Skip to main content

My Memories of Maynard Hill

Today I was saddened to read of the passing of Maynard Hill in the Washington Post. Mr. Hill was a pioneer in unmanned aerial vehicles, and set many records for speed, duration, and altitude for radio-controlled aircraft. His most recent was the first trans-Atlantic flight of a model aircraft in 2003.
I interviewed Maynard Hill at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab twenty-seven years ago when I was researching a book on the future of military aviation. I had been assigned the chapters on rotary wing flight and unmanned aerial vehicles.
I trekked to the APL in Laurel, Maryland, and shared lunch with Mr. Hill. He told me about his projects, his views on the future of unmanned aerial vehicles (which turned out to be right on target), and his hobby of radio-controlled aircraft. I was amazed to hear stories such as when he set a distance flight record by driving north over 500 km from Virginia to Pennsylvania, controlling his aircraft from the back seat of a convertible.
At the end of the interview, I asked Mr. Hill what his most rewarding project was. He told me that the best project for him was his marriage and rearing his children. I was ambitious and twenty-something at the time, so it took my several years to realize that this was the most valuable lesson he gave me.

Popular posts from this blog

Key Concepts for Microsoft Dynamics 365: Tenant, Instance, App and Solution

Updated 8/15/2022 To understand Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics CRM) and Power Apps, you need to learn some new terms and concepts that may be a bit different from what you know from databases and solutions that are hosted on premises.  These concepts also apply to Power Apps.  The main difference is that with Power Apps you are not starting with a Microsoft app but more of a blank canvas for your custom apps.  This post introduces some key terms and how these concepts are important for planning your implementation. While Dynamics 365 is still available on premises, it is most commonly deployed on the Microsoft cloud.  This blog post discusses only cloud implementations. Microsoft has multiple clouds such as commercial and government community clouds in several countries. We start with a Microsoft tenant .  A tenant is the account you create in the Microsoft Online Services environment (such as Office 365) when you sign up for a subscription. A tenant contains uni

Understanding Dynamics 365 and Office 365 Admin Roles

Managing Dynamics 365 instances If you run Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics CRM) in the Microsoft cloud, you need to understand how your Dynamics instances relate to Office 365 and choose which of your administrators receives which roles and permissions to manage Dynamics 365. In on premises deployments, your network administrator would create and delete user accounts.  The Dynamics 365 admin would then assign permissions to users in Dynamics 365. This post explains three administrator roles: Office 365 Global Administrator Dynamics 365 System Administrator Dynamics 365 Service Administrator You may think that the Dynamics 365 system administrator would have power to do all the actions needed to manage Dynamics 365, but this is not the case. What's different in Microsoft cloud deployments is that licenses and user accounts are managed in Office 365 by an Office 365 Global Administrator.  This role is analogous to a network administrator for an on premises

My Favorite Microsoft Power Apps Bloggers and their Blogs

  by James Townsend Updated 7/5/2022 Microsoft Power Apps is one of my favorite subjects, and I enjoy reading blog posts from members of this thriving technical community.  Here are some of my favorite bloggers and their blogs: The Official Microsoft Power Apps Blog   I have to start with the official Microsoft Power Apps blog.  It has many contributors, largely Microsoft program manager, including frequent posters Denise Moran ,  Greg Lindhorst , Kartik Kanakasabesan , and  Adrian Orth .  This is the place to go for product announcements, updates and technical how-to for a broad range of Power Apps topics.  April Dunnam April Dunnam was formerly focused on SharePoint and now devoting herself to Power Platform.  April offers highly understandable explanations of Power Platform, Dataverse and other top Power Apps topics. She joined Microsoft in late 2019 and has a thriving YouTube channel .  Carl De Souza Power Apps Blog and eBook This is one of the most extensive and best organized blo