Looks like an interesting place to land . . .

. . . and a good way to speed up your heart rate!  This video was taken at and around the airport at Saint Barthélemy in the French West Indies.

You know, if a tallish vehicle were passing as one of those aircraft came in, it might get knocked over by the landing gear!





Peter

Driving hints for Southerners caught in the snow and ice

Here's a helpful visual driving guide for those in the Southern states affected by this week's snow and ice.

Peter

Chilly can be beautiful

Speaking of extreme cold (see the post below this one), the 2014 Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival is under way in northern China.  We've looked at previous festivals in these pages, and it's one of my ambitions (or 'on my bucket list', to use that horrible term) to visit it before I shuffle off this mortal coil.  Here are some views of this year's exhibits.

It's amazing to think of how long the locals labor to produce such stunning works of art.  Full marks to them all!

Peter

Muslim terrorists versus the Russian government

After the terrorist bomb explosions in Volgograd over the weekend, the Russian President has taken a hard line.

Vladimir Putin has vowed to pursue terrorists to their “total annihilation”, in his first public comments since the Volgograd suicide bombings.

In his traditional New Year's Eve address, which was broadcast at midnight from the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, (5pm in Moscow), he praised Russia’s unity in the face of both terrorism and natural disasters and promised to continue an unrelenting fight against the bombers.

. . .

Two more victims of Monday’s bus bombing and one victim of Sunday’s suicide attack in the city’s main railway station died overnight, Russian authorities said on Tuesday, bringing the total number of fatalities from the attacks to 34. More than 100 people have been injured.

I note that the Russian authorities are also making connections between the latest attacks and earlier Chechen terrorist atrocities, as I did a few days ago.

The series of attacks is grimly reminiscent of the build-up to terrorist “spectaculars” in the mid-2000s, including the Beslan School siege, in which more than 300 people died, 180 of them children.

Then suicide bombers had blown up two airliners in mid-air a week before they seized the school on Sept 1, 2004, in what security experts now describe as an attempt to divert the security services’ attention ahead of the main attack.

There's more at the link.

The resentment of Muslims in Russia against Putin's government is deep and long-running, dating back as far as Tsarist times.  As the Telegraph pointed out a couple of days ago, 'Putin faces a brutal, relentless attacks from rebels with no cause but revenge'.

To find anything in Russia that is comparable [to the Volgograd bombings], we have to go back to 1999, when a series of bombs – spaced out over a single September week -- demolished apartment buildings in Moscow and the town of Volgodonsk, killing hundreds. Officials appeared powerless and ordinary Russians panicked.

The prime minister, a little-known ex-KGB agent called Vladimir Putin, blamed the Chechens – despite their denial of responsibility – and sent in the troops. The army's crushing of the fragile self-declared Chechen state was the first battle in Putin's long campaign to reverse Russia's post-Soviet collapse, which had been symbolised by Boris Yeltsin's humiliating defeat by the separatists of Muslim Chechnya.

Putin, who was to become president within a year, took no chances. His artillery demolished Grozny to prevent rebels using it as a stronghold. His security services – as we know, thanks to the European Court of Human Rights – murdered rebels they captured without any pretence of a trial. Men were tortured. Women were raped. Artillery shelled the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains.

. . .

But across the mountains from Sochi, all is not well. Putin might have killed the rebels' leaders, but the rebels remain. An independent state is out of reach, so these young Muslims have ceased fighting for one, or for anything concrete at all. They fight for vengeance, through rage, or to fulfil the tenets of a religion twisted and distorted in the fire of war.

Since Putin "pacified" Chechnya, suicide bombers have struck airports and planes, stations and trains, streets and buses, rock concerts and markets.

The attacks have achieved nothing but misery and death, but they have kept coming.

Putin has tightened regulations, and given more power to his security services. His agents have pursued young Muslims they suspect of being terrorists, but that has angered the young men further. Tens of thousands of Chechens have fled Russia, and taken violence with them. There are Chechens fighting in Syria. This year, two refugees bombed the Boston Marathon.

Fighting spilled over into nearby regions of Russia also, and the bombers now are mainly from neighbouring Dagestan, a bewildering multi-ethnic sinkhole which is never plugged, no matter how much money Moscow pumps into it.

Insurgents there long ago ceased having a cause beyond revenge.

Again, more at the link.

Russia - and the former Soviet Union - have always had a robust response to terrorism.  As Strategy Page reminds us:

Back in the 1980s, for example, Islamic terrorists in Lebanon kidnapped a Russian diplomat. The Russians (then the Soviets, a distinction without much difference in these matters) quickly found out which faction had their guy, kidnapped a relative of one of the kidnappers, and had a body part delivered to the Islamic kidnappers. The message was, release the Russian diplomat unharmed, or the KGB (Soviet secret police) would keep sending body parts, and grabbing kinfolk of the kidnappers. The Russian diplomat was released.

More at the link.

I worked on an aircraft project with some Israeli engineers who were familiar with that incident in Lebanon.  They described it (with considerable admiration) in rather more graphic detail than the Strategy Page report.  They claimed that the kidnappers initially didn't believe the Soviets were serious:  so the latter seized several of the kidnappers' relatives.  Every six hours, on the hour, one of the prisoners was beheaded and castrated.  His head and genitals were delivered to the kidnappers, showing the marks of burns and other tortures.  Apparently the exchange of hostages took very little time to arrange after that . . .

I fear that Russia will now seek to use similar tactics against the Muslim population of central and southern Asia.  I wouldn't be surprised if the word was already being spread that for every Russian victim of terrorist violence, ten or more Muslims will die.  It's been done before.  Unfortunately, it's also never worked before, because fundamentalist terrorists believe that anyone who dies in that way is automatically classified as a martyr for the faith, and is guaranteed Paradise.  They're unlikely to be swayed by concern for their fellow religionists.

Watch the southern Caucasus and the Winter Olympics closely.  This could get very nasty indeed.

Peter

The Winter Olympics and the threat of terrorism

I'm sure most readers have learned by now of the suicide bomber who killed 15 people in Volgograd.  The city's in southern Russia, only a few hundred miles from Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics are to take place in February.

I'm afraid this incident may portend an upsurge in Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in and around southern Russia during the Games.  It's very likely that terrorists regard the Games as an ideal opportunity to gain publicity for their cause, and inflict terror on the Russian government and people, whom they blame for the plight of their fellow religionists in territories such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.  For an excellent in-depth overview of the situation, read this leaked memo from the US Embassy in Moscow in 2006.

Islam has been repressed more or less savagely in the region since Tsarist times, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, religious fundamentalists tried to use the resulting confusion to re-establish their dominance of the area.  The new Russian government fought back, resulting in bitter conflicts such as the First and Second Chechen War, disturbances amounting to civil war in several neighboring republics, etc.  Many of the terrorists who instigated and fought those wars managed to evade capture.  More than a few of them have fought in support of Islamic fundamentalists in other conflicts.  (Some are currently fighting in Syria.)  Their ideology has even reached the USA, with the Boston bombers reportedly influenced by Chechen revolutionary Islamic ideology.

If you or anyone you know is/are planning to travel to the Winter Olympics, you might want to keep the risk of terrorism firmly in mind.  I'd say that, based on their past actions and demonstrated ruthlessness, it's almost guaranteed that fundamentalist terrorists will try to take advantage of the influx of tourists to 'make a statement'.

Remember the Moscow theater siege?

Remember Beslan?

I'd rather not have my readers caught up in something like that, thank you very much . . . so if you're heading for the Winter Olympics, please be as careful as you possibly can.  Personally, I wouldn't go.

Peter

Verily, the mind doth boggle - roadbuilding edition

I was dumbfounded to read about a road in Iceland whose construction has been held up.

Elf advocates have joined forces with environmentalists to urge the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission and local authorities to abandon a highway project building a direct route from the tip of the Alftanes peninsula, where the president has a home, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer.

They fear disturbing elf habitat and claim the area is particularly important because it contains an elf church.

The project has been halted until the Supreme Court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental and the cultural impact - including the impact on elves - of the road project. The group has regularly brought hundreds of people out to block the bulldozers.

And it's not the first time issues about 'Huldufolk', Icelandic for 'hidden folk', have affected planning decisions. They occur so often that the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries, which states in part that 'issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on'.

Scandinavian folklore is full of elves, trolls and other mythological characters. Most people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden haven't taken them seriously since the 19th century, but elves are no joke to many in Iceland, which has a population of 320,000.

A survey conducted by the University of Iceland in 2007 found that some 62 per cent of the 1,000 respondents thought it was at least possible that elves exist.

There's more at the link, including several pictures of the landscapes concerned - which are rather beautiful, I must admit.

Oh, well . . . I guess we can call this a Public Health issue - pronounced in Cockney style, of course, as "Public 'Elf"!





Peter

Floating to the ground

Yesterday we saw a hard and heavy landing of a giant Airbus A380.  Smaller, lighter aircraft tend to have a different problem.  In the right conditions, once they get into ground effect they seem to 'float' - drift on down the runway, almost as if they want to stay in the air rather than land.  If they don't have a heavy load on board and have used up most of their fuel, it can be even worse.  (Miss D.'s light aircraft does the same thing - it's got excellent lift, and is very light, so when she's coming in after a flight with almost-empty tanks it's sometimes hard to persuade the plane to get down and stay down!)

As an example, here's a Bombardier Dash 8 commuter airliner of Flybe, a British regional airline, landing at an unidentified airport in high crosswind conditions.  Look how the pilot has to not only 'crab' into the wind, but work really hard to overcome ground effect and plant its wheels on terra firma.  I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

I've flown in several Dash 8's and similar aircraft in the US, Europe and Africa.  All of them have exhibited that behavior when the winds are stronger than a gentle breeze.  Interesting how some aircraft designs do that, while others fall out of the sky with an ungainly 'thump!'.

Peter

Another 'interesting' landing

Courtesy of a link at The Aviationist, here's an Airbus A380 of Thai Airways arriving at Narita Airport in Japan in March this year, during a strong crosswind.  I suggest watching it in full-screen mode.

I'm amazed he didn't have a wing-strike with an arrival like that! Glad I wasn't aboard that one . . .





Peter

More steam train memories

After yesterday's post about steam engines on South African railroads, I received a couple of questions about it.  The first was about Garratt-type locomotives, which were never used on US railroads and thus sparked the curiosity of several knowledgeable readers.  The second was about the Montagu Pass, which I described as 'magnificent'.

Garratt locomotives were a unique design, of particular value on narrow-gauge railroads that couldn't support the weight of very large or powerful engines.  They were articulated, with a steam engine at either end fed by a set of boilers in a central unit.  This meant that a single Garratt engine could generate 60% to 80% more power than a conventional locomotive.  The central boiler unit also meant that it was more economical in its use of coal and water than two locomotives would have been, and required only one crew to operate it instead of two.  The weight on the rails was also more evenly spread, as a single Garratt engine would put less pressure on rails, bridges and ballast than two conventional units.  Finally, its articulated design meant that it could handle tight curves and restricted conditions much better than fixed units.  You can read a good summary of the Garratt's advantages and disadvantages here.

They were an ingenious solution to a set of conditions often encountered on colonial railroads.  More than 1,600 were built, in a large range of different models and sizes, and a large number have survived in museums.  At least two are still in use on South African railroads, in private hands as far as I know.

The Garratts were often used on the Montagu Pass, because it's very narrow in parts, very twisty, and extremely steep, so the higher power output of the double-engine design was very useful there.  Here are two video clips illustrating the pass and the Garratts that worked there.  I recommend watching both in full-screen mode.

The first shows the departure from George and the ascent of the Pass.  I remember this trip so well that it made me almost painfully homesick to watch this clip this morning.  I don't want to go back to South Africa - there are too many very bad memories for that - but this made me smell the fynbos vegetation again, and the coal smoke from the engine.

The road you can see across the valley from the railway line is the Outeniqua Pass, built using Italian prisoner-of-war labor during and after World War II to replace the much narrower and steeper Montagu Pass, which was originally designed for ox-wagons and horse travel, and thus less suitable for motor vehicles.  It was extensively modernized during the 1990's.  Again, I've traveled that road many, many times.

The second video clip shows the Union Express - once a mainline train, but now an occasional tourist event - leaving Oudtshoorn, in the Little Karoo, and heading towards the Montagu Pass and George from the inland plateau.  It shows the Garratt engines to good advantage, as well as the beauty of the route - one of the loveliest I've ever traveled by rail or road.

Yes . . . I may never want to go back, but I can still feel homesick . . .

Peter

Memories of steam trains

Earthbound Misfit has been putting up a regular series of steam engine video clips on her blog every Friday.  I've enjoyed them, and they've brought back many memories for me.  You see, in South Africa steam engines were in everyday use on the railways until the early 1990's, and still are for a few private tourist companies such as Rovos Rail.  I've traveled countless thousands of miles behind steam locomotives, from Cape Town to Johannesburg and back on the Trans Karoo Express, from George to Oudtshoorn and back over the magnificent Montagu Pass, and on the coastal light rail between George and Knysna (the so-called 'Outeniqua Choo Tjoe', sadly now defunct).  There's nothing like moving slowly up a steep mountain pass, head out of the window of one's compartment, smelling the coal smoke wafting back from the locomotive (thick and heavy as one passed through frequent short tunnels), and wiping the ashes and coal smut from one's hair and off one's face, leaving black streaks by the time one got to the end of the journey.

I thought I'd put up a few video clips to illustrate South African steam locomotives and the trains they pulled.  I recommend watching all of them in full-screen mode.  (There's a large selection on YouTube if you'd like to see more.)  To begin, here's a look at 'The Great South African Steam Festival', when many of the last surviving steam engines were put to work in a final celebration before they were retired, to be replaced by diesel locomotives.

A series of DVD's was issued in 2009 under the collective title 'Steam in South Africa'.  Here's a promotional video clip showing excerpts from each of them.

Here's a South African Railways Class 25NC locomotive hauling freight in 1985.  These were very impressive engines, typically hauling passenger trains (including the Trans Karoo Express mentioned above) at an average speed of over 60 mph, and heavy freight trains not much slower than that.  (If that doesn't sound impressive, remember that South African railways are narrow-gauge, where high speeds are correspondingly more difficult.)

Here's the most powerful Garratt-type locomotive class ever built, the South African Railways Class GL.  It's on an excursion for photographers, so it makes a pass, reverses back down the railroad, then makes a second pass for their benefit.  You can clearly see the unique Garratt design, with a single set of boilers driving two steam engines, one in front of and one behind them.

Finally, here's the beloved 'Outeniqua Choo Tjoe' tourist special, run each day between George and Knysna and back again along the coastal route.  I've traveled aboard it many times.  It's sadly defunct now, South African Railways having refused to make the investment required to keep it running.  Steam train lovers all over the world mourned its passing, as it was one of the most scenic and interesting rail journeys in the world.  Of particular interest is the turntable you'll see from 0m. 18s. through 1m. 16s., which turned the engine around at the end of the line so it could make the return trip.

I hope you enjoyed these 'blasts from the past'.  I can still smell the smoke in my nostrils . . .

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  I've written a follow-up post to this one, giving more details about Garratt-type locomotives and the Montagu Pass, with more videos.

Home again

Miss D. and I arrived home this afternoon after an enjoyable few days in Indianapolis. We went up for the wedding of two friends, and took the opportunity to reunite with several blogging buddies up there, including (in alphabetical order) Brigid, Partner In Grime, Midwest Chick, Mr. B., Roberta and Tam. Much good food and drink was consumed and good company enjoyed by all concerned.

The drive back was one of the more pleasant I've experienced on I-65.  Traffic was relatively light, the construction zones weren't overly congested (being a Sunday), the sun was shining, and it wasn't too cold or too hot for comfort.  I wish more road trips could enjoy that combination!

I'm back to working on the third novel in the Maxwell series. I've lost a few days thanks to this trip, but I hope that by next weekend, it'll be ready to go out to beta readers.  While they're ripping it to shreds (metaphorically speaking), I'll be preparing the cover with Oleg's help, working on the blurb, and getting ready to format everything for e-book and print publication in early December. Wish me luck!

Peter

Made it safely so far

Made it safely into Indianapolis this evening.  Sore backs for both Miss D. and myself, and some pretty heavy traffic (the wheeled rather than the Web variety) on the way, but so far, so good.

We'll be meeting up with friends later tonight, and I'll post more tomorrow.  To keep you amused until then, here's a kitten meeting windscreen wipers for the first time.  I can't embed it here, but it's funny enough that it's worth clicking over to YouTube to watch it.  Enjoy!

Peter

On the road again . . .

Miss D. and I will be on the road for a few days, visiting friends in Indiana.  I'll try to put up blog posts from time to time, but don't worry if there are less than usual.  If you need something to read, try the folks in my blogroll (see sidebar).  They're all interesting.

Peter

Not a bad idea!

I'm intrigued by Canadian brewer Molson's new advertising campaign - not in Canada, but in Europe.

I have to admit, that's pretty original - but how are they going to prevent underage drinkers from getting their hands on the beer?

Peter

Translating pudding into air miles???

I was amazed (and amused) to read of an engineer who turned 12,150 cups of chocolate pudding into 1¼ million frequent flyer miles - and free airline travel for the rest of his life.  Gizmodo reports:

[David Phillips] saw that Healthy Choice was having a promotion on their frozen entrées section. The offer was as follows: for every 10 bar codes of their product a person sent in, they’d be awarded 500 Air Miles. However, the company had an early bird stipulation that people who redeemed the offer within the first month of the competition would receive double that, meaning a person could potentially receive 1000 Air Miles for buying just 10 of their entrées.

Upon catching wind of the deal, David scoured his local supermarkets to see which, if any products offered the best potential return. After some legwork, he found what he was looking for- a discount grocery chain that was selling individual chocolate pudding cups for 25 cents each. This meant that for a measly $2.50, he could get 1000 Air Miles.

Realising the amazing return he was potentially able to receive, David set out to hit every store in the chain in one day and buy up every single Healthy Choice pudding they had.

. . .

But the benefits of David’s scheme didn’t end there. After sending off the bar codes ... he now officially had over a million miles in his frequent flyer accounts, which automatically gave him lifelong access to something called the “American Airlines AAdvantage Gold club” giving him and his family a number of awesome flying related perks for the rest of their lives.

But we haven’t even got to the best part yet. David will likely never run out of Air Miles because he’s still earning miles at about 5 times faster than he’s spending them, despite traveling quite often ...

There's more at the link.  It's a fascinating study in how thinking outside the box and being mildly obsessive can reap a rich harvest.

Peter