A big old Olds wagon

It does all help, synergistically, but there is a lot more weather at 0-20,000 feet AGL than at 30,000-35,000 feet and upwards.

I’m pretty sure the whole 737 line, including the MAX, actually has old-school hydraulically boosted mechanical connections between (most of) the controls and the surfaces that they adjust.

They seemed to be more common in the prop plane days, maybe because of the slower speeds, maybe because of weather radar or climate change or route changes.

I would withhold praise for the comment system, but the group of people who persevered through it was impressive and so was the writing staff.

a manmade pond would have a shallow entry, no?

because I’ve always wanted one.

If I didn’t live most of the way across a big country and already have more cars than spare time, garage space, and disposable income, the apparent condition and basic nature of this one would test my determination to be done with Jaguars. Just (a) calibrate your expectations to a 30+ year old example of an evolution…

Quite possibly the pilots didn’t even know anything was amiss at the time. (That makes sense. A tire and wheel that big may be Final Destination stuff to a human, but it’s but a tiny percentage of that sky whale, a long way from them, and fell away cleanly in midair...)

My (mis)understanding is that United Tech Ops is a maintenance outsource for other operators, and has a big maintenance base at SFO.

I think of gun safety as a set of concentric circles. (You can use the Swiss cheese metaphor that became well known during the pandemic if you prefer.)

Possible ND contingent on a very close inspection to tell whether its California origins did indeed spare it from rust (as well as other potential Achilles heels). Even by the standards of an era when rustproofing was not what it is today, it infested these lovely cars easily.

Even in corner cases from the bridge-out jumps and semi-trailer-convertible-making slopes of Olympus, you have to ask whether somebody handed him a Sharpie at a meet-n-greet or it was actually a car used by him or featured in the movie or something... and, again, some proof that it is just that and not a forgery.

Celebrity provenance doesn’t mean much to me even if documented (and I understand that without a paper trail it’s pretty worthless even to those buyers who do care about it).

Shouldn’t be hard at all to put either original vacuum wipers or electric replacements back in, if needed (maybe at registration for its native Arizona) or just take it to neighboring NM where there is no safety inspection at all and hardly any coefficient of jank that you won’t actually see on the road.

presented by a private seller despite being offered by what’s obviously a dealer or consignment shop.

The recent 300 (which I rather like; I guess one man’s de gustibus is another’s disgusting bus), especially in its first generation, is an even more direct reference to the initial few years of “letter cars” in the mid 50s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_300_letter_series

It may not have much horsepower but it has all the gears, in a multi-stick system, some of whose settings might invoke other functions like lockers, that you have to actually study. The net result is sometimes described for simplicity’s sake as a “20-speed.” I think typically you set forth in third on the main gearbox …

Definitely not the top picture. Maybe not an all-time beauty, but “Those were the days, my friend” runs through my head when comparing it to the bombastic overstatement of most pickups today.

I prefer the looks of the sculptural first generation, but these Peak Disco models have a nothing-exceeds-like-excess attractiveness all their own. Where I live, age makes it exempt from what little smog check we have, so the underhood malaise could be given the Simplify and Add 455 treatment.  The price is a fair…