Finally got around to fixing the webpage for the “manuals and historical documents” page, and added three more. First up: How to operate and maintain your M-60.
Yours for only $2.50.
Nov 182010
Nov 062010
There’s justifiable outrage at “child soldiers,” then there’s the sort of hysterical whining on display here:
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Cadets-parade-hit-rifle-ban/article-2842270-detail/article.html
ARMY cadets in Plymouth have been banned from carrying rifles in public just days before they were due to take part in a Remembrance festival.
The children had spent weeks practising rifle drill for a display at the Plymouth Pavilions tonight.
But this week they were told by their top brass that the rifles had to go.
Devon Cadet Executive Officer Major David Waterworth told The Herald yesterday that the Plymouth cadets had been ignoring a national ruling.
“It isn’t a new regulation. It’s been in force for about ten years, ever since the UK signed the agreement against using child soldiers.
“There is no need for children to appear in public with weapons. It does upset some members of the public.
“There is no need for it. It doesn’t reflect our aims and ethos in the Army Cadet Force.”
Note that the article doesn’t seem to give the ages of these “children.” Could be 17, for all I know. But even if the cadets are 8… so what? Training with firearms is something that should begin early. Your average gun shop in Utah has a section devoted specifically for kids, typically bolt-action .22 rifles, scaled down appropriately. If there are some members of the public who are upset at the sight of cadets carrying rifles… man the hell up, Nancy, and get yourself some insensitivity training.
Nov 042010
Most of the important bits are in place.
Nov 022010
Some early views of the 1/72 SLAM missile model. The TORY reactor will be a separate part, visible from the front through the inlet and from the rear through the nozzle.
Oct 282010
Official: the next model that I will master for Fantastic Plastic is the Project Pluto nuclear ramjet cruise missile. The next model was *supposed* to be the “2001” Space Station V, but I’m separated from my references for that. But the Pluto stuff I have on hand.
Currently undetermined is the scale. 1/72 is the obvious choice, but 1/48 might be possible as well. Some measure of “cutaway model” will be inevitable, due to the wide open nature of the inlet and nozzle; a full cutaway with all the innards is unlikely, but possible at larger scales. If you have a preference, leave a comment.
Sep 242010
This is in reference to this Space.com article:
Airborne Laser Goes Off-Target Due to Software Bug
Any excuse for Jordan:
Sep 182010
Back in March, my laptop suffered an “issue,” and as a result all the data on the hard drive got wiped out. For the most part that’s not too much of an issue, so long as I keep up with the external hard drive backups. Well, one thing that *hadn’t* been backed up were the scans for Justo Miranda’s “Unknown! #5,” and thus they (and others) were lost. In the chaos that followed, efforts to rebuild and get back up and running, re-scanning those documents got lost in the shuffle. Well, I finally got back around to it, and I now present Unknown! #5.
This issue 60 pages of technical illustrations with 1/72, 1/24 and 1/5 scale drawings and English text. The Unknown! series is at the bottom of this page:
http://www.up-ship.com/blog/drawndoc/rd/rd.htm
Horten Schnellbomber H IX (earliest drawing), Horten Schnell-Kampflugzeug and Horten Ho 229C
R4M “Orkan” German air to air rocket and its launch systems “Abschussrost”, “Federtrommel”, “15er Wabe”, “Wabenrohr”, “Trommelanlage” with graphs showing its installation on the Ba 349B “Natter”, Blohm und Voss P.213.03, Heinkel He 162 A-2, Arado Ar 234 C “Heeresflugzeug”, Arado Ar 234 P-5 and Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1b. Also included, drawings and performances of the R4/HL and air to air rocket “Schlange”
“Beware-Kangaroos”, a combat story by John Baxter
From the “Boomerang” to the “Kangaroo” (part I) describing the evolution of the “Boomerang” into four versions: CAC P-176, CAC XP-17 and CA-15 (4/11/42 drawing) and CA-15 (1943 drawing)
“Outpost” lifeboat, describing the re-entry vehicle designed by Kraft Ehricke in 1958
Jet Shinden versus Jet Ascender, including a graphic study of the installation of No. 130 turbojet in the Kyushu J7W2 “Shinden Kai” ultimate Japanese jet interceptor and scale drawing of the jet version of the Curtis XP-55 “Ascender”.
Blackburn B-44 with scale drawing of several seaplane fighters with retractable floats. It includes profiles of the Ursinus Seaplane, Latécoère 671, “The Scarlet Stormer” and “The Lancer”. These two last designs from the Bill Barnes fiction series
Reggiane Re 2007, an essay trying to shed some light on the mystery of this mythical project, gathering in one theory all the available information. It includes scale drawings of the Re 2006 R (Hypothetical), Re 2007 (Cometti version), Re 2008, Yak-15, Yak-17, Ambrosini “Sagittario I” and Airfer “Sagittario II”.
“Target Panama” by John Baxter. Part II of the story published in UNKNOWN! #4
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Unknown #5 can be purchased for download for $18.50.
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Sep 162010
And here’s an F-117 carrying conventional non-stealthy LGB’s. Also shown is the faceted pylon that would carry all of these weapons.
Sep 162010
WANT.
http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm
Laser Gun – A prelude to a weapon of the future – the technology is here! Now Available – hand held, battery operated, 500 joules of pulse energy produce an intense burst of light capable of burning holes in most materials.
Input Voltage: 12VDC @ 1.5AMPS, 20-30sec. Charge Time Rod: 3 x 1/4″ Nd:GLASS With Integral Mirrors Output: 1-3 Joules @ 1.06 Microns Infra Red Storage Capacity: 270 Micro farads @ 2 KV Flash lamp Energy @ 1000 Volts: 135 Joules, @1500 Volts: 300 Joules Single Collimnating Lens 120 to 150 Shots From Internal AA Batteries Certified Class 4 Laser Product
Yay!!!! Handheld laser weapons that can do actual physical damage, and that you can buy! Yay, capitalism!
LAGUNSYS – Lab Assembled with Flashlamp, without Laser Rod (NDGL) ………………………………………$1949.95
NDGL – 3″ x 1/4″ Laser Rod Nd:Glass 6% doped with mirrored ends, full spec and brand new >1J …..$595.00
BOOOO!!!!! Damned capitalists!
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Seriously, the product is pretty neat, but still pretty far from a full-up phaser. It takes 20 to 30 seconds to charge up between shots, and each shot might hurt a person, but would hardly likely be fatal. Plus, the ergonomics suck:
It appears to have both fore and aft “pistol grips” that look like straight tubes. If someone goes to the bother of building one of these, I’d hope they’d go the extra step of ditching the “lab equipment” look and put it in a fiberglass phaser rifle housing or some such. And replace the battery pack in the weapon itself with a backpack full of batteries… or, better yet, something like a methanol fuel cell. Tens of thousands of shots, and if the power source is jacked up, a much faster charge time. Additional cooling systems would also likely to be required.
If an individual shot is powerful enough to take out a bird or small critter… holy crap. Varmint hunting has just gone to a whole new level. No windage, no gravity drop, no muzzle flash, and probably pretty quiet operation. Instead of getting one shot and then watching all the ducks fly off except the one you shot… now you get to plink away for minutes on end, with the ducks simply flopping over dead with a small smoking hole in their noggins.
Expect this to be banned momentarily.
Sep 122010
1994 NASA-Langley wind tunnel model photos of an F-117 packing two Joint Stand Off Weapons on external mounts. While these would almost certainly have provided a much bigger bang than the weapons shown yesterday, they would have been noticeably less stealthy… which would seem to defeat the purpose of using an F-117 in the first place.
