Guns, guns, guns!!!

 weapons  2 Responses »
Oct 242008
 

Visited the Rock Island Arsenal Museum today. Used to live near there (parents still do), but I haven’t been to this museum in nigh on a quarter century (egad, I’m old).

The museum has a display case that runs floor-to-ceiling along two walls, and is filled with firearms from flintlocks to, seemingly, the 1970’s or so (not a whole lot in evidence of truly modern firearms). Included are the standards – M-16s, M-1 Garands, AK-47s and so on – as well as some rare and sometimes bizarre one-offs, including several versions of the “SPIW,” numerous versions of the M-79 grenade launcher (including versions with magazines or clips with multiple rounds), and a range of one-offs and experimentals.
img_8310.jpg  img_8314.jpg  img_8319.jpg  img_8324.jpg  img_8330.jpg  img_8336.jpg  img_8350.jpg  img_8352.jpg  img_8353.jpg  img_8357.jpg  

Given sufficient ammunition, the Rock Island Arsenal Museum would be the perfect place to make a stand against the forthcoming zombie apocolypse.  However, in case the neighbors Just Won’t Shut The Hell Up, Rock Island Arsenal has another interesting toy: the T131 280mm “atomic cannon.” When you absolutely, positively have to blow the crap out of someone at considerable distance, few things are a more entertaining way to do it than this gun.

img_8459.jpg

img_8496.jpg

 Posted by at 8:39 pm

Todays dose of badassery brought to you by: flying saws

 news  No Responses »
Oct 222008
 

 From Canada.com:

VICTORIA – Shawn Clement knows that his left arm looks as if he lost out to the shark in Jaws. Sometimes the 30-year-old tells gawking strangers that’s exactly what happened to his arm, now a tributary of scars running from his wasted bicep to below his elbow.

What actually happened to the former Gold River, B.C., shake and shingle mill worker is as horrific as anything Hollywood conjures up. In February, a flying 1.2-metre saw blade severed his left arm about 16 centimetres below the elbow.

…

“My face hurt. I went to grab my face. My hand was gone. I got up and grabbed the stub that was left and ran to the first aid room.”

…

“It’s safe to say he’ll never have normal function,” says the surgeon, who envisions Clement’s left arm only in an assistance role to his right arm.

Time, therapy and medical procedures have given the right-handed Clement partial use of his left arm.

“I can pick up a screwdriver, scratch my nose, but I can’t wipe my ass or pick up a dime,” he says.

 Posted by at 4:33 pm

Bell X-14

 aircraft, cats, photography, weapons  9 Responses »
Oct 222008
 

NOTE: If you are interested in the X-14 and want to know more about it, check out issue Volume 2 Number 2 of Aerospace Projects Review. Many more of these photos are published there!
While travelling across western Indiana on I-74, I saw a few signs for the “Ropkey Armor Museum.” I figured it might be a nice little diversion, so I took the exit. As I kept driving along the farm roads, I started to lose heart… it began to seem more and more like it’d be a dinky little farm with a delapidated tank or two. When I finally got to the museum, it was in fact a privately owned farm. There were a few pieces of artillery scattered around a sizable prefab steel building. You have to drive past the house to get to the museum proper. Once inside the museum, though, all thoughts of this being a “farm with a delapidated tank or two” faded. I was flabbergasted… the collection is several dozen armored vehicles from all eras in a remarkable state of preservation.

img_8032.jpg img_8272.jpg img_8275.jpg

While the collection of armored vehicle was quite impressive, there was one item on display in the back that had my jaw on the floor: the Bell X-14B VTOL research vehicle. A grand total of one X-14 was built, and it ended it’s career with a hard landing. I figured that it was either at some NASA facility, or turned into cat food cans. As it turns out, the second option was close to the truth… around ten years ago a museum staffer saw the X-14 on a list of government items to be sold as scrap metal, and they bought it sight unseen.

bell_x-14_4.jpg

The Bell X-14 has clearly seen better days; but not only has it been saved from shredding and melting down into beer cans, it has been moved out of the weather. I was told that there has been interest expressed in transferring it to another museum, where it would be fully restored. All in all, I have to say a big “Thank You” to the Ropkey Armor Museum for saving an important piece of aerospace history.

bell_x-14_1.jpg bell_x-14_2.jpg bell_x-14_3.jpg bell_x-14_5.jpg bell_x-14_6.jpg bell_x-14_7.jpg

In you find yourself in the area, drop in. It’s an impressive collection, and well worth the trip.

Plus, they have the one thing that every museum of real quality has to have…

img_8263.jpg

Travelling across country is expensive. You can support the cause by Buying My Stuff. Or just plain Give Me Money.

 Posted by at 10:07 am

Ohcrapohcrapohcrap….

 blather, cats, photography  2 Responses »
Oct 202008
 

Yesterday (Sunday) I finished packing up the car – a VW Golf – for the long drive back to Utah. It is rather more packed now that when I drove out to Maryland… a few pillows really take up volume. The last items to get stowed in the car were Tak and Raedthinn. I gave them a few minutes to roam around in the car before setting out. For a species that has extremely limited ability to form facial expressions, cats can still use body language to let you know that they are *not* happy. They seemed to recall the alst tiem I popped them in the car… several days of unpleasantness.

Anyway, yesterday I drove from Elkton, Maryland to Dayton, Ohio. I spent the day at the USAF museum… took about 1,300 photos (yay, digital cameras).  Tomorrow I set off again, aiming for my parents in western Illinois.

img_6557.jpg

img_6564.jpg

img_6566.jpg

 Posted by at 6:10 pm

On the road again

 aircraft, APR, blather, cats, news, photography, politics, projects, Utah  No Responses »
Oct 182008
 

I’m just about packed up, and will be heading out Sunday AM for the long drive back to Utah. I’ve disposed of the high speed internet access, and am now back on the apartment complex’s crappy WiFi, so I’ll probably nto be back online before I split. I intend to go a bit slower home than I did coming here, so I’ll be stopping at a number of museums and such on the way (USAF/Dayton, Strategic/Lincoln, Nebraska, Heartland Armor, etc.).

Oh, yeah: ATK sucks.

 Posted by at 3:07 pm

Martin Mystery Model

 aircraft, models, projects  9 Responses »
Oct 162008
 

On display at the Glenn L. Martin Museum is this small model, depicting a… something. The model comes with no documentation. Could be a bomber, could be a fighter. But with four engines, and the relatively wide-looking cockpit, I’m guessing bomber… and I’m guessing a B-70 competitor. No indication as to scale.

img_6261a.jpg  img_6263a.jpg  img_6267a.jpg  img_6268a.jpg  img_6272a.jpg

 Posted by at 11:46 pm

Lifting body as resupply vehicle for MOL

 aircraft, projects, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Oct 152008
 

I visitted the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum archive today, and came away with a haul of scans and photos. One of the finds was a boxload of artwork showing various lifting body concepts, many focussing on the X-23/24 geometry. One of these is shown below… an X-24 derivative with a “trailer” for carrying cargo. The dae is unclear, but this must have been realtively early in the career of MOL, given the relatively short length.

x-24_plus_mol.jpg

orbital_x-24.jpg

image1a.jpg  image3a.jpg

 Posted by at 11:05 pm

Blog going “funny” with comments

 blather, news  1 Response »
Oct 152008
 

For no readily apparent reason, the discussion/comment features of this blog are changing, and in the direction of irritatingness. First it started demanding that commenters have username/passwords (which was not supposed to happen). Now it’s closing down discussion of posts more than a day old (also not supposed to happen). If someone knows why the hell this would be happening with this WordPress based blog, feel free to chime in.

If you can.

 Posted by at 8:25 am
 Older Entries  Newer Entries