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Aviation-related posts
I recently updated older posts about the cars and motorcycles that have been part of my life. I thought I’d written a separate post about the aircraft I’ve flown, but when I went looking, it wasn’t here. I found it eventually — on Facebook. I don’t know why I never included it on my own […]
Last week my friend Chuck organized a trip to the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in southern Arizona. Chuck and I are docents at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson. Like me, he’s a former fighter pilot. In his USAF days he flew F-4s; later he joined the Arizona Air National Guard, […]
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 […]
When you’re flying fighters, or any kind of aircraft, fuel is everything. You have to know not only how much fuel you have remaining at any time, you have to know how far you can go on it and how much you’ll need if things turn to shit and you have to divert. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a short training flight in the local area or part of a multi-jet package flying a 12-hour long overseas deployment with air refueling tankers as escorts, fuel is never far from your mind.
Our son, who lives in Las Vegas, turned 50 last week. Since he had to be in Phoenix yesterday for a business meeting, we drove up to have dinner with him. I’ve been wanting to visit the Commemorative Air Force Museum at Falcon Field in Mesa, so we left Tucson in the morning and spent part of […]
Once a year, rich guys with extremely expensive toys train alongside active duty USAF fighter pilots and jets at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. The annual program at DMAFB is called the Heritage Flight Training and Certification Course, and over the course of a few days civilian and military pilots practice flying close formation. Pilots who complete the […]
When I take visitors around the outdoor aircraft on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum, I always say a few words about these Republic F-84s, early jet fighters that show the evolution from straight to swept wings: The aircraft with the barber-striped tail is an F-84C Thunderjet, first flown in 1946 and later employed as […]
Parents of adult children should be able to relate to this: our 40-year-old daughter Polly left her boyfriend in late June and moved in with us. It’s just until she gets back on her feet, we told ourselves. Since then she’s been employed three times: once for two weeks, once for two days, once for […]