Further to the question of whether there are "decleration devices" that would enable a crippled aircraft to land safely, this evidently is breaking news: Parachute saves light plane's passengers VANCOUVER/ CKNW (AM980) -- Four people are alive today thanks to a relatively new parachute system for...

I fly about 50 hours a year and wish I could do more, just to stay in the groove. Could I have stayed current in a jet fighter, flying about 140 hours a year? Thanks! all the best -- Dan Ford email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

If you've been following this newsgroup for long enough, you may remember the saga of BW-372, the Brester Buffalo type that was recovered from a Russian lake six years ago. Spirited out of Russia in rather mysterious fashion, it has been hiding out in a hangar at Dublin airport ever since, while...

"What starts as the personal memoir of an F-105 pilot turns out to be a solid work of aerial combat history"--Darrel Whitcomb, in the October 2004 issue of Vietnam magazine. Better late than never! Happily the Smithsonian Institution Press keeps its good sellers around forever. (If it had been...

Pete Stickney wrote in another thread: (The Aliies, after all, succeeded in 1943 in producing what the Germans could not - practical, reliable jet engines that could be flown for more than a day before needing to be overhauled, and which could be worked on by typical mechanics. Before the Me 262...

I just now learned that then-Major Charles Sweeney, the pilot of Bockscar on the Nagasaki mission, died in Boston last Thursday at the age of 84. According to an obituary this morning in the Aero-News email newsletter: A staunch defender of the atomic missions, Sweeney told Quincy (MA) Patriot...

What airline was Ernest K Gann flying for when he began to fly for the army in Fate Is the Hunter? Thanks! all the best -- Dan Ford email: (put Cubdriver in subject line) The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com

If you were going to name a couple of the greatest writers about military aviation, who would they be? I want personal recollections, not history. I'd like names that large numbers of people would recognize. Antoine de St Exupery? (Can't stand him, personally, but he seems beloved) Ernest Gahn?...

This from the Aero-News Propwash email newsletter this morning: *********************************************** USAF Names First Female To Command Combat Squadron And You'll Never Guess... The 354th Fighter Squadron, based at Arizona's Davis-Monthan AFB, has a new commander: Lt. Col. Martha...

Reading what appears to be a solid history of FDR and espionage. Author makes the flat statement that in 1940 someone in the Norden plant smuggled out the plans, which went to Germany. From these, the Germans "developed their own bombsight," presumably based on the Norden. The author points out the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has signed a $1 million agreement with Alfred A. Knopf, giving the injured former U.S. Army private the chance to tell her own story, the publisher said on Tuesday. all the best -- Dan Ford email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9 see the...

From today's Aero-News email newsletter: The End Of Manned Fighters? F-35 Will Be Last Of Traditional Aircraft The top gun of the future will be a robot - not your hormone-pumping human aviator. Unmanned aircraft will be the key to the modern battlefield as the traditional fighter aircraft is...

My account of a tour of NASM's new Udvar-Hazy center, out at Dulles airport, is online at www.warbirdforum.com/udvarhaz.htm all the best -- Dan Ford email: see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

This sensible essay appears in today's Wall Street Journal: January 7, 2004 Business World Air Security Lies In Deterrence, Not Nuggets By HOLMAN W. JENKINS JR. That information and intelligence are two different things was amply

On an earlier thread, some despicable mysogynist wondered whether a female suicide bomber got the 72 virgins issued to martyrs in heaven, which led some other lowlife to speculate that instead she might be multiplied into the 72 virgins. Well, further to those thoughts, here's a note from this...

What does this entry on a pilot's record mean, circa 1970?: "crew member on flight service" Does that mean he's current as a pilot, or something else entirely? Thanks!

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2003 Saddam Hussein has been captured, TIME magazine confirmed. "It's true," said a U.S. intelligence official in Baghdad about the arrest of the former dictator. The official wouldn't give any more details except to confirm that the former dictator had been detained the...

From the Washington Post: "Consequently, we respectfully wish to inform you that the National Air and Space Museum has no plans to alter the Laser 200 from the way it was when it was last flown by Leo Loudenslager and ultimately given to us by his daughters," Dailey wrote. The plane was displayed...

In Kunming last Saturday, without any fanfare and despite earlier pronouncements that the project would be delayed to December or January, the Chinese lifted a P-40 from the mud of Dianchi lake. It was immediately removed, but nobody seems to know where. (China is still a closed society, we keep...

The more or less final (some would say "cooked") figures are in, and Europe's performance is not entirely as shabby as I earlier posted. Japan says it will provide $5 billion, including $3.5 billion in loans (as if Iraq needed any more of those, after what Germany, France, and Russia extended to...