ERAU...stop in and visit.

Recently I returned to the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. My two daughters are both considering ERAU and thus my wife (who is also an ERAU alumnus) and I had the oldest one contact the university herself and set up their of the Daytona campus. We parents got our tour through the alumni office.

Nearly everything from my era at ERAU DAB is completely gone. The only thing that remains is the old dorm. The word is that they cannot rip it down because the school has build new modern dorms all around it and thus there's no way to get the heavy equipment in to do the demolition.

I'm NOT complaining here folks. The campus is AMAZING and futuristic. Students zip around on motorized skateboards controlled by their cellphones, droids deliver food anywhere on campus, flight students without a private certificate start out flying VR sims and the dorms are more like hotel suites than college housing. Of course, the parking problems are still quite painful. The new student center, however, is a spacious all-in-one facility that serves every need imaginable from food to an advanced research library.

I highly encourage everyone to visit the campus. If you are an ERAU alum. contact the alumni office and arrange a tour.

We had some great times on the old campus, yet all of that is now just in our memory. Today the university grounds are something that I personally could never have imagined.

 

"The Mercury 13"

First off, I'm a HUGE Wally Funk fan. She is an outstanding aviator with amazing credentials. She is exactly what I call "A pilot's pilot" and an aviator that everyone should look up to. Like so many of us she always had the desire to fly in space and now, thanks to Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos, she did just that.

With that said, I think it's time to quell this "Mercury 13" fiction.

First off the, the term, "Mercury 13" never existed until the mid 1990s when it was coined to title a TV program that simply alleged that somehow NASA recruited a group of women pilots with the promise that they would be astronauts, ran them through medical testing and then simply cut them off and cast them aside.

That is complete bunk... but hey... it was in a book in 2003 too... so it must be true... right?

The fact is that Dr. Lovelace, of the Lovelace Clinic, which had tested the Mercury astronaut candidates, on his own, and without NASA's consent or request, decided to begin testing women to the same standards as they had tested the 32 men a year earlier.

NASA's Mercury Astronauts were notified of their selection in the first week of April 1959. That was a full year before Lovelace began his independent testing of women.

NASA did NOT "cut them off" or "cut them out" or "abandon" them. The women who Lovelace tested, although outstanding female pilots all, were never in consideration in the first place. The original letter seeking astronauts went out in 1958 to 110 military test pilots- all were men. 

Lovelace later sent out letters to 13 of the women stating that they had passed the medical portion of testing and asked if they would like to return for "further training." The group assumed that Lovelace was representing NASA- but he wasn't. He was only representing the Lovelace Clinic.

In the mid 1960s those same women pilots that Lovelace had tested made an effort to be considered as astronaut candidates, but the hardware had already been developed at great expense and NASA's focus was on simply getting the male pilots into and back from space alive. From reading some of management's accounts of that time, they initially had no idea who these women were.

Frankly, and this is just my opinion, the political pressure applied by that effort on the behalf of the women likely irritated some of the more narrow-minded men in upper NASA management. It was one more unnecessary political issue for the agency to have to deal with- and those fellows had very long memories. Just read Chris Kraft's book and you'll see.

Thus, it was not until the 1970s when the prospect of the Shuttle flying "like an airliner" came along that NASA management finally opened the doors to female crew members as well as female pilots.

Disdain toward women in aviation, however, was a very real thing through all of aviation history and right up into modern times. I personally flew with an old fart captain in 1998 who would boisterously say that he resented women in the cockpit and he would, "...never fly with one of them." Which is ironic as this attitude existed in an era when aviators such as Eileen Collins where piloting the Space Shuttle. Meanwhile that guy was universally known as the worst pilot in our entire pilot group. (My wife nearly clocked that loudmouth at the company Christmas party. One more glass of wine and I'm pretty sure she'd have knocked him on his ass).

Yet, when I came into the aviation industry in 1977 women were simply a part of the pilot group. I trained with them and my second flight instructor was a woman. My favorite ground instructor at ERAU was Dana Middlekhoff who was a long time aviator. I had female flight partners and later managed women who were flight instructors plus I crewed with many women in the airlines... no big deal. 

So my attitude is that we're all flyers. Let's simply stick to the actual history.

The "Mercury 13" is a myth made up for a 1990s TV show. But, Wally Funk, IS a true aviator.

 

I'LL SIGN ANYTHING THAT'LL GET YOU OUTTA HERE QUICKER

One of the dark sides of aging into your 60s is that you begin to see many of your teachers and mentors pass away. It’s the price you pay for living long. This week I was deeply saddened to discover that someone who was a good example of one of the good guys, has left this life. His name is Dr. Tom Connolly and he was a star among the faculty at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical university and someone that I looked up to through all the time that I was there. The best way for me to handle such things as his passing is to do the one thing that I am best at- write about it.

As most of you know I was in and out of ERAU for a full decade and saw Dr. Connolly rise from faculty member to administrator. Likewise, he was well aware of my struggle to work my way through the university. This episode takes place in my senior year. Along the way of climbing the mountain toward graduation, the “independent student” receives all sorts of shots. In my case they came from occasional vindictive jerks, or administrative bumps in the road, or self-induced speed bumps of stupidity, or just unexplainable funk adoodles (UFA)s- all of which have to simply be handled and left behind. This was a UFA that left me unable to register for flight without the signature of my faculty advisor. I only had two advanced flight courses to do and an aerodynamics class to make up in order to be completely done with my degree. The aerodynamics class was due to the fact that the previous trimester I’d had to miss the final because my oral surgeon in Michigan insisted that I fly back and be in his chair within 24 hours because of a rare infection of the bone the result having an impacted wisdom tooth removed while back home during Christmas break. I’d gone through all of the channels before I had to bug out and when I got back 14 days later, made up all of my exams but aerodynamics. The instructor, Bishop Blackwell, had taken a six month sabbatical in Mexico right after finals. So, I just had to take the “incomplete” and was set to make up the class in the spring. Now, however, I needed a signature to get into my next flight course. My faculty advisor was Bill Gruber, and he simply refused to give me the signature. The result was a polite, but somewhat peppery discussion where I actually avoided telling him to have that stick removed from his tight ass.

 When I left his office, his student assistant, who was a friend of mine, gave me a quiet “psssst” and motioned to come near.

 “He’s going on sabbatical for six weeks,” she whispered.

 “When’s he leavin’?” I whispered back.

 “Wednesday,”

 “Who’s takin’ his place?”

 “Tom Connolly,” she replied with a whisper and a wink.

 Nodding in approval I left. Instantly I knew one thing, Gruber was an Air Force vet. and Connolly was a Naval aviator… two different breeds, and one without a stick up his ass.

 Thursday, I walked into Dr. Connolly’s office with my document that needed to be signed in hand. I didn’t even get a word out. He just nabbed the paper and signed it while saying,

 “I’ll sign anything that’ll get you outta here sooner.”

 He handed me back the paper and I walked over to the flight line and registered for FA-314 minutes later.

 Six weeks later I was finishing the flight course when I got a message in my box to come and see Gruber immediately. So, that’s what I did. He was pissed,

 “You went over my head, if you weren’t dang neared finished with that flight course I’d pull you out of it!” he snarled

 “I didn’t go over your head Mr. Gruber,” I replied professionally, “I went around your flank. You departed and left your flank wide open.”

 He told me to get out of his office.

 Of course he and Dr. Connolly had discussed the whole thing long before Gruber called me into his office, I’d been around that place long enough to know that. And if Gruber could have pulled me, he would have. He just needed to vent toward me. I finished 314 and 315 and then easily passed the aerodynamics class to end my time at ERAU. Thereafter whenever I saw Dr. Connolly on campus I always smiled and shook his hand. 

Whenever I saw Mr. Gruber, such as at the homecoming basketball game, I’d take the time to go up to him and quietly ask if his flank was open.

 

Often I place little things into my cartoons that help me go farther than just the words in the bubbles.

This week I went to work and created a "Special Screener" logo that helps me express my disgust at the fact that our nation's capitol is, at this moment, cordoned off with razor wire. 

The logo is two stylized "S" letters made from razor wire.

Washington DC has ALWAYS been a place where the American people can freely walk right up the steps of the capitol building and gaze back across the open mall toward the Washington monument. People from all over the world come and are free to do the same.

Suddenly, we find huge steel barriers topped with razor wire blocking access.

Why?

"Well because there was a riot an people stormed the capitol and broke in." comes the reply.

And so... where is the danger now? I don't see any more "rioters" stalking in DC. 

Oh... and I didn't see any such response last summer, when Antifa, and BLM  rioted, tore down statues, burned buildings and a historic church all of which went on for days. 

Liberty is lost by way of it being slowly chipped away... and by razor wire.

 

I lost a pal...

It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of a long time friend. 

"Ron Jay Scott" was his "air name" and it's what he liked to be called. He started his career in Saginaw, Michigan as a DJ at radio station WSAM in a time when I was just getting into rock music. We all listened  to 1400 "Big Sam Radio" in the early 70s and Ron Jay often worked the afternoon show.

Then I knew him as just a voice as did tens of thousands of Saginaw teenagers... until the Saginaw Gears hockey club hit town. Ron Jay took an interest in hockey and soon became infected with the hockey bug. The new franchise needed all of the local help that it could get and that soon led Ron Jay to being a part-time worker for the team. He soon grew his role and went to announcing. By the 1975-76 season he was doing "color" calling during the game broadcasts while still working for WSAM, which had become "The Home of the Gears." The following season he sometimes filled in for team announcer Al Blade and formed a good chemistry with full time announcer Wally Shaver. On May 11th, 1977 he was side-by-side with Wally calling the third period of  game 7, Turner Cup finals as the Gears won their first ever IHL championship. I actually have that recording that I later shared with him. During that season, me being in Zamboni alley with my dad and Ron Jay working for the team, I bumped into Ron Jay often and we traded quips about hockey and the team. He was nice to everyone and we all thought he was cool.

Our paths separated the following season as I went to Florida to become an aviator and he soon took over working as the Gears full time game announcer and publicity man. It was in that role that Ron Jay won a second Turner Cup with the Gears and even got a championship ring out of it!

In 2002 I started a web site for the Saginaw Gears and about three years later Ron Jay contacted me through it. Now it was me, interviewing him. I found out that he was really into trains and he found out that my dad, who he knew only as the Zamboni driver, was actually a career railroad engineer. He kicked himself in the butt when I told him that back in the day all he needed to do was ask and dad would have taken him for a train ride. Since my dad had passed on by that time I packed up a care package for Ron Jay consisting of all of dad's old railroad training manuals and all sorts of other railroad stuff. Dad would have done the same.

Ron Jay with his second Turner Cup

Of course I got busy writing books and Ron Jay got busy being retired. However, he always hung around hockey and had spent a good deal of time announcing for the Notre Dame hockey team.

It always seems that when you haven't been in touch with an old friend for a protracted period, that's when we lose them. This post is for you Ron Jay. You are missed.

 

Back up and running... pretty much

Back up and running after the huge Windows 10 crash... well... almost anyhow. 

Another few days of tweaking and I'll be back to posting here.

 

 

Windows 10- spawn of SATAN!

Windows 10 is the spawn of SATAN himself

Any... yes ANY previous version of the Windows operating system was better than Windows 10. Yet the mega control freaks at Microsoft forced it down our gullets. To get us all to switch they said that they and their cohort Norton would no longer support Win 7... then they told every hacker in the world that we were wide open- come and get the hold outs.

My Windows 10 has developed a bug that will NOT DIE.

It's a constantly appearing, ever annoying "handy" pop-up window that wants to provide useless "Editing Tips" and I tried everything to kill it. I even went of Facebook and offered a free book to anyone who could kill it... some tried, all failed. Next one of those who was trying to help me connected me with Microsoft Support. That technician and I were online together working on it... no luck after one hour and 57 minutes of working it.

Finally he said that it was just a bug in my Windows 10, and the only way he figured I could fix it was with a fresh download of Windows 10... which I just did 3 days earlier.

May ANTIFA burn down Microsoft HQ.

If you really hate someone, do not wish death upon them, nor a kidney stone... just wish a Windows 10 bug upon them.

 

NEWLY MINTED CAPTAIN

 

         My captain’s upgrade bid opportunity with Northwest Airlink came up in November 1995. That, however, was to be the captain of Jetstream 3100, referred to in our pilot group with little affection as the “Junkstream.” Those aircraft in our fleet were beat to hell and the trips all sucked. No thanks, says me! My chance to bid captain on the Saab 340 that I’d been flying since I started at the company came up the following spring. Yet, my prime bid for vacation came out at the same time. Unwittingly, the idiots at crew scheduling had approved my sweetheart choice of two weeks back-to-back beginning on July 5^th! If you were a pilot at a regional airline in those days, that alone could trigger an orgasm. When I showed it to the guys in the crashpad they all laughed, and then immediately began a group scheme to preserve and protect my bid.

 

First off, I needed to NOT bid for captain. Second I needed to not interact with scheduling for any reason- just lay low and be a good boy. Additionally, no one outside of our CID crashpad could know about this award. Finally, I had to sit tight and watch a whole bunch of pilots that I was senior to go to captain ahead of me. The result was that within four months I was the number 2 first officer in the whole company and number 1 in MSP.

 

A funny trend then took place. Tim Hughes, who was the senior captain at CID and the leader in this conspiracy, had been bidding with me nearly all year. He was also an IOE (Initial Operating Experience) check airman in the Saab. So, sometimes he had to go and fly with newbee captains. When he did that, the company usually stuck me with some newly minted captain out of the southern system. It was sometimes fun but on one occasion I needed to drop the hammer on one of these egos.

 

Tim and I flew up to MSP on our first leg of the day then he had to split to do his IOE dance. Our next scheduled leg was to Duluth, also known as “Scrub Dog.” It was early May, and the weather had been unseasonably warm. But my look at the weather that morning showed a quick moving cold front sweeping down out of Canada. There was a lot of moisture in the air, and that spelled nasty for Scrub Dog. I hadn’t met the new guy yet as he was not one of our northern pilots. He was born and minted in MEM and the southern system. Worse yet was the fact that the newly earned fourth stripe had really inflated this person’s ego.

 

I’d remained in the cockpit finishing my paperwork when captain newly-minted stomped aboard. He flopped into his seat, looked at me, scowled and said,

 

         “Here’s my rules for first officers…”

 

Gee… no hand shake… no hello? Gosh.

 

As he was uttering the old worn out “Flaps up, gear up, shut up,” line I unbuckled, nabbed my flight bag and got out of my seat. I’m not God’s gift to aviation, and I had always been a really good guy to trip with. Sense of humor and clear focus on the job and procedures- but at age 39, I was a good deal more mature than nearly all of the other FOs and some of the captains at the company. Plus, this was my second airline… I wasn’t gonna take that sort of crap from anyone.

 

         “See ya’…” I said calmly.

 

         “Where, ya’ goin’?” he said with a note of surprise.

 

         “I’m fatigued,” I replied, “thirty seconds and I’m tired of your shit already.”

        

         “Wait, wait…” he chirped, “ya’ don’t have to be like…”

 

         Now it was time to lay out some facts for this new captain from the tropical southlands.

 

         “You probably haven’t looked at the weather up in Duluth, and there’s no way I’m flyin’ into that shit this morning with the likes of you.”

 

         “Hey, hey, “ he waved his printed paperwork, “I just got off my flight in from Memphis and I have it right here. Look… maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

 

         “Yeah, and it’s in your mouth. Now you’ve got mine in yer’ ass.” I decided that maybe this guy was worth keeping if I could deflate his head enough to allow for room in the cockpit. “Look at your sonority number and look at mine. I’m nearly a full year ahead of you. That means that I’ve been flying around in this shit up here for a long time. They had you all set up to go into the worst of it today with me, but you gotta pull that “my rules for FOs” bullshit on me. So now I’m gonna leave and they’ll replace me with someone new who is sitting on reserve. Get it?”

 

         That took the wind out of those sails and we started to communicate. He offered to take the leg up to Scrub Dog and I said I’d take the leg back to Minni. We made it in and out in unsettled weather then on the climb out the shit hit us. I was flying and we started to get thunder ice. I knew which way the stuff was moving and our normal route to the southwest was just not gonna cut it. Then we hit a large area of turbulence just as we contacted MSP approach there was a “woosh” as we ran through a brief area of severe ice that turned to moderate. I called for the boots to “continuous” and he asked about “bridging.” I told him that was myth and give me “continuous” which he did, then the radar went pure red. Of course it wasn’t heavy rain, it was the raydome iced over- which happened on the Saab sometimes. Now it was a matter of just knowing the pattern of the storm’s movement. I called ATC and told them about the icing and asked for a turn to about a 135 heading. He cleared me for that, plus “as needed” and asked to let him know when we were in the clear. It only took about the longest five minutes or so in that new captain’s career before we popped out of the shit. I had to ask him to tell approach and they had some Northwest flights follow our lead. Captain ego was pretty much puckered in his seat.

 

         We came into Minni from the east and landed just fine. I asked how he liked flying in the northern system?

        

         “I ain’t never seen notnin’ like that before?” he shook his head.

 

         “Don’t worry,” I told him politely, “it can get worse.”

 

         We flew together for three more trips before I hit my go-home day. He instantly mellowed out and was a darned good pilot and well on his way to being a good captain. However, he did tell me that he was bidding back into the southern system right away.

 

         Oh… “and what about the vacation bid?” you may ask. Well, that’s another story.

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Winning Bets

The following is an excerpt from the book I'm currently writing the working title of which is "NON-STANDARD APPROACH; I was only at Embry-Riddle for three terms- one for Carter and two for Reagan" 

Everything in this post is Copyright 2020 Wes Oleszewski and may not be reproduced without express written permission.

WINNING BETS

I never bet unless I’m 175% sure I’ll win. As a corporate pilot I had a customer who flew to Vegas about once a month and had us stay there for a day or two. I never lost a dime on gambling- because I never bet. On one trip my boss brought his wife along and she was really bugged by the fact that I wouldn’t gamble. I explained that the odds are highly slanted toward the house and I was getting paid to be there- not the other way around. As we left dinner one evening I walked right past a row of slot machines ignoring them all. Finally she stopped me and gave me a quarter out of her purse.

           “Here!” she said directly, “Just put this in one of those machines and pull the handle.”

Hey, it was my boss’ wife… so I inserted the coin dutifully and pulled the handle. Then I walked away to my room while the wheels were still spinning!

           “You can’t just walk away like that!” she shouted down the hall, “What if it wins?”

           “It won’t.” I replied over my shoulder.

And it didn’t.

I applied that same attitude all through my Embry-Riddle saga. When we entered the school as freshmen, the student bookstore had lots of swag with which to relieve us of even more of our money. Most of it was fairly high quality and we snapped it up. One such item was the weather-proof zip up book satchel. It was made of neoprene with a heavy duty zipper and was said to be totally waterproof. In the Florida climate, that was a good thing for your books- which were certainly not cheap.

My 1977 neoprene book bag.
Not in bad shape after all these years.

I bought one- we all bought them. They had the ERAU logo on them and they were easy to carry.

One day while we were getting off the bus at the RSI and walking back to our room I was goading my roommate Mike that these bags were completely waterproof and I could actually toss mine into the pool and my books would come out dry. That turned into a bet… five bucks, a hand shake and I tossed my book bag, with my books in it, directly into the pool!

It sank like a rock.

Kicking off my shoes and ditching my wallet I dove in after it. It was at the bottom of the deep end and I went down and easily recovered the bag. Surfacing I shook off a bit and with a small crowd watching, I unzipped the bag. Every book was bone dry, and Mike paid off. I didn't bother to tell him that I saw one of the other guys do the same thing earlier in the week, so I had the edge.

Mike should have known better because he had lost a bet for $10 several days earlier when I boasted that if he gave me anything… anything, I could make a contraption out of it that would fly. That evening after dinner he handed me the cash register receipt and a tooth pick and told me to make it fly. Later in Room 182 I sailed the contraption over to his bunk and he tossed me the cash. It was simple matter of taking the receipt and folding it in half crosswise then making to small rips in the fold and threading the tooth pick through them. I extended the wood to give the contraption a slightly forward CG and it flew quite well… just like the ones I used to make when I was in high school.

That’s what we were at ERAU to figure out. Fly something and get paid for it.

Those two little tales lead into this one- which I think really quantifies ERAU.

While waiting for a “Nav. II” class to begin I waved a 3x5 note card at Earl, a pal of mine who was seated behind me, and I boasted that I could take it alone and make an airplane that would fly to the front of the classroom. He bet me a seafood dinner that I couldn’t do it. Considering that I was on a starvation budget, one would think that such was a bet I’d never take. But I love seafood and I had an ace up my sleeve.

I decided to make one just for this
blog post.Yes, it flew...
I still got it, eh.

Since the beginning of the school year I’d been fascinated with the concept of flat plate lift. One afternoon I had spent nearly an hour in the Avion office being informed on the subject by one of the upperclassmen who was an engineering student. In my spare time I sat in my dorm room and built small airplanes with flat wings out of 3x5 cards. I had it down to a science where I could make a good flyer out of just one card. The airplanes had a one-piece wing that ran through a slit in the “V” shaped fuselage that was long enough so you could adjust the wing laterally for CG. The wings had small winglets and the vertical stabilizer was a section of the fuselage that was folded upward so the “V” pointed forward. That caused the relative wind to force the nose up and induce an angle of attack. At the front I folded the fuselage over itself a few times to add nose weight. The horizontal stabilizer was simply a rectangular flat piece that slid into a slot in the aft fuselage. They flew quite well, but when you gulled the wing… they flew great! My only problem now was that in class I didn’t have my trusty Xacto knife. 

I’d have to tare carefully…there was seafood at risk.

Our instructor in that Nav. II class was Mr. Mike Dougherty, which was great. I’d had him for my very first class at ERAU, “Foundations of Aeronautics.” He was a former Air Force KC-135 driver and was as cool as they come with plenty of aviation war stories and sick jokes. Today, that quality would come through for me.

I sat there during the lecture, passively constructing my little flat wing glider. I made my wing slots with a pencil point and then balanced for CG on the pencil as well. When it was done I held it down low and showed it off the Earl. He leaned over the desk and whispered,

           “Okay… now fly it.”

Hey, I said I love seafood.

I cocked back my elbow and gave her a toss.

The damned thing not only flew, but it took off!

Mr. Dougherty had been lecturing toward the other side of the room and I’m not sure what caught his attention; the glider in flight, or the rippling chorus of snickers and “whoa”s. The little plane flew right up and plopped down gently near his feet. He stopped his lecture and picked it up.

           “Who made this?” he asked casually as he examined the little airplane.

A half dozen fingers, led by Earl, pointed to me as I meekly raised my hand. Mr. Dougherty eyed the airplane intensely and then he wound up and gave it the skilled toss of someone who'd been launching paper planes since he was a little kid!

Again the little airplane took flight and stalling slightly a few times nearly made it to the classroom door. Everyone snickered and Mr. Dougherty just shook his head.

           “Come up after class and get yer “A” for the day,” he said pointing at me. Then he turned to the rest of the class and said firmly, “Don’t none of y’all get any ideas either.”

This little event, I’ve always thought, says a lot about what ERAU is all about.

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