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Every 7th of December I try to think about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but I’m not sure why I feel I have to. Oh, it’s an important date, all right, and though I’m far too young to have been there I have some personal memories and associations with the attack … but still, […]
I didn’t fully see it until Romney started smirking during his press conference yesterday, but now I do: he’s another George W. Bush, and judging by his self-satisfied, uninformed comments on the administration’s actions during the attacks on our embassies in Libya and Egypt two days ago, every bit as smug and stupid. Well, all […]
Just so we’re all on the same page again: cultie=cult bike=Ducati. That there is a Ducati bag I’m tempted to buy. It would go on the little rack in back. Of course I’d need a magnetic tank bag as well. Oh, wait. The cultie’s going to be Polly’s ride, not mine. Time to stop thinking […]
By now, I’m sure, you’ve heard about the Special Operations Opsec Education Fund, a group of retired military officers trying to swiftboat President Obama. According to them, Obama should have kept the killing of Osama bin Laden a secret. By announcing that US forces had caught and killed bin Laden, they say, Obama compromised classified operational […]
I went to the library earlier today and found the entrance area crowded with parents and small children. I wondered, for a minute, if the library was holding a fire drill, but I was able to squeeze through the kids and get inside, where I checked out a book they were holding for me. By […]
Time for another Air-Minded diary? Sure it is. This time let’s take a look at a Century Series fighter from the 1950s, the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo. There were three distinct variations of the Voodoo — a fighter-bomber, a tactical reconnaissance aircraft, and an air defense interceptor — but I’m going to concentrate on the interceptor, […]
In my day, the only video cameras we could use to film our own air-to-air flying were hand-held devices. USAF pilots weren’t (and aren’t, AFAIK) allowed, for safety reasons, to use cameras or video recorders in single-seat cockpits. If you were flying a two-seater, which you might do once a month or so, and you […]
On April 13th, during a practice flight before a weekend air show, a member of the Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team went supersonic over Tucson. The sonic boom frightened people and broke a lot of windows. Going supersonic over populated areas is a huge USAF “be no” (as in “there shall be no …”) and I […]