Air-Minded: the Magnesium Overcast

After ranting about the media I need a palate cleanser. The internet equivalent of a breath mint is a LOLcat. But I’m into airplanes, so I’ll give you a LOLbomber instead. As with the B-58 Hustler I described in a previous post, even though I was around during the B-36 bomber’s heyday I never saw one in […]

Air-Minded: Restoration

After a meeting at the Pima Air & Space Museum yesterday I introduced myself to the leader of the restoration team and asked if I could take a quick tour of his work area, normally off-limits to all but the volunteer staff who work there. He said sure, and even gave me a lift to […]

Attack Imminent

A Tucson friend posted this to Facebook this morning: We’re far enough from the base that we don’t hear the sirens. Actually it’s been years since we’ve heard one, but then it’s been years since we retired from the Air Force. We’re going on base to buy groceries this afternoon; maybe the exercise will still […]

Air-Minded Addendum: Hucks Starter

More on the Hucks starter I described in an earlier entry. One of the aircraft at the Pima Air & Space Museum, a Japanese WWII fighter,  used this starting method. When I was at the museum today I took a photo of the prop spinner so you could see the boss they’d hook the Hucks […]

Lunatics and Retards

Yesterday, Congress voted to eliminate the word “lunatic” from federal laws and regulations dealing with mental health. The lone dissenter was this guy here, Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Imbecile). Personally I don’t have a problem with the word. I probably wouldn’t use it around an actual lunatic, but hell, we all know what it means and […]

Air-Minded: Spy Shots from the Museum

I went down to the Pima Air & Space Museum for a volunteers’ meeting and while there took some photos with my cell phone camera, feeling quite the spy. This first photo, for example, was taken inside a storage room not open to the public. It’s a Japanese Kamikaze flying bomb, and there can’t be […]

Air-Minded: Son of Duck

After my post about the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, I asked some friends if they wanted me to blog about any aircraft in particular.  My niece Rebecca voted for a floatplane, I imagine because she lives in Seattle and sees them all the time … also, of course, floatplanes being so cool.  It happens that […]

Photoblogging (in Lieu of Writing)

Nothing much to say today, so I’ll post four photos instead. Wednesday at the air museum I photographed some aircraft awaiting restoration.  It wasn’t till later, downloading the photos, that I realized all three aircraft were British.  In the top left photo, sitting in front of the museum’s restoration hangar, are a Hawker Hunter (in […]