Friday in The Valley of Speed

F7F-3N Tigercat "Big Bossman" Reno Air Races 2006

Well, I made it! Yup, I hit the High Desert Sagebrush hills next to the Unlimited Course.

I made it out to Stead's Fenceline in time to set up my camcorder to capture the Silver Heat 2B Friday.

What a sight greeted me when the racers came down the chute and I heard the Pace Plane pilot radio: "Gentlemen, you have a race!" Two big dark aircraft were among the three leaders. When they rounded Pylon 5 of the Unlimited Race Course, I saw the two dark horses were Grumman F7F-3N Tigercats!

Twin engined racers are rare at Reno. There was a P-38, "White Lightning" that campaigned through the 80's and into the 90's before the aircraft was purchased by an aviation trust...for it's protection. There's not many P-38s left that are airworthy and unmodified. Aviation History is important, and accurate examples of historic aircraft need to be preserved. I miss seeing pilot Lefty Gardner racing around Stead's pylons, but I understand the Greater Good, too.

So Friday, two F7F-3Ns were out front. In first place, racer "Here Kitty Kitty" was blazing the trail with Texan Stew Dawson at the stick, contesting from a very low altitude...he was nearly raising a cloud of dust! Behind him was the Reno favorite p-51 Mustang "Merlin's Magic", followed by the second Tigercat, "Big Bossman"

What a sight...and oh yes, whatta sound! The field was all Mustangs and the two big twins, churning through the high desert air. The Mustangs run a water-cooled inline 16 cylinder Rolls Royce "Merlin" engine. It's responsible for generating the Classic Fighter Fly-By Sound. Hear it once, and you'll never forget it.

The Big Twins run the Pratt and Whitney R-2800 aircooled radial engines...their deep throated sound is emblematic of Allied Air Superiority over Europe during WW2. It's the same engine that powered the P-47 Thunderbolt.

Hearing seven of these big warbirds racing right down on the deck, and wingtip to wingtip is something you'll never forget...It truly is...The Sound Of Freedom.

So, how was the weather out in the sagebrush hills? The wind came up, and there were very high harbinger clouds overhead. I heard from SisterSweetly, she reported rain at her place a half an hour north of Eureka, CA. Her report dovetails nicely into Reno's AFD:

RAIN IS ALREADY OCCURRING ALONG A FRONTAL BOUNDARY THIS AFTERNOON
FROM ABOUT CAPE MENDOCINO NORTH TO OR/WA. HOWEVER MODELS INDICATE
THAT THIS FRONTAL BOUNDARY WILL REMAIN STALLED OVER NWRN CA AND OR
THROUGH ABOUT SATURDAY AS THE UPPER LOW MAKE VERY LITTLE EASTWARD
PROGRESS. PUSHED BACK THE TIMING OF THE RAIN BY ABOUT 12-24 HOURS
FOR THIS REASON. NOT ONLY HAVE THE MODELS CONTINUED TO TREND LATER
WITH THE PRECIP...BUT THEY ARE ALSO TRENDING DRIER. TEND TO THINK
THE DRIER SOLUTION IS MORE REALISTIC AS OUR WEAKENING CLOSED LOW IS
FORECAST TO RAPIDLY TRANSITION INTO AN OPEN WAVE AS IT MOVES ASHORE
OVER NRN OR AND WA ON SUNDAY. REGARDING RAIN CHANCES...A SSW-NNE
ORIENTED JET OVER NRN CA AND CNTRL OR WILL FAVOR LOCATIONS IN THE
FAR NRN SIERRA AND SRN CASCADES. FOR AREAS TO THE EAST...THE COLD
POOL ALOFT IS NOT EXPECTED TO ARRIVE UNTIL SUNDAY EVENING AND EVEN
THEN IT MAY ONLY SKIRT OUR NORTHERN ZONES. WITH LESS THAN OPTIMAL
INSTABILITY AND JET PLACEMENT...FEEL THAT LITTLE IF ANY SPILLOVER
WILL OCCUR SOUTH OF ABOUT I-80. TIMING WISE...FRONTAL BOUNDARY
SHOULD MOVE INTO LASSEN AND THE SURPRISE VALLEY LATE SUNDAY MORNING
OR EARLY AFTERNOON AND THEN INTO THE TAHOE BASIN AROUND LATE SUNDAY
AFTERNOON. COULD BE SOME LINGERING SHOWERS ACROSS THE FAR NRN AREAS
MONDAY MORNING...OTHERWISE DRY.

So, it's all over but the Bench Racing for Friday. Saturday is a new day, and the racers will "wick it up" a little more. These racers walk a fine line between victory and disaster. They've gotta win their Qualifiers, but they have to preserve their engines so they can really race on Sunday.

Air racing, while it's the Fastest Motorsport in the World, it's also the most expensive...day in and day out. God bless these guys for spending themselves into the Stone Age just to entertain us!

Winter Winging Her Way Back

Monday over The Valley of Speed

I'm back home at the DaveCave, just an hour by car from Stead Field, and the 47th Reno National Championship Air Races.

I'm going out to the Air Races for my 19th year of the last 21 years. Why do I go back over and over again?

Two Reasons
The year in, year out visits...always in the 3rd week of September has become an important waypoint on my annual journey from daytime craftsman/sportsman to Graveyard Guru. It's at Stead every September that I first see the definite signs of the approaching Fall and Winter. I see the Autumnal Light for the first time out in the sagebrush hills around the Unlimited Race Course to the North of Stead Field's runways. When I see the new light for the season, I begin my internal transformation into a Groomin' Human...I begin to steel myself into the Daytime Sleepin', Snowcat Drivin', Long Hours Workin', Storm Fightin', Corduroy Makin', Graveyard Guru. A decade or more ago, one of the  Rookies I was training called me Yoda over the 2-Way, and your Graveyard Guru was born.

Reason two?
I go to hear "The Sound of Freedom"

Flying Towards Winter

This is the week I live for. It's Air Race Week in Reno. Qualifying and Racing begins today over the High Desert at Stead Field for the 47th Reno National Championship Air Races.

I first attended the Reno Air Races in 1982, and have been out to see them every year since save two and a half.

About that half...It was 2007. I was staying at a friend's house in Reno while I remodeled the windows in his kitchen. Steve-O-Reno's house was in the hills just above the University of Nevada/Reno Campus.

I had 12 linear feet of the kitchen wall behind the kitchen sink, opened to the elements while I removed the original windows and framed in the space for the new, wrap-around windows that would give a panoramic view of Reno and the Truckee Meadows.

The strong diurnal winds blew straight into the kitchen every afternoon, so I got after it early so I could wrap up the day's work and cover the opening with plywood protection before the afternoon winds would ramp-up enough to be a problem.

During the remodel, Steve-O-Reno had company over before dawn for a Deck Party...the view of the Reno Balloon Races are beyond compare from Steve-O's deck. They launch almost 100 hot air balloons from Rancho San Rafael Park just under a mile away.

The next week was Air Race Week, and I was pushing hard to get the window project wrapped up. I didn't  even go out to Stead to spend the day on Sunday for the Medal Rounds of Unlimited Class Racing. I ran out there Saturday afternoon and caught the final Gold Class Unlimited Race Qualifyer.

In 2007 there were plenty of aircraft over Reno proper, and from my scaffolding outside Steve-O-Reno's Kitchen, I could see the Unlimiteds and the AT-6 racers "coming down The Chute" to the start, and there was a vintage B-17 flying out of RNO all day, all week, giving $200 rides over the Truckee Meadows.

I also missed one year in the 90's, 1993. That year Rick Brikert lost his life when he crash landed the Burt Rutan designed "Pond Racer" . Bob Pond had commissioned the design and construction of a composite purpose-built Unlimited Class Racer when he became alarmed at the rate at which historic War Birds were being turned into Reno Unlimited Racers that were suffering damages, crash losses and destroying irreplaceable engines at an accelerating rate.

Everyone missed the 2001 Reno Air Races, all non-military aviation in and out of North America was still on hold in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA

The weather will be a factor this year.

The Reno AFD says:

.LONG TERM...SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY...
 MODELS CONTINUE TO SHOW UPPER LOW MOVING INTO THE AREA FROM SAT-SUN 
 AND ARE IN BETTER AGREEMENT OVERALL BUT DIFFER ON DETAILS. GOING 
 WITH A MORE GFS-GEM-GEFS IDEA THIS MORNING WITH TIMING OF MAIN FRONT 
 FOR SAT NIGHT. EC IS A BIT FASTER BUT WITH LACK OF A VERY STRONG 
 JET...PREFER THE SLOWER TIMING. MAIN DIFFERENCES IS HOW FAR SOUTH 
 JET WILL BE AND THUS PRECIP CHANCES. COULD BE QUITE WET LIKE 
 GFS..BUT PREFER GEM AMOUNTS RIGHT NOW WHICH SEEM A BIT MORE 
 REASONABLE. STILL...THIS SYSTEM WILL HAVE PLENTY OF MOISTURE TO WORK 
 WITH AS IT IS PULLING A 1.5+ PW PLUME EAST OF 130W ATTM.

This is gonna be great! Rain or Shine, I'll be out enjoying "The Sound of Freedom" in the high desert!

Sailing Into the Future

It's a lazy day off Monday. I kept the web surfing down to a slow simmer. No hi-tech maintenance today, no ossified computer clean-up over at the SturgeUrge Compound.

I was up at the usual time. I got out of bed an hour earlier than I have been and enjoyed a nice pot of fresh ground French Roast. I finished going through the Sunday paper and scanned the Sunday circulars and the Fry's Electronics ad on the back page of the front section of the daily broadsheet.

There it was! The multi-function EPSON printer I've been waiting on...for half-off of retail! It's the current top of the line Artisan Series multi. Printer/copier/scanner/fax all rolled into one.

Like I've always boasted, the price will come to me. Score one for TruckeeDave.

Sunday night before I turned in, I saw a tweet announcing that the Golden Gate Yacht Club and the 34th America's Cup Defender Syndicate press conference to announce the plans for the 34th America's Cup, was streaming LIVE in just a couple of hours. 1:00PM Valencia, Spain time. 0400 here.

Monday afternoon, after I snatched up my killer deal on the EPSON, I surfed the 'net over to the 34th America's Cup website, to see what they're proposing for the America's Cup and Challengers' Regattas, the year of the Regattas, and the Boat Design. All the info is on their website.

Today's presser laid out three of the four corners of the Cup going forward. The only unknown is Where the regattas will be contested. The Golden Gate Yacht Club and BMW/Oracle Racing will bid to hold the regattas on San Francisco Bay.

Lots of words are generated in media around the Bay in anticipation of the America's Cup Bid. Now that there's a plan for the next Defense of the Cup, and a whole Ecosystem of racing, boat designs, feeder series, and timelines, Syndicates around the world will pitch their ideas to the local governments and business comunities and bid for the right to host the 34th America's Cup.

Since I first saw 12 Meter America's Cup Racers racing to determine who would be the Challenger in Australia in 1986, it's been my dream to see the big boats race on The Bay.

The Protocol announced today in Valencia calls for very Space-Age (or rather, Internet Age) 72 foot catamarans powered by a Wingsail. There's some nice video of BMW/Oracle Racing's yacht online here.

I favored a monohull, or more traditional boat. But I can see the wisdom of sailing into the 22nd Century, on San Francisco Bay, aside Silicon Valley, on Super Cutting Edge racing yachts, with television cameramen on each yacht to showcase America's Cup Racing to the world.

Combined with an annual World Series for the class, a Youth Series feeding the Top of the Card from races in smaller but similar hi-tech racing yachts, in your face TV, and agreement from America's Cup Racing Syndicates across the World, America's Cup could eke out a spot in the burgeoning Internet/Television audience.

Several Syndicates are vying to host the next Cup. The Host will be announced in December.

It would be great if you, dear readers want to see this dream come true, it would be great if you let your State and Local political and business leaders know how much you want to see this happen on San Francisco Bay.

Here's some resources of like mind to help you see what's planned, and who needs to hear from us so it will happen on The Bay:

Latitude 38 Local SF Bay Sailing Magazine
34th America's Cup on SF Bay Facebook Page
eMail SF Mayor Gavin Newsom

Never Forget

Today is the unhappy anniversary of the Terror Attack on America, 9/11/2001. Until 4PM today, I've managed (and I do mean I managed my media to avoid 9/11 references) to miss the maudlin memorializing of America's latest "Darkest Day". My favorite weekend talker is doing her 9/11 Tribute today, and I can't listen. I've entered Radio Silence until Sunday.

Jesus, even NASCAR is getting in on the act! What ever happened to: "Let's go racin' Boys!"?

This morning I caught a couple of Tweets that reminded me not to "play Twitter" until Sunday.

9/11 is a raw wound on my psyche. SturgeUrge and I were in Baja on the fateful day, and were stuck there for several days after we'd planned to return to the States by the Air Travel Shut-Down. During our days down there, we were visited by a near-miss hurricane that kept us on the beach instead of out on the Sea of Cortez fishing for Yellowfin Tuna and Dorado (Mahi Mahi).

We had lots of time on our hands to watch the TV coverage from Lower Manhattan. The Condos we were staying at had limited satellite TV from the States, and most of the TV was Mexican TV.

Mexican TV didn't blanch when it came to showing the video of the unfortunate World Trade Center victims who found themselves trapped above the impact zones ablaze with jet fuel, and who opted to leap to their deaths instead of waiting to be consumed by fire.

For at least 2-3 days, these images were shown every 15 minutes or so...around the clock. I watched through the streams of tears for a whole day before I had no more tears to shed. It was galvanizing...heartbreaking...painful.

Not once did I think: "I wonder what America did to deserve this?"

This is why the wound is still tender nine years on. I don't need Big Media to pick at it anymore than I choose to pick at it.

Before I turned Twitter off for the duration, I captured two tweets that say it for me, and say it well. They are from S.E. Cupp, one of the Young Lions of Conservative Punditry. She writes for the New York Daily News, The Daily Caller, and lots of other places.

S.E. nails it in two tweets:

"Want to stay in bed, avoid TV, and wake up when it's tomorrow. What asshole programmer thinks I want to watch 9/11 footage today?"

and:

"Hate today"

I couldn't have said it better myself...Never Forget

I'll be back Wednesday as always.

No Rest for the Wicked

I'm pretty tired tonight...kinda numb. I spent a good portion of the last two days futzing with computers. Not recreational futzing mind you, but the "hope you can recover from this" futzing.

In the past month, my new dream machine started acting up. The previously faithful quiet Super Computer that I took delivery of in March was acting like it had a "bug". First it was the fans...even when it got to 80°F in my room at the Ancestral Digs the fans rarely came on, and then only for a minute or two. In the past couple of weeks the fans started running a lot more...and for a lot longer. Then the machine started rebooting without provocation from me. I was seeing the "Blue Screen of Death" on a laptop that's barely six months new. I never saw the BSOD in the six-plus years I ran the old laptop.

I started paying extra attention to every little thing I did on the laptop, trying to keep the workload down to a dull roar. I became hyper-vigilant...Anything to avoid the crash-avoidance blue screen bummer.

I ran all the scans...Antivirus, Spyware, Windows Updates. Results: Negative. I kept a bare minimum of tabs open in Firefox...still the crashes and recoveries came more often. Today the machine said Enough! and I had to go back to a restore point and start over.

It worked. The little Dell is purring along again like nothing ever happened...to my eternal relief!

Earlier in the week, I offered to "do the maintenance" on SturgeUrge's desktop, and I've been grinding out that chore a few hours every afternoon. That's like pulling teeth because it's an "Entry Level" desktop running Windows Vista with a Celeron D and only 512Mb of RAM. OK...I'm spoiled by my Dell running the i7 Quad Core CPU and 8Gb of RAM!

Somehow there are almost 60 programs that load on startup, so it takes a good 20 minutes to boot up...or restart like I have to do every time I remove some unused or unnecessary program. Three restarts is a solid hour. I can't tell you how smug I feel because I waited for Windows 7 to be released and de-bugged for six months in the wild before I sprung for the new Dell! I totally understand why business never bought Vista. Windows 7 is an upgrade from my beloved Windows XP.

Resting Up
So, after a hard day slaving over hot silicon, I retired to the easy chair and fired up the DVR. I watched the Friday afternoon Formula One practice from Monza, Italy before I grilled dinner on the BBQ.

After dinner, I settled into the Giants vs San Diego Padres game from San Diego. A fine pitching duel unfolded before a crowd that was at least 20% Giants' Fans. A lot of orange wearing baseball nuts were enjoying a fine evening of September Baseball, which is to say a Pennant Race!

The Giants won 1-0 and moved into a tie with San Diego for the NL West lead. Game on. I haven't enjoyed September Baseball this much since 1962!

The laptop performed flawlessly through the whole game, and through the Post-Game and some CableNews I tuned into after the baseball coverage ended.

This was part of the problem...I began seeing a lot of tweets from folks on the East Coast. 9/11 Memorial Tweets of the Never Forget/Pray For... variety. I didn't need this tonight. I was already tired.

I won't pontificate. Say a prayer as necessary. We're Americans...we'll keep moving. Game on.

Ski Season is Open! Who Knew?

Paradise Found?
I was reading PlanetSki while passing the time before the first pitch of Thursday Evening's Giants vs Padres game. The headline caught my eye: "First Resort in the Alps Opens" It turns out that there's some hairs being split in order to claim "First"...to say nothing of the parsing of the word "Open"...

The article reminds the reader that Switzerland's "Zermatt boasts of being open 365 days a year and only closes when the weather closes in." Over in France, "Tignes has just closed for summer skiing but re-opens within the next two weeks."

The resort opening Friday is Slöden, high in Austria's Tyrol and is the site of the first World Cup Ski Race each Fall. This year the FIS racers wax 'em up for October 22nd-24th. Friday, just four of Solden's 34 lifts will open for skiing 9:30AM to 3:30PM.

I noticed yesterday @borealmtn was tweeting temp and snowmaking hopes. He said they want to fire up their snowmaking guns in September. On KCRA3's Noon News Thursday, the weathergal said the weather in Sacramento was more like late October than early September.

You can count on Boreal to open no later than Halloween every year...even if they open for just Halloween. I suspect that given enough nights with snowmaking temps, and a forecast for continued cold, Boreal might find themselves with Halloween competition this Fall...that would be a first, that strangely would be right in line with all the weather strangeness we've been living with all year.

September Baseball
Well, the San Francisco Giants got off to a fine start against the San Diego Padres down in SoCal. The first Giant up to bat got a triple...and scored before the 1st inning was over.

In the 3rd inning, the Giants extended their lead to 3-1. That's about the time I noticed a swarm of tweets citing a plane crash beneath the San Francisco Airport's flight path. Intrigued, I clicked the TV to KPIX5 between innings.

It was a scene out of Dante's Inferno. In fact it wasn't a downed aircraft, it was a ruptured 24 inch High Pressure Natural Gas Line that may have been "nicked" by a backhoe digging on a waterline project. The resulting explosion and fire storm made for riveting television that held my gaze so I missed a couple of more Giants Home Runs.


The Giants prevailed 7-3 and I'm still watching the San Bruno Fire coverage as the clock strikes midnight. The explosion happened at 6:15PM...I started tuning in about 7:30PM. PG&E got the Gas Main shut off by about 8PM. The firestorm ended when the fuel was shut off. There's still fires throughout the neighborhood. These are small individual gas lines in burned out homes that are safer to let burn until daylight.

The News is reporting 53 homes destroyed, and another 120 damaged. I just saw footage of the blast crater. it fills a whole intersection. 50 feet across, easy. What a mess. Three reported fatalities, and the very American scene of civilians pouring into evacuation centers carrying bottled water, blankets, toilet paper, snacks, pizzas, and stuffed animals to donate to displaced residents. Volunteers outnumber victims by 4:1. Pulling together...it's what we do.

The scene at first light is going to be stunning. I'll be up for a while tonight.