Time Out Has Been Called

I'm feeling a little off today, so I am going to kick back and relax and try to think about nothing in particular. I'll read a little bit of a Dana Stabenow novel and maybe pick up my old copy of "Fate is the Hunter" and read a chapter or two.

I don't know if anybody can say that "if you only read one book about flying, read FITH", but if I had to name one book about flying to read, it'd be on the short list.

I love the looks and sounds of the old prop airliners, like the Lockheed Constellation



or the DC-6




Or the Martin 404


But the airline industry made a huge step when it shifted from pistons to turbines. Sure, there were a number of crashes while everyone figured out that swept-wings don't fly like straight wings and the engine management techniques that work for pistons can kill you in a jet (especially the early-model turbines).

Check into the history of over-ocean flying sometime. The Coast Guard used to station weather/rescue ships along the trafficked air routes, for if you had an engine failure in a prop airliner and if you couldn't feather the prop, you were likely not going to make it to shore. Airliners ditched at sea back in those days. They don't now. And nobody in their right mind would take a planeload of passengers on a long open-ocean trip with only two engines in the piston days, but it's routine in these days with ETOPS ("Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards" [or "Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim"]).

As an old grizzled airline pilot I know of likes to say: "Pistons for fun, turbines for work."

Jets may be boring, but in this case, better to be bored and be safer.