"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
What was (and might have been)
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 […]
Yesterday was my day to volunteer at the Pima Air & Space Museum, where I lead back-to-back walking tours at 10:30 and 11:30 AM every Wednesday. There were no takers for the 10:30 tour, so I used my unexpected free hour to walk around the grounds taking photos of new exhibits. The first thing to […]
The Pima Air & Space Museum restoration team rolled out our Mil Mi-24 Hind gunship earlier this week. I mentioned this helicopter in an earlier post, after seeing it partially disassembled in the restoration hangar. I was particularly struck by the robust transmission, which would not look out of place in a battleship’s engine room. […]
Shit happens. Life happens. You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Mules, local color, wannabes.
Did you think, as I did, that the TFX/F-111 was Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s only joint-service aircraft project? No, there were two others: the F-4 Phantom II and the A-7 Corsair II, US Navy fighters more or less forced upon, but eventually enthusiastically adopted by, the US Air Force. I volunteer as a walking tour […]
A friend and I rode our motorcycles down to Tubac yesterday for the annual Santa Cruz Valley Car Nuts Collector Car Show. As it does every year, the Tubac Golf Resort opens up its grounds for the show. If you ride down on a motorcycle you get to park on the grass right next to […]
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 […]