Edmund of Social Minds sent me a fascinating link today. Apparently the real-life balloonist, Michio Kanda, will attempt a hot air balloon crossing from Japan to North America. The catch: Kanda needs a crash course in English in order to speak to North American air traffic control.

Enter Australian Aviation English specialist Mike Smith, who uses Second Life and a Terra Wind Rider hot air balloon to teach Kanda some basic English skills.

We mocked up Kanda-san?s balloon in Second Life and built a simulation, along with the instruments that he would need to control based on instructions from the control tower: A transponder to adjust the the frequency on which he would talk to the tower, and an altimeter on which he would base the his reports to the ground.

(LINK: "Social Minds: Aviation English for a trans-Pacific balloonist").

Michio Kanda is an accomplished balloonist with a long list of impressive feats, including the world's longest balloon flight (50 hours, 38 minutes) in January 1997, according to the Féderation Aéronautique Internationale.

Update: CNN.com: Record-holding Japanese balloonist missing

Just like the human body, Second Life is over 60% water. Well I don't actually know the exact percentage, but there really is a lot of water in SL, and very few places to land a plane. Unless, of course, you have pontoons.

The new Terra Tachyon M. Yes! Those pontoons are sculpted prims!

As it turns out, it's no simple matter to make a float plane, which is why I hadn't tried it before and why there are so few float planes in SL already. In real life, if you bolt a couple of gigantic pontoons to almost anything, it'll float. In Second Life, it's a little more complicated -- nothing will float unless it's specifically scripted to simulate floating. SL water has no physical substance, which is why most planes seem to fly in and out of water as if it weren't there at all.

The Tachyon M gets the current water height (using the handy llWater function in LSL), and uses that to transition smoothly to a floating state during a water landing, giving all the appearances of floating on the water's surface. Taking off from the water is just as easy -- open the throttle, accelerate to take-off speed, and the Tachyon M practically leaps into the air.

Besides the floating trick, the Tachyon M is identical to its land-based twin. To test fly a Tachyon, visit the main hangar at Abbotts Aerodrome.

Taking a short break from Second Life, I discovered these interesting items at a local specialty supermarket. Now... I usually avoid sketchy canned meat products -- they're often made from second rate meats from unidentified parts of the anatomy of occasionally unidentifiable animals. Canned seafood is even worse. But there's something intriguing about these "Old Fisherman" brand canned seafoods.

First, the "Roast Eel Chili". I'm going to hazard a guess that it's not a hearty Tex-Mex style chili, but chili-flavoured bits of preserved eel meat. The label notes "Shelf life: 3 years". Do I really want to risk tasting three-years-dead eel meat? The chili flavour sounds enticing, but... it's eel.

Next up, the "Squid in Soy Sauce". I don't know why, but I really like that cute little squid. I sort of expect to peel open the lid and find a few of those little guys inside. But sadly, the reality is that it's full of salty chunks of three-years-dead squid meat.

If I look closely at the "Old Fisherman" mascot, that old guy seems to be laughing and pointing. That can't be a good sign.

So... do I open these? Do I dare put these sketchy preserved seafoods in my mouth?