Model Airplanes

Palladino worked on more than a dozen of Frank Sinatra’s Capitol albums from 1953-1962. Photo: Stephen K. Peeples/stephenkpeeples.com

Longtime Friendly Valley resident John Palladino, a pioneering Hollywood sound engineer turned Capitol Records producer/artists repertoire exec whose sonic fingerprints are on millions of records released worldwide, died at home Dec. 20, surrounded by members of his immediate and extended family. He was 94.

Palladino had suffered head injuries and a fractured neck vertebra in a bad fall on Dec. 7 and did not recover, according to former daughter-in-law Barbara Blanchard, now a resident of Missoula, Montana. He was hospitalized until Dec. 18, when he desired to return home, she said.

In Palladino’s 40-plus year studio career, which spanned the schlock era to the rock era and included more than 30 years as a staff engineer-producer at Capitol Records from 1949-1982, he engineered, mixed, produced and/or edited recordings by artists in a wide variety of genres.

From Sinatra to The Beatles to Steve Miller

Most notable are classic recordings by jazz legends such as Kid Ory, Nat “King” Cole, Frank Sinatra and Stan Kenton to gold and platinum hits by rock superstars including the Steve Miller Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Band, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, The Beatles and more.

Along the way, Palladino worked with recording technology from the ancient wax discs and direct-to-disc mono acetates of the 1930s-‘40s

Article source: http://scvnews.com/2015/01/25/john-palladino-pioneer-recording-engineer-producer-dies-at-94/

In 1986, Dick Rutan flew with a co-pilot in a Rutan Model 76 Voyager, a custom-designed and -built aircraft, covering 26,000 air miles and taking nine days to circumnavigate the globe — unrefueled, nonstop.

After taking off from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, the plane headed west, making two passes over the equator, avoiding a 600-mile-wide typhoon, and doubling back over inhospitable Libyan airspace. Rutan piloted the plane without a break for the first three days of the nine-day flight. When the plane finally landed, it had a damaged wing and 1.5 percent of the fuel with which it originally departed.

Rutan’s Voyager aircraft now hangs in the Smithsonian, part of an exhibit celebrating human accomplishments in flight. Once in a great while, the tanned 76-year-old will share his story, but only for those select members of the Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles. The bylaws of the club, which caps membership at 200, make it very clear that only “those who have had an unusual adventure on land, at seas, or in the air hunting, trapping, exploring, flying, or those who have attained a distinctive reputation in the field of arts, music, or science are considered eligible.”

North of downtown Los Angeles, just past Chinatown in Lincoln Heights, one can easily miss the building where the Adventurers’ Club meets. Absent of signage or décor, the windowless, anachronistically beige structure sits opposite a 99-cent store.

The look and feel of the club’s interior could best be described as a ramshackle museum of both

Article source: http://theweek.com/articles/535160/club-graying-daredevils

Aerospace manufacturers Boeing (NYSE: BA  ) and Airbus (NASDAQOTH: EADSY  ) may be among the best known aircraft makers but neither one makes the most produced or most sold aircraft in the world.

That honor belongs to Cessna, now part of Textron (NYSE: TXT  ) , for the Cessna 172 Skyhawk; an aircraft that has produced and sold over 43,000 units and remains in production today. Between Boeing and Airbus, the most popular model is the Boeing 737 which has received about 12,600 orders and delivered just over 8,000 units.

The private aviation market
The market for private aircraft spans a vast range, from small aircraft decades old costing little more than an average car, to corporate jets from Boeing and Airbus costing tens of millions of dollars.

However, unlike the commercial aviation market for large jets which is controlled almost entirely by Boeing and Airbus, the market for smaller private aircraft is much more fragmented. Compared to the two dominant players of the large jet market, small aircraft sales can be broken out across at least 10 companies that each represent a decent percentage of sales.

Last year, Textron completed its acquisition of Beechcraft; another private aircraft maker. In 2013, both Cessna and Beechcraft were in the top five for general aviation

Article source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/24/can-you-guess-the-worlds-most-popular-airplane-hin.aspx