Trailrider #896

What if you are already crazy?

Must be careful flying over gopher country. Could cause engines to flame out, or cracked windshields!

Our military is strongly considering contracting with SpaceX, once Starship/booster are developed, to use that system to logistically support materiel for our troops using it surface-to-surface. Space Force is also working on a backup to GPS, utilizing SpaceX's Starlink system derivatives, as well as maintaining our surveilence satellites from possible destruction by Russia and the PRC . Development of lunar resources, including rare earth materials, will be directly in competition with the PRC, which has stated as a definite program the landing of taikonauts on the Moon within the next few years. As far as our submarine and other naval ships are concerned, that is what Congress needs to figure out on a fiscal year basis, rather than this continuing resolution crap that has been going on for years! Take that up with your representatives and senators. (Right now, as of the end of the month, I won't have a congressman until a special election is held, as he is quitting!) Ad Astra!

The theory of "daylight precision bombing" was to destroy the enemy's ability to make war by destroying manufacture of strategic materials, ball bearings, fighter aircraft, etc., avoiding "collateral damage". The results of adhering to this theory were more KIA suffered by Eighth Airforce than U.S. Marines in WWII. The same idea was attempted in the Pacific, and it didn't work there either. Took a cigar-chomping major general to decide that the Brits had the right idea...bomb the targets at night using incendiaries! (In June 1964, Old Iron @$$ himself swore in my AFROTC classmates as 2LTs. (I had another year of engineering to go until graduation and commissioning.)

Neighbor was back around with his snowblower to clean up what fell last night. OTOH, just got an email from out trash collector: they won't be able to get to us this week! Had to haul our trash buckets back to the garage from the curb. Fortunately, they are on wheels and the sidewalk was relatively clear. Oh, well...

Granted, NASA and Space Force are acting as customers, but it is still necessary that it be done. U.S. military is looking at Starship as a potential way of moving supplies from place-to-place here on Earth! If you want to object to what is being spent by NASA on getting astronauts back to the Moon, then get them to terminate Artemis and Gateway, and let SpaceX do it right and a lot cheaper. As Musk eventually wants to use Starships to explore and later colonize Mars, he will do it anyway, and get us to the Moon in the process. When Space Shuttle was cancelled, 2500 peole were laid off at the Cape. At the time they had nowhere else down there to get jobs. As a result, 10,000 jobs were lost in Brevad County alone! Apollo put between $9M and $20M into the economy for every dollar spent directly on that program. SpaceX is hiring a lot of people at both Boca Chica and the Cape who are not rocket people. I bet a welder can make good money assembling the booster and Ship, and will use that money to feed, clothe and put a roof over his/her family's heads. Same for a heavy equipment operator. If I were fifty-five years younger, I'd be down in Texas banging on Musk's door and asking if he could use a rocket engine engineer, or even a janitor! Ad Astra!

Uh, Slim...it ain't your money. What SpaceX is doing with Starship is private/commercial enterprise. Yes, once it is developed, NASA will pay for the lunar landing flights, but if we (America) doesn't do it, the Chinese will for whatever reasons to go back to the Moon. Big Sade...and we did all that with sliderules and maybe a Friden desktop mechanical calculator, or later with large mainframe computers. We recovered Space Shuttle SRB's using parachutes, not backing down on their own exhaust plumes like Falcon 9. Eventually, Starship will be developed to be more useful than what most people can imagine. The fact that it didn't make it this time is part of the development process. I have NO DOUBT it will be a success eventually! They are planning at least 3 or 4 more development flights this year. Ad Astra! (To the stars!)

Can't do nothin' right! Got the boiler put on off-center! (That's to counterbalance the driving cylinders, in case some don't know I'm kidding.) Those Southern Pacific cab-forward Mallet's are something else, as well. Good thing they burn oil, as firing coal might be a tad difficult from up front!

Well, not sure if it burned up, but probably broke up on reentry. Terrific views while it lasted however! Some problems getting good telemetry link with the TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite). They did apparently open and close the cargo hatch. They did NOT get a relight of the Raptor engine they were hoping to get in space, but will have to study what data they got. Also, the booster failed to light the center engines for simulated touchdown (by splashdown) in the Atlantic. Have to see what happened there. But at least no RUD's this time, so maybe the FAA won't get their knickers in a knot about issuing the next license. Build a little, test a little, modify and fly again! I don't recall how many unsuccessful landing attempts on Falcon 9 before they got the first one landed okay. Now they've landed nearly 300, including a couple that have reflown 19 times. Starship and booster are an order of magnitude more complex. They'll get it pretty soon!

Springtime in the Rockies, right? We got an upslope snowstorm...still in progress...along the Front Range, including Denver & vicinity. At lease 18 inches according to the TV, and I think more like 24"...so far. Supposed to snow all night! At 81-1/2 there is no way I'm ridin' down coronary gulch trying to shovel that stuff off my front porch, much less the driveway. Dogs started barkin' looking out the front storm door. It's our neighbors five of them with snow blowers and shovels, clearing out most of the white stuff! Can't ask for better than that! Will have to do something for them...probably Easter baskets with some goodies in them that my wife likes to put together. Supposed to stop tomorrow, and then warm up into the 50's and 60's next week. Glad we live on relatively high ground. Folks downhill might need to consider buying a boat when it all melts!

Don't know about down thataway, but I hear there is a lot of norovirus going around in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Had a bad case of it a couple years ago at Rochester, MN, while visiting the Mayo Clinic of all places. Probably left on a hamburger bun by a restaurant cook who didn't wash hands well enough. Really unpleasant for a couple of days! Wife and I are supposed to go back up there for our annual checkups in April. Hope that bug has cleared out by then.

All well and good, as far as it goes. However, UNLESS the gun is stamped or otherwise shown to have been NITRO PROOFED, it will have been proofed for Black Powder only, though it won't say so on the gun. There are various proof marks on European-made guns that will tell to what standard they were proofed for that country. A long time ago, Gun Digest had an extensive article showing proof marks and standards for British, French, German, Austrian, and Belgian standards, according to the date of the law for that particular test. The chamber lengths will NOT be shown in English units of measure. They will be shown in metric. If the marking is "65", then it is a 2-1/2" chamber, and as the video says, that is the length of shell after being fired that can be used. ONLY if the mark is "70" can a 2-3/4" shell be safely used. HOWEVER...if the gun has only been proofed for black powder, then it is highly likely it was only shot with black powder shells. The problem there is one never knows how well the gun was cleaned immediately after using. In that case, there is the possibility of intergrannular corrosion having developed along the seams of the Damascus twist. You cannot determine if that is the case with Non-destructive tests. Therefore, I highly recommend the gun be hung on the wall, or, if one can find them, the use of modern steel inserts, such as Savage Four-tenners" be used with .410 shells!

When I was a kid, we called most adults Mr. (surname) and Mrs. (surname), even the parents of the kids next door, who were close friends of my folks. OTOH, I was allowed to call close friends of my folks, "Uncle David" and "Aunt Miriam", even though they weren't relatives. When I was finally in college, I asked if I could call the grownups referred to in the first example by their first names,, which was granted. Likewise, their kids had the same sequence. I don't recall what the situation was with my own kids...now in their fifties, but it was respectful, regardless. When my younger daughter was a teacher in a metropolitan middle school, she was called simply, "Miss" until she got married, then "Missus". By virtue of the respect in which she was held by her students and their parents...especially one father, who was a highly respected individual among his peers... "Miss" was "safe". She was to be protected, and her vehicle immune from vandalism when parked in the school vicinity!

The problem is NOT adjusting timepieces. The problem is adjusting your internal body clock! Our younger dog usually wakes up at 6:45 AM. Will he now wake up at 7:45, or will he eventually shift back to 6:45? He usually goes to bed about 8:00 PM. Does that mean he will now wait until 9:00 PM? My wife usually gets her body clock about a week to adjust. Usually doesn't bother me. OTOH, calling our relatives in Arizona gets messed up because they don't switch, thus are now going to be an hour different!

I told Wilbur an' I told Orville, and I told Glenn Curtis, that thing will never fly! And besides, they left out titanium and stainless steel, much less non-metallic composits.

Had a tragic accident around the corner from out house yesterday. Thirteen year-old boy, almost across the main thoroughfare, was struck and killed by some !876543++! who ran a red light! Speed limit on the main parkway is 45mph, but, as a local news reporter who arrived on the scene, most cars are going a lot faster! Nothing will bring the kid back, nor really assuage the grief his family and friends (we do not know them), and no matter what they do to the +ur@, will put his/her/its mind at ease! But, they just had to beat that light! SLOW DOWN, DAMMIT!

Oh, that kind of vernier calipers! Being an old rocket engineer, I thought you were referring to the twin 1,000 lbF thrust rocket engines on the sides of an Atlas-D ICBM/Mercury capsule booster.

Don't you still call people on the "Ameche"? (Don Ameche played Bell in the movie.) Also, if you got a lengthy long-distance call from someone, you'd say, "Shoot! It's your nickel!" Back when you could drop one in a pay phone. (I was about five when the nickel charge went to a dime!) Remember when there were phone booths? Nowadays where does Superman go to change clothes?

Sparks' unit was one of three that liberated Dachau. Seeing what the condition of the inmates was, some of Sparks' men lined up a bunch of SS troops and machine gunned them! BG Henning Linden, Assistant Division Commander of the 42nd Infantry "Rainbow" Division, who took the surrender of the camp from an SS leutnent, preferred charges against Sparks for allowing this to happen. The court-martial papers went to Patton, who promptly tore them up. Sparks later became Adjutant General of the State of Colorado. I don't recall the third unit to liberate Dachau, but it was an independent tank outfit. Major General Maurice Rose was probably the finest armor commander under Patton and Eisenhower. Tragically, he got out too far ahead of his men, and was confronted by an SS leutant tank commander. Before Rose could surrender, the SS man cut him down! Don't recall what happened to the swine. Rose Hospital in Denver is named after Gen. Rose, who was a Denver native. Rose was the highest ranking general KIA in WWII. Although Jewish by heritage, like Adm. Rickover, I believe both their "religions" were their respective services.

I have a theory, which of course I can't prove: Baldwin claims he didn't "pull the trigger". The gun was tested and allegedly found to be in working condition. Baldwin possibly believes he didn't "pull the trigger", meaning he didn't have his trigger finger completely within the trigger guard. But if the tip of the finger was enough inside the guard, it could have contacted the trigger with enough pressure to cause the hammer to fall and the gun discharge! As to his having the gun pointed at the camera, for whatever visual effect he wanted, he didn't treat the gun the way we all have been trained...you never point a gun...loaded or not...at anything you don't intend to kill! I can't recall where I read or saw this, but it may have been Arvo Arjalla, the armorer on Gunsmoke, who always told the actors to "aim off" when pointing the gun in the direction of the other actor. The angular discrepancy was taken care of by the camera angles. Especially close up, even a blank can kill, which has been proven by idiot actors who pointed a gun with a blank at his own head. As far as Ms. Reed is concerned, I'm not convinced she should be charged and convicted of negligent homicide, as there are too many others in this cluster-xxxk, especially Baldwin, who created the conditions that lead to the tragedy. Thought I heard that there were others that had possession of the gun between her and Baldwin. Hopefully, she can appeal, and at least get the sentence reduced. As a convicted felon, she can never have possession of a firearm again! If Thell Reed is still alive, I wonder what he thinks about this whole thing?

It was sometimes said that if someone fell into the Chicago river, and was drowning, if they were hauled out, they would be given a bunch of shots before artificial respiration!

Is it sitting on some eggs?

And the guy that sent him after Smoke was...William Conrad. the man who played Matt Dillon, on the radio version of Gunsmoke!

What model tank was that? I see a muzzle brake on the end of the tube. M4E8 at that point...before Korea. Also, was the tank commander wearing his necktie?

The "Fighter Mafia" hates the A-10. They are "bone-yarding" a bunch of them. What they ought to do is turn them over to Army Aviation...or maybe armor. That thing is a flying tank! Or...give them to the Ukranians! Of course they would need the F-16's flying top cover.