September 18, 2023 • 30 mins
Retired Lieutenant General Doug Owens is the CEO of the Lone Star Flight Museum, one of the most fun museums in town. Their regular exhibits are beautiful Warbirds and machines from the Space age (in the new Space Gallery) and they’ve acquired a new MaxFlight flight simulator you can “ride.” It’s on a Gimbal and will twist and flip you around as you control an airplane or ride a roller coaster. On September 23 they are celebrating girls in aviation and they’re having the Hanger Bash on Saturday Sept 30. We talk about how important aviation has been to Houston and have fun relating experiences flying in old planes – which is also something you can do. Check out their Warbird Rides on: www.lonestarflight.org
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(00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeart Media broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect
those hell by this radio station It'smanagement staff for any of its advertisers.
My name is Laurent I am theTexan from France. And one of the
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reasons I like to use that monikera Texan from Francis because I'm so proud
of my history as a French person. French history is pretty darn interesting.
There are Americans are mostly aware ofa recent failure during World War Two and
ignore the fact that the French wenton to conquer the known world a couple
of times. It was a longlong time ago. But we're just we're
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very proud of our history and thetechnology we've developed to safeguard ourselves, including
aeronautics and hydrodynamics. The French areleaders in this field, and of course
that's true about Americans. Of course, here in Houston we have NASA,
and I've always thought that the historyof aviation, which includes a lot of
French famous pilots, and then ofcourse the history of space flight, well
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they go together, right You startwith flight and then you go to space.
And I've always been very proud ofthe fact that two of the major
cultures that have produced some of thebest pilots and astronauts were Texans and French
and we have in town. Oneof the best museums to look at that
history is the Lone Star Flight Museum. And my guest today is retired Lieutenant
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General Doug Owens. He is theCEO of the Lone Star Flight Museum.
His sons are also pilots in theAir Force. So we're going to talk
about planes because not only is thisa place where you can go see some
amazing planes, historic and modern,they have a just a wonderful simulator that
literally straps you in and turns youup upside down either which ways. And
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of course you can still buy awar bird ride. This is probably one
of the best birthday presents for dadsaround or sons. You can go down
to Ellington Field where the museum islocated, and go on a flight and
one of these historic airplanes. Andif you go to the lone Star Flight
dot org, you're going to findout that they're a heck of a lot
cheaper than you think. They are. It's just a wonderful gift and amazing
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experience for someone who It's one ofthose things, you know, I'd love
to have a corvette one day,and you should never buy a corvette.
Well, I'd love to fly inan old warbird and you never climb into
one. Well, at Ellington Fieldyou can just do that. And of
course if you visit the museum youcan get an impression about a lot of
other things. Doug, welcome back. It's been too long, I'm sorry
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to say, but y'all have openeda bunch of new exhibits, including this
new flight simulator that you was justtelling me about. It's exclusive. You're
we're the only museum in the worldwho has something like this, right,
well, not exactly, But firstlet me say this, that was about
as good a commercial and advertisement forthe museum as I've found anywhere. So
if you want to be on ourpayroll and take up take up a new
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new business, just let me know, because you do great at it and
its an honor. Thanks for beingour advocate and all of this. But
yes, we have a lot ofnew exhibits and the simulator that you're talking
about is called max Flight while theyare they're at other places, there's not
I don't think there's any here inHouston. So whether you only place here
in Houston, I think you cancan do this and this one, as
we talked about, we'll turn youevery which way, but loose. You
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can ride a ride a very mildroller coaster, one that will turn your
innards out, and you can flyfast jets and slow jets and a B
twenty five, and you can doall kinds of things and it'll turn you
over which way. But loose.It's a lot of fun. So it's
not an egg, but it's likea cube. You sit in it,
there's a canopy that closes on topof you. There's a seat belt you've
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described a harness there drops on topof your shoulders like a roller coaster ride.
And you get to choose your experience. And when I was fascinated hear
you say, is that when youcontrol the flight simulator and you're actually turning
the plane and pitching up and down, there's a slight delay in response from
the from the gimbal and the movement. But if you choose the roller coaster
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experience, because all of that isprogrammed into the machines. Then you get
an experience, which you say,and you have experience flying, obviously,
you say, is even more immersiveand thrilling. And that just the program
it's the programming that geeks me outhere. It's fascinating stuff. You're the
only one I've heard talk about itquite long. I just it's just amazing
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that they can do this, firstof all, but it shows that the
controls that you're using in the flightsimulator are is. They're dealing with machinery
and software that is so complex thatwe don't even have the technology to make
it happen instantaneously yet, although Ibet you with software updates and all that,
it's really close now and they andthey'll get there. My point and
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all of that was the roller coasters. You sit in here along for the
ride. For the airplanes. You'remaking all of the inputs. So if
you can't get the airplane off theground, it's your problem. Stall it
will stall. You can have emergenciesin it. I found it flying.
I was flying an F four oneday and I realized that I had a
compressor stall in the engine, andthe firelight came on and the whole thing.
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I didn't know it would do that, So all of a sudden I
was trying to deal with an airplanethat had a problem. And that's again
all really really cool stuff. Andhow did that simulation session end? Consider
now I was flying with another Ffour pilot with an F four pilot,
and it caught him off guard aswell. It went in, it just
fine, We got it on thedeck and it was all, it was
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all good. That's one of myfavorite things to do in the flight simulator
is to turn on a random failurethat you'll know will happen within twenty minutes,
so you can take off and youjust you know something's going to fail.
But it gives you an impression ofjust how desperate you might be,
because if you have an engine failurein a ward hog, you flew ward
hogs. If you're flying close tothe ground and you have a failure,
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you're going to have very very littletime to react. Well, if you've
got two engines, you've got oneleft and hopefully that that's that keeps you
keeps you safe and out of harm'sway. But if you're single engine aircraft,
you lose that when then you've gotreal issues to deal with and not
a lot of time to make criticaldecisions, either to stay with the airplane
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and try and get it started,or to get out of the airplane whatever.
It's a single engine airplane is alittle bit more of a challenge.
Yeah, you need some altitude andsome speed to stay up for a little
while. So these these simulators isobviously there's a part that's super fun about
it, but I don't I guessthe roller coaster would be just a thrill
ride, which is fine, Butif you're going to choose the simulator experience,
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you're bound to learn something, evenif accidentally, because I don't think
people are aware of the dynamics involvedin planes flying and how complicated it is,
and how your weight and your speedand your angle of attack, all
those things we're so used to alwaysstick video games, right, Star Wars
has x wings. They're basically planesthat behave like atmospheric things where there is
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no atmosphere. Sure, and sowhen you put somebody who's a layman who
just has a little bit of knowledgeabout flighting one of these simulators, don't
they just hit the ground within twominutes? Well they can, but to
be honest, when we went whenwe went on the on the search or
went out in search of a newenhancement to our offerings for our visitors.
I went out and tried a lotof different simulators and types, and I
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was looking for something that was veryengaging. So there's a lot of things,
like you mentioned video games that youcan sit and control and look at
the screen and see what's outside.It's another to feel the movement of the
of the simulator and will this onedoesn't give you the experience of HIGHG environment.
It will give you the experience ofrolls and pitches and things along those
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lines. And it's uh, it'sit's fun. It is fun, and
they and the simulations that we havefor the different airplanes are reasonably accurate.
They're not precise. This is nota high fidelity sim It's more entertainment than
it is anything. There's no ruddersin it. Everything is controlled with the
throttle in the stick. But it'sit is a lot of fun, and
it's close enough that our visitors canget in it and have a blast.
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Yeah. I think that anybody who'sa fan of flight simming really owes it
to themselves to check something out withthis. It's sort of the dream home
set up in a way to becompletely surrounded by by screens, and I
guess virtual reality is going to bringus to that, and I won't be
surprised when you guys include virtual realityand we're working towards that end, as
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long as the headsets become cheap andsturdy enough, because that's that's a problem.
We don't necessarily have to be durable. That's the word I'm really looking
for. Listen, folks that we'vejust mentioned one of the awesome activities at
the Lone Star Flat Museum. They'reonline at lone Star flight dot org lone
Star flight dot org. They're onEllington Fields, so it's not far from
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anywhere downtown and honestly, with theweather getting better, there's just take your
son, take your daughter. Infact, they're going to have a special
event on the twenty third of Septembercalled Girls in Aviation. Let's talk about
that. You are listening to Houston, PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.
My name is Laurent and my guestis Doug Owens. He is the CEO
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of the Lone Star Flight Museum.And yeah, next weekend you're having Girls
in Aviation, which is something Iguess twenty years ago would have been maybe
even unusual. But these days,I think we've gotten used to the fact
that women can fly planes. We'vegotten around to it. Finally. I
wouldn't even I'm not sure I wouldwould go that far with this. We've
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had really no what I mean.What I mean is women have been flying
air plans yet a long long time. Oh yeah, the heart might have
been around. Well. When Iwent through pilot training in the Air Force,
I had women in my pilot trainingclass. So we've had women in
airplanes for a long time. Uh, maybe not so far back. We
got them into fighters and and otherthings and uh and the like. But
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uh, women women flyer planes justjust fine. They really do. And
on next Saturday, on the twentythird, we will celebrate International Girls in
Aviation Day. Now, that programhas only been around since about twenty fifteen,
and it for us. It givesyoung ladies ten to seventeen the opportunity
to explore career possibilities and stem andaviation boys are welcome as well, but
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we are focusing on young ladies andwe've got an entire day set aside to
support those efforts. We're expecting abouttwo hundred uh young ladies to join us.
There's still room to sign up ifyou'd like. Well, they are
so you can still sign up.So September twenty three, get online lone
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star flight dot org. What aresome of the activities they're going to meet
pilots, right, I think oneof the things about these events is that
you might meet one of the coolestpeople you ever meet in your life,
right, you never know, Well, that's true. Yeah, we will.
We'll have female pilots there that flythat are captains with the with the
major airlines. We've got I thinktwelve booth partners that will have displays and
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information to share about career possibilities withthe folks. United Airlines Southwest, the
Civil Air Patrol, fly Aware,which is the big company that allows us
to track tracktail numbers that are flyingall over the over the world. What
are they looking for because that's asoftware company. Right. You can go
to fly tooware dot com and thereis literally a map of the world and
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you can see the planes that arein the air right now it is and
there's a slight delay. I thinkit's not much and and I we use
fly toware really as we're tracking aircraft. I do it personally when we're when
me too. We've li so it'sa it's a terrific program and we will
have those folks there with a booth. We've got Houston Airports systems that manage
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Hobby, Intercontinental and Ellington where weare. They'll be there. M AT,
which is a school that helps produceour mechanics that's right and things that
aviation mechanics that will will be there. I've had them on the show.
They have a terrific program. It'sreally impressive. It is it is terrough
and it's a great example of howyou can avoid going to affod year college
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and get a useless degree that willcost you a bunch of money, and
instead go to a program that feedsyou directly into a high skill, high
paying job. That's that's a bigpart of the secret to happiness right there,
is to get the right kind ofjob. And if you're mechanically inclined
and you've you look at aircraft andyou think to yourself, I'd love to
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do that. M IAT is oneof the best players there are Houston Operation
and we should be proud of them. So they're there all these opportunities.
You're having these young women who aregoing to be interacting with these people several
years before they are actually going toenter the professional field. So well some
of them are ten, right,So you're really trying to inspire. Yeah,
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yeah, that's that. I thinkthat's the that's the big thing.
It's the kind of the late motifwith with museums. We want to bring
kids in and let them touch andget a feeling for all these fields that
they would otherwise not know anything about. And if you bring them to a
place like Lilane Star Flight Museum,they might you might literally change the course
of their life. It might bein them to be a mechanic, for
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instance, and to meet one ofthese people and realize I want to do
that, and off they are.You're you have a program which brings in
bus loads of students to do justthat on the regular so the outside of
special events. In fact, shoutout to hib who sponsors a lot of
these busfuls of students and even providesthem with a meal with a cool program.
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But that would be is that wheremost of your visitors come from.
I know that for a lot ofmuseums, the buses are actually some of
the biggest numbers of the visitors.So for our education programs this year.
This past year, we had aboutfourteen thousand students come through our our formal
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education field trip program, and abouthalf of those truly did come in sponsored
by the lex of HCB, whopaid for their transportation, their entrance fees,
provided them lunch. Really a neatidea that we have with them,
and they stood stood up. They'regoing to do it again this next year,
so we've got we've got help withthem. We've got other sponsors that
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will help provide outreach opportunities where wewill take things like our Aviation Learning Center
and take elements of it on theroad and take it out to other youth
groups to where it can it canbe used on site. But truly we
want to get the kids into theinto the museum so that they can see
the airplanes, touch the airplanes,those kinds of things, and we've got
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some great help and sponsors to dothat. They've got a great website and
honestly, for for some museums,very few virtual tour will give you a
really good impression of what it's like. For most museums, you really need
to experience it. But man,let me tell you, these planes,
you gotta get get a feel forthem. Smell the oil that is dripping
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out of them into a pan,because they're old and they're being up kept,
and it's just it's it's it's anextraordinary facility. And these these old
planes are just so magnificent and they'rea part of They're an important part of
our history because each one of themis actually a stepping stone to the next
barrier we break with these aircrafts.And they're working on a supersonic aircraft.
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Now we're going to fly from NewYork to London and two hours, two
and a half hours. I can'twait. Personally, reduced to the time
you've been on an airplane is agood thing unless you're flying it, as
far as I'm concerned. So again, to get information on all their activities
at the lone Star Flight Museum,go to lone starflight dot org. Lone
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starflight dot org And in a coupleof weeks on September thirtieth, they're having
their Hanger Bash. It's one oftheir big fundraisers. It's being sponsored by
Saint Arnold's. They're gonna have terrificbarbecue, Hard Luck Revival is providing the
music. There's a whiskey tasting andother you know, foods and all of
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it around planes. And it's probablygonna be an event chalk full of people
who who like to fly, wholike technology, and or or maybe they
don't like to fly, but theyjust like NASA and they want to be
close to something that feeds into thatto that world. This is a great
event we're on. It's uh,this is our sixth year doing it.
Yeah. So this started almost withour opening there at Ellington and we've been
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been really fortunate, uh to combinethree great things beer, planes and barbecue.
The only thing is we don't wedon't mix the beer and the planes
up in the air. We havethem on the ground, so we take
care of but we uh, wesure enjoy this and and this year we
do have delicious Texas barbecue coming fromthe Cold Gordon being sponsored by the Cold
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Gordon Foundation, and the Holy CowCookers are coming in to cook it for
us. They'll cook it right thereon site, uh, and they'll they'll
provide We're planning on about five hundredfolks that will come out and enjoy the
great uh fixings and and eats andthe barbecue and and to be entertained by
hard Luck Revival. This will bethe second year in a row that hard
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Luck Revival has been with us,and I will tell you from last year's
experience, they are a lot ofa lot of fun. What kind of
music play rock and roll? Theyare old time, They've got they play
two kinds, country and Western theyare. They are okay, they are.
They will do all our country hitsand it's uh. They are really
really terrific folks that come to visitwith us. They can buy tickets online.
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We've got VIP tickets at for seventyfive dollars. That gets you a
swag bag with a vent Gear barbecueplate, drink tokens, and unlimited soda
and water. You can get generaladmission tickets for fifty bucks. Designator Driver
gets in at thirty. We've gotVIP tables that you can order that you
can bring all your friends with forfour hundred and fifty dollars. So just
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go on line and take a look. There's something there for everybody. You
have a Designator Driver prize. That'sthat's terrific. Well, we don't want
people to come in and do somethingsilly or unsafe. So we want to
take care of our visitors. Soyeah, we we've got a designated driver
ticket. So you get the discountbecause you're just not going to drink a
bunch of booze. But you getto have fun and you get to taste
of barbecue. Yeah, we'll fillyou, fill you full of water and
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anything non alcoholic that you like,and we'll kind of go from there.
I mentioned the Warplany rides, andI feel like I made a big thing
out of it. I said thatit is probably one of the coolest birthday
or Christmas present you can You canoffer a dad. It's such a cliche.
I think of a dad, butit could be a mom or your
sister. I want to spend afew times, a few minutes talking about
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this because this really is an opportunityto go up in a in a historical
plane or something very special that youwouldn't ordinarily get the opportunity to even get
close to. How does that work? You go online, you sign up
for it, You contact the flightMuseum. It's the same website. Yeah,
we'st our flight dot org and goto our flight experience page on that.
And we have a number of airplanesthat you can fly. Most of
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them are trainers, so uh fromour World War two trainers are our by
Wing Steerman. We've got two ofthem T six. We've got a PT
nineteen, which is a monoplane,open cockpit monoplane and for my money,
it's the coolest of the of thelot. We've got a T forty one,
which is what I learned to flyin back in nineteen seventy sixth time
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frame, which is an Assessment oneseventy two. But we've got one of
those painted in this case and USArmy colors and uh it's uh T forty
one C and it we sell rightsin it. And we also sell rights
in our BE twenty five bombers.Yeah, and that truly is Ah,
that's a These are all bucket listkinds of things, and it's a lot
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of fun. I'll tell you thatwhen my family comes to town for birthday
presents, I put them up inone of these airplanes and and give them
a give them a thrill that theydon't won't otherwise get. It's about a
half an hour ride and we'll we'lltake off from Ellington and we will go
around, uh, the Gulf Coastarea right right close by Ellington and maybe
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on a rig. No, wedon't dive bomb any rigs, so you
can't take any fire coming back fromthe ridge and they would shoot. So
we give guys folks a real thrillfor that. I've had my daughter,
I gave her one for a birthday, and I've had a number of our
family members up and my grandson rightafter he turned, right after he turned
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I think thirteen, I took himup in the forty one and I went
with him. I flew with him. You didn't piloted yourself. Now.
I let him up in the frontseat with one of our instructors, and
I flew in the back seat andI let him have his have his shot
at it. I like flying.I just like being in one of those
planes. And you know, thebombers are actually a lot of fun because
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it's such a big metal cage,a big metal rattling cage. And one
thing that war movies have never donejustice to me, in my opinion,
is the from what I've read,is the terror, the sheer terror you
would feel in this flying can asyou were being bombarded from the ground by
the German forces, for instance,do you think of all those young men
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who were in gliders, who werebuilt, who were purpose built to land,
to fly once and land one time? He made out of wood.
Yes, they were flimsy and fragile, and there was literally no protection.
If shrapnel exploded, you know,one hundred meters away from your plane,
you could catch some of that andbe grievously injured. But landing these things,
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they were essentially made up to break. The wings were designed to sort
of break off when you hit atree, because they figured you'd probably hit
a tree, you're gonna land infields. And we can only read about
those things. We don't want toexperience actual war, right, But if
you climb into one of these planesagain, it is evocative of the experience
that they had, and I thinkexpirers respect and a better understanding of maybe
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why we want to have these weaponsand not use them. But man,
those B fifty twos, all thebig bombers, the big prop bombers,
they feel so heavy when they takeoff. They makes this makes such a
glorious sound too. It's they couldgo on forever. I'm kind of a
geek about the airplanes anyway, Soto say it again, these warplane rides,
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like Doug said, it's a bucketlist type of item. It's way
more affordable than you think it is. It's not a thousand, two thousand
dollars at all. And the experienceI've I've had the experience, and I've
seen a lot of people come offof some of those flights and the excitement,
the adrenaline you feel last for hoursand you talk about you just people
come off those those rides and Billa, No, they're just chatting, chatting
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because of everything they've experienced. Absolutelyawesome. You are listening to Houston,
PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.My name is Laurent and my guest is
Doug Owens. He is the CEOof the Lone Star Flight Museum. Their
online at lone starflight dot org.We've mentioned that next week they're having their
event Girls in Aviation. Everyone iswelcome, of course, but they're gonna
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have a bunch of companies and organizationsfrom the aerospace space to meet these young
women and inspire them to go intosome of these professions. AMAT is going
to be there, for example,and then the following week they're having their
Hanger basht September thirtieth. The HangerBash is a beer, barbecue and music
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and planes event. Mostly it's anopportunity to meet a bunch of like minded
people. It's a great way youjust got here in Houston, You're not
You're not the only person who justgot here to Houston. You can meet
some like minded people for an awesomeevening. They even have a designated driver
price, which I think is reallycool. Lone starflight dot org. Lone
starflight dot org. You have theTexas Aviation Hall of Fame, into which
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you induct famous pilots and or peoplefrom the aerospace milieu, and you do
this every year. I guess maybeyour most famous inductee was President Bush one,
right, who we actually have bothPresident Bushes in the in the Hall
of Fame, so there he wasa pilot. Two. In our history,
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in our American history, there's onlybeen three presidents that were ava.
Two of them were named Bush Bushforty one and Bush forty three, and
the other was Dwight Eisenhower who wasborn in Dennison, Dennison, Texas.
Now President Eisenhower was best known asGeneral Eisenhower and then President Eisenhower, but
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he's also a private pilot. Sowhat we celebrate in the Hall of Fame
truly, and we do this almosttongue in cheek. You either have to
be a famous Texan that was afamous Texan that was an aviator or a
famous aviator that was a Texan.So it gives us a little bit of
latitude and you have to have thatassociation with Texas. And we're very proud
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of our Hall of Fame. It'sgot ninety four members in it and we
typically over the last several years inductedabout four new members into the into the
Hall of Fame each year. Thathappens in April, so we will take
nominations for the Hall of Fame upthrough sometime in November. So there it's
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open for nomination now and you cango again go online to our website and
nominate someone. But I will tellyou that the competition is keen because of
the few that we nominate, afew that we induct. Those that do
make it in are very are verynoteworthy in their in their accomplishments in relation
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to Texas. So we are veryproud to be the Texas Aviation Hall of
Fame, so designated by the Texaslegislature back in nineteen ninety five by then
Governor George Bush, so where itcomes full circle. But we are we're
very fortunate to have that and bestewards of that great, great institution.
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I feel like there are two thingsthat we keep forgetting about Houston. The
first is that it's a water city. We might be forty miles from from
water, but that doesn't bother Texans. We just dug and now we're the
fourth largest port in the country,and we're space city. This is an
extraordinary community, and it's inspiring tothe whole world. Because we mentioned Artemis.
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The next mission, they're gonna We'regonna fly people back to the Moon
again. Finally. I've been waitingfor this my entire life. I've always
been jealous of the baby boomers sittingin front of their black and white TVs
and watching Armstrong land on the Moon. It's I remember that, but how
could you forget? Also, youremember a world when the planet was represented
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by drawings, and at some pointduring your youth, one of these astronauts
turned a camera on the planet andbrought back these pictures. That must have
been something else too. It uhwatching TV as a young young boy back
at the back at that time waswas really eye opening. Yeah, it's
one of those things that truly didinspire me at at that time to want
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to go into aviation and the like. There was a time when I thought
I wanted to be an astronaut andI said my sights on going to the
Air Force Academy back when I wasable and was able to go and do
that. And a lot of whatwe're about at the museum is trying to
inspire young people to realize what thoseopportunities are now so they can realize that
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potential as they get older to makegreat decisions and choices as young people,
because there's so many things out theretoday that can cause people to get distracted
from a good path and wind upgoing down a wrong one, and it's
sometimes it's things that they can't recoverfrom. So we want to get them
early and get them inspired, getthem excited about aviation and space and things
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like that, and help them realizewhat the art of the possible is for
their lives well. And if youget into learning how to fly or learn
how to work on the mechanics ofan airplane, those are jobs that can
translate into their real world because andgenerally speaking, if you know how to
fix an airplane, even if youdon't know how to fix a car,
you're going to figure it out veryquickly. Sure, these are transposable skills,
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and going into the Air Force andlearning these skills is one of the
best and at least financially speaking,one of the least expensive ways to get
a top notch education. Now it'sa sacrifice to go into the enforces,
and it's all have a lot ofwork, right, You sign up for
a lot of work. So it'snot a free education by any means,
(29:18):
but what on education it is.And again, those skills that you would
learn in the Air Force, especiallyif you're in the mechanics field, would
would be transferable to the civilian worldin ways that other professions in the army,
for instance, are are harder totranslate. And we talk about that
on this show a lot to helpveterans transition back into life. But the
(29:40):
highly skilled mechanics are it's just sucha great profession. You're never going to
run out of work. That's verytrue. That's very true. Anyway,
go to the Lone Star Flight Museum. As the weather gets better and you
can walk around the Ellington Field Ground. That place in itself is really cool
because you know it's it's a it'sa work in airport for our enforce.
(30:00):
Lone starflight dot org. Lone starflightdot org. If you have any questions
related to Houston, PA, justsend me an email Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I'll send youan answer, an excellent answer, within
a couple of days. That's guaranteed. And I want to thank you for
listening and caring about the issues thatput on this show. Folks. My
(30:22):
name is Laurent I am the Texanfrom France and this has been Houston PA,
Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeart Media broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect
those hell by this radio station It'smanagement staff for any of its advertisers.
My name is Laurent I am theTexan from France. And one of the
(00:28):
reasons I like to use that monikera Texan from Francis because I'm so proud
of my history as a French person. French history is pretty darn interesting.
There are Americans are mostly aware ofa recent failure during World War Two and
ignore the fact that the French wenton to conquer the known world a couple
of times. It was a longlong time ago. But we're just we're
(00:50):
very proud of our history and thetechnology we've developed to safeguard ourselves, including
aeronautics and hydrodynamics. The French areleaders in this field, and of course
that's true about Americans. Of course, here in Houston we have NASA,
and I've always thought that the historyof aviation, which includes a lot of
French famous pilots, and then ofcourse the history of space flight, well
(01:12):
they go together, right You startwith flight and then you go to space.
And I've always been very proud ofthe fact that two of the major
cultures that have produced some of thebest pilots and astronauts were Texans and French
and we have in town. Oneof the best museums to look at that
history is the Lone Star Flight Museum. And my guest today is retired Lieutenant
(01:33):
General Doug Owens. He is theCEO of the Lone Star Flight Museum.
His sons are also pilots in theAir Force. So we're going to talk
about planes because not only is thisa place where you can go see some
amazing planes, historic and modern,they have a just a wonderful simulator that
literally straps you in and turns youup upside down either which ways. And
(01:57):
of course you can still buy awar bird ride. This is probably one
of the best birthday presents for dadsaround or sons. You can go down
to Ellington Field where the museum islocated, and go on a flight and
one of these historic airplanes. Andif you go to the lone Star Flight
dot org, you're going to findout that they're a heck of a lot
cheaper than you think. They are. It's just a wonderful gift and amazing
(02:22):
experience for someone who It's one ofthose things, you know, I'd love
to have a corvette one day,and you should never buy a corvette.
Well, I'd love to fly inan old warbird and you never climb into
one. Well, at Ellington Fieldyou can just do that. And of
course if you visit the museum youcan get an impression about a lot of
other things. Doug, welcome back. It's been too long, I'm sorry
(02:43):
to say, but y'all have openeda bunch of new exhibits, including this
new flight simulator that you was justtelling me about. It's exclusive. You're
we're the only museum in the worldwho has something like this, right,
well, not exactly, But firstlet me say this, that was about
as good a commercial and advertisement forthe museum as I've found anywhere. So
if you want to be on ourpayroll and take up take up a new
(03:06):
new business, just let me know, because you do great at it and
its an honor. Thanks for beingour advocate and all of this. But
yes, we have a lot ofnew exhibits and the simulator that you're talking
about is called max Flight while theyare they're at other places, there's not
I don't think there's any here inHouston. So whether you only place here
in Houston, I think you cancan do this and this one, as
we talked about, we'll turn youevery which way, but loose. You
(03:29):
can ride a ride a very mildroller coaster, one that will turn your
innards out, and you can flyfast jets and slow jets and a B
twenty five, and you can doall kinds of things and it'll turn you
over which way. But loose.It's a lot of fun. So it's
not an egg, but it's likea cube. You sit in it,
there's a canopy that closes on topof you. There's a seat belt you've
(03:51):
described a harness there drops on topof your shoulders like a roller coaster ride.
And you get to choose your experience. And when I was fascinated hear
you say, is that when youcontrol the flight simulator and you're actually turning
the plane and pitching up and down, there's a slight delay in response from
the from the gimbal and the movement. But if you choose the roller coaster
(04:15):
experience, because all of that isprogrammed into the machines. Then you get
an experience, which you say,and you have experience flying, obviously,
you say, is even more immersiveand thrilling. And that just the program
it's the programming that geeks me outhere. It's fascinating stuff. You're the
only one I've heard talk about itquite long. I just it's just amazing
(04:36):
that they can do this, firstof all, but it shows that the
controls that you're using in the flightsimulator are is. They're dealing with machinery
and software that is so complex thatwe don't even have the technology to make
it happen instantaneously yet, although Ibet you with software updates and all that,
it's really close now and they andthey'll get there. My point and
(04:58):
all of that was the roller coasters. You sit in here along for the
ride. For the airplanes. You'remaking all of the inputs. So if
you can't get the airplane off theground, it's your problem. Stall it
will stall. You can have emergenciesin it. I found it flying.
I was flying an F four oneday and I realized that I had a
compressor stall in the engine, andthe firelight came on and the whole thing.
(05:20):
I didn't know it would do that, So all of a sudden I
was trying to deal with an airplanethat had a problem. And that's again
all really really cool stuff. Andhow did that simulation session end? Consider
now I was flying with another Ffour pilot with an F four pilot,
and it caught him off guard aswell. It went in, it just
fine, We got it on thedeck and it was all, it was
(05:42):
all good. That's one of myfavorite things to do in the flight simulator
is to turn on a random failurethat you'll know will happen within twenty minutes,
so you can take off and youjust you know something's going to fail.
But it gives you an impression ofjust how desperate you might be,
because if you have an engine failurein a ward hog, you flew ward
hogs. If you're flying close tothe ground and you have a failure,
(06:02):
you're going to have very very littletime to react. Well, if you've
got two engines, you've got oneleft and hopefully that that's that keeps you
keeps you safe and out of harm'sway. But if you're single engine aircraft,
you lose that when then you've gotreal issues to deal with and not
a lot of time to make criticaldecisions, either to stay with the airplane
(06:23):
and try and get it started,or to get out of the airplane whatever.
It's a single engine airplane is alittle bit more of a challenge.
Yeah, you need some altitude andsome speed to stay up for a little
while. So these these simulators isobviously there's a part that's super fun about
it, but I don't I guessthe roller coaster would be just a thrill
ride, which is fine, Butif you're going to choose the simulator experience,
(06:45):
you're bound to learn something, evenif accidentally, because I don't think
people are aware of the dynamics involvedin planes flying and how complicated it is,
and how your weight and your speedand your angle of attack, all
those things we're so used to alwaysstick video games, right, Star Wars
has x wings. They're basically planesthat behave like atmospheric things where there is
(07:11):
no atmosphere. Sure, and sowhen you put somebody who's a layman who
just has a little bit of knowledgeabout flighting one of these simulators, don't
they just hit the ground within twominutes? Well they can, but to
be honest, when we went whenwe went on the on the search or
went out in search of a newenhancement to our offerings for our visitors.
I went out and tried a lotof different simulators and types, and I
(07:36):
was looking for something that was veryengaging. So there's a lot of things,
like you mentioned video games that youcan sit and control and look at
the screen and see what's outside.It's another to feel the movement of the
of the simulator and will this onedoesn't give you the experience of HIGHG environment.
It will give you the experience ofrolls and pitches and things along those
(07:59):
lines. And it's uh, it'sit's fun. It is fun, and
they and the simulations that we havefor the different airplanes are reasonably accurate.
They're not precise. This is nota high fidelity sim It's more entertainment than
it is anything. There's no ruddersin it. Everything is controlled with the
throttle in the stick. But it'sit is a lot of fun, and
it's close enough that our visitors canget in it and have a blast.
(08:22):
Yeah. I think that anybody who'sa fan of flight simming really owes it
to themselves to check something out withthis. It's sort of the dream home
set up in a way to becompletely surrounded by by screens, and I
guess virtual reality is going to bringus to that, and I won't be
surprised when you guys include virtual realityand we're working towards that end, as
(08:43):
long as the headsets become cheap andsturdy enough, because that's that's a problem.
We don't necessarily have to be durable. That's the word I'm really looking
for. Listen, folks that we'vejust mentioned one of the awesome activities at
the Lone Star Flat Museum. They'reonline at lone Star flight dot org lone
Star flight dot org. They're onEllington Fields, so it's not far from
(09:07):
anywhere downtown and honestly, with theweather getting better, there's just take your
son, take your daughter. Infact, they're going to have a special
event on the twenty third of Septembercalled Girls in Aviation. Let's talk about
that. You are listening to Houston, PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.
My name is Laurent and my guestis Doug Owens. He is the CEO
(09:28):
of the Lone Star Flight Museum.And yeah, next weekend you're having Girls
in Aviation, which is something Iguess twenty years ago would have been maybe
even unusual. But these days,I think we've gotten used to the fact
that women can fly planes. We'vegotten around to it. Finally. I
wouldn't even I'm not sure I wouldwould go that far with this. We've
(09:52):
had really no what I mean.What I mean is women have been flying
air plans yet a long long time. Oh yeah, the heart might have
been around. Well. When Iwent through pilot training in the Air Force,
I had women in my pilot trainingclass. So we've had women in
airplanes for a long time. Uh, maybe not so far back. We
got them into fighters and and otherthings and uh and the like. But
(10:15):
uh, women women flyer planes justjust fine. They really do. And
on next Saturday, on the twentythird, we will celebrate International Girls in
Aviation Day. Now, that programhas only been around since about twenty fifteen,
and it for us. It givesyoung ladies ten to seventeen the opportunity
to explore career possibilities and stem andaviation boys are welcome as well, but
(10:41):
we are focusing on young ladies andwe've got an entire day set aside to
support those efforts. We're expecting abouttwo hundred uh young ladies to join us.
There's still room to sign up ifyou'd like. Well, they are
so you can still sign up.So September twenty three, get online lone
(11:01):
star flight dot org. What aresome of the activities they're going to meet
pilots, right, I think oneof the things about these events is that
you might meet one of the coolestpeople you ever meet in your life,
right, you never know, Well, that's true. Yeah, we will.
We'll have female pilots there that flythat are captains with the with the
major airlines. We've got I thinktwelve booth partners that will have displays and
(11:26):
information to share about career possibilities withthe folks. United Airlines Southwest, the
Civil Air Patrol, fly Aware,which is the big company that allows us
to track tracktail numbers that are flyingall over the over the world. What
are they looking for because that's asoftware company. Right. You can go
to fly tooware dot com and thereis literally a map of the world and
(11:48):
you can see the planes that arein the air right now it is and
there's a slight delay. I thinkit's not much and and I we use
fly toware really as we're tracking aircraft. I do it personally when we're when
me too. We've li so it'sa it's a terrific program and we will
have those folks there with a booth. We've got Houston Airports systems that manage
(12:13):
Hobby, Intercontinental and Ellington where weare. They'll be there. M AT,
which is a school that helps produceour mechanics that's right and things that
aviation mechanics that will will be there. I've had them on the show.
They have a terrific program. It'sreally impressive. It is it is terrough
and it's a great example of howyou can avoid going to affod year college
(12:35):
and get a useless degree that willcost you a bunch of money, and
instead go to a program that feedsyou directly into a high skill, high
paying job. That's that's a bigpart of the secret to happiness right there,
is to get the right kind ofjob. And if you're mechanically inclined
and you've you look at aircraft andyou think to yourself, I'd love to
(12:56):
do that. M IAT is oneof the best players there are Houston Operation
and we should be proud of them. So they're there all these opportunities.
You're having these young women who aregoing to be interacting with these people several
years before they are actually going toenter the professional field. So well some
of them are ten, right,So you're really trying to inspire. Yeah,
(13:20):
yeah, that's that. I thinkthat's the that's the big thing.
It's the kind of the late motifwith with museums. We want to bring
kids in and let them touch andget a feeling for all these fields that
they would otherwise not know anything about. And if you bring them to a
place like Lilane Star Flight Museum,they might you might literally change the course
of their life. It might bein them to be a mechanic, for
(13:41):
instance, and to meet one ofthese people and realize I want to do
that, and off they are.You're you have a program which brings in
bus loads of students to do justthat on the regular so the outside of
special events. In fact, shoutout to hib who sponsors a lot of
these busfuls of students and even providesthem with a meal with a cool program.
(14:03):
But that would be is that wheremost of your visitors come from.
I know that for a lot ofmuseums, the buses are actually some of
the biggest numbers of the visitors.So for our education programs this year.
This past year, we had aboutfourteen thousand students come through our our formal
(14:24):
education field trip program, and abouthalf of those truly did come in sponsored
by the lex of HCB, whopaid for their transportation, their entrance fees,
provided them lunch. Really a neatidea that we have with them,
and they stood stood up. They'regoing to do it again this next year,
so we've got we've got help withthem. We've got other sponsors that
(14:46):
will help provide outreach opportunities where wewill take things like our Aviation Learning Center
and take elements of it on theroad and take it out to other youth
groups to where it can it canbe used on site. But truly we
want to get the kids into theinto the museum so that they can see
the airplanes, touch the airplanes,those kinds of things, and we've got
(15:07):
some great help and sponsors to dothat. They've got a great website and
honestly, for for some museums,very few virtual tour will give you a
really good impression of what it's like. For most museums, you really need
to experience it. But man,let me tell you, these planes,
you gotta get get a feel forthem. Smell the oil that is dripping
(15:28):
out of them into a pan,because they're old and they're being up kept,
and it's just it's it's it's anextraordinary facility. And these these old
planes are just so magnificent and they'rea part of They're an important part of
our history because each one of themis actually a stepping stone to the next
barrier we break with these aircrafts.And they're working on a supersonic aircraft.
(15:52):
Now we're going to fly from NewYork to London and two hours, two
and a half hours. I can'twait. Personally, reduced to the time
you've been on an airplane is agood thing unless you're flying it, as
far as I'm concerned. So again, to get information on all their activities
at the lone Star Flight Museum,go to lone starflight dot org. Lone
(16:12):
starflight dot org And in a coupleof weeks on September thirtieth, they're having
their Hanger Bash. It's one oftheir big fundraisers. It's being sponsored by
Saint Arnold's. They're gonna have terrificbarbecue, Hard Luck Revival is providing the
music. There's a whiskey tasting andother you know, foods and all of
(16:33):
it around planes. And it's probablygonna be an event chalk full of people
who who like to fly, wholike technology, and or or maybe they
don't like to fly, but theyjust like NASA and they want to be
close to something that feeds into thatto that world. This is a great
event we're on. It's uh,this is our sixth year doing it.
Yeah. So this started almost withour opening there at Ellington and we've been
(16:59):
been really fortunate, uh to combinethree great things beer, planes and barbecue.
The only thing is we don't wedon't mix the beer and the planes
up in the air. We havethem on the ground, so we take
care of but we uh, wesure enjoy this and and this year we
do have delicious Texas barbecue coming fromthe Cold Gordon being sponsored by the Cold
(17:22):
Gordon Foundation, and the Holy CowCookers are coming in to cook it for
us. They'll cook it right thereon site, uh, and they'll they'll
provide We're planning on about five hundredfolks that will come out and enjoy the
great uh fixings and and eats andthe barbecue and and to be entertained by
hard Luck Revival. This will bethe second year in a row that hard
(17:44):
Luck Revival has been with us,and I will tell you from last year's
experience, they are a lot ofa lot of fun. What kind of
music play rock and roll? Theyare old time, They've got they play
two kinds, country and Western theyare. They are okay, they are.
They will do all our country hitsand it's uh. They are really
really terrific folks that come to visitwith us. They can buy tickets online.
(18:07):
We've got VIP tickets at for seventyfive dollars. That gets you a
swag bag with a vent Gear barbecueplate, drink tokens, and unlimited soda
and water. You can get generaladmission tickets for fifty bucks. Designator Driver
gets in at thirty. We've gotVIP tables that you can order that you
can bring all your friends with forfour hundred and fifty dollars. So just
(18:29):
go on line and take a look. There's something there for everybody. You
have a Designator Driver prize. That'sthat's terrific. Well, we don't want
people to come in and do somethingsilly or unsafe. So we want to
take care of our visitors. Soyeah, we we've got a designated driver
ticket. So you get the discountbecause you're just not going to drink a
bunch of booze. But you getto have fun and you get to taste
of barbecue. Yeah, we'll fillyou, fill you full of water and
(18:52):
anything non alcoholic that you like,and we'll kind of go from there.
I mentioned the Warplany rides, andI feel like I made a big thing
out of it. I said thatit is probably one of the coolest birthday
or Christmas present you can You canoffer a dad. It's such a cliche.
I think of a dad, butit could be a mom or your
sister. I want to spend afew times, a few minutes talking about
(19:14):
this because this really is an opportunityto go up in a in a historical
plane or something very special that youwouldn't ordinarily get the opportunity to even get
close to. How does that work? You go online, you sign up
for it, You contact the flightMuseum. It's the same website. Yeah,
we'st our flight dot org and goto our flight experience page on that.
And we have a number of airplanesthat you can fly. Most of
(19:37):
them are trainers, so uh fromour World War two trainers are our by
Wing Steerman. We've got two ofthem T six. We've got a PT
nineteen, which is a monoplane,open cockpit monoplane and for my money,
it's the coolest of the of thelot. We've got a T forty one,
which is what I learned to flyin back in nineteen seventy sixth time
(20:03):
frame, which is an Assessment oneseventy two. But we've got one of
those painted in this case and USArmy colors and uh it's uh T forty
one C and it we sell rightsin it. And we also sell rights
in our BE twenty five bombers.Yeah, and that truly is Ah,
that's a These are all bucket listkinds of things, and it's a lot
(20:23):
of fun. I'll tell you thatwhen my family comes to town for birthday
presents, I put them up inone of these airplanes and and give them
a give them a thrill that theydon't won't otherwise get. It's about a
half an hour ride and we'll we'lltake off from Ellington and we will go
around, uh, the Gulf Coastarea right right close by Ellington and maybe
(20:45):
on a rig. No, wedon't dive bomb any rigs, so you
can't take any fire coming back fromthe ridge and they would shoot. So
we give guys folks a real thrillfor that. I've had my daughter,
I gave her one for a birthday, and I've had a number of our
family members up and my grandson rightafter he turned, right after he turned
(21:07):
I think thirteen, I took himup in the forty one and I went
with him. I flew with him. You didn't piloted yourself. Now.
I let him up in the frontseat with one of our instructors, and
I flew in the back seat andI let him have his have his shot
at it. I like flying.I just like being in one of those
planes. And you know, thebombers are actually a lot of fun because
(21:29):
it's such a big metal cage,a big metal rattling cage. And one
thing that war movies have never donejustice to me, in my opinion,
is the from what I've read,is the terror, the sheer terror you
would feel in this flying can asyou were being bombarded from the ground by
the German forces, for instance,do you think of all those young men
(21:51):
who were in gliders, who werebuilt, who were purpose built to land,
to fly once and land one time? He made out of wood.
Yes, they were flimsy and fragile, and there was literally no protection.
If shrapnel exploded, you know,one hundred meters away from your plane,
you could catch some of that andbe grievously injured. But landing these things,
(22:12):
they were essentially made up to break. The wings were designed to sort
of break off when you hit atree, because they figured you'd probably hit
a tree, you're gonna land infields. And we can only read about
those things. We don't want toexperience actual war, right, But if
you climb into one of these planesagain, it is evocative of the experience
that they had, and I thinkexpirers respect and a better understanding of maybe
(22:37):
why we want to have these weaponsand not use them. But man,
those B fifty twos, all thebig bombers, the big prop bombers,
they feel so heavy when they takeoff. They makes this makes such a
glorious sound too. It's they couldgo on forever. I'm kind of a
geek about the airplanes anyway, Soto say it again, these warplane rides,
(23:00):
like Doug said, it's a bucketlist type of item. It's way
more affordable than you think it is. It's not a thousand, two thousand
dollars at all. And the experienceI've I've had the experience, and I've
seen a lot of people come offof some of those flights and the excitement,
the adrenaline you feel last for hoursand you talk about you just people
come off those those rides and Billa, No, they're just chatting, chatting
(23:22):
because of everything they've experienced. Absolutelyawesome. You are listening to Houston,
PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.My name is Laurent and my guest is
Doug Owens. He is the CEOof the Lone Star Flight Museum. Their
online at lone starflight dot org.We've mentioned that next week they're having their
event Girls in Aviation. Everyone iswelcome, of course, but they're gonna
(23:45):
have a bunch of companies and organizationsfrom the aerospace space to meet these young
women and inspire them to go intosome of these professions. AMAT is going
to be there, for example,and then the following week they're having their
Hanger basht September thirtieth. The HangerBash is a beer, barbecue and music
(24:08):
and planes event. Mostly it's anopportunity to meet a bunch of like minded
people. It's a great way youjust got here in Houston, You're not
You're not the only person who justgot here to Houston. You can meet
some like minded people for an awesomeevening. They even have a designated driver
price, which I think is reallycool. Lone starflight dot org. Lone
starflight dot org. You have theTexas Aviation Hall of Fame, into which
(24:34):
you induct famous pilots and or peoplefrom the aerospace milieu, and you do
this every year. I guess maybeyour most famous inductee was President Bush one,
right, who we actually have bothPresident Bushes in the in the Hall
of Fame, so there he wasa pilot. Two. In our history,
(24:56):
in our American history, there's onlybeen three presidents that were ava.
Two of them were named Bush Bushforty one and Bush forty three, and
the other was Dwight Eisenhower who wasborn in Dennison, Dennison, Texas.
Now President Eisenhower was best known asGeneral Eisenhower and then President Eisenhower, but
(25:17):
he's also a private pilot. Sowhat we celebrate in the Hall of Fame
truly, and we do this almosttongue in cheek. You either have to
be a famous Texan that was afamous Texan that was an aviator or a
famous aviator that was a Texan.So it gives us a little bit of
latitude and you have to have thatassociation with Texas. And we're very proud
(25:40):
of our Hall of Fame. It'sgot ninety four members in it and we
typically over the last several years inductedabout four new members into the into the
Hall of Fame each year. Thathappens in April, so we will take
nominations for the Hall of Fame upthrough sometime in November. So there it's
(26:00):
open for nomination now and you cango again go online to our website and
nominate someone. But I will tellyou that the competition is keen because of
the few that we nominate, afew that we induct. Those that do
make it in are very are verynoteworthy in their in their accomplishments in relation
(26:21):
to Texas. So we are veryproud to be the Texas Aviation Hall of
Fame, so designated by the Texaslegislature back in nineteen ninety five by then
Governor George Bush, so where itcomes full circle. But we are we're
very fortunate to have that and bestewards of that great, great institution.
(26:44):
I feel like there are two thingsthat we keep forgetting about Houston. The
first is that it's a water city. We might be forty miles from from
water, but that doesn't bother Texans. We just dug and now we're the
fourth largest port in the country,and we're space city. This is an
extraordinary community, and it's inspiring tothe whole world. Because we mentioned Artemis.
(27:06):
The next mission, they're gonna We'regonna fly people back to the Moon
again. Finally. I've been waitingfor this my entire life. I've always
been jealous of the baby boomers sittingin front of their black and white TVs
and watching Armstrong land on the Moon. It's I remember that, but how
could you forget? Also, youremember a world when the planet was represented
(27:29):
by drawings, and at some pointduring your youth, one of these astronauts
turned a camera on the planet andbrought back these pictures. That must have
been something else too. It uhwatching TV as a young young boy back
at the back at that time waswas really eye opening. Yeah, it's
one of those things that truly didinspire me at at that time to want
(27:52):
to go into aviation and the like. There was a time when I thought
I wanted to be an astronaut andI said my sights on going to the
Air Force Academy back when I wasable and was able to go and do
that. And a lot of whatwe're about at the museum is trying to
inspire young people to realize what thoseopportunities are now so they can realize that
(28:12):
potential as they get older to makegreat decisions and choices as young people,
because there's so many things out theretoday that can cause people to get distracted
from a good path and wind upgoing down a wrong one, and it's
sometimes it's things that they can't recoverfrom. So we want to get them
early and get them inspired, getthem excited about aviation and space and things
(28:34):
like that, and help them realizewhat the art of the possible is for
their lives well. And if youget into learning how to fly or learn
how to work on the mechanics ofan airplane, those are jobs that can
translate into their real world because andgenerally speaking, if you know how to
fix an airplane, even if youdon't know how to fix a car,
you're going to figure it out veryquickly. Sure, these are transposable skills,
(28:57):
and going into the Air Force andlearning these skills is one of the
best and at least financially speaking,one of the least expensive ways to get
a top notch education. Now it'sa sacrifice to go into the enforces,
and it's all have a lot ofwork, right, You sign up for
a lot of work. So it'snot a free education by any means,
(29:18):
but what on education it is.And again, those skills that you would
learn in the Air Force, especiallyif you're in the mechanics field, would
would be transferable to the civilian worldin ways that other professions in the army,
for instance, are are harder totranslate. And we talk about that
on this show a lot to helpveterans transition back into life. But the
(29:40):
highly skilled mechanics are it's just sucha great profession. You're never going to
run out of work. That's verytrue. That's very true. Anyway,
go to the Lone Star Flight Museum. As the weather gets better and you
can walk around the Ellington Field Ground. That place in itself is really cool
because you know it's it's a it'sa work in airport for our enforce.
(30:00):
Lone starflight dot org. Lone starflightdot org. If you have any questions
related to Houston, PA, justsend me an email Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I'll send youan answer, an excellent answer, within
a couple of days. That's guaranteed. And I want to thank you for
listening and caring about the issues thatput on this show. Folks. My
(30:22):
name is Laurent I am the Texanfrom France and this has been Houston PA,
Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong
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