Abilene Slim SASS 81783

Three classic Henry shooters- me, Dantankerous and Major at Butterfield Gulch

This is terrible news. We’ve lost a magnificent cowboy…. 😪 https://www.kwch.com/2025/01/13/man-killed-mitchell-county-crash/

I bet they’re looking at a lighthouse.

My dad used them a couple of times on the Douglas A3D.

He also died in "The White Buffalo" (1977)

Weather guessers got it right this time. They said 8-13” for our area and we have 10+ as the storm winds down. Haven’t had a snow dump like this in 10 years or so. Grid has held up for us, but not everyone in the metro area is as fortunate. Gonna get a good workout with the snow thrower and shovel Monday!

Ice is accumulating here in KC area. Roads are treacherous already, but no snow yet. That’s supposed to start in the morning. We don’t have anywhere to go and are in good shape. Hope the power grid holds up. We have a generator, but it’s super heavy and hard to move from the shed. Sounds like I’m complaining but I’m not. We’ve been down this road before, so it’s mostly an inconvenience.

Makes sense.

The airfields were bigger and better suited for modern needs.

The US is beginning to refurbish Tinian for use in case things get hot with China.

Weather guessers are going nuts here in KC area, gonna be snowmageddon. Usually it ends up being ice and an inch of snow. Great entertainment value on the local news channels. Just the same, I fired up the snow thrower today in case I’m wrong. 😊 Regardless, I’d rather have a big dump of snow than ice.

A number of years ago I got a personal tour of the Lake City ammo plant near Kansas City. Got to see the entire operation of making 5.56 ammo where a friend was managing that program. Fascinating.

I can’t offer anything but sympathy and empathy for your situation. Went thru a very similar situation with my father in law’s death decades ago. 🙏

When the USS Missouri was retired after the Gulf War, it was costing $1M per day to operate. The other more important issue was the lack of skilled personnel and facilities to maintain the aging machinery. By then, those folks were elderly or dead. After the Iowa turret explosion in the 80’s, the physical capability to repair it didn’t exist anymore, even if they had the personnel.

Thx for the clarification. I have some thoughts to add, plus a photo or two, but am short on time today. Probably gonna be tonight or tomorrow. Welcome to the dark side!

Do you have a question? What insight do you seek?

The first click must have seated the primer…

First time I made that drive was in the dark around 10:00 pm from Flagstaff to Prescott. Talk about treacherous! Since then it’s been in daylight, but is still a bit of a heads up experience. Cool sign. Did you get it Jerome or Prescott?

When the A-10 was first conceived, the Army wanted it to add to its helicopter fleet for CAS. The Air Force saw that as an encroachment on their territory, (because it was an airplane) and demanded it be under their control. Since then, they’ve treated it as a bastard stepchild and have tried for decades to eliminate the platform in order to use the funds for other bling and toys. They came within a gnat’s whisker of doing so, but Desert Storm came along just before that happened. Having nothing in the inventory that came close to its capabilities, it was used to great success, much to the chagrin of AF brass. And here we are almost 35 years later with nothing in the works to replace it, despite much success. Like the B-52, it’s a workhorse, but its mission lacks the dazzle of high-tech projects like The F-35 and whatever comes after. Screw the grunts on the ground, says the AF. Other than that, I have no opinion. Rant mode off.

One of my favorite videos is of the late Senator John McCain grilling AF brass on canceling the A-10 and how they proposed to replace a very effective and cost-effective CAS platform. One of the generals said the B-1 could fill in. McCain ripped him a new one…

Dogs can shoot BB guns?