What Happens in a Court (and in the News)

 

Swaying the Unthinking People (with Angelic Affirmation)
Dandolo Stirring up the Fourth Crusade

What goes on in a court?

1) A jury is set.

2) Attorneys make some opening statements; these statements lean toward the conclusion they wish the jury to reach.

3) The attorneys present evidence that is to be convincing towards their respective opening remarks and eventual conclusion.  They also "interrogate" one another's evidence openly and before the jury.

4) The attorneys make closing remarks — arguments about evidence — in favor of their own opinions and their own agenda for the case in a last attempt to sway the jury toward their respective conclusions.

5) The judge instructs the jury to make a decision not on the basis of the opening or closing remarks, but solely on the evidence presented.

6) The jury deliberates solely on the evidence.  Even though they have listened to arguments by both parties regarding that evidence, they are still to deliberate only on the evidence.

The opening and closing remarks are not evidence: these remarks are slant toward the conclusion that the attorneys on each side want the jury to believe.  The evidence is to be strictly factual, but some evidence may sway the jury one direction or another in their final determination on which attorney’s view is valid.  Because of this "sway" of factual evidence, attorneys, and law enforcement as well, often attempt to conceal or suppress evidence that would sway the jury away from their conclusions. 

While it is true that facts do not interpret themselves and need to be set within their context and be presented fully, attorneys are not after the “truth” of a matter; they are out to present their own slant on an event.

In a world that is highly charged politically, a great deal rides on what a "jury" does with slant on the facts.

So much for courts.  What about the "news"?

When we watch the “News” (or, rather, what is Infotainment), there is mostly slant and very little raw evidence for us, the "jury" of viewers, to consider.  Sound bytes and 3-second video clips mostly conceal the whole of facts, the whole story.  In many cases, the news is little more than deceptively cooked-up fare set on the viewer-jury’s plate.  We have things like Fox (not "news" -- Murdoch's recent testimonies revealed what we knew) and Epoc Times and Newsmax (Far-right, conservative propaganda) on one side.  On the other side, we have things like CNN (again, definitely not news) and The Guardian (Far-left, liberal propaganda) on the other hand.  These news outlets act as “attorneys,” each arguing for their own versions of what “facts” illustrate on a matter, and likewise, they may suppress, conceal, and in some cases simply lie (again, Murdoch's recent evidence concerning the Fox/Dominion case) about the facts....

The problem?  It's that there is no judge present to keep attorneys in line (as if they do so in court anyway...) when we watch the news; there is no one watching whether one news outlet or another (i.e. the “attorneys”) are concealing evidence.  And no one in court or on the news watches as to whether or not they are making statements that are logical fallacies like these:

False analogy (analogies cannot prove anything, but only illustrate a point, and false analogies lead further away from real issues and facts)

Red herring (a distraction from the facts: “sure the economy is bad in this state, but what about India?” – India is a different matter altogether) 

Guilt or Glory by association (“the [conservative/liberal] speaker in this clip is truthful because they have an American flag lapel pin”; “choosy mother choose Jif"; Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes — a person being judged by an association with something or someone else, not on their own merits)

Ad hominem (Latin: "to the man": “This senator is telling lies because she doesn’t bathe and smells!” — an argument toward the person, not the issue) 

Tu quoque ("Latin: "you too!": a type of ad hominem that turns the argument back to the person, to say in essence "Yeah? What about you?!" — which is not the issue)

Slippery slope (“either you fix the economy today or the country will be taken over by terrorists” — pointing to a dire end result, usually impossible, that will not arise from the immediate situation) 

Either/or fallacy (“either you vote for our candidate or you will never have a balanced budget” — does not prove an outcome)

Begs the Question (“This man guilty!" — actually asserts the question at hand without offering evidence and arguments as to whether he is or is not guilty)

Oversimplification ("Balancing the US budget is easy: just have people stop using social services" — it's way more complicated than that)

And there are other fallacies and tricks that are used to sway the jury, such as "leading the witness," the use of "hearsay," and asserting "speculation" as fact. 

 

Equivocation

Opening and closing remarks, because they are not actually evidence but interpretation, are largely equivocation.  What is equivocation?  Equivocation is, “in logic, a fallacy depending upon the double signification of some one word: distinguished from amphibology, which depends upon the doubtful interpretation of a whole sentence” (Wordnik).

Example, courtesy of Bill Clinton:  “What is IS?”  Everyone knows what “is” means.  To deliberate on the meaning of is distracts from the actual question about a factual event: “Is not X or Y actually a form of sex?”  Equivocation is, in another definition, “the use of equivocal or ambiguous expressions, especially in order to mislead or hedge; prevarication” (Webster).

So where is the truth in a courtroom if attorneys practice such tricks about the facts — and they do this every day, are good at it, make their livings at it, and hope to sway (and often deceive) a jury about facts?

Likewise, we have to ask: where is the truth in a news report?  Reporters on any side of the political spectrum are equivocators for their own slant and want to sway (often deceive) their viewers about the facts.  Just because they produce a sound byte or the 3-second clip (not in context and not the entire event), they still have not provided evidence of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

To think that a news organization — any news organization, left or right — would be about the truth of an event these days is such a preciously innocent notion that we should require the holder of it to be put back in the cradle.

One maxim (attributed to journalism professor Johnathan Foster) has it this way:

If someone says it is raining outside, and someone else says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both but to look out the [expletive] window and see which is true.

Journalists don't do this today.  They have a long equivocation session on "rain" and sway their audiences toward their view.  If you listen to that equivocation and let them decide for you, in that moment you have given up your duty to maintain yourself as a rational human.

From Courts to News Media

So what is our job in watching the news?  It is to think critically about what we see, what we hear.  It is, I said, to THINK.  And that means to think about all sides of an issue, all the facts we may discover, not merely those presented by select "attorneys," (News outlets) — by your favorite news channel.

If you are in the habit of eating only what is set before you by one single news outlet, only one "news-chef" (even your favorite), then you are eating imaginary food — it doesn't exist, like the food in Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie.  And to swallow the content which a single news source puts on your plate without chewing means you have given up thinking — thinking critically.  It means you have relinquished your responsibility to own and maintain your independent mind, and relinquished it to news magnates who simply do not care about you or society or the "truth" of a situation, but who only care about their own appetite for viewers, revenue, and the power of influence.

T. S. Eliot argued, before TV even existed (he was speaking about literature), that we all are “affected by [what we view] as human beings, whether we intend to be or not [….] It affects us during the process of assimilation and digestion; and I believe that exactly the same is true of anything we read” (and I would say anything we view — like the news) (Eliot, 148).  What we view unequivocally shapes our minds.

Further, Eliot says, we are most influenced not by what we view when we are thinking critically, when we are on our mental toes, but most by what we view at our leisure.  That is, by the way, when we view our favored news sources — end of day, sitting down to “unwind," to see what’s going on in the world.

Eliot:

“I incline to come to the alarming conclusion that it is just the literature that we read for ‘amusement' or 'purely for pleasure' that may have the greatest and least suspected influence upon us.” (Eliot 150)

Where did Hitler place his propaganda posters depicting Jewish people as rats and as the cause of Germany’s desolate economy?  He placed them in train stations, along bus routes, and tram stops where people, not thinking critically, were going into or emerging from a hard day of work in which they toiled but saw no success in their economic lives. If you tell someone something long enough, consistently enough, they will begin to believe it, whether it is true or not.  —And so daily, Uncle Heinrich steps off the tram after a frustrating day — sees a poster, and...feels (does not think), "Yes.  There's the problem with our society!"  And that sentiment feels good to him ("it must be true!"), and it feels better every day...and eventually his feelings lead to unthinking (and unthinkable) actions.

Ideas have consequences.  That is precisely why we are each obligated to know the veracity of our ideas, whether they are true or not.

This is precisely why it is imperative that people not view and adhere to one news source — and why it is imperative to look at them all skeptically: people are to be a jury that thinks critically, comparing the facts provided (and those not provided), and about which every news organization will offer their opening and closing remarks to sway your opinion.  Their job, as they see it, is to make you see, remember, feel about an issue solely as they do.  They info-tain you (Eliot's leisure-time turned "news" so you are not looking at them critically).  And the talking heads can be so nice and fawning, with a facade of empathy so cloyingly obsequious (CBS) that, if we step back and look plainly at the BS on the plate before us, we shall literally gag.  They don't want you to think.  They equivocate, suppress the whole truth, offer slant.  Like the used car dealer: "Would I lie to you?!"  Yes, they would.  Their job is not to inform you fully so that you may shape your own, informed and critical view.

 We are not talking about the facts of a car crash or a plane landing wheels up.

During a coup (such as in Myanmar today), alternate news sources have been shut down.  Why?  Obviously, so that only one news source (the overtaking government's) may influence the people, and that news is controlled by one side of the political argument — "news" written by the organizers of the coup.  What if the arguments in a court were controlled solely by one of the attorneys?  You know what would happen.  And that's happening to you if you watch the news from a single slant.

How might a cult continue to usurp the minds of its adherents if they were allowed to think and hold views that differed from the leader's?  You know the answer.  This is why people who actually think critically are anathema not only to cult leaders but also to politicians and news outlets who work by manipulation — ultimately anathema to corrupt governments.  It is interesting that attorneys, in choosing jury members, do not want people who can actually think critically, who are well informed, and who can reason without emotion: no, they want a blank slate on which they can write their own slanted opinions — for their own agenda.

So: we are affected by what we see.  So: we must actually think about what is on the plate before us, recognize that there are sides (plural) that must be thought about solely for the evidence presented.  So: we must be critical in our thinking about them — suspicious about even a “trusted” network (everyone has an agenda, and no one tells all...).  And it is not a private duty you have to think: you must speak the truth and reason with others (unless they are deep in their cult: no one can actually talk to or reason with someone in a cult — they can't hear you).

Unless we do this, we become (or already are) unthinking fools led by the nose of our favorite news sources.  When people cease to think, they are like cows, all too easily led by the promise of more of the (comfort) food they are already used to.

Jaurès (whose politics I differ from in most points), put things this way (and I can weigh these words even though I disagree with him because what he says here is, to me, a proven value worth upholding):

 “Courage is to seek the truth and tell it; it is not to be subjected to the law of the triumphant lie that passes, and not to echo, from our soul, mouth, and hands [...] foolish applause and fanatical booing.”

Now go back and look at the image at the start of this posting.  Hopefully you see it differently.

 ~~~~~~

Eliot, T. S.  “Religion and Literature” in The Christian Imagination: Essays on
   Literature and the Arts.  Ed. Leland Ryken.  Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981;
    141-154.

Remembrance of a True Scot: William

Jimmy (i.e. Mercury)

 

A "Yeoman of Signals" is the British military figure who is responsible for military communications.  Their mascot is "Jimmy," as in their patch, above (an image of Mercury, the messenger of the gods from Greek mythology).  Among other things, they not only scramble communications during a war (so the enemy, for instance, does not know your plans), but a Yeoman also can be responsible for communications in non-war events, such as scrambling messages from 10 Downing Street in London to the White House in the US.

Bill with His Unit

Just so, William -- Bill -- a retired Yeoman of Signals during the Falklands War and, later, for Maggie Thatcher, related the following story.

Bill was sending a message on the machine used to encode political communiques — in this case, indeed:  from 10 Downing to the White House.  Maggie stands behind Bill, dictating the message.  As Bill types, the message appears on a screen, and when everything is complete and correct, it is sent in scrambled format.  As Maggie stands behind Bill, who seated at his keyboard, she dictates her message -- watching the screen.  Bill types a slightly different word.  Without hesitation, Maggie -- with a hefty diamond ring -- gives Bill's ear a right smack and sternly lets him know "That is not what I said!"  Without missing a beat, Bill quickly backs up the text, corrects the word, and continues typing.

The "Iron Lady"?  Hmm.  Hard as a diamond, perhaps -- with maybe with a flaw or inlusion?

Up to WWII (but no later), British soldiers injured in combat received a "wound stripe."  Bill most certainly earned a wound stripe for this severe injury during this event with Maggie (most definitely combat even if it was "friendly" fire), and in consideration of Bill's example, the British military should obviously re-instate the wound stripe.

Bill told me this amusing story as we lunched in a pub near Notting Hill after we had spent a brilliantly sunny morning wandering down Portobello Road in Notting Hill on a (crowded but delightful) Saturday, musing through military bits.

How did we meet?  Well....  Once upon the Isle of Whithorn, where my ancestors lived long ago, there was a very nice inn called The Queen's Arms.  The owner?  Bill -- who bought the inn after he retired from the military.  So in the 1990s, we met as my father, my wife, and I visited, and in later years returned with more family members.

Once upon a Time in Isle

In the mornings, Bill, his mother, and son, Ken, would rise and bustle -- Bill lighting a coal fire in the smaller common room, and then all busily stirring up breakfasts.  And when tables were cleared, the kitchen cleaned, the bedrooms done up, and the day well into, you could find Bill smoking by the fire and doing the crossword puzzle in the paper, sitting serenely in his sweater, and glasses on the end of his nose.

Bill Doing a Crossword

And then a cuppa or, later in the day, a half pint by the warm fire, with the thick (and cool) stone walls of the room.  Reb, another true Scot, would need walkies, and the old dear would waddle down the street.  It was an ideal place, Queens Arms, solely because of Bill, his mother, Ken, with his wonderful laugh, and Reb.

Ken and Ken

 

 

Happy and Faithful Reb

I kept up with Bill over the years by email, Skype calls, and a lot of photos, and...we met up again in 2014 when I was teaching in London.  And there were exchanged gifts over various Christmases -- a couple of years Oor Wullie books to us (comic books that teach Scots English), and, for Bill, a Victorinox classic I covered in an exotic wood, and a coal wagon for his fabulous train layout at Royal Chelsea Hospital.

Our mutual interest in the British military was a central part of our friendship, a feature of which was admiration for one of the finest (I believe) WWI memorials in Britain -- that in Paisley, Scotland.  Bill was surprised that I not only knew of it without his telling, but that I had taken photos of it and believed it to be one of the most meaningful monuments within Britain.  It was another connection of kindred spirits.  And where was Bill from?  Paisley.

All of these things were connections with Bill.  Whenever he was traveling in his old haunts, he would take photos of the monument to send me beyond photos from his many other travels in the north of Scotland.  He was a remarkable photographer and, as such, knew how to capture and communicate the beauty of his native land.

Paisley WWI Memorial

He also knew "Bird in Hand" -- an inn near Paisley, in Johnstone, which had a very nice restaurant that my wife and I discovered one year on our anniversary.  The wonderful Gillian Kir sent us off with champagne flutes and some other bits.  Bird in Hand had been the house of the last Laird of Johnstone.  Bill informed me some years afterwards that it was no longer there -- it had burnt and was eventually torn down. 

Bird in Hand

But our mutual interest was not merely Scotland and the British military; there was something more, and something at the center of our beings: our shared faith in Christ.  As he said in one email,

Ive been around now for 72 years and I’m feeling it but you are the first person that has connected with my idiosyncratic view. My faith is quiet but one day will.........

His faith so far as I saw it was not peculiar but very sensible, centered upon the points of faith which C. S. Lewis defined as “mere Christianity.”  Maybe that is a rarity today given how common the odd and many extremisms have become, which is what he seems to have meant by his being “idiosyncratic.”

Bill was invited to the military retirement community in London, established by King Charles II, the Royal Chelsea Hospital (RCH).  You might recognize them as the retired veterans, male and female, in their scarlet jackets and black hats -- three-cornered hats for some occasions.  Bill was rightfully proud of his comrades from all branches of the military and sent many photos of his duties in scarlet, him standing in his coat with medals on.

On Remembrance Days, I would send him accounts of the small, informal ceremony I have long held at sunrise on 11 November in the States; he would send photos of Remembrance ceremonies in the UK -- cemeteries and monuments, poppies laid on.  He loved to see the real poppies my wife and I grow each year in front of our house -- the coquelicot that are prolific along the trench areas of France, those of McCrae's poem.

One Remembrance Day...the Men and Women Veterans in Scarlet

 

Late last December and into early January, no email-replies came from Bill for a couple of weeks, a time when, due to a surge in Covid, RCH was closed to visitors.  And...no answers from his cell phone.  I figured he was busy with family, his train set up, and RCH friends.  Kindly, his family emailed.  Bill had passed suddenly on 7 January.

C. S. Lewis -- speaking I think of Charles Williams -- expressed that it was people of uncommonly great spirit who leave the largest vacancies in our lives when they depart.  So I feel with Bill.  The emptiness is not so much dependent upon daily contact; the vacuum is due to the spiritual bond we have, the mental note that this person exists -- these things, and that immediate communication with them is no longer possible.

God bless his soul.  God bless his family.  He is missed.

 

Travels During Covid - 3: Helicopters

 People make jokes about helis:

1) Helicopters don't really fly.  They're so ugly the ground repels them.

2) The helicopter's main blades are just a big fan keeping the pilot cool.  If you don't believe that, just turn it off and watch the pilot sweat.

Safer than planes?  Well, they can autorotate if the engine quits -- floating down on a pinwheel, essentially -- using the energy of the fall to spin the blades fast, and then using that energy to slow the descent just before it lands.  Planes must keep a significant forward momentum (glide) to land if the engine goes out.

Greek ἕλιξ (hélix, "spiral") + πτερόν (pterón, "wing")

pteron emerges from the Indo-European root "-pet" "to rush, to fly," as seen in Latin petere, "to go toward, seek"

The IE root emerges in suffixed form, pet-rā-, "feather" in Old English fether, "feather"; from Germanic fethrō, feather

Helis are as beautiful as airplanes, but beautiful in a different way.  It's the difference between a dragonfly and a bird.  The technology in helis is absolutely profound, given their axes, each with various torques wanting to turn it into a mechanical squirrel.  These days they can essentially fly themselves: an EC135, frequently used for life-flight organizations, has auto take-off and landing capabilities, as do other helicopters.

Two friends fly these things: there's Shawn, who flew Blackhawks and now flies an EC135 for a medical service.

 

EC135: Shawn's Speedy Delivery!

And there's Don, who also flew Blackhawks and now Chinooks for the military.  What lucky blokes to have such toys to play with and be paid for doing so!

 Don Flying the Chinook: Hold the Hover....
Great Slow-Mo with the Blades!

In the '70s I flew in what was then called a "Hughes" 500D -- also 369D -- (a "Loach" or "little bird"); it was one hot little sports car, flown by Vietnam Vet Andy Anderson.  You will probably recall this type of heli from the TV show Magnum P.I.  That was a 500D: [Link].

The Hughes 500D in Magnum PI

Among other antics, we took a high-speed trip across a corn field with runners inches above the stalks, then climbed for a return-to-target turn -- that moment at the top, sideways, with the headphone cables floating in the zero G.  Beautiful.  Tail turns, nose points down, a long dive, then levels again at speed, across the corn....  Now these little birds are called "McDonnell Douglas" (MD) 500Es, sporting a more streamlined nose.  There's a NOTAR version ("no tail rotor," with, instead, a big, barrel of a tail through which forced air travels and controls the yaw -- turns the tail left or right.  The NOTAR tail, really, ruins the look of the thing.  No picture of that here.

MD 500E Numbered Appropriately: G-RISK Indeed!

Like the MD 500s, the Chinook was also used in Vietnam and is still used today.  These are remarkable in their size and lift -- apparently the only helicopter that can lift not only its own weight (which means it flies), but can also lift another Chinook while flying -- twice its weight.  It's a hefty bird with two sets of rotors intermeshing.  At a military function, I was allowed to fly in one over the Davenport, Iowa, area sitting between the pilots on the little jump seat.

It was brilliant to see the new glass cockpit and the nav systems.  You don't realize just how big this helicopter is while sitting up front: turn around and look through the rest of the house behind you and the immense back door that can open in flight for unloading.  Reminds me of a song: "Our house, in the middle of the...sky.  Our house --."

A Chinook, Balancing on Its Tail, Rescues Climbers from Mt. Hood

I mentioned above that the torques and axes can make a helicopter a mechanical squirrel.  Well, there is a squirrel among these helis, the AS350 -- Aerospatiale Ecureuil (French for "squirrel") (nowdays called a "H125").  These are used for anything from mountain rescue and sling loads for construction, to heli-skiing and sight seeing.  What a beauty.  It's nickname, A-Star, is fitting: it is a star.

 

One of Air Zermatt's AS350s (now, modified, an H125) by the Matterhorn

 

Here's one showing off for crowds in Chamonix: [Link].

It's the versatility that makes a helicopter an amazing aircraft.  It's ability to hover over an object -- astounding, not least with a heavy sling load.  And it all hangs on a big fan made of incredible composite blades.  The UH-60, Blackhawk, has blades with a strip of titanium on their leading edges.  The Huey has a brass leading edge.  The rest of the blades are a mixture of air and honeycombed aluminum covered by a metal skin.  Light, strong, flexible, and shaped like a wing -- it is your wing.

Shawn says this about flying EMS instead of military:

I...miss the wider margins of flight I could do in the military.  Flying just above the trees and ground was fun and exciting.  We could bank the aircraft more aggressively.  Flying EMS is much more tamed.  We are limited to 30 degree bank angles and flight profiles that are much more limited compared to the military.

And then...there's this pilot who doesn't have grandma in the back [Link].  On the other hand, it just may be that one cool grandma is flying this bird.

The most remarkable thing about helis, though, is just how many lives have been saved by them.  So many different models are used today for rescues during floods, fires, medivac during wartime ("Dustoff," which means Dedicated Unhesitating Service To Our Fighting Forces) and rescues in mountain areas, including ski resorts as well as wilderness and high-cliffs -- countless operations since the creation of a stable heli platform.  And then there's rescue at sea: the Coast Guard.  This is not to mention the invaluable (but dangerous) service in fighting fires.  Helis are astounding birds.  Since I was a lad, I always thought of their kinship with the dragonfly, which amazes with its abilities to hover and then dart away in a flicker.

Among the trophies, the one bird that must have rescued more people than any other heli type is the Huey.  Many are still flying.  Others have been consigned atop a post at a military...post.

 

Huey, UH-1.  The Stories This Could Tell! (Source: Don)

The development of that stable platform was largely the doing of Igor Sikorsky, who liked to fly in his suit and hat -- just as any good business person would do.

 

Igor Sikorsky: "You Can Keep Your Hat On"

What he started: here's a UH-60 Blackhawk (yes, a Sikorsky) performing a rescue -- planting one wheel on the mountain (one of Colorado's Maroon Bells), holding the hover, while a person is loaded in [Link].

As a tribute to some of these friends and pilots, I put some UH-60s in bottles.

 

 Blackhawks in Bottles: The Trick? Flying Them in There!

One last story from a former chair of my department, Frank.  He flew during the Korean War era; afterwards, he flew DC-6s for an airline, but then decided to do a Ph.D. while flying for the military reserves.  During the '60s -- with their anti-war (Vietnam) protests on university campuses -- Frank taught in Iowa; there he flew a Huey UH-1 out of the local airport as a reservist.

And?  One day rumors circulated that the university students were planning a massive anti-war protest for that afternoon.  So Frank's CO at the airport instructed him to attach tear-gas canisters to the runners of the Huey, wiring them into the cockpit so he could release the gas while flying: "when the students are protesting, fly low over them, release the gas, and the rotor-wash will take the tear gas down into the crowds and disperse them."  Frank went into his office, wrote his letter of resignation from the reserves, effective immediately, and put it on his CO's desk.

[Frank's CO, incredulous]: What's the deal, Frank?

[Frank]: "I can't teach them in the morning and gas them in the afternoon, sir."

Travels During Covid — 2: Flight with a Fixed Wing

 So.  Where are you flying these days?

Last July I was supposed to be in Switzerland again, but the flight?  Nope.  It was Covid-canceled.  So travels for me, not least by air, have since then been vicarious and virtual.

A Husky on Doughnuts (Source: Plane and Pilot)

 

But flight!  It's always magic.  One "news" writer a few years back announced his disappointment with people who "still looked up at a plane flying by," as if it were an unusual sight.  I think that writer must have ceased to wonder at anything in life -- at least being unable to marvel specifically at the astounding phenomenon of flight, to say nothing of what it means to be intrigued by the haunting beauty of many (not all...let's face it) aircraft.

Since I was a child, I have been fascinated by planes.  I think the first plane that caught my attention was a little model (albeit missing a few pieces) of Mr. Mulligan, a racing plane of the 1930s.  It was built specifically to win the Bendix Trophy (a race from the west coast of America to Cleveland, Ohio, where the National Air Races were held).  That is a brilliant idea: race to the races.

Mr. Mulligan was built in 1934, but due to a mishap it only entered the Bendix in 1935.  That year it won not only the Bendix but also the National Air Races' Thompson Trophy.

Mr. Mulligan (Source: Howard Aircraft)

How fast?  238.70 mph for the Bendix (Wiki).  Formula 1 cars go just that fast on the ground these days.  And today, if you fly on a passenger jet, you'll travel a wee bit below three times that speed.  But 238 mph -- that's pretty fast for a plane having plywood wings, a metal-tube fuselage frame with wood runners (longerons), and ceconite (doped fabric) covering.  Essentially, it was a big kite with an engine.

But it's not the speed of aircraft that grabs me.  Planes going low and slow are the most beautiful to watch, how some of them can literally hang in the air.

Beyond Mr. Mulligan, another very fond memory is from the late 60s and early 70s -- the Beech D-18s from my home town hauling mail: they'd go out, over my house in the morning, north -- probably to Minneapolis -- and return in the afternoon.  Two throaty radials.  What a sound!  In the afternoon, when the summer sun was still high as the planes returned, I could often go out to the driveway and their shadow would pass over me.

Beech D-18 (C-45 in Military Parlance)

Cecil Lewis, a pilot in WWI, recounted this fabulous experience while flying with his squadron:

The wing-tips of the planes, ten feet away, suddenly caught my eye, and for a second the amazing adventure of flight overwhelmed me.  Nothing between me and oblivion but a pair of light linen-covered wings and the roar of a 200-h.p. engine!  There was a the fabric, bellying up slightly in the suction above the plane, the streamlined wire, taut and quivering, holding the wing structure together, the three-ply body, the array of instruments, and the slight tremor of the whole aeroplane.  (Lewis, 181-182)

In another passage, he remembers flying a Sopwith triplane, with the middle of its three wings crossing the fuselage right at the open cockpit.  Lewis saw, again, the slightly bellying linen over the ribs.  As the middle wing was right there by him, he put out his hand, touching and pushing down on the fabric that was lifting in the negative pressure atop the wing.  The moment must have been magic.  When the plane is on the ground, the fabric sags (albeit stretched tightly) between the ribs.  When flying, that slightly sagging fabric balloons up in the suction.

Fabric and Ribs on My Old (RC) Tiger Moth, Dehavilland DH.82

Flying: the canvas shows you the actual lift that occurs on the top of a wing.  You can see the suction's effect in these two photos.

Fabric Bellying Up between the Ribs on the Wing. Tiger Moth (Top); Cub (Bottom)

Once when I was flying with a friend in a Piper Saratoga, I looked out the window to see one of the wing rivets sticking up from the aluminum (not fabric) skin into the airflow: the lift had raised the broken rivet in its hole, but the stream of air over the wing pushed its top back at an angle, so it could not lift completely out of the rivet hole and disappear.  When we landed, it had slipped back down into its hole, the suction gone.  We found which rivet was broken and had a mechanic replace it.

But there is just something about running your hand along the leading edge of a wing and seeing the curve of an airfoil.  It is all science, but, as with a bird, the "science" of the thing is not what we love about the bird.  Its beauty in flight or the way it alights on the grass...the intelligence of and in the design: that's the appeal. 

And the sound.  I'm not talking about jets here, which are more rockets with fins than planes with engines.  In high school, I used to go to a little grass strip where I'd sit on a bench outside the line shack (in this case, literally -- a little shack with a radio and table, maps, switch for runway lights, key for the gas pump, and the torn T-shirts of those who had newly soloed -- none of our current, glitzy electronics in those days).  And I'd sit there on a summer evening, watching planes do touch-and-goes just 40 or so feet from the shack.  The slight whistle, the prop spinning at idle as the plane glided in, an uncanny sound -- then beautiful as she flares, stalls, a little bump on the grass, and then throttle going up, a hesitation as it gains speed, then rotate to lift the nose -- up she goes again and around.

Here's the sound of one, if you want to hear it (all the better for throaty idle of the P&W radial):

The Sound of Landing -- a DH Beaver

Low and Slow?
Yes: there is a contest every year in Alaska for STOL aircraft (Short Take-Off and Landing).  World record: 14 feet 7 inches, shortest take off. 10 feet 5 inches, shortest landing [Link].  Admittedly, this purely STOL-contest bird isn't for travel from the US to Switzerland.

Among the fabulous aircraft made to actually haul goods and people about while maintaining (relatively) short take off and landing characteristics is the Dehavilland Beaver -- as in the landing video link, just above.  This is an amazing plane, having a very short cord (distance from leading edge of the wing to the trailing edge -- front to back), but having a 48-feet wing span, and all with a big, chunky body (fuselage).  And yet...it has incredible lift.  Oh, look!  Here's one now: [Link]

Dehavilland Beaver DHC-2

A Beaver I Worked on in High School, Now in Alaska
and Highly Modified Inside and Out [LINK]

The thing about it is the startup and the low growl of the Pratt & Whitney Wasp Jr. engine.  Not convinced?  Harrison Ford is: he bought and flies one -- incredible video here [Link].  Katheryn's Report offers this little canonization of the plane: [Link].

But undeniably the most beautiful airplane yet made -- the Spitfire.  Absolutely uncanny, the aesthetics of its lines.  Not merely the airfoil, but the curve of its leading edge, opposite to the curve of the trailing edge and mirrored in the curves of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator.  The long nose, hiding the V12.  Its sound.  And when it starts?  Fire.

What's in a Name?

 

 

 The Beauty of an English Swallow

The Anatomy

The landing gear, unlike most other planes of the time, fold up from the center, toward the wingtips -- the tires folding outward -- and not together, one just slightly before the other.  The beauty of it: running straight, lifting off slightly, wingtips staying level, the gear drawing up, then the plane climbing out steeply with a bank that lets you see her lines.  Sheer grace.

Here is one of the best clips to show its beauty:

 

Pilots who flew (and still fly) the Spitfire comment on not so much getting into the plane to fly it, but putting it on, becoming part of it -- or it becoming a part of you.  Because of the long nose that you can't see over, you land in a long, descending curve, looking just out the left or right/front windscreen.  As they land -- elevator working and quick touches on the rudder -- most Spits have a nice little bounce (yes, it's OK!) upon touching down, just like a real bird taking a wee hop after touching earth.  If you want to read a remarkable account of flying Spitfires, try Geoffrey Wellum's book First Light [Link]. 

While I have long loved the Spitfire, years ago I was given the opportunity to sit in the first one I had ever seen -- that in Manston, England, an airbase where these birds nested during WWII.  It was a tight fit -- like the proverbial glove.  Even the stick was modified to accommodate the narrow cockpit -- a spade handle hinged just above the knee for aileron control.  I could not imagine flying it, let alone being shot at while doing so.

My Other Car is a Spitfire

Flight is one of the most beautiful things I know.  And during this age of Covid, dreaming of flying and looking at aircraft have been one of my most peaceful pastimes.

All this talk of planes?  There's a great deal more to it.  It's a part of you...if you're able to see it.  Maybe this will help explain:

Next time: helicopters.