THE DANUBE
THE BEST travel books offer historical nuggets and personal insights as well as trip details. Nick Thorpe’s The Danube is a fine example. Why upriver? Thorpe says he’s following a … Continue reading
AUTOGYROS IN SONG, LEGEND AND THE NEWS
OUTSPOKEN ENTHUSIASTS of fixed-wing aircraft claim that helicopters don’t really fly, they’re just so ugly that the Earth repels them. I wonder if this same opinion applies to another form … Continue reading
CLEARING THE FUEL-CELL AIR
FULL DISCLOSURE: I’ve been enthusiastic about automobile fuel-cell propulsion since the early 1990s when I learned about this means of producing electric energy. Not that my enthusiasm has been universally … Continue reading
IT’S GOOD TO BE HOME
“SHOW ME a person’s home,” someone or other must have said, “and I’ll tell you who that person is.” Homes can be modest or grand, elegantly traditional or jarringly post-modern. … Continue reading
DOMINGUEZ HILL 1910—AMERICA’S FIRST AIR MEET
AIRLINE PASSENGERS using LAX, Los Angeles’s major airport, may not realize it, but they’re near historic ground in pioneer aviation. The first air meet in the U.S. took place January 10 – 20, … Continue reading
POLITICAL NAME-CALLING
THE BBC World Service reported today a British Liberal Party spokesman said that political coalition could “give the Conservative Party a heart and Labour a brain.” Being an outsider to the … Continue reading
FIAT’S MOUSE—THE 500 TOPOLINO
THE FAME of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse gave a name to one of the world’s most charming automobiles, the Fiat 500 Topolino (Italian: Little Mouse, and Mickey’s nickname there). The … Continue reading
MY NATION—AND I MEAN MINE: MICROCON 2015
FROM TIME to time, people complain that they could do a better job of running things than the incumbent politicos. And, for a select few, they do just that. These … Continue reading
BROOKLANDS AERO
IT WAS like having the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk nestled in the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Brooklands, 25 miles southwest of central London, 12 miles south of Heathrow … Continue reading
SHORT RIDE IN A FORMULA FORD
SIRIUSXM SATELLITE radio’s Symphony Hall channel recently featured Short Ride in a Fast Machine, a fanfare for orchestra by modern composer John Adams. I immediately thought of my brief but … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 