One of the ‘oddities’ if you will, was the Brits stayed low on launch, assuming the Germans had radar that was as good as theirs, hoping the low altitude would prevent the Germans from having enough time to recall strikes or give the strikes a heads up before the Brits could climb and engage them.
Maybe California???
Federal background checks for long gun sales in California surged to an 18-year high in November, according to the FBI’s database.
Dealers processed 82,554 applications for long guns through the National Instant Criminal Background Check system last month, a 57 percent increase over November 2015 and a 34 percent jump from October.
<snip>
Paredes says come January, not only will California no longer allow the sale of bullet button-equipped rifles, but it will mandate current owners to either register their firearms, sell the weapons across state lines, turn bullet button long guns over to law enforcement or destroy the guns completely.
Owners could also disassemble the weapons into “a conforming condition,” he said. “Folks are rightfully concerned because as of Jan.1, 2017, sales of those guns will be banned.”
Full article HERE.
When you compare that with this…
After dodging a Hillary Clinton presidency, Republicans have a historic shot to rewrite the nation’s gun laws under President-elect Donald Trump.
There is definitely a pro-gun agenda on the horizon starting in January…
Full article HERE.
And one more…
Anti-gun hysteria is hazardous to your health…
In July, the Crime Prevention Research Center published a comprehensive report on those Americans who hold concealed-carry permits. Among the findings, the Center notes that while the police are dramatically more law-abiding than the population as a whole (37 times more law-abiding), permit holders in Texas and Florida — two states that keep comprehensive records — were even more law-abiding than cops. Police officers committed crimes at a rate of 103 crimes per 100,000 officers. Permit holders in Texas and Florida committed crimes at a rate of 22.3 per 100,000.
Full article HERE.
Soooo… The left/MSM continues to trash us, even as the research proves we are categorically LESS prone to violate the law than just about any other group, but that’s still not good enough, with the MSM still promising blood in the streets (again)… sigh…
The mil email chain has been full of airplane stories this week…
The first two are about the F-4
“Hey, Grandpa,” the young lad said to me; “Tell me a war story. What did you do in the war?”
“I flew “Phantoms. Rhino. Big Ugly.” Fascination and concern shone in his eyes. “Phantoms?” “Absolutely,” I said, looking off into the wild blue yonder and the setting sun. “Tell me about the Phantoms, Grandpa.”
I thought for a moment about what to say. How much could he really understand? Not much, actually. But kids sure like airplanes, even big kids like Grandpa. I thought a little more about what to tell him:
Actually, they’re called F-4s. The term, “F-4,” is like a scientific definition for a giant wild animal that will level your 18-wheel truck if it feels like it. The Phantom was the biggest, loudest, meanest-looking, raw power fighting machine ever built. It was a Man’s jet.
Spectators’ innards rumbled when Phantoms took off! Wide-eyed kids instantaneously decided they were going to be a fighter pilot just like me. They didn’t understand about back-seaters and crew chiefs, but they did understand brute power and speed. You could point this airplane at the moon and for a while you thought you were going to get there. It went a mile per breath at high cruise. A mile per breath!
Phantom. The big leagues. Normal earth people never witness the splendor nor feel the terror of Big Ugly closing for guns. Over the years, my jet fought them all: Tomcats, Eagles, Falcons, Hornets, F-5s, F-106s, A-4s, A-7s, F-111s, Buffs, B-1s, U-2s, even the F-105. Yeah, my pilots lost some, but won plenty! Don’t try to run from a Thud. To win with “Big Ugly,” use power, altitude, vertical, surprise.
Don’t get slow; speed is life. Cut across the circle. Don’t bury the nose. Kill the bandit now. Take that slashing gunshot. Don’t say the pilot cheated; he got the shot. You can’t outrun the missile.
That magnificent airplane remained a major player in our nation’s defense for decades, despite sharing birthdays with early pocket calculators. Is anybody still driving a ’65 Chevy? It’s the people who bring this aircraft to life and provide the brainpower. A roomful of Phantom crews sets a unique social environment. Seemingly insignificant behaviors and unusual events create career-spanning nicknames and legends. “Two Dogs” shot the tanker. “Tripod” kissed the colonel’s dog. They remember forever! Don’t believe the dreaded words, “Your secret is safe with me.” Don’t point fingers, for if you live by the sword, you will die by it.
It’s a rare combination of he-man pilots whose egos, fangs, and foolishness are tempered by an inseparable conscience embodied in the blind, trusty WSO who almost equally share credit for the fabulous success of this durable-crew airplane. It’s a we airplane – not an I, not a me, but we airplane. “We shot the drone. We didn’t go out of our airspace – not us.” The new stuff extends off duty as well. We were at the movies when the windows shattered. You get the idea.
Riding in the “pit”, WSOs are among the bravest souls on earth, betting their lives and reputation on the driver up front who will take them who knows where at a moment’s notice. The backseater lives by his cunning, competing against advanced technology with systems as old as himself. His understanding of human thought processes makes great WSO’ing an art form. He must be ready for any eventuality and provide timely information in a logical, understandable sequence for the multitasked Phantom driver to digest in small pieces. The key is to make the driver, “Mr. Sometimes Macho,” think it was his idea in the first place. The WSO must sense when his inputs have gone unheeded, yet never waste a second with unnecessary or mistimed information. He must find the target and get the frontseater’s eye on it. Then it’s grunt time, fighting the Gs while the animal frontseater maneuvers for the kill. No whimpering gents; we’re riding a Rhino! Sometimes we become the Rhino!
A flight of F-4s paired against multiple bogies creates instant comm jamming when only half the crewmen are talking. Hit the merge and they’re all start yakking away, like a gaggle of geese sorting out the variables. Phantoms somehow excel in defeating large numbers of superior aircraft under severe comm conditions. The more targets, the better. Rhinos charge the fight, shoot bogies and accept a few losses. There’s no way to recall everything that happened in a multi-ship merge, but each crewman brings back various recollections to defend vigorously at the debrief. At the height of the discussion, several pilots talk at once while gesticulating hands “gun” each other. The WSOs nod approvingly. Somehow, most participants emerge from the debrief with the positive notion that “we did fairly well…considering the circumstances.”
Computers changed the flying professional, but an evolution of slippery Phantom tactics continued to confound the sometimes embarrassed good pilots in modern machines. There was a lot of challenge. You were always up against supposedly better aircraft. Phantom crews shriek with delight, like the wide-eyed kid, when describing unobserved stern missile launches or tracking gunshots against a magic dream machine. Yet, satisfaction is rarely displayed in the presence of your opponent. The adversary must think that Phantoms gunning Hornets is fairly common, which it is, if you don’t keep exact score.
Let’s see now, 14 years and 2,500 hours flying Phantoms. No wars, only one engine problem, only one hydraulic failure (on the ground). Hot brakes once (my fault). Never lost a generator, no gear problems, never diverted, two fire lights (both false), no high speed aborts, can’t remember my last air abort (it’s been years). Can’t remember my last ground abort, either.
Never had a compressor stall. Killed a horse once. Popped circuit breakers a few times (usually they reset). Took the cable once for antiskid (no big deal). What a great airplane! Dependable with a capital D. Weather? No problem. Ice? Wind? No problem. The F-4 has done the job as an all-weather, day/night fighter extraordinaire.
Big ugly. Been my friend. Never scared me, never hurt me. Knock on wood. I suppose we’ll launch missiles at her at Tyndall – from some new magic jet. They’ll miss; too bad. Or, Big ugly will drag them back home stuck in her sides like porcupine quills. And someday we’ll look back at our Rhino pictures and remember her as we do steam locomotives.
I never knew an engineer or assembler who built the Phantom, and probably never will. But thanks, folks! Helluva job! What a great airplane! It’s been my everlasting pleasure and privilege to fly her. You just can’t imagine.
“Hey, Grandpa,” the little voice urges. “I thought you were going to tell me a war story. I began to tell. “So there we were, trying to dig this F-111 out of the canyon. We spot him flying along the cliff, fast and too low for a missile shot…” I swallowed hard and lost my voice there for a second. Kitchen clatter broke the silence with the distant call, “Food’s ready!”
Okay, guy,” I said quietly. “It’s time to wash your hands. Your mom’s calling for supper.” “I didn’t hear her,” he claimed, with a twinkle in his eye and a knowing smile like my old buddies had. Food’s ready tiger; wash up. I’ll be along shortly.” A couple of minutes slid by. Then I heard the voice from a distance. Grandpa? Grandpa. You okay?” A tear plopped on the window sill. “Yeah, yeah, be there in a minute. Just checking the moon.”
By Major Tom Tolman.
And another one-
I was OOD at NAS PAXRIV while attached to ST Division of NATC (1964-67), and just happened to be along one of the runways, when one of NATC’s F-4s came in for a touch & go. There were two older black workers repairing potholes near a taxiway when the Phantom‘s pilot fired off the afterburners. One worker hit the deck, while the other crouched at the sound.
Said the one on the deck, looking up at his coworker, “Man, yo’ hear dat guy double-clutch dat motha?”
I had to turn away so they wouldn’t see me roaring with laughter.
And lastly, a story about 707s and the early days of jet travel!
The Age of the 707 (Written by an older pilot )This is a nostalgic and humorous retrospective on the golden age of commercial jet travel, ushered in by the redoubtable and classic Boeing 707.
That smoke is from the 1,700 pounds of water injection the J-57s used for take-off.
Those were the good ole days. Pilots back then were men that didn’t want to be women or girly men. Pilots all knew who Jimmy Doolittle was. Pilots drank coffee, whiskey, smoked cigars and didn’t wear digital watches.
They carried their own suitcases and brain bags, like the real men they were. Pilots didn’t bend over into the crash position multiple times each day in front of the passengers at security so that some Gov’t agent could probe for tweezers or fingernail clippers or too much toothpaste.
Pilots did not go through the terminal impersonating a caddy pulling a bunch of golf clubs, computers, guitars, and feed bags full of tofu and granola on a sissy-trailer with no hat and granny glasses hanging on a pink string around their
pencil neck while talking to their personal trainer on the cell phone!!!
Being an airline Captain was as good as being the King in a Mel Brooks movie. All the Stewardesses (aka. Flight Attendants) were young, attractive, single women that were proud to be combatants in the sexual revolution. They didn’t have to turn sideways, grease up and suck it in to get through the cockpit door. They would blush, and say thank you, when told that they looked good, instead of filing a sexual harassment claim.
Junior Stewardesses shared a room and talked about men…. with no thoughts of substitution.
Passengers wore nice clothes and were polite; they could speak AND understand English. They didn’t speak gibberish or listen to loud gangsta rap on their IPods. They bathed and didn’t smell like a rotting pile of garbage in a jogging suit and flip-flops.
Children didn’t travel alone, commuting between trailer parks.
There were no Biggest Losers asking for a seatbelt extension or a Scotch and grapefruit juice cocktail with a twist.
If the Captain wanted to throw some offensive, ranting jerk off the airplane, it was done without any worries of a lawsuit or getting fired.
Axial flow engines crackled with the sound of freedom and left an impressive black smoke trail like a locomotive burning soft coal. Jet fuel was cheap and once the throttles were pushed up they were left there. After all, it was the jet age and the idea was to go fast (run like a lizard on a hardwood floor). “Economy cruise” was something in the performance book, but no one knew why or where it was. When the clacker went off, no one got all tight and scared because Boeing built it out of iron. Nothing was going to fall off and that sound had the same effect on real pilots then, as Viagra does now for these new age guys.
There was very little plastic and no composites on the airplanes (or the Stewardesses’ pectoral regions). Airplanes and women had eye-pleasing symmetrical curves, not a bunch of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, flow diverters, tattoos, rings in their nose, tongues and eyebrows.
Airlines were run by men like C.R. Smith and Juan Trippe, who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew most of their employees by name, and were lifetime airline employees themselves.. ..not pseudo financiers and bean
counters who flit from one occupation to another for a few bucks, a better parachute or a fancier title, while fervently believing that they are a class of beings unto themselves.
And so it was back then….and never will be again!
h/t JP
Today is the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. There are few living veterans of that fateful day and even less that are capable of making that trip one more time. Having said that, there are reports that four of the five surviving USS ARIZONA vets will make it.
These are the images we remember/grew up with…
This is one that always strikes home- USS ARIZONA after she was hit…
Photographer unknown
We always heard the stories about what the Sailors, Marines and Army troops did, but I had never heard anything about the other folks, like Nurses…
MOAA had a very nice article from a variety of nurses, HERE. Roll your cursor over the article title to go to that story.
One from Military.com HERE.
Another from DOD.live HERE.
And one more from San Diego Tribune HERE.
No nurses died at Pearl Harbor, but over 200 died during WWII in various areas. One nurse, LT Anne Fox was awarded the Bronze Star for her actions at Hickam Field during the attack. The National WWII museum has a good look at Women at War, HERE.
No nurse that I have ever known was a shrinking violet, but I cannot imagine the horrors these women and men saw, not only on Dec 7th, but throughout WWII. God bless them for their willingness to step up and do what needed to be done not only to treat, but to comfort the wounded.
Two good friends have books out today on Amazon!
First is Peter Grant, with the 5th Maxwell book, Stoke the Flames Higher.
The blurb-
Two planets, torn apart by the same fanatics – and Lancastrian forces are caught in the middle!
Major Brooks Shelby must keep the peace, on a world where radical terrorists want submission or death. Lieutenant-Commander Steve Maxwell must trace the source of their fighters and funding, deal with diplomats, and fend off a nosy journalist.
The marines are up against smuggled explosives and suicidal martyrs, while a suborned bureaucracy stymies the investigation. Brooks and Steve must find a way to stop their enemies at all costs, before the fanatics unleash their own version of Armageddon!
I beta read it and it’s good! Fast paced, multiple twists and turns and multiple viewpoints as the tension builds!
Next up is ‘Kelly’ Grayson, he’s finally gotten the rights back to his book, Enroute: A paramedic’s story of life, death and everything in between.
This release adds back in original stories that were cut, and it is by turns humorous, terrifying and touching.
The blurb-
Steven “Kelly” Grayson has seen the best of us at our worst. When hearts stop working, when blood alcohol levels exceed limits we shouldn’t contemplate, when bodies are extricated from car wrecks, he’s been there to pick up the pieces, save our lives, and watch us slip away. En Route is an unflinching look at the heart of a paramedic and the profession that shaped him. Grayson’s touching stories of life and death and the hilarious ones of times in between are here to give us an insight of what happens after we call 911, the ambulance doors close, or even what happens inside the ER when the nurse shows the family to the waiting room.
Both are great reads for those cold winter days and nights! Enjoy!!!
Family time is coming…
Kaya is developing a personality, feisty seems to be the key. At five months she’s starting to set up!
And Vito is now doing double duty, between her and Jace…
She’s still learning about that whole crying thing in range of Vito 🙂
He’s just doing his ‘job’… Two weeks and I get to go see them.
And a little ‘humor’ to start your Monday!!!
h/t Stretch
Since Dec 7th is this week, a little different one. There were actually TWO battles on the same day, Pearl Harbor, which is the one everyone remembers, but there was another…
Some American pilots managed to counterattack, two such heroes, LT. General USAF (Ret.) Joseph Moore and Colonel USAF (Ret.) Sam Grashio,are pictured in “Too Little Too Late”.
Lt. Joe Moore in his Curtiss P-40B Tomahawk at 22,000 feet over Clark Field is defending against the Japanese attackers as war begins on December 8, 1941 in the Philippines. Over the smoke below is Petty Officer First Class Saburo Sakai’s Zero pursuing Lt. Sam Grashio in his P-40E.
One view of the battle is HERE, and some on LTGEN Moore is HERE.
It’s always interesting when a random conversation gets started around here and the ideas/arguments/comments flow freely…
Today’s iteration of that was the three laws of robotics as they are being reflected in my upcoming MilSF novel. Midwest Chick turned to me at one point and said, “Isn’t it fun when everybody knows the three laws?”
Of course there was no consensus, which means the ‘discussions’ will continue… Sigh…
I’m just gonna write the damn thing and let the chips fall where they may. 🙂
At least ‘some’ of the folks understood my point of view on it and the way I introduced it!
Finished the beta read for DaddyBear on his second part of the latest Minivandians, Lost Children and it’s GOOD, dark but with points of light, and a damn good read!
Now it’s back to the grindstone, so light blogging and commenting for a few days, while I try to beat my story into submission… Or at least get my muse to talk to me in some language I understand!
While I’m off fighting with mine, if you like cops and robbers, highly recommend Larry Lambert’s latest one, Exile from Eden. Click the cover for the Amazon Link.
And here’s the blurb-
The novel, set in the early 1990’s, is told from different first person perspectives. In a sense, it is a coming of age story wherein the principal characters, Sean O’Bryan and Jessica Baker are joined in a backdrop of intrigue as they simply attempt to live life.
Sean, on a journey to be his own man, joins Satan’s Legion, a motorcycle gang in Southern California. Jessica, adrift as a stranger in a strange land, joins him in the gang as they try to work out who they are as individuals and as a couple.
As their need to join the criminal world completely becomes more pressing, things for Sean and Jess don’t realize that what they say is being recorded and what they plan to do is part of a larger net that is dropping over them. While justice is about to be served, compassion by the undercover police officer in their midst sets the wheels in motion for their escape.
Jessica, wanted in England for a crime that she did not fully commit and their involvement with Satan’s Legion culminates in a flight to the Boneyard, in the most unlikely place.
It’s worth the money and I definitely recommend it if you like a true to life mystery!
This one came over the transom from the mil email group…
Wyatt Earp on shooting!
On November 3, 1930, the Saturday Evening Post published Wyatt Earp’s comments that he expressed to his biographer Stuart N. Lake about gun fighting.
This how it really was information sometimes contrasts with Hollywood’s interpretation. The following is an excerpt from that article with Wyatt Earp in his own words:
“I was a fair hand with pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but I learned more about gun fighting from Tom Speer’s cronies during the summer of ’71 than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old-timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman’s shooting skill. The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to most effective account the split-second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their arguments over style. The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick shooting — grandstand play — as I would poison. When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a second that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a six-gun and a miss. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man’s muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated nervous and muscular actions which trick-shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought, is what I mean. In all my life as a frontier police officer, I did not know a really proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip. In later years, I read a great deal about this type of gunplay, supposedly employed by men noted for skill with a forty-five. From personal experience and numerous six-gun battles which I witnessed, I can only support the opinion advanced by the men who gave me my most valuable instruction in fast and accurate shooting, which was that the gun fanner and hip-shooter stood small chance to live against a man who, as old Jack Gallagher always put it, took his time and pulled the trigger once.
Cocking and firing mechanisms on new revolvers were almost invariably altered by their purchasers in the interests of smoother, effortless handling, usually by filing the dog which controlled the hammer, some going so far as to remove triggers entirely or lash them against the guard, in which cases the guns were fired by thumbing the hammer. This is not to be confused with fanning, in which the trigger less gun is held in one hand while the other was brushed rapidly across the hammer to cock the gun, and firing it by the weight of the hammer itself. A skillful gun-fanner could fire five shots from a forty-five so rapidly that the individual reports were indistinguishable, but what could happen to him in a gunfight was pretty close to murder. I saw Jack Gallagher’s theory borne out so many times in deadly operation that I was never tempted to forsake the principles of gun fighting as I had them from him and his associates.
That two-gun business is another matter that can stand some truth before the last of the old-time gunfighters has gone on. They wore two guns, most of six-gun toters did, and when the time came for action went after them with both hands. But they didn’t shoot them that way. Primarily, two guns made the threat of something in reserve; they were useful as a display of force when a lone man stacked up against a crowd. Some men could shoot equally well with either hand, and in a gunplay might alternate their fire; others exhausted the loads from the gun on the right, or the left, as the case might be, then shifted the reserve weapon to the natural shooting hand if that was necessary and possible. Such a move — the border shift — could be made faster than the eye could follow a top-notch gun-thrower, but if the man was as good as that, the shift would seldom be required. Whenever you see a picture of some two-gun man in action with both weapons held closely against his hips and both spitting smoke together, you can put it down that you are looking at the picture of a fool, or a fake. I remember quite a few of these so-called two-gun men who tried to operate everything at once, but like the fanners, they didn’t last long in proficient company. In the days of which I am talking, among men whom I have in mind, when a man went after his guns, he did so with a single, serious purpose. There was no such thing as a bluff; when a gunfighter reached for his forty-five, every faculty he owned was keyed to shooting as speedily and as accurately as possible, to making his first shot the last of the fight. He just had to think of his gun solely as something with which to kill another before he himself could be killed.
The possibility of intimidating an antagonist was remote, although the ‘drop’ was thoroughly respected, and few men in the West would draw against it. I have seen men so fast and so sure of themselves that they did go after their guns while men who intended to kill them had them covered, and what is more win out in the play. They were rare. It is safe to say, for all general purposes, that anything in gun fighting that smacked of show-off or bluff was left to braggarts who were ignorant or careless of their lives. I might add that I never knew a man who amounted to anything to notch his gun with ‘credits,’ as they were called, for men he had killed. Outlaws, gunmen of the wild crew who killed for the sake of brag, followed this custom. I have worked with most of the noted peace officers — Hickok, Billy Tilghman, Pat Sughre, Bat Masterson, Charlie Basset, and others of like caliber — have handled their weapons many times, but never knew one of them to carry a notched gun.
“I have often been asked why five shots without reloading were all a top-notch gunfighter fired, when his guns were chambered for six cartridges. The answer is, merely, safety. To ensure against accidental discharge of the gun while in the holster, due to hair-trigger adjustment, the hammer rested upon an empty chamber. As widely as this was known and practiced, the number of cartridges a man carried in his six-gun may be taken as an indication of a man’s rank with the gunfighters of the old school. Practiced gun wielders had too much respect for their weapons to take unnecessary chances with them; it was only with tyros and would-bes that you heard of accidental discharges or didn’t know-it-was-loaded injuries in the country where carrying a Colt’s was a man’s prerogative.”
The facts put paid to some of those movie interpretations, don’t they…