The Friday Brief: Reining It in
Adjusting the publication schedule a bit here, but still sticking around.
Hey friends, and a happy Friday to those who celebrate Fridays. And to those who don’t, what do you celebrate? If you’re traveling this holiday weekend, safe travels to you, and let’s all remember to honor those whose sacrifices are the reason for the Memorial Day holiday.
It’s been a crazy couple weeks…make that, months here. Last fall, I dove headlong into this Substack thing. I’d been separated from the magazine I’d written at for several years, and to be honest I’d gotten addicted to the writing. I fired up the Substack to keep from getting rusty, and since I hit publish on the first post, I’ve published Monday morning flying tales and Friday afternoon briefs on-schedule, as advertised.
I’ll take this moment to advertise a change.
I’m going to dial back on the schedule a bit, but the Monday stories will continue as before. Fridays? When something catches my eye, I’ll run a brief. If it happens on a Friday, then you’ll get it on a Friday. You might get an occasional brief on any other day of the week, too. But Monday morning at 8:00, the stories will continue.
And…Words Aloft monthly columns will return to the pages of Plane & Pilot magazine. We’re still hammering out stuff on the business side of things, but later this summer my byline returns to print.
Anyway, there’s a little bit of news this week:
A Singapore Airlines flight encountered severe turbulence Tuesday, apparently triggering a passenger’s fatal heart attack, and injuring dozens of others aboard the flight. As of last night, 46 remain hospitalized. Singapore Airlines has revised their policies regarding the seat belt sign and cabin service, saying they will no longer serve meals when the seat belt sign is illuminated—one of the big threats in turbulence is that heavily-laden galley carts can be thrown throughout the cabin.
The last time DARPA and Aurora shared a sentence from my mouth, I was a lot younger and people were talking about odd contrails that looked like donuts on a rope. But now, DARPA and Aurora Flight Sciences appear to be moving forward on a VTOL design with in-wing lift fans and traditional propulsion engines that will push toward 450-knot cruising speeds.
I’ll let Aviation Week’s comment ride here, because they’re pulling no punches:
Past DARPA X-plane programs have seldom reached flight, most often because the research agency failed to secure the required support from a military service to transition the technology after demonstration. As a result, DARPA has been looking at rescoping its X-planes to be more affordable but still result in flying something that could be useful to a customer.
Maybe we’ll get something useful out of it… but I ain’t holding my breath.
I’ll see you Monday morning.