Flightdeck Friday: Speed and Seaplanes – The Curtiss CR-3 and R3C-2

“Racing,” as the saying goes, “improves the breed.”  And during the Roaring 20’s, the rage of the nation (and the world at large) was airplane racing.  While the sport would reach its ultimate form in the 1930’s with the likes of the Thompson Trophy races, one of the earliest trophy races was the Schneider Trophy,…

Tailhook Association and Association of Naval Aviation

There is a large, international organization that features the slogan “To be one, ask one”  and that is our purpose here today.  The Tailhook Association and Association of Naval Aviation are two organizations focused on  the unique aspect and specific and general needs of carrier (viz. “tailhook”) and naval aviation.  Both do heavy lifting inside…

Postcards from Deployment: Of Wogs and Shellbacks…

Crossing the Line. The boisterous ceremonies of “crossing the line” are ancient and their derivation is lost.  It is well known that ceremonies took place long ago when the ship crossed the thirtieth parallel, and also when going through the Straits of Gibraltar.  Early ceremonies were rough and to a great extent supposed to try…

Airborne Laser Testbed Successful in Lethal Intercept Experiment

From an MDA press release earlier today: The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile. The experiment, conducted at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off the central California coast, serves as…

Flightdeck Friday: USS MACON Added to National Register of Historical Places

…though you might need a little more exotic kit than walking shoes and sunscreen to visit. (full story here) For those of short memory, the story of the USS Macon and her brood was the subject of an earlier Flightdeck Friday: “Gasbags and Hookers”

“Доверяй, но проверяй” (“Trust But Verify”)

Votkinsk Machine Building Plant. Located about 8.5 km to the east of the birthplace of Pytor Illyich Tchaikovsky, in the Russian Federation Republic of  Udmurtia, is an industrial facility whose name, in typical Soviet fashion, obscures the products made there.   It is a name unfamiliar to most outside of the arms control, intelligence or…