Welcome back to explore and chiropractic. I'm Nathan gashen and in this episode. We're talking with students from New York College of Chiropractic Before we get started. I want to remind you this is a YouTube video, but it's also available on iTunes So search iTunes or any other podcast source for exploring chiropractic and you can take the audio with you I'm excited to reintroduce from New York Brendan McCann who's joined as I podcast before how you doing having me again Nathan. Good. So you're now in Eighth quarter eighth try it's try that's right. It's try out of time. So I'll graduate later this year Oh my gosh, what would you when you graduate what month? December 5th December okay, that's when most of my group are graduating but I've Taken a split which means I take just one more quarter to take an easier load Won't be graduated till Till March unfortunately Also joining us to give us a bit of a fresher perspective also from New York is Seth. How you doing man? I'm good. Good. Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. You just got out of physiology Yeah, this morning. It was a anatomy with a quick quiz this morning at 8 a.m. And then three hours of systems physiology We that's a busy Friday. Yes, it is makes for quite the Friday morning to wake up to Now you're just in second try. So you you've just begun Yeah started so that would have been September of last year and just started second try So moving along and counting down the days So how did you choose New York? For me. I actually came from an area in Central Massachusetts where I grew up And I knew for chiropractors that actually turns out all went here to New York Chiropractic College It was far enough a way to be happy without being so far away that I could never go home and And Good curriculum good people and again just kind of proximity helped out for sure Definitely one of the more common reasons that people choose a school is And I was listening to Have you guys come across the chiropractic philanthropist podcast? No, I actually just saw it Making appearance a couple days ago, but I haven't gotten into it yet Yeah, it's pretty good. He is killing it. He's had over I think by now over 60,000 downloads Which dwarfs my podcast, of course but he was recently interviewing the president of Sherman College of Chiropractic and That that was the thing that the president was saying was don't just pick it on location There's so many other things to consider but Everybody picks it on location Normally, I'm a traveler and I don't really I wouldn't really care where I ended up But in this particular case it just worked out well Now wouldn't New York be the closest one to you or are the other ones up? national or Western would they be any closer to you? No, I'm definitely New York is the closest. It's about a five-hour drive Okay, so how I mean how school going what's What's the experience been like for you so far? I? Absolutely love it I'm coming in having a break from undergrad Which I think was absolutely necessary got out saw the real world a little bit and Was able to get some working experience and really kind of culminate a lot of the things that I did through my Undergrad in working to find this as the absolute best Outlet for me to have How long did you work a couple years? Yeah, I did as well I took a job for two years completely different field Education technology related which is why I do stuff like this Do you want to share what you did? I was working as Well, I'm an EMT and so I got a job in an MD office kind of as a medical assistant I knew the I knew the doctor in primary care and In that time I was kind of like I love the medical field Definitely want to be here, but I also became a trainer and was working in a gym and really really enjoyed working with Both athletes people who are deconditioned and we had a physical therapy office in the gym So I worked with a lot of post rehabilitative Clients people that were coming through and transitioning over from physical therapy to working out again getting back to health and whatever respect that is for them and just trying to get them going and Had a good conversation with one of the chiropractors back home who's an alum here And he just said you know this really looks like the perfect fit for everything you do and who you are and go check it out That's pretty awesome. So from an EMT to chiropractic. That's not a change. Yeah many people make how do you how do you think those two? Complement or fit in with each other. I Think I'm a huge I grew up skiing and snowboarding was a big part of ski patrol with my parents and I love I Call it blood guts and gore, but I like acute emergency medicine as well huge really have Just I love it so From that kind of helping people but having gone through a lot of injuries and accidents myself Kind of beyond just the initial it's the rehab process to get back to where you want to be or see a progression Afterwards hey, I fell or hurt myself doing this What can I do to get back and as fast and effectively as possible to where I want to be in life? That's awesome. I'm fascinated with that because I have a little bit of advanced training I have a wilderness first responder certification from from Knowles and the wilderness medicine is very nice And I really want to get my wilderness EMT I'm planning on doing that afterwards. Do you see yourself continuing or keeping that certification up and being a chiropractic EMT? Absolutely I Am basically I took right before I came to school. I took the I was TA'ing with an EMT course I was actually teaching as well Well, and I basically just need one letter from my MD to go to the state of Massachusetts And I'll actually be a certified instructor coordinator for EMT basic classes. So that's pretty cool Very cool. All right, so definitely something else to take with. Yeah, that gives me a little more Confidence to go ahead and do what I was planning on doing absolutely. Yeah, that's pretty cool Brendan you're in clinic now, right? Yes, I am actually so I'm still in clinic attire here My roommate just got back from our shift in clinic today. I'm headed in later today I said about 2 30 and have a few hours. How has that been different than your regular classes? I've been telling people clinic is wonderful The the difference from our 7th trimester to our 8th trimester is pretty dramatic Where we go from having a full course load including pre-clinical and clinical sciences and Moving now into all practical All of our time being put into into practical experience And then we have additional classes that we do, you know mornings and evenings and downtime Online our clinic that I'm at is actually a few hours away from campus New York our practice college has four clinics on Long Island at the campus in Seneca Falls Here in Rochester, New York, and then out West in Buffalo, New York So you're not living on campus anymore, right, right? I actually just moved out here to Rochester You kind of mentioned so you said that 7th quarter to 8th is a big difference. Do you Just completely switch from academic to clinic or is there a gradual change? So it's actually it's a pretty it's a pretty abrupt switch 7th trimester does include six hours per week in clinic so which is My clinician actually put it as it's sort of like a semester-long orientation to the clinical responsibilities so you you get the workflow of documentation and patient intakes and Getting your appointments more efficient and you know doing examinations and whatnot and Then when you go and that's all in the student clinic on campus and then when you go on to 8th trimester you switch to 22 hours in clinic each week with the only classes left being online so they're a lot less demanding than in you know on the ground courses and We really get to focus on patient care aspect of chiropractic instead That's cool. So it's not very different right now. I'm in my first Quarter of being in the clinic and it's six hours a week But it's very it's very slow for me right now because the campus clinic has some restrictions on who can come to the campus because We're in a residential neighborhood. So it's a little challenging to get patients to come in But that's we also have about four maybe five clinics including the campus one But they're all right here in Portland, so they're all within half hours drive. That's cool And it calls a bit of a different setting than Portland, Oregon But you guys know it's a very it's a very small town actually so in our seventh trimester we exclusively treat students But all each year students during their first and fourth trimester are required to come in and Go through a physical and then most of them will follow up with additional care throughout the rest of the semester after that and so there's a good patient patient base for Seventh trimester students to work with built into the program there That's pretty nice Whereas in eighth try where we see more Of the outpatient type of patients, right?  It's absolutely fine by me We've all been there I've got so many things I can come absolutely I'll do you whatever I can to help out because I mean really that's what it comes down to is we're gonna be there some day We want the same from the students coming in Exactly, absolutely, but it allows them to really take what they've learned and Put it to use in a real-life setting where hopefully as students being younger. We don't have the really serious issues, you know, I I don't say that nobody does but comparatively to what they're gonna see outside the Actual setting might be a little bit easier and it really breaks you into the ebb and flow of the day How to deal with people how to deal with different issues, so I've been really happy with all my interns And I've had to go in I went in for one acute issue got somebody else also fantastic and I've continued on with my appointments. I know a lot of people come second third try kind of drop off when we're going through a lot of Technique classes and we're adjusting all the time open adjusting. You might not feel like you need it as much but it's still important to go back and see somebody that is Well beyond where we are in school and have that doctor oversight The other thing that I've taken advantage of here. That's been really good is that with the full Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine program I go I go for acupuncture once a week as well and my experience there with those interns has been really really good What other programs are there so you've got the chiropractic acupuncture Brennan, I know I supposed about a sports event Yeah, so that's not actually part of one of the programs here But that was one of the opportunities that we got through the Rochester Clinic the clinic director built a connection with and a local MMA or mixed martial arts group around here and so we were actually out at a an external event and we brought you brought five interns and our and the clinic director And we set up our tables with the athletic trainers and the MD who was doing medical clearances And we got to work with all of the athletes and then later on as the evening moron We invited anybody else who was in there to come and we actually did you know full on-the-spot intakes We it was nice, we didn't have to do as much work since the MD was doing medical clearances as well But you know we did we ruled out any any more suspicious issues that the patients could have and then went through and did soft tissue work and Adjusting right there at the event. So it was a really cool experience That's cool. I'm doing a sports masters, which is a second It's offered concurrently and my CC does have a couple of masters programs they do the two that I was most interested in are their nutrition and their master's science in human anatomy and physiology instruction Which essentially it sets you up to be an instructor at the collegiate level or or otherwise and So those are both really really good sounding programs I remember I remember an anatomy one that one looks really interesting because I love anatomy And I've one of the reasons I'm doing a master's program is to possibly be able to teach whether it's at a right College or at a high school Yeah, and so that anatomy one was really appealing Yeah, you learned to build a curriculum and You know how to how to instruct on one-on-one or or a massive lecture basis. So it's neat very neat program Seth are you interested in doing a program other than chiropractic? Yes, which one I have not figured out yet I've been kind of Some of my friends and upper tribes have been trying to recruit me into the acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Program, which I'm absolutely interested in but talk about a heavy extra course load. It's like an extra five classes per semester on top and with that program it does take you a Semester or two beyond just your regular DC. So once you finish it, you'd still be here for another couple of semesters Finishing out because it's a three-year master's program clinical nutrition looks fantastic and I love teaching as I stated before and and doing the EMT teaching so going back to do that on some level I'll absolutely stay in the teaching realm as well Just don't know if I'll do the masters. Oh Man, I would love to teach so much work. It is so much work to teach. It is I want to I want to share with the people that are watching the video what What New York? Chiropractor College looks like because I remember it sings and images and it's just Gorgeous and the website is cool. I've only seen one other school do this.  What's his name Clippy from the mic? Oh jeez So what do you guys think of the campus? I? Think it's gorgeous. I grew up in a small town Incentral mass and Seneca Falls is actually a little bit bigger So I'm fairly adept at finding my own fun per se off campus Being that it's heavily wooded and we have The lake that you can see from campus is 40 miles long and So there's infinite amounts of fishing and you know, I wakeboard so for me I found a buddy who has a boat already in town. So come summertime as soon as the water the ice is out I'm on the water There's road biking mountain biking running your name and it's here Now these images make it look absolutely gorgeous in Summertime, what's it like right now? I know that the east coast has been hit by some heavy Here on campus, I know Brendan's in Rochester, but we've got Probably just over a foot of snow on the ground and it's been in the single digits and we're supposed to get snow all weekend maybe accumulating to another Six inches to a foot by Monday And I saw snow in the forecast for the next week or so again. Okay. I love this. I love the snow doesn't bother me So whatever For those watching online, we're looking inside some of the classrooms right now What's your favorite building on campus? Brendan and all the time you were here campus, I mean Probably the best place to hang out is the library Since I've been here. They did a nice renovation there and they they created a group like a big group study area that's walled off with with Sound-resistant glass and that kind of thing and so it's a it's a great place to study There was actually there's a one long standing desk in the back of the library and that was that was sort of my kingdom there and So so I really like that There's your only one, but they've got some nice upgrades in the past year. Yeah, there's there's a picture of it That's the soundproof study area Brendan was just talking about in the middle of the library. Okay, so you can talk and hang out and They've been slowly but surely making some nice upgrades. We just got new computer labs In the academic building and a really nice rehab room for sort of the the active care and rehab side of You know conservative medicine, so that's a that was a really cool addition to So here's the the cafeteria and Brendan I wanted to ask you something because in a blog post a while back You mentioned meal plans and that's not something I've heard of in graduate school That was definitely for freshmen only at my undergraduate. Do you is that something that you guys still do? I Guess that's a little subject to this living on campus. Yeah, they're they're meal plans mandatory for everyone who's living Or who's still attending school at the Seneca Falls campus? If not for meal plans at such a small school the cafeteria wouldn't be able to continue existing so so actually right inside the building you're showing now is our cafeteria and They provide relatively good food Yeah, I guess it makes sense because I'm hearing I'm hearing rumors and of course nothing I say on this podcast is anything that represents University of Western States, but It's I guess it's difficult for a cafeteria to run there. They're having trouble with funding So I guess meal plans is one way to get over that. Yeah, right and said you live on campus There's also on-campus storms. Is that right? Yes, there are on-campus storms. Honestly, they're really not that bad to live and I probably will I will Probably live out this semester here and move off campus But I the convenience factor is so nice when you do want to study when you want to go to the gym I can walk everywhere. I move my car. Maybe once or twice a week if I want to go into town, so It's really nice in that respect. However being off campus and having my own kitchen and all would be good But going back to the meal plans real quick Having it is it sounds like a pain, you know, it adds into your budget. It adds into your loans However, come finals midterms finals and all when you don't either have time to go drive ten minutes into town to get something To eat or you didn't pack anything Thank God. I have a meal plan card. I can go get food real quick and I've got money there to utilize That would come in handy that said it is exciting I lived both on and off campus myself. It was still exciting to move off campus and have a kitchen on my own You're living off campus in attending school still in Seneca Falls, then you still end up with a meal plan But having the ability to cook for myself in addition to that was definitely nice Well in in the dorms. Do you have a fridge or even a minimal kitchen? Do you have anything? Oh? Yeah, I have a mini fridge in my room. We have one communally We live in sweets and so I have just two other roommates right now. We all have our own room We have a little community area and then there is a pretty good-sized community kitchen downstairs So you do have to travel downstairs to go and cook, but there's two stoves two ovens and Plenty of stuff to work with I Enjoy cooking so it's nice to be able to go down there Yeah, that is good. The other nice thing about moving off campus is that the actual housing opportunities in Seneca Falls are a relatively cheap at least compared to where I went to undergrad and Also, you get the option to be there living in downtown Seneca Falls, which isn't like a bustling downtown It's a it's a small town still, but I lived right by a park by the Seneca Kiyuga Seneca Canal, which is a branch of the old Erie Canal So it's a really beautiful place to live Let there I eventually found my way around and learned the trails for running and We actually got a big trail project started Along the old railroad bed that parallels the canal So that's a this this there's some cool things Available there and the other big place that people live is right down on Kiyuga Lake Which is a gorgeous place everybody's Apartments face east so they post pictures of gorgeous sunrises at least those of them who are motivated enough to be up at sunrise So there's there's some cool places to live. Well, you're about as far north as I am I think so Mornings you can't help being up Right the winter. Oh man. Well, you're in clinic now and you're putting your skills to use What techniques do you learn at New York College of Chiropractic? So instead of learning at NYCC instead of learning by technique system We sort of learn things more regionally so well, you know, we'll have a class that's primarily dedicated to Thoracic adjusting and so you'll get Components from all of the different technique systems And then the next semester is Lombard the next semester is cervical and then there are extremities adjusting classes and Then you get sort of into more Like integrating them clinically in the later trimesters So we use so we identify by diversified It's pretty quintessentially the Technique but it's not really a system. It's you know a combination of all of the different technique systems out there But we learn components from SOT from upper cervical from They're at electives in activator There so there's there's a good variety and sort of by the time that you get to the now that I'm in clinic I find that Regardless of whether a person prefers being You know adjusted laying down on the table seated in a chair Standing if it's one of the non, you know, if it's out at one of the outreach events that we do Regardless of the situation, I've got some Adjustment that's that's going to fit that situation that I'm gonna be able to do there. So that's a pretty cool advantage Yeah, it looks like you have learned flexion distraction as well. Yep, correct So on the web page on the virtual tour. Here's one of the adjusting rooms and look who it is. I Didn't even know I was on there Yeah, very cool Uh Very cool Seth what so far? I know you're still early in but what has been the best experience that you've had so far? Um I think I I got I met Brandon pretty early on because I I got Trounced on by the SACA leadership from from day one while our whole class didn't come in and Uh got recruited to go down to virginia to foot levelers with school able to go to the Leadership conference back in the fall and I thought that was really really fantastic and just for the fact that it kind of If you're uncomfortable coming in you kind of don't know you get to meet a lot of people You get to meet up or try students and it puts you in a group of uh Really really good people that become your friends and as they move along like Brendan has become a friend of mine And he's in his last year, which means now I'm going to have a really good connection going out I got to meet some fantastic doctors Just all these phenomenal people come together as well as you get to obviously listen to some really good speakers They give ideas about what life is on the other side of school And it gives you perspective not to lose sight of that because when you get bogged down on the trenches of You know class after class and test after test You sometimes lose sight of where you're supposed to be at the end of this and You know can't lose sight of that How close is foot levelers to you guys? Oh, it was a nine Nine hour drive. Okay. It's not close. Yeah, no But nycc seems to have a pretty good relationship with some of these companies foot levelers standard process I saw the fitness center is Is branded standard process um Yeah In britain, and I know you've you've been connecting with a lot of those companies as well with sacca with and is nclc How does that relationship help you guys? um Let's see so both of both of those Companies obviously are really well integrated into the whole environment of chiropractic in america so They are constantly emphasizing that they want to give back to students And I was actually just about to write a a card a column about this earlier how Everybody always asks how can I help students? um, and so those those companies You know they they do it through education which has the added benefit for them of self promotion um and Through donating to the schools. I know a few of the different schools have um have buildings that are named after One of those two companies are and others We don't see them So much like like in the classroom setting. It's not like it's not like they come up an awful lot. There's um There are a couple of classes that uh, you like we have a whole foods nutrition class and so since uh standard process is Uh a whole foods supplement company um, they sort of fit into that conversation um, and then we also have a class that's oriented towards um fitting fitting foot orthotics and so I mean They work in that elective uh closely with uh foot levelers And and learning learning the sort of the systems there. Um, but There's other other than that they're not they're not particularly Uh obtrusive I guess That's cool. Yeah, it's We've been chatting back and forth about being able to go to all these events and you you said that What makes it easy for you is you're so much closer and it's true You guys have a lot going on on the east coast that you can go to the olympic game or the chiro games that you're at A few months back. Yeah Chiro games is a really fun event. Um, so uh that is essentially uh the the sole source of Chiropractic intercollegiate competition Um, and it's uh, so we all we all travel down to cuckoo beach florida Um representatives of different sports from all of the different chiropractic colleges Um, and I actually competed this year in running Um, we also had pretty solid showing it, you know in basketball in soccer There is flag football Golf swimming. There's a really table tennis. There's a really wide variety essentially Um, and so uh nycc brought about uh 70 students down this year Um, which isn't even the largest delegation. There's pretty good representation from some of the other schools Um, and uh, it's it was oh, it was just so much fun to be able to be with other chiropractic students Um, and is always great Um, and like like you said, I've participated in uh the leadership the student leadership conference The national chiropractic legislative conference um But to be in a sort of a non chiropractic setting where all of us are competing and interacting um in just You know the other things that we're interested in it sort of brings out the the humanity the collegiality of uh of our fellow Chiropractic students it was it was a lot of fun essentially And a really learning experience to see how well Uh all of the different schools were able to just hang out together Yeah, an experience like that going down to the dominican republican haiti on a chiropractic humanitarian mission trip And it was great to hang out with people from palmer from life university from life west Palmer west there are people even from Uh, one of the european schools, I think Yeah, it's it's great to get together with other students and find out what's going on Kind of outside of that that small school that little bubble that we live in every day of our lives Yeah, definitely um By the way great article in the aca magazine Thanks About the chiro People should check that out. I think any any sac a members should be getting that magazine and It's a little towards the bag. I think it should be pushed up front, but yeah, great right up on chiro games Thanks, nathan um, well, let's let's Start wrapping it up here, but um nycc has always been one of those schools that I I only heard about a bit in The stuff I heard was just so impressive and the landscaping there that the campus was beautiful um, it's also You know touts its evidence-based curriculum But I want to know what if anything What is one thing that you would change let's start with brendan since you've been there a bit longer Ooh, one thing that I would change um, all right, so new york is really entrenched In legalities and how it's always been done um Being being from new hampshire um, I moved here and I I always say I've never heard The word um liability spoken in so many different contexts since I've been in new york so everything here is one you know, you're super super conservative manner, and so I don't see very many risks being taken um, whether that's you know outreach into the community Whether that's hosting external events on campus I would love to see more of that sort of community integration And hear less of the word liability Seth, what's one thing that you would like to see changed? Wow, I don't even know if I'm uh, I'm able to speak on that front yet Having not seen everything um One thing I would change Has your experience been 100 perfect so far? Oh, absolutely not, but I mean whether those things go so far as I would have to have to change them immediately You know, there's certain things you kind of can't read. You just deal with it. You go along with it. Um Things that I can change basically where brennan's coming from I think is that Yeah, we are in some respects, especially living on campus or being on campus Some of student life can be a little overbearing I think and they are very very worried about maintaining that That sense of safety and liability, which is which is valid in some case, but as adults and people in doctoral programs Again, we're adults, you know, there should be we should either we should be able to speak our minds back and try and come up to a collective Reasonable measure as opposed to being dictated down to It's definitely a theme that comes up throughout the other schools In in my work in sacca. I've obviously networks with a lot of the more involved students on all different campuses and We we're constantly brainstorming together on so what sort what sort of things have you guys done on your campus that that worked that got people's attention that You know that went smoothly with the administration like How can we how can we communicate this better and make this easier? um to digest for those who've been doing this for a long time and so it's a it's sort of a By the time you have it By the time you feel it all out you're graduating so that's sort of the nature of of a college in general I hear what you guys are saying because I look at the other schools, especially Like life west and they've got the wave conference Which is this huge conference they put on talent shows and bands and maybe it's not officially sponsored by the school but That type of thing is happening at other schools and And you just don't see that that type of outreach and we have a We have a kind of a coalition and alliance student alliance for integrative medicine in portland because there's a school for Medicine chiropractic naturopathy Uh oriental medicine acupuncture. There's all of these health care professional schools And we come together and speaking with them. They do you know, they go out to elementary schools And they teach kids about nutrition They bring families on to campus to teach them how to cook healthy meals And I don't see that type of outreach. Yes, that's gorgeous We get to do a little bit of that now that we're in clinic But I I love I love hearing that kind of thing. It's got that it's got that public health impact It's got that community building aspect of it. And that's that's totally what I Envisioned myself Centering my practice around because we hear a lot about chiropractors doing lay lectures And yeah great to practice that now and get out there And whether it's out of school or even at Um neighborhood meetings, you know, just talk about what is chiropractic How can it benefit you that would be great. So I love what What you guys are talking about and how you're trying to make that work with the other schools in sacca Definitely, I think real quick and just the short time I've been here Again, I've been I've traveled around a lot met a lot of people. So immediately upon getting on campus I tried to You know get get within the local community as well and meet people And I think that there is kind of a stigma here in seneca fall It's just because it's such a smaller like oh, that's the chiropractic school And we've been told from this perspective like that's town. Be careful. Stay away from the locals It's like no there if you want to stop this um Quiet little wall being built you really need to get out there utilize the people who are in clinic like at brennan stage to get out into the community and not necessarily recruit patients but educate the townsfolk and Get them to come this way venture in to see what it's like Being at the gym there are some community members that do come to the gym But I think that could be taken to a whole new level in allowing the students to really access the community That's cool. So your gym is open to the community. Yes. Oh, that's so cool Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I know and it definitely has to be I think as brennan kind of mentioned it's got to go smoothly with administration And they need to be involved at least a bit because I've heard These apocryphal stories about student clinicians or student interns that Literally went door-to-door in our neighborhood knocking on doors trying to get patients And they got a complaint and that's kind of when the whole Restriction on the campus health center sit in so you definitely you don't want to go out and do it on your own But it's something we need to do more outreach and I'm I'm hopeful that that's going to be put into place a little more often Well, let's talk about our tick picks of this episode We like to share something that we've come across in our internet browsing or Conferences that we've been to that other students can take a look at brennan can you start us off with a So so I'm going to go pretty pretty Light material here But I'm just going to introduce you to the band that I have been listening to on loop lately It's jungle And this is their their debut album. They're an English band and I caught them at a big concert in Buffalo, New York in December and First of all their live show was fantastic But second of all their their album makes really good study music. It's It's it's just got sort of this laid-back vibe to it that Fits well in the background of like some some intense studying or work time. All right, so that's that's Good recommendation right there. Go look them up So what kind of music do you like for studying because I've done research and everything on this and Is it are there lyrics? Is it classical? Is it? Um, I I'm not picky. I'm a music person. I just I there's not much that I I did Undergraduate in that undergrad. I was I was a college radio host and So I just like good music Definitely for studying I try to avoid the the louder super energetic stuff that's going to be more distracting But I don't I don't You know try to limit myself to particular Any any particular genre or feel All right, it's available on itunes and on amazon Can buy the old school cd if you like to do that kind of thing still Or you can download the digit and actually talk about old school. They've got a vinyl You can oh my gosh Hey, it's coming back. This has got to be some kind of indie band. That is so cool All right, well my pick of this episode is a book called the reality check And this is by Heidi Havik who is um, I believe she's Norwegian or maybe yeah, I think she's a region or from Denmark. I can't remember but she Some variety of Scandinavian Scandinavian and she's in New Zealand though She's at the new New Zealand College of Chiropractic which I've interviewed in previous episodes And this is a a really good summary of The research on On chiropractic specifically on vertebral subluxation although she She is open to not using that term So this book can be read by any chiropractic whether whether they're you know subluxation focused or not and I've been interested in functional neurology, which is Kind of an up-and-coming Diplomat or certification that you can get in chiropractic as well as other professions And it's all very similar and I'm trying to piece together how much Or I guess how identical her research is to functional neurology But basically it's the idea that when we adjust it changes input to the central nervous system Which can therefore affect pain as well as possibly visceral function It's it's only available in In New Zealand. I think and it's 35 dollars which is A little bit pricey for a student I'm trying to I need to get in touch with her and and see if she can do an e-book and I will make it for her So Heidi if you happen to hear this But I I kind of came up with a little Trick that I think will work for other students as well And that is this Go to your library and say here's an interesting book Maybe we should have it And in me I got within an hour. I got an email back from our head of the librarians and that's an excellent Suggestion I just ordered it. I'll let you know when it comes in. So I've gotten the book I'm reading the book. I'm almost done with it It's easy to read at least one maybe two chapters a day within 20 minutes and so it's a really easy read Again, it's in later and she uses some scientific lingo as well, but Haven't got to the end of it So, you know, I'm still a bit skeptical as I tend to be but it's been a really good read and I I recommend people to read it even if you're You know not on the bandwagon her research has been kind of highlighted by subluxation focused chiropractors, I guess you could say as you know as this cutting-edge stuff and It may be it may not be but it's worth the read for anyone So check that out. We'll have a link in the show notes Seth you've got a book to share as well um, yeah, the book that I actually again just going back to one of the the conference that I went to as far as the sack of leadership conference goes is uh the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership there it is and they've got it up on the screen And for me, it's not that It's always about leadership leadership leadership. I need to be in charge of something but again being the Practitioners that we're going to be in the real world really gives you some insight in how to deal with people and You know work with people if we really want to be wellness minded and we're going to see such a variety of people we can't close down the ideas of how to deal with multiple groups or multiple mindsets so it really just kind of gives you A play with how to set yourself up to succeed really as far as I'm concerned Ideas a way to conduct yourselves in business and life in general For me, that's the scariest thing is the idea of I have to be a businessman as well So this type of stuff is always helpful And it's available on amazon under kindle hardcover paperback mp3. I wonder if it's available on my favorite audible Which is the audio download That's that's what I like to look at. Well, cool. And that was a gift from saka saka meeting It was the the people who Came and were the keynote speakers at the foot leveler's conference Actually brought signed copies by the author for everybody that was in attendance So it was a free book and I've taken advantage of it. Wow. That is pretty awesome Guys, thank you so much for joining me on exploring chiropractic and talking about new york Chiropractic college. Thank you. Again, it's a school that I'm I don't hear much about but I'm kind of intrigued with and and I think now I would put it Up on my maybe top three list of schools to attend Now that I thank you And I know it's number one for you guys, which is great Well, where can you guys find you um seth are you big on social media?  Maybe you're not in adjusting yet. Are you? No, we are actually we've been we've been hands-on since try one with palpation And we've actually just started adjusting now and tried to oh, that's excellent We do palpation for quarters one and two so that's good that in second term you guys already start Yeah start adjusting what region do you start with? Uh, we start we've started just started in thoracics We will move to I forget whether it's lumbar first then cervicals or cervical lumbar But that'll be the progression through the rest of the trimester. Okay, brennan. You're big on social media both personally with your hands-in-training blog As well as uh running the social media for saccas at what you're still involved with Um, yeah, I actually passed over the social media on sacca. Um, I It's been moving up the moving up the ladder there and But yeah, that's still good to follow. Um student aca is the twitter handle or you can find Find it on facebook student-american chiropractic association And in my blog I just write about the student experience of being Being in chiropractic college And the blog is hands-in-training dot wordpress.com Um, and I'm also on twitter Uh and facebook with that so you can find me pretty much anywhere you look And you do an excellent job. That was kind of my goal when I started was to write A weekly no no not gonna happen a monthly wait. Okay, maybe a quarterly note that even that doesn't happen You know a blog as a student it sort of happens when you can make it happen Right and you're doing such a good job and now It's way too late for me, but with podcasting becoming So big now. I don't know if you guys listen to many podcasts. Have you heard of cereal? Oh, I did I listened to the whole I I live Out here. I'm nine hours from my home in new hampshire Um, and so on my on my drive home my sister After we went to that concert, um got me listening to cereal very cool Cereal and now invisibility from npr is the most downloaded podcast ever And yeah, it's a new type because most podcasts are interviews like this But you're actually producing it and it started me thinking. Oh my gosh. How cool would it be? To chronicle the life of a chiropractic student from day one That'd be very cool clinic. Wouldn't that be crazy awesome? So we need a lot of fun. They'll just have to go into practice somewhere near a school Yeah, it might happen. It might happen. I might get stuck in Portland So not a bad place to get stuck No, it's not. I've got some good friends out there. I might come out and visit you Yeah, definitely do it. Let me know if you're coming out. We can uh, I can set up a little tour take you to voodoo donuts Perfect. I just met a new friend in another part of the country. Here we go and I was gonna mention Brenna, I think our trails might be a little bit better than the ones you built in New York Let's do let's do some instagram comparison. You take some All right. All right that you run All right, I'm just gonna have to I'm just gonna have to get a uh sunrise picture on lake ontario Now that I'm living up here in rochester We don't we don't have lakes, but I do have the gorge and I've got mountain st. Helens and mount hood from campus All right, I I can't match your volcanoes, but you can't be in New York for gorges That is okay. I want to see them. I want to see your instagrams of the gorge. All right Battle of the instagrams bring it on Awesome. All right guys, thanks a lot Everybody you can listen to explore and chiropractic on the youtube channel or on itunes or anywhere else That podcasts can be found including stitcher You can follow on twitter at explore and chiropractic and look for the explore and chiropractic facebook page And i'm nathan cashing you can follow me on twitter at nathan cashing. That is c a s h i o n just like fashion, but with a c Again for uh for tuning in and learning a little bit about new york chiropractic college. See you guys later Thanks, nathan. Nice talk to you. Thank you. Thanks nathan


Chapter 2, Airborne at Last, October 14th to 15th, 1929 Two days later, released from its tight bond to the tower, R101 tugged on its mooring cable as it floated 600 feet above its tower at the Royal Airship Works. In the ship's nose cone, First Officer Atherston pressed his ear close to the voice pipe, waiting for orders from the control car. The voice pipe's sound quality vexed him. Rotten, he called it. He wished the ship used internal telephones instead. When Major Scott's muffled command of slip echoed from the voice pipe, Atherston knotted at his crew and they released the mooring cable. At 11.17 a.m., R101 began its first flight. As the ship rose, the crew waved their hats and cried, Good luck to you boys. Many reporters yelled, Good luck, Scotty, in honor of Major Scott. The airship drifted in the wind for a moment before a midship engine roared to life. Powered by this single engine, the majestic R101 circled at a speed of 30 knots around the works. From the nose cone, Atherston watched R101's shadow flicker on the ground then swell to full size as the departing ship passed over a cloud. The shadow's edges shimmered with miniature rainbows. How different this ride was from one end in an airplane where the scenery zipped by, a blur vignetted in a tiny window, in a slow-moving, low-flying airship, one had time to see the details. The airship expanded its circular path, passing over a forest. Atherston could see treetops and hear the rustling of the trees because R101 produced so little noise, another sharp contrast with an airplane ride. The ship rose to 1,200 feet as it flew over nearby Bedford where schoolchildren waved their handkerchiefs in greeting. A second engine started up and the ship inched its way higher. At a height of 2,000 feet, Atherston heard the metallic click of a valve and his hydrogen vented from the gas bag behind him. R101 had reached its maximum altitude. This maximum, called the pressure height, was set by the size of R101's gas bags and how full they were at ground level. An airship's gas bags expand as the ship rises because the atmospheric pressure drops. At a particular altitude, the pressure height, the thin bags, will burst. To prevent this catastrophe, each gas bag on R101 was fit with a valve that automatically vented hydrogen at 2,000 feet. An airship could fly higher, but at the expense of payload. For every additional 1,000 feet of altitude designed into R101, the airship lost five tons of lift, lift to haul the empire's citizens and goods around the globe. So R101's gas bags were filled at ground level to 90% of their total volume and size to expand to 100% volume at about 3,500 feet. The valves triggered at 2,000 feet to add a safety margin. If turbulent weather forced the ship to rise, the valves had timed event. The ship, now at its pressure height, continued widening its circular path with each circuit. On this first flight, Scott and Irwin were flying the ship to London, then Atherston would pilot the return trip. So for the first hour of flight, he had investigated every inch of R101. From the nose cone, he worked his way to the back of the ship along the bottom walkway, inspecting crew members at their stations to ensure they didn't become secondhand. The crew wore the regulation rubber sole shoes, white sweaters and dark brown overalls, another source of frustration for Atherston. Months earlier, he had requested uniforms to raise crew morale, but the senior staff of the works had turned the suggestion down flat. He also examined the parachutes stowed along the corridor. He was proud of their quick release hangers, which he'd improvised from a piece of metal tubing and some string. He looked above him at the bottom of the giant gas bags and had lined the top of the walkway and watched for a moment their gentle rocking. Between two of the bags, he noticed a small gaunt figure of Michael Rope, the work's engineering genius, who had designed the wire netting that tethered the bags to the ship's framework. Not a soul at the works knew more than Rope, said one of his colleagues about R101 and about the mechanics of handling an airship than anyone else in Britain. He now observed the wire netting in flight for the first time. As Atherston continued his tour, R101's engine expert, Harry Leach, rushed by. Atherston glimpsed only Leach's hallmark round-rimmed glasses, the jovial engineer resembled silent comedian Harold Lloyd. Leach shuttled among R101's five engine cars as he tended to the ship's temperamental engines. The newly developed 650-horsepower engines burnt oil instead of gasoline because of fears that the high tropical temperatures along R101's route to India would ignite the volatile gasoline. The oil, in contrast, combusted only when heated to the temperature of boiling water. These predecessors of today's diesel engines were finicky, so Leach had to nurse them throughout the flights, although this was nothing new to him. He had maintained the airship engines since he joined the airship section of the Royal Naval Air Service in 1916. He had begun by servicing the engines on the small military blimps Atherston employed for sea patrols and graduated to the larger airships used at the end of the First World War. He survived two crashes in these larger ships, although keeping the engines running was a high-pressure job, he sought more demanding assignments. He often asked for leave to work with Malcolm Campbell, a British driver who set land speed records. On and off from 1921 to 1925, Leach was Campbell's mechanic alongside Leo Villa. The two men installed and maintained an aircraft engine in Campbell's car Sunbeam, the most pampered car in the world, declared the Daily Mail, and stood by like faithful valets ready to attend to the car's needs. With pride, Leach listened to the finely-tuned engine as Campbell in 1924 roared at a record 146.16 miles per hour across the Pendine Sands in South Wales. Eilmore declared Campbell than is possible to express to the loyal work of Villa and Leach. On the day of R101's first flight, the shuttling Leach headed to one of the engine cars and left Atherston alone on the walkway, standing still and listening to the ship and feeling its motion. The lack of vibration or creaking of the framework impressed him. He continued to the rear, tucked his hat under his arm, climbed a short ladder and shimmied into the rear observation post at the tail of the ship. The post was a vertical tube, barely larger than Atherston's shoulders. With the wind whipping past him at 40 miles per hour, he rested his arms on the tube and gazed at the horizon, a giant airship hidden from view behind him. He felt as if he were on a small platform in space. He turned around, looked past the 67-foot-tall rudder and over the rear fins and watched the ship's cloth cover. It never budged, no flapping, fluttering, or God forbid ripping, so he declared the cover wonderfully good. He returned to the walkway and headed to the control car. The ship he concluded was immensely strong. He felt security, even confidence in it. Perhaps Atherston thought the knives he had issued crew member by his orders they dangled from each man's waist had been overcautious. In an emergency, they would cut R101's fabric cover, grab the nearest parachute, and jump. As Atherston arrived in the control car, Major Scott ordered a third engine powered up. R101 now cruised at 58 miles per hour. In a half hour, the airship approached the distinctive white clock tower of the glass-covered metropolitan cattle market, a favorite landmark north of London among airship pilots. No one could miss the 30-acre complex of merchants, pubs, and banks. Ten minutes later, R101 arrived over London where Scott ordered the stern engine shut off to slow the airship. He intended to give them, Londoners, one good look. Scott started his journey over the West End. The traffic noise drowned the sound of the airship's engines. If all were quiet on the ground, one could hear a rhythmic clanking from the slow-moving propellers rather than a hum as from a rapidly rotating airplane propeller. Yet word of the airship's arrival spread, and soon the shops of Soho emptied and the rooftops filled with people. Three airplanes carrying reporters buzzed around the airship. Their pilots had to dive, climb, and turn to travel slowly enough to keep pace with the airship, which moved at only 40 miles per hour. Even the Prince of Wales zipped by in his sporty de Havilland gypsy moth. Like a huge silver fish soaring through the sky, R101 glided over Buckingham Palace, flew over Piccadilly Circus, and then over Trafalgar Square and Nelson's column. Addison could even make out the details of the chalink, the Turkish military decoration on Nelson's hat. Scott then steered R101 past the Houses of Parliament and over Gwitter House, where Lord Thompson, the air minister, abandoned the bureaucratic papers piled on his desk, ascended the stairs to the roof, and watched R101 fly above. At six foot five, even taller today, with his Homburg hat and dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, Thompson was as stately as the airship itself. He carried himself with an aristocratic bearing that, noted in Observer, lent a grace and distinction to everything he touched. This aura, he hoped, would be transferred to R101. Thompson staked his political career on an all-red girdle of air transport that reached more than halfway around the earth. Red was the striking colour of empire territories on official maps. His chance to carry out this vision occurred when the left-leaning Labour Party came to power in 1924. When he became air minister in the new government, Thompson extended Labour's election slogan of nationalisation of railways, mines, shipping and electrical power to airship construction and tried to shut down a scheme approved a month before the election by the outgoing Conservative government. They planned to build an airship called R100 by subsidising a private manufacturer. This arrangement violated Labour's principles, yet their coalition partners refused to stop R100. Undeterred, Thompson devised a hybrid scheme. The government would supervise the building of the capitalist R100, but would also build a government ship named R101. To prove their worth, each sibling ship was to fly a demonstration flight, R100 to Canada and R101 to India, the latter the politically more important route. The two ships were planned and built simultaneously, but R101 took to the air first, while R100 waited in a shed at the Houghton Airship Works for its turn at the Royal Airship Works Tower, the only tower in Britain. Thompson promoted these airships, which he called my children in Florida's beaches. I can foresee, he said, when introducing his airship scheme in the House of Lords, the time when noble lords believed this house and the terrors and gliders with light engines winging their way westward along the valley of the Thames, northward to Scotland, and southwards to Hampshire, Berkshire, and Kent. On their way, and this is my main point, they will need to rest perhaps in some great caravanserai in order to take a rest or greet a friend, and that great caravanserai may be one of the giant airships floating serene and safe, high up and far removed from terrestrial dirt and noise. Thompson spoke so often like this that the airplane and aviation magazine Riley called his after-dinner speeches the outstanding success of his work as air minister. This slight comment hinted at Thompson's lack of aeronautical knowledge or training. This deficiency resulted in extravagant claims for R101. He suggested often, for example, that it could fly in any weather, and this weakness also displayed itself in his sense of how fast airships could be built and how little they had to be tested. He shocked Atherston with an accelerated timeline for R101's demonstration flight to India. On the tour of the airship, four months before this first flight, Thompson had told Atherston and his crew, before so very long, I look forward to the day when we shall fly together down the old route of Marco Polo to India. This was typical Thompson grand eloquence. By the time his visit ended, Atherston learned that before so very long meant December 1929, four months from this first flight, the rapid timeline for a never flown, never tested R101 to be ready for a transcontinental journey. From Britain's capital, R101 flew up the Thames, passing over large crowds at embankment and temple garden. At Blackfriars, ships and tugs tuted their horns, and from nearby railway yards, engineers blew the whistles of their locomotives. Then R101 turned north at Manjin House and west once over the Royal Exchange. The ships stopped traffic on King Street and Cheapside then dwarfed the mighty dome of St. Paul's, as it hovered there for a moment, where a blood red ray broke through the grey clouds and reflected off the ship's specular nose. At two in the afternoon, soon after R101 passed over St. Paul's, Scott pointed its nose north toward the Royal Airship Works. He headed to lunch in the ship's dining room, a meal of mutton, potatoes, cabbage, fruit salad, cheese and coffee, and turned over command to Atherston.  When the First World War ended in 1918, Atherston longed to pilot a commercial airship to use the skills he'd honed in flying small military blimps and airships. His dream faded as British efforts to pioneer airships founded. Between 1919 and 1921, Britain spent two million pounds to build six airships for commercial instead of military air service, a large sum in a time when a labourer earned about 230 pounds a year. Three of these airships were destroyed in accidents, and another showed mental fatigue, so it was scrapped, and the final two were too small for commercial use and were also scrapped. By 1921, the British government mothballed the Royal Airship Works and stopped the whole airship production. So, with no airships planned, Atherston immigrated to Australia. For a year he worked in Gypseland for a farmer, then soon after his first child, a son was born, Atherston farmed on his own for two years. Next he moved to Melbourne where his second child, a daughter, was born. He worked as the assistant sales manager of Corporate Durham & Company and sold radios until the firm failed. Unable to find work, he served a month as a radio operator on an expedition to Central Australia. When he returned to Melbourne, he sold telephones, and when he was laid off from that job, he sold bonds to Plant Forest in New Zealand. And then, in 1927, Britain concluded that after all, airships were the way to link the territory of its colossal empire. In anticipation of the rise of British airships, Atherston was hired by the Civil Aviation Branch, Australian Defense Department, as inspector for duties with airship mission. He was to assist this mission of British delegation when they visited Australia in late June. They had already toured Gambia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Cylon, today, Sri Lanka, and South Africa, and were to spend four or five weeks in Australia before heading to New Zealand. In each country, they surveyed sites for mooring towers, documented meteorological conditions, and most importantly, they proselytized for airships, hoping to excite the public and entice governments to finance the construction of towers. To generate interest prior to the mission's arrival in Australia, Atherston lectured at the Constitutional Club of Melbourne. Airships, he told his audience, would connect Melbourne to London in a mere ten days via base in India. The cost would be no more than that of a first-class steamer, only ten pounds. He described how the airships would haul ten tons of mail and house one hundred passengers in luxury, large dining rooms, lounges, smoking rooms, and baths. The new airships, he said, could travel four thousand miles without stopping and sip along at an astonishing 70 miles per hour. In late June, Atherston met the mission in Albany and accompanied them to Perth, Melbourne, Hobart, and Sydney. The members of the mission, led by the aptly-named Peregrine Fellows, promoted airships at every stop. In Sydney, they threw a flying ball for the New South Wales section of the Australian Aero Club, where they sold miniature airships to raise money for the club. At the ball, the members of the airship mission were treated like celebrities. The society pages celebrated the apple-green charmant of Lady D'Shar, a prominent arts patron in Sydney with its cascade of green ostrich feathers, and the beauty of the orchard-pink dress of Mrs. Fellows. At the Royal Society in Victoria, Peregrine Fellows dazzled audiences with lantern slides of the construction of the giant R-100 and R-101, explaining that dangers from fire were practically nonexistent. Claiming the ship's dance floors would be of unsurpassed quality and described riding in an airship, a complete absence of any motion likely to upset the most squeamish traveller. The first airships, he said, were taken to Australia by the end of 1927 or in early 1928. So, by late 1927, as construction of R-100 and R-101 progressed, the British needed skilled pilots like Atterston to fly the new ships. Atterston seized this chance to return to the air with the possibility of commanding his own airship. After nine years away from his homeland and from airships, he happily swapped his view of the Dandenong mountain range near Melbourne for the flat, his Medfordshire plane, home of the Royal Airship Works. Now in the early afternoon, Atterston took command of R-101. He stepped to the centre of the control car and surveyed the horizon through the semi-circular plate glass windows that lined the car. A few feet from these windows, directly in front of Atterston, a coxing grip the ship's wheel that controlled R-101's 67 foot tall rudder. Atterston ignored the magnificent view of London as it passed under the ship. He gazed at the waist-high binnacle compass in front of him. To his right, another coxing operated the ship's elevators, looking over his left shoulder as an altimeter hung from the ceiling. Its dial rotated counter-clockwise for easy reading. Next to the altimeter, arranged for viewing by Atterston at the middle of the cabin, were a speedometer and a set of gauges that reported the pressure in the gas bags. At Atterston's left, three voice pipes dangled from the ceiling. They rocked back and forth with a gentle, minimalist motion. Their lightweight, funnel-shaped ends making a soft metallic clang and rhythm with the ship's slight pitching. Suddenly, the voice pipes rattled loudly. R-101 pitched up and down three degrees. Turbulent air rocked the ship. Three degrees up said Atterston. Neutral. Four degrees down. In response, the height coxing adjusted R-101's elevators, the horizontal fins at the airship's rear to drive the ship up or down. The coxing had to hold the airship under conditions within five degrees of horizontal. An eight-degree tilt would cause glasses to slide across a table while at ten degrees, wine bottles would tip over. Veteran airship commanders joked that the height coxing shouldn't feel in his boots if the ship were tilted and what direction it was about to tilt. The height coxing's job was the hardest as an airship was rarely stable in the air. We think of an airship as a simple thing to fly, picturing it perhaps like a hot-air balloon that, the pilot, we imagine, lets the airship float or hover and then starts an engine to waft the ship through the sky. Yet an airship, although a lighter-than-air craft, requires as much use of dynamic lift as an airplane's wing. An airship relies on its elevators for holding it at the proper altitude. Flying an airship is radically different, both in kind and degree from flying a plane, noted Ralph Ubson, a pioneer in flying balloons and airships for the first to earn balloon and airship pilot certificates in Britain. He won the 1913 International Balloon Race and was the second person to win the Wright Brothers Medal in 1929. The pilot must first compensate, Ubson explained, for the ship being out of static equilibrium and out of trim. A ship at equilibrium will hover its lift balanced by its payload. A ship in trim is balanced from front to back. The static equilibrium is controlled by the gas temperature and the amount of ballast. Rarely is an airship in this state during its journey. As it flies, an airship's buoyancy changes. First, it uses up fuel, thus changing the ship's weight. Second, gas can leak from the bags or the temperature of the gas in the bags can change, even varying across the gas bags, which also alters the amount of lift. A ship fluent light will appear nose-heavy when it moves, and if it compensates for these deviations from equilibrium, the height coxswain uses the elevators to correct the airship's pitch and achieve horizontal flight. In turbulent conditions, the airship will pitch and because it's not in equilibrium will not return to its previous position. This means that a sinking ship continues to sink and a rising ship continues to rise. So, flying in rough weather at low altitude required precision will allow it. As Upson explained, the pilot has to be constantly on the alert to catch the slightest deviation from course or a serious change in gas pressure will develop. While the height coxswain labored to maintain the proper height, the rudder coxswain made scores of small adjustments to the rudder position. If the coxswain did not continually alter the rudder, R101 would tend to circle. If the coxswain corrected the path with large changes of the rudder, the airship would shake or rock. Upson explained that an airship is fundamentally unstable on course. No matter in what direction it is headed, it always wants to go in some other direction. An airship's Ovid shape tends to turn broadside to the direction of motion. A large airship Upson continued deflects much more slowly, so much so that passengers might not notice it, but which because of the huge mass of the airship requires quick and determined action to counteract it. The rudder at the ship's rear diminished this tendency to divert. A large rudder would stabilize the airship, but then it would be like a weather cock. It's no swinging to meet every gust of wind it encountered. Also, such an airship would have a low useful or disposable lift because of its large heavy fins and would be fuel inefficient because of drag. It would also be sluggish and response. Even with the undersized fins of R101, it took 30 or 40 seconds to respond to changes of the rudder's position. So an airship is designed with undersized fins that trade off stability for maneuverability. Atherston preferred a strongly unstable ship as did most airship pilots of R101's era. As R101 moved away from London, Atherston took a turn at the rudder. He was impressed by how little effort was required to steer the ship. Leaving the outskirts of London behind, Atherston increased the ship's speed. He thought of using one of the three speaking tubes on his left to give orders to the engine car. He knew, though, that in flight the roar of the engines made it impossible for the crew to hear, especially if they wore their standard-issue earplugs. Instead, Atherston signaled the rear engine car using the telegraph system mounted on the wall just beyond the speaking tubes. Each of its five dials corresponded to one of the five engines. He positioned its central arrow toward an action, choosing full throttle rather than standby slow or half throttle, and turned a crank. This rang a bell in the rear engine car as the crew, operated by the cheery Yorkshire man, the lantern-jawed Joe Banks and the dower Arthur Bell to look at an identical dial at zero-pointing now to full throttle. From the control car, Atherston could not feel the change. Instead, he watched the speedometer no more than 50 miles per hour on this return trip. In the late afternoon, as the airship approached the Royal Airship Works, Atherston turned control to Irwin and returned to the nose cone to prepare for mooring. The bird and grabby gracefully landed R101. At 4.57pm, after five hours and 40 minutes of flight covering 108 miles, R101 locked itself into the tower's gimbled arm. The crisp snap was broadcast to the nation by the BBC microphone stationed at the top of the tower near the nose of the airship. As the crew connected the ship to the tower with a walkway, cries of well done rose from the ground. Atherston supervised his crew by analyzing the mooring while the pudgy scot departed the airship. He laid it in confident. He headed to the BBC microphones with a near shot of Atherston and announced we had a very satisfactory flight. He added that the ship handled very well and was largely controlled with ease. To create a contrast between the comforts of airships and the tiny quarters and noise of its competitor, the airplane, scott reported the noise of the engines was very slight in the passengers car and it was very comfortable indeed. Never mindful that many thought airships too lumbering to be of much commercial value, he added we did not run at full speed or anything approaching it. Indeed, the airship's resendetra was to connect London to Karachi, India in five days, ten days faster than by sea. The airship's arrival, the plane, linked London to Karachi in sixteen days but with frequent stops to refuel. The journey could be shortened to nine days via a grueling combination of rail, flying boat and airplane. As one India-bound airplane traveler explained, the only discomfort is the noise of the engine. He recommended the use of cotton wool or India rubber plugs in the ears. In addition to refueling stops every two or three hours, plane travelers endured overnight ground stays, the plane's navigational systems restricted flights to daylight. A traveler en route to India might find him or herself in a location like Rubar Wells, a desolate place in the desert. It's only occupants the Bedouin, the Camels, and the Iraqi soldiers who kept at bay desert raiders. And nine days was the best-case scenario to travel by airplane from London to Karachi. Fog or high winds would delay flight significantly. An airship, though, could hopscotch over the obstacles and hazards that made India so remote from Britain. At an altitude of about two thousand feet, it could pass through the fog of London, over France, into Asia Minor and fly over the dreaded Sinai Desert. For hundreds of years this desert impeded empire builders, but now it was easily traversed with an airship. An air so clear that you could see for forty miles passengers could contemplate the sun-baked sands of the Sinai in safety. The airship would continue its journey to India by gliding over the grandest scenery of southern Persia, its jagged precipitous but cool mountains delighting the eye, and tell near Basra the ground's green colour faded in the gold of the desert shown through again as the water supply failed. From there the airship could travel in a straight shot to Karachi, a British oasis in an Asian land offering the hotels Bristol and Carleton, the Imperial Bank, St. Paul's St. Andrews, a polo club and a statue of Queen Empress Victoria. And every inch of that journey would be enjoyed in an airship as comfortable as an ocean liner. Atherston worried that the scheduling for our 101's flight to India might follow Lord Thompson's unrealistic and politically motivated timeline of departing in December a mere three months away. The work senior staff, which included Major Scott, had already tended to rush ahead. Only a month earlier Atherston had considered the date for this first flight unduly optimistic. And indeed the preparation for that simple 108-mile flight with only he thought the bare necessities aboard required a mad Russian panic. This involved only a fraction of the work that must be done to prepare for flying 5,000 plus miles to India. To Atherston an accelerated schedule for this and future flights was grossly unfair to him and Irwin and his crew. He needed time to be sure each crew member understands his duties. Beyond that, Atherston, the ace first World War pilot had to master the controls and understand the aerodynamic behavior so he hoped this flight would highlight the need for careful, thorough preparation and systematic testing of the ship. Yet a day after R101's first flight, Thompson made a surprise announcement in a speech at the 25th annual banquet of that most earthbound organization the Commercial Motor Users Association. Thompson began by extolling the pleasures of riding in an airship. Compared to the airplane he said, the airship is or will be a sober and even conveyance. Travelers will journey tranquilly in airliners to the Earth's remotest parts, visit the archipelagos and southern seas, cruise around the coast of continents, strike inland, surmount lofty mountain ranges and follow rivers as yet half explored from mouth to source. Airship travel, he told his audience, will be high above mosquitoes and miasmas and mud and dust and noise. He ended his speech with a shocking surprise. Shortly after the Parliament opened, he announced, I hope to invite one hundred members of all parties to take a flight in R101 adding with a hint of gallows humor and I trust there will not be one hundred by elections. He even hoped for poor weather that the MPs would fly with a fresh breeze of 40 to 50 miles per hour and show that the ship does not roll much. This flight on an aircraft so far flown only once would transport the largest number of people ever carried on a plane except those on Germany's flying boat the Dornier DOX a plane with a wingspan of 157 feet. It had flown 169 people for 40 minutes but only as a stunt. Passengers crowded together on one side or the other to help the plane turn. Usually it carried only 66 passengers. Atherston railed against this proposed flight declaring it cheap and vulgar and in absolutely unjustifiable risk. Atherston who believed in order and authority hoped Scott would realize that the flight would be illegal. The ship has not finished her trials he told Scott, has not got her certificate of airworthiness and has not got enough lift to cart 12 tons of humans about with any degree of safety. Yet Scott the senior work staff person in charge of scheduling all flights refused to cancel it. Atherston's suggestion was turned down flat just like his request for uniforms. He hoped the aeronautical inspection directorate which must issue the permit to fly would halt the flight. They had time to act because R101 was scheduled for five more test flights before the MP's joyride was due to happen.