Air-Minded: the First Precision Weapons

Most of us think of precision weapons as smart bombs and associate such weapons with military air forces, but they’re employed by navies and armies as well. The accurate term is precision-guided munition. Definitions differ. Wikipedia says a PGM is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target and to minimize collateral damage. The Department of Defense says […]

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: Dragons & Bolos

A friend visited the Pima Air & Space Museum (PASM) in Tucson a few weeks ago. I told her if any particular airplane spoke to her, I’d write an air-minded post on it. Well, you never know what’s going to catch someone’s eye. In her case, it was one of our orphans, a Douglas B-23 Dragon. PASM’s Dragon has been […]

Air-Minded: Son of Duck

After my post about the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, I asked some friends if they wanted me to blog about any aircraft in particular.  My niece Rebecca voted for a floatplane, I imagine because she lives in Seattle and sees them all the time … also, of course, floatplanes being so cool.  It happens that […]