How Many of These do YOU Remember Part 1 ???

A friend who is a retired Airline Captain (who is bored to tears) sent me these, too good not to share!!!

Now defunct airlines that used to populate our skys before dereguation… And some of them were pretty damn good!!!

And yes, they are in small text… Too damn much info so I took it down a size to conserve space. Enjoy πŸ™‚


Air California (AirCal) (Flew this one a few times)

Operated: 1967 – 1987
Cause and result of demise: Ceased operations. Acquired piecemeal by American Airlines.
Interesting fact: One marketing program used by Air California in the early to mid 1970s was to offer school field trips to Sacramento at $25 a head, where school children would be taken on a tour of the California State Capitol, Governor’s Mansion, and Sutter’s Fort.
Image courtesy of dc-9.us .

Air Florida

Operated: 1971 – 1984
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy, sped up by the crash of the January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crash in Washington DC – assets obtained by Midway Airlines.
Interesting fact: Air Florida sponsored Southampton Football Club, an English Football League side, during the 1983-84 season, in which Southampton were league runners-up. The deal was cancelled after one season due to Air Florida’s insolvency.
Image courtesy of securiteaerienne.

Allegheny Airlines

(Updated August 22, 2010)

Operated: 1953 – October 28, 1979, started in 1939 as All-American Airways.
Cause and result demise: Rebranded as USAir, then US Airways
Interesting fact: It was one of the first airlines to create an affiliated branded network of regional airline carriers operating in unison with Allegheny, which was called the Allegheny Commuter System.
Image courtesy of William Demarest.

Aloha Airlines (Flew this one a few times)

Operated: 1946 – 2008
Cause and result of demise: Chapter 11 bankruptcy, transfer of operations to Aloha Air Cargo.
Interesting fact: On April 28, 1988 Aloha Airlines Flight 243 was a scheduled Boeing 737-297 flight between Hilo and Honolulu in Hawaii . The aircraft suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight, but was able to land safely at Kahului Airport on Maui.

The safe landing of the aircraft with such a major loss of integrity was unprecedented and remains unsurpassed.

Braniff International Airways (My first time on a 747)

Operated: 1928 – 1982
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy. Some flights scheduled to leave on May 12, 1982, at Dallas Fort Worth Airport were actually forced to disembark, being told that their airline no longer existed.
Interesting fact: A Braniff plane and logo always appear after the closing credits in the South Park cartoon series. With the slogan : “Braniff – Believe It!”

Edit- Their logo appeared during seasons 1-10 of South Park, at which point the lifeless corporate corpse lawyered up and basically said “Hey, um, that’s still our logo and if you want to use it, you need to pay.” It did not appear to be anything extortionistic or lawyer-predatory, and the case was settled with the allowance that SP could continue using it, although they have chosen, for reasons known only to Matt and Trey, not to. H/T to Stingray

Capital Airlines

Operated: 1941 – 1961. (Had its origins as Pennsylvania Central Airlines from 1936)
Cause and result of demise: Merged into United Airlines
Interesting fact: In 1948, the first airborne television was installed on a Capital airplane.

Central Airlines

Operated: 1949 – 1967
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy. Sold to Frontier Airlines.
Interesting fact: Former president of Venezuela Laurence Lau was present on the maiden flight.
Image courtesy of Paul Freeman.

Chicago Air

Operated: 1985 – 1986
Cause and result of demise: Ceased service.
Interesting fact: It operated six Fokker F27 aircraft, and the call sign was “Wild Onion” in reference to the Chippewa Indian derivation of the name Chicago.
Image courtesy of David Oates.

Eastern Airlines (Lots of miles on these)

Operated: 1926-1991
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy
Interesting fact: An Ex-Airline Executive is set on purchasing the airline back under the original Eastern name, with the main hub being in MIA. It hopes to begin operations in the summer of 2011.

Empire Airlines

Operated: 1976 – 1985
Cause and result of demise: Purchased by Piedmont (see below), then USAir.
Image courtesy of Richard Silagi.

Frontier Airlines

Operated: 1950 – 1986
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy. It re-emerged as the current Frontier Airlines in 1994 from executives of the old airline.
Interesting fact: Frontier Airlines made history when they hired Emily Howell Warner on January 29, 1973. She was the first female airline pilot hired by a U.S. commercial airline.
Image courtesy of Old Frontier Airlines Collection.

Hughes Airwest

(Updated August 18, 2010)
Operated: 1968 – 1980
Cause and result of demise: Purchased by Republic Airlines in 1980.
Interesting fact: Hughes Airwest’s predecessor was Air West, which itself was a merger of Pacific Air Lines, Bonanza Air Lines and West Coast Airlines. TWA’s former owner and aviator Howard Hughes bought and rebranded the fleet in 1970. The unique yellow paint earned them the nickname of “Flying Bananas”, which they then turned into a company catchphrase: “Top Banana in the West”.

Kiwi International Airlines

Operated: 1992 – 1999
Cause and result of demise: Bankruptcy. In 1997, a medical doctor Dr. Charles Edwards tried to revive the airline (with an investment of nearly $20,000,000 of his own money), but idea was sadly abandoned.
Interesting fact: Kiwi International Air Lines enjoyed a flawless safety record and near perfect dispatch reliability rate of 99.6% in its expansion.
Image courtesy of A. J. Best.

Midway Airlines


Operated: 1976 – 1991. Began operations on November 1979.
Cause and result of demise: Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Interesting fact: Some of the signature inflight service items were after-dinner chocolate wafer mints and hot hand towels to the entire cabin, both of which had originally caught on with Midway’s business clientele.
Image courtesy of Frank C. Duarte.

Mohawk Airlines


Operated: 1945 – 1972
Cause and result of demise: Labor issues and strikes caused it to consider merger with Allegheny (see below), later USAir.
Interesting fact: On February 11, 1958, Ruth Carol Taylor was hired by Mohawk Airlines, becoming the first African-American flight attendant in the United States . In 1961, it became the first airline to use a centralized computer based reservation service. In 1965, it became the first regional airline to utilize flight simulators.
Image courtesy of Tom Hildreth.

Muse Air


Operated: 1981 – 1987
Cause and result of demise: Liquidated by Southwest and renamed TranStar Airlines in 1985, and ceased operations in 1987.
Interesting fact: Started up by founder and one time president of Southwest Airlines, Marion Lamar Muse, it prohibited smoking on the plane long before federal regulations enforced it.
Image courtesy of Lamar Muse.

National Airlines

(Updated August 18, 2010)

Operated: 1934 – 1980
Cause and result of demise: Texas International Airlines offered to buy National in 1978, but they opted instead to merge with Pam Am in 1980. Deregulation as well as high costs for the acquisition would eventually lead to Pam Am’s demise.
Interesting fact: In 1964, National became the first exclusively jet powered service in the United States . To supplement their branding and image (their logo was the Sun King, owing to the fact that they were based in Miami , Florida ), they opened a terminal at JFK called the Sundrome in 1970.
Image courtesy of Tom Hildreth.
Where not mentioned, photos are from Wikipedia.

This is the first half of the list, and NO I’m not doing internationals other than Kiwi, nor all the small regionals like PBA, Air South and others that didn’t last more than a year or two…
Any comments appreciated, as always πŸ™‚

"Darkhorse" 3rd Battalion 5th Marines…

Just got this via email, asking for prayers…

We are asking everyone to say a prayer for “Darkhorse” 3rd Battalion 5th Marines and their families. They are fighting it out in Afghanistan & they have lost 9 marines in 4 days. IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE the message spread if more could pass it on. Semper Fi, God Bless America and God Bless the United States Marine Corps… Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers Forever

Claire FitzGerald, Chaplain
Marine Corps League, Dept. of Washington


Take a minute if you would…

Twas the month before Christmas…

Twas the month before Christmas

When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away

The reason for Christmas – no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say

December 25th is just a ‘ Holiday ‘.

Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-Pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!

Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was nowhere to be found.

At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears
You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.

Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.

And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.

So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS,not Happy Holiday!


For your religion could be next…

A Different Take on the Manger Scene…

Something to think about as we approach Christmas…


The manger or nativity scene has caused quite a stir in recent years. It seems to upset those who believe that they are seeing a depiction of an event that symbolizes only Christianity.
I feel sorry for those people who have blinders on their eyes and shutters on their minds. The manger scene is truly remarkable from all views if one would only take a moment to look rather than to jump to judgment.


What the manger scene really depicts is a Jewish man and his wife who has given birth to a Jewish baby who will become the first Christian. Therefore both Judaism and Christianity are represented.

But it doesn’t stop there. Consider the three wise men that followed the star. Two of them are from the east and are descendants of Abraham representing the forefathers of modern day Islam. The third is from Africa and his descendants will celebrate Kwanzaa. The star they followed represents the astrologers.

The cattle in the manger scene are symbolic for the Hindus; the shepherds represent one of the four truths for Buddhists- Life is Hard!, while the angels of the story could support the spiritualists view.

We also have the innkeepers: the one that provided the manger is a humanist and the ones that turned them away the atheists. Finally we have King Herod who does justice to those that worship Satan.

So when you are asked to support a local movement to erect manger scenes on public property say yes and just remember the only ones not represented are the ACLU, because the manure had been removed before the wise men arrived.
And think about the ‘true’ spirit of Christmas…

Budget Rant…

Our nation is going to have to make some tough decisions or we, as a nation, will be doomed…

We’re going to have to cut the so-called entitlement programs – there are far too many people drawing social security, medicare, and medicaid who never paid into the programs. There are also far too many payments going out of those programs for things never meant to be covered or paid for by them. Far too many illegals are drawing social security, medicare, and medicaid –

I say unless an individual is a LEGAL U.S. Citizen who has paid into the programs and has reached LEGAL retirement age, no payout!! Oh, and as for LEGAL U.S. Citizen, that individual must also have lived LEGALLY in the U.S. for a minimum of 10 years before receiving so much as a dime from those AMERICAN programs.

Unemployment payments- SIX months max… There ARE jobs out there, people just don’t want to really look until the know the payments are being cut off…

Agricultural payments – Unless the individual is a real farmer or rancher, no payments. No payments to corporations, corporate farms, corporate land holdings, hobby farmers, lawyer farmers, big business farmers, etc. Agricultural support payments go ONLY to real farmers.

Military spending – you want to cut it in half???

Institute a draft, withdraw all troops from Korea, Japan, Germany, England, the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc.

Get rid of a whole host of departments and agencies, starting with Dept of Energy, Dept of Education, TSA, DHS, and go on from there. We could eliminate half of the departments and agencies in this country, and not notice a thing other than the country would run more efficiently!

Cut ALL foreign aid…

Cut the staffs of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government by half, reduce the pay of the other half by 50%. Reduce the pay of congress, the president, vp, cabinet, etc by 50%. People would think twice about making it a career… And institute term limits…

Impose a tariff on all imported goods and services (overseas based help calls). Americans need jobs too, and a good place to start is by building factories that make socks in the United States and not India, China, Bangladesh or wherever…

Stop all withholding taxes. Instead, send every individual a 10% tax bill twice per year for their taxes. Withholding just hides the amount of taxes honest working people have to pay. If they had to write a $12,000 check every six months made payable to Uncle Sam and their chosen bums they’d think twice about how much money the government spends and wastes.

I bring the last item up at work periodically and every one I mention it to argues “Oh, but wait, I can’t afford to write a check for that amount and give it to the government. I don’t have that kind of money!”

To which I respond, what do you think you are doing now, have you ever taken a close look at your pay stub and see how much is being deducted and given to the government.

Their response? You guessed it – “But that’s different, this way I get a refund every year.”

Too many people in our country are critically stupid… Sigh…

Rant over, kicking the soapbox back in the corner…

What Happens If…

An airplane hits a concrete wall???

I’ve been looking for this video for a while and finally ran across it…

This video is for anyone still wondering what happened to the planes that hit the World Trade Towers and Pentagon on 9/11.

When you view this clip you’ll get a good feel for what happens to an airplane when it hits a concrete wall.

You may have seen the Michael Moore web site that asks the question; ‘If it’s true that a Boeing airliner hit the Pentagon, what happened to all the parts of it? Why did we not find more pieces of it? Where did all that mass GO?’

Well, for those who question what happened to ‘all the mass of that airplane,’ please watch. It’s an Air Force engineering test of a concrete barrier that was to surround a nuclear reactor dome, to see if it would indeed survive an aerial attack.

With the high speed cameras rolling, they attached an F-4 Phantom to the sled and then pumped up the speed to 500 MPH, and… ‘What happens when an ‘Unstoppable Force’ meets an ‘Immovable Object?” Watch in slow motion as the F-4 turns to vapor.

I’m not sure if this was at Los Alimos or at Edwards, but it is pretty stunning… It was done at White Sands, NM…

H/T to Hat Trick.

Now look at the Video…

I bet you’ll play it more than once before you believe it…

December 7, 1941…

A day that will live in infamy…


We are down to the last few survivors of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, and sadly, that day seems to be receding from our collective memories…


I know it will never recede from mine, since I lost relatives on the USS Arizona…


This is a copy of the air raid message received on USS Ranger, which thankfully, was at sea with the other carriers...

This is a hand drawn chart of the ship mooring assignments on the morning of December 7, 1941. There are a couple of minor inaccuracies in the rafts North of Ford Island, and the compass rose shown is off by about 45 degrees to the West.


This is the list of those lost at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. This is the inner wall of the Arizona Memorial…

And HERE is a link to the John Ford/Glenn Toland movie created to tell the story of that day…

Take a moment tomorrow and say a little prayer for those who died that day…

Range time :-)


I took ME from Lagniappe’s Lair up on a range day today, so was out the door early for a little road trip. We’d talked about pistols, so I took a selection of .45s and ME brought some of his favorites after mulitple trips into the safe and decisions… πŸ™‚

We went to his local range, and as we pulled up I note the temp at 34 degrees… Now y’all KNOW I don’t like cold weather, but a range day is a range day, so…
This is from 25 yards with the Clark bullseye .45 (and no, this is not offhand, I cheated and shot it off a bag)… The first round is lower right, I changed POA, and the next 6 grouped nicely just to the right of the bull (these were the only 7 match rounds I had), I adjusted the sights for both vertical and horizontal. The remaining rounds were WWB, and honestly not real accurate, but I did call the flyer in the 7 ring and the lower flyer in the 8 ring. Just proves there IS a significant difference between true match ammo and WWB… Just sayin…
This target below is offhand at 10 yards, with two magazines through the Clark in the upper target (all 9 or better). The rest were first fires through the FN Tac-45, and it was like going from a Mercedes to a… um… Fiat… yeah, yeah, that’s it πŸ™‚
And I was freezing my ass off…
It actually does shoot pretty well, but I need a LOT of trigger time to learn to shoot it well! On the bottom the 10 ring were with the C&S Agent .45, then more rounds with the FN. Bottom line, I was pretty much minute of torso with all of them, and considering how much I HATE shooting in the cold, I’ll take it. ME also shot all the pistols, and I think he liked them πŸ™‚ I KNOW he liked the Clark and the C&S.
I don’t have any pics of ME’s target, but he did shoot about a 2 inch group with his old S&W Model 19 with a reload in the middle… But ya gotta ask him about bending over with a .45 stuck in his back pocket πŸ™‚

And I was STILL freezing my ass and my hands off, so we decided to move over to the rifle range, and pop a few with our respective EBRs…

We set targets at 100x, and I told ME to have at it with the M4gery; he shot a nice group, but at 10 o’clock, and was bitching about it. I took the rifle, and proceeded to do the same thing; so I cranked adjustments in to bring the ACOG back in. I did, then promptly realized the reason we were shooting 10 o’clock high was that I’d previously sighted it for match ammo, so now I’ve screwed THAT sight in up… I blame it on my brain being frozen, what can I say… sigh…

ME unlimbered his AR, and promptly shot a three inch group dead center on the target, and finished off with a bunch of head shots just to get his confidence back…

I was STILL freezing my ass off, so at this point I begged off, and we picked up cleaned up and went and found some Mexican food for lunch! πŸ™‚

We talked guns, tactics, flying, etc. and a good time was had by all two of us… πŸ™‚

And I’ve finally thawed out enough to actually type this post!

A Couple of Things…

First, a warning… If you’ve been reading the Wikileaks site and found something you just HAVE to share, don’t download it and for G*D sakes, DON’T SEND IT TO ANYONE!!!



Since the material was classified by the US Government, and still is; you could be prosecuted for having classified material in your possession and/or transmission of the same… Trust me, you do NOT want to find out what the penalty is for that!

And a little “humor”…

And lastly… Hey You… Congresscritters, didn’t you get the MESSAGE we sent three weeks ago???

STOP PLAYING GAMES! We the people are tired of it. Do your jobs, first, last and always. DO NOT PLAY POLITICS, we are tired of it…