DON’T CALL OFTEN

On the first day of June, 2014, Great Lakes maritime history suffered a great loss. Two days later I learned about this sad event by way of the boatnerd.com web site. The event was the death of a reclusive collector of all thing Great Lakes vessel-related who tried to wear the disguise of a crotchety, grumpy old man- his name was Ralph K. Roberts and I was privileged to call him my friend.

I first met Ralph at a maritime Festival in Port Huron Michigan back in the mid-1990s. At the time I was busy signing books when one of the other authors leaned over and gave me a nudge.

"You see that guy over there," he said quietly, pointing toward a gray-haired man in the crowd, "he is THE guy when it comes to photos. That's Ralph Roberts."

After visiting a number of the other tables eventually Ralph found his way to my table. He was quiet and relatively standoffish as he thumbed through my books. Eventually we got talking about sources for photos and Ralph opened up a little bit when we discussed working with certain collections and assorted maritime museums. He began educating me on the ins and outs and who to talk to and who not to talk to. Eventually Ralph offered to give me his contact information. I opened up my little black book in which I kept names and addresses of everybody I met who could possibly help me with my writing, found a spot in the middle of the page and wrote in Ralph's address and phone number. Ralph pointed toward the phone number and said, "Make a note there to don't call often." I dutifully penned in exactly that note.

At some point Ralph asked if writing was what I did for a living. I informed him “no” that it was not my primary job as I was an airline pilot by profession. Suddenly Ralph's demeanor changed. He asked if I had ever flown at Tri-City Airport? I replied that my parent’s house was right off the end of runway 5 and I had worked at the airport as a Falcon Jet mechanic under the shop certificate while working my way through college. Ralph's eyes grew big.

"Do you know Russ Purchase?" He asked as if testing me.

"I took my private pilot checkride with Russ," I replied.

Then he asked me if I knew Bill the airframe inspector?

"Bill taught me how to rivet," I replied.

Suddenly Ralph Roberts and I had common ground as it turned out that Ralph held a airframe and powerplant certificate from the FAA and was not only a good mechanic, but was also an expert in fabric covered aircraft. Our entire conversation switched from Great Lakes maritime history to aviation. As it turned out we knew a lot of the same people in the aviation business in the mid-Michigan region. I saw a complete transformation in this person who was the enigma named Ralph Roberts. He smiled, we laughed, and we talked aviation. Pretty soon however it became clear that I had other people standing in line waiting for books to be signed and Ralph decided to move long. Just before he walked away he pointed once again to where I had written his name and address in my black book and the area where it said, "don't call often."

"Never mind that," he said, "you can call me as often as ya’ like."

A few months later I was in the Saginaw area doing some research and I gave Ralph a call. As soon as he heard that I was actually in the area, he asked me to come on over and visit. I asked for was okay if my brother came along?

"Is he a pain in the ass?" Ralph asked.

I replied that my brother was okay.

"Alright," Ralph sighed, "you just keep an eye on him."

That was typical Ralph.

His house was a spotless cozy little place on the west side of Saginaw. The room where Ralph had established his "office" was a small bedroom in the house. On one wall was a series of steel shelves that ran the length of the room from floor to ceiling which were absolutely packed with 4 inch wide black binders. These were Ralph's photos and when he pulled one of those binders out of place it was so packed with pictures that the cover sprang open. It was jaw-dropping and your first impression was to gasp "wow."

I began telling him that I was working on a story about the shipwreck of the OAKLAND and that no photographs of the steamer existed.

"Oh don't go sayin’ that," he said quietly as he reached for one of the binders.

Thumbing through the binder a bit he stopped at one page and there was the single existing photograph of the OAKLAND.

As we went through his photos that day we came upon a picture of the steamer ANDASTE. I commented that was a great shot of the ANDASTE and I had never before seen it from that angle.

"What was her sister ship?" Ralph asked quietly.

"The CHOCTAW," I responded reflexively.

"How can you tell the two apart?" Ralph quickly fired back.

"The ANDASTE had three windows in the front of her pilothouse," I answered again reflexively, "and the CHOCTAW

had four."

Ralph just gave a smirk, closed at book of photos and returned it to the shelf. It took a few seconds for what had just happened to sink in to me. Then I looked over at Ralph, put my hands on my hips and said,

"You just tested me you old fart! Didn’t ya’?”

Ralph simply smiled.

That day I brought Ralph a copy of each of my books and then autograph them for him. They went immediately into his collection and I'm not sure if he ever really read them. That's the way it goes with "collectors" if you want to visit them, see their collection, talk about their collection and be welcome to return you must take something in tribute.

As the years went by Ralph and I often exchange letters, he sent me stacks of photographs and when I was in the Saginaw area I tried to make a point to visit. Those were near magical times when we would sit in that cramped little office with a jewelers loop and study the details of old photographs. Ralph also had a brain full of true stories about people that he knew who had worked Great Lakes. I had occasion to work his stories into my books. He knew captains of vessels and people who had made a career working the lakes.

As time went by we both got older and Ralph even admitted that he was starting to, "slip a bit." On one occasion I was talking to him about my latest book.

"When are you gonna send me the damn thing." Ralph goaded.

Looking over his shoulder I saw that I had sent him the book it was on the shelf right behind him. I stood up took the book off the shelf and said, “here it is!”

"Get the hell otta’ here smart ass." He snarled with a grin.

Along the road of being an author you get the chance to meet a lot of traffic people. Ralph Roberts was someone that I was always proud to boast as being my friend. Now Ralph is gone at the ripe old age of 88 and I cannot help but think that although he assured me, many years ago, that his collection would be very well taken care of, still the Great Lakes maritime community has now lost someone special.

I am also sure that somewhere in the great beyond Ralph is watching as I write this and grumbling that he is going to kick my ass for doing it. To that I reply, "tough rocks ya’ old fart.”

A word about today's cartoon strip...

A word about today’s cartoon strip…

Last night as I was drawing the strip, my little 6-year-old daughter came up the stairs behind me and quietly walked up by my elbow. The kids know not to pester daddy while he’s cartooning, but she came to ask if I would help her get ready for bed.

“Sure,” I replied, “as soon as I finish this one little thing.”

I was editing the text and I saw that she was standing there watching and reading the frame over my shoulder. For a moment she diddled with her tiny fingers and then meekly pointed at the computer screen.

“You see those three dots,” she said softly and indicating the spot where I had just inserted an ellipse at the end of the bubble’s text, “you should put three dots up there too at the end of the word “Well.” That will make it sound better.”

I looked at it for a second and then back into those huge brown eyes and said, “Okay, we’ll do it.”

With that I replaced the comma after the word “Well” with an ellipse.

 Danm if it didn’t read better.

“Ya’ see,” she explained softly, “it’s better.”

“Yer’ right sweetie,” I told her, “It is better. You just helped daddy write his cartoon strip.”

She took a small step back and looking at the monitor her eyes grew wide and sparkled as she smiled with a thrill.

“I never did anything like that before!” she chirped, “Let’s go tell mommy!”

Hand-in-hand we hurried downstairs to give mommy the news.

I’ve drawn cartoons for all sorts of reasons with countless meanings. Sometimes they only crack me up, sometimes I think they suck but other folks like ‘em, sometimes I make a profound point and sometimes I just take what my wife calls “that cartoon enema” and they come out just to meet a deadline. Today’s may not seem too special to most of you out there, but it is a very special cartoon for me, because it has my special helper’s ellipse in it to make it better.

Me and N989B

(January 25, 2014)

Exactly 30 years ago today I did something that was better for my flying skills than any lesson I had ever taken- I took my first flight in N989B.

"So what?" you may ask. The answer to that question can be found in the back-story of me and 989B.

1982 had sucked for me, I was working at the Daytona Kmart and was spinning my wheels financially while I tried to pay off my bill at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and get back into school. Living in a house with roommates who were often short of cash (until it came time to buy their pot, of course- then they had plenty of cash), I often ended up taking what money I should have sent to the university and using it to make-up the difference between our “house” having the power or lights shut off and keeping them on. 1983 was shaping up to suck worse until I moved back to Michigan to live out of my folks basement and work and save and actually pay down my account at school. By January of 84 I was laid-off from my job in Michigan and looking for work in a state ravaged by Jimmy Carter’s recession. To make matters worse, I had not touched an aircraft in two years. Depressed, I contemplated climbing onto an ice-flow on Saginaw Bay and just floating away.

Then my younger brother interrupted my consideration of a short cruise on an ice cake. He worked as a line boy at Tri City airport which was nearly in our back yard and said that there was a guy who flew night cargo in an old Beech 18 and that same guy sometimes took people on his trips as a poor-man’s autopilot. My bro. suggested that it may do me some good to go flying with the guy. Of course I knew that flying night cargo in the Michigan winter was rough and that Beech 18s could be pilot-eaters, so I figured- “Hey, it beats an ice-flow.”

That same evening I went over to Hangar 6 and met Tom, the Beech 18 captain. He said he’d be happy to take me along “once in a while” provided that, “the ice was not too bad.” I asked, “How ‘bout tomorrow?” and he told me what time to show up and to wear something warm.

On the evening of January 25^th, 1984 I showed up at Hangar 6 once again, and I was dressed warm. Tom greeted me and we walked around the aircraft and talked as he pre-flighted. He had no idea that I had been training at ERAU and seemed much more comfortable once that information came out. Apparently, unlike some other folks that he had taken along on flights, at least I knew my way around an aircraft. Before long my brother showed up, opened the hangar door and tugged 989B out onto the ramp where the Emery Airfreight van was waiting. We hustled the boxes aboard, stretched a net over them and I had to climb over top of the pile to get to my seat in the cockpit.

If you want to retain a shred of your hearing while flying a Beech 18 you need to stuff foamy ear-plugs into your ears and then clamp a David Clark ear-cup headset. Tom had me read the checklist as he started the Pratt & Whitney R985 radial engines. Then we taxied out and blasted off as Ace Air flight 721. Climbing to altitude the night was so clear that you could see the airport beacons almost all of the way to our destination, Dayton, Ohio. 989B was built in 1962 and started its career flying people rather than boxes. At least one person on the field told me that it had been a corporate aircraft, but now she had cargo doors in her side and worked hauling freight for Ace Air, a Cleveland based cargo feeder for Emery. The route was from Saginaw, Michigan to Dayton, Ohio and back every weeknight.

Tom and I chatted over the intercom and he found out more and more about my flying experience. Then he offered to let me, “fly her” for a while. Considering the aircraft and its load, as well as those big radial engines I expected her to be heavy on the controls- I was wrong. Instead, flying 989B, for me- then a Cessna 172 pilot, was very much like trying to balance a broom horizontally in the palm of your hand… while standing on a bowling ball… on top of a beach ball… while riding an escalator. It was nearly impossible to get it steady, the instruments started swimming, my fancy “instrument scanning pattern” went straight to shit and it seemed as if I had never flown instruments before. My basic attitude instrument training from ERAU simply did not seem to work. Tom just smiled and said, “We’ll work on it.”

Landing at Dayton we taxied to the completely empty expanse that was the Emery freight ramp. Tom explained that he was always the first aircraft to arrive; it was scheduled that way. We were met by the ramp agent and although we were about 60 feet from the terminal door, we had to wait for a bus to take us there. The bus than drove a quarter mile route that ended up taking us right back to the terminal door. I remarked that that was a bit silly and Tom assured me that in a few hours it would all make sense. We adjourned to the crew lounge where there were a score of recliner seats and a couch. Tom flopped on the couch and told me to catch some sleep. Picking a recliner I eased it back, pulled the brim of my hat down over my eyes and proceeded to beat myself up for not being able to stabilize that aircraft- it was just after 11:00 pm.

Through the night Emery pilots came in and flopped as each tried to grab some sleep. Outside the constant whine of jet engines beat at the walls making it clear that a lot of aircraft were gathering on the ramp. Then, at about 4:20 am it seemed like everyone’s watch alarm went off at once. Pilots jumped up and headed out, Tom and I included. Walking out of the terminal I was astounded. The ramp was packed with cargo aircraft of every sort, 727s, DC-8s, DC-7s, 580s, 404s, and every inch of the ramp was full of activity moving boxes and containers. Again we had to wait for the bus to drive us that 60 feet to the 989B, but this time it was not silly to me, it made sense because it kept us from being run over by the crews moving the boxes! “Ya’ see.” Tom quipped. Oh yeah, I saw.

Since Tom had me working the radios on the way down, I asked if he wanted me to get the clearance and he said “Okay.” At least I could do that part without looking like a pre-solo student pilot. On the return leg to Saginaw we were Ace Air flight 722 and again Tom let me take the controls and again 989B kicked my ass. After we landed and taxied to the ramp outside of Hangar 6 we were met by the Emery “pick-up” van and its driver. Tom asked how I liked the flight and I remarked that the bird was a handful and really kicked my butt. “Don’t worry about it,” he smiled and then asked if I wanted to go again. I said “SURE!” Tom smirked and said, “You can fly with me anytime, no matter the ice,” then he added, “come on out a half hour earlier tonight and I’ll teach you how to preflight her.”

In the nights ahead I learned how to properly preflight an 18, including a case of oil, WD40 on the bicycle chain that ran from the main gear to tail wheel and all of that stuff. In fact after a few “supervised” pre-flights, Tom started showing up just in time to check the load and depart- trusting the pre-flight and loading to me. I learned how to lean the engines in flight by looking for that stiletto-blue exhaust flame; once you see it, you never forget it. I learned that the brakes have a shuttle valve in the system so if one pilot is on the brakes, the other pilot’s brakes are useless and I learned how to correctly do the weight and balance.

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From my second flight on, Tom had me flying nearly all of the time and he stayed right on me every second. He wanted me to get my instrument work nailed and every time I let 989B squiggle out of line I heard about it. He wasn’t bitchy or commanding, he would simply say “watch” this, “watch” that and keep me on my toes. Every night that I flew that machine I told myself, “Tonight I’m gonna get it perfect” and 989B would always dash my hopes. Then came the night that on the way to Dayton I was working my ass off and I finally had 989B totally under constant control. The secret I found was that there was no instrument scan “pattern” that could be used, you simply had to take in the entire panel all at once and watch the whole thing. Nearly an hour went by and Tom said not a word.

“I must really be impressing him.” I thought to myself.

Then I decided to steal a glance over and see how impressed he was. Tom had his head back and was snoring his ass off.

Terrific… I finally mastered the damned aircraft, and he slept through it!

Of course, the Beech 18 will always have one aspect of its operation that I never did master. I could never, I repeat- NEVER, got the hang of doing the taxi. To this day, I can taxi airliners and corporate jets, but I cannot taxi a Beech 18.

Tom and I flew together off and on into the month of March. We loaded a lot of odd stuff and flew it Dayton- the strangest being a giant gear for a draw bridge. We had a lot of fun as well. Once we had boxes stacked nearly to the roof and as I was pinning down the net Tom slammed the side door shut and shouted, “See ya’ in Dayton!” I spent a good deal of time clawing my way forward to the cockpit that night. Eventually Tom got hired by a corporate operation on the field flying Falcon Jets and that ended my days as his poor-man’s autopilot. I was gratified, however, to have the fellow who owned Ace Air tell me that if I had my commercial certificate he would have trained and hired me to replace Tom. Unfortunately, I had a lot of ERAU ahead of me before I could do that. Instead I settled for a new job in a local hardware store and managed to pay off the university and get back in just five months later.

What I did not realize until years after my nights fighting with 989B was that what it and Tom had done for me was to sharpen and highly smooth my skills in flying. When I entered the advanced multi-engine flight phase at Embry-Riddle, the Cessna T-303 Crusader was a kitten compared to the 18. My instructor for two of my three courses in the T-303 was a former Beech 18 instructor and so we got along well, in fact it was like being in an exclusive club. When I interviewed for my first airline job, the Director of Operations saw that I had 18 time in my logbook and quickly forgot about asking me any technical questions about instrument procedures and the like. Instead he asked me questions that only a real Beech 18 pilot could answer. After I answered correctly, he grinned and told me he was an old 18 pilot too. I was his first interview for the new class, and I was the first one hired for it as well. Out of all of those lessons that I paid big money to receive and all of the check rides and hours built as an instructor, it turned out that those hours as a poor-man’s autopilot were some of the most important for me. One day, while in the university library and thumbing through a book about Beechcraft, I found a terrific picture of 989B when she was new. I had it copied and framed.

Somewhere toward the end of my nights of flying 989B in the winter of 1984, I pulled my dad’s car into a local gas station to take on a little fuel. Then the Emery Airfreight van pulled up at the next pump and the kid who loaded us every night hopped out. He had a helper riding with him and as that guy went to grab the pump, the driver stepped to the window washing bucket. We saw each other and exchanged a simultaneous, “Hi! How’s it goin’” and he asked if I was on tonight. I told him “Nope” but I’d be there tomorrow night. He smiled and turned to his helper and said, “He’s one of our pilots.”

That statement, although mistakenly only half true, meant a lot to me. I’d been working, literally, for a lot of years to be able to fit into that role and I still had a long road ahead. So there was something very sweet about me being referred to in that context. As I drove away from the gas station, I was feeling pretty good, until 989B reached out with its wing, tapped me on the back and said, “Yeah, but ya’ still can’t taxi me asshole.”

POSTSCRIPT:

Departure airport:

Cincinnati, OH (CIN)

Destination airport:

(MKC)

Narrative:

THE CARGO FLT DPTD CINCINNATI ENRT TO WICHITA, KS WITH AN INTERMEDIATE STOP AT KANSAS CITY DTWN ARPT. THE FLT PROGRESSED NRMLY TO A VOR RWY 03 INSTRUMENT APCH, CIRCLING TO RWY 01. THE PIC HAD BEEN CLRD TO COMMENCE THE APCH. TWR PERS SUBSEQUENTLY ADVISED THE PIC OF A LOW ALTITUDE ALERT, TO WHICH THE PIC RESPONDED HE HAD GROUND CONTACT. THE PIC SUBSEQUENTLY DECLARED A MISSED APCH, THEN SAID, 'I GOT IT ALL RIGHT,' AND HE REQUESTED A 360 DEG TURN AND LDG ON RWY 01. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACFT APCH FM THE WEST AT A LOW ALTITUDE. THEN, WHILE OVER airport PROPERTY, THE ACFT TURNED SHARPLY. THE LEFT WING DROPPED QUICKLY AS THE ACFT BANKED NEARLY 90 DEGREES. THE ACFT IMPACTED THE RAMP AREA 400 FT RIGHT OF RWY 01, IN FRONT OF A FIXED BASE OPERATOR AND BURST INTO FLAMES. THE ACFT SLID ABOUT 200 FT BEFORE COMING TO A STOP. THE COMPANY CHIEF PLT STATED THAT THE PIC WAS DEFICIENT IN VOR APPROACHES. CAUSE:

Sources:

NTSB:

 Author's note: The pilot was not known to me. I heard about this accident in the summer of 1988 while I was flying DNR flights out of MBS. "Somebody cartwheeled it across a ramp in Kansas." was what I was told.

Happy New Year... yeah, right.

For all of those wishfully thinking that the new year will be better than 2013, here is my little reality check. In the coming year ahead one single thing will squelch your dreamy hope of better things ahead. In the year 2014 it is highly probable that, if it has not happened already, your health insurance WILL be canceled, as will mine. This is because waiting just the other side of the 2014 elections comes the Obamacare Employer Mandate. That portion of the law was intentionally written to cause private companies to drop their employee health insurance benefits and tens of millions of us will find our plans canceled… it is the law.

Now, I have friends who say, “Not me, I’m in a union and we have a waiver.” Yeah… right… and who gave your union that waiver? Obama did… the same guy who stood in front of the American people and LIED by saying that under Obamacare, “If you like your plan you can keep it… if you like your doctor you can keep him… PERIOD!” That was done just to get him elected and the Obamacare waivers were given for the same reasons. He who giveth the waiver, can also taketh away the waiver. Remember, those “waivers” were not passed by the Congress and are not a part of the law. Also remember that in order to work, Obamacare needs lots of healthy people to join in… and right now, they are not.

Hummmm… where can Obama get a huge block of healthy people that he can readily force into Obamacare? Simple… all he has to do is say that his waivers were not in keeping with the law and retract them all. Boom! You waivered union folks are dog meat to be fed into Obamacare. This is especially true for pilots, who are actually CERTIFIED as being healthy by the Federal government.

Didn’t think about that one, now did ya’?

Now if you are thinking that the politicians when faced with the horror of Obamacare and angry voters will flee from the law in droves and do something to save us all- think again. Even if every democrat congressman who is up for re-election loses in November, it will be TOO LATE to stop the Employer Mandate. Plus, even if the Republicans re-take the Senate and retain the House, anything that they do to try and stop Obamacare will simply be vetoed by Obama and the numbers in the congress are not enough to override that veto.

So, will 2014 be better than 2013? I wish I could say it will, but the odds are that unless you are a socialist on Medicaid or a federal employee, the answer is many Americans are gonna be wishing that they had 2013 over again or the 2012 elections to vote over again. But hey, Obama will get at least 20 rounds of golf in during the new year

TISSUE! TISSUE!

Sunday morning and I had fixed breakfast for my three beautiful girls. There they sat at our breakfast bar, still in their night clothes, happily eating away; right to left in order- mommy, oldest daughter and youngest daughter.  In the background the blue waters of the Chesapeake Bay sparkling outside of the windows, it was a scene of pure beauty and happiness.

I thought to myself that this must be an illusion, a dream and any moment I was going to snap awake and find myself back in the early 1980s, living in a hovel like a hermit trying desperately to work my way through college. That thought often haunts me because surely a slob like me should never have attained this level of happiness- it is simply against the laws of nature. Indeed, I could very likely be having a sweet dream.

Then, suddenly, my six-year-old snorts, sniffs and abruptly reaches up from her breakfast wiggling her tiny fingers and demands, “Tissue! Tissue!”

Nope- this is reality, because an illusion would not have the snot.   

I SMILED FOR THREE MONTHS

In aviation careers we have a saying that there are some people who were born on second and think that they hit a double. In my case I was born in the dugout and expected to be hit with a stray bat.

After a stumbling start at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1977 I went onto the path of working my way through school- in for one semester and out for two, or three, or more. In the autumn of 1979 I was “out” of school and had to find a job to earn enough money to get back in. I got very lucky and obtained work at hangar 6, Airflite and Serve-A-Plane at Saginaw’s Tri-City Airport (MBS) which was less than a mile from my house. Most of my job consisted of emptying trash cans, sweeping floors and walking around the hangar with a bucket of Stoddard Solvent and a mop thus mopping up little oil blotches from the floor. Indeed I was starting at the bottom of the aviation business, the very cold concrete bottom.

I managed, however, to grab extra bucks by cleaning aircraft and my biggest customer was Dow Corning and their Falcon Jet and King Air 200. Often they had off-hour turn-arounds, so the pilots had my home phone number and they could just call and I would meet them at Hangar 6 at whatever hour they may need me.

Turning around a corporate aircraft was not hard labor. Normally it meant taking a trash bag and gathering a few coffee cups out of the cabin, some napkins and perhaps a candy wrapper or two. Then the seats got whisk-broomed, the seatbelts got crossed and if required a bit of hand-vacuuming was done. All of that was accomplished while the first officer dashed inside and refreshed the coffee pot and the captain called in his flight-plan. On occasion a waiting passenger needed to be greeted, but otherwise it was quite a simple process.

Just prior to punching the clock and heading home one evening, I was told that Dow Corning had requested a turn-around between 11:00 and 11:30 that night and I was supposed to be there to meet the King Air. So, like always, I was there a half hour early and punched in, thus gaining an extra 30 minutes of pay while I waited. In corporate aviation, having services ready early is considered a very good thing, so no one ever complained about me scarfing up an extra half hour of pay on every turn-around. I gathered up my stuff, started a fresh pot of coffee for the pilots and then took a stroll out into the hangar.

The big hangar door was shut tight and the place was packed with aircraft, as usual, so it was a way more fun for me to hang out there than in the lobby. I walked over to Corning’s Falcon 10 and popped open the cabin door. As casually as I would slip into an easy chair I slid into the right seat of the 10. I liked to spend time in there just studying the panel. Even when they did lock the bird it didn’t keep me out because I had the key; so I made pals with N592DC, Dow Corning’s Falcon 10.

I was in the cockpit for just a few minutes when suddenly I heard a voice over my shoulder, “When you get done flying this thing, can you come out and turn us?” It was Don Hebert, Dow Corning’s chief pilot. Apparently sitting in the Falcon 10 I could not hear the King Air pull up on the ramp. I laughed and started to get out of the seat. Looking at Don I asked, “How’d you like to have an extra left nut?” He laughed and exclaimed, “What?” I replied, “I’d give my left nut to fly this thing.” Don laughed again as he gave me a pat on the back as I headed toward the ramp with my trash bag and whisk broom in hand. I added, “That seat is exactly the same shape as my ass.”

It only took me about four minutes to get the King Air in shape and ready to go again. As I climbed out Don met me on the ramp and told me that the Falcon 10 was going in for an “A” inspection the next week and when it was done, they would have to take it for a test flight. He said that if I wanted to, I could ride along in the jumpseat. Of course Don, like everyone else at Hangar 6, knew that I was working my way through Embry-Riddle toward a pilot’s career and I’m sure he knew what a ride in the nose of the 10 would mean to me. I gleefully agreed, as the first officer dashed past and thanked me for starting the coffee for them. I went back into the hangar and those guys blasted off.

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Actually I helped do the “A” inspection the following week. It was, as inspections go, a fairly minor task in itself. The only complex part was that Dow Corning had ordered a set of taxi lights to be installed in the aircraft’s nose. When it was over Don walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready to go my friend?” he asked. I excitedly said that I had to go and tell Tim, the hangar ram-rod, that I was going and then punch-out on the time-clock. Sprinting to Tim’s office I told him that the 10 was ready to fly and I was going to punch-out and take the jump-seat. We’d discussed my taking the flight earlier that morning and so he just mumbled, “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” then he looked up from his work and asked, “Are you still on the clock for 92DC right now?” I replied that I was and he told me not to bother to punch out. They were gonna pay for my ride. Considering that Airflite and Serve-A-Plane was billing the customer $18 an hour for my services and my cut was $2.50 an hour I’m sure it was not a losing venture for my employer.

By the time I got back to the aircraft, Don and his first officer Gary Dice were already strapped in and Dave, the lead mechanic on the inspection, was waiting for me; it was the fourth day of December, 1979. Gary asked if I knew how to get out the jump seat, but he was too late- I was already setting it up. On the Falcon 10, the jumpseat is also the toilet, or the toilet is also the jump seat; depending on how you wanna look at it. You simply pull out the potty and then unfold the seat over top of it. Don, speaking over his shoulder demonstrated how to start the engines. Being a Cessna pilot I was amazed at how much easier it was to start a Falcon Jet. Gary pulled out a small checklist and ran it quickly. Then flipped down the sun visor where the performance chart was pasted and got the numbers. They set the bugs and we were rolling.

Just as casually as can be we taxied to the end of Runway 5 and blasted off. Gary requested a block altitude between 12,000 and 14,000 feet over Saginaw Bay which was instantly approved by ATC as we rocketed out over the water. The guys checked a few systems, noted a sluggish HSI and I sat there with my eyes the size of pie plates. As they talked to Dave about the HSI it was the first time that I noticed that Dave was out of his seat and kneeling on the cabin floor behind me. Then just out of nowhere, Dave baited the guys by saying, “Hey, you guys never do anything crazy, do ya’?” Don replied, “Naaa, we’re a couple of straight arrows.” And Gary chimed in, “Yeah, we’d never do anything like this!” and he shoved the throttles forward, pointed the nose a few degrees down and then pulled back up and commanded the aircraft into the smoothest aileron roll anyone could want. As we leveled out again the two pilots were giggling like kids and Dave was laughing out loud; I was still sitting there with my eyes as wide as pie plates. Then it struck me that in that roll, at one point, Dave had actually been kneeling on the ceiling.

After a few more items were checked we headed back to the airport. I was amazed at how easily the Falcon 10 flew. It simply cruised along as steady as can be and as we rolled onto final the guys brought her home in an effortless approach and landing. While we taxied in I made a comment about how stable the 10 seemed to be and Don replied that it was the most stable jet on approach that he had ever flown next to the Saberliner.

Walking across the ramp I found myself smiling. I had just been given a taste of what my future may be like. After months of mopping hangar floors, emptying trash cans, washing airplanes and bashing my brains out against the university, I finally saw the reality of where I could go if I wanted to, if I worked hard enough, if I kept my eye on my primary goal of finishing what I had started at Embry-Riddle and if I just did not give up. It was real and it was within my ability. 

After my flight in N592DC I went home and drew this picture.
Now as I look back it says far more than what you see.

I smiled for the rest of the day, I smiled for the rest of the week and I smiled for the next three months. My mom said I looked like I'd just met a new girlfriend. A few years later I returned to hangar 6 during a summer out of college to work on Falcon Jets as a mechanic under the shop certificate- I smiled all summer long.

Returning to school I knew exactly what I wanted to do in aviation. Anyone who knew me back then knew I was an incurable Falcon Jet nut. Some of the pilots at ERAU set their goal as flying for Eastern or United or Pan Am, but I was different. My burning goal was just to finish the danged school and get my degree- yet under that I wanted to be a corporate pilot. Of course, in the 80s and 90s, aviation's goal was to screw us all... I think they got that from the military.

Anyway... eighteen years almost to the day after that jumpseat ride in 592DC, I had my degree from Embry-Riddle and all of my ratings as well as two furloughs under my belt and my fill of airline piloting. After a protracted period of being “between pilot jobs” I happened to stumble upon an opportunity to fly for a small fractional outfit. The best part being that they had Falcon Jets! After a brief interview they asked me to come in the following day and fly the Falcon 10 to see if I had what they were looking for. That morning I walked out to the 10 and looked at her like she was an old friend. I smiled that same smile I had back in 1979 and eased into the right seat. I’d never flown a Falcon Jet before, but I felt as if had hundreds of hours in one- the seat was the exact same shape as my ass. It was the most “at home” I had ever been in a new aircraft. I already knew every system, I had already dropped every panel and been up inside every inch of one of these birds when I worked as a mechanic on them back at hangar 6. During the flight I did the requested maneuvers with ease and then did three fine takeoffs and landings- Don and Gary would have been proud of me. That evening they called me and asked me to do the same thing the next day in the Falcon 20 and the day after that I was hired and had my first trip in the 20 and later in the 10. The bumps and turns in the aviation business had put me where I wanted to be and every time I flew one of those Falcon Jets, I smiled… I just couldn’t help myself.

Spent many hours flying this baby, 211EC

Here's another of Wes' books that you may enjoy. Check it out HERE
He'll autograph it and personalize it for you or anyone you wish.

The LADEE launch: When everyone's out to get ya', paranoia is just good thinking.

Too often we who were the space-buffs of the 60s and 70s still find ourselves reverting to closet-like behavior. After all, in those days it was not “cool” to watch space stuff and it was worse to live as if you liked space stuff- so you had to be a sort of closet space-buff. Then came the years of the Space Shuttle and we all “came out.” It was okay to be a space-buff, to stay up all night watching EVAs and to stand on the bank of a river and watch a launch. Then came the end of the Shuttle and our nation’s wish to return to the moon was simply canceled by a president who made it un-cool again to look toward space. About the moon he questioned why should we go back to the moon and pointing at Buzz Aldrin, he said, “to be blunt, Buzz has already been there…” In other words America, why bother to go there again, or to go anywhere as far as he was concerned. Our space program appeared to wilt right in front of us.

 

It is hard to pull the plug on the will of the American people who want NASA to go into space. We have a desire to learn about our closest neighbor in the solar system- the moon. So it was that when NASA prepared to launch the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE probe, to the moon, many of us became interested in the mission. The probe is designed to study the “wisps” of the lunar exosphere and was scheduled to launch atop a Minotaur 5 Rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island facility on the Virginia coast.

Minotaur is derived from the Air Force Minuteman ICBM and consists of solid propellant stages. It was once intended to sit in silos around the United Sates and wait for the order to launch and destroy the nation’s enemies, now it has been extensively evolved for peaceful use. The Minotaur 5 has five stages and this would be its first chance to prove itself as a booster to send vehicles beyond earth orbit.

Launch was set for 11:27 PM on the night of September 6^th, 2013 and it was said that if the weather was right a lot of people along the central east coast of the United States would be treated to a sight that people in Florida have been seeing for more than half a century. I decided that I would walk across the street to our community pier that stretches into Chesapeake Bay and watch from there. Although the launch site is just over 89 miles to the south I figured I would at least see something. Considering that the Minotaur is a solid propellant launch vehicle and they have a very bright exhaust flame it should be visible as long as the night remained clear.

Monitoring by way of my home computer and my subscription to SpaceflightNow, the countdown was smooth through the evening and the weather simply got better. As launch time neared even the high altitude winds aloft calmed being reported as just 32 knots at 90,000 feet. At T-7 minutes, I grabbed my binoculars and headed for the darkened pier. I felt the urge to “sneak” because if Obama got wind that I was going to watch a moon shot he may revoke my Obamacare or worse yet, have his goons at the IRS audit me. Moon shots are not approved as being politically correct. I was monitoring the countdown on my smart-phone, but as I got to the street, the connection was suddenly broken. Clearly the NSA now knew I was going to watch a moon shot, I may be doomed.

Still I snuck onto the unlit pier and found the spot where I watched the politically-approved Antares launch last spring. The fishing lights were turned off and the usual fishing crowd was strangely absent- perhaps they knew the dangers of watching a forbidden moon shot. As I stood there in the blackness trying to re-connect with my smart-phone, a voice from behind me suddenly said, “Don’t let me scare ya’.” I jumped a foot! For an instant I thought it was John Holdren from the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) who had come personally catch me and take me to the space-buff concentration camp on a charge of moon shot watching, so I could be re-educated. Instead it was an elderly man sitting on a bench in the dark. With his gray beard and prudent eyes he looked a bit like Obi-Wan Kenobi. It turned out that he too was there to watch the moon shot. He was a space-buff as well as a former NASA worker back in the old republic, before the dark times, before the empire.

I told the man in the darkness that I had lost the countdown on my smart phone as soon as I stepped from my house. He said that he too had tried to keep it on his iPad, but had lost the connection as soon as he stepped from his house. The NSA was surely onto us- only imperial storm snoopers are that precise.

Soon we were joined by two more moon shot watchers and then another three risked being sent to the re-education camps as our number on the pier grew to a total of seven. Looking toward the horizon the night remained clear with perhaps a touch of haze and a cool breeze that was blowing in off of the brackish water of the Chesapeake Bay. It reminded me a lot of darkened hours spent standing on the NASA causeway waiting to see STS-2 launch- back in the olden days when we had a Shuttle and the ability to launch US astronauts from US soil.

We timed ignition by our watches and at exactly 11:27 pm the horizon illuminated in a deep orange glow that looked as if a tiny sun were rising. The glow grew larger and larger until from its center a brilliant orange comet seemed to appear; the Minotaur was aloft. The collective word was “Wow!” I had thought we would be lucky to see just a streak, but instead the Minotaur was putting on a show. The flame grew longer as the rocket climbed and then began its tilt program. After 56.92 seconds of burn time staging took place. Even from 90 miles away the staging looked violent and abrupt in my binoculars. A reflexive gasp came from all of us watching. Glowing orange particles were briefly seen at separation and then the first stage, with its burning propellant still tailing off could be seen tumbling away for more than 40 seconds. The second stage pressed on and its engine plume grew even larger as the surrounding atmosphere became thinner. For a total of just over 77 seconds the stage pushed the LADEE into space. As the second stage burned out there was a 20 second coast period. Although Wallpos ground cameras show the flame fading, we saw the orange light clearly for all 20 seconds. Third stage ignition was just as spectacular as the previous stage except that the flame was now a yellow color. One odd characteristic of that initial third stage burn was a long visible trail that looked like a contrail, yet could not have been because the booster was simply too high. Soon the stage soon faded into a pinpoint of orange vanishing into the distance among the stars. That strange vapor trail, however, remained visible for several minutes.

We all felt like a bit of our sickness from the lack of spaceflight had faded. I began to wonder just how the LADEE had managed to remain funded in a political environment where anything going to the moon under the NASA meatball is considered politically incorrect. Apparently OSTP had let this one slip past before ordering OMB to defund it in place of some new Gore-sat. After all, these days nothing is considered as being a good enough reason to return to the moon, because, to be blunt, Buzz has already been there. Plus, to be more blunt, there are so many more food stamps to print and so much healthcare to take over that we Americans just cannot afford to go back to the moon. Yet here goes LADEE, doing phasing orbits until it is captured by lunar gravity. Perhaps the powers that be in the empire will see how many people were interested in this mission and defund it before it gets to the moon- like they do everything else.

DREAM CHASING

After half a century the dream of a lifting body spacecraft is returning

Dateline: August 2, 2013, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, the Sierra Nevada Corporation rolled their lifting body spacecraft, the “Dream Chaser,” out of the hangar in preparation for “tow” tests. In the pre-dawn hours this engineering test article was prepared for its first critical workout. What few working on the vehicle probably considered was that they were following in footsteps that had been placed upon the ramp at this same airfield almost exactly 50 years earlier, August 16, 1963; when the chase of the dream of lifting body flight was actually realized.

Lifting body flight had begun as little more than a mental exercise among a few aeronautical engineers.  Yet, the practical application of that concept started with a NASA engineer at the Flight Research Center by the name of Dale Reed and a balsawood model of his lifting body concept aircraft. Reed, an R/C model airplane enthusiast, began by tossing his balsawood lifting body into tall grass in order to cushion the landings as he tinkered with the center of gravity on the model. Once he had a good glide established he moved up to towing the model behind one of his powered R/C airplanes and eventually went on to releasing the lifting body into free-flight from the model tow-plane. On one such occasion Reed enlisted his wife to film the operation with an 8mm camera. He later took that film and showed it to his bosses at the Flight Research

Center (later named the Dryden Flight Research Center). Backed by a team of like-minded lifting body fans, such as Dick Eldredge and Milt Thompson as well as his 8mm film, Reed gained the quick approval of NASA’s Al Eggers and Paul Bikle to move forward. Soon, by use of some discretionary funding and a lot of after-hours handy work by the staff at the airfield, a full size version of the lifting body was constructed. Called the M2-F1, the lifting body was actually made of plywood and used the landing gear of a Cessna 150 aircraft. On March 1, 1963 it was rolled out to do a series of “tow” tests behind a modified Pontiac car. Fifty years, five months and two days later, another lifting body, the Sierra Nevada Corporation’s  Dream Chaser, began its series of tow-tests; only this time the tow vehicle would be a Ford pickup truck.

Along the concrete runway at Dryden the Dream Chaser was systematically towed at speeds of 10, 20, 40 and 60 miles per hour. Data was collected on a wide range of systems including steering, brakes, control surface actuation and landing gear dynamics. Unlike the M2-F1, however, laptop computers and LASER thermometers were among the modern appliances used to evaluate the Dream Chaser on its tow-tests. Additionally, the Dream Chaser was released during its tow-test and allowed to skid to a stop while the vehicle’s aerodynamic speed brakes were tested; as far as the records show the M2-F1 was not released on its first tow-test, but it did fly. Unfortunately, that M2-F1 first flight lasted only a few seconds and only went up a few inches because it was found to be uncontrollable and was quickly landed by test pilot Milt Thompson. Following wind tunnel testing and with its control system re-rigged the M2-F1 was successfully flown on its second tow-test on April 5^th, 1963.

Lifting bodies are commonly referred to in terms of being a “shape.” During the development years of the piloted versions there were three basic shapes, the M2, the X-24 and the HL-10. The M2 shape was similar to a half-cone, while the X-24 was similar to an inverted half-cone. The HL-10, however, was more like a rounded arrowhead. All three shapes eventually each flew a protracted series of high altitude super-sonic tests. Over time, the HL-10 shape would be the one to have its name carried into the future. Long after the other lifting-bodies had been placed in museums, the folks at NASA’s Langley Reasearch Center were taking their original HL-10 concept and evolving it into a larger crewed version that they called the HL-20.

First conceived as an emergency crew rescue vehicle and a back-up to the Shuttle, the HL-20 was intended to be used on what was then called Space Station Freedom. The year was 1986 and the HL-20 looked a bit more like a blending of the Soviet BOR-4 test article the X-24A than it did the HL-10. It was conceived to be boosted atop an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, and then glide back to a runway; landing like the Space Shuttle. Unfortunately, the HL-20 was born in the shadow of the Space Shuttle and grew up in the shadow of the Constellation Program, thus it never got beyond the mock-up, artwork and number crunching stage.

Enter the Sierra Nevada Corporation and NASA’s request for competitors to participate in the Commercial Crew Development program. Looking at the HL-20 Sierra Nevada Corporation saw a concept with much of the critical design work already done. From that foundation grew the Dream Chaser. When the time came to down-select three finalists to become NASA’s commercial crew carriers, the Dream Chaser made the cut along with capsule spacecraft from Boeing and SpaceX.

Although the Dream Chaser’s competitors, Boeing and SpaceX have garnered a lot of publicity, the folks at Sierra Nevada Corporation have been working at a grass-roots level with little glamour. They do not have a cult-like following such as that enjoyed by the SpaceX and their Dragon capsule, but they do have the in-the-hangar hands-on engineering style that gave us the M2-F1 and the lifting bodies that led to the Dream Chaser in the first place. By using a touch of Shuttle heritage and a Dale Reed spirit, they have come a long way toward flying US astronauts from US soil and landing them on a US runway once again.

Dream Chaser itself is a highly refined lifting body that takes what was intended for the HL-20 and literally chases that dream toward its intended goal; a true spaceship that can rocket into space and return to earth by elegantly landing on a runway. If they can succeed in making the Dream Chaser fly and actually getting it into space and then returning it to a runway, the folks at Sierra Nevada Corporation  will have not only chased, but will have caught the dream of Dale Reed, Dick Eldredge, Milt Thompson and a small army of other lifting body champions. It is a dream that began a half century ago. A dream that was solidified when the M2-F1 made its first free flight on August 16, 1963- exactly 50 years ago today. 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm a lifting body "nut" and have been since I was in the 8th grade. From then on I started learning as much as I could about them and messing around with my own "shapes." In high school I developed my own shape and as a part of my 11th grade drafting class project I drew up plans for my lifting body to launch piggyback aboard a sort of  Titan IIIC model rocket. It was complete with a pad and a fixed service structure that had a swinging shelter to cover the lifting body. Just by coincidence, that was remarkably close to the Space Shuttle's RSS, even though I had never seen plans or images or even the concept of the RSS at the time. As I worked on the project, my drafting teacher came by and pointed at my lifting body and asked, "What's that?" I told him it was a lifting body- a wingless aircraft. He just walked away shaking his head. When I got my final grade it was a "C" and there was a note scrolled on the page with the lifting body that said, "I thought you would know that an airplane can't fly without wings." Today, my Dr. Zooch Rockets company sells a rocket that uses that exact same shape- and yes, it does fly. 

A few years before Dale Reed passed away, my former college roommate, Pete Merlin, who works at NASA Dryden, took one of my lifting bodies in and showed it to him. Mr. Reed approved saying that he thought it would make a good hyper-sonic shape as well. Not bad for a kid who had to teach himself about lifting body flight, eh?

A Well Earned Mistrust

And, just in case any of you out there were wondering how I actually do feel about the president's space policy... here's a piece that I published on ANN back on Sept. 20th, 2011... Oh, and by the way, I am all for SpaceX, the SNC Dream Chaser and the Boeing CTS-100, I'm simply not a Newspace zealot.

When President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 it placed into effect PL111-267. This law mandated that it will be the policy of the United States to have a Federal space launch system and that NASA must develop a Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle- it was called the “Space Launch System” or “SLS.” In that law Congress saw fit to specify lifting tonnage, launch date, exploration destinations, use of existing materials and man power and a very clear date for reporting to the Congress on the beginning of development as well as the progress of the program. Although that action caused the Internet critics of human spaceflight to try and malign the proposed system by dubbing it the “Senate Launch System.” The program specifics were not born out of the desire of the Senate or the House to design a launch system. These specifics were instead born out of a well earned mistrust of NASA’s politically appointed upper management to actually follow through with the intent of the Congress.

          Since the beginning of the Constellation program, which was supposed to be the follow-on to the Space Shuttle, the project had wide support. For example, in 2005 the House approved the program by a vote of 385-15 and in 2008 the vote was a 409-15 approval. Thus both Republican and Democrat controlled Congresses approved of the direction in which NASA was headed. Yet in the beginning of 2010, in his Fiscal Year 2011 budget Proposal, President Obama saw fit to simply cancel Constellation and re-direct the funds for NASA’s human spaceflight program to start-up “commercial” operators. There was no goal for NASA that proposal, no schedule, no launch system- it was, in fact, a program to nowhere. This sent a shock wave through the Congress and the aerospace industry.

Prior to his election, candidate Obama had stated that when elected he  “…will expedite the development of the Shuttle's successor systems [Constellation] for carrying Americans to space so we can minimize the gap,” [between the Shuttle and Constellation]. But on February 1, 2010 President Obama did exactly the opposite.  

To say that the Congress was outraged would be somewhat of an understatement. Aside from a hand full in the Congress, the opposition to the Obama space program was quite heated. In the first hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology following the bombshell of the Obama FY2011 Budget Proposal, the normally reserved senior Representative Ralph Hall started to read his opening remarks and then stammered and stopped and said “…I’m so damned mad I can’t even read this.” There were applause in the chamber. In every hearing thereafter, in both houses of Congress, there was great opposition to the Obama space program to nowhere.

The spin quickly began and the script was made official with talking points saying that there was nothing wrong with the Obama proposal, it was simply that NASA had “Rolled it out poorly.” The Obama appointed NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and his ever grinning side-kick Assistant Administrator Lori Garver spouted this talking point many times as did a select few in the Congress such as Bill Nelson. This loyal Democrat who helped Obama win Florida, where the president’s new space program was about to put thousands of skilled workers out of a job while bankrupting much of the Space Coast. In late March of 2010 Nelson, along with KSC Director Bob Cabanna, did a panel discussion at the University of Central Florida. There Nelson assured the crowd that the president was going to “fix” his FY2011 space proposal on April 15 when he was scheduled to visit KSC. When asked, “What if he doesn’t?” Nelson frankly replied, “Then we (the Congress) will fix it for him.” For the next few weeks Nelson repeatedly stated that he had assurances from the White House, that the president would make major changes in his proposal on April 15^th and would make a major announcement on a time-table for NASA and an objective- which would be Mars.

On the appointed day the president arrived at KSC as Bill Nelson stood proudly by waiting for the big announcement. Instead, President Obama visited the SpaceX facility, rubbed elbows with Elon Musk, went to designated speaking area and announced that the Orion spacecraft that he had canceled would now serve as a multi-billion dollar rescue pod to be hung on the International Space Station (ISS). He also sneered at returning to the moon with a been there, done that, quip… and other than some standard Obama circle-speak, that was that. He then boarded Air Force One and jetted down to Miami for a campaign fund raiser.

It is said that in Washington D.C. a friend is someone who stabs you in the chest rather than in the back- the president was apparently not being friendly to Senator Nelson.

From that point on the Congress went about “fixing it” for the White House. They invited NASA and aerospace industry engineers to conceive of a launch system that could take the Orion from the Constellation Program and use it to explore beyond low earth orbit and to back-up the Obama blessed “commercial” operators who were supposed to take over shuttling U.S. astronauts to the ISS. They asked the engineers to make, to the greatest extent practical, use Space Shuttle hardware and facilities as well as those that were in development for Constellation. Additionally, the Congress asked that the new program consider current and future budgetary restraints. By mid-summer the Senate had what they needed to mandate a palatable and realistic direction for NASA. Following the Congressional summer recess of 2010 the Senate’s Authorization Act was accepted by the House and went before the President, who signed it into law. You would think that was it- done- let’s get started, but you must remember that this is the Obama Administration we are talking about.

Members of the Senate did indeed remember that they were dealing with the Obama Administration. This president wants things done his way- period. If he cannot get his way past the Congress, he will make an end run around that body and get his way administratively. A good example of this can be seen in “Cap-N-Trade.”  This pet project of the Obama White House could not get past the Congress, so the administration simply went around the Congress and is currently trying to impose it by way of the EPA. In the nine months between the announcement of the FY2011 Budget proposal and the signing of the NASA Authorization Act the Congress developed a well earned mistrust where the President was concerned. Additionally, the members of Congress clearly did not trust the politically appointed “leaders” at NASA to execute the law to any greater degree than they trusted the Obama Administration to follow the law.

For that reason, the members of the Senate who wrote the Authorization Act placed some specifics into the act. These included a 90 day countdown from the day of the Act’s entry into law that required the production of a full report on vehicle specifications must be delivered to the Congress and made public. The Congress did NOT “design the rocket.” That little myth has become a common slur used by those who still want the original Obama program-to-nowhere to return. Another common slur that is used by the fans of the Obamaspace is to say that SLS stands for “Senate Launch System.” When you read a comment posted anywhere in the Internet’s assorted public space “forums,” it should be considered to say nothing more than “I want the Obama plan to nowhere.” It also says that the person posting that message knows nothing about NASA as a whole and cares little about the agency itself.

Of course the opinions of the semi-informed lemmings of the Internet forums are of no matter in this saga- the real struggle is in the political arena. You see, the Congress established NASA and the agency is under their direction. NASA, however, is administered by persons appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the President. That, is the real ball to which we must keep our eye upon.

Likewise, we often hear and read the saying “The Congress writes the checks.” That is not correct- in fact, the Congress only APPROVES the checks. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) actually “writes the checks.” What most people do not realize is that OMB is not required to disburse as much as Congress has approved. They can, and often do, disburse far less and can also delay funds as they wish in order to steer an agency in one direction or another. OMB is under the direction of the President.

For 339 days after the president signed the law that created the SLS, Congress waited for the report that was to be submitted by NASA’s politically appointed “leadership” within 90 days after the President’s signature. Likewise the engineering specifications for the SLS were being held up, not by NASA’s career civil servants, not by engineers, not by contractors- but by…  (you’ll never guess)… OMB! Yes, OMB, which- again- is under the direction of the President, had insisted on an “independent” review of the costs in the SLS plan before it invested billions in the system. This sounds quite responsible until you know that OMB has NOT called for any independent review or accounting of those so-called “commercial” operators that Obamaspace desires to become the exclusive providers of transportation of humans to and from space and who will also be getting billions of dollars to fly rockets.

While announcing the SLS, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden as well as Senator Bill Nelson attempted to spin the administration’s delaying tactics and as being the grand plan of the President all along intended to ensure that the new program would be “sustainable” and “affordable.”

Sorry- NO SALE guys.

This was Obama playing basketball and trying to run out the clock until he could get that last three point shot and win the game for himself. Tell the thousands of honest, hardworking spaceflight workers who lost their jobs, homes and self-worth in the nine months that it took to start this program, all about this study. While you are at it tell the businesses, the restaurants, mom and pop stores, the auto repair shops and so on that depended on those same workers all about the studies and other delays.  No sale.

Tomorrow, September 22, 2011 there will be a House Hearing concerning the question of “NASA Human Spaceflight Past, Present, and Future: Where Do We Go From Here?” Which is still a critical question even though the SLS has finally been announced. That is because when it comes to NASA’s human spaceflight program there is a well earned mistrust so far as the agency’s politically appointed administrators and the Obama Administration are concerned. The games, political tricks and delaying tactics are not over.