Browsing through the daily deposit of Google Alerts I spotted an aviation related story from down under which mentioned an Australian helicopter pilot by the name of Rosemary Arnold.
It turns out that Rosemary is the first woman to obtain an Australian helicopter pilot’s licence (in 1965) and her achievement was the beginning of a long and successful career in aviation.
In 2006 she was searching the web’s social and dating for new flying friends by trying to spot photos that included some indication that the person was an aviator or at least interested in aviation. Her search resulted in a blind date with a fellow pilot which lasted several days as they crossed Australia in a Cessna 172 and subsequently attracting the attention of the media. The couple are now married.
Fast forward a few years and Rosemary has written First Females Above Australia and is now working on her autobiography Hovering Matilda. It was a story about these books that lead me to make contact with Rosemary and she has generously agreed to supply posts for the Love Air Aviation Dating blog. Her posts are full of interesting and amusing anecdotes about life as a helicopter charter pilot in both Australia and the USA.
By a strange coincidence Rosemary’s RV has the registration LUVAIR so you could say she was destined to become Love Air’s guest blogger. Follow her posts on the blog and be sure to buy a copy of her book.
To purchase her book First Females Above Australia please contact Rosemary at:
Email: RandD [at] longestblinddate [dot] com
Phone: Australia 0404 172 172
Costs:
$22/copy plus $5 shipping in OZ
$55 for 3copies plus $10 shipping in OZ (donate to your local schools)
$22/copy plus $15 shipping in UK/USA. (I can’t get the shipping lower).
Freedom of Speech and Civilised Behaviour
Memorial services and parades, and funerals are all ceremonies of solemnity in which the dead are remembered in dignified silence. During Remembrance Day ceremonies we remember the fallen regardless of our personal opinions about the wars in which they fought and died.
We afford this same courtesy of space and quiet to the families of those who die in prison whatever the crimes that put them there. We know that it is uncivilised behaviour to disrupt the funeral of those who did something that made us hate them beyond words. We know that it is immoral to desecrate tombs and mutilate the dead.
So when people cry ‘Whatever happened to freedom of speech?!’ when tiny minorities of vociferous extremists are banned from carrying out their intended disruption of memorial parades on Remembrance Day I can’t help but wonder if some people have failed to see the difference between freedom of speech and grossly offensive and uncivilised behaviour.
People are free to think and write what they like about what our Armed Forces are doing and have done, but it was absolutely the right thing to do to ban a group whose intention it was to spew their bile onto ceremonies of remembrance.
Love Air Aviation Dating For Aviators, Cabin Crew, Air Crew, ATC
The domain name loveair.co.uk was first registered in August 2001. There were no specific plans for it at the time but it seemed like it might come in handy one day. For a couple of years it was used for a personal aviation site in which were stored snapshots of aircraft taken at air shows in the south of England during the 1980s and 1990s.
Then in the summer of 2004 the idea for an online dating site for the aviation community was born. The first Love Air site was met with a mixture of enthusiasm and indifference, and it was the subsequent sites (Love Sail and Love Horse) that really caught the imagination of the niches for which they were designed.
After a few years in this format and with all kinds of promotional and marketing ideas being used to draw attention to the site it became apparent that the online aviation community wasn’t quite ready to join in sufficient numbers and so it was turned it into a free social network last year. That too attracted a reasonable amount of members, but not enough to make it viable.
The almost daily administration tasks involved the inevitable profile checking and most of this chore consisted of deleting would-be scammers from African and other countries seeking to register a profile with nothing but fraud on their minds. There was also a monthly hosting cost and other overheads that were not returned by advertising revenue.
So after a year in this format the site was re-launched as an aviation dating site again. It’s a pilot dating, cabin crew dating, and general aviation dating site. This time though there are several significant improvements.
The site is run in partnership with a company that is a market leader in this field and has teams of full time professional who take care of all the back-end work. This gives me the ability to concentrate on promoting the site in my spare time.
The worldwide aviation community has embraced social media in a way that was unimaginable six years ago. This gives those who have any kind of interest in aviation either professionally or for leisure reasons ample opportunity to contact others of the same ilk.
Despite exaggerated scare stories and initial misgivings people have come to accept online dating as one of many methods of meeting new people with whom one might have something in common from the outset.
So Love Air is airborne again and if you have any interest in aviation there are several ways in which you can make use of it (many of which will cost you no money at all):
- Submit something to the blog: http://www.loveair.co.uk/blog/ – this could be something personal or a blog post that promotes your aviation related business.
- Swap links with the site: http://www.loveair.co.uk/links.html – again, this could be your personal site or blog, or your flying club or business.
- Follow Love Air on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/#!/LoveAirDating – most of the tweets are juicy bits of aviation news
- View Love Air videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/LoveAirDating – an assortment of aviation videos
- Find Love Air on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LoveAirDating – come and mingle, share your thoughts.
- And of course you can do all or any of the above or just register as a member (for free), put together your profile, add a video clip of yourself, and have a good look around the main site at any of these location:
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P.S. …and if you’re quick about it there’s a promotional code – LOVEAIR20 – which gives you 20% off a six month full membership. This offer expires on 31st October 2012.
1980s Fashion Designers
Ralp Lauren – “Born in The Bronx to parents from Belarus, Ralph Lauren went through his schoolboy days with dreams of becoming a millionaire. Unlike many prominent fashion designers who attended art schools to hone their natural talents…” more
Calvin Klein – “Calvin Klein is a fashion icon known all over the world for his classic looks for men and women. His line includes the Calvin Klein Collection of designer clothing for both men and women, Calvin Klein jeans for men, women and children, and an affordable line of casual wear under the label “CK”….” more
Thierry Mugler – “In the 2010s, the name “Thierry Mugler” is most often recognized because of the label’s notable association with the Haus of Gaga. However, long before Lady Gaga ever picked up a disco stick, the Thierry Mugler brand thrived and…” more
Claude Montana – “A French fashion designer who started out making jewellery, Claude Montana became a prominent figure in 1980s fashion. Montana understood the importance of colour and acquired a reputation for his color choices. In his collections, he…” more
Christian Lacroix – “Born in Arles, Christian Lacroix is renowned as a French fashion designer. His passion for fashion began at the University of Montpellier, where he studied art. After graduating from the University of Montpellier in 1973, Lacroix continued to study in Paris at Ecole du Louvre and Sorbonne…” more
Donna Karan – “Donna Karan was influenced by the fashion world from childhood, as her father was a tailor and her mother a model. She started to design and sell clothing while still in her teens, and after high school attended the Parsons School for Design. She…” more
Manolo Blahnik – “Manolo Blahnik has become one of the leading shoe designers in the world. Manolo Blahnik took his start in the world of fashion at the University of Geneva, where he studied art. In 1968, Blahnik moved from Paris to London in order to…” more
Perry Ellis – “Born in 1940, Perry Ellis enjoyed a comfortable middle-class lifestyle with his parents courtesy of his father’s Coal & Oil company, and living comfortably afforded him the luxury of the best education. After graduating from…” more
Gianni Versace – “The name Gianni Versace is iconic in the fashion industry. Born the son of a dressmaker in Italy on December 2, 1946, Versace was a pioneer for high fashion and design in the 1980’s. Versace established his empire in 1976 with…” more
Giorgio Armani – “Born and raised in northern Italy, Giorgio Armani came from humble beginnings. Originally, Armani set out to become a doctor, but after military service that required him to work in a military hospital, he decided that a career in…” more
Jasper Conran – “At the tender age of 15, Jasper Alexander Thirlby Conran became the youngest student to enrol in the prestigious Parsons School of Design. Between classes, Conran was known to hang around future celebrities including Andy Warhol, Grace Jones and…” more
Bruce Oldfield – “Bruce Oldfield‘s success is perhaps more poignant when underscored by his upbringing as a charity child in 1950s Britain. He was fostered by a seamstress, who encouraged his early love of fashion, and Barnardos Children’s Charity sent him..” more
Jean Muir – “When a young Jean Muir began working in the stockroom of Liberty & Co during the early 1950s, she had dreams of moving away from London and designing fashionable clothing. Despite earning unremarkable academic scores, she possessed…” more
Pierre Cardin – “Ever since his beginnings as a designer in France during the 1940s, Pierre Cardin had an eye for avant-garde. Working closely with Jeanne Paquin, a noted fashion designer in the former part of the century, and later Elsa Schiaparelli, Cardin did not…” more
Yves St Laurent – “In 1953, when he was just 17 years old, his design of an asymmetrical cocktail dress won an international competition. Later that year, Yves Saint Laurent was introduced to the legendary Christian Dior, who was so impressed with…” more
Etón Raptor Solar Radio, Recharger, Torch, Bottle Opener
There is a tendency among gadget manufacturers to overload them with features in an effort to broaden their appeal. There are two disadvantages to this; one is that the price is likely to be higher as a result and the other is that the device becomes too complex to use or at least you only use a few of the functions and the rest are a waste of bits and bytes. Furthermore, every time you turn the damn thing on it needs an update (sound familiar?) and the added complexity means an increased risk of failure.
Not so the Etón Raptor Solar Radio. Here is a device that has comparatively few features but that’s its main advantage. The designers have made something for those outdoors who might be walking, hiking, camping or rock climbing that’s durable, rugged and lightweight and delivers the sort of information they might need while doubling as a mobile phone charger, radio, torch and bottle opener.
In other words, the designers have done exactly as they should i.e. put themselves in the shoes of someone hiking or camping and ask themselves, “What do I need, and what would be superfluous to my needs?” They’ve come up with a funky gadget that will probably be on the wish-list of most of those who spend time off the beaten track and who like to have some 21st Century technology to hand.
Yes, of course, there are many alternatives. GPS devices for example, would be most people’s choice of gadget for outdoor use, but sometimes you don’t need five satellites to pin-point your location because you already know where you are and where you’re going, but what you would like is a device that uses solar energy to power up your phone, a digital radio able to pick up a selection of AM/FW/SW stations, a torch for the trip from tent to loo, and a bottle opener for around the fire.
If the Etón Raptor is outside your budget then there’s the Etón Scorpion, which has the additional feature of crank handle for building up power in the battery. It doesn’t have the altimeter and barometric pressure readings of the Raptor though and the technical specifications are a little less, but it’s an affordable device which does almost as much as the Raptor.
Devices that use solar and dynamo power to recharge their non-disposable batteries are the way forward. We don’t need to create, use, then throw away millions of batteries any more, and as time goes on those devices that use disposable batteries will seem old fashioned, out of date and fit for the museum.
As you replace old gadgets with new ones, or when buying a tool for a specific job, or just when buying a gift, consider moving to the solar and wind-up devices. There’s something fundamentally satisfying about using new technology that harnesses the power of the sun or the energy in your arm.
