Tinker's Blog

Lets try this again for Monday 7-24

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Sunday 7-23

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Long before the Global Positioning System, pilots got from town to town by reading rooftops.

For six years, demonstration and race pilot Blanche Noyes had ridden herd on a government program that called for navigation markers to be placed on building rooftops to help pilots find their way from one town to another. By 1941, some 13,000 marks had been painted on barns, hangars, skyscrapers, oil tanks, and train stations. Now, in January 1942, on the heels of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, goaded by the War Department, directed that all air markers near both coasts be obliterated.

"The number of military ships which have been forced to land due to running out of gasoline...has been appalling," Noyes later wrote to her bosses, blaming the loss of air markers. The CAA chief of airways countered: "The Army feels that the value of markers to the enemy overshadows the need by our pilots; therefore the air marking project will remain suspended for the duration of the emergency."

Before radio navigation was widely available to pilots of small aircraft, they got around by flying by landmarks. In unfamiliar terrain, however, it was easy to get lost, so in 1926 the government set out to promote air marking, painting the name of a local airport on a nearby building's roof with an arrow pointing in the airport's direction, or simply the name of the town with an arrow indicating north. Though federal aviation agencies regulated every aspect from letter size (10 to 30 feet tall) to paint (Chrome Yellow Number 4 on a black background) to distance between markers (one every 15 miles was the goal), they never lifted a brush. Labor came from the Works Progress Administration, the Civil Air Patrol, the Civilian Conservation Corps, civic volunteers, scouting organizations, and the Ninety-Nines organization of women pilots. Along with the safety benefits of guided navigation, air marking was variously touted as a job program, a scout merit badge, a commercial welcome mat, and a boon to women in aviation.

Phoebe F. Omlie, an official of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, hand-picked prominent pilots Nancy Harkness, Helen MacCloskey, and Louise Thaden as field reps for the program. A year later, Noyes became the fourth pilot hired to charm public works officials into painting the town.

"Why do they choose girls to do this work?" asked Helen MacCloskey in A Million Dollars Worth of Safety In Five Gallons of Paint, an article that was included in a promotional kit sent to editors throughout the country. "I expect because there are still few enough women pilots in the country, [they think] we could do a better job of selling the interests of private flying."

Louise Thaden wrote in Southwestern Aviation, "Air route markers are more important than the highway markers, because a pilot can't stop at every crossroads and shout to ask 'which way to where,'which oftentimes leads to very embarrassing predicaments. Cross-country travel by automobile wasn't any great shakes until roads were improved and directional signs erected."

Assistant Secretary of Commerce J.M. Johnson helped promote the program by pointing out that a blank roof was bad business. "The roof as airmarked constitutes one of the most effective as well as inexpensive advertisements, directed to an excellent class of people," he wrote in the kit. "The town may appear as a good place for a vacation, a home or a business. The air marker puts the town on the map." Commerce meant it literally: A town could not be listed on the department's aeronautical charts until it accepted an air mark.

In 1937, Noyes considered the fire watch towers in national forest lands, and asked the Civilian Conservation Corps, national parks, and the U.S. Indian Forest Service to air-mark their galvanized roofs. Her colleague Henry Knight pitched in. "In my sales talk I emphasized the danger in forced landings as a major fire hazard for our national forests," he wrote to A.B. McMullen, chief of the airport section at the Bureau of Air Commerce. "I doubtlessly exaggerated, but nevertheless, it is a possible hazard." Marks were also plowed into fields, spread in brick, cinder, or gravel, and built with river stones. Pilots already followed railroad lines, so air marks were wedged within ties.

The CAA even called in the Boy Scouts. An issue of Scouting featured Road Signs of the Air:

Markers keep you safe from harm,

Tell of towns and ports nearby,

Tell the mileage you must fly,

Give your longitude and latitude,

Give you everything but altitude.

Late in 1938, a letter arrived at the CAA from the National Broadcast Company at Sunset and Vine, Hollywood, offering the service of a pair of popular entertainers. "Amos 'n' Andy are veteran flyers and Andy (Charles Correll) not only owns his own plane but is a licensed radio operator," wrote Harold Bock, the press manager for the comedy duo, who performed in a daily radio show. Bock suggested using the well-known voices of Correll and his fellow comedian, Freeman Gosden (Amos), in radio pleas to paint every prominent roof-as long as the government paid for an office, clerk-typists, stationery, and postage. That way, Bock wrote, "Communications would be accepted as official, rather than as a publicity stunt." The campaign, "Let the Air Know You're There," would include broadcasts by Hollywood pilots and coverage by newsreels and radio commentator Ed Sullivan. Noyes' interest was piqued, but shortly thereafter, in January 1939, Correll's family had to attend to a medical emergency, and he was unable to meet her.

Readable from as high as 10,000 feet, air marks were invisible at indirect angles or if the lighting was not optimum. And markers of all sorts eventually faded, flooded, blew away, burned, or crumbled.

Then came December 7, 1941. On December 22, the chief of CAA airways engineering, C.M. Lample, wrote to Allan Perkinson, Virginia's director of aeronautics and a friend of Noyes. "We requested the War Department to state whether they consider the obliteration of any existing markers as necessary in connection with the national emergency," Lample reported. "We have requested the same comments from the Office of Civilian Defense. Neither organization has replied. In the absence of these replies, it is our opinion that the air marking program should be continued."

On January 17, the War Department finally responded: Obliterate all air markers within 150 miles of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In the area between, no new markers were to be constructed. Secretary of War Henry Stimson nixed Buffalo, Detroit, Duluth, and Sault Ste. Marie air marks. But Stimson allowed markers to be reinstalled within 50 miles of air fields conducting flight training.

During the war, Noyes limited her role to inspection. She noted in the Christian Science Monitor in 1943, "Once in a while I get a little jittery wondering if some particularly zealous airplane spotter might mistake me for an enemy ship and shoot me down and ask questions later, for of course I'm constantly flying over restricted areas."

In 1944, the CAA had decided to add longitude and latitude to the air marks. The Administrator cited the existence of six towns in Ohio named Summit to show that a name alone was insufficient. The following year, the air marking program was resumed, but only 66 markers were installed by year's end. Thomas Bourne, assistant administrator for federal airways at the CAA, had a bright idea.

"We have had a great number of requests for illuminated city identification markers," Bourne noted in a letter to a Washington, D.C. commissioner. "It is only fitting that the capital of the United States should be the first." Bourne wanted to place amber bulbs turned skywards in 229 street lamps in Washington. "This method would be of great value to the pilot who is lost, as well as to the air traveller who is interested in identifying the various cities over which he passes and within sight of." But the CAA soon tired of working the D.C. bureaucracy and the idea faded.

After the war, Noyes was put in charge of the air marking division of the renamed Civil Aeronautics Authority. An ardent supporter, she flew around the country seeking financial support from local chambers of commerce when federal funding ran dry.

Virginia's Allan Perkinson forwarded a letter and news clip to Noyes from her friend Patricia Davis Arnold, a Ninety-Nine who had circled at length over Damascus, Virginia, until seeing an air mark. Noyes sent copies to every state aviation director, noting in the margin, "I wish all girls would follow her example and send me reports of air marking help." Perkinson told the media that it was the pilot who was at fault; had she the courtesy to become lost in the right place, she would have seen his air mark sooner. "There are no doubt many towns which are airmarked and yet the Chambers of Commerce and municipal officials do not know it," he added.

Noyes continued giving speeches entitled "Mark the Skyways Like the Highways," but increasingly her presentations were for club chapter meetings or at coffee shops in the Washington suburbs. By this time, navigation charts and radio had worked their way into most pits.

Today, the Ninety-Nines paint compass roses on runways but no rooftop signs. They sell penny-a-pound passenger flights to pay for paint and supplies, and local airport businesses have pitched in funds.

Sophia Payton, a Ninety-Nine in Clearwater, Florida, painted air marks on roofs in 1946 in Indiana and Ohio. "That was a big project; all the girls up on rooftops," she recalls. "We'd pull our whole chapter together, 10 or 12 of the girls, pull out our brushes, and follow the federal criteria. It was a lot of fun, a lot of work; it was...productive."

Payton keeps a letter of thanks sent to the Postmaster of Shirley, Indiana, in 1956. Colonel C.E. Fulton of the U.S. Air Force was heading toward St. Louis when the weather deteriorated. He emerged from clouds to read the 10-foot SHIRLEY atop a canning company.

The Batman TV show managed to draw some pretty big names of that time as guest stars. Some of them included Milton Berle, Art Carney, Joan Collins, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Carolyn Jones, Bruce Lee, Liberace, Ethel Merman, Roddy McDowall, Vincent Price and Shelley Winters.

Alan Napier who played Alfred the butler's cousin in real life was Neville Chanberlain who was the Prime Minister of Britain from 1937-1940!

The Batmobile was a modified 1955 Lincoln Futura.

Back in a day when you didn't hear so much about using seatbelts, Batman & Robin always did. In fact, the TV show honored by the National Safety Council for doing so!

For the first short season and second full season, the show had a distinction that few others can claim. It was one of the few programs ever on television to be aired two nights per week from January of 1966 to March of 1967! Most of those episodes were 2-parters with the first one ending with something terrible about to happen. Then you'd hear the announcer say, "Tune in tommorrow night; Same Bat-time, Same Bat-Channel"! You simply had to tune in the next night to find out what happened!

When discussing the twentieth century, we often compare and contrast life from the year 1900 to the year 2000. We all realize that in the year 1900, people didn't have cars, couldn't fly in airplanes, and didn't have microwaves. Yet, there is another item that those in the year 1900 did not have and those in the year 2000 took for granted - Oreo cookies.

Most of us have grown up with Oreo cookies. There are photos of us with chocolaty remnants smeared across our faces. They've caused great disputes as to the best way to eat them - dunking them in milk or twisting off one side and eating the middle first. Besides eating them plain, there are recipes galore on how to use Oreos in cakes, milkshakes, and additional desserts. Oreos had become part of twentieth century culture.

Though most of us have spent a lifetime cherishing Oreo cookies, did you know that since their introduction in 1912, the Oreo cookie has become the best selling cookie in the U.S.?

Oreos Are Introduced

In 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo), the maker of Oreo cookies.
By 1902, Nabisco created Barnum's Animal cookies and made them famous by selling them in a little box designed like a cage with a string attached (to hang on Christmas trees).

In 1912, Nabisco had a new idea for a cookie - two chocolate disks with a creme filling in between. The first Oreo cookie looked very similar to the Oreo cookie of today, with only a slight difference in the design on the chocolate disks.

The shape and design of the Oreo cookie didn't change much until Nabisco began selling various versions of the cookie. In 1975, Nabisco released their DOUBLE STUF Oreos. Nabisco continued to create variations:

1987 -- Fudge covered Oreos introduced
1991 -- Halloween Oreos introduced
1995 -- Christmas Oreos introduced

The Mysterious Name

So how did the Oreo get its name? The people at Nabisco aren't quite sure. Some believe that the cookie's name was taken from the French word for gold, "or" (the main color on early Oreo packages). Others claim the name stemmed from the shape of a hill-shaped test version; thus naming the cookie in Greek for mountain, "oreo." Still others believe the name is a combination of taking the "re" from "cream" and placing it between the two "o"s in "chocolate" - making "o-re-o." And still others believe that the cookie was named Oreo because it was short and easy to pronounce.

No matter how it got named, over 362 billion Oreo cookies have been sold since it was first introduced in 1912, making it the best selling cookie of the 20th century.

Bush wacka

v341x Friday 7-21

v231x Wednesday (7-19-06)

The name "S.S. Minnow" was actually named after Newton Minow and was chairman on the FCC in 1961. He made a speech and called television "America's vast wasteland." The boat was named after the man who, Sherwood insists, "ruined television." Minow gave networks authority and placed the power of programming in the hands of the networks. He did this after Gilligan's Island was started.

There were actually four S.S. Minnows used on the show. The first Minnow was purchased and towed out to Kauai and used in the beach scenes. The second one was a rental they used in the opening credits at the Honolulu Harbor. It showed the crew boarding and then showed it sailing out to sea. The third was filmed in the opening credits of the second season at Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles. The fourth one was built for CBS Studios and is shown at the Lagoon in the second season opening credits.

Julian Beever has made pavement drawings for over ten years. He has worked in the U.K., Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany, the USA and Australia.

The pavement drawings have included both renderings of old masters plus a wealth of original inventive pieces of work.

Look here...

v125x Tuesday (7-18-06)

Should You Go?:

If you want to see one of the last great gold-mining towns in existence, and you're willing to accept the lack of phones, constant electricity, television, and indoor plumbing, then by all means, yes, come on over!

UPS Flight 1307 burns on the tarmac of Philidelpha International Airport 

Washington (DC) - Laptops get hot, but can they cause a plane to catch on fire? The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating whether laptop batteries caused a UPS cargo plane to catch on fire last February. The DC-8 plane with three crew members made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport after a fire broke out in the cargo hold. The fire continued to burn for four hours destroying the plane and most of the UPS packages inside.

IntelliMeter uses sonar technology to reset meter when car moves out

 

By Chris Kirkham

Updated: 2:48 a.m. CT July 8, 2006

WASHINGTON - In the exasperating quest for street parking, victory comes in tiny increments -- the stray 20 minutes left on the meter by the driver who just pulled away, for example.

A Bethesda company, IntelliPark LLC, wants to take that small pleasure away. It is marketing a parking meter called IntelliMeter that uses sonar technology to detect when a space is occupied and resets the meter to zero every time a car moves out.

"You take away that free lunch, but on the other hand that's tax revenue," said IntelliPark chief executive Glen A. Hellman.

The company is one of several exploring technologically savvy parking systems as a way for municipalities to control street congestion and bring in extra revenue at the same time.

Major cities such as New York and Baltimore have installed "smart parking" systems in some areas that allow for easier payment with credit cards, smart cards or even cellphones.

In Georgetown and Arlington, drivers pay fees at one multi-space box on a block or print out receipts they put on their dashboards.

The next wave of parking technology is expected to go a step further by networking the meters and giving local officials daily or weekly reports about what's happening on the streets.

Another company, InnovaPark LLC of Westport, Conn., uses magnetic sensors to monitor spaces.

Neither company's system is in wide use. IntelliPark has installed its meters in Reading, Pa., and InnovaPark has installed its system in a few towns in California. Hyattsville in Prince George's County is expected to start a pilot project using IntelliPark's sonar meters next week.

IntelliPark charges $175 for a meter -- comparable to conventional parking meters -- and $7 a month more to lease the vehicle sensors.

While a main selling point is the chance to collect more money from each meter, Hellman said the network of sensors also can help cities better manage street parking by cutting down on street congestion and reducing the amount of fuel wasted by motorists hunting for spaces.

A million miles racked up in hunt for parking
According to a study of a 15-block area in Los Angeles over a year, drivers racked up almost 1 million vehicle miles cruising for parking spots, said Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California at Los Angeles.

"That's two trips to the moon, just hunting for cheap parking," he said.

Low-power radio devices on the IntelliMeters send information to a central hub, where city officials can analyze parking patterns, adjust rates to encourage turnover in high-traffic areas and monitor how effectively city workers enforce parking laws.

A city could offer a built-in, five- to 15-minute grace period on every meter to give parkers a chance to get change or run quick errands. But it could also prevent meter feeding by locking out additional payments for a car that has been parked for the maximum time allowed for a space. A driver could beat the system by pulling out of the spot, driving around the block and returning to the reset meter, but Hellman said inconvenience should be a deterrent.

Based on tests, Hellman said, revenue increases an estimated 20 percent from zeroing out the meters in low-traffic areas and as much as 50 percent in high-traffic areas. The system in use in some parts of Baltimore, in which drivers buy time from a box on the sidewalk and put receipts in their windows, has increased revenue by 25 percent.

"We know how a standard meter works and what options we have, but what we're curious about is what the new improvements could be," said Hyattsville City Treasurer Robert W. Oliphant. "There's a whole lot of data you can get out of those meters."

The city of Pacific Grove, Calif., installed the magnetic InnovaPark system last year, and revenue increased $180,000. With a total operating budget of $15 million, City Manager James J. Colangelo said, the system has been a success, despite complaints from some tourists.

"That is one of the joys of parking, to pull up to metered parking where there's time left," Colangelo said. "You feel like you have good karma that day, and now you don't get that feeling. But I'm much more willing to throw a few more quarters in than to fight for a spot."

Pre-ordered parking spaces?
IntelliPark's operation is small so far. The company has eight full-time employees, and a third-party manufacturer makes its parts.

Hellman works in the Bethesda office of his primary investor, Carlton Capital. Outside investors, including Carlton and Winston Partners, co-founded by President Bush's brother, Marvin P. Bush, have invested $5 million to $10 million since 1999.

With a patent for the sonar technology in hand, Hellman said, the company will add a sales and marketing division and research and development employees by the beginning of next year. The next phase of the project will add a component that allows customers to pay remotely and reserve parking places on their cellphones.

"I'm not going to look to expand until I see we're in a position of strength, until we have a major metropolitan customer," Hellman said. His rule for working with a company "is to keep it as small and run it as lean as I can until I have a model for success that's respectable," he said.