DJphoto wrote:
I am also an aviation nut. I have always loved airplanes and decided to become an aeronautical engineer in the fifth grade, which I did and then spent 35 years doing it. I'm in my 11th year of teaching part time at a local university (I started several months before I retired from NASA, where I worked mostly on space projects), where I teach lower division courses in aircraft design and aircraft turbine engines. They pay me to talk about airplanes. I also fly RC, mostly sailplanes and park flyers. I learned to fly RC sailplanes at the field in San Jose where the LSF was formed, with some of the guys that formed it. Life got too busy with a career and raising 5 children so I stopped the hobby for about 25 years, but got back into it in 2011 with a Radian and have been doing it ever since. I kept my airplanes when I quit flying and still fly three of my old sailplanes sometimes, with 2.4 radios in them now.
I'm aware of the LA Speed story; very cool. Many years ago when I was working for the Navy, I happened to be in Washington DC when they were lighting the National Christmas Tree, so I went. I was standing in the crowd and the "little old lady in tennis shoes" standing next to me struck up a conversation. When she found out why I was in Washington she asked if I was going to the Air & Space Museum for the SR-71 talk. I responded that the museum was closed now. She said parts of it opened in the evening for special events. After the tree lighting, I grabbed a quick dinner and went there. She was correct and there was a very interesting presentation with Q&A by an SR-71 test pilot. I was a great way to spend an evening!
I am also an aviation nut. I have always loved ai... (
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Yeah that would have been cool to attend wish I could have been there, but that's life...I've spent a lot of time slopin on Mt Tam. Doing at lot of thermal on flat land now as slopes around here are nil....