Air-Minded: Training for the Last One

We should have it so easy, going up against an enemy air force equipped with 1950s technology … even North Korea has more advanced equipment. But you know what they say: we always train to fight the last war we had (and in this case I feel like we’re still training for Vietnam).

Tuesday Bag o’ Callsigns (Updated 2/5/18)

That leaves Marine One, the callsign used by USMC helicopter crews flying the current president to and from the White House. This is the point of highest danger on my tour, because I refuse to say that president’s name. “Current president” is as close as I come; I have to carefully engage my tongue to my brain lest I blurt out “President Individual One” or something worse.

Friday Bag o’ Happiness

You’re an educated person, dear reader, and I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m talking to people like Donald Trump of Mar-a-Lago, Governor Rick Scott in Florida, and Secretary of State Brian Kemp in Georgia, all of whom are abusing the powers of the offices they hold to claim the normal counting of ballots is voter fraud, and to stop the count while the vote is going their way.

Air-Minded: Air Force Museum Photoblog

Well, I call it the Air Force Museum (and so does everybody else, including the people who work there), but in reality it’s the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, located at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. And it’s one of the holy grails of the air museum world. I had an opportunity to visit in the early 1980s, when I flew […]

Air-Minded: Big Jets, Little Trams, Tall Tales

Pima Air & Space Museum’s fleet of Boeing jetliners continues to grow. Thanks to Cathay Pacific and Boeing, PASM now has a 777. The aircraft, line number WA001 (the first 777 built), flew non-stop from Cathay Pacific’s home airport in Hong Kong to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, landing around 11 AM Tuesday morning. After defueling, […]

Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog XIV

I haven’t posted a Pima Air & Space Museum photoblog lately, so I have some catching up to do. There’s no theme to this one, just a lot of this and that. I’ll start with the obligatory selfie and some head-on shots of interesting aircraft: PASM recently added two new outdoor exhibits, a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor […]