MKopack

All of the Harriers (FAA Sea Harriers and RAF GR.3's) had previously been flown off the Atlantic Conveyor, but the ship went down with six Wessex and four of the five Chinooks that were being carried. The only Chinook to survive was "Bravo November" that has now served in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan with four of her pilots being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. You're right that a deck full of Phantoms and Buccaneers on the Ark Royal would have made the Falklands a completely different campaign. STOVL adds quite a bit of flexibility, but usually at the cost of capability.

Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Congo. I'll bet that's a fun deployment... I'm sure that there's a strategic political "big picture" reason that this makes sense, but somehow I see more "bad things" than "good things" coming from this. On the good side though: Bet that's some good stuff.

"'Don't make me look like a girl,' said U.S. Army Sgt. Cordell." Dude, if you are having your eyebrows threaded (?), plucked, or shaved, that ship has already sailed - no matter what they look like. I probably shouldn't be so harsh, I'll bet Patton had his eyebrows "shaped" back during WWII as well. Probably discussed the styling with his staff over appletinis...

Looks good. I don't want to read much though, mine's on preorder...

When I was going to A&P school back in the early 90's we worked on a customer's Cessna 150 as a group "lab project". She reported that she needed a new generator, and one of my partners (former AF and former Ford dealership tech) took one look at it and said, "Easy, it's an alternator off a mid-80's Escort," and quoted the part number out of his head. We looked it up and it was the same PN with a "-A". The only differences we could find were the "FAA PMA Approved" tag, and the difference between $65 at the dealership and $500+ from the aviation supplier... And on top of that, while an A&P isn't authorized to open a generator case, as I recall her original generator may have been repaired with $10 worth of diodes. Never been a pilot, who knows, maybe one day. My eight-year old is ready to go though. He took an EAA "Young Eagles" flight on Saturday in a sharp little RV-7.

I saw the photos of the restored UH-1 that jumped in to transport victims to local hospitals after there were delays on the roads, and read that a local resident flew along to direct the flights. LoneWolf mentioned "good people in the world" and it seems there were quite a few at Reno that day.

Have many friends that were at the races today, including two that were in the grandstand directly behind the impact point, both were uninjured, but have reported on a really terrible scene. Still awaiting status from several others. Reports from those there say that a following pilot reported an apparent mechanical failure with the Galloping Ghost prior to the accident.

I guess there's always a chance that this could be a "teachable moment", but there's probably just as good a chance that he's now sitting in the corner of a mental bunker, wearing a helmet, declaring victory and thinking that there are so many left to educate about the contamination of their precious bodily fluids...

Carnival cruise it ain't.

Tired of hearing of privileged football players at major colleges getting free educations, thinking that the world owes them something, and constantly in trouble? Here's the complete opposite...

Another accident today:

And also one lost in an aerobatic mid-air in South Jersey. Here's part of the article from Philly.com (some of which much have been lost in the translation from whatever they speak there...)

Frank Buzze Colonel, USAF, Ret. January 14, 1923 - August 19, 2001 Pilot Ready To Fly Again--Lt Frank C. Buzze, 2255 Milton Ave. Syracuse, NY, grins as he assures the Flight Surgeon that only the airplane suffered in his crash landing. Damaged by ground fire, the North American F-51 "Mustang" was brought in for a skillful landing by Lt Buzze after a strafing and bombing mission over enemy lines. It was the second mishap for the 27 year old pilot that day. On his first mission, several hours earlier, a 50 caliber tracer bullet entered the bottom of his aircraft, coming to rest against a metal pressure container in a seat life raft pack on which Buzze was sitting. The unperturbed pilot went on to fly a third mission the same day, returning without incident. Said Buzze, "My luck's getting better." He has flown 25 missions on rocket, machine gun and bombing strikes against the North Koreans in F-51 "Mustangs" from this air strip a few miles behind the front lines. Date Shot: 8/4/1950 VIRIN: HF-SN-98-07263 Via: http://www.18thfwa.org/naturalCauses/frankBuzze/frankBuzzeFS.html Frank Buzze completed 100 successful combat missions in F-51 Mustangs over Korea, flew another exciting fighter-bomber combat tour in F-100s over Vietnam, then went on to complete a long and successful Air Force career before settling into a well-earned retirement in Florida as a full Colonel.

Plenty of reflective belts, but no DADT outfits or show tunes. How could that ever be entertaining? I need my "jazz hands" for god's sake!?! (Understand that they're a Missouri ANG band based at Whiteman and that the lead singer now calls Nashville home.)

Glad to see it was posted, and shocked to see mine was s well (that might be a first...) What would Robin Olds do?

I've heard that the guy with the desk next to his, the Air Force’s Global Hawk nonfunctional manager, has a much busier job. 'I don't know if we'll ever get this thing to work..."

"Zee dridecker ist nosesittin!" Even during WWI the Dr.I was notorious for its shallow cockpit (front to back) and the poor "guns to face" relationship during noseovers and crash landings. A good number of German pilots suffered serious, or even fatal facial and head injuries from the gun butts in otherwise survivable crashes. Amazing that it just came to a stop there on the prop and wingtip. I understand that once they helped the pilot out, he helped to pull the tail down, and they pulled the bird off of the strip.

Back during the 90's I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Chuck Sweeney at an airshow. The retired Major General had flown the observation and instrumentation aircraft "The Great Artiste" during the Hiroshima mission, and then three days later he piloted "Bockscar" that dropped the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki. He was a big bear of a guy that was happy to talk about all of his experiences, but just as interested in playing and talking with all of the kids at the show. Just a great guy to everyone there, until a young reporter from a local media outlet decided, after a couple of general background questions, to try and score some points and get the big soundbite for that night's news, "Do you ever regret dropping the bomb on all of those innocent people?" (Really close to a direct quote) In the blink of an eye that old Grandfatherly guy was once again the Major sitting in his B-29. His answer was short, sharp and really harsh and while the reporter didn't get a soundbite that he could use that night, he did learn a lesson, and probably did have to change his shorts... Turning back to all of us as the reporter I believe actually ran away, a big smile came over his face, and he said, "So, what were we talking about?"

Interesting. Turkey's military has always served as a secular counter to the normally more Islamist government (and have never been hesitant to remove the government when has become too religious). Over the past several years, the power has shifted towards the government, and this may be a sign of Turkey becoming even less secular. Future will show what this means for us in the region.

While it's great to see that the replica is being restored, and it's not quite as bad as the C-38 Talon, here's another web article that was written even without the benefit of a wikipedia fact check. Nieuport 28 ≠ SPAD any more than T-38 = C-38.

Have friends that tell me that their plan is to eject if they leave the runway at much more than normal taxi speed. 16's have a tendency to do this while going cross country: 79-0377 at Nellis in 1984 (?). The hole in the canopy was where they extracted the pilot, and the aircraft was rebuilt to fly, and crash (MacDill '88), and be rebuilt to fly again.

Was the first responder actually in an old VW Bug?

Am hearing from a non-mil friend as well that there likely was a 'contributing cause'. He was able to detail it from "rumors" heard after the fact at the show (not that that's anything to go by) but has at least one photo that seems to corroborate. Glad to see photos of the pilot stepping out of the cockpit safely.

Dr. Rich Sugden's North American FJ-4B Fury went off the same runway and is apparently now sitting next to the 16. Reportedly little or no damage on the second one. Bad juju, time to try another runway. (Edit - add photo)