17 December 1956. The icy fog of the mid-December morning had long dissipated when an odd appearing aircraft took the active duty runway. Twin-engines and a shoulder mounted wing marked its lineage to with that of the S-2 family, but a set of twn tails and more importantly, a huge, airfoil-shaped radome that stretched back…
Bulava SLBM Update: According to press reports, the star-crossed Bulava SLBM will go into serial production “soon” – most probably after the next test flight. There is one more test shot scheduled for sometime later this month (after 21 Dec) after which it is anticipated that the new SLBM will be declared operational. Nine tests of the…
14 Dec –Installation of the Pilot Landing Aid Television system (PLAT) was completed on Coral Sea, the first carrier to have the system installed for operational use. Designed to provide a video tape of every landing, the system was useful for instructional purposes and in the analysis of landing accidents making it a valuable tool…
It is time to dance, time to playful It is time to dance Rainbows are watching the mountains when you whip out the Scotch tape Baby, get me the Scotch tape It’s been a long, day So I need to put the pieces, together again  – Indi and Rustan Leino Oh yeah — scotch tape,…
This is some butt-ugly free verse we’re up to our elbows in… We “updated” to WordPress 2.7 and, of course, not everything is working (over in the sidebar, admin page, etc), so bear with us – we’re working it ***UPDATE Â Â If you have “WP Automatic Upgrade” installed as one of your plugins, deactivate it. Â That…
Satan (impatiently) to Newcomer: The trouble with you Chicago people is, that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are merely the most numerous. – Mark Twain in “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar”  Couldn’t swing a cat yesterday without encountering another story about the enlightened (now indicted) governor of Illinois, calling to mind…
As promised we have a couple of announcements that will impact the frequency of posts here over the coming year. Naval Institute Blog:Â We were asked to join a panel consisting of several other bloggers – some we knew and served with on active duty, others from milblogs and other venues since, that will be…
If you’ve arrived from the USNI Blog (or not…), welcome and please take some time to look around. At the top you’ll find some of the major topics we cover here — Flightdeck Friday, which focuses on the lesser known aspects of all matters related to naval aviation, Reflections – which is an ongoing recollection…
RTB today from our Midwestern sojourn. Some news we will be posting on the morrow – in the meantime an update on the Vikramaditya (“Brave as the Sun”) via Barents Observer shows that it has been floated from dry dock (or beaching as was the case):
As veterans of this epic action ever more rapidly dwindle and recede into history’s mists, we ask a question – does this date become a mere cipher on the calendar? We pose this question in part as we see September 11th being reduced to an optional head nod and thence continue business as necessary. The…
