Through The Mist Darkly

I’m pretty glad to see 2009 in the rear-view mirror.  As years go, it will always be in my memory with a few highlights and some very, very low points.  Let’s look back at some postings here to see how it went.

January started off with a wish for peace.  I won’t make a judgement call on how that went.

My flight lessons came to abrupt halt on January 11 when I blinked.  Couldn’t handle stall training.  I still haven’t flown again since that day and I’m not really sure whether I will again.

Sticking with aviation, January 15th saw the remarkable landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in New York.  Captain Chesley Sullenberger and his crew reminded us all that professional aviators are remarkable people.  Lots of people had fun with what could have been a horrible tragedy.

As far as I know, US Airways never went forward with this suggested modification.

I spent a lot of time at the Canadian Air & Space Museum this year.  Main task was to help put on the 4th annual Wings & Wheels Festival.  My first post on the subject came on January 18.  More on that later.

January 20th saw the swearing in of Barak Obama as 44th President of the United States.

The world was electrified and hope was unlimited.  How’ he done so far?  Meh.

On Valentine’s day, instead of having a romantic dinner with Jan, I boarded an Air Canada flight to Zurich.  Another week of meetings.  When I got back, the museum had changed its name from Toronto Aerospace Museum to the Canadian Air & Space Museum.  To announce this, I took part in the opening of the Toronto Stock Exchange on February 23rd.

Quite a rush!

March was pretty slow.  Busy at work and at the museum.  Weather turned nice in the middle of the month and I got some planespotting and posted a bunch of pictures.

April was filled with preparations for Wings & Wheels. I posted a bunch of photos of the aircraft that were scheduled to appear and attended lots of meetings.

Then came May.  On the 2nd, I got word that my mother Maxine had been taken to hospital in Midland.  She’d been in pain for a while, something she attributed to an injury while exercising, but things got really bad.  They let her out 2 weeks later (on her 80th birthday). I wrote about my first love the day after.

Wings & Wheels went off without a hitch.  A very busy week but lots of fun.  It helped take my mind off Maxine’s condition.

June saw Maxine in hospital again.  Lots of tests and conjecture but more questions than answers.  Lots of trips back and forth to Midland while trying to keep the wheels on the track at work.  The month started off on a good note, I caught a lucky shot of the very first Airbus A380 approach to Pearson Airport.

Then it all started going horribly wrong.  My trips became more frequent.  Maxine was slipping and there didn’t seem to be anything that could be done except manage the unbelievable pain she was suffering.  She no longer knew who I was.  She was moved to a palliative care unit in Penetang and we prepared for the inevitable.    At 1:13 pm on Monday June 29th 2009, Mary Maxine Mist passed away.

Goodbye Mother.

July was a whirlwind.  Arrangements were made.  Friends and family were contacted, memories shared, tears shed.  Some may question my judgement but I had to get away for a while.  I had to get my head straight.  I spent the first weekend of July at Trenton Air Base and attended the general meeting of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society.  The camera became my close friend.  Looking through the viewfinder helped me forget about things for a while.

Everyone gathered up in Elmvale to celebrate Maxine’s life.  We had some laughs and shed more tears.  I put together a slide show of all the pictures we had and everyone enjoyed it.   Then it was off to the house where Maxine’s ashes joined those of my sister Susan and my father Ted in the garden in the back.

No need to bore anyone with all the legal and financial matters that came after (and still continue) so let’s move on.

I started writing a series of posts – “Today in aviation history” and kept it up for a couple of months but it just became too much work to find something interesting everyday.  Kept busy at work but found some time to attend an airshow in Waterloo and took part in the 60th anniversary of the Avro Jetliner celebration at the museum where I had a chance to meet the head designer of both the Jetliner and the Arrow, Dr. James Floyd.  Even got my picture taken with this remarkable man.

Speaking of the Waterloo airshow, I worked the museum’s booth and had a chance to meet one of Canada’s astronauts, Bjarni Tryggvason, who also piloted the 100th anniversary replica of the Silver Dart.

September was without personal drama.  The museum, on the other hand, went through a lot of turmoil as “new” members of the board who had tried to take us down an unrealistic path resigned and left us in a bit of a lurch.  I wrote about it.  On a high note, I flew up to Ottawa and helped as a volunteer at the Vintage Wings of Canada open house.  A fun weekend with lots of beautiful airplanes.

On the 16th, Kanye West continued his intrusions and hijacked the website.

Spent a great day up at the Brampton Flying Club’s Open House where I got pressed into duty as “official” photographer.

Glad to help out Julie!

October held another trip to Switzerland.  Another week of meetings.

In November I grew a moustache in support of the Movember campaign to support prostate cancer screening.  Raised a little money for a very worthwhile cause.  Got sick (not H1N1) and spent most of the month feeling crappy.  Even though I thought I was through with business travel for the year, I ended up doing a quick trip to Connecticut for meetings.  First flight in a little Beechcraft 1900D was a highlight of the trip.

Also got a chance to visit the New England Air Museum outside of Hartford, something I’ve been meaning to do for years.

Wings & Wheels preparations for the 2010 show started in earnest and I put on my web designer hat (it’s a very small hat) and spent a lot of time on the new website.

In December I got older (58) but not a whole lot wiser.   Along with millions of others I watched the first flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.  Beautiful!  All the joy and promise that event brought got sucked out late in the month by the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by the “underwear bomber” which brought a new round of security theatre as the US went into lockdown mode and screwed up air travel for millions.  Coming on Christmas Day, the event brought a little excitement into what was, otherwise, just a quiet day at home with Jan and the cats.  It felt very strange not to be phoning Wasaga Beach to wish Maxine a Merry Christmas.

Went to see Avatar on the 27th and wrote a mini review.

The year ended with a visit to the dentist and a quiet dinner at home with the woman I love and two fat and happy cats. C’mon 2010.  Try to be better, please?

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The folks at Jib Jab present their wrap up of the year that is 2009

High on US politics but still fun.

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Apologies to Bruce Cockburn.

20 years ago, dozens of sea lions started showing up at Pier 39 in San Francisco harbour.  Now, for some reason, they’ve all left.

I ran into this lazy bunch back in 2005.

Reports say they left during the last week of November.

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On a lighter note, I went to see James Cameron’s latest blockbuster Avatar last week.

There’s two distinct aspects to this movie and I’ll tackle them separately.

 

The Story

Definitely the weaker of the two.  If Cameron spent 15 years planning and making this movie, I’d bet he spent only a short period of that time on the plot.  Whether it’s a thinly veiled rebuke of US foreign policy or just lazy writing, the theme of Avatar has been done before and done better.  Poor oppressed naive people (country) brutalized by big, greedy corporation (bigger country) but learn to fight back thanks to a member of the latter who falls in love with a girl from the former and switches sides.  Ho hum.  Didn’t see that coming.  Little guy defeats big guy and everyone walks off into the sunset where everything will be unicorns and rainbows forever. Gag me with a spoon.

The Visuals

Oh my God!  This movie will define the exact moment when movie making changed forever.  A cinematic masterpiece that has to be seen in 3D.  There’s a metric crapload of CGI on display here but it doesn’t take long before you can no longer tell where it stops and “reality” begins. I won’t be spoiling anything to say that the story revolves around a race known as the Na’vi who inhabit the planet Pandora.  They’re 10 feet tall and blue.  Yep, gotta be CGI and they are.  But they look so dam real that you start looking at them as real.  The integration of motion capture to get the actors’ facial features and mannerisms is so seamless that I couldn’t pick out anything that looked in the least bit fake or out of sync.

The landscape is both beautiful and terrifying.  Some of the scariest movie critters ever imagined are on display here and they will scare little kids (and some big ones as well).  More impressive are the smallest of creatures, gossamer in construction and flawless in movement.  Floating mountains, flying creatures and fearsome war machines are all rendered with complete believability.

3D has finally achieved all the promise that started with those cheesy cardboard glasses with the red and green cellophane that let you see spears coming at you.  Today’s version comes with cool Blues Brothers inspired black frames with gray lenses.  The “let’s scare you with something coming directly at you” tricks are still there but they’re completely separate from what makes this new technology so powerful.  Things appear at the corner of your vision and drift into frame – in front or behind the action.  In your face but not in-your-face if you get what I mean.  A scene where the forest is burning and embers float by blew me away.  You feel like you’re actually there and the embers are falling on YOU.  It’s done so well that it’s really impossible to describe.  You have to see it.

The Verdict

Story aside, this is a great piece of art.  Cameron and crew have made a movie that will be talked about for years.  It will recoup all the money that it cost and then some.  It will clean up on the technical awards at the Oscars.  It will make you glad that you saw it – just make sure you see it in 3D.

Story: 4 out of 10

Visuals: 11 out of 10

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If everything goes to plan an airplane registered as N787BA carrying the callsign ZA001 will lift off the runway at Paine Field in Everett Washington at 1800GMT (1pm EST).  Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner will finally spread its wings.

Plagued by problems and 2 years late in development, the 787 represents a quantum leap in the history of commercial aviation.  The future of Boeing rests on a successful outcome and planespotters are camped out waiting for the moment when the main wheels lift off the tarmac.

Millions of words have been written about the 787 and its tortuous journey to this day.  My main source for news has been Jon Ostrower and his excellent website.  Anything you would ever want to know can be found along with spectacular pictures and videos.  One of Jon’s favorite sources is Liz Matzelle who appears to live at Boeing.  A great selection of her pictures is available here.

Nothing, except gravity, is ever absolute in aviation and the flight could be delayed or cancelled but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

UPDATE: She flew!!

(image courtesy of Boeing)

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A couple of visitors have shown up at the museum in the last week.

The first is a bird that has returned to the nest.  A De Havilland DHC-2 MK.1 Beaver owned by Four Seasons Aviation Ltd.  Registered as C-FETE this beaver bears construction # 1204 and she rolled off the line on December 6, 1958 which means she celebrates her 51st birthday tomorrow.

A testament to the rugged nature of all Beavers, FETE looks brand new even though she crashed in 1986. Rebuilt and re-registered in 1998, she continues to fly passengers.  5 years ago a water landing while the amphibious gear was still down caused another trip to the repair shop.

FETE will be with us over the winter and will return to service when the lakes and rivers thaw.

The Beaver was designed, built and flown from Downsview Airport and it’s long overdue that the museum should have one of these marvellous birds on display, even if just for a little while.

The second visitor will only be with us for a very short while.

The Rocketbelt.  Science fiction made real in 1958 when the first SRLD (Small Rocket Lift Device) lifted a man off the ground for the first time.

Hard to control, the design was worked on over the years and finally got to the point that it appeared at Super Bowl’s and played a bit part in the 1965 James Bond movie “Thunderball”.

One of the Rocketbelt pilots was William (Bill) Suitor who will be on hand at the museum on December 12th at 4 pm to promote his new book, “Rocketbelt Pilot’s Manual” with a presentation and book signing.

Here’s a shot of Bill in flight.  Powered by a combination of hydrogen peroxide and compressed nitrogen, each flight lasted no more than 30 seconds at a noise level of 130 decibels.

The entire concept was deemed to be a failure as the distance traveled in flight was no more than 120 metres.

The Rocketbelt is on loan from the Niagara Aerospace Museum located in Niagara Falls, NY and will be heading back home in early January.

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Not many updates here lately but I’ve got a good reason.  Been spending the last couple of weeks building the new website for Wings & Wheels.

I’m not taking all the credit for this but it’s safe to say I’ve been doing most of the frustrating little things that go into building it.

The whole site is built on the Joomla CMS application.  Like Wordpress, which this site runs on, it’s open source backed up by thousands of users, designers and extension writers.  Learning a new web app is like learning a new language and I *STILL* can’t speak German even after dozens of trips.

I’m pretty proud of the new website and sure hope all the hard work will bring the visitors in.  Drop over and take a look.

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I really thought with all the budget restrictions and the general state of business that I wouldn’t be flying anymore for the rest of this year.  Guess I was wrong.

Tomorrow morning I hop on one of these 18 seater Beechcraft 1900Ds operated by Air Georgian for Air Canada to fly down to Hartford Connecticut.  Once there, it’s a 1 hour drive to Waterbury and check-in at the Courtyard Marriott.

Monday and Tuesday are full days of meetings in the town of Naugatuck before heading back Tuesday night.  This is my 5th or 6th trip down to our US office there.  Promises to be 3 long days starting with a business dinner tomorrow night.

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Tuesday morning at 2am sounds like a fine time to be outside looking up.

The annual Leonid meteor shower starts tomorrow night and peaks a few hours later.  This graph available here shows that that 2:28am EST is my best time.  Sounds great but I really doubt that I’ll be awake for the show.

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