NOTE: Eventually we may be adding a bulletin board feature so you can tell me I'm full of crap and argue with one another. In the mean time SEND COMMENTS TO webmaster@airbum.com :
We're still not yet sure if this thing is a good idea or not.

NOTE: THINKING OUT LOUD IS GOING TO BE UP DATED SPORADICALLY THIS SUMMER AS I'M ON THE ROAD A LOT. IT'LL HAPPEN ABOUT EVERY TEN DAYS THROUGH AUGUST

28 Jun 08—Stephen Stills and me (and Nash and that other guy)

21 Jun 08—Warning: Computers are Harmful to your Health
I think I now have a very clear picture of how I'm going to die: I'm going to be sitting at my computer, clutching my chest while my body vascillates between having a stroke and a heart attack. This will be after I've emptied an entire magazine of 9mm into my monitor. I HATE FRIGGING COMPUTERS!

Today is a classic example of why generations that followed my father's, the computer generation that includes even us baby boomers (actually, I'm a pre-boomer, but close) will not live as long as his did. Our computers are going to kill us. I'll shorten this up as much as I can, but it'll still drag on so be patient.

First, Thinking Outloud didn't get updated last week because I was in Oregon playing with tanks and I came back with some photos and videos I couldn't wait to share. But I've spent most of the last week trying to figure out how to do that. The stills coming out of the new cameras, were easy enough to sort out, but my super-sophisticated little hard drive camcorder has absolutely defied easy understanding.

JVC must stand for "Jerk! it's Very Complex" because, after probably ten hours of screwing around, I still haven't gotten it to talk to my computer without hours and hours of file manipulation. Then, this morning I noticd in teeny-tiny mouse type at the bottom of a manual page it says, "to connect to computer use cable PNxxxx, which is optional and must be purchased." YOU HAVE TO BE SH*TTING ME!

First, what kind of computerized anything, especially something with a hard drive, doesn't talk to a computer through a USB cable (it has a USB port right on the camera)? It uses a funky looking cable that plugs into its charging dock, not the camera itself.

And what kind of idiot company comes out with a digital anything and doesn't supply the cable necessary to transfer the files right to the computer in a useful form? Sounds like I need to pay a visit to a JVC product planner and put my rectal cranial crowbar to use.

I ponied up the forty bucks for the cable and two-day freight, but it won't show up until Tuesday so I still don't know if it'll solve the problem. I'm so damn frustrated I can't stand it! I have the files on my hard drive, but the amount of manipulation and new software it has taken to make them even remotely useful is outrageous.

Yeah, I know, this is just me venting about a problem most folks don't have, so they can't identify. But, how about this one:

I'd loaded the Browning in preparation for an iExecution and couldn't wait to blow off the steam by writing this blog. Then, there I am with my brain bulging from excess computer crap and Microsoft Word won't open! GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK! For about 20 minutes it kept telling me that this font and that font were corrupt, and I kept clicking "OK." Then I shut down and went through a bunch of fix-me-ups and it still doesn't work so I'm writing this right in the web software. Damn! That's not the way life is supposed to work!

WHAT GOOD IS A COMPUTER WITH A DEAD WORD PROCESSING PROGRAM? Espcially to a quasi-writer?

Alright, enough cyber-whining! When I get the videos worked out, we're putting them up on the Armor Journal web page. They're really fun. In the meantime, here's some armored eye-candy.

The only running Type 95 Japanese tank that we know of.	The armor was easily punched through by a 20mm and it used an aircooled, inline diesel.

M3A1 Stuart light tanks are my all around favorite. Its about the size of a full-size van and uses a Continental W-670 radial engine exactly as used in the Stearman. I'd LOVE to own one of these and it would clear my garage door by two inches.

1943 M-18 Hellcat tank destroyer. Lightly armored, heavily gunned, faster 'n snot. top: M18 Hellcat was the fastest tracked vehicle of WWII: 65 mph Bottom: The ever-present M4 Sherman. The Sherman and the Hellcat both used Wright R-975 radial engines.

7 Jun 08—A Blog in Two Parts: Digitals and D-Day

When I sat down to write this, I intended to do a light piece about this being the first day in my digital life, so-to-speak, as I’ll be shooting my first all-digital air-to-air mission this afternoon (B-25H and TBM). Then I typed the date and noted it was D-Day Plus One and other thoughts, more serious ones, crowded into my head. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to do a short brain dump on both. Baby blogs. Blogettes. Whatever.

A Digital Weekend:
If you scroll back to the March 22nd ‘08 installation of my rants, you’ll see my misgivings about going all-digital. But, the publishing world being what it is, and the incredible convenience digital photography (and everything else digital) offers, I had to give in and I spent more than I had invested in my first airplane (a Cessna 195 in 1965) on some of Canon’s not-quite-best (a couple of 40d’s–I can’t afford the really good stuff). And this weekend, I get serious about digitalizing new additions to Davisson’s on-going archive of neat mechanical stuff.

The day was rough as blazes and I nearly chipped a tooth on my shiny new Canon. Got nothing Earth shaking, but had a good time and met some really fine people.

This afternoon I’m doing an air-to-air mission on a B-25H, which, if you don’t recognize the significance of the “H”, it could stand for “hard hitting” as it has a 75 mm howitzer in the nose in addition to eight fixed, forward firing .50 calibers. I haven’t had the opportunity to shoot much air-to-air lately so I’m looking forward to this.

Another thing I’m looking forward to, which is definitely courtesy of the digital age, is employing the stitching software I mentioned in a blog a while back. This airplane is completely restored inside, so I’m going to do a series of panoramas and see how they work out.

This is three shots stitched

Then, tomorrow, I have an appointment at the Arizona Military History museum where, among other things, I’m hoping to shoot some interiors (panoramas) of their Russian T-55 tank that was captured in Iraq. Since a closed up tank in Arizona has to be the most perfect incubator for black widows, scorpions and rattlers that has ever existed, this may not happen. But I’m going to try. The AZ Mil. Museum has to be the best kept secret in the Southwest. It has a terrific series of chronological displays of every weapon and every uniform used by every combatant in every war from 1840 to Iraq. Amazing stuff all put in historical contest. They also have some really neat Russian fighting vehicles, you aren't likely to see elsewhere.

This Russian T-55 was captured in Iraq. The amazing thing is that the interior is exactly as captured and everything about the tank is live, including the machine gun on top. We didn't have time to shoot interiors, but that'll happen soon.

One of the coolest things about digital in this situation is the immediacy attached to the photos: I not only see them as I shoot them, but I’ll put some up in this space this evening and tomorrow for all to see.

You can’t imagine what a huge difference this is to the professional shooter. It not only eliminates the three days of dead time waiting for the film to be processed but saves wear and tear on my nervous system. “Did I have a camera failure? Was the exposure right? Did I capture the color in the background?” and on and on. Even after well over a thousand such missions, my inherent self-doubt always made that a helluva nerve wracking period. The photos will never be as crisp or satisfying as Kodachrome, but the process and the experience is light years better. Too bad they won’t last long enough for my grand kids to see them. But…..that’s another argument.

D-Day Plus One:
I absolutely cannot live through this period of June without having a mental movie playing in my mind that is a combination of “The Longest Day” and the thousands of pages of text and photos I’ve read about it.

64 years ago today, 24 hours after the landing, the outcome is still in doubt, and Allied troops are scrambling like crazy to maintain the tenuous foothold they hammered out yesterday. Paratroopers are still doing their best to regroup behind the lines and the surf still surges red. Bodies caught in the ebb and flow are beginning to swell and putrefy. Their buddies had to forge on and maintaining the invasion’s inertia takes temporary precedence over recovering sons, brothers, fathers and friends.

But, they would understand. They were soldiers and they would have no doubt that they’d eventually be given the respect they deserved. What they couldn’t imagine is that they would become part of an immense field of white crosses in a country whose friendship has since soured. But, for the most part, the French people remember, even if the government doesn’t.

Even those poor souls who were never found, or lay under crosses marked “unknown,” can rest easy. They have not been forgotten.

Increasingly, as I work on our new special issue, Armor Journal, I’m immersing myself even deeper into the ground combat that has always been scattered through out my thoughts. And, what has been an enormous (and often emotional) connection with those warriors and those times, has become even tighter. It saddens me that I’m going to watch as that generation fades away. What a helpless feeling of loss. My generation will remember, venerate and thank them to the end of our days. I only hope that following generations do that same.

An Anniversary Missed: Thinking Out Loud is a year old
Somehow I failed to note that a couple weeks ago, this long-winded stream of semi-conscious thoughts was a year old. Thanks to those who meet with me over cyber-coffee every Saturday morning to listen to me ramble on. And how are we doing so far?

31 May 08—A Dog that Sits

I have to be honest about it. Between the politics, the oil situation, the hassle of making a living, and a basically dreary looking future in which too many people, including the candidates, don’t really “understand,” I’ve been close to having an anxiety attack of late. However, just as I was contemplating the end of days, Sháhn-deen came scampering into the room and pawed at my legs to get in my lap and, without thinking, I said “sit” and she sat. Right then I realized everything was going to work out because I have a puppy that will sit, when asked. So, life is good.

A word about the world situation: it’s understandable that people want their short term problems to go away, bills being what they are, but it’s amazing they are so myopic. China/India demands and a shortfall in production (85 billion barrels produced, 86.5 bb barrels demanded) are at the root of high fuel prices and everything else that’s skyrocketing. I’m as green as you can get and still have a logical outlook and even I know something has to give. We need to drill. And we need more serious research. But, do you think China or India is worrying about being green while they kick our financial butts?

And don’t think pulling out of Iraq is going to be anything but a longterm disaster. As Iran moves in and takes over the area, their first move will be a tightening, then a total cut-off of oil. Period. Think it’s bad now? Ha! Wait until the people who absolutely hate our guts, radical Jihadists, control our oil jugular. And we're going to lose a lot more boys trying to straighten it out going back in than staying.

Kennedy put us on the moon with a presidential proclamation that said we’d do it in a decade and, in so doing, pumped life and enthusiasm into our technological soul. What I want the next president to say is, we’re going to hold them at the gate by gunpoint until we’re no longer energy dependent on ANYBODY and that includes developing alternate sources that make sense (repeat, make sense). Someone has to stop political posturing, draw a line in the damn sand and get on with saving America.

With a face like that, how can you worry about trivialities, like the end of the world as we know it?

As I’m writing this with foam coming out of my mouth, however, Sháhn-deen is circling around under me looking for the nutritional flotsam and jetsam that cascades down while I’m munching my way through work. As I look down at her, I know all I have to do is say “sit” and she’ll plop her butt down and look at me with her head cocked waiting for the next command. Her look is that of the cutest, most intelligent dog (I hate to use that word because it sounds so trivial) we’ve ever had. If I say “lay down” I know she’ll lay down. Then, if I drop to one knee, she’ll automatically roll over on her back asking for a tummy rub. How can you worry about oil prices and Jihadists rampaging through the neighborhood, when a trusting soul is offering you her pink belly to rub (we’re talking about the puppy here, folks).

God knows we loved Nizhoni and practically died right along with her, but Sháhn-deen truly is the ray of light her name stands for (Navajo). And, as we’re sitting in the backyard throwing a squeaky ball across the pool to send her racing after it and she excitedly returns it to our waiting hands, the problems of the world seem far away.

I have very bad feelings about the next few years, but we have water in the swimming pool, the Winchesters and Colts are loaded, and our puppy loves us. And on top of that, Hank was absolutely right: country boys will survive.

24 May 08—Ice Ages, Sweat and Logic

I hereby want to be the first to notify the world that Arizona has officially gone nuts. Barely 48 hours ago the official high was 109 degrees. 109!!!! In May yet!! Global Warming is upon us. Al Gore is finally right about something: we’re all going to become carbon footprints.  Then, this morning, when I dialed in ATIS getting ready to fly, the recorded voice said it was 9 degrees celsius. I called ground control and asked for that in real degrees: it was 49 freaking degrees! In May yet! Global warming, meet the new ice age!

I would like to make some profound remark about how we’ve brought such weather patterns on ourselves by firing so many rockets through the ozone layer that we’re letting the air leak out. Or maybe prove that it’s the net result of too many Nathan’s hotdogs being cooked at Coney Island. However, speaking as an engineer and someone who used to subscribe to Popular Mechanics, which gives me at least as many credentials as the media “experts” who keep explaining the world to us, I’d like to let you know that my considered opinion is that I have no damn idea what’s going on.  And neither does anyone else.

I know that there are scientists all around the world who have measured the polar ice and the polar bear population and point out that their reduction proves conclusively that the ice caps are going to move to Long Island and melt. Or something like that.

I also know there are scientists all around the world who have done the same measurements and say the polar bear population has been expanding steadily for over forty years (they now upset garbage cans here in Phoenix) and there’s more new ice than in any recent year. Both groups insist they can prove that Elvis is still alive and living in Secaucus, NJ. Which, of course, is silly: Elvis wouldn’t be caught dead in Secaucus even if he were dead.

I don’t have any answers, but, if I were to put this whole global warming thing into my mental computer and insist on a conclusion it would be something simple like, “I don’t know if it’s real or not, but why don’t we act as if it is real just as insurance. That can’t be a wrong decision, but ignoring it might be.”

At the same time, let’s get the media and pseudo-science out of the whole thing and look at the big picture, not focusing on our own little pet projects. Folks focused on ethanol not realizing we’re giving up our food supply to produce fuel that eats parts of most fuel systems and isn’t that clean anyway. We’re producing green cars like the Prius, not doing the entire equation: the additional energy required to produce short production run cars is going to be more than they save simply because the economy of scale isn’t there.

Okay, so those are ideas that don’t work, but, if we keep trying, sooner or later we’ll hit the right combination. It’s the effort that counts.

Me? I’m still driving my 18 year old Honda Civic that gets a steady 32.6  mpg IN THE CITY with the A/C on. It has 214,000 miles, runs like a top and courtesy of a new performance exhaust and cat converter whizzes right though emission testing. I’m not going to replace it, EVER, because, in the big scheme of things, it would take more energy and resources to replace than I could ever save with even the most efficient vehicle.

And as for the super-greenies who are willing to sacrifice our economy and world market position by slamming the lid on stuff like drilling in ANWR and off shore to protect a pitifully small number of species that will just move someplace else, they haven’t looked at the entire equation either.

There’s no doubt that we desperately need to streamline ourselves as a nation, but “efficiency” should be the by-word, not an attitude that says we’ll lower our standard of living to that which makes it easier for those coming across our borders to meet it. Tony Blair once said you can judge the quality of a nation by whether people are trying to get into, or out of it. And I guess that says something very clear about America. So, let’s hold on to that.

Let’s do the entire energy equation and make sure, when we’re saving a gallon of gas, we aren’t spending more energy to do it than we’re saving. Simple as that.

At the same time, let’s take a look around us and do the simple things: turn off the lights, turn up the A/C. Keep looking for energy sources that actually do make sense. Even modern nuclear sources now make sense, although everyone’s perception is tainted by old school technology and they haven’t caught up. And wind. Maybe sea surge. I don’t know, but there is something out there that works. We just have to make sure we’re looking at the big picture, not a snapshot we’re carrying in our own wallet.

17 May 08—Tanks for the Vacation Memories

Okay, the die has been cast: Marlene and I have committed to a vacation. An honest-to-God, screw-off-for-days-on-end vacation. And we’ll be gone twelve days! In the sixteen years we’ve been together, this will be a first. An absolute first! And to make it even more special, it’ll be the honeymoon trip to England we were supposed to take ten years ago. But, of course, there will be the Tiger tank!

First, about the vacation: all of Marlene’s family is from England, so we have someone to break us in on the driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road thing. That really has me worried. And being from Nebraska, I hope I can pick up on enough of the language to make myself understood.  Our goal is to do all of the touristy things, from castles to museums, to London hotspots. I’m looking forward to the castles and museums, but I’ve never been a hotspot kind of guy. Oh, well.

Incidentally, this is being financed by my daughter repaying a major debt she has owned us in conjunction with the Social Security Administration and Frequent Fliers. We’re shooting our wad all at one time.

Now, about the high point (for me, obviously): the possibility of driving a Tiger tank. One of the projects we have on a front burner here is the trial issue of a new magazine entitled Armor Journal. If you read Flight Journa, our other mag, Armor Journal be an exact parallel to that, but the emphasis is on ground combat, specifically AFV’s (armored fighting vehicles). If you don’t read Flight Journal, you should.

As with Flight Journal, AJ will have hardware oriented articles built around the personal experiences of tankers and soldiers in combat. This is combined with lots of modern and vintage photography of tanks and I’m doing something I’ve always wanted to try: panoramic shots of the insides of famous tanks so you see the entire interior in a single frame. To that end, I bought some high end stitching software that seamlessly stitiches multiple shots together. It’s an amazing piece of the software designer’s art.

This is my office shot in six separate shots. I dare you to find the seams. There aren't any! I wish you could see this in high-res: you can read the stickie notes on my computer. This covers about 120 degrees. Simply amazing!

Armor Journal is my personal brainchild and is built basically upon those interests that have been burning in my brain since I was a kid. In fact, owning a Stuart light tank is the only goal I set when I was fourteen that I haven’t yet satisfied, and given their prices, probably won’t. But in a week or two, I get to drive one of those, so at least I’m making progress in that direction. The first issue goes out in October, newsstands and bookstores only, no subs at first.

A WWII German Tiger E. I have a chance of driving one. How very cool! Photo: Jim Brown

And then there’s the England vacation connection: one of the world’s largest collection of operational tanks is in Bovington, England, and they’ve been amazingly cooperative on the AJ project. And there’s the possibility, when I’m spending two days there photographing their hardware, that I’m going to get a go at a German Tiger I. How cool is that!?  Even as a kid, that possibility never entered my mind.

Anyway, just thought I’d share some of what’s happening at the Davisson’s. Gotta go fly. See ‘ya.

10 May 08—Magazines, Memories and Storage

Recently, courtesy of a friend who is moving, I became the proud owner of about seventy pounds of old Air Progress magazines. They spanned back from its demise, around 1993, to the late 1950’s. He knew I was desperately looking for old mags in which my pireps had been printed so I could scan them and get them up on Airbum.com. And these moldy old pages were a veritable treasure trove of pireps. In cruising through those old mags, however, I found both fun and funny things, as well as discovering a few sad facts.

Smoki-Jo The Cat stands guard over a magazine treasure trove. Anyone who wants the 100 or so extras going back to the late 1950's drop me a note.

Magazines have always been the central core around which my life has been built. As a kid, I couldn’t wait for the next hotrod, gun or airplane magazine to hit the stands. In what laughingly passes for adulthood, a good percentage of my income has always been derived from writing for them and much of my pleasure comes from reading narrow-niche magazines for which I don’t write. The stack in the bathroom is heavy in Street Rodder, Rod & Custom, Wooden Boat and Archeology back issues and through those, I get to vicariously build and experience things, I know I’ll probably never get around to. That’s the goal of magazines, to entertain and educate and I never truly finish reading any particular issue because every time I flip one open that I’ve read ten times, I discover something I missed before.

When I started digging through the incredible pile of mags Ed Wischmeyer sent me, for one thing, it was as if I were reliving parts of my life. When reading the articles that came out of those periods, I came to realize/remember how much I was enjoying myself then. I found pireps from 65 hp SE5a replicas to 2100 hp Bearcats, and columns that dealt with the silly and the serious. Every so often a picture of me would pop up and I was reminded that yes, once upon a time I was young. I was also reminded that, when younger, I had more of a tendency to call a spade a spade and challenged the government and the industry on a regular basis pulling no punches in the process. I found my very first column and my very first cover, both published in 1969. So we’re talking just shy of four decades between then and how. Who’d a thunk?

One of the more fun pix I ran across. That's the actual French registration number on the CAP-10 I was evaluating. The caption on the picture by the Air Progress staff reads, "We couldn't have said it better ourselves." Don't you love the hair! Nov. 1974.

At the same time, I couldn’t escape the melancholy feeling that I had experienced a golden age of aviation that wasn’t likely to come again. I can’t explain that, since part of that comment makes absolutely no sense because, courtesy of the EAA, we’ve never seen such a powerful, alive period in sport aviation as we are experiencing today. But it is somehow different. Through the pages of those magazines, most of which were printed before Jim Bede ushered in the concept of the kit-built airplane, there was a warmer, closer feeling to the pages. Possibly because every homebuilt of any kind, was scratchbuilt and that said a huge amount about the population that was building those airplanes. There was more grease under more fingernails and fewer signatures on large checks. Although sport aviation was much smaller, there was a more down home feeling to the movement.

What I may have also been reacting to was the way the magazine business has changed. In those days, it was all sunshine and hope. Everything was increasing, both in market size and publishing technology. We felt as if we were really building something. Today, any hope among magazines is them hoping they are going to survive. It’s a very grim time in the magazine community.

In the next few years the magazine business, especially the narrow-niche mags like aviation, guns, etc., is going to have to be overhauled or disappear. Part of it is the simple fact that narrow niche interests are “graying out.” The readers are dying off and there are no young readers. Go to any fly-in or hotrod meet and see how grey hair dominates the landscape. Exactly what ARE kids interested in today? Computers? Hanging out at the mall?

And then there’s the problem of the internet and advertisers who have many more ways to get their messages out than in the past. Although, the word is that increasingly they are realizing banner ads aren’t working for them either, there’s no clear way they are going to go with their dollars and magazines are scrambling.

And then t