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Of Radials and Cicadas
Last couple of weeks we have been serenaded by Brood 2 offspring of the 1996 round of 17-year cicadas. With a background noise like a bad 50’s special effects soundtrack, they’ve been pretty constant but this weekend, overcome at times by the sound of Merlin and Wright piston engines as the CAF brought a P-51,…
Midway 70 Years Later and the Dauntless on My Desk
In every battle there is a moment when the combatants, and the world, seem to catch their breath. It is a fleeting moment, lost in the blink of an eye. But in that same blink, everything changes. Such moments are borne of desperation, of courage, of plain dumb luck. But they are pivotal — for…
Reflections: The Resurrection of BuNo 160992 (Part I)
SJS note: Aircraft, like cars, stoves, televisions and Tickle-Me-Elmo ®, are products of assembly lines some more massive than others, but the premise is still the same. Build a lot of something to set standards with common assemblies and a uniform product results. Except when it doesn’t. Every one of us who have slipped the…
“That’s One Small Step for A Man…” Neil Alden Armstrong (1930-2012)
Sad word today that Neil Armstrong – Naval Aviator, test pilot and first man on the Moon, has passed. Neil Armstrong typified the “quiet professional” whose coolness in extremis events were exemplified in flying the X-15 and especially so on orbit as commander of Gemini VIII when things suddenly went very, very wrong (@ the…
Remembering Columbine – 10 Years Later
It began as an ordinary, early spring day – teachers going about their business of teaching students; students doing what normal high school students are wont to do. At 1140, it dramatically, tragically changed with 12 students and a teacher dead and 23 others physically wounded – many more emotionally scarred. Two years, four months…


