This Date in Aviation History: April 11 - April 13

Kinja'd!!! "ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
04/13/2018 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, planelopnik history, Planelopnik

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from April 11 through April 13.

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(NASA)

April 12, 1981 – The Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-1, the first flight of the Space Shuttle Program. Before the arrival of the Space Shuttle, satellites and astronauts were sent to space in entirely expendable spacecraft. The rockets that boosted them beyond Earth’s atmosphere were left behind in orbit after their fuel was spent, or burned up re-entering the atmosphere, and the capsules that held the astronauts and cosmonauts were so heavily damaged by the friction and heat of re-entry that they could not be used again. Not only was it wasteful, it was also terribly expensive. So, beginning all the way back in 1969, the same year that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! first set foot on the Moon with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , NASA began to develop a spacecraft that could be used again and again, one that could function essentially as a “space truck” that could haul payloads into space relatively cheaply.

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The Shuttle program got its official start in 1972 with an announcement by President Richard M. Nixon that NASA would develop what eventually came to be called a Space Transport System (hence, all Shuttle missions were given the prefix “STS”). Initially, the hopes for the new system were quite ambitious, and NASA envisioned as many as 50 launches per year. But before NASA could start hauling payloads to space, they had to decided exactly what the Shuttle would look like. They considered a myriad of designs and configurations, and there was much debate over just how much of the system would be reused. There was talk of placing air-breathing engines on both the Shuttle and its booster, so both could be flown like a plane during landing, or even flown between landing and launch sites. But ultimately, NASA settled on a design where the orbiter sat atop a huge fuel tank, which would not be reused, and was boosted into space by a pair of solid rocket boosters which would be retrieved from the ocean and used again. The first Shuttle, Enterprise (originally named Constitution , but changed after a huge write-in campaign to honor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! TV series), was used for flying and landing tests. The second Shuttle, Columbia , would be the first to blast off and reach Earth orbit.

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Astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen (NASA)

STS-1 was commanded by veteran astronaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Young was already a veteran of space missions, having served as the commander of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1972 where he became the ninth person to walk on the Moon. The Shuttle Pilot for STS-1 was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Crippen was going to space for the first time, but would later command three other Shuttle missions. Unlike all pre-Shuttle missions, which launched unmanned spacecraft to test the vehicle, STS-1 was the first time NASA performed the maiden flight of a spacecraft with astronauts onboard. NASA had originally considered using STS-1 to test the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (RTLS) abort procedure, but Commander Young overruled that idea, citing the danger involved in such a test (by the end of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , no Shuttle ever had to use the RTLS procedure). Thus, STS-1 was carried out as a planned orbital mission.

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Columbia launched into space without incident twenty years to the day after the launch of Cosmonaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first man to fly in space. However, it must be mentioned that Columbia’s planned first launch had been scrubbed two days earlier, so the anniversary was more a case of serendipity than recognition. Columbia’s only payload was a flight instrumentation package, and the mission was designed to test the overall spaceworthiness of the Shuttle, achieve orbit, and return. After attaining an altitude of 166 nautical miles and making 37 orbits of the Earth, Columbia returned to Edwards Air Force Base in California, gliding to a landing on the dry lake bed. Columbia went on to serve NASA for 22 years and complete 27 missions before it was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on its 28th mission, killing all seven crew members. By the time the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, Shuttles had completed 133 successful missions, with the loss of two orbiters ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Columbia ) and 14 astronauts.

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April 12, 1961 – Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space. Man’s journey into space has had a number of milestones, the first of which was the launch of a Russian satellite named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! into Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. With that launch, the journey to space became a race, one which actually traces its roots back to Germany and WWII. The Germans were far ahead of the Russians and the Western allies in rocket technology, having unleashed their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ballistic rockets against England and Europe in the dying throes of the Third Reich. Following the war, captured scientific data—and captured scientists—formed the nucleus of the space programs for both the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! superpowers. At first, the emphasis was on creating ballistic missiles, but with the announcement of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! set for 1957, the Americans said that they would place a satellite in Earth orbit, and the Russians replied that they would do the same. The Russians were the first, with Sputnik 1 . The American response to the diminutive Russian satellite was their own !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! satellite, and the space race shifted into high gear.

For reasons that were more propaganda than science, each country wanted to be the first to put a man into space. The American effort to get to space was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the program began with a series of 20 unmanned developmental flights beginning in 1959. The Soviets initiated the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Like their American counterparts, the first Russian cosmonauts, now as the Vanguard Six, were all military pilots, though none were as experienced in flying as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , since the Russian program relied more on automation than the American program. Before sending a man to space, the Russians carried out a series of test launches, some carrying dogs and other biological specimens. The dogs !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! were the first living creatures to leave the planet and, lucky for the space dogs, the first to be recovered from orbit.

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For the historic manned launch into orbit, Russia tapped !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , with cosmonauts !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as backups. The Vostok rocket was erected on its launch pad at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Kazakhstan and, with a cry of “Poyekhali!” (“Let’s go!”), Gagarin was launched into space at 6:07 am local time. The rocket worked flawlessly, and Gagarin reported that he could see the Earth, and that everything was working well. From launch to landing, the entire flight, with its single orbit of the Earth, took 108 minutes. The capsule re-entered Earth’s atmosphere safely and, as he neared the ground, Gagarin was automatically ejected from his capsule and finished the descent under his own parachute. The capsule descended separately by its own parachute. After landing, Gagarin encountered some Russian farmers, and told them, “Don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!”

The Russians followed Vostok 1 four months later with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , when Titov spent just over 25 hours in space and made 17 orbits of the Earth. The Americans responded to Gagarin’s flight with the launch of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on May 5, 1961, a short suborbital flight. However, it provided important data for the American program, and astronaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! became the first to exercise manual control over a spacecraft. The American orbital response finally came on February 20, 1962, when !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , flying !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ,   became the first American—but the third man—to orbit the Earth.

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Yuri Gagarin receives a hero’s welcome in a parade in the Polish capital city of Warsaw in 1961.

Though Gagarin served as a backup crew for the ill-fated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , he never returned to space. For being the first man in space and, more importantly, beating the Americans, Gagarin was named a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , his nation’s highest honor. He became an international celebrity, and served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Center. However, his fame would be short-lived. Seven years after his momentous flight, Gagarin was killed on March 27, 1968 in the crash of his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! trainer at the age of 34. The cause of the crash remains a matter of debate.

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April 13, 1970 – An oxygen tank explodes in the Apollo 13 Service Module. Triskaidekaphobia is a word that comes to us from the Greek, and it means having an extreme superstition about, or fear of, the number 13. As a matter of tradition, many tall buildings don’t number the 13th floor, counting from 12 to 14, and Friday the 13th has become famous as a day for bad luck and ill omens. As the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! progressed from the ill-fated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the rational scientists at NASA chose not skip the number 13 despite its ominous history, though in hindsight they may have wished that they had.

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The Apollo 13 crew: James A. Lovell Jr., Commander, John L. “Jack” Swigert Jr., Command Module pilot, and Fred W. Haise Jr., Lunar Module pilot (NASA)

Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission of the Apollo program and the third mission slated to land on the moon. On board were mission commander !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Command Module pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and Lunar Module pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (astronaut Ken Mattingly had originally been slated to serve as Command Module pilot, but fears that he had contracted rubella form his one of children led to his replacement by Swigert). The launch on April 11 took place without any significant problems, and the crew successfully detached the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (SM) and Odyssey   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CM) to perform the transposition maneuver that would attach the Aquarius   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (LM, pronounced “lem”) to the nose of the CM and allowed the astronauts to pass between the CM and the LM. Once the spacecraft reached lunar orbit, the LM, with two astronauts aboard, would then separate and fly to the surface, while the third astronaut remained in orbit in the CM.

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The barrel-shaped Service Module, as its name implied, was filled with various tanks and batteries, and among its duties was to supply electricity and oxygen to the CM throughout the mission. On April 13, two days after launch and about three-fourths of the way to the moon, NASA flight controllers instructed Swigert to activate the hydrogen and oxygen tank stirring fans, a routine procedure that helped keep the tanks functioning properly and ensured proper readings of the tanks’ levels. Two minutes later, the crew heard a loud bang, and Lovell reported the words that have since become synonymous with something going seriously wrong: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Looking out the window of the CM, Lovell told Mission Control that the spacecraft was venting “a gas of some sort” into space. Unknown to the crew at the time, one of the oxygen tanks had exploded, taking not only precious oxygen for the crew, but also electricity and water. Soon, the CM had only battery power and limited water, and what little electrical power that remained would be needed for re-entry. So the CM was shut down and the astronauts moved to the LM, which had its own power supply. Without Aquarius to act as a lifeboat, the accident would almost certainly have been fatal.

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Following the official decision to abort the Moon landing, NASA was now faced with the problem of getting the astronauts home safely, a scenario for which there was no procedure. Rather than turn around and come directly back to Earth, Flight Director !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! decided to allow the spacecraft to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and use the Moon’s gravity to slingshot the astronauts back to Earth. The astronauts had to use the LM’s landing rocket to make manual course corrections, and the four-and-half-minute burn, something the astronauts had never trained for, was so accurate that only two more small course corrections were needed. Though the LM had plenty of oxygen, the removal of carbon dioxide became critical, and the astronauts had to jury-rig a system using incompatible C02 scrubbers from the CM. They also faced critical shortages of water and food. Once they were close enough to Earth, the astronauts jettisoned the SM and could finally get a good look at the damage, and saw that an entire side panel of the module had blown off. After photographing it, they returned to the CM and jettisoned Aquarius. Despite concerns about the possibility of a damaged heat shield, Odyssey splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on April 17.

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An analysis of the explosion determined that damaged insulation on the stirring fan caused a short-circuit and fire that ignited the tank explosion. Even though the mission to land on the Moon wasn’t successful, the unintended orbital trajectory around the Moon gave the Apollo 13 astronauts the record for the absolute distance flown from the Earth by a manned spacecraft. Apollo 13 would be the last spaceflight for Commander Lovell, the only man to fly to the Moon twice without landing on its surface. Jack Swigert was slated to return to space as part of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1972, but was removed from the flight for his role in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! surrounding !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Fred Haise also never returned to space, though he did take part in the early Space Shuttle program, piloting the Enterprise to three landings as part of the Shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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Short Takeoff

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Author unknown

April 11, 1943 – The first flight of the Piasecki PV-2, the second successful helicopter flown in the US after the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Constructed as a technology demonstrator, the PV-2 introduced new features such as dynamically balanced rotor blades, a rigid tail rotor with a tension-torsion pitch changing system and full cyclic and collective pitch control. Only one example was ever produced, and it is now on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in northern Virginia.

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April 11, 1952 – The first flight of the Piasecki H-21 Workhorse/CH-21 Shawnee, a multi-mission tandem-rotor helicopter developed from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The H-21 was originally designed for Arctic rescue missions and featured full winterization for polar climates, but it ended up being used primarily as a troop transport in the early days of the Vietnam War as the CH-21. Called the “Flying Banana” by troops, the Shawnee was poorly suited to the hot jungle climate of Southeast Asia, and was removed from service in 1964 with the arrival of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , better known as the Huey, and was finally retired from active service with the arrival of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(NASA)

April 12, 1985 – US Senator Jake Garn becomes the first sitting politician to fly in space. Launched from Kennedy Space Center, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was the 16th flight of the Space Shuttle program and the first spaceflight carrying a sitting politician. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a Republican Senator from Utah, flew as a Payload Specialist after he asked to go to space as part of his role as the head of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA. Discovery’s primary mission was the deployment of two communications satellites, and Garn was along primarily as an observer, though he did serve as the subject of medical experiments. Garn suffered from such severe !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , better known as space sickness, that the system for measuring the severity of the malady is now counted (jokingly) in “Garns.” The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was named in Garn’s honor.

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April 12, 1945 – The destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele is sunk by a Japanese Ohka suicide rocket plane. In the closing stages of WWII in the Pacific, the Japanese carried out !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! attacks on the US fleet using the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a rocket-powered, piloted flying bomb that was dropped from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber. Off the island of Okinawa, a flight of six bombers released their Ohka rocket bombs against the American fleet, with one striking the destroyer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (DD-733). The piloted bomb penetrated the starboard side and its 2,646-pound warhead detonated in the aft engine room. The explosion broke the destroyer’s keel midships and the ship broke in two and sank in a matter of minutes with the loss of 84 sailors. Though Ohkas damaged a handful of ships, Abele was the only ship sunk, and the overall effectiveness of the kamikaze rocket was negligible.

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April 12, 1935 – The first flight of the Bristol Blenheim, a British light bomber that was originally conceived as a fast airliner. The Blenheim saw extensive service early in WWII. It was one of the first British aircraft to employ an all-metal stressed-skin fuselage, retractable landing gear, a powered gun turret and variable-pitch propellers. The Blenheim served as a light bomber, long range fighter and night fighter but, while it was capable of outrunning most fighters in the early days of the war, it was no match for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during daylight bombing raids. The British retired the Blenheim in 1944, though it served in Finland until 1956.

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April 13, 1990 – The first flight of the Sukhoi Su-34, an all-weather strike fighter based on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and intended as a replacement for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Su-34, NATO reporting name Fullback , is primarily used against ground and naval targets and also carries out reconnaissance missions. The Su-34's roomy cockpit allows the pilots to move around during long missions, and includes a small galley and rudimentary toilet. It is armed with a single 30mm cannon along with 12 external hardpoints capable of carrying up to 26,500 pounds of rockets, missiles and bombs. The Su-34 entered service in early 2014, and has seen action in Syria during Russian intervention in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(US Air Force)

April 13, 1945 – Boeing delivers the final B-17 Flying Fortress. Designed in the 1930s as a four-engine heavy bomber for the United States Army Air Corps, the B-17 was one of the most effective weapons of WWII, particularly in Europe, where it dropped 640,000 tons of ordnance on Germany and its territories, more than any other bomber. Production began in 1936 and continued almost until the end of the war in 1945, with a total of 12,731 aircraft built, two-thirds of which were the B-17G variant. Though the Flying Fortress was quickly retired by the USAAC after the war, it continued in service with other countries, flying for the Brazilian Air Force until 1968. Fifteen B-17s remain flying today.

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(US Air Force)

April 13, 1931 – The first flight of the Boeing YB-9, an experimental bomber funded by the Boeing Company as a development of their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! mail plane. At a time when many US Army Air Corps bombers were still constructed of wood and canvas, the YB-9 was the first all-metal, stressed-skin, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! monoplane bomber to serve the USAAC. the YB-9 was Powered by two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engines and had a top speed of 188 mph, equal to many contemporary fighter planes. Five YB-9s were built and entered service in September 1932, but they were phased out in just three years. Ultimately, Boeing lost out to the the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which offered the much more modern !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which entered service in 1934.

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(Author unknown)

April 13, 1928 – The first non-stop flight across the Atlantic from east to west. Just one year after Charles Lindbergh’s famous west-to-east !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from New York to Paris, German aviators !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and Major !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! took off from Baldonnel, Ireland on April 12 in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named the Bremen. The team flew westward, against the prevailing winds, and planned to land in New York. However, strong winds forced them well north of their intended course, and they landed instead at Greenly Island, Canada after a flight of 37 hours. Their W.33 has been restored and is currently displayed at the airport in Bremen, Germany.

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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DISCUSSION (14)


Kinja'd!!! boxrocket > ttyymmnn
04/13/2018 at 12:42

Kinja'd!!!1

Great writeup!

Pedant: Lunar Excursion Module is an alternate name for the lunar lander, hence “LEM”.


Kinja'd!!! Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn
04/13/2018 at 12:48

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I like that today is not only the 13th, but Friday the 13th. Anyone who is interested in the story of Apollo 13 should definitely see the movie, but also the HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon.


Kinja'd!!! KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > ttyymmnn
04/13/2018 at 12:56

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The Su-34 Full back is by far my favorite version of the Su-27 based variants, especially in the Blue paint scheme. The side by side cockpit and the mission totally reminds me of the F-111 Aardvark

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Also found it interesting that you enter the cockpit from the bottom using a a ladder behind the nose wheel

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There’s been a lot of discussion on the “Toilet and Galley” in the Su-34 and several forums have threads dedicated to it. What I’ve learned is that it is largely a rumor based on unverified photos from late 90s/very early 2000s. There seems to be some sort of Urinal tube and thermos I believe but no proper toilet like in some bombers.


Kinja'd!!! user314 > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time
04/13/2018 at 13:13

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Yeah, the Fullback is very much “How many weapons do you want to carry?”

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“All of them. I want to carry all the weapons.”

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Kinja'd!!! KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > user314
04/13/2018 at 13:21

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Hoping to do a scale model build someday. Very few kits are sold today- mainly from Tamiya, Trumpeter, Italeri and they’re pretty expensive. Already have a 1:144 Su-30 model which I did last year

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/134545-tamiya-60743-sukhoi-su-34-strike-flanker


Kinja'd!!! facw > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time
04/13/2018 at 13:48

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The B-1B keeps its entrance in much the same place:

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Kinja'd!!! ttyymmnn > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time
04/13/2018 at 14:09

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You are correct on the “toilet”, which is why I said “rudimentary.” I’m pretty sure it’s just a tube you stick your pecker in, and it probably just vents the pee to the outside.


Kinja'd!!! ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove
04/13/2018 at 14:10

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I have not seen that, though I know of it. I rather enjoyed Ron Howard’s film, too.


Kinja'd!!! ttyymmnn > boxrocket
04/13/2018 at 14:12

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Pedantry is always welcome. However, Wiki, for what it’s work, indicates that LEM was an older designation. Maybe NASA wanted to save some ink.

Thanks for reading!


Kinja'd!!! Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn
04/13/2018 at 14:40

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There is also a documentary about the Apollo 13 debacle that I saw aired on PBS with interviews from the real people (including Lovell) narrating the story. Watching it, it amazed me how much the real guys looked and sounded like their acted counterparts in the film. I don’t know where to get that either, but if you ever want to watch the HBO series, have a VHS player, and are in my neck of the woods again, you can borrow my set.


Kinja'd!!! ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove
04/13/2018 at 14:46

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I think I actually have a VCR sitting in a closet somewhere...


Kinja'd!!! OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars > ttyymmnn
04/17/2018 at 09:52

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allegiant-air-the-budget-airline-flying-under-the-radar/

Have you seen this yet? Thoughts? Is it safe to fly Allegiant?


Kinja'd!!! ttyymmnn > OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars
04/17/2018 at 10:14

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For Sweden would be a better person to ask than me. I would ask you, “Are Allegiant airliners falling from the sky?” No. I would encourage you to find some source other than a news outlet, because TV news outlets profit from scaremongering. Are they more often behind schedule? Probably—you get what you pay for.

About 20 years ago, I was in the airport at Tampa Bay, the so-called Lightning Capital of the World. I was waiting in the departure lounge and saw a news crew doing interviews. They came over to me and asked if I’d like to do an interview. This is how they set it up: TB is the lightning capital of the world. But the systems that detect lightning are broken and have been for a long time. Knowing that, do you feel safe flying today?” My reply: “Absolutely. I have friends in the airline industry and I know they are the utmost professionals, and that the controllers etc. are also professionals whose job is keeping me safe. I know the pilots are in no more of a hurry to crash than I am. So yes, I feel perfectly safe.” Needless to say, I didn’t make the evening news.

I don’t have the raw data to say that Allegiant is worse than anybody else. All I have is a CBS news story that that screams “The sky is falling!” Remember, Allegiant has to follow all the same FAA rules as Delta or United or everybody else. It’s worth reading Allegiant’s side to this.


Kinja'd!!! ttyymmnn > OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars
04/17/2018 at 13:48

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https://oppositelock.kinja.com/1825326976