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You may question the relevance of today’s thumbnail photo. Go ahead, question away. I don’t mind. Are you done? Good. These objects are, in fact, bags o’ relief; specifically, pilot relief bags (or, if you prefer military terminology: bags, relief, pilot). I’ve filled more than a few, particularly on long ocean crossings. Fighters don’t have […]
No, I’m not talking about what I expected to hear Ted Nugent yelling from the gallery during last night’s State of the Union speech. No, I’m talking about Esquire magazine and its recent article titled “The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden … Is Screwed.” The article’s subject is “the Shooter,” an unnamed member of […]
THROTTLES—IDLE RUDDER AND AILERONS—NEUTRAL STICK—ABRUPTLY FULL AFT AND HOLD RUDDER—ABRUPTLY APPLY FULL RUDDER OPPOSITE SPIN DIRECTION (OPPOSITE TURN NEEDLE) AND HOLD STICK—ABRUPTLY FULL FORWARD ONE TURN AFTER APPLYING RUDDER CONTROLS—NEUTRAL AFTER SPINNING STOPS AND RECOVER FROM DIVE That, if you don’t recognize it, is the boldface spin recovery procedure for the T-37. Student pilots could […]
After ranting about the media I need a palate cleanser. The internet equivalent of a breath mint is a LOLcat. But I’m into airplanes, so I’ll give you a LOLbomber instead. As with the B-58 Hustler I described in a previous post, even though I was around during the B-36 bomber’s heyday I never saw one in […]
Looking back at some of my older stuff, I found a gloomy post from September 2007 predicting we’d never leave Iraq, that it’d turn out to be another Korea with American troops on the ground forever and ever. I really believed this at the time. Actually I believed it right up until last week. A […]
After a meeting at the Pima Air & Space Museum yesterday I introduced myself to the leader of the restoration team and asked if I could take a quick tour of his work area, normally off-limits to all but the volunteer staff who work there. He said sure, and even gave me a lift to […]
A Tucson friend posted this to Facebook this morning: We’re far enough from the base that we don’t hear the sirens. Actually it’s been years since we’ve heard one, but then it’s been years since we retired from the Air Force. We’re going on base to buy groceries this afternoon; maybe the exercise will still […]
More on the Hucks starter I described in an earlier entry. One of the aircraft at the Pima Air & Space Museum, a Japanese WWII fighter, used this starting method. When I was at the museum today I took a photo of the prop spinner so you could see the boss they’d hook the Hucks […]