Model Airplanes

Phil Webb was just 5 years old when his father drew something that left a lasting impression on him, one that has him living his dream today.

His father drew a picture of a Stearman, which is a bi-plane. And today, Webb owns a PT-27 that was actually flown in Terrell during World War II.

“It is just simply the best plane in the world,” Webb said on Thursday at Terrell Municipal Airport.

Webb is in Terrell until Sunday before taking off on a sailing excursion, but his plane will be in Terrell for a couple of months, including the No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum’s Big Band Hangar Dance on March 28.

Webb, who retired from the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant commander on March 1, said his father obtained his pilot’s ratings by flying a Stearman. He new he wanted to fly one as

Article source: http://www.terrelltribune.com/community/article_dc2e6b9e-d183-11e4-8cb1-a38d0477278a.html

Soon, it will go away. Every rupee counts,” says Phee Teik Yeoh, CEO, of the newly-launched carrier Vistara, pointing a finger to the light panel attached to the ceiling. Yeoh, who along with his team of over 100 people shifted to a new office in Gurgaon on March 2, was referring to one of the ways in which he can cut costs.

For any domestic airline, nearly 70 per cent of the costs are fixed, which includes aviation turbine fuel (ATF) expenses, landing and parking charges, and leasing cost. It has to manage the remaining 30 per cent well to stay profitable. But it is not just better cost management that will decide the long-term future of Vistara, a full-service carrier, in the Indian aviation market.

Vistara is the third full-service carrier in India. It plans to offer a superior product, including a premium economy class – an emerging segment globally. It can succeed if it manages to scale up fast while continuing to command premium over its competition. Its journey will be fraught with challenges on both operational and cost sides, and cracking the full-service model will not be easy in a market like India where airlines come to die. So what lies ahead for Vistara? If it has to succeed, it will have to find a way to differentiate itself in what is becoming a commoditised market; it will have to keep costs in control in an industry where operational costs spiral out of control; and flying

Article source: http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/vistara-chases-small-aviation-market-with-big-ambitions/1/217140.html

A dozen touring Ferrari drivers once parked outside the gates of Blake’s Small Car Salvage in Erie to gawk at the hundreds of licence plates neatly affixed to the woven wire security fence.

If only they knew the fantastic collections of car part art that existed on the other side of the makeshift privacy screen, perhaps they would have hollered for the owner over the barking guard dogs to request a tour of the 16-acre property.

The Yellow Pages lists this business at the southwest corner of Erie Parkway and County Road 5 as a used auto parts place.

“His number is in my mind,” Steve Knutson, who owns Diagonal Tire in Longmont, said. “He’s the first person I ever dialed for tires. He sold good used tires, delivered free, and stood by his stuff. … Yep. We’ll miss him.”

Evidence of the tight system Dan Blake developed to that end over 40 years before closing in January except by appointment abound.

Dan Blake

Age: 66

Occupation: Retired owner of Blake’s Small Car Salvage

Years in St. Vrain Valley: 58

Old school buses, pickup truck beds and even wire grocery carts held his bread and butter: tires, suspension parts, differentials, transmissions, engines, and many other groupings of like things.

Rows of car carcasses originally sorted by country of origin still spread — east-to-west — from the office like international city streets.

At the height of his business, he and his wife employed 13 people and maintained an inventory of about 1,000 cars and 250 vans and buses, he said.

Steve

Article source: http://www.timescall.com/community-review/ci_27741639/100-dan-blake-turned-erie-salvage-yard-into

Local News

Thousands pack into Palmetto’s Sutton Park for annual DeSoto Seafood Festival

Article source: http://www.bradenton.com/2015/03/25/5711056/fretting-privacy-violations-lawmakers.html

Unless We Learn Our History, We’re Doomed to Repeat It

Preface:  I am a patriotic American who loves  my country. I was born here, and lived here my entire life.

So why do I frequently point out America’s warts?  Because – as the Founding Fathers and Supreme Court judges have explained – we can only make America better if we honestly examine her shortcomings.  After all:

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

Only when Americans can honestly look at our weaknesses can we become stronger. If we fail to do so, history will repeat …

While Americans rightly condemn the Nazis as monstrous people, we don’t know that America played both sides … both fighting and supporting the Nazis.

Americans also aren’t aware that the Nazis were – in part – inspired by anti-Semites in America.

Backing Nazis

Large American banks – and George W. Bush’s grandfather – financed the Nazis.

American manufacturing companies were big supporters of the Nazis.   here are 6 historical examples …

(1) IBM.  CNET reports:

IBM has responded to questions about its relationship with the Nazis largely by characterizing the information as old news.

“The fact that Hollerith equipment manufactured by (IBM’s German unit) Dehomag was used by the Nazi administration has long been known and is not new information,” IBM representative Carol Makovich wrote in an e-mail interview. “This information was published in 1997 in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and in 1998 in Washington Jewish

Article source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-history-the-u-s-supported-and-inspired-the-nazis/5439236

(CNN)Families are grieving. Flight crews are in disbelief. Entire countries are in mourning.

That much is clear. But much else about Germanwings Flight 9525, which crashed Tuesday in the southern French Alps, is not.

In a disturbing development Thursday, a French prosecutor said that audio from the mangled voice recorder of Germanwings Flight 9525 reveals the captain was locked out of the cockpit while co-pilot Andreas Lubitz appeared to make a deliberate attempt to destroy the plane.

That revelation brings investigators closer to pinpointing who was responsible for the crash, but major questions remain. Chief among them: Why would the plane’s co-pilot crash the plane, and how did it happen?

Here’s the key information that’s available so far, and the big questions that remain.

The flight

Flight 9525 — operated by Germanwings, a low-cost division of Lufthansa — took off at 10:01 a.m. Tuesday from Barcelona, Spain, bound for Dusseldorf, Germany. The plane had 144 passengers and six crew members.

According to French aviation accident investigators, the plane began descending from its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet at 10:31 a.m. It lost contact with French radar at an altitude of 6,175 feet at 10:40 a.m., the investigators said.

The plane’s descent, French and German investigators say, started when Lubitz was at the controls.

New data about the flight released Thursday appeared to support authorities’ claim that someone set the plane on a crash course.

Article source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/25/europe/france-germanwings-crash-what-we-know/