By any measure, fifty years is remarkable. Birthdays, reunions, wedding anniversaries – in all of these the marker set at fifty years is justifiably prominent and noteworthy. For aircraft — especially those in carrier aviation, it is signatory. This month the E-2 Hawkeye will celebrate 50 years, starting with the first flight of the prototype,…
Last year, a small group of us spent the better part of the summer and fall writing on the Solomons Campaign. That drawnout slugfest in the southwest Pacific receives little notice beyond Guadalcanal and some discussions regarding Santa Cruz. The purpose of that exercise (here and over at USNI’s blog) was to surface the larger…
16 August 1960 — Captain Joseph Kittinger, USAF stepped from the gondola of his high altitude helium balloon and began a record-breaking plunge to the ground, over 120, 000 ft below. With a drogue chute deployed to stabilize his freefall (a lesson-learned form the first jump) he reached a maximum velocity of 614 mph before…
“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,…
23 October: The U.S. ended all tactical air sorties into NVN above the 20th parallel and brought to a close Linebacker I operations. This gesture of good will in terminating the bombing in NVN above the 20th parallel was designed to help promote the peace negotiations being held in Paris. During May through October the…
Checking in from the SJS-family’s TAD site this weekend (and yes, we still are in the pre-internet age back at the homeport, still awaiting the service visit by the provider…), where the lead Scriblet is tying the matrimonial knot (and once again, the weather-guessers appear to be winning as we contemplate low ceilings and fits…
As Hurricane Bill sits off the coast today, dumping copious amounts of rain on the SJS homestead (such as it is at the moment), we pause to consider a community of aviators and scientists whose mission brings them face to face with The Beast, under conditions normally sane aviators strive to avoid. Today we take…
20 July 1969 102:42:08 Duke: Roger. Copy. (Pause) Eagle, Houston. You’re Go for landing. Over. 102:42:13 Armstrong (on-board): Okay. 3000 at 70. 102:42:17 Aldrin: Roger. Understand. Go for landing. 3000 feet. 102:42:19 Duke: Copy. 102:42:19 Aldrin: Program Alarm. (Pause) 1201 102:42:24 Armstrong: 1201. (Pause) (On-board) Okay, 2000 at 50. 102:42:25 Duke: Roger. 1201 alarm. (Pause)…
Tomorrow we will have our Independence Day post up and in the busy comings goings of a three-day weekend, we encourage one and all to pause and ponder those words — mere words in some folks’ opinion; that our forefathers penned in Philadelphia that hot summer of 1776. Men had already died in the cause…
(which might also serve as a cautionary tale to those who decry ‘future warists’ – SJS) …Investments in blood and treasure: Jan. 1927: 8 officers and 81 enlisted men of VO-1M, led by Maj. Ross Rowell, arrived at Corinto, Nicaragua with six DH’s. Amidst the anarchy of the civil and banditry, the U.S. Marines held…
