Good news?

After the series of USN procurement screw-ups, I am not confident about anything they do, but this seems like good news.  Lets hope they don’t boondoggle it.

Coronavirus

I haven’t said anything in regard to this, as many of the initial news stories seemed over-hyped. However, it appears it may be as deadly as the Spanish flu, and if so, that really could result in a massive death toll, especially in less well developed countries.  While anecdotal, this story sure seems worrying.

Well this is good news

Looks like the USS Ford (CVN-78) has now been cleared for operating all current USN aircraft types.  This gets it one step closer to completely operational. As things get more dangerous in the world it would be nice to have this weapon in the toolkit.

Go SpaceX

Looks like another successful launch. (thought they didn’t land the booster, which had been used for 5 previous launches)(post in memory of Mike Nofsinger)

Thank God

Looks like SpaceX will launch a crew to the ISS in May.  About damn time.  It is a national embarrassment that for the last 9 years we’ve been paying Russia to ferry us to the ISS. (post in memory of Mike Nofsinger)

NASA needs astronauts

Apparently they expect a lot of people to apply.

ISS resupply

Northrop was scheduled to send an unmanned resupply ship to the ISS on Friday.  While we do a bulk of the unmanned resupply to ISS, it is high time that we get back to doing manned missions.

Creates more questions than it answers

Story here. Popular Mechanics is really doing a lot of work on the story surrounding the USN UFO sighting and what interest the DoD may have in the subject.  I am not sure this article answers a lot of questions, other than to suggest that the government handed out money to politically connected individuals for “work” that remains hidden. It is undeniable that some things are happening that we currently don’t have good explanations for.

Airfix MiG-17 #2

First installment here.

I continued to make progress on the Airfix MiG-17.  While the cockpit and seat in the kit bear only passing resemblance to the actual MiG-17 cockpit and seat, for this scale they aren’t bad.  (BTW, there is a sink mark that needs to be removed from the back of the seat headrest) This is especially true if you intend to keep the canopy closed. While a medium gray is recommended (correctly) for the interior, I used several different shades of gray to try and add some life and contrast to the cockpit.  While the instruments on the instrument panel and some of the cockpit sides are represented by decals, they don’t look bad and go down well when applied. This kit will definitely benefit when Yahu makes an instrument panel for it, and I suspect that a full replacement interior with seat will also eventually be released. I also constructed the tail cone afterburner pieces, and chose the option to have the airbrakes closed. Here is where she stands.

Cockpit parts and seat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Burner can

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Completed cockpit

US Navy upping their game

The new Ford class aircraft carrier has been designed with extra electrical capacity for laser weapons.

In addition the USN SSBNs are now fielding small yield nukes on some of their missiles.

Go Navy