Now THAT'S a model airplane (Airbus A380)

A radio-controlled Airbus A380 model plane with a decidedly non-miniature wingspan of 17 feet takes off and circles above a model aircraft event in Switzerland in this video by Swiss model aircraft enthusiast Thomas Bodmer. The 1:15 scale model was built by fellow enthusiast Michael Schlemmer and has four miniature jet engines, a 2.6 gallon tank, and weighs 154 pounds. Be sure to turn up your volume to hear the remarkably realistic roar of the model’s engines.

Flying out of Phoenix

From the best flying blog Flight Level 390: 

It's one of those nights that airline pilots dread. Thunderstorms all quadrants, intense lightning, moderate rain, blowing mud, hot and gusty crosswinds at or above the limits... Everything at the performance limits. Except for the captain, that is...

 

Read the rest.

Flying car

Where is YZP?

Flight Level 390

Position: Over TOU (Tatoosh)
Altitude: 36,000 feeet
Groundspeed: 441 knots
Equipment: A319
Pax-on-Board: 123


Airborne...


As TOU passes beneath, I note the compass heading leaving U.S. airspace is 295 degrees. The ETP (equatime; half-way point) is still in front of us... PANC (Anchorage) ahead and over the dark horizon. Local time is 2215 hrs.


The center-tanks are almost empty as we go feet wet. Fi-Fi will run the center-pumps an extra five minutes after the last of the fuel is sucked out, just to make sure.

Life on the line.

How to buy your $25 million private jet.

I'm Thinking of Changing the Name of This Blog to "The French Billionaire CEO"

Got the idea from The Other McCain who commented on This guy who is married to this actress   and has a child with this supermodel        

After careful consideration, I'm pretty happy where I am (except I would like to have a billion dollars and my own jet.   

Texas House Bans Offensive Security Pat-Downs

Linked by Drudge.

The Texas House passed a bill that would make it a criminal offense for public servants to inappropriately touch travelers during airport security pat-downs.


Approved late Thursday night, the measure makes it illegal for anyone conducting searches to touch “the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person” including through clothing.

Ladies, men, Kids: are you ready for your airport prostate exam?

TSA: Back off, Constitution says we can...

What's our take on the Texas House of Representatives voting to ban the current TSA pat-down? Well, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article. VI. Clause 2) prevents states from regulating the federal government.

So says Blogger Bob, who is part of what the TSA calls the TSA Blog Team.  In other words, we're the Feds and we can do anything to you that we want including fondling your sex organs.

Swiss Jetman flies over Grand Canyon

The Smart Diplomacy of Our Brilliant New Leader: Negotiating the End of the Afghan War with an Imposter!

Is this an example of the Smart Diplomacy™ that The Ones We Have Been Waiting For have brought us after that dummy cowboy Bush fouled things up?

You can’t make this stuff up: Obama and his minions run around the world apologizing for America and vowing to negotiate the end of all wars. It turns out the “leader" that we have been negotiating with in Afghanistan is an imposter.

From the NY Times, the paper that brought you this brilliant leader:

Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an Impostor

KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor...

How and why? Well, it turns out that we did not know exactly what Mansour looked like and the why is also explained:

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

It turns out that those face masks that the Taliban wear have a use after all: it allows the occasional imposter to collect "lots of money" (millions?) by claiming to be a "leader" willing to negotiate.

When things like this happen, you know the whole world is playing you for a fool. The North Koreans are playing with us, so are the Chinese and the Russians; but when some swindler from the hills of Pakistan can waltz in and scam you for “a lot of money” you know that no one, literally no one respect you any longer. All it took was two years and the US loses whatever respect it had in the world.

Right now I suspect that the Taliban is deliberately using telephones that they know are being monitored, chattering about hiding explosives in women’s breasts and men’s testicles just to watch Team Obama go into an orgy of poking and groping of old women and young children. They are laughing their asses off while Americans shun the airlines for the roads this Holiday season.

Osama bin Laden appoints new commander to spearhead war on West

Via the UK Telegraph:

Little was heard of al-Adel, who was held by Iran with a group of al-Qaeda fugitives, for several years thereafter. The fugitives were housed in villas along Iran's Caspian coast and in Lazivan, north-west of Tehran. Al-Adel lived there with his five children and wife Wafa, who is the daughter of Mustafa Hamid, another top al-Qaeda figure.


But in April this year, he was released from Iranian custody along with Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's son, and top al-Qaeda operatives Suleiman al-Gaith and Mahfouz al-Walid.


...

US and Pakistani sources have told The Daily Telegraph that al-Adel is running several similar operations as part of a war of attrition intended to persuade Western public opinion that the war against terror is unwinnable. This would clear the road for al-Qaeda to capture power in fragile states such as Somalia and Yemen.


"His strategy", said Syed Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani expert on al-Qaeda, "is to stage multiple small terror operations, using the resources of affiliates and allies wherever possible."

Our counter-strategy is to irradiate our citizens travelling on planes, and, if they object, to molest them sexually.

Midnight at 61 North

THIS would have been my dream job.  But thyen one of my eyes went to 20/40 and that shot my Air Force pilot chances.  But this guy writes like a poet of flight and is a very enjoyable read.

Position: 60 east of PANC (Anchorage)

Altitude: 22,000 feet and descending
Fuel-on-board: 90 minutes
Pax-on-board: 123
Equipment: A319


Airborne...

Good Lord, it is beautiful up here... Midnight at 61 north with ninety minutes of Jet-A in the tanks. I am trying to imagine how my life could be better at this point in the continuum. The sun is barely below the horizon, something I never tire of seeing.

Read the rest.