Coincidental Floss: Fly-y

Buy This. Right Now.

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:21:48 GMT

Updated: See the YouTube trailer below!

I have previously disclosed on this site, more than once, my habit of collecting DVDs, especially those that have anything, whatsoever, to do with flying. There is, apparently, a masochistic underpinning to this, because so much of what I collect with such joy is, by most objective standards, terrible. (I somehow managed to inherit this trait sideways from my brother, a man who won't bother with the culturally accepted worst movie of all time, Plan 9 From Outer Space, because it's too good.)

In other words, I own a lot of movies with airplanes in them that are so bad they're ... well, still bad, but, as I said, they have airplanes in them.

Once in a while, though, something will find its way into my collection that reminds me that not every movie with an airplane in it is a guilty pleasure. Some of them, but not many, let you check your guilt at the door, and are simply pleasures.

Fearless Widget Productions' Flying the Finch is just that: a pleasure.

It's a lavish and loving look at at a fairly obscure airplane, a 1940 Fleet Model 16B "Finch", used as a trainer by the Royal Canadian Air Force as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Program during World War II. The film features one of the few surviving and actively flying examples of the type, owned and operated by my friends the Tiger Boys in the city of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. (More disclosures on my connections to the film in a moment.)

Flying the Finch presents the history of the type and of the individual airplane, as well as an affectionate look at Tiger-Boy-in-Chief Tom Dietrich and a "rotten little airport kid" who grew up to be really nice guy named Bruce. Actor and, more importantly, exceptional pilot Michelle Goodeve serves as host, while pilot's pilot and long-time filmmaker Glenn Norman took care of things behind the camera, and in the editing room.

And then there's the flying.

Shot in rich, warm high-definition, the blue sky and the green grass and the yellow airplane made my television disappear, and replaced it with an open window. It made me happily homesick for my belov'd southern Ontario, and I'm betting it will have the same effect on other viewers, even those unlucky enough to have never been. It captures the essence of flying for its own sake, especially the passionate finesse of flying an antique.

A documentary like this strikes a balance: it's part history lesson, part human interest, part pilot-talk, and part "Holy crow, would you just look at how beautiful that is! Really! Just look at it! Are you looking?!?! How do I rewind this thing?!?"

In so many cases, that balance is, well, unbalanced. Usually, the human interest and history bits are about right, the pretty bits are shortchanged because it's cheaper to Ken Burns your camera across an old photo than it is to buy avgas, and the pilot-talk is just a tease, if it's there at all. Some films can talk about an airplane, but not really offer a look at the cockpit, never mention things like approach speeds or how soon you lift the tail up on takeoff, or, most unforgivably, not actually show a landing for goodness' sake. If you're going to tell me about an airplane, you had better tell me what it's like to fly it, or there will be trouble.

Flying the Finch pulls it off. Fearless Widget found the secret to producing a balanced documentary: include the right amount of everything.

One of the very best things about this DVD is that it is "just" the first in a series.

One of the most remarkable things about the DVD is how much it made me want to fly the Finch on my next visit to Guelph, even though that would inevitably mean taking time away from flying the Moths that drew me there in the first place.*

Which brings me to my previously promised disclosure:

I know most of the people involved in the production of the film. Glenn and Michelle are like family, only better, because they're family by choice, not by chance. (Nothing by chance, after all ...) Tom, the man for whom they invented the word "avuncular", and his business partner Bob "knock knock" Revell actually made me a Tiger Boy on my first visit, a decision that was every bit as kind but potentially ill-advised as feeding a stray dog; I just keep going back.

Conventional wisdom demands, then, that I apologize, or, at the very least, somehow qualify my opinion, because it's presumed that more knowledge equals less objectivity. Yes, the people and places and things in the film carry some extra meaning for me, but that doesn't mean I suddenly forgot the difference between a good airplane movie and a lousy movie with airplanes in it.

I have way too many of those to be considered anything less than an expert.

If you like airplanes, especially old ones, if you understand - or want to - why absurdly lucky chumps like me fly them, then do what I told you at the beginning: Buy it. Right now.

You'll love it, and, besides, 50% of the proceeds go to the restoration and upkeep of the Tiger Boys' Antique Aeroplane Collection - aeroplanes that deserve to keep flying.

Here's the trailer, courtesy of YouTube:

*-Note: I was also drawn to the place by the people. But don't tell Bob. He'll never let me hear the end of it.

Be Just Like John Travolta!

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:22:10 GMT

No, not Sweathog Travolta.

Not Vincent Vega Travolta.

Not even Battlefield Earth Travolta.

No, in this case, you can be like Airliner Pilot Travolta thanks to the Interweb and this great and surprisingly high-res VR view of an A380 cockpit courtesy of French photography Gilles Vidal. Use your mouse to look around and the wheel (or the controls on the bottom of the screen) to zoom in and out. It's the next best thing to being the sort of person that a company like Airbus actually invites to be the first non-test-pilot to fly an airplane like the A380.

Even if the slight fisheye and so-close-but-you-can't-quite-touch-it effects of the VR do make you feel a bit like (wait for it ...) the Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

Sorry. I couldn't resist. That's we we in the self-aggrandizing world of online self-aggrandizement call "an easy one."

Free Soup - 5,764 Kilometers That-a-Way

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:22:17 GMT

The latest Electric Moth, a regular email update from the de Havilland Moth Club in the UK, included the following invitation, something that is nearly as irresistible as it is British:

Tiger Moths at Cambridge
Saturday 26 January will be the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the first Tiger Moth with Marshalls at Cambridge Airport. It is believed to be a unique record that a Tiger Moth has been based on site continuously since January 1938. Terry Holloway, Group Support Executive, has issued the following invitation:

"If any Tiger Moths would like to fly in to Cambridge Airport on the morning of Saturday 26 January 2008 we would be delighted to provide a bowl of soup and to take some photographs for posterity which we will distribute to the world's media."

I can't begin to express how much I'd actually love to go.

If I could talk some of (my fellow) Tiger Boys into loaning me an airplane (because why not?), starting in Guelph, ON, would give me a nice head start, as opposed to flying from here at home. Flying during daylight, I figure I could make it from Guelph to Cambridge in about 5 days, with approximately 89 stops for petrol, one way, setting aside the cold and wet bit in the middle.

There is, of course, a very real possibility that the trip could end in tragedy - the soup could be cream of mushroom.

Such are the risks we aviators, jaunty daredevils and captains of the clouds, must consider any time we slip the surly bonds.

A Shiny New Object

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 04:26:14 GMT

Today, 7-8-07, Boeing rolled out the 787, their first all-new airliner since the 1994 introduction of the 777. Boasting a 20% increase in fuel economy, a 65% increase in passenger window size, and a 400% increase in internal humidity (no, really), the 787 represents a remarkable technical achievement. However, far and away the most extraordinary thing about the airplane's coming out party was the fact that someone at Boeing was drunk enough to consider me, not to mention my boss, Brett, "Very Important". So Very Important, in fact, that we had badges reading "VIP", and found ourselves in the 10th row for the ceremony.

Yesterday, a group of us from the Flight Simulator team attended a "rollout eve" celebration at the Museum of Flight at Seattle's Boeing Field airport. The event called for a dress code of "business casual", which people with real jobs define very differently than those of us at Microsoft. To us "business casual" means "shoes on". To the rest of the world, it means "jacket and tie". Men's Wearhouse stores around the Puget Sound region saw a nice uptick in sales as we scrambled to prepare.

We attended both as invitees, and as staff, demoing Flight Sim to airline executives and others from around the world. Right up until the time that the good stuff started, that is, at which point all of our monitors mysteriously powered down, and we went outside to see something that had never happened before: one of each of Boeing's "7-series", posed together for photos.

First to arrive, naturally, was a 707, flying past at 7:07PM. While there was a great deal of speculation that the 707 involved would be the one owned and flown by former Sweathog John Travolta, that was not the case. This particular aircraft is owned and operated by Omega Air Refueling, the only civilian organization authorized to engage in mid-air refueling. Technically, the airplane would then be the world's only KC-707, but not a KC-135, since it is equipped only for drogue refueling, and has no "boom". It was loud and the engines were smoking like guests on the Dean Martin Show as it flew overhead just like a big ole jet airline-o is supposed to.

After that, another airplane arrived every ten minutes - a 717 (which counts, honest), followed by a 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777. The large digital clock setup for the attendees even read 7:67 and 7:77 instead of 8:07 and 8:17, a gesture straight from the "nice touch" department. It's also worth noting that the 747 that took part was the Rolls Royce testbed for the 787's new Trent engine, and carried one in the #2 position, letting us see at least part of a 787 airborne.

Each of the jets did a flyby (actually, since the airspace hadn't been waivered for display flight, and since low approaches aren't permitted at that particular airport, each jet legally did a "go around") and then landed. Upon landing, each airplane taxied past us in review, then parked, each successor nosing up to the tail of the airplane in front of it, like dogs getting acquainted.

The next afternoon, I met up with one of our contacts from Boeing's marketing department at the Westin hotel in downtown Seattle, and joined a group of other (read: real) VIP's on a bus to the Boeing factory in Everett. Like just about every other event we've attended together, this one really didn't begin until I found myself in a golf cart racing to meet Brett who was trapped at a gate by rightfully unsympathetic security officers. But that's likely another story.

It is a strange thing to be led along a red carpet through the largest building in the world, especially as we were ushered past thousands of people who had actually built the airplane we came to see. Our seats were in the 10th row of a venue that seated something like 15,000 people. The show featured live music (including an ensemble of musicians that blew something from every continent - the Australian actually shook the place - again, the largest building in the world - with his didgeridoo), some live and prerecorded video cutaways, and a few surprisingly concise speeches by Boeing executives. The master of ceremonies was none other than master of gravitas Tom Brokaw, whose resonant baritone filled the space, nearly outdoing the chap with the didgeridoo.

If you've never attended or seen a new aircraft rollout, it is a dramatic event, full of both pomp and circumstance, though, admittedly, I've never been to any event without circumstance. It is equal parts revival meeting, sales pitch, and old-world coming out party. When the moment finally came, the back of the stage (actually, oversized factory doors) split in two, and the daylight streamed in abruptly, unwelcome at first, like an uncle you can't stand until you've had at least one glass of merlot. Then, the belle of this particular ball was brought gracefully into view to sustained applause.

Once the doors were open, we were free to walk past the stage and out into the azure afternoon, and take a good close look. It really is a pretty airplane, though at first glance, it doesn't seem to be much of a departure from the tube-with-two engines paradigm that has served so well for so long. Then, once you've taken in the basic shape, you eyes start to find a few details - the slender and graceful slope of the nose, the scalloping of the trailing edges of the engine nacelles, and, most of all, the way that form playfully chases function all along the impossible compound curves of what is certainly Boeing's most elegant wing.

Generally speaking, I prefer airplanes with a lot more history behind them - anything with an electrical system is usually both too new and too fangled for my tastes. But, as modern jetliners go, the 787 is well positioned to become my favorite, likely eclipsing the prettiest so far, the 757, and, if one may be forgiven for blasphemy, the Airbus A340. It's worth pointing out that I was conspicuously not invited to the rollout of either of those aircraft, so it is certainly possible that I may be a tad biased.

Irregardless, to use the vernacular of the peasantry, it was a great day for Boeing, and certainly a great day to be someone that Boeing mistakenly thought was important. We will all certainly be watching for the first flight with great interest.

If You'd Like to Learn More About Finland ...

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:08:04 GMT

Why not ring Mr. Griffith, of Hemel Hempstead?

However, if you'd prefer to learn more about my recent trip to Canada, have a look at my latest piece on the FSInsider website, right there on the Internets.

A Blue Angel Gone West

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 04:01:27 GMT

Photo Courtesy of the Aero-News Network

With all of the tragedies in the news of late, the loss of something so stalwart, so seemingly indestructible as a Blue Angel seems somehow unusually poignant. As of this writing, the Navy hasn't released the aviator's name - it wouldn't be difficult to determine, but that, along with every other minute detail of the crash, will be widely known soon enough. (Click the image for Aero-News' unparalleled up-to-the-minute reporting.)

For now, we mourn the loss of a symbol of courage, of optimism, and of strength. We mourn the loss of someone whose skill and expertise, and those of the giants upon whose shoulders he stood, represent a pinnacle of achievement.

Most of all, we mourn the loss of someone who, perhaps better than most of us, understood what it is to fly.

I Get Too Many Magazines

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 22:44:56 GMT

My people aren't available to provide the current monthly subscription count on such short notice, but last time I checked, it's somewhere in the low-to-mid 40's. Really.

The fact that I'm roughly three-quarters meticulous about keeping the stack organized and keeping only the most current issues makes our home look like a dentist's office from ten years in the future, with fewer lead vests and less drilling. Thankfully, it's my only vice. Yes, I know in a previous post, I referred to another "only vice" - no, not French prostitutes, but compulsive DVD collecting.

So there's clearly no contradiction here: subscribing to magazines and buying DVDs ... that is my only vice.

But I digress.

Anyway, given that the number of subscriptions I have is already several miles north of ridiculous (just outside of Simpleton), one more couldn't possibly hurt.

How happy I was, then, to have rediscovered an old favorite from down under - Classic Wings. One of the best classic / warbird magazines around, Classic Wings is a lighter and glossier FlyPast with an Australia / New Zealand bent, so in addition to lots of Spitfires and Moths and things, you'll find things like Winjeels, Wirraways, and Warbirds over Wanaka.

As one of the least discriminating magazine connoisseurs I know, I highly recommend it.

Oh, Come On!

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:27:37 GMT

Last night, I watched a bit of Top Ten Bombers on the Military Channel (formerly Discovery: Wings, RIP).

One of the honorees, and rightly so, was the Avro Lancaster. While it was a little surprising that they didn't mention the "Upkeep" bombs of the famous "Dam busters" raids, that wasn't the bit that found me sputtering blog-post-titles at the television.

No, the thing that got my hackles in a bunch, to rudely mix metaphors, was the fact that they showed the wrong airplane, twice, trying to pass off a B-24, and then, even more inexcusably, a B-25 as Lancasters.

For those among you who are perhaps less than intimately acquainted with the details of fly-y trivia, here are some photographs taken at AirVenture, in Oshkosh, WI, last summer:

First, the Lancaster, one of just two in flying condition, this one based at the excellent Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, ON:

Next, the Commemorative Air Force's B-24, "Diamond Lil" (this is technically an LB-30, as it was originally slated for the British RAF, but I'm not sure even I care about that):

And, finally, Larry Kelley's beautiful B-25, "Panchito". (I met Larry at my first AirVenture in 1989, when his UC-78 "Bamboo Bomber", unlike ours, didn't quite get ready in time for the show):

Now the B-24, at least, is a twin-tailed, 4-engine bomber of similar size to the "Lanc", but the B-25 is much smaller, with only two engines. The Lancaster is a taildragger, like all of the best airplanes, and is a low wing, while the other two are tricycle-gear, shoulder wing aircraft.

Do these airplanes really look so much alike?

Airplane mistakes are to be expected, even savoured, in fictional films. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, there wasn't a single "movie of the week" that didn't feature an airliner that magically switched identities a few times in flight, nearly always becoming a B-52 for the shot of landing gear retracting after takeoff.

But this was a documentary. They should have just gotten it right.

Oh, and my taxes are too high, my back hurts, and I'm hungry.

Big Rocks and Long Props - Volume II

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:40:29 GMT

For anyone who has seen Volume I, then you know that Volume II is a must have. If you haven't seen either of them, check out this teaser for Volume I:

Even non-pilots can see that this is some remarkable flying. It's looks a bit crazy at first, but the more you watch, the more you see that these guys just know their airplanes and their own capabilities very, very well. On a base level, I enjoy watching anyone who is supremely competent at what they're doing - for simplicity's sake, I call it Gegenschadenfreude - especially, of course, flying.

Be sure to check out their home page here.

Great Eye Candy, But the Flight Models Suck

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:20:18 GMT

Beautiful visuals, highly-detailed aircraft models with huge poly counts, great lighting effects, self shadowing, complex animations ... that just don't fly like real airplanes.

I'm speaking, of course, of the movie Fly Boys, released on DVD tomorrow, which I had the chance to see in very good company at its premiere last July at EAA's AirVenture.

As popcorn movies go, it's certainly palatable if A) the popcorn is very, very good, and 2) there are no pilots, history experts, or French prostitutes watching with you to point out the inaccuracies. Like so many films of the vaguely-historical-fiction genre, Fly Boys conjures images of a committee of writers sitting around a table saying something like "Okay ... we've got a group of volunteers from all kinds of diverse backgrounds who head off to France to risk their lives, fighting in the first widespread aerial battles the world has ever seen ... what can we do make this interesting?" Thankfully, this film doesn't take nearly as many liberties with history as Pearl Harbor, but, like that film, the CGI non-real flying scenes look almost unbearably ... non-real.

Airplanes twist, turn, and skid with absurd power and energy, control surfaces move with terrible exaggeration, and, like seemingly every other computer-generated flying machine we've seen on the silver screen, they drift around at impossible angles of attack. We saw this in Pearl Harbor, in King Kong (where ailerons moved backwards at times) - even the pteranadons in Jurassic Park III were guilty. Fly Boys feels worse, somehow, because the director Tony Bill is a pilot and history buff, and a number of notable pilots were involved in the production. Even at least two of the actors, James Franco and David Ellison, already were or became pilots during production. (For a good laugh, check out the flash movie on the official website - watch a Nieuport 17 float around with full left rudder shoot up ... another Nieuport 17, also with full left rudder, since it's a copy of itself ... just go look.)

Bill was quoted in an article in Air & Space magazine as saying "I can guarantee you this," he continues. "No one, no matter how expert, will be able to pick the real from the CGI planes much of the time." I wish that were true. But it isn't, not even close.

With so much expertise around, why does the animated flying look so completely unbelievable? Why didn't they just ask me to look it over first? I know a thing or two about complaining about simulated flying, after all ...

Perhaps a better question to raise is this: If the storyline is weak and predictable, and the the effects so unpalatable ... why am I buying it tomorrow?

Well, first of all, I have a problem. I'm a compulsive DVD purchaser. Thankfully, this is the only vice I have, the single flaw that keeps me from blinding the world with utterly boring perfection.

More importantly, I'm buying the movie because of the all-too-scarce real flying. What there is is beautifully done. Breathtaking, at times. There are Nieuport 17 replicas (even the underpowered ultralight versions with the wrong wings are pretty), two Fokker DR1 replicas, a Bristol F.2, Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5, and even a 1908 Bleriot monoplane. Ken Kellett of Kermit Weeks' "Fantasy of Flight" (and a gracious host during a week long research trip for Flight Simulator 2004) did a lot of the flying, and the aerial coordination was handled by the sadly late, great Ray Hanna. (For a clip of Ray Hanna doing what he did better than just about anyone - flying a Spitfire low and fast - click here. If you're offended by the language at the end of the clip remember that the speaker is British, and that word isn't the same there as it is in the US, and then ask yourself what you'd say instead.)

So, I suppose the fact that I'm so easily seduced by a few pretty shots of real airplanes that I'll plunk down my hard(ly)earned shekels for the 2-disc special edition (as I did for Pearl Harbor, and just about any other movie one might describe as fly-y) makes me part of the problem. I'll try to compensate by watching The Blue Max or Hell's Angels again. Or maybe I'll even jump ahead one war, and throw in the one movie whose use of CGI airplanes almost entirely failed to offend me - Tmavomodrý svet (Dark Blue World).

Or, more likely, I'll buy the best popcorn you can get on a modest Flight Simulator Community Evangelist's salary, and watch Fly Boys with my wife and cats, none of whom are French prostitutes. And they're all used to me complaining.

Happy Birthday Bob Hoover!

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:35:13 GMT

As noted on Aero-News, legendary pilot Bob Hoover turns 85 today. When I was 12 years old, we flew our Cessna T-50 as a camera ship in formation with Hoover flying a de Havilland Fox Moth. My dad gave me the controls for a few moments so that now, 26 years later, I can say "I flew in formation with Bob Hoover". Consider it said.

I had a nice chat with Hoover at Oshkosh last year - when I reminded him about flying with him, he remembered the Fox Moth immediately (and he wasn't just being kind - he remembered the unusual orange paint scheme) and told me that the picture that was taken from our airplane hangs in his bar at home.

For more on Hoover, check out the Aero-News writeup here:

If you've never seen him fly, there's a decent look at his justifiably famous "energy management" routine here:

Our Cessna T-50 at Oshkosh in 1989.

To see what a Fox Moth looks like, click here.

Win a Suborbital Trip

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:07:10 GMT

.:: From Aero-News ::.

Microsoft Kicks Off High-Flying Vista Promotion

We're giving away a trip into space. Or, at least, just barely up to space. Which would still be fantastic. I'd give Brett's left ... shoe to go.

Here's the "good" part:

"Employees of Microsoft Corporation, its respective affiliates, subsidiaries, prize suppliers, promotion, advertising and promotional agencies, and the immediate family members and persons living in the households of each are not eligible to enter."

That's it.

I quit.

Unless our stock price goes up to the point where I can just pay cash ...