TOM'S BLOG THREE

[flaminghotsauce]

Unfortunately, the tornadoes were bad enough that being in an interior hallway would not have been enough. There are those times that only being underground can save a soul from these monsters. This was one of those times. Texas has tornadoes like this, and they'll peel the pavement off the roads.

Glad to see everyone checking in!

[Ed Burke]

I was thinking of you Tom, glad to hear that you went undamaged.

[Chris Ross]

Glad everyone is ok
Still worried about Smithy,
Haven't heard from him since before the GAAR

[Tom Goodrick]

My enjoyable run with this little Toshiba laptop has come to an end. I have been using it to race Need For Speed, to record sound files (90MB per song), to run trains, to hold photos (3 MB each) and to fly FS9. My Trainz simulations were the first to stop in mid run. Now my flights are stopping in mid flight. All of a sudden the operation stops and the computer turns off.

I am having RAM limit problems. Something in these programs causes the RAM to exceed its bounds.

In Trainz I don't know what causes memory growth once you have defined a railway and are just running trains. In FS I see the mechanism: As we fly a record of the flight is kept for Replay. I have never tested how long that replay can be. But it could be significant.

[Ed Burke]

Wow Tom, time to save, save, save, it's about to drop its bundle.

[Tom Goodrick]

Son Scott came to rescue. He advised 1) check for new video drivers; 2) get a cool lap platform to assure adequate cooling when the laptop sits on my lap; 3) get more ram. I took steps 1 and 2 today and the situation seems to have improved. I know it should not surprise me to learn that laptop computers were not designed to actually sit on laps. I sit partly reclined on half a loveseat with my legs out straight and the laptop on the thighs. That partly blocks the path for cooling air into the computer. The cool pad is something I did not know about until today. It cost $20 at Wal-Mart. It has a USB cable to get power from the computer to run a small fan in its center forcing air upwards at the center of the bottom of the computer. It is "S" shaped in cross-section to give the warmed air a place to escape. It is a good thing this computer has 3 USB jacks. They are all in use at the moment: Wireless optical mouse receiver in one, joystick in another (yes, I was just flying), and cool pad connected to the third. To complete the really silly image I am wearing headphones with a long chord plugged into the front of the computer so I can listen to 1950's jazz on Pandora.

I flew 134 minutes without having a problem. That shows we did something right. Also the screen display is sharper.

[Tom Goodrick]

I am having a lot of trouble with throttle control. On this laptop with its current generation of windows, I cannot fool Windows into thinking my stick only has two axes. That made it easy to use key controls for throttle so my left hand could work the throttle and my right hand could work the stick. Now I keep messing up the throttle on landing.

Nuts!

[Tom Goodrick]

I have found the secret to using the computer for time travel. It is a combination of Bing and Google Earth. The point is to use these programs to investigate places where you have lived in the past. When you look at scenes that used to be very familiar, like houses you lived in, memories come back in amazing strength.

Neither Bing nor Google Earth are perfect in themselves. But they work well together even if their originators don't. Google Earth combines satellite photos with street level panoramic photos. You see a pretty clear depiction of a neighborhood with labeled streets and see camera icons where the street photos were made. Then you click on the camera icons and see clear photos of the selected location. Unfortunately, the street camera coverage is spotty in places. But the street level photos can see under tall trees such as on my lot. My house is shown clearly from three positions.

Bing starts in a Map mode to let you move around after jumping into a city. You can zoom on the map to see considerable detail. Then you can switch to an aerial view in multiple levels including a low level that shows considerable detail of an individual house. But the view is from a fairly steep angle, not the normal angle you would see if driving on the street. The Bing photos are very bad when tree foliage is full. You cannot see any part of my house. But many of the photos have been taken during late winter and spring. Bing is great for looking at Marinas.

Of course changes occur so some areas will have a mix of familiar and unfamiliar scenes, particularly when going back 60 or more years. I have a clear Bing photo showing the spot where my parents built their first house in an area that became a parking lot. It was covered by trees on Google Earth with no street photo. The Bing shot is in the winter. I found a couple of old family photos (including one of a 5-year-old version of me driving by on my chain-drive trike) and one showing my baby brother in line with a neighbor's garage that is still there. It proved it was the right spot that is now empty. But I found many houses that are now just as they were then. I could even "walk" around the neighborhood and see schools and friends' houses.

Then there are airports. Bing is terrific for seeing the detail layout of airports. You can also see how it merges with surrounding scenery. Unfortunately, local elevation changes are not easily seen because of the steep angle.

[Tom Goodrick]

I have been looking for this accident report for three weeks, since it was mentioned on local TV. A man was flying his own twin in "visual conditions" when crashed short of the runway, killing himself, his wife and his 5 kids. The reason I was interested was because I remembered this was one of the periods we have had recently where we have many pop-up thunder showers all over the area. When there are storms around I don't mess around waiting for local TV to talk about them. I put a local TV station's regional NEXRAD on my computer full time. I'll minimize it but check it periodically. I see storms form from nothing to green, then a yellow center, then that expands to a larger blob with a red center, all without moving an inch! So imagine that you are cruising along nice and happy and suddenly one of these forms on your path and comes up to get you!

The NTSB took along time to issue the report on this crash. I don't know why. There is no mention of pop-up storms but I remember they were plentiful on the evening of this crash though the crash occurred at 1740 hrs in visual conditions where you'd think any forming storm would be seen and avoided.

Here's the NTSB Preliminary report:
www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20110710X31135&key=1

[Tom Goodrick]

How hot is it? It is so hot that at 7am the temp at 20,000 ft was 25F or -5C. That's std + 20C for the performance charts. That is the same temp it would be at 10,000 ft on a normal day.

How do I know this? A local TV channel has a "weather question of the day." This morning they gave a multiple choice of the temp at 20,000 ft in F. The winner was 25F. I could not believe it was that hot. Most of the time the hot surface temp does not change the temp at altitude by much. I checked my books and I checked FS using RW on a former hot day and found -8 C. But this guy had checked an observation this morning. He was right.

We expect to see 101 again today. It's 98 now (12:30) in the shade here.

Yesterday a pilot (another retired NASA engineer) who just bought an ultralight that he could fly off a pasture he owns with no medical, tried to take off. The thing had no climb power. It got just above tree level and dumped him on his face. It was his last flight. I doubt if there were any performance charts in his POH.

[Tom Goodrick]

Well, I guess I will be hanging out more on this Forum, at least for a while. I have been spending time on gun forums but I have resolved all issues of what guns to buy and what ammo to use. Those gun forums are pretty boring if you are not trying to learn something. It's also a little scary to learn how many guys (and gals) are running around with concealed guns (many legal, some not). What scares me as much as anything about that is that I am now qualified to run around with a concealed handgun! And I never had any training in the legal issues associated with walking down the street "packing heat." My 89-year-old brother-inlaw, Arlow Skjegstad had to take a course in Minnesota when he recently got his Concealed Carry Permit. The course taught close defense strategies (where the bad guy tries to grab your gun) as well as various shooting positions. Arlow is 89 going on 50 and a WWII vet. a cool guy, a plumber by trade who owns 1/3 the apartment buildings in Minneapolis. He summers in a lake-side condo in Edina MN and winters in Orlando. I wish him the best because he worked hard for all of what he has. He's a great guy who stops by here twice a year. So anyway he was trained in what to do when he carries a gun. I had to get an Alabama Pistol Permit in order to carry both ammo and guns in my car to and from a suitable shooting place. Actually I did not need the permit as I was doing things. The law says I can buy a gun at a store and carry it home unloaded. Then I can carry it unloaded to my favorite shooting range which is a store in Huntsville where the "back room" is an old motel made into a heated/air-conditioned shooting range where I buy ammo and spend $10 to shoot it all up. Then I carry the empty gun back home. My only other use for the gun is within my own home when the Home Invaders come. I have two guns, a .22cal for cheap practice and a .40cal for real practice. But I have no intention of ever carrying my gun concealed on the street. What if I see someone beating and robbing someone else. Am I supposed to intervene? Not unless I am the one being beaten.

So anyway the real reason I will have more time now is that I will probably soon be kicked off landofncis.proboards.com/ where I have been hanging out for a while. This is a place for fans of the CBS show NCIS where Mark Harmon leads a team of agents based in DC (filmed in Los Angeles). I have been a fan of the show for a few years and have bought all the CD's for seasons 1-7. 8 is available and 9 will be starting next Tuesday at 7pm CDT.

This fan site is populated mainly by ladies who think several of the shows male actors are real hot. They collect and pass around photos and dabble a bit in what goes on in the action on the series. I tried informing them of a few details they may have missed and they took extreme offense. My main fault is I like one of the female actresses and they all think she is a terrible witch. I tried to prove she is a decent character. So what I said was demeaning and insulting. I tried to be so diplomatic too.

[Tom Goodrick]

I got this from the monthly bulletin from Flight Aware. Here's a good-lookin' blond lady who ahhapend to be a young 2nd Lieutenant in the ANG 10 years ago flying F-16's out of Andrews AFB when she and her commander were scrambled to intercept Flight 93 if it got to the DC area.

www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Penne

The only problem was they had very little live ammo - 100 rounds of training ammo. Their mission was to crash into the B757 to bring it down. Her commander was taking the cockpit and she was to takeout the tail.