Model Airplanes

Leslie Feinberg, an influential transgender socialist activist and writer, passed away on November 15, 2014 after a long battle with tick borne diseases. Her final words were “Hasten the revolution! Remember me as a communist revolutionary.”

Feinberg’s writing and activism had a huge impact on many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities. She was a powerful role model for many young lesbians, transgendered people, and people who reject oppressive norms imposed by this society.

Cover Image: Alyson Books

Feinberg was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1949 and grew up in Buffalo, New York. In 1994 Feinberg published Stone Butch Blues, a powerfully written fictionalized account of her experience growing up as gender variant, in her case as a masculine “stone butch” lesbian in the violently repressive climate of 1950s Buffalo.

An article in the Gusto blog of the Buffalo News describes the atmosphere Feinberg grew up in which she described in her book. After the huge union battles of the 1930s and 1940s, much of the U.S. industrial working class had won labor contracts that provided rising living standards in the 1950s. This was the industrial heyday of Buffalo. The city’s booming factories produced steel, airplane parts, and electronics.

At the same time LGBT communities were violently oppressed. LGBT people were subjected to constant humiliation and ferocious attacks from the police and the public. Patrons of deeply underground LGBT bars and social spaces would frequently be arrested after police raids. People could

Article source: http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/01/09/leslie-feinberg-transgender-warrior-2/

The first thing you notice about Pinal Airpark is the noise: There isn’t any.

More than 120 massive airplanes — most outfitted with engines that, when revved, could make your teeth ache from half a mile away — are splayed on both sides of the airport’s 6,800-foot runway. Yet the place is so quiet you could hear a rattlesnake approach.

The shah of Iran’s private jet spent its last days here, parked next to aircraft the CIA used for covert missions in Southeast Asia and Central America.

Hulking jumbo jets that once ferried the rich and famous around the world in luxury now sit alongside tiny two-engine planes that were barely airworthy on their final flights for bankrupt Third World carriers.

They are all equal in death, however. And most of these planes have come to the desert outside Tucson to die.

“A lot of these, they’ll never fly again,” said Jim Petty, a pilot as well as the airport’s economic development director.

Pinal Airpark is a boneyard for civilian aircraft, one of several scattered across the arid Southwest, where the dry climate prevents corrosion. That allows planes stored for years to be returned to service should a need arise.

Not that it arises often. More commonly the aircraft are salvaged

Article source: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-aircraft-graveyard-20150109-story.html

Article source: http://www.laweekly.com/slideshow/november-2014-in-la-weekly-photos-5263167

Could climate change be making flying more unsafe? KamrenB Photography, CC BY

By Todd Lane, University of Melbourne

On December 28, AirAsia flight QZ8501 crashed into the sea between Indonesia and Singapore. Shortly before the crash, the pilots requested an alteration to the flight route due to severe weather. While the precise cause of the crash is not yet clear (with the aircraft’s black box still to be retrieved), it seems likely that weather played a role.

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes later said that “unique weather conditions” were present around the time of the crash. He reportedly stated that climate change may have played a part in more dangerous conditions for air travel, linking it to flooding in Malaysia and Thailand.

When we examine aviation hazards in the tropics we’re usually talking about a single thunderstorm or cluster of storms, and attributing the intensity of a single thunderstorm to a climate change signal is essentially impossible.

There was a large region of intense thunderstorm activity around where the AirAsia accident occurred. Floods in Malaysia and Thailand were certainly linked to that. However, large regions of intense thunderstorms are common in this region and at face value this event doesn’t appear to fall outside the range of natural variability.

So, what does the science tell us about flying and climate change?

Stormy science

Flight QZ8501 flew into a region of severe tropical storm activity.

Thunderstorms are a significant hazard for aircraft, producing turbulence through upward

Article source: http://www.science20.com/the_conversation/did_climate_change_play_a_role_in_the_airasia_crash-152108