Making Time Fly

A couple of casual observations to start the weekend. ——————– Lately, Rachel Maddow has been asking why Congress isn’t debating President Obama’s military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. It’s surely odd that Congress, which interferes with or tries to block everything else the President does, is allowing him free rein to conduct the […]

Air-Minded: the Army & the A-10

Army A-10s? Not gonna happen, folks. Here’s something I posted to Facebook the other day: People ask me why, if the Air Force no longer wants A-10s, it doesn’t just hand them over to the Army. The answer boils down to roles. From the 1960s into the early 1990s, the Army flew an armed observation aircraft […]

Air-Minded: Christmas Photoblogging

Guess who got a new telephoto lens for Christmas? Any guesses where he went with it? Clearly I have much to learn. Here are a few of the less-embarrassing shots I took at Pima Air & Space Museum the day after Christmas: As always, clickage will take you to the full sized images on Flickr. — […]

Why Did They Do It? (Updated 12/23/14)

Never mind there should be no debate over torture, any more than there should be a debate over rape or child molestation. There is a debate and it’s heading downhill fast, witness this statement by one of the most powerful men in the land: “I think it is very facile for people to say ‘Oh, torture is terrible,’” […]

Air-Minded: SERE & Torture

People keep saying torture can’t be all that bad … after all, we torture our own aviators and special operations forces at a super-secret training facility so they’ll be able to stand up to it if they’re ever captured by the enemy …. and you don’t hear any of them complaining, do you? The acronym for this specialized training […]

Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog III

I think it’s time to post another batch of photos from the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, where I volunteer as a walking tour docent. As always, you can click on the individual photos below to see the full sized originals on Flickr, or you can click here to view my entire […]

Air-Minded: US Military Aircraft Insignia (Updated 8/25/16)

This all started when I posted a cool photo on Facebook: When I posted that photo I didn’t bother to identify the nationality of the jet, but some of my friends wondered about it. Good question … what are those colors? I used to know those markings pretty well: the answer is Belgium. Then, two or three days later, a […]

Air-Minded: Coffins

Earlier this week the Pima Air & Space Museum stayed open late for its annual Halloween Fright Night, an event for kids. When I went in yesterday to lead my weekly walking tours, the Fright Night decor was still up, so I asked another volunteer to snap my photo by this macabre diorama. The coffin and […]