It’s that time of year again. Oshkosh, one of the largest aviation shows in the world begins today. People from different countries fly in and Americans bring in their planes from their home airports for the event. Miles of anything having to do with flight unravel ahead of you once you’re at the front gate.

This is a big year for me – for a couple reasons. One is that, for the first time, Abingdon Watches will be sold at the show through the PilotMall booth! We are also releasing a press release about the third model. I will tell you more about that later.

So come down if you can make it. You need at least three days to cover everything. And if you are flying in, I recommend going in with someone who has done it before because the procedures can be tricky if you are not familiar.

And come say hi to me at the Lancair booth!

Almost two weeks ago, on July 1, President Obama signed S.614, a bill to award the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. The WASP, the first group of women to fly military aircraft for the United States, reported for duty more than three decades before women in the United States were allowed to attend military pilot training with full military status.   An excellent movie about their story is depicted through the film Fly Girls (1999).

“The Women Airforce Service Pilots courageously answered their country’s call in a time of need while blazing a trail for the brave women who have given and continue to give so much in service to this nation since,” Obama said.  “Every American should be grateful for their service, and I am honored to sign this bill to finally give them some of the hard-earned recognition they deserve.”

To release male pilots for combat duty overseas, the 1,102 WASP flew military aircraft in the United States during World War II. Fewer than 300 are alive today; three of those women joined the president in the Oval Office. Five active duty United States Air Force pilots who followed in their footsteps—including Major Nicole Malachowski (very cool lady, might I add), who was instrumental in promoting the bill—were also present for the signing.

These women were truely pioneers for what we have today and I am glad to hear they are getting the recognition they deserve!  I think Jackie Cochran would be proud.  And anyone who puts in the word “WASP” in the checkout when ordering an Abingdon Watch will get free shipping and an extended five year warranty.

In the late 1930s, this one-of-a-kind Helicron was placed in a barn and forgotten. More than six decades later this odd lost little gem was rediscovered, rebuilt, and reintroduced to the world. Although the manufacturer is unknown, it’s believed that this car was built in France 1932. Following the first World War it was not uncommon for recently displaced airplane engineers to look towards the automobile industry for employment.

As in this example, a few entrepreneurs developed propeller-powered cars with the notion that propeller power was an efficient means of moving a vehicle. On this car, when the wooden propeller is spinning at full speed and efficiently, this little 1,000-pound boat-tailed skiff can hit freeway speeds exceeding 75 mph. This is the one and only Helicron in existence, owned by Lane Motor Museum in Nashville ,Tennessee.

Today is a famous day for women in space and it happened in 1983.

Sally Ride is a former astronaut and the first American woman to reach outer space – and also the yougest American to enter outer space. Her story is interesting, because in order to get to the starry skies, she applied along with 8,000 other people to an ad in the newspaper seeking applicants for the space program.  In 1978, she was part of the first astronaut class to accept women.  In 1983, she took part in her first space shuttle mission, serving as a crewmember on board the Challenger and returned June 24 from her first mission.  After 343 hours in space (over several years), she became a professor of physics at UC San Diego (my alma mater!) and is in the business of promoting the sciences to children – with a particular focus on girls I might add.  Sally Ride Science is a company she founded in 2001 that creates entertaining science programs and publications for elementary and middle school kids.   This woman rocks!

You heard it hear first folks!  I am moving to Bend, Oregon in August.  Excited, you ask?  Yes!  Nervous, you ask?  Yes!  But as one who takes to the skies, and has never settled, I am looking forward to this as an adventure full of new people, new terrain, and new experiences I never thought I could have.

The reason for my move is that I have taken an offer from Lancair Aviation to assist with their sales department internationally and domestically.  The company is based in Redmond, Oregon – just north of Bend, and so I go.  Of course, Abingdon Watches will still be going full strength (By the way, did you see the article this month in AOPA about the company?  Read it here), so don’t worry about that!  Expect some new products shortly.  

If anyone reading this has anything to tell me about Bend that I should know, I am all ears!  I would love to know about this new place I call home.  I hear it’s an awesome town full of all sorts of things to do, so I want to make sure I don’t miss out on anything.  Thank you in advance for any advice you have!

My sympathies go out to the flight that was going from Brazil to France Monday.  Searchers found some debris in the Atlantic today and they are sending ships to investigate.  No one yet knows what happened with Flight 447, and I am sure we will find out in due time. 

I know the chances of finding any survivors is small, and coming from a pilot’s perspective, it reminds me of the amount of respect one must always give to the aircraft one flies.   Between the accident in the Hudson, the iced up airplane in upstate New York, and this Airbus crash in the Atlantic, there have been some terrible occurances lately which is not encouraging many to fly.  This past year, I have logged over 400 hours with about a quarter of it in IFR and night and safety is always something that should be foremost in the pilot’s minds.  Luckily I have never flown into tricky conditions, and I contribute that to my flight instructors keen words about checking weather and being ok with saying no.  His saying was, “You can be a bold pilot or you can be an old pilot.  But you can never be an old bold pilot!”

For those of you who read this and are behind the yoke in the cockpit, please remember your checklists and be ok with saying no – whether you fly for a company or for yourself.  Aviation is a small family and we don’t need to lose anyone else.  I know I need to refresh on my emergency procedures and it looks like this weekend may be just the weekend for that.

Whenever in doubt about what to speak of in social situations, we all divert to the weather.  Well now, the weather is quite incredible this winter season and worth talking about!  I flew to Las Vegas last week and the ground was covered in snow.  Vegas – as one taxi driver told me – sees weather like this once ever 30-40 years.  Some of my colleagues at Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth, Minnesota could not go to work as their roads were filled waist high with snow – much more than in past years.  And here in Los Angeles, my good friend Jeff, who is from New York, says that the weather in LA is more like east coast weather than typical west coast.

The verdict is in: We are in for one cold winter.  I’ll be bundling up near my little electric heater.  It’s about the size of a record player, but that little guy will toast bread if put close enough to it.  Unfortunately, my scooter days are being shortened, but I know that will be temporary.

To everyone out there who is working with this wintry windy wet wailing weather, I hope you stay warm and wrested.

I just got back yesterday from AOPA in San Jose, the Aircraft Owners and Pilot’s Association Exposition they hold each year.  It was full of pilots, planes, and some great energy with the presidential election and woes of the economy.  All in all, I had a great week talking to lady pilots like Dorothy who helped with the design of future watch models, and celebrating my 25th birthday Tuesday night with my Cirrus friends.  Good to be home and with a flight like the picture above, it was some of the best scenery I’ve seen in the sky!

So it’s been awhile since I have added to the blog, but I’m back and it’s good to be so!  This summer has been busy with airshows and traveling, breaking up with boyfriends (I know, it stinks), and meeting new friends.  Recently, my cousin from England, Emma Wishart, came to visit on holiday for three weeks.  She just left yesterday and I already miss her!  As this was her first time in America, I had to show her as much as I could.  We went to Reno, Sedona, San Francisco, and Las Vegas all in a period of two and half weeks!  And let’s not forget that I am in Los Angeles as well.  Needless to say we were tired by the end of it, but she said it was the vacation of a lifetime, and I am glad she enjoyed it.

Tomorrow millions of Americans will go to the polls and decide which candidates will get approximately 40% of all of the primary delegates in their party…It’s a big deal.

The pundits have kicked around a lot of hype and as usual there is a dog-eat-dog media blitz over every single petty syllable of candidate mud slinging, but the truth is, at it’s core, this may be the most important electoral race of the modern information age.

Apart from a few divisive issues, studies have shown that the values of even the most politically opposed Americans are still mostly common. Political consultants, spin doctors, and lobbyists have created a mythical culture of a closely and deeply divided nation that simply does not exist. Studies also show that this election has brought out an assembly of richly qualified candidates that has raised the predicted (or potential, depending on how one looks at it) turn-out ratio to an all time high.

More young people are voting than ever, and more minorities are voting than ever. But as usual, women are leading the way across almost all segments of the voting population and that means our values and opinions will have the most influence on the race tomorrow and subsequently the outcome of these primary elections.

What’s at stake is the direction of the first fresh steps the country will take in the wake of policy decisions and a conflict that (some think for better, others think for worse) has permanently changed the global political stance of our nation. Thanks to term limits, even a reelection won’t guarantee our next president will have the time or the congressional cooperation to drastically alter the domestic and foreign policy climate our nation is resting in, but our next president will have an opportunity to set the tone for what could be a trans-administration prolonged effort to build consensus and dispel the myth of a closely and deeply divided nation.

All of the leading candidates have the ability to either bring about change or perpetuate traditional politics. The important thing is to vote for the candidate you believe will set the firmest foundation for what will most likely be the political paradigm of a new generation of voters and citizens involved in the political process.

Please educate yourself, get to the polls, and cast a vote in this critical time. As a nation mired in argument we have stumbled across a point of no return, pray we enter a civilized debate that will let us take our next few steps calm, collected, and together.