Land The Plane At Any Airport?

Since 1990, at least 150 flights have landed at the wrong airport. Many are never reported.

My daughter had a seat reserved to fly from Dallas Love Field to Houston Hobby. She arose at 5:00 AM and arrived at the airport with her boarding pass and carry-on bag well before the departure time of 8:30 AM. At 9:30 AM, an attendant told her that her plane had been delayed but was now in the area. It would land soon. It did land – at DFW airport several miles away. At 12:00 noon, she remained in the boarding area at Love Field. No one could give her an estimate of when to expect take-off. Frustrated and running late, she retrieved her car from long-term parking and drove to Houston.

Since then, we’ve learned that incidents like this frequently occur. In almost all, the pilots were cleared by controllers to fly based on what they could see rather than relying on automation. Many incidents occur at night, with pilots reporting they were attracted by runway lights of the first airport they saw during descent. Some pilots said they disregarded navigation equipment that showed their plane slightly off course because the information did not match what they saw out their windows – a runway straight ahead.

Not all these events are reported to the media, and reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System are voluntary. However, of the recorded events, out of 29,000 commercial flights daily in the U.S., only eight wrong airport landings in the last decade occurred. Two more were reported on national TV during the past week. My daughter’s experience makes three in one week. None resulted in injury or death.

At a time when a cell phone can guide you to your driveway, commercial pilots try to land at the wrong airport more often than most passengers realize or government officials admit.

Innovative Early College Programs

Students can graduate high school with 60 hours of college credit and an associate degree at no cost.

Several high schools in the Fort Worth Area are collaborating with Tarrant County College to open the Early College High School on the college’s campus. The goal is to enroll about 125 students with the first graduating class in 2018. They will receive associate degrees in arts or science. Currently, the recruiting process is in full swing. Informational meetings for families of eighth graders who want to enroll are being conducted. The director of the program says all eighth-graders in the area are being informed about the program.

A specialized early college program is already underway. It is taught at the Trinity River Campus and serves students in the Texas Academy for Biomedical Sciences. It is a collaboration among Tarrant County College, Fort Worth schools, the University of North Texas and the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Their first class will graduate this spring.

Weatherford High School offers a program preparing graduates to go to work as Certified Nurse’s Aides, Emergency Medical Technicians, or Pharmacy techs. The students begin the Health Occupation Students of America course as sophomores. They follow a three-year pathway through their senior year, when they may be certified.

I applaud the educators for seeing a need and providing the means to meet this need.

The Olympics

Let the games, not the politics, carry the Olympic message as personified by the flame.

Some people see the Olympic Games as a monumental waste of time and money; as a three- week carnival of pseudo-athletes you don’t know playing sports you don’t care about.

Another group, which includes me, marvel at the Olympics for their history, their golden moments, and their ability to inspire passion in degrees unseen in the rest of organized sports. Real people cry real tears at the Olympic Games; tears of joy and tears of heartbreak. I know people who make fun of soccer, bob-sledding, figure skating and curling. But it’s a big world out there and the Olympics help us remember that.

At the opening ceremony of the 22nd Winter Games at Sochi, Russia, 88 nations marched into the arena. They were athletes, not politicians. They shared the pride of being the best at what they do in their home countries.

An Olympian, win or lose, is an Olympian forever – part of a powerful sisterhood or brotherhood long after they crossed the finish lines. Whether their native tongue is English or Mandarin, they speak a universal language. They are the best athletes in the world competing at what they do. No event brings together the family of man like the Olympic Games.


Let the games, not the politics, influence and educate us.

January in Texas

Folks in north Texas observe three major holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Fort Worth Livestock Show and Rodeo, which starts in January. 

There were some firsts in the 2014 show. A young woman from Saskatchewan was the first female in 118 years to participate in the chuck wagon racing competition. Pretty, little Brailee was the first four-year old to show a miniature pony. The 70-member Women Steering Business of Fort Worth showed up for the first time to play with the good ol’ boys at the Junior Sale of Champions. They spent over $100,000 for prime livestock.

The Sale of Champions, which helps raise scholarship money for youngsters who exhibit livestock at the show, shattered last year’s record, bringing in $3,305,919. A High School senior named Flint took top money for his grand champion steer and left with $200,000 saying, “This will see me through Texas Tech.”

Another student, Wyatt, did not surpass his 2013 winnings, but he was still a winner. Syndicate members pitched in to purchase his 10th placed steer. He had weathered the death of his father and persisted in raising his show steer. Total participation for the 23-day stock show and rodeo was 11,137,100. A total of 3,700 bales of hay were distributed and 3,680 bales of straw. Youngsters never left their animals unattended. They bedded down on straw beside their show animals and kept watch all night. Texans use a lot of big words to describe impressive events like stupendous, humongous, blow- your-socks-off, and one-in-a-million. But no adjectives adequately describe the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. You just have to be there.

If you’ve never attended, arrange to be in Fort Worth in January 2015, and see the sights for yourself.

Airlines: Love 'em? Hate em?

Personally, I love airlines and the places they can take me.

Of course, all my flights are my own choice. Business travelers, who must fly often, may have a different opinion. One friend said that in a one-week period she made four flights and her luggage failed to arrive with her twice.

Then there are the hated baggage fees. At least they are logical. If you want to bring more stuff, you must pay more. On the plus side, baggage fees have added a massive cushion to the airline’s bottom lines – a record $3.5 billion in 2013.

From an investor’s point of view, airlines seem to finally have gotten their act together. They’re making money. As a result airline stocks are soaring. But so is passenger discontent. Passenger complaints to the U.S. Department of Transportation soared almost 22% in 2012 from the year before and jumped another 17% in the first quarter of 2013.

Flying can be an unpleasant experience, partly because airline employees seem to have shorter fuses these days. That’s understandable because of the tumult the industry experienced over the last ten years. Sales, mergers and consolidations have improved the financial situation, but employees have often been on the losing side. Airline workers, like other employees, are asked to do more for less. That can be a dangerous combination in a service industry.

Cost cutting and improving operations are laudable. But when it is done without regard to the customer experience, it can result in short-term gain but long-term pain.
I recommend that all airline executives must fly at least one time incognito with their families in economy class on their own airline.

The friendly skies aren’t always so friendly anymore.

Talking Cars

Just tap the “open” button on your key chain, get in and close the door. Tell the car where you want to go, and it will take you there.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working with auto makers to require vehicles to communicate with one another. The aim is to cut collisions, death and injuries. They hope to prevent crashes in the first place as compared to insuring that accidents are survivable.

A radio signal would continually transmit a vehicle’s position, heading, speed and other information. Cars and light trucks would receive the same info back from other cars. The vehicle’s computer would alert its driver to an impending collision. Alerts could be a flashing message, an audible warning or a driver’s seat that rumbles. Some systems could brake to avoid an accident. Vehicle to vehicle communications could prevent up to 80 percent of accidents that don’t involve drunken drivers or mechanical failure.

Your car would “see” when another car or truck equipped with the same technology was about to run a red light. Your car would know and alert you when a car several vehicles ahead had made a sudden stop. The technology works up to about 300 yards.

And the cost? Government officials decline to give an estimate, but the transportation society’s estimation is $100 to $200 per vehicle.

If a community wishes to use them, technologies are available for roadways and traffic lights to talk to cars, sending warnings of traffic congestion or road hazards in time for drivers to take a detour.

Conversation between vehicles is seen as the basis for future self-driving cars.

Trendy Manure Spreader

It is ballerina pink from the 2012 Victoria’s Secret catalog.

I’m not talking about an item of lingerie here. I’m describing the Rotary Smart Spreader, the latest model of manure spreaders.

Vendor Mike Stabler, an engineer, started building this smaller, more lightweight spreader based on a concept by his wife, Linda. Mike is demonstrating his new improved spreader at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo this year. The popular exhibit is attracting a lot of interest. A manure spreader is a required piece of equipment for many farmers and ranchers. Some varieties of grass and hay for livestock, such as costal Bermuda, need to be fertilized every year in order to produce adequately.
The traditional spreader is a wagon-like apparatus that is typically large and heavy enough to require a tractor to pull it. You won’t need a tractor for the Rotary Smart. It can be pulled by a four-wheeler.

Prices range from $2,695 for the standard to $8,995 for a deluxe, stainless steel model.

Sales are expected to be brisk in Washington, DC.

The Horny Toad

It’s hard not love Texas Horned Lizards, a.k.a horny toads.

Growing up in West Texas, I had many horny toads as playmates. Our main interaction involved placing the lizard on his back in the palm of my hand and rubbing his tummy. He promptly fell asleep and wasn’t much fun afterward.

After he selected a busy red ant bed, I crouched down a few feet away and watched him. He just lay there, letting his lunch come to him. The furious ants crawled all over him, trying to drive him away. He serenely kept on dining. The stingers could not pierce his tough skin.

My family loved and respected the little reptiles and never harmed one. We knew they were beneficial. With a predominate diet of red ants, they kept the population of these pests under control. Non-aggressive, they never bothered anyone and never competed with any being’s need for food. As pets, they were low maintenance. Their only requirement was a hot, dry spot near a red ant bed.

• Latin name: Phrynosoma cornutum, meaning “toad bodied”
• Classification: reptile
• Size: 2.5 to 5 inches
• Appearance: Grayish to brownish; short legs, squat, spiny body
• Diet: Insects, mostly ants
• Offspring: 12 to 32 eggs, usually in late summer
• Lifespan: 5 years in the wild
• Habitat: Semiarid, arid and hot as H__l

The little lizard’s defense strategy is to hide. His skin color matches the soil so he blends in as long as he stays still. Next he may puff up to twice his normal size. This prevents snakes from swallowing him. If all else fails, he can shoot a thin stream of blood from his eyes, which is discouraging to predators. Old timers say they can hit a coyote in the left nostril from four feet away.

In spite of affection and appreciation for horny toads (In 1993, the Texas Legislature named him the official reptile of Texas, handily beating out the diamond-back rattler), they are almost extinct in Texas. We did to them what we did to the Native American Indian – destroyed their food source. The last one I saw was in 2000 at an oil lease near Midland.

I’m considering making the long drive to Midland to visit my old friend, the horny toad.