On April 25th in 1972 Hans Werner Grosse, an aviation hero of mine set a new world record for distance flight in a glider. From Lubeck in the north of Germany to Biarritz in the south of France a distance of 1,461KM or over 900 miles. This from a tow to 2,700 feet to start. All the rest was playing the atmosphere and gravity against each other. The record wasn't broken until thirty years later and that was by a three turn point flight in a glider with half again as much performance as the Schleicher ASW-12 Grosse flew. As a straight line distance Grosse's record has not been broken to this day. Hans passed away just a little earlier this year. I wish I could have met him.

The flight:

The pilot:

The aircraft (the ship in the picture is the one owned by Wally Scott of the USA that he flew to the previous record distance of 730 miles):

See the chute hanging off the tail? That was the only device the glider had for approach control. The flaps reflex up two notches for high speed flight and down one for low speed - they provide no significant drag that would help get this 42-44:1 glider into a field. There were no airbrakes as the designer Gerhard Waibel designed this aircraft for world breaking performance and he had trouble with integrating effective airbrakes into fiberglass gliders with long thin wings on the D-36 Circe university glider project when he was on that team. When you go to land an ASW-12 you pull the lever to deploy the chute. Usually it deploys and you make a nice steep approach and land. If you misjudged conditions and start to undershoot all you can do is jettison it, no second chances. If it doesn't deploy (and that happened from time to time) you have to rely on the old forward slip to get it down on the ground. That's one thing in a slab sided, draggy J-3 Cub but quite a bit more challenging in something that converts 1,000 feet of altitude to over seven miles of distance and has a 60 foot wingspan!

Ever since my wife was on a sailboat for the first time a year and a half ago we've been planning on taking the training to get certified to be in command of sailboats in the approximately 25 foot and up category. I'm competent to sail small boats - the ones where of you run a ground you just pull the centerboard up, step over the side and push then back into water deeper than about a foot. Give it a ballast keel, engine, galley, beds etc. and I'm out of my league. The pandemic has put that training off until next spring in all likelihood so I started looking for a little boat we could go sailing on this summer. Found one:

Crawford Melonseed skiff. One sail, two oars and not much else. A modern fiberglass boat based off a 19th century duck hunting skiff. I'm looking forward to getting it out on the water in the next few days. I was surprised to find one for sale out here. I don't think I've ever seen one in Vancouver before. Most of the sailboats in the 12 to 18 foot range are designed for racing and I wanted something more in the nature of a Wind In The Willows/Swallows and Amazons leisurely messing about in boats type. Not easy to find.

Had an upset stomach late Saturday night. Woke up 7:30 Sunday and spent much of the day vomiting profusely. I have recurrent IBS so I thought that's what it was. Got bad enough to check in to the ER 18:00 Sunday. Found out I have A: a big gallstone (and we just finished caring for my mother in law after her gall bladder operation!) and B: a blockage. So the plan is to drain my stomach (tube down the nose - not one of life's great pleasures) and do some medicating and rest waiting for the blockage to break up. Seems that the blockade is in an area of scarring I got from surgery after my bike accident back in 1993. They try to avoid more surgery to correct this as it can cause more scarring and more blockage in the future. So, how's everyone else's Sunday/Monday? Better I hope. (p.s. I'm in Canada and it seems the hospitals around Langley etc are doing pretty well when it comes to patient load)

Just went out to do some grocery shopping and saw this beauty in the lot:

Injected 13B, limited slip, leather interior... Incredibly good condition from the tires to the headliner. The owner happened to get to his RX-7 at the same time I got to my car so we had a talk. A fifteen year old who came out of the store with his Mum gawked over the car too before she made him finish loading their groceries and get in the car too.

@aremmes Thighs can be really delicious but I'm a breast lover myself... wait, that came out all wrong.

@hfv Look at first picture, yeah, looks decent, look at second picture... what's the big problem? That little stain on the seat? Scroll down further on the second picture... AUUUUUGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Go back to first picture primed to look for awfulness... what sort of hell has that front wheel been through?

To put things in perspective Australia, with a population of about 26,000,000, has had 30,000 Covid cases and 910 deaths in total. That's pretty damn good compared to the fustercluck most nations made of responding to the disease.

@chariotoflove The guy sounds like an in-law of mine. She's laser focused on money in family situations, obsessed with getting what she considers her "fair share" and constantly forgets about the times she did get something from an inheritance or other windfall because it interferes with her self image of being a shortchanged martyr. When she gives anything or does anything for anyone you can be damn sure she expects you to pay for it somehow at 100% interest minimum - and you're going to be dealing with passive aggressive demands for it and trash talking behind your back about how ungrateful you are even if you return it five-fold. It's really sad in her case as she does have some truly great aspects to her character but is constantly making enemies out of friends due to this personality trait.

When my dad died I couldn't have cared less about what I might or might not inherit - I just wanted my dad back. F*** cancer.

@bandit "We need scanning electron microscope images of the bore surfaces and the ring groove and neutron imaging of the assembled unit, filled with fluid, installed in the vehicle and under pressure during a 3-4 shift initiated at redline before continuing to process your complaint."

@akioohtori "I know that no one gives a crap where I go or what I do" The lengths to which companies go to to track everywhere we go and everything all of us do would seem to suggest that isn't true. They may be doing so entirely out of greed for the manner in which they can monetize that information or use it to better persuade people to spend money directly, but they are certainly obsessed with tracking us.

@shop-teacher Exactly how I feel. A 2015? That is some 1970 Vega level rust there.

@carsoffortlangley The thumbnail had me thinking you found an old Jag and were considering the fun/anguish ratio they have and whether it would be worth it. It wasn't until I clicked on the post and saw the full pictures I realized what you had found. Doesn't quite work, does it? Personally I wish the manufacturers made more everyday cars with quirky styling though. The Nissan Pike cars are some of the few that really did it right.

@demon-xanth What's being used for ties to bundle the cables? I've never seen anything like that before. I've seen (and used) AN waxed lacing and of course seen zip-ties used all over but the stuff in the picture is new to me.

@dipodomysdeserti Clown to the left, joker to the right, asshole in the middle!

@exage03040 Hey at least that would mean Vancouver's architecture would improve instead of continuing the steady emblandening it's been going through since the 90's!

@mark-tucker I had never heard this song until a few years ago when when my wife made me listen to it. She's crazy about Christmas. Linda Belcher from Bob's Burgers level crazy so she listens to Christmas music a lot. I would rather listen to this song over and over again than say, "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" but I can see how you could get tired of it. Maybe because it's because we're in Canada but she had never heard the infamous "Christmas Shoes" so I returned the favor by introducing that one to her... but only by showing her Patton Oswalt's roasting of it (how I learned f it too).

Personally I'm a "Fairytale Of New York" fan. With a leavening of "Christmas Time Is Here" because I'm way less of a cynic and way more of a sentimental sap than I sometimes seem to be.

@rallydarkstrike That's what really ticks me off, the interior/controls. I'm not exactly enthusiastic about the idea of Lotus making an SUV but can't they at least do it in a good way?

As for the question of making one in the first place I have to admit that in the current market Colin Chapman probably would have gone for the SUV money at flank speed and forced draft. We all know about his engineering principles and obsession with simplicity and lightness but the man loved money too.

@i86hotdogs In hope it's an ulcer so they can fix it quickly. With my recent bowel obstruction I kind of know what you're going through and fully sympathize.

@trivet It's too new to have the Knight Rider interior which is what I really want in a Corvette of that era... other than that nothing.

@bbg2d I understand those books have also been updated over the years and have heard good things about them. I'm planning on getting them next time we get a dog (probably a few years in the future yet). I know him first from his aviation writing, most of it is about soaring. His "Once Upon A Thermal" describes how the journey that led him to learning to fly started with him losing the favor of the people in charge of the field trials he had competed in for years. I remember liking his writing so much in the first book of his I came across I immediately went to the page which listed other works of his only to find most of them were dog training books! Of course this helped explain why I seemed to like the guy so much.

So nice to read about "#projectdog" being in a good stable home with people who know dogs!