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Alaska Historical: Historic plane to be NY hotel lounge; 60 year old Constellation flew in Alaska, made drug runs elsewhere By DAVE KIFFER - A Lockheed Constellation prop plane with a lengthy history in Alaska in the 1960s and 70s including at the Annette Island Airfield, is getting a second life. As a lounge at a new hotel at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The Constellation - N8083H - has been out of service for more than 30 years and had spent the last three decades at an airport in Maine being cannibalized for the restoration of another old "Connie."

But recently, N8083H made the 300-mile trip to New York, on the road. It is now being restored adjacent to the soon to open TWA Hotel at JFK, which itself is a repurposing of the legendary "space age" TWA Terminal. The Constellation will become a lounge and "passenger event" space next to the hotel.

Many airline enthusiasts consider the Lockheed Constellation to be one of the high points of the romantic propeller airline age, even as it was being overtaken by the jet age in the late 1950s.

The Constellation looked unlike any thing else in the air.  The four-engine plane had a distinct triple "tail" with three vertical stabilizers rather than one. The three smaller stabilizers cut down on the height of the aircraft significantly. allowing it to fit inside many existing airport hangers. The fuselage was not straight, but actually rose with a slight hump between the front and the back of the plane. Some likened its "line" to that of a dolphin. The "humped" fuselage was more expensive to build that the tube shapes of the other airlines, even though it was purported to help the plane's aerodynamics.

The Constellation was developed in the late 1930s when American airlines were looking to expand their cross-country flights and wanted planes that would either need fewer stops or eliminate them altogether.  Howard Hughes at Trans-World Airlines (TWA) specifically asked Lockheed to develop an airliner that could carry 40 passengers with a range of 3,500 miles. According to common legend Hughes designed the Constellation but that was not true, he only provided Lockheed with the parameters of 40 passengers and 3,500 miles, according to aviation historians.

The Constellation was the source of many legends over the years. But it was not the first plane with a pressurized cabin and it was not the fastest four engine plane of its time. Perhaps most unfair was that humorists dubbed it the best "tri--motor" airliner ever developed because at least one the four 18-cylinder Wright Cyclone engines was always "cutting out." Overall, the engines on the Connie were no less reliable than those on other airliners of the time.

One "legend" about the Connie was true, though.

Apparently, a passenger did become stuck to a toilet seat once by cabin pressurization.

"Stories of this happening on modern jets are urban legends, but Connies had far more primitive potties," Stephan Wilkinson wrote in the June, 2016 edition of Aviation History Magazine. "When the valve that emptied the toilet into the unpressurized reservoir failed on one airline flight, the poor lady who happened to be in the blue room at the time became the cork that maintained cabin pressure. She was freed when the crew depressurized the airplane."

The Constellation was based on the design of another distinctive plane with multiple horizontal stabilizers, Lockheed's own World War II fighter, the P-38 Lightning.  During WWII, the Constellations were used primarily for cargo transportation in the war effort.

After the war, the Connie's cruising speed of 340 mph put it at the forefront of planes on transcontinental routes. It also proved valuable on opening up the trans-Atlantic routes because its 3,500 mile range meant that it could easily fly from New York to Gander, Newfoundland and from Gander to Shannon in Ireland and then on to Europe. - More...
Wednesday PM - November 07, 2018

Fish Factor: Permit prices stalled except for two regions By LAINE WELCH - Values for Alaska salmon permits have remained stagnant all year, except for two regions, and costs for halibut quota shares have plummeted. 

For salmon permits, an off kilter fishery that came in 30 percent below an already grim harvest forecast kept a downward press on permit values. The preseason projection called for a salmon catch of 147 million this year; the total take was closer to 114 million.

“All of these salmon fisheries in the Gulf, both gillnet and seine permits, had a lousy year. And we see that in the lackluster permit market,” said  Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits  in Homer. 

Further west, Bristol Bay with its back to back record breakers is an exception and permit prices there reflect increased buying interest. A scan of multiple broker listings show Bay drift gillnet permits at $165,000 compared to the $145,000 range before the fishing season. 

Salmon fishermen at Bristol Bay pocketed a record $280 million at the docks, not including post season bonuses, on a catch of 35 million sockeyes.

Bowen said more fishermen from regions of repeated poor salmon runs are eyeing Bristol Bay. His company has nearly 30 listings of Cook Inlet drift permit holders who want to exit that fishery.    

“Folks are wanting to move out of the Inlet, which had another terrible year and go to Bristol Bay and people want to move from Southeast to the Bay,” he said.     

Drift permits for False Pass (Area M) on the Alaska Peninsula also are increasing in value after several years of good fishing.  

“We recently sold one for $175,000 which is $10,000 more than what the Bay permits are selling for,” Bowen said.  

Elsewhere permit prices remain stalled. Prince William Sound seines have stayed at $165,000 and drift gillnet permits at around $150,000. At Cook Inlet, drift permits are in the $30,000 to $50,000 range. Kodiak seine permits have ticked up a bit to $28,000. For Southeast, seine permits are in the $210,000 to $250,000 range and drift gillnets at or slightly above $85,000.

Further north, Norton Sound and Kotzebue again set records in their salmon fisheries, but permit transactions in those regions operate differently.

“There aren’t very many of them and not many change hands. When they do, a lot of those folks know each other and it’s word of mouth. So we’re not that involved in those permit markets,” Bowen said.

Higher salmon prices should show a big boost in the value of this year’s catch but it won’t make up for the shortfall in fish.

“It’s a matter of price and production,” Bowen said. “If you’re limited on how much you can harvest, that great price is not going to save the day.”  - More...
Wednesday PM - November 07, 2018

Their study sheds light on how eagles choose migration routes and how that might affect eagles’ use of routes in the future as climate changes.

UAF Ph.D. student Joe Eisaguirre, the study’s lead author, collaborated with researchers at UAF, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

They spent many years tracking eagles tagged with radio transmitters. The data revealed that weather plays a major role in whether migrating eagles navigate north or south of the Wrangell Mountains, one of the tallest ranges in North America.

The collaborators began the project to understand the movement of adult migratory golden eagles that breed in Alaska and how they might interact with wind energy developments, primarily outside of Alaska.

“We knew very little, not even where they go after leaving Alaska in the fall,” Eisaguirre said. Adult golden eagles had never been tagged with transmitters in Alaska.

During migrations, animals make countless decisions as they move across the landscape. As weather and climates change, animal choices at numerous points along migration routes would be expected to create different overall migration patterns.

“We might be able foresee some of those changes if we can figure out how to predict changes in animal decision-making processes, as we did with this study,” Eisaguirre said. - More...
Wednesday PM - November 07, 2018

RICH MANIERI: Another Election Has Come and Gone. Now What? - That's over with. And not a moment too soon. 

It's usually at this point when I start reviewing what I've seen and heard over the past several months and try to make some sense of it, not unlike what a psychologist might do with a particularly vivid and disturbing nightmare.

The problem with political campaigns in general, and TV ads in particular, is that there really are no rules anymore. It's Thunderdome. Mischaracterizations, misrepresentations, quotes out of context - anything goes. You can say anything about anyone. And yet, they keep coming. Negative political ads are up 60 percent since 2014, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising.

As much as we complain about the process, the main reason candidates go negative is because it works. An Emory University study released in May revealed that a 1 percent increase in negative advertising by a candidate significantly boosts the candidate's chance of winning.

Yes, that means it's our fault. We're evidently buying a good bit of what's being sold, no matter how misleading or outrageous it might be.

By now we've seen just about everything short of someone photoshopping devil horns on his opponent. And that's probably not far off.

This year's campaign season featured a new wrinkle in a candidate inflicting punishment on himself.

Far-left progressive, Levi Tilleman, of Colorado, who ran his campaign for Congress on the "Everything-is-Free-Forever" platform, was voluntarily pepper sprayed in an ad. He was attempting to demonstrate his support for non-lethal weapons in schools as an alternative to arming school employees.

Tilleman was rendered helpless. Apparently, so was his campaign because he lost in the primary. - More...
Wednesday PM - November 07, 2018