An absolutely crappy copy of an old Lookout Mountain nuclear detonation compilation film. But even though the resolution is low and the original film is in terrible shape, it’s absolutely fargin’ amazing. Included are several shots of something I’d not recognized before… smoke generators. They’d shoot a plume of smoke into the air just before detonation, then the shock wave would come rolling by and… well, see for yourself. The rockets we’ve all seen before, but the smoke plumes are more rarely shown.
If someone were to get the original negative of this and do the Trinity & Beyond cleanup… shut up and take my money.
I remain amazed that people keep funding this. But, they do, and the design continues to evolve as the people behind it get smacked upside the head by basic physics.
When it first aired, “Airwolf” was undeniable awesomeness. As with so many things, it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny *now;* much of it is just terribly dated. But at the time? That helicopter, with the added jet engines, styling by the fella what who designed the Enterprise-D, and deployable weapons that broke the laws of physics (telescoping machine gun barrels… always good for a laugh)? Best thing to hit the skies in the 80’s.
The theme music was also something very much of its era.
I’m not generally a fan of remakes. But here’s something that, done right, *could* actually make for a damn fine new series. It should be a reboot, not a “thirty-five years later” sequel (if for no other reason, so nobody even *thinks* about trying to get Jan Michael Vincent onto the set. Yeeesh). And with that… what should the “Airwolf 2018” be based on? The original Airwolf was a Bell 222 with fiberglass cosmetic alterations. And spiffy as it was, a modern helicopter should be used. But let’s face it: there aren’t really a whole lot of new helicopters that are more futuristic looking than the Bell 222. And I’ll storm off the set in a huff if they tell me “we’ve decided to go entirely CGI with the chopper.”
Obviously the new Airwolf should be based on a helicopter that is not immediately recognizable to the bulk of the TV-watching public. You’re not going to fool the aviation geeks, so don’t even try. A few suggestions:
Kamov KA-52 “Alligator”
OK, sure, it’s Russian. But face it: most Americans wouldn’t recognize it, and it’s *damn* spiffy. And being Russian, I’ve little doubt that Hollywood could buy a half dozen of ’em, with all the spare parts and tech support they might need, for reasonable sums.
The Bell 525 “Relentless”
Bigger than the 222, but clearly designed with similar aesthetics. It’d make for a more capacious Airwolf, capable of carrying substantial cargo & passenger loads… perhaps it could carry an ED-209 as standard equipment. The 525 is still in prototype, awaiting certification, so that might be a little bit of an issue.
Sikorsky S-97 “Raider”
Now this would be cool. And since it’s a terribly expensive prototype still in testing, very unlikely.
Bell V-280 “Valor”
Airwolf wouldn’t necessarily need to be a helicopter. A tiltrotor might do the job, and the V-280 looks promising. Small problem: the V-290 hasn’t actually flown yet, though it should soon. Something that can be done with this: do as with the original Airwolf and add some fiberglass “turbojets” to the fuselage, say, at the wing root. Then when the thing goes into high speed flight, do some CGI tinkering and show the proprotors stop and then fold back.
Suggestions? What other choppers would fit for a revived “Airwolf?”
Tonight I tapped out the final sentence on my tome. All told… 137,000 words, or about 450 pages in a standard novel format. Yeesh.
And then came the question… “now what.” I’m going to spend the next few months editing, which will probably mostly entail making relatively minor corrections. Then it’ll get passed on and supposedly, hopefully, read by A Science Fiction Author Y’all Have Heard Of. Hopefully he’ll not throw it in the trash. And then… who knows. Maybe it’ll be good.
The headline pretty much nails it. A bunch of self-acknowledged criminals were protesting in Austin, Texas, and apparently causing trouble, so Representative Matt Rinaldi called the authorities, in this case ICE. This seemed to annoy Representative Poncho Nevarez. From there claims are contradictory, but *apparently* Nevarez threatened to “get” Rinaldi on his way to his car, and Rinaldi responded by stating he would defend himself with a gun. Scuffling and good times ensue.
Given the current advocacy for violence on the part of so many on the Left, this seems like just the beginning of this sort of thing.
DNA was sequenced from a number of Egyptian mummies dating from 1388 BCE to 426 CE. And what was found was that while there was genetic continuity, there was remarkably little sub-Saharan African ancestry in the mix until after the Roman period. Ancient Egyptians were more closely related to Near Easterners (i.e. Turkey, Israel, Syria, etc.) and Europe than they were to modern Egyptians, who have picked up sub-Saharan African traits since Roman times, likely due to Islamic conquests and the resulting slave trade.
In other words: go ahead and cast Whitey McWhiteperson to play the Pharoah in your next movie. Though Turk MacTurkishfella might be just as good.
Other genetic finds:
This individual had a derived allele at the SLC24A5 locus, which contributes to lighter skin pigmentation and was shown to be at high frequency in Neolithic Anatolia41, consistent with the ancestral affinity shown above. Other relevant SNPs carry the ancestral allele, including HERC2 and LCT, which suggest dark-coloured eyes and lactose intolerance
So, light skinned, dark-eyed, not a fan of ice cream.
Currently there is a large, expensive auction on eBay for several hundred pieces of Marquardt concept art. The per-piece price of about ten bucks is pretty good, but the sum total is just a whole lot. Anyway, the auction listing provides a look at a *few* of the pieces, including one that depicts a “space sled.” This was a maneuver vehicle for a single astronaut, with much greater performance than the various maneuvering backpacks that had been designed over the decades. Instead of strapping it on, the pilot sits on it somewhat as if it was a motorcycle. The propellants are almost certainly cold gas (nitrogen) thrusters, which means specific impulse was really low. But it also made them very, very simple devices.
While Marquardt did some serious design work on space sleds, including building one that is currently on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton, it’s unclear how serious this one is. The space suit, after all, is pretty weak. There appear to be only two thrusters, both providing “forward” thrust; steering looks like it might have been by actually tilting the whole assembly. This would have provided only minimal thrust vectoring, and would have provided little to no pitch or roll control, and no braking thrust. My guess is that this was either the art department coming up with a concept on their own without much engineering input, or it was a very preliminary and perhaps unfinished piece.
