Abilene Slim SASS 81783

Aren’t F-86s/FJ-4s just plain cool?

So far ahead of its time it was in the first “War of the Worlds” movie!

The Hustler was amazing. Imagine what it could have been if computers had been available to control it. Took a pair of big brass ones to fly it.

The Shuttle was no less an airplane than the X-15 or ME-163 Komet. An amazing airframe!

Too bad it was cancelled. A very cool plane that reminds me of the North American RA-5 Vigilante. It was originally designed to poop out a nuclear bomb from between the engine exhaust.

Old school cool!

Some helitack pics. I love this Chinook pic. The tube hanging from the Skycrane is a siphon for drawing water from a pond/lake, etc.

Here are a few of the arial pics I mentioned. At the time, P-3 Orions and P-2V Neptunes were common as they had bomb bays which are better suited for dropping retardant as opposed to nozzles where the stuff tends to atomize before hitting the ground. This P-3 clipped some trees. Note the Hotshots on the ground in the first pic. The first two pics were an "Oh s**t" moment for the aircrew, the third image was an "Oh s**t" moment for the ground crew!

Rather than totally hijacking SD Joe’s Spitfire thread, I’ll start another. What are some of the coolest looking airplanes on your list? They don’t have to have been successful, just something you think is an interesting design and has good lines. My list could go on and and on, so here are just a few: Lockheed Constellation P-39 Airacobra (may be an odd choice, I just always liked its looks.) Avro Vulcan Hughes XF-11 (shown below)

…and a P-38 or deHaviland Mosquito!

I learn something new every day. 😊

Nice to see that can still happen without the “authorities” getting involved. A few years ago a 5th grader was expelled from a school near me for playing with a toy gun on school property one Sunday. A nanny-nitwit neighbor called police when she saw two kids playing with a pistol. Police arrived, saw it was clearly a toy and left without doing anything. Of course the school district got wind of the “incident” and expelled the kid under its “zero-tolerance gun policy”. The kid was an honor student too. Morons!

Somewhere I have some pics of what the air drops look like from the ground and will try to post. My son had more than one load of retardant dropped right on top of him. Not fun!

Thanks Dave, I’ll give that a look. I must recommend this one too, “Hotshot”. It’s well worth the $4.99 rental fee on Amazon Prime. An extremely moving and accurate documentary of the wildfire business and Hotshots, of which my son was a crew member. The filmmaker also delves into the politics of firefighting and especially the news media, which he acidly refers to “fire pornographers”. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt22742316/

Thanks J-Bar, but he’s no longer on the line. 6-7 years of 16-hour days for 2 weeks at a time. 14-day rolls (deployments), 2 days off, then back at it, May to October. One of the pics below shows how they spent their nights. No showers, porta potties et al. These crews work HARD, which includes hauling their equipment on their backs up 12 - 14,000 elevations He was with the USFS another 10 years until 12/23 and is now living with his wife in Majorca, Spain. (Another story!). He’s still in the wildfire business with a satellite thermal imaging company based in Germany. This wildfire stuff is quite global, but gets little attention in the US press. Pics below are from his time on the ground with the Prescott Hotshots (AZ). He shared many pics, these a just a few of my favorites. Note the ash covering the ground in bottom pic of the guy cutting down the tree.

Prayers up for the boots on the ground too. My son was one of them. 🇺🇸

No, but I like it!

That’s impressive. My total knowledge of oscilloscopes then and now is there was a wavy green line moving against a screen with a grid. Didn’t they use one in the opening credits of the TV show “Outer Limits”? They were used a lot by Hollywood in the 50s and 60s to illustrate high tech.

My dad was an engineer. Never saw a repairman in our house. He once brought an oscilloscope home from work to diagnose a problem with the TV.

“Dill Pickles” could be a great SASS alias. 😁

Why is exactly 67mm important?

Well crap. He was a great pard who taught me much about Frontiersmen. Always enjoyed shooting with him and have missed him in recent years. RIP Fingers. 🇺🇸

One of the people I knew who is now dead, was my mom’s husband and also a urologic surgeon. I’m comfortable with my choices.