962 he sold this business to Siegler and it became known as "Lear-Siegler", a major manufacturer of airplane electronics.

Lear realized the potential for a small jet that would make business travel affordable and started a new company which built the "Learjet" from his design, the world's first mass-produced business jet.  It first flew in 1963 and is still being manufactured today as a division of Bombardier Aerospace in Canada.

The 8-track tape idea came from the need to create a convenient entertainment system for the Learjet that could handle the bumps of air turbulence.  Lear started with the 4-track system which itself was created by another big name in audio, Earl Muntz, and took it to the next level.  The 8-track was immediately successful and by 1965, Ford was offering built-in 8-track players and the first pre-recorded cartridges.  By their peak in the late 70s, 8-track players and cartridges were an $8 Billion per year industry.

Lear had another idea for an even bigger jet which he designed in 1969 and called the "LearStar 600".  In 1976, he sold the exclusive rights to build this plane to the Canadair company, which then named the production version the "CL-600 Challenger".  In 1990 Canadair was sold to Bombardier which still makes the Challenger 600 today - it became another popular business jet.  But Lear's original design for the 600 has yet another legacy.  In the early 90s, Bombardier used the CL-600 as the base design for what they would name the "Canadair Regional Jet".  That's right.  Today's CRJ which is flown by several major airlines (Northwest Airlink, Delta Connection, Skywest, etc) is a direct descendant of Lear's design.  The reason why the windows in a CRJ are somewhat uncomfortably low is because this plane is merely a stretched version of the large business jet and the floor had to be raised to accommodate wiring and other things.

He died in 1978 of Leukemia at the age of 76 after a lifetime of inventing new things which touched nearly everyone's life.  But you know what the real irony is?  William Lear had no formal education beyond the 8th grade.

This year I had the chance to visit the two largest aviation museums in the country.  Both are well worth the price of admission.  The Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC has the largest collection of aircraft in the world, and the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, Arizona is the largest privately-owned air museum in the world.

Although the National Air & Space Museum is actually in Washington DC near the U.S. Capitol, its most popular attraction is about 30 miles away, on the grounds of the Dulles Airport in northern Virginia - the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex.  This facility opened in 2003 and was designed to house the much larger artifacts of the NASM.  Since it is located at Dulles, planes that are to be donated can just be flown right in.  Their goal is to eventually  have 900 aircraft on display!

The annex was built with private donations, the largest being $65 million from Steven F. Udvar-Hazy.  He is a Hungarian immigrant and businessman who co-founded the largest aircraft leasing company in the world - ILFC - when he predicted that due to the huge cost of jetliners, airlines would have more flexibility if they leased part or all of their fleets.  The idea paid off well, making Hazy one of the richest men in America, on the same list with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Admission to the museum is free, but it costs $12 to enter the parking lot.  The facility is basically shaped like a giant hangar with a curved roof and the planes are arranged on the floor and from the roof.  There are elevated walkways on two levels with an unobstructed view from every spot.  There's a second hangar attached to the main one, and this is called the Space Hangar.  Here, the centerpiece is the Space Shuttle Orbiter "Enterprise".  This was the original prototype that was built in the mid 70s and used for landing tests.  Back then, a reusable spacecraft was so new that nobody knew how well it would work so they carried "Enterprise" up to commercial jetliner altitude on the back of a 747 and released it - allowing it to glide to a landing just like the real space shuttle does.

In the main hangar there are exhibits including the Air France Concorde supersonic jet;  the Boeing Dash-80 (707 prototype);  the B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" that dropped the first atomic bomb;  the Virgin GlobalFlyer, in which Steve Fossett made the first non-stop round-the-world flight; the first jet flown by FedEx; and various military jets including an F-14 Tomcat.  Plus there are hundreds more with plans to significantly grow the collection as well as build additions to the main hangar.

This faciilty also has a mock air traffic control tower.  You ride the elevator to the 7th floor and can look out over the Dulles Airport from the same perspective as a real air traffic control tower.

One plane on display here is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird - the fastest airplane ever built.  Any faster and you'd need a spaceship.  The Blackbird holds both altitude and speed records - and it can photograph a car license plate from 80,000 feet!  The bird thats on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center broke another speed record when it was flown from Palmdale, CA to the Dulles Airport - 68 minutes.  Damn that's fast! 

Meanwhile, 2000 miles to the west lies the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.  This facility is the largest privately-owned museum of its kind in the world, occupying 80 acres with 250 aircraft.  It is adjacent to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, home of the 390th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), affectionately known as "the boneyard".  While the public is not allowed on the base, you can take a bus tour from the museum which gives a look at some of the 4,000 planes they have in there.

Because its in Arizona where rain is not much of a factor, most of the displays are outside.  Its a huge place, meaning lots of walking, and would probably be brutal during the summer in the 100 degree heat.  I was there in the winter just as Wisconsin was digging out from the biggest snowstorm of '07-'08 - it was quite pleasant with temps in the 70s and DRY.  :)

The Pima Museum has mostly military aircraft, many of which aren't at the NASM yet including the B-52 bombers and one of the original presidential transports (Eisenhower's "Air Force One").  Admission for the museum and bus tour of AMARG cost around $20.

I would highly recommend either one or both of these museums as a place to visit if you make Washington or Arizona part of your travels.

I'm really proud to say that one of my photos was published on the cover of a worldwide, large circulation magazine!  My photo of an Air Force F-22 Raptor wason the cover of the August edition of  "Air Forces Monthly",  a magazine devoted to the units and equipment of different countries' air forces around the world.  In this issue they did a cover story on the 192nd Fighter Wing at Langley AFB and the F-22 which coincides with the F-22 Demo Team's first visit overseas to an airshow in England.  This magazine is published by a company based in the U.K. (sold here in the states by Barnes & Noble), and they chose my picture from the hundreds that are online!

I have been taking pictures of aircraft for over 10 years now, and the majority of them (over 5,000 I think) I post on one of two websites - airliners.net and jetphotos.net, as well as my own sites.  From here,  they're seen by people all over the world - and people who need a photo for commercial use or who want prints email me.  I sell them.  It is like a hobby that occasionally pays!  The AFM sale is my 2nd highest amount sale,  just under what I got from "TIME" magazine back in 2002 for 2 photos that were used in a montage.  I have sold pictures to aerospace companies (Raytheon for example) as well as airlines.  Southwest Airlines bought one a couple years ago for which they paid me with one free roundtrip pass that was worth almost $600 at full walk-up fare.  Its definitely fun!  So far in 2008, I have sold more than any other year since I had my first sale in 2002 and more than the last 3 years combined.  I could probably sell more if I knew how to market them better.

The Raptor photo was one that I shot at EAA 2007.  Most of my photos of the last couple years tend to be military and air shows because I happen to live in a place whose airport has very little traffic and not very good spots to photograph from, not to mention the brutal weather for several months of the year:  The Frozen Tundra, Green Bay.  Although at times I do get to travel to places with much more photo-friendly airports.  Through some people I have become acquainted with though my photos I have also had the opportunity to go where few people get to go - behind the scenes, on the ramp at an airport, and also a couple of highly secured aircraft "boneyards".  This all give me a pretty wide variety of interesting shots.

The cover of AFM can be seen under my photos on this blog.  Its a really cool feeling to look at the huge magazine rack at Barnes & Noble with a gazillion different magazines and point to that one and say,  "I shot that".

You may remember a few weeks ago a plane crash in Madrid, Spain in which 154 people died.  The plane crashed while taking off.

Today I was reading a new report that,  while the official cause won't be released for some time, says that the data recorder shows that the wing flaps were not extended in takeoff position,  and an electrical alert system for flaps not set may not have worked.  This reminded me of another crash that was very similar.  It happened in 1987 in Detroit.  I checked some facts on it and indeed,  the Spanair accident appears to be exactly identical to that of Northwest flight 255.

Both aircraft were McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 models.  Northwest 255 was a flight leaving Detroit for Phoenix on an August night in 1987 when the pilots did not do a required pre-flight checklist and did not set the flaps.  That plane only got about 50  feet up,  tipped left then right, then crashed and careened up to a highway overpass in a big fireball.  156 people died (compared to 154 in the Madrid crash) and there was one single survivor - a 4 year old girl whose parents and brother were among the casualties.   Also,  in a striking similarity,  the takeoff warning system in that plane also did not work.

In last month's accident,  the Spanair jet rose slightly from the runway, then crashed and exploded, ending up in the grass.  Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition; however, 18 people did survive.  But the details of both crashes are so strikingly similar.

Those panels on the rear of the wing that extend out/downward are indeed very important to getting you off the ground - without them, as you can see, well.....you're dead.  The laws of physics are simple and the same no matter what kind or size of plane youi're on.  The wings create the force that causes the plane to go up (lift) by Bernouli's Principle - air moves faster over the top of the wing than under it because the top of the wing is curved and is a larger area.  The slower moving air across the bottom is a higher pressure than the air on top,  so the high pressure bottom causes it to rise.  But factor in that you have a quarter of a million pounds to lift - more lifting force is needed at the beginning so the flaps work by extending the wing - extending the surface area and extending the curvature,  which means even faster air at a lower pressure will produce more high pressure underneath,  enough to get it off the ground and headed upward.   While there are a couple of aircraft types that I've heard of that can do a zero-flaps takeoff,  on most of them the standard wing cannot create enough force to get the plane in the air. - it'll crash every time.

Of course there is more to it....things like speed, angle of attack, etc but the flaps serve the very basic principle.  Its fun to watch a plane sail gracefully off the ground when all the forces work together, whether its a small Cessna or the gargantuan Airbus 380.  They're all the same.  Pilots have checklists for every phase of the flight, and there are operating procedures for just about everything.  The same type of crash caused by human error should never happen twice.

If you live in Green Bay then there is a very good chance that a picture of your house is on the web.  How is that possible, you ask?  You may have heard of google's "street view" feature.

Once upon a time, web search engines put maps online (google, yahoo, mapquest, etc).  Then they took it to the next level by including a layer for a satellite view taken from space - where you can look straight down on any location.  How do you take that to the next level?  How about an actual  street-level, 360 degree interactive photograph?  Welcome to the future.

Google's map site has added a feature called "street view" where you can zoom to any address and see a photograph of the location in which you can pan around to the sides and behind.  They started this in May 2007 with the major cities and are slowly expanding coverage.  I read that their goal is to photograph every single public roadway in the world and put it online.  Now that is a monumental task!

They've already got most major cities in the U.S. done, as well as areas of Japan, most of Australia (released on August 4th), parts of France (released in July), and a small bit of Canada.  Here in Wisconsin, they started out with a big chunk from Grafton down thru Chicago and from the lakeshore over past Madison.  Now, they have added Green Bay!  Sorry, Appleton, you're not added yet.

Just go to the google maps website and zoom to Green Bay.  Click on "street view" and the streets that have photos will appear blue.  Zoom to any address and click the icon,  and you have a pop up window with the photo!

It doesn't say when the photos were taken, but I have a pretty good guess.  Remember last year when the new Claude Allouez bridge in De Pere opened?  October 1, 2007.  They began work almost immediately afterward to dismantle the old bridge next to it.  Well,  if you zoom to Main Av. in De Pere you can see the photo is of the new bridge, and on the west side there is a crane just on the north side of the road.  This is when they were working on the old bridge,  and you can see that the trees are still mostly green.  This means it had to be sometime during the first half of October 2007.

Google's street view is very cool.  There's no set schedule when new cities' pictures are released...it happens every couple months or so.  According to Wikipedia, "google cars" have been spotted taking pictures in Germany, Spain, Italy, UK, and major cities in Canada so that might be a clue what to look for next.    10 years ago, who would have imagined this would be possible?

Volk Field, over in Camp Douglas near Wisconsin Dells, held their open house & air show this past Saturday.  The last time they had one was 2006, which was on the same day that one of the Appleton based units came back from Iraq.

This time it was a smaller air show with a smaller crowd.  There were only two flying demonstrations along with a dozen or so planes on the ground.  The flying was an F-16, a P-38 (World War 2 era), and then a Heritage flight with both in formation.

Although the Madison based 115th Fighter Wing had a couple of F-16s on show, the flying was handled by the Viper West demo team.  "Viper" is the common nickname for the F-16.  Back in 1976 when the F-16 first went into service, they held a naming competition and the winning entry, as selected by top Air Force brass, was "Fighting Falcon".  But the runner-up, "Viper", was much more popular with the fighter pilots & crews so the plane became known officially as the "F-16 Fighting Falcon" but on the street its nickname remains Viper.

Air Force demonstrations of fighter jets are handled by teams for each aircraft.  The F-16 has two, since it has the busiest air show schedule: Viper East (based at Shaw AFB in South Carolina) and Viper West, which is the one that did the Volk Field demo.  Although they normally only handle air shows west of the Mississippi, they're on a midwest tour through Volk Field, Alpena Michigan, and Cleveland Ohio before heading back home.

Viper West is based at Hill AFB in Salt Lake City.  The members of the team come from regular units - these guys are part of the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill - and are selected for assignment to the demo team - there's a Lead Pilot (Capt. Russ "Spicoli" Piggott), Crew Chief (Ssgt. Ryan Douglass), maintenance crew, and backup/safety pilots.    All of the fighter jet demo teams bring two aircraft to each show (one as a backup) and the demo consists of a single ship flying.  Of course there is also the famous Thunderbirds team, which consists of 6 planes and is a little more prestigious.  However, Its kind of an honor to be selected for any of these demo teams because these guys get the "rock star" treatment everywhere they go and their mission is basically to be the face of the Air Force to the public.  The demo team lead pilots are also certified to fly in Heritage Flights.

A Heritage Flight is a formation consisting of a modern fighter jet together with one, two, or three older "warbirds" or former Air Force fighters,  such as the P-51 Mustang, F-86 Sabre - basically planes from the World War 2, Korean, and Vietnam era.  The USAF began doing these formations 10 years ago and it has proved to be extremely popular.  The warbirds are privately owned and are flown by specially trained civilian pilots.  For example at Volk Field there was a Lockheed P-38 Lightning named "Ruff Stuff" which is owned by Ron Fagen of Minnesota.  Fagen's company did a full restoration on it back in 2007, and it was flown in this formation by Kevin Eldridge.  Eldridge is a civilian pilot but no stranger to warbirds:  he holds an unlimited license for all makes and types of high performance piston-powered aircraft; is a winning racer in the National Air Races; and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild which allows him to fly stunt planes in movies ("Executive Decision", "Con Air", and others).  There are only 6 or 7 P-38s left in the world that are airworthy,  so for such a rare aircraft you wouldn't trust it to just anyone!  All of the Heritage Flight civilian pilots are specially selected by the Air Force for these formations because it requires special training to fly in formation with a modern fighter jet.

Heritage Flgihts aren't limited to just the Air Force - there is a Naval version in which they fly an F-18 Hornet along with older ex-naval fighters.

Among the planes on the ground was a KC-135 from the 128th in Milwaukee, several trainer jets, a Chinook helicopter from the Iowa ANG and a Blackhawk from the Wisconsin ANG in Madison.  I found it interesting that the KC-135 seems to have a sponsor now.  There's a Briggs & Stratton logo on the nose as well as in the cockpit on the seatbacks and control yokes and in other places - all of them in high-visibility areas for photos.  My cockpit photo has at least 3 Briggs & Stratton logos visible in it!  Doesn't that kind of cheapen the image a bit?   I'm ok with nose-art but I think this is a bit too much.

All in all, it was a long drive over there for a small photo opportunity but at least the weather was perfect!