Air Plane or Parked Plane

On Dec 3, 12:31*am, " wrote:
24 hours in a day. *365 days in a year. *That's 8,760 hours in a
year.

How many hours did you fly last year?

Unless you're in the business, patrolling a pipe-line or whatever,
you're lucky if you did a hundred hours.

Back when I had a girl friend going to Aridzona State and I was
playing Sailor for my uncle Sam, I flat bored a hole in the sky back &
forth between Meadow Lark & Brown Field. *Still only added up to about
700 hours (which is a LOT of time in a C-120). *Flying for lust or
your living, it can add up but most home-builders feel pretty lucky to
get in a hundred hours in a YEAR.

That means the bird is PARKED 8,660 hours in a year. Home for the mice
and the beez. *Smells more like moth balls and rat poison than gas &
oil.

I know a guy, he HANGS his airplane up. *Little bitty cable on a 12v
winch from Harbor Freight, hoists that thing up, keeps it clear of the
mice and the bean-counters. *(You shoulda seen the pair of us,
laughing like fools when the winch gave out [ turned out to be the
switch, thank gawd! ] )

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Lucky if it's parked in a hangar. *But most of us aren't lucky. *Shed-
roof, along with a disk-harrow, four pallets of ammonium nitrate and a
pick-up truck with a bad rear-end you've been meaning to fix just as
soon as you find the time...

Parked Plane, not an Air Plane.

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The more you fly, the better you will.

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Doesn't have to be a REAL air plane. *Anything that can get you off
the ground, into that third dimension that separates the eagles from
the turkeys.

Wing Ding, Teenie Two, VP... not REAL airplanes, according to the RV
drivers with their air-conditioned hangars living in their Air Parks
(cocktails on the apron, shaken, not stirred). *While you're out there
using your J.C.Whitney radar detector to keep under the Big Eye, bugs
in your teeth cuz you're flying so low -- you don't worry about flying
into mountains, you worry about hitting the curb!

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Don't need to ask 'Why?' *We all know the REAL answer. *It's MONEY.
Not just for gas, money for the hangar; for the tie-down; for the
tires and the paint going all chalky and the varnish on the prop
starting the check. *Hour in the air means ten on the ground, taking
care of the bird, reaching for your wallet. *Insurance. *Rich Man
taxes from the city and the county and the State. *( Own an airplane,
you gotta be rich, Right? *) *So the bean counters figger you can fork-
over some for them too, and they kill the Golden Goose because you're
a soft target. *Hard to hide an airplane. *Unless...

What's that? *You say *you never registered it to begin with... which
means you ain't got no hull number.

Bean counters are all nine-to-fiver's. *They never actually come out
and LOOK, they just run their finger down the list, charge you for all
those wunnerful benefits that excise tax isn't being used for. *Bean
counters like to talk about AVERAGE incomes for whole HOUSEHOLDS.
They don't like to deal with MEDIAN income for individuals, which sez
there is more than a hundred MILLION of us earning less than $28k per
year. *Long LONG way from the bean-counter's Rich Man. *But the truth
is, us poor folk like to fly too.

Screw'em. *Buy your aviation-grade pine shelving at the Borg. *Along
with your aviation-grade Patio Door Replacement Hardware that you use
for pulleys on the rudder cables cuz everything else is a push-rod.
Shut off the fuel, attach your hose, drain the wing tanks. *Pull the
pins, slide that wing out until the stub is clear then walk it back,
pin it to the horizontal stabilizer. *Do the other then lash them
down: *Two bungee cords and a ratchety load-strap. *Angle-iron tongue
that clicks in place. *Rudder comes off leaving the cables inside,
trapped in their Patio Door pulleys. *Now you can lift the hitch, pin
it in place, drop it on the ball, tow that sucker... someplace.

120 hours FLYING in eleven months. *(Leak-down barely 10%)

87 hours TOWING in the same period.

Airplanes don't weigh much; just about anything will tow one. *But you
wanna put some thought into the hitch.

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Who & what? *Twarn't me. *An' I'll never tell.

Just another one of them Thotz, outside the box. *(Like using Crisco
instead of chassis-lube to prevent cross-fires in your black powder
pistol.)

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It must be all them pills I'm taking. *Or the fact the lab came back
with a big Waytago! report today whilst I'm laying there, IV drip-drip-
dripping in my arm. *184 pounds and holding. *Cute little lab-tech
going down the list. *"Hey! *You're doing really well, aren't you."
Must be all that clean living.

The more you fly, the better you will.

-R.S.Hoover

If we weren't on opposite coasts, I'd come say hey! Did the side
effect (paralysis) wear off yet Bob?

Monk

On Dec 7, 7:27*pm, Monk wrote:

If we weren't on opposite coasts, I'd come say hey! *Did the side
effect (paralysis) wear off yet Bob?
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When discussing the more aggressive treatment regimes, most of which
included neuropathy among their side-effects, the physicians were
careful to make sure I understood that some of those side-effects --
especially the neuropathy -- could very well prove permanent. Of
course, the other side of the coin is that you get more bang for your
buck with the aggressive regimes, and that given the nature of MM, if
you can't knock it down early... reduce it to the status of treatable
chronic illness -- you might as well not even bother, since you'll be
putting up with side-effects that ruin your life-style but getting
nothing for it in the long run.

Once I had all the information -- or as much of it as was available --
they left me alone to make my own decision. One point that was
stressed repeatedly was the probability that any neuropathy might
well prove permanent, where as most others -- hair loss and so forth
-- tend to be temporary.

I opted for the most aggressive regime. Neuropathy did appear but
was confined to my left side. I gauged it's progress and, when it
began to effect my ability to use my hands, we substituted a less
aggressive chemical approach. At that time I began squeezing sponge
balls and those Charlie Atlas hand-strengtheners with the idea of
ensuring I would be able to retain what dexterity and strength I still
hand.

So... no, the effect has not worn off -- and probably never will. But
neither has it gotten any worse. Warmth seems to help, which has lead
to some unusual practices such as wearing wool gloves to bed :-)
Soaking my (left) hand in hot water tends to restore a good deal of
the lost dexterity, resulting in running back & forth between the
computer and the bathroom when I'm working on a particularly long
article or whatever. But with regard to your question, the side-
effects are the result of my decision, which I think was a good one.
I've already pretty much given up being able to work in the shop, at
least with regard to lathe & mill work (it's not real safe, working
with such tools when you've got a bum hand). But I see those thing
more on the order of challenges rather than disabilities. In any
case, it's a bit too early to draw conclusions. As the exercises
increase the strength of my remaining musculature, I'm able to
compensate for the losses. With typing as an example, I've gone from
about 100 words per minute to about half that.... plus a lot of
errors. But I'm still able to type, which means I can still
communicate.

Some of the other problems, such as trying to dress myself or to open
a pill bottle when you have one dud hand, are things I'll simply have
to work around.
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As you've probably guessed by now, one of the most important aspects
of this regime is to keep my HEAD 'healthy' -- to not let the problems
get me down. Ideally, the problems get compartmentalized -- tucked
away with similar problems and dealt with as a batch rather than on an
individual basis. So long as I can control the pain, I strongly
believe I can overcome the problems inherent in the treatment.

As for the rest of it, I'm just damn happy that more people don't have
it. Right now, me and the team of physicians are literally hand-
tailoring a treatment that matches both the patient and the disease.
If more people suffered from MM the bean-counters probably would not
allow a team-oriented approach.

-Bob

wrote

But with regard to your question, the side-
effects are the result of my decision, which I think was a good one.
I've already pretty much given up being able to work in the shop, at
least with regard to lathe & mill work (it's not real safe, working
with such tools when you've got a bum hand). But I see those thing
more on the order of challenges rather than disabilities. In any
case, it's a bit too early to draw conclusions.

***********
Jim's start he Don't accept any conclusion, as you say. I've seen some
pretty darn handy disabled hand and finger guys get around in a shop, like
you wouldn't believe.

Start talking around to find some people with similar one handed
disabilities, and then as your are ready and able, visit them and pick their
brain as to how they learned to work around stuff. Even seeing how some
people without a hand work around stuff (not even in a shop) may give you
inspiration. Jim's end here
**************

As you've probably guessed by now, one of the most important aspects
of this regime is to keep my HEAD 'healthy' -- to not let the problems
get me down. Ideally, the problems get compartmentalized -- tucked
away with similar problems and dealt with as a batch rather than on an
individual basis. So long as I can control the pain, I strongly
believe I can overcome the problems inherent in the treatment.

****************
Jim's start he Sounds like a good approach, to me. Jim's end here
****************

As for the rest of it, I'm just damn happy that more people don't have
it. Right now, me and the team of physicians are literally hand-
tailoring a treatment that matches both the patient and the disease.
If more people suffered from MM the bean-counters probably would not
allow a team-oriented approach.

****************
Jim's start he It appears to me like you are indeed lucky to have a good
team of people working with you, and I can only help they keep up the good
work, and you keep up the good work, too. Jim's end here

On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 22:19:01 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:



As for the rest of it, I'm just damn happy that more people don't have
it. Right now, me and the team of physicians are literally hand-
tailoring a treatment that matches both the patient and the disease.
If more people suffered from MM the bean-counters probably would not
allow a team-oriented approach.

-Bob


you've got to ask them totally deadpan. "will I be able to play the
violin after all of this?"

......'cause I've never been able to play it before. :-)

you are doing well. you type faster than I've ever been able to.
stealth pilot

sure is a good thing we don't demand pedagogy here.
Language is for communication. The language you use should be
the language that is agreed upon by the people with whom you choose to
communicate.

Here the agreed upon form is "How many hours did you fly last year."
Everyone here, including you, knows what that means with
no ambiguity. Clearly you were attempting to be funny with the
pedagogy, but it is late at night and it didn't get a laugh.

Sorry.

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )

"Gregory Hall" wrote in message
...

"Copperhead" wrote in message
...
On Dec 2, 11:31 pm, " wrote:
24 hours in a day. 365 days in a year. That's 8,760 hours in a
year.

How many hours did you fly last year?

Pretty difficult to fly hours. You can fly an airplane, a ballon, a kite
etc. but you can't fly an hour.

How many hours did you spend flying last year would be the literate way to
ask the question.

trimmed to end

--
Gregory Hall