Dryden Social - the anticipation

I'm sure everyone has had a 'thing' for airplanes at some point in their lives. Maybe it comes on at an early age, and then fades away as career choices, and dating invade. Maybe it is sparked later in life, as some new fascination that makes you feel alive, and flying is the best sensation you know. For me, it's not the flying, the action or thought of flight or even the sensation of flight -- it's the planes. And it always has been.

I've been flying a handful of times in my life, and believe it or not, I've been in more private planes (single-engine prop planes) than I have commercial planes. I was taken flying when I was a kid. One of my Dad's friends had his pilot's license, and took myself and my Brother along with my Dad. Not long ago, my Brother got his license, and I've gone with him a number of times. Only place I've flown commercially was LAX to Seattle and back. But for as long as I can remember, if I saw something in the sky, I could sit and marvel at it all day long. The curtains in my childhood room were airplanes. The Shuttle was a fascination when I was a kid - from STS-1 to STS-135. Plastic models, paper airplanes, balsa and tissue planes, planes made out of clay, cut out of pencil erasers in class, planes made out of LEGO, flight simulator video games - all planes. Little else has come along that evokes such a reaction in me.

No surprise then, that I've known about Edwards AFB for most of my life. I've flown into it, and took off from it in thousands of flight simulator excursions in hundreds of different aircraft. I even drove up there once, thinking they might let me in if I just wanted to see the Shuttle that was there after returning from space (not bloody likely). I have pored over Google maps to see what aircraft they have sitting around. And then I go research those that I don't know by sight. Some of the stranger ones fascinate me, like the F-16XL, and the High Maneuverability F-15 with the strange canards in front. The X-29 with its forward swept wings and canards. And some just baffle me, like the oblique winged AD-1. Just the fact that the M2-F1 flew, to me, is awesome! (Of course, if you apply enough speed to anything, it will fly).
Friday May 4th will bring to me an opportunity that I have been secretly waiting for all of my life: I get to go to Edwards AFB.

Dryden Flight Research Center has invited me, and 49 other Tweeps, Facebookians, and Google Plussers to come and see what they are doing, and who is doing it. On top of *that*, we get to see... aircraft. Though all of my life, I have had the fascination with the aircraft, I have been learning over the last couple of years that it's not the aircraft that make the accomplishments, it's the people. So I am warming to the idea that it may be cooler to meet the people that make it happen than to just see the aircraft. I really am excited to see just what they have in store for us up there. There has been a lot of talk, and all of it is exciting, and I can not wait! They've even threatened that we might even get a chance to feel/hear a sonic boom, which for some is an annoyance, but for me is... a thrill!

Additionally, with the selection announcements, came a wave of invitees wanting to hook up and organize carpools, hotels, dinner, patches, stickers, t-shirts, and generally share thoughts and experiences. We've all gathered in a facebook group, and have been having a great time just with the introductions, and back-end of planning and preparing for the event. It's a great group of people, and I can't wait to meet them all. I'm sure that there will be fun and friends long after this event is over, and I hope that the connections that we make through this event last a long time.

Because I'll probably forget later in the midst of piddling myself, I want to thank NASA, and the people of the Dryden Flight Research Center for making this possible, and for inviting me. I know the event hasn't happened yet, but this is going to be by far, one of the coolest things that I have ever done.

Why I am me, Part 4

Cars:
I like cars. I always have. The reason for this was crystallized for me the other day, kind of out of the blue, but I'll get to that in a moment.

Why Cars?
Most people see clips or footage of the early days of cars, and think about how quaint they were, or how uncomfortable it would have been to try to drive across the city, much less the country in one of these horseless carriages. But think about what is really going on here. Humanity is not that old. There was the development of the wheel, wagons, carts, animals for power - these things have been used for centuries. But the car is just over 100 years old. With all of the things that man has accomplished since the dawn of time, he relied on his own power, or the power of animals for transportation until just over 100 years ago! The steam engine was a big step, as was rail transportation, which helped for transportation in bulk, but think about this. In order to travel into town to get groceries for the month, I don't have to keep a stable of animals anymore! Man has had many of the elements of the design of these devices in place for over 2000 years. The Celts had wagons with complex suspension, and chariots with suspended platforms for the rider's comfort around 680BC. Again, the steam engine was around for quite some time before the car came to be. Once the power density of the device allowed it to become portable, it was only a matter of time before the efficiency allowed it to be practical. But how awesome is that? Finally, we as a civilization, have managed to combine all of the elements needed into one tiny little package that permits the automated propulsion of persons. No pedals. No animals. Oh, certainly, the early examples were crude, but look at how quickly they were refined. Assembly lines brought costs down so that the average family could afford one. Quality went up so they were more reliable. Efficiency increased, so they could travel further. Roads were improved so they would be more comfortable to travel on. Think for a moment - have you ever had to travel on a dirt road to get where you needed to go? Sure, some roads might as well be, but largely, everywhere you need to go, there are paved roads to get you there. Think of all of the things that we have done over the years to tweak the design of the car to make it what it is today, and how different it now is from a chariot, or stagecoach. This transformation has always intrigued me.

Mechanics and machinery is very cool to me. Here, collected, are this series of levers, gears, pulleys, and wheels. Fabricated from the very latest of metal forming, stamping, machining. Upholstery, sewing, weaving, dying, treating. Wood carving, veneering, bonding. Plastic sheeting, molding, vacuum-forming. Electronics for engine tuning, audio receiving and playback, navigation and communication. And now, with today's hybrids, chemistry, thermodynamics, and the like. The integration of these technologies is fantastic!

I really can't pinpoint when or what sparked my love for cars. Perhaps it was my curtains, with cars on them, or a magazine that I found as a kid, but for as long as I can remember, I've loved cars. Trucks too. My Mom tells me that I wanted to be a garbage truck when I was young. Not the garbage man, but the truck! I had books about Monster Trucks, Semi-trucks, and cars of all sorts. One of my favorite books growing up, was by Richard Scarrey - Cars and Trucks and things that Go. Finding "Goldbug" was a delight. The thing I built most with my LEGOs was cars, trucks, or some other ground equipment.

Today, I kind of take cars in general for granted, but I appreciate all of the research and design that goes into making them better. Having impact zones, and fall-away engine blocks, and airbags, and active restraint systems, anti-lock brakes, accelerometers, and even systems that sense when you are trying to perform beyond your talent, and pull the reigns in for you is astounding. Simply astounding. Cars can park themselves. Cruise control that can maintain a distance behind another vehicle, and backs off when someone jumps in between you is awesome. DARPA, and their challenge to have a car successfully navigate the hazards and dangers that we don't give a second thought to is a wonderful thing, and that manufacturers are spending their own money to try to win this competition is even better. I like the refinement. The making of things more efficient. Hybrid technology as it stands today is fine, and yay, we get better mileage, but there is one shortfall that a couple of manufacturers are developing systems to capitalize on - gas/electric or diesel/electric hybrids are well and good, but they aren't as good on long trips. I've read numbers that internal combustion engines are at most 50% efficient. That means, for every gallon of gas that you burn, if we had more efficient means of harnessing that potential energy, we could go twice as far. As I understand it, both BMW and Chevrolet are working on a system that will use the heat from your exhaust to turn water into steam, which will help power the engine. How awesome is that!? BMW's system, is apparently capable of developing 65hp, that can be fed back into the system. Kudos! And VW's concept (which I hope makes it to market fairly quickly) of the 1L - a two-seat, tandem car that uses 1 liter of gas to travel 100km - something like 270 miles per gallon. I want one! Not only would that save a lot of money on fuel, but the car looks pretty sleek as well. Subaru has a vehicle or two in their lineup in the UK that use clean diesel to exceed 45mpg, AWD system intact, and no hybrid technology needed. This is the best of humanity, creating better cars. I love it!

Bucket List:
Of course it's not all about efficiency. Anyone that is a bit of a car nut has that bucket list of cars to own, or at least drive. Here's mine, in no particular order, and a little bit about why.

• McLaren F1 - This is my ultimate car. I have a lot of respect for the Bugatti Veyron, but think about this. The McLaren's top speed record for a production record stood until it was beaten by just three miles per hour by the Koeneigsegg CCR - and it took over 12 years for that to happen. Now, the Veryon just smashes it, but look at what it took to do that.

• Ferrari F-40 - A sexy car. I saw one once. One of the Losi boys from R/C car fame owned one, and it was parked at the Ranch Pit Stop in Pomona. I love the simplicity of it, and it just has beautiful, powerful lines. It's not one of Ferrari's glorious V-12s, but a V-8 with twin turbos can be just as addicting.

• Bugatti EB110 - This, another entry in the 'I can go faster than you can' contest, was one that had remarkable lines, and completely filled out its shape. Mechanically troublesome, its four turbos added most of its power, AWD most of its handling, and the Bugatti name garnering most of its status. It was no slouch, but it was no Veyron either.

• Acura NSX - I always vowed that when I got this car, I would get one of those vanity plates, and somehow work it out to read "Endless Sex". Tight, compact, and low-slung, this V-6 powered pseudo super car has intrigued me since it came to our shores in 1991. Does anybody know what ever happened to the prototype or whatever, that was trapped in customs hell in Long Beach for all of those years? I think they finally reached perfection around 1997, and then kind of fell off the mark after that, but this is one of those cars that I think I could own, and drive, and not actually feel like I should be having a mid-life crisis. I did manage to drive one once. I was working in a tow yard, and we had picked one up for being illegally parked. I watched the door like a hawk, wanting to be the one that was available to drive it up for the owner when they came in. Not that my test drive was in any way a measure of its performance, but it was fun. Just a little taste. Made me want more.

• Porsche 959 - The engineering that went into this car was remarkable at the time. Things like single center lugs, hollow wheels, sequential turbos. Impressive stuff. I've seen one a couple times, when they've been displayed in the Porsche booth at the L.A. Auto show, which I used to regularly attend. It was a nice treat, but being able to drive one would be very cool indeed.

• BMW M5 - The owner of a company I worked for owned one of these, and said that it was more fun to drive than his 911. I wanna try.

• BMW M3 - Precise handling, and gobs of torque. Gimme.

• Honda Preulde - Back in High School, this was the car for me. I wanted one so bad.

• Honda CRX - I owned an HF, but wanted the Si. Good little car. It did me well.

• Subaru Impreza WRX GD - This is my current car, and I LOVE it.

• Subaru Impreza GC - I owned a 2000 RS, and had a LOT of fun driving it.

• Subaru Impreza 22B - Teeny, tiny little body. 350hp. Boxer grunt. AWD.

• Dodge Viper - I've never wanted to own one of these, just drive it. When it first came out, I was interested, but cautiously kept my distance. It had nice lines, big power, but still seemed like a novelty. It wasn't until the GTS coupe was produced that it really seemed like a practical car. I used to do street legal drags with my pickup in Pomona, and there was a viper club that came most days. Their hopped-up Vipers dragging down the strip literally sounded like four riced-out Honda Civics trying to out-rev each other. It was quite the spectacle. I've always heard that they are a handful to drive, especially on a road course, with the higher power GTS-R variants that are built for racing, but I'd love to be given the opportunity to give it a go, see how I do.

• Land Rover Discovery 110 - Don't ask me why, but I think this is one of the sexiest off road vehicles that I can think of. The capability, and the long history of rovers being legendary off road vehicles makes me want one to go exploring in.

• Jeep Wrangler 4dr - These are new, I know, but still seem quite capable, and they have plenty of room for the wife, and all your junk.

• Mazda RX-7 - I love it when there's a different thought about how things should be done. Mazda's rotary engine isn't the most robust thing in the world, but I like that there's a different school of thought. Mazda's 1992 RX-7 R2 was a lovely car. One of my Mom's co-workers owned one of these, and she invited me to lunch one day, and offered to let me drive it back to the office. That was fun.

• Toyota Supra - Gran Turismo. And if you don't know, look it up. This was one of the ultimate cars in the video game. I was certainly a fan of it before, but the video game provided me with an opportunity to drive it.

• Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX - This is one of my favorite low-budget sports cars. A friend of mine from High School had one, and it was a blast to drive. A little bloated with its thicker body panels, and AWD system, but it was quite impressive. I owned a GST as well, which was a lot of fun to drive, but still, not as much fun as the GSX. I think I can blame this car for my addiction to that whistle of a turbo.

Okay, but why cars?
The very best that man can make can always be refined. Tuned. Think of the glorious feeling of slotting a gear-change on a Ferrari gearbox, and compare that to the slop-boxes that most of us can afford. We don't design for optimism, we design for compromise. Performance versus longevity. Weight versus durability. Power versus reliability. These compromises are everywhere you look in the design of anything. To some extent, they have to be. But then... I always love to see what people can do when they remove limits. Take someone that has been really quite good at something for a long time, and then remove the limitations that hold them back - design constraints, budgetary limitations, rules and regulations, convention, judgment, physics. Just let them -do- at their optimum. Take the story of the McLaren F1 as an example. Build the ultimate road car. Period. Let's not worry about cost, or maintenance concerns, or fitting a certain number of people comfortably, or the number of cup holders, just build the Ultimate road car. Car, in the purest form. Carbon fiber chassis. Titanium wheels. Gold-lined engine bay. If you bought one new, it came with a tool box so you could work on it if need be. Driver sits in the middle of the car. Engine is in the back, fuel tank between the two. Perfect weight distribution. Perfect balance. Quick and nimble. The car broke records for years. When it participated in racing events, it smashed the competition. Every example sold with multiple hands eager to shell out the asking price for it. It took multiple attempts by several manufacturers attempting to do the same thing fifteen years to top its speed by any significant amount. It is a masterpiece of engineering because the limitations, the compromises that we normally have to live with were not present. Built for a purpose, without limitation. The utmost precision, a fine watch. With everything at its peak, it simply does everything better. Which brings me to my earlier crystallization - The reason I love cars, is that there are so many different ideas about the right way to do something, or the best way to accomplish this or that in regards to automobiles. But that these different thoughts exist is not the point - it is how they can be combined, and how they can be tuned that makes them magical. That you can rearrange parts, tune their fit, and finish, and the performance aspects of the parts, or replace them with different parts that change geometry, performance, comfort, etc. Being able to discover for yourself, just what, exactly, makes a car good. It is reaching that perfect mix of fuel and air. The temperature is just right. The humidity is low. The fuel is clean, and well atomized. The spark hits at just the right instant, and boom. Bliss. And so, it is cars that makes me who I am.

What are your favorite cars? Why?

Why I am me, Part 3

LEGO:
I'm sure that if you've grown up any time after the 70's, you'll know a thing or two about LEGO. If you're older than that, it's those damn expensive things that your kids asked for when they were growing up, some time after the 70's.

If you still don't know, Google LEGO, and you'll get an endless list of results that could take several days to sift through all of the interesting things in. Just about anything you can think of has been made out of LEGO at one point of time or another. There are several theme parks around the world dedicated to this magnificent and ageless toy. The interchangeable bricks are made for ages 0-100, and bring a joy and frustration all their own, and if you have never played with them, you should try it, even if only so you can say that you have. You need not be a rocket-scientist, an engineer, an artist, or even very creative or imaginative to enjoy LEGO in some respect. It is the simplest concept that has become something quite astounding. And there is an element of deeper complexity that isn't clear on the surface - something as brilliantly simple as the Fibonacci Sequence permitting the infinite complexity of a Mandlebrot set.

Very simply, the basic LEGO element is a block, hollow on the inside, with 'bumps' on the top arranged in a linear array in equal distances in two directions. I think the basic, most recognizable element has two rows of four bumps. These can be stacked on top of each other, and next to each other in a manner that permits them to interlock, and create structures, artwork, and any number of things. They are available in an array of colors, sizes, and even thicknesses to be sure. As the toy has advanced from its humble beginnings in a wooden toy shop in Germany in 1932, 'special' pieces have been developed from the mini figures, to wheels, to wings, antennaes, tools, canopies, etc. There are hundreds of different LEGO elements available today.

Growing up as a child, I did not have the latest video game systems, or the coolest bike, or skateboard. I have never owned a pair of roller blades, or a hockey stick, or ice skates, and my collection of hot wheels fit neatly into just one carrying case. The toy that permeated my memories of growing up was, you guessed it: LEGO.

But you see, I didn't have every LEGO set I wanted either. Even back then, LEGO was very expensive. One of my childhood friends, to my knowledge, had the first LEGO set in the United States, when his father traveled to Germany for business, and brought it back as a gift. I'm certain that has no bearing on the eventual import and marketing of LEGO over here, but suffice it to say that his LEGO collection was the target of my envy. I wrote in for the shop at home catalogs, and I drooled over the photos of the available sets for endless hours, dreaming in my head of an unlimited budget, and the orders that I would place. Oh, the things I would build. Another childhood friend traveled to Germany while in Elementary School, and brought back with him a stack of German LEGO catalogs for me to drool over. Things that weren't available over here, things I would never have imagined. And of course, they were the latest, and greatest. I managed to stop drooling long enough to thank him, I think.

But since Mom couldn't afford to keep me drowning in new LEGO sets, I would disassemble the sets in my mind, trying to figure out how they were built. Then I would spend countless hours trying to build them myself with the parts that I had. Most of the time, I would roughly succeed, proud of myself for my work-around to their special parts that I did not have. Sometimes I would be stumped, and all of my attempts failed to measure up to their intended subjects. But most often, I would learn about another way of combining elements to achieve a result. Something to make my models stronger, more robust, lighter, uniform in color, etc. This kept me thinking of how to do it differently. How to make something with what I had. Resourcefulness, if you will. Oh, sure, sometimes you just HAVE to have the right tool. But most of the time, you can get by without it.

As I got older, my models changed from simple to complex. A Mini figure-scale F-14 Tomcat, with retractable gear, and sweepable wings. A 'low-boy' trailer, and forklift trailer with a forklift for my 'Highway Rig' (5580-1). I worked for years to develop front suspension and steering for the Car Chassis (8860-1). Long-travel independent suspension on the same scale that wouldn't require some sort of sliding drive-shaft. Monster trucks, and tractor-trailers to haul them. An entire LEGO city on top of my desk, with a race circuit, and pits, and racing teams. A two-story house, with a zip-lock baggie filled with water, covered with Kleenex as a water-bed. My Brother and I made stop-motion movies, and elaborate scenarios with our LEGO creations. I once built a crane that would hoist 3 lbs from the floor up to the bed, suspended by the top bunk. In High School, I used a programmable robotic arm to show how container trains and semi-trucks have combined to increase the efficiency of product delivery over long distances. But I don't envision my accomplishments to be anything out of the norm for kids who grew up with LEGO. Still, it has inspired, or at least provided the foundation for the career that I am striving for. It has given me a means, and methodology to design. Because of LEGO, I want to be an Engineer.

It seems all too simple when boiled down that way, and there is still so much more to it. Now, to be sure, I've never built any kind of extravagant model like an Aircraft Carrier that is 15 feet long, or a life-size Jack Sparrow. Nothing that I have built with LEGO will or should ever be displayed in a museum, and there are hundreds if not thousands of people with better brick building skills than I. But LEGO has never been the end to me. Only the start. And so, it is LEGO that makes me who I am.

What was your favorite toy growing up? What part of you did you discover during your childhood?