Playing around with Flickr

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris

I took this picture in 2003 with an old 2 MP camera--my first digital. The photo is actually posted on Flickr. If you click on this image, it'll take you to what Flickr calls my 'photostream', which, right now, is more of a puddle. Or perhaps a drop.

At any rate, you can then enlarge the images you see on Flickr. It's amazing to me to see the detail afforded (when enlarged on Flickr) by this old image--especially considering the size of the image is only 372 kb.

Shows how little I understand pixels, compression, etc.

More pix to follow.

Changing the world one cow at a time

There are millions of worthwhile charities around the world, but I know of two that I've supported that do so in a way you might find unique.


Please take a moment to visit this very worthwhile organization that has no stated religious affiliation: heifer.org.

I support them financially as I think this is a great concept.

Another organization I've given to that seems to be putting their money to good use is Samaritan's Purse for those preferring a faith-based organization.

Was hypoxia the stimulus for High Flight?

Classic Aircraft Photography

In the course of my USAF flight training, there were several times in which I had the pleasure of experiencing the onset of hypoxia in the altitude chamber. It's a terrific training opportunity in that it affords aviators the opportunity to identify the onset of hypoxia symptoms without being airborne.

So what is hypoxia and why do we need to knows these symptoms? And what does it have to do with the author of High Flight?

In layman's terms, hypoxia refers to deprivation of oxygen. If your brain does not get enough oxygen, it starts shutting down, but along the way it starts to malfunction. Your judgment and problem-solving skills deteriorate as you head down the road to unconsciousness and perhaps death. Your peripheral vision may start to deteriorate. You might feel light-headed or giddy. You might feel tingling sensations in your fingertips.

If you're in a jet at high altitude and start to feel those things, it might be because the plane is gradually losing pressurization.

Remember all those flight attendant briefings in which they talk about putting those masks on your faces? This is what they're talking about. If you don't get to put on the masks, and the aircraft depressurizes at altitude, you'll get hypoxic.

Hypoxia symptoms vary from person to person. If you, as the pilot, expose yourself to this lack of oxygen in "the chamber", you learn in a safe environment to recognize your personal symptoms. With luck, if your aircraft begins to lose pressurization gradually, your awareness of these symptoms will prompt you to don your oxygen mask well before the lack of oxygen reduces your capabilities. You'll then take the appropriate steps and bring your beleaguered aircraft home safely.

But don't worry too much about this as you're flying the friendly skies. All passenger airliners have systems on board that will automatically alert the pilots that their planes are depressurizing. That same system drops the masks in the back for the passengers. If you're in flight and the masks drop, in short order, you should expect the airplane to descend to lower altitude or you should expect to hear from the pilots that all is well.

Tying all this in with John Gillespie Magee and the poem High Flight, are the inquisitive folks at the BBC in England. They hypothesize that the teenager may have felt the effects of hypoxia during his flying and that the euphoria he felt while airborne may have provided the exuberance necessary for his world-famous poem.

Please visit this link to the BBC.

Interestingly, I read a book a few years ago that was written during WWII by a pilot flying in the Burma-India theater. Those guys actually got addicted to oxygen because they breathed 100% oxygen daily for quite some time. When I remember the name of the book, I'll post it.

High Flight from Shanghai

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr


I remember being especially moved by the poem, High Flight, when I was a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy*. While almost everything about the Academy experience was oriented toward creating a dedicated career officer in the United States Air Force, for most of us who were aviation-bound, all the USAFA choreography was simply about flying. Magee's poem frequently accompanied incredible, motivational, audio-visual presentations of all kinds of flying. When I first heard the poem and was so greatly moved, I could only guess at the background of the author who had so purely captured and then articulated his passion for flight. Now that I know a little more about John Gillespie Magee, Jr., the poem is even more meaningful and I hope you'll agree.

So from his surprising birthplace, I offer you this little tidbit about an American boy who flew and died over England in WW II, and in the process touched millions with his words…


Magee

During the desperate days of the Battle of Britain, hundreds of Americans crossed the border into Canada to enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Knowingly breaking the law, but with the tacit approval of the then still officially neutral United States Government, they volunteered to fight the Nazis.**

John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was one such American. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1922 to an English mother and a Scotch-Irish-American father, Magee was 18 years old when he entered flight training. Within the year, he was sent to England and posted to the newly formed No. 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF, which was activated at Digby, England, on 30 June 1941.

He was qualified on and flew the Supermarine Spitfire. Flying fighter sweeps over France and air defense over England against the German Luftwaffe, he rose to the rank of Pilot Officer. On 3 September 1941, Magee flew a high altitude (30,000 feet) test flight in a newer model of the Spitfire V. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem —"To touch the face of God."

Once back on the ground, he wrote a letter to his parents. In it he commented, "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed." On the back of the letter, he jotted down his poem, 'High Flight'.

Just three months later, on 11 December 1941 (and only three days after the US entered the war), Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was killed. The Spitfire V he was flying, VZ-H, collided with an Oxford Trainer from Cranwell Airfield flown by one Ernest Aubrey. The mid-air happened over the village of Roxholm, which lies between RAF Cranwell and RAF Digby, in the county of Lincolnshire at about 400 feet AGL at 11:30.

John was descending in the clouds. At the enquiry a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggle to push back the canopy. The pilot, he said, finally stood up to jump from the plane. John, however, was too close to the ground for his parachute to open. He died instantly.

He was 19 years old.

Part of the official letter to his parents read, "Your son's funeral took place at Scopwick Cemetery, near Digby Aerodrome, at 2:30 P.M. on Saturday, 13th December, 1941, the service being conducted by Flight Lieutenant S. K. Belton, the Canadian padre of this Station. He was accorded full Service Honors, the coffin being carried by pilots of his own Squadron."

Excerpts from Great Aviation Quotes: High Flight by John Magee
http://www.skygod.com/quotes/highflight.html

*A useful link for Zoomies: The AOG

**A great book on this topic is The Few, by Alex Kershaw.

--->>>Next blog...Was hypoxia partly the reason for Magee's passion for flight?