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Oh Deer – The MX Missile, a Flying Coffin and the Twin Towers

September 15, 2011 by 2 Comments
Manhattan Skyline With World Trade Centre

Manhattan Skyline With World Trade Centre

The anniversary of the atrocity committed against the USA has triggered memories of a day some 30 years ago which culminated in a picture-perfect flight into NYC’s La Guardia airport, the approach being down the Hudson River with a sharp turn to port across Manhattan onto the final approach. A stunning afternoon view of Manhattan and the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

However, the story starts the day before. I was marketing & sales director of a company that I’ll call F-Corp (if there’s a real company called F-Corp, I apologise. It’s not you!). I’d been in the States visiting customers and I flew into the town of Binghamton in upstate New York at about 9:00pm one evening. It was early spring, very cold and with recent snow on the ground.

Why Binghamton? Well, F-Corp had developed a completely new technology for very high-performance, small, light weight microwave filters. These devices had major advantages in airborne and space applications where light weight and stability in extremes of temperature and pressure were essential. They met the US military’s MIL STD 5400E environmental specifications. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Air Travel, Books, Cities, Links, Missiles, Organisations, People, Wildlife & Nature

Deepest, Darkest Borneo

July 12, 2011 by 2 Comments

It might be a week or so before my next post as I’m about to depart from the connected world for a bit. Internet availability in Borneo is expected to be patchy – that’s why they’ll benefit from more satellite communications.

If I manage to survive the jungle, the mosquitoes, leeches, snakes,spiders and the occasional Orang-utan I hope to surface eventually in Singapore.Then immediately travelling on to colder climes.

After having made some 6,000 flights I never really want to see [Read more…]

Filed Under: Air Travel, Countries, Links, Wildlife & Nature

First and Last Launches of the Space Shuttle

July 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Well spotted. The internal photo isn’t a picture of the Space Shuttle. It’s one of the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) first astronauts, Wubbo Ockels, inside the ESA Spacelab D1 in the Shuttle’s cargo bay (both pictures are courtesy of and copyright ©NASA).

ESA’s first astronaught was Ulf Merbold flying in Spacelab on STS-9.

I’m writing this piece now because today is to be the very last flight of a space shuttle. As I type, the launch is scheduled for about 5 hours’ time, weather at Cocoa Beach permitting.

Spacelab was developed in parallel and in conjunction with NASA’s space shuttle to be the orbiting laboratory in the Shuttle’s cargo bay, as a follow-on for Skylab and prior to the ISS (International Space Station).

The Spacelab programme was run from ESA’s ESTEC facility (European Space Technology Centre) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. I worked at ESTEC all through the 1970s – not on Spacelab but on different communications satellites. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Apollo, Astronauts, Countries, Launches, Organisations, Space Shuttle, Spacelab