Intentionally crashed his plane?

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 052022
 

This seems a dubious situation… a guy was flying along in his 1940’s Taylorcraft plane when the engine stopped… so within seconds he bailed out. The plane glided to a crash in the California mountains, fortunately missing humans and structures and not starting any fires. Interestingly, the guy had a *lot* of GoPro cameras on his plane. Lots of footage. It sure looks like he did this on purpose.

if he did this intentionally, I gotta believe he’s on the hook for *lot* of charges. If he did this honestly, I gotta believe the FAA and NTSB are gonna jump all over him for being rather incompetent. Bailing out that fast from an aircraft that seems to be flying well and at reasonably high altitude? He barely had time to register what was going on before jumping out.

 Posted by at 12:15 am

Webb has fully deployed the sun shield

 awesomeness, news, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 042022
 

Woo!

Sunshield Successfully Deploys on NASA’s Next Flagship Telescope

 

 Posted by at 6:28 pm

Lockheed AP-12

 aircraft, awesomeness, Book X, books, drawings, history, Hmm..., Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Origins and Evolution, projects, rockets, spacecraft, SR-71 Origins and Evolution  No Responses »
Jan 042022
 

The Lockheed Skunk Works A-12 was the immediate predecessor of the SR-71, a single seat recon vehicle in some ways a bit superior to the SR-71, in others not as good. One of the odder ideas put forward was to use the A-12 to carry a modified Polaris missile with a recon satellite on a once-around mission… a way to turn the Mach 3+ A-12 into a global range hypersonic, nearly orbit-capable recon platform. It was bonkers, but the math checked out; nevertheless it was not built. It is described in greater detail in:

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird – Origins & Evolution

Available either directly through the publisher or through Amazon.

 Posted by at 3:14 am

And this is where “Star Wars” is today…

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., politics, science fiction, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 032022
 

Is it any wonder that much of the fandom is PO’ed about the direction Star Wars has gone under Disney?

The High Republic Adventures: Galactic Bake-Off Spectacular

Torban “Buckets of Blood” Buck and Kantam Sy face off in a brutal, intense, ruthless… bake-off!

Lightsabers and Jedi robes are put aside in favor of whisks and aprons as the two competitors bake Master Yoda’s special pastry recipe. But the recipe requires one extra special ingredient: a story! “Buckets of Blood” and Kantam recount the tale of an epic battle as they whisk away, both hoping to win the prize of Padawan approval.

Daniel José Older and Vita Ayala team up in this heart-warming one-shot. Plus, bake Master Yoda’s pastries yourself, with the recipe included in the back!

In Shops: Jan 19, 2022

For ᚠᚪᛣᚳᛋ sake. Who is this *for*?????

 

 Posted by at 7:24 pm

Could Finland join NATO?

 Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire  No Responses »
Jan 012022
 

It’s a possibility. it’s not a popular possibility in Finland, apparently, with more of the public opposing it than supporting it; and of course Putin doesn’t like the idea of a nation that the USSR attempted to put under its bootheel standing up to him. Given that Russia continues to occupy a fair amount of Finish territory, it’s not unsurprising that the Finnish government is not terribly fond of Russia.

Finland says it could join Nato despite Russian pressure

 Posted by at 9:54 pm

Chopped Thompson

 art, history, Hmm..., weapons  No Responses »
Jan 012022
 

A mere 8 years ago I posted a question… does anyone know of a Thompson submachine gun that was chopped down to pistol-size back in (I think) the thirties? Many, many years ago I saw a magazine article showing just such a weapon. It didn’t look like a hack job, but like a shiny nickel-plated piece of art. And it may have *been* art, not actually functional, it just looked cool. When I posted about it, nobody seemed to know it.

Turns out something much like what I remember has shown up in a video game along with a bunch of other mutant/mutilated weapons. So, once again: does this look familiar?

 

My memory of the article says that the pistol looked like this photoshop, just shinier.

 Posted by at 8:21 pm
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