Jealousy is manifested with infantile attempts at humor!*

(Source)

It all started innocently enough yesterday when an old fellow Air Force sarge (and F-4 maintainer like me) left this comment:

That fighter pilot video brought to mind a number of jokes about them, but--not being sure of your censoring guidelines--I don't feel free to repeat most of them. Except this one. 

Q. What's the difference between God and a fighter pilot?

A. ___________ 

Come on, Sarge. Fill in the blank. You KNOW the answer.

Then Tuna had to chime in with:

No offense to Big-Time, but what's the difference between a cactus and a Hornet driver?

Juvat knew the answer to Tuna's riddle, but also chimed in with:

Heard 'em all....Jealousy is manifested with infantile attempts at humor!

That would be the blogging equivalent of "Fight's on, Fight's on!"

The gauntlet has been thrown down...

Let's do this!

(Source)

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Oddly enough, the only funny meme I could find about aircraft maintenance was this:

(Source)

Okay, they weren't all pilot jokes, when I see something that tweaks my old service, which gives me a laugh, then yeah, I'll share it. Oh, and by the way, these three guys were all in the Air Force. Seriously.

OAFS has a lock...

Fox Two!




* So sayeth Juvat.

Emergency! Everybody to get from street!

Привет российских спам ботов.

Пожалуйста заходите, выпьет чай.

Теперь, пожалуйста, идите домой.

That all translates, loosely no doubt, to:

Hello Russian spam bots.

Please come in, drink tea.

Now, please, go home.

Seems that from time to time we get a lot of hits from Mother Russia. I've noted that before and it always skews our page view counts. To the high side as you'll note above. Now if we were getting paid by the page view, that would be cool. However, look at the first part of that last sentence -

if we were getting paid

Why no, no we're not. (As Juvat and Tuna have often noted.)

So really, the hits from Russia do not irk me. Much. So let's have a brief parade. Why?

Why not?

Ah, I feel better now. (I don't mind certain Russians visiting.)

So this morning, after I checked our stats, we had an emergency meeting at Chant Headquarters...

A plan of action was laid out. A leader was selected and we prepared ourselves for the Russian onslaught. (Yup, that's me with the sword. The motorcycle and sidecar? Hhmm, Juvat and Tuna? In drag? Nah, couldn't have been. But I wouldn't put such a stunt past them. Ya know how those fly boys are!)

Anyhoo, we had to get ready. Because I knew the Muscovites would be prepared. Totally.

And there are a lot of Russians out there, and they were coming.

(Source)

And...

What's that? They're all spam bots? Then who are these guys?

Yeah, I got nothing...

It's the lack of sleep I tell ya.

Galoshes, Pac Boots, and Long Johns

Sources: galoshes, long johns, pac boots

So the topic of galoshes came up yesterday, and a comment by Dave's Daily Day Dream triggered an ancient memory. Not Pleistocene ancient, but trust me, ancient. Like last century, like late 50s, early 60s ancient. To a young 'un these days, trust me, that's old.

Anyhoo, as you might recall (as I've mentioned it a few times in the past) I have two younger brothers. Back in the day mia famiglia consisted of my Dad, my Mom, Yours Truly, my two kid brothers, and our cat, Tommy. Tommy was big, Tommy was black, and one did not mess with Tommy. But that's a story for another day. (I just wanted to give my old buddy a "shout out.")

Now when I had reached the age of 8, my Dad figured it was time that I got to go hunting with him. Which I thought was pretty cool and neat. Even if it meant getting up well before dawn and spending most of the day in the wilds of Vermont. In November. Before algore was invented we would see our first snow in late October and in the northern reaches of the state we'd have a permanent layer of snow on the ground until pretty much April. (Where I lived the "permanent" snow would show up in late November, often after hunting season was over.)

By now I'm sure you're wondering what it was we hunted.

(Source)

Yes sir, Odocoileus Virginianus, the mighty white tail. That's what we hunted. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's get back to that "up before dawn" bit.

As I mentioned above, BITD it was cold in Vermont in November*. Deer season back then started the second Saturday in November and ran for two weeks and two days. (These days it's set up to end the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which gives the avid hunters a nice, long weekend to go hunting. Of course, if they were really good hunters, they wouldn't need the 16 days would they? But yes, I digress.)

Up before dawn, Mom, though not going with us, would get up to make sure we were properly dressed for our expedition to the wild. We would be clad in 2 pairs of socks, normal underwear, long underwear (the long johns mentioned above), jeans, flannel shirts, sweaters, sneakers (are you kidding Sarge? wait for it), a red jacket, a cap, red preferred, a scarf, and over those sneakers Mom would buckle on our galoshes. (As shown above.) While we weren't exactly dressed like Ralphie in A Christmas Story (below), it was damned close. I wouldn't have liked our chances if we had fallen down a hill. And Vermont is damned near all hills.

(Source)

Of course, once we left the house we would shed some of that kit. Especially the extra sweater and probably the scarf, depending on whether or not the wind was blowing. Dad was practical about those things, knowing that a brisk walk in the great outdoors was just the thing to keep us warm. He also probably realized that if we had rolled down one of those innumerable hills, that it would be him hauling us back up.

Now before the age of 13, we carried toy rifles, just to get used to handling them. As in, "Stop pointing that damned thing at your brother! Only point it at something you want to kill!"

Seeing the evil gleam the guilty brother would get in his eye at that last bit he would add, "If you kill it, you have to eat it too!" Not saying my brothers and I wanted to kill each other, well, not much anyway. It's what brothers do. They fight.

Anyhoo. So toy rifles until we gained some sense and more time at "the range." Now we didn't have a special place to go shoot in those days. Any open space with a good solid berm at one end would do. Provided the landowner was good with it you could go there and kill targets all day. Just police up your brass when done.

In town there was the dump. Though it may have been officially frowned upon, it was a target rich environment. Lots of bottles, cans, milk jugs, paint cans were lying about, just waiting to have holes punched in them. (That was in the days before recycling. Also I don't remember any rats at the dump. Of course we didn't live in the city and the dump was out in the boondocks. Maybe the cops shot them all, who knows.)

Now The Olde Vermonter and I had really cool toy rifles. I had a Winchester lever action cap gun and The Olde Vermonter had a battery operated M-14 at some point. One year, The Musician (baby of the family) wanted to bring the gun he'd received last Christmas, this beast -

The Ball Turret Gun (Source)

Which I once told you about in this post back in 2013. Now you might imagine that we weren't the quietest bunch when we were out "hunting," what with cap guns being fired, M-14s blazing away, and that ball turret gun being dragged through the underbrush by my little brother.

One other noise source was the galoshes. All those buckles were metal and were constantly popping open. By the end of the day all those buckles were undone and my brothers and I would be waltzing through the woods, galoshes flapping, buckles jangling, guns blazing, and no doubt The Olde Vermonter and I would be having a good laugh watching The Musician trying to untangle himself and his ball turret gun from a patch of brambles that maybe one of his brothers may or may not have gently nudged him into. Now I ain't pointing fingers, just saying that it might have happened. Might have been me, might have been The Olde Vermonter. Who knows?

You noticed that pac boots were mentioned in the title (and shown in the lead in picture), well Dad had those. Didn't have to wear any other footwear with those, nope, they were boots, real live go out in the woods and wade through the muck boots. We all wanted boots like that, but Mom didn't think it practical. We couldn't wear them to school, that was frowned on back in those days. So two pair of boots was an unheard of luxury. Until we turned 13.

At 13 we would carry a real rifle to go hunting with and, glory of glories, our first pair of pac boots. Damn, it was a rite of passage, we were now men, etc., etc. Unfortunately, by the time The Musician would have graduated to pac boots and a real rifle I had graduated from high school, had a job and was living on my own. Didn't hunt anymore either, there were other things to hunt and I do mean cherchez les femmes. Weekends were for beer and the ladies, not necessarily both at the same time mind you. But who had time for hunting?

Now you may notice that I never mention anywhere in this story of us actually bringing down a mighty stag. Are you kidding? With all the racket we made? At the end of the day the nearest deer was probably ten miles away and still running. We were noisy as Hell.

When Dad wanted to hunt in a more serious manner, he'd go with his buddy who we called Uncle Smitty. While his name was Smith, he wasn't our actual uncle. But he was like a real uncle, lot of fun to be around. Dad actually got his deer one year.

Were we there?

Hell no. Are you kidding? You don't brings kids with cap guns and galoshes out hunting. Trust me.

Anyway, that's the story that Dave reminded me of. And if you didn't see the comments yesterday, say a prayer for Juvat, poor guy has caught the flu. I know how miserable that can be, makes me feel like a wuss for whining about this cold I've got.

A domani.




*Okay, it still is cold in Vermont in November, usually. But it was colder back then and we walked five miles to school in driving snow every day. Uphill. Both ways. I swear!

Tuesday Meanderings

After all the snow, the ice, and the messy roads of last Thursday, everything in these parts now has that old "Winter Wonderland" look. Which is lovely and picturesque around Christmas but the rest of the year is just a reminder that "baby, it's cold outside."

Well, one could actually check the temperature I suppose but all that white stuff will give one a clue that it might be wise to bundle up and, oh yeah, don't forget your galoshes.

And does anyone still call rubber boots that one wears over ones normal shoes "galoshes"? For those who need to know such things, the word "galoshes," (plural for "galosh") comes from Middle English (denoting a type of clog): via Old French from late Latin gallicula, diminutive of Latin gallica (solea) ‘Gallic (shoe).’ En français the word is galoche. All this so my sources (aka the Internet) tell me.

Anyhoo...

The arrival of this latest batch of frozen precipitation (which, as I mentioned, commenced on Thursday, had a bit more on Saturday, then a bit more on Sunday) coincided with the latest recurrence of a little thing I like to call the "Cold From Hell." (Yes, each word is intentionally capitalized to give the concept a bit of gravitas.)

I received this gift from The Missus Herself who had received it from someone else. Who you might ask? Well, could be one of my better half's Korean friends. Perhaps someone at the grocery store. Hhmm, she did have a doctor's appointment last week, lots of sick people go there. Or it might have been someone from church. Nah, unlikely. I'm going with "someone at the doctor's office." I mean if I feel totally like crap and can't shake it, where would I go?

Um, Bermuda?

Nope, doctor's office was the answer we were looking for. Oh sorry, do I need to pose that in the form of a question? As in, "What is the doctor's office?" (For all the Jeopardy fans in the audience, come on, I know there are a few.)

At any rate, The Missus Herself claims to be on the upswing vis-à-vis the whole rhinovirus thing, as do I when I'm talking to others. But in actual reality we both still feel like crap, while she wouldn't say it, I will. "I feel like a blivet. I feel like five miles of bad road. I feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet."

You mean you'd say one of those things, right Sarge? Nope, I tend to go with all three sometimes, or any combination of those, one or more as the case may be. Then again, I might just go with the classic, "I feel like crap." With certain not-so-subtle variations on the word "crap" often employed. Depending on who I'm talking to and whether or not The Missus Herself is listening. And if she's in aural range, she's always listening. If'n you catch my meaning.

Anyhoo, snow on the ground, feel like crap, and yes, I too am starting to wonder where I'm going with today's post. Perhaps, as Half-Colonel Juvat might put it, it's due to me being "the oldest Sergeant known to exist." While I will confess to being "old" I can't say for certain that I'm the "oldest to exist." After all, long time reader and frequent commenter Ron was also in the Air Force, was also a Sergeant and, I'm pretty sure, is a year (or so) older than Your Humble Scribe. Perhaps the age thing is just due to his air of wisdom and such. I dunno. (On those grounds I am naught but a babe in arms!)

Back to Juvat, now Half-Colonel (as opposed to Diet Colonel, a term of mine own devising) is British slang (IIRC) for a Lieutenant Colonel. Other terms for an officer in the Army, Marines or Air Force at the pay grade of O-5 are (according to the pedia of wiki) :

Slang terms for the rank historically used by the U.S. military include "light colonel", "short colonel", "light bird", "half colonel", "bottlecap colonel" (referring to the silver oak leaf insignia), and "telephone colonel" (from self-reference as "colonel" when using a telephone).

My favorite is  "telephone colonel," never heard that one before, though I did have a Senior Airman (pay grade E-4) who would always answer the phone "Sergeant So and So." (At the time a Sergeant in the Air Force was also an E-4, long story there which I'm not going to get into at this time.) So my airman was passing himself off as a "telephone sergeant."

When I chastised the young man for doing that he said, "Sarge, if I answer the phone as Airman So and So, the caller wants to speak to a sergeant. If I answer as Sergeant So and So, then maybe I can answer their question or address their complaint."

Well, as this chap, though a perfectly decent fellow, wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, I didn't really want him "answering questions or addressing complaints." So yeah, he and I came to an agreement that he would stop doing that. Forthwith.

Heh, like he had a choice.

But I digress.

No, actually that was the point of today's post. Such as it is.

For one period in my life, I was the man, I got to call the shots. As long as my captain was okay with it. Everyone has a boss. Even Master Sergeants. Old or otherwise.

Orion's lucky star*

Not sure everyone here caught the little tit for tat over at Prairie Adventure's place (which if you're not reading that on a regular basis, you're screwing up by the numbers.  A nice blend of ranching life on the prairie and war stories of a Corpsman on a Carrier, some of which are quite enlightening).

Anyhoo....

Our Beloved Host, the oldest Sergeant known to exist,  made a comment casting aspersions on Colonels, clarifying it somewhat to reduce the sting by excluding "Diet Colonels".  

As they say in the movin' pitchers, "That's gonna leave a mark!"

For you see....At one time in the not so distant (ok, maybe somewhat distant) past, I was a "Diet Colonel".  

Don't even THINK about commenting about that other soda!

Not from the dieting point of view, as I was a lean, mean, fighting machine, running 5-7 miles at lunch, so on and so forth....

Naw, I was a Lieutenant Colonel.

Now, I've heard that the two most dangerous ranks in the Air Force were the only two officer ranks that wore gold.  2Lt's and Majors.  Both had too little knowledge to be worth much and enough rank to use that little knowledge to the service's detriment.

My experience proved that saying to be "fairly accurate".

A corollary to that statement was that actually the two dangerous ranks were Major Generals and Lt Colonels with their retirement papers submitted.  Both had enough knowledge and experience to know what was going on and what to do about it and too little "give a darn" to think twice about doing it.

So, I was at the Pentagon when it became obvious I wasn't destined to be Air Force Chief of Staff in this lifetime.  (I'm sure that was obvious to all but me starting when I was a 2LT, but I'm a slow learner.)  This tour occurred during the reign of Wannabe King Billy Jeff and the Empress Hildabeast.

I had been a Budget Manager for a $5 Billion Dollar Information Warfare budget.  (You can thank me for that doppler radar app you have on your phone among other things....You're welcome.)   With a business and computer background, I found that there were lots of idiosyncrasies contained in those program budgets.  

So...I asked questions.

Then researched the answers and asked more questions.

One Monday morning, I walked into our office and the General was there.  He shook my hand and said "Congratulations Juvat!  You've been selected for a job in current operations on the Joint Staff."

I moved down there an hour later.

While on that staff, I was in charge of writing the operations orders that directed the DOD's support of Counter Drug operations.

Specifically, my job was to figure out how much support the DOD could provide without losing (too much) combat capability.  The CD wienies (CDWs), if they'd had there way, would have demanded everything from everybody and then some.  My job was to say "No".

And since it was obvious that Chief of Staff job had slipped out of my grasp, my "Dar una mierda" as to whom I annoyed was fairly low.

One of the highly prized assets that the CDWs wanted very badly was OldNFO's chariot, the P-3 Orion.  Since the Cold War was officially over (at least in the eyes of the Non-DOD DC politicians), the CDWs used the argument that the Soviets were now our friends and conducting Anti-Submarine patrols and training were counterproductive to the enhancement of our relationship with our newfound commie friends.

To be honest, it was a hard argument to counter.  Most of the Soviet Boats were tied up in harbor and rusting badly.  Not much Soviet Navy was out and about.  Everybody KNEW that peace was at hand and the DOD budget was the "Peace Dividend". It was very hard to argue that we still needed to practice looking for subs because Nobody was Listening.

I'm not sure that the some of the  guys with the pointed objects on their shoulders didn't agree with the CDW's also.  I mean, they'd assigned me, an Air Force Fighter Pilot to fight that battle.  Heck, there was even a P-3 driver in my Office.  Why it wasn't him, I never knew.  

How does all this relate to "Diet Colonel", juvat?"

Relax, Sarge, I'm getting there.  I get paid by the letter, you know.  Mrs Juvat needs new shoes.

So, I spent a lot of time talking to my new best friend, the P-3 driver.  Had him introduce me to a lot of his friends on the Navy Staff and spent a lot of time talking to them.  

After a few weeks, I couldn't remember squat about operating an Eagle's radar and briefing a 2 v 2 DACT, but I could at least answer questions about stalking subs and what the training requirement for that was.

If you look just above the ensign, OldNFO is looking out that window.

Source

But, I'm still under a lot of pressure to add more and more DOD support and the request for forces from the CDWs were getting heavier and heavier.

I'm in my office one day and the phone rings.  "Current Operations, Lt Col Juvat speaking, how may I help you, sir?"  (We weren't overly Politically Correct at the time and didn't need to add "or Ma'am" which always struck me as awkward).

"Lt Col Juvat, this is Col Schmuckatello.  I'm the new counterdrug liaison, having taken over from Cmdr Schmedly."

"Hello Sir, welcome aboard."

"Can you stop by and visit this afternoon, I've got some new requirements I need you to fill for P-3 flight hours."

"Sir, you are aware that we have allocated all the hours we've been approved for this fiscal year?"

"Yes, Lt Col, I'm aware. We're being directed to provide more."

"Ok Sir, I'll be there shortly."

I hang up the phone, thinking the CDW's are upping the ante by replacing my counterpart with an O-6, so I walk in and talk to my Army O-6 boss and let him know I may be needing some top cover.  Actually, I may be needing to USE some of my existing top cover.

My boss was an Army O-6, his boss was an Army O-6, his boss was a Navy O-7 by the name of Tim Keating (I called him Admiral, or alternatively Sir) and his boss (the JCS J-3) was a Navy O-9 by the name of Vern Clark (I also called him Admiral, or "Yes Sir").  

Lot's of stripes on that sleeve.  Retired as Chief of Naval Operations
Source

So, my Boss now aware of the situation, I walk in to the lair of the CDWs and ask their secretary where I might find Col Schmuckatello.  She kinda looks at me funny which puzzled me.  (I had a pretty good relationship with her, never hassled her and always got my paperwork to her with plenty of time or at least a heads up that it was late.  She always treated me fairly).

She looks at me and says, "You mean Dick?"

As I said, I'm puzzled.  She never called any O-6 I knew by his first name. My confusion must have showed I guess because right about then the door opens and an Army Lt Colonel walks in.  She says "Here he is now."

Ahh, I see, or as they say her in Fritztown "Alles ist klar!"

"Hi, Dick. I'm Juvat.  Admiral Clark is adamant that we have provided all the support to Counter Drug operations that we will provide for this fiscal year.  If you want to readdress that issue with him, please have his counterpart in the Joint Agency for Counter Drugs formally request that."

No way in Hades that's going to even make it out of Dick's front office.

So....OldNFO, if you flew anything other than CD stuff after 1998.....I like Scotch!

As a footnote, one of the other assets I had to handle were the aerostats flying along the border.  We had another interagency foodfight over tasking for those assets that ended up with Admiral Keating and I at the White House with some guys from the Agency that broadcasts TV into Cuba and somebody on the President's staff who's going to decide.  

That decision went our way, and as we're riding back to the Pentagon, Admiral Keating says that he'd heard I was retiring and ask what my plans were.  I told him "move back to Texas, and maybe plant grapes".  He asked if I was hiring as he might need a second career.

Doesn't seem that's the case.

Again, a lot of stripes on that sleeve.  Retired as Commander of Pacific Command.
Source

All in all, it must have gone alright.  I asked my boss if he'd like to preside over my retirement ceremony.  He said that he couldn't, Admiral Clark had said he was going to do it. 

It was a nice ceremony.  One of the going away gifts was a picture of a P-3 signed by all the P-3 guys on the Navy Staff. 


* Jimmy Buffett

The Venerable KC-135 Stratotanker and Its Variants

A KC-135 Stratotanker sits on the flightline at Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan.
Ground crews will have to de-ice the tanker before it can take off on a refueling mission.
(U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Paul Clifford)

So over at my buddy Shaun's place, Any Mouse hinted that he'd like to see some KC-135 love in these spaces. As always, you ask, we provide, as best we can.

The KC-135, as many of you probably know, is based on the Boeing Model 367-80. It went on to become the very successful Boeing 707 as well. I had always thought that the 707 came first, here's what Boeing has to say about that:

Seventy-two-year-old William Boeing came back to visit his former company for the May 14, 1954, rollout of the Model 367-80 at the Renton, Wash., plant. His wife, Bertha, christened the yellow and brown airplane with real champagne, and the Renton High School band played the Air Force theme. It was the prototype for the 707 passenger jet and the KC-135 jet tanker and would be the first member of the “700” family of commercial and military jets.

The Boeing Company had invested $16 million (two-thirds of the company’s net profits from the post-war years) to build this prototype for a long-range jet aircraft. It was developed in secrecy and designated Model 367-80 to disguise it as merely an improved version of the C-97 Stratofreighter. It was subsequently nicknamed the “Dash 80,” had jet engines and swept wings, and was very different from the straight-wing, propeller-powered Stratofreighter. When the Dash 80 was almost finished, the company gambled again — by tooling and gearing up for a production aircraft, although neither the Air Force, nor any airline, had placed a single order.

Because the prototype was constructed to sell first as a military-tanker transport, it had few windows and no seats, but had two large cargo doors. A week after its first flight, the Air Force ordered 29 tanker versions, the KC-135. The commercial version, the 707, however, faced tough competition from the Douglas DC-8. Boeing salespeople directed their efforts to Pan American World Airways, Trans World Airlines and large European airlines. On Oct. 14, Pan Am ordered 20 707s. At the same time, Pan Am ordered 25 DC-8s. The race was on.

In 1972, the Dash 80 became part of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum collection. In August 2003, it flew to its new home on permanent display at the museum’s new companion facility, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport. (Source)

Now there was something about that aircraft that rang a bell or two in the old brain housing group. First of all, I've been to Udvar-Hazy (safe to say, one of my favorite places on the planet) so I must have seen old 367-80, digging through the images I captured the day Murphy and I visited, sure enough, there she was.

She is there, in a number of my photos, not the center of my attention at the time, much to my regret because this is a very famous aircraft. Ever heard of a fellow named Tex Johnston?

Yup, same aircraft. I had absolutely no clue that I was standing that close to a legendary aircraft. No clue that she was perhaps more famous than the other birds around her. Well, now I know better, and next time I get to visit Udvar-Hazy, I'll give the old girl the attention she deserves. After all she's the mother of the KC-135 tankers still in service today.

The Air Force has been flying the -135 since 1956, Your Humble Scribe was only three years old when the first -135 rolled out of the factory.

The KC-135 was the first offspring of the Dash 80. It was designed specifically for aerial refueling and for 15 years was the only tanker used by the Strategic Air Command (SAC). More than 600 of the 732 tankers built were still in service in the mid-1990s.

The KC-135 replaced the propeller-powered KC-97 tankers, which could no longer keep up with the jet fighters and bombers. In 1956, when the first KC-135 — nicknamed "The City of Renton" — rolled out of the plant, it shared the Renton tarmac with the last KC-97, providing a vivid picture of The Boeing Company's complete conversion to jet power.

During nine years of the Vietnam conflict, KC-135s made 813,000 aerial refuelings of combat aircraft. During the Persian Gulf War, the tankers made 18,700 hookups and transferred 278 million pounds (126 million kilograms) of fuel.

A total of 820 C/KC-135s were built in Renton, Wash., through 1966: 732 as aerial tankers and 88 modified for special purposes, including cargo carriers, reconnaissance airplanes, Strategic Air Command airborne command posts and transports for high-ranking government officials.

Boeing modifications that extended service capabilities of the KC-135s included re-skinning the wings with an improved aluminum alloy and installing new, more powerful and fuel-efficient engines. Two re-engined KC-135Rs could do the work of three KC-135As.

On Feb.24, 2011, Boeing announced that it had received a contract from the U.S. Air Force to build the next-generation aerial refueling tanker aircraft, the KC-46, based on the Boeing 767 commercial airplane, to replace 179 of the service’s 400 KC-135 tankers. (Source)

I have never had the opportunity to fly on any of the -135 family, though both daughters did when they were in AF JROTC back in high school. They had the opportunity to go up on an air refueling mission with the Air National Guard when they had a tanker deployed to Geilenkirchen to support our E-3A NATO AWACS birds during the unpleasantness down in the former Yugoslavia. (The E-3A was built on a -707 airframe, so she's a sister to the -135) Was the old man jealous?

Why yes, yes I was!

(Why did the daughters join the Navy after having gone AF JROTC? They both have corrected vision, who runs the Air Force? Pilots. Could they be pilots? No. I advised them to go Navy. Sorry Air Force.)

As one might expect, the Air Force's website has some good data on the KC-135.

Here's the bird I supported for seven plus years in Germany. We had 18 of these at one time but had one go down on take off while deployed to Greece. Only one crewman was injured, the flight engineer, but all the crew survived. The bird was a write off, she broke in two, as can be seen in the following photo. I knew the flight engineer, his wife and The Missus Herself are good friends. A Canadian family, great folks. He recovered from his injuries, thank the Lord.

Note the "LX-N" registration on the tail. All of the NATO birds are registered in Luxembourg. (Source)

Boeing E-3 Sentry, registration LX-N90457, after overrunning the runway at Prevesa AB in Greece. (Source)

Here's the American, British, and French versions of the E-3 -

USAF E-3 Sentry (Source)

RAF E-3D Sentry (Source)

Armée de l'Air E-3F (Source)

Then there was the Rivet Joint variant. I saw these a lot while stationed at Offutt AFB in Nebraska. Always reminded me of a chipmunk. A big, loud, flying chipmunk!

An RC-135 Rivet Joint from the 763rd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron takes off for a mission, Aug. 26, 2008. The 763 ERS supports theater and national-level consumers with near real-time on-scene intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination. (Source)

There was also the EC-135 Looking Glass, the flying command post of the Strategic Air Command, saw that bird a lot while at Offutt as well.

The EC-135C Looking Glass lands after its final operational flight. (Source)

Here are the final scenes from the 1990 HBO film Dawn's Early Light with James Earl Jones as the Air Force general onboard the Looking Glass coming to a hard, but necessary, decision. (A great actor there, loved that film.) A number of Boeing aircraft here, the B-52, the F/A-18 Hornet, the E-4 National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP, or "Kneecap") and of course, the Looking Glass.

Yup, the Boeing 707, the KC-135, a fine aircraft. I doubt we'll see such a versatile airframe again in our lifetimes. A fine bird with an epic history. The next photo seems fitting as the KC-135 comes to the end of its long, and storied career.

04/20/06 - KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft from the 40th Air Expeditionary Group sit on the ramp in the evening ready to support a B-52 Stratofortress mission over the skies of Afghanistan April 20, 2006. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. John Rohrer)

Hope that met your expectations Any Mouse.

Long Friday

Is it dinner time yet?

After a solid 12 hours in the rack, I woke up to a sunny, rather cold day on Friday.

Head still felt like it was stuffed with cotton, but I wasn't going in to work. Nope, I had decided to take my next off Friday a week early. (We can do that from time to time, as long as we don't go crazy with it.)

What do to, what to do?

Let me tell you, I did very little. I did read though, quite a bit.

A week or so back (I may have written about it, I forget and am too lazy to look it up) The Missus Herself and I went to Barnes and Noble. I had some money burning a hole in my pocket and wanted to continue reading Bernard Cornwell's The Saxon Chronicles. Which has also been called The Warrior Chronicles, The Saxon Stories, and I guess now, to tie in with the BBC series, is to be known as The Last Kingdom series. I'll stick with The Saxon Chronicles.

At any rate, I have been reading these since they first came out back around 2004. As of now there are ten books in the series, as follows -

• The Last Kingdom (2004)
• The Pale Horseman (2005)
• The Lords of the North (2006)
• Sword Song (2007)
• The Burning Land (2009)
• Death of Kings (2011)
• The Pagan Lord (2013)
• The Empty Throne (2014)
• Warriors of the Storm (2015)
• The Flame Bearer (2016)

I had read up to (and including) The Pagan Lord. So I wanted the next three. Off to the store and lo and behold, they had the last two, but they didn't have The Empty Throne, which you can see in the opening picture and by now you're asking yourself, "I thought they didn't have that one in stock?" Well no, they didn't

But through the wonders of Amazon Prime I was able to order it and it came in just as I was finishing this book -

(Source)

So Saturday, after doing the rounds on the blog front (I try to keep up with all those folks on the sidebar, no easy chore), running about koobecaF, the latest thing there being to post works of art, I then found myself curled up with The Empty Throne. Sasha, senior member of the feline staff, not by age but by rank, she is the Alpha, decided that on such a chilly day, curling up next to Your Humble Scribe while he read his new book was just the thing.

First though she had to do what our Dutch veterinarian, back in Europe, like to call "putting her happy smell on it." As cats have glands for marking things all over their bodies, so it seems, rubbing the side of their mouths against stuff is one way in which they mark things as belonging to them. If it belongs to them, it makes them happy, I guess.

So after that ritual was over, I began reading. At that point Sasha decided that I was paying far too much attention to the book and not to her. (Well, she is a female...)

So after a bit of petting her and scritching her ears, she settled down and let me read. Until it was time to eat. Check that, until her sister Anya determined that it must be time to eat due to the angle of the sun's rays through the windows and the fact that the last time I had fed them was near dawn.

Normal afternoon feeding time, dinner we like to call it, is at 1700. Anya will start declaring that it's dinner time from about 1500 on. She's not that good at determining time from the angle of the sun apparently. I won't chide her for that, I'm not all that good at judging time that way either. If asked to determine the time by the sun I'd be nearly clueless. I can tell morning, noon, afternoon, and night, that's about it.

But once Anya has started demonstrating that it was time to be fed, it's tough to concentrate on anything other than telling her, "it's not time yet, hold yer water."

So on the day went, I gave up trying to read until after dinner. After the cats had been fed (and I myself had been fed) I decided to pick up the book and read some more.

But YouTube beckoned, Netflix beckoned, then, I realized, it might also be a good idea to get a post out.

And this is it, such as it is.

I still feel like death warmed over but I think I've turned the corner on this nasty cold. We shall see. If my posts seem scatterbrained and/or somewhat disjoint, well more so than normal, I blame the meds. While they clear the sinuses and make the pain go away, they're not all that conducive to rationale thought.

Not that I'm much good at that anyway. Oh, here's a hint at a coming soon to a blog near you post.

USAFE KC-135 tanker takes off from the Royal International Air Tattoo, Fairford, Gloucestershire, England.
Photographed by Adrian Pingstone in July 2005 and released to the public domain.

Seems that one of Shaun's readers likes those. As do I. A real workhorse of a jet. More, soon. I promise.