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Yesterday, Lance Orozco from the NPR affiliate station in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties came to the Anacapa School to interview my students and me about our plans to launch the Anacapa Amateur High Altitude Balloon 1 (AAHAB-1) on Saturday. His story aired this morning on KCLU.
Listen to KCLU’s radio news story (mp3 | 6m 31s)
Daniela and I flew around Hawaii’s Big Island in a Cessna 172S yesterday and were lucky enough to have just enough cloud clearance to sneak into the rift zone for some photos of Kilauea’s active Puʻu ʻŌʻō volcanic vent in Volcano National Park. Check out the gallery for more shots taken by us during the two-and-a-half hour flight counterclockwise around the island.
We launched the Red Baron Aviation Web site on June 1. I redesigned the site in WordPress to add blog-like content including a featured article on the home page as well as content management to allow owner/manager Peggy to make updates with ease. Check it out.
With the corporate board approval of the United and Continental airline merger the two companies launched a new Web site to promote the idea of creating the world’s largest airline. For those of us in cities serviced by both airlines this might ultimately mean that there are fewer flight times and fares for our destinations, however that remains to be seen. What is known is that if the merger is approved, the unified airline will be known (appropriately) as United but will bear the Continental globe logo and font. Is it just me or does this look like an alternate reality from a Hot Tub Time Machine malfunction? This livery design is not an upgrade. The serif font and 1980′s AT&T-like logo is a side-grade from Continental’s current look and a downgrade from United’s relatively new branding.
An aerial photo I took in Newport, R.I. of the mansions is the Sammy’s Camera Photo of the Day today on daily news site Noozhawk.
I’ve added some new aerial photos of Massachusetts and Rhode Island to the galleries. These new shots are from about 300 feet AGL in an R44 helicopter. Check them out.
These two aerial photos were taken by two different passengers while flying with me in a Cessna 172 over Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch at the base of Figueroa Mountain in Los Olivos (Santa Barbara County), California exactly one year apart. The photos show a before and after look at the dismanteling of the amusments there. Click the photos for additional information.
February 21, 2008:
February 21, 2009:
I was flying into SFO on a United/Skywest flight when I spotted this big guy off the right wing. The two touchdowns were almost in synchronous. Pretty cool.
A Picassa album from Mr. Bradford Holt
Last night I stayed up to look for Comet Lulin near Saturn and to see the launch of the Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). A 30 second exposure to the south in an attempt to reveal the green comet yielded the shot to the right. At first I thought my camera was shaking, but upon further examination it appeared that a 30 second at 300 mm is enough to reveal streaks from the spinning of the earth on its axis! Wow, we are moving.
By 1:30 am PST I had abandoned the search for Lulin and turned my tripod to the north toward Vandenberg AFB. The Taurus XL was set to lift off at 1:50:30 PST. I had the laptop on the top of the car streaming NASA TV and the countdown. At T-plus 00:00:10 I saw a fireball rocket in the northwestern sky heading south. As I raced to get my camera off of bulb-exposure mode (in the excitement and darkness I failed to be prepared) what appeared to be the first stage of the rocket separated in a puff of smoke. Then, as it crossed the western sky southward, there was another puff, this one larger than the last. In the photo on the left there is a clear stream streak on the lower left of the frame which is the glowing rocket flame. To the top right side of the frame there is an eerie “cloud” which is the position in the sky at which I observed the second poof. The “cloud” remained for several minutes.
This morning I learned that the launch had failed and the satellite had crashed into the ocean near Antarctica after a rocket stage failed to separate properly. Which leaves me wondering if the mysterious “cloud” is the moment of failure.
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