This is the Airplane Geeks podcast. We aim to educate and inform you, explore and expand your passion for aviation, and entertain you a little along the way. This episode, we have guests from the experimental sounding rocket association, which hosts the International Rocket Engineering competition. We learn how the organization obtained a waiver to launch rockets up to an altitude of a hundred thousand feet. Spectators are allowed, and the competition will be live streamed.
In the news, we look at what we know about the tentative contract between United Airlines and their flight attendants union, the large proposed NASA funding cut, two planes that nearly collide on takeoff at LAX, and a Louisiana bill that seeks to prohibit chemtrails. That's right, not contrails. Also, the Spurlink Farm pancake breakfast and fly in is coming up.
Angelo State University in Texas has launched a flight school and aviation bachelor program, a new aviation mechanic education website, and launching low earth orbit satellites from old f four Phantoms. It's all coming up right now. Welcome to the Airplane Geeks podcast. This is episode 850 of the show where we talk aviation. I'm Max Flight. And with me is first, well, our main man, Micah. Wonderful to be here, and I'm interested in really learning a lot about sounding. Sounding.
Well, just listen and you also that's a bad joke. Also with us is Rob Mark. He's a BizJet pilot. He's a journalist. He's a CFI, and, of course, he's publisher at JetWine.com. Hey. Good evening to everybody. And today, he's being ex extremely brief, which is always nice. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That was like the shortest hello that I've heard from you in I don't know how
long, Rob. Well, I'm I'm trying to be you know, I'm trying to recognize our guests' time and our time, and we're you know, I'm I'm ready to just get it going here. I guess And it's about time. And it's about time. And it's about time. Alright. Let me introduce Max Rescott. He's host of the Aviation News Talk podcast and some others, and he's a national CFI of the Year. He's, of course, an expert on learning to fly or purchase a Cirrus aircraft. And I'm one of two people on the
line here today from Mountain View, California. So we'll talk more about that in a moment. That's right. Well, we have three guests actually this episode. They're all with the experimental sounding rocket association, ESRA, Ezra. Ezra is a nonprofit organization. It was founded in 2003 to, as they say, foster and promote engineering knowledge and experience in the field of rocketry. Ezra's primary focus is to provide opportunities for academic groups to compete in aerospace challenges.
And each June, Ezra hosts the International Rocket Engineering Competition, IREC. And it's the largest university rocket competition in the world. Teams compete in a number of high altitude categories with either custom designed or off the shelf propulsion. So we wanna learn about the competition, about the rockets, of course, because nothing's cooler than rockets. And we also wanna learn more about how you launch these things into the airspace safely and in compliance with regulations.
And the best thing about this, I've got to interrupt you, Max Yeah. Is that, you know, among your many attributes is that you're an old rocket man. I am an old rocket man. I am old, and I am a rocket man. Both. So joining us, first is Steve Taylor. He's the president of the experimental rocket, excuse me, the experimental sounding rocket association. So welcome, Steve. Well, thanks. And the experimental sounding rocket association
is a mouthful. So if you just wanna, call us, Ezra, we're we'll we answer answer to Ezra, just fine. Thanks for having me, Max. It's a pleasure to have you. And also with us this episode is Brahm Soltes. He's the Ezra volunteer who coordinates the with the FAA. Welcome, Brahm. Hi. Welcome to be here. You know, Brahm, you might be the key to this whole enterprise because without FAA authorization, you guys wouldn't have a launch. So Yeah. It's we've talked about that. Yeah. Yeah. So
we're gonna dive into that. But, also, we have with us from Ezra also is Logan Herrera. He's the media director. The media director of Ezra or the International Rocket Engineering Competition or all of the above, Logan? All of the above. Glad to be here, and I'm excited to do a little crossover episode between the Rocket and Aviation Worlds. Yes.
And that's really what, what attracted us to, speaking with you guys, again, besides the fact that the the competition and the rockets is kind of a cool topic anyway, but we really wanna talk about how how you can coexist if, as it were, with other forms of aviation in the National Airspace System. Yeah. Exactly. And I think SpaceX has made news for some of their impacts with really large rockets, but there are smaller rockets in the National Airspace System too.
As well. Yes. And when I first saw that the FAA was involved in, some of the post failure investigations and and so forth. I I I think that's when I first became aware that they actually do have a role in rocket launches and space flight. But we're gonna start right off, I think, and talk about Ezra. And can you give us some some background on sort of the organization and what it's all about and why this competition is such a large part of it? Sure.
Our slogan is, per experientum, which means learn by doing. The competition was founded, as you said, in 02/2003, but it really was to give the engineers an opportunity to take what they've learned in the books and put it to real applicable engineering challenge to put a rocket in the air. It's not one of those things you learn well
by just reading a book. It's one of those things that you actually have to put your fabrication skills on, your engineering hat, and make sure that what you've done in theory is going to be applicable to what you what you fabricate. And so, it's a hands on. You gotta get down. You gotta get dirty. You gotta build your
rocket. You've gotta, you gotta manufacture potentially your your propulsion system because it the we have commercial motors that you can buy, but the more exciting stuff is the is the, student research and develop propulsion systems, which are solid propulsion and and liquid and hybrid motors. But the reason that the competition exists is to get that hands on experience, the learn by doing. I guess in a nutshell, that's what we
are. We like to say that, our mission is really to provide students with real world aerospace engineering challenges, which comes from everything from preliminary design to critical design to inspection of of a rocket, to doing flight safety reviews, to having, having the the opportunity to to launch. And so in a nutshell, I think that's probably best describes what our mission is and how we excite, the 2,000 students that are gonna be in Midland, Texas, coming in a week. Yeah. Coming right up
fast. To get there and to launch their rockets. Yeah. Well, Steve, I'm not a rocket scientist, but could you tell me what a sounding rocket is as opposed to a rocket rocket? It's a rocket rocket. You know, the the whole the the sounding rocket, it it was first coined the phrase, I guess, back in the probably the fifties or forties. That's some old school terminology. Yeah. It had to do with rockets that actually didn't, leave the atmosphere
and and, stayed in the atmosphere. So, how the sounding portion of it came about, I don't know, actually. Now that, but I guarantee you, I will know by by tomorrow because I that's a really good question then, Rob. But you you won't be here tomorrow. No. No. But it'll be in my head then. Okay. Well, you make sure you call
us back. Question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steve, can you, tell us a little bit about this the size of these rockets, the power, the, the classifications that exist so people can get a kind of feel for the size of these things that we're talking about? So, just well, let's go by altitude first. You know, we we, have a FAA waiver, and thanks to Brahm, which we'll get into, but, that goes all the way up to a hundred thousand feet.
And so, most of these rockets are usually between the four inch to six inches in diameter, and they're usually, oh, I'm gonna say from 10 to 15 feet tall. We also have each one of the rockets needs to have a mission, so they have a a payload on board that has to have scientific, well, they can launch a a ballast payload, but we prefer the ones that actually have a scientific mission associated with them.
In terms of the power of the motors, you actually have to get certified to be able to launch motors like this, and we we partner with the Tripoli, Rocketry Association. And the the classification of motors just think about the total impulse of the rocket motor, which doubles each time you go up in a letter class. So if you think about the Estes rockets, they were, you know, from a's to to d motors. Each time they double in the in the specific impulse.
Well, these teams are are launching m, n, and o motors. So the amount of thrust, they they they can have, you know, 4,000 tons of thrust. You know, it's a it's one of those things that, the government has recognized in order for us to be able to legally do that that we needed specific training. And the Tripoli organization has, provides that training, provides that certification.
And the teams that are doing these launches, partner with one of us certified guys because unless they've put the time in and and work their way up to a level three certification, they can't legally launch these lock rockets. And and the Tripoli Organization takes that responsibility because they're involved at the get go. They're involved with the team. They're mentors for the team, and then they become the flyer records for the team.
I I just wanted to say that, in general, I didn't get a chance to bring it up, but to sound is sort of a verb to explore, and it's a naval term. They would explore the depths of the ocean. And when they first started exploring space, instead of exploring deep down into the ocean, they were sounding the atmosphere. So that's where the term comes from. Yeah. I am I I really appreciate that. Thank you. That's
that's exactly right. And I just pulled out my prop, high altitude rocket research from 1953, describing all the different ways you can measure the atmosphere with 1953 technology. I actually encouraged some teams to check out some of the old school stuff. It has some good inspiration for scientific payload. Yeah. I I knew that. And, Steve, I wanted to ask you a question about those engines because you said that, you know, oftentimes you encourage people to design
their own engines. And how does that work in dealing with ATF and things like that? Because these are chemicals and things that you don't really not everybody has access to. The chemicals are they they're not explosives. So, you know, ammonium perchlorate is, sort of the base propel the base, fuel of of a lot of these rocket motors. And, you know, you have to supply it with an oxidizer in order for it to to, burn. It's in it's inert by itself.
You have to apply a, igniter or ignition source in order to ignite. So so I I think first of all, I I wanna draw out that we've got multiple propulsion pipes in this competition. Sure too. Yeah. Right? We've got solids, liquids, hybrids. Right? So you end up with this matrix of competition categories of how high are you going by what propulsion pipe are you using. And we we separate that out to keep light rockets competing with each other. And for
liquids, you've got two liquids mixing together. And we haven't had those, for a couple of years, but we want some to come back. There's nothing energetic about that mixture until things are loaded and actually fire. Similarly, hybrids got two dissimilar phases coming together. Usually, there's a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer, nitrous oxide, that gets squirted in. We see quite a few of those, participating.
And we also see those in particular from other countries, which have more restrictive regulatory regimes than The US because there again, there's nothing energetic about those until they're loaded and ignited. The solid rocket motors have all of that chemical energy in there all the time. Most of our teams purchase them commercially. This is a product you can buy in The US.
And so we have a particular vendor, Aerotech, that actually comes on-site and provides the motors and gives some guidance on how to assemble them, and they're a key partner for the event. But some teams do make their own, and we love the innovation and like seeing them do that. And, historically, there was a watershed moment circa 02/2008.
There was a big lawsuit between the Tripoli Rocketry Association and the ATF over whether or not rocket fuel is considered an explosive for the purposes of ATF regulation. And the outcome of that multiyear suit was, no, it is not an explosive for the purposes of US explosives regulation. Now that doesn't mean you want to keep them under your pillow at night. No. You need to store them appropriately and respect the hazards they have. But for the purpose of regulation, they are not an explosive.
So within the different categories, how is the the winner of that category chosen identified? Is it altitude, maximum altitude, or what what's the criteria for someone to, you know, to win the prize? Yeah. There there is a whole scoring system and scoring rubric. And to anyone participating, before you even start designing your rocket, you should read it and understand how you're evaluated. But in general, roughly speaking, about half of the points are your technical documentation.
We require you to submit progress reports throughout the year and get feedback from safety reviewers and then submit a grand final report just before the event. So those submissions are now in. Our judges are pouring over them and grading them. Those are evaluated based on the engineering process. And are you justifying your decisions and articulating why you've done the right thing for your
rocket? We do that intentionally to level the playing field between teams that have vastly different resources so that we're grading process and not indirectly who's got the biggest budget. Then when you get there, about the other the other half of the score is how does your rocket perform? And for each of those altitude categories, your goal is to hit that altitude exactly. So 10,000 feet exactly, 30,000 feet exactly, 45,000 feet exactly.
Then there's one there's one last little wedge in the pie chart that is, is your rocket reusable? You are required to design it to be reusable. It comes down under parachutes. Did all that actually work? Is your rocket in good condition and ready for reuse? This must be a a terrific learning experience for for for the college students participating in this. Well, you know, we like to see this as sort of a a true life, problem.
When you're in the industry, you know, these teams are often multidisciplinary. It's not just aerospace engineers. It's mechanical engineers as well as electrical engineers, computer engineers. We have systems engineers for the integration component. The better teams also have business people that are part of the team because it takes a fair amount of money to be able to to put one of these things together. So it's that multidisciplinary team that, really makes one of these teams successful.
And and, you you know, we're we're trying to assimilate a real world, problem for the teams. One of the the things that we really enjoy is hearing how many of the former contestants have been hired by the aerospace industry. Every single every single aerospace company has got somebody that's been through this come through this competition, And that's why we get sponsored, by companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX and, you know, with Virgin Galactic.
They're they're looking for the talent, students that have been through this life cycle of a project, and then, they know that they've already had this sort of real world experience. Yeah. And I think I'd I'd like to really emphasize that numbers part is we have over 2,000 students on-site, but over 7,000 around the world who are being touched by
this event in some way. And by our estimate, we think that a significant percentage of the total US Aerospace workforce, Our new grad workforce is coming through our event every year. What kind of guidance systems do these rockets have? I mean, how do you control them to remain within whatever the waiver airspace is? Well, actually, it is illegal to put a guidance system inside one of these rockets. Then it's a missile. Right? Then it's a missile. Right.
You can't you can do things like, we have teams that, you know, as you approach their apogee altitude, let's say it's 30,000 feet. Their electronics will sense where where they are, in terms of the atmosphere and will apply things like air brakes, but that's just to apply resistance to the outside of the rocket. It's not guiding the rocket. So, yeah, there's there's absolutely no no guidance systems allowed.
And you mentioned several times that there are international teams, teams from all over the world. Any Mhmm. Any particular teams that were kind of, I don't know, surprising or notable or kind of unexpected? You know, the we the the the Swiss, the German teams, the the you know, there's Australian teams, New Zealand, you you know, we've got, Turkey, India. Canada, Turkey, India. Algeria.
You know, so, I will say that in last year, I I attended the the around the world, there have been a number of copycat sort of competitions that have sprung up, you know, that are generally local. And I attended the one in Turkey, and and I I'm very impressed, with what they're doing and the Turkish commitment to the aerospace industry right now. And in fact, we have a number of, well, the the Turkish teams right now are 10 that are coming to The United States, and, they're also sending judges.
And so it's not only their team participation, but now they're also getting in on the volunteer side of things and, and supplying judges for the competition. So, Canada has got 11 teams coming. Mexico has got five teams coming this year. So, you know, it's all it's it's a very international, very international event. You know, I, a friend of mine is a, flight director, major flight director for one of the big airlines, and he is not a fan of SpaceX at all.
Because, you know, every so often, both coasts of Florida are shut down, the Caribbean shut down, and then sometimes, even without planning, it shut down for a much longer period of time than than it was intended to be. So I'm curious. And I guess, Brahm, this would be you. How do you handle this kind of thing with the FAA in terms of working with what's going on and letting the airlines do what they're supposed to do and follow their regular schedules?
Yeah. So for this competition, it's very different than, I guess, what may some of your, you know, viewers and some of your listeners might be used to is seeing a NOTAM pop up, on a Skychart for a weekend or two. Because, you know, across the country, there's a lot of little rocket launch sites for little STs or amateur rockets that maybe go to 18,000, maybe maybe 10, maybe five. Nothing too high. Maybe a few going up a little higher up to 30,000. And you'll you'll they'll usually pop up on
the weekend once a month. And if you're paying attention, you'll see them be a little area on the map. But because of our competition being an entire week, and because we're going to such high altitudes, which was really difficult to get normally for a lot of people, what I had to do with FAA was kinda work out a little bit of a deal. We are not in a there's a Victor route in the area.
And talking with FAA to begin talking with FAA, it was an understanding of, okay, what are our altitudes that we're gonna be going to as general, idea. And then working with the offices of commercial space to determine, okay, we obviously don't have guidance. So none of the teams are gonna have guidance. So they need to create a a max impacted air, area that's going to affect air traffic.
And work with air traffic control in the area and work with the airlines to determine, okay, how can we impact you guys the least amount? So the waiver that I have for the competition, 77, 11, seventy seven eleven, yep, dash two, which if you're familiar with doing any, drone u or some of the more advanced drone use or or doing any waiver that require for, air vent, you might have filled that out. Ours has some pretty unique special provisions.
So for the event, we are trying to limit the I think it's the El Paso to Fort Stockton route on Southwest because they have some flights going there. We are trying to limit our event from from really interrupting them. So we're trying to group our our rockets by cap which we already are doing by altitude, and then changing the NOTAM during the event. So it's not a static NOTAM, which is is very unique. This is I I don't think I've seen
this at at any other, Rocketry event. And I definitely know it's not done at, like, even the higher levels, because obviously no one is launching, we're we're, like, at a 50 rockets in a in a week anywhere in the country, at wildly different altitudes. So we've made a provision with them, and it was quite a while to get all this sorted out, but it's going to change. And so if you're a, pilot looking out on in Midland, Texas, you might see a NOTAM changing
throughout the week. And we're gonna try to limit as much impact as we can to the airspace. And luckily, we're not in super heavily trafficked area, but ours is kinda unique for this event specifically. Can you give me a rough idea of the dimensions of the restricted airspace that you guys are gonna fly in? I mean, what's the radius from the ground?
So from the ground, it's a two naught so for our category, we're calling them launch group one, which is anything below 18,000 feet, which is the unrestricted airspace that most people aren't gonna be have any, impact no impacts on, which is gonna be the majority of our flights. That's a two nautical mile radius around our launch site. Wow. Two miles, but you have no gut you have no control over the rocket. No control. All we have control over for our, rockets is the launch angle. So
everything's pretty much going straight directly up. And we control when and, and what weather conditions they launch at. But that is the rough idea of how much, of the the the impacted area from, for, for those launches. Just wanna let me add one little bit to this is that, you know, part of our safety code is that, we can't launch in any clouds. So it's gotta be a clear, you you know, you do a visual on the airspace before you launch a rocket.
And, and if there's, I I guess it's better than 50% cloud coverage over the launch site. There we have to stop all operations. But you're you're fly I mean, you're flying in a parabola. You can't help but fly in in a parabola. How do you control for winds and and direction? How do you measure that at, you know, if you're past 18,000 feet?
So we can use certain, weather apps, for a lot of the flights, but we we are trying to mostly get our best case of what the weather's gonna be up like up up at the higher altitudes for the flights, and then determine if we should launch, which we've done in, past launches before where it's it's perfectly on the ground, but then, weather data says it's way too high up there.
And the other part of the rockets, which, although there are parabola, the the parachute system that we want them, most of our competitors to use, a drogue and a main, has if you actually look at what the flight profile of some of these rockets are, it's gonna be pretty much straight up, and then they're gonna slow down coming, from their top Apogee a little bit, but they're gonna still be going kinda fast. This is under drogue. So they'll be going a hundred feet per
second down. And then around a thousand feet, 2,000 feet, in that kind of range, they'll open up their main parachute and slow down to a nice easy ten, twenty, maybe 30 feet per second. Oh, that's interesting. So yeah. So when, you know, back in the in the day, in the sixties, basically, when I was launching Estes Rockets, Yeah. The the parachute popped out, and you were at the the whims of the, you're right, of the, of the wind speed. Yeah. In fact, I'm still looking for some of my rockets from
back. Yeah. I know. Well, you know, it's also selfish. Right? The more we're the more we're blown by wind, the more students have to walk to go find their rocket. Yeah. Right. What speed do these things achieve, on the way up? So it depends on what the what the competitors are going for. So some of them are going a little higher in altitude, say, 30,000 or 45,000 feet. They might be well, depending on their design, they might be going up to Mach three. Mach two is not out of the realm
of question. They're they're regularly supersonic. Yeah. Most of them I mean, not most of them, I guess. But, you know, Mach one, Mach two, and, and and occasionally a Mach three, that that's the speeds. And and do you have to get, o okay from the FAA to break the sound barrier like that? No. You don't. That's the strange thing about it. Part one zero one of the FAA's regulation on rock amateur rocketry doesn't, regulate it against speed.
We're just on impulse on the motor, which is it's the for for class two, model rocketry, which is what where most of this is. We we're limited on just the impulse, which is forty thousand and nine hundred and two seconds. Yeah. Forty nine sixty newton seconds. Yeah. There we go. But it's not a limit on the the mass of the motor or the speed, and then we're just limited a little bit on altitude, which is, 50 kilometers.
So we're not there, but Can can you tell us about those classes and the differences between them? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So your your class one model rocket is is your is what most people are are gonna be familiar with when they think model rocketry. That's your SDs. That's your that's your little guys.
That's what you probably did in, as a kid, and then it's what a lot of people still fly with their children or or even at a lot of model, a lot of launch sites because they're a lot of fun, of course. And then you get up to the next clash, which is high power, model rocket, which is is kinda what we're most of these teams are doing. Lot bigger motors. Your impulse goes all the way up to can go up all the way to 40,000.
And then you have your class three, which is your advanced high power, which is anything above that. So these are some really experimental rockets, usually. There's very, very few few of them. I don't I don't think there's actually a motor that you can buy that goes up into that. So you're making your own motor, and you're probably you're going easily up past
a hundred thousand feet. We have members of the volunteer staff, that have actually, you know, gone up to 300,000 feet and or, you know, if you believe them, 400,000 feet. But, you know This year's event is in Texas. This is the first time. Right? Pre previously, it had been in in New Mexico, I guess. Right. So, Brahm, you did you have to basically start all over with getting the the waiver? Was it a complete
repeat of the entire process? Or did you were you able to sort of leverage what you'd had previously? No. This was from scratch. So the previous launch site was at Spaceport America, where the Virgin Galactic flies. And they have a, standing waiver, because they're right next to White Sands Missile Range. So they they have, like, their own standing waiver that we were just under for the
event. And so this is the first time that the ESRA has gone around and created their own operating waiver with the FAA. And so this was this was a wasn't necessarily a new experience, but I think for me, but it was a very different experience than I've ever had to do, ever done with FAA for trying to create a launch launch waiver. Yeah. And I I think it's not a very well known process. Yeah. And so that's also a part of why we wanted to spread the word a little bit or
explain what's involved here. So I don't think it's very well known, particularly when we're going this high. I probably have watched too many SpaceX launches recently, but, when one of the rockets kind of decides to go in a direction that you don't want it to, do you have a way to zap that little baby? Or So so they do. Yeah. We don't. Well, a space if you're a, if you are a actual rocket, provider, and you are going into an, orbital or velocity, you are required by the FAA to have a,
destruction system. Yeah, self destruct system built in. And we are not required to have that. I don't think I'd wanna have explosives. No. No. And and but but here's what we do do. Because, we have, modeling software that helps us understand maybe, based on what the wind speed is, based on the the angle, based on the azimuth, we can predict if there is a ballistic recovery where that's gonna be. So we make sure that
every morning, we do this modeling. And every morning, we diagram out a ballistic impact zone that we make sure that's clear, just in case something does come in ballistic. But, that's about the that's about the best we can do. And, you know, I I will say that in the, you know, the, eighteen, years of running in the competition, we've never had a rocket related incident. And
we're you know? So I I popped my chest out a little bit when I say that, especially since, you know, we're dealing with students that maybe for the first time have been involved in rocketry. So, I I think it's a testament to, the the amount of support we give the teams and when they develop their rockets from from the, you know, from the, drafting board, if you will, all the way up and through the launch. You mentioned the two mile radius for an 18,000
foot launch. What kind of radius do you have for a 50 kilometer altitude launch? I don't know for a 50 kilometer, but I'll say for our hundred and two or hundred three, hundred thousand foot, weight hundred thousand foot launches, the the radius
is 12 nautical miles. Okay. And you and so talking actually, and to bounce back onto Steve's point, the office of commercial space, they will, as part of getting this waiver going into, you know, controlled airspace, they will do their own modeling to determine what that hazard area is going to be. They don't just take our word for it. Yeah.
They And so, as part of creating the waiver, if you're doing your own, you know, say you wanna build your own rocket and you just wanna launch that one, you can give them much more information, much more detail about your your rocket. And they can come back and say, oh, you know what? Your waiver, because with the way you've designed it, the way you're gonna launch it, the of how much restriction you're gonna put onto it, it might be a lot less.
But because of our kind of we're having a bunch of student teams come, we have an idea of their rockets, but we we are not, you know, it's not us. The office of commercial space has created a a more let's let's we'll put a conservative estimate of the area that's gonna be impacted. Yeah. And it sounds like there I mean, there are a number of steps here, a number of
organizations involved. Bram, you you mentioned the the form seventy seven eleven dash two has sorta, collects the basic information, I guess, and and kicks that off. And that goes that starts at the FAA Regional Service Center. Is that correct? Yeah. It does. So be yep. The beginning of this is really finding a launch site, doing some basic research of what you're gonna be launching, confirming on your own a little bit, hey,
am I in restricted airspace? Is this going to be a burden to, the airspace that I might be launching in?
Am I just gonna be told no? But once you reach out to the off, the regional service center, that's when it really will start kicking off, and they'll have a good, depending on what you're doing, a pretty good conversation with you of trying to determine, some either constraints or rules that they'll make with you to say, hey, you know what, if you could actually just launch during this time frame or maybe you could, can you actually move it a little bit to left or right of where you're trying
to launch, so we're not impacting this airway? That's how it'll start. Yeah. And I'll say as as an observer on this that the FAA wants to help, that I think we've had a a positive experience that we want to share or use a shared resource effectively for the benefit of everyone. And there are three service centers, and the number of people who handle rockets at those service centers is one or two.
So it's a it's a very finite number of people that you'll be interacting with, and you can develop a relationship with them over time. Or you certainly will be by the time you're getting all the way through this waiver process. Yeah. I was gonna ask how long the waiver process takes or how long it took. For us, it was actually probably the quickest it's ever been. And that's because we pushed quite hard and had a little help, from our reach of some regional partners.
But normally, it can take for a lot of people, it it will take, you know, a month or two, to get it all approved. It's recommended to give as much time as possible, especially if you're going to higher altitudes. But if you're doing something small, maybe you're going out to, you know, the park or something, and you're doing a small little, flight, twenty four hours is even good. No kidding.
If you're doing something small, if they if you're not, they're gonna But even something major, like you say, you're like that you're doing a month or two, that's that's that's quicker than I would have guessed. But some of these smallest rockets, there's no interaction required. Yeah. So so I guess that's technically a zero. Yeah. Sure. Sure. I'll also say, I believe the the recommended minimum is ninety days.
Yeah. But the the regulatory promise is that it's giving you a response at least ten days in advance of your proposed launch date. So this is an area where we've seen some challenge of if you submit a year in advance, that regulatory response date doesn't move. So you could you could submit three, six, five days in advance, and they won't necessarily tell you until ten days before. You know? In practice, they're friendlier than that, but they don't have
to. What about military air traffic? Do they get involved in this as well? For this one, yes. It's what's great about the service center is they'll put you in contact with if you're gonna impact like a IR route, they'll put you in contact with liaison at whatever the military base that might be impacted by it. In this case, Dreyfus Air Force Base in Texas. They have an IR route that we'll be, impacting.
Lucky for us, it's not a very popular or not a very used one, and so they're alright with just shutting it down for the week. But in other cases, say, out in California, which a very famous launch, the Friends of Amateur Rocktree, they're they're smack dab in the middle of, restricted military airspace, which is actually great for them because there's they're not impacting anyone but the military, and the military doesn't do anything on the weekends. So they're like, yeah.
Fly to your heart's content. There's gotta be no planes in the side on the weekends. So we have this, the event coming up, right, June, I guess, this year, 2025. And, I understand this is a spectator event as well. Correct? Yes. Absolutely. If folks wanna come out on-site, they're welcome to. We're also gonna have a livestream running where you can view it from anywhere in the world, and we'll send you a link to put in the show notes. Yes, please.
And, also, if you're local, the Blakemore Planetarium is going to be playing the live stream in the planetarium for you to watch. Oh, wow. I'll also say I, in a media function, have been wanting to do some aerial photography of the launch site. Maybe not while rockets are flying, but sort of before or after the event. So if there are any flyers listening in the Midland, Odessa, Pecos, Fort Stockton area, I have a mission for you. Shameless. This this sounds like a good opportunity for
a drone. So if something goes wrong And so where can folks go to to learn more about this, the the competition in general? Our website is soundingrocket.org, all one word. And, you know, we've got everything there. You know, we do have a large a large number of the the, local community that are involved in STEM activities that will be participating both at our convention center where the the we have a convention center day where the students come in and put up a poster
session and display their rockets. And the public as well as judges and and other teams can go and look at to see, what's been done with their rocket, before we go down to the launch site. So there's a day in Midland at the Horseshoe Pavilion, and it's a it's a great opportunity to come in and talk and, you know, meet meet the students, get an understanding for what they do.
Then, the the more fun, though, is out at the launch site, and we have an area that's roped off for specifically just spectators, not students, not so that they but, you know, we'll we're making an event out of it. We're having food trucks come. We've got, sponsors will be there, recruiting, the students, as they're launching their rockets. And, it's it's genuinely and I I guess I'm biased, but it's you you know, this is as much fun as you can have, I think, in
a desert, you know, to me, anyway. I think so too. And and this is largely a volunteer operation. Correct? It's a %. We're a five zero one c three, and we don't have any paid employees. And so of the 50 to a 75 volunteers that we'll have on-site, These are all there for promoting the aerospace industry and and dedicated towards the betterment of the engineering students. It's another,
wild thing. You know, I've got a I've got a core group of of, I'd say, about 30 that are involved year round that, lead up. In fact, one of my biggest, accomplishments, and I think Logan may have even started this trend, but having former competitors that actually come on and take leadership roles inside the organization. And I tell you, it's the lifeblood of the organization right now. I mean, I got Brahm Brahm, was a judge in the past, but this year as he took on the FAA stuff,
he's just done such a phenomenal job. And he and Logan, and we have another member of this group, that I call the bird dog team, that if you put them on a task, they're gonna bird dog it until it gets done. And it's, you know, it's one of those things that I just, I can't thank them enough. I can't thank the energy, the former competitors that are coming in because they enjoyed their experience. And you know what? They wanna make it even better. You know?
So, all volunteers, all volunteering their time and, no paid employees. You know, before it sounds like we're getting around to close this out, and I don't wanna be like Brian. I don't wanna have one last question after we close it out. So I gotta ask one actually, two last questions before we close it out. The actually, the first one's not a question, but the title of the movie, I already got it. This is great. It's Brahms versus the FAA. I love the title. It just sounds great.
But Bird dog. Yeah. But the question that I have for you all is, how did you each get into sounding rocketry and model rocketry to begin with? Yeah. Mine's easy. I'm I'm an old guy. Right? So when when we first, stepped foot on the moon, I was 10 years old on vacation in Cape Cod, Connecticut. I mean, Massachusetts. And, ever since I mean, I was involved, you know, back in the Gemini days, but, it just was one of those things that, for me, it just became a lifelong
pursuit of happiness, really. And, you know, my career was in in chemistry. So well, like, like, I wasn't in rocketry. It's only after, you know, I've I've become I've come re retired and, you know, my dad said you gotta give back after you're done working, and my give back is giving back to the aerospace industry. Very good. So I Brahm, you go I'm sorry, Brahm. You go ahead. Sure. No. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I I'll say that my I'm from Washington DC, and so one of the great, great, museums in our country is the Air and Space Museum. And my parents that was a great place to drop the kids off because they get free and you can run around. There's a lot of great planes, a lot of great rockets in that museum. There's actually well, there's actually two museums, but,
that's where it started as a child. And then in college, I I I was did my own rock tree, club, just like a lot of the competitors are doing at this event and was at this event. As a competitor, that led me into, you know, into the career of being a propulsion engineer at Blue Origin. And so that's kinda where I'm at right now, but it's it's why I've also given back because it's it's a lot of fun. Cool. How about you, Logan?
Yeah. And for me, I had just enjoyed launching little STS rockets as a kid. And then in high school, participated in the NASA rocket competition, the NASA Student Launch Initiative, which has a it's a structured program that that has some parallels to IREC Ezra IREC, where you're you're going through a year, you're doing design reviews, you go to the launch site at the end and launch something. And that really was a that was a significant experience for me at the time that changed some of
what I wanted to do. And so then at university level, I ended up doing electrical engineering for my degree. So I I do enjoy the payloads in the rockets, not just the propulsion system. Yep. In school, I I participated in iREC. Hey. My team won our category the year we participated, the 30,000 foot commercial off the shelf category, which I am sure to bring up with one of our other volunteers whose university was second place that year. Is Elon a member? No. Not to know.
No. Not yet. We're working out of them. We we do he he is, he is sponsoring, a portion of this, so we will have recruiters from SpaceX and some engineers there. But that's the next step. Get Elon excited by it. Well, he has a little more time on his hands now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Maybe. And For any of your listeners, we'd be happy to have them come participate either as, you know, go find your local team or come be a judge. Yeah. Come be a volunteer.
And if you can't get out to Midland, Texas next week, know that next year, we're gonna do this all again, and we do need remote judges to grade the reports. So no matter where you are in the world, you can volunteer for this event. Oh, excellent. Brahm, I wanted to, to ask you, and we were talking about this a little bit, the other day. With all of the launches that take place in this country these days, it's kind of an increased opportunity for people to actually go see a launch.
And maybe you have some tips or some thoughts for, for folks who might wanna get to Cape Canaveral or another location and and view some of these, SpaceX or Blue Origin, etcetera kinds of launches. Yeah. It's like I was talking about with you yesterday. It is it's quite an opportune time to come down to The Cape if you're if you're interested in rocketry at all or just just wanna see a giant thing fly up into the sky, and make a lot of noise. There is most there's now just about every week,
a launch. And just last month, alone, there were 17 launches, out of The Cape. So that's more than half the month. And I would say, if you're either maybe you're just going to Disney. Yep. There's it's check the schedule. There's some great schedules out there from Spaceflight Now or NASA Spaceflight. There's also the Kennedy Space Center schedule that they'll let you know if they have tickets to go a little bit closer to the rockets. You have to pay for those.
But, otherwise, there's some great viewing spots from the beaches, around The Cape. Well, just about anywhere near The Cape, you'll be able to see it. And if you're lucky, at the end of the launch, you might be able to go by the port, have a bite to eat, and see one of the rockets come back in to the
port. Yes. Yes. So are you guys trying to mimic the, the SpaceX system where instead of a parachute, you can figure out a way to get the, booster to just kinda come back down, and then one of the guys just grabs that little sucker in the air before it hits the ground. I'd be happy to see that. That'd be cool, but I don't know if I trust you to do that just yet. Yeah. That may be a little tough to
pull off. Yeah. Well, there there is another event called called Lander Challenge that is challenging students to do that and has some cash prizes. But that's a different rocketry organization. So one rocketry organization to launch and another rocketry organization to land. Max, t, what do you think about that if we were trying to teach people to fly? I'm your flight instructor. I'll teach you how to take off, but how to get to max in order to learn how to land.
I think this could work. Yeah. Maybe. Why not? But But I must say I like staying below a hundred thousand feet. Yeah. Air is a bit more breathable. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for coming, guys. This was fun. Yeah. A little scary to me, but it was fun. Yeah. Well, the big takeaway for for you, Rob, I guess, is just watch the NOTAMs and, Right. Exactly. And and they'll be watching you, on the launchpad, visually to see if you're zipping by. On to the news. First story.
Boy, we, we find a lot of good stuff at paddleyourowncanoe.com. Rob, this is inside United's game changing flight attendant deal. Raises, retro pay, and hotel upgrades. This has been a the never ending negotiation, I think. This is about five years they've been at least four four plus, in the
process. And, United's master executive council, which is, the group of, flight attendants and pilots that are in charge of the union operations at United, really came came together on this and came up with finally a contract that I think, is gonna is gonna be incredible, not just because it gives the flight attendants more pay, but the biggest issue that has always plagued flight attendants was that they never got paid until the aircraft pushed back from the gate.
So if if you had them load a, you know, a 200 person airplane and it was delayed and they sat there at the gate or on the ramp for two and a half hours, the flight attendants didn't get paid. And it, you know, it was never, it it it just was never fair. I never understood that. The pilots get paid, but the flight attendants didn't. And this has been going on for as long as I can remember. And not just this airline. Oh, no. Not not just this airline, but every airline. And so that's why this is
really going to change things. And the, the United Flight Attendants Group, which is the AFA, Association of Flight Attendants, said the tentative agreement has the highest compensation and the largest overall economic improvement in the history of our careers, meaning of flight attendants. The highest retro pay, so they're gonna get back pay, to a particular date once this is approved.
Again, boarding pay, economic and quality of life provisions, and significant improvement in terms of, hotels, health care, retirement, and all of that kind of thing is part of what the, the crews, pilots, and flight attendants have to negotiate in their contract. And, some airlines are not as good as others, to, to their people. But, you know, in this time, it was so important that, AFA's president, Sarah Nelson, who we had back on the show in,
oh, gosh. I don't know what episode, but it was a couple of years ago, you know, flew into Chicago to put the, you know, the final kiss on this, on this tentative agreement and make sure that it got through the, through the system. Now, what's happening is that the AFA and its members, its volunteer members are going to go out at various bases around the country wherever United is at and and do a promo essentially to to convince the employees that, man, this is a contract
we have gotta vote for. Because right now, it's a tentative agreement, and it's tentative because the employees need to vote in a in a majority to say, yes. We'd like that. And and some people are a little reluctant sometimes. They think, well, this is all this is good, but you know what? If we just hold out, it's going to get better. And and I think everybody is, is telling them that, no. Not this time. Just vote this contract in.
And, again, I think that the fact that they, that they're gonna get paid for boarding time, that alone, I think, is is incredible. And, so we'll see what happens. It's gonna take, oh, I think they've got at least a month of of, vote show, roadshows, they call them, where the union members are out there, you know, giving the details of the contract. And then and then, of course, each base has to vote. And, I think it's going to take at least
a month to gather all those results. But my guess is that they are going to they're going to approve this, contract. And, I I think that's that's the the biggest part of this entire story. Again, that they're gonna get paid when they don't get to fly. But let's let's clarify that for a minute because, they haven't said what the boarding pay is. And the boarding pay at with Delta and Alaska and American that they're given is half pay. It's not the full pay. And my
opinion is that that's that's wrong. I can understand why it might be half pay when the flight attendants are prepping the plane. But once boarding takes place, once one passenger gets on that plane, now they are both public relations and safety experts, and they are in full flight attendant responsibility. All their responsibilities are there. So once the first person boards, once that boarding time starts, they should be getting full plane, full pay rather, not once
they pull away. And that's the thing That's true. That's part of the thing that I suspect will be part of the issue in voting for this. Sure. And the and and I again, we don't know the exact details of this, but for the pilots in the past, the pilots would get a a guarantee, that every month you get paid for seventy five hours of of flying or eighty hours of flying. And it didn't matter if if you didn't get all those hours in, you still got paid,
but not the flight attendants. They've always been treated like second class citizens. And so I I agree with Mike. Yeah. The thing about the flight attendants as well is, like, Brian had a delay the other night, and his flight was supposed to leave at 06:30, and it ended up not leaving until 03:30 in the morning. And if you had a flight attendant that was they're scheduled to report at 05:00 to be there for a 06:30 flight, she's on duty waiting for the flight for
those nine hours and not being paid. So, again, that's something something about that doesn't doesn't sit well with me. Yeah. Yeah. I understand that the, membership will be voting in July between July 7 and the twenty ninth. So it's, some time off before we'll find out the total outcome of this. But, yeah, hopefully hopefully, the, the membership the union membership will find this an acceptable contract and, and move forward with that. Alright.
Let's see. From space.com, Trump's twenty twenty six budget would slash NASA funding by 24% and is worth forced by nearly one third. That's the that's the title. But under the, the proposed cut, the NASA budget would go from $24,800,000,000 to $18,800,000,000. And that would be fiscal year twenty twenty six, which starts 10/01/2025. NASA science funding would be cut by a lot, by 47% next year. That would, go down to $3,900,000,000 and affect 41
science projects. But if this survives as is, going forward, NASA is gonna be looking to, well, cancel a number of of missions. And then, of course, there's also a significant workforce reduction in there as well. So what is there left to say? We've got this to say. I've gotta do a shout out right now. Bill, if you're listening, send us your commentary on this so we can read it on the show. Okay. Yeah. That may not happen. But Well, and you know what's really sad about this?
Of course, the the budget is an issue that has been under debate for some time, since this president has taken office. And, the the goal has been cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And, when we get to the end of this story, though, it has a very interesting twist to it, that the missions that are gonna be canceled are things that The United States has been talking about for decades.
And while we're not in the, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, space shuttle kind of, atmosphere anymore, there were still some pretty cool projects that were going to be, that were going to be happening. I mean, we've sent, you know, rovers to Mars to, gather some material from the surface, and now they're just not gonna bring it back.
There's the New Horizons mission, which was to explore the outer solar system after the craft went by Pluto, in 2015, and, another probe that's gonna be orbiting, that there that's been orbiting Jupiter for the last ten years, and all this is gonna be cut. And, again, the the the big loser is the NASA science program. Now and I understand when people look at the
cost of, say, the shuttle. I forgot what it what it, what it cost to send up one shuttle mission, but it was in the, you know, billion dollar plus, for each flight. And, so okay. You're right. I mean, maybe NASA has not been the, the best steward of, some of the tax dollars that they were allocated, but, we don't have a whole lot of good things to say here about this.
And the, the spokesman, the planetary society, which is a large organizations of people focused on the science projects, said that the projects would require billions in new spending if after they're canceled, they ever decide to bring them back. And, the, the one good news, piece is that the the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was headed for, for space soon, is not going to be cut. So they're going to keep that going.
But, of course, as you mentioned, the big news is that, NASA's gonna lose a few people. They expect the population of NASA to drop from 17,000, almost 400, down to, just under 12,000. And, so that's a pretty sizable cut, for the people. 32%, the, planetary society is is quoting. And it's the the they just call it a a gutting of NASA. And, you know, maybe there was a better way to do this. We don't know because, obviously, nobody is privy to the discussions.
And, I think what what is, really concerning to me is that not every piece of space exploration has been cut because, there is a program called the commercial moon to Mars, m to m, infrastructure and transportation program that the White House has proposed, and they're going to get $864,000,000 in this next budget.
So they're taking it away from NASA and, and they're giving it to a, again, I don't know who this private concern is that's putting it together, but it's it's kinda sad that we don't have any idea at all what's going on. And, I I think that the, as the planetary society said, but it's only if this budget passes.
And there are provisions in this budget that's now in the hands of the senate that are gonna probably make it very interesting, as to whether it, actually comes together because the the Republicans only have a three vote majority in the Senate. And so if four Republicans vote against it, this budget's going nowhere. And again, we're we're just talking about one small aspect of the, of the budget that's going to be,
affecting NASA. But what I do think is also interesting, and it's not part of this particular story, is that just yesterday, president Trump, decided to, pull NASA's administrator nominee, from the, from the pro from the program. He was surprisingly, suggested by Elon Musk, which we all would have thought a month or two ago would have been a shoo in. And as it turns out, the president is saying, not this time.
So it's gonna be real interesting here, among all the other projects to see what happens to NASA. Alright. Another, oh, this is an interesting story. This, this comes from an ABC affiliate in, I guess, in Chicago. United plane makes a wrong turn nearly colliding with another flight midair. This is concerning San Francisco International Airport, which has, parallel runways, which many other airports do, I guess.
San Francisco SFO was the first major parallel runway airport I flew into, and I this was a long, long time ago, and I didn't know that there were parallel runways. And I'm looking out the window, and I'm seeing us being shadowed by another airplane. And I'm freaking out because I'm imagining that these two planes are gonna try to land on the same runway because they're both obviously coming in for a landing. But, of course, I learned that that that wasn't a problem.
But, Rob, we did have a a little bit of a problem. I guess this was last month at SFO. Yeah. More than a little. There were two aircraft departing at the same time off the parallels, and the traffic off the left runway was, instructed to, to basically proceed straight out, and the traffic off the right runway was given a right turnout to the, which would then be to the north off SFO.
And, for some reason, the United crew turned left instead of right, and they turned into the path of this regional jet that had departed the left runway. Luckily, the crew of the regional jet, was paying attention, which is pretty hard not to do when you're let's say you're sitting in the right seat and you watch this guy, out of the right window and you go, man, he's he's pretty close because these are not, parallels that are terribly, far apart. And and then you look and you say,
I think that guy's turning into us. And so the the RJ crew was able to, to maneuver around the, the seven thirty seven, and they said something to the tower like, oh, we're we're just maneuvering around this traffic out here, tower. And, then then the controllers, got into it and basically said, you know, what the fuck are you doing? To the guy off the right runway. And, I didn't hear the end of it, but, I'm sure that, that Max, don't you think that would count as a, a pilot deviation?
Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Not only do they have parallel runways, they're parallel intersecting, and they intersect right in the middle, kind of like, across. And so I got to spend some time up in the tower one day. And what they do, as it explained to me, is they put people landing on the two eights left and right, as close to each other as they can because they'd like those two aircraft to land at about the same time.
And then once both those two aircraft clear the intersection, then they clear the, the two aircraft from runaways, one in left one left and one right to take off. And the instructions standard instructions are the aircraft, taking off from one left is supposed to turn 10 degrees left. The one from the right turns 10 degrees right, and that's pretty
standard. It kinda makes sense, but obviously, in this particular case, the United aircraft got it wrong, and this story says they came within about 2,000 feet laterally, which is not very much, and 275 feet vertically. So, yeah, a little bit of a close call. Alright. And I guess the the FAA is investigating this, currently, so we'll we'll watch for the outcome of that. Alright. One last news story. I read the headline. I thought, what is this from? The Onion or
or something like that? But, Micah, this is not a joke. This is one of the saddest and funniest stories I have read in a long time. State representative, Kimberly Landry Coates, who was a Republican from Ponchatoula, Louisiana, defended state bill 46 on the house floor. The bill is to prevent any chemicals above us in the air specifically to modify the weather. The she's trying to prevent when she's called them chemtrails. Not contrails. Not contrails. Chemtrails.
And it's this crazy conspiracy theory, and she was questioned on the house floor by by other state reps asked about these chemicals and what nanoparticles are there. She said, oh, there's aluminum and there's barium, and there's a few with some long words that I can't pronounce. And she claimed that the national that that NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is sending chemicals into the clouds to cool the sun, let's cool things down and cool the
Earth's surface and prevent sunlight from striking. And it goes on and on and on. And it just gets funnier and funnier as you read it. And, again, it's this this silly anti science, ridiculousness that is taking place throughout the land. It is kind of it is kinda nuts. We'll put a link to the the actual, text of the bill, at least as, as it stands right now. I'll put the link in the show notes.
It's very it's very short. Yeah. But what's what's interesting about it too is that I don't believe the states have any control over the airspace Well, that's yeah. Over the land. You know? The the states can't do anything about that. That's federal documentation federal regulation. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't seem like they, they have jurisdiction. The bill as written does make some exclusions.
It includes some exclusions for, for fire suppression and for agricultural or forestry applications under thousand feet. Also, presently, the bill doesn't, have any penalties for violation. It does require the establishment of a reporting feature so that concerned citizens and those who like conspiracy theories can submit their their claims that this is taking place. And I think the way that's being justified now is that they they don't wanna put
any penalties into law yet. They they really wanna just collect data first, you know, before they take that kind of next step, which is extremely ironic because that's sort of a, you know, a scientific approach to something that's incredibly unscientific to begin with. Yeah. And I wanna sponsor a bill, by the way, the state of Maine to prevent, witches on brooms from flying over the state. I think that that that should be outlawed as well. Of course. What's up with the geeks?
This is a programming note or technical note. Maybe it's a technical note. So we've migrated our media hosting. We had been on Libsyn, but we're on Blueberry now. What that means is that's where the m p threes are when you listen to this podcast. And when you go to our website, if you click on the, podcast player, that's that's where they come from if
you listen on on the website. So the the new player has a lot of a lot of additional features that weren't there in the past, but there is some kind of a a bug with a download button that's built into the player. It works on some browsers, but not on others. So in the meantime, before before that gets figured out by the technical support crew, we've reinstated a separate download link underneath the player in the website. And Robert pointed the problem out to us, so we we thank him for that.
But if you, any anything else that's seemingly odd, well, besides the host, that you've been encountering lately, let us know. Let's see if it's associated with this change, but it it we should be good to go other than that one problem. And let's see. Max Trescott, the, the podcast network is, is is growing, I guess. Yeah. It is it is indeed. I mentioned, last week that we had, two new shows, and there's another one which we have just
brought into the fold. One that I've been working on for, oh, probably a year, and that is the Rotary Wing Show, which is a helicopter podcast that's been around for over ten years, and that went on hiatus for about a a little over a year. It's out of, Australia, and I used to listen to it when I was driving to, the thirty minutes or so to, take my helicopter lessons, and I really liked it a lot. It was the the best of the helicopter shows. And so the host, Mick Cullen, has decided
to go ahead and, pass the baton. So we've done a transition episode that I'll post here, sometime in the next few days, and then I've already got some other episodes ready to go for it. So we now have a helicopter podcast as part of the fold, and we finally have a network name. Spent a lot of back and forth, a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what the name of the network was going to be, but
it is the Aviation New Stock Network. So that's gonna be the umbrella for what our four different shows that we, currently have in the network. Well, this is pretty cool. I was wondering what you were gonna call the network, give it a name for the, you know, the entire collection. So that's great. So is there a web address yet for for the network? There is a site, but I have not associated the name with it. But it soon, you will be able to reach it through aviationnewstalknetwork.com.
Okay. And from there, you'd be able to go to each of the component podcasts. Exactly. Each of the different shows under the umbrella. Yeah. Terrific. I love it. I love it a lot. Been fun putting it together. Yeah. Oh, it's been it's probably been a it's kind of a trivial task. Yes. I've only took an hour or so. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Months and months and months. Yes. Lots of work. That's great. Alright, Rob. How about you? Anything, anything newsworthy from your little, corner of the globe?
You're muted, Rob. Saying anything good because I'm muted. So now that I'm not muted, now I'm gonna repeat all of the brilliant things I just said. Can can you do it twice? That's good. Sure. Oh, absolutely. Because I am, of course, brilliant. I mean, I can't spell it, but I can I can do it? Anyway, so, had a had a good, time, on, last week on Friday. I met a listener, who, happens to be, Rob Miller over at Pawelawky, or Chicago Executive as you may call it.
And, he runs, the pilot proficiency company, that has a, it has a Frasca simulator that, people can use to get out there and and, learn how to fly a little bit better in instrument conditions. And, so I was inquiring about it and, he asked me, oh, I said something like, well, you know, I'm an instructor. And he said, oh yeah, I know. And I thought, how do you how do you know that? I I just met you five minutes ago. He said, well, I I listened to the show. I said, you what?
Airplane Geeks. He's, I've been listening to it for years. He said, I recognized your voice as soon as you you you and I were on the phone. And I thought, oh, and how long have you been listening? And he said, I don't know. Years or something. And I said, oh my god. I'm sorry. We we have an antidote for that. We're we'll we'll send you, something. You pop it into your coffee in the morning, and and you'll be completely cured, of airplane geeks. No. Actually but it was really nice to,
to meet somebody that was a listener. And, of course, he also listens to, Max on the Aviation News Talk, network. And, it was it was just nice to hear a a local person that's actually a fan. And, so, so, again, hi to Rob Miller out there at, Pawaukee, and, go find him in the 1098 Building. If you're around Pawaukee, you know where that is, and that's where pilot proficiency hides out. Terrific. Micah, what are some of the, highlights of, your It's been a busy two
weeks. And, first of all, you may remember two weeks ago that I was talking about some friends that got stuck with a canceled flight with Breeze Airlines. And I just want to say that Breeze Airways came through beautifully. They took care of them perfectly, took care of their hotels and incidentals, got them on another flight, ended up it was a different aircraft based on maintenance, refunded them. My friends flew on the different aircraft,
had a wonderful time. So the service was fabulous and just want to give Breeze the bonus points that they deserve. Because while any airline can have a problem, not every airline solves it with grace and beauty like Breeze did. So need to shout out to them and thank them for everything. Yeah. But then more things happened. Steven Ivy, who has been a hasn't been a guest on the show, but I think we may have an interview with him or so he flies for a fractional ownership company.
And he just moved up from the the Embraer Phenom to the chat global five three hundred challenge global three hundred. He showed up on Saturday, out of the blue, thought he was just gonna be here for lunch was for a couple hours, ended up spending a night, we went out for lunch, we went out for dinner. And then he had a deadhead flight to Norfolk. And he said, you wanna come along? And I said, yes. Let me call my brother. He lives in Richmond. He'll come right down
and pick me up. I'll you'll drop me off there. We'll have lunch. Well, with my brother, we'll go to some museums, and I'll fly back on Breeze at night because Breeze just started seasonal service nonstop from Norfolk to Portland for this season yesterday. I had it all set up. I called my brother, didn't make the reservation on Breeze yet, called my brother, and my brother turned into my grandfather.
And my brother said, it's gonna be Sunday night coming back from Norfolk through the tunnel with all the beach traffic. I'm gonna be stuck in a tunnel for an hour and a half. I'm not coming down to get you. No. Absa Ah. So I didn't go. It was just it was so upsetting and missed opportunity. Can't fault my brother. He's been so good to me helping me with with my surgeries and stuff, but I just couldn't believe it. All of a sudden, he was Grandpa Sam saying, grandma, we got to get going. We're
going to hit all the traffic. Yeah. So and then, this week, journey is reward episode one zero seven was released, and, we talked about Brian's stealth trip to New Jersey to celebrate mother's day and his mama Coleman's ninetieth birthday. And, chef Cathy and mama Coleman both make an appearance on the show, and he had a lot of fun. Yeah. Great. I I like the, imitation of your brother. Make sure that he hears that. Yeah. That's pretty good. I'm sure he'll listen. We'll decide, though.
So Sperwink Farm, the pancake breakfast and fly in is, well, is is coming up quickly. July 13 this year, they wanted to take normally, it's a Sunday after the July 4, but being that's only two days away, they wanted to give it another week. And, so, yep, July 13, they wanted to give it that extra week and, gonna be a lot of fun. Great airplanes, great people. You've heard us talk about it for years. And, Max, I think you and Linda ought to plan on coming up here. We'll get you
your usual parking place. We will try to make it. Yeah. So if, if you haven't heard us talk about it, this is a great, a great event. It's short. It's just part of one day. Up in Maine, beautiful location. Lot of folks fly in. All different kinds of aircraft. Quite a number of, Airplane Geeks listeners are, usually in attendance or have flown in themselves. And, of course, you can't beat the the blueberry pancakes and maple syrup that you that you can have for breakfast. It's all sponsored
by EAA chapter one forty one. It's a big annual fundraiser. It's a terrific event. And and and Max t, I'm pretty sure you could get your Cirrus in. I don't know if you'd get it out again, but I'm pretty sure you could get the Vision Jet into that field. It wouldn't be mine, but, I'm always happy to fly with other people. So the next item in the, show plan here, I'm glad you put it in. I'm not sure who Micah, did you put this in? I was watching, YouTube videos maybe it was even this morning or at
least maybe yesterday. I'm not sure. And there was one that was great, and it was all about air traffic control. John Oliver from last week tonight on HBO or HBO Max, did a whole show about ATC and all the issues going on. And he does it with this humor that David described when he attended the show a couple of weeks ago. And but he covered this just beautifully, and then came up with a beautiful hysterical advertisement on why you should be an air traffic controller. And it's just
absolutely amazing. And if you haven't seen it, you gotta find it on YouTube or watch the whole show on HBO because he does cover it from a news perspective very, very well, explaining all the issues that we talked about for hours and hours and hours, but he does it in twenty minutes and does it perfectly. With a lot more humor.
Absolutely don't miss it. It's very good. And, as I mentioned to Linda, it's like, I think John Oliver's been listening to our podcast for the last three or four or five months because all the stuff that we've talked about, all the stuff that Rob has all, you know, the points that he's made, they're they're right in there. So, yeah, it's worth listening to for sure. Alright. Some listener mail. Let's see. We heard from, Dustin. He sent
us some feedback. It was, it was all critical feed, feedback, but but heartfelt. But he's, he's also become a supporter of this podcast with a monthly recurring donation, which we greatly appreciate. If you'd like to to do the same, just go to airplanegeeks.com, our our home page, and there's a button or a link you can click up at the top to make, to make donations.
But most importantly, he tells us that Angelo State University, which is a public university in, San Angelo, Texas, has launched a flight school and an aviation bachelor's program. This is a, commercial aviation undergraduate degree, a bachelor of commercial aviation. As Dustin said, he's, they've grown this program just really quickly in a few in a few years, and we'll have a link to that program in the
in the show notes. But the degree tracks include flight operations, fixed wing, flight operations, helicopter, aviation administration, and air traffic operations. Their partner, is, ASU well, ASU's partner rather is Skyline Aviation. That's the part one forty one flight school, that's associated with, this university program. And they've got the the aircraft, the simulators, instructional equipment. Thanks to Dustin for passing that along.
Also, wanted to mention, we heard from Steve, and he's working on a very interesting project. He he says this is a comprehensive aviation mechanic education site, and it's at aviationmechanicschool.org. And then we'll have that link in the show notes as well. And, this is an interesting project that I think, has a lot of lot of possibilities here, but it currently shows, maintenance schools, aviation maintenance schools in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.
And then for each of the schools within those states, it it shows where where they are, their location, what the tuition is like, the length of the program, some of the features that, that they offer, and, of course, the the websites. And then he also has a a page, things to consider when choosing a school, that offers some some interesting tips. So if you wanna explore possibilities with, regards to being an aviation mechanic, be sure to check this out. It's aviationmechanicschool.org. And
Patrick Wiggins sent us an email. I wish David was here. He said This is so cool. It is cool. He says, oh, to see these birds fly again. He says, silly maybe, but I really miss them. So there's an article. It's an interesting engineering dot com. Cold War era fighter jets f four Phantoms could launch satellites for US firm. Say what? F four Phantoms launching satellites. Well, there's a company. It's called Starfighters International because they have f one zero four Starfighters.
And they use them for suborbital payload launches. And I think what they do is is they strap the payload to the thing, shoot the, Starliner up there at a high altitude, and then launch the the payload from there. Well, the Starfighter is great at high speed stratospheric climbs, but, the article says it has limitations. And for larger payloads, that are gonna take some significant thrust on their way to low earth orbit, the f four Phantom
might be an effective answer. So this company, Starfighters International, plans to acquire some, some f four Phantoms to carry the Star Launch two rocket, and that rocket, again, is intended to, provide low Earth orbit access and handle the heavy heavier payloads than what the f one zero four based system can currently manage. So that's pretty interesting using old fighters to launch, launch satellites. Yeah. Speaking of old, I mean, it is kind of ironic, I think. We've got new
technology being launched by ancient technology. The f four was, first flight was in the nineteen fifties, '19 '50 '8, '60 '7 years ago, and it was last built in 1981. So what? Forty four years ago. I just find that really fascinating. And the f one zero four is even older. It's a Kelly Johnson design, the missile with the man in it. This is what Chuck Yeager flew when he crashed down injured terribly.
And just an amazing aircraft, and a beautiful with those short stubby wings and very dangerous, not very easily controlled, but another gorgeous airplane for part of the Century Series. And those are those are two of my favorites. And they say the f four was designed they they describe it as if you put a big enough engine on a brick, you can make anything fly because it's got two huge powerful. One final note, and this came from Mark.
He tells us that the Pacific Air Show twenty twenty five in Australia has been canceled. So they had a tropical cyclone, Alfred, and it apparently, it washed a lot of the beach away. And they've been trying to recover this and, perform some remediation, but, there's no way that that can be completed by mid August, when the air show is, was scheduled. So they've had no alternative but to cancel the air show on the Gold Coast for 2025, but, look for it to return in 2026.
Brian said he's really, really glad he went last year, because, obviously, he would have missed it this year. But Steven Krant must be heartbroken because that's one of their major events. Yes. Yes. It's real sad. But, if the beach gets eroded away, you can't really have an event on the beach, I guess. Alright. Well, thanks for listening to the Airplane Geeks podcast. You can find us as always at airplanegeeks.com. We have a shortcut link right to the
episode post. Lots of links, videos, all kinds of things in there. This is episode eight fifty. So the shortcuts airplane geeks dot com slash eight five zero. Email address is [email protected]. Alright, Micah. If folks wanna reach out and contact you, how do they do that? Well, you can find me on x Twitter and Blue Sky as a main fly, and, of course, you can always find me with our good friend, Pasadena Brian Coleman, on the Journey is Reward podcast.
And, Rob, Mark, how about you? Where do people find the stuff that you do? Well, I think they could find it on, Twitter. They could find it on Blue Sky. They'll find me, at JetWine.com, in the pages of certain magazines around the country, and also on the new NTSB News Talk Show with my buddy, Max Triscott. Yeah. But he says I can only stay if I'm good. I don't I don't know if he means content wise or if I just if I behave. If you behave. Yeah. It it it could be both. Hey. You wouldn't be so
good if you weren't so bad. Yeah. And how about you, Max, or Scott? The usual place. Folks can head out to aviationnewstalk.com and click on contact at the top of the page. And you can find me on Blue Sky. Just look for Airplane Geeks on Blue Sky or on my website, 30000feet.com, all one word. So please join us again next week as we talk aviation on the Airplane Geeks podcast. Bye, everybody. Keep the blue side up. Nighty night. See you real soon. And from David, thanks for listening.