Thursday, June 30, 2022

"Where the Cold War Started"

 I saw this surfing the web, it is a different take, I thought the Cold war really started over Berlin with Stalin trying to cut off the city and force the allies to leave, although Sir Winston did say that the "Iron Curtain" was falling on Europe in his 1946 speech, but the Americans didn't really realize it until 1948.  Before then, we were in our postwar glow and the fastest demobilization in history, the Armies and Navies that defeated the Axis powers were "Demobbed" as they say and the equipment scrapped. Stalin was thinking postwar before the war was over and he played Roosevelt like a fiddle and he then snowed Truman, although I think Truman didn't buy the "Grandfather Russia" act that Stalin was running" unlike Roosevelt, Just my 0.02.

Here is a "Warsaw Uprising" blogpost I did 4 years ago, it explains a lot about the uprising.

 

                                    Monument to the Warsaw Uprising

Where the Cold War Began

Thoughts in and around geopolitics.

I stood on a balcony in Warsaw this past week to gaze at the Vistula River. The Vistula runs wide and deep, the guardian of Warsaw from the east. Poland has seen existential threats from all directions. In the 20th century, the danger came from Germany to the west and from Russia to the east. Poland was once an empire, but for much of its recent history, it has been a victim. And the Vistula is where we must remember an episode that may not have resulted in the most Polish deaths but that nonetheless exemplifies the brutality and betrayal that was visited upon the country not so long ago.

In 1945, Germany was collapsing. A quasi-government in Poland called the Lublin Committee was emerging from the ashes, preparing to build a free Polish government and allow Poland to take control of its destiny. The future of Poland had been discussed extensively at the meetings of the big three – Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Roosevelt and Churchill favored the Lublin Committee. Stalin was appalled. For Stalin, a pro-Soviet or at least a Soviet-controlled Poland was essential. Then as today, the Russian objective was strategic depth. Moscow had nearly fallen to the Germans, saved only by winter and distance. Controlling Poland was a simple matter of safety. Moscow therefore wanted the Lublin Committee replaced by a communist government under Russian control.

Roosevelt and Churchill opposed this, but they had a different sense of Stalin and how to handle him. Churchill saw Stalin as the moral and strategic danger to their plan to spread liberal democracy to the east. Roosevelt believed that whatever Stalin might be, he had to be persuaded that the Lublin Committee would not pose a threat to Russia. Roosevelt believed deeply in the power of personal relations to the point that it might overwhelm geopolitical imperatives. I don’t think he was naive, but he believed Stalin had the upper hand militarily and that the only viable option was trying to convince him that the U.S. and Britain had no bad intentions. What was benign to them was a mortal threat to Stalin. Even so, Stalin indicated vaguely that the Lublin Committee would be respected.

During World War II, as the Russians approached Warsaw from the east, the Polish Home Army, a resistance force inside Warsaw, rose up against the Germans. At this moment, Stalin halted the Russian advance. His explanation was that Russian forces needed to regroup and be resupplied. Warsaw was Stalin’s for the taking. Some reorganization might have been needed, but the Russian army stopped for weeks. The Germans carried out the slaughter they were famous for, decimating the Home Army and allowing Russia to enter Warsaw as the only force capable of governing. The Lublin Committee was brushed aside, and a communist party subservient to Russia was imposed, remaining in power until the Soviet Union fell. In other words, Stalin stopped to give Hitler time to slaughter Stalin’s Polish enemies, and once completed, Stalin advanced into a devastated city.

This is where the Cold War began. Stalin did not trust Churchill or Roosevelt. In his view, Russia paid the price for crushing Hitler – in spite of the fact that he had allied with Hitler to invade and divide Poland in 1939. Roosevelt believed he could forge personal trust with Stalin to avoid conflict, which was perhaps the only course possible since a Western military insertion into Poland was impossible. The deep doubts about Russia were frozen into a long-term distrust and created 46 years of conflict.

When I stepped out on that balcony in Warsaw, a cocktail in hand, I did not know that this was the river behind which Stalin halted, and to my rear was the city where he welcomed Hitler’s slaughter of the Poles. I saw a deep and deceptively calm river but could not see the blood that had been spilled to assure Russia’s strategic depth. The irony was that I was in Warsaw to address the strategic challenge posed in 2022 by Russia in Ukraine, the massive Polish effort to sustain the Ukrainian resistance, and my own country’s presence in Poland, supplying weapons to Ukraine and with the 82nd airborne deployed.

Russia continues to seek strategic depth all these years later, and continues the contest it began on the banks of the Vistula. Russia lost Poland, and now it’s fighting a war to take hold of Ukraine. It no longer has a Germany to do its dirty work. But it is important we remember the manner in which Russia pursues imperatives: What Moscow must have generates its operating principles. It cannot give up the search for strategic depth, nor can it obtain it without the ruthlessness reality demands. But history has a great sense of humor and demands patience. How much patience Ukraine can muster is, of course, unclear. How many times Russia must play the same game is even more so.

 

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Interesting Few Days

First off, for those that don't know, I am a chemtrail Technician at a major carrier, I will not mention which one, I kinda like the anonymity if y'all know what I mean, I kinda like my job and don't want to get fired.   Well there have been flight cancellations..

       We have been working a lot of overtime to keep our airplanes in the air, if a plane is grounded for maintenance reasons, it is because there is something unsafe either with the plane, or something with the passenger emergency equipment.  There are a few hard and fast things that will ground a plane, we take our job seriously to give the carrier and the flying public as safe a plane as we can make it.  That being said, there have been a lot of cancellations, some have been to maintenance, but a lot of them have been to staffing shortages, from the pilots on down.  To get a pilots or as we call them "The Skyking" rating in a first world airline and nation is not easy, and it isn't supposed to be, the responsibility that a pilot has is daunting.  That being said, a lot of older pilots did take a "Package" during covid and retired, that took a lot of experience out of the system.  This effect also went for others like Ground Support and Maintenance, we lost a lot of experience that retired and walked out of the doors.  There was already a looming shortfall before Covid hit, statistically speaking where I work at, 1 out of 3 maintenance personnel were eligible to retire in the next five years, and we know this was coming so we had already been working with the various tech schools in the area to replace people.  But it takes an average of 5 years to get someone spooled up to our processes and how we do things and commercial aviation is a lot different than General Aviation, which the schools focus more on.  It also didn't help that certain airlines fired their personnel that refused to get the Vaxx due to the "Vaxx Mandates".  And the .gov fired employees that refused to get the Vaxx, I was talking to one of the TSA guys that I talk to when I do my Honor Guard missions and he had told me that 40% of the TSA refused to get the VAXX and they were slated for termination after Thanksgiving, but were giving a  temporary reprieve through the holidays but after the holidays, they were canned, and that was done throughout the civil service.   That being said a lot of the airlines are saying that "FAA Staffing Shortages at Key Hubs" are causing ripple effects through the system.  With us, our load factors are running exceedingly high, and if we have any disruptions, it causes problems.

 The Supreme Court made a couple of landmark rulings late last week and the repercussions are still falling.

  Needless the Democrats are a bit upset, crying, raging, meltdowns, hysterical shrieking, crying, howling   miffed shall we say.


      First off the SCOTUS released a major ruling that basically destroyed the "May Issue" that certain leftie states were using to keep people from getting a CCW permit.  The "May Issue" basically said that you had to justify your need to carry a pistol outside the home to a government official, and for some reason, only the well connected, the politicians, Donk Donors, entertainers, and so forth were able to get a permit after a "donation" to a democratic politicians PAC. The regular Joe six pack, the tradesman, the small business owner, the single parent...well they were screwed.  This was a two tiered justice process, one for the connected...another for the rest of us.  This has the huge potential of eclipsing Heller as a major win for the 2nd amendment. Well the democrats are a bit miffed about that.....


  Until Roe vs Wade was overturned......then it was the apocalypse...for the left.  Remember Roe Vs Wade is the center of their being, the zeitgeist of being a modern leftist.  I personally viewed it as a persons choice, we are endowed by our creator to choose, the only creatures on this planet with that ability.  As long as it ain't my DNA or my money, their business.  Personally, I wouldn't "do an abortion" or support it.  But it is a persons choice to do so.  What lost the "Normies" was when the left took the original and kept pushing past the first trimester into the 3rd trimester, and this horrified the "Normies" who couldn't understand the fascination with the left with killing kids.  And what it is that they use it as a form of birth control. "Hey instead of a condom or a pill, lets scrape the cells", that was the attitude and they kept pushing.

We not only went from "Abortion should be safe and rare!", from Clinton yet, to "Abortion at any time for any reason at any stage of pregnancy!" Plus the "Anyone who doesn't agree hates women. If they're women, they're either slaves of the patriarchy-" etc., and you'd think the leftists would at least understand just how badly being called those various things was going to piss off women on the other side.
      We have the other side screaming racial slurs at Clarence Thomas, having riots, throwing temper tantrums, and basically being obnoxious  and the best part is that the voters can see the people wanting abortions in all their glory being assholes and dicks , yep voters love them self entitled white liberal women talking out of their asses. gonna score a lot of points and sway a lot of opinions.
   
  

   And we have the  dictator er Premier of Canada offer Abortions to all who cross the border....Wow how forward thinking...of him....Honoring a women's right to choose what happens to her body.....except she has to be vaxxed.....Say what?    the inconsistency is amusing if it wasn't so sad and tone deaf.

https://t.co/nOWO4OM1ry

    Here is a Tiktok video that explains the "Normies" position pretty well.

     Now the Left is all enraged, they are having "Mostly Peaceful Protest", but in blue cities...they want to try that crap in "Flyover country",  but  the police, city council and DA aren't friendly to that kind of action.   

      This is what they believe in their blue enclaves when they talk amongst themselves.  they view us with disdain.  This was my response to that thread...

It seems kinda foolish there ...sport....you do realize that those rural people have a lot of guns and a DA that isn't friendly towards your cause like that big city where you came from....the outcome might be a bit different than you imagined.....just food for thought

  .

  All I know that the Summer of 2022 will rival the Summer of 2020 as the "Summer of Love" at the rate it is going and the people are not blinded by the media like they were in 2020, and they are pissed and feel like they were taken advantage of

 

    


Monday, June 27, 2022

Monday Music "You Got a Friend in Me" By Randy Newman (Toy Story Edition)

 I have been super busy, between the nights and overtime, I am finding it difficult to find time to post. I will touch on it a bit on Tuesday's post

 I am continuing my Disney Singalong Bugaloo themed music....Yes it is a bit twisted, but the chances of the "alphabet boi's having kids are pretty slim because they reproduce by asexual reproduction...Or reproduction without sex.

 

           Saw this meme and *rescued it from farcebook*, why? because I am a humanitarian, that's why.

I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in November of 2019? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....

 

One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines set up the Tannerite Rover, turn on the water irrigation system and fill it with gasoline instead of water and prepare yourself.

 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song about people having a good time and standing up for themselves and having a song that their kid sing over and over again would be a good psyop as it  playing Loud and Proud will scar the Alphabet Boi's as they force the stack through the door.

    



"You've Got a Friend in Me" is a song by Randy Newman. Used as the theme song for the 1995 Disney/Pixar animated film Toy Story, it has since become a major musical component for its sequels, Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010) and Toy Story 4 (2019) as well as a musical leitmotif throughout the whole Toy Story franchise. The song was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, but lost both to "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas.

Like many other Disney theme songs, "You've Got a Friend in Me" has been covered numerous times. Cover versions featured in the first three Toy Story films include a duet with Newman and Lyle Lovett in Toy Story; a diagetic instance by Tom Hanks, a version by Robert Goulet and an instrumental by Tom Scott in Toy Story 2, and a Spanish language version by the Gipsy Kings in Toy Story 3

 


 

The song is played during the opening credits for Toy Story, Toy Story 3, and Toy Story 4, establishing the importance of Woody and Andy in the first film and the importance of all his toys in the third and fourth. Toy Story 3 also uses it for irony and dramatic effect, as the opening credits harken back to the first film and the song abruptly fades out with "And as the years go by, our friendship will never die", before showing that Andy's remaining toys in the present day are boxed up and unused. When they were unused, Andy was 17 years old. In Toy Story 4, the song is heard during the opening montage, that features Andy playing with Woody, giving him to Bonnie as a teenager, and Bonnie playing with him, but soon starting to neglect him.

In two sequels, the song is listened to by the characters as part of the story, as cover versions done at the end of the film for thematic reasons: at the end of Toy Story 2, the character Wheezy starts to sing it to the other toys in the style of Frank Sinatra; during the end credits of Toy Story 3, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie (now a couple) perform a pasodoble to a Spanish version of the song, deliberately played by Jessie to get Buzz to dance.

The most significant use of the song was in the third act of Toy Story 2, where an episode of Woody's Roundup (the 1950s puppet show he was based on) shows the puppet Woody singing the song, directed at the young audience and featuring a small child hugging the puppet. Woody sees this and has an epiphany, realizing that his mission as a toy is to be there for a child. (In-universe, the song was presumably written for Woody's Roundup.)

The Woody's Roundup version was performed by Tom Hanks, with acoustic guitar backing; Wheezy's version was sung by Robert Goulet (though the character was voiced by Joe Ranft); and the Spanish version, "You've Got a Friend in Me (Para el Buzz Español)", was performed by the Gipsy Kings.

 

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

A couple things going on at Casa De Garabaldi

 

First off, My son voted for the first time.  I was proud of him for taking part of a vital part of his duty as citizen of the Republic.  Unlike many of his generation, he has taken time to research the candidates and don't "Vote Emotions". I am proud.  Well we voted and I went back to sleep, Remember I am a nightstalker again.

    


For Fathers Day, my son took me to the Benz stadium to watch Atlanta United play what Mack calls "Commie Ball"
 


    We were  playing Miami F.C.  It was a good game and we did win 2-0.  Had to get up a bit early and he drove his Focus and mine stayed home.   I enjoyed spending time with my son, and I am glad that he still wants to spend time with me and that I am still considered "Kinda Cool"   for a old guy, LOL

      And Speaking of Focuses...

   

I finally put a plate of some kind on my Focus.  I found a "Subdued" American Flag and it seemed perfect. 


And I got my F150 back, "My Precious" was in the shop getting the entire brake system rebuilt, I work on millions of  dollars worth of aircraft, but I will not "do" my own brakes......Strange I know.  As Clint Eastwood said in Dirty Harry "A Mans Gotta Know His Limitations", and mine are brakes.  I don't do them...especially when they replaced, pads, rotors, ABS Module, Drums, Hoses, Pads..about $1700 worth of work.  I knew it was going to be expensive, but it was more than I expected.....Thank goodness for $$Overtime$$ so I didn't have to dip into savings.


it seems like the only people that cares about the JAN 6th hearings that have been televised are the hardcore Donks and the media, nobody else gives a crap.  We outside the beltway are trying to make do with our savings shrinking, our 401K being slaughtered, our gas going up and our dollars buying less than before and the donks roll out this "Dog and Pony Show" and nobody cares....we are trying to survive the most damaging presidency in over a 100 years, even Barky the Lightbringer wasn't this bad this fast. and Xiden has beat Jimmy "The Djimmi" Carter as the crappiest president in modern American History. The Xiden Presidency is the "Peter Principle" writ large, Sure President Trump was loud and boisterous and can be an ass, but he picked people who were competent, Xiden picked people based on ideology and how many boxes they check off for special interest groups. We are paying for their lack of vision, and I can't help but wonder if this by design to pay us "plebes" back for voting for Trump in the first place instead of voting for the *PIAP, it was her turn you know.

    


    And finally, the Left is running a bunch of bill through congress trying to get a bunch of gun control stuff through before they get their asses handed to them in the midterms.This is the endgame, if they can get rid of the 2nd amendment, can you imagine what they can do to us.  They treat us like crap now, now imagine what they would do to us if we were not armed.....Just a thought.

*Pig in a Pantsuit, My name for Hillary Clinton


Monday, June 20, 2022

Monday Music "Let It Go" From the Movie "Frozen"

 

 I have been very busy and wasn't able to post like I wanted.   

       I was thinking of what song to roll with my "Monday Music" and with a flash of brilliance I thought of this song.  Now I have mentioned the movie "Frozen" before, years ago, my Friend Mack posed with a picture at Scout Camp.


   It was a cutout that was used at one of the Klondike camps if memory serves.

 

           Saw this meme and *rescued it from farcebook*, why? because I am a humanitarian, that's why.

I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in November of 2019? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....

 

One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines set up the Tannerite Rover, turn on the water irrigation system and fill it with gasoline instead of water and prepare yourself.

 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song about people having a good time and standing up for themselves and having a song that their kid sing over and over again would be a good psyop as it  playing Loud and Proud will scar the Alphabet Boi's as they force the stack through the door.

 


"Let It Go" is a song from Disney's 2013 computer-animated feature film Frozen, whose music and lyrics were composed by husband-and-wife songwriting team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The song was performed in its original show-tune version in the film by American actress and singer Idina Menzel in her vocal role as Queen Elsa. It was later released as a single,being promoted to adult contemporary radio by Walt Disney Records in January 2014. Anderson-Lopez and Lopez also composed a simplified pop version (with shorter lyrics and background chorus) which was performed by actor and singer Demi Lovato over the start of the film's closing credits. Disney's music division planned to release Lovato's version of the song before Menzel's, as they did not consider Menzel's version a traditional pop song. A music video was released separately for the pop version of the song.

The song was a commercial success, becoming the first song from a Disney animated musical to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 since 1995, when Vanessa L. Williams's "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas peaked at number four on the chart. The song is also Menzel's first single to reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making her the first Tony Award winner for acting to ever reach the top 10. The song was the ninth-best-selling song of 2014 in the United States, with 3.37 million copies sold in that year. As of December 2014, the song had sold 3.5 million copies in the US. It was the biggest-selling foreign song from any original soundtrack in South Korea as of March 12, 2014.

The song presents Queen Elsa, who flees her kingdom when she publicly loses control of her ability to generate ice. Up in the mountains and away from the townspeople, Elsa realizes that she no longer needs to hide her ability and rejoices in not only being able to use her power freely but also the freedom from others' expectations of her as a royal. She sheds her royal accessories, creates a living snowman, and builds a magnificent ice castle for herself.

"Let It Go" reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and won both the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2014 and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media in 2015.[10] The song gained international recognition, becoming one of the most globally-recorded Disney songs, with versions sung in 25 different languages for the film's international releases.

According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, "Let It Go" sold 10.9 million copies in 2014, becoming the year's fifth best-selling song.

A remix EP was released digitally by Walt Disney Records on May 19, 2014. The EP features four remixes by Dave Audé, Papercha$er, DJ Escape & Tony Coluccio and Corbin Hayes.  Armin van Buuren produced another remix of the song for the remix album, Dconstructed. 


 

Although unintentional, the song's composition was pivotal in the film's characterization of Elsa.Although Elsa was originally written as a villain, co-directors Chris Buck and Lee gradually rewrote Elsa into one of the film's protagonists after "Let It Go" was composed. About that, Lee later explained, "the minute we heard the song the first time, I knew that I had to rewrite the whole movie." Buck further clarified: "Jen had to go back and rewrite some pages in the first act to build up to that scene..... You have to set it up well enough in advance so that when the song comes, the audience is ready for it and there's an emotional payoff."


                                          The Idina Menzel Version.

When it came to animating Elsa's scenes for the song, Lopez and Anderson-Lopez insisted on the particular detail that Elsa should slam the palace doors on the audience at the song's end, which they acknowledged was similar to the ending of the Broadway musical Sweeney Todd. Lopez explained that they wanted that feeling of how "this character doesn't need us anymore," because he had always loved that feeling "when a character just kind of malevolently looks at you and slams a door in your face," although in the final version, Elsa's facial expression ended up as more of a "sly smile".According to Lopez, it was the last line at the end, "the cold never bothered me anyway," that was "our little Avril Lavigne line".

 


                                                "Let It Go" Demi Lovoto Version.

On December 6, 2013, Walt Disney Animation Studios released a video of the entire "Let It Go" sequence as seen in the movie, which has over 700 million views as of August 2020 on YouTube.On January 30, 2014, a sing-along version of the sequence was released and has received more than 2.6 billion views on YouTube as of October 2021, and more than 2.7 billion views as of 18 January 2022, and is one of the site's 40 most-viewed videos.

"Let It Go" received widespread acclaim from film critics, music critics, and audiences, with some comparing it favorably to "Defying Gravity" (also performed by Idina Menzel) from the Broadway musical Wicked. The Rochester City Newspaper called it the best song of the film's soundtrack, writing; "Performed with belty gusto by Idina Menzel, it's got every element needed to be a lasting favorite. ... Menzel should be credited for providing as much power and passion to this performance as she did in her most famous role." Entertainment Weekly's Marc Snetiker described the song as "an incredible anthem of liberation"while Joe Dziemianowicz of New York Daily News called it "a stirring tribute to girl power and the need to 'let go' of fear and shame".

On the other hand, Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot of the radio show Sound Opinions criticized the song; DeRogatis labeled it "schlock", and Kot described it as a "clichéd piece of fluff that you would have heard on a Broadway soundtrack from maybe the fifties or the sixties".

By spring 2014, many journalists had observed that after watching Frozen, numerous young children in the United States were becoming unusually obsessed with the film's music, and with "Let It Go" in particular. Columnist Yvonne Abraham of The Boston Globe called the song "musical crack" which "sends kids into altered states." A similar phenomenon was described in the United Kingdom.

 

 


Thursday, June 16, 2022

AERO designed launched to save fuel for Narrow Body Planes

 Sorry about missing a post, I am now on night shift and it is a transition for me.  I know how to handle it, and it was almost a reunion from the comments like "Hey Welcome back to the Darkside" since I am a night-rider again, LOL.   I snagged this off the reports I get off my emails and I thought it was pretty neat.


 This is important to my employer, Fuel cost is the single biggest cost an airline has to deal with and if the cost savings of a mod can quickly translate into fuel savings, airlines will do it.  Especially due to the feckless policies of this administration, the fuel cost will not be going down any time and the airlines can't keep raising ticket prices to offset fuel cost because eventually the flying public will not fly because there is a pain threshold that will be met.  Sure there are business travelers that will pay the cost, but they can't pay"All the freight" as they say.




Boeing 737-700

Unpainted aft wing-to-body and extended flap track fairings form part of the ADL ADRS-1 kit, which was flight-tested in 2021 and 2022 on a WestJet 737-700.

As airlines face their highest jet fuel prices in two decades, a Texas-based aerospace engineering startup has unveiled an extensive drag-reduction package for the Boeing 737 Next Generation family for entry into service this year.

  • Lightweight kit targets 1.5% lower fuel burn on 737-700
  • Drag reduction package also offered on 737-800/-900

Aero Design Labs (ADL) has been quietly developing the aerodynamic drag-reduction system (ADRS-1) kit since the company was formed in 2017 by business and aviation entrepreneur Lee Sanders. Now, with a newly awarded FAA supplemental type certificate (STC) in hand, ADL is emerging from stealth mode to provide initial kits for the 737-700 in the coming months and is targeting clearance for the upgrade on the 737-800/-900 by year-end.

“Our next steps are to build out the customer base for the 737-700 and the introduction of the 737-800 and 737-900 kits,” says Jeff Martin, ADL president and CEO. “Our first customer on the 737-700 is WestJet, who partnered with us and was instrumental in the testing and the proving of our STC. They stood by our side during flight test and shared our conviction toward carbon reduction further supporting our industry’s [environment, social and governance] goals.”

In addition to Calgary, Canada-based WestJet, which will require Transport Canada’s approval based on the FAA STC before entry into service, other major 737 Next Generation (737NG) family operators such as Delta Air Lines are set to adopt the upgrade, Martin says. “Each kit will provide a different benefit based on the carrier’s fleet composition and how they fly the aircraft,” he adds. “Based on our computational fluid dynamics results, we are targeting a 1.5% carbon reduction with the 737-700, and we expect additional gains on the 737-800 and 737-900.”

737-700

The reprofiled wing-to-body fairing of the ADL package improved airflow over the aft fuselage.

Based on an average of $3 a gallon, this reduced drag equates to around $12,000 per month in fuel cost savings and “over 40 tons of CO2 reduction per aircraft per month,” Martin says. “So that puts them right in line with the Corsia and 2050 carbon neutrality targets that many of the airlines are adopting,” he adds, referring to the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia).

The fuel burn benefits are expected to improve with the larger 737-800 and 737-900 models because of the longer stage length usually flown by these versions as well as the “design of the ADL kits and the length of the fuselage and how that ties into the airflow,” Martin says.

Designed by a team led by ADL’s chief technology officer and airframe drag-reduction specialist Eric Ahlstrom, the modification kit was refined using proprietary computational fluid dynamic (CFD) algorithms that were tested on supercomputers in the UK and U.S. “You cannot fix what you cannot see, and we’ve figured out ways to take the granularity of the output of the software to see airflow and air movement in ways we think no other CFD on the planet has been able to do,” says Sanders, whose ADL concept builds on more than a decade of earlier aerodynamic efficiency studies on commercial airliners.

“Our proprietary software has embedded artificial intelligence that will significantly shorten future run times,” he adds. “What used to take us literally five months to develop a product we can now get done in a matter of a few weeks.”

The ADRS-1 kit consists of a revised wing-to-body aft fairing, modified flap track fairing tips, updated wheel-well fairings, revised aerodynamics around the environmental control system (ECS) pack ram air exit duct and several strategically placed vortex generators. The modifications are particularly tailored to address areas of interference and parasitic drag around the fuselage that have never previously been tackled or only partially treated over the life of the aircraft.

Made predominantly from composite structure, the kit weighs 180 lb. but results in a net gain of only 110 lb. after replacement of the original structure. ADL says future weight reductions are being studied but adds that the current material set is designed to “far exceed FAA standards and airline rigor.” The kit is expected to require around 150 work-hours to install. “We feel that the kit is minimally impactful from an out-of-service time perspective,” Martin says.

aircraft wing

 A closer view of the extended flap track fairings—also dubbed canoe fairings—that form part of the ADL ADRS-1 kit

To industrialize the kit and meet a demand curve that ADL expects will rival that of the 737 winglet retrofit programs, the company has brought together a team of manufacturing and distribution heavyweights. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Nordam will produce the bulk of production kits and be supplemented by LA Composite, a Czech manufacturer that made the initial parts for the flight-test program with WestJet. Distribution will be handled by another strategic partner, Illinois-based aviation services company AAR.

“As our production partner, from a quality and quantity standpoint, we are well placed with Nordam,” Martin says. “We know that they can match any demands that we think of from the commercial team or from a sales standpoint.”

Nordam, which is ramping up to produce 92 kits per month initially, “is pleased to be part of [a program] that drives greener aviation through potential carbon emission reductions,” says Meredith Madden, Nordam CEO.

Martin adds that working with “AAR ensures that we’ll have timely distribution and support for our service for our airline partners.”


 

AAR President and CEO John Holmes says the company “looks forward to working closely with ADL and the airline community to help advance this offering in the marketplace.”

ADL is optimistic about placing the ADRS-1 kit with a large percentage of the 737NG in-service fleet, which currently includes more than 5,200 aircraft, according to the Aviation Week Network’s Commercial Aviation Fleet Discovery database. Not including some subvariants, 923 of these are 737-700s, 3,665 are baseline 737-800s, and the 737-900/-900ER model accounts for almost 460 more.

Looking further ahead, the company is also seeing additional projects. “There’s a lot of opportunity to reduce drag across all airframes, and we’ve proven that we can solve it for the 737 Next Generation series,” Martin says. “And we’ll demonstrate that and move that across other fleet types.”

Having provided an aircraft and flight-test and engineering support for the ADL project, WestJet is primed to become one of the first operators of the drag-reduction system. However, Scott Wilson, WestJet vice president of operations, says: “We need the FAA STC to be familiarized by aircraft certification [with] Transport Canada, so we’re just starting that work now. We don’t know what that time frame looks like, but we hope it won’t be too long. We’re anxious to get the aircraft flying and to validate the fuel savings.”

The airline, which operates 48 737-700s on a wide range of routes including long-haul transatlantic flights, will fly the first modified aircraft between 60 and 90 days to validate the “actual fuel savings in the WestJet environment,” Wilson adds.

Delta will be a lead partner in certifying the modification for the larger 737NG members, says Mahendra Nair, senior vice president of Delta Fleet and TechOps Supply Chain. “Delta intends to partner with ADL to assist with developing a 737-900ER STC to embody a game-changing drag reduction kit to reduce fuel burn supporting both Delta’s fuel cost reduction and sustainability goals.

“Depending on the success of the testing program, we expect to roll out the kit on our 737NG fleet over the next few years,” Nair adds. “In addition to 77 737-800s, Delta currently operates 130 737-900ER aircraft, and we are in the process of adding an additional 29 gently used aircraft to the fleet. Jet fuel is the No. 1 contributor to Delta’s carbon footprint and the chief focus of our efforts to reduce our emissions and manage our environmental impact.”


 

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

"The Best Quotes of Courage"

 I shamelessly snagged this off "Arts of Manliness"

   

Have you ever wondered why it is that being called a coward is considered such a grave insult? It’s because courage is the lynchpin of character — that which makes possible every single one of its other dimensions; as Samuel Johnson once said (and Winston Churchill later paraphrased): “courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.”

The exercise of any virtue requires the capacity to endure hardship, conquer fear and temptation, choose the riskier and more strenuous path when you’d rather take the easier way out — and this capacity is enabled by courage. Without courage, it’s impossible to be disciplined, honest, chaste, patient, self-reliant, compassionate, or resolute. Without courage, it’s impossible to be anything other than a non-entity.

While few of us are called to charge into battle these days, we all still need an ample arsenal of courage to stand up for those we love, defend unpopular beliefs, take professional and creative risks, and continue to choose the good, true, and honorable in a world where it can be hard to keep carrying the fire. And as Theodore Roosevelt observed, it is only by exercising courage in these smaller ways, that we’ll be able to summon it in more dramatic fashion should a true crisis arise.

If your heart could use strengthening, below we present 54 of the best quotes about courage ever spoken and set down. While we did our best to vet them, and successfully confirmed the accuracy and authorship of 90%+ of them, we drew many from old books from the 19th century, which didn’t include the quote’s original source, and used obscure translations of foreign/ancient texts that make the tracing of its origin difficult. But if the province of a few of the quotes is shadowy, the truth behind all of them is sound. Read them over, commit some to memory, write one down you particularly like and stick it to your bathroom mirror. And then go forth with greater fortitude to face life’s challenges.

Fortune favors the bold!


“The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character.”
Thomas Hughes

“Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.”
Sir Walter Scott

“Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back. Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.”
Samuel Johnson

“A man without courage is a knife without an edge.”
Proverb

“Courage consists, not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing and conquering it.”
Jean Paul

“All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.”
John Locke

“It is an error to suppose that courage means courage in everything. Most people are brave only in the dangers to which they accustom themselves.”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton

“A man without courage is to me the most despicable thing under the sun, a travesty on the whole scheme of creation.”
Jack London

“Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.”
James Freeman Clarke

“The best hearts are ever the bravest.”
Laurence Sterne

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.”
Mark Twain

“The man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage.”
François de La Rochefoucauld

“Courage is grace under pressure.”
Ernest Hemingway

“Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.”
Sir P. Sidney

“Physical courage which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp; the latter for the council; but to constitute a great man both are necessary.”
Charles Caleb Colton

“Because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained.”
John Stuart Mill

“There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.”
Cato the Elder

“Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.”
Eddie Rickenbacker

“To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage.”
Confucius

“Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.”
Adam Lindsay Gordon

“No man can be brave who considers pain the greatest evil of life.”
Cicero

“A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger.”
Sir P. Sidney

“If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.”
Barthold Georg Niebuhr

“A great deal of talent is lost in this world for the want of a little courage.”
Sydney Smith

“The wounded gladiator forswears all fighting, but soon forgetting his former wound resumes his arms.”
Ovid

“Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on.”
François de La Rochefoucauld

“Courage in danger is half the battle.”
Plautus

“Courage ought to be guided by skill, and skill armed by courage.”
Sir P. Sidney

“The bravery founded on hope of recompense, fear of punishment, experience of success, on rage, or on ignorance of danger, is but common bravery, and does not deserve the name. True bravery proposes a just end; measures the dangers, and meets the result with calmness and unyielding decision.”
Francois de la Noue

“Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism.”
Rollo May

“Courage makes a man more than himself; for he is then himself plus his valor.”
William R. Alger

“Courage is adversity’s lamp.”
Luc de Clapiers

“So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.”
William James

“O friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong,
And let no warrior in the heat of fight
Do what may bring him shame in others' eyes;
For more of those who shrink from shame are safe
Than fall in battle, while with those who flee
Is neither glory nor reprieve from death.”
Homer

“Remember now, when you meet your antagonist, do everything in a mild, agreeable manner. Let your courage be as keen, but, at the same time, as polished, as your sword.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan

“God holds with the strong.”
Giuseppe Mazzini

“It is courage that vanquishes in war, and not good weapons.”
Miguel de Cervantes

“He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Go on and increase in valor, O boy! This is the path to immortality.”
Virgil

“Man is loved mainly because of two virtues: courage first, loyalty second.”
Gaius Lucilius

“A coward flees backward, away from new things. A man of courage flees forward, in the midst of new things.”
Jacques Maritain

“A man of courage is also full of faith.”
Cicero

“He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.”
Miguel de Cervantes

“Troops would never be deficient in courage, if they could only know how deficient in it their enemies were.”
Duke of Wellington

“The boldest measures are the safest.”
Horatio Nelson

“Tell a man that he is brave, and you help him become so.”
Thomas Carlyle

“Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause.”
Plutarch

“When the will defies fear, when the heart applauds the brain, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death — this is heroism.”
Robert Green Ingersoll

“He holds no parley with unmanly fears,
Where duty bids he confident steers,
Faces a thousand dangers at her call,
And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all.”
Wiliam Cowper

“Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

“The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle — the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other.”
Douglas MacArthur

“The scars you acquire by exercising courage will never make you feel inferior.”
Giovanni Battista Cima

“Knowledge without courage is sterile.”
Baltasar Gracián

“To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light.”
Coventry Patmore

“Oh fear not in a world like this
And thou shalt know ere long
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow