This past week I watched a couple interesting documentaries which might appeal to folks here.
The first was Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott's Road to the Stars (http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Man_on_a_Mission_Richard_Garriott_s_Road_to_the_Stars/70134628?trkid=2361637) ...about the game developer and son of Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott who spent 30M to ride a Soyuz and spend 12 days in space. The pretentiousness of spending berjillions to be a "space tourist" quickly vanished and I found myself rooting for the guy. I thought it gave a good picture of the humanity of space travel and the technical competency required of even a millionaire along for the ride.
The other was The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club. (http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Legend_of_Pancho_Barnes_and_the_Happy_Bottom_Riding_Club/70140897?trkid=2361637) Not knowing much about Pancho Barnes apart from "I tell you, we got two categories of pilots around here..." I came away from watching this doc impressed by how significant Barnes was not only for the Right-Stuff-era Happy Bottom Riding Club, but also for her personal aviation accomplishments in the 20s and 30s.
For those inclined to show video as their AE lesson, I'd advise against Pancho as the doc has some NSFAE footage, as well as her colorful language. Still it's an excellent documentary to watch at home and features other greats such as Buzz Aldrin and Chuck Yeager too.
OK, first..Tedda's back!
Second, awesome. I was doing Googlesearch on the Happy bottom the other day, and I'll be watching the vid tonight. Some of it is still visible in Google Earth!
Pancho's story was ignored for a long time.
My signed copy of the movie poster hangs proudly near the radio shack in the basement. Nick, Amanda, and Joe signed it.
Nick Sparks' energy for aviation documentaries and aviation in general is infectious. If you ever have a chance to meet him, do.
(http://img.tapatalk.com/4b94241c-3bdf-ad01.jpg)
LOTS of info here: http://www.panchobarnes.com/ (http://www.panchobarnes.com/)
Quote from: SarDragon on July 09, 2012, 03:20:24 AM
LOTS of info here: http://www.panchobarnes.com/ (http://www.panchobarnes.com/)
That popped my malicious code warning in Chrome - looks like at least one page might be hosting a drive-by.
I think it was down when I was donig my late-night reading a few weeks ago.
Not unusual (sadly), while retiring some long-dormant CAP web space, I found a whole chunk of pharma-spam-junk
in a directory under a unit's site thanks to a CSS installed by someone who should not have been doing it without help.
OK, I didn't click into it. I just took the link from my Faves list.
I watched this last night - very well done, and a pretty amazing story about a pioneer of both aviation and women's rights who really never got
her "due", and kind of got shafted by circumstance a couple of times.
Worth the time.
There are tons of old aviation movies on Netflix. It is a great resource.