"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Aviation-related posts
When you’re leading a formation, there’s a wingman to your side, just behind your shoulder. You don’t normally turn your head to look at him (it’s his job to look at you), but you can see the nose of his jet in your peripheral vision. When I walk from one end of the house to […]
It’s time I posted more photos from the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. As a volunteer tour guide, I’m sometimes able to visit parts of the museum visitors don’t get to see. There’s always something interesting hidden away. These two Japanese Kamikaze planes, for example. Until recently only the fuselages have been visible, […]
The American military’s T-Birds are all long retired, but many countries around the world still fly them. They may not be glamorous or fast, but they played an important role in the early jet age, and I write this post in tribute.
Nearly every new bit of information on MA370 has followed the same trajectory: first the leak, then the breathless media frenzy, then the denial, then the qualified “maybe.”
Once a year the Air Force conducts Heritage Flight practice sessions at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. The purpose is to train private owners of WWII warbirds and current USAF fighter and attack aircraft pilots to fly formation together. During the rest of the year, pilots who have trained at Davis-Monthan fly at air shows […]
A few weeks ago I posted an entry about Lindy lights, the light beacons that helped airmail pilots in the 1920s and 30s navigate at night. A friend sent me a link to another blogger’s post about early aerial navigation aids. Did you know that in addition to the beacon lights, there were also giant […]
By now everyone has heard about Kentucky Senator Rand Paul plagiarizing the work of other writers in his speeches, books, and op-ed columns. The senator’s reaction to the story is evolving: it began with denial; morphed into attacks on Rachel Maddow, who first reported the story; now his staff is busy scrubbing stolen material from his […]
Scroll to the bottom of this post to see two updates added on 10/29/13 and 10/30/13. I originally planned to put irony quotes around the word Thundercraft, since no USAF pilot I know would be caught dead using the term. But what the hell, it was Republic’s collective name for the fighter-bombers they designed and […]