Thursday - June 23, 2011
Those Damn French Drivers!
Airbus flew a double-decker Airbus A380 to the 2011 Paris Airshow to put on display and to hopefully attract additional customers. However, while taxiing, the world’s largest airliner’s wing clipped a building ripping off the right winglet and putting the aircraft out of service and unable to fly.
Luckily an A380 owned by Korean Air came to the rescue and flew one of their A380s t0 the Paris Air Show. Being the largest airliner has its benefits and challenges — this is not the first time the A380s size has been an issue. Recently, an Air France A380 struck the tail of a CRJ 700, causing it to spin out.
A spokesperson for Airbus told AirlineReporter.com that the A380, “took the taxiway it was instructed by ground control to take.”
A similar crunch happened a few years ago in Thailand.
The A380’s wingspan is much wider than the B747-400, at 79.8 meters (261.6 feet) compared to 64.5 meters. Even the Boeing 747-8 wingspan is “only” 68.5 meters (224 feet).
Only two larger aircraft have ever been built. Howard Hughe’s Spruce Goose, which sort of flew but once, has a wingspan of 319 feet (97.5 meters). The Soviet Antonov-225, of which only one was ever fully built, has a wingspan of 290 feet (88.4 meters).
Maybe the French pilots should learn to look to the side as well as out the front.
While Airbus draped the exhibition with billboards touting the world’s largest passenger plane as “Love at First Flight,” the A380’s initial rendezvous was with an airport building which kissed a wingtip and forced a return to the factory for repairs.
The wing strike was a rare misstep at a show dominated by orders for Airbus’s A320neo single-aisle model. With the damaged A380 gone for the first two days of the show, Boeing’s 747-8 Intercontinental in red “sunrise” livery made its debut in the expo’s static display and to add insult to injury won 19 orders or commitments as Airbus’s superjumbo came away empty-handed.
...
The run-in with the structure wasn’t Airbus’s only mishap. The A400M, Airbus’s military transport, couldn’t perform a daily flight routine because of a glitch in the gearbox.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/23/2011 at 07:55 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - June 16, 2011
Blimp Crash Update
An explosion on a blimp that killed its Australian pilot in Germany was caused by leaking fuel, crash investigators say.
...
Wreckage from the blimp, called The Spirit of Safety, had been sent to the offices of the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, daily newspaper Wetterauer Zeitung reported.A spokesman for the investigator, Klaus Himmler, said the final report into the crash would be completed in four to eight weeks.
...
Joachim Storch, a photographer and one of the journalists who jumped from the blimp, said it had missed its designated landing spot and its engine smashed into the ground.He told the DAPD news agency that Mr Nerandzic yelled “We had an accident!” and “I crashed the airship!” as fire spread through the blimp.
I have no idea what kind of safety systems are built into blimps. They are all certified by the FAA or whatever flying boards the countries they operate in have. Given the rather limited lifting ability of a blimp, any firefighting system would have to be quite lightweight, which might imply minimal effectiveness. But given that the fuel tank resides in the bottom of the envelope, above the gondola, if I had to design such a system I’d put in a servo valve on the fuel lines at the tank and another one at each engine. Even with a 1/2” fuel line, such servos only weigh a few ounces. I’d put a fireproof wrapper around a flexible fuel line going into the engines, so that the lines could flex several feet on impact without shearing, plus resist burn-through for several minutes. I’d add some kind of flame resistant coating to the underside of the envelope within 10-15 feet of the gondola, and more of that on the fuel tank itself. If possible I’d put in some kind of fire extinguisher system big enough to give the engines a 10 second blast. Hook the whole system up to impact switches on the engine struts and a panic button on the pilot’s instrument panel.
If I’m wrong about the gas tank location, and it resides under the gondola instead, then build it like one of those jet fighter pods with a quick release feature. Got a fire? Drop the tank. Put it on 100’ of rope so you don’t accidentally bomb people on the ground? Just get it far enough away to not add to the conflagration, then use whatever fire suppression systems you’ve got. Granted, this wouldn’t do much if the fire broke out when you were already at ground level.
Perhaps such systems are already in place. I don’t know. But if they are, they weren’t enough to do the job for this blimp.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/16/2011 at 10:00 AM
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Permalink • Tuesday - June 14, 2011
Blimp Crash In Germany
It is with great sadness that we report the death of Captain Mike Nerandzic, one of the world’s most experienced Airship Pilots. With a total of 26 years airship piloting experience covering more than 18,000 flight hours in 24 countries, Mike has been a leading Chief Pilot on Lightships for 20 years. Our thoughts at this time go to his wife and family, his colleagues past and present and his many friends worldwide.
- Lightships.com
AN AUSTRALIAN blimp pilot has been hailed a hero after he saved three passengers by ordering them to jump from the burning airship only to then die himself.
Michael Nerandzic, from Balgownie in Wollongong, was attempting to land the A60 Goodyear airship at an airfield at Reichelsheim in Germany, when the blimp caught fire during descent. The 53-year-old and three journalists with him were returning from a local music festival.
It is understood the passengers smelt fuel and heard a loud whirring noise before the blimp caught fire. Realising the airship was only moments away from disaster, Mr Nerandzic then made the heroic decision to put his own life on the line to save those of his passengers. Hovering 2m above the ground he yelled for the three passengers to jump from the gondola to safety below.
That decision reduced the ballast weight of the airship which is believed to have caused it to shoot 50m into the air where it exploded with the burning wreckage falling to the ground. Mr Nerandzic was unable to escape and died in the wreckage.
Witnesses said they heard loud noises coming from the air before spotting a “fireball” moments before it crashed into a meadow near the airfield.
“We could hear the cries of the pilot as the fire surrounded him. It was terrible,” one said.
Amateur video of part of the crash here; news report video at links above and below.
Witnesses - the passengers and ground crew I’d guess - reported smell fuel and hearing a loud whirring noise from one of the engines.
The wife of a Wollongong blimp pilot, who died saving three airship passengers in Germany, has said her husband was “larger than life” and “a character”.
Speaking to the Illawarra Mercury today, Lyndy Nerandzic said she was not surprised to hear of husband Michael’s heroic actions in the last minutes of his life.
“When they told me what he had done for the passengers, it didn’t surprise me one little bit,” she said.
Blimps are filled with helium, which is a gas that does not burn. Blimps do not have any internal support structures like the framework in the old Zeppelins. Once mostly filled with helium, the bag (ie the “envelope") is kept firm by the assistance of an inner bag called a ballonet, which contains regular air. As the blimp rises and the helium expands, the ballonet deflates. When the helium contracts, the ballonet inflates and takes up the volume.
I could not find detailed information on blimp design, but from the way this crash happened I do not believe that they are built with a big dump valve on top like hot air balloons are. Such a valve might have saved this pilot. Or maybe not; we’ll never know.
While helium by itself is fairly rare in nature, large amounts of it are freed as part of the natural gas purification process.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/14/2011 at 08:00 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 19, 2011
Racing The Lightning
I have to slap this post up now, before the power goes out again. We’re still getting the rain ... forever it seems ... and today it comes with lightning. We’ve lost power 3 times already, and that almost never happens here. Plenty of local lightning strikes, plenty close. Lightning goes “fsssshpkk” first, and then the bolt hits?? I didn’t know that. I mean, I knew that it goes up first and then comes down hard, but I didn’t know that there was any sound associated with the up part. Surprise!
Anyway, for no real reason, I spent a bunch of time looking up another one of those old propeller driven fighter planes that would work real well for the COIN mission support role I wrote about a couple weeks ago (should US go with Hawker Beechcraft or Embraer?). Like the Sandy, this one is another superb airplane that didn’t quite make it into WWII. Unlike the Sandy this one was mainly a carrier plane, though a few dozen fixed wing iterations were built. And then I got sidetracked by the whole sleeve valve thing, which is fascinating, though I’m still not 100% sure I understand how it works. So here’s a little beauty for you.
The Hawker Sea Fury went into production just as WWII was ending. The design was based on a captured Focke-Wulfe FW190 and the existing Hawker Tempest, crossed with the wing shape of a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, mated to the shortened fuselage of a Hawker Tempest, given a monocoque skin to save weight and add strength, and a bit of a camelback that raised the pilot up a bit for better visibility. And then the designers went back to the drawing boards and put hinges in the wings for carrier use. Under the hood was mounted one of the most powerful radial engines ever made, a Bristol Centaurus XVIIC 18 cylinder behemoth that displaced 3,270 cubic inches and made more than 3,000 horsepower. Without a supercharger or fuel injection I think. All this power allowed the Sea Fury to cruise along at nearly 400mph, and to have a top speed of 460mph. It was probably the fastest propeller driven fighter plane ever built. They saw extensive action in the Korean War and held their own against the new jet planes. A Sea Fury was actually the first prop plane to shoot down a jet fighter. “what the Huey was to Vietnam the Sea Fury was to Korea” is a quote I came across, but this dandy little airplane has been mostly forgotten about now that everything has a jet engine on it.
Only about 860 of these nimble planes were built, and it was in active Royal Navy duty for nearly a decade before being pushed aside by the kerosene burners. Quite a number were sold to other countries and stayed in service until the mid 60s. The Sea Fury was a little bigger than the FW 190 and a little smaller than the P-47, but faster than either. And with a 1000+ mile range (with drop tanks) and 4 20mm autocannons in the wings, this was one bowl of porridge that was just right.
A good number of Sea Furys still exist, and most of them race in the Unlimited (ie Warbird) category at Reno. Oh, and here’s one for sale, for less than $700,000.
Cuba flew the airplane as well, and it gave the CIA hell during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, sinking (or at least severely damaging) the Houston, shooting down a couple B-26 bombers, and shooting up troops on the ground. It was a highly effective airplane for both air to air and ground support missions.
Tons more links to pics and info below the fold. Most post now, more storm is coming! There is so much more that can be written ... much of which has already been written and can be Googled up with ease ... uh oh, the lights are blinking again ..
Posted by Drew458
on 05/19/2011 at 04:08 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - May 14, 2011
A Good Week
14.05.2011: 0638 UTC: Posn: 19:13N – 060:19E, around 190nm SxE of Ras al Had, Oman (Off Somalia).
Pirates in a dhow and a skiff chased a chemical tanker underway. Master raised alarm, increased speed and took evasive manoeuvres resulting in the pirates aborting the attempted attack. There were 4-5 pirates in the skiff with ladders sighted.
14.05.2011: 0434 UTC: Posn: 08:32N – 067:53E, around 304nm west of Minicoy island, India (Off Somalia).
About five pirates in a skiff chased and fired upon a LPG tanker underway. Ship raised alarm, increased speed and took evasive manoeuvres resulting in the pirates aborting the attempted attack.
14.05.2011: 0340 UTC: Posn: 13:54.7N – 057:56.2E, around 220nm ENE of Socotra island, Yemen (Off Somalia)
A general cargo ship underway spotted a mother vessel launch a skiff which approached the ship at 25 knots. D/O raised alarm, increased speed, altered course, SSAS activated, security team onboard alerted and crew went to the citadel. The security team fired rocket flare when the skiff was at a distance of 1.5 nm but the skiff continued to approach the ship. When the skiff closed to 600 metres, the security team fired warning shots, the skiff continued its approach and the next warning shots were fired when the skiffs were at a distance of 400meters from the vessel. This resulted in the pirates aborting the attempted attack and moving towards their mother vessel.13.05.2011: 2110 UTC: Posn: 13:10.7N – 048:37.0E, Gulf of Aden.
A small fast contact was noticed on radar approaching a container ship underway at 4nm. D/O monitored the contact and at a distance of 1.6 nm it was observed as a skiff and alarm was raised. When the skiff approached at a distance of 50 metres, the bridge team noticed 4-5 pirates onboard with a hook ladder. The onboard security team fired two shots into the skiff when the skiff close in to 30 metres resulting in the pirates aborted the attempted attack. Authorities informed.11.05.2011: 0925 UTC: Posn: 18:42N – 059:32E: around 220nm south of Ras al Had, Oman (Off Somalia)
Pirates in a skiff armed with RPG and guns chased and fired upon a product tanker underway. Master raised alarm, took evasive manoeuvres and instructed crew to proceed into citadel. Armed security team took measures to deter boarding of pirates resulting in the pirates aborting the attack. Crew and ship are safe.10.05.2011: 1425 LT: Posn: 25:17.8N – 058:06.8E: (Off Somalia)
Two skiffs approached a container ship. The vessel altered course, increased speed, raised alarm, crew went into citadel. There were four persons in each boat. Long rods attached with hooks and ladders were noticed on the skiffs. The skiffs followed the vessel at a distance of 1-3 cables astern. [ Drew: a cable is 100 fathoms long: 200 yards ] Later the skiffs aborted the attempt and moved away.10.05.2011: 1100 UTC: Posn: 17:34N - 058:00E, around 235nm east of Salalah, oman (Off Somalia).
Pirates in two skiffs armed with RPG and guns chased and fired upon a bulk carrier underway. Master raised alarm, SSAS activated, increased speed, took evasive manoeuvres and contacted warship for assistance. Due to the aggressive manoeuvres, the pirates aborted the attempted attack. The ship and crewmembers are safe.
08.05.2011: 0800 UTC: Posn: 12:09.0N – 059:20.3E: around 280nm east of Socotra island, Yemen (Off Somalia).
Two skiffs with five pirates in each armed with RPG and automatic weapons chased and fired upon a bulk carrier underway. Ship sent distress message, raised alarm, increased speed, made evasive manoeuvres and deployed security team onboard and contacted authorities for help. A military aircraft was deployed. Onboard armed security team fired warning shots resulting in the pirates aborting the attack.
Unfortunately, none of them are dead or captured. But it does show that “active countermeasures” - some kind of resistance - seems to work rather well. This isn’t me cherry picking the data; this is the whole week’s worth of piracy reports, minus the two in-port burglaries, one of which was in Ecuador.
If a bit of evasion and a few warning shots are enough, just think how fast the whole damn menace would dissolve if they were actually hunted. 3 weeks, tops.
PS - if you think the following is a good approach,
I specifically ask for your government to take the necessary steps to eradicate piracy at sea and
shore by:
Reducing the effectiveness of the easily-identifiable motherships
Authorising naval forces to hold pirates and deliver them for prosecution and punishment
Fully criminalising all acts of piracy and intent to commit piracy under national laws, in accordance with their mandatory duty to co-operate to suppress piracy under international conventions
Increasing naval assets available in this area
Providing greater protection and support for seafarers
Tracing and criminalising the organisers and financiers behind the criminal networks
then there is an online letter you can send to your government right here. SOS: Save Our Seafarers.
Personally, with all the naval power rafting around the Indian Ocean right now, I think it’s perfect time for a UN sanctioned action. Everybody gets to shoot off some military stuff, everybody gets to watch all the other country’s navies shoot off their stuff so they judge whether it’s any good or not, lots and lots and lots of pirates get killed and sunk, and then a nice multi-national airstrike can set the entire coast of Somali ablaze, while the Russians and the Chinese run a rescue the hostages op. Which accidentally kills all those pirates just minutes afterwards. Ooopsie! Oh, and all the various navies get to see how well they can coordinate and communicate, just in case various global alliances were to shift in the near future. And then there would be no more pirates.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/14/2011 at 05:04 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 12, 2011
Best Brake Commercial Evah
Once upon a time I read a cartoon about test pilots. It may have been one of Bill Mauldin’s Willy and Joe strips from WWII, I don’t really remember, but the drawing was of some overly confident young aviator saying “Yeah, we test ‘em before the test pilots test ‘em”. Ok, that’s a bit funny, and it plays on the bravado pilots are known for, but that job actually has to exist.
Here’s a beautiful old experimental airplane from the late 30s. It’s a Zlin Z-XIII, a Czechoslovakian speedster that could go 200mph from an inline 4 cylinder engine that only made 130hp. Only two were ever made, a single seater and a double seater ... then WWII got in the way. But they flew. And Zlin is still in business too.This one is on display in the Museum of Technology in Prague. What a great example of the 1930s Streamline Moderne design style ... and a great little airplane if you really had no interest in seeing where you were going.
So experimental airplanes and test pilots and pre-test test pilots have been with us from the beginning. In today’s world, a large part of a new aircraft’s design features are worked out on computers long before any actual building takes place. That gives the successful designs a big leg up, because the design and simulator software is really quite good. But when you start building them, you still have to test them, even before they ever get off the ground.
Here’s one of those tests. Boeing is building the latest incarnation of the venerable 747, called the 747-8. Fully loaded up, the airplane weighs nearly one million pounds. Crivens! Try stopping one of those with the brakes. It’s got to be a challenge. But not enough challenge; let’s do it the hard way, what the aviation world loves to call a worst case scenario.
Here’s Boeing trying to stop their million pound jetliner from 200mph, using Goodrich brakes that were worn right down to the pucks. And no reverse thrust either ...
Rats, i couldn’t snag the video, so follow the link and watch it there.
Did it work? You betcha. The plane stopped hundreds of feet sooner than expected, and the wheels did not catch on fire. I want brakes like that on my car, thank you. Although the guy in the pilot’s seat may have had something to do with it ... his name is Captain Kirk.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/12/2011 at 10:22 AM
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Permalink • Air Crash Data: Wait Another Week
LE BOURGET, France – France’s chief air accident investigator said Thursday he’s hopeful that data contained on the two flight recorders of an Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic almost two years ago can be recovered.
Jean-Paul Troadec, head of France’s BEA, told reporters that the so-called black boxes “appear to be in good shape.”
“I’m fairly confident” they can be used, he said in response to a question.
The man in charge of the BEA’s engineering department, Christophe Menez, said it would take at least three days to learn with certainty whether information contained on the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder can be recovered to help unlock the cause of the crash.
Other parts of the plane discovered in the ocean’s depths — some not yet brought to France — can also contribute to learning why Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people aboard.
Deciphering all the information can take weeks or months, said Alain Bouillard, director of the investigation.
“This process isn’t counted in days. It is counted in weeks or months,” he said.
The data recorders arrived under high security at BEA headquarters outside Paris on Thursday.
I thought this was going to be a bigger post than it turned out to be. Using deep sea robot submersibles from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI, “hoo wee!") searchers found the location of the downed airliner a couple weeks ago. At this point they have located most of the wreckage on the sea floor, 2 miles down. Even though the crash happened 2 years ago, bodies have been found still in their seats. Two bodies have been recovered for DNA testing, but the rest will probably stay there. Some family members want them to stay, some want them to leave. Both the black boxes were located and retrieved a few days ago, and have now been returned to France for examination. Conservators are optimist about their chances of getting the data, but it will take time to get the salt off and to dry out the circuit boards. So it’s still a matter of wait and see.
From what I can glean from the articles I have read, it appears that the plane belly flopped into the ocean. To me that means either a tremendous downdraft swatted the plane out of the sky, or that they suffered a complete loss of engines and power and stalled, and then fell straight down out of the sky. Whatever caused the crash happened so quickly that the oxygen masks did not have time to deploy. The force of the impact was enough to knock the flight recorder instruments out of their black box container ( which is actually orange ) but those instruments were found and retrieved a day later.
Air France and Airbus are spending another $12.5 million on this recovery effort, after spending $28 million on 3 previous searches. A French judge has filed preliminary manslaughter charges against the airline and the aircraft company, which seems proactively douchey to me. Only about 50 bodies were recovered from the surface at the time of the crash.
http://www.turnto23.com/travelgetaways/27864330/detail.html
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=international&xfile=data/international/2011/May/international_May132.xml
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42414150/ns/world_news-europe/t/bodies-air-france-crash-found-sea/
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/04/undersea-robots-locate-bodies-motors-200-air-france-crash/
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/05/02/49723219.html
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-21/air-france-black-box-search-harnesses-hollywood-for-crash-clues.html
Posted by Drew458
on 05/12/2011 at 09:49 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - May 11, 2011
The Birdman of Switzerland
Ha, I hardly even need to write a post after those headlines. But yup, Swiss airline pilot Yves Rossy has done it again, taking his strap on 6.5 foot wide delta wing and it’s 4 micro sized jet engines for a jaunt above, into, and across the Grand Canyon. This one was a bit of an illegal flight, since he didn’t file for FAA permits in time, but after recent flights crossing the English Channel and going over the Alps in his high speed bird suit, the Canyon was a walk in the park. Well, a flight in a national park.
With a pair of rockets strapped to his back, Swiss adventurer “JetMan" Yves Rossy soared over the Grand Canyon over the weekend, marking the flying man’s first U.S. flight.
Steering only with movements of his body, JetMan launched from a helicopter at 8,000 feet over the canyon and skimmed the walls of one of the America’s grandest natural formations on a sunny weekend morning, before deploying his parachute and descending to the Canyon floor.
Just don’t ask when it happened.
While a spokeswoman for the adventurer said that the flight was a success, and issued a picture of Rossy over the Grand Canyon, she could not specify what time Rossy flew, or even whether the flight was on Saturday or Sunday.
The Hualapai Tribe calls the rugged area home, and gave assent for Rossy to fly near Eagle Point on the tribe’s reservation, an event that occured days after JetMan abruptly cancelled a planned press event with little explanation.
The adventurer claimed complications with the Federal Aviation Administration led him to scrap his first flight, though a representative for the FAA told FoxNews.com that Rossy simply didn’t request a permit early enough. Indeed, the spokesman explained that the agency reached out to Rossy to warn him of the need for a permit, and struggled with how to define his jet suit—airplane or a power glider?
Rossy, who calls himself the JetMan, has rocketed above the English Channel and the Swiss Alps in his custom-built wing suit. Rossy’s jet suit averages 124 mph and has a 6.5-foot wing span; he wears it on his back, sending fuel to the four engines with a slight roll of his hand. The FAA ultimately grouped it with airplanes.
Video at the link above. More video on YouTube of other flights, here and here and here.
Pretty cool. But before you go making your own as a way to beat the morning traffic, realize that Rossy’s mini jet wing can not take off from the ground, nor can it land. He gets dropped from an airplane, does his flights, and then lands via parachute. And I kind of get the idea that his legs must get rather toasty, what with 4 paint can sized jet engines running just inches away and all. So it isn’t terribly practical, but that isn’t the point. The point is he is flying, all by himself, with just a wing strapped to his back. No seat, no cabin, no hand controls (other than a throttle, I hope!), no nothing. Until we all sprout feathers, this is as close to being eagles as people can get. And the darn thing can push him to 200kph, 300kph in a dive. Because flying is no fun if you’re just blobbing along; you want to go fast too.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/11/2011 at 07:59 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - May 08, 2011
Bombers over Arizona landscape
H/T Vilmar, who got it from Theo who it seems, we all seem to grab stuff from.
I love these planes. Way more then most modern jets. Words just fail. Take a look.
Posted by peiper
on 05/08/2011 at 12:45 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - May 07, 2011
Secret No Longer
Osama Raid Stealth Chopper Secret Tech Lost To China?
LOS ANGELES (KABC)—The last act of the Navy SEAL team before they left the Osama bin Laden compound was to blow up their damaged helicopter that had to be left behind.
Aviation analysts say the remnants of the aircraft reveal they were part of one of the U.S. military’s most closely-guarded secret: A stealth Black Hawk helicopter whose existence was only rumored. It had never been seen in public before.
“This is the first time we’ve seen an operation stealth helicopter,” said Bill Sweetman, editor in chief of Defense Technology International magazine.
Analysts say photos that emerged on the Internet reveal it was no ordinary helicopter.
“One of the things that really stands out is they have a little disk over the motors, which is meant to baffle the sound and deny radar signature,” said Daniel Goure of the think tank Lexington Institute.
Neighbors in the Abbottabad neighborhood where bin Laden’s compound was located told ABC News they did not hear the helicopters Sunday night until they were directly overhead.
“It would be a vague sound,” Goure said. “It might be the sound of a helicopter that was going in the opposite direction. This was designed so the time between hearing the helicopter and the SEALs dropping in on the compound was very short.”
Residents near the bin Laden compound told ABC News that just before the stealth helicopters arrived, all electricity and cellphone service was knocked out and then came back on right after the choppers left.
One key to the chopper’s stealth nature is a secret, heavily-coated, fabric-like material, which children in the neighborhood were seen collecting.
The Chinese military is known to have close relationships with the Pakistani military.
“There are probably people in the Pentagon tonight who are very concerned that pieces of the helicopter may be, even now, on their way to China, because we know that China is trying to make stealth aircraft,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke.
The remaining large pieces of the secret U.S. helicopter were trucked away by Pakistani officials Wednesday to an unknown destination.
One of the helicopters was blown apart during the assault, but photographs of the tail section that remained in Pakistan show modifications to quiet noise and reduce chances of radar detection.
The New York Times reports that people in the helicopter industry said the rear section looked nothing like the tail of a regular Black Hawk helicopter. They said it looked like the Black Hawk had added some of the features of the proposed stealth helicopter Comanche, which was canceled by the Pentagon in 2004.
Another reported that the downed helicopter had five or six blades in its tail rotor, as opposed to the usual four in a Black Hawk. That may have permitted operators to slow the rotor speed and reduce the familiar chop-chop sound made by most helicopters.
Daniel Goure, a defense specialist at the Lexington Institute think tank, said the helicopter crash may have been caused by the unusual aerodynamics which came from the aircraft’s modifications.
“It could be much more difficult to fly at slow speed and landing than you would expect from a typical Black Hawk,” Goure said
What is as intriguing as the stealth adaptations is how well they apparently worked. “The attack on bin Laden did not occur in some remote area outside Pakistani control, but in a compound in a city of some 100,000 and less than 100 mi. from a major Pakistani population center like Islamabad, and one occupied by a brigade from the Pakistani army’s second division and the location of the Army’s military academy,” notes analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
The public photos show that the destroyed Black Hawk’s tail features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the tail-rotor hub fairings, swept stabilizers and a “dishpan” cover over a five- or six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infrared (IR) suppression finish similar to that seen on the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey.
Stealth enhancements for rotorcraft are not new and were applied extensively to the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, canceled in 2004. Compared with fixed-wing stealth, more emphasis is usually placed on noise and IR signatures.
Link to a drawing that shows the rotor better
We’ll never know what other modifications the main body of that helo had, because it got burned up. And while making a quieter helo is great, and cutting down it’s radar cross section is superb, the part I really like is that with the flip of a switch our guys can shut down their electric power and their phone system remotely. I’m pretty sure that isn’t exactly new; I think the IDF has been doing that for awhile now too, but it sure is neat.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/07/2011 at 09:07 AM
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Permalink • Friday - April 15, 2011
LAAR She Blows! Part Two
Alright, I took a few hours off to eat and hang out and watch tonight’s episode of Fringe. Ok, so where was I? Ah yes ...
It looks like the Navy and the Air Force both want some kind of smallish airplane that can handle the small scale low level situations that seem to be a big part of modern “asymmetrical” warfare. I think that’s defined as a fight between a well trained, fully equipped modern force and a D level pick up squad of rag tag Turd World losers, with a specific ROE that applies only to the bigger force so that they are never actually allowed to win.
Such a small plane needs to be fairly low maintenance, and it needs to be able to engage the enemy out past the range of heavy machine guns or smaller 20-40mm anti-aircraft fire. That’s about the best we’re going to face from drug cartels, tin hat dictators from the poorer nations, and Al Qeda in general. Anything bigger and it will be an actual war between actual nations, and we’ve got plenty of big stuff for those. But just in case the scrub army should get it’s hands on some second hand missiles, let’s write the specs to include a few million dollars worth of threat detection computers, anti-missile systems, chaff dispensers and so forth. Seriously, I’m only being a little sarcastic. The specs I could find read less like an airplane and more like a toy box:
The aircraft will carry ordnance and external stores on four underwing pylons. Typical air-to-ground ordnance will include an aerial cannon, two 500 lb class guided-munitions and a variety lighter weapons, such as 2.75” (guided or unguided) rockets, rail-launched guided missiles (such as the Hellfire II), unguided free-fall munitions, flares etc. It will be capable operating on five - hour missions, flying distances of 900 nautical miles without refueling, up to a ceiling of 30,000 ft. The aircraft will operate from austere, forward operating bases, semi-prepared surfaces including dirt, grass, gravel, surfaces. Ground support operations are not rquired ro service the aircraft, - other than available field fuel stores available for re-fueling operations.
...
Configured as tandem cockpit with duplicated controls and modern digital avionics, LAAR will be designed for day or night operation. The front cockpit will also be fitted with a HUD supporting air-to-ground functionality, displaying the continuously computed impact point (CCIP), continuously computed release point (CCRP), strafe, and manual weapon aiming computation/release.The ISR systems on board will comprise a modern, stabilized multi-sensor electro-optical payload with geo-locating accuracy, integrating a day channel, night (thermal) channel, and multiple laser emitters, such as rangefinder, designator, target marker and spot-tracker. LAAR will be equipped with communications systems, integrating voice-and-data links, enabling simultaneous operation of three separate channels, in addition to multiple datalinks supporting transfer messaging, images and full motion -video supporting Remote Operations Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER), operated by ground units and the ground forward air control / joint terminal attack control (FAC/JTAC) systems. LAAR will operate fully integrated with traditional Command and Control (C2) concepts and organizations, networked with current theater air tasking order (ATO) and airspace control order (ACO) dissemination networks.
Yeah. You can get a serious case of acronymia reading these things. So they want a little plane that has all the big plane gizmos inside, with a multi-channel real-time data link and one of those rotating ball spy camera thingies like on the UAVs. Or, as the guy from Beechcraft put it 7 months ago:
The AT-6 is a structurally enhanced Beechcraft T-6A/B airframe with a more powerful Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68D engine, and a Lockheed Martin A-10C Mission System that is integrated with the T-6B primary flight avionics system. It also has the same sensor suite as the MC-12W with a laser designator/range finder. ”When our airplane wakes up in the morning, it believes it’s an A-10. We call this simple integration,”
“Simple integration”. What an excellent misnomer. But if it works, go for it.
Anyway, to make a very short story even longer, it looks like two airplanes are under consideration. One, the above mentioned Beechcraft, currently called the AT-6B, made in Kansas I think, and the other one, the Brazilian Embraer Super Tucano EMB-314. They look amazingly alike.
“Still, they’re cousins,
Identical cousins and you’ll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike—
You can lose your mind,
When cousins —are two of a kind. “
Here’s where the real differences lie: the Beechcraft was built as a trainer. To make the grade as an LAAR craft, it has to have major upgrades, starting with a bigger engine with nearly 50% more power, a significantly strengthened airframe to handle that power, hardpoints designed and installed, wing redesign, and all sorts of room found for wing guns and all that fancy electronics gear. It even needs bigger tires. The Super Tucano was designed from the ground up to be a military aircraft for rough airstrips. It already has the stronger engine and body, the ISR ball turret laser target designator, hardpoints, etc. It has some of the fancy electronics, but not our latest kit.
What the Super Tucano does not have is our latest and greatest ejection seats. These things are called Zero/Zero seats, which means they can blast you out of a busted airplane far enough for your parachute to deploy safely even if the airplane itself is at zero altitude going zero speed. And our latest version can be adjusted to fit every body type from a 103lb petite woman to a fairly large 245lb man. Can such seats be retrofit? I bet they can.
What the AT-6B doesn’t have is much of any actual existence. Hawker Beechcraft sells the basic trainer to everyone, and it’s a fine little plane. Meanwhile Brazil is busy selling their little plane all around the world as a combat aircraft, garnering a great reputation in small scale military engagements and drug interdictions. Hawker Beechcraft is redesigning their trainer in steps. Step 1 is to stick in the same engine that the Super Tucano uses ...
In additon to the bigger engine, the aircraft will get the mission system from the upgraded A-10C, with satcom, datalinks, full-motion-video downlink, missile warning, countermeasures, armor and fuel-tank protection. A high-definition color EO/IR sensor with laser designator will be carried on a hardpoint under the fuselage and six underwing stations will carry gun and rocket pods, 250lb or 500lb precision-guided bombs, Hellfire missiles and guided rockets.
The aircraft is being developed in steps. An avionics prototype, AT-1, is flying now with the CMC Electronics digital cockpit avionics and displays. This will be modified towards year-end to integrate and test tle Lockheed Martin mission system. Work has started on a second prototype, AT-2, that will have the big engine and other changes.
The Embraer folks at AFA were quick to point out that the EMB-314 doesn’t need any changes, other than specific equipment, to meet the LAAR requirement. The Super Tucano was designed from the outset as a light-attack/armed-reconnaissance/advanced trainer and has the big engine, ISR ball and even .50-cal guns in the wing.
So it looks like a game of catch-up is going on ... while we’re busy fighting 3 or 4 wars and have a screaming need for some kind of interdiction warplane to fly along our own borders.
The upgrade path isn’t completely smooth either. As you can see in the pic at the top here or inpictures of the AT-6B at airliners.net (who’s pictures I didn’t use because they’re very possessive about such things) they stuck the ISR ball on directly underneath the wings. Probably right on the center of gravity, which makes sense, until you actually fly the plane. Try tracking something when you have to turn and bank; the wing immediately gets in the way, blocking the view/signal. That’s well written up in a long flight review, here.
Do I have faith that the final AT-6B will be a fine little airplane that more than meets the design and mission criteria? Without a doubt. One of the real questions is just how badly we need such an aircraft, and in what numbers. When you draw up the multi-circle Venn diagram with all our different UAVs, our helicopters, our jet fighters, spy planes, V-22 Ospreys, and everything else we have that flies in the mix, how big is the hole that is left unfilled, and how much blood is leaking out that hole? In other words, do we really need this thing, and if we do, do we really need it right the heck now and in big numbers?
And this is where politics creeps in. “Save American Jobs!!” scream the congresscritters in DC. “Don’t outsource our weapons systems!” And they may have a point, even though a deal of this size would be exactly what Obama would have talked about when he was just down in Brazil the other week, talking with their newly elected President, who just happens to be a Marxist and a former jungle revolutionary. And lest you think our legislators are being more hypocritical than usual (we sell our military stuff the world over, but can’t buy any foreign stuff? What part of Free Trade or NAFTA/CAFTA/SAFTA is that?), the Brazilian airplane comes with an odd rider in the contract called a “Golden Share”.
The Golden Share allows the Brazilian government to maintain direct control and veto rights over the “creation and/or alteration of military programs, whether or not involving the Federative Republic of Brazil” as well as the “interruption of the supply of maintenance and replacement parts for military aircraft.”
The Brazilian government’s direct control over Embraer would put the production of the light attack and reconnaissance aircraft at the mercy and whim of Brazil’s political leaders who too often do not see eye to eye with the United States on foreign policy issues. In fact, they have been noticeably absent from the War on Terror over the last decade.
Brazil doesn’t like the no-fly thing over Libya either. I think we ran up against a similar situation during Gulf War I or II, when the Scandinavian company who made our hand grenades didn’t like our involvement there and stopped selling them to us. Or maybe it was rifle ammunition. I can’t recall. Anyway, our troops went through a shortage until we resourced.
So what’s my final opinion? Either one of these little goofy looking airplanes is probably more than enough to fight mini-wars with against rag tag armies and drug lords. Both can fly at 300mph or a touch faster, both can go more than 1000 miles on a tank of fuel. Both can attack targets from 2 miles up in the sky, an altitude where little planes are nearly invisible from the ground. Neither one of these airplanes is going to hold up for shit once actual large bullets and flack start impacting. There is a reason the Thunderbolts both old and new were so overbuilt: they could take a pounding and keep on fighting. Both of these airplanes look mighty fragile to me, especially their scrawny little wings. The cost of all the electronics goodies both use is mighty prohibitive, but that’s what happens when you demand warfare with the precision of eye surgery. Ten million dollars a plane for starters, to drop half million dollar ordnance on angry peasants who won’t earn $5000 in their entire lives and are shooting back with $200 weapons. But they can save fuel and maintenance costs!!!! Yes, but at what expense? Another billion or three? Or ten? In a way they remind me of the VW pickup truck that somebody left in the comments on the automotive post I did yesterday - sure looks great, costs a fortune, and may not really fill any existing market niche. So let’s use a little common sense for once. If we really, really need this kind of plane, and our guys are dying for the lack of it, let’s order up a bunch from Brazil right now and another bunch to use as spare parts. That way we can tell them to FO if they get uppity. And if we don’t absolutely positively have to have these, but it would be nice, then let’s stick with Hawker Beechcraft’s development, put in an iron clad order for 250 of them, and then cut funding for at least two other flight systems. I don’t care if that’s UAVs, super fighters, stealth frisbees or what. There’s only so much money to be spent on toys, and the toy box looks pretty damn full from here.
Done. Hope you’re happy John.
Below the fold are enough links to keep you reading for many hours, but there is one link there you should follow. Have fun!
Posted by Drew458
on 04/15/2011 at 09:30 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - April 14, 2011
Good Decisions From Detroit?
Crude oil tumbled more than 3% Tuesday after Goldman Sachs warned investors that crude is due for a “substantial pullback.”
Goldman analyst David Greely said global supplies remain “adequate” even though the rebellion in Libya shut down production there. Before fighting broke out in February, Libya exported about 1.5 million barrels per day, 2% of global demand — mostly to Europe.
Fear of tightening global supplies have helped push oil prices 33% higher since the middle of February.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery gave up more than $4 to $105.85 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, shedding nearly two weeks of price increases. At one point it dropped to $105.60.
Analyst and trader Stephen Schork pointed out that anyone who bought oil contracts last week paid between $107.58 and $112.94 per barrel. If oil continues to hold below that level, it could trigger a wider selloff.
And we all know that Goldman Sachs runs the entire financial world (or was it just the entire US government?), so therefore this will come to pass. Have Hope, things will Change!
Meanwhile in Detroit:
Chevrolet’s Camaro sporty car, already outselling chief rival Ford Mustang, gets some significant updates for 2012, including a power boost. In a conversation with Drive On, Chevy disclosed that it plans to announce today more horsepower and other improvements to the Camaro coupe and convertible, beginning with 2012 models on sale this summer:
The base engine, a 3.6-liter V-6 with gasoline direct injection, gets an 11-horsepower boost, to 323 horsepower, with no expected drop in fuel-economy ratings. That will put it way past arch-rival Mustang’s 305 horsepower.
Hey Chevy, can I have half of that? Get out the hacksaw and make me a 1.8 liter I3 with 161hp. Hella yeah! I doubt if it will run any rougher than the sewing machine you put under the hood of my SC2.
You’d think that there’d be a market for small pickups in the U.S., but automakers think not. Just as Ford is killing its Ranger pickup in the U.S. and refuses to bring a replacement from another market, General Motors is adamant about following suit.
It’s launching a car-based small pickup called Montana in Brazil and, next year, Argentina. It’s kind of cool-looking and begs for the cloying nickname “Hannah Montana.” Even though the current small Chevy truck, Colorado, is dead meat after its plant closes by late 2012, Chevy says it has absolutely no plans to bring “Hannah Montana” to the U.S.
The Montana is nothing new. It’s built in Brazil and sold across the Turd World. In Mexico it’s called the Tornado; in South Africa it’s the Opel Utility. It has a little 1.8 L engine that gets 30+ mpg. It isn’t speedy, but it has a very large bed for it’s size, 66.5” X 55”, and it can carry 3/4 of a ton plus the passengers.
Mini pickups were common here once upon a time. They make a lot of sense if you don’t live in Truck Fantasy Land. They filled a niche left open by the demise of the great American station wagon that wouldn’t be closed by the minivan for several years. But those little trucks - the Chevy LUV, the VW Rabbit pickup, the Datsun B210 - were pretty raw inside and not “Ram Tough” outside. So they grew and got fancier, and the market for a cheap basic hauler evaporated. Personally, if Chevy brought back the S10 I’d buy one. The S10 was a mid-size truck in it’s day, but it was built as a truck, not as a car. Make it half a foot wider this time with an extended cab standard and an efficient yet torquey V6 and a 6 speed stick. My brother had 2 of the earlier versions of the S10, and drove those trucks into the ground after hundreds of thousands of miles. He had variable rate shocks on the last one and the truck rode like a Cadillac.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 08:47 AM
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Permalink • Froggies At The Wheel
While taxiing toward takeoff at 8:08 p.m. Monday night, Air France A380 Flight had a close shave with a Comair Bombardier CRJ700 at the JFK Airport, New York. Although the collision of the Air France flight and the regional jet belonging to Delta regional subsidiary Comair did not result in any injuries, the mishap did cause damage to the flights.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released post-collision photos of the flight, while video footage of the collision have also emerged giving a better picture of what ensued Monday night at JFK.
Photos of the fender bender damage here.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 08:34 AM
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Permalink • Monday - April 11, 2011
A Different Kind Of Freedom
The speed limit on some highways in Texas may be raised to 85 mph, the highest in the nation, under legislation the Texas House approved Wednesday.
The measure passed on a voice vote was part of a larger transportation bill. It would authorize the Texas Department of Transportation to raise the speed limit on designated lanes or entire stretches of roads after doing engineering and traffic studies, The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday.
The Senate is considering a similar bill.
“They have high-speed roadways in Europe, and there could be some merit in having some of those highways in Texas,” said Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who introduced the bill. “Given the right engineering, we should consider it.”
Texas has more than 520 miles of interstate highways on which the speed limit is 80 mph.
One such stretch of Interstate 10 “is as nice a road as you can build; it’s flat with a long line of sight, wide lanes and good shoulders,” said Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso. “For people like us who travel that long distance, it could be good” to raise the limit to 85 mph, he said.
Some auto insurers oppose the measure, citing safety concerns.
“Obviously, the two things that kill most people on our highways are speed and alcohol. Increasing it to 85, or even 75, will have a dramatic impact on the death and injury rate on those highways where it’s implemented,” said Jerry Johns, a spokesman for the Southwestern Insurance Information Service.
He said drivers already exceed 70 mph highway speed limits.
“But 85 mph is simply too fast to drive even on a flat road. Any little hitch can cause an accident at that speed. There is still traffic on those roads, and to drive 85 mph is simply ludicrous,” he said.
85 is ludicrous? And just too dangerous? So I guess this means that all those people in those bitsy little wind-up cars in France, Italy (where you can go 93mph on the big highways), Germany (das autobahn, duh) must all just fall over dead non-stop. Give me a break. Even in tiny little Ireland the speed limit is 75mph.
But it’s for your own good! And besides, driving fast wastes gasoline!
Some car insurers, however, oppose the bill:
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, high speeds were a factor in about one-third of all fatal crashes in 2009. The faster you’re traveling, the greater the distance needed to bring your vehicle to a complete stop and the longer it takes a driver to react to emergency situations, according to IIHS. If an accident does occur at a higher speed, there is a strong likelihood that the crash impact will exceed the protection available to vehicle occupants.
On top of safety concerns, speeding increases fuel consumption. Every 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
To that last point I call bullshit. No, I am not denying the physics, I understand how doubling the velocity quadruples the amount of work done, which is another way of saying that it’s much harder to push a car through the air at higher speeds than it is at lower speeds. My counter point is that most cars in America are simply geared wrong for driving at those kinds of speeds. I’m certain that this can be overcome.
Look, I drive a mangy old Saturn. It was no hot rod to begin with, with it’s 1.9L 124hp/122 lb/ft engine and a 5 speed. While the car is quite aerodynamic, that little engine is spinning way too fast at 85mph. In 5th gear that’s about 3500rpm. Hey, I live in NJ, and on the weekend there is no speed limit on the highways. NONE. No, that’s not true. The speed limits are almost never enforced, and the entire state gets out on the highways and drives around like Al Unser, making up for the bumper to bumper traffic plodding they do on the same roads at rush hour M-F. So they’re out there going 80, 85, 90 ... and you’ll still have some damn SUV or mongo pickup truck tailgating you, or some idiot passing you on the right and diving in right in front of you. But that’s Joisey; only the strong survive. My point is that I’m pretty certain my car could hold that speed if the engine was turning 1000rpm less, maybe even 1250rpm less. I find myself looking for an extra gear every time I get up to 70mph. My secondary point is that 85mph or faster is the reality in tiny little NJ, with the most dense population in the country. We do it and manage not to die constantly. So big old wide open Texas should be able to handle it with no sweat. And our deer population is at least as big a road hazard as their armadillo population.
My wife’s Spec V has a 6 speed, and her car has almost half again more power than mine (175hp/180 lb/ft). The two vehicles are about the same size and weight; hers is way faster than mine. But her 6 speed is a very close ratio one, and even in 6th at highway speeds the engine is turning far too much. At 80mph her car could easily turn 2000rpm less and hold the speed even on a moderate grade. As it is right now, at 85 in 6th her car is just waking up and starting to get rowdy. Tap the gas and it leaps to 100 in a couple seconds. Her 2.5L engine has enough pull down low so that you can drive around town at 30mph in 6th gear and not lug the engine. It has the wrong gears for the amount of engine, period. 6th should run the engine at idle at 50mph. It shouldn’t be usable at all outside of the highway.
And we both drive weak little 4 cylinder cars compared to the V6 and V8 vehicles everyone else has, where 250hp is below average. Given a proper overdrive gear designed for this speed, they’d get the same highway gas mileage they do at 65mph, because their engines are already providing far more power than required. So let’s see some better gear ratios, m’kay?
As for the safety angle ... well, I’ve got a couple ideas. The Staties everywhere should patrol the highways and give out more tickets for following too closely than they do for speeding. Speed doesn’t really matter, it’s how far away you are from the car in front of you when somebody does something unexpected. Paying attention helps a lot too, and Americans utterly suck chunks at that. We’re too busy eating, texting, talking on the phone, fiddling around with the music, etc to pay any heed to the road. And our big fat asses are sunk into those big plush seats in our cars with their super soft ride and total sound insulation: even the driver is just along for the ride. It’s hard to find a car or truck that even has a manual transmission. Shifting gears is too much to ask of us. We aren’t really involved in the process.
In the same vein I’d set standards for breaking distance. Fill the car or truck up to it’s rated carrying capacity, and a full tank of gas. Now from 65mph it has to stop 10 times in X distance or less, then it has to stop in Y distance or less from 90mph, 10 times in a row. Doesn’t matter at all what size vehicle it is, whether it’s a moped or a city bus or a cement mixer. If it can go that fast, then it has to be able to stop properly. Vehicles that can’t handle the high speeds carry a rear window sticker with their maximum rated speed, and woe be unto the driver going 85 in a truck only brake rated for 60.
Vehicle inspections would be stricter as well. New Jersey would have to go back to that shock absorber thing they used to do, where some gizmo made your car bounce up and down. They don’t do that one anymore. Come to think of it, the state run outsourced inspection rather sucks, but to “save money” they give you a 2 or a 4 year sticker.
In Germany I’ve heard that the highway police check your tires when they pull you over, and if you’ve been out on the autobahn going 150mph and your tires are only rated for 85mph ... well, they don’t like that very much. And they’re Germans. So you know what happens. (what, you mean they invade Poland? Again?? No wise-ass, they fine your butt off, big time)
So 85mph on American highways can be perfectly safe. We need to make sure we have the right kind of vehicles for it, in good repair, we need to learn how to actually drive instead of riding along, and we need to learn to give the guy ahead plenty of room. And if you are the guy ahead, that means you move over to the next lane when someone comes up behind you. You hear that Pennsyltucky drivers? Try and wrap your pointy little heads around that one: you don’t own the fast lane, so move the EFF over when someone comes up behind you. Geex.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/11/2011 at 01:48 PM
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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