Aviation Art…

40

The Channel Dash (officially known as Operation Cerberus) was one of three operations during the Second World War for which the Fairey Swordfish was to become the most famous. Heavily outgunned in the Straits of Dover on this day, February 11, 1942 by the German warships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, with their accompanying flotilla of destroyers and motor torpedo boats, and with top cover provided by deadly fighter aircraft of the Luftwaffe, all six Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish were shot down. Only five of the eighteen aircrew survived.

Here we see the Swordfish flown by Sub. Lt. Kingsmill and Sub. Lt. Samples with PO Bunce in the rear, fighting for their lives with his machine gun.The bravery of the Fairey Swordfish aircrew in this and all other operations is a matter of history and must never be forgotten.

Old School…

Well, at least for the rifles…

1942 as issued Remington 03 on the left, 1940 Model 70 on the right, also in 30.06…

An old 2X7 Redfield up top, original Pachmayr recoil pad (I still have the steel butt plate), 1907 slings on both of them. The sling on the 03 is the original one!

I only needed one round to check zero on the Model 70, as it’s going to be used next month for a deer hunt.

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Now the funny thing is, everybody’s ‘eye’ is slightly different when it comes to scopes…

Lawdog and Thing 1 were both at the range, and they each put a round through it. They stacked rounds 1 in low and 1 in right of my shot (2.1 in high dead center so good zero for 200 yards).

On the pistol side, ran 150 rounds through the G19, still getting used to it. Everything went in a centered 4 inch circle at 10 yards, so I’ll take that.

Thing 1 wore the Muppet holster today, but not in front of the Sheriff (yet)…

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And it fits that Glock 19 perfectly 🙂

SCOTUS…

If you’re a supporter of the 2nd Amendment, the Supreme Court is really what this election is all about…

The 60-second spot explains that the late justice, Antonin Scalia, was the deciding vote in affirming that the Second Amendment protects the right of an individual to keep a firearm in their home.  Scalia authored the majority decision in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.

Hillary Clinton has twice said she disagrees with the Heller ruling. At the third presidential debate, she said she, “disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment in that case.” Earlier in her campaign, Clinton was recorded at a private event saying, “The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment, and I am going to make that case every chance I get.”

Whoever wins the presidency on Nov. 8 will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice, and possibly as many as three or more additional justices. Americans cannot afford to elect a president who will stack the court with justices hostile to the Second Amendment.

“This election will determine the fate of the Second Amendment in America for the next 40 years. Law-abiding gun owners cannot afford to put someone in office who will eliminate their rights.” Chris Cox- NRA-ILA

h/t NRA Media

TBT…

And we’re back to the car ads…

This one is pretty interesting, in that there were TWO versions of the Plymouth GTX advertising…

The first one was the ‘generic’ one

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This one, however, was the one that was in all the car magazines… 🙂67-gtx

I’d call that pretty damn smart marketing!!!

Posted in TBT

It just gets…

‘Better and better’, for some forms of better… Sigh…

The latest dump as published by the NYT contains this ‘gem’.

In a March 2015 interview, President Obama said that he had learned about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state “the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.”

But that assertion concerned aides of Mrs. Clinton, who knew that the president himself had received emails from the private address, according to a hacked email made public on Tuesday by WikiLeaks.

“We need to clean this up — he has emails from her — they do not saystate.gov,” Cheryl D. Mills, a top aide, wrote to John D. Podesta, another senior adviser, on March 7, 2015.

Full article HERE, at NYT.com

So once again BO is caught lying…

So much for the most ‘transparent’ administration ever, and yet the Dems continue to say that Trump is attacking democracy!

Seems to me the only ‘attack’ that is taking place is on the status quo…

I don’t know about anyone else but I, for one, am tired of the political elites pandering every election about what they are going to do for ‘us’ (insert definition of us here), then once the voting is done, it’s back to business as usual, playing political games…

Whether it’s local, state or national, it seems that all of the pols are treading the PC line, afraid to actually make a decision, or anything approaching a decision, must less countering the White House, because it ‘might’ cause some heartburn back home… Sigh…

There is truly sad news on the aviation front today, R.A. “Bob” Hoover passed away this morning at age 94.

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One of the greats of aviation. RIP sir, RIP.

Break, break—-

In the ‘good’ news category, the ELOH, Larry Correia has another redshirt campaign up.

It is Charity Red Shirt time again!

That is where if you donate enough money to a specific cause, I will use your name in a book. Details are below.

This time we are helping my friend Mitch with his medical bills. I’ve known him for about 20 years. Mitch suffers from spina bifida and has gone through a bunch of surgeries. This is to help him climb out of the hole. Here is the link.

https://www.gofundme.com/2m664f98

Larry goes on to detail why it’s being done, and how long he’s known the recipient, HERE. Well worth a donation, even if you don’t want to be redshirted…

And a few more pics from the road trip…

Some early S&W revolvers, and yes the top one of those grips are Ivory. The others are Mother of Pearl. And engraved guns were NOT usual in the late 1800s…

The O.T. Nicholson guns are part of a large collection containing over 200 rifles, pistols and shotguns. Mr. Nicholson was a banker in Shamrock, TX, about 40 miles east of Amarillo. Born in 1880, he died in 1955.dsc01832 dsc01833 dsc01834 dsc01835

Three generations of Dragoons! 🙂dsc01850 dsc01851

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You might call this one an early BBQ gun… 🙂

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Road trip, now with pictures…

This weekend we (BRM, Lawdog and myself) took in the Panhandle and Plains Museum in Canyon, TX and Palo Duro Canyon State Park, also just outside Canyon, TX. Both of them are just South of Amarillo. Sadly, the museum is placarded 30.06 and 30.07.

We saw about half the museum in the time we had, but I have to say I’m VERY impressed with it for three reasons- 1. It’s run/maintained by folks that lived there. 2. A lot of the ‘donations’ came with stories, and they are reflected in the displays. 3. They didn’t crowd things together so that you are looking at massive amounts of things…

Lots of local history, fossils, oil, ranches, vehicles fabrics, etc. Oh yeah, and GUNS!!!

The office of one of the Texas landmen that worked to procure oil leases, circa 1970. Who knows how many millions of dollars of deals were made in this very office…

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The drilling floor of a 1920s-1930s oil rig. To the right is the ‘drill’ which was at the end of the cable and repeatedly dropped by the walking beam (out of picture top), and on a good day could do five feet an hour. The 12x12s with cross pieces to the left were called the headache rig, and designed to ‘stop’ the 14000lb walking beam if it broke or fell. My dad worked on this type of rig in the Borger field in the late 20s early 30s…dsc01775

V-16 Caddy, owned by the local tax collector… nuff said… 🙂dsc01797

Military rifle collection- The bottom German Model 98 rifle has a ‘history’ so to speak…dsc01804

And this is it… Local color…dsc01805

Colts in those days weren’t safe queens… Even if they were engraved!dsc01853

And yes, bailing wire IS used for everything… When you need a shotgun in the middle of an Indian fight, you fix it with whatever is available…dsc01855

Another ‘local’ car. It was restored in 2005 and donated to the museum.dsc01880

And then there was Palo Duro…

This is a panoramic shot from the head of the canyon, looking southeast from the park. It’s narrow, probably a mile-maybe two miles wide and 500 feet deep here. It runs 120+ miles, gradually widening to almost 30 miles wide as it goes further south. Most of the canyon is actually in private ranch hands.

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We went down into the canyon, about to where McKenzie attacked the winter camp of the Indians in 1874. I will honestly say you could ‘feel’ something down there…

The wiki for that battle is HERE.

This break in the rim is probably one that the Cavalry actually used to sneak up on the Indian encampment. It is a zoom shot from the location of the historical marker.

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Many thanks to Alma for the education, time and willingness to be badgered with questions for the last couple of days…

Road Trip!!!

I’m taking a mini road trip, we ran over to Amarillo to go to the Panhandle-Plains museum and down to Palo Duro to do some research for upcoming novels. Peter, myself, and LawDog met Alma (all links on sidebar) at the museum and covered the first two floors in about 4 hours. Peter took a break, and Lawdog and I hit the Discovery Museum an AQHA museums in the afternoon.

Anyone that has ever ridden a cutting horse can identify with this one!!! Point the horse and hang on!

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And this one is a much smaller statue inside the museum, I call it topping off, but I can’t remember the actual name of the statue… It’s that kick start in the morning that every cowboy ‘loves’… NOT!

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There will be more pics next week of the museums…

Tomorrow is Palo Duro, then back home…

Grey Hairs…

I can’t take credit for this, but I’m completely in agreement with everything said here…

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released earlier this year.

      They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs. Some of us are “Baby Boomers” getting ready to retire. Others have been retired for some time. We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were. We worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and have grown old together.

     Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill, and that is probably true. But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.

     In school we studied English, history, math, and science, which enabled us to lead America into the technological age. Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience. We remember the days of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes. For those of you who don’t know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to

 as refrigerators. A few even remember when cars were started with a crank. Yes, we lived those days.

     We are probably considered old fashioned and outdated by many. But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off. We won World War II, fought in Korea and Viet Nam. We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield. We didn’t fight for the Socialist States of America; we fought for the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag.

     We know the words to the “Star Spangled Banner,” “America,” and “America the Beautiful” by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing. We have lived what many of you have only read in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America .

     Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us. We have loved this country, fought for it, and died for it, and now we are going to save it. It is our country  and nobody is going to take it away from us. We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep. There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

     It was mostly the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democratic Congress. You fell for the “Hope and Change” which in reality was nothing but “Hype and Lies.” You youngsters have tasted socialism and seen evil face to face, and have found you don’t like it after all. You make a lot of noise, but most are all too interested in their careers or “Climbing the Social Ladder” to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting. Many of those who fell for the “Great Lie” in 2008 are now having buyer’s remorse. With all the education we gave you, you didn’t have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank the ‘Kool-Aid.’ Now you’re paying the price and complaining about it; no jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, Obamacare, and less freedom.

     This is what you voted for and this is what you got. We entrusted you with the Torch of Liberty, and you traded it for a paycheck and a fancy house.

     Well, don’t worry youngsters, the Grey-Haired Brigade is here, and in 2016 we are going to take back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like, but we get where we’re going, and in 2016 we’re going to the polls by the millions.

     This land does not belong to the man in the White House nor to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Eric Holder. It belongs to “We the People,” and “We the People” plan to reclaim our land and our freedom. We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren. So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the old geezers of the “Gray-Haired Brigade.”

I won’t tell you who to vote for, all I ask is that you GO VOTE. It’s important that we exercise that right, so that we don’t lose it!

h/t Frito

Aviation Art…

39

The Junkers Ju87 Sturzkampfbomber, known to the British simply as the Stuka, had already acquired a deadly reputation across Europe, its siren screaming as the ungainly dive-bomber struck terror into the hearts of those below. In 1940 its pilots crossed the Channel with their grim-looking aircraft to terrorise the southern towns and ports of England.

Robert Taylors painting Open Assault, depicts Hurricanes of 501 Squadron attacking a force of Ju87 Stukas as they dive-bomb naval vessels and installations in the port of Dover on 29 July 1940. High explosive bombs detonate within the sheltered anchorage as escorting Bf109s from JG51 race in to protect their lumbering charges. Four Stukas and two Me109s are dispatched, for the loss of just one RAF aircraft.