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Aviation-related posts
In July, I posted an Air-Minded Diary titled The Non-Starter Option. In it, I proposed purchasing new F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s (all of which are still in production) for the USAF and USN. My argument was that new F-15s, which are far more capable that the older models currently in use, are needed to supplement […]
I don’t know when Veterans Day turned into Veterans Week, but it has, so I don’t feel too bad posting a little of my own veteran history one day early. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was stationed at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands, a brand new F-15 Eagle pilot in the 32nd […]
“Well, he told me he worked for NASA—he didn’t tell me he had been to the moon and back.”
Last week, during a break between tram tours at the Pima Air & Space Museum, I spent an hour exploring a seldom-visited back lot where we keep retired air tankers and water bombers. These are civil and military aircraft converted to carry and drop water or retardant on forest fires. Most of the aircraft on […]
Last night I drove to the Pima Air & Space Museum to give a sunset bus tour to a group of football fans here for today’s Arizona/UCLA game. The tour never happened, because my bus didn’t make it to the museum. Six of us signed up for what was supposed to be six bus loads […]
During our recent road trip to California and the Pacific Northwest, Donna and I spent a couple of days with our niece Rebecca in Bremerton, Washington. While there, we visited The Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle. To me, any visit to an air museum is special, but this visit was extra-special. My oldest friend, […]
We spent a weekend in Portland, Oregon and while there I visited the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in nearby McMinnville. The Evergreen museum is the current home of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose. I’ll say this about the Spruce Goose: it has presence. When you stand under it, or […]
One of the volunteers I work with at the Pima Air & Space Museum is a young University of Arizona aeronautical engineering student. His family is originally Vietnamese and I have the impression his father or maybe grandfather immigrated to the USA after the communist takeover. I’m sure there’s a fascinating story behind that, and I’ll have […]