- As a private pilot in the US, you can get an instrument flight rating that allows you to fly in all sorts of undesirable weather. This rating is an outgrowth of techniques developed starting in the 1930s. I didn’t know this, but most other countries don’t have a private IFR rating at all; if you want to fly in bad weather, you need a pan-European air transport pilot (ATP) rating, which is very expensive. Thus France’s announcement that they would provide one is kind of a big deal, especially since IFR-rated US pilots can get an endorsement allowing them to fly IFR in France. That means I have until next summer to get rated because…
- Next summer I want to take the boys to Normandy for the anniversary of D-Day. My friend Ron, an Army Ranger who served a mission in Switzerland and is fluent in French, took his sons this summer and has had some remarkable stories to tell. Gotta go before we run out of veterans. Being able to tour the area by air would be the icing on the cake, so to speak.
- And speaking of cake: ordering groceries directly from your phone? It’s like the future… a tasty, tasty future.
- And speaking of future: I found my jetpack. It’s water-powered, but still, I’d love to try this out.
- And speaking of trying things out: did you know that Amazon has a site called SmallParts.com that bills itself as “the hardware store for researchers and developers”? Happy shopping!
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Normandy gives a good sense of the vastness of the operation back then (visited area in 2009).