Those of you who have been visiting this site for a while have, I hope, noticed that I recently made a few design changes in an effort to get a little more aviation into this aviation blog. I have four boxes of 35mm slides that I have taken over the years, beginning in the early 1970s, and I finally got around to converting some of them to digital format. There were about 100 slides with airplanes or aviation as the main subject,  so I decided to rotate them through on the sidebars of the blog. You can use it as a poor-man’s Name The Plane game ala AirPigz. Make your educated guess on the type of plane and then put your cursor over the photo to get the answer. Some are very easy and others are more obscure, but all were flying aircraft when the photo was taken. So far,  there are only three photos in the collection which aren’t of a single aircraft and only three photos that I didn’t take personally. As part of my NY resolutions, I plan to attend more airshows and will increase the number of different photos, but it should be a while before I cycle through to the beginning of the current collection.  I’ll change the photos every few days. If you feel that I have misidentified an airplane, please let me know and if you have a photo or two of something obscure that would make a good candidate, please let me know and I’ll include it in the collection.

You will also notice a new section on the left side that shows an aviation-related quote. I wander the internet at times looking for fun aviation sites and come across a few now and then which have quotes from aviation personalities. I also read about a dozen aviation publications each month (you have to have something to do on a layover when all the TV channels are in a language other than your own) and occasionally come across an interview or quote that grabs my attention. I’ll change the quotes on a frequent basis, too. If you have a good aviation quote, send it along and I’ll include it.

If you follow me on Twitter then you know that I have recently finished a 12-day trip to Asia for my employer (who shall remain nameless for a couple more years). I’m almost on the right time zone again and will be heading out to the local airport in a couple of days to see what is new there and to do some maintenance work on my Swift. The temperatures are supposed to be more reasonable for working in an unheated hangar as the week progresses. The high temperature today is holding at 36 F (2 C), which is a bit below my personal minimums, though it’s managing to melt the snow we still have remaining on the ground. The local AWOS says that the airport is open and the runways are clear and dry. We have an outstanding airport manager who really stays on top of things.

I hope you all made it through the Holidays in good health and good spirits. It’s a great time of year to go flying in the crystal clear skies and cool temperatures. The airplanes like it, go out and let them have some fun, too!