Boeing 2707-300

 aircraft, drawings, projects  No Responses »
Oct 142008
 

Drawings of the final version of the Boeing 2707-300 SST. While Boeing originally sold the concept to the FAA and Congress as a swing-wing design, the added weight inheirant in variable geometry wings made the design untenable.  Boeing revisited the concept and came up with a fixed geometry concept, the -300 version. The -300 was such a successful aerodynamic shape that 30 years later SST concepts still look just like it.

Boeing planned to build prototypes; they’d have fewer windows, but packed with instrumentation.

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 Posted by at 10:09 pm

The message on the park bench

 blather, photography  1 Response »
Oct 142008
 

At Elk Neck State Park, there is a long path through the woods. At the end of the path is the Turkey Point Lighthouse, a small structure atop a tall cliff, overlooking the Chesepeake. The path is not a difficult one, but it is a mile or so long. The Boy Scouts helpfully added a few benches along the path. One one of them, amidst dueling the daddy longlegs, someone wrote a message:

“50 years ago

I camped here

Now I am too old

to even make it

to the lighthouse

Thank you for this

Bench

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 Posted by at 9:51 pm

A list of instances of ACORN electoral fraud

 politics  1 Response »
Oct 142008
 

The Internet is an amazing place. Where else would you find a politically conservative gay activist who puts together a convenient list of news items regarding the electoral fraud being perpetrated by an organization associated with a socialist Presidential candidate?

Here’s a sample:

Connecticut

Florida

Much more at the site…

 Posted by at 7:52 pm

KC-97 at Dover

 aircraft, photography  1 Response »
Oct 132008
 

Photographed at the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover, Delaware today, a Boeing KC-97. The panoramas are stitched together from several shots, and reduced to 20%.

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 Posted by at 1:06 am

Davy Crockett

 nukes, photography, weapons  4 Responses »
Oct 102008
 

The smallest nuclear weapon the US ever deployed was the “Davy Crockett,” using the w54 warhead (yield about 20 *tons*) launched by a recoilless gun. Range was only a mile and a bit, but with the low yield blast effects would be negligible. But you sure as hell wouldn’t want to be downwind of it.

The US Army Ordnance Museum in Aberdeen, Maryland, has one on display. Not having my Geiger counter on me at the time, I can only assume it’s either a mockup or a disarmed unit.

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 Posted by at 5:57 pm

Today’s dose of badassery

 blather  No Responses »
Oct 092008
 

Wow.

B.C. man comes out swinging in bear attack

The bear then attacked him, knocking him to the ground, and West soon found himself on the losing side of an ill-matched fight.

“I rolled onto my stomach and clasped my hands at the back of my neck. She tore into my skull at the back of my head, moved over and bit me on the left side of my body, on my ribs and left arm,” said West.

Knowing he would likely soon be dead unless he fought back, the injured West managed to get to his feet and picked up a stick about as thick as his arm.

..

“I swung my piece of wood like a sledgehammer driving spikes and I kept swinging till she was lying flat on the ground and there was blood coming out of her nose,” said West.

The five-foot-nine man eventually crushed the bear’s skull with the stick, killing it.

It’s one thing to survive a fight with a bear. It’s another to beat a bear to death with a stick.

 Posted by at 11:31 am

Glory

 aircraft, photography  2 Responses »
Oct 082008
 

A “glory” is a phenomena rarely seen before man learned to fly, but now readily seen if you fly at the right time, over the right clouds and know where to look. These were taken on my recent flight to and from Utah.

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 Posted by at 7:21 pm
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