Why is building model airplanes such a popular hobby?
Maybe because it is a great combination between exciting adventure and educational experience. There is no surprise that this hobby is as popular within adults as it is within children. It can be easy enough for a child and challenging enough for an adult to build a model airplane.
Some people like to build static scale models. They require very precious work and great attention to the details. But for me the most glorious building experience is to make model airplanes that really fly. Seeing your model soaring in the sky is the true reward to all your efforts. Sounds tempting? Let's start!
Here are your options to build a working model airplane:
Build a Free Flight Airplane The free flight model airplanes are simple to build. The most important thing to watch when building is the symmetry of the wings and the aerodynamic. You can build free flight models from wood or plastic.
This kind of model aircraft is a good place to start for beginners. Just don't get disappointed if your first model doesn't fly very well.
Build an RC Aircraft Building a remote control airplane requires deep technical knowledge. So should you skip this option? Not necessary - even if you are technically challenged, you can simply use a ready remote control tool and engine. Then, just build the parts of the aircraft together, paint and you have it.
Even with a ready engine, this option is more appropriate for more advanced aviation modelists.
Build a Rubber Band Powered Airplane You must have seen this kind of models when you were a child. They are so cute and simple - a great project even for kids!
Don't underestimate the complexity of these models however. Just like with the free flight aircraft, aerodynamic and symmetry play a big role here. Again, balsa wood and plastic are the most appropriate materials to use.
Build a Flying Helicopter Helicopters are really a different category. If we talked about static models it wouldn't matter so much, but building a flying model helicopter is a real art! In this case your only option is an RC helicopter, because I still have to see a free flight one that flies good.
The remote control of the model helicopters is much more complicated too, so unless you have a lot of experience with electronics, you would prefer to use a ready one.
And there are three ways to build any of the above model airplanes:
Get a Kit The most popular and the easiest option to build a working model airplane is by using an aircraft kit. The kits contain all the parts you need plus detailed instructions what to do with them. Some kits are called almost-ready-to-fly which means they are, well, almost built. You just can't go wrong with them! Well, you can, but it takes some talent.
If you have never build a flying model airplane before, using a kit is the most recommended option.
Use Plans What, building with a kit is not challenging enough for you? You are not alone! A lot of people prefer to build everything themselves. They only need a detailed plan since they are not aviation engineers. Many plans can be found online for free and some are sold for just few bucks.
How hard is to build an airplane like that? It depends on the model complexity, the material and your experience.
Build Completely From Scratch And if you are really truly enthusiastic and experienced in building model airplanes, you would certainly enjoy the idea to construct and build it entirely yourself.
Of course to do that you must know avionics, aerodynamics and physics - and you'd better have built many models with plans or kits before.
Are you ready to start the journey? You have so many options to choose from. If you feel confused and don't know what to choose, learn more about the model airplanes.

In the 1950s airline travel was deeemed a luxury as very few people travelled overseas. Travel by aircraft was expensive and the operations set up to service the needs of those that did utilise this new method of transport, didn't enjoy the economies of scale the likes of British Airways
and Lufthansa enjoy today. Aircraft were subject to weight limitations and thus in many cases, luggage was sent independently on another aircraft, ahead of the passengers. Waiting staff were included on these early airline flights to ensure that the service was similar to that experienced on the luxury liners of the day. Some aircraft even carried projectors to show in flight entertainment.These days technology has opened up this business to the masses and much of the developed world would consider air travel as the primary solution in travelling overseas. These increased volumes have reached the stage whereby the business has become a victim of its own success. Airports are full to capacity, security queues are lengthy and tedious and competition is such that airlines no longer look at setting themselves apart on service. They are setting themselves apart on cost, and in doing so are reducing the level of service. This has almost certainly fuelled increased demand in the air charter market.Those travellers lucky enough to have the resource to travel by private jet do so for one or all of the following reasons:1. They don't waste precious time checking in 2 to 3 hours before a flight departs.2. Departure time is dictated by the passenger, not by the aircraft operator.3. Smaller airports can be used by Private Jets, thus there is less congestion at these facilities.4. Travellers can take an aircraft from airports closer to home, and arrive at airports closer to their intended destination.5. The on board service is tailored to the needs of the passengers.6. Business passengers are often subjected to strict meeting timetables. Private jets can exercise more flexibility in terms of timings and destinations, thus a 3 day trip on a scheduled airline could be squeezed into a one day trip on business jet.7. Celebrity passengers can retain an element of privacy away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi.8. Many private jets now have WiFi facility on board as well as telephone equipment. Thus even time in the air can be productive which is useful if embarking on a 7 hour flight from London to New York.In essence the majority find it obscene that individuals can justify so much expense by flying on Private Jets or helicopters. There is no doubting that it is expensive but where there is a market for such a service, should it be mocked? If we take a step back to look at the jobs and wealth created from pilots and flight attendants through to airport staff, engineers, insurers, cleaners and catering suppliers. There are private jet travellers who may spend £20k a year on flying private charter, and there are those who spend millions. What we have to consider is that all of this money goes back into the economy which is more that can be said for the £billions used in taxpayer bailouts of the banks.Then there are the environmental factors. Of course this is a huge concern because of the irreversible nature of these effects. Many firms however, have embarked on initiatives to offset their carbon impact. I am personally not a great fan of the schemes that donate a percentage to a fund that doesn't appear to do much environmental work, but their are some that plant trees for every X amount of air miles flown. We also have to consider the massive increase in fuel efficiencies that aero engine designers now make a priority in all of their research work. Private Jets are subject to much less delay than their airline counterparts and so, generally speaking, contribute significantly less environmental impact.Essentially this is a market that is set to grow as the mainstream airline services continue to chase cost cuts and deal with passenger numbers increasing at a faster rate than the infrastructure can cope with. Whilst there are movie stars who need to attend a film launch tour, pop stars with concerts in different cities every night, and business men that need to undertake meetings in the same day, thousands of miles apart, then there will always be demand for Private air charter. Maybe the increase in numbers utilising private jets will give rise to more opportunity, greater accessibility and increased competition for future private travellers.

Air France
I’Espace
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Air France
I’Espace Premiere Lounge: This lounge is located in Paris at Charles de Gaulle Airport. First class passengers of Air France flight can enjoy the facilities provided in this lounge. They can enjoy red carpet, oversized leather armchair facilities. Other amenities provided are free internet access; showers, clarins massages, means, wines and champagne. At departure, an agent accompanies travelers till the boarding gate and a private Mercedes sedan then takes them to their plane. Another amazing Airport lounge is American Airlines Flagship Lounge, New York. It is located in John F. Kennedy International Airport. This lounge is 7000-square foot which has business center, cyber café, shower facility, meal selections, various types of wines and liquors, flat panel TVs with DirecTV programming. Access to the lounge is available to first-class passengers. In London an amazing airport lounge was opened in March 2008 by British airways at Heathrow Airport. This lounge is for first class flyers which includes a bar and restaurant. Three private cabana rooms with beds and ensuite bathrooms can be reserved in advance. There are spa services; staff can book theater tickets for you.In Hong Kong International Airport, a famous lounge named as Cathy Pacific is located in Gates 62-66, Northwest Concourse. This first class lounge is operated by Cathay Pacific. Amenities provided to passengers are leather armchairs, LCD TV, audio system, Internet access, marble shower suites, five dining and drinking venues including a noodle bar and a fine-dining restaurant, Haven. Emirates Airlines Lounge in New York is located in John F. Kennedy International Airport. It has cream leather, burled wood and marble countertops and floors. It provides shower facilities to both business class and first class passengers. Other amenities include business center with 18 Internet stations and TV viewing areas with 42-inch Plasma TVs. Lufthansa airplanes provide lounge facility in Frankfurt airport. This lounge is located in an area of nearly 12,000 square foot with facilities like a bar which has 80 types of whiskey; rest area with leather daybeds, alarm clocks, wardrobes, mirrors; bathrooms with monsoon showers. Departing passengers are driven by chauffeured Mercedes or Porsche limousine to their aircraft. Qantas First-Class Lounge is located in Sydney Airport in International Terminal. Other amenities provided are a day spa, with treatment and relaxation rooms, internet access and two private work suites. Other entertainment options include plasma TV and Sony PlayStation Portables. Qatar Airways provide lounge facilities to its first and business class passengers in Doha International Airport. With 33,000 square foot private terminal, travelers can get their facial done, play Video or Sony PlayStation games and work in business center. South African Airways Cycad First Class lounge is located in Johannesburg International Airport. First class passengers can choose from an eclectic menu of dishes that changes throughout the day plus full bar service, French champagne. Other amenities include shower rooms, sound proof reading room, smoking room and business center with international telephone, computer and Internet services. This lounge is located in Paris at Charles de Gaulle Airport. First class passengers of Air France flight can enjoy the facilities provided in this lounge. They can enjoy red carpet, oversized leather armchair facilities. Other amenities provided are free internet access; showers, clarins massages, means, wines and champagne. At departure, an agent accompanies travelers till the boarding gate and a private Mercedes sedan then takes them to their plane. Another amazing Airport lounge is American Airlines Flagship Lounge, New York. It is located in John F. Kennedy International Airport. This lounge is 7000-square foot which has business center, cyber café, shower facility, meal selections, various types of wines and liquors, flat panel TVs with DirecTV programming. Access to the lounge is available to first-class passengers. In London an amazing airport lounge was opened in March 2008 by British airways at Heathrow Airport. This lounge is for first class flyers which includes a bar and restaurant. Three private cabana rooms with beds and ensuite bathrooms can be reserved in advance. There are spa services; staff can book theater tickets for you.In Hong Kong International Airport, a famous lounge named as Cathy Pacific is located in Gates 62-66, Northwest Concourse. This first class lounge is operated by Cathay Pacific. Amenities provided to passengers are leather armchairs, LCD TV, audio system, Internet access, marble shower suites, five dining and drinking venues including a noodle bar and a fine-dining restaurant, Haven. Emirates Airlines Lounge in New York is located in John F. Kennedy International Airport. It has cream leather, burled wood and marble countertops and floors. It provides shower facilities to both business class and first class passengers. Other amenities include business center with 18 Internet stations and TV viewing areas with 42-inch Plasma TVs. Lufthansa airplanes provide lounge facility in Frankfurt airport. This lounge is located in an area of nearly 12,000 square foot with facilities like a bar which has 80 types of whiskey; rest area with leather daybeds, alarm clocks, wardrobes, mirrors; bathrooms with monsoon showers. Departing passengers are driven by chauffeured Mercedes or Porsche limousine to their aircraft. Qantas First-Class Lounge is located in Sydney Airport in International Terminal. Other amenities provided are a day spa, with treatment and relaxation rooms, internet access and two private work suites. Other entertainment options include plasma TV and Sony PlayStation Portables. Qatar Airways provide lounge facilities to its first and business class passengers in Doha International Airport. With 33,000 square foot private terminal, travelers can get their facial done, play Video or Sony PlayStation games and work in business center. South African Airways Cycad First Class lounge is located in Johannesburg International Airport. First class passengers can choose from an eclectic menu of dishes that changes throughout the day plus full bar service, French champagne. Other amenities include shower rooms, sound proof reading room, smoking room and business center with international telephone, computer and Internet services.

Unhappily, these Class tickets are not a choice on each & every flight. Several airlines only proffer such Class on international flights for instance but when it is accessible it can be a greeted as relief from regular coach. All airlines do not proffer Business class Travel. Several have removed this type of service in support of just providing economy and First Class, particularly on short- and medium- tow flights. However n the U.S., you can still get this class accessible on several long-haul transcontinental flights.Tickets for this class is similar to First Class ticket, charge more than the regular coach. But you may be astonished at how cost effective this class can be, particularly when you deem the advantages of upgrading from regular class.Some airlines providing this class is value conversing regarding, though several of these airlines focus on this class merely on their international itinerary. Certainly, when you are wasting that a large amount time in a plane seat on an international journey, it is a lot more comfy to do that in a seat belonging to this class.Travelling in Business Class is a diverse experience than regular class and First Class, too. Discover out what travelling in this class is all regarding.Going on the airlines which trait seats in this class, the real name for this rank of ticket will differ. It is occasionally called "Executive Class" or even "Upper Class" in universal terms, and diverse airlines have different precise names for their account. The perception of this class is a comparatively latest accumulation to air voyage, as contrasted to First Class, and is very frequently presented on international or other long journey flights.Whilst the seats in First Class are the most relaxed on the airplane, Business Class seats are usually much fastidious and roomier when compared in coach. Several Business Class seats stretch out totally to let passengers to recline fully or almost completely flat in order to sleep with more comfort.Meals and amusement in this class are naturally enhanced when compared to regular coach. You can locate that alcoholic drinks are admiring, there are other choices for meals, and there are individual movie players for every traveler. The precise perks accessible by every airline in this class can differ significantly, so it is an extremely good thought to observe what additional you are receiving for the additional money you are paying out. Certainly, a Business Class airline ticket is usually considerably less than a First Class ticket - so the additional expenditure may be entirely justified!

The airplane has six main parts—fuselage, wings, stabilizer (or tail plane), rudder, one or more engines, and landing gear. The fuselage is the main body of the machine, customarily streamlined in form. It usually contains control equipment, and space for passengers and cargo. The wings are the main supporting surfaces. Modern airplanes are monoplanes (airplanes with one wing) and may be high-wing, mid-wing, or low-wing (relative to the bottom of the fuselage). At the trailing edge of the wings are auxiliary hinged surfaces known as ailerons that are used to gain lateral control and to turn the airplane.

The lift of an airplane, or the force that supports it in flight, is basically the result of the direct action of the air against the surfaces of the wings, which causes air to be accelerated downward. The lift varies with the speed, there being a minimum speed at which flight can be maintained. This is known as the stall speed. Because speed is so important to maintain lift, objects such as fuel tanks and engines, that are carried outside the fuselage are enclosed in structures called nacelles, or pods, to reduce air drag (the retarding force of the air as the airplane moves through it).

Directional stability is provided by the tail fin, a fixed vertical airfoil at the rear of the plane. The stabilizer, or tail plane, is a fixed horizontal airfoil at the rear of the airplane used to suppress undesired pitching motions. To the rear of the stabilizer are usually hinged the elevators, movable auxiliary surfaces that are used to produce controlled pitching. The rudder, generally at the rear of the tail fin, is a movable auxiliary airfoil that gives the craft a yawing (turning about a vertical axis) movement in normal flight. The rear array of airfoils is called the empennage, or tail assembly. Some aircraft have additional flaps near the ailerons that can be lowered during takeoff and landing to augment lift at the cost of increased drag. On some airplanes hinged controls are replaced or assisted by spoilers, which are ridges that can be made to project from airfoils.

Airplane engines may be classified as driven by propeller, jet, turbojet, or rocket. Most engines originally were of the internal-combustion, piston-operated type, which may be air- or liquid-cooled. During and after World War II, duct-type and gas-turbine engines became increasingly important, and since then jet propulsion has become the main form of power in most commercial and military aircraft. The landing gear is the understructure that supports the weight of the craft when on the ground or on the water and that reduces the shock on landing. There are five common types—the wheel, float, boat, skid, and ski types.

aeroplane, or aircraft, heavier-than-air vehicle, mechanically driven and fitted with fixed wings that support it in flight through the dynamic action of the air.

The airborne operations officer gets the tail numbers of everyone in the stack. He tells the lowest guy to shoot the approach and level off right on top of the cloud deck. From your perch, you watch the wingtip vortices of the olive drab C-46 make a furrow across the cloud before until the pilot starts a climb back to the stack . The ops officer already has the next Commando on the approach. That ship deepens the furrow. The guys in the tower have stepped outside and confirm that they can hear the airplanes going right over the runway. Two more airplanes make the approach. You can see the furrow widen and deepen as you work your way down the stack. Number five spots the runway and lands. That's all it takes. Tower clears one of the waiting airplanes for takeoff and the ops officer runs the lot of you in just as fast as he can. The combination of landings and takeoffs keeps the air stirred up enough that the fog never closes back over the runway, and eventually burns off altogether. By that time you've parked the behemoth for which you are responsible. Before you can even get out, the fuel truck is there and the loaders have the first forklift up to the doors.

You will keep doing this, in all weather, into 1946 because the end of the war doesn't end the demand for supplies, it takes time to spool it all down. You will successfully navigate to landings in visibility as low as a half mile using only that Bendix ADF, which you trust with your life. Its loop antenna, over a foot in diameter, is in a teardrop shaped housing that looks like a cancerous growth on the airplane. There is but one ADF in the airplane. If it fails when you are in the clag, you are absolutely, totally and completely hosed. Yet, at a time when your buddy flying Curtiss P-40s is putting up with an engine that often gets only 15 hours between overhauls, and you can never count on the heater or the autopilot working on a Commando, that Bendix ADF is the essence of reliability. It is so accurate that you are comfortable holding a course line through the mountains when tracking an NDB that is 100 miles away.

You survive this adventure, unlike some of your friends. In the year 2002, you will read of the recovery, that year, of four men from the wreckage of a C-46 at the 15,650-foot level and wonder if you knew them. Later in your life you will fly using GPS for navigation and sometimes be curious just how you did what you did over the Hump and whether pilots who think of an NDB approach as an emergency procedure can ever be referred to as accomplished.

At 7,000 feet you see some lights on the ground, the ADF and directional gyro advise that you're on course, and you know the area very well, so you decide to cheat a hundred feet. You'd rather not miss the approach; there is another airplane letting down about two minutes or so behind you, and you aren't allowed another chance. If you do miss, you get to slog all the way home with the cargo still on board. Your copilot calls the runway lights and confirms that the gear and flaps are down, good lad, and you scrub off the altitude. You three-point the monster right on the numbers and feel your tension level rise because the airborne pussycat manners of the C-46 instantly turn sour once the tires start rolling. You don't relax a bit until the aircraft is into the chocks and secured.

After a visit to the latrine, some coffee and a chat with the weather folks, you head back out to the airplane. They, whoever "they" are, have defueled it to 600 gallons, total. You're not crazy about that, because you suspect fog will be a problem when you get to Mohanbari about dawn, which means holding. You should have said something when you first walked into ops but it's too late now, you are required to be in the air before an hour has passed.

The return leg is longer than the outbound leg; it's offset to the north, making a long, arc. It also has minimum altitudes that are 500 feet higher, but that is okay, as your Commando is a few tons lighter than it was an hour ago. Luckily, it's not winter when you've personally experienced more than 100 knot headwinds on the return leg and can recall once taking exactly one hour and twenty minutes to fly the 120 miles between two NDBs.

Over India, the eastern sky is getting lighter out your left window and you find that the monsoon thunderstorms have dissipated for a little while, something that gives you no joy whatsoever. You won't have to wrestle your way through them, but it means Mohanbari is probably covered in ground fog. Sure enough, your radio operator hands you a note, the base is far below minimums, so it's time to pull the power way back and mentally kick yourself for not hanging on to that extra gas. You enter a holding stack with a dozen other C-46s, orbiting and wondering when things will open up. Sunrise reveals a cloud deck barely 50 feet thick, right on the ground, as far as you can see. After about 15 minutes a C-46 with a qualified operations officer aboard arrives in the stack above you. He confers with the tower and then, exercising his prerogative, takes command of local air traffic control, something you hoped he would do.

At 17,500 feet you level off and have the co-pilot set cruise power. Everyone flies the same power setting for cruise, which generates more or less the same TAS, depending on how heavy each airplane is and how badly it has been twisted and beat up. There is a C-46 ten minutes ahead of you at this altitude and another 10 minutes behind. Even with some discrepancies in cruise speed, it has proven to be adequate separation.

The next NDB is over 100 miles ahead, so you will track outbound from Moran for some time before tuning in the next and proceeding to track it inbound. You consider heading something to be held within a degree or so, as only a very few degrees of error can put you into the rocks. You have become a master of mental arithmetic when tracking to or from an NDB, while somehow accounting for the erratic needle swings due to lightning. The science of navigation sometimes becomes art, but Dave Hertel and others on the Hump can conduct this symphony as well as any instrument pilot in the world.

Past the boomers the ride smoothes out and you emerge from the side of the last cumulonimbus to look down on a solid stratus deck. In the moonlight the haunting vision of rocky peaks appear to each side of you, many going far above your altitude and you wonder if anyone will ever climb that peak well to the northwest of you called Everest, which you know is over 28,000 feet high.

Approaching Kunming you let down to 10,000 feet and report the beacon outbound to Kunming tower. You then get cleared for the approach, descending to about 9,000 feet before starting the procedure turn. You'll need to get down to 7,500 feet on the way back to the beacon, and be ready to lose the last 500 feet in the roughly 2.5 miles to the airport. You don't wonder why they didn't put the beacon on the airport; in fact, you can't imagine such a thing. You've know that you need a solid final approach fix within a few miles of the airport so that you know precisely where you are before letting down, briefly, yes, briefly, to the minimum descent altitude.

You point the airplane at the first NDB, Moran Beacon, and climb for all you are worth. Occupying a prominent place on the panel before you, the Bendix ADF needle will point unerringly at Moran unless there are thunderstorms in the area, such as there are tonight. As usual, they are just past the beacon, piled up along that first ridge of the Himalayas, dumping moisture and promising you blinding lightning and hard work for the first 20 or 30 minutes after you pass Moran and have no choice but to get in among them. However, that is in the future, right now you are nearing the beacon and it's time to be thinking about setting up the racetrack climb pattern you will have to use, because you don't dare proceed further until you have attained no less than 14,500 feet. Drifting away from the climb pattern is not conducive to longevity as that first ridge alone tops out at some 13,000 feet.

Passing through 14,500 feet you confirm that the ship is still climbing in a satisfactory manner even though you have already begun collecting that gift of summertime on the Hump - ice. The lapse rate means you will get ice so long as you are in the clouds and, based on your knowledge of the route, you figure you'll be in the soup another 30 minutes, so you'll get several inches of material you would much rather be putting in drinks. With the boots and everything working, you'll be okay if the downdrafts in the thunderstorms are not too persistent. You tell the radio operator to report Moran to ATC, because each NDB on the Hump is a mandatory reporting point, and to give your estimate to the next one. The thunderstorms are there, big as life, so you crank up the cockpit lights to full bright to reduce the time you can't see anything following a nearby bolt of lightning and slug it out with the hammering turbulence while confirming that the boots are keeping the ice under control. In winter ice isn't much of a problem at the altitudes at which you operate, but summer means the icing level will have moved upwards to where you are to cruise. Add the soaked-sponge moisture of monsoon season and the recipe couldn't be better for serious clear and rime ice. Tonight the boots handle the wings, but the alcohol on the windshield is worthless, as usual; it's going to be opaque until well into the descent for Kunming.

Once in the airplane you start engines and immediately check to see that the ADF is pointing in the correct direction, as it is your sole navigation radio. When you, the copilot and radio operator are satisfied with everything, you feel your way to the runway. Though it's not long since you were a teen-ager, you know the Commando's foibles and taxi the beast with differential power and very occasional taps on brakes you consider hopelessly inadequate. You take a moment to again curse the engineer who decided not to put a steerable tailwheel on the world's largest twin-engine airplane. Your friends flying the smaller B-17 at least have an aircraft that is easy to handle on the ground.

The Army guys in the tower confirm your route clearance and your altitude, which is dictated by your destination. There are four Chinese bases and four altitudes eastbound for C-46s, a thousand feet apart, from 15,500 through 18,500 feet. You wouldn't mind being in a C-54 because they get the next 4 altitudes with more breathing room above the boulders, and they are heavenly flying airplanes; however, you are very glad you aren't in those pig Liberator conversions that get assigned to the high 20s for cruising altitudes as they take forever to get there and fly as poorly as they look. Precisely on the appointed minute, tower clears you to roll; something you and your loaded steed proceed to do for quite some time. Eventually you wallow noisily into the air, and transition immediately to instruments while being mildly curious as to how far over gross you are tonight as you tell the co-pilot to retract the gear and set max continuous power. You are thankful that this time at least the c.g. is probably close to the published range because you are not wildly out of trim as you settle in and thunder upward through the fire-hose intensity rain.

As captain, you will do all the flying, unless the autopilot decides to crap out. If it does, you'll let the aeronautical child in the right seat fly some during cruise, but never on takeoff, approach or landing. It is Army policy that you in the left seat are the brains of this operation, will do the flying and the kid (even if he is older than you) will sit there, be quiet and do as he's told.

On this summer evening, you get the call to haul some 20 hours since your last endeavor. You mutter a bit because 16 hours is about the average interval between flights, so the weather in this monsoon season must be especially foul for things to have gotten backed up enough to give you some extra sack time. You get a weather briefing, on which you rely because it comes from reports of pilots who are right in it, and a load manifest, which you consider cheap fiction. You are probably going to be well over gross because cargo weights are estimates and, in your experience, lousy ones. In monsoon season, with its broiling heat and thunderstorms, the preferred cargo is avgas. While it can prove pyrotechnical if a Japanese fighter takes an interest in you, at least a 55-gallon drum of avgas always weighs 330 pounds, the ground crews have been given orders as to the maximum number of drums they can shove into the airplane, and most can count, so, carrying avgas, you will only be at gross weight. You learn that your cargo is not avgas so you and your copilot make some not so funny jokes about how good the loaders are at stuffing 10 pounds of, ahem, stuff, into a 5 pound bucket. As usual, you have full tanks, 1,400 gallons, because you won't be given any fuel in China and, if the weather is good enough, some of your fuel load will be considered part of what you are supplying your comrades in arms and drained while on the ground at your destination.

Tonight you are going to Kunming where there are clouds reported at 1,000 feet with about two miles visibility. That makes things marginal, for 1,000 feet just happens to be the minimum descent altitude due to the mountains near the airport. You take a moment to consider the fact that Kunming is at about 6,000 feet MSL, so even with 3 hours of fuel burned, a missed approach in the heat of a summer night means doing everything right to avoid the tall stuff, despite the initial part of the procedure being over a large lake. Here at home plate, it is raining torrents. The cloud base is high, but visibility is only about a half-mile. Technically that's less than minimums for the NDB approach, but you've heard a half dozen Commandos land just since you got the call for your trip. At the Hump, if you can't track 2.5 miles outbound from an NDB in a crosswind and find a runway during heavy rain, you need to go fly something easy, like fighters.

World War II was well under way, and events and a determined enemy had conspired so successfully that the Allies fighting in China found themselves in the position of having to obtain virtually all of their supplies via airplanes if they wished to continue hostilities. Despite the remarkable advances in load-carrying ability of airplanes since the days of the Wrights, supplying a military operation via airlift had never been successful. The logistics of supplying a large group of people who both desired to eat and hurl mechanical invective at an opponent were simply staggering. Needed material was measured in thousands of tons per day in a time when few of the transports in existence could even carry ten tons of payload. The Army pilots also faced an additional, niggling variable: they would have to cart all of the needed bits and pieces over the highest mountain range in the world, itself a generator of some of the meanest weather imaginable.

In almost British understatement, the air supply line to China became known as the "Hump." Peaks forced enroute operations to take place at a very minimum of 15,500 feet above sea level. The sheer magnitude of material to be carried required that airplanes arrive at each of four Chinese airfields every few minutes, around the clock, month after month. Air Force General Tunner organized and commanded this aeronautical nightmare with such success that he would be called upon a few years later to do it all again when he set up the Berlin Airlift, a virtually identical operation that received far more publicity yet operated in less taxing circumstances.

Imagine, if you will, that you are Dave Hertel, or one of the other pilots who, as did Dave, spent most of 1945 and 1946 coaxing massive Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commandos over and between the giant rock piles of the Hump. Take a long moment to start your consideration by recognizing that the C-46 was the largest piston twin ever, bigger even than a number of four-engine airplanes, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress. Then let it sink into your aeronautical soul that you had yet to turn 21 when you ferried a brand new C-46 from the U.S. to Mohanbari, in the Brahmaputra River valley of eastern India, via the Caribbean Sea, South America, the Atlantic Ocean, with a fuel stop at Ascension Island, and thence across Africa and a big slice of Asia. Mohanbari was one of several air bases set up as cargo hubs where surface transport brought the multitude of things to be stuffed inside C-46s, C-54s (which later in civilian life became the DC-4) and bastard variants of the very fine B-24 Liberator bomber known as the C-87 and C-One-Oh-Boom (C-109 aviation fuel tanker). A bit more than 500 miles to the east, on the Yunnan Plateau of China, were the four bases to be supplied.

In the Pilot's Lounge here at the virtual airport, the weather has been just plain foul. Our instrument-rated pilots have had the chance to shoot approaches pretty close to minimums. Talk has been an interesting juxtaposition of IFR procedures tied in somehow with the exploits of World War II bomber and fighter pilots who got the press and glory. It got me to thinking about the fact that weather in World War II would regularly get every bit as rotten as it does now and that the vast majority of daytime combat missions would be launched only if the weather forecast for the target area and the return was suitable for visual flight, especially as many of the fighters did not have the capability of making an instrument approach back at base. Yet, unsung and often ignored, those who were flying the transports to supply the glory boys in the fighters and bombers were routinely flying in the weather that grounded combat operations. And I thought of my good friend, Dave Hertel, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, now in his 80s, and compared his instrument operations in the 1940s to that of today, for I am afraid we have become complacent ... .

Today we rise from the earth in our machines, navigate using some of the most sophisticated technology known, and let down to a point 200 feet above the ground, when visibility is merely a half mile, spy a runway and alight upon it. Almost without exception, we then congratulate ourselves for our skill and daring without considering that the boxes on the panel will take us by the nose and lead us to the runway, and that any failure to arrive at the desired location is, in truth, probably because we err. To top it off, most of us proceed to pat ourselves on the back the moment the mains touch, because our machines have the steering gear in the front so, even on a windy day, it takes a feckless dolt to lose control once rolling along the ground.

We may have become proud and thus perhaps test the patience of the gods aeronautical. I suggest we remember those who preceded us in the skies and maybe acquire a bit of humility in the process.

Dave Hertel and his Army Air Force compatriots based in India provide sterling examples of members of our fraternity flying regularly in truly awful instrument conditions every single day while sometimes being shot at. As humble seekers of knowledge it might do us well to tread among those giants of a prior generation and listen to what sort of instrument flying they did, and learn from it.

World War II was well under way, and events and a determined enemy had conspired so successfully that the Allies fighting in China found themselves in the position of having to obtain virtually all of their supplies via airplanes if they wished to continue hostilities. Despite the remarkable advances in load-carrying ability of airplanes since the days of the Wrights, supplying a military operation via airlift had never been successful. The logistics of supplying a large group of people who both desired to eat and hurl mechanical invective at an opponent were simply staggering. Needed material was measured in thousands of tons per day in a time when few of the transports in existence could even carry ten tons of payload. The Army pilots also faced an additional, niggling variable: they would have to cart all of the needed bits and pieces over the highest mountain range in the world, itself a generator of some of the meanest weather imaginable.