(h/t to Southern Air Pirate for the topic suggestion) 29 April 1975. South Vietnam is ceasing to exist as a geopolitical entity – Saigon is falling. Under leaden skies, the assembled ships and aircraft of TF 76, headed by carriers Hancock and Midway begin executing Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of US personnel along with Vietnamese…
(5 Nov Update): Read this for some perspective on the competiton. Check current status here. And don’t forget the auctions — there’s some really great stuff over there, including signed original artwork and books, rare memorabilia and other great things. So it’s not Friday – but as promised here, presented for your viewing pleasure, a…
1212L/0812Z 16 June 1959. 78 nm east of Wonsan, North Korea, a P4M Mercator assigned to VQ-1 (BuNo 122209) is conducting another “ferret†mission in international airspace over the Sea of Japan. At the controls are LCDRs Don Mayer and Vince Anania. Fours hours into the mission a pair of silver MiG-17s approach the Mercator…
…Right? Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, flying on the International Space Station, is being criticized by some U.S. observers for using a digital camera equipped with an 800-mm. telephoto lens and a video camera to image what a Russian official said were “after-effects of border conflict operations in the Caucasus” on Aug. 9, soon after the…
KIDO BUTAI First Carrier Striking Force VADM Nagumo Chuichi Chief of Staff: RADM Kusaka Ryunosuke Carrier Division 1 – VADM Nagumo Akagi (flagship) – Captain Aoki Taijiro, commanding 18 x A6M2 carrier fighters (aka Zero) 18 x D3A1 carrier bombers (aka Val) 18 x B5N2 carrier attack aircraft (aka Kate) 6 x A6M2 fighters (6th…
Massive floating airship carriers deploying squadrons of fighters – a scene from some fantastic grade-B thriller? Well, maybe. But back in the mid-1930’s it wasn’t all that far fetched. The Navy, in the midst of transformational experimentation with aircraft carriers, was well into the trials with lighter-than-air ships. Of these, the USS Akron and USS…
