tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4743788326350222952024-03-05T22:52:03.219-08:00Thoughts from upside downOdd thoughts about flying, aerobatics, software engineering and other things that cross my mind.n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.comBlogger167125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-41865910395743902162024-02-14T07:26:00.000-08:002024-02-14T11:35:37.407-08:00Return to Australia<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitDk3TS-OqwJ8-XXX87mzxuyb3ZvTcY-eRiZFobNeR7aoOa5vSU-TIy5nh4LaV4Tefj_10HHybjBW78B7cwKFlfqtfcu95eVsyusaUgzO3GUaH-Pabw-b5_9SguoIc9yqPI9lWDsE9hUmHeC2e95je1aAsY7XcLUrMZdlxYV1XWPp71LQSr-mv3XLgdJg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitDk3TS-OqwJ8-XXX87mzxuyb3ZvTcY-eRiZFobNeR7aoOa5vSU-TIy5nh4LaV4Tefj_10HHybjBW78B7cwKFlfqtfcu95eVsyusaUgzO3GUaH-Pabw-b5_9SguoIc9yqPI9lWDsE9hUmHeC2e95je1aAsY7XcLUrMZdlxYV1XWPp71LQSr-mv3XLgdJg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><i>Sydney Sunrise</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>In September, my company was acquired from our existing Australian investor by another Australian company. It seemed like a good idea to meet the people there, and since even the Cote d'Azur does have a winter, we decided to make a winter vacation out of it. So shortly after Christmas we set off on an Air France flight to Sydney via Singapore for a two week trip<p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Sydney
</h2>
<p>
Our arrival in Sydney coincided with some terrible weather. Coming out of the Harbour Tunnel it was raining so hard that we couldn't see through the taxi's windscreen. Over the next few days we had a mixture of rain and patchy sunshine.
</p>
<p>
We've both been to Sydney several times before, including our honeymoon in 1990. But this was the first time we've stayed outside the centre, in North Sydney - albeit only a stone's throw from the bridge. We stayed at the Meriton Suites, which once a few initial problems were resolved turned out to be an excellent choice. We had what amounts to a two-room apartment, with a fully equipped kitchen and a separate living-room. That's very handy when you're jetlagged and one of you wakes up in the small hours and wants to sit and read without disturbing the other. The kitchen meant we could make our own breakfast every morning rather than looking for cafes, and on the first night we even made our own dinner thanks to the large Coles supermarket just round the corner. The hotel was also just a couple of minutes' walk from the new company's office.
</p>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4TOc3fLS--nqkMmKMV9IckMAJJ4n-mn2iZKn7jBcognr49cb8bktzJplJz-UQqrFVwtC8zSGJs8Xqy3CByUmGS2lA4co4i4jt-UwQW-Q0UieVlnKV9z4yY0VOYEr_HU_g3RMLTnWmE2RBNX-FK5BRbBUy5BXLm6yfu6N8SQSaAVgVQ0VbrHWoiCR8PKc" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4TOc3fLS--nqkMmKMV9IckMAJJ4n-mn2iZKn7jBcognr49cb8bktzJplJz-UQqrFVwtC8zSGJs8Xqy3CByUmGS2lA4co4i4jt-UwQW-Q0UieVlnKV9z4yY0VOYEr_HU_g3RMLTnWmE2RBNX-FK5BRbBUy5BXLm6yfu6N8SQSaAVgVQ0VbrHWoiCR8PKc" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sydney Icons</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
I worked during the day while we were there, making the acquaintance of our acquiring company for the first time. Isabelle spent the days with her long-time friend Effie, who she met on a skiing holiday in France over 40 years ago. We all had dinner together, with her English husband Tony, on two of the nights. That was very pleasant.
</p>
<p>
Being outside the centre meant we got to experience the Sydney ferry system. Our hotel room looked out over the bay, always with at least a couple of ferries in sight. A 15 minute walk took us to a ferry stop with a half-hourly service to Sydney Harbour. I also used the ferry for our work "day out" at Manly, including getting off at the wrong stop on the way home and a two kilometre walk in the dark. It's really an amazing system, which makes travelling round the eastern side of the city much easier. And it is so pleasant sitting on a boat as it gently crosses the bay.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Adelaide
</h2>
<p>
Our vacation proper started on the Friday after we arrived, with a flight to Adelaide. Our plan was to drive slowly from there to Melbourne, with a stop on Kangaroo Island and finishing with the famous Great Ocean Road into Melbourne. We rented a car from a local outfit (East Coast Rentals) who were inexpensive and, once we figured out how to contact them, very efficient. The car itself was my first experience driving a Chinese car, an MG ZS. Verdict: fine as a rental for a few days, but I certainly wouldn't buy one. MG used to be the sporty part of long-defunct BMC, Britain's leading car firm in the 60s and 70s. It's a sorry end to be sold off as just a name. The only thing the Chinese company retained was the octagonal logo, including the way you press it to open the boot which I dimly remembered from my youth.
</p>
<p>
On our first day we made it to the Central Market before it closed. It's an amazing place with stalls selling every kind of food. Our favourite was The Smelly Cheese Co, staffed by a young French woman whose sales technique was extremely effective. We intended to buy a box of crackers, and ended up with half a dozen cheeses and a fancy bag to put them in.
</p>
<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiHBbsyGHhVFC6ttnpCckLpXyJEcdfe1D3aQTrj8GR2D9AvODs_gsF0dsmZLJ8woXIa7Fdw1LGdXWedou73tL2wKSM7-Mkfsn8CKRjajzlB2RRJfG6f4K9s6i1NIp2708ZiydpquTH1XkrEG8aNgMOtTihCs-ln3JUwa6OsGL36cnNwdee7npkR6f3kTs" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiHBbsyGHhVFC6ttnpCckLpXyJEcdfe1D3aQTrj8GR2D9AvODs_gsF0dsmZLJ8woXIa7Fdw1LGdXWedou73tL2wKSM7-Mkfsn8CKRjajzlB2RRJfG6f4K9s6i1NIp2708ZiydpquTH1XkrEG8aNgMOtTihCs-ln3JUwa6OsGL36cnNwdee7npkR6f3kTs" width="180" /></a>
Our first night's dinner was a big disappointment. Right under the hotel was a French restaurant, which we discovered by speaking French as we walked past and having the entire staff start chatting with us. The menu looked good, but the food and especially the wine was mediocre.
</p>
<p>
The next day we drove out to the Barossa Valley, home to some of the finest wines in Australia. We ended up stopping at Penfold's, the best-known name. We were very lucky that our randomly-assigned server turned out to be the head of the tasting room - or "cellar door" as they're called in Australia. We spent about an hour there, tasting several wines that were outside the regular tasting menu once she understood that we knew quite a bit about the subject. Their most expensive wine is Penfold's Grange, at AUS$1000 per bottle. We did taste it - even that cost $50. I can't honestly say that it was that much better than their general run of Shiraz, which go for $50-100 per bottle. It was a very interesting afternoon.
</p>
<p>
Then on our way back to Adelaide, completely by chance, we ran into a Hot-Rod event in a little town. The main street was full of classic cars, mostly American though a few Australian, and some actual hot-rods. There was a gorgeous original Corvette and many other very nice cars.
</p>
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDfkndkng0Oiztz2yL8EJ7MxGzv32SLoQSJ6acB_z5Qd7PI33bpg_-f2n0wteptHRQQzvirJEVPp7k2EMzt8qTtAhi2Buwluwyz6zhSIXJqCO7q73X5qPHImfdX5Jlq-pr85-n04enxje7lEYP_rKthwSxMGmvpQQJ_pjzYcI2pRWx9A4louZ5r7uktvI" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDfkndkng0Oiztz2yL8EJ7MxGzv32SLoQSJ6acB_z5Qd7PI33bpg_-f2n0wteptHRQQzvirJEVPp7k2EMzt8qTtAhi2Buwluwyz6zhSIXJqCO7q73X5qPHImfdX5Jlq-pr85-n04enxje7lEYP_rKthwSxMGmvpQQJ_pjzYcI2pRWx9A4louZ5r7uktvI" width="320" /></a></div></div><p></p>
<p>
Dinner the second evening was more successful. Isabelle had found an alleyway full of restaurants, and there she found a place that served a really excellent meal. She had garfish, a long thin fish with a pointy snout which I remember well under its Japanese name, sanma, from when my friend Ole in Tokyo had a sanma party at the start of its season.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Kangaroo Island<br />
</h2>
<p>
The next morning we were up at 5, to catch the 9 o'clock ferry to Kangaroo Island. Australia is huge, and while the ferry port looks like it is in suburban Adelaide it's actually a 90 minute drive away. The ride takes about 45 minutes across the so-called Backstairs Passage between the island and the mainland.
</p>
<p>
We visited the only real town on the island, Kingscote. The drive was not especially interesting, along roads lined with eucalyptus trees, and we wondered if we'd done the right thing planning to spend two nights there. There's not much at Kingscote. From there we continued out to the North Cape, and got our first real taste of the island. We arrived at a huge beach spanning a wide bay. There were a couple of other cars and just one person in sight along a couple of kilometres of sand. It was beautiful.
</p>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQtGqbbqkqLMpjQXXnN1NTjvMTMHR5_4Mc6arFwNF4CgDdoZyc8IFVoDIWuNEz4qYkIOtKGbS-xjT20PHsTRRLpoRegnaYEOSfVeZ9vlyQimSy6ZOeRTQfVPowL1-hr3jy2ztxO4kcX4_wdrxNslFIgo3bjiSZyW_fhdxoJZhGsjQz3UzpZKjAgQKpo10" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQtGqbbqkqLMpjQXXnN1NTjvMTMHR5_4Mc6arFwNF4CgDdoZyc8IFVoDIWuNEz4qYkIOtKGbS-xjT20PHsTRRLpoRegnaYEOSfVeZ9vlyQimSy6ZOeRTQfVPowL1-hr3jy2ztxO4kcX4_wdrxNslFIgo3bjiSZyW_fhdxoJZhGsjQz3UzpZKjAgQKpo10" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>North Cape Beach</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
Finally we set off for our hotel, which was accessible only along several kilometres of dirt road, in good condition. It is completely isolated on the south-eastern tip of the island. The nearest settlement is the ferry terminal at Penneshaw, a half-hour drive away. The hotel, the Sea Dragon, is more of a resort. It provides breakfast and dinner, and even wine with dinner, all included in the price - which is pretty expensive. Our room was in a cabin a few hundred metres from the main part of the hotel.
<p></p>
<p>
The owner and manager was a very pleasant German lady. She offered to drive us down to the beach - it can be walked but it involves a descent, and more important a climb, of about 300 feet. A very rough 4x4 trail leads down to it, and she took us in her vehicle. It was another paradisiacal spot. For a while we were the only occupants of the beach and the whole cove. Isabelle even went for a swim, but the water has come non-stop for Antarctica and is freezing cold. I stayed on the beach.
</p>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiN_RtiddXCpxEoRMN41AskjYTi6Kv5GAGERZTBOWbFjyttOf2v_XhIDTVCSpn53PAD6Bfd9-wQ45gQze-A57XXAqZFPb3RQAX7PRQHa5vEaFlEuo2dWG2uLe3awU03Y1WkfQBEJjW8MmYjJkrAkkINZLVFt7iTOi2xoyX9jeLTMldSbvghbNth_Z6FeFI" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiN_RtiddXCpxEoRMN41AskjYTi6Kv5GAGERZTBOWbFjyttOf2v_XhIDTVCSpn53PAD6Bfd9-wQ45gQze-A57XXAqZFPb3RQAX7PRQHa5vEaFlEuo2dWG2uLe3awU03Y1WkfQBEJjW8MmYjJkrAkkINZLVFt7iTOi2xoyX9jeLTMldSbvghbNth_Z6FeFI" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Cape Willoughby Lighthouse</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
The only other sign of civilization out there on Cape Willoughby is the lighthouse and the cottages that were built for the keepers. It's impossible to imagine what their life must have been like, totally isolated and visited just once every few months by a supply ship. It would certainly be as well to be on good terms with your colleagues. Now the cottages are let to tourists.
<p></p>
<p>
The grounds of the resort are full of kangaroos. From our cabin we could see a mother and her child hopping around nibbling the grass. To move quickly, they hop on just their hind legs. But to move slowly, when they are grazing, they have a very strange form of locomotion. They use their tails as a fifth leg, and move their forelegs and hind legs simultaneously in pairs. In effect they have three legs, two of them with very wide feet.
</p>
<p>
Dinner was excellent, accompanied by a wine grown on the island itself. For the following day, we'd arranged to go on a nature tour organized by the resort. Generally we prefer to do things on our own, but we figured we'd end up missing a lot of things if we tried. And it's a long way - the island is 155 km from one end to the other. It's about half the size of the Death Valley National Park, which makes it a quarter the size of Belgium.
</p>
<p>
There was just one other couple in the SUV, plus the driver/guide called Brigitte. She had led a very interesting life: born in Britain, then raised in Australia, then sent back to England for boarding school. Then she served in the Belgian army for 30 years as a meteorologist, before deciding to return to Australia where, she says, she came to Kangaroo Island for a weekend, and stayed for 15 years. The island population is small and everyone knows everyone else. She works as a guide and a firefighter, among other thing. After the disastrous fire which burned nearly half the island in 2019, and killed 80% of the koalas, she was heavily involved in all the recovery.
</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdILRPP9MTk1HpvkierIBujTYsou8goCGYcQpFK73Rk8VlPDpulpJpSHf9GQzLIIq6NmX8MdJpJux4dnz54DnOO6BjQOe0CJjrkKQcXzJ8N29S0PvfKMpK6nx_-qqYVXco9sAklDY4d78Cyacy2-AUGsN3Q-xn4oUPNMV7DU_aan4EbcH_mIVC1jAjsUQ" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdILRPP9MTk1HpvkierIBujTYsou8goCGYcQpFK73Rk8VlPDpulpJpSHf9GQzLIIq6NmX8MdJpJux4dnz54DnOO6BjQOe0CJjrkKQcXzJ8N29S0PvfKMpK6nx_-qqYVXco9sAklDY4d78Cyacy2-AUGsN3Q-xn4oUPNMV7DU_aan4EbcH_mIVC1jAjsUQ" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A sealion walking on land</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p>
Our first stop was a beach which is inhabited by sealions. The difference between a seal and a sealion has always been a mystery to me, but thanks to the exhibition there I now understand. Sealions are amphibious rather than marine. They can walk effectively, if inelegantly, on land, as well as swimming. We watched one climb up on rocks just as well as any land animal would have. They have very powerful forelimbs which serve as feet and hands as well as flippers. Seals, by contrast, are uniquely marine animals. They can squirm along a beach on their flippers, but that's about it.
</p>
<p>
After a lunch stop, Brigitte took us to a little clearing where she promised us koalas. We did find some, but they spend the daytime lodged in a fork near the top of a eucalyptus, not moving. This makes them hard to find and almost impossible to photograph. Koalas are a very odd example of evolution gone wrong. They eat only eucalytpus leaves, because they are extremely easy to catch. But not only are they very poorly nutritious, they are actually toxic. So they spend 20 hours a day sleeping as their overworked livers deal with the constant influx of poison.
</p>
<p>
The next stop was another lighthouse, at the western extremity of the island, at Cape du Couedic. Kangaroo Island was discovered simultaneously by French and English explorers, so the place names are a mixture of the two languages, with some Breton thrown in (as in this case). This one is even more isolated than Cape Willoughby. There's no access to the sea, so supplies had to arrive via a horse-driven <br />funicular that lifted goods - and sometimes animals and people - 100 metres up the side of a sheer cliff.
</p>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWA4vWfJiGZk9riP4shq3LVHDZfEtnphjr-L4O4AeYKK175Bw4XV-8a5ic3hYfdhOSxP-U7CEmJQwLLJkE_Al04O2TdwWlWBeat0JMM5KPrs9V9rYQX_cglUIrCwU71NDKGPC89NNJcy11F4v6VYZwalMXgqtAz289ePXzpkppLPF2goIlsiQHMxIlmpw" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWA4vWfJiGZk9riP4shq3LVHDZfEtnphjr-L4O4AeYKK175Bw4XV-8a5ic3hYfdhOSxP-U7CEmJQwLLJkE_Al04O2TdwWlWBeat0JMM5KPrs9V9rYQX_cglUIrCwU71NDKGPC89NNJcy11F4v6VYZwalMXgqtAz289ePXzpkppLPF2goIlsiQHMxIlmpw" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Remarkable Rocks</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
A short drive took us to Remarkable Rocks which are, well, remarkable. They're the result of the erosion over 200 million years of a granite dome, which has left some extraordinary shapes. Granite domes are common enough, but this can only happen if they are close to the sea and exposed to salt water. It's amazing to think that this dome was in its pristine state when dinosaurs hadn't even shown up, never mind mammals.
<p></p>
<p>
After that it was a two hour drive back to the resort, so we had plenty of time to get to know our companions. They are a pretty exceptional couple - she is a professional opera singer in Dallas, and he is the now-retired CEO of a medium-sized oil company. They were both very unpretentious and a pleasure to spend time with. We only discovered their professional side when we asked them explicitly.
</p>
<p>
Dinner was again excellent, as was breakfast. The best part was a home-made granola with mango yoghurt, which was the best granola I've ever eaten. The recipe was invented by our guide Brigitte, during the time when she was also the cook for the resort.
</p>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjl7wvVTwujvKDvDstuU16ytdzAVngjzam3NScreZrrpd1HGdaPG-EDLwe-ig4aAQ0i_54-GrsUGAx6uwepTqDJEQ_b2XGX5phnRunGVHznDruLf4WX8_2-jrxGUlbFoZMDHlYX6XHqqCdU4qlKWsJT32sdnF768KI35n1mfon1qd8zD5DNaLgbLgSLMWY" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjl7wvVTwujvKDvDstuU16ytdzAVngjzam3NScreZrrpd1HGdaPG-EDLwe-ig4aAQ0i_54-GrsUGAx6uwepTqDJEQ_b2XGX5phnRunGVHznDruLf4WX8_2-jrxGUlbFoZMDHlYX6XHqqCdU4qlKWsJT32sdnF768KI35n1mfon1qd8zD5DNaLgbLgSLMWY" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ferry to Kangaroo Island<br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table>
Next morning we drove to the ferry. Packing cars onto it is an art-form. On the way over they packed everything in so tight that it was impossible to get into the car until its neighbour had left. The driver next to me very creatively climbed in through the window.
<p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
The Limestone Coast
</h2>
<p>
Today was just spent driving. Australia is a big country, and the distance from the ferry terminal to our next overnight stop, at Robe, was 455 km, all on rural two-lane roads. We stopped for lunch at the Flying Fish restaurant in Port Elliott, a little beach town which is only a couple of hours drive from Adelaide, and quite popular. I had excellent fish and chips (unlike the chewy apology that I'd eaten at the beach bar in Manly the previous week), so the guide book's recommendation was definitely justified.
</p>
<p>
Our drive would take us along the coast, but first we had to detour around Lake Alexandrina, which despite the name is actually a lagoon. The coast is almost continuous, with a tiny gap which could easily be bridged, but I guess the authorities see little point since this is not a journey that many people make. I could see the obvious route, but Google insisted on trying to send us a further 20 km inland onto the motorway. We ignored it, and it was only once we were committed to our apparently shorter route that we realised why. We would have to take a ferry to cross the Murray River along the way. We decided to just go ahead anyway - in the worst case we would just have to make the 40 km "trombone" to cross at the bridge.
</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7UNPkSIyK5XS-w-dbi-HVRgYOf_kRU95jIlcsYX1YCcMcNE6lyw9jVpCPXkCx-9vuvc257LZZP_7tkaAKlfD_AeJENV_rz_55sA6UEpkR2LVPKZdofpaWcmF89lWJQvt8IeNVv0k0uuiAMqDhbb-MqMiLT1sKaHgoCYXxReM0sF2BT9wSsXBm_U49fIU" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7UNPkSIyK5XS-w-dbi-HVRgYOf_kRU95jIlcsYX1YCcMcNE6lyw9jVpCPXkCx-9vuvc257LZZP_7tkaAKlfD_AeJENV_rz_55sA6UEpkR2LVPKZdofpaWcmF89lWJQvt8IeNVv0k0uuiAMqDhbb-MqMiLT1sKaHgoCYXxReM0sF2BT9wSsXBm_U49fIU" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Murray River, with tiny ferry</i> <i>on the<br />opposite shore</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p>
The ferry turned out to be delightful. It's tiny, with room for only about three cars. There is no schedule, it just shuttles the couple of hundred metres back and forth across the river as long as there is any traffic. We waited less than five minutes. After that, it was just the long drive down the coast. If we had had more time we could have diverted inland to the famous Coonawarra wine region, but there are only so many wineries you can visit before they all blur together.
</p>
<p>
This stretch of country has been named the Limestone Coast by some enthusiastic marketing type. But limestone is about all there is. After the ferry we passed one tiny settlement, Meningie. After that, there was stretch of 150 km where there was absolutely nothing at all. No towns, no villages, no houses, no gas stations. Nothing. There was very little traffic either. We passed one car or truck maybe every five minutes. Even though we were only a short distance from the sea or the lagoon, we never saw the water. It was a really boring drive. We did make one small detour, recommended by the guide book, to take a close look at a salt lagoon. It was, well, salty. And it involved 10 km or so on a horribly washboarded dirt road. Verdict: definitely not worth the detour.
</p>
<p>
Approaching our destination, there were lots of very modern houses on the waterfront. It's a mystery who lives in them or uses them - there is no industry, and Adelaide is a four-hour drive away.
</p>
<p>
Robe was the most disappointing of all our stops. There was nothing interesting about the motel, although it was comfortable enough for one night. We ate at supposedly the best restaurant in town, but the food was disappointing and the first bottle of wine was corked. That happens, but it's always a bit awkward especially when, as here, the waiter says there's nothing wrong with it, although he changed it without protest.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Victoria at Last
</h2>
<p>
Our next day's drive was long, too, at 290 km, though it passed through somewhat populated countryside. We would finally cross the border from South Australia into Victoria.
</p>
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYMTN1K8bIGs2wocAGItv4bnhSbyFl-Tys8gCjdAnCFjleIN42s0eyhLg4WVPJo-812iZunll9RewM7_uUZVgOOHj_1Bk8ven6mHK63OCVRdHaNfTWUOidPvMJE0Wyl4wtcAirYKDqgcAb2ygN12fmo2nd9bUVm4aKGmlkN3TzSzcNd1M2jUeEHqL96Rk" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2784" data-original-width="3712" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYMTN1K8bIGs2wocAGItv4bnhSbyFl-Tys8gCjdAnCFjleIN42s0eyhLg4WVPJo-812iZunll9RewM7_uUZVgOOHj_1Bk8ven6mHK63OCVRdHaNfTWUOidPvMJE0Wyl4wtcAirYKDqgcAb2ygN12fmo2nd9bUVm4aKGmlkN3TzSzcNd1M2jUeEHqL96Rk" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A Koala high up in its Eucalytpus tree</i></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
Our first stop, after a few kilometres, was at a nature park. The walk around the wetlands was pleasant but nothing special, until the group in front of us spotted a koala in one of the eucalyptus trees. Then it turned into a game of <br />"spot the koala". We found a few more, but the best place turned out to be the car park where, high in the trees, were several of them. I even managed to get a decent picture of one, using my telephoto pocket camera. It's surprisingly hard. Not only are they a long way up, but their fur is very dark and if you just let the camera do its own thing, all you get is a black splodge, barely visible against the tree. With some exposure bracketing I managed to get a shot where you can see the koala's face clearly.
<p></p>
<p>
Like most of our route, we were close to the sea but rarely saw it. We were just approaching the turn-off to Beachport, wondering whether we should go and say hello to the sea, when we saw a sign to a"Giant Kite Festival". So off we went. It was very impressive. All along the beach were indeed giant kits, most of them inflatable and drifting about in the wind. There was Snoopy, Batman, sharks, lobsters, and many more. The town itself was tiny and there was nothing else going on, but we enjoyed the detour.
</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipg5k8g3G4svYTdKCTaPPjC3gd93XSVtnsD20_MSK2pfl5lWc3SxBZxTAC_KH08afwePRqm7DTv6AY0MmFAXdsPQICzb73K0f79pvRP0wc9SNagmqp_-JLAwn0xoQqNJ0KXivHxJheM3VTd9_uO1P6Itpkg228CZzH7JPgYA0JwehLrwV7jV11NA0UM94" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipg5k8g3G4svYTdKCTaPPjC3gd93XSVtnsD20_MSK2pfl5lWc3SxBZxTAC_KH08afwePRqm7DTv6AY0MmFAXdsPQICzb73K0f79pvRP0wc9SNagmqp_-JLAwn0xoQqNJ0KXivHxJheM3VTd9_uO1P6Itpkg228CZzH7JPgYA0JwehLrwV7jV11NA0UM94" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Beachport's Giant Kite Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p>
Somewhere along the way we stopped at a cheese factory which was lauded by the guide book, but which was a complete disappointment. It sold a wide variety of tasteless factory cheeses, very similar to what you would find in Wisconsin and with exactly the same interest. Though they did have an interesting museum of old farm equipment and engines, which I quite enjoyed.
</p>
<p>
We passed through the town of Mount Gambier, which is an important local economic centre but of very little touristic interest. It has an extraordinary lake, which fills a crater and turns bright blue for a few months of the year. This isn't pollution, it's due to some kind of chemical process affecting the natural salts in the water. But honestly, once you've seen it, you've seen it.
</p>
<p>
Our destination was the oddly named Port Fairy, supposedly named after the boat of the first white man to discover it. Our hotel, or at least our room of the hotel, was in an old building dating from the early days of the town in the 1850s. We arrived late but even so we figured we had time to explore the one interesting feature, Griffiths Island. Supposedly you can see the shearwater, otherwise known as the mutton bird because the meat is like mutton. Like the California killdeer, it makes its nest on the ground, making it easy to catch.
</p>
<p>
We walked all around the island, which was very pleasant, but we didn't see any shearwaters, nor any of the other promised wildlife. By the time we finished, many of the possible dinner places were closed, but luckily we found an authentic Italian restaurant where we ate very well.
</p>
<p>
The two days of driving hadn't shown us anything very touristy, but they certainly gave us an idea of just how big Australia is. If you look at the map of the whole country, it looks as though Adelaide and Melbourne are neighbours. If you really need to drive just to get from one to the other, it can be done in a single day of hard driving. But nobody would drive it unless they had a good reason - say, to move a carload of stuff. It had struck us when we arrived at Adelaide airport just how big it is compared to the size and population of the city and the region. Now we knew why. Although the country is completely contiguous, practically speaking it's a bunch of islands connected by barely-inhabited agricultural land - at best. Most of the country is just desert. The only sensible way to travel between the cities is by air, even in the relatively densely populated south east.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
The Great Ocean Road</h2>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi29u065JPRNAystVqGlkKUoIUxO_v6sVUa8QgzrfqDZ2VfZMIOUVjfvgIaCmGJBSctpeh3dNk-j5azo1MK41alh8GRBl4IHLRRt99M3GzOCm_XiomsYbx3_KccZwCmrxHWqssB4hAL50qGrmWvBzZv-wi4A6ExZtdJxQ8ykOMG8dOrBssFKlkGwd_8VQM" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi29u065JPRNAystVqGlkKUoIUxO_v6sVUa8QgzrfqDZ2VfZMIOUVjfvgIaCmGJBSctpeh3dNk-j5azo1MK41alh8GRBl4IHLRRt99M3GzOCm_XiomsYbx3_KccZwCmrxHWqssB4hAL50qGrmWvBzZv-wi4A6ExZtdJxQ8ykOMG8dOrBssFKlkGwd_8VQM" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The London Arch (missing part to the left)</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH6FOnoGapiA2rXFeBxOFh28TZik9TbLtmjkbpty8_QsDaw_2nhdTdWSv4aujzBG7cbPO4deZ8R3WupDZIZsmeNrv7BJ22iiRutx-lwndGT1cesQmbyYqV9ekulDp24Oi-BGRiLxZrTueM5b6Wgg9Et5uHDGKCv520_o6j8vcJM_SCoruJTQ8ucWNbXyE" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH6FOnoGapiA2rXFeBxOFh28TZik9TbLtmjkbpty8_QsDaw_2nhdTdWSv4aujzBG7cbPO4deZ8R3WupDZIZsmeNrv7BJ22iiRutx-lwndGT1cesQmbyYqV9ekulDp24Oi-BGRiLxZrTueM5b6Wgg9Et5uHDGKCv520_o6j8vcJM_SCoruJTQ8ucWNbXyE" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Our" Echidna</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwP-WWQaU03hUpOmWRHkmLAbjJ00FK_nGZgw0jiXzMYGoYct7gMXB_us_sTDGUe76ZjS2Dvlj23joUDyLn5ByT_B20zIVILBddkIe6UYrRgWMV6nZCpHLiayJZ3EIuP2hoxVH0w54Lr_Xt4cYfYuKSK-YHBc4fen30WtwlhABKbWI4kakMsnytz8dKgxY" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwP-WWQaU03hUpOmWRHkmLAbjJ00FK_nGZgw0jiXzMYGoYct7gMXB_us_sTDGUe76ZjS2Dvlj23joUDyLn5ByT_B20zIVILBddkIe6UYrRgWMV6nZCpHLiayJZ3EIuP2hoxVH0w54Lr_Xt4cYfYuKSK-YHBc4fen30WtwlhABKbWI4kakMsnytz8dKgxY" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Twelve Apostles, or some of them</i></td></tr></tbody></table><i>
</i>
<p>
The official "Great Ocean Road" starts at Warrnambool, a little way past Port Fairy. This, finally, was the objective of our drive. Due to some unique geology, every few kilometres the coast has some unique and strange feature. The first of these is the Bay of Islands. Erosion of the limestone has left several tiny islands just off the coast. Next is London Bridge. Or rather was. Now it is the London Arch. This isn't some politically correct renaming. Originally there were two rock arches, connected to the mainland. Then in 1990 the closest one suddenly collapsed without warning, leaving only a single isolated arch. I joked that it was lucky nobody was out there when this happened. But it turns out that there were indeed two people who were stranded. They were rescued uneventfully by a police helicopter, but it must have been quite a shock.
</p>
<p>
So far we had seen quite a few people at these famous sites, but they weren't crowded. This all changed at the next one, the Loch Ard Gorge. This is a deep gorge cut into the coastline. The name comes from a ship, the Loch Ard, that was shipwrecked after three months at sea, sailing from England, just hours before it should have docked at Melbourne. They were lost in the fog that is common along this coastline, and the captain hadn't realised how close he was to the shore. When the fog lifted they saw they were inside the long, deep gorge, with no possibility of getting out before they hit a reef. There were only three survivors. The story certainly makes you appreciate Qantas.
</p>
<p>
Nearly as impressive as the terrain was the sheer volume of people. All of the walkways were thronged, mostly with foreign tourists from China, Korea and India. The car park was full of tourist buses, which must do a one-day Great Ocean Road tour from Melbourne - still a four hour drive away. Every few minutes a helicopter buzzed by.
</p>
<p>
Walking back to the car we were very lucky to see an echidna, also known as the spiny anteater. They're about the size of a large hedgehog, which they generally resemble. They have a very ungainly walk, wobbling comically from side to side. They're generally nocturnal, and rarely seen during daylight
</p>
<p>
The next stop was the Twelve Apostles. This was even more crowded. There's a huge car park some distance from the coast, and behind it is a helipad where four helicopters, 2 R44s and two Eurocopters, were constantly landing and taking off. The R44s were never in the air for more than five minutes. The Apostles themselves are reached by a tunnel under the road and then a long walkway, thronged with mainly Chinese and Indian tourists. Finally we got to the viewing platforms at the end, where you can indeed see several limestone pillars, and the remains of others. It's spectacular, but my lasting memory will be of the crowds, not the geology.
</p>
<p>
</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdQr2ERiHo71HYTJoSQNG2O7P5o_S1VeqcYLb8w-SStomAWQxqKAGQXXuXq8KpduURihQa1MpcFEPgCoDbek1oPJ3lf0yUm9eOpY_AZpd6_Fb09MjT_Tyzcssij7j6JM-N7-73qYxJYYxaBibQNRf7Fh-pZ7OFGgtTWY6EsB5Jhla39pSV1TDiML2A1wo" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2784" data-original-width="3712" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdQr2ERiHo71HYTJoSQNG2O7P5o_S1VeqcYLb8w-SStomAWQxqKAGQXXuXq8KpduURihQa1MpcFEPgCoDbek1oPJ3lf0yUm9eOpY_AZpd6_Fb09MjT_Tyzcssij7j6JM-N7-73qYxJYYxaBibQNRf7Fh-pZ7OFGgtTWY6EsB5Jhla39pSV1TDiML2A1wo" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Momma Kangaroo, with overgrown baby</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />From there, our next overnight stop was at Lorne. There's a direct road, or you can continue on the Great Ocean Road around Cape Otway, which we chose. A long, twisty side road leads to the lighthouse at the tip of the cape. Along the way we passed a wildlife sanctuary, where several kangaroos had evidently set up home. We saw kangaroos in several places, but this was the closest we got to them. One of them was a mother, with a young kangaroo planted inelegantly in her pouch. All we could see of him was a forest of legs. I could imagine her complaining to her fellow momma kangaroos that children just won't move out these days.
<p></p>
<p>
The final stretch of the journey, from Apollo Bay to Lorne, was very spectacular. The road is literally carved out of the side of the mountain. It was very reminiscent of California Route 1 along the Big Sur, and has a similar history. It was built during the 1920s to provide work for unemployed soldiers returning from the Great War. Like Route 1, it twists and turns and climbs and descends trying to find the best route around the mountains that fall directly into the see. It also reminded us of the lonely coast road we drove several years ago in southern Hokkaido, towards Erimo Misaki.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Lorne
</h2>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUwLQJZMBlQu5w7fSTPkj_0Sdv8hHa8FexYacbYS5uOu6_YpGPuPQ4s68fCFtEZHg2oBbCvGgUqKb5fozEh4-Anv5nCU9MNkLFE8SewaIwIj1n75p2DI7oPiVfIHmIN6E4CCTiBH_VtgjOFSOKoXCONj63YEnUEmhcRoYSwIz1Y4bxC9H4cHOwWgJ5I70" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUwLQJZMBlQu5w7fSTPkj_0Sdv8hHa8FexYacbYS5uOu6_YpGPuPQ4s68fCFtEZHg2oBbCvGgUqKb5fozEh4-Anv5nCU9MNkLFE8SewaIwIj1n75p2DI7oPiVfIHmIN6E4CCTiBH_VtgjOFSOKoXCONj63YEnUEmhcRoYSwIz1Y4bxC9H4cHOwWgJ5I70" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sculpture in the QDOS park</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
The road was spectacular but we had been driving all day and we were very glad to arrive at our final overnight stop at Lorne. This is a very chic beach resort, within easy driving distance of Melbourne. It has the a long, perfect beach, lined with the usual hotels and fancy restaurants. Our hotel though was a couple of kilometres back into the forest, to our surprise. Once there, you could be miles and miles from the sea. It's called QDOS, and it is primarily an art gallery and sculpture garden. The owner has been there for forty years, and at some point has added half a dozen Japanese-themed cabins. Ours was called tsuki, meaning moon. We were astounded to discover a tatami floor, just like every ryokan we've been to in Japan. However it did have a luxurious king-size bed, not a futon rolled out by the chambermaid in the evening and rolled back up again at first light.
<p></p>
<p>
Despite the holiday crowds - the next day was Australia day, so lots of people had taken a few extra days off work - the hotel managed to get us a reservation at the best restaurant in town, Ipsos. We had an excellent meal, with equally excellent Australian shiraz.</p><p></p>
<p>
In the morning we explored the grounds, filled with spectacular modern sculptures. They're all available for sale, but we didn't think Air France would agree.
</p>
<p>
Cape Otway is famous for its spectacular waterfalls. We'd driven past several the previous afternoon, but we didn't have time to make the detour and hike to take a look. So the following morning we went to see Erskine Falls, following a road deeper into the forest behind the hotel. It was indeed spectacular when seen from the top. It was probably even better when seen from the bottom, via a trail with hundreds of steps, but we decided to skip that. On the way to the falls we went to Teddy's Lookout, high above the town and the coast with great views that show up quite often in tourist guides and so on.
</p>
<p>
After an impromptu lunch at a postage-stamp sized space at the top of a cliff, we set off for our final stop at Melbourne.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Melbourne
</h2>
<p>
I've been to Melbourne a couple of times before. The investors in my company, the one which had just been acquired, were based in Melbourne, and later the CEO and the sales team were there as well. By coincidence a couple of my friends from Cisco live there too, so there were plenty of people to see. We arrived in time for dinner with my friend J, who used to be CEO of our company. It's hard to believe that it has been five years since we last met, the last time I was in Melbourne in January 2019. As I expected, several bottles of excellent Australian wine were consumed, so it was just as well that we took an Uber.
</p>
<p>
Our hotel was in the very heart of central Melbourne, a few minutes' walk from Flinders Street station. In the morning we explored Melbourne a bit, and then found a very pleasant cafe for our breakfast. Suddenly we saw our friends from the Kangaroo Island tour! They are big tennis fans and were in town for the Australia Open, whose final was that weekend. It was an amazing coincidence to run into them again.
</p>
<p>
Our next stop was Yarra Valley. We wanted to visit the nearby wildlife sanctuary (which seems to be a fancy name for a zoo). When we got there the ticket line was huge, and the place was packed. We made do with a visit to the gift shop - we'd seen plenty of kangaroos, koala and wallabies in their natural habitat, and even an echidna.
</p>
<p>
Five years ago I visited the Yarra Yering winery with J. In my memory it was all very informal, and we left with a couple of bottles of their "No 2" Shiraz. But this time it was very formal. A tasting was $50 and was evidently a very serious affair, more than we wanted to do. Which was just as well, because they were fully booked anyway. They did let us taste the No 2, and we went away with a couple of bottles. The lady there was nice enough, and suggested the nearby Medford winery for lunch. That was a great recommendation. We sat eating a light lunch accompanied by a glass each of their Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, with a magnificent view over the Yarra Valley countryside. The Shiraz was good but the Cab was really special, very lightly oaked and almost fruity. We left with two bottles of it.
</p>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEZZYY6OWwQy5WS1fRk6g9W2-yRMSVwg-3fA6n1yybv5sv7pPguVvRxEyThUYaEcRTWNTVgHOrhHKvwmUaQbH4KzPn7Zgz18ETnmdyKZDjyDRcXwWesMRObBvUhZCvYcSEXpatCBLNar67wROa6sUC_iMSLsKlTq2-E2Winyvo7M-XAEfGijM4mowR2Ds" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2784" data-original-width="3712" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEZZYY6OWwQy5WS1fRk6g9W2-yRMSVwg-3fA6n1yybv5sv7pPguVvRxEyThUYaEcRTWNTVgHOrhHKvwmUaQbH4KzPn7Zgz18ETnmdyKZDjyDRcXwWesMRObBvUhZCvYcSEXpatCBLNar67wROa6sUC_iMSLsKlTq2-E2Winyvo7M-XAEfGijM4mowR2Ds" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Downtown Melbourne, from 1500 feet</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaTNg2hpw2hUm2-kWc1dX1yhFr86Unmz2CwqFzvgfe9G1vp90oqRxE6gmFQ_1SlUDtfCPxT8JdiZhyU5mJuwpFr9XecaIiIQDoFMV2Trt7m4ks4o3tRxcLtY8cZS9Z0HonIu-UEbJtv91g_PqYiTw7wDukmZ9c9gT4jCC-nWPz5EywrAI2QPVIlxOfGLY" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2784" data-original-width="3712" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaTNg2hpw2hUm2-kWc1dX1yhFr86Unmz2CwqFzvgfe9G1vp90oqRxE6gmFQ_1SlUDtfCPxT8JdiZhyU5mJuwpFr9XecaIiIQDoFMV2Trt7m4ks4o3tRxcLtY8cZS9Z0HonIu-UEbJtv91g_PqYiTw7wDukmZ9c9gT4jCC-nWPz5EywrAI2QPVIlxOfGLY" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Yarra Valley, from 1500 feet</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
Dinner was with a group of ex-Cisco friends in a very good Japanese restaurant. It was only a short walk from the hotel, but we took the tram to try out our shiny new fare cards. Melbourne has the densest tram system in the world - practically every road in the city center and every major road in the suburbs has tram lines down the middle. The previous time I was in Melbourne I stayed out of the town and used the trams extensively (and fell off the platform, quite seriously injuring myself, but that's another story).
<p>
Next day the plan was for my ex-Cisco and pilot friend to take us for a flight over the city and the surrounding area. Sadly, Isabelle wasn't well, so I went on my own - probably just as well since the flight was quite bumpy. This was my first ever small plane flight in Australia. His plane is based at Moorabbin, to the south of the city. The airport is huge, with five physical runways (so 10 numbered runways) and many planes. It's home to two large flying schools and several smaller outfits. There is another small-plane airport to the north, at Essendon, and quite a few small airports out in the suburbs. The comparison with the Nice area, having much the same population, is interesting. Here we have just one small-plane airport, Cannes Mandelieu, with maybe a quarter as many planes as Moorabbin.
</p>
<p>
The flight was superb. We took off towards the city, flying a gentle 270 degree arc around it with fantastic views of the city center. Then we set off towards Yarra Valley - from the flight track afterwards I could see that we flew directly over Yarra Yering. From there we returned to the coast, flying over the barely habited French Island then over the Mornington Peninsula and so back to Moorabbin. The flight lasted about an hour, giving (as always) a totally different perception of the geography.
</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">Return</h2>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjX-tNogd8U7iEzCzNLh5TDRzTbmOKzjpP0E7bTGNuk994Dv9nG4aua6GibEGoHvGwGEiy0BuC7aNKTa0aynfd5vJZXnAnagoIIBbz4QIK94JlkQzulrIceps6jRZGzcVXQGSytmE7fr3NHhYPCjJaMjc9q3e28SUdUScZLgACoIdaHYT0QhlW0OfJjHco" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjX-tNogd8U7iEzCzNLh5TDRzTbmOKzjpP0E7bTGNuk994Dv9nG4aua6GibEGoHvGwGEiy0BuC7aNKTa0aynfd5vJZXnAnagoIIBbz4QIK94JlkQzulrIceps6jRZGzcVXQGSytmE7fr3NHhYPCjJaMjc9q3e28SUdUScZLgACoIdaHYT0QhlW0OfJjHco" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Broken Hill, NSW,<br />from 31000 feet</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
And that was that. With regret but many happy memories, we headed to the big airport on Monday morning for our long return flight to Nice. We would have happily stayed for another week or two.<p></p><p>Australia is so big that even flying up at airliner altitudes is still a form of tourism. It isn't long before all the agriculture has disappeared and you're flying over desert. We saw Broken Hill, one of these big (20,000 people) mining towns in the middle of nowhere. It would be interesting to visit - except that it's a serious day of driving from Adelaide, the nearest big city, and two from Sydney, even though they're both in the same state, New South Wales. It's a country that is really made for flying, in planes large or small. Maybe next time.</p>
<p></p><p></p><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-45249222664462463802023-10-25T06:49:00.008-07:002023-10-25T11:55:29.682-07:00What Would You do if Tom Jones Walked in Right Now?<p>I’m reading a book where the sort-of heroine, a very ordinary woman whose job is cleaning offices, suddenly becomes projected to fame. She gets to meet in real life various famous-for-being-famous television personalities who she could previously only dream about. (The book is <i>If I Let You Go</i> by Charlotte Levin - I’m not that convinced by it).</p><p>It reminded me of my time spent in a typing pool when I was a teenager. When I was small, my mother worked from home. She had a rented typewriter - a good old-fashioned mechanical one where all the work is done by the typist’s fingers. I was allowed to use it when she wasn’t, and as a result I could type capably by the time I was six. This has proven to be an extremely useful skill throughout the rest of my life.</p><p>Like most teenagers, I wanted to earn pocket money during the school holidays. Being able to type was a huge advantage. It meant that instead of doing manual work in a shop or factory, I could work in an office. I made more money, and the working conditions were a lot more pleasant. The first summer I signed up with a temp agency, whose role was to provide temporary office workers to replace people who were on holiday or to fill in for people who had left. I was only 15 - which I guess must have been legal, because I didn’t lie about my age. In subsequent summers I found an even better niche, as a <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2016/06/telex-and-me.html">Telex operator,</a> but I hadn’t thought of that yet.</p><p>My first, and as it turned out only, job for the six weeks of the school holiday was in a local government office. Even now, fifty-odd years later, I should probably be discreet about exactly where, but I can say that it was an inner city borough, in East London. Poverty was rife. I worked in the typing pool of the Children’s Department.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJEYD0937J54CqgPsujpplt7-v8e56JQiAR6DPNHYVh7XXfP60pyKNXc-Ox30qadcqslD1x-HGremxUfxSb-f1NO-eSRrQXOZZE4zGBX8m7OTqTB1Os419MIT6xmSuGMaK2vARU-QSwE-ZbNh5Q1vvGh9U02e-QHbni7QqRVnYUQrZmrMU1tYl8L9TPDo/s600/typing-pool.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="600" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJEYD0937J54CqgPsujpplt7-v8e56JQiAR6DPNHYVh7XXfP60pyKNXc-Ox30qadcqslD1x-HGremxUfxSb-f1NO-eSRrQXOZZE4zGBX8m7OTqTB1Os419MIT6xmSuGMaK2vARU-QSwE-ZbNh5Q1vvGh9U02e-QHbni7QqRVnYUQrZmrMU1tYl8L9TPDo/w320-h182/typing-pool.jpeg" title="A medium-sized typing pool, around 1930" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A medium-sized typing pool, around 1930</td></tr></tbody></table>“What’s a typing pool, grandad?” I can hear younger readers asking. Back then (this would have been the late 1960s), typing was a specialized skill. Most people didn’t do it, and anyway they didn’t have typewriters to hand. Executive types would dictate their missives to another disappeared breed, shorthand-typists. They would write down using a strange script that let them capture speech at normal speed. My mother was trained as one, and was very good at it. Later the typist would interpret her own shorthand and turn the letter, memo or whatever into an official-looking document, ready to be signed by her boss. (It’s safe to say “her” because male shorthand takers were practically unknown - in those days girls were guided into “suitable” occupations).<p></p><p>Other people, lower in the hierarchy, didn’t have this luxury. They would write their documents out longhand, and send them to the typing pool. This was, typically, a large office with anywhere from a handful to dozens of women (never men - see above), each slaving away over a mechanical typewriter, complete with all the sound-effect noises of clattering keys, dinging end-of-line bells and the thump as the carriage was returned to the start of the line. Occasionally you see this scene in old movies.</p><p>The office I was sent to had half-a-dozen women, aged between early 20s and mid 40s. They’d evidently been working together for quite a while, and spent a lot of time chatting about their personal lives and, most of all, what they’d seen on television. As a shy, male barely-teenager I was never included in these conversations, but it didn’t stop my inner anthropologist from taking a keen interest.</p><p>The actual work was quite interesting, as these things go. Nearly all of the work was transcribing handwritten forms generated by the care workers when they interviewed “clients”, copying them in typescript onto identical forms with several <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_paper">carbon copies</a>.</p><p>Another interlude: “What’s a carbon copy, grandpa?”</p><p>Before computers, laser printers and Xerox machines, there was no convenient way to make a physical copy of a document. I saw my first Xerox machine at another summer job a couple of years later. So if you wanted multiple copies, they had to be created along with the original document. You loaded several pieces of paper (or identical forms) into the typewriter, interlaced with thin black carbon-coated paper. The typewriter letter struck the paper through an inked ribbon, which produced the image of the letter on the top copy. The impact also pressed the carbon paper against the second and subsequent pages, leaving an image. The first copy was clear, the second was fuzzy, and if you ever tried to make more than two copies, what you got was a barely legible smudge. It was a huge faff to deal with. Handling it inevitably covered your fingers in black stuff, which made its way onto the paper. Getting all these pieces of paper aligned as you loaded into the typewriter was near impossible.</p><p>And heaven help you if you made a mistake. No tapping the delete key and carrying on in an instant. You had to unpeel the carbon paper, carefully erase the erroneous letter from each copy and then retype the corrected letter. Little wonder that corrections were generally made afterwards with a pen.</p><p>Anyway, back to the Children’s Department. Just like doctors, the care workers seemed to be specially chosen for their illegible handwriting. There were times when I was reduced to guessing what they might have written. A word which cropped up often, and which I have barely ever seen since, was “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/putative">putative</a>”. It has nothing to do with sex workers, for my French readers. It means “supposed, generally believed” and it occurred in the expression “putative father”.</p><p>The care workers’ job, which must have been awful, was to spend all day interviewing distressed, penniless mothers who desperately needed help - money, accommodation, food, clothes for their hapless kids. The notes often contained things like, “The putative father of her three children left, taking all her cash. She has no money to buy food, and no food in her flat.”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHd7KbKiki_-xiJ94HrtRQxbW96A84o2rNh2JmU4kol5xwseTDRBwo-8ZLPxAk8ZiZkX749NpkguPdxkEBT6PAk4hWdNy-kWvMFiW3L88ER82WzcShIHAHfwN24RFfy7JrG3ruvwGETFMLa2OGAewwHLTbEXRdvkVa_9zo4sxnixIg0t5Omx-sX6tuRvU/s251/tom-jones.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHd7KbKiki_-xiJ94HrtRQxbW96A84o2rNh2JmU4kol5xwseTDRBwo-8ZLPxAk8ZiZkX749NpkguPdxkEBT6PAk4hWdNy-kWvMFiW3L88ER82WzcShIHAHfwN24RFfy7JrG3ruvwGETFMLa2OGAewwHLTbEXRdvkVa_9zo4sxnixIg0t5Omx-sX6tuRvU/s1600/tom-jones.jpeg" width="201" /></a></div>And now, finally, to the title. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Jones_(singer)">Tom Jones</a> was a pop singer of the era, a sexy hunk with a deep baritone voice who got knickers tingling the length and breadth of the country. At least once a day, when other conversational subjects had given all they could, one of my colleagues would say to the general audience (you have to imagine the cockney accent) “What would you do if Tom Jones walked through that door, right now?”<p></p><p>Needless to say this wasn’t very likely. But what followed was ten minutes of oohing and aahing as these ladies imagined getting their hands - and other bits - on their hero. It was harmless amusement, no different from speculating what you’d do with a lottery or <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2016/07/zetters.html">football pools</a> win. And it kept the Children’s Department typing pool running smoothly.</p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-27781519607479531602023-10-14T10:57:00.044-07:002024-02-02T22:58:26.755-08:00Becoming a French Pilot<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In 2001, even before we had fully moved to California, I started learning to fly. It was something that had always tempted me, and it was much easier in the US than in France or Britain. I got my private pilot’s license (PPL). That was soon followed by my Instrument Rating (IR), allowing me to fly in clouds and on an instrument flight plan. I bought my own plane, a Cessna TR182, which quickly acquired the name Sierra. Together we flew all over the western US. Later I got my helicopter license (PPL-H) and my commercial license (CPL), which would have allowed me to be paid for flying if only I had ever found anyone who wanted to.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In 2021 we returned to France, as we had always planned. I wasn’t sure how flying in Europe would work out, but I was sure I wanted to carry on doing it. After a lot of thought I decided to bring Sierra with me, arranging for her to be packed up in a container and shipped. I’ve written about that <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2021/09/moving-my-plane-and-its-pilot-to-france.html">elsewhere</a>. Sadly, Sierra perished in a landing accident less than a year after I started flying her in France.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Long before my planned return, I’d joined the <a href="https://www.euroga.org">EuroGA</a> internet forum. The name says everything. The most active members are regular flyers in Europe, often with instrument ratings that they use frequently. Unlike most forums, it is informative, stimulating, and thanks to Peter, its originator, almost unfailingly polite. It has been a constant source of information, help and reassurance.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Summary</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In case you’re an FAA pilot moving to Europe or France, like me, and you just want to know what to expect, here’s a summary.</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">ATC in French (or any other non-native language) is hard, even if you speak the language fluently. Expect to struggle with it for a long while.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Nearly all non-professional flying in France is done with <i>aéroclubs</i>. They have their good sides and their bad sides, but generally they are a lot more social than US flying clubs. They also very much have their own way of doing things, which you have to accept - or buy your own plane and operate out of their system.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One aéroclub fixation is a disdain for all things GPS and iPad. While you are flying with their instructors, your iPad will be banished to your flight bag as you struggle with pencil/paper/watch navigation. Once you’re qualified - and flying without an instructor - you can do what you want.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Very few European PPLs have instrument ratings - at most 5%. This means that the aéroclubs and the whole PPL business aren’t really set up for IFR instruction or operation. Very few aéroclub planes are equipped for IFR - often none at a given club. IFR instructors are equally rare.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">France has a similar concept to US flight following, called “Info”, but it works differently, generally on its own exclusive frequencies separated from IFR traffic.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Flight plans in Europe <i>must</i> specify an exact and detailed route approved by Eurocontrol. A typical cross-country flight will involve dozens of intermediate waypoints. But once you get in the air, you’ll almost never fly what you filed - you’ll get sensible direct routes.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Airspace designation varies by country, and is never anything like the US - though it follows the same ICAO classes. For example, whereas in the US “Class D” means a small towered airport, in France the classes seem to get assigned at random.</li></ul>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Regulatory Matters</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">While the act of flying a plane is the same anywhere in the world, there are lots of practical differences. When we first arrived, it was perfectly legal for me to fly my American-registered plane anywhere in the world including Europe, on my American license. But that was about to change. In any case it seemed a good idea to get a French license, so I could fly rented French planes.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">ICAO, the international governing body for civil aviation, imposes the rule that you can fly an aircraft anywhere in the world if your license corresponds to its registration. So a US pilot can fly an N-registered aircraft, a French pilot an F-registered one, and so on. This is obviously essential. It would hardly be possible for an airline pilot to carry a license for every country they might visit or overfly.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This creates a headache for the bureaucrats charged with regulating aviation in Europe, though. If you visit any mid-sized airport anywhere in Europe, you’ll observe that about half the small planes carry US (N) registrations. There’s a good reason for this. The FAA, for all that American pilots scorn it, operates a much more pragmatic regime than its European counterparts, EASA at the European level and the various national agencies such as the DGAC in France and the CAA in Britain. EASA was created by a fusion of all the regulations of its member countries, and invariably went for the most demanding “gold-plated” regulations. Aircraft maintenance is tightly controlled by the FAA, but EASA imposes many extra requirements which add nothing to safety but a great deal to expense and bureaucracy.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The same is true for pilot qualifications, in particular the Instrument Rating. Flying safely on instruments is hard and takes a lot of practice. It typically takes around 60 hours of instrument flying to obtain the qualification, and constant practice once you have it. That is unavoidable. But on top of that, EASA imposes several months of mandatory, full-time ground school. People who fly for pleasure, rather than a living, can’t afford the time for this. EASA’s view is that private pilots are fine as long as all they do is potter about at low altitude on short flights to nearby airfields. Serious “flying to go somewhere” is for the professionals. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the US, anyone who is serious about flying has an IR. All the US pilots I know who are still flying after a few years have one. In Europe, pilots with a PPL/IR are almost unknown. Between this and the maintenance regulations, the consequence is that pilots who want to fly seriously have generally bought N-registered aircraft and got FAA licenses, possibly in addition to their own national ones.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You can imagine that this does not please the EASA bureaucrats at all. They go to all the trouble of making byzantine regulations, only to find that people exploit unavoidable loopholes to ignore them altogether. For literally decades they have been trying to find a way to stop this.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally a compromise was reached. From June 2022, if you are resident in the EU, you must have the EASA license for what you are doing, even if the aircraft is not registered in Europe. When I arrived in 2021, I knew this was coming. Getting a French license was essential if I was to continue flying, even in my N-registered plane.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>The Aéroclub</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I couldn’t fly my own plane for our first few months in France. It had been dismantled and put into a container for shipping, which ended up taking several months. Also, we were living on the opposite side of the country from our long-term residence, while we waited for our furniture to arrive. I found a local aéroclub where I could fly in the meantime, taking the opportunity to learn the quirks of flying in France, and using the French language.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Nearly all my flights were done with the same instructor. One big surprise in France is that most instructors work for no payment, <i>bénévole </i>in French. That means they’re generally either retired, or like mine, young and building hours while they wait for a professional flying job. He worked in a sandwich shop in the mornings just to make ends meet. That’s a pretty dismal reward for spending hundreds of hours and thousands of euros studying to be an airline pilot.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">French airspace looks terrifying for low-altitude VFR flying. The chart is absolutely covered in red ink, signifying places you can’t go without special permission. The aéroclub was right in the middle of a bunch of it. I soon learned that this kind of flying requires extensive local knowledge. Some “red” airspace is easy, you call the specified frequency and they will generally let you in, though you may have to stick to an altitude or a defined route. Others will <i>never</i> let you in. Yet others are “active by NOTAM” and in use a handful of days per year. You have to know which is which, especially when you are planning a flight. You don’t want to get half-way and discover your route is blocked by airspace you can’t get into.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">ICAO defines seven classes of airspace, designated A to G, each with its own rules about how traffic is separated, what kind of clearance you need, and various other things. In the US, it’s simple. Class A starts at 18,000 feet, and is IFR only. Classes B, C and D are for big, medium and small airports respectively. Class G is close to the ground (up to 1200 feet), and is uncontrolled. Class E is everything else. It’s controlled for IFR but when VFR you don’t need to talk to anyone. Class F is one of life’s great mysteries. I’ve yet to find any, in any country.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In France, airspace designation seems to be completely random. Most French PPLs never leave Class G, which goes up reasonably high. My first instructor wouldn’t go anywhere outside Class G, figuring we probably wouldn’t get a clearance. The airspace around big airports, like Nice, is a hodge-podge of randomly shaped chunks of airspace with what seem to be randomly assigned Classes. I envisage an office somewhere in the inner sanctum of the DGAC with a dice marked twice each with C, D and E. (Class B is never used, and the only Class A is around Paris). Whenever they create new airspace, they roll the dice, and assign the class accordingly. The distinction between C and D is especially odd. The regulatory difference is so subtle that I bet 99% of pilots don’t know it. The space immediately around an airport is generally Class D, while the surrounding airspace used for approaches is Class C - though with plenty of exceptions.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Approaching an airport, all but the smallest define “points” that you have to use. So you will say something like “Nxxx approaching point SE”, and be told to continue via point SY. This seems strange at first but it’s actually a lot better than the US which relies on local knowledge. Someone flying into Palo Alto, my old home, may well be told “traffic abeam Cooley’s Landing” or “direct KGO” (a radio station). That’s fine if you know the area, but incomprehensible otherwise. If you’re using GPS with a navigation app, all these points are shown and it’s very easy to work with them.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But then you run into another French idiosyncrasy. At aéroclubs, GPS is regarded as the devil’s handiwork. Navigation is done strictly with a paper “<i>log de nav”</i> (a list of points and time estimates), a pencil, and looking out of the window. You have to recognise all these points purely visually. Sometimes it’s easy - the junction of two big rivers. In other cases it’s the intersection of two goat tracks. Once you know what to look for - local knowledge again - it’s fine. But until then, good luck.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Luckily, away from the vacuum-tube-era eyes of the instructor, there is an excellent iPad app for French VFR flying. It’s called SDVFR, and it’s free. The user interface is a bit quirky but once you get used to it, it does everything you need for route-planning and navigation. It makes it easy to see whose airspace you’ll be flying through, who you need to call, and how likely you are to get a clearance. As a bonus, it records the track of every flight even if you don’t ask it to.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I had to learn to fly in French. It’s not strictly necessary as ATC and all towered airports can work in English. But the aéroclub instructors generally don’t, and untowered fields - of which there are many - are French-only. I speak fluent French, almost bilingual, but using French to communicate in the air is a whole different story. There’s a specialised vocabulary to learn, words like “downwind” and “taxi”. And for my first few flights, every communication from ATC just left me staring open-mouthed at my instructor while he explained what they meant. Even now, after two years, I still have to concentrate to understand French on the radio.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When you fly VFR in the US, you call the “center” (e.g. Oakland Center), the same as IFR traffic, and you request “flight following”. This means you’re in touch with someone, useful if there’s an emergency, and they’ll call traffic if there’s a potential conflict. France has something similar, but it’s dedicated service for VFR flight, generally on a different frequency and with different controllers. It’s called “Info” (e.g. “Marseille Info”). I’ve always found them very helpful - they call traffic, and warn you if you’re about to fly somewhere you shouldn’t.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Reunited with my Plane</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d planned to base my plane at Cannes-Mandelieu (LFMD), once it arrived and was reassembled. I did one flight there with an instructor, which was very useful to understand the routes in and out and to identify the various named points. This is a busy airport by French GA standards. It is used by a lot of bizjets as a cheaper alternative to Nice LFMN, it’s home to at least two professional pilot schools and two aéroclubs, there's constant helicopter traffic, and there are quite a few based small planes too. I was lucky to make a contact there who could provide parking for my plane - as I discovered later, getting a parking spot is far from guaranteed at French airfields. The waiting list for one of the airport-run hangars is about ten years long!</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At the beginning of September, my plane was finally ready to be collected from Toussus le Noble, just outside Paris. It was my first long flight in France, and had to be done VFR since I was out of instrument currency and anyway had no experience of IFR flight in France. I spent days planning the flight, carefully avoiding all the military airspace.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">After the summer I continued flying with the aéroclub. All my flying was done in a Robin DR400, which until recently was the staple of all French aéroclubs - and almost unknown anywhere else. It’s a pleasant enough plane to fly, with nice handling. Unusually for modern planes, it has a stick rather than a yoke. The one I flew was woefully underpowered, its original, and already quite feeble, 120 HP Lycoming engine having been replaced by a 100 HP Rotax. The Rotax requires careful management to stop it overheating, and its climb performance is dire. On one occasion taking off towards the Pyrenees, I really wondered if we would make it over the hills in front of us. I also flew a “proper” DR400, with a 180 HP engine, which flies and climbs very nicely.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On one flight we did that uniquely French power-off landing manouvre, the <i>encadrement</i> - of which more in a moment. It was the first time I’d tried it, and I came in a bit high on final. I asked if it was OK to slip - a handy way to lose height and speed by using the fuselage as an air-brake. I entered the slip as I have dozens of times and as I was taught - a “blended manouvre” where the wings are rolled one way while the rudder goes the other way. The instructor was surprised, to say the least.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Talking with French pilots, I discovered that the slip is almost unknown, or at least never used. Even my airline pilot friend said, “Well, it <i>could</i> be done, but I never would”. In France it seems to be taken for granted that it is very easy to enter a spin that way. That is absolutely not the case, as I confirmed in a flight with an instructor in the US. Even if you stall, nothing bad happens as long as you recover promptly.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Back to the <i>encadrement</i> - all pilots are taught how to land with no power, since if the engines fails, you’ll have to. Generally you pull the power back abeam the arrival end of the runway, and fly the last part of the pattern to touch down on the first part of the runway. I used to practise it all the time in the US, at an airport which is so quiet you can be pretty sure of spending half an hour there undisturbed. If in an unfamiliar plane you do come in a bit high, you can always use a slip - though not in France!</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But that’s not good enough for France. Instead you are taught - and tested on - a complex manouvre where you start at 1500 feet above the ground, perpendicular to the runway, then fly a trapezoidal pattern in such a way that as you descend, the runway is at a constant position relative to the wing. It’s not especially hard, though it does require familiarity with the plane. But I have no idea what the point is. If I’m unlucky enough to have an engine failure, I want to get safely on the ground in the simplest, safest way. Flying an arcane and unnecessary manouver would be the last thing on my mind.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Return to Cannes, and BASA</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Back at Cannes, I did several flights in Sierra, mostly over the back country behind Nice. It rises rapidly to 3000 metres, making for some beautiful flights alone or with friends.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I mentioned earlier that it would soon be necessary to have a French PPL to fly even N-reg in France. As part of the bureaucratic compromises, they introduced a new procedure called BASA to make it easier for experienced US pilots. The only problem was, they hadn’t finished inventing the process. It was all signed in May 2021, but France didn’t implement it until the New Year. On 31st December, a description of the process appeared on the DGAC website. All it took was a checkride with an examiner, no need for any formal ground instruction.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Within a few weeks I’d arranged to fly a checkride at Cannes. We did it, and sent the papers off to the DGAC.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I didn’t hear anything so after a few weeks I called them.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Yes Monsieur Harper, we have your <i>dossier</i>, but we don’t know how to process it. We are still waiting for a training course from Paris.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">More weeks passed and I called them again. This time things got surreal. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“We have your <i>dossier</i>, and we will process it as soon as we get the training. But there is one document missing.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fair enough. “If you tell me what it is, I’ll send it to you right away.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“But Monsieur, until we have received the training, we don’t know what it is.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This made no sense. How could they know a document was missing, but not know what it was? Anyway, a few weeks later they called me again. Everything was fine, they said, except that I’d have to fly the checkride again. I was busy when they called so I foolishly didn’t ask why.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then disaster struck. I wrecked my plane while trying to land it at the notorious plane-wrecking airport at Barcelonnette (LFMR). I ran off the end of the end of the runway while attempting a go-around. Nobody was badly hurt, but my flying companion of 20 years was no more.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Not only did I not have a plane any more, but my confidence was in tatters. Still, I tried to arrange another checkride, but all through the summer either the examiner was unavailable, or his plane was in maintenance.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>A New Plane</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I lost my beloved 182, I swore I would never own another plane. It’s just too much hassle and expense, especially in Europe. From time to time I would look at the planes-for-sale websites, to convince myself that even if I did want one, there was absolutely nothing available, just a collection of tired old Robins and PA28s. Then one evening I spotted a Socata TB20 for sale. It had excellent, brand new avionics, and looked generally in good condition. What’s more, the seller was the aéroclub in Arcachon, a fairly short drive away.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I called the seller, drove up to Arcachon, and flew the plane. It was every bit as good as it seemed from the advert. I told them I’d like to buy it.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I ended up doing my PPL checkride at Arcachon, too. They'd already used the BASA process, which helped a lot. In the process I also figured out why my earlier checkride was rejected. It turns out there are two kinds of checkride, the <i>ab initio</i> one for getting a PPL, and a recurring ride used for example to reissue a lapsed license. The DGAC wanted the second kind, but my first examiner - lacking any guidance from the DGAC - had done the paperwork for the first.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Return to Instrument Flying</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It took a couple of weeks to get the magic piece of paper. Meanwhile I had realised that for “flying to go somewhere” in France, IFR is essential. First, the weather, even in the famously sunny Cote d’Azur, is completely unpredictable. In California the weather crosses the Pacific, changing very little as it does so. Forecasts are good several days out. The French Atlantic coast is the opposite extreme. Forecasts are often wrong even for the next few hours. For the next day they are worthless. I discussed this with a friend who was once a professional meteorologist. He agreed, explaining that the geography of the Pyrenees and the Spanish coast makes everything subject to rapid change.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Nice area isn’t as extreme as that, but even when it is sunny on the coast, Provence - which is on the way to everywhere - is often cloudy or stormy. The pressure systems - which determine the weather - can be extremely odd. I’ve seen the airports at Nice and Cannes, just 15 miles apart, have strong winds in completely opposite directions.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So if you want to plan a trip in advance and have a reasonable chance of executing it, you need to be able to fly IFR. There’s another reason too. French airspace is very complicated, and much of it is controlled by the military. Planning a long VFR flight is a nightmare, zig-zagging round and up and down to avoid restricted airspace. Whereas for IFR flight, you let a navigation app like ForeFlight figure out a route, you file it, and once you’ve taken off, you do what ATC tell you. It’s up to them to keep you out of forbidden airspace.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I hadn’t flown IFR since leaving the US, by now 18 months ago. I had long since ceased to be legally current to file an IFR flight plan. I did a couple of flights in the TB20 with the instrument instructor at Arcachon, and was reassuringly surprised at how readily my skill returned.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The problem with IFR training in France - and Europe generally - is that outside the airline pilot training schools, there are very few instructors. I was very lucky to find a training outfit that specialises in personal training to individual pilots like me. They’re called <a href="https://www.orbifly.com">Orbifly</a>, and best of all they have a base at Cannes. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>The Arrival of Tango</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzCyN-ZyWANvFVWbZQiKOznRiTMm09m-hIO_wkTNcAW_O4zf6yKkZoHtiPiatzctFCK2ukdnFq_wPwH2HrSdlKKjQSyo1BeFt3_F6wYrDBw_802rnkMQm-LCl1NBbkUcj-CKdUdVZwPnXNqulCL_0Y4vWBNf4nnKEVxVJ6wG2aguc5vYi05RuLnyBkSXo/s4032/IMG_5517.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzCyN-ZyWANvFVWbZQiKOznRiTMm09m-hIO_wkTNcAW_O4zf6yKkZoHtiPiatzctFCK2ukdnFq_wPwH2HrSdlKKjQSyo1BeFt3_F6wYrDBw_802rnkMQm-LCl1NBbkUcj-CKdUdVZwPnXNqulCL_0Y4vWBNf4nnKEVxVJ6wG2aguc5vYi05RuLnyBkSXo/s320/IMG_5517.JPG" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><i>Tango, just arrived at Cannes</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In February, I finally completed everything necessary to take possession of my new plane. We’d already given her a name, Tango, from the last letter of her tail number and as the obvious successor to Sierra. I chose a day with good weather. IFR is not a panacea. In winter, clouds mean ice. Small planes have no protection against that. I did the flight from Arcachon to Cannes with Arcachon’s only instrument instructor. It was uneventful, taking us over one of the most uninhabited parts of France, the Plateau du Larzac north-west of Montpelier, where there is little sign of villages or even roads.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the weeks that followed I did several flights to get used to my new plane. Then we went to the US for a couple of weeks. I flew with my instrument instructor friend at Palo Alto, and did an instrument proficiency check (IPC). That made me legal to fly IFR under American rules, but not in France without my French IR.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Returning to France, I started to practice seriously. In the US I had more than a dozen airports with instrument approaches within a half hour flight. From Cannes, the closest is Avignon, nearly an hour away. Cannes itself has an approach, but with minima at 2000 feet it isn’t much use for training. The airline airport at Nice of course has approaches, but you will <i>never</i> get cleared to fly one in a little piston plane. Nice is strictly for big jets.</p>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JiCV15TjArTQ9tT8A5bSrI29zH6j2XiZF95S7VpADEVbTRVE3Ny8H6ysjltk79UEJoGxlPHxGN5ZpFa3cfc5XhZWoeKTDpyMJGvCCcAJpDGJgrq1_Yyfh4-gSVQSxVZugmkMDUPFDXxjbA5q5wJhqqrzlM9RUhSW1PrG14YXsD8TdksDsugmYa3pSNg/s3067/Scannable%20Document%20on%20Oct%2014,%202023%20at%2017_23_02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3067" data-original-width="2169" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JiCV15TjArTQ9tT8A5bSrI29zH6j2XiZF95S7VpADEVbTRVE3Ny8H6ysjltk79UEJoGxlPHxGN5ZpFa3cfc5XhZWoeKTDpyMJGvCCcAJpDGJgrq1_Yyfh4-gSVQSxVZugmkMDUPFDXxjbA5q5wJhqqrzlM9RUhSW1PrG14YXsD8TdksDsugmYa3pSNg/s320/Scannable%20Document%20on%20Oct%2014,%202023%20at%2017_23_02.png" width="226" /></a></td><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuAWkVZU4ygyn7fQKxCWtdQMBUDHcX6i2-t5NE5JVjXUqxLQRHXdcKvXyI27TaQvlk8swgK8w5UCNiKb3jcua4evLWXb9NOewnvWjnvTApdsubfBlVona7Y6aaf03FDh8CJS8n1EbNwyaZprx7d_JIoiOTvd5G7URJXa7eQCgMHFNrg8x1Nc3TKijZD9w/s2907/Scannable%20Document%20on%20Oct%2014,%202023%20at%2017_09_51.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2907" data-original-width="2056" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuAWkVZU4ygyn7fQKxCWtdQMBUDHcX6i2-t5NE5JVjXUqxLQRHXdcKvXyI27TaQvlk8swgK8w5UCNiKb3jcua4evLWXb9NOewnvWjnvTApdsubfBlVona7Y6aaf03FDh8CJS8n1EbNwyaZprx7d_JIoiOTvd5G7URJXa7eQCgMHFNrg8x1Nc3TKijZD9w/s320/Scannable%20Document%20on%20Oct%2014,%202023%20at%2017_09_51.png" width="226" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" colspan="2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><i>Avignon's two mirror-image (almost) approaches - which you<br />get depends on whether the Orange controller is on coffee break,<br />and may change every few minutes</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
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Avignon’s approaches are strange. For a start, they are all aimed at runway 17, heading south. Yet the prevailing wind is from the north, the famous <i>Mistral</i> which often blows at 25 knots or more, and usually runway 35 is in use. Of the three approaches, two are designed for traffic arriving from the south, with the Initial Fix (IAF) practically over the airport. They have a similar trapezoidal shape, one passing to the west of the airport and the other to the east. Which is in use depends on whether the military field at Orange, a bit to the north, is active or not. And nobody tells you that until you arrive. It can even change while you are in the arrival phase of the approach. So you have to be prepared to completely reset the avionics in the busiest, most stressful phase of the flight. It is hardly necessary to say that this is not conducive to safety.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Checkride</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally, in May, came the day for my checkride. Arriving at Avignon, they indeed switched the approach on me while I was flying the hold. I was still getting used to Tango’s Garmin GTN750. It’s a fantastic piece of kit, capable of all kinds of things once you get used to it. My instructor shows me a couple of new things every time we fly together. But you have to get it right. Switching the approach, I forgot one final button press. As the minutes went by, I could see that things were going wrong. Luckily I figured it out, and we were on track.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then on the second approach, I made a mistake. As I expected, that meant I didn’t pass. I would have to fly a couple of approaches again, later.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For the second ride, we planned to do a couple of practise approaches on the way to Avignon as a warm-up. It was busy, as always since it is practically the only place to practice approaches for miles around. They asked us to hold.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsCe4QAl9dTtZguQWKd9sVc8i3I6TMc_0y6XL_re9b9xSQb27tG_5JhlSLdVixW2DWmuhrLdR4Kr2q75zTQx9FWMEUSI-dRPXo8MTqwwsnajwtbvCVRpzW7Vyq2HWYn0DUBZOWO-ATFlVyiQQeBxc73C6TcWNVe6Vp9pUyF3B3vGcOQcpKmxQJyahyphenhyphenyY/s4032/IMG_5479.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsCe4QAl9dTtZguQWKd9sVc8i3I6TMc_0y6XL_re9b9xSQb27tG_5JhlSLdVixW2DWmuhrLdR4Kr2q75zTQx9FWMEUSI-dRPXo8MTqwwsnajwtbvCVRpzW7Vyq2HWYn0DUBZOWO-ATFlVyiQQeBxc73C6TcWNVe6Vp9pUyF3B3vGcOQcpKmxQJyahyphenhyphenyY/s320/IMG_5479.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><i>Tango's G500, on the way from<br />Arcachon to Cannes</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s very rare to be given a for-real hold, although you have to practice them regularly for FAA currency. In the US I did maybe 4 of them in 20 years of flying there. In airline flying you can rely on holding for Heathrow, but anywhere else they are rare.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Once we were in the hold, they asked us to climb. Once we’d climbed, they slotted traffic under us and had us climb some more. In the end we went round that hold 12 times, spending over an hour. Meanwhile, the military zone at Orange kept changing from active to inactive and back. I suspect that every time the controller there wants a coffee or needs to go to the bathroom, they deactivate it. And with each change, the approach in use changes, and everything has to be set up again.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And then on final, someone got stuck on the runway and we had to go around. When we finally got into the airport and started the checkride, everything went fine and I’d passed.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Flying IFR</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJK5nrr9Hk0BpNtUAzOEWFydt_iqWHTdH5Lxq7V4-ZhRWdPL-v_2XI2nKEY4XzDfQKb-mrdjLScjRAn5zxKRHu64mN6_Sx9MTN_JfaXLhWw5KTKh3EKS78LQb9o5HeU2KFmsE8msijMEycJew7FqwZo6_dxfl5RdP-wMG7iSUOdW4hM5cffyw_KgtNYJw/s4032/IMG_6166.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJK5nrr9Hk0BpNtUAzOEWFydt_iqWHTdH5Lxq7V4-ZhRWdPL-v_2XI2nKEY4XzDfQKb-mrdjLScjRAn5zxKRHu64mN6_Sx9MTN_JfaXLhWw5KTKh3EKS78LQb9o5HeU2KFmsE8msijMEycJew7FqwZo6_dxfl5RdP-wMG7iSUOdW4hM5cffyw_KgtNYJw/s320/IMG_6166.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;">Marseille from 8000 feet</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The magic piece of paper showed up shortly afterwards. Over the summer I did several IFR flights, some on my own and some with an instructor. It’s one thing to be legal, but another to be comfortable with the system, and I needed to get comfortable.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One big difference from the US is how IFR flight plans are filed. In the US, you need to figure out a route, but the ATC system doesn’t care. If I was flying say from Palo Alto to Medford in Oregon, I’d just file direct to somewhere in Medford’s approach structure. ATC will give me their own route out of the Bay Area, regardless of what I file. Once I’m en-route, nobody cares.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In Europe, though, you must enter a Eurocontrol-approved route. Foreflight will very helpfully figure out one of these for any origin/destination pair, though it may not be what you would have wanted. The route, following airways, will involve a large number of intermediate waypoints, often zigzagging between them.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Once you get in the air, it’s a different story. On my first long IFR flight, ferrying Tango to Cannes, all those waypoints melted into three or four “direct XXX”. Even the complicated approach structure into Cannes turned into “direct OBOTA”, the final approach fix (FAF).</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Another difference is how to combine VFR and IFR. Most US airports, even small ones, have instrument approaches. You can file IFR say between Palo Alto and Siskiyou County - truly the middle of nowhere, and with the world’s most impossible NDB approach - and ATC will take care of you. In France relatively few non-airline airports have approaches, consistent with the fact that only commercial pilots have instrument ratings. If you are going to a non-IFR airport, you can file a mixed IFR/VFR flight plan (IFR-Y). For the last non-IFR part, you’re completely on your own. It’s up to you to avoid restricted airspace and all the other stuff, just as for any VFR flight. ATC aren’t required to give you any help at all, though the VFR-only “Info” service is helpful.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I did one such flight, with an instructor, to Carpentras, in the Rhone Valley. ATC gave us a very odd route towards the end, not really in the right direction. My instructor got on the radio and sorted things out.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“He simply had no idea what to do with us. He’s probably never had to deal with someone going to Carpentras before,” she explained.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">French ATC is, in my experience anyway, very helpful and pretty informal. You will generally get what you ask for, as long as it’s legal and sensible. On another flight, to Carcassonne, I’d just turned to the first fix of the approach (KONON). After a few minutes ATC called. “Where are you headed?” he asked. I told him.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Oh, OK, I wasn’t expecting you to go that way. Cleared direct KONON.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But you have to be prepared for surprises as well. The altitude for KONON is 4000 feet, and we were arriving at 8000 feet. I asked if they’d let us descend. But there was a Ryanair flight using the approach too, and they clearly didn’t want us doing anything that would interfere with that. I suspect they get an earful if they delay Ryanair by so much as 30 seconds - as shown by O’Leary’s recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Q-5IumT2Q">rant</a> about the UK ATC system. So there we were at KONON, 4000 feet too high. Between us we made it work, but it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In August, EuroGA organised a fly-out to Mali Lošinj on the Croatian Adriatic coast. It would be a great chance to meet people, and to do a real flight to go somewhere. I’ve written about it separately <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2023/08/flight-to-croatia-my-first.html">here</a> - it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. It was my first flight outside France, and everything went extremely well. Once again my planned route zigzagged all over Italy, but even before we entered Italian airspace I got cleared direct to the far side of the country. Croatian ATC were great, giving me direct routes straight away. Italian ATC was good too, apart from a stretch where I got handed off to Genoa but there was nobody home. Most of the traffic you hear on the radio is airliners. But to my surprise, there were a few exchanges in Italian with small planes.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Back to Arcachon</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In September we visited Arcachon. They had some hangar space free for a while, and offered to host Tango. So a week later I was on Easyjet for an overnight stop in Nice, to fly Tango back to Arcachon.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Planning the flight was quite an exercise. Arcachon is VFR only, so at some point you have to cancel IFR. But it is also surrounded by all kinds of restricted airspace. The forbidden airspace of the military base at Cazaux is literally within walking distance. Over the airport and for a very long way to the north, above 1000 feet also belongs to Cazaux. There's more, too, so any flight in the area has to be planned carefully.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">An IFR flight plan produced a route half way up the Médoc peninsula, which would add about 25 minutes to the flight. It’s unlikely you’d get to fly it that way, but if you did, it leads you into a maze of restricted areas. I tried editing the route to eliminate the detour, but nothing I did was accepted. Someone on EuroGA suggested an IFR-Y flight plan. This is something which (as far as I know) doesn’t exist in the US. It means that at some point it turns into a VFR flight plan. There is also IFR-Z, which starts VFR and becomes IFR at a specified point.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To my amazement, this worked perfectly. ForeFlight immediately found the perfect route, ending at MAPRI on the edge of Cazaux’s airspace at a point where you can proceed at 1000 feet without their permission. Only one small edit was required, to change the altitude at MAPRI to 1000 feet using the notation MAPRI/F010. And better yet, when I filed it, it was accepted.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The flight itself was uneventful. There wasn’t a cloud in sight along the whole route, there was almost no wind, and no turbulence. As I by now expected, the complicated sequence of waypoints in the flight plan was replaced by a total of four direct segments. The radio, talking to Toulouse, was so quiet that <i>they</i> called <i>me</i> and asked for a radio check. I’ve never had that before. Once I got close to MAPRI I was given direct, and a series of altitudes that gave me a continuous descent to 1000 feet. Approaching MAPRI I cancelled IFR, contacted Arcachon and finished VFR after a flight of exactly 3 hours.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That was my first mixed IFR/VFR flight on my own, which is the last of the various things to master before I feel confident as an IFR pilot in France and Europe. For this I owe a lot to my friends at Arcachon and at Orbifly.</p><div><br /></div><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-21668340287194520402023-08-24T09:31:00.002-07:002023-08-24T12:51:42.528-07:00Bubble-cars and Other Cars of my Childhood<p>When I was a small boy, I was fascinated by cars. The story goes that when I was about 5, I wandered off and got lost. Somehow I ended up at the local police station, in the days of friendly bobbies on bicycles. When my parents came to collect me, I was sitting outside with a young constable identifying the make and model of every car that drove past.</p><p>Children, or boys at least, had way more freedom to roam around than anyone would consider reasonable now. When I was 7 or 8 I would wander all around Harold Hill, the huge council estate in East London where we lived. By the time I was 12 I spent whole days <a href="https://www.john-a-harper.com/redrover/red-rover.htm">exploring the London red bus network</a> on my own.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatL1SM6CmHSgl6_YOuomT375_YUWEAwZyDBRGO4TmnUawUmH8ptVAZmIRQguL1iwyJTg3o98C3XiLvsjFzsMoxmedPNk0hVQqwtRrnngC1UVs0xLPeeqAJ3enrR5yvkOsfSm7Df3BGmWyXL6vkRWBAio8a-o3I-mgutHQ0G1O87USU3pn4YB6ZLWAA5A/s1200/1200px-BMW_Isetta_-_Flickr_-_mick_-_Lumix-2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1005" data-original-width="1200" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatL1SM6CmHSgl6_YOuomT375_YUWEAwZyDBRGO4TmnUawUmH8ptVAZmIRQguL1iwyJTg3o98C3XiLvsjFzsMoxmedPNk0hVQqwtRrnngC1UVs0xLPeeqAJ3enrR5yvkOsfSm7Df3BGmWyXL6vkRWBAio8a-o3I-mgutHQ0G1O87USU3pn4YB6ZLWAA5A/w336-h268/1200px-BMW_Isetta_-_Flickr_-_mick_-_Lumix-2.jpg" width="336" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The definitive bubble-car - a British Isetta, with<br />an elegant Rolls or Bentley behind it.</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOK3-xXPKxWLllkStvmMICsgCek5paqHuFFIf7lIkJZSqC2BDOa1B2KsOP427geoOlsi4qu2AVKehp6MM0B6emevP2H249t40hlDWCBCk6_ziCSN6z3WA7O3TPIO63OhaaNSFekyMF3E04_jZPdh278NsCnQceCjfzMPD5__4CsmQ-5Cjr_VkJ_n1JpY/s500/BMW-Isetta-729x486-4e385afd4e133da0.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOK3-xXPKxWLllkStvmMICsgCek5paqHuFFIf7lIkJZSqC2BDOa1B2KsOP427geoOlsi4qu2AVKehp6MM0B6emevP2H249t40hlDWCBCk6_ziCSN6z3WA7O3TPIO63OhaaNSFekyMF3E04_jZPdh278NsCnQceCjfzMPD5__4CsmQ-5Cjr_VkJ_n1JpY/w344-h213/BMW-Isetta-729x486-4e385afd4e133da0.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Inside an Isetta - a BMW advert</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2NFo5B1_Ry5rJIAWsY2FSKkn1-B7VkQ0Mbv4ZbNnk7vAOj1zsPQY9Zhte_L87RvwfHX3o36tMVZTmwtw8JokFCYm2AE1IlwHqXoopJiSOqJB-YMZc0w5Phg5XfdnHukIRAiDXcz1lgg0pfqRDDnmkLfy6eNOLq99LjAWEX-yJaKDyL_yMDRWBIESXzY/s2500/35_ftqp_is.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1664" data-original-width="2500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2NFo5B1_Ry5rJIAWsY2FSKkn1-B7VkQ0Mbv4ZbNnk7vAOj1zsPQY9Zhte_L87RvwfHX3o36tMVZTmwtw8JokFCYm2AE1IlwHqXoopJiSOqJB-YMZc0w5Phg5XfdnHukIRAiDXcz1lgg0pfqRDDnmkLfy6eNOLq99LjAWEX-yJaKDyL_yMDRWBIESXzY/w337-h213/35_ftqp_is.jpg" width="337" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Messerschmitt</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9xnBbgtQFpCrzrviwj_TTX77bLney_9ML7CIRLc3Kwmy2x3e0SbmA-iHtwUIzYUFE3u41jrrm9vIzgxNat3HJUx09zibFgrpV8yuUZTx-Zh4mpmIp53dATUmGxWJlbOCRXy5aaUeqNE35Gy-uqoq4FVppYzb-K6_-pkJ2mf3DYyj0Ia4i1GhfrzhiYs/s1920/30700222aa02220105bbab2fdc86166fe413353e.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9xnBbgtQFpCrzrviwj_TTX77bLney_9ML7CIRLc3Kwmy2x3e0SbmA-iHtwUIzYUFE3u41jrrm9vIzgxNat3HJUx09zibFgrpV8yuUZTx-Zh4mpmIp53dATUmGxWJlbOCRXy5aaUeqNE35Gy-uqoq4FVppYzb-K6_-pkJ2mf3DYyj0Ia4i1GhfrzhiYs/w337-h180/30700222aa02220105bbab2fdc86166fe413353e.jpg" width="337" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Messerschmitt Tiger - 4 wheels, 500 cc</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjmtI78Yx0U03Hkwr7zXRc_RQXqPCIrmHgCezbHah7jB0wVVVTqbRQD-_4daNNl9w2tnKorAGZXpujjvWNcJv83oPAPX3VDz55nc77FHfHXS4JxLjv6JWvZHIcI29oYYYYb9Q5ds-RGqn981DJ62C71rxYxeghGlimNTpWaL49BaU574GoGCbzdTi-90M/s235/2267bacc0751b4fa5723adee231237c8--the-movie-science-fiction.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="127" data-original-width="235" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjmtI78Yx0U03Hkwr7zXRc_RQXqPCIrmHgCezbHah7jB0wVVVTqbRQD-_4daNNl9w2tnKorAGZXpujjvWNcJv83oPAPX3VDz55nc77FHfHXS4JxLjv6JWvZHIcI29oYYYYb9Q5ds-RGqn981DJ62C71rxYxeghGlimNTpWaL49BaU574GoGCbzdTi-90M/s1600/2267bacc0751b4fa5723adee231237c8--the-movie-science-fiction.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Messerschmitt from Brazil</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqAZ6kWQt88QiJkT3zpVlC64suGVUStLGn3j35AF8H1602TVQn3uFcmv56HMe9c-zDhQ5cZqz_Hs7emNVO2Sc_SStguaElpneBOKTWQfs555My-Vb9VguLEEKAujv49GZ268iK-IvuSTDR0Z5ZiKCjGRTHvbUH_yx5oxrF3-YbxaS4dsJ2Dx8h1dp5aNY/s800/31493132-35.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqAZ6kWQt88QiJkT3zpVlC64suGVUStLGn3j35AF8H1602TVQn3uFcmv56HMe9c-zDhQ5cZqz_Hs7emNVO2Sc_SStguaElpneBOKTWQfs555My-Vb9VguLEEKAujv49GZ268iK-IvuSTDR0Z5ZiKCjGRTHvbUH_yx5oxrF3-YbxaS4dsJ2Dx8h1dp5aNY/w338-h213/31493132-35.jpg" width="338" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Heinkel, with its pointy rear-end</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-Xxs3WehIjlYQLbHbi7NGHOIXvInHS__YYRLAQrUzJrObBOsDoynS2C9f8zmwk_9WkViwgs4MEBaNSneQod1eYcuIatiwJ2elrs3V2hseb_6pEFsqmsM7ogeSlBveP7dvTdNEPK8qvk5SpEXscN0-kvfcPmJE0_RhRtiz03hMzB9c7-PFSs2XFHIZ_c/s1000/mki_01a.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1000" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-Xxs3WehIjlYQLbHbi7NGHOIXvInHS__YYRLAQrUzJrObBOsDoynS2C9f8zmwk_9WkViwgs4MEBaNSneQod1eYcuIatiwJ2elrs3V2hseb_6pEFsqmsM7ogeSlBveP7dvTdNEPK8qvk5SpEXscN0-kvfcPmJE0_RhRtiz03hMzB9c7-PFSs2XFHIZ_c/w344-h224/mki_01a.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The strange-looking Scootacar</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9PNZZLYRlxhEZrdfhPLLEYYM9pzXERxsPY0rpVpVfmNaib5YUs8Y7bUdpzmxW-Fv-Jt64xOS2BHhNnaKwlIhJ2zxZ9w38FfoiEnPGutKvAq6wmzzVNMT5sBZoTba-CoDKsuTLVXdG-AY44NexgEDNn8KfIqNoSgLilhfb3e80wyzEPCyRrYQ8WJ4ne9I/s700/rodley_coupe_01.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="700" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9PNZZLYRlxhEZrdfhPLLEYYM9pzXERxsPY0rpVpVfmNaib5YUs8Y7bUdpzmxW-Fv-Jt64xOS2BHhNnaKwlIhJ2zxZ9w38FfoiEnPGutKvAq6wmzzVNMT5sBZoTba-CoDKsuTLVXdG-AY44NexgEDNn8KfIqNoSgLilhfb3e80wyzEPCyRrYQ8WJ4ne9I/w345-h229/rodley_coupe_01.jpg" width="345" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The amazingly ugly Rodley</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRvHi23gbDBSZddUU32blkE07z4NEH-umLzTy_7A4L32yTTp6-NnMETRiDPa1TeUh7zZ3vUzXyRZNSl5je8q0ruENHb41UwrgwxoHmFC5iMxhB1jrjA-tpeur5Euj8IlOIWgggaZN6zyD0_SU9aKJO7bTHef2fQqMroaropLtprfPuOXaVCmngsSkyJg/s800/Morgan_Super_Sports_1937.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="800" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRvHi23gbDBSZddUU32blkE07z4NEH-umLzTy_7A4L32yTTp6-NnMETRiDPa1TeUh7zZ3vUzXyRZNSl5je8q0ruENHb41UwrgwxoHmFC5iMxhB1jrjA-tpeur5Euj8IlOIWgggaZN6zyD0_SU9aKJO7bTHef2fQqMroaropLtprfPuOXaVCmngsSkyJg/w344-h186/Morgan_Super_Sports_1937.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Morgan Super Sport, with exposed engine</i><br /></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SFcRBAuVnWBpLHxkjE7uCtFRmp8WwyHnnC6sVnjuDv6BM1LzhrQyH3M0mY5ifqmJsKw7v3hthNCiRzM6gpvYEb6PTgDsStuwCR3Gjw4u94speArnFTavWJyHwqZ2pBzlM_TCUPMouOwWY3fIH77I9zn4oZOu2Nx5ojvgJ_wHO_Rn5GD32xF0wb0S_JQ/s2000/Reliant_Regal_Mk_3_Convertible_(1956)_-_15821233376.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SFcRBAuVnWBpLHxkjE7uCtFRmp8WwyHnnC6sVnjuDv6BM1LzhrQyH3M0mY5ifqmJsKw7v3hthNCiRzM6gpvYEb6PTgDsStuwCR3Gjw4u94speArnFTavWJyHwqZ2pBzlM_TCUPMouOwWY3fIH77I9zn4oZOu2Nx5ojvgJ_wHO_Rn5GD32xF0wb0S_JQ/w344-h240/Reliant_Regal_Mk_3_Convertible_(1956)_-_15821233376.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A 1950s Reliant Regal</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWf-jv03IQ-bdy0u_wvbavS6Bkx2O3aKcIlqTu6dGXRPK13lDnFhXx2s-D9apy9ZDvnsXUIqGqq-DlWJZl5j_04AUoTby2bdjTJZI1BrjU-xSWKwb_OTeREZbLoQFU25sqBzfn13Bh4HikpV2CevMS0CAtm0Ym460hNEhy30D-WjkZVN_24uCgnYB9yXc/s2560/1960_Bond_Minicar_Mark_F_Family_Saloon.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="2560" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWf-jv03IQ-bdy0u_wvbavS6Bkx2O3aKcIlqTu6dGXRPK13lDnFhXx2s-D9apy9ZDvnsXUIqGqq-DlWJZl5j_04AUoTby2bdjTJZI1BrjU-xSWKwb_OTeREZbLoQFU25sqBzfn13Bh4HikpV2CevMS0CAtm0Ym460hNEhy30D-WjkZVN_24uCgnYB9yXc/w345-h240/1960_Bond_Minicar_Mark_F_Family_Saloon.jpg" width="345" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A Bond Minicar</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiALTz30xYB_P7A_HNxIRKnDVEmPP-IMYXtxhlNMTY1YmokloiK6XXkV65gPwAyzJJiNyS8s6vwXEAVgyKZtUmGWt1WuyyklG-VpQiHQqCxA-sBfMe0ZXAilpetATxI41-3lMebTY8APqtut_COdb9A0cM8LYP6VBmZYXZvfJyEu6xCAnGFAosw82Vd0kI/s500/family-motorcycle-sidecar-500x500.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiALTz30xYB_P7A_HNxIRKnDVEmPP-IMYXtxhlNMTY1YmokloiK6XXkV65gPwAyzJJiNyS8s6vwXEAVgyKZtUmGWt1WuyyklG-VpQiHQqCxA-sBfMe0ZXAilpetATxI41-3lMebTY8APqtut_COdb9A0cM8LYP6VBmZYXZvfJyEu6xCAnGFAosw82Vd0kI/w345-h240/family-motorcycle-sidecar-500x500.jpeg" width="345" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A (modern) sidecar setup</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2_59KPxul383AyJpGghy1L-SXvYtsyqidYbxey88Mkqlr_mA_wFnJhRW4jTWYWnykQ-qWxxY-bFGXJCWM-S74-ZhuMllxSzoUeUASSfzDLzQP8I8LpTk8iO4R0tJXV95tbk8KSnISCw3Ivk22BYSggBXzFT6lspf2FroJk7mJhYWjPhuVk-QLIZgTyw/s2560/Armstrong_Siddeley_Sapphire_346_BW_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="2560" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2_59KPxul383AyJpGghy1L-SXvYtsyqidYbxey88Mkqlr_mA_wFnJhRW4jTWYWnykQ-qWxxY-bFGXJCWM-S74-ZhuMllxSzoUeUASSfzDLzQP8I8LpTk8iO4R0tJXV95tbk8KSnISCw3Ivk22BYSggBXzFT6lspf2FroJk7mJhYWjPhuVk-QLIZgTyw/w345-h213/Armstrong_Siddeley_Sapphire_346_BW_1.jpg" width="345" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A 1950s Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MdBbUTOkX94y35XqJ0vqK3FpemBclK8frOJVpEa3Qzo8iyNqlfv034B-XyXTXeMWLDpifJhjGPVR2T7_72rdpYa4JGueTTteKtJyLswSD2VHhA-dPqMxgnxkrY5XaQ6Tl_2kgUAtfgrXkqxtbGsmZ2tvRlldBoOXad1u_T5rn1ArrpyM7PqjHah5d88/s2693/S0-modele--panhard-pl-17.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2020" data-original-width="2693" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MdBbUTOkX94y35XqJ0vqK3FpemBclK8frOJVpEa3Qzo8iyNqlfv034B-XyXTXeMWLDpifJhjGPVR2T7_72rdpYa4JGueTTteKtJyLswSD2VHhA-dPqMxgnxkrY5XaQ6Tl_2kgUAtfgrXkqxtbGsmZ2tvRlldBoOXad1u_T5rn1ArrpyM7PqjHah5d88/w344-h240/S0-modele--panhard-pl-17.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The School Board Man's Panhard</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnClfrXQF4lXwnHJJVjTbN3U3EXASOrB9sW_LridPrrCB8fJFMtZZ2o96znki8gz9RU5UM0z0KUMYxq8dY9jDjMxxH61lsdcAX42mG2IXqLQxVDhx7zOvTldnlioCSL7zWpglgTG4F5-qCB9Y01_hkFSh7KNcVtGyMQ7HEyRxBfilaOgJLXAeFy9BkPDc/s4000/3402-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnClfrXQF4lXwnHJJVjTbN3U3EXASOrB9sW_LridPrrCB8fJFMtZZ2o96znki8gz9RU5UM0z0KUMYxq8dY9jDjMxxH61lsdcAX42mG2IXqLQxVDhx7zOvTldnlioCSL7zWpglgTG4F5-qCB9Y01_hkFSh7KNcVtGyMQ7HEyRxBfilaOgJLXAeFy9BkPDc/w343-h240/3402-1.jpg" width="343" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Morris 8</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsL-oRJRxYxtJDzBOSbKYFZYW3Fyg-uAjs6vh2uXn-BbJIobYv03T6eL1eKsXQ-Eze67ftYq9ZPcTlClMvUiXyJMpogURv5XJ2SlVqz4jx9CfTyPC526ewNmoKjtnECWY8DVyukZRhrfMF8iqiJplERPpKjNHBGt6hlfHSDKVq1Nhwdsp-XoelrM7lBc/s2560/2560px-1954_Standard_Ten.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1749" data-original-width="2560" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsL-oRJRxYxtJDzBOSbKYFZYW3Fyg-uAjs6vh2uXn-BbJIobYv03T6eL1eKsXQ-Eze67ftYq9ZPcTlClMvUiXyJMpogURv5XJ2SlVqz4jx9CfTyPC526ewNmoKjtnECWY8DVyukZRhrfMF8iqiJplERPpKjNHBGt6hlfHSDKVq1Nhwdsp-XoelrM7lBc/w344-h219/2560px-1954_Standard_Ten.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>1954 Standard 10</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh45Y2EtQDrIq_uPbN_6x29PzmDtWTOPZm9G2TZv8Z90Av-N5kzGLxUjrc5vrHIKvIiEvcocD4Lf2fL1IoYMCfcz8eecRXJ4jizRSGyW5k5UfiUJaHxonj7XYIwqAeRSYkIr0KUplp4v5xQiUjQB2K1e04_tNb7ieqaeJc0z_RYUb0O0KEYsp2muwUKdVE/s2337/Standard_Vanguard_before_they_simplified_the_grill_2088_cc_first_reg_October_1951.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1542" data-original-width="2337" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh45Y2EtQDrIq_uPbN_6x29PzmDtWTOPZm9G2TZv8Z90Av-N5kzGLxUjrc5vrHIKvIiEvcocD4Lf2fL1IoYMCfcz8eecRXJ4jizRSGyW5k5UfiUJaHxonj7XYIwqAeRSYkIr0KUplp4v5xQiUjQB2K1e04_tNb7ieqaeJc0z_RYUb0O0KEYsp2muwUKdVE/w344-h211/Standard_Vanguard_before_they_simplified_the_grill_2088_cc_first_reg_October_1951.JPG" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A 1950s Standard Vanguard like our Neighbour's</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I knew all the cars that lived within a quarter mile radius of my home by heart. On an estate built for working class people, they were still fairly uncommon. Maybe one household in ten had a car, often a pre-war Austin, Morris or Ford, over twenty years old.</p><p>For a young man, earning his first wages at the Ford works in Dagenham or at one of the factories on the estate, buying a car was a dream. I'm sure it made getting dates with girls a lot easier, for one thing. But they weren't making <i>that</i> much money. A reasonably new full-size car was way beyond their means.</p><p>This was the era of the "bubble-car", tiny cars developed after the war for the growing market of people who wanted a car but still had limited means. A lightly-used example was perfect for the young man looking to increase his mobility, not to say pulling power.</p><p>The best known of all them is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta">Isetta</a>. It indeed looked exactly like a bubble. It had no apparent doors, until you realised that the whole front of the car opened sideways, taking the steering wheel with it via a complicated linkage. A 250 cc engine could propel it to the vertiginous speed of 47 mph, though you would need plenty of room - it took 30 seconds just to get to 30 mph. There was room for two people, sitting huddled together on a bench seat. Safety was non-existent - the humans were first in line to take any impact, and back then seat-belts in cars were unheard of. The little engine was at the back under the parcel shelf. That was the only place for luggage, though there was a rack available to which a small suitcase could be strapped on the back.</p><p>The Isetta was originally Italian, built by Iso. They decided to move on to high-powered sports cars, and sold the design to BMW. Compared to the BMWs of today, this seems strange. They were also built under license in Britain, France and Brazil.</p><p>When I worked at Cisco in California, in the early 2000s, there was a vintage car club which every now and then would organise an exhibition. It was one of life's little ironies that the Isetta that showed up there belonged to the Director of Corporate Travel.</p><p>The other well known bubble-car was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200">Messerschmitt</a>, built by the famous aircraft company as a diversification after the war. This was a completely different concept. It was long, thin and streamlined, rather than bubble-shaped. Entrance was via a hinged canopy, just like a fighter plane. Its two occupants sat in line, again like in a plane. Steering was through a yoke - like half a steering wheel. Once again the engine was at the back. It had an interesting way of going backwards. A single-cylinder two-stroke engine can turn in either direction, with just an adjustment to the ignition timing. This car had no reverse gear - if you wanted to go backwards you threw a switch and started the engine in the opposite direction.</p><p>The Messerschmitt is still a bit of an icon. They now sell for crazy prices - $30,000 or so for a normal one, and over $100,000 for the rarer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMR_Tg500">Tiger</a> model with four wheels and a higher-powered engine. They were quite common in films in the 1960s, and occasionally later. Probably the most famous appearance is in the Terry Gilliam film-noir, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)">Brazil</a>.</p><p>Messerschmitt wasn't the only aircraft company to try its hand at cars. Much less common and well-known is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_Kabine">Heinkel</a>. This was very similar to the Isetta, with a sideways-opening door at the front. It was a bit less bubble-shaped, with a pointy rear-end, very recognisable to my 8-year-old bubble-car connoisseur self. There were several Isettas and Messerschmidts in the area I roamed, but only one Heinkel.</p><p>If the cars' owners happened to be around when I was passing by, they were happy enough to chat to me, especially when they realised I knew what I was talking about. That was how I managed to get a ride in something even more unusual, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scootacar">Scootacar</a>. While the others were Italian or German, this one was all British, built by the Hunslet company which had been making steam railway engines for over 50 years. Supposedly, it was designed the request of the boss's wife, who wanted something easier to park than her Jaguar.</p><p>Whereas the other bubble-cars were quite cute visually, the Scootacar was just plain weird. It was much taller, earning it the name "telephone box" at the time. Access was through a side door like a normal car. The shape supposedly came from the designer sitting on the Villiers engine it used, while an assistant drew his outline on the wall.</p><p>It would seat two people, as long as they knew each other very well. They sat pressed together astride a longitudinal bench just like a motorbike. The driver at least had the handlebar steering to hang on to, while the passenger had only the driver. About 1000 were made, so I was lucky to see one. Even this oddity has become a collectors' item, worth about £5000 now - 20 times the original cost.</p><p>The Scootacar was at least an improvement on the designer's only previous effort at a car, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodley_(car)">Rodley</a>. That must have been the ugliest car ever built, all 65 of them. Many were destroyed in spontaneous fires (maybe the inspiration for the Tesla), and supposedly only one still exists. Not surprisingly, I never saw one.</p><p>There was one car in the area that was very different. One of the lads had an original <a href="https://www.supercars.net/blog/1927→1939-morgan-super-sports/">vee-twin three-wheel Morgan</a>. Now, an original 1930s model will fetch £50,000 or more. He probably picked it up for almost nothing, an ancient old-fashioned thing that nobody wanted. The thing that struck me was the engine. It was completely exposed at the front of the car, including even the valve gear on top of the cylinders. As the engine idled you could watch the valves popping open and shut on their springs. I wonder how well it dealt with bad weather.</p><p>Distinct from the bubble-cars were the two fairly common three-wheelers, looking more like small conventional cars. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Regal">Reliant</a> was made famous by the TV programme Only Fools and Horses, but in the 50s they were acceptable family transportation, with a proper 750 cc four-cylinder engine. I saw quite a few around but they were more a car for the settled family man than for a young lad. The latter preferred the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_Minicar">Bond Minicar</a>, a sort of motorbike/car hybrid. It was the general shape of a car, but the mechanics were pure motorbike. The single-cylinder engine was just behind the chain-driven front wheel. To start it, you opened the bonnet (hood), and pulled a chain, like kick-starting a bike.</p><p>All of these bubble-car and minicar firms were gone by the early 1960s. The introduction of the famous Mini in 1959 didn't help them. Suddenly you could buy a serious car for not much more. My friend bought one, used of course, when we were teenagers.</p><p>As a means of transportation for the working man, motorbikes were much more common than cars. There were all the classic British makes: BSA, Triumph, Norton and others that thrived before Japanese manufacturers had the eccentric idea of building bikes that didn't leak oil continuously and need constant repairs and maintenance. For men with families, there was the sidecar, a one-wheeled pram-like vehicle that bolted onto the side of the bike to accommodate his wife and one child. I remember being taken for a short ride in one of these. Even for a small child it was overwhelmingly claustrophobic.</p><p>Not all the cars I met were bubble-cars. My parents were heavily involved in the local <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2016/07/pensioners-pals.html">Pensioners' Pals</a>, a sort of support group for the old women (hardly any men) who lived in special accommodation on Harold Hill. This brought them into contact with various local officials, doctors and so on. The Mayor of Romford was driven around in a car from a long-vanished marque, an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Siddeley">Armstrong-Siddeley</a>. These were the perfect cars for mayors and minor captains of industry, less ostentatious than a Rolls or Bentley but still very much a sign of being above the <i>hoi polloi</i>. On one memorable occasion, I even got a short ride in its luxurious padded leather interior.</p><p>In the 1950s, practically every car on the road was made in Britain and carried a British name - even if it was foreign-owned, like Ford or Vauxhaul. Foreign cars were extremely rare. While my mother was visiting one of her adopted old-age pensioners, I was wandering around and saw an immaculate dark-blue French <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_PL_17">Panhard</a> parked on the street - recognised only from my Motor Show catalogues, of which more later. I could hardly resist taking a close look at it. It was a school day, but I'd been off with a bad cold. Suddenly I was interrupted by its owner.</p><p>"Why aren't you at school?" he demanded with authority. It turned out that he was the "School Board Man"- truant officer in American. It was his job to go around looking for children who ought to be in school, but weren't. I took him to my mother, and things were settled. But it was an awkward moment.</p><p>My aunt and uncle bought their first car when I was 7 or 8. It was a pre-war Morris 8, with the very fitting registration OLD 8. Before 1939 it hadn't occurred to people that you should be able to open the boot (trunk) to put stuff in and out. Access was by folding the rear seat. Like all small pre-war cars, it was black.</p><p>Later they upgraded to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Ten">Standard 10</a>. This was a post-war design, so curved rather than angular, and blue-gray rather than black. It even had an opening boot - although the cheaper variant, the Standard 8, didn't, and you still had to manhandle luggage via the back seat.</p><p>In one of life's odd coincidences, my uncle was rear-ended while driving his Standard across Lambeth Bridge by his old Morris 8.</p><p>Standard used to be a major, respected British marque of cars, up until the 1960s when they "merged" with Triumph, and disappeared. Then later Standard-Triumph was absorbed by Rover, and then all went down the plughole into British Leyland. One of our neighbours had a Standard Vanguard which was, well, the vanguard of the Standard range. It was the elegantly curvaceous early-50s version, rather than the more angular design which came later. I remember him boasting to my Dad that unlike lesser cars his came with various usually-optional features including a heater.</p><p>Yes really, cars in the 1950s often didn't have heaters. When my Dad started driving vans for work, none of the earlier ones had heaters. One of my prized annual acquisitions was the Daily Express Motor Show catalogue. I only went to the show once, but my Dad bought me the catalogue every year. Apart from the cars themselves, four to a page, there were large sections of adverts for accessories. After-market heaters were common there.</p><p>My one visit to the London Motor Show at Earls Court in west London was when I was about 10. It influenced my car-buying habits for the rest of my life. I was looking at a Lancia, before they became famous for rusting away practically before you'd driven off the forecourt. I got shooed away because - obviously, as a ten-year old - I wasn't about to buy one. I vowed then never to buy one, and I never have. There was a time, in the 1970s, when Lancias were quite chic, and I might have bought one. One of my bosses had a Lancia Beta, a kind of sports hatchback. It looked very smart, although it did indeed rust away fairly quickly.</p><p>Standard wasn't the only marque that has long since disappeared. Wolseley and Riley were the luxury end of the BMC (Austin and Morris) range, with Riley supposedly being sportier. By 1960 they were just badge-engineered version of their Austin and Morris cousins. If you watch 1950s British films, the police invariably drive smart-looking Wolseleys or if they're lucky, the faster Riley Pathfinder, jangling their police bell as they drive. The whole Rootes family - Hillman, Humber, Singer, Sunbeam - were common in the 50s and 60s but completely forgotten now. Rover was the car of choice for country doctors and solicitors (lawyers). The MG name - the sporty end of BMC - still exists, but is now a nondescript Chinese car.</p><p>Returning to bubble-cars, I was amazed to discover there is a <a href="http://www.microcarmuseum.com">Microcar Museum</a>, in the outer suburbs of Atlanta in Madison, Georgia. Maybe one day I'll visit and relive all my childhood memories. Maybe.</p><p></p><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-45246730018563716782023-08-20T11:29:00.003-07:002023-08-20T12:56:08.257-07:00Flight to Croatia - My First International Flight in Europe<p>My story of moving to France and acquiring all the necessary licenses to fly legally here deserves its own article. Suffice it to say that by August 2023, I had everything legally required to fly IFR or VFR, in a US or French registered aircraft - in fact any EASA (mainland Europe) registration.</p><p>I've written elsewhere about the loss of "Sierra", my much beloved Cessna TR182, in a <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2021/09/moving-my-plane-and-its-pilot-to-france.html">landing accident</a>. I didn't plan to replace her, but in the end I bought a very nicely equipped 2003 Socata TB20GT. Whether this was a good idea, or a moment of complete insanity, is still a matter of judgement. My new plane is called "Tango" - not only is this the obvious follow-on to Sierra, but it is also the last letter of her US tail number (as Sierra was for her predecessor).</p><p>A major reason for choosing Tango was her avionics. They were rebuilt a few years ago to the state of the art: Garmin G500 PFD/MFD, GTN750/650 navigator combination. The autopilot is the original King KFC225 which works well with the newer stuff.</p><p>Flying a plane is the same wherever you are. But local practices differ a lot between countries. Every country in Europe has its own way of doing VFR and its own variations on the rules. IFR is a lot more consistent, which is why I went to trouble of getting a French instrument rating.</p><p>I've done a few IFR flights in France now, including a couple on my own. I feel fairly comfortable with the way things work, though I still have to concentrate to understand ATC, whether in French or English.</p><p>Years before we returned to France, I joined an on-line group called <a href="http://euroga.org">EuroGA</a>. It's a very pleasant and interesting group of people, and it was a real eye-opener for a US pilot to see how things are done in Europe. (Spoiler: it's very rarely better, easier or cheaper). Since I started flying in Europe, it has been a huge source of help and sometimes just moral support.</p><p>Every now and then the group does a fly-in somewhere in Europe. Up until now I hadn't participated, sometimes because I wasn't around, but as often because I just didn't feel ready for "flying to go somewhere" in Europe. Until now, I had only flown within France.</p><p>Then a few weeks ago there was suggestion of doing a fly-in to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Lošinj">Mali Lošinj</a> in northern Croatia. That's about a three-hour flight from Cannes, where I'm based. It seemed like a great opportunity to expand my limits, and also to finally meet some of the people behind EuroGA.</p><p>I signed up, figuring that I could always chicken out at the last minute. As the time got closer, the weather looked good. Even for IFR flight, that matters. Being bounced around inside clouds is no fun, especially for passengers, and there's always the risk of icing. This would also be my wife's first ever flight in the new plane, and her comfort mattered as much as mine.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Planning</h2><p>I started to prepare flight plans. With ForeFlight this is easy - just enter the origin and destination, and tell it to find a route. In the US you can file any route you want. If ATC don't like it, they will give you one they do like as part of your clearance. In Europe, you can't even file a route if it isn't approved by a pan-European government agency called Eurocontrol.</p><p>The outbound route was straightforward. The return route was more of a problem. As part of the route you have to file approved departure and arrival procedures. The only arrival it came up with for Cannes was to take a sharp left around Genoa and to fly practically to Corsica, before returning via a U-shaped route to Cannes.</p><p>I know from my own limited experience, and from what others tell me, that you rarely get to fly the whole cleared route. You get a bunch of shortcuts, including very often for the arrival and approach part. The western approach to Cannes is typical. It's a twisty, zig-zag route with half a dozen waypoints, each with its own step-down altitude. Each time I've flown it, before I even arrive at its official start, I've been cleared direct to the final approach fix, OBOTA, with a few descent clearances to get me there at the required altitude of 2000 feet.</p><p>Still, I didn't want to sign up to fly to Corsica. Apart from the time, distance and fuel, flying over the sea in a single engine plane is best avoided or minimised if possible. I asked around, and looked at what other aircraft do. There's a different procedure, which avoids flying to Corsica. It's universally used by jets arriving from Italy and points east. For me, the problem is a segment with a minimum altitude of FL140 (14,000 thousand feet, more or less). My non-turbo-charged plane would take a while to reach this altitude. It's also the maximum legal altitude, under FAA rules, without an oxygen mask, which I don't have. Also, for the route to be accepted, I would have to file the whole route at FL140, which I definitely didn't want to do.</p><p>Then someone showed me a way to file lower, and to request just FL125 over the segment in question. I filed that, it was accepted, and things were looking good.</p><p>The route from Cannes to Croatia unavoidably crosses the northern part of the Adriatic. This is about a 60 mile over-water crossing. If the engine stops there, you will certainly get wet. Aircraft aren't designed to float, and once they sink, you're on your own. A life-vest will keep you afloat, but unless you manage to ditch alongside a boat, things are unlikely to end well. The best thing is to carry an inflatable canoe, but these are expensive and heavy. Luckily, my flight instructor volunteered to lend me one. I hope I'll never have to try it out.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Flying</h2><p>The weather forecast continued to be perfect as the departure day approached. Then on the morning of the flight, there was a NOTAM that the tower at the destination airport was closed. I guess the tower operator didn't show up for work. That meant that not only did the arrival have to be VFR, but also there was nobody to tell me what to do around the airport. I'm still nervous about uncontrolled airports in France, never mind Croatia. Controlled airports are easy, you just do what you're told. But at uncontrolled fields it's up to you to figure out the right runway to use, the right traffic pattern to fly and to keep a very careful eye out for conflicting traffic.</p><p>Mali Lošinj airport has a very complicated set of charts for flying VFR, with numerous points that you have to overfly, routes you have to follow, and altitudes you have to obey. I'd prepared for that - I even had a printout of Google Maps with the various points noted on them.</p><p>EuroGA had created a Telegram group for the fly-in. We were already at the airport when an early arriver sent a message that the parking was already full, and they were putting planes on the grass. Parking on grass is fine but what if there was nowhere left, or if I couldn't figure out where to park?</p><p>Feeling distinctly uneasy, I decided to set off anyway.</p><p>IFR departures and arrivals at my airport (Cannes, LFMD) are more complicated in the summer. The airport is "coordinated" which means that in addition to a flight plan and ATC slot, you <i>also</i> need a slot assignment from the airport, through a completely separate process. It's yet another piece of bureaucracy, but the few times I've done it, it has worked fine.</p><p>Flight preparation and takeoff went smoothly. I was surprised to get cleared direct to the eastern coast of Italy (Chiaggio, CHI) as soon as were clear of the approaches to Nice, and while we were still talking to French ATC. Over eastern Italy we got cleared to the handover point to Croatia, LABIN. And as soon as we contacted Croatian ATC, they reminded us we would need to cancel IFR because the tower was closed, and cleared us direct to the destination (LDLO).</p><p>Nobody seemed to care about all those points and altitudes, though I did aim for one of them anyway. We descended gently from our cruise altitude of FL110 (11,000 feet) to the prescribed 1000 feet. There was nothing in the air when we got to the airport, so I flew the approved French-style uncontrolled arrival, landed and taxied to the ramp. The runway is on about a 2% slope, which doesn't sound much but means the runway looks distinctly uphill as you arrive. The TB20's trailing-link gear means that almost all landings are smooth, but this one wasn't.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Arrival</h2><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6sBVrxE5XHON3FUKWIyeU9i1jmfkSS6v--CEprWEBmAydDdjQQ9etL65L0_Xxw8uZXqVpVQ0IK4PFaQiCPAGsXlLLoEmp8rlgYW689iPXVFJ1pNQJFjvWOELBYyTFHfNubJWxJU-Ajb2iVykyN4UGemMq0N2Od9X-or_roZjIgwjYf3FzXAv7n72pYfw/s2715/IMG_5383.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 1em;"><img border-style="none" border="0" data-original-height="2715" data-original-width="2655" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6sBVrxE5XHON3FUKWIyeU9i1jmfkSS6v--CEprWEBmAydDdjQQ9etL65L0_Xxw8uZXqVpVQ0IK4PFaQiCPAGsXlLLoEmp8rlgYW689iPXVFJ1pNQJFjvWOELBYyTFHfNubJWxJU-Ajb2iVykyN4UGemMq0N2Od9X-or_roZjIgwjYf3FzXAv7n72pYfw/w273-h279/IMG_5383.JPG" style="margin: 5px;" width="273" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>First sight of Mali Lošinj, at the end of its bay.</i><br /></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrV64ezmVKrM0-9mqfVIMcO10EiTXF3rPEZavMew-c0fcd2cVPYPkkUuvNAqYRw7YCDdGWAkT6qCdbFdhxuO6FXstN3ljQ_z_vHS58xm64Z3UrgiK7tAdj04fNnLu26nhZNgg4jolcoa145aA2Vfh3Sz6SlZvnRnTys35FIrRY3XYKUX6IortiL70E9bc/s4032/IMG_5392.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrV64ezmVKrM0-9mqfVIMcO10EiTXF3rPEZavMew-c0fcd2cVPYPkkUuvNAqYRw7YCDdGWAkT6qCdbFdhxuO6FXstN3ljQ_z_vHS58xm64Z3UrgiK7tAdj04fNnLu26nhZNgg4jolcoa145aA2Vfh3Sz6SlZvnRnTys35FIrRY3XYKUX6IortiL70E9bc/w287-h215/IMG_5392.JPG" style="margin: 5px;" width="287" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Arriving at LDLO's sloping runway.</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDBW7S1O-sK_BX0RAPHVZS8EB7W9uENoCtH1T1ugYFGLEhgdcGxel_9CzaJ7qaZZRMr9QhpQZZB_FdYjGkq7KEzhTdVET2_EsLyA9HHFBHujKpun22McV0ce7QOf2lZAJPpE62OmWdeaxnfnAnpHQTtn7W912RI3Jvgub3zqoxqmrinblffm5_EFZsFjI/s4032/IMG_5395.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDBW7S1O-sK_BX0RAPHVZS8EB7W9uENoCtH1T1ugYFGLEhgdcGxel_9CzaJ7qaZZRMr9QhpQZZB_FdYjGkq7KEzhTdVET2_EsLyA9HHFBHujKpun22McV0ce7QOf2lZAJPpE62OmWdeaxnfnAnpHQTtn7W912RI3Jvgub3zqoxqmrinblffm5_EFZsFjI/w292-h219/IMG_5395.JPG" width="292" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Crowded airport, with fuel truck.</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNf3BaG1URs5hQ6zrJiyE0ViPX4HPO2nOdtvcrXsFsLKEPQD7MdIhB6dA2qCKVe5x9LATjfdlPIzVQLXShZAS7MK_I1zWP63p4TVhPfV0mgMIFnpmm-kbkdzbc9tdq05WHHku218OvAY-E362SLz7_NMbTNKk6bIw8vlob59lxjrxfxrDSUHnJK7KNWko/s4032/IMG_5400.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNf3BaG1URs5hQ6zrJiyE0ViPX4HPO2nOdtvcrXsFsLKEPQD7MdIhB6dA2qCKVe5x9LATjfdlPIzVQLXShZAS7MK_I1zWP63p4TVhPfV0mgMIFnpmm-kbkdzbc9tdq05WHHku218OvAY-E362SLz7_NMbTNKk6bIw8vlob59lxjrxfxrDSUHnJK7KNWko/w299-h224/IMG_5400.JPG" width="299" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mali Lošinj Harbour.</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2T5H7dk5kMv8uSAM2ggBMwpOG8EKgRzgwHUKVBU1czZKoZxeOHkT6NlVBpPUkugsy5nU_CCcvHplqHHniR3NH9_Du4JU26Paq4JKldwZarh0iwkWsmCbylT5tR7Sgp_XD3iEEmv7zn5T7ZP9a6kT0kddsQkeZtDJlhs4UYJNp9Q9i0IycHaQufnx7QA/s3855/IMG_5404.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2891" data-original-width="3855" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2T5H7dk5kMv8uSAM2ggBMwpOG8EKgRzgwHUKVBU1czZKoZxeOHkT6NlVBpPUkugsy5nU_CCcvHplqHHniR3NH9_Du4JU26Paq4JKldwZarh0iwkWsmCbylT5tR7Sgp_XD3iEEmv7zn5T7ZP9a6kT0kddsQkeZtDJlhs4UYJNp9Q9i0IycHaQufnx7QA/w303-h227/IMG_5404.JPG" width="303" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>First sight of Susak.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The airport was indeed quite full when we got there, with planes parked all over the place. To my surprise, a yellow-jacketted marshaller appeared and guided us onto the grass, along improvised taxiways and into a parking spot. And then, once I'd shut down, he asked if I wanted fuel, and summoned a fuel truck.<p></p><p>One of the few things I miss from our time in the US is the fuel truck at Palo Alto. Fuel trucks are almost unknown for small planes in France. Usually you taxi up to the pump and do everything yourself, just like with a car. Tango has low wings, so it isn't too difficult. But with Sierra's high wings it was a real nuisance, clambering up a ladder whilst dragging the surprisingly heavy fuel nozzle.</p><p>So to have the pleasure of a fuel truck at a tiny uncontrolled field was truly amazing. We filled the tanks to the brim, mainly to be sure of exactly how much we had.</p><p></p>Two other planes from the group arrived shortly after us. We hung around until everyone was ready, making the most of the very pleasant, modern, air-conditioned terminal building. Everybody at the airport was pleasant and helpful.<p></p><p></p>There was an airport taxi - a big van affair with 7 seats - waiting for us. We had to hurry the other people along because there is a bridge along the route to town, that closes at 6pm - and by now it was 5.40.<p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Mali Lošinj</h2><p>The arrival in the town was delightful. The old part of the town is wrapped in a U-shape around a large port, full of small boats of various kinds with some larger ferries. The island is a perfect natural harbour, screened from the Adriatic by various other islands and channels. It was once one of the largest ports in Croatia. Legend has it that nearly every man in the town was a sailor.</p><p>We relaxed, showered, and had a beer at one of the many bars and restaurants that line the waterfront. The charm of the town comes from its inaccessibility. If you don't arrive by plane or boat, the only other way is by ferry. There are car ferries to the island, but it involves a lot of driving as well. There are no big, modern hotels, just a few more traditional places and many vacation rentals.</p><p>Our hotel, the Mare Mare, had just a dozen or so rooms. It was nicely decorated, comfortable and everybody there was charming and helpful. From our window we looked out over the boats in the harbour. As we discovered next morning, many people arrive on foot using the ferries from the mainland, carrying beach chairs, tables, food, small children, and everything else needed for a day at the seaside.</p><p>At dinner we met the rest of the EuroGA group, in particular Peter who started it and still gives it a lot of time and energy. It was a very simple dinner, just whole fish cooked in different ways. It was absolutely delicious, accompanied by a tasty local white wine made from the Malvazija grape.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">To The Sea</h2><p>Our idea the next day was to visit one of the other islands, by boat. But as usual we got up late and by the time we were ready, all the regular tourist <i>promène couillons</i> had left. We stood in line to take a regular ferry, but it wasn't looking very promising - I suppose they get booked in advance. Luckily for us a German couple standing behind us overheard our conversation. They'd spoken with a private boat operator, but he wanted four people. We quickly agreed to make up the foursome, and soon we were on our way out of the harbour towards the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susak">island of Susak</a>.</p><p>The island has a long and complicated history. Like much of the Dalmatian coast, it has belonged over time to Rome, Venice, Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia. In the 1950s practically the entire population debunked to the US - Hoboken, New Jersey, which to someone who grew up on an idyllic Mediterranean island must have been an uncomfortable change.</p><p>Since then some have returned and apparently the language spoken is now a mix of English, Croatian and the local dialect which nobody else has ever understood. The permanent population is now about 100, down from 1600 in the 1940s. It's accessible only by boat, with a year-round ferry service to the main island.</p><p>We wandered round, dipped our feet in the sea, then returned to the boat for an indifferent lunch. But it was nice of them to serve it.</p><p>The boat passes through a narrow and very shallow passage between the main island and a smaller one. The much bigger regular ferries take a longer way round through a much deeper channel.</p><p>The hotel had already told us that they could lend us bicycles, so we planned to use them to visit a beach. These are on the opposite side of the island, on the relatively open sea facing the Croatian mainland. Unfortunately the bikes were in really terrible shape. Nobody expects the gearshift to work on rental bikes, but these <i>really</i> didn't work. We just about persuaded them to cross the slight rise towards the beach, but there our courage gave out. The nearest "beach" to the town is really a series of concrete platforms on the rocks, which suited us very well. We both went for a swim, then a walk along the coast path before tackling the bikes again for the short ride back to our hotel.</p><p>Dinner that night was right next to our hotel. It was, again, three large whole fish, each prepared differently. It was absolutely amazing. The best of all was a sea-bass, baked in salt and then dismembered at the table. I think it's the best fish I've ever eaten in my life, succulent, juicy, tasty and just all-round delicious.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Return</h2><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuKeMCawlX7b2JzdSTXTjzu0W2DT7_ZR7_g7dnpEKNPfKtfO5Y8XPbyssBFRKRn8zvbIu82doQzdYY2j-mzIqtbRfXpwxSM83DoiMBFWDHgKH9elHyudD6OVO-2HColscZmGePljHjKxkRY11sw35NEpb2NC86W2OwDnVDV8ajFypbVoRM62QdLtowfyQ/s4032/IMG_5426.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuKeMCawlX7b2JzdSTXTjzu0W2DT7_ZR7_g7dnpEKNPfKtfO5Y8XPbyssBFRKRn8zvbIu82doQzdYY2j-mzIqtbRfXpwxSM83DoiMBFWDHgKH9elHyudD6OVO-2HColscZmGePljHjKxkRY11sw35NEpb2NC86W2OwDnVDV8ajFypbVoRM62QdLtowfyQ/w287-h215/IMG_5426.JPG" width="287" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Takeoff, with Croatian Alps on Mainland</i></td></tr></tbody></table>I'd filed a flight plan for a 12h05, departure, which should line up reasonably well with our 15h00 arrival slot at Cannes. We had a relaxed breakfast, went for a little walk along the quay, then boarded our airport shuttle back to LDLO.<p></p><p>There wasn't much to do when we got there. The plane was already full of fuel, so all it needed was to remove and fold the cover (always quite an exercise), do a normal pre-flight, and figure out how to get from our parking spot to the taxiway. At the appropriate time we climbed in and requested start-up clearance, which we received. Then one of the marshallers ran up to the plane making hand signals which evidently meant "whatever you were going to do, don't". We had to shunt the plane around by hand until we were aligned with a different impromptu taxiway, then taxi out <i>very</i> gingerly since one wing passed over some airport equipment and the other close to another plane.</p><p>While we were waiting to leave we got to watch a Croatian medical evacuation. A huge Soviet-era Mi8 helicopter landed and hover-taxied to a corner of the ramp, making an incredible racket. An ambulance joined it, the patient was moved, and the Mi8 hover-taxied back to the runway and departed. The whole procedure took less than 10 minutes. It was very impressive.</p><p>Today the tower was staffed, meaning that we could depart IFR. The wind meant we took off on runway 02, meaning up-hill. The hill continues after the runway and we seemed pretty close to the vegetation, but everything was fine. Our filed route took us north initially, before turning left towards Italy. But as soon as we contacted Pula Approach they gave us direct LABIN, the handover point to Italy. And so it went, the dozen or individual waypoints comprising the filed airways all ignored as we flew with just three direct clearances to Genoa.</p><p>My old Garmin GNS530 in Sierra didn't know about airways. I would have had to enter all the intermediate waypoints laboriously by hand, twiddling knobs to enter each letter. The GTN750 in Tango is a dream, once you get used to it. You just tap the last waypoint on the flight plan so far, tap "add airway", it gives you a choice of airway and then the exit point. From there you repeat this until you reach the end of the en-route part, then add the destination airport and any associated procedures.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFm2EKrHhss2wukDzOPQ6M1FdU165oKWVagk5t_fE-h7xEJ1jmPww8TRW1dhvI2CB0fze_ya3ozzeQxIHPVtdA5IflQ57OpAmtSIJlJnuUKmbw9NLRWdzZJRcq5C_j6CmqyK1R1HEMqcyOwZfSqSankpRD9uSwuyRwzxfdBXfyACQLSv-B8ywP-lj8xCs/s3238/IMG_5430.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2007" data-original-width="3238" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFm2EKrHhss2wukDzOPQ6M1FdU165oKWVagk5t_fE-h7xEJ1jmPww8TRW1dhvI2CB0fze_ya3ozzeQxIHPVtdA5IflQ57OpAmtSIJlJnuUKmbw9NLRWdzZJRcq5C_j6CmqyK1R1HEMqcyOwZfSqSankpRD9uSwuyRwzxfdBXfyACQLSv-B8ywP-lj8xCs/s320/IMG_5430.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Approaching Cannes, Les Iles de Lerins, <br />packed with small boats</i></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjhgHJZBgKjzdkyvPKj741ocIJNrYyZjbaI_RfpL3jzs9zNdEdTO6IuLh4LVh0tlU2DfMDL1M6q-12RpALQrMbhmZbi5iZPSYF7hzp-kcJgv-b0SEmEp23TYLksgEcDwi7D4ncC10KR7YAsjerTUZJg723AySWmTxWoX0aDF1aX9kcOb7IEKyZhdtB4T8/s4032/IMG_5432.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjhgHJZBgKjzdkyvPKj741ocIJNrYyZjbaI_RfpL3jzs9zNdEdTO6IuLh4LVh0tlU2DfMDL1M6q-12RpALQrMbhmZbi5iZPSYF7hzp-kcJgv-b0SEmEp23TYLksgEcDwi7D4ncC10KR7YAsjerTUZJg723AySWmTxWoX0aDF1aX9kcOb7IEKyZhdtB4T8/s320/IMG_5432.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Giant cruise ship at Cannes</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>I was still concerned about having to climb to FL140 for the sector to BORDI. I needn't have worried. Overhead Genoa we were cleared to OZMIC, the "frontier point" between France and Italy. That feeds neatly into the Cannes approach at INLOV. There was someone in front of us so we got vectored a bit, but it was very straightforward.</p><p>As we flew towards the airport we had a magnificent view of <i>Les Iles de Lerins</i>, as always with hundreds of boats packed into the channel between them. Off the shore was a giant cruise ship. We couldn't help comparing the packed, claustrophobic environment of the ship very unfavourably with nearly-empty Mali Lošinj.</p><p>Next came the <a href="https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/14083-going-missed-under-ifr-from-vpt">very odd approach to runway 17</a> at Cannes. It consists of flying north towards runway 35 (which is to say in the opposite direction) then breaking off into a giant circle-to-land, officially called a Visual Prescribed Track (VPT). This could be easy, but thanks to French bureaucracy and the airport's neighbours, it isn't. You have to fly <i>precisely</i> over two points, but the DGAC (French regulator) will not disclose their <i>precise</i> location. So you have to look out of the window and try to identify them visually, while flying a descending turn. And if you get it even slightly wrong, you overfly the airport's nimby zones. You can guess how I know.</p>
<p>It turns out that there is an organization of elderly nimbies in the surrounding villages that spends all day watching airport tracks and filing complaints about them, whether or not they infringe the nimby zone. Yesterday they filed 127 complaints, probably at least one for every aircraft flying the VPT.</p>
<p>We were on the ground within less than five minutes of our arrival slot, which is pure good luck. Tower told me of my accidental nimby overflight as I left the runway, though they were very nice about it.</p><p>And that was our weekend in Croatia, 6.3 hours of flight time and the discovery of an idyllic location for future weekends. All thanks to EuroGA and to Peter.</p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-69863519192788897182023-08-09T09:27:00.002-07:002023-08-24T05:35:52.750-07:00Fun with AVX and Wordle<h2 style="text-align: left;">A First Attempt - in Kotlin</h2><p>When the Wordle game first appeared a couple of years ago, I wrote a helper program to do various things, in particular to suggest the best word to try given progress so far in the game. More later on how that works. I wrote the program in the fairly obscure language Kotlin, partly because I like it but also for performance. The "best next word" function potentially requires comparing every word in the dictionary with every other, making for millions of comparisons. The obvious language for this kind of job is Python, but it generates very slow interpreted code - around 100 times slower than native machine code. The absence of strong compile-time typing also makes it painful to work with, for anything longer than a page or so of code.</p><p>Kotlin addresses both of these problems. It has strong typing, nicely done so it mostly doesn't get in the way. And it compiles to JVM code, which supposedly is within a factor of 10 of native machine code. It also has an awful, incomprehensible build system, but that didn't matter for this problem since I wasn't planning on generating a stand-alone program. Working within the IDE was fine.</p><p>Another advantage of Kotlin is that it very easily supports multi-threaded operation, taking full advantage of a multi-core CPU. The problem lends itself very easily to a highly concurrent implementation. As is well-known, Python's thread support only allows a single thread to run at a time (the dreaded "Global Interpreter Lock").</p><p>My <a href="https://github.com/harper493/kwordle">Kotlin program </a>worked, but its performance left a lot to be desired. Running the "best word" algorithm at the start of the game, when the number of possibilities is largest, takes about 40 seconds, and that is running on an 18 core system. The htop command shows that every one of the 18 cores is running at 100% for as long as the command takes to complete.</p><p>At that point the program had served its purpose. It was an interesting exercise in writing functional style code in Kotlin. I'd figured out the fairly complex algorithms for comparing and matching words. I had no real intention of using it to play Wordle anyway.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">AVX</h2><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Vector_Extensions">AVX</a>, and more specifically AVX512, is the latest stage in the development of so-called vector processing for the Intel/AMD X86 family. (That's no longer quite true, because Intel recently announced further extensions called <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/18975/intel-unveils-avx10-and-apx-isas-unifying-avx512-for-hybrid-architectures-">AVX10</a> - but it will be a while before you can buy a CPU that implements it).</p><p>Vector-processing instructions, or SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Dispatch), have been around for a couple of decades now, originally called SSE. They have gone through several evolutions. AVX512 provides 512-bit registers which can hold 16 32-bit floating point or integer values. A single instruction can do a simultaneous multiply/add with 16 values. With careful coding to keep the pipeline full, one of these can be executed every clock cycle, so about 50 billion multiply/adds per second. And that's per core - a typical server CPU now has 24 cores, so around 1 trillion operations per second.</p><p>AVX was conceived for arithmetic operations, especially vector/matrix/tensor multiplication. You don't need to know anything about AVX to use it for this - there are excellent libraries, and even without them the compiler can often figure out how to optimise "normal" code to take advantage of AVX.</p><p>Over time, there have been various additions and tweaks to the available instructions to support a wider range of applications. One of the most impressive is <i><a href="https://github.com/simdjson/simdjson">simdjson</a></i>, which uses AVX to accelerate parsing JSON text by a factor of 5-10. It is far from obvious how to do this, even when you have read the paper describing it!</p><p>In recent years, matrix and tensor processing has become much more important because of Artifical Intelligence. Neural networks, at the heart of AI, involve huge amounts of matrix arithmetic. For a while the preferred approach was to use GPUs, which are essentially matrix multiplication engines. But with AVX, you can get comparable performance from a CPU, and without the overhead of moving vast quantities of data to and from the GPU.</p><p>Unless you code in assembler, you don't get to write individual AVX instructions. Rather you use <i>intrinsics</i>, built-in functions defined by Intel but implemented on GCC and other compilers. Some of these map directly to specific AVX instructions, while others are rearranged and optimised. As a C++ (or whatever) programmer, you don't need to know. But if you're interested, you can always look at the assembler output (-S option) from the compiler, or with the debugger.</p><p>The 128, 256 and 512 bit AVX registers don't correspond to any normal data type, so special types are defined for them like __m256 (256 bits representing 8 32-bit floats) and __m512i (representing 16 32 bit integers). The compiler figures out how to use corresponding registers or to map them to memory.</p><p>It was AI that led me to take a close look at AVX, for professional reasons. And that got me wondering whether there was a way to speed up the key algorithms for Wordle.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Wordle Algorithms</h2><p>There are two key algorithms in any program designed to work with Wordle. I'll use the terms <i>target word</i> for the unknown word you're trying to find, and <i>test word</i> for the word you type, looking to see how closely it matches the target.</p><p>The first algorithm compares a test word with the target word, finding which letters are <i>exact matches</i>, the right letter in the right place (colored green in the Wordle game) and which are <i>partial matches</i>, the right letter but in the wrong place (colored orange in the game). This is harder than it looks, mainly because of words containing repeated letters. For example if you compare "every" with the target "trade", one "e" is orange and the other black: <span style="font-family: courier;"><span style="color: #ffa400;">e</span>ve<span style="color: #ffa400;">r</span>y</span>. If you compare "poppy" with "plump", you get one "p" of each color: <span style="font-family: courier;"><span style="color: #04ff00;">p</span>o<span style="color: #ffa400;">p</span>py</span>.</p><p>The second algorithm - not needed by the game itself but required by any kind of helper app - is to take a word and a match pattern (which letters are green or orange), and determine whether it could apply to a given target word. Once again this is made harder by repeated letters. The result <span style="font-family: courier;"><span style="color: #ffa400;">e</span>ve<span style="color: #ffa400;">r</span>y</span> matches words containing a single "e", but not words with two or more. Whereas <span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: courier;">e</span><span style="font-family: courier;">v<span style="color: #ffa400;">e</span></span><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: courier;">r</span><span style="font-family: courier;">y</span> matches words with two "e"s <i>or more</i>, but not those with only one.</p><p>Another algorithm is needed to select the best word to refine the set of possible words. The goal is to divide the remaining words into the largest number of distinct subsets, of more or less equal size. For example, suppose that there are 16 remaining words. The ideal test word would create 16 sets each of one word, so there is only one possible choice. That's unlikely, but four sets of four words each is much better than three sets of one word and one containing the remaining 13.</p><p>There are no doubt many ways to do this, but the one I chose was to use the concept of <i>entropy</i> taken from information theory. The entropy of a collection of values is given by the formula:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcA6MZw6kQeInarog7KZDkbNGZUv4TVustRoSTX5hqYcFmL81Kv6XZOJcZeRFc4fVMy97xGoN2qbypM-T9rM0y6rdvO4aUeQG3aUjxFUBLAfl64Iq3VBiTRCRp3NIB_blQauD59llcHOtb2q0IpFdwufZeFCykUahNwrllwTFpNIPvb71RfacymAyBAs/s308/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-07%20at%204.54.01%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="86" data-original-width="308" height="31" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcA6MZw6kQeInarog7KZDkbNGZUv4TVustRoSTX5hqYcFmL81Kv6XZOJcZeRFc4fVMy97xGoN2qbypM-T9rM0y6rdvO4aUeQG3aUjxFUBLAfl64Iq3VBiTRCRp3NIB_blQauD59llcHOtb2q0IpFdwufZeFCykUahNwrllwTFpNIPvb71RfacymAyBAs/w112-h31/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-07%20at%204.54.01%20PM.png" width="112" /></a></div><p>where <i>p<sub>i</sub> </i>is the probability associated with this value, such that the sum of all the <i>p<sub>i</sub> </i>values is always 1.</p><p>In our case, we count the number of words associated with each distinct value of the match result. Then,</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7cJDz2hUfJXR-ZzyspbYePq0ZX75Kns9Hd0hn3DGj5k-xzcG-kMZ_U6704Ymcdak5JsJ1CoTfWTKBJBqWphWvwKea_OU3oqd7CowrOLEdcv8dgwrlLRlpyPG7S4QqidVaMSfD9OzPD8rRdaa2nDOrV_ZTH4qLQPE4n2Oms0pb0PPQLn5ZuexJwXFqOFI/s238/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-07%20at%205.00.23%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="124" data-original-width="238" height="47" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7cJDz2hUfJXR-ZzyspbYePq0ZX75Kns9Hd0hn3DGj5k-xzcG-kMZ_U6704Ymcdak5JsJ1CoTfWTKBJBqWphWvwKea_OU3oqd7CowrOLEdcv8dgwrlLRlpyPG7S4QqidVaMSfD9OzPD8rRdaa2nDOrV_ZTH4qLQPE4n2Oms0pb0PPQLn5ZuexJwXFqOFI/w91-h47/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-07%20at%205.00.23%20PM.png" width="91" /></a></div><p>where <i>n<sub>i</sub> </i>is just the number of words associated with a given result.</p><p>So to find the best word, we take each word in the dictionary as a test word, and calculate the entropy when it is applied to the remaining set of words after the preceding test words. The one with the highest entropy is the best.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Combining AVX with the Algorithms</h2><p>My starting point for using AVX was to represent a word as a list of bitmaps, one for each letter. A <i>letter map</i> is a 26-bit map (represented in a 32-bit integer) with one bit for each letter. When representing a specific word, it's a <i>one-hot</i> map, i.e. only a single bit is set. But it can also represent a set of possible letters.</p><p>A <i>word map</i> is a list of letter maps, one for each of the five letters in a Wordle world. Conveniently, this fits into a single AVX 256-bit register, meaning operations can be performed on a whole word in a single instruction.</p><p>It's obvious that the exactly-matching letters between two words can be found simply by taking the logical-and of their respective word maps. There will be a bit set in each letter position where there is an exact match, and nowhere else.</p><p>This needs to be turned into a 5-bit bitmap. Fortunately AVX512 contains the perfect instruction for this. Each 32-bit integer can be independently compared with a value, setting the corresponding bit in an 8-bit mask if the condition is satisfied. So in our case, we set up a register with zero in every position, and compare for greater. In two AVX instructions - the logical-and followed by the compare-to-mask - we can generate the bitmap for the exact match.</p><p>Sometimes we need to count the number of matches. There is another (non-AVX) intrinsic for doing this, __builtin_popcnt which counts the number of set bits in a word. So to count the number of matching letters takes just three instructions:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>logical-and of the two word maps</li><li>compare-to-mask to generate a mask word with a 1 for every matching position</li><li>__builtin_popcnt to count the 1-bits</li></ul><p></p><p>Finding the partial matches would be easy - if there were never any repeated letters. We create a word map with every letter in the target at every position, except where an exact match has already been found. Then we do the logical-and and compare, as above. Every letter that us a partial match will be a 1.</p><p>This fails for repeated letters though, whether in the target or the test word (though differently). To fix this, we have to keep separate letter and word maps for twice- and thrice-repeated letters. The exact algorithm is too complex to explain here (but can be seen in the code).</p><p>This done, the complete <i>match()</i> function amounts to about 20 instructions, mostly AVX.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The <i>conforms()</i> Algorithm for AVX</h2><p>Like <i>match()</i>, <i>conforms()</i> would be very simple if no words contained repeated letters. It can be done as follows:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Ensure that the target contains no letters that failed to match in the test word. This is a single logical-and between the respective letter masks.</li><li>Ensure that the target contains all letters that have matched (partial or exact) in the test word. This is also a logical-and of the letter masks.</li><li>Ensure that any exact matches are indeed matched. This is a logical-and between the word masks.</li><li>Ensure there are no unintended exact matches betwen the two words, again a logical-and followed by a test for zero.</li></ol><p>However this is complicated by repeated letters, which may result in both false positives and false negatives. Each repeated letter has to be dealt with separately - there can be at most two of them in any valid English five-letter word. For each letter, we create a map of where to look for it (excluding exact matches) and a count for how many we expect to find. There are two cases of that:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The match result contains no failed matches for the letter, as described above. In that case it's OK if the number of matching letters is greater than the count.</li><li>The match result <i>does</i> contain failed matches. In that case the number of matching letters must be exactly the same.</li></ol><p>Normally, a match result is tested against a lot of other words - the set of all words that have matched so far. At the beginning of the game this is all words in the vocabulary. So it makes sense to generate an optimised <i>match_target</i> object that contains all of the necessary letter maps and word maps as well as information for repeated letters. Then every test is just a bunch of logical-ands and related instructions, mostly AVX.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Entropy for AVX</h2><p>The entropy calculation is fairly complicated, and is performed for every possible target word during the "find best word" operation. So it is worth optimising.</p><p>The naive algorithm described above requires pre-computing the total of all values, then performing a division for every value. These can be avoided with a bit of algebra, resulting in the following formula:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6m8hVZEyv80PLNu3-cxW6_8lkzHVYKJzo06FahcAL79uYlIuN00kR9NWnyk3dQDMME0fKFyYSdRI-KSn2xtNuG1ONKAMJn1BkbB8uSLwM_DySTS84SS7bGBG0Z3Ev4-SmNX_Rfk0aHEwOCoIinnuJQmztSDV_y4FdxKq_3q99-XNMaAs1nMI19WHJQEs/s754/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-09%20at%205.30.11%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="164" data-original-width="754" height="63" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6m8hVZEyv80PLNu3-cxW6_8lkzHVYKJzo06FahcAL79uYlIuN00kR9NWnyk3dQDMME0fKFyYSdRI-KSn2xtNuG1ONKAMJn1BkbB8uSLwM_DySTS84SS7bGBG0Z3Ev4-SmNX_Rfk0aHEwOCoIinnuJQmztSDV_y4FdxKq_3q99-XNMaAs1nMI19WHJQEs/w290-h63/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-09%20at%205.30.11%20PM.png" width="290" /></a></div><p>This looks complicated, but it's very easy to compute efficiently. A single loop computes the first term, and the sum of all values (Σ<i>n</i>). A single calculation at the end makes the adjustments.</p><p>There's a very nice header-only library called <a href="https://github.com/reyoung/avx_mathfun">avx_mathfun</a> which provides the usual math functions implemented with AVX, so this operation can be done 16 at a time.</p><p>There is one complication: taking the log of zero returns the value <i>nan</i> (not a number). But it's easy to replace all zeroes with 1 before taking the log. The resulting product is zero, as it should be.</p><p>The algorithm works on 16 values at a time, in parallel. At the end, the 16 partial sums are all in the same 512-bit register, and must be added together. Perhaps surprisingly, AVX doesn't provide a "horizontal add" instruction, not even as an intrinsic. It has to be done by first adding pairs taken from 16 to produce 8 partial sums, then again to produce 4, then 2, and finally a single value.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Results and Performance</h2><p>Once I'd figured out the key algorithms, it was quick enough to implement them and to verify their correctness. Rather more time was spent putting the whole program together with a command line interface and all the rest. I included code for measuring the performance of the individual key algorithms.</p><p>The result was a pleasant surprise. The original Kotlin code took about 700 core-seconds to find the best next word, at the start of the game. My new AVX code does it in 770 mS, or nearly 1000 times faster. Most of this time is spent in <i>match()</i>, which takes about 23 nS to produce the match result for two words, i.e. about 43 million per second. That is just running on a single core - with this performance it isn't worth the complication of running on multiple cores.</p><p>I'm running on a 3 Ghz, 18-core Intel i9, though this program only uses one core.</p><p>The AVX <i>entropy()</i> function takes about 570 nS to compute a single entropy result. This is about five times faster than the naive implementation doing each calculation separately. At first I wondered why this wasn't better - after all it is doing 16 operations in parallel. But the naive implementation can skip zero values, whereas the AVX implementation can't unless a whole 16-value AVX register is all zero, which is unlikely.</p><p>This could be improved, by considering only the possible match results. There are actually only three outcomes per letter - exact, partial, or none. So the number of useful match results is 243 (3<sup>5</sup>) rather than 1024. This would improve performance by a factor of 4 or so, but the entropy calculation is less than 1% of the total work, so it isn't worthwhile.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Conclusions</h2><p>You can do cool stuff with AVX and go a lot faster. That isn't really a surprise. But it isn't easy, once outside the classic mathematical workload.</p><p>As a programming discipline, it is very different from traditional one-thing-at-a-time computing. You can't do A, then depending on the outcome do either B or C, at least not in a general way. In that respect it is like programming a quantum computer - not that anyone will be doing much of that for a long while yet. There also, you have to carry all the results in parallel, without asking them to interfere with each other.</p><p>If you want to take a look at actual code, it is <a href="https://github.com/harper493/cwordle">here</a>. The interesting stuff is in the files wordle_word.cpp and entropy.cpp.</p><p><br /></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-66449297413029048812021-12-26T12:00:00.003-08:002021-12-26T12:54:04.791-08:00A First Visit to Nice<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">In January 1980 I attended my first ever standards meeting. Many more were to follow. This was in the very early days of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) effort, and a group called ECMA was working on the definition of the transport layer protocol for it. My day job at DEC (Digital Equipment) was leading the team building the X.25 network protocol for the Vax, so there was a connection, but I’m not sure why I was asked to go. It seemed interesting, and I was happy enough to go along.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">The group was based in Geneva, but their tradition was that alternate meetings were held there, and at locations hosted by the member companies. In this case IBM, whose primary centre for network software was nearby at La Gaude in the hills above the valley of the River Var, was the host.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d already travelled quite a bit for DEC, mostly to the Boston area which was home to the company and nearly all of engineering. I’d also been a few times to see the group in Annecy, near Geneva, where some of the network hardware was designed. I’d never been to Nice. Like most Brits, I knew its reputation as a super-chic destination for the wealthy, with their yachts and private jets, so I was happy enough to see it for myself.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I don’t remember how I flew there. Back then there was just one direct flight per day, so quite likely I had a connection in Paris. Things have changed since then: prior to Covid, I counted over a dozen direct flights every day between Nice and all of London’s airports. I took a taxi along the Promenade des Anglais to the meeting location, the Hotel La Perouse on the waterfront and about as central as possible.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s called the Promenade des Anglais because it was the British who turned Nice into a holiday destination. The city is very old, going back to Roman times and with a very complex history. Until 1860 it was part of the Duchy of Savoy. The official language was Italian. Italy, France and the Duchy had been fighting over territory in the region for centuries, but in 1860 France played a big role in the unification of Italy against the wishes of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Out of gratitude, the new country of Italy handed over Savoy. The southern part became the French department of Alpes-Maritimes, with Nice as its main city.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The British started coming to Nice, as a winter resort to get away from endless grey skies and rain, in the mid-19th century. They sponsored the construction of the original promenade - until then the shore was just a shingle beach. Even in 1900, Nice was a winter destination. Hotels and restaurants closed in the summer, because it was too hot.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At street level, the hotel had just a reception area and our meeting room. There was a lift to the first floor, which gave access to a terrace and to a second lift which served the rooms. I was a bit puzzled by this arrangement, though it all became clear later. The terrace was delightful, surrounded by mature lemon trees. Every morning we ate a typical light “continental” breakfast there, delicious bread and croissants with coffee.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjo07YyzvrTSJk61fHU4eKxn_Bwym-V-vK7I8abWdC6cg_Takn-IWJaMy1sFeaw6F9MtfiAMPJyDvQQQrdVMFFjJV1JQQkKkA495WPMbxXYmPlHxYAhiNVlntx-4Q-8Gkgk0MQOT2p_shmzJhRdzNHOrssNq8UEZhY0VGgqlb_Be70voqWX8XP-RGLi=s4032" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjo07YyzvrTSJk61fHU4eKxn_Bwym-V-vK7I8abWdC6cg_Takn-IWJaMy1sFeaw6F9MtfiAMPJyDvQQQrdVMFFjJV1JQQkKkA495WPMbxXYmPlHxYAhiNVlntx-4Q-8Gkgk0MQOT2p_shmzJhRdzNHOrssNq8UEZhY0VGgqlb_Be70voqWX8XP-RGLi=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The view from my room was just staggering. It covered the whole length of the Promenade, right out to the airport 5 km away, and the old centre of Nice, with the hills and mountains behind and the bright blue Mediterranean to one side. It really seemed like I had gone to heaven.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The meeting started after lunch. The group was called Technical Committee 24, and was responsible for standards for the OSI lower layers. Another group, TC23, dealt with the upper layers, but they met separately and I never encountered them. The chairman was an old-school Englishman, actually from Gibraltar, called Clive something, who worked for one of the non-IBM mainframe companies, maybe Burroughs. The group mostly split in two, and the transport and network layer working group was run by an Italian from Olivetti called Guerrino da Luca. Later he became the CEO of Logitech, the company that makes keyboards, mice and other peripheral stuff for computers, and it looks as though he is still Chairman of the Board there.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At this meeting I was a bit lost. I didn’t really know why I was there, so I just sat and listened. Work was just finishing up on the first version of the ECMA transport protocol, which was soon published as ECMA Standard 72. The work had been led by Bull, back then the primary computer vendor in France. It was already way too complicated, with multiple classes depending on which features you wanted to use. Later it turned into a complete dogs’ breakfast as it was “aligned” with similar - but different - work under way at CCITT (now ITU-T), the phone companies’ standards body. Later still, it became my job to make it even more complicated by adding support for Internet-style networks in what became Class 4 (TP4 for short). But that came afterwards.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When ISO later published the official international standard for the transport layer, as ISO 8073, it was identical to the ECMA work. In contrast, the network layer activity at ECMA led absolutely nowhere. It was led by two characters who loved theoretical argument and seemed to know nothing at all about actual protocols or their design. The noisiest of them was from ICL, Dave Ackermann. He delighted in pointless discussions about abstruse theory, though I suspect he rarely knew what he was talking about. His partner in crime was a genuinely brilliant Dutch guy, Oscar Rikkert de Koe. (His last name means “Richard the Cow”, a hangover from when Napoleon forced the Dutch to adopt consistent family names. They thought it was a big joke and made up silly names, little suspecting they would be stuck with them two centuries later). They have both passed on now, so there is no risk of offending them.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As usual with standards groups, we would generally go out for dinner together in the evening, followed a beer or three in the hotel bar. Ackermann loved this. He would always start technical arguments - friendly ones - by stating something obviously counter-factual and waiting for a reaction. Then he would distort the discussion so others were always somehow on the defensive. For my first few meetings I played into his hands and found this annoying. Finally, I realized that the way to disarm him completely was to agree with him. Whatever he said, no matter how outrageous or silly, I would just say “You know, Dave, you’re probably right.” He just sat there, utterly deflated, trying to find some new approach that I would disarm in the same way. It was just too easy.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A highlight of all the hosted meetings, away from Geneva, was a dinner organized by the host. The lead delegate from IBM explained to us that we were going to a restaurant famous for its version of a famous local dish, and we should be sure to appreciate it since we would never get anything as good. A bus took us there, a few kilometers down the coast. The meal started with fish soup. It was delicious, but we were all conscious that we needed to leave room for this famous local delicacy, and ate sparingly. Everyone was surprised when the next dish turned out to be dessert. Of course the soup was the famous local dish, <i>bouillabaisse</i>. We all felt a bit silly, not to mention hungry.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Looking back, I wonder why most of the participants were there. There was no technical discussion at all, and very little of any other kind. When later I introduced TP4, nobody ever questioned anything I wrote. Yet the same regulars turned up at every meeting. One I remember well was Peter von Studnitz, who worked for Phillips. He was very distinguished, befitting the “von” in his name, though he explained to me that this was a reference to the family estate now lost to East Germany. Still, he wore a magnificent cloak to our meetings, instead of a coat, and walked very smartly just like a feudal baron. During the meetings he smoked an especially foul pipe, that filled the room with blue smoke. Back then smoking at work was considered perfectly normal, it was non-smokers like myself who were considered odd.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Another participant sticks in my mind because he was a genuine kleptomaniac. One evening a big group of us went for dinner at a typical local restaurant, drinking numerous bottles of their house wine. Their method of making the bill was very simple: they simply counted the empty bottles on the table. Our kleptomaniac colleague had hidden several of them under the table, so we didn’t pay for them. There was absolutely nothing to gain from this - we were all on an expense-paid business trip. At the end of the meeting, he took as many lemons as he could from the trees on the hote terrace and filled his suitcase with them, for the simple pleasure of stealing. He never showed up to another meeting - I think his company must have been embarrassed by him.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Editing the documents was all done by hand. Even very primitive laptop computers were still a decade away. I remember da Luca writing new text in all the available blank space, ending with a circular tour round the margins. Once I realized how it was done I equipped myself with an “editing kit” in a little pencil case. It contained pens and pencils, an eraser, scissors, white-out, sticky tape, glue and a tiny stapler. TP4 was all put together - literally - with this kit.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The hotel is built on the Colline du Chateau, the original centre of Nice which dominates both the old town on one side and the harbour on the other. One lunchtime I went for a walk and discovered the paths leading to the ruins of the chateau, with wonderful views in every direction. Now that we live in Nice and are slowly discovering its interesting bits, we repeated this walk. The hotel’s name comes from the famous French explorer, Jean-François Comte de la Perouse. In the late 18th century he explored much of the Pacific and various things out there are named after him, for example the La Perouse Straits separating Sakhalin from Hokkaido. There is absolutely no connection between him and Nice though.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The meeting was held in a good-sized room at street level, behind the hotel reception. That meant taking the lift down from the terrace area - the “first floor”. One morning I got tired of waiting for it, and decided to walk down the adjacent staircase. It was far longer than I expected, going down and down and down. That was when I understood the layout of the hotel. The “first floor” is actually at the level of the roofs of the adjacent buildings, roughly at fourth floor level. The terrace is about 100 feet above the streets and the rooms even higher - which explains the spectacular view from my balcony. In the picture, you can see the yellow ochre hotel building snuggled up to the tower, its roof level with the top of it. The entrance is just to the right of centre.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Later that year da Luca moved on to greater things within Olivetti, leaving the position of transport group chair open. To my amazement Clive, the overall chairman, asked me to take on the role. It made sense, since I was by then the only one doing any actual technical work in the group. That meant that I had to start representing TC24 at the international meetings held by ISO - which is <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2020/08/some-network-history-open-systems.html">another story</a>.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Today, in 2021, we went for a walk around this part of Nice. On impulse I went into the hotel reception, and we took the lift up to the “first floor” and enjoyed a coffee on the terrace. It was exactly as I remembered it, still with the lemon trees, and extremely pleasant. The receptionist flatly denied that there had ever been a meeting room at street level, although I know there was. But, soberingly, she hadn’t been born when we had our meeting there in 1980, and nor had any of the other staff we encountered.</p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-67808071594381184772021-11-27T07:13:00.004-08:002021-11-27T09:56:27.239-08:00The Great Conference Room Naming Débacle<p>It's very common to give names to meeting rooms. Often, the rooms in one building will be named according to some common theme. In one Cisco building I worked in, the theme was "elements". The room nearest my office was called Arsenic. Quite why, given a choice of 120 elements, they chose one that instantly brings to mind nasty murders and agonising death, only the Facilities Department would know.</p><p>Another building named its rooms after cocktails. My nearest room was called Kamikaze - presumably whoever chose the name had spent more time drinking than studying recent history. It did attract some wry comments from my Japanese colleagues who visited there.</p><p>No Cisco buildings had rooms named after individual aircraft, like "Wright Flyer" or "Spruce Goose" - maybe because there aren't that many famous ones. Had they done so, Enola Gay would surely have been selected. It would have been the perfect place to close that city-wide broadband deal with the mayor of Hiroshima.</p><p>There was a DEC building I visited once that named its rooms after famous computer scientists. That sounds reasonable, except that several of them worked for DEC at the time. Wandering around you would see a room labelled Butler Lampson or Leslie Lamport, and think, I had no idea he worked here.</p><p>Which brings me to the topic of this post. In the early 80s, DEC's UK engineering team was growing rapidly. At first they tried to house us in a warehouse that was surplus to requirements, in Acre Road, Reading, next door to the UK importer of the disastrous Yugo cars. They did a cheap and nasty conversion into office space, which was woefully inadequate. The building was impossible to heat anyway, but installing a hot-air system that vented near the roof didn't help at all. As a result, everyone had a little electric heater under their desk. They also forgot to install extra power to run all the servers, and the electric heaters made things worse. Everything was so delicately balanced that one day a colleague arrived and turned on his 60 watt desk light - and the whole building went dark and quiet. After that they did install extra power.</p><p>In 1983 we finally abandoned Acre Road and moved into luxurious new digs called DECpark II, adjacent to the recently-built UK headquarters. It was specially designed to accommodate engineers, with dedicated labs and computer rooms.</p><p>There were 18 meeting rooms scattered through the building, and they needed names, a job which fell to the facility manager. He was a pompous and disagreeable individual, who drew attention to himself by driving to work every day in a Rolls Royce. It was agreed that the theme should very aptly be famous European engineers and scientists. The pompous facility manager organised a competition to name them, asking everyone to come up with their own list of 18 candidates. The candidates who got the most votes would be selected, and the entry that came closest to the final list would win a bottle of champagne. All very jolly-japes.</p><p>Unfortunately he'd forgotten he was dealing with computer scientists, with their usual delight in finding ways to break carefully designed systems, and to embarrass people in authority. One of our number, Mike, had already shown himself to be especially gifted.</p><p>This was in the first blush of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy">Hitch-hikers' Guide to the Galaxy's</a> fame. When we were first connected to the corporate DECnet, it was Mike who had ensured that we got DECnet area number 42, and then gave all the systems names from the series - VOGON (later famous as the source of the <a href="https://vogonnewsservicehistory.wordpress.com/vns-production/">Vogon News Service</a>), SLARTI and so on. Then there was FORTY2, whose DECnet address was 42.42.</p><p>Later another pompous new senior manager showed up. He wanted a dedicated system to house all the secret information that only important people were allowed to access. (Though I was one of the privileged few, I never did find out what he had in mind). Mike tried to call the system ARKB, and very nearly succeeded. (For those who don't remember HHGG, Arkb was the spaceship that took all the telephone sanitizers, timeshare salesmen, HR consultants and other indispensables, and abandoned them on another planet).</p><p>Mike, with a little help, quickly figured that if all the network engineering team submitted the identical list, we would be sure to win - we made up about a third of the total staff. Better yet, we would get to decide the conference room names. The team set to work selecting all the rudest, most obscene and generally inappropriate names they could find. The only one I remember was the German scientist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kundt">August Kundt</a>, famous for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundt%27s_tube">Kundt's Tube</a>. I'm sure you get the idea.</p><p>Mike distributed the list and we all submitted it. What the pompous facility manager should have done, of course, was to say, "Nice try, guys" and perhaps give us a bottle of champagne. But he was too pompous for that. He sent an angry rant to the whole facility and to our US management, and tried to get Mike fired. He completely failed to take into account that Mike was far more valuable to us than he was. Nobody liked him much to begin with, and after this he was reduced to a laughing stock. He didn't last long, and was soon replaced by someone less pompous but unfortunately even more incompetent. And, needless to say, we never did get a Kundt Room.</p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-6960606512300651082021-11-13T04:56:00.015-08:002021-11-13T09:55:53.065-08:00Peter Gibbon, RIP<p>I just learned that a very old friend of mine, Peter Gibbon, passed away a couple of years ago. We were very close back in the 80s, but we lost touch when I moved to the US in 2001 and I'd only seen him once since then.</p><p>After he retired, about twenty years ago, he spent most of his time working for a record company. It was on <a href="https://acerecords.co.uk/news/2020/peter-gibbon">their website</a> that I learned of his death. There is a long obituary, a series of very touching articles written by people who worked with him there. I knew him a long time before that. It seems worth setting down some memories of a very special person.</p><p>I've written <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2020/08/some-network-history-open-systems.html">elsewhere</a> of my involvement in the OSI standards for open networking, starting in 1980. That was where I met Peter, and for over ten years after we would find ourselves together in numerous fairly exotic locations, sharing excellent food and drink, tedious meetings, and many long and enjoyable conversations. He worked for IBM, where he was an expert on their networking products (SNA). I was never quite sure what his "day job" was, when he wasn't attending standards meetings. I think he was a sort of ultimate level technical support for IBM's important customers, which is to say every Fortune 100 company in the world. Since DEC (my employer at that time) and IBM were major competitors, we didn't talk much about our jobs within the companies.</p><p>The OSI standards were made at ISO, the International Standards Organization. Technical input came via the national standards bodies - BSI in the UK, ANSI in the US, AFNOR in France and so on. So to participate in the meetings, I had to attend meetings at BSI in London and present my company's input there. This was where I first met Peter. The meetings were typically in the morning, at BSI's offices right in the centre of London, in Mayfair. It was a very old-fashioned place, where tea-ladies would bring round urns of stewed tea at 10.30, accompanied by digestive biscuits. After the meeting we would adjourn to the Marlborough Head a very short walk away, and drown any remaining disagreements in good English ale. Though the BSI meetings were universally good-tempered, even when the disagreements were deeply fundamental, as with the network layer architecture controversy.</p><p>Peter was first and foremost a gentleman. He was always impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, as IBM demanded in those days. His voice, with its subdued but unmissable Oxford accent, invariably commanded respect without being domineering. When he raised his hand and said "Mr Chairman..." you knew that what followed would be worth listening to. Yet his origins were in the north of England, in Burnley. If you listened carefully you could just pick up traces of that accent as well.</p><p>He was always someone you wanted to have in a meeting. Even if you disagreed, he would find a way to compromise and make progress. I don't remember anyone ever getting frustrated with him, at least not openly. He was also a brilliant note-taker. In those days, before laptop computers even existed, everything in a meeting was written by hand. Peter's handwriting was as impeccable as his costume. I can still see it in my mind now, though I doubt I could find an example, instantly legible and, more important, always exactly to the point.</p><p>The one phrase that most comes to mind is, "Mr Chairman, perhaps I could draft some notes for discussion tomorrow?". No meeting chair could refuse that offer, especially not from Peter. Next morning everyone would receive copies of his impeccable handwriting, capturing precisely what he wanted the meeting to have said, just close enough to what was actually said that it was impossible to debate. It was sheer genius.</p><p>One of our first trips together was also one of the most extraordinary. In 1983 China hosted an ISO meeting. Now, meetings in China are commonplace, but this was probably the first time they had hosted an international meeting on a technology subject, ever. It was in Tianjin, about 100km east of Beijing, in those days a filthy coal-mining town. Everything was covered in millimeters of greasy coal dust. My clothes never recovered from the trip. The trains that carried the coal away from the mines were all pulled by giant Soviet-designed steam engines belching black smoke.</p><p>Among the many things Peter and I had in common was a love of trains. Steam trains had long since disappeared from British or American railways, so a chance to see them in action as routine daily transport was not to be missed. We made several visits to the main railway station, once we figured out how to get there. On one of these we very nearly got arrested for taking pictures.</p><p>Our meeting was in a giant conference complex outside the city centre. It had been badly damaged by the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, and only one huge building remained usable. It contained our hotel rooms, the dining facilities, and the meeting rooms. We weren't really expected ever to leave the premises, though there was nothing to stop us. We shared a love of buses, too. Peter quickly worked out that the number 1 trolleybus route passed outside the complex and ran straight into the centre of town. These ran about once per minute, meaning that there was always one at any stop, and often two or more. We were fascinated by them, and forever after would refer to something that was amazingly frequent as "like the Tianjin number 1 trolleybus".</p><p>Peter liked things to be very organized. In Tianjin he got quite distressed when one of the bus routes was diverted around some construction work. Neither of us could read Chinese, so figuring out where we were was an exercise in decoding scribbles. "Number four with a hat on" was a character which occurred often - much later I learned it meant "west".</p><p>After the meeting, we had the opportunity to go on a tour of China. Peter and I visited Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou and Guangzhou, before finally returning to Hong Kong. We had transport adventures together in each place. In Suzhou we went out for a long walk and miraculously managed to catch the last bus, or so it seemed, back to our hotel, a rattling, ancient thing that jangled along at about 15 miles per hour in exchange for our fare of about one US cent each. Very typically, Peter managed to find a bus timetable for each city we visited, and then seemed to learn it off by heart.</p><p>In Shanghai we just happened to be there on the Chinese national holiday. Our hotel was about 3 km from the waterfront - the "bund" - and the broad streets to get there were packed tight with people celebrating. There were buses, but they could barely move. We walked there, had a beer in the Peace Hotel, and then made our way back through the throngs.</p><p>Conversations with Peter were fascinating and effortless. If he knew anything at all about a subject he knew everything, or at least a lot more than anyone else. He didn't make a big deal about it, he didn't rub your face in it, it's just the way he was. We talked about transport in all its aspects, we talked about our work together on the OSI standards, and we talked about just about anything else.</p><p>He had an amazing capacity for detail. This comes through in the Ace Records obituary, but it wasn't just music and records. He knew everything about every single one of the ex-LMS locomotives from his childhood. "Oh, 43219," he'd say. "That had the experimental Throgmorton injectors from 1949 to 1954. So did 43336, but that never entered service with them." He wasn't showing off, he never did that. He just knew all this stuff.</p><p>Whenever we got a chance, we would go to transport museums together. We took the long, long suburban train ride out to Ome in the distant suburbs of Tokyo to the Japanese National Railway Museum (now moved to Omiya). We went to the railway museum in Sydney, where Peter turned out to know everything about every locomotive in service.</p><p>Our meetings were often hosted in Washington, DC. Peter had an encyclopedic knowledge of the restaurants and bars there. He would take us to somewhere exotic - I remember an Ethiopian place where, unusually, at the end of the meal you ate the tablecloth. Then it would be off to a bar somewhere, often followed the next morning by a spectacular hangover. He knew one place whose speciality was the B52, an evil layered cocktail that nobody would even try unless they were already pretty drunk. On one occasion we managed four of them each. How we got back safely, I have no idea.</p><p>He had an intimate knowledge of Washington's geography, which is more than you can say for the taxi drivers there. Taxi rides with Peter were an adventure. He would sit fuming at the bad route the driver had chosen. "If he'd just taken D Street and turned left on 14th, we'd have been there ten minutes ago." </p><p>Peter's facial expressions were extraordinarily expressive, once you knew him well. On this occasion his face said "this guy is an idiot". I have few photos of him, but there are a couple here.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg608JZpZyOhNWQOAOiHW9-73YsKjBisNt-tKH3E__B7aZH7gi6E1Gb-mN_ZyU9WBCN2wLynkVrr02fa_dYR_55qSKMoOFq2txaUAsxuZepAWHJMjX-GNJ3AAp7mcQlj9kpifk_IdxnW2k/s846/1986-tokyo-peter-gibbon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="846" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg608JZpZyOhNWQOAOiHW9-73YsKjBisNt-tKH3E__B7aZH7gi6E1Gb-mN_ZyU9WBCN2wLynkVrr02fa_dYR_55qSKMoOFq2txaUAsxuZepAWHJMjX-GNJ3AAp7mcQlj9kpifk_IdxnW2k/s320/1986-tokyo-peter-gibbon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>On the one where he is alone, his face says, "This is complete rubbish, and you just keep digging a deeper hole, but I can't even be bothered to argue with you." Or in vernacular, "yeah, whatever" - though Peter would never have said that. It was taken in a public area of our hotel in Tokyo, the Shiba Park, where we would sit and drink beer from the vending machine until the small hours. (We called it "Lois's Bar", but that's another story). I think Peter has already had two or three in this picture, to judge from the angle of his tie.<p></p><p>On the other photo, he is with a group politely applauding some formal speech. His face very clearly says "How much longer is this going to drag on?"</p><p>Dinners were generally group affairs with the UK delegation, half a dozen people at a time. Getting that many people to agree on a restaurant is near impossible. The discussion would go back and forth over a couple of beers. "I had Chinese last night." "I don't fancy Japanese." And so on and so on. Finally Peter would declare, "We're going to so-and-so" and off we would go. Wherever we went - Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul, Berlin, anywhere - he had food guides, actual paper books. This was long before TripAdvisor or indeed the internet. By the third night he would get frustrated. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxhOusZUeRrfRt31J3o2cNlKPrqfMmur9CMx9kPk8Pyd1j9FxXw_lrfQu21RKkvoD3Ov3Rdt7gKHO3G_DwLMkFFg0PAyuXL01Ys1r-NZMVlp6WpJFQsT43GboT3ZbXRMXFIxEEqWOwTY/s780/1986-tokyo-peter-lisa.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="780" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxhOusZUeRrfRt31J3o2cNlKPrqfMmur9CMx9kPk8Pyd1j9FxXw_lrfQu21RKkvoD3Ov3Rdt7gKHO3G_DwLMkFFg0PAyuXL01Ys1r-NZMVlp6WpJFQsT43GboT3ZbXRMXFIxEEqWOwTY/s320/1986-tokyo-peter-lisa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"I am <i>not</i> choosing the restaurant tonight," he would declare. "You can decide yourselves for once." He would sit on the sidelines with his "how much longer will this go on?" face as the group trashed every suggestion anyone made. I didn't even bother participating, because I knew how it would end. After fifteen minutes Peter would pull a disgusted face and say, "OK, I can't stand this any more, we're going to such-and-such." And off we would go.<p></p><p></p><p>In 1986 we had a meeting in Berlin, while it and Germany were still divided. We decided one evening to go train-spotting in the East, figuring there must be a lot of trains there. We crossed the border at Friedrichstrasse, an adventure in itself. We stood in a long line, then our passports were meticulously checked. Peter had grown a beard (the only time I saw him with one), which wasn't on his photo. That slowed things down a lot. They didn't really <i>want</i> westerners there, but they brought valuable foreign currency. We made the ritual exchange of DM50 or so, then continued our journey.</p><p>We re-boarded the S-Bahn to the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station). Absolutely nothing was happening. There was one train scheduled to leave in a couple of hours, and that was it. Peter had - of course - chosen a restaurant, supposedly one of East Berlin's finest, on Alexanderplatz. We shared a table with another couple, a mother and her son in his late 20s, but didn't talk to them. Then at the end of the meal the son introduced himself in excellent English. They were Czech, as was the restaurant. Peter started to get nervous. He'd once hinted at some peripheral involvement with the security services, and could clearly see "Stasi entrapment" writ large. Then our new friend started to criticize the way the Russians ran East Germany - "What right does some <i>Ivan</i> in Moscow have to tell the Germans how to live their lives?"</p><p>I swear that if Peter could have hidden under the table, he would have. We left as soon as we could and scuttled rapidly back to Friedrichstrasse and freedom. Peter could breathe freely again.</p><p>On another trip to Berlin in 1991, after the wall came down, we took the S-Bahn out to the former East Berlin airport at Schoenefeld. It made quite a contrast with our previous trip. The train ran straight through, no lengthy customs formalities. We sat drinking coffee in the terminal, watching the ancient Russian airliners that still operated there.</p><p>Since his long-suffering companion Mickey is no longer with us either, I think it's safe to mention one of the biggest things that happened in Peter's life. When I met him he and Mickey, still married, lived a very tidy suburban life somewhere in Hertfordshire. Not long after, in about 1983 or 84, on some trip somewhere, he met a woman who changed his life. She was a doctor, a specialist in something very exotic. She was obviously an amazing woman, though I never met her. If she and Peter were to be believed, she did odd jobs for various national security services as well as her day job in one of the major London hospitals.</p><p>Peter was head over heels. He followed her all around the world as she travelled to conferences and such. He and Mickey split up - I rather think she told him to go and work it out of his system, and come back when he was done. That was when he bought the little house in Staines where he lived for the rest of his life.</p><p>I think the relationship was always very one-sided, probably the one time Peter's somewhat obsessive personality let him down badly. It fizzled out within a year or so but it was a lot longer than that before Peter could put it behind him. And when he finally did, Mickey was there for him. She had already moved somewhere close. For a long time they lived separately, though I understand they remarried much later on.</p><p>He was in Singapore with his new love and took her to one of his favourite places, the Victoria Garden outdoor food market. He had taken me there too, a fabulous place full of tiny market stalls selling every kind of food you can imagine. Unfortunately on this occasion he ate something he shouldn't have. He returned with three distinct tropical diseases, each of them extremely nasty. He spent a week in the Hospital for Tropical Medicine in London - a place best avoided because you're just as likely to catch something even worse while you're there. Mickey was there for him - one of the few occasions I met her, when we both visited him there.</p><p>Peter was an amazingly good friend. At one meeting, in Guernsey, I had a very difficult time running the meeting, thanks to an especially disagreeable delegate. Afterwards I was fuming. Peter shepherded me to dinner at one of Guernsey's best restaurants and kept me company while I worked off my frustration. I remember that at the end the waiter, very solicitous, asked if we would like some port. "Can I get a pint?" I asked, still needing calming down. The waiter and Peter both laughed. I didn't get a pint of port, but the next morning was difficult.</p><p>He was always helpful to everyone. He was very aware of the problems of non-native speakers in meetings like this. Brits and Americans unintentionally use all kinds of jargon and slang that leaves others in open-mouthed incomprehension. Peter would take the time to explain in simpler language or to rewrite convoluted paragraphs.</p><p>In 1988 my own life turned upside down, when I met the woman who changed <i>my</i> life. For three years I lived on my own, not far from Peter - my partner was in France, and it took us that long to figure out how we could live together. I saw Peter a lot more often. After BSI meetings we would often spend the afternoon chatting, then go down to Staines to spend the evening. One damp February day comes to mind. We had a drink or two at Peter's local, across the street, then it was time for dinner. We walked up and down the high street, but every single restaurant was full. Only when we got back to Peter's house did we realize it was the 14th, Valentine's Day. Dinner was something pre-cooked from Peter's freezer, warmed up in the microwave.</p><p>My partner and I had also met attending the same ISO meetings, so she and Peter already knew each other. We married two years later, carefully timing it so we could spend a short honeymoon in Bangkok on our way to an ISO meeting in Sydney. Peter was undoubtedly the organizer of the amazing reception we got there from our friends and colleagues. We were both chairs of our respective groups, and one of the presents - surely chosen by Peter - was a pair of matching gavels which we still have.</p><p>My last OSI meeting was in San Diego in 1992. Peter was there, of course. By then I had finally moved to France, and had no professional involvement with Peter any more. I saw him from time to time on trips back to England, but it wasn't the same as being together for two weeks at a time. After I moved to the US in 2001 I saw him very little - just one more time.</p><p>In 2013 we celebrated my 60th birthday in England, with family and with all the old friends we could muster. Peter came along, with Mickey. By then his arthritis had become a big problem. He could walk, just, with a stick and some help. It was wonderful to see him again.</p><p>Despite all the time we spent together, I never knew anything about his early life. I'm not even sure what he studied at Oxford. I know nothing about his parents, though I recall that his mother was still alive back then. He just wasn't interested in talking about himself.</p><p>This has turned out to be rather long, but it is still only a tiny fraction of all the memories of our wonderful times together. Peter, we all miss you, wherever you are. I hope there are lots of records and lots of trains, and a staggering amount of detail to learn about all of them, wherever it is.</p><p><br /></p><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-24695428972832145572021-09-21T05:28:00.015-07:002023-05-13T09:53:42.862-07:00Moving my Plane and its Pilot to France<h2 style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyNYgg0gbvXJ-22qdg6cnT1_BOI9KiOxHGyes3GXRwvorZWKcMXDWiLJJ_O-P0FQRiZVVvN_RGhx3dGDwUBMQeK1sMCtn5vd5nb8iJi15unrrKGBsjDyLm4xZs98xdzebBtxToGBGxRI/s1600/sierra-at-toussus.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="1600" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyNYgg0gbvXJ-22qdg6cnT1_BOI9KiOxHGyes3GXRwvorZWKcMXDWiLJJ_O-P0FQRiZVVvN_RGhx3dGDwUBMQeK1sMCtn5vd5nb8iJi15unrrKGBsjDyLm4xZs98xdzebBtxToGBGxRI/w640-h434/sierra-at-toussus.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sierra in France, about to leave Toussus-le-Noble</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Sierra</h2>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When we moved to California in 2001, I started learning to fly. It was something I’d thought about for years, and in the US it was easy and relatively inexpensive. I got my private pilot license in early 2002.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I bought my own plane in October 2002. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I should get. I decided on a Cessna TR182. The 182 is the Swiss-army-knife of planes, with decent speed, a good payload and range, easy to fly and easy to maintain. The TR182 version adds retractable gear, making it a bit faster, and a turbo, allowing it to fly easily at high altitudes. I found a decent 1980 example at a local dealership. It came with the registration N5296S, and quickly gained the name Sierra, after the last letter.</p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My friend Bill, who got me started as a pilot, wondered how long I would keep it - apparently the average length of plane ownership is about 5 years. But we were together for 20 years, until her sad demise in the accident described later on. Sierra was in decent shape when I bought her, for a 20-year old plane. The avionics were OK but I soon upgraded them to what was then state of the art - a Garmin GNS530 radio/navigation unit, and a GTX330 transponder that could receive information about traffic in the vicinity. Later I had the interior redone, in cream leather which even now looks very nice.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Sierra and I did a <i>lot</i> of flying together, especially in the early days. With Isabelle, we often went somewhere over the weekend or just for the day. On one occasion I flew her to Denver and then to Leadville, the highest public airport in the country. Flying over the Rockies makes the value of a turbo very obvious. On the way there I made one of my few excursions into the flight levels, at 20,000 feet. (In the US these start at 18,000 feet, though in Europe they are much lower.)</p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">By the mid-2010s, the paintwork was getting tired. A long life parked in the open at Palo Alto, next to the seawater bay, had produced some nasty corrosion. It was time to undertake the repaint that I had been thinking about for a long time. I went for the original orange and brown colours, and a design fairly similar to the original too, though modified to allow for a full-size twelve-inch registration. The colours are “<i>so</i> 1980s”, but any other colors would be tied to a time too. Back when I first started thinking about the repaint, burgundy-and-grey were very popular (along with strange squiggly lines). By now that would look just as dated as the original colors, and even less suitable.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Soon after the repaint, it was time for an engine overhaul too. With that done, I had a 40-year old almost-new plane.</p>
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<h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>The Move</b></h2>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In 2019 we decided to move back to France. It was something we’d been planning, in an abstract way, for several years. Finally all the circumstances came together. One obvious question was, what to do with Sierra? I certainly wanted to carry on flying back in France. Flying is a bit of a drug, and very hard to give up.</p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d flown in France, and the UK, several times before, though not for a long while. From my own experience, and from following various Internet forums, I knew that it was a very different experience from flying in the US. Everything is more constrained and rule-bound, and a <i>lot</i> more expensive. Instrument flying, especially, is a lot more limited - there are fewer approaches and you have to pay to use them. I really wasn’t sure what kind of flying I’d end up doing.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Essentially I had three choices:</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">1. Sell Sierra, join a flying club, and fly club planes. The problem with this is that flying clubs in France generally have only a handful of aircraft, sometimes just one. Taking a plane for an extended trip is out of the question, so I’d be limited to local bimbling around.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">2. Sell Sierra and buy a plane in Europe. This seemed like a good idea until I asked on European pilot forums about it. Everybody said it was a bad idea. Maintaining a French-registered plane is much more complicated than an N-registered one. Also, I’d want to buy something substantially newer than Sierra, now over 40 years old, so it would mean investing a lot more money.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">3. Take Sierra with me. This isn’t without its own complications, as you’ll see later. But it meant I could keep the plane I know so well. And in the worst case, I could always sell her in Europe.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There was variant of number 3. I could leave Sierra in the US, get some experience in Europe, and decide what to do later. But planes need to be flown. I looked into putting her on the rental line at a club. The club head’s prognosis was uncompromising. “Your plane is old, it’s a turbo, and it’s retractable. The question isn’t <i>whether</i> someone will damage it, it’s just how long it will take. Don’t do it.” That left arranging with friends to fly her from time to time, but that could quickly get complicated too.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There are two ways to move a small plane like Sierra across the Atlantic. The obvious one is to fly it, starting at Goose Bay in north-eastern Canada, then via Greenland and Iceland to Wick in northern Scotland. For Sierra, this can be done without even installing extra fuel tanks. But it’s a risky flight - if the engine stops, you’re in the near-freezing north Atlantic, with minimal chance of survival even wearing a full waterproof immersion suit. I wasn’t keen on this, and my wife was even less keen. There are professional ferry pilots, who do this for a living. I got in touch with a company, who quoted me nearly $40,000. That is getting on for half the value of the aircraft, and not realistic.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That left the other solution, which is to unbolt the wings and put everything in a shipping container. Then, when the container arrives in France, the wings are reattached, and the plane is good to go. At least, that’s the theory. I found someone nearby, at Hayward airport just across the bay, who does this for a living. They quoted me $9000 for the dismantling, packing and shipping. There would obviously be some costs at the French end too, but it would be a lot cheaper than ferrying.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The surprising thing about their quote was that it included absolutely nothing about what would happen when the plane arrived in France. Their plan was to ship it to the container port at Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, and that was it. I’d assumed they would be in touch with a network of shops at least in major countries who could finish the job, but evidently not.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fortunately I had made contact with someone at my destination airport, Cannes-Mandelieu (LFMD), who seemed perfect. She was an FAA qualified mechanic and inspector (IA) as well as being both a French and FAA instructor. She agreed to take charge of the reassembly, and would also be ideal for getting the French pilot qualifications I would eventually need.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>Arriving in France</b></h2>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAww7X7nL-NVrzxqiGWupQbVU_jz7DBEfczRe3iZbd2CvIbyuaFr5w4yJMR_Mg6mPHk1nRCLhEDlyAPBvBr3MbrV4pDgG8U16nZ06u2qGOou2AY1IXcEsghm1FRIsFN8vVqhU57CdnS9c/s2048/IMG_3672.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAww7X7nL-NVrzxqiGWupQbVU_jz7DBEfczRe3iZbd2CvIbyuaFr5w4yJMR_Mg6mPHk1nRCLhEDlyAPBvBr3MbrV4pDgG8U16nZ06u2qGOou2AY1IXcEsghm1FRIsFN8vVqhU57CdnS9c/s320/IMG_3672.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sierra at Hayward, waiting to be shipped</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On Monday 15th March 2021, I dropped Sierra off at Hayward airport, meeting for the first time Ed, who ran the shop there. His office was full of exhibits and artifacts going back a very long way - he told me he has been doing this for over 40 years. I was joined there by my aerobatics instructor friend Rich, who had agreed to drive me back to Palo Alto. Ed regaled us with tales of the various aircraft he has shipped over the years</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The rest of our move was a long and incredibly stressful tale of bureaucracy, packing and dealing with the movers. Despite my worries and all the sleepless nights, everything ended up going smoothly. Two days later, on 17th, we set off for San Francisco airport, with our cat Missy, seven huge suitcases and as many items of cabin baggage, for the one-way trip to France.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As far as Sierra was concerned, there was nothing to be done until she showed up in France. The original estimate for that was six weeks - two weeks for the dismantling and packing, and four weeks for the container to reach France. That turned out to be extremely optimistic. Nearly three months passed before I even got a confirmed date for the shipment. The shop attributed this to Covid and the difficulty of getting hold of containers. For sure, all shipping worldwide was a big mess - there were articles about it in the media.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wasn’t bothered by the delay. We had far more than enough to occupy us with the household move, once <i>that</i> container showed up, at the end of May. It would be the end of July before we had (mostly) finished unpacking and organizing things at our new home in Nice.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In early June, Ed sent me the shipping information, with a planned arrival at Fos-sur-Mer on 20th June. Now it was time to get serious about the French end of things. But it turned out not to be so simple.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Communication with Ed was a problem - he didn't return emails or answer the phone. The one time I did manage to get hold of him, I had to squeeze every word out of him. The only information I could get was “you’ll need a fork-lift with extra-length forks”. That seemed reasonable enough, and I passed this information on to the mechanic.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ed had also managed to tell me the contact for the shipping agent in France. Fortunately they were extremely helpful and responsive. Finally the container arrived at Fos. It would take a few days to clear customs and then be delivered by road to Mandelieu.</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then it turned out there was a last minute problem with Plan A, to do the reassembly at Mandelieu. Enter my friend Laura. I’d met her on the internet very early on when trying to figure out the move. She’d shipped her own Carbon Cub from the US to France a year earlier, and gave me lots of useful advice. I sent her a despairing message late at night, when I got the message from the mechanic. She responded instantly, giving me the contact information for Michael, who had taken care of her plane.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At 9 the following morning I called him, naturally speaking French. After a couple of sentences he said to me, “You speak English, don’t you?”, and I realized he’s American. “Of course I’ll take care of your plane,” he said. We had a deal. I can’t even begin to describe my relief. To store the plane in the container while I searched for another solution would have cost something like €100 per day.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He wanted to know a bit about how the plane had been packed. I tried to get in touch with Ed, at Hayward, but got no response at all. Michael tried too, but to no avail. Finally he sent me a message saying, “Sorry, was in a car accident, but I’m fine now.” I hope he is, but that was the last we ever heard from him. Michael just had to improvise when it came to extracting Sierra from her container.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I had to call the importing agent again. Michael’s shop is at Toussus-le-Noble, one of the few GA airports in the Paris area. It would cost me over €1000 more to move the container from Fos to Toussus, but there was no choice. One little twist was that the container made the journey by rail - making Sierra one of the very few aircraft to have travelled by train. I was told it would take at least a week, because of all the congestion of container traffic.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>Reassembly</b></h2>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then on Friday, I got a message from the importers. “Please pay your bill immediately so the shipment can take place. Is the mechanic ready to receive the container on Monday morning?”</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Well no, he wasn’t. I’d told it him it would take at least a week. I called him. “Sure, Monday is fine,” he said. On Monday morning he texted me a picture of a huge container truck. “On my way to work, got stuck behind this!” he said. And indeed it was my container. Later that day he sent me more pictures. It was wonderful to see Sierra again, even if she was still a long way from being flyable. He extracted her form the container with no difficulty and sent the truck back on its way, avoiding any storage charges.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPY6t_1UyBXVF6r68e-sBdZO0WfSb67UnCNl_H4KwQrI70eS2evtaqvPaxHBoiO-vJ1GcZ5fxMIYOVQJmOYMupqv_zCdNaxfEgQsiwYYfiQBxppV6_ukXu6Q-ZvNGMXNKcWQtrqT4iXg/s1008/Resized_20210705_085040.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1008" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPY6t_1UyBXVF6r68e-sBdZO0WfSb67UnCNl_H4KwQrI70eS2evtaqvPaxHBoiO-vJ1GcZ5fxMIYOVQJmOYMupqv_zCdNaxfEgQsiwYYfiQBxppV6_ukXu6Q-ZvNGMXNKcWQtrqT4iXg/s320/Resized_20210705_085040.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sierra's container arriving at Toussus-le-Noble</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It turned out that the packing had not been done very well. The fuselage was resting on the bare wood of a pallet, with no packing at all, and the gear half-retracted. Surprisingly, this had caused little damage, just a few cosmetic scratches on the belly. As the reassembly progressed other damage showed up. They’d cut through a couple of cables when they removed the wings. They hadn’t noted the position of the critical camber-adjustment cams when they removed the wings. They’d damaged some bits and pieces of the landing gear. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed, but irritating.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I agreed with Michael that he would do an annual at the same time, since it would soon be due, and left everything in his hands.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A couple of weeks later I was able to meet him. He was visiting Mandelieu and invited me to lunch and to meet the people he knew there, which turned out to be extremely useful. He’d flown down from Paris in his Aerostar, a sleek, fast piston twin. It’s one of the few small planes where you have to worry about the 250 knot speed limit below 10,000 feet. Afterwards I visited the FBO where Sierra was to be parked and maintained, meeting the people there.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>Paperwork</b></h2>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There’s a saying in aviation that no aircraft can fly until the weight of the associated paperwork exceeds the weight of the aircraft. This wasn’t quite true for Sierra, but there was a lot to be taken care of.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The first hurdle was customs. Normally an import like this would have to pay VAT - 20% in France, quite a lot of money. But because it was part of our belongings returning to live in France, it ought to be exempt. Laura had been a big help with this, and among the vast quantities of baggage we had brought with us was every document I could find which would support it, including 20 years’ worth of receipts for parking and taxes at Palo Alto. It wasn’t enough, though. The importers wanted the original purchase receipt from 2002. Getting hold of this, or at least a copy of it, was quite a challenge, but fortunately it worked. The shipment cleared customs without a hitch.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The next problem was legal ownership. It comes as a surprise to most people that you can operate a plane in France with a US (N) registration - like N5296S. If we’d managed to import our Toyota FJ, for example, we would have had to re-register it in France within a few months - which is the main reason we didn’t. Probably over half the privately owned aircraft in France, and Europe generally, are on the US register, and flown by pilots using their FAA licenses. The ongoing bureaucracy associated with European registration is much more demanding than the US. Also it is pretty much impossible for a private pilot to obtain an instrument rating in Europe, so if you want to fly IFR the obvious route is an N-registered plane and an FAA IR. The European authorities hate this, and have taken steps to control it, but it remains true.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Still, without US citizenship, I cannot legally own an N-reg plane outside the US. Fortunately this is a widespread problem with a well-known solution. There are companies that specialize in providing US ownership via trustees, keeping everything legal. Following recommendations on the web, I got this set up without too much difficulty. In the US I’d owned Sierra through a Delaware Corporation, and the cost was similar. (That also created some worries over the duty-free import, but it turned out not to be a problem).</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally I had to get European insurance. This worked out to be bit more expensive than in the US, but not a problem. In the US, it’s insurance companies who really decide what you can own and fly. If as a new PPL with 100 hours you go out and buy a sophisticated retractable, you simple won’t be able to insure it. In Europe this seems to be less of a problem. For example when I added Michael to the insurance, so he could do post-maintenance test flights, all they wanted to know was his total time. Nothing about time in model, or retractable time, which would have been a major issue in the US. When I added an instructor to my US insurance, they wanted not only time in model but time in model of the same year, which is ridiculous.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>Flying in France</b></h2>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Although I can legally fly my plane in France without any formalities, it seemed like a good idea to get some experience operating in France and also with using French on the radio. This isn’t required for ATC, who will work in English, but it’s needed if you ever go to uncontrolled fields, and it seems like a good idea to be able to do it even with ATC. Also, from May 2022, a French license will be needed for residents even when flying an N-reg aircraft with an FAA license. The good news is that they have invented a simplified procedure for getting one, for experienced pilots, but still it has to be done.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We planned to stay at our “beach house” near Biarritz, while we waited for our possessions to show up. I’d flown a long while ago with the Aéroclub Basque at Biarritz airport, so I contacted them, but they took a long time to respond and when they finally did they weren’t very encouraging. One time, years ago, I’d stopped by the club on the airport at Dax, and when I got in touch with them they were much more helpful.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Their first requirement was for a French medical. I made an appointment with an aviation doctor nearby. In the US the system is pretty much self-policed. If you can walk unaided into the doctor’s surgery you will probably get a medical, as long as you haven’t declared anything the FAA doesn’t like - which is pretty much everything. On the other hand, if you omit so much as a dental hygienist appointment from your declared list of medical treatment, you can be banned for life from holding an FAA license. This makes the self-policing work quite well.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The French doctor actually examined me, which was quite a shock. I did a hearing test, a vision test, an ECG, a respiratory capacity test, and various other things. Luckily it all went well, and half an hour later I left his surgery clutching a French medical certificate.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My first flight at Dax was in a Robin DR400, the universal French aeroclub plane, which had been modified to fit a 100hp Rotax engine. The nice thing about the plane is that everything seems brand new. The not-so-good thing is the 100hp engine, which makes climbing a delicate matter and limits it to a top speed of around 85 KIAS. Still, I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere. We flew to Biarritz, not far away, and did a missed approach since otherwise we would have to pay the €40 landing fee. That’s another big difference between the US and Europe - in the US only truly huge airports, like SFO and JFK, have landing fees. At an equivalent of Biarritz - say San Luis Obispo - you pay nothing. Then we returned to Dax via the beautiful Atlantic coast.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Dax is a strange airport. I don’t know its history, but now its main role is as the training base for all official French helicopter pilots - army, police and so on. There is fleet of about 20 identical red-and-white H120s based there, and during the working day there is a constant background noise of helicopters. It’s controlled by the military, and civil flying is permitted only for the aeroclub and the small handful of based planes. You can’t just go and land there.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The other odd thing about Dax is the runway. The actual paved surface is 800 metres (2600 feet) - about the same as Palo Alto. But trees just off one end limit its useful length to 494 metres, about 1600 feet and definitely the shortest runway I’ve ever used at a designated airport. Landing on 25, the usual runway, you spend more time looking straight down at the treetops 100 feet below you, than you do looking at the runway. The airport is closed at night, and you can understand why.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve done several more flights there, getting to know French airspace and regulations, and practicing French on the radio. I speak French fluently, almost bilingually, but still the first few radio interactions were just as panic-inducing as the first few flights in the US. Now I can generally get by OK, but if ATC goes off-script I can still be left completely lost. There’s always the option to switch to English, but that seems like a bit of a defeat. Occasionally it happens that ATC hear my accent and reply in English anyway, which is kind of annoying.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">An oddity of French aero clubs is that the instructors work for nothing - <i>bénévole</i> in French. This makes no sense to someone used to the US system, where you pay $50-100 per hour, but that’s the way it is. Most of my flying has been with Pierre-Alexandre, a trained airline pilot, who but for Covid would now be flying for Ryanair or Wizz. He’s staying current and filling in time by instructing at Dax, but in order to eat and pay the rent, he works in a sandwich shop in the mornings!</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I also managed one flight with an instructor in a 172 out of Cannes. We did a tour of all the named VFR reporting points around the airport, which was extremely useful. I’d hoped to fly some more, but between holidays, aircraft availability and other hiccups, I didn’t.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Named reporting points are another non-US difference. In the US, there are reporting points around airports but they’re informal. At Palo Alto you can report Lake Elizabeth, Cement Plant, Cooley’s Landing and numerous others. The only way to get to know them is to fly locally. If you fly to an unfamiliar airport and they tell you “direct Joe’s Tire and Muffler” you have to say “unfamiliar” and hope they’ll come up with something less cryptic. In France every airport has a “VAC”, a combined approach chart and airport information sheet. For bigger airports this will include several named reporting points which are used when arriving and departing. Dax for example has S, SE, N, N2, NE, BG and more. Luckily SDVFR knows about these, because some of them are pretty obscure if you’re trying to identify them by ground reference.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>First Flight</b></h2>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA8Ag7VyfL-NT8ruUjmk4xdxMqXLFSyUzmFd2dJT7rxVx5wT2Bbu8o1PwEKGk2ERiijvfHk9sOqmKfyADioVanp1YLptOHlU7M-2dGYV9N26soEfgEWyjWcPXNrjfogE9_9ePDjkjykXc/s1731/route-of-flight.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1731" data-original-width="1359" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA8Ag7VyfL-NT8ruUjmk4xdxMqXLFSyUzmFd2dJT7rxVx5wT2Bbu8o1PwEKGk2ERiijvfHk9sOqmKfyADioVanp1YLptOHlU7M-2dGYV9N26soEfgEWyjWcPXNrjfogE9_9ePDjkjykXc/s320/route-of-flight.jpeg" width="251" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our route from Toussus to Mandelieu</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">Getting Sierra ready to fly again took a long time. There was, as expected, a constant string of little things that needed fixing, and then there was August - when the whole of France, including Michael, disappears on holiday. Finally, at the beginning of September, we agreed that I would pick Sierra up on Monday 6th. This was subject of course to weather - I certainly wasn’t going to fly a recently-reassembled plane in IFR, and with zero IFR experience in Europe. The previous week I’d signed a contract to park and maintain Sierra at Mandelieu - necessary since otherwise I would have nowhere to park when I got there.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Luckily the weather was good. A pilot and CFI friend of mine had agreed to come along as moral support, and practical support if necessary. We took an Air France flight to Orly, and a taxi for the half-hour ride through the leafy southern suburbs of Paris to Toussus. Finally, I saw Sierra again, just one week short of six months since I left her at Hayward. She looked perfect.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Michael gave us a tour of his hangar. His speciality is rebuilding damaged Piper PA46 Malibus, of which there were several cadavers around the edges of the hangar. Two of them had been damaged at the same airport, the very challenging “altiport” at Courchevel. We went to lunch at the on-field restaurant, where I finally met Laura - she’d agreed to join us there. It was all very enjoyable, swapping flying stories. She had worked in the Bay Area for a time, and flown out of Palo Alto, so we knew a lot of the same people there.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We did a short post-maintenance test flight together. Everything seemed fine, though we forgot to test the autopilot, which turned out to be a mistake. I surprised Michael by rolling into a 60 degree bank - quite forgetting that not everybody has aerobatic experience. Toussus is a tricky airport. It’s right under the 1500 foot floor of the Paris airspace, which is absolutely closed to VFR. It’s also hemmed in on three sides by the surface region of the same airspace, so it’s a bit like flying in a blind tunnel. There is one route out, and the same route back in again.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d been worrying over the preparation of the flight for weeks. French airspace is extremely complex. There is military airspace everywhere. Some of it is permanently closed, but most isn’t. All my French pilot friends told me, don’t worry about it. Plan a straight line, you’ll nearly always be allowed in, maybe with an altitude change or a slight detour. Michael had quite literally flown in a straight line from Cannes to Paris after our meeting there. But what if they <i>don’t</i> let you in? What do you do then? Finally, with the help of the excellent SDVFR app which understands all the subtleties of flying in France, I’d worked out a route which would let me avoid <i>all</i> military airspace, including all the stuff that would <i>probably</i> be inactive. It also avoided flying over any seriously inhospitable terrain, like the Massif Central. The actual route was Toussus - Rambouillet - Pithiviers - Nevers - Moulin - Montelimar - a few kinks around stuff en route - Cannes. I had to choose the right altitude - 7500 feet, no higher or lower.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally at 4pm, two hours later than I had intended, we took off. Despite all my fears the flight was completely uneventful. I soon discovered that the autopilot didn’t work, mysteriously since Michael assured me it had been fine in ground testing. It was quite enjoyable to hand-fly a long flight for a change. The first hour was over the rather dull agricultural plain south of Paris, under a perfect blue sky. As we got further south we started to see a few clouds, though nothing you couldn’t fly around. We also started to see terrain - we were within gliding distance of the Rhone valley, but underneath us were the rolling foothills of the Massif Central.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The town of Montelimar is famous for two things: fudge, as immortalized in the Beatles song Savoy Truffle, and its VOR (radio navigation beacon). Whenever you fly from London to Nice, the pilot always comes on to the radio about 30 minutes out and says “we are just approaching Montelimar”. Why this little insignificant place rather than say Lyon or Avignon, you ask yourself. The answer is that the VOR there is where the flight will turn left towards Nice.</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We did the same, but then we realised that despite the perfect weather forecast, there were actually some clouds. We dropped down to 7000 feet, and then by stages to 5000 - still comfortably above the terrain, though not what we’d planned. Our route took us over the vines of the Cotes du Rhone, and later over Cotes de Provence, and just north of the highest mountain the area, Le Mont Ventoux at 6600 feet.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYTvz1z6xPzNYcUxqa3CYk_dpDlPJ4Cbq_vE8TMb9AE9aoq93O11QzK9prlXK3ufHjKKpt5PN_OFtj56bn2xYZN0P4rjFhrg2JxfOF3l8og75DtO9Oe7xZIFWv4N4TMKLfOPZJ5WvGGF4/s2048/IMG_4225.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYTvz1z6xPzNYcUxqa3CYk_dpDlPJ4Cbq_vE8TMb9AE9aoq93O11QzK9prlXK3ufHjKKpt5PN_OFtj56bn2xYZN0P4rjFhrg2JxfOF3l8og75DtO9Oe7xZIFWv4N4TMKLfOPZJ5WvGGF4/s320/IMG_4225.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clouds over Le Mont Ventoux</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We’d been talking to someone for the whole flight. France makes a distinction between control and “info”, which is a VFR-only service. Sometimes they’ll hand you off to someone, sometimes they just say “squawk VFR” and leave you to figure out who comes next, though they will tell you if you ask. Generally working in English was fine, though it took me several attempts to get Marseille Info to understand who I was. That seems a good argument for using French.</p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally we reached the first reporting point for Mandelieu, WL, and were able to call Cannes Tower. They gave us a straightforward arrival - thank goodness for my one recent flight there. We taxied to my brand new parking spot, after 2h45 of flying.<br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And that was it. We left for the Atlantic coast again a couple of days later, leaving Sierra in the hands of Jet Azur to finish up the few remaining squawks. Now I have to figure out where we want to fly to, when we get back</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi172mqCJIqgXySkDltkv6Erj-ATS4WwcOMXahhiHnnN64qr1EC8iyPHZnRpayo8KiYl9p57Ia8K4HEB9tO1s_Q9CLZaEsUrVLCWYtgc7MTSe38-KZpSJxhIWvtPm5d91UgAq8VJiw_7oE/s2433/Sierra+first+landing+Mandelieu+6+sept+2021.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1719" data-original-width="2433" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi172mqCJIqgXySkDltkv6Erj-ATS4WwcOMXahhiHnnN64qr1EC8iyPHZnRpayo8KiYl9p57Ia8K4HEB9tO1s_Q9CLZaEsUrVLCWYtgc7MTSe38-KZpSJxhIWvtPm5d91UgAq8VJiw_7oE/w400-h283/Sierra+first+landing+Mandelieu+6+sept+2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First Landing at Mandelieu<br />\</td></tr></tbody></table><h2>Postscript - A Sad Ending</h2><div><br /></div><div>After Sierra was reassembled and we returned to Nice for the winter, I did several flights over the spectacular mountainous country north of Nice. I'd seen it from commercial flights, much higher - it is much more spectacular down low. I took quite a few passengers including my wife's doctor. I met another local pilot and we flew in his rented plane to Gap, and in Sierra to Avignon. That took us over the continuous vines of Provence, stretching for nearly 200 km.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime I needed to get my French pilot's licence, since from June I would need it even to fly my US-registered plane with a US license. That went fairly smoothly - I did some flights with an instructor at Mandelieu, then a checkride with him. I sent off all the paperwork to the DGAC in Marseilles.</div><div><br /></div><div>In May, for want of somewhere to go, we decided to visit Barcelonette together. It's a tiny airport hidden in a deep, narrow valley, approached over one of the highest passes in the area, the Col d'Allos.</div><div><br /></div><div>Getting down to pattern height in the narrow valley is quite an exercise - you get quite friendly with the landscape as you make the turns. When I lined up with the runway I realised I was still a bit high. No problem - Sierra can descend magnificently if asked to, and we made it at the landing end of the runway. I was a bit fast so we touched down further long than I would like.</div><div><br /></div><div>This runway has another unusual feature - it is humped in the middle, by about 15 metres. As we went over the hump I quickly realised that we were rapidly running out of runway. My "go around" instinct kicked in and I firewalled the throttle. But it was already too late, the end of the runway - and the trees beyond it - was rapidly approaching, without enough room to regain flying speed. I pulled the throttle and waited for the inevitable.</div><div><br /></div><div>It didn't take long to come. Less than a second later we ground to a halt on some gravel. A low bank just off the end of the runway had torn Sierra's gear off, and the subsequent impact had twisted the frame and bent just about every panel on the plane.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only good thing is that neither I nor my pilot passenger was badly hurt. We were able to walk away from the wreckage and spend the day dealing with everything and helping to move it onto the airport.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that was the end of my beloved Sierra, my best flying friend for 20 years and the perfect plane for me. Writing this months later it still hurts. I feel much as if I had just accidentally run over my own dog.</div></div>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-67695347339495156212021-06-23T12:00:00.003-07:002021-06-26T10:47:56.675-07:00Kotlin for a Python and C++ Programmer<p>A while ago I got interested in Kotlin as a possible type-safe alternative to Python for our system. A lot of the non-performance-critical things are done in Python. As a lot of people have discovered, Python works well for small programs. But small programs have a tendency to get bigger, and to take on a life of their own. Maintaining large Python programs is hard, and refactoring them, for example to change the way objects relate to one another, is just about impossible. You're sure to miss some corner case which will show up as a runtime error much later.</p><p>Our CLI was the obvious candidate for experimenting with Kotlin. This is several thousand lines of Python and predictably, it has become hard to maintain. My first efforts with Kotlin were not very successful. It is based on Java and inherits some mis-features and design baggage from there, which stopped me from doing what I wanted. Also, the build environment is a nightmare.</p><p>Then recently I took another look at this project, and saw a way around my previous problem. As a result, I have since written a complete Kotlin implementation of the CLI. It's a nice piece of code and much easier to maintain and work with than its Python equivalent.</p><p>Here's a summary of the good and bad points of Kotlin, based on my experience.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Really, really good: </b>the Kotlin language. It's a delight to use with lots of features that lead to compact, uncluttered code, yet totally type-safe. More on that later.</li><li><b>Very good: </b>the IDE (called Idea). Intuitive and easy to get used to, and makes writing code just so easy. Only problem is that it occasionally crashes, taking the system with it.</li><li><b>OK but not great: </b>libraries. Like Python, Java supposedly has libraries for everything. But finding them is hard, and figuring out how to use them from Kotlin is even harder.</li><li><b>Awful beyond belief: </b>the build system, a dog's breakfast of several different tools (Gradle, Maven, Ant, who knows what else). As long as you stay within the IDE, life is mostly good. But at some point you generally need to build a stand-alone app. There is no documentation for how to do this, and what you can find online is confusing, contradictory and rarely works. Probably if you come from a Java background all this seems normal.</li></ul><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Idea: the IDE</h2><div><br /></div><div>Kotlin is joined at the hip to its IDE, which comes from the company that invented the language (Jetbrains). The same company also produces PyCharm for Python, and the two are very similar. It's everything you could ask from an IDE. The instant typing-time error checking has spoiled me completely, and now I expect Emacs to do the same when writing C++ - except of course that it doesn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>The biggest problem, running it on Ubuntu, is that every so often it freezes and takes the entire GUI with it. If you can log in from another system, "killall -9 java" kills it and allows the system to keep going. Otherwise, you just have to reboot.</div><div><br /></div><div>It does a good job of hiding the complexities of the build system, as long as you want to stay entirely in the IDE. But the problem with anything "automagic" is what happens when it goes wrong, or doesn't do what you need. The build system is a nightmare (see later) and the IDE offers no help at all in dealing with it if you want to create a stand-alone app.</div><div><br /></div><div>It sometimes gets confused about which library symbols come from, and flags errors that aren't there. It still lets you run the compiler, so it's only a nuisance. It also isn't very helpful when you add a library that comes from a new place. You have to hand-edit an obscure Gradle file, and then restart Idea before it understands what you have done.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Language</h2><div><br /></div><div>Once I got my head around it, Kotlin is the nicest language I have ever used. It particularly lends itself to functional-style programming, but there's nothing to stop you using it like C or Fortran. The few irritating things are a result of its Java legacy - fundamentally, Kotlin is just syntactic sugar over the top of Java. Some of the really nice things:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>inobtrusive strong typing: </b>everything's type is known at compile time, yet you rarely have to be explicit about types. The compiler does an excellent job of figuring out types from context, like <i>auto</i> in C++ but much better.</li><li><b>?. and ?: operators: </b>between them these make dealing with nullable values very clean and simple. <i>?.</i> lets you write in one line what would take a string of nested <i>if</i> statements in C++ or Python. </li><li><b>lambda functions:</b> all languages now support lambda (anonymous) functions, but in both C++ and Python they're an afterthought, and it shows. In Kotlin they are an integral part of the way the language is meant to be used, making them a very clean and natural way to express things.</li><li><b>the "scope functions": </b>a collection of highly generic functions that make it easy to do functional programming. For example, the 'let()' function allows you to execute some procedural style code using the result of a functional call chain. 'also()' makes it very easy to write chainable functions.</li><li><b>generic sequence handling functions: </b>'map()' does the obvious job of applying a function to every element of a sequence or collection. There are plenty more that simplify all kinds of common requirements, for example to trim null elements from a list after some processing.</li><li><b>string interpolation: </b>the string <i>"foo = $foo"</i> replaces the last part with the value of <i>foo</i>, converted as appropriate to a string. That started with Perl and is now available in Python 3. Kotlin takes it further though, allowing complex expressions and figuring out the string syntax, e.g. "<i>foo = ${x.getFoo("bah")+1}".</i></li><li><b>extension functions: </b>it's easy to define new functions <i>as if</i> they were member functions of a class. They can only access public members of the class, but to the user they work exactly as if they were part of the base class definition. For example I wrote a function <i>String.makePlural()</i> which figures out the plural of a noun. This has always struck me as an obvious improvement but it has never even been considered for C++ (nor Python as far as I know).</li></ul><div>There's nothing really <i>bad</i> about the language. The "generic" support is fairly feeble compared to C++ templates. In C++ a template parameter type behaves exactly as any other type, for example you can instantiate it. And no validity checking is applied until you instantiate the template, which is very flexible.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kotlin's generics are built on the Java equivalent. You have to specify exactly what the template can and can't do in the function definition, meaning you can't for example write a numeric function using the normal arithmetic operators. (It doesn't help that there is no common supertype for integers and floats that supports arithmetic). Once you accept this, it's not too hard to work around it. But it's a shame.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Libraries</h2></div><div><br /></div><div>The great thing about Python is that you can find libraries to do just about anything. The same is supposedly true of Java, too. Since Kotlin can easily call Java, that <i>should</i> mean you can find libraries to do just about anything in Kotlin too. But you can't.</div><div><br /></div><div>I first ran into this when trying to use a Rest API from Kotlin. Python has an excellent library for this, called Requests. After a bit of googling, I found that someone had ported it to Kotlin, calling it khttp. Then I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to get Kotlin to actually use it. That ought not to be hard, but you have to tell the build system where to find a library, i.e. a URL. And <i>none </i>of the documentation, for any library, tells you this. Or sometimes it does, but it's wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div>I did finally get khttp working, and it was good. But when I returned to my project a few months later it had simply disappeared. It was a single-person project, and the maintainer had got bored with it and moved on to something else. There were bits and pieces about it on the web, and maybe you could get it from here and patch it from there, but it didn't look like a good path.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I googled around some more, and found another library. It's called Fuel, and it does allow you to make Rest requests. But it is obscure and barely documented. For example, when Rest returns an error, there is no straightforward way to access the details. You <i>can</i> do it in a very clumsy way. But even then, it uses the type system in such an obscure way that there is no way to write a common function that will work across multiple request types (Get, Put, Post and so on). You have to repeat the same ten lines of ugly impenetrable code.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the much-vaunted features of Kotlin is coroutine support, allowing you to run lightweight threads that maintain their own stack and state. This looked useful to handle parallel Rest requests, which I needed. Even though it is documented as part of the language, it isn't really. It's part of a library, and has to be explicitly imported. But from where? Everything you can find on the web says you need to "import kotlinx.coroutines". But that doesn't work. Eventually I did figure it out, but I never did convince the IDE. That showed an error right up until I decided I didn't need coroutines anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another example: a CLI needs the equivalent of GNU readline, so commands can be recalled and edited. The good news is that someone has ported the functionality to Java, in a library called JLine. In fact, they've done it three times - there is JLine, JLine2, and JLine3. They're all different in undocumented ways. But anyway there's hardly any documentation. To find out how to show history (equivalent of the shell 'history' command) I ended up reading the code.</div><div><br /></div><div>The experience with other libraries has been the same:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>the documentation is between non-existent and very poor</li><li>figuring out where to get the library from is near impossible</li><li>even though there is probably a library for what you want, finding it is a challenge</li></ul><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Build System</h2></div><div><br /></div><div>When you start writing Kotlin, you work entirely in the IDE and you don't even have to think about the build system. When you want to run or debug your program, you click on the menu, it takes a second or two to build, and it runs. Life is good.</div><div><br /></div><div>But if you're writing a program it's probably because you want it to do something. And for that you most likely need to be able to run it without the IDE - from the command line, file explorer or similar. In the Java world, that means creating a .jar file. And that is where the fun begins.</div><div><br /></div><div>You might reasonably suppose that the IDE would have a button somewhere, "turn this into a Jar file". But it doesn't, nothing like it. So you google it, thinking the menu item you need must just be buried somewhere. But no. What you find is incredibly complicated suggestions about editing files that don't even exist in your environment.</div><div><br /></div><div>When you do finally manage to persuade something to create a Jar file, and you try to run it, you get a message about not having a manifest for something or other. If you're an experienced Java hand, this may mean something to you. All I know is that the IDE has agreed to build something, but missed out something vital.</div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually, somehow, I managed to create a menu item that successfully built a runnable Jar file. Problem is, I have no idea how. When I created a trivial "hello world" program just for this exercise, I could never get it to work again. And then somewhere along the way I did something wrong, and the menu item disappeared, never to return.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ironically, I did once find an article by someone from Jetbrains saying "of course when you write a program, you want to be able to run it without the IDE. Here's what you need to do." The instructions were simple, and they worked. The trouble is, no matter what search I do, I have never managed to find the article again.</div><div><br /></div><div>Java programs were originally built using something called Ant. That was too complicated, so it was overlaid with another tool called Maven. Then that was too complicated too, so it was overlaid with something called Gradle. That came with its own language, but Kotlin invented a variant where the build requirements are described in a Kotlin mini-program.</div><div><br /></div><div>So far so good, but all of these tools are mind-numbingly complicated and poorly documented for the casual user. Such documentation as you can find, assumes complete familiarity with the world of Java. Just because Gradle sits on top of Maven, doesn't mean you can ignore Maven. You still sometimes have to go and edit Maven files, which use XML. I've always viewed XML as an object language that only computers should deal with, just like Postscript or PDF. But the Java world is in love with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>This all really starts to matter if you want to build your Kotlin program as part of some larger project - for example, our entire application. That is built with Make, and heaven only knows Make is a nightmare. But it's a familiar nightmare.</div><div><br /></div><div>The IDE creates a "magic" file called <i>gradlew.</i> It isn't mentioned in any instructions, nor what to do with it. But a friend told me that './gradlew build' will build a stand-alone jar file from the command line - and sometimes it does. Luckily that worked for me "real" program, though when I tried it with a toy hello-world program it didn't.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Summary</h2><div><br /></div><div>Kotlin is great language, and a pleasure to use. Sadly, the nightmare build system, and the lack of any help from the IDE in dealing with it, means it is not really ready for prime time as part of a serious application or project.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-10466318757229490552020-11-09T22:39:00.000-08:002020-11-09T22:39:56.513-08:00My Little List of Useful Principles<p style="text-align: left;"><i>This first appeared on <a href="https://www.john-a-harper.com/principles.htm">my web page</a>, but I thought it deserved to be repeated here on my blog.</i> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><a name="david-stone">The David Stone Principle</a></h2><p>“Never ask a question that has an answer you may not like.” Also expressed as “It is easier to obtain forgiveness than permission”. In other words, don’t ask if it is OK to do something, because the chances are there will be someone who will have some reason why you shouldn’t, and having asked the question (and got an answer you don’t like), you have placed yourself under an obligation to do something about the answer. Whereas if you just got on and did it, you could deal with any objections afterwards. This has two advantages. First, you’ve already done what you intended, and it is pretty unlikely that you will be made to undo it. Second, people are less likely to object after the fact anyway.</p><h2><a name="harper-socks">Harper’s Theory of Socks</a></h2><p>Everybody who has ever packed a suitcase knows that no matter how full the suitcase, no matter how difficult it is to close, there is always some crevice where you can squeeze in one more pair of socks. Those familiar with the Principle of Mathematical Induction will immediately see that it follows that you can put an infinite number of pairs of socks in a single suitcase.</p><p>If this is obviously fallacious, it is less obvious why. But in any case it is a useful riposte to the executive or marketing person who wants to add just this one tiny extra piece of work to a project.</p><h2><a name="lauck-ambushes">Law of Ambushes</a></h2><p>I heard this one from Tony Lauck, but he claims to have got it from someone else. Think of an old-fashioned Western, with the good guys riding up towards the pass. They know the bad guys are up there somewhere, and they’re looking every step of the way, scanning the hilltops, watching for any movement, peering around twists and turns in the trail. Suddenly there’s a dramatic chord and the bad guys appear from nowhere, guns blazing. Of course the good guys triumph, except the one you already figured was only there to get shot, but the point is, ambushes happen and take you by surprise even though you expect them, even though you’re waiting for them every second. And they always come from where you weren’t expecting and weren’t watching.</p><h2><a name="lauck-protocol-design">The Lauck Principle of Protocol Design</a></h2><p>This one is a little technical, but it is so fundamentally important to the small number of people who can benefit from it, that I include it anyway. Communication protocols (such as TCP) work by exchanging information that allows the two, or more, involved parties to influence each others’ operation. When designing a protocol, you have to decide what information to put in the messages. It is tempting to design messages of the form “Please do such and such” or “I just did so and so”. The problem here is that the interpretation of such messages generally ends up depending on the receiver having an internal model of its partner’s state. And it is very, very easy for this internal model to end up being subtly wrong or mis-synchronised (see the Law of Ambushes). The only way to build even moderately complex protocols that work is for the messages to contain only information about the internal state of the protocol machine. For example, not “please send me another message”, but “I have received all messages up to and including number 11, and I have space for one more message”. There are legitimate exceptions to this rule, for example where one protocol machine has to be kept very simple and the other is necessarily very complex, but they are rare and exceptional. As soon as both machines are even moderately complex, this principle must be followed slavishly.</p><h2><a name="lauck-things-that-work">The Lauck Principle of Building Things That Work</a></h2><p>If you don’t understand what happens in every last corner case, every last combination of improbable states and improbable events, then it doesn’t work. Period. Yes, you may say, but it is too complex to understand all of these things right now. We will figure them out later as we build it. In this case, you are doomed. Not only does it not work, but it will <i>never</i> work.</p><h2><a name="simensen-management">The Jac Simensen Principle of Successful Management</a></h2><p>Get the right people doing the things they’re good at, and then let them get on with it. It sounds simple, but it is rarely done thoroughly in practice. It's applicable to all levels of management but especially at more senior levels where there’s a lot of diversity in the tasks to be undertaken.</p><h2><a name="successful-meetings">The Principle of Running Successful Meetings</a></h2><p>Write the minutes beforehand. If you don’t know what outcome you’re trying to achieve, you stand little chance of getting there.</p><h2><a name="harper-multiprocessor">Harper’s Principle of Multiprocessor Systems</a></h2><p>Building multiprocessor systems that scale while correctly synchronising the use of shared resources is very tricky, Whence the principle: with careful design and attention to detail, an n-processor system can be made to perform nearly as well as a single-processor system. (Not nearly n times better, nearly as good in total performance as you were getting from a single processor). You have to be <i>very</i> good – and have the right problem with the right decomposability – to do better than this.</p><h2><a name="harper-scaling">Harper’s Principle of Scaling</a></h2><p>As CPU performance increases by a factor of n, user-perceived software performance increases by about the square root of n. (The rest is used up by software bloat, fancier user interface and graphics, etc).</p><h2><a name="delmasso-exclamation">The Delmasso Exclamation Mark Principle</a></h2><p>The higher you go in the structure of an organisation, the more exclamation marks are implicitly attached to everything you say or write. So when a junior person says something, people evaluate the statement on its merits. When the VP says it (even in organisations and cultures that aren’t great respecters of hierarchy and status, like software engineering), everyone takes it much more seriously. It means that as you move up the organisation, you have to be increasingly careful about what you say, and especially you have to be increasingly moderate (which doesn’t always come naturally!).</p><h2><a name="doghouse">The Dog-House Principle</a></h2><p>A dog-house is only big enough for one dog. So if you don’t want to be in the dog-house, make sure somebody else is. I first heard this applied to family situations (specifically to someone’s relationship with his mother-in-law) but it seems more generally applicable.</p><h2><a name="mick-central-economy">Mick's Principle of Centrally Managed Economies</a></h2><p>There are three reasons why centrally managed economies don’t work. The first is obvious, the second less so, and the third not obvious at all. This principle was formulated by a friend of mine during the dying days of the Soviet Union. Its applicability to centrally-managed economy is obvious, but it should be borne in mind whenever an organization’s success model involves the slightest degree of central planning.</p><p>The first problem is that they assume a wise central authority that, given the correct facts, can figure out the right course of action for the next Five Year Plan. It is fairly obvious that such wisdom is unlikely to be found in practice.</p><p>The second problem is that even if such a collection of wisdom did exist, it would only succeed if given the correct input. In the case of the Soviet Union, this means the state of production in thousands of factories, mines and so on, as well as the needs in thousands of towns and villages. But all of this input will be distorted at every point.</p><p>The lowliest shopfloor supervisor will want to make things look better than they are, while the village mayor will make things look worse so as to get more for his village. And at every step up the chain of management, the information will be distorted to suit someone’s personal or organizational agenda. By the time the Central Planning Committee gets the information about what is supposedly going on, it has been distorted to the point where it is valueless.</p><p>The third problem is the least obvious. Suppose that by some miracle an infinitely wise central committee could be found, and that by another miracle it could obtain accurate information. Its carefully formulated Five Year Plan must now be translated into reality through the same organizational chain that amassed the information, down to the same shopfloor supervisor and collective farm manager. At every step the instructions are subject to creative interpretation and being just plain ignored. The Central Tractor Committee, knowing the impossibility of getting parts to make 20,000 tractors, adds an “in principle” to the plan. The farm manager, knowing that his people will never get enough food supplies to live well through the winter, grows an extra hundred tons of corn and stocks it. And so on.</p><h2>Acknowledgements</h2><p><b>Tony Lauck</b> led the Distributed Systems Architecture group at DEC, and was my manager for several years. As a manager he was pretty challenging at times, but as a mentor he was extraordinary. He had (still has, I guess) the most incredible grasp of what you have to do to get complicated systems to work, or perhaps more accurately what you have to avoid doing. At first encounter, spending a whole day arguing over some fraction of the design of a protocol seemed like pedantry in the extreme. It was only later that you came to realise that this is the <i>only</i> way to build complex systems that work, and work under all conditions. With the dissolution of DEC, the “Lauck School of Protocol Design” has become distributed throughout the industry, to the great benefit of all. A whole book could be written about it, citing examples both positive and negative – were it not for the fact that Tony is still very much alive, BGP for example would have him spinning in his grave.</p><p><b>Jac Simensen</b> was my boss (or thereabouts) at DEC for several years. It would be an exaggeration to say he taught me everything I know about management, but he was the first senior manager I saw in action from close-up, and one of the very best managers I’ve ever worked for. He certainly gave me an excellent grounding when I quite unexpectedly found myself managing a group of nearly 100 people, by a long way the biggest group I’d ever led at the time.</p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-7512490186101532332020-09-11T19:50:00.009-07:002020-09-13T09:20:37.486-07:00Bread<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuK9BQKtLZrlpe3ZW76t03hE_uJvO7UfXvUGRofHHGzQDN8i1L1kRDsCtJIrhDjQWtOcHJtJnfmhy-bZHxwktm9mNgheqfHrWtNySTaCTOozO7kx93tHCURh__xdhALQWvA1w6Fl57cq8/s2048/IMG_3922.HEIC" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuK9BQKtLZrlpe3ZW76t03hE_uJvO7UfXvUGRofHHGzQDN8i1L1kRDsCtJIrhDjQWtOcHJtJnfmhy-bZHxwktm9mNgheqfHrWtNySTaCTOozO7kx93tHCURh__xdhALQWvA1w6Fl57cq8/w300-h400/IMG_3922.HEIC" title="Today's Loaf" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today's Loaf<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />At the start of the shelter-in-place order for the Bay Area I decided to try my hand at making bread. Me, and tens of millions of others. I got started thanks to a friend who gave me a bag of Italian Doppio Zero flour, and thanks also to a small pack of yeast I happened to have. Both ingredients had completely disappeared from supermarket shelves. I found a recipe on the web - which turned out to be seriously flawed. Still, my first effort was pleasant to eat, and encouraged me to keep trying.<div><br /></div><div>Six months have now passed. I've made bread twice every week since then, on Friday and Sunday mornings, which amounts to about 50 loaves. I think that now I've got the hang of it. There are really only two ingredients in bread, flour and water, plus of course yeast. Yet there are amazing variations in what you get with only small changes in the ingredients.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I'm getting ahead of myself. My two-pound bag of Doppio Zero was quickly exhausted. We had some all-purpose flour, but bread should be made with proper bread flour, which has a higher protein content than normal flour. The protein is what turns into gluten, which is what gives bread its structure and texture. Normally you can buy it in the supermarket, but not in March 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Looking online, I discovered a high-end flour producer (Azure) who claimed to have ten-pound bags of bread flour available. I ordered one, and hoped it would arrive quickly. But it didn't. When I chased them, they assured me it was on its way, but delayed due to the problems arising from the pandemic. That seemed fair enough, but it didn't help me.</div><div><br /></div><div>I looked some more, and discovered that I could get a fifty-pound sack of flour from King Alfred, <i>the</i> top name in flour in the US. It seemed crazy to buy that much, but it didn't cost all that much and it would solve my problem. I placed the order, intending to cancel the Azur order when the new order shipped.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can guess what happened. Literally within minutes of the King Alfred confirmation, Azure sent me a shipping notice. The two showed up within a day of each other.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ssfg4YHXn21wl257S080SY95VSkPRiPEaxcT1wBlkduhcE-P0ojZ2jRyByl4uYrwhQU31-i6PiLp4e7JEIHI7MuPhwuMA5CQENJumK41yhy8GMOmIfS44h1S43ccVCzppKDfMDLtxz8/s2048/IMG_3640.HEIC" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ssfg4YHXn21wl257S080SY95VSkPRiPEaxcT1wBlkduhcE-P0ojZ2jRyByl4uYrwhQU31-i6PiLp4e7JEIHI7MuPhwuMA5CQENJumK41yhy8GMOmIfS44h1S43ccVCzppKDfMDLtxz8/s320/IMG_3640.HEIC" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The First Attempt - just wheat flour,<br />and horribly over-hydrated</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>I had a few packets of supermarket yeast, but given we couldn't know when bread ingredients would reappear on the shelves, I needed more. Through a similar sequence of events as the flour, I ended up with two packs of yeast as well, a total of three pounds - enough for about 160 loaves. On the bright side, it keeps for a long time. Incidentally the Fleischmann stuff doesn't make very good bread.</div><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: left;">Tricks</h1><div><br /></div><div>A bunch of tricks I've learned along the way...</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing you quickly discover with bread is the importance of the "hydration", which is to say the amount of water. Too little gives you a very dense bread, while too much delivers decent bread but the dough is a sticky mess that won't hold any kind of shape. I've found 71% works very well, for example 340 ml of water with 480g of flour. This may seem over-precise, but when on occasion I've got sloppy and used an extra 10ml (2%) of water, the dough is really different.</div><div><br /></div><div>Early on I tried adding hazelnut flour to the normal wheat flour. I add 30g of it to 450g of bread flour. That gives a delicious nuttiness to the taste, and also contributes to the crispness of the crust. I tried walnut flour too. That gives a different taste and less of a crust, but it's interesting too.</div><div><br /></div><div>At first I tried to knead the bread by hand. It's very satisfying, but it takes a long time and makes your wrists ache. Now I put the flour (and a tiny amount of salt) in the mixer, add the yeast starter, then slowly trickle in the remaining water while the mixer runs. I leave it for ten minutes, occasionally stopping the mixer to scrape the dough off the mixing hook. After that a quick, one minute hand knead finishes everything off and gets the dough to the right texture.</div><div><br /></div><div>Personally I like bread to have a crisp, crunchy crust. It's tricky to get that to come out right. It all has to do with the way the starches react in the early stages of baking. Industrial bread ovens have a mechanism for injecting copious amounts of steam at the right time. The idea is that in the early stages, the surface is kept moist by steam condensing on the relatively cool dough. This promotes the right reactions in the starch, leading eventually to the Maillard reaction which turns starch and sugar into delicious light brown caramel.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since I don't have an industrial oven, I have to improvise. I put a shallow pie dish of water in the oven when I turn it on. By the time it is at its operating temperature of 500°F (250°C), this is boiling nicely, creating a very humid atmosphere in the oven. Then, when I put the bread in, I empty half the water onto the floor of the oven. This fills it with steam (and generally makes a bit of a mess on the floor too). I leave the pan in the oven for the first five minutes of baking time. When I open the oven to remove it, a hot blast of scalding steam emerges - showing that it has done its job.</div><div><br /></div><div>I cook hazelnut bread for a total of 29 minutes, 5 with water and the rest without. This results in a perfect, crunchy crust, just beginning to turn deep brown in the darkest places along the top, yet moistly soft inside. Walnut bread does better with a couple of minutes less. Really the goal is to take it out <i>just</i> before it burns.</div><div><br /></div><div>It has been a challenge to get bread to be the right shape, which for me means roughly circular and 3-4" (80-100 cm) across. If you stretch the dough to the shape you want, it has an annoying tendency to have "memory" and go back to its original shape in its first couple of minutes in the oven. Finally what I have found works is to flatten the dough, as part of the final "knocking back" which removes over-large bubbles. I work on the flattened, pizza-like dough to get it the right length, then fold it over and roll it like a giant sausage roll to get the circular shape.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even so it happens sometimes that a loaf "explodes" - it develops a big split along one side. This doesn't affect the flavour but it's not very pretty. Cutting slits across the top, half an inch or so apart and quite deep, helps a lot. The other important thing is to make sure the dough joins together properly. Generally I sprinkle flour around when working with dough. Thats coats the surface and makes it stick less, but it also stops it sticking to itself when you roll it up. A sprinkling of water (not much!) helps, and massaging the join together.</div><div><br /></div><div>I generally split off some of the dough to make a couple of rolls. About 80g of dough gives a little roll, perfect for breakfast, with a disproportionate amount of deliciously crunchy crust.</div><div><br /></div><div>At first I had problems with bread sticking to the baking tray. A piece of parchment paper covering the tray solves that problem. Surprisingly, considering that the ignition temperature of paper is famously "Fahrenheit 451", it chars a little at 500°F but doesn't burn.</div><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: left;">Recipe</h1><div><br /></div><div>I use the following ingredients to make a "one pound" loaf:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>450g of King Arthur bread flour</li><li>30g of ground hazelnut flour</li><li>a pinch of salt (about 3g - the amount is fairly critical and a matter of personal taste)</li><li>8g of yeast</li><li>5g of sugar</li><li>340ml of water</li></ul><div>The water and flour can be adjusted as long as they are in the same proportion.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I mix up the yeast and sugar along with 30ml of water and 20g of flour and leave them somewhere warm (around 40°C, 100°F) for 15-30 minutes. That gets the yeast going well. This is mixed in with the remaining solid ingredients and the remaining water prior to kneading.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since getting up at 4am isn't really my thing, I make the dough the evening before. Once it is kneaded, I leave it to rise for a couple of hours, then put it in the fridge overnight. I generally get up briefly around 6am, and use that to get the dough back out and let it warm back up to room temperature by the time I do the final stages starting some time between 8 and 9. A couple of times I have started too late for that, and left it out overnight. It doesn't seem to make much difference to the final result.</div><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: left;">Flour</h1><div><br /></div><div>I was very surprised, a couple of weeks ago, to realise that I was near the end of my fifty pound sack of King Arthur flour. When it ran out I switched to the ten pound bag of Azure. This turned out to give a completely different bread! The Azure flour is grey rather than white. The bread is denser, tastes different, and has a less crunchy crust. Obviously this is all a matter of personal taste, but both of us greatly prefer the King Arthur flour. Now that flour is easy to obtain again, I have bought another ten pounds of King Arthur. That seems to give even better results than the original sack, though I have no idea why.</div><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: left;">Sourdough</h1><div><br /></div><div>My friendly English baking neighbour once gave me a sourdough starter. This is supposed to have all kinds of mystical, magical properties. You have to feed it - to the point that if you go away for a few days, you have to arrange with the cat sitter to feed the sourdough as well. There's something very primal about it all, which I think is its attraction.</div><div><br /></div><div>It also totally failed to work. Luckily some conventional yeast added just before going to bed did work. I was feeling a bit badly about what I'd say to my neighbour. Then she reported the exact same experience.</div><div><br /></div><div>So much for sourdough.</div>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-47135191933688895042020-08-30T08:42:00.003-07:002020-08-30T12:35:42.477-07:00Some Network History - Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)<p style="text-align: left;"><i>The standards for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) were a big part of my job from 1980 until 1991. This is a very personal view of what happened, and why it all went wrong.</i></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Background</h2><p>It's hard to remember now that computers were not <i>always</i> networked together. When you buy a $10 Raspberry Pi, or a $50K server, it's connected to the Internet as soon as you turn it on. Not only can you find cute kitten pictures, but it will load new software and all sorts of behind-the-scenes things you probably aren't even aware of.</p><p>It wasn't always so. In the 1970s, "computer" meant a giant mainframe, typically with a whole <i>building</i> or floor of one to itself. They cost a fortune, and they were self-contained - they didn't need to communicate with anything else. The nearest thing to networking was "Remote Job Entry" (RJE) - typically a card reader and a lineprinter, with a controller, connected over a high-speed data line. High speed as in 9600 bits/sec, or about a thousandth of typical WiFi bandwidth. It would take a long time to load even a single kitten picture at that speed. These were used in places that needed access to the computer, but couldn't justify the cost of one - branch offices, remote buildings on a campus and so on.</p><p>Each of the mainframe companies - IBM and the "BUNCH" (Burroughs, Univac and others) - did RJE their own way. There were no standards or industry agreements, even though they were all doing exactly the same thing. Communication was over a "leased circuit" - a dedicated, and horribly expensive, telephone line directly between the two places. There was nothing that could be called a "network".</p><p>The company I worked for, DEC, was the pioneer for smaller computers - minicomputers. These were inexpensive enough that you could have several, which typically needed to share data - for example to run the machines in a factory. For this it had defined its own network architecture, called DECnet, which was the first peer-to-peer commercial network ever. It allowed DEC's VAXes and PDP-11s to communicate with each other, to share files, access applications and various other things.</p><p>They also needed to access data held on the mainframe. For this, we wrote software that pretended to be an RJE terminal. To get data, we would send a pretend card deck that ran a job to print the file, then intercept the "lineprinter" output. A similar ruse would send data in the other direction. At one point I was responsible for all these strange "emulation" products. There was one for the IBM 2780 terminal, and one for each of the other mainframe manufacturers. They were a nightmare to maintain, because none of these RJE protocols was documented. They had been worked out by reverse engineering the messages over the data link. So we were constantly running into special cases that the original code didn't know about.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">X.25 - The First "Open" Networking</h2><p>The first inkling of something better came along in the mid-70s. The world's phone companies - at that time still nationalised "PTT"s - had got together through CCITT, their standards body, and come up with something called X.25. This allowed computers to connect just like on the telephone or telex networks. No prior arrangement was needed, you just sent a message which was the equivalent of dialing a phone call, and then you could send and receive data.</p><p>My first networking job at DEC, in 1979, was to implement X.25 for the PDP-11 and the VAX. Just a few countries had networks - the UK, France, Germany, and the US, which had two incompatible ones. Although there was a "standard", it had so many options and variations that every network was different and needed its own variant of the software. It was also expensive to use, with a charge for every single byte of data. Getting a connection was a challenge, since the whole concept was such a novelty for the behemoth monopoly PTT organisations.</p><p>Apart from the technical difficulties of X.25, there was a much more fundamental problem. As one industry wit put it at the time, "Now I've taught my computers to talk to each other, I find they have nothing to say." There was no standard way to, say exchange files, or log in to a remote computer. Manufacturers could write their own, but that defeated the object of the "open" network in the first place.</p><p>There were a couple of efforts to improve this situation. In the US the Arpanet had been funded by the government in 1969, to connect research and government laboratories. It was this that ultimately led to the Internet, but that was a long way off in 1980. There was a similar effort in the UK, led by the universities, to develop standard protocols for common tasks. Each one was published with a different colour cover, so they were called the "Colour Book Protocols".</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">OSI is Invented</h2><p>Having a different standard in every country wasn't a great idea either. International standards for all kinds of things have been produced by the International Standards Organization (ISO) since its creation in 1947 - everything from railway equipment to film standards (the ISO film speed for example). Their work included computers. ISO 646, also known as ASCII, was the first standard for character codes. It was the obvious place to put together standards that would be accepted world wide.</p><p>The effort needed a name, and "Open Systems Interconnection" (OSI) was selected. </p><p>By then, the concept of protocol "layers" was well established. X.25 had three layers: the physical layer that dealt with how bits were sent across the wire; layer 2 (data link) that got data reliably across a single connection; and layer 3 (network) that took it through the network via what are now called routers. The first task of the ISO effort was to come up with a formal model of protocol layering. This is probably the only piece of the effort that anyone has still heard of, the "seven layer model" published in 1979 as ISO 7498.</p><p>The first four layers of the model - as described above, plus the "transport" layer 4 - were already well accepted and not controversial, though the details of their implementation certainly were. The last three layers were however more or less invented out of nothing and weren't aligned at all with the way application protocols were built, then or now.</p><p>The "session layer" (layer 5) was conceptually imported from IBM's SNA architecture, though all the details were completely different. It was extremely complicated, reflecting things like the need to control half-duplex (one direction at a time) modems. There wasn't a single application protocol that used it to do anything except simple pass through.</p><p>The presentation layer's overall goals were never very clear. What it turned into was a universal data metadata and encoding, called ASN.1. It was useful, in that it allowed message formats and such to be expressed in terms of datatypes rather than byte layouts. But it was vastly overcomplicated for what it did.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The OSI Transport Protocol</h2><p>My own involvement with OSI started in 1980. Definition of the OSI transport protocol was taking place in an obscure Geneva-based group called ECMA. DEC wanted to be involved, and sent me along. My first meeting was at the Hotel La Pérouse in Nice. The work was already well advanced. To call it a dogs' breakfast would be a big disservice to both dogs and breakfasts. There were groups who thought the transport protocol should rely entirely on the network for reliability, and others who thought it should be able to recover from a limited class of errors. Other arcane distinctions, including the need for alignment with CCITT - the telco's standards club - meant had it had no less than four separate "classes", which in reality were distinct protocols having no more in common than a few parts of the encoding.</p><p>My task was to add a fifth. All of the work so far was intended to work in conjunction with X.25, which provided a "reliable" network service. If you sent a packet it would be delivered or, exceptionally, the network could tell you that it had been unable to deliver something. It would never (in theory anyway) just drop a packet without telling you, nor misorder them. DECnet, as well as the emerging Arpanet, made a different assumption. They kept the network layer as simple as possible, and relied on the transport layer to detect anything that went wrong, and fix it. That meant a more complex transport protocol. This incidentally is how the Internet works, with TCP as the transport protocol.</p><p>I spent the next 18 months designing the "Class 4 Transport Protocol" (the others were numbered from 0 to 3, don't ask), TP4 for short. It worked exactly the same as DECnet's equivalent protocol, NSP, and TCP, but the encoding had to be compatible, as far as possible, with the other classes. However the operation was completely different. Practically speaking, a complete implementation of the OSI transport protocol required five completely separate protocol implementations.</p><p>I got a lot of guidance and help within DEC, but at ECMA and later ISO I was on my own. Nobody else cared about TP4, nor understood it. That suited me perfectly. It was published in 1981 as ECMA-72.</p><p>Maybe because I was really the only one doing any technical work in the group, when the current chair was moved on to another project by his company, I was asked to take that on. It was quite an honour - I was only 28, in the world of standards which (as in politics) tends to be dominated by people towards the end of their careers. That also meant that I got to attend ISO meetings, representing ECMA, the beginning of a long involvement. </p><p>ISO adopted the ECMA proposal for the transport protocol, all five incompatible classes of it, without any technical changes. It was later published as ISO 8073.</p><p>Around this time I took up DEC's offer to move to the US for a while, to lead a team building software to connect to IBM systems using their SNA architecture. At least, that was what I was told. In reality, they already had someone for the job, and I was just backup. That gave me plenty of time to work with the network architecture team there, the people responsible for the design of DECnet. The team was <i>really</i> smart and had a big influence on my career, at DEC and subsequently.</p><p>ISO meetings were held all around the world, hosted by the various national standards bodies (like BSI, ANSI and AFNOR) and their industry members like IBM and DEC. In those early days I went to meetings in Paris, London, California, Washington DC, Tokyo and others. </p><p>The day before the California meeting, in Newport Beach, we had a very hush-hush meeting at DEC. It was the only time I was in the same room as the CEO and founder, Ken Olsen, along with our genius CTO, Gordon Bell, and our head of standards. The occasion was a meeting with the CEO of ICL, the British computer company which was still important then, and a high powered team on his side. ICL was convinced that IBM was trying to take over computer networking and impose SNA on the world. That would be a disaster for us, since SNA was very firmly oriented to the mainframe world and not designed for peer-to-peer computing at all. Ken was readily convinced that salvation lie in the creation of international standards that IBM would be obliged to follow, which is to say OSI.</p><p>This completely transformed my role in things. Until then, my standards work had been an interesting diversion, the kind of thing that large companies do <i>pro bono</i> for the good of the industry. I thoroughly enjoyed it but nobody at DEC really cared much. Suddenly, it was a key element of the company's strategy, with me and a handful of others at its heart.</p><p>In 1983 something extraordinary happened. We were invited by China to have our meeting there, the first international technical meeting that China ever hosted. That meeting, in Tianjin, deserves its own article.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The OSI Network Layer</h2><p>Shortly after the Tianjin meeting there was a shake-up in the way the various working committees were structured, which left the chair of the network layer group (SC6/WG2) open. This was by far the most complex area of OSI. The meetings were routinely attended by nearly 100 people. It was also extremely controversial, and from DEC's point of view the most important area. I was astounded when I was asked if I'd be willing to chair it. I later learned some of the negotiations behind this from Gary Robinson, for many years DEC's head of standards and an extremely wily political operator. (He was responsible for the tricky compromises that allowed Ethernet and other LAN standards to go ahead despite enormous fundamental disagreement - Token Ring and Token Bus were still very much alive). In essence, the other possible candidates, all much more qualified and experienced than me, had too many enemies. I hadn't yet made any, so I became chair of what was officially ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6/WG2, the OSI network layer group, and went on to acquire plenty of my own enemies.</p><p>The problem with the network layer was a complete schism between the circuit view of things and the packet view. The telcos had built X.25, at great expense, and saw that as the model for the network. The user of the network established a "connection", and packets were delivered tidily and in order across the connection. The packet view, which included DEC, was that the network could only be trusted to deliver packets, and then not reliably, and should make no effort to do any more. It could safely be left to the transport layer to fix up the resulting errors.</p><p>In OSI-speak, these were respectively the "connection-oriented network service", or CONS, and the "connectionless network service", or CLNS. By the time I arrived there had already been years of debate and architectural hypothesis about how to somehow combine these two views. This had generated one of the most incomprehensible "standard" documents of all time, the "Internal Organisation of the Network Layer" (IONL, ISO 8648). The dust was just about beginning to settle on the only way forward, which was to allow the two to progress in parallel. There was no compromise possible.</p><p>The telcos hated this, because it pushed their precious X.25 networks down into a subsidiary role underneath a universal packet protocol, making all of their expensively engineered reliability features unnecessary. From our (DEC) view, this was far better than the complex engineering required to somehow stitch together an "internet" from a sequence of connections. Building a network router is hard enough. There's no need, or point, to make it even harder.</p><p>So by the time I was in charge of things, we had two parallel efforts. The CLNS side was led almost entirely by DEC, with excellent support from others in the US. As a result we were able to make rapid progress. We came up with a relatively simple protocol with no options, variants and all the other horrors than bedevilled OSI. It was standardized as ISO 8473, the Connectionless Network Protocol (CLNP). </p><p>As chair, I had a duty to be non partisan. On the other hand, I had no duty to actively help the CONS camp. Between the complexity of X.25, the additional complexity of trying to use it as an internet protocol, and internal divisions within the camp, they had little chance of success. After years of work they never did come up with anything that could be built.</p><p>That said, this schism did enormous damage to OSI, and was a major factor in its ultimate demise. To us at DEC it was obvious that CONS was a doomed sideshow, but to an observer it just showed a complete inability to make decisions or come up with something that could be built.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">DECnet-OSI</h2><p>That really highlights the basic flaw of the OSI process. Creating complex technology in a committee just doesn't work. It's hard enough to get a network architecture right, without having to embody delicate political compromises in every aspect of the design. Successful standards like TCP, IP and HTTP/HTML were designed by a single person or a small group under strong leadership. Where possible, we did the same thing at DEC. For example the routing protocol for OSI, universally called "IS-IS", was developed by a small team at DEC, and it <i>still</i> works. With modifications to support IP as well as OSI, it is still used by many of world's large telcos. We managed to get that through the OSI process with hardly any changes.</p><p>At DEC we had whole-heartedly adopted OSI as the future of networking. DECnet, our very successful networking system, was rebranded DECnet-OSI and was to be completely restructured to use the OSI protocols. We even persuaded James Martin, a well-known author of IBM-oriented textbooks, to write a book about it. That probably deserves its own article too. As it turned out, DECnet-OSI never really happened. That was more to do with internal engineering execution problems than with OSI itself, since we carefully picked only the bits that could be made to work.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The OSI Transaction Processing Protocol (or not)</h2><p>In 1987 I got involved in another part of OSI. IBM had never really tried to influence the OSI lower layers or to try to make them like SNA. But suddenly they came up with the idea of imposing it on the upper layers. SNA had a very complex upper layer structure, mostly oriented around traditional mainframe networking like remote job entry. But they had finally woken up to peer-to-peer networking and added something called LU6.2 to support it. Their idea was to make LU6.2 an integral part of OSI, so that all applications of OSI would in effect be SNA applications. It was a good idea from their point of view, and was very strongly supported by senior management there.</p><p>We knew this was coming because of the way ISO works. It started as a "club" of the national standards bodies, and to a large degree still is. This means that proposals can't be submitted directly to ISO, they have to pass through a national standards body - or at least, they did at the time, things have changed a bit since then.</p><p>The question was, what to do about it? IBM were heavily constrained by the existing standards and projects. If they had come along with this five years earlier, it would have been much harder to stop, but now they had to find an empty spot they could introduce it to. This they did, under the guise of "transaction processing". So at the 1987 meeting in Tokyo, there was a "New Work Item" for transaction processing, as another application layer standard. To this was attached all of the IBM contributions, which is to say LU6.2 warmed over.</p><p>I got a call about a month before the meeting from DEC's CTO, saying, "John, we need you to go and stop this." In the standards process it is almost impossible to stop anything. Once a piece of work is under way, it <i>will</i> continue. Actually terminating a project or committee is virtually impossible. Typically committees continue to meet for years after they no longer serve any useful purpose. So if you want to stop something, you have to either divert it into something harmless, or ensure that it makes no progress.</p><p>An experienced chair knows that there are some people who, while working with the very best of intentions, will just about guarantee that nothing ever emerges. It's just the way they're made. I have had the good fortune to know several. You may ask, why "good" fortune? The answer is that if you don't want something to work out, you arrange for them to be put in charge of it. I couldn't possibly say whether something like this may have influenced the failure of the CONS work to deliver.</p><p>For IBM's LU6.2 proposal, though, this would not work. They had put some technically strong people from their network engineering centre in La Gaude, France in charge of it. In truth I had little idea what I would do until I got to the meeting. It turned out that there were three camps:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>IBM and others who liked the idea of LU6.2 being part of OSI</li><li>Those who thought that making it part of the standard would act against IBM's interests, by making it easier to compete with them. While these people were "enemies of IBM" and in some sense on the same side as me, as far as this meeting was concerned, they were my opponents. For example, France's Bull was in this camp.</li><li>Those who didn't want it. This turned out to be just me, and ICL.</li></ul><div>So I was hardly in a position of strength. In addition, I hadn't been able to make any official contribution to the meeting ahead of time. On the other hand, the people IBM had sent knew little about OSI and the way the upper layers had evolved. They seemed to believe they could do as they had, for example, with Token Ring (and as DEC and Xerox had with Ethernet as well) - just show up with a spec and get it approved as a standard. But things had already gone way too far for that. There were already too many bits and pieces of protocols and services defined.</div><div><br /></div><div>This was their Achilles' Heel. In the end it was remarkably easy to divert the activity to a study of the requirements for transaction processing (and it turned out there weren't any), and how they could best be met with existing OSI work. Only then would extensions be studied. This was instant death to the idea of just sticking an OSI rubber stamp on LU6.2.</div><div><br /></div><div>That all makes it sound very easy, though. I was on my own against a large group of people who all wanted me to fail. It was one of the toughest things I'ver ever done. Luckily there were a lot of DEC people and other friends at other parts of the meeting, so the evenings and weekend were very enjoyable as usual. </div><div><br /></div><div>There was one person at the meeting who genuinely frightened me. He was incredibly rude and aggressive during the formal meeting, to the point where it became very personal. It was a ten minute walk from the meeting place, just opposite the Tokyo Tower, to our usual hotel, the Shiba Park. I spent those ten minutes looking over my shoulder to be sure he wasn't following me.</div><div><br /></div><div>That had an interesting consequence. The head of the US delegation was from IBM, and very much of the old school. He was close to retirement and, like most standards people of that era, very much a gentleman. A few weeks later, I was invited, along with DEC's head of standards, to a meeting at IBM's office in New York City. There the IBM guy apologised profusely, and very professionally, on behalf of both IBM and the United States - even though the person in question didn't work for IBM.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't exactly remember what happened after that meeting, but I think IBM just quietly dropped the idea and it faded away.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">OSI Management</h2><div>DECnet had powerful remote management capabilities, essential in a networked environment. We knew that if OSI was to be useful, it had to have the same. There was a management activity but for years it had been very academic and gone nowhere. There were some smart people in the UK who wanted management to work too, and between us we came up with everything required: a protocol, and a formal way to specify the metadata. In the end it never got implemented, because OSI was already struggling by the time it was ready. But it was a nice piece of work. It also got me to several interesting places I otherwise would have no reason to go to.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Why Did OSI Fail?</h2><div><br /></div><div>My final OSI meeting was in 1991, in San Diego. By then I had moved to a new job in the company and was no longer involved with the DECnet architecture. In any case the writing was on the wall: the OSI concept would happen, but it would happen through the Internet protocol suite under development in the IETF. DEC officially made the change shortly afterwards.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why was OSI such a total failure? It was the work of hundreds of network experts, many of whom really were the top people in their fields. Yet hardly a single trace of it remains. On the other hand the <i>concept</i> of universal computer interconnection has been a huge success, way beyond the dreams of the OSI founders. All they hoped for was the <i>possibility</i> of open communication, they didn't expect it to be a constant feature of the way we use computers. The only thing is, this is all done using the protocols developed by the IETF and loosely called TCP/IP.</div><div><br /></div><div>OSI was <i>way</i> too complex, with too many options and choices. It was a nightmare to implement, made worse because this was before open source caught on. Some companies tried to make a living selling complete OSI protocol stacks, but that was never really a success. At DEC we had a full OSI implementation several years before DECnet-OSI, but hardly anyone bought it - only a few academic and research users.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think the main reason was that there was no compelling use case. That seems hard to believe now, but in 1990 it was a chicken and egg situation - until the connectivity was available, there was no use for it. My old boss at DEC said the main reason TCP/IP took over was that Sun was shipping it as part of their BSD-based software, and it was just there, free and available. Because of that, people started to find uses for it. That also happened to coincide with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990. It was only a minuscule shadow of what it has become, but was a reason to be connected.</div><div><br /></div><div>By 1995 it was obvious that the future of networking lay with the IETF and TCP/IP. In Europe there were still efforts to keep OSI alive, but without manufacturer support they went nowhere. Around 1997 I was paid to write a study of why the IETF had been so much more successful than ISO. The simple answer is that while IETF is a committee, or actually a collection of numerous committees, each individual standard is produced by at most two or three people. It is then discussed and may get modified, but it is not "design by committee". That is less true now than it was in 1995 - all organisations tend to become sclerotic with age. But back then its motto was "rough consensus and working code". It got stuff done.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h2><div><br /></div><div>From a personal point of view, OSI was one of the most interesting things I've ever done. It taught me a great deal about how to lead in situations where you have absolutely no official authority. It took me on many, many journeys to fascinating places around the world. It also provided my introduction to the woman who would later be my life partner, though that isn't part of this story.</div><div><br /></div><div>It can be endlessly debated whether OSI was a complete waste of time and effort, or whether it postponed open networking long enough for IBM's SNA to lose its predominant role, making room for TCP/IP. We will never know.</div><div><br /></div><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-76929970028676763392020-08-13T13:38:00.002-07:002020-08-13T14:04:44.323-07:00The Doing Nothing Contract, or How Not to Run Large Projects<p> Soon after I left DEC, in 1995, I got involved in what would have been the biggest Systems Integration (SI) project they had ever done. This is the story of the project.</p><p>I joined DEC when I left university, 20 years earlier. It was a fantastic place for an engineer to work, and I enjoyed nearly every day I worked there. But in 1995 it was obviously going downhill - it was acquired first by Compaq in 1999, and then by HP - and I found a way to make a decent exit. While I was looking for another job, I started a consultancy business which turned out to keep me busy for the next four years.</p><p>About a year later I ran into a former colleague on a plane. He told me about a project that they were working on for a major European telco. It was going to be huge. Did I know anyone who might be able to help? Well, yes, there was me. I think he knew that and was just being polite. I did point out that my daily rate was over double what DEC would normally pay. This wasn't a problem, he said, because they wanted to assemble an elite team of top-level architects to get the overall design right. Within a week I had a purchase order for three months of my time, 40 hours per week, at my usual high daily rate.</p><p>The following Monday I showed up at the DEC office in Reading, England. There were two other people in the "elite" team. One was Dave, who I knew quite well - like me, he had already spent 20 years as an employee.</p><p>The project was very interesting, on an oft-repeated theme. Telephone networks have always been built using proprietary systems built by specialized suppliers like (then) GEC and Alcatel, costing at least ten times more than normal contemporary computers. The client had figured out that this was just a big distributed computing application, and wanted to run their national telephone and data network using off the shelf computer hardware and, as far as possible, software.</p><p>It seems like a wonderful idea, but it has been tried several times and so far has never really worked (which I guess is a spoiler for this article). The problem is that, even now and certainly 25 years ago, these telcos were used to being almost their suppliers' only customer. They could make incoherent or outrageous demands, confident that their suppliers would have to follow. The price tag reflected this, but the people making the demands - the engineers - weren't the people paying the bills, so those dots never got joined up inside these huge bureaucracies. A typical interaction would go:</p><p><i>Supplier: the project will use database X and transaction software Y</i><br /><i>Telco: that's no good, we need features P, Q and R that X and Y don't have</i><br /><i>Supplier: we could add those, but it's bespoke engineering and will add (lots) to the cost</i><br /><i>Telco: no, we want off-the-shelf software, we don't want to pay for custom development</i><br /><i>Supplier: X and Y is what's </i><b>on</b><i> the shelf, you want something else, you have to pay for it</i><br /><i>Telco: (utter incomprehension)</i></p><p>In its latest iteration, this has led to the ETSI NFV (Network Function Virtualization) project, which in its 8 years of existence, so far, has yet to deliver an actual functioning network.</p><p>Anyway... our mission was to use off the shelf DEC computers and software to build the switching control system at the heart of the network. It isn't really a hard problem. The basis of it is extremely simple: take a number that someone has dialled (this was a while ago) and translate it into a series of simple instructions to the physical switches, like "connect channel 92 of trunk 147 to channel 128 of trunk 256".</p><p>The only thing that makes it hard is the scale - this has to work for millions of users and concurrent calls. But even then, none of these actions have to be closely synchronised. It isn't like, say, Facebook. where something you upload needs to become instantly visible to a billion users around the world.</p><p>Within a week, Dave and I had figured out how to put the available software components together and have a working, scalable prototype within a couple of months. Turning that into a production system would be a much bigger job, needing integration to the telco's dozens of management systems, but that was all low risk, routine stuff. We started writing code.</p><p>What we had completely failed to take into account, working in our cosy little office, was the DEC bureaucracy. In a much larger open-plan office nearby was an already-large team of project managers, program managers, project documentation specialists, and for all we knew telephone sanitizers as well. They operated in blissful ignorance of any actual technical details, as they came up with the cost estimates that would be at the heart of the formal bid for the project.</p><p>DEC has always been thought of as a computer manufacturer, but they had a large and thriving SI business as well. Over the years they had built up a series of procedures and processes for managing these projects. They were mostly pretty small - integrate a driver for a new piece of hardware into an operating system, or build a user interface around a database application. But some were big - tens of person-years - and a few were <i>really</i> big, like our telco project.</p><p>So part of the process was to know when the project was too big for the current level of project management. When that happened, the project would get escalated to the next tier of project management. They would bring in their own team to look at the design, the business aspects, the risk, and everything else.</p><p>The first thing the new team would do is to multiply all the existing work estimates by two or more, just as a matter of principle because that is nearly always right. (A very successful SI company CEO who I knew years ago always multiplied all engineering estimates by pi. He claimed it worked every time). Then they would add a whole new layer of program managers, project documentation specialists, telephone sanitizers and all the rest. Then they would start looking at the details, invariably resulting in another factor of two or so.</p><p>Our project had already been through two such escalations. Realistically this was probably a 50 person-year project, but the estimates were already in the hundreds, maybe 20 times the original figure. As a result it triggered yet another escalation, to the ultimate level, the corporate Large Projects Office (LPO) in Geneva. </p><p>The LPO was to SI what J K Rowling's Dementors were to Hogwarts. Their job was to suck all joy, and possibility of success, out of a project. I have no idea whether they actually delivered any Large Projects, but I doubt it. Within a week they had doubled all the existing estimates and added yet another layer of program management and the rest. The project had now reached a size - approaching 1000 person-years, 10 times any realistic estimate - that just flat-out terrified the country management. A project on this scale, if it went wrong - which was just about guaranteed - could take the whole company down, and certainly result in some very senior people needing to seek new career opportunities.</p><p>The whole team was called together in a large meeting room. DEC had decided to no-bid the project. Permanent employees would be reassigned as soon as possible, while all contractors were terminated immediately.</p><p>This is where things got surreal for Dave and myself. We went to some project management type and pointed out that there was no provision for termination in the purchase orders we had received. DEC had bought 90 days of my time, and 180 days of Dave's, just as if they had bought a thousand cases of beer.</p><p>"That," said the project management type, "is covered by our standard terms and conditions. It is implicit in the purchase order."</p><p>"Maybe," we replied, "but what isn't in the contract, isn't in the contract. The only contract we have is the PO. And the PO has no mention of any standard terms and conditions."</p><p>They quickly accepted that we had a point. "OK, but in that case you will have to accept to work on any other project for the duration of the contract."</p><p>That was fine by us. A week or so later, such a project cropped up. We started reading documents and figuring out what was needed. But a day later we were called into our original project manager's office.</p><p>"The new project is refusing to pay your rates. They are much higher than the normal DEC contract rate, and they won't pay. They say we have to pay because we agreed to the abnormal rate. But we're not willing to subsidize other projects. So you must stop work on the project immediately. And you are not to work on anything else either. You are forbidden to work on any project except the one you were originally hired for." And that had been cancelled, there was absolutely nothing to be done for it. So we were forbidden to do any work at all.</p><p>It was Dave who came up with the name "The Doing Nothing Contract". I was commuting from Nice at the time, flying to England on Monday and back on Friday. DEC insisted on me being at the office to do nothing - I was not permitted to do nothing from home. That was the beginning of the weirdest few weeks of my professional life. I'd found a hotel just outside town, an idiosyncratic converted farmhouse with low rates and enormous rooms furnished entirely from estate sales of dubious quality.</p><p>Dave (who did live fairly locally) and I would roll up to the office around 10, read the news and chat for a while, then around 11.30 go off to a pub for lunch. We'd be back by 2.30, spend another hour or two nattering (no web to surf back then), and go home. I still had plenty of friends from when I lived in Reading, so I never spent an evening on my own. I put on about five pounds during the brief period this lasted.</p><p>After a couple of weeks, I got another call from the project manager.</p><p>"Look, this is silly." I agreed. "How about if we pay off half the remaining contract, and call it quits?"</p><p>That was fine by me, I already had other work lined up and this was just free money. I left that afternoon and didn't return. Dave made the same suggestion, but his contract had a lot longer to run, so they said no.</p><p>We stayed in touch. A few days later, they called him in and told him they would simply terminate the contract "in breach", which is to say they would just stop paying him. Dave had been at DEC for years and knew exactly how things worked on the inside.</p><p>"But if you do that, I'll sue."</p><p>"Sure, yes, off the record, that's what we'd advise."</p><p>"And DEC never contests things like that, so you'll just settle, and end up paying the full amount, plus costs."</p><p>"That's true. But that will come out of a different budget, not ours."</p><p>Even they could see the silliness of all this, though. Soon afterwards they settled with him on the same basis as myself. He walked away with tens of thousands in unexpected cash, and went back to his day job doing IT projects for insurance companies. And that was the end of the Doing Nothing Contract.</p><p></p>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-53726682157832025092020-07-31T15:50:00.000-07:002020-07-31T15:50:08.652-07:00Building Cisco's Japan Development CenterDefinitely the most interesting thing I did in my time at Cisco was to start an engineering team in Japan. How that came about is a story in itself.<div><br /></div><div>My job at Cisco had nothing to do with Japan. I ran the router software group, IOS, which was a seriously full time job. It comprised about 500 people, mostly at the corporate HQ in San Jose, California, but plenty spread around the world including the UK, where I was initially hired, India, France, and several locations in the US. My move to the US coincided with a total, absolute hiring freeze after the crash of 2000. Senior management understood that we needed to grow the group, though, so every time some remote acquisition turned out to be surplus to requirements, we would acquire bits of the team. I had people in Colorado, North Carolina, up north in Sonoma County, and sundry individual contributors working from wherever they happened to have been hired.</div><div><br /></div><div>Senior management was expected take on various odd tasks that had nothing to do with the day job. One such assignment that came my way was giving the opening keynote speech at the company's customer conference (Cisco Live) in Japan, in 2003.</div><div><br /></div><div>Back in the 1980s, international standards work had taken me to Japan several times. During the 1990s my wife went there often for the same reason, and I would sometimes tag along. But this was my first visit since before I'd joined Cisco, in 1999. There were things I'd forgotten since my previous visit, like when the airport bus arrived at a hotel and the staff ran to meet it, then stood and bowed as it pulled away. You get used to this, but after a five year interval it surprised me again.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was greeted very courteously by the head of marketing in Japan, who has since become a very good friend. It's assumed in Japan that foreigners will need their hands held at all times. It takes a lot to convince them that you can safely use the metro and railway system without getting lost. I think it would be a serious loss of face to mislay a visiting Vice President, so even if they believe you they are reluctant to let you try it. Consequently, I had been met at my hotel - the New Otani - and accompanied to the conference location.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had a carefully prepared presentation - it had never occurred to me to ask for help or any kind of corporate guidance. But it was only in the hour before I gave it that I learned it was "the" keynote for the conference. I made a few hasty changes and it seemed to work OK. I spoke in English but there was simultaneous translation to Japanese. I asked the head translator, a very distinguished Japanese guy in his 50s, how fast I should speak. "About a quarter as fast as your CEO" was his answer. In fact it was very easy to pace myself. Every single person in the audience of hundreds was listening to the translation on headphones. There was enough sound leakage that I could tell when the translator had stopped, and start the next sentence.</div><div><br /></div><div>That trip led to a couple more to meet Japanese customers, and that in turn led to a fairly surreal activity. We were trying to convince one of the big Japanese operators to switch to Cisco for their core network. Part of this was a technical collaboration around mobile networking for which I was the corporate sponsor. Every three months we would have a meeting, mostly in or around Tokyo though sometimes in the US, with half a dozen people from each side. Their technical team would present what they wanted to do, and how, and our technical team would respond. The two teams totally disagreed, but it didn't matter. At the end the customer's VP and I would both give little speeches saying how impressed we were with the spirit of cooperation and the progress that had been made. And then three months later we would have exactly the same meeting, with exactly the same presentations, and exactly the same speeches. We got some truly excellent Japanese meals out of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was all worth it though. After several years of this, and long after I had left Cisco, we won the business, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.</div><div><br /></div><div>You'll gather from this that I loved Japan - and still do - and was very happy to have good reasons to go there as often as possible. I got to know the country manager - now sadly no longer with us - quite well. Our only disagreement was over how I should address him. He wanted me to do it the American way, using his first name. In the Japanese culture first names are used only by childhood friends and immediate family, and even then not always. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and always addressed him in the Japanese way as Kurosawa-san. If we had met in the US, it would have been different.</div><div><br /></div><div>Over dinner on one trip he told me that it was his dream to have a corporate engineering activity in Japan. It was a constant ding against American suppliers that they did no R&D in the country, and he wanted to counter that. I thought it was a great idea, but when I presented it to my management back in California they practically laughed in my face. It would be expensive, we wouldn't be able to find or hire the right people, it made no sense, and so on. So that was that.</div><div><br /></div><div>But Kurosawa-san was resourceful, and at some point, knowing that he had the practical support he needed from me, he managed to convince the CEO, John Chambers. That changed everything. Suddenly I was told to make it happen.</div><div><br /></div><div>The biggest challenge was to find someone to run it. The key to any remote team like this is to find someone who understands the corporate thinking, and who also understands the local culture. Generally this is impossible, which is why so many remote teams fail miserably. I had a very lucky inspiration. One of the <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2014/10/cisco-and-end-of-era.html">UK team</a> which I'd inherited when I joined Cisco was bored and looking for something new. A Norwegian called Ole, he still had some Viking blood, one of life's adventurers looking for the next Big Thing. It helped a lot that he already knew some of the Cisco Japan team. He was signed up almost before I'd finished asking him.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other big challenge was to assemble the nucleus of the team. But that turned out to be much easier than I'd expected. In 2004 Cisco's prestige was high and people were keen to be part of its product development team. There were people already working for Cisco Japan, who had taken jobs in support for want of anything better, who were happy to move into engineering. Through personal contacts we found engineers at Japanese companies who were happy to make the change. One of the new team was Japanese but working for Cisco in California. Quickly I had a nucleus who could be trusted to grow the team - although, in the end, it never did grow.</div><div><br /></div><div>We had to put the team somewhere. Initially we borrowed some space from the country sales operation, in Shinjuku, but the hope was that eventually it would reach a hundred or more people. For that it made sense to think about a location outside Tokyo, which led to our "fact finding" trip to Kanazawa in Ishikawa prefecture, and our amazing lunch with the prefectural governor that I've <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2011/09/memorable-meals-1-governors-lunch-k.html">written about before</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Everything came together in spring 2005. We had a team, we had an office, and we had someone to run it all. I went to Tokyo for three weeks to get it all started, and luckily my wife was able to come with me. Rather than stay in a hotel, we rented a very pleasant apartment in the Aoyama district of Tokyo. It's the closest I have ever come to living in Japan. We shopped for food in the local supermarkets, an interesting experience for my wife who neither speaks Japanese nor can read any of the characters. Most things can be identified from pictures on the labels, but she needed my help to distinguish salt from sugar and flour. We had a wonderful time there, one of the most memorable trips of my life.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the next year or so, I visited Japan every three months. It led to some complicated itineraries, since I generally combined them with a visit to the team I still had in the UK. Cisco had rented an apartment in Tameike for Ole and his wife, absolutely vast by Japanese standards, a ten minute walk from the New Otani where I stayed on every trip. Each room was bigger than a typical Tokyo apartment. I spent many memorable evenings there, though the next mornings were sometimes a bit hazy. Apart from the team itself, he'd built a "support network" in Japan who helped him and all of us with every aspect of things.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since I was in Japan so often, I got to know the country sales team well too. I visited several important Japanese customers as "the man from HQ". I would sit there in total incomprehension as the "<a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2010/11/business-meetings-in-japan.html">fireside chat</a>" meeting ran its course, but apparently just my presence made a big difference.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was important for the team to know their colleagues in California, and we arranged for them all to visit at the same time. The trip happened to coincide with Halloween, and we arranged a fancy-dress party at home. One of the team's hobby was traditional Japanese kimono, and she had brought with her a complete outfit. She looked amazing, delicate and beautiful in the Japanese tradition, and definitely took first prize by popular acclaim.</div><div><br /></div><div>I left Cisco about a year later, and Ole decided to return to Europe at the end of his two year contract. A local manager was hired. But by then Cisco had lurched into much more aggressive expense control, and the planned expansion never happened. The country manager retired, a victim of corporate politics - the destiny of all who reach the senior ranks of Cisco. With no sponsors left, the group lingered on for a surprisingly long time, but in the end a bean-counter somewhere spotted it and its destiny was sealed. Some of the engineers returned to non-engineering roles, some moved to the US, and some left the company.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>The country manager, who I got to know well, once said to me "When you make a friend in Japan, you make a friend for life." And it's true. Even now, fifteen years later, I still have good friends there who I see whenever I get a chance to visit.</div></div><div><br /></div>n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-7827094634687771072020-07-04T17:12:00.001-07:002020-07-05T19:18:30.119-07:00The Garden Railway: Trouble with TurnoutsThe design and construction quality of LGB equipment is astoundingly good. You can leave the trains outside in all weathers with no damage or deterioration, whether from rain, snow, intense heat, or UV radiation. The locomotives will pull heavy, friction infested trains all day long without complaint. If anything does break, even the tiniest moulding is available as a spare part, albeit at a high cost. The track too is tough as anything - you can step on it without damage, and electrically it works far better than you could reasonably expect.<br />
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But nothing is perfect. The one place where their attention to quality seems to have lapsed is the pointwork, those necessary but fiddly places where trains get a choice of direction. They're eye-wateringly expensive - roughly $100 for a new, electrically operated turnout. But with LGB you just have to get used to that. The problem is, they just aren't that well designed. There's a sort of pervasive optimism, a feeling of "it'll be alright on the night", that applies to every aspect of the design: electrical, mechanical and trackholding.<br />
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My garden railway currently has a total of 17 LGB turnouts, all electrically operated via my NCE DCC controller. All the ones on the main running lines are 16xxx medium radius. There is a yard with the small, 600mm radius 12xxx turnouts, mostly bought new 20 years ago. The others are a mix of new, at various times over the last 10 years, and some eBay bargains, of which the oldest was probably 40 years old.<br />
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Keeping them all in good working order, so the trains run over them smoothly without derailing, jerking, or just coming to a halt, requires constant attention.<br />
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<h2>
Electrical Problems</h2>
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All of the electrical side of LGB stock suffers from a degree of design optimism. There are simple rubbing contacts everywhere, for example between the pickups, motors and other electrical connections. The wires are made of brass, which slowly forms an insulating oxide layer on the surface, so intermittent electrical problems slowly arise as the trains gets older, especially when they live outdoors.<br />
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The slider pickups on the locomotives are a case in point. The idea is excellent, but the connection from the slider to the rest of the electrics depends on a fragile spring, wound with wire barely thicker than a human hair. If ever there is a short circuit in the engine, the spring heats up to the point where it loses its temper - which is to say it stops being a spring, so the pickup stops working. It's possible, but very fiddly, to replace the springs, and to make it more complicated a different part is needed depending on the particular locomotive.<br />
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This pervasive electrical optimism really strikes hard on the points. The outer running rails are solid brass, connected to the adjacent track by heavy, springy fishplates. No problem there. But the connection to the switch rails - the ones that move - is made by very primitive sliding contacts under the rail. This works way better than it deserves to when the track is new, but as it ages the contacts and the rail itself oxidize, and the force holding it all together weakens. The net result is that trains hesitate or flat-out stop as they are going over the points.<br />
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It doesn't help that there is a lot of dead track. The place where the two rails cross - the "crossing" or "frog" depending on your train-speak dialect - would ideally be connected to one rail or the other depending on the point setting. This is difficult to arrange, and LGB didn't try. These sections are made of insulating plastic, meaning that one wheel, at least, stands no chance of picking up power. Four wheel locomotives, like "Shiny", our Wismar railbus, are especially vulnerable - the more wheels the better.<br />
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The diverging rails are connected invisibly, under the sleepers, by metal strips that are spot-welded to the running rails. They also are a bit optimistic. On several of my older points these welds have failed, leaving a lengthy piece of rail with no connection.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHLoHZhJu-PvC8ONyvT9g72p6mXcDGX2Z2w5v7uZiASOVd_NIlK5CNwRcF5qm3e0jgLaZsm7yp3SBuXectET38d_jDuyAwppADpPUWv_QTc9T1aPucCf3sCWPvjHVIMAwAACUDbjQSGM/s1600/IMG_3223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHLoHZhJu-PvC8ONyvT9g72p6mXcDGX2Z2w5v7uZiASOVd_NIlK5CNwRcF5qm3e0jgLaZsm7yp3SBuXectET38d_jDuyAwppADpPUWv_QTc9T1aPucCf3sCWPvjHVIMAwAACUDbjQSGM/s320/IMG_3223.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Underside of turnout showing<br />
soldered connecting wires</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The solution to all these problems is to make soldered connections between the various pieces of rail. This is a bit daunting since large-section brass rails conduct heat away from the joint area very effectively, and there is an obvious risk of melting the plastic base. To deal with the second problem first - the plastic used for the bases is pretty resilient to soldering. It softens, but doesn't melt, when you heat the rails up. It will melt and burn instantly if you touch it with the hot iron, though.<br />
<br />
I've been pretty successful soldering fine wires to the underside of the rails. My technique is:<br />
<ul>
<li>start by cleaning the metal very thoroughly, with a fibreglass "scratch brush", until it is gleaming</li>
<li>then cover the joint area in non-corrosive resin flux</li>
<li>I use a 50W temperature controlled iron, set to its highest temperature of 425°C, with a substantial chisel-shaped bit about 7mm across - providing plenty of reserve heat</li>
<li>hold the iron flat against the rail, holding it as far as possible from the plastic, and hold the solder against the iron - when melted it acts as a heat transfer fluid</li>
<li>now hold the iron in place until the rail is hot enough to form a proper joint with the solder. It's easy to see this because the blob of liquid solder suddenly spreads out on the metal</li>
<li>now add the wire, then hold it in place with a screwdriver or similar until the solder solidifies again. This will take a while - up to 30 seconds - because of the heat retained by the rail</li>
<li><i>Don't touch anything! </i>- the rail stays painfully burning hot for a long time afterwards. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<h2>
Mechanical Problems</h2>
<br />
In real life, track is held on the sleepers by some kind of spike driven into the wood, which either directly holds the rail, in US practice, or holds a metal plate which in turn presses on the base of the rail, in Europe. (It's different for serious railways, with high speeds and heavy trains, but light and narrow gauge railways work like this). The LGB track provides a good visual impression of this, but it really isn't very strong. The rails are held in place by tiny flaps of soft plastic, less than a millimetre thick. It takes very little to twist and break them.<br />
<br />
On normal track this isn't really a problem. The sleepers all support each other, so they aren't subject to high stresses. And even if one does break, the rail is still supported by those around it. Points are a different story though. For example, the very first sleeper, closest to the moving switch rails, is the only one supporting the point motor and the first few inches of rail. It can easily get broken, and when it does, the vertical relation between the fixed rail and the moving one is lost. Trains fall off the track as a result.<br />
<br />
It's impossible to repair the track base. What I have found effective is to glue the rail in place on the damaged sleepers, using the remains of the simulated spike. The plastic is something soft and difficult to stick to, but I have found a two-part epoxy that works well, Loctite EA9340. I originally bought it to make some repairs in the kitchen, where prolonged exposure to steam softened regular hardware-store epoxy, but it seems perfect for this too. Another advantage is that it dries to a murky dark green, making it pretty much invisible on the track.<br />
<br />
The technique is simple. First get everything as clean as possible. Clean the rail with a fibreglass brush, and swab everything with alcohol. Then mix up some epoxy and make it into a blob around the base of the rail, so it looks like part of the sleeper. If several sleepers are damaged on the same point, do it for all of them.<br />
<br />
Sometimes you can't blame LGB. One of my points was hit by a heavy steel ball, from playing French bowls (petanque) in the garden. The rail was badly twisted both horizontally and vertically, and many rail fastenings were broken. After I dismantled it and straightened the rail out, the epoxy worked perfectly to hold the rails in place. The repaired point is back on the layout, and trains pass it without problems. <br />
<br />
<h2>
Trackholding Problems</h2>
<br />
In Victorian times facing points - ones where the train has a choice of which way it goes - were regarded with horror. Railway designers went to great lengths to avoid them on main lines wherever possible. Where they were unavoidable, they always had <i>facing point locks</i>, which held the switch rails firmly in place while a train passed over them. They were interlocked with the signals, so it was impossible to clear a train to pass over the points unless the locks were in place.<br />
<br />
Sadly our LGB points don't have these devices. They are held in place rather feebly by the magnets in the point motors. It's quite common to have a tiny gap between the fixed and moving rails - a fraction of a millimetre, but enough to cause problems. If a flange rides over the sharp end of the rail it can move the rail under it, opening the point and dropping into the gap on the wrong side. The rest of the train inevitably derails when this happens.<br />
<br />
I haven't found a really good solution to this. Some point motors work better than others. I had one point that would consistently cause derailments. It was an old one, from eBay, with an older design of point motor. Replacing the latter with a newer motor held the rail in place much more firmly, and solved the problem.<br />
<br />
The ideal, in the absence of an actual lock, would be a really firm over-centre spring mechanism, but I can't see an easy way to do this. In any case the force produced by the point motor probably wouldn't be enough to overcome it.<br />
<br />
LGB four-wheel carriages and trucks have pivoting axles, to simplify going round the tight 600mm radius curves. Normally these are held at the correct angle by the traction on the coupling, but that doesn't work if the train is being pushed. And sometimes they get stiff. So they will occasionally end up trying to go through a point when the wheels aren't aligned correctly with the track. This makes the above problem a lot worse. It causes another problem, too.<br />
<br />
In real life, points have check rails, or guard rails, which ensure the wheels go the right way through the "crossing" or "frog", where the two rails cross. The check rail presses against the <i>back</i> of the wheel and stops it slipping into the wrong, diverging flangeway.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately the check rails on LGB points are mostly decorative. They are <i>way</i> too far from the rails to be really effective. Mostly this doesn't seem to matter, but on the three-way point they are not only too far away, but not in the places they need to be. There are so many problems with this item that it deserves an article to itself.<br />
<ul>
</ul>
n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-70676893590118878612020-06-13T16:24:00.004-07:002020-06-13T18:43:23.953-07:00The Garden Railway: Fabian the KrokodilYou know how it is with eBay when you bid on something. You have the winning bid for days, then in the last ten minutes a bunch of robo-bidders go to work and the item sells for twice what you thought you'd get it for. So I was very pleasantly surprised to get a message telling me that my bid for our latest LGB locomotive had succeeded. I'd been thinking about getting a new train for the garden railway for a little while. I was very tempted by LGB's DR Class 99 2-10-2 steam engine, a huge monster of a thing which I once <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2020/05/berlin-before-and-after.html">saw in real life</a> on the Hartzquerbahn in the former DDR. But the new production is selling for nearly $2000, and isn't available yet anyway. That seems like a lot for a toy train.<br />
<br />
So when I spotted a Rhätische Bahn Krokodil at a very good price, I just couldn't resist. My winning bid was less than a quarter the price of the steam engine. And a few days later he showed up, and the fun started.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnT9cLJFVhOJjL9nnSimdlCPL_wi7Y_TjLMYyaBcjEO0ft6uGnvNQ5yf9W5AHV-83OBwPyUX4525GZeU_DhRJqZzHepRLrlwHzIc09gJ3xt6yuAN0QMLkbOfOLOU1GlYsC4pUk2LHgBM/s1600/Ge_6-6_I_407_Krokodil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1001" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnT9cLJFVhOJjL9nnSimdlCPL_wi7Y_TjLMYyaBcjEO0ft6uGnvNQ5yf9W5AHV-83OBwPyUX4525GZeU_DhRJqZzHepRLrlwHzIc09gJ3xt6yuAN0QMLkbOfOLOU1GlYsC4pUk2LHgBM/s400/Ge_6-6_I_407_Krokodil.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original Rhätische Bahn Krokodil, class Ge 6/6, in a suitably Swiss setting</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The real-life Krokodils appeared in 1921. The Rhätische Bahn, which operates (still) an extensive metre-gauge network in the Swiss Alps, was a pioneer of system-wide electrification. Starting in 1919, and completed by the mid-1920s, the overhead line covered the whole network providing electricity at 11,000 volts and 16⅔ hertz.<br />
<br />
They acquired some extra-powerful locomotives, officially called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaetian_Railway_Ge_6/6_I">Class Ge 6/6</a>, to pull the heaviest trains. The design, with a snout at each end holding a giant electric motor, was needed because of the sharp curves on the line. Similar, but larger engines had already been built for the Swiss main line. They had even longer, flatter snouts, and the name Krokodil (meaning, of course, Crocodile) was an obvious choice, applied subsequently to all similar engines. The driver sat in one of the cabs at either end of the central section, enjoying excellent protection in the event of a crash yet also excellent visibility. The centre section held a huge, heavy transformer, to convert the high voltage scraped off the wires by the pantographs into something like 600 volts for the motors.<br />
<br />
All of our engines have names - <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2018/08/flowers-for-marcel-end-of-my.html">Marcel</a> the diminutive French 0-6-0 who was the subject of my intelligent locomotive experiments, Helmut the beefy Hanomag 0-6-6-0 Mallet, and so on. A few years back we visited Cancun, in Mexico. We had dinner one evening on the terrace of a restaurant overlooking the lagoon. When the kitchen was closing the cook came out and threw a whole chicken into the lagoon, as he softly called "Fabian, Fabian". There was a splash and a scurry in the water. The chicken was gone. Fabian was their semi-tame crocodile who lived in the lagoon and showed up for dinner every evening. Later we could see him gently rocking to the dance music that was playing downstairs. And so Fabian was the obvious name for our Crocodile.<br />
<br />
The big challenge with these old LGB locomotives is converting them to run with the DCC control system on my railway. This puts a permanent 18V AC on the rails, superimposed with a control signal that tells each engine what to do. The advantage is that you can have as many trains as you want, some moving and some standing still, without any complicated wiring. A little decoder in each engine understands the control signal and turns the 18V AC into something suitable to drive a DC motor. It's hard to imagine operating a serious-sized railway without it, nowadays. Modern locomotives are designed to connect easily to a decoder, with the electrical pickups from the track wired separately from the motors.<br />
<br />
But the old LGB ones, like Fabian, date from the time when the rails were connected directly to the motor, which was operated by a variable DC voltage on the track. The connection is typically buried deep inside the workings, and so it is with Fabian. I approached the open-gearbox surgery with trepidation, after reading web articles about the number of tiny parts that were just waiting for a chance to leap across the room and get lost in the carpet. In the event it wasn't too difficult. The internal connections are made by complex shaped brass strips that rub against all the right places, and it just took a couple of cuts to separate them. It was also necessary to run an extra wire from each bogie into the main body, so there could be three completely separate circuits: track power, motor, and lighting.<br />
<br />
Like all older LGB locos, Fabian has a fearsomely retro-looking circuit board full of randomly placed through-hole components and massive hand-soldered tracks, that operates the lights from the track power. Rather than attempting to reproduce what it does, I prefer just to give it a fake track power feed and leave all the existing light circuits untouched. A little bridge rectifier produces 18V DC, which is then fed via a reversing relay to the circuit board. I have a stock of bistable relays, that remember their last setting mechanically, left over from another project (30 years ago!). All it takes is a couple of diodes feeding the actual motor supply from the decoder into the two relay coils, so the lights reflect the last way the train ran.<br />
<br />
At least, that's the theory, and the way it works on my other engines. But for some reason the relay didn't want to cooperate. I think it must be defective, but anyway I ended up building something a lot more complicated, packed into board space that wasn't really available. It was a nightmare to get it to work, and I still don't understand why.<br />
<br />
Finally everything worked. Reassembling Fabian's body was an interesting challenge. The mechanical design is ingenious, as always with LGB. To remove the circuit board required removing the back of the driver's cab. That is held in place by the hinge of the opening driver's door. Reassembling <i>that</i>, with the tiny spring that holds it shut, requires about six hands. With only two hands, it can eventually be done with patience and lots of not-in-front-of-the-children language.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidj9ncSdxlqbcKa6-GtWYnSoZG-7iFxeUAftIQASg7-7IWdt3oTyuZjWF0rx6UxvhcRddWkzRX6OxDtYl8SVSwbIuReXu4dpOAipRDKkBcgHBXBixMx0KuCZBLV7Ef4XbdOhq7atgL6bQ/s1600/P1030282.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidj9ncSdxlqbcKa6-GtWYnSoZG-7iFxeUAftIQASg7-7IWdt3oTyuZjWF0rx6UxvhcRddWkzRX6OxDtYl8SVSwbIuReXu4dpOAipRDKkBcgHBXBixMx0KuCZBLV7Ef4XbdOhq7atgL6bQ/s400/P1030282.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fabian, with his mentor Helmut looking on</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIj8yFjvwnMaJC8cYMOxHM6siZ9wRFFneKb_KWS5UQz0CYROgB76j-y3WKjiu_-SR1LvefL6gQuQ50KJZnB4FL5kGWKBPwSsnDRtzDBFguULtBvXh0mktg7M94DqF9yJXEhEhwlA3SBx0/s1600/P1030285.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIj8yFjvwnMaJC8cYMOxHM6siZ9wRFFneKb_KWS5UQz0CYROgB76j-y3WKjiu_-SR1LvefL6gQuQ50KJZnB4FL5kGWKBPwSsnDRtzDBFguULtBvXh0mktg7M94DqF9yJXEhEhwlA3SBx0/s320/P1030285.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fabian looking very purposeful</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Finally Fabian was ready. While he was on the bench, his train had shown up. LGB has a strange policy of constantly changing what is available new. They have made RhB wagons on and off, over the years, so finding a complete train requires a search of eBay, new production, and dealers' old stock. For now I have managed to accumulate three, with another on its way from England. Helmut generously agreed to lend Fabian his bright yellow banana wagon, but with a condition - he also had to take the track cleaner, a rather nondescript affair loaded with logs to held it scrape the oxide layer off the rails. It's surprisingly effective, but hard to pull and inclined to fall off the track. I'm sure Helmut believes he got the better part of the deal.<br />
<br />
So now I can watch Fabian touring our garden at his stately speed - in real life he is limited to 55 km/h, even when pulling the optimistically named Glacier Express. Thanks to the wonders of JMRI and the Raspberry Pi Zero W, I can sit and sip my pastis and control him from my iPhone - but that is another story.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif5Y0g3h0fR2RjSI0xQxiVTUYWQPlnxz12K7AJ1OLlapwO4vSFzO1htCDB_Vum2d2WF4lfSuIKUKHqGGKYY8oep4MgF3inYNhUqhnzPBr-BE2xb-KYxSWBFaLrp6K0vKvY85qgOtKhXYw/s1600/P1030277-crop1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="1600" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif5Y0g3h0fR2RjSI0xQxiVTUYWQPlnxz12K7AJ1OLlapwO4vSFzO1htCDB_Vum2d2WF4lfSuIKUKHqGGKYY8oep4MgF3inYNhUqhnzPBr-BE2xb-KYxSWBFaLrp6K0vKvY85qgOtKhXYw/s640/P1030277-crop1.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fabian with his Rhätische Bahn train along with the borrowed banana wagon and track cleaner</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-24629351176452366082020-05-22T18:58:00.004-07:002020-05-26T00:28:53.303-07:00Modelling a Pandemic<h2>
Summary</h2>
<br />
Inspired by the observed differences between actual Covid-19 data and the predictions of the classic "SIR" model, I built a detailed pandemic model. It's a person-by-person simulation, for up to 50 million people, rather than a mathematical model. It uses the tricks I've accumulated writing high-performance network software to do this at reasonable speed. The results closely match actual data, and allow control over variables like vaccination, social distancing and self isolation. Skip to the last section to see the results. The source code is available on <a href="http://github.com/harper493/epidemia">Github</a>.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Background</h2>
<br />
Soon after the Covid 19 pandemic started, Mark Handley at UCL in London started a website showing the development in the number of cases and deaths in various countries and places around the world, which I followed with great interest.<br />
<br />
Out of curiosity, I put together a simple simulation based on the SIR model of infectious transmission. This is the basis of much of epidemiology, and yet it quickly struck me that the curves it generates didn't correspond at all with Mark's. Using a log/linear scale (i.e. the Y-axis is logarithmic), SIR gives a straight line up until very close to saturation, where nearly all of the population have been infected. This corresponds to the now much-discussed "R0" number, i.e. the number of next-generation victims who will be infected by a single sick person.<br />
<br />
Yet Mark's graphs weren't like that. No matter which country or area, nor which policies were being followed there, they all showed a gradual reduction in the slope. This was true for Lombardy and for much less afflicted places. It was true for Spain, which quickly enforced a very strict lockdown, and for Belarus, which never edicted anything at all. Even knowing exactly when lockdowns were put in place, it was difficult or impossible to see an inflection in the curve.<br />
<br />
It was easy enough to come up with a mathematical model which closely described these curves. It is sufficient for the "R0" number to decrease slowly over time, to get a close match. The resulting curves perfectly matched the actual data from Lombardy.<br />
<br />
So, why is reality different from the this nearly one century old model? It doesn't take long to see an obvious weakness. The math behind the model is simple:<br />
<br />
<i> infected on day n+1 = constant * infected on day n * susceptible on day n</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
where the constant is closely related to our old friend R0. It's a simple differential equation, which indeed predicts the exponential growth everyone talks about.<br />
<br />
But wait a moment. This supposes that every infected person is equally likely to infect every susceptible person. Is this realistic? Suppose Bob, living in New York, get sick. Alice lives in Los Angeles with her vulnerable elderly mother. She gets sick too. Which of them is more likely to infect Alice's mother? Or Bob's drinking buddy? In fact, the SIR equation only makes sense when applied to relatively intimate groups of people - families or close friends, for example. For larger communities, it needs to take into account also the probability of contact between individuals.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Herd Immunity</h2>
<br />
Everyone is now familiar with the concept of "herd immunity". If enough people are immune, a single infected person can no longer infect enough for the outbreak to grow. R (not R0 any more) has fallen below 1. It's widely stated that herd immunity needs to be somewhere around 60% to be effective, depending on the value of R0.<br />
<br />
But again, this assumes that everyone is equally likely to infect everyone else - that herd immunity will not protect New Yorkers from each other if it has not yet reached the necessary level in Idaho. This obviously makes no sense. That situation may be bad news when an infected New Yorker visits Idaho, but New Yorkers will be protected from each other.<br />
<br />
People tend to operate in clusters: families, groups of friends, close colleagues. Within such a cluster, transmission is high: if one person in a nuclear family, or one person in a small office, gets sick, the others will all be heavily exposed and most likely will either get sick or develop an immune response. Hence the admonition, common even before Covid, for sick people to stay home from work.<br />
<br />
Once all the people in such a cluster have been exposed, the cluster has a localised form of herd immunity, regardless of what is going on in the wider world. An infected stranger visiting an exposed family, for example, poses no risk.<br />
<br />
Thinking along these lines led me to the idea of "fractal herd immunity" - that there can be herd immunity at a local level, or in a larger community, without it applying globally. There is leakage between clusters - the nuclear family goes to visit the parents and cousins, close colleagues are part of a larger company. Friendships especially are "leaky", it's common enough that my friends have friends who I don't know, or barely.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Building a Model</h2>
<br />
I wanted to develop a model to test this idea and see if the results look like reality. I didn't see any mathematical way to do this, so I built a simulation. Each person in the population is simulated, with day-by-day exposure to the infected people around them.<br />
<br />
The model creates cities, and populates them according to a realistic distribution - a few big cities, and lots of small ones. Each person is allocated to each of four different clusters: family, friends, work and the local community. The latter corresponds to things like shopping. Clusters are randomly sized; for example, the family cluster can be anything from 1 (people living alone) to 8, with a bias towards smaller sizes.<br />
<br />
Influence is a parameter for each cluster. In a family, people are in close proximity. This is taken as an influence of 1. The community cluster has a much smaller influence, but the clusters are a lot bigger. Cluster size is extremely important, because transmission increases as the <i>square</i> of cluster size: more people are exposed to more infected people. This is why large gatherings have been such an effective way to spread Covid, like the religious groups in north-east France and Korea.<br />
<br />
Infection has to get between clusters. Partly this is done by grouping them into larger clusters, with reduced influence between the members. So a sick person in one family cluster has a small chance of infecting someone in an adjacent cluster, just as if they visited another part of the family.<br />
<br />
Most cluster memberships and relationships are within the same city, but there are also ways for infection to travel between cities. This can be via cluster membership, for example when a family's relations are in another city, or when an office is part of a larger company based elsewhere. It can also be through explicit travel. Each person is randomly assigned a mobility, which is the probability that they will visit another city on any given day.<br />
<br />
The model has a few higher-level parameters that control it, and a lot of detailed ones that are manipulated by the higher level ones. For example:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>population:</b> the total number of people - the model can handle 50 million, and gives rapid results for 3 million</li>
<li><b>infectiousness: </b> the R0 value for the infection</li>
<li><b>auto-immunity: </b>the number of people who, when exposed, will develop immunity without becoming sick or infectious</li>
<li><b>distancing:</b> the extent to which people's behavior is modified by social distancing</li>
<li><b>vaccination:</b> the number of people who are immune at the start due to prior vaccination </li>
</ul>
<br />
<h2>
Results</h2>
<br />
The results can be presented either as a simple graph, showing the number infected and total infected as some parameter is changed, or as a rather fetching animation where each city is shown as a "bubble" gradually changing color as people are infected and either become immune or recover (or die). Here are some examples.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Social Distance </h3>
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This chart shows the effect of varying "social distance", i.e. reducing interaction with friends, work and the local environment, and reducing travel between cities. Zero means business as usual. 1 is Wuhan style - everyone at home except truly essential workers, no travel. It is modelled by varying the level of interaction between people and the groups they belong to. At distance equal to 1, the family group is unchanged, friends drops to zero, work to 20% (allowing for some essential workers), and travel to 10%. Intermediate values of distance set intermediate values of interaction.<br />
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Somewhere around 0.8 or 0.9 is what was achieved in the UK or California, with less travel and contact, but still some, and some people trying to disregard the restrictions altogether. This level very substantially "flattens the peak", as well as reducing the total number infected. The chart also shows that anything less than 0.5 has no impact.<br />
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<h3>
R0 - the Infection Ratio</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1JYHhyCUKGTXQnBv1yAWR1hf7gJDp0BdQ7I24ssi_4OOdXm6t-GyHg7ozf_Np-h2kAMIUgNJ04pJNTWIVU7ctQb5pYPAN3Yr1_JvVo2zjkTNaoJZbydRbQveuL0S3vc3lVJovJMUdb8/s1600/blog1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1JYHhyCUKGTXQnBv1yAWR1hf7gJDp0BdQ7I24ssi_4OOdXm6t-GyHg7ozf_Np-h2kAMIUgNJ04pJNTWIVU7ctQb5pYPAN3Yr1_JvVo2zjkTNaoJZbydRbQveuL0S3vc3lVJovJMUdb8/s1600/blog1.png" /></a></div>
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This chart shows the effect of different values of R0, the number of people infected by each infectious person (using a log scale for the Y-axis). At 1.0, the infection dies out slowly. In some simulations, depending on the randomness, it lingers for a long while without growing much. At 1.2, the infection grows very, very slowly. This is a consequence of the local immunity effect - with the traditional SIR model, it would grow very quickly. Covid-19 supposedly has R0 in the range 2.5-3.<br />
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<h3>
Vaccination</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiL1Hqb6ujj3ziH1XsbJycXKgqSsHKup0A7DeoNBmuJxfnJeULIhs8lQ2m1obcVyTFjH5PNWdudpu21-6EgWEZgcXcGT8QoILceY9D1a_JRywFX8YYp2wOg0hH1CiKJn264VpnNjiy8Bk/s1600/blog5-vax-linear.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiL1Hqb6ujj3ziH1XsbJycXKgqSsHKup0A7DeoNBmuJxfnJeULIhs8lQ2m1obcVyTFjH5PNWdudpu21-6EgWEZgcXcGT8QoILceY9D1a_JRywFX8YYp2wOg0hH1CiKJn264VpnNjiy8Bk/s1600/blog5-vax-linear.png" /></a></div>
This chart shows the effect of vaccination. Just 20% vaccination halves the total number of people infected, and the size of the peak. At 50%, the infection is wiped out. This percentage is a product of the number of people vaccinated, and the effectiveness of the vaccine. So if 50% of people get vaccinated, and the vaccine is 80% effective, that corresponds to 0.4 on this chart.<br />
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<h3>
Watching the Pandemic</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpb5b0THyiGb-U0Nl92eRYLc6kMtIQ5qv56d-wGCi01ybj5RfqyIqNW5lboYDLQTSo4XYq5ugwVxcBD6xaD0iRg2t7Z8i9XoZb6QtJbWbnBcvzVBMRZODLHNZ9BNRLMLcsF6u93ecAtA/s1600/c1-0100.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1155" data-original-width="1153" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpb5b0THyiGb-U0Nl92eRYLc6kMtIQ5qv56d-wGCi01ybj5RfqyIqNW5lboYDLQTSo4XYq5ugwVxcBD6xaD0iRg2t7Z8i9XoZb6QtJbWbnBcvzVBMRZODLHNZ9BNRLMLcsF6u93ecAtA/s640/c1-0100.png" width="638" /></a></div>
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The simulation can also show graphically how the pandemic spreads. The picture above is at day 100 with some typical parameters. Each blob is a city (some large cities are drawn on top of their smaller neighbors). The red ring corresponds to current infections, the blue outer circle to those who are still susceptible. The inner green circle is those who are no longer susceptible - recovered, asymptomatically immune, or vaccinated. The small black dot in the middle corresponds to deaths. Clicking <a href="https://youtu.be/SjplkrUb6Zw">here</a> will show the complete evolution of the pandemic (select 1080p for best results).<br />
<br />n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-35023181388094649912020-05-12T16:01:00.000-07:002020-05-12T16:10:30.495-07:00Life on the Ocean Wave - Riding the Hovercraft<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM_-pcKJ_-5jY-6X10lXhjw4z4PIs7hzT5JbA3rEQ_Ic7wJ70lIULkb1Cx8AKhOEcAP-jt5BDrSjvDvut0gNbk35-0jTTxvtk6G6Yt3zHpvojyQIQvbt9gy175Gi5BaWcWHOdH0jGOo-U/s1600/1990-hovercraft-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="784" data-original-width="1150" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM_-pcKJ_-5jY-6X10lXhjw4z4PIs7hzT5JbA3rEQ_Ic7wJ70lIULkb1Cx8AKhOEcAP-jt5BDrSjvDvut0gNbk35-0jTTxvtk6G6Yt3zHpvojyQIQvbt9gy175Gi5BaWcWHOdH0jGOo-U/s400/1990-hovercraft-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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One day I will write a guidebook to nostalgia, called "101 Things You Can't Do Any More". In pride of place, along with <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2020/05/berlin-before-and-after.html">crossing into East Berlin</a> and flying on Concorde, will be the hovercraft journey across the English Channel (<i>La Manche</i> pour mes lecteurs français).<br />
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Since 1994 crossing the channel has been a dull business. You drive straight off the M20 from London into a vast car park, from which you are shepherded into a tunnel. You stop behind the car in front, like any other traffic jam, turn the engine off, and sit there for half an hour or so. You are vaguely aware of movement, but only just, as you listen to the car stereo or read a book. Then the car in front moves, you follow it, and you are on the A1 headed for Paris. It's efficient, relatively inexpensive, and of absolutely no interest at all.<br />
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The story behind this dull half hour is a fascinating one, of over a century of political and financial wrangling which led, finally, to the construction of the Channel Tunnel. While you are sitting there, bored, you are on a train travelling at 100 miles per hour through one of man's most extraordinary civil engineering achievements. But the whole point of it is that you don't need to be aware of any of this.<br />
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Until 1994, there was no way to travel with a car between England and France without being firmly aware of the 22 miles of open water that have protected England and Continental Europe from each other since 1066 AD. In Victorian times it was a serious adventure, tossed about on the waves in a sailing boat or later a steamship. Turner, the English artist, was inspired by it to produce some extraordinary paintings, even strapping himself to the mast of a channel boat during a violent storm for the experience.<br />
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It could be hazardous in many ways. It certainly was for Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the eponymous and omnipresent engine. After the German Navy had expressed no interest in his invention he took the steamer to Harwich to try and sell it to the British. One has to suppose that the Germans suddenly woke up to their mistake, because he disappeared en route, his body never to be found.<br />
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My own first Channel crossing by car was in about 1979. It was long and boring. The shortest crossing, the 22 miles between Dover and Calais, took a couple of hours, with another hour or so at each end of waiting, embarkation and disembarkation. The crossing itself was spent staring at the sea, resisting the limited attractions of the greasy fast food and fizzy beer available on board.<br />
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There were other, longer routes. For one summer holiday we took our car on the ferry between Southampton and Le Havre. That was an overnight trip, tucked up in a narrow berth in a tiny cabin. While waiting for the return ferry we got chatting to the driver of the car in front, who was struggling with a stuck-open window in his Lancia. He told us he was a fashion designer. A year later his name, David Emanuel, became famous as the creator of Princess Diana's wedding dress, but at the time he was just a thoroughly nice bloke.<br />
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From 1989, after I met Isabelle and started our long-distance relationship between England and France, I needed to cross back and forth more often. By then the hovercraft was an option. (You were wondering when I'd get to it, weren't you?) It offered a crossing in just 40 minutes and since it was smaller, a lot less time was spent messing about at either end. This more than made up for the extra cost.<br />
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My first trip was unforgettable. The sea was choppy, and with every wave we ploughed up high in the air then crashed down into the void between the peaks. Unlike the ferries you had to remain seated the whole time, in airliner-like seats stretched across the width of the cabin. I spent the whole journey staring fixedly but unfocussed at the horizon, trying to keep my breakfast inside me.<br />
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Afterwards I made a visit to the men's room. Next to me were two colleagues, one regaling the other with how much worse it <i>could</i> have been. "Remember that bit where it felt like we were just hanging in space?" His buddy groaned in response. "Well, last time, those were the good bits."<br />
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It was a fantastic way to travel though. You stood on the edge of the beach at Ramsgate or Calais watching the giant, roaring monster slither gently up the sand then sink gradually onto its giant rubber skirt as the engines stopped. Compared to a ferry it was tiny, with room for maybe 40 cars, all firmly tied down en route.<br />
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The hovercraft did not deal well with rough seas. At least, I think the machine itself did, but there was a limit to what you could ask passengers to put up with. This was brought home to me on my most memorable trip, in April 1990, taking my children on a spring break to Paris, Toulouse and Hossegor.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjngw9eWbEEpFlmjFFpk63e3P1352k5-Xme4X6p3uU1Mh17VDGLWeqa1bO6_Iiz9ugNXhcSldH9k8MY4kDmgZk7haUbqtsp_RTpqCw4ykTakeGm8rmq3IKal_rDzeP8YeaHBWTFMkVZZBc/s1600/1990-lanta-rover-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="1137" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjngw9eWbEEpFlmjFFpk63e3P1352k5-Xme4X6p3uU1Mh17VDGLWeqa1bO6_Iiz9ugNXhcSldH9k8MY4kDmgZk7haUbqtsp_RTpqCw4ykTakeGm8rmq3IKal_rDzeP8YeaHBWTFMkVZZBc/s200/1990-lanta-rover-1.jpg" width="200" /></a>It was memorable for many reasons. My car's wheels had been stolen a couple of weeks earlier, and the replacements were on long back-order. In place of my beloved Golf GTi, the insurance was paying for that pinnacle of British luxury motoring, the Rover 827. The adventure started long before we got near water. We had stopped off for tea at my parents' house in Romford, more or less on the way to Ramsgate. When it was time to leave, <i>somebody</i> - we will be discreet here - revealed that they had locked the car keys in the trunk. It has been a source of family amusement ever since, but at the time it was not funny at all. Eventually the RAC showed up.<br />
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"Have it open in no time, guv. What car is it?" said the smiling mechanic.<br />
<br />
"A Rover 827."<br />
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His faced dropped. "Blimey, they're nearly impossible. I'll 'ave a go anyway." That was just the kind of reassurance I was looking for. After half an hour of fiddling about with long thin bits of metal, he finally got the door open, and we set off for Ramsgate.<br />
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As it turned out, none of this mattered. We arrived to see a big handwritten sign, "Hovercraft cancelled due to bad weather, please go to ferry terminal at Folkestone". We drove the 20 miles or so down the coast in what was indeed terrible weather, the gale-swept rain swirling around the car. Upon arrival we learned that the ferry too was running hours late. We filled in the time with a visit to McDonalds, and finally boarded the ferry around 10pm - when we should already have been well on our way down the A1 to Paris. We climbed up from the car deck, and waited to set sail. And waited, and waited, and waited.<br />
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Finally I went back to the car deck, and found a loader who explained the delay to me. The waves were huge even inside the harbour, and the ferry had sunk into the trough of one <i>just</i> as a bus was crossing onto the ramp. The ramp crashed into the bottom of the bus, severing the brake lines and locking the brakes firmly on.<br />
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"Normally if that happens someone crawls underneath and releases them by hand. But not tonight," said my interlocutor, gesturing at the bus which was tossing around crazily as the boat did the same. Instead they had to tow it off, wheels locked, with the giant tractors used for container trucks. The first effort snapped a rope the size of a man's arm. Eventually they got it off with an even thicker one.<br />
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I whiled away the time by wandering around the open deck in the gale and blowing rain. I read the notice explaining how to launch a lifeboat. I have to suppose that the sailors were trained and knew the procedure, so this was just in case the passengers had to do it themselves. It made the instructions for Chinese consumer electronics look positively lucid. I didn't understand a single substantive word. It read something like the following.<br />
<ol>
<li>Unsprurl the flangling ropes.</li>
<li>Diswangle the grotling clips.</li>
<li>Under no circumstances allow the wribbits to contact the ortlers.</li>
<li>Bringle the yarling cords.</li>
</ol>
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And so on and so on. Eventually we set sail, and after a rough crossing during which we all slept soundly and several hours driving, we arrived in Paris at about 5am.</div>
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Our trip was wonderful. We explored Paris together, had an Easter Egg hunt at Isabelle's mother's house outside Toulouse, and paid the first of many, many visits to Hossegor on France's Atlantic coast. On the way back we spent another night in Paris, creating another family memory. We had to be up very early for the return trip to Calais. I went out to buy croissants. My daughter, about 7 at the time and very grumpy at her early awakening, simply stared at hers.</div>
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"What's wrong?" I asked.</div>
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"My croissant is <i>too bumpy!</i>" she complained.</div>
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Despite bumpy croissants, we made it uneventfully to Calais and could watch the monster machine arrive on the beach, where the photo at the top was taken. The sea was perfectly calm, one of the best hovercraft trips I ever did.</div>
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I missed them when the tunnel opened, a few years later. The hovercraft is a brilliant invention, even without its famous contribution to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Hungarian_Phrasebook">Hungarian-English phrasebook</a> ("My hovercraft is full of eels"). But somehow it is never <i>quite</i> the right tool for the job, and there is hardly anywhere in the world where you can still ride them. Still, it was fun while it lasted.</div>
n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-21035726006647709652020-05-09T14:22:00.006-07:002020-05-10T08:00:49.375-07:00My Dad's War<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhs6z2hbLSLXjwZ2csFrlPnMA4pJ9E_faQN6um_XUVwLCIG0MqSCzkaE7Rh372lNxOKJi4jCZVd-Df9eQJtJ3anWShrb-uVFJHI7BY7PfcyvJy-GuQF9RGQDslBe9ScxkiyCXaOPNOOgM/s1600/reg-dec-1940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="663" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhs6z2hbLSLXjwZ2csFrlPnMA4pJ9E_faQN6um_XUVwLCIG0MqSCzkaE7Rh372lNxOKJi4jCZVd-Df9eQJtJ3anWShrb-uVFJHI7BY7PfcyvJy-GuQF9RGQDslBe9ScxkiyCXaOPNOOgM/s400/reg-dec-1940.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Dad, December 1940 - 29 years old</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In 1940, soon after the declaration of war against Germany, my Dad was conscripted into the British Army. In that he was just like every able-bodied male, of suitable age and not in an essential job like the railways.<br />
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War is hell, as has been said before. For so many, even if they escaped with their lives, it was a traumatic, life-changing experience - and not in a good way. But for some it was the greatest experience of their lives, working together in a common purpose. I'm quite jealous of the people at Bletchley Park, constantly struggling with new ways to break the German codes, knowing that an hour shaved off the time could save hundreds of lives.<br />
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One of my favourite books is <i>Most Secret War</i>, by Reg Jones. He led the efforts to develop hi-tech (for the time) aids to beating the Germans, and to understand and defeat their technology. Just one example was their use of intersecting radio beams to bomb British cities accurately. Once understood, it was a simple matter to broadcast a stronger signal on a slightly different alignment, resulting in thousands of tons of German bombs falling on open countryside instead of devastating a town and killing hundreds of people.<br />
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Yet there was a human side too. Jones had to live through the blitz just like everyone else. He mentions an occasion when they expected a big raid on their neighbourhood. Prudently he filled the bath beforehand, ensuring a water supply even if, as happened, the pipes were destroyed by the bombs. Imagine his shock when he discovered his wife, wondering why on earth he had left the bath full, had emptied it shortly before the bombs fell.<br />
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My Dad was selected for the Artillery. He was sent off to a remote training camp in North Wales to learn to be a wireless (radio) operator. He was taught Morse Code, and the basics of radio operation. No doubt he expected to be sent to a battlefield somewhere, sending reports and receiving instructions under bombardment as his squad-mates in turn bombarded the Germans.<br />
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He never talked about exactly what happened. He was a very social, personable chap, who made friends very easily with a straightforward, natural charm. Maybe it was that, or maybe he really was talented. But whatever the reason, the camp commander decided that he could best serve his country by teaching other people how to communicate under bombardment, instead of doing it himself.<br />
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And so for the next five years my Dad was stationed just outside Llandudno, teaching other men Morse Code. It's hard to imagine anywhere more remote or distant from the industrial heartland, except maybe the Scottish Highlands. He admitted to having seen just one enemy plane, a German bomber which had got lost and subsequently crashed into the Irish Sea. The contrast with my mother, too young to serve and living at home in South London with her family, couldn't be greater. Bombs were part of her daily life, met with typical British stoicism: "If it's got my number on it, it's for me". She was more concerned about <a href="https://n5296s.blogspot.com/2018/02/my-mother-in-memoriam-part-1.html">being home before her mother's imposed deadline</a> than she was about being hit by a bomb.<br />
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He may have been far from the action, but he was still a soldier in uniform, admired by the people who remained on the farms and in the villages. Even with strict rationing, the local country people weren't short of eggs, chickens, milk or butter. So, "Here Reg, take a couple of eggs for your breakfast" happened often enough.<br />
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Without a shadow of a doubt, World War II was the highlight of my Dad's life. He had good friends, an easy enough life, the respect of everyone for a serving soldier - and what he was doing was genuinely valuable for the war effort. That it involved absolutely no risk at all certainly made it more pleasant.<br />
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He made friends easily, but they were mostly superficial - good mates, but no more. There was one exception, Bert. They served together in North Wales for the entire duration of the war. He often spoke of him, and in the tradition of the times they exchanged Christmas cards, but no more. Bert lived a long way off for the times, somewhere near Birmingham in the Midlands.<br />
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And yet... one day with my mother he visited a park quite a way off, in Barking. Why they went there I have no idea. And strolling through the park, over a hundred miles from home, was Bert, with his family. It's an extraordinary coincidence, worthy of a Thomas Hardy novel. They shook hands, chatted for a while about the old times... and never saw each other again.<br />
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Even for my Dad, the war wasn't without unfortunate consequences. He had married in the late 1930s, setting up home in a flat in Kilburn in grimy north-western inner London where my half-sister was born. When he went off to the Army his wife moved to the Suffolk countryside to live with her mother. It was an area that was crammed full of airbases, as close as possible for launching nightly raids on Germany. The airbases were in turn crammed full of airmen, British and American, and all the supporting staff they needed.<br />
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As the locals said, "The problem with the Americans is that they're overpaid, over-sexed, and over here." That was very unfair, considering that they were dying by hundreds every day in poorly conceived daylight bombing raids. And anyway it wasn't an American who stole my Dad's wife, it was a fellow Brit. From my point of view, this was an excellent thing - otherwise I would not have come into existence. In fact things worked out well all round - her second marriage was long-lasting, and my father made a happy second marriage too, as these things go.<br />
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It was a common enough problem after the war, and the Army set up special divorce courts to deal with it. My Dad told the story of leaving the court, after his divorce had been approved, along with a fellow serviceman who said, "Best day of my life, I'm finally rid of her. Let me buy you a drink."<br />
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My Dad's post-war life was uneventful, and successful enough in a very modest way. He became a salesman to the clothing industry, which lasted until he retired at 67. But I don't think anything after 1945 came close to his wartime experience.n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-25738017037877616222020-05-07T21:00:00.001-07:002020-05-07T21:00:25.145-07:00Lighting up Shiny, the Wismar Railbus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the 1920s, road competition was really beginning to hurt rural railways everywhere in the world. The economics of running a steam engine, trailing a handful of elderly carriages behind it for three or four journeys per day, had never been good. Now they were terrible. The railway companies looked to modern technology for a solution. A diesel powered railbus could be operated by one man, requiring almost no routine maintenance - unlike a steam locomotive which took several hours of preparation every day. And as a bonus, it offered the same level of comfort as the road competition, rather than the hard seats and general decay of carriages that were often 50 years old. More frequent (well, less infrequent) services could be run, as well.<br />
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All over the world various different railbus designs appeared. Another of their advantages was that they run readily in either direction. Nowadays, we take it for granted that there will be a driving cab at either end. But that wasn't obvious in the beginning. For one thing it takes up space that could otherwise be used for passengers or freight. For another, operating the engine and transmission from a distance requires some kind of linkage. An electric or pneumatic system sounds ideal, but it had to be maintained in the field by steam locomotive engineers whose most subtle tool was a coal hammer. And mechanical linkages were hard to keep working. (When I was a teenager, I travelled all across France on a bus with a rear-engine, unknown in England at that time. Every gearchange was an adventure, as the driver struggled with the worn-out mechanical linkage to try and persuade the gearbox, 12 metres away at the back of the bus, to engage the right gear, or at least <i>some</i> gear).<br />
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So other solutions to the problem were developed. The French were especially creative. Some early railcars had a cab at one end only, next to the engine, and a kind of mini-turntable under the bus. At the terminus the crew would crank a handle until the bus was resting on the turntable, push the bus around 180 degrees, then retract the turntable. A much more widely-used idea was to put the driver in a turret on the roof. He sat sideways with the controls in front of him. The most common railbuses in the 1950s had the turret in the middle and offset to the side. They were called Picassos, after the painting with the girl's nose to one side of her face. The poor drivers must have suffered terribly from stiff necks, having to look sideways the whole time.<br />
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In Germany another ingenious, if improbable, solution emerged. In 1932 the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismar_railbus">Wismar</a> company produced a railbus which had a completely independent engine and gearbox at each end. Whichever end the driver was sitting, he simply started the corresponding engine and drove from there. At the terminus he stopped that engine and put the gearbox in neutral, walked to the other end, and used the opposite engine. This made it possible to use readily-available Ford engines and transmissions, rather than developing something specific for railway use - making their product a lot cheaper. The resulting vehicle looked very odd, like a pig with a snout at each end. For all that, they were the salvation of many little rural lines. There are several still running today on preserved railways in Germany.<br />
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LGB made a model of this odd vehicle, and when I built the garden railway I really had to have one. We called him "Shiny", from the German name "schienenbus" (meaning railbus). At the time I added a DCC decoder in the simplest way possible. And Shiny trundled reliably around the railway, just as happy in either direction just like its prototype.<br />
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There are two ways to go about installing a DCC decoder. The simplest is just to put it as a "bump in the wire" between the track power and the motor. Sometimes with older locos, this means separating the track power from the motor, but otherwise it's easy. The disadvantage, though, is that nothing works if the train isn't moving - in particular, the lights. That's what I did for Shiny.<br />
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The more complicated alternative is to wire the lights, and any other accessories, to the corresponding outputs of the decoder. This works perfectly, but it's complicated. All LGB locos have a fairly elaborate circuit board to operate lights and the rest from the track power, using strange proprietary connectors. I have replaced them in some engines, but it's a lot of work. The little railbus would be especially difficult, because of its headlights and taillights that change according to the direction of travel.<br />
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But I really <i>did </i>want the lights to work when the train is stationary. It just looks so much better at night or in the twilight. And I really wasn't ready to build a replacement for the internal wiring. So I thought of a third approach.<br />
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The idea is very simple: separate the motor from the lighting circuit. Connect the decoder output to the motor as usual, but create a fake always-on motor feed for the lighting circuit. This is powered from the lighting power on the decoder, which is always on, via a polarity-switching relay, whose output is taken to the lighting circuit. The relay is bistable, i.e. it remembers its position even without power. It is controlled by the polarity of the actual motor feed, via a couple of diodes. So when the motor runs in the forward direction, the relay switches to the same polarity, and provides full-power forward voltage to the lighting circuit - which continues even when the motor is turned off and the train is no longer moving. When the train direction is changed, the relay switches to follow it.<br />
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Using a relay makes this very easy. It could be done using an H-bridge chip, but that would also require some electronics to remember the last setting - much harder than just soldering a relay onto the board.<br />
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I chose to feed the fake power from the always-on auxiliary supply on the decoder, rather than from the lighting output. This means the lights cannot be switched off. I prefer this - in daylight they are invisible anyway, and at night I always want them on.<br />
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While I was buying the parts for this, I also noticed on eBay some seated LGB figures, some of whom are now installed in Shiny. I'm sure they're much happier now they can read while the train is stopped at a station or in the sidings.n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-33124097384651947412020-05-07T00:02:00.000-07:002020-05-08T23:27:33.799-07:00Berlin, Before and AfterMy first visit to Berlin was in 1983, in the depths of the Cold War. It was the Berlin of black-and-white movies, of Michael Caine in Funeral in Berlin and the Len Deighton spy novels. In retrospect it feels like Berlin itself was in black-and-white.<br />
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I was there for a standards meeting hosted by the German national standards body, DIN. Their headquarters was at the eastern side of West Berlin, overlooking the Zoo. Oddly the best view, of the Bradenburger Tor, was visible only from the mens' room (and also, I'm told, from the ladies' room).<br />
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The centre of Berlin was the Ku-Damm, a shopper's paradise like London's Oxford Street, dominated by the broken, blackened stump of the bombed Kaiser Wilhelm Church. Even then it had a slightly tacky feel to it. The original centre of Berlin, before 1939, was Unter den Linden, but after 1945 this was in the eastern sector, inaccessible and decaying like the rest of the East.<br />
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I was with a group of friends and colleagues, as always at these meetings. One, an American, was fascinated by the divided city, but his security clearance made a visit to the East out of the question. We spent our free time getting as close as possible without actually going there. We took the subway (U-Bahn) line that passed under the East, passing at full speed through the barely visible ghosts of stations that had been closed for decades.<br />
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One evening we visited a remote truck parking lot by the Wall. It was very spooky, and then afterwards we tried to take the S-Bahn, the surface suburban train which has been a vital part of Berlin's transport system for well over a century. But some twisted part of the agreements over the city meant that even though more than half of it was in the West, it was operated by the East Berlin transport company. As a result it had been boycotted by the westerners for several years, and the services reduced to the point where it was just the phantom of a transport system. Late at night the trains ran about once an hour. We hung around, the only people on the lonely platform, our breath fogging in the chilly night air, until finally someone showed some common sense and we walked back to our hotel.<br />
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Another must-see was Checkpoint Charlie, by then the only open road crossing into the East in an undistinguished urban street. It was there that Isabelle, long before I knew her, took a bus tour and had her copy of Le Monde confiscated - it wouldn't do for the liberated people of the German Democratic Republic to see such degenerate filth. But much to her surprise, in a typically German organised way, she was reunited with it when she re-entered the West.<br />
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I took a bus tour myself in 1983. We were taken to the Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park, a monument to the twenty million Russians who died during the war with Germany - though many at the hands of their own government. We passed a shop with a long queue outside, which was a cue for the guide to explain to us that there were no shortages of anything in the Democratic Republic.<br />
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Even getting to and from Berlin was surreal. The post-1945 treaty decreed that Lufthansa, the German airline, was not permitted to serve Berlin. In fact only three airlines were, one for each of the western powers: British Airways, Air France, and Pan Am. The latter had a fair-sized European operation to serve Berlin, mainly from other airports in Germany. There were very few direct flights from London, and every trip I made to Berlin involved a change in some north German airport - Hannover, Hamburg or Bremen. The official air corridors had been approved in the days of piston airliners like the DC3, so they were at abnormally low altitudes for jets - 11,000 feet or so. They gave spectacular views over the rather dull Prussian countryside.<br />
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In 1986 we had a two-week meeting at DIN, with a spare weekend. My friend Peter and I decided to spend an evening in the East. We thought it would be good to see the main railway station (Hauptbahnhof) figuring that it must be a hive of activity.<br />
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First though we had to cross the border. We took the S-Bahn to Friedrichstrasse, in the heart of the East but still functionally part of the West. The platforms were divided by high walls, and to cross we had to descend into the bowels of the station to a very unwelcoming customs post. We changed money into Reichsmarks, the currency of the East - far more than we could hope to spend in one evening, which was their idea. And then we continued on another S-Bahn train to the Hauptbahnhof.<br />
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It was a huge disappointment. Where we'd expected to see packed trains to any number of exotic and inaccessible destinations, there was just one - going, as I recall, to Prague. None to Moscow, or Warsaw, or indeed anywhere else at all. The only thing to do was to find somewhere for dinner.<br />
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<i>Good</i> restaurants in East Berlin didn't exist. We chose what our guidebook (no TripAdvisor in those days) said was one of the best. It was right on Alexanderplatz, the centre of the city, and specialised in Moravian cuisine, which is to say Czech. It was a huge hangar of a place, but even so we had to share a table. Our table partners were what appeared to be - which was later confirmed - a young Czech guy and his mother. During the meal we politely ignored each other, but once we had finished eating things turned a little weird.<br />
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Our new friend spoke excellent English even though it was the first time he'd ever spoken to a real native speaker. He started to tell us how much he disliked Berlin, how sad he found it compared to Prague. Back then even travelling between Iron Curtain countries was difficult, but going outside them was essentially impossible. He waxed eloquent on his theme.<br />
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"I mean, what right does some <i>Ivan</i> in Moscow have to tell the Germans how to live their lives?" he proclaimed.<br />
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My friend was trying to hide under the table. He'd probably had some minor involvement with the security services, and was certainly paranoid about being in the East at all. He was convinced we had been found by an <i>agent provocateur</i>. His relief when we finally left was tempered only by his conviction that we would be seized by Stasi agents and left to rot in a Communist gaol before we could make it back to the West.<br />
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Luckily this didn't happen, and I got to spend the weekend with my then-wife. It was the first time i'd ever been in Germany at the weekend. We spent a lazy Saturday morning, and started to wander around the shops on the Ku-Damm after lunch. She was about to try something on, when suddenly we were hurriedly ushered out of the shop. We didn't understand - was there a fire or something? But no, nothing like that - German shops still closed at 2pm on Saturday, as we quickly realised when we saw that everything else was shut too.<br />
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On Sunday we visited East Germany itself, with a bus trip to Potsdam. Before 1939, and again now, this was a very upmarket suburb, like Versailles is to Paris. Very much like it, because in 1745 Frederick the Great of Prussia built a palace there, Sans Souci, inspired by Versailles. This was the principal destination of our trip.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Central Potsdam, 1986</td></tr>
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<span id="goog_960980164"></span><span id="goog_960980165"></span>But first we had to cross the border, at a truly vast parking lot on the highway. We spent a long time there, and when we finally got to the head of the queue our bus was comprehensively searched, inside and out, including mirrors on long poles underneath. Though it seems very unlikely that anyone would want to be smuggled <i>into </i>the glorious DDR.<br />
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The town centre was completely deserted. Only the occasional Trabant pottered smokily through its streets. I haven't been there since but I'm sure it's a very different place now.<br />
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On 3rd October 1990 East Germany, and with it East Berlin, ceased to exist. I was at an international meeting at the time, though it happened to be in Sydney, Australia, and coincidentally also on my honeymoon. At midnight, German time - which was 8am for us - the head of the German delegation served sekt to everyone present. It was an emotional moment.<br />
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The next meeting had long been scheduled in Berlin, the following June. But instead of meeting at the DIN headquarters, we were hosted at the Academy of Sciences in the heart of the former East. There were still no decent hotels there, and for various reasons I had driven from England. So every morning and evening we made what just one year earlier would have been an inconceivable journey, driving through Potsdamer Platz which until recently had the Wall running through the middle. The roads were still crowded with the "Trabbi", the awful tiny car whose design dated from the early 1950s that was an almost unattainable luxury for the Osties. Being surrounded by them in a traffic jam, with their stinking, erratically noisy two-stroke engines belching unburned fuel and oil, was an unforgettable experience.<br />
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Naturally very little had changed in the few months since reunification. East Berlin was a grim, grey place, exactly as in the Cold War era movies. There were no shops, but the Pergamon Museum was fascinating. The German telephone company had made special, urgent arrangements to install a temporary telephone line at the meeting site - in the days of the East, even the Academy of Sciences didn't have a single telephone.<br />
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We made the most of the experience. With my friend Peter - this time in no danger of being arrested by the Stasi - we took the S-Bahn to Schönefeld, East Berlin's airport. There wasn't much to see - although it is far larger than Tegel, its western counterpart, there was little going on there. It is the only time I have ever seen a Tupolev 134, the small twin-engine jet that was the mainstay of East Germany's airline, Interflug. Now Schönefeld is the site of Berlin's new airport, Brandenburg, of which more later.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Harzquerbahn in 1990</td></tr>
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We took advantage of a free day, and my car, to visit the Harzquerbahn, a narrow gauge railway about 100 km away. It was still a much-used part of the transport infrastructure, not a preserved line for enthusiasts. It was operated by enormous narrow gauge steam engines with a 2-10-2 wheel arrangement - meaning a lot of wheels. It was extremely impressive to see it in operation.<br />
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One afternoon Isabelle and I drove around the East, including a stop at the iconic Bornholmerstrasse Bridge, where hostages were exchanged during Cold War days. Its enormous span covers a huge S-Bahn junction just north of the city centre. We also managed a trip to Potsdam and Sans Souci, by now already waking up from the DDR times.<br />
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I thoroughly enjoyed that trip, with fond memories of <i>gemützlich</i> restaurants and bars in the evening and the warm atmosphere that cold climates generate.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A typical grim DDR scene in Halle</td></tr>
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When the meeting was over we took a circuitous route home, spending a night in Heidelberg well to the south of Berlin before heading back to England. Our route took us close to Halle, a city then completely unchanged from its DDR days, complete with Czech built trams, the buildings still blackened by soot as they had been in 1945. The visit left us short of time, so I took advantage of my nearly-new VW Golf GTi and the speed-unlimited autobahn. The car handled superbly at 200 km/h but every now and then one Trabbi would pull out to pass another, a barely visible speck almost at the horizon. At a closing speed of 150 km/h I was on top of it almost before my foot hit the brake pedal. It was a salutory experience.<br />
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I visited Berlin again nearly 15 years later. By then all memory of the DDR had disappeared, at least from the city centre. Unter den Linden was once again the vibrant heart of the city, with luxury hotels springing up everywhere. Potsdamer Platz, where we had sat in traffic surrounded by stinking Trabbis, is now home to vast modern high-rise offices. Meanwhile the Ku-Damm had become tawdrier than ever, a forgotten monument to shabby 1960s architecture and the Cold War.<br />
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I also saw an excellent illustration of the weakness of the German way of doing things. The S-Bahn, historically the most important part of Berlin's transport, was being renovated and rebuilt, reverting to its pre-1939 glory. In Germany things usually work extraordinarily well. But if they don't, they don't work at all. And so it was with the S-Bahn. I planned a journey one evening to travel on stretches which had hitherto been impossible, but it turned into an exercise in frustration and long cold waits on lonely platforms, reminiscent of that first trip twenty years earlier.<br />
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Speaking of things that go badly in Germany, it's impossible not to mention Brandenburg Airport. I haven't been back to Berlin since that trip in 2003, but Isabelle was there for a meeting in 2011. She arrived, as always, at the cramped Tegel airport. But just one week later it was to close, and after a miraculous 24-hour move all the airlines would be at Brandenburg, the gleaming new airport to the southeast.<br />
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And then, barely a week before it was due to open, it was suddenly declared unsafe. Among the many problems which emerged, the architects had decided that the traditional smoke evacuation scheme via the roof would spoil the appearance of the building. Instead they had devised a complex scheme for evacuating smoke via huge subterranean ducts. Sadly this did not take into account the well known propensity of smoke to rise. Now, over 10 years later, there has been a succession of opening dates which have come and gone. The most recent is later this year, but it remains to be seen whether that happens. In the meantime it has resulted in the premature end of several careers, and even one murder of a whistleblower. When things go badly in Germany, they go very badly indeed.
n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-69029517310381574822020-03-08T19:35:00.001-07:002020-03-09T23:44:54.860-07:00Death Valley Love Affair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For New Year 2012 we visited Death Valley with some friends. They had never been there before, so we did all the basics - a walk around Zabriskie Point, the boardwalk out to the lowest point in the United States, Badwater at 282 feet below sea level, the Mesquite Dunes. Naturally we went to the Visitor Centre in Furnace Creek. And there I bought a book which was genuinely life-changing, Roger Mitchell's <i>Death Valley SUV Trails</i>, along with the National Geographic map of the Park.<br />
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We had been to Death Valley several times before. The first time we flew there, landing the time-share Cessna 182 I had at the time at the Furnace Creek airstrip. This is one of the very few places where you can land with the altimeter showing a negative value. There was no car rental at the time, and we stayed just one night at the Furnace Creek Inn, not leaving the grounds except to return to the airport. It was May, still not yet summer, but it was so hot that during the night I had to sit in front of the air conditioner for five minutes to get back to sleep. In the morning we went for dip in the pool just before it was time to leave. We wondered how we could dry in time, but it wasn't a problem. In the couple of minutes it took to walk back to our room, we were bone dry, even our hair.<br />
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Later on we visited it with my teenage children, by car, and did our own tour of the basics. On another occasion, driving from an overnight stop in Tonopah back to Las Vegas to pick up my plane, we diverted through Death Valley.<br />
<br />
The Inn was built in the 1920s by the Pacific Borax Company to develop tourism there as an alternative to borax mining. It works fairly well as a kind of time-warped luxury resort. The alternative is the Ranch, originally a low budget motel which has improved over the years. We stayed there for our New Year visit, making the most of the huge, warm spring fed swimming pool. It was a "blue moon", when the moon is full twice in the same month, and we have fond memories of swimming late at night under the full blue moon. We were in the very convivial atmosphere of the Ranch bar to welcome the New Year at midnight. After years of experience we have our own preferred rooms there, with an uninterrupted view of the Panamint mountains and convenient access to the outside, overlooking the golf course, where we can enjoy al fresco meals.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Off-Road Dreams</h2>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijzLzphtDeHN-IOW9-r13-7BmAPs41dRibA4X8Q4aAANnhf_lxVK9tNcR_yRNjfkv_7KSUwvlGSlqj5phMeAzkI5O1CdiDPgDIjJHrU0JMkJuOaRMO2Ru_a1spitBgw44-wmHE0MxGTn8/s1600/DSC06534.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijzLzphtDeHN-IOW9-r13-7BmAPs41dRibA4X8Q4aAANnhf_lxVK9tNcR_yRNjfkv_7KSUwvlGSlqj5phMeAzkI5O1CdiDPgDIjJHrU0JMkJuOaRMO2Ru_a1spitBgw44-wmHE0MxGTn8/s320/DSC06534.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Red Jeep</td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGiH6UfwLEgjUOYcrs6ONXxq8si8D9BHuENLt9i0VHBUmd0iAzbZpGfwKoLcYBh2UZcpHm9Ad_47rbMOJ405bSVdBK6OQ4QIaM29aHXGfbzJ49oS6n9ARJZqhsquWIYh95CsH6Pw-YS0k/s1600/P1030046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGiH6UfwLEgjUOYcrs6ONXxq8si8D9BHuENLt9i0VHBUmd0iAzbZpGfwKoLcYBh2UZcpHm9Ad_47rbMOJ405bSVdBK6OQ4QIaM29aHXGfbzJ49oS6n9ARJZqhsquWIYh95CsH6Pw-YS0k/s320/P1030046.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Racetrack</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyypRyTQ5FYhPox1nh5Wd8Fl59m7Iea69f86vTwHRyYbLa24a4AhOi4Eso_xWobzJDxMm6e13cjeD5dIBoNmVg50toi3w9DZODExa_R-eaNkJNSa9xpIy0W1qrDqAl2ZVACyUK1J0TtU/s1600/P1050439.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyypRyTQ5FYhPox1nh5Wd8Fl59m7Iea69f86vTwHRyYbLa24a4AhOi4Eso_xWobzJDxMm6e13cjeD5dIBoNmVg50toi3w9DZODExa_R-eaNkJNSa9xpIy0W1qrDqAl2ZVACyUK1J0TtU/s320/P1050439.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In Titus Canyon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Once back home, I started to read the Mitchell book. I was quickly entranced by the amazing variety of off-road trails which exist, as long as you have the right vehicle. For a normal car, there are just two roads in the Park. One runs from Scotty's Castle in the north, past Furnace Creek to Badwater in the south. The other arrives from the west, passing the Panamint Springs Resort, then climbs into Death Valley itself through the 5000 foot Towne Pass. It continues past Furnace Creek to Death Valley Junction, Pahrump and eventually Las Vegas, with another fork to Beatty, Nevada. This is all 99% of visitors see - including us, up until this time.<br />
<br />
Even so it is an amazing place, which had already captured our imagination. Not only is it the lowest spot in the US, but also the hottest in the whole world. The record temperature is 134°F, established in 1913. Birds were dropping dead from the sky. There is almost no rain, and so very little vegetation or soil. The geology, layer upon layer of twisted rock formations, is on naked display. Yet when it does rain it is usually in destructive torrents that carve canyons and hurl giant boulders down from the mountains. In 2004 a flood destroyed one of the major roads and killed two people, while in 2015 the northern access to the park at Scotty's Castle was destroyed in another flood and may reopen in 2020.<br />
<br />
I read every single trail in the Mitchell book, dreaming of what they must be like. The National Geographic map was my other companion, tracing out the routes. Finally in October of 2012 we arranged to fly once again to Furnace Creek. It's not an especially long flight, a couple of hours, but you fly over a truly extraordinary amount of emptiness once the Sierra Nevada is crossed. The big difference from our first flying visit was that by now, a Jeep rental place had opened. So we could fly in, rent our bright-red Jeep, and set off straight away on the journeys that I had been dreaming of for months.<br />
<br />
We did what I call "Death Valley 201" - the most interesting of the not-too-hard trails. We started with the Racetrack, an extraordinary place where football sized rocks move mysteriously over the smooth mud. The next day we visited one of our (now) all-time favourites, Titus Canyon. When we returned I wrote <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2012/10/death-valley-backroads-day-2-racetrack.html">blogs</a> about our first off-road adventures in Death Valley.<br />
<br />
<h2>
FJ Joins the Family</h2>
<br />
I was completely overwhelmed by what we had experienced. I read and re-read the Mitchell book almost feverishly. I wanted to do more of this, and I wanted our own off-road vehicle to do it. The Jeep was an excellent off-road vehicle, but its on-road comforts were a different matter. From our home in the Bay Area to Death Valley or anywhere else like it is a long, long drive - Death Valley takes about 8 very boring hours if you just pound along the highway, longer if you take detours to make it more interesting. So we needed something that would be comfortable for those long drives, yet capable of even the most extreme trails.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjNbLg4Gkgqta49PWNnAOaemR2LTQJJEp_n7Suspjop6b50_rRzl7KR3OwdIA6XAuHGIxAWrUfI0ooAVaw6AYVwb50xPK5GNWZwAj0bE_z1KTaWNHZqHdhFy4UerejpmPJd6aGt4budes/s1600/P1000115.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjNbLg4Gkgqta49PWNnAOaemR2LTQJJEp_n7Suspjop6b50_rRzl7KR3OwdIA6XAuHGIxAWrUfI0ooAVaw6AYVwb50xPK5GNWZwAj0bE_z1KTaWNHZqHdhFy4UerejpmPJd6aGt4budes/s320/P1000115.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
It didn't take long to home in on the perfect vehicle: the Toyota FJ Cruiser. I spent all my spare time researching it, with much help from the <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2012/10/death-valley-backroads-day-2-racetrack.html">FJ Cruiser Forum</a>. I took a brand new one for a long test drive, which confirmed that this was indeed exactly what we needed.<br />
<br />
Since I was planning to make extensive modifications, it didn't make sense to buy a new one. After various false starts, I found a 2010 model at a local Toyota dealer which ticked all the right boxes. My family thought I was mad, and I was having doubts myself. I figured that if it really did turn out to be a bad idea, I could always sell it again.<br />
<br />
Our new vehicle was instantly baptised FJ, along with Hermine (my wife's Audi A4) and La Petitte (my Audi TT). Now I had to decide what modifications were necessary. The most important thing was to make it trail-proof, which means protecting everything underneath. I spent several chilly January weekends installing thick metal plates to cover everything from the radiator backwards to the fuel tank. I let the garage make the suspension modifications.<br />
<br />
I spent a lot of time deciding which tyres to fit. There's a big choice, each with its advocates and its particular advantages. Given the amount of highway driving we would do, noise really mattered - and this is not a strong point of sturdy off-road tyres. The ones fitted when I bought it made a constant droning which made conversation difficult. Others that I'd test driven were even worse. Finally I decided on Bridgestone truck tyres. It took me a while to realise, after they'd been fitted, why suddenly there was such a lot of wind noise - previously it had been inaudible, masked by the racket from the tyres.<br />
<br />
<h2>
FJ's First Adventure</h2>
<br />
Our first trip to Death Valley with FJ was in April 2013, six months after we bought her. We went the long way round via Tahoe, since the Tioga pass was still snowed in. For the first time we spent a night in Bishop, the only significant town on US395 all the way from Reno until it crosses the mountains into the LA area. Even so there's not much to it, apart from Eric Schat's amazing bakery. We have since spent several nights there, and only ever found one functioning restaurant.<br />
<br />
We entered the Park via the Saline Valley road. It's about 95 miles long from north to south, entirely unpaved and with high passes at either end. In winter the snow sometimes makes it inaccessible for days. It's a spectacular journey, never boring with the ever changing scenery. FJ lived up to our expectations both in comfort for the long highway journey and in agility for the off-road stretches.<br />
<br />
A short side trip from the main valley road took us to the Saline Springs, an optionally nudist bathing spot. We didn't partake, but it's a fun place. From there the south pass road took us, eventually, to the Panamint Springs Resort, where we spent the night. It's a quirky place. Mainly it's a big camp site, but back then it had a few ancient cabins. Since then it has acquired some new ones, much more comfortable.<br />
<br />
I'd really wanted to dive into the deep-end and drive the Mengel Pass and Goler Wash road. Isabelle wasn't keen, and with hindsight this was a good choice. We have since driven it, and while it's a beautiful journey it would have been a bit beyond my experience at the time. Instead, we visited the almost-ghost town of Ballarat, and then tried the easier side roads off the Wildrose road.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLE_lN44NLFtD7y2LqHXROoDfhyphenhyphenZ4xTxxF_-yJfX1PukYAmqFVEztlLpJ6PBIcRd6ouuZczpY3CF_bJEx6JWoANzPqjwQHF79WdjtGb9JpLOhjWZGi-X-orBnrJOki9M5grsgnQY19wbI/s1600/P1030012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLE_lN44NLFtD7y2LqHXROoDfhyphenhyphenZ4xTxxF_-yJfX1PukYAmqFVEztlLpJ6PBIcRd6ouuZczpY3CF_bJEx6JWoANzPqjwQHF79WdjtGb9JpLOhjWZGi-X-orBnrJOki9M5grsgnQY19wbI/s320/P1030012.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aguereberry Point with resident crow - Dante's View is the<br />
peak at the right of the picture</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This was when we discovered Aguereberry Point, a summit over 6000 feet above the western side of Death Valley with astounding views along its whole length. It is almost opposite the much better known, and more visited, Dante's View. We've been there many times since. Usually we have been alone, occasionally there might be one other car there. It <i>could</i> be done with a regular car, most of the time, but I wouldn't be keen. The main risk is the tyres - losing one would be unfortunate, but losing more than one would be a big problem.<br />
<br />
The name was obviously Basque, which intrigued us. Eventually it led to a deep interest in Jean-Pierre (Pete) Aguereberry, who built the road himself from his mine at the bottom of the hill, and to Isabelle giving a talk about him in his home town of Mauléon, France.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Chicken Lippincott</h2>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDaEjNOJtM1VFcik_PEUidwyp-psdT24b3SnlOi7wrT3J90yRehhpoShiTTyhvsW5d24jL7groqJ-QGfzXeol0zDF6VQyfd-OIKzU-bhOBail2ycJeytMW7F_jeK3JH8vZhSz9_Sn5vk/s1600/DSC00452.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDaEjNOJtM1VFcik_PEUidwyp-psdT24b3SnlOi7wrT3J90yRehhpoShiTTyhvsW5d24jL7groqJ-QGfzXeol0zDF6VQyfd-OIKzU-bhOBail2ycJeytMW7F_jeK3JH8vZhSz9_Sn5vk/s320/DSC00452.JPG" width="320" /></a>Death Valley is addictive. The more you do, the more you find that is still to be done. Since that first trip with FJ we have been back about ten times, sometimes on our own, sometimes with friends and family. The "Death Valley 201" trails - the Racetrack, Titus Canyon, Aguereberry Point - we have done several times, with different visitors.<br />
<br />
One of our most memorable trips was with our friends Donna - now sadly no longer with us - and Paulo, in 2015. They drove from their home in Colorado in their brand new Jeep Cherokee.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-AJh8QDqNzfmuf9HBxJGKSmzUTYKoRp4uzGWjJumBK7njWYBznVFvDtp_vRfOsqejWXfi6SqKoT5wiygESKJTnKjIZerElHL0sZksxiUmn84M-yqQ-AsdQUcFrqu5eDiI1eCjvQjQ-IY/s1600/DSC00454.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-AJh8QDqNzfmuf9HBxJGKSmzUTYKoRp4uzGWjJumBK7njWYBznVFvDtp_vRfOsqejWXfi6SqKoT5wiygESKJTnKjIZerElHL0sZksxiUmn84M-yqQ-AsdQUcFrqu5eDiI1eCjvQjQ-IY/s320/DSC00454.JPG" width="320" /></a>We drove to the Racetrack. From there our planned route was down the Lippincott Mine Road, one of the most extreme trails in the Park. The road was bulldozed down the side of a mountain to provide truck access to the Lippincott lead mine. It descends (or ascends, depending which way you go) 2000 feet in about 5 miles. In places there are washouts which leave barely enough room for FJ or a Jeep, not to mention adverse camber that threatens to hurl you into the canyon's void. I can't imagine driving a truck loaded with tons of lead ore down it, relying on 1940s technology brakes - but they did.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkvkQ-5DqkFpuvWOEtlE01J_FYzJcjPv6zWQO0Qf8MQbXmtrwiT95oZ-vdgvrXR-EjNNrxgdhV149I3YCK6zY1c5g8AFLOqxhyphenhyphen2KT7hsE1jKqxhJBuNyxgoTPN3aUvYxYuJ8c3OPPI4Qw/s1600/DSC00457.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkvkQ-5DqkFpuvWOEtlE01J_FYzJcjPv6zWQO0Qf8MQbXmtrwiT95oZ-vdgvrXR-EjNNrxgdhV149I3YCK6zY1c5g8AFLOqxhyphenhyphen2KT7hsE1jKqxhJBuNyxgoTPN3aUvYxYuJ8c3OPPI4Qw/s320/DSC00457.JPG" width="320" /></a>Despite its reputation, the road is not that difficult as long as you have the right vehicle - I've driven down it twice now. There are only a few places where you need to pay close attention to wheel placement, though a single storm could make it impassable. The Park Service runs a grader down it every now and then, unlike some of the trails.<br />
<br />
Still, it was brave decision to take a brand new vehicle down it. FJ had no problems but we had to be careful with the Jeep's regular car-style tyres. We have a wonderful picture taken at the bottom, with a look of delayed shock on Donna's face like something from a horror cartoon. A beer at the Panamint Springs Resort was a big help.<br />
<br />
And the chicken? Dining possibilities at Furnace Creek are limited. There's a fancy, pretentious and overpriced restaurant at the Inn, and a much more basic diner at the Ranch. One meal per trip there is OK, but that's enough. Once we understood that, we have taken care of our own food. The evening after our Lippincott experience, we dined on a simple, impromptu meal made from chicken, beans and tinned tomatoes purchased in the general store and cooked on a tiny camping stove. Since then, Chicken Lippincott has been a staple of our trips to Death Valley.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Steel Pass and the The Vertebra Scale</h2>
<div>
<br />
For a long time I wanted to drive Steel Pass. This provides another access to Saline Valley from the north. Starting from a good dirt road, it leads first to the extraordinary Eureka Dunes. These rise 700 feet above the surrounding valley, with magnificent views. You rarely see other human footprints as you climb, because they are quickly erased by the wind, though critter prints of various sizes are common. After Eureka Dunes the road goes through a long patch of soft sand - four-wheel drive and even lockers essential - and then into the narrows of Dedeckera Canyon. What makes this special is a series of dry falls that are at the limits of drivability, the last one especially. I watched several videos on Youtube of people doing them. If I hadn't, I would never have believed our FJ could do it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In fact, though, it was not even very hard. The canyon is so narrow that there is only one possible passage, so it's just a question of making sure you are lined up correctly. I even made my own video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSlvWwOAFu4">here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXpGO94Hx969vVF8lTmcVZBThJE6gqbnrWDFYfyqf_Mrq4kNHogqF7AB24nI5jY7FJUNvW_rg1F6FF4LxmbuMr9n6kyB7ffa76X0XQ1uP9vBniWm66OotYDE314Lf4jEtShh5_5n1fgI4/s1600/P1020427-crop.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1430" data-original-width="1600" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXpGO94Hx969vVF8lTmcVZBThJE6gqbnrWDFYfyqf_Mrq4kNHogqF7AB24nI5jY7FJUNvW_rg1F6FF4LxmbuMr9n6kyB7ffa76X0XQ1uP9vBniWm66OotYDE314Lf4jEtShh5_5n1fgI4/s320/P1020427-crop.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dedeckera Canyon Steps</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After the steps, it's a long and very scenic drive to the top of the pass, with only one tricky stretch because of the steep gradient. From there down to the springs in Saline Valley is 12 miles in a rocky stream bed. It's not hard to drive, but it is <i>extremely</i> rough. The driver at least has the steering wheel to hold on to, but passengers get shaken about as if on a small boat in a rough sea.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
All books of off-road trails include some kind of difficulty rating. Mitchell's is typical - 1 means you can do it in a rental car, carefully. A rating of 5 means that even with FJ it is going to be a challenge. These scales all consider the driver's viewpoint. After Steel Pass, Isabelle came up with one from the passenger's point of view, which she calls the Vertebra Scale. One vertebra means easy, maybe shaken up a bit in places but nothing worse. Five vertebrae is reserved for the descent from Steel Pass.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole road and would readily do it again, but it has been made clear to me that it would be on my own!<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
Mengel Pass - Finally!</h2>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLNV41iORrBwqkrHWmA0BbPuSTcsQdoqRP8Nd-Jw_M1M3BRz-Q8TQ_LvA_FUpjFGyI2xohNnTxt2WKpajKFjgm8PL1NLsJe0gEpmbRbPQFmkKe1pufR7fBo26Nat45NmlH83estpO5yXQ/s1600/DSC00512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLNV41iORrBwqkrHWmA0BbPuSTcsQdoqRP8Nd-Jw_M1M3BRz-Q8TQ_LvA_FUpjFGyI2xohNnTxt2WKpajKFjgm8PL1NLsJe0gEpmbRbPQFmkKe1pufR7fBo26Nat45NmlH83estpO5yXQ/s320/DSC00512.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Striped Butte and the Geologist's Cabin</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Death Valley Park encompasses three principal valleys. Badwater, or Death Valley itself, is separated from the parallel Panamint Valley by a huge mountain range, reaching 11,000 feet at its highest point, Telescope Peak. There are several hiking trails across passes between the two valleys, but they are only for the exceptionally fit. Route 190 takes the 5000 foot Towne Pass. The only other vehicle-accessible road is Mengel Pass, at the southern end. It takes its name from Carl Mengel, a famous character who lived on one side and mined on the other, routinely crossing the pass - despite having only one leg.<br />
<br />
I'd wanted to drive this road on our very first trip with FJ, but Isabelle insisted on waiting until we could have two cars. This is certainly prudent although these days it carries so much traffic that even if you broke down, someone would be on hand. Finally in October 2019 Isabelle went to a lot of trouble to organise a two-car outing. Paulo came again from Colorado with his Cherokee, though sadly this time alone. We had friends and family from England as well, making a total of five of us.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5WY6caQKF21zAyL8nLwabLOWzI_hbgrreLtOILPVCRXmSaXp2yZ_sKSDa_gqf0tuzG6U-NmrZpRc8_rRcVBMs5CI2XxW9cffuubChoPhY7CZ0muKgvaSvGySS7UdM0FKbphEQPObJzVw/s1600/DSC00522.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5WY6caQKF21zAyL8nLwabLOWzI_hbgrreLtOILPVCRXmSaXp2yZ_sKSDa_gqf0tuzG6U-NmrZpRc8_rRcVBMs5CI2XxW9cffuubChoPhY7CZ0muKgvaSvGySS7UdM0FKbphEQPObJzVw/s320/DSC00522.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking down into Anvil Canyon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
FJ and the Cherokee had both driven part of the way before. We drove them up Warm Springs Canyon, past the remains of the talc mine, and into Butte Valley with its spectacular rock formation. That time, we stopped at the Geologist's Cabin, having determined that Mengel Pass was too much for the Cherokee and its street tyres. This time, we rented a Jeep from Farrabee's for the day, specially for this trip.<br />
<br />
It's a long trip so we started early, beginning with the West Side Road that runs down the "wrong" side of the Badwater flats. It passes several interesting spots including Shorty Harris's grave and Shorty's Well - named for a different Shorty. Finally we turned right on the Warm Springs road, climbing up the alluvial fan and eventually entering the broad canyon and passing by the mine.<br />
<br />
We stopped at the Geologist's Cabin for our picnic lunch, with Striped Butte in full view in front of us. There were several other cars there, some planning to go through the pass, others not. One of the groups had been staying in the cabin.<br />
<br />
A couple of us drove down the trail to the head of Anvil Canyon. This is now wilderness though originally it was the only drivable road up to the valley. It was from here that the "Death Valley Germans" made their disastrous decision in 1996 to try and get back to the main valley in a totally unsuitable two-wheel-drive rental car. The discovery of their remains, in 2009, is a fascinating if macabre <a href="https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/">story</a>.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivLr4uy7Jl0gZ6ZWbgAFQ-EOQSDewgXqJMqLzxeIg0VXMjVSGd69neWv5RKt4G1cz9JTEERGYs65ZW6D90Mmm3sU1iCtki9aaC-RmzGz_ipK7Ko39jPArRTp8lp1FHRzui2y1KCaUlIPU/s1600/P1020990.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivLr4uy7Jl0gZ6ZWbgAFQ-EOQSDewgXqJMqLzxeIg0VXMjVSGd69neWv5RKt4G1cz9JTEERGYs65ZW6D90Mmm3sU1iCtki9aaC-RmzGz_ipK7Ko39jPArRTp8lp1FHRzui2y1KCaUlIPU/s320/P1020990.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goler Canyon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Finally it was time to start the last climb to the summit of Mengel Pass. The road rapidly becomes fairly technical, requiring careful tyre placement. Even so, FJ's extensive underbody protection several times did its job as a high rock thumped against one of the quarter-inch aluminium plates that protect everything that matters.<br />
<br />
There were several vehicles at the summit, including one that had come that far by accident, looking for something much lower down. The descent, on the other side, was similar - a few technical stretches separated by easy but slow rocky trails. Finally we arrived at the junction for the Barker Ranch. Much has been written about this, the final hiding place for the Manson gang.<br />
<br />
The last stretch of the road leads through Goler Canyon. I was completely unprepared for the beauty of this wild, rugged place, every bit as spectacular as Titus Canyon. From there it's a long drive on a good dirt road to the almost-ghost town of Ballarat, passing the huge Briggs mine which was still active until recently. There is still a general store in Ballarat, but all it sells is beer - which was extremely welcome.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Dunes</h2>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmxoDa0doNBQRZUg_PglJuhECSQqMUoaxokr1GxyajY-r8Y6zNQJIlR33Sf8CJ7ZfJNIFg_B_dwPzwDBB9hSR3sC9r_m2QEtCP-8vNfy8WAqIO-77MzMyoB82VmIXINdVSnX8C-ZuGuU/s1600/P1020918.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmxoDa0doNBQRZUg_PglJuhECSQqMUoaxokr1GxyajY-r8Y6zNQJIlR33Sf8CJ7ZfJNIFg_B_dwPzwDBB9hSR3sC9r_m2QEtCP-8vNfy8WAqIO-77MzMyoB82VmIXINdVSnX8C-ZuGuU/s320/P1020918.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eureka Dunes</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the Park's best known sites is the Mesquite Dunes, accessed by a short walk from a large parking lot beside route 190 just east of Stovepipe Wells. At all daylight hours there are plenty of people roaming the low, easily climbed piles of sand. There are several other dunes, all much harder to access. I mentioned earlier the Eureka Dunes, which can be reached directly by car with a lot of off-road driving. Others are even less accessible.<br />
<br />
On our most recent trip, in March 2020, we decided to visit the Ibex Dunes in the far south of the park. On the way we passed through Shoshone, a tiny settlement just outside the Park which was put on the map by Charles Brown, a powerful advocate for eastern Inyo County who ended up as a California senator, yet still lived very modestly in his Shoshone home.<br />
<br />
On a previous trip we drove close to the date farm at Tecopa, and this time we made the detour to visit it. It has an adequate water supply from the Amargosa River, not long before the latter turns through 180 degrees to head north into Badwater and eventually to disappear there. It's an interesting place, well worth a visit. It's possible to do a long hike from there through the Amaragosa canyon, though this time we didn't, to find the path of the old <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2017/06/">Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad</a>. We left with some delicious dates, excellent date bread, and a surprising book which I'll mention later.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXSvmE0wD_XbZo8Jn5zzl1gn-KVaXRSQqYO9NfVH9GB512a8hRR9sQmQ3n1BX9XO1tMAbxMiPfnYdyh7h60CG3EFx2-dN2dPm7bXXy8yw3zstTbAv1U7ih_9OZCYfVEoLxWQmRSoocZ9I/s1600/P1030103.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXSvmE0wD_XbZo8Jn5zzl1gn-KVaXRSQqYO9NfVH9GB512a8hRR9sQmQ3n1BX9XO1tMAbxMiPfnYdyh7h60CG3EFx2-dN2dPm7bXXy8yw3zstTbAv1U7ih_9OZCYfVEoLxWQmRSoocZ9I/s320/P1030103.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buckwheat Dunes from the pass after Ibex Spring</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We took one more detour from the Ibex Dunes road, to visit the Ibex Spring and the surrounding area. There used to be several talc mines clustered around the spring. The road there is easy apart from one massive washout which requires descending ten feet into a dip, and climbing out the other side, both at about a 30 degree angle.<br />
<br />
There is another dune system in the Buckwheat Valley, one more mountain range west of the Ibex Spring. It's almost unknown - I only knew of it thanks to Steve Hall's excellent blog. We only had time for one dune though, so we stopped in the mountain pass and ate our picnic lunch in full view of the dunes, before returning to the main Ibex Dunes road.<br />
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<br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNmyeZoQnr099XP_Rz4JZ0AqIEngiT9k20cUkkBtrsjdjSsaA_4Hccks1wnURPaHF2PiIS1jl_OWAM8tI6zQ2wBmXCKeeO5jGk8fxLxlCfkSCF7CaI19hO6NAf5gIw0uLvEDaU-p37s6k/s1600/P1030115.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNmyeZoQnr099XP_Rz4JZ0AqIEngiT9k20cUkkBtrsjdjSsaA_4Hccks1wnURPaHF2PiIS1jl_OWAM8tI6zQ2wBmXCKeeO5jGk8fxLxlCfkSCF7CaI19hO6NAf5gIw0uLvEDaU-p37s6k/s320/P1030115.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ibex Dunes</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The road passes close to the Dunes, but it's a 1.5 mile hike across soft sand to get to them. It's worth it though, because the Dunes are much more impressive from close up than they are from the road. We didn't try to climb them. Our excuse was that they looked so superb in their pristine, untrodden state, and we didn't want to leave footprints. There are very few visitors - the ground was still damp from recent rain and it was clear nobody had been there in the previous week or so.<br />
<br />
On the same trip we also drove to the top of Trail Canyon. On our very first excursion with the Jeep we'd <a href="http://n5296s.blogspot.com/2012/10/death-valley-backroads-day-3-titus.html">tried this</a>, but we were put off by the rough road and we were running out of time. This time we persevered. One of the highlights is a very short stretch where Aguereberry Point is visible from the road, via a side canyon. Many years ago there was a perilous zig-zag road carved into the hillside which led up there, built for a tungsten mining operation in the 1950s. A flood in the 1970s washed it away and it has not been remade.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisx439Vhcu9evE-bNyAfgd6zedD0xb2wxbh_3EbgAlW9qWI2obvpViedXSryk27iipMswcd90USZFdYGs_IdXGHk6_XQodaBtegyQWkCTNwoXUNjrQxz37P5VD1PfkgAByU_47dv2nRL8/s1600/P1030193.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisx439Vhcu9evE-bNyAfgd6zedD0xb2wxbh_3EbgAlW9qWI2obvpViedXSryk27iipMswcd90USZFdYGs_IdXGHk6_XQodaBtegyQWkCTNwoXUNjrQxz37P5VD1PfkgAByU_47dv2nRL8/s320/P1030193.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Morning Glory Mine Camp in Trail Canyon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
At the top, the road splits in two, each fork terminating at the extensive remains of a mine after some seriously rough road. There used to be many mines up here, early ones for gold and silver and later ones for lead, antimony and tungsten. Looking up the canyon we could see the still snow-covered Wildrose Peak. It's possible to hike further to more mine remains, but it would be hard work. Apart from the thousands of feet of climb, walking in a stony wash is difficult even for a short distance. We discovered this hunting for the spring which supposedly exists. We found some vegetation but no water.<br />
<br />
The Panamint Dunes are at the northern end of Panamint Valley, reached via six miles of easy but slow dirt road, with frequent washouts that have to be taken at walking pace. A long time ago it was possible to drive right up to them, but now they are part of the Wilderness Area and the closest you can drive is still a four mile hike. We contented ourselves with taking telephoto pictures, before continuing on an extremely rough trail leading up the mountainside to the remains of the Big Four Mine.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhraoAiClS7Xt2KdV20oCh_ZusjVizVX6cnXXSAXXNfFQsaE-ExmILnqcahYfFZ4sJxDa63P6L94LR6RGmo3qGzhqnckmnFixIktqP1NVDhBf8j9eXsEVfa14Oca2fQZAWozGyKH9P8nAM/s1600/P1030217.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhraoAiClS7Xt2KdV20oCh_ZusjVizVX6cnXXSAXXNfFQsaE-ExmILnqcahYfFZ4sJxDa63P6L94LR6RGmo3qGzhqnckmnFixIktqP1NVDhBf8j9eXsEVfa14Oca2fQZAWozGyKH9P8nAM/s320/P1030217.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panamint Dunes, from the nearest road</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That wasn't quite the end of our most recent trip. We spent the night in one of the comfortable new cabins at the Panamint Springs Resort, so tired that we slept through the midnight revels of the Australians in the adjoining cabin. Next day I wanted to drive the original Panamint Valley road, the Nadeau Shotgun Trail. It was built in the 1880s by Death Valley's first freight tycoon, Remi Nadeau, to access the mines in Panamint City and elsewhere. We drove the first seven miles or so from the road, with the vertebra meter ticking up rapidly on the rocky trail and 400 miles still ahead of us, and chickened out at the first side turning back to route 178. It seems that it gets considerably rougher in the southern section, so that was probably a good call. But it would be nice to try it one day.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Resources</h2>
<br />
<h3>
Maps</h3>
<ul>
<li>The free map given away by the Park when you pay for admission is not bad. It's available <a href="http://npmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/death-valley-national-park-map.jpg">online</a> too. It shows where all the trails are, though it would be no good for driving them.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.natgeomaps.com/ti-221-death-valley-national-park">My favourite map</a> is published by National Geographic. It's printed on water-resistant plasticised paper; my copy has survived ten years of constant use, both at home and on the trail.</li>
<li>For driving the trails, or hiking, there is no substitute for the USGS 7.5 minute sheets. They show every trail, every structure and every contour line. When you are in the middle of nowhere and suddenly come to an unexpected fork in the road, they are lifesavers. For preparing a trip at home, <a href="http://caltopo.com/">caltopo.com</a> is perfect. On the trail, I use the <a href="https://download.cnet.com/Topo-Maps-for-iPad/3000-12940_4-75182763.html">Topo Maps</a> app on an iPad 4 Mini with 128 GBytes. That's enough to hold maps for most of California and the surrounding states - and the maps themselves are free. I've managed to load missing sheets in the most unlikely places, thanks to LTE.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Trail Guides</h3>
<div>
<ul>
<li>By far the best trail guide book is the one that got me started on all this, Roger Mitchell's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Death-Valley-SUV-trails-four-wheeling/dp/0970711506">Death Valley SUV Trails</a>. It describes nearly every drivable trail, with detailed instructions and interesting historical background especially about the mines.</li>
<li>The other excellent guide is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Backcountry-Adventures-California-Peter-Massey/dp/1930193041">Backcountry Adventures: Southern California</a>. This doesn't cover as many trails, but is very thorough for the ones it does cover. It has a huge amount of background information about people, places, flora and fauna, geology and much else, which all by itself justifies the price of the book.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Explorers-Guide-Death-Valley-National/dp/1607323400">Explorer's Guide to Death Valley National Park</a> is good too, as thorough as Mitchell.</li>
</ul>
There are quite a few other books covering Death Valley or a broader area, but these are the best.<br />
<ul>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Books</h3>
</div>
<div>
</div>
There is an amazing amount of material about Death Valley considering how few people have ever lived there. Here are a few personal favourites. Some have been out of print for decades, but can generally be found second-hand on Amazon.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pete-Aguereberry-Death-Valley-prospector/dp/0930704118">Pete Aguereberry</a>: the extraordinary life story of the man who left his village in Basque France to fulfill his dream of becoming a gold miner, and succeeded.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hiking-Death-Valley-Natural-Wonders/dp/0965917835/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1583719272&refinements=p_27%3AMichel+Digonnet&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Michel+Digonnet">Digonnet</a>, <i>Hiking Death Valley</i>: this thick book by a Stanford professor describes hundreds of hikes in Death Valley. Most of them are only for the extremely fit, but still enjoyable reading for the rest of us.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Loafing-Along-Death-Valley-Trails/dp/0548445818">Loafing Along Death Valley Trails</a>: a collection of stories about Death Valley personalities, especially Charles Brown of Shoshone.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FGOOZBE/">A History of Mining in the Death Valley National Monument</a>: notable for the incredible amount of material (nearly 600 letter-size pages), this is an official survey from the 1980s to determine what the Park Service should try to preserve. The material on some of the individual mines could fill a book by itself.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/These-Canyons-Are-Full-Ghosts/dp/0971359407">These Canyons are Full of Ghosts</a>: what makes this book extraordinary is that it was written by someone who was still mining for gold in the 1980s, half a century or more after most gold mining came to an end. It is packed with interesting stories. My copy comes, new but already rather the worse for wear and signed by the author, from the Date Farm in Tecopa.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Desert-Maturango-Museum-publication/dp/B0006EFE8S/">Adventures with a Desert Bush Pilot</a>: about a couple who flew their tiny plane (a 95hp Ercoupe) all over the desert, including many adventures in Death Valley. A must read for any pilot.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
On the Web</h3>
<div>
Searching the web for Death Valley related topics could take up months of your time. There is an incredible amount out there. Luckily there are plenty of people who not only have extraordinary adventures, but take the time to write about them and write well.</div>
<div>
<br />
My own special mention goes to <a href="http://www.panamintcity.com/">Steve Hall's Death Valley Adventures</a>: details of over 200 hikes, most of them extremely challenging, that Steve has undertaken in the park with his friends, his wife, and even carrying his young child.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-474378832635022295.post-39791890491776402752020-01-18T18:13:00.001-08:002020-01-18T18:18:49.482-08:00A Visit to the PréfectureIn 1991 I managed to find an internal transfer within my company that would finally allow me to move to France and live with my wife. We'd been married for a year, and together for three, but were still living apart, me in England and her in Paris.<br />
<br />
French immigration law required me to obtain a <i>carte de séjour</i>, a residence permit, even though as a European citizen I had every right to work and live there. With the very helpful assistance of an office at the Sophia Antipolis business park whose job was to help companies based there, I applied. I received a scrap of paper which was a temporary permit. It had to be revalidated at a police station every three months.<br />
<br />
After two years I was practically on first name terms with the lady at Antibes police station whose job it was. There was no room left on the paper for any further stamps. "Monsieur Harper," she said, "enough. You will have to go to the <i>préfecture</i> in Nice and find out why you haven't yet received your permit."<br />
<br />
The <i>Préfecture des Alpes-Maritimes</i> close to Nice airport is a spectacularly ugly modern building. I duly presented myself there, and after waiting a while in a room full of hopeful would-be immigrants I showed my heavily stamped paper to the assistant. "Oh," she said, "it has been here for for over a year." It hadn't occurred to them to let me know. But anyway, I had my <i>carte de séjour</i> and off I happily went.<br />
<br />
Even though possession of the permit was mandatory, I only ever had to produce it twice in the ten years I lived there. Once was at Charles de Gaulle airport, where an officious security guard at TWA (this was a long time ago) demanded it. I told him I didn't have it. He started to remonstrate. I told him I'd happily go to another airline. He let me pass.<br />
<br />
The other time was when I registered my company car in my own name, when I changed jobs. The eagle-eyed assistant, again at the <i>préfecture</i>, noticed that my date of birth was wrong. They had transposed the day and month, as in an American format date, even though I had written correctly it the European way.<br />
<br />
I went again to the ever helpful office in Sophia Antipolis. They made me an appointment at the <i>préfecture</i>, and at the set time I showed up. The waiting room was packed. There were two sets of chairs, one for EU citizens, the other for non-EU - meaning people from North Africa who make up most of the non-EU immigration in France. It was obvious which had higher priority.<br />
<br />
I ignored these seething masses and went straight to the desk. An assistant pulled herself up to her full height. "Monsieur," she said haughtily, "you must go and wait your turn."<br />
<br />
"But I have an appointment."<br />
<br />
"Monsieur, all these people have appointments. You must take your place in the queue."<br />
<br />
My appointment was with the <i>chef de bureau</i>, the man in charge.<br />
<br />
"<i>Mais madame</i>, my appointment is with Monsieur Dupont." (Or whatever he was called).<br />
<br />
She leapt to her feet. "<i>Vous avez rendezvous avec M. Dupont! </i>Mademoiselle Machin, this gentleman has an appointment with M. Dupont! You must fetch him immediately. Monsieur, please take a seat here. M. Dupont will be with you very shortly. I apologize for the wait."<br />
<br />
As ever, a little name dropping goes a long way. Shortly afterwards, Mlle Machin [not her real name of course] led me behind the screens to a dingy office where at an imposing desk sat <i>le</i> <i>chef de bureau</i>. He looked exactly as you'd expect a minor official in the French administration to look - bald, unhealthy, middle-aged, seriously overweight, and very full of himself.<br />
<br />
I explained the problem to him. "<i>Mais Monsieur,</i> surely it is possible that you filled the form incorrectly?"<br />
<br />
I admitted the possibility, and suggested that it would be best to examine it.<br />
<br />
"<i>Mademoiselle Machin</i>, go immediately and fetch the <i>dossier</i> of Monsieur Harper!"<br />
<br />
Minor official he might be, but in his <i>bureau</i> it was the reign of terror. Mlle Machin scampered off to find my <i>dossier</i>. The official opened it, certain that he would be able to tell this pesky foreigner to take better care in the future. He gasped.<br />
<br />
"Monsieur, you are quite right, there has been an error in my department! This is inadmissible! We shall rectify the matter immediately. Please accept my apologies. We shall issue a new card without delay."<br />
<br />
I left with a new temporary <i>carte de séjour</i>, which this time did not need to be stamped by the nice lady at Antibes police station every three months.<br />
<br />
I lived in France for another six years, before moving to California in 2001. I never received my new <i>carte de séjour</i>, even though I did occasionally ask at the <i>préfecture</i>. And nobody else ever asked for it. But it had given me a very enjoyable insight into the workings of the French bureaucracy.n5296shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215232801808820822noreply@blogger.com0