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Showing posts from December 3, 2023

100 and Done! (Countries that is...)

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We are back! This last trip brought the total countries visited to 100! It is a crazy milestone. It is difficult, time-consuming and can be (IS) expensive. After I got back from Antarctica in 2007, I started thinking about it. After 2010 I was thinking about it more (as I moved from NY to Georgia) and in 2014 it had become a real goal. Between Angie and I we have been to 109 Countries. We are tied at 100 countries each. We have 9 countries different in our lists. For example, I have been to San Marino. She has not. She has been to Israel. I have not, yet. There has been some fun competition in this area. That's why we had to establish rules. 1.) Must be listed with the US State Department 2.) Being in an airport doesn't count. You have to get through immigration somehow and not in a DMZ or a no-mans-land 3.) A passport stamp is not required. I have been to Canada, Paraguay, and Uruguay without getting my passport stamped. There are friendly borders in many places around the wor...

VLJs --- 20 years after all the hype

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20 years ago the world was abuzz with the VLJ (very light jet) movement. I got to park next to this one the other day in South Carolina. Here is an article from Wired magazine from 14 years ago indicating the demise (or morph) of the hyped VLJ. (Wired article from 2009). The plane in the picture is the Cirrus Vision jet. It probably won the contest in actually (mostly) delivering on the promise of a VLJ. The actual cost of the plane here (about 3 million USD) is way outside what the ridiculously low projected pricing of 20 years ago. But, the plane is cool for sure and is very relateable to the Cirrus piston aircraft. The cruise speed of the vison jet is 345 mph. The Honda jet cruises at 424 mph and the Phenom jet at 466 mph. The speed of the vision jet is incredible compared to my Cessna 172 at 140 mph, but the Vision jet speed is pretty much with the turboprops. (King Air 360 mph and the PC-12 at 311 mph).