April 18, 2023
US industrial production rose +0.4% m/m in March, up +0.5% from a year ago, recovering from a modest drop in 4Q22. For Q1 as a whole, production was flat q/q, up +1.0% from a year before. Total industrial capacity utilization rose slightly to 79.8% in March. US manufacturing output (a subset of industrial production) fell […]
April 18, 2023
US retail sales fell -1.0% m/m in March, declining for the second month in a row. Sales were up +2.9% from a year ago, but that is not adjusted for inflation. Given that consumer inflation was running at +5.0% y/y in March, this indicates that real sales are actually down. It’s worth noting that sales […]
April 18, 2023
US consumer prices (CPI) rose +0.1% m/m in March, up +5.0% from a year ago. This is down steadily from a peak of +9.0% y/y last June. Core CPI (excluding food and energy) rose +0.4% m/m in March, up +5.6% from a year ago. This is down from a peak of +6.7% y/y last September, […]
April 3, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m going to be flying the DHC-4 Caribou, a short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) cargo plane that played a vital role supporting combat troops and covert operations during the Vietnam War. In 1956, the U.S. Army put out a request for a new airplane that could carry a DC-3’s load of supplies or […]
March 27, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be attempting to fly Howard Hughes’ giant H-4 Hercules. Constructed almost entirely out of wood, it was for a long time the largest airplane ever built, and flew only once. Why was it built? Read on … In an earlier post, I described Howard Hughes’ early career, and the […]
March 25, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m flying the Hughes H-1 Racer, the superbly streamlined airplane that the eccentric tycoon Howard Hughes built and flew to set several world speed records. The story of this plane really begins in 1908, when Howard’s father, Howard Hughes Sr., patented a new drill bit that proved essential to the […]
March 18, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m in Korea to fly the Bell 47, the iconic helicopter from the TV show M*A*S*H, and the first helicopter ever to be certified for civilian use. The Bell 47 was produced by Bell Aircraft, founded by Larry Bell in 1935. Bell was known for producing highly innovative if not […]
March 13, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be flying the Russian MiG-21, a Cold War icon that was produced in larger numbers than any other supersonic jet fighter in the world. The MiG-21 was produced by the Soviet state design bureau led by Artem Mikoyan (right) and Mikhail Gurevich (left). Founded in 1939, the bureau achieved modest success […]
February 15, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be flying the Farman F.60 Goliath, the world’s first civilian passenger airplane, on its historic route from Paris to London. And to tell this story, I’m using a mod that recreates the two airports, Le Bourget and Croydon, as they looked in the 1930s. Le Bourget (below) was the […]
February 10, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be flying the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”, the first mass-produced aircraft in America and a favorite of the old-time “barnstormers”. And to help frame the story, I’m at a small dirt airstrip outside of Americus, Georgia in May 1923, where a 21-year-old Charles Lindbergh is buying his first plane – […]