Flying-AIf you like these stories, check out the late night radio show Coast to Coast AM on Friday nights (actually 0100 to 0500 Saturdays, Eastern time USA). That night the topic is “Open Lines” with listeners phoning in their weird stories. The website, http://www.coasttocoastam.com, lists the stations (“affiliates”) in the USA and Canada that air the show. Outside of North America, you can probably pick it up over the internet from the show’s website or the website of one of the affiliates.
Flying-AWhat a toot — thanks!
Too bad it was too late for Hell’s Angels; it would have made a great secret weapon. (Howard Hughes was a big fan of steam cars in the twenties.)
Flying-AUnited States Military Aircraft Since 1909 by Swanborough and Bowers (1963) mentions a Hurricane used by the USAAF in a support role in Italy. The Profile booklet on the Hurricane IIC has photographs and a profile of a Sea Hurricane flown during Operation Torch with US insignia and ROYAL NAVY in tiny letters. These might account for some of the stories about American Hurricanes.
Flying-AI saw most of it last night on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).
Later, as it always does this time of year, TCM aired a film of brief shots of movie people who passed away during the year, including the supporting actors and those who worked behind the camera. Among those whose obits I had missed:
Hazel Court
Nina Foch
Lois Nettleton
Michael Pate
All professionals who always turned in a solid job.
Flying-AI saw most of it last night on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).
Later, as it always does this time of year, TCM aired a film of brief shots of movie people who passed away during the year, including the supporting actors and those who worked behind the camera. Among those whose obits I had missed:
Hazel Court
Nina Foch
Lois Nettleton
Michael Pate
All professionals who always turned in a solid job.
Flying-AAnd maybe carrying illegal aliens as well!
Owner: Missing Airplane Stolen by Fake Pilot, Illegal Immigrants
Friday , December 19, 2008
Fox News
By Rita Cant
A small Caribbean airplane that vanished into thin air Monday was allegedly stolen by a fired Dominican Navy cadet who may have been trying to carry illegal immigrants to America, the plane’s owner told FOXNews.com.
Luis Perez, the Puerto Rico-based owner of the aircraft charter company, said his twin-engine plane was stolen by an unlicensed pilot named Adrian Jimenez. Authorities told him Jimenez was a student of the Dominican Republic Armed Forces and a former Navy cadet.
“They took his pilot’s certificate away, because the only certificate he had was a helicopter rating and he was operating airplanes,” Perez told FOXNews.com.
Dominican Pilots Association president Pedro Dominguez confirmed that Jimenez had his license revoked in October 2006 and was not authorized to fly.
Luis A. Irizarry, the lawyer investigating the disappearance for Perez, said Perez’s pilot flew the plane to the Turks and Caicos island of Providenciales for a test-flight by a potential buyer.
“They arrived there on Monday morning and by Monday afternoon that airplane was taken,” he said. “There is no airplane wreckage found, and no fuel — maybe they disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.”
Jimenez told Perez’s pilot that the plane had already been sold to him, loaded 11 people onto what he indicated was a charter flight and took off, the lawyer told FOXNews.com.
Irizarry said a report released by Dominican authorities suggested that one of the potential immigrants on board told friends her husband was waiting for her in New York.
“The information we have is that he was planning to take these people out and he charged $26,000 for each of them,” Irizarry told FOXNews.com. “I think they were illegals and they wanted to get into the U.S. … Why didn’t they take a commercial flight? Because they were trying to get in illegally.”
The FAA would not comment on the allegations that the missing plane was trying to smuggle humans into the United States. FAA spokesman Kathleen Bergen said there’s no way of knowing if the aircraft could possibly turn up in U.S. airspace.
“That would be strictly speculation. It’s really in the hands of other agencies,” she told FOX.
The U.S. Coast Guard also declined to comment.
“Our primary concern is the safety of the people regardless of the status of the plane,” said Petty Officer Barry Bena.
The plane, a Britten-Norman Trislander, was registered to Perez’s company Puerto Rico Airline, based in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
A flight plan indicated that it took off from the Dominican Republic and was to land in the Bahamas. But the Bahamas Aviation Authority said the plane never arrived.
Airport authorities also had no record of the plane landing in Providenciales, according to Turks and Caicos police Sgt. Calvin Chase.
The U.S. Coast Guard called off its two-day search for the plane on Wednesday evening after it emitted a mayday and vanished from radar screens Monday.
Relatives of those on board told the Coast Guard that the passengers’ final destination was New York, Petty Officer Bena said. But the FAA didn’t have records indicating that was true.
Among those missing is a maid from the Dominican named Rosa Tavarez, 27, authorities said.
Acquaintance Maria Torres told reporters that Tavarez wanted to find a higher-paying job elsewhere in the Caribbean.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
As the little girl said, “curiouser and curiouser.”
Flying-AI’ve read that the Hurricane’s thick wing limited its top speed to about 340 mph and that increases in horsepower brought only minor (if any) increases in speed.
Flying-AIt’s official — it’s over for Woolworths:
Business Week Europe
December 11, 2008, 11:56AM EST text size: TT
Britain’s Woolworth Chain Is Closing Shop
Failing to find a buyer, the iconic retailer will shutter its 815 outlets, some possibly before the end of this month
By Paul Vallely
“The biggest sale ever,” read the huge signs plastered all over the shop windows at Woolworths yesterday. Sadly, there will be an even bigger sale today.
At 4.30pm yesterday, the managers of the chain’s 815 outlets received an email from head office telling them that a buyer had not been found for the great icon of the British high street which went into administration on 26 November with £385m of debt. From today, it told them, they were to launch a closing-down sale.
“Low everyday prices” had just got even lower. Inside the Woolies branch in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, south Manchester, shortly after the news came through, a pimply youth in a red sports shirt—Woolworth’s uniform—began sweeping red boxes from one of the shelves with a cavalier movement of the arm. Customers looked up. The word had spread. Perhaps he was taking it out on the stock.
But no, he was merely clearing the empty boxes from which the 2009 Woolworths diaries had sold out. The future is clearly high on a lot of people’s agendas in Manchester’s trendiest suburb.
“Sorry to hear your news,” said a woman bringing a £12 heavy cotton-lined wicker linen basket to the till. “The staff were just told 10 minutes ago that all hope is gone,” said the young man at the till, with heavy melodrama, demonstrating a sense of irony you might not have anticipated from a shop assistant at Woolies.
Like the rest of the 25,000 staff he had been told by the firm’s administrator, Deloitte, that if no offers for Woolworths were forthcoming, it was “possible that some stores may close before the end of December”. So closure was not yet entirely definite but the closing down sale was.
At the next till, an overweight man was struggling with a vacuum cleaner in a big box. “Can I bring it back, if it’s not the right one?” he asked the young woman at the cash register.
“Certainly, sir, if you keep the receipt,” she replied, though she was probably mentally adding the caveat: “but you’ll have to be bloody quick, mate”.
Some of the customers looked as shocked as the staff. “I’ve come here for the past 20 years,” said Joanna Jones, a 63-year-old in a bobble hat. “I buy bits and pieces—things like tights and kitchenware and birthday cards. I like it because it’s cheaper than other places but there’s a good choice and it’s a good price.”
Bits and pieces is part of Woolworths’ problem, according to the retail analysts. To the shopper, it sells DVDs, stationery, toys, bathroom fittings, towel rails, glasses, pans, children’s clothes, electrical goods and DIY. To an analyst, that looks like a terrible lack of focus in a world of increasing specialisms.
All around the store are shops with a more singular sense of purpose—a Belgian beer and chocolate shop, specialist stationery or—and here’s a rarity—an independent bookshop. Pick ‘n’ mix is out of fashion.
Its customers are loyal. “I’ve been coming here 25 years,” says Joan Fletcher. “The staff are so lovely. I put the Lottery on or buy a tin of paint. I’ve come in the car, so I could have gone somewhere else but I’ve always used Woolies. You just pop in.” But not often enough, it seems. Justin Marks, 38, has come for a present for a child. “I like it here because they have a decent range.
“I come for birthdays and Christmas, once or twice a year. I usually shop at the Trafford centre.”
Casual sales are not enough. And there is a limit to the number of sound-activated self-switching-on electrical plugs the average family needs at £19.99 a throw.
Sentiment is not enough to sustain a retail model, though there is plenty of that about. “I feel gutted,” says Mary Scott, a masseuse in her forties. “It’s one of the worst bits of news of the year. The Government is paying out billions for the banks; why can’t it keep Woolies open? It’s a great shop. I’ve been using Woolies since I was a kid. It’s a real shame to see it go. I’d have used it more. if I’d known it was under threat.” Which is not what the staff, now packing up for the night, want to hear. “I want to support local shops. I know it’s a big chain but it feels like a big corner shop.”
But corner shops stay open late. It is 5.30pm and the manager is bringing in the sandwich board from the roadside as his staff bring the shutters down. “It’s shut,” says a besuited accountant, Henry Fergus, to his twin brother, equally pinstriped. They have walked from their office to get a late birthday card and what Austin Fergus describes as “a DIY item”.
“I suppose I’ll go to Qualitysave,” says Razwanna Ullah, dragging a bewildered small boy behind her. “It’s the end of an era—like C&A,” she adds.
In the toy section, the Woolworth Superstore Set has been reduced from £49.99 to just £19.99. For that, you get an electronic cash register, a conveyor belt and a supermarket trolley. It also comes with a sign saying: “Woolworths sale—half price”. And from today you could pick up the entire shop for that.
Note: another story states that there will be a 50% clearance sale and that the whole chain will close on December 24th.
Flying-AIt’s official — it’s over for Woolworths:
Business Week Europe
December 11, 2008, 11:56AM EST text size: TT
Britain’s Woolworth Chain Is Closing Shop
Failing to find a buyer, the iconic retailer will shutter its 815 outlets, some possibly before the end of this month
By Paul Vallely
“The biggest sale ever,” read the huge signs plastered all over the shop windows at Woolworths yesterday. Sadly, there will be an even bigger sale today.
At 4.30pm yesterday, the managers of the chain’s 815 outlets received an email from head office telling them that a buyer had not been found for the great icon of the British high street which went into administration on 26 November with £385m of debt. From today, it told them, they were to launch a closing-down sale.
“Low everyday prices” had just got even lower. Inside the Woolies branch in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, south Manchester, shortly after the news came through, a pimply youth in a red sports shirt—Woolworth’s uniform—began sweeping red boxes from one of the shelves with a cavalier movement of the arm. Customers looked up. The word had spread. Perhaps he was taking it out on the stock.
But no, he was merely clearing the empty boxes from which the 2009 Woolworths diaries had sold out. The future is clearly high on a lot of people’s agendas in Manchester’s trendiest suburb.
“Sorry to hear your news,” said a woman bringing a £12 heavy cotton-lined wicker linen basket to the till. “The staff were just told 10 minutes ago that all hope is gone,” said the young man at the till, with heavy melodrama, demonstrating a sense of irony you might not have anticipated from a shop assistant at Woolies.
Like the rest of the 25,000 staff he had been told by the firm’s administrator, Deloitte, that if no offers for Woolworths were forthcoming, it was “possible that some stores may close before the end of December”. So closure was not yet entirely definite but the closing down sale was.
At the next till, an overweight man was struggling with a vacuum cleaner in a big box. “Can I bring it back, if it’s not the right one?” he asked the young woman at the cash register.
“Certainly, sir, if you keep the receipt,” she replied, though she was probably mentally adding the caveat: “but you’ll have to be bloody quick, mate”.
Some of the customers looked as shocked as the staff. “I’ve come here for the past 20 years,” said Joanna Jones, a 63-year-old in a bobble hat. “I buy bits and pieces—things like tights and kitchenware and birthday cards. I like it because it’s cheaper than other places but there’s a good choice and it’s a good price.”
Bits and pieces is part of Woolworths’ problem, according to the retail analysts. To the shopper, it sells DVDs, stationery, toys, bathroom fittings, towel rails, glasses, pans, children’s clothes, electrical goods and DIY. To an analyst, that looks like a terrible lack of focus in a world of increasing specialisms.
All around the store are shops with a more singular sense of purpose—a Belgian beer and chocolate shop, specialist stationery or—and here’s a rarity—an independent bookshop. Pick ‘n’ mix is out of fashion.
Its customers are loyal. “I’ve been coming here 25 years,” says Joan Fletcher. “The staff are so lovely. I put the Lottery on or buy a tin of paint. I’ve come in the car, so I could have gone somewhere else but I’ve always used Woolies. You just pop in.” But not often enough, it seems. Justin Marks, 38, has come for a present for a child. “I like it here because they have a decent range.
“I come for birthdays and Christmas, once or twice a year. I usually shop at the Trafford centre.”
Casual sales are not enough. And there is a limit to the number of sound-activated self-switching-on electrical plugs the average family needs at £19.99 a throw.
Sentiment is not enough to sustain a retail model, though there is plenty of that about. “I feel gutted,” says Mary Scott, a masseuse in her forties. “It’s one of the worst bits of news of the year. The Government is paying out billions for the banks; why can’t it keep Woolies open? It’s a great shop. I’ve been using Woolies since I was a kid. It’s a real shame to see it go. I’d have used it more. if I’d known it was under threat.” Which is not what the staff, now packing up for the night, want to hear. “I want to support local shops. I know it’s a big chain but it feels like a big corner shop.”
But corner shops stay open late. It is 5.30pm and the manager is bringing in the sandwich board from the roadside as his staff bring the shutters down. “It’s shut,” says a besuited accountant, Henry Fergus, to his twin brother, equally pinstriped. They have walked from their office to get a late birthday card and what Austin Fergus describes as “a DIY item”.
“I suppose I’ll go to Qualitysave,” says Razwanna Ullah, dragging a bewildered small boy behind her. “It’s the end of an era—like C&A,” she adds.
In the toy section, the Woolworth Superstore Set has been reduced from £49.99 to just £19.99. For that, you get an electronic cash register, a conveyor belt and a supermarket trolley. It also comes with a sign saying: “Woolworths sale—half price”. And from today you could pick up the entire shop for that.
Note: another story states that there will be a 50% clearance sale and that the whole chain will close on December 24th.
Flying-APainted Red?
I recall seeing a color photograph of a Davy Crockett training round that was painted bright red.
Flying-AIt’s a Kreider Reisner XC31
Thanks! Never heard of it before. Found this at the USAF Museum website:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3290
KR and American were both forerunners of Fairchild, so the resemblance between the Pilgrim and the XC-31 might not be coincidence. The USAAC also bought and operated four Pilgrims under the designation Y1C-24 and they were nicknamed “Yics.” The 1 in the designation was a bookkeeping device to show that the planes had been procured with F1 supplemental funds rather than the regular appropriation.
Flying-AThere are aviation connections to this thread, albeit oblique and remote, but interesting:
F.W. Woolworth had a granddaughter, Barbara Hutton, dubbed “the poor little rich girl” by the press. “Rich” because she inherited $50 million during the Great Depression, about a billion in today’s money. “Poor” because of her morose and very public private life, highlighted by seven marriages and seven divorces. Also, she nearly died giving birth to her only child, son Lance Reventlow, in 1937.
In 1942, she married movie star Cary Grant. Although the marriage soon soured, they remained together in part due to the wartime housing shortage. That may explain why Howard Hughes lived with them during much of the war. They saw little of him because he preferred to work at night and sleep during the day. The couple divorced soon after the war ended. Grant was the only one of her husbands who didn’t take a penny from her. He remained close to Lance.
Lance was involved with racing and sports cars for a while in the fifties and sixties, the Scarabs and Chapparels I believe, before shirting his focus to real estate development. He and five others died in 1972 in the crash of a Cessna 206 while scouting for properties in the Colorado Rockies. The NTSB concluded that the greenhorn pilot at the controls flew into a box canyon and stalled the plane while trying to climb out. Ironically, Reventlow, who was not at the controls, was a pilot with an instrument rating and several thousand hours in his logbook. Grant arranged for a plane to fly Reventlow’s widow and friends to Colorado.
Although they were semi-estranged, Lance’s death devastated his mother, who became reclusive and lived mainly on diet soft drinks. She died in 1978. By then, she had squandered her fortune on jewelry, houses, and husbands, and was living off the sales of her possessions. Accounts differ as to the amount, but she died with something like $1800 to $4000 in the bank.
Flying-AThere are aviation connections to this thread, albeit oblique and remote, but interesting:
F.W. Woolworth had a granddaughter, Barbara Hutton, dubbed “the poor little rich girl” by the press. “Rich” because she inherited $50 million during the Great Depression, about a billion in today’s money. “Poor” because of her morose and very public private life, highlighted by seven marriages and seven divorces. Also, she nearly died giving birth to her only child, son Lance Reventlow, in 1937.
In 1942, she married movie star Cary Grant. Although the marriage soon soured, they remained together in part due to the wartime housing shortage. That may explain why Howard Hughes lived with them during much of the war. They saw little of him because he preferred to work at night and sleep during the day. The couple divorced soon after the war ended. Grant was the only one of her husbands who didn’t take a penny from her. He remained close to Lance.
Lance was involved with racing and sports cars for a while in the fifties and sixties, the Scarabs and Chapparels I believe, before shirting his focus to real estate development. He and five others died in 1972 in the crash of a Cessna 206 while scouting for properties in the Colorado Rockies. The NTSB concluded that the greenhorn pilot at the controls flew into a box canyon and stalled the plane while trying to climb out. Ironically, Reventlow, who was not at the controls, was a pilot with an instrument rating and several thousand hours in his logbook. Grant arranged for a plane to fly Reventlow’s widow and friends to Colorado.
Although they were semi-estranged, Lance’s death devastated his mother, who became reclusive and lived mainly on diet soft drinks. She died in 1978. By then, she had squandered her fortune on jewelry, houses, and husbands, and was living off the sales of her possessions. Accounts differ as to the amount, but she died with something like $1800 to $4000 in the bank.
Flying-AInterflug62M:
Glad you found it useful.
I’m still positive that we saw a Woolworths store in Majorca Spain in the 70s, do you anything of a Spanish offshoot?
A Google search found a reference to a “short-lived” Spanish subsidiary started in the 1960s. It could have lasted into the 1970s, possibly under different ownership but with the Woolworths name.
Flying-AInterflug62M:
Glad you found it useful.
I’m still positive that we saw a Woolworths store in Majorca Spain in the 70s, do you anything of a Spanish offshoot?
A Google search found a reference to a “short-lived” Spanish subsidiary started in the 1960s. It could have lasted into the 1970s, possibly under different ownership but with the Woolworths name.
Sign In
