Friday Mystery Bag
Well, whatever the reason, last night’s no vote was a great big affirmative YES to the American people, and I’m happy John McCain will end his long political career on a positive note.
Air-Minded: Cookin’ with Gas
When you’re flying fighters, or any kind of aircraft, fuel is everything. You have to know not only how much fuel you have remaining at any time, you have to know how far you can go on it and how much you’ll need if things turn to shit and you have to divert. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a short training flight in the local area or part of a multi-jet package flying a 12-hour long overseas deployment with air refueling tankers as escorts, fuel is never far from your mind.
Air-Minded: Vliegbasis Soesterberg
I don’t know when Veterans Day turned into Veterans Week, but it has, so I don’t feel too bad posting a little of my own veteran history one day early. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was stationed at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands, a brand new F-15 Eagle pilot in the 32nd […]
Air-Minded: Burning and Turning
The controversial and over-budget F-35 fighter is under almost constant attack. Some of the shortcomings identified by critics are no doubt real, but the story of a previously-unidentified F-35 glitch that emerged last week was, at least to this former air-to-air pilot, a bit of a shock: a report out of Edwards AFB stating that a clean (no […]
Friday Bag o’ Crashes
When they didn’t immediately locate the pilot of the Massachusetts Air Guard F-15 that crashed in West Virginia Wednesday morning, I figured he was dead. An eyewitness reported seeing a parachute, which led to hopes the pilot had ejected and survived, but since there’d been no radio contact with him I assumed he’d either been killed during the […]
Mr. Woodford’s Lecture
I live to serve, and it’s time I got back to work.
Air-Minded: Presentation Anxiety
Speaking of stupid, I commented on an F-4 fighter thread running on my Facebook news feed.
Air-Minded: Behind the Curve
Seriously, would you ever fly that carrier again?