• Helios • Mokihana Festival Helios “Nothing succeeds like failure, and failure’s no success at all,” songwriter Bob Dylan once wrote. Dylan’s phrase is an apt one for the Helios, the experimental solar aircraft that crashed earlier this year off
• Helios
• Mokihana Festival
Helios
“Nothing succeeds like failure, and failure’s no success at all,” songwriter Bob Dylan once wrote.
Dylan’s phrase is an apt one for the Helios, the experimental solar aircraft that crashed earlier this year off the Westside, bringing a sudden halt to a program that seemed to have a brilliant future.
The experimental flying wing soared to altitude records above the Westside several years previous to the crash, and its makers saw a future of unmanned defense against rogue missiles, plus scientific use of the aircraft for checking crops using infrared film and other peacetime uses.
Now the failure of the structure of the Helios may mean a loss of financial support, and a hold on the fast pace of development the aircraft was on.
The crash may mean that lighter, more powerful solar arrays are needed to produce the kind of energy such an aircraft needs. It may also mean that the pace of development needs to be done on a more practical timetable, one that doesn’t follow a funding course, but instead a prototyping path that’s realistic.
The Helios brought some proud moments to its builders, to its supporters at NASA, to the crews at the Pacific Missile Range Facility and to the people of Kaua‘i who now associated the unusual looking aircraft with Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau and the stretch of Pacific Ocean between the two islands.
Helios in a new form may again soar off the runway at PMRF. The idea appears to be a sound one, though one that may need further development in materials.
Mokihana Festival
The dozens of performers at the Mokihana Festival brought special moments to a special Kaua‘i event. The Mokihana Festival captures the essence of Kaua‘i’s Native Hawaiian culture and brings it to life for performers from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. The performances are symbolic of how we come together and share the best of what we all have to offer, with the added magic touch of the spirit of aloha as expressed in music and dance in this case.
The organizers and performers are to be congratulated for staging another successful event in what’s become one of the longest running and most looked forward to festivals in the long list that is on Kaua‘i’s calendar of activities.
Founder, and guiding light, Nathan Kalama is to be congratulated and praised for his devotion to the Kaua‘i Mokihana Festival.
