Fifth Avenue Forum

Ain't that some ****.

The tanker does make a sharp left turn, but the location of the McCain is not marked on the map, so that makes it much less helpful. While Mr. Gertz seems to be asserting that the tanker turned to hit the McCain, without knowing exactly where the McCain was and how it was maneuvering, it strikes me as equally plausible that the tanker turned sharply to avoid the McCain. We need to see a GPS track for the McCain to overlay with the GPS track for the tanker.

Much like the previous collision, the US warship was struck midships.

Navy Destroyer Collides with Building in Downtown Houston

https://www.duffelblog.com/2017/08/navy ... n-houston/

"...yonder building..." "...urban maritime navigation..."

41 years ago today, a young MiG-25 pilot called Viktor Belenko took off from his base in southeastern Soviet Union and decided he was going to land it in Japan and defect.



The Foxbat caused quite the stir in the West, as it was absolutely enormous and believed to be prodigiously fast; it was a potential SR-71 killer. Spurred by these fears, the American aerospace industry was called to action, and the result was the F-15 Eagle. Belenko's present gave NATO and other allied pilots the chance to inspect and fly the Foxbat fristhand, and what they learned was that it had the aerodynamic performance of a refrigerator that had been pushed out of a cargo plane. The thing was an absolute pig, and calling it an 'airplane' is being generous. In being so worried about its threat, we created what many believe to be the single greatest combat-proven air dominance platform of the jet era. Current record is something like 110 aerial engagements, and 110 victories. It is a very, very good airplane.

Thanks, Viktor!

Aerodynamic performance, bah. Russian aircraft strong, like tractor!

Aerodynamic performance, bah. Russian aircraft strong, like wife!

fify

Thanks, nobody

Bonkers.

I wonder if today they would ask Elon Musk to provide the cover story. Although I question whether Elon would agree to do it.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/909932552110125057

Wow...thanks for sharing. That YT clip gave me chills.

American Flankers


Both of Pride Aircraft's Su-27 UB Flankers have been sold to an undisclosed civilian buyer. Back in 2009 before it was disclosed that Pride purchased the jets, the rumored buyer was Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), a civilian contractor that provides air combat maneuvering 'adversary' services for the US military. (I've seen them operate F-21 Kfirs and Hawker Hunter types out of NAS Pt Mugu) It would be kinda neat if they were able to add the Flankers to their stable.

RIP. Scott Grimes did a great job with the character in BoB. Malarkey was the oldest surviving member of Easy Company. That distinction now goes to James Combs, who was not a named character in Band of Brothers.

Sad news, RIP.

Sad news, RIP.

It is really tough to see these men die off.

We had B-17 flights locally here over the weekend. I was out shooting trains, when we encountered way more photographers than our usual circle. Bet they wondered why we were looking the "wrong" way. Did manage this one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52075109@ ... ed-public/
(If I could figure out how to preview the damn thing here I would - the flickr built-in bb code version is too many pixels)