Goodbye Yankee Lady

The Yankee Lady has taken to the skies from the Yankee Air Museum Michigan Flight Museum for the last time.

 

Bought by the museum in 1986 for $250,000 she was allegedly sold for somewhere in the range of $15 million.

She's heading off for an overhaul and then to the new owner apparently in California.
 

Sold, likely due to the costs involved in keeping her airworthy, and for the announced reason that it was due to the museum's over-reliance on the revenue from rides on the aircraft, which was affected whenever B-17s were grounded by the FAA, the museum decided to sell its centerpiece.  The museum, in a separate decision, also rebranded itself as the Michigan Flight Museum, bringing an end to the years of goodwill and recognition as the Yankee Air Museum.

The Yankee Lady has departed its home base Ypsilanti for the last time, and is off for an overhaul and then on to its new but currently undisclosed owner who is apparently in California.

From Sinwar To Sinwas

The top commander in Gaza of Hamas, and the planner and implementer of the October 7 massacre and kidnapping has been killed by the Israel Defense Forces.

The Times of Israel:  New details emerge of Sinwar’s final moments

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Maybe Hamas will learn from this that it is time to release the hostages and end the conflict they started, but I doubt that.

Can You Trust Any Statistic From The Biden-Harris Administration?

If the true statistic would make them look bad, the answer is clearly no.

We've seen the Bureau of Labor Statistics under Biden-Harris release, with great fanfare numbers showing job growth, and then the job numbers are quietly revised. Downward.  Every time, in some cases by 800,000 jobs after the good news is announced.

Now so too with the FBi and violent crime stats.

The FBI reported crime was down 2.1%, to benefit Democrats,

It has now quietly revised that decline to a 4.5% increase, which is quite a major and a notable increase.  Missed it by that much, I suppose,

Real Clear Investigations: Stealth Edit: FBI Quietly Revises Violent Crime Stats.

Democrat AntiSemitic Township Trustee Acts Just As Expected

 There's video of the Bloomfield Township meeting where Stephanie Fakih tries to dissimulate her way out of consequences for her hateful social media posts:

Stephanie Fakih starts off cautioning people not to label her or others (19:00).  The crowd gets quite a laugh out of that. After all,  she just labelled Americans and Israelis in her post as "scum". One has to admire the sheer effrontery of this gambit.

Of course according to Stephanie Fakih, it's not her the fault, but the fault of the Board and the news organizations for shining a spotlight on her posts, because she considers her statement to have nothing to do with the running of the township and thus it's perfectly fine (20:11).

She doesn't back down, she doesn't apologize, she instead propagandizes.

She goes on to claim of course she just means Zionism and not Jews and thus its all hunky-dory (this is a paraphrase), and diversity (so long as it hates "Zionists", of course)  is a good thing per her and then she goes on to claim she will never "stand to divide", whatever that means, after dividing the community with her post.

You can watch the whole thing including her supporters emoting and lying. Quite a show.

Well, That Was Difficult

Went to Jitsu last night.

First it was a lesson on escapes form inverted heel hooks, which are rather nasty things to be subject to in grappling. In short a properly set heel hook is going to tear your knee up, and fast. So learning about preventing it and knowing how to escape it is pretty important.

Next it was a fight sim session - meaning protecting yourself from punches (with gloves worn) with sparring simulating being attacked and then defending yourself from an attack.

Good practice, but when you're up against a late-20s aged opponent at the same skill level, while you're in the low 50s, it gets ugly pretty fast.

On the upside, once on the ground I was able to protect myself and have a position that made punches ineffective, and I was basically able to hold him off and prevent him from doing any damage whether by punching or other techniques.  Took a lot of work, but I managed it. But, what I could not do was escape from him and get to a dominant position. Physical strength has a quality all its own in a fight, even a simulated one, and I sure ain't as strong as I once was, even as my technique is likely better than ever. But I "survived" the encounter and that counts for something.

After that workout, it was then time for freestyle rolling.  I did decently at it.  I actually got some decent submissions on some opponents and got nailed myself as well, so I was both the fly and the windshield during the rolls.

Lots of fun with a great group of people and it was one heckuva workout, and some new techniques were learned.

A challenging class, and I'm a tad sore now, but it was still a great time.

Democrat Bloomfield Township Trustee Makes Public AntiSemitic Statements

The Oakland Press: Township Trustee Criticized For Calling Zionists scum

Of course, she's set her account to private. But, there's a screenshot, as can be seen in the article where she attacks Israeli and American "Zionists" (for Zionist just read Jews - as people like her do).  Stephanie Fakih is, to no one's surprise, a Democrat.

Now, she happens to be a Bloomfield Township Trustee and due to the outrage is apparently going to make a statement about her post tonight: C&G News Bloomfield Township trustee to address report of calling Zionists ‘scum’ in social media post.

She has the right to her opinion as she may wish, but there are consequences to racist opinions, and making her account private seems to be an acknowledgment that she got caught.

While she's not running for reelection, she should do the right thing and resign, but I suspect that will be not the most likely outcome. 

She instead seems to be calling on Muslims from outside of Bloomfield Township to appear at the meeting to support her, so the meeting could get interesting and it'll be fun to see how she tries to handle her mess.

I expect Rashida Tlaib will have a position waiting for her when she's done as trustee.

Quite The Impression There Gretchen

The Detroit News: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer feeds podcaster Dorito in 'weird' viral video

The video has the governor feeding the podcaster a Dorito chip (What Kamala has claimed is her favorite) while wearing a Kamala Harris / Walz cap, and a rather bizarre expression, to the kneeling podcaster in a rather bizarre tik tok video.

She's now walked back this rather weird stunt and apologized as to how it was perceived, after being called out on it especially as it appears to come across as either some weird dom/sub thing, or a bit of mockery towards communion celebrated by Catholics:

Mediate: Gretchen Whitmer Apologizes For Bizarre Doritos TikTok Stunt After Catholic Outrage

Not exactly a stunt a governor of a state should be participating in, really.

But that's our governor for you, when she's not killing the elderly with bad Covid decisions, she's all class (not) and ever eager to take a poke at those who don't get behind the Democrat party line.

Yom Kippur

Yesterday, I went to services for Yom Kippur.  The services were meaningful, as was the fast which I made through without issue or complaint.

After services at the mid-day I took a break and did a hike at Haven Hill in Highland Recreational Area.

The weather was absolutely perfect for a hike.

 Saw a swan on the pond there:

And then by the parking lot some Sandhill Cranes were wandering around the field.

Rather ungainly looking birds, and they seemed to be clowning around for the people watching them.

It was a nice couple mile hike under gorgeous conditions and rather meditative to be out in nature in between services.

Then had a very pleasant light break the fast meal.  It was a meaningful Yom Kippur.

Flying: Staying Frosty

I got up at a very unhealthy hour and made it to the airport by 7am today.

Joel and I were going to pickup the Dakota from the avionics shop as it was ready to be returned to service. Apparently a wire had chafed and it was sending bad signals to the pitch/trim servo.  

So we preflighted the Archer and Joel would fly me out then he was going to fly to Saginaw to pickup an item for his work and head back to Pontiac. So, Joel would fly, I'd handle the radios and then jump out, get the Dakota and fly back. easy and should be back before 9.

A gorgeous day and we got to see the sunrise.

 There were patches of fog over each of the lakes in the area tha tlloked like little baby clouds:

The air was very calm and cold so we had great performance

We arrived and Joel did a darn nice landing.

After landing we taxi'd over to the Dakota and we could see there was an issue.

Frost!  A thick layer of frost covered the wings, tail, windows, everywhere.

Frost is very much not a good thing to have on your airplane.  It badly affects the airflow over the wing and can easily cause a loss of lift and a loss of control.  

In short, if your plane is covered in frost, you're not taking off.

So, I borrowed some brooms from Huron Avionics and tried to get it off that way,

No dice, it just scraped the ice and made some snow, but a layer of frost still clung underneath it to the wings. The plane was not in a safe condition to fly.

So we did what any aviator would do.  We went to breakfast and waited for the sun to burn it off.

The small restaurant on the field in Owosso, Crosswinds Cafe, is amazing.

 We certainly didn't go away hungry.

By the end of breakfast the frost was all burned off and I was ready to go.

After a preflight, I started the engine and let the engine warm up for a bit as it was rather cold.

The day was absolutely beautiful, winds still totally calm, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky.

Pontiac was busy enough that they went to dual towers and two frequencies.   I contacted the tower position in charge of the north runway and let them know I had the ATIS.  They had me do a downwind entry for Runway 27R, which I did, followed by a very nice landing.

Sadly, the delay waiting for the frost to go away messed up my morning, so I'm scrambling a bit now trying to catch up, but that's fine.

That's 0.6 and a great landing worth of free flying.