The Moons of Jupiter

Well...Finally!

Finally, What, juvat?

Well, maybe, just maybe, the moons of Jupiter are in alignment and the events of the past 11 months are behind us.  

 

 

 Off topic, but I thought this was fairly interesting and aligning The Moons of Jupiter kinda rang a bell.  Watch or not, I'll be waiting here.

Our last episode related Dr visit is Wednesday with the radiologist.  We then fall back to our normal schedule with our GP.  A yearly PET Scan just in case and visit to the specialists if called for.

Just to put the whole episode in Fighter Pilot understandable terms.  The last 11 months on the calendar had a minimum of two doctor visits a week on every one of those calendar pages.  Thank you Medicare and Tricare for Life!

Just got off a video chat with Little J and gang.  Nothing catastrophic, just an update on what's what and watching Miss B goofing around with her toys while causing her grandparents to respond with great bouts of laughter.  She's 2 1/4 YO and seems to have made the change of station with no real problems.  The Nanny had passed her testing requirements to move to Great Britain, which will allow LJW to begin working and that will take a lot of stress off.

Speaking of video chats.  I still have a hard time believing in the communication technology improvements made since I was stationed at Kunsan AB, ROK.  Called home to talk to my Folks and get over the "Deployed for Christmas" blues.  10 minute call cost me well over $100, which back then was a significant chunk of a 2LT's paycheck.  We goofed around on this video call for well over an hour.  Cost us?

Nada!

Ain't Technology grand

Oh and Beans, Miss B and I had a contest.  The goal was to see who could drool the furthest off their chin before it broke and fell.

Poor Girl never had a chance!!!!

On a serious note.

One thing that did come around and impact the way of living round here while Mrs J was sick, was the "What If?"  What if something happened to me while she was in the hospital or at home by herself?  No good answers and I spent a good amount of time in the middle of the night trying to figure out answers.  Our nearest family members are in College Station a couple of hundred miles away.

Fortunately, nothing catastrophic occurred, but...

We're going to start doing the research/planning to move to that area sometime early next year.  Lot of balls up in the air that we'll have to figure out how to handle.

I found this tutorial quite handy in taking care of the Balls in the Air portion of this project.

And, Yes, Beans. This post was completely written, edited and visually enhanced on the MacBook Pro.  Think I'm gonna go take a nap!

Peace Out Y'all!

 

At the Risk of Getting on Yet Another List ...

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So the page views are still way up, guess they haven't found the switch to turn the bots off yet. I'll run with it.

That opening photo has always amused me, my first thought was that it looked like a bunch of JOs¹ showing up at an NCO² keg party. Yeah, we invited them because the first sergeant told us to, unit pride and all that. What I picture them showing up to ...

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But it did remind me of a story. A short one, mind you, I'm enjoying not slaving over a hot keyboard all day. Not saying I'm lazy, but ...

Well, yes I am.

So there I was ...

I was still a fairly junior guy on Okinawa, a bit older than most of my peers and a bit younger than most of the sergeants. I was still addressed as "Airman," as I would not attain the lofty rank of "Sergeant" until a few months later. (FWIW, I didn't spend much time as an E-4 sergeant, which the USAF no longer has, most of my time as an E-4 was as a Senior Airman. It wasn't long after putting on Sergeant stripes that I became an E-5 Staff Sergeant.)

So it was after a long, hard week (might have been two) in which the 18th TFW performed very well. (So we were told, it felt like we generated a lot of sorties, it also felt like the F-4s all behaved during all those sorties. At least the aircrew were happy, and that was our bottom line.) The powers-that-be decreed that there would be a "beer bust" on the actual flight line (well, one of the maintenance hangars). We would report at such and such a time, in uniform as I recall, to undergo mandatory "fun."

Surprisingly enough, it turned out well, very well.

It was a nice sunny day, not too hot, but just right. There, parked near the hangar, was a flatbed trailer, loaded with beer. Cases stacked 12 high as I recall, lots and lots of beer. Scattered about the venue were tubs filled with ice, loaded with beer as well. The aircrew also, as I recall, were cooking food, ya know, burgers, hot dogs, mighta been some brats as well. But it looked awesome.

We commenced drinking and eating and watching the aircrews throw each other into the large tubs with lots of melting ice (by now, Okinawa being semi-tropical) with still lots of beer. I think the crews might have brought in more ice, but left some of the tubs go to mostly water, for, ya know, dunking purposes.

At one point I found myself standing next to my squadron commander, attired in his blue office uniform (light blue shirt, dark blue pants) with his flight cap on sideways. Yup, not fore and aft, as it is normally worn, en colonne as the French would say, but en ligne, athwartships if you will.

I recall finding myself in a quandary, I am inebriated, though not in any disabling way, but my squadron commander is also inebriated, very much so, had a beer in each hand and he was swaying with the non-existent breeze. As I stared at his hat, desperate to point out the uniform violation, but knowing it was neither the time, nor the place, to do so, he spoke ...

"Airman Goodrich."

"Sir?"

"You're an asshole."

"Um, so are you, Sir, I mean with all due respect ..."

"Shut up Goodrich, you asshole." Then he handed me one of the beers he was holding.

"Uh, thank you, Sir?"

"Let us drink to assholes," he spoke, "here's to us!"

So I had a beer with my squadron commander, great chap he was, wasn't nearly as much of an asshole as I'd thought.

At the end of the day, next day was a Saturday I think, we half expected to be told to report the next morning to clean up the mess. And it was a mess, empty beer cans everywhere, drunken airmen filling the tubs of water, aircrew staggering around in their flight suits offering toasts to all and sundry.

But no, the Deputy Commander of Operations and the Deputy Commander of Maintenance had decided that the officers would all turn to on Saturday morning to clear away the detritus of one of the best parties I'd ever been to.

Did we work even harder after that to maintain our 70-odd F-4 Phantoms? You betcha. I don't know whose idea the party was, but it was brilliant. Morale was sky high after that, and it stayed there for the rest of my time at Kadena.

It was a bonding experience, but nobody was there dressed like those Feds above, nope, no way. They would have stuck out like sore thumbs.

Train hard, play hard, that's the way to do it.

Trust me.

¹ Junior Officer, O-1 to O-3, USA, USMC, USAF = 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant, and Captain. USN, USCG = Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, and Lieutenant. I have no idea what the "Space Force" calls them (probably same as the USAF) and I don't really care.

² Non Commissioned Officer, i.e. sergeants.

What in the Wide World of Sports ...

Over the past few days I've noticed a puzzling phenomenon here at the Chant, page views, they're climbing like an SR-71 on steroids. Okay, I think I'm a decent writer, but going from an average of 1,500 to 2,000 views a day to 16,000, and climbing, something is broken in Blogger statistics land, methinks.

The last 30 days of page views (below), not the climb profile of that SR-71 on steroids.¹

Now I could be wrong, I've seen these insane blips before ...

The chart above is for all time, from the blog's inception back in March of 2012, until now. We're averaging roughly 50,000 views a month, now we're getting that in a couple of days. In fact, if the chart from January of last year until now was an ECG, I'd say the patient was having "issues." 

Of course, Google, the proprietor of Blogger, or Gargle as I like to call it, likes to tinker with their software. Plus, I hear they're very woke. Things is they don't mind damaging their product, nor apparently their reputation among "serious" people. They're rather frivolous to my mind.

But hey, makes me feel like a "real" writer with a real following. (But 15,000 hits a day with maybe 300 views of the day's actual post? Something isn't adding up.) But it boosts my morale and when it goes back down (as I think it inevitably will), I won't lose much sleep over it. Note that I didn't say any sleep, hey, I'm human, I like flattery.

That's about all I've got for today, it's been busy for a day off. CT Scan in the morning, downloading software to the new laptop the rest of the day.

But an alert reader sent me a link to a very good video addressing that whole "the Mosquito can replace the four-engine bomber" concept. Pretty much reinforces my own views on the topic.

And because the Mossie is one of my very favorite aircraft (I'm sure it's got nothing to do with those two Merlin engines) here's some in cockpit Mossie footage. A beautiful bird regardless of whether it can replace a big bomber or not ...

Ciao!

¹ Or it could be just a normal SR-71 full afterburner climb after takeoff. I watched those birds on Okinawa climb virtually straight up in to a clear blue sky and be gone, invisible, after a few seconds. Impressive indeed!

Hovering Things

Spanish Navy EAV-8B Matador II Plus
PxHere

Back in the day, circa 1976-78, I was a young airman assigned to the mighty 18th Tactical Fighter Wing upon the sunny Japanese isle of Okinawa. While the food at my local eating emporium (what we called the "chow hall" in the Air Force) wasn't bad, it also wasn't great. Which, for an Air Force base was odd, my general experience with Air Force dining facilities was that they were uniformly pretty good. (With the exception of Medina Annex at Lackland AFB back in '87, that food was dogshit bad.)

Now there came a day off where I was feeling a mite peckish and didn't wish to visit the Chow hall, there were other places to eat, of course, but I was in the mood for something different. Now word had come to me at some point in time that the MAC¹ terminal snack bar served a rather nice cheeseburger. So I ventured forth to discover for myself, the veracity of the intel I had received about the MAC terminal snack bar's burger.

It was a pleasant day, not as hot as an Okinawa day could be, so I presume my trip wasn't during the summer. Or if it did, it wasn't an abnormally hot day, I did eventually acclimatize myself to Okinawan weather, so it could have been summer, but I digress.

So on the walk I heard a most unusual engine sound, a jet engine mind you, didn't sound like an F-4, didn't sound like a T-39, didn't sound like a KC-135, and it certainly didn't sound like an SR-71. As I pondered what jet would make such a sound, an apparition appeared in the trees between me and the MAC terminal.

I stopped walking, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, my brain was wondering, "What the hell is that?"

Then it appeared, it was an AV-8 USMC Harrier, the first of that species I had encountered outside of picture books. It was pretty damned cool, seeing a jet aircraft, hovering there in front of the MAC terminal. Smokey sumbitch as I recall in later years.

As to that burger?

There was another time, I want to say it was 1978, which I'll explain in a moment, when I encountered a hovering thing in front of the MAC terminal on Okinawa. I was sitting on an Air Force "Blue Goose," one of these ...

USAF "Blue Goose"
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Now why was I on a "Blue Goose" in front of the MAC terminal in (probably) 1978. Might have been to ride out to a C-130 for a flight to Korea, but as I recall (I took that flight frequently from '77 to '78) the bird was normally parked within walking distance of the terminal.

I may have been on the bus in order to go to M-16 training, which occurred on a Marine base on Okinawa, I believe Camp Hansen. (Their rifle range is sort of in the middle of the artillery range as I recall. One could hear 105 rounds going downrange when we weren't actually firing our own weapons. Kinda cool, not everyone thought so. Some of my fellow airmen weren't as attuned to actual firearms and things which went BOOM.)

So the reason for being on that bus are lost to memory. Suffice to say, I was on a "Blue Goose" sitting on the ramp in front of the MAC terminal at Kadena AB, Okinawa. Also on that ramp was this big-ass helicopter, one of these -

Crew guides CH-47 Chinook for sling-load training support at Fort McCoy.
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Whilst awaiting the bus to depart, to take us to our destination, said helicopter, officially known as the "Chinook," affectionately known as the "Shithook," wound up its engines and its rotor blades began to turn.

"Oh cool," says I from the bus next to a window facing the helicopter, "I get to see a Shithook up close and personal."

Said helicopter, rotors up to speed now, begins to taxi, in the direction of the "Blue Goose" within which I am ensconced.

Now those rotor blades are rather long, I was beginning to think that those rotors were beginning to come uncomfortably close to my bus. The bus within which I am trapped, next to a window, with whirling blades of helicopter death approaching inexorably.

I do think I was close to (a) jumping off the bus, (b) soiling my trousers, (c) screaming like a little girl, or (d) all of the above, when all of a sudden, the big helicopter stops rolling forward and instead goes up into a hover, turns, then heads towards the active runway.

As the Shithook receded into the distance I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was cool and terrifying, at the same time.

Which describes parts of life in the military very well. The rest is all rather boring, one's specific branch and career field determines the relative ratio of terrifying to boring. For instance, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) in the Air Force can have a high ratio of terrifying to boring, clerks in the USAF, much lower. Marines, Army, and Navy all tend to have higher ratios compared to the USAF, unless one is engaged in operating aircraft in the USAF.

Coast Guard, holy shit, you have to go out, you don't have to come back? Damn, I'm guessing they have a very high ratio of terrifying to boring.

Anyhoo, that's my experience with hovering things. Have I ever been in a helicopter, yes, a CH-46 aboard USS Midway, have I ever flown in a helicopter? Hell no. My SWO son, The Naviguesser, assures me that it is something of an unnerving experience, especially at sea, out of sight of land.

He's been there, done that, doesn't want to do it again.

I'll take his word for it ...

¹ Military Airlift Command, now it's called something else. I should, some day, post a rant about the Air Force's nearly constant, insane, changing of names, and uniforms, some day.

Cruising

De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito B Mk IV Series 2 of No. 105 Squadron of the Royal Air Force.
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So yeah, had a lot of interesting comments in a post I did the other day (Coasting) which I was going to address in yesterday's post, but I was distracted when I remembered the "we radiated a B-52 and got our antenna slammed" story. So you got that instead. But now I'm back to those interesting comments, particularly these two -

BeansSeptember 17, 2024 at 11:20 AM

Ah, WWII bombers. By the end of the war, single engine bomb-carrying aircraft had roughly the same bomb-load as the heavy bombers, and were faster. Imagine if Great Britain had concentrated on Mosquitoes instead of all the heavy bombers. Less crew, less engines, same bomb load and far faster. And we could have done the same, as the lowly A1 'Spad' was a late war airplane. Or a 2 seat bomber version of the P-47 or F-82 or such.

As to War, the only rule is to fight to win, no matter what. Hague conventions? Geneva Conventions? The League of Nations or the UN? Fugedaboutit. Win. Win so horribly that anyone thinking of doing it again to the victor gets pimp-slapped by all the ghosts of their ancestors.

I mean, yeah, there are rules of war, always has been. Like the Medieval European rules of war. 1. No fighting on Sunday and Wednesday. 2. You don't target the peasant or serf population because if you win you'll have them working for you. 3. No fighting during planting or harvest season, because if you do, ain't no food. 4. The Rule of the Siege (3 parts) A: Pull up to a fortified place, call for surrender, little damage done. B: If they resist, pop a hole in the wall and then call for surrender, some looting and pillaging if the place doesn't cough up treasure. C: If they still resist, kill them all, God will know his own. These worked for all medieval wars, including the Crusades. It's the reason the Sack of Jerusalem occurred (see Rule 4 C.)

But past the medieval period? Rules got closer and closer to win at all costs. Actually all wars break down to that, win at all costs. Do what you have to do to come out on top. Anything else is holding one or two hands behind your back.

Sigh. If only things were 'clean' and 'only the warriors and leaders pay' yada yada yada. Pure pipe dreams. The Civilians have always paid the costs of war, either by being raped, slaughtered, enslaved, impoverished. War has never been clean. Bullies in the school yard beating up nerds have more constraints on their behavior (or used to be) than war.

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1. 
   AnonymousSeptember 17, 2024 at 11:48 AM

   The idea of RAF Bomber Command using a preponderance of Mosquitos was mooted by a middle ranking RAF officer in 1942 (I can't remember where it was posted but it was an idea that didn't see the light of day) The reasons were economic, the Mosquito could be mass produced using locally available wood and only needed two crew and two merlin engines, as you say it delivered a hefty bomb load over a long distance and was virtually immune to interception.
   The thing was 'Bomber Harris' had a lot of influence over Churchill and Churchill needed to show the British public that offensive action was being taken against Germany. The trouble was that equipping and manning Bomber Command took up a disproportionate amount of the British war effort. Churchill's main scientific advisor, Lord Cherwell was adamant that a strategy of 'de-housing' the German population would work. It didn't. Both population and industry proved more resilient than previously thought. Harris also fought tooth and nail against the use of Bomber Command on what he called 'panacea targets' i.e. transport, oil etc.
   Hindsight is a wonderful thing however.
   Retired

   Delete

Well, the concept of the Mossie being used as a replacement for the heavier Lancaster (and maybe the B-17 and B-24 as well) rather intrigued me. So I did a little looking, found a whole thread concerning that theme. Because I had my doubts about the concept of replacing a heavy bomber with a smaller, lighter aircraft. I'm also dubious of claims that some chap in the UK described some war-winning concept which the hidebound generals at Horse Guards ignored. (There was a guy who suggested mounting anti-aircraft guns on clouds, no really, I read that somewhere.)

Now don't get me wrong, I love the Mosquito, it's a beautiful aircraft and has two Merlin engines (one of the sweetest sounding aircraft engines ever built).

But use that to replace the Lancaster (and perhaps B-17 and B-24 as well)? Let's just say, I'm skeptical.

Now the Mossie could lug 4,000 pounds of bombs from point A to point B, a load similar to a B-17 (4,500 lbs.) at long (> 800 miles) range. But nowhere near the B-17's maximum load of over 17,000 pounds (carried internally and externally).

What about the B-24, you ask. 5,000 pounds for a range of 800 miles, and the Avro Lancaster - Maximum normal bomb load of 14,000 lbs.

But those four-engined monsters were designed to lug large bomb loads long distances. While the Mosquito had excellent performance (altitude and speed), she'd sacrifice a lot of that lugging bombs. And remember, you've still got to fly to the target. Anti-aircraft and enemy fighters just have to defend those and wait for you to show up.

Mossies were very effective bombers marking targets for the heavies, but use them in lieu of the heavies? Yeah, I have my doubts. Later and very powerful jet aircraft could carry loads equivalent to a B-17, but those were mostly post-war, or so late in the war as to not really count.

We still use multi-engine bombers (B-52, etc.) because they can carry far heavier loads than smaller aircraft. How useful is bombing? Well, Vietnam, once the gloves came off, drove the North to the bargaining table, didn't it?

Discuss. (Remember, be nice.)

One Late Night at Kadena AB, Japan ...

A very cool aircraft, the B-47.
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Bombers, something you'd think that I, a retired airman, would know a lot about. Well ...

In my 24 years on active duty, I spent the first eight working on the F-4C/D Phantom, when I wasn't in some sort of training. Training was six weeks basic (as the Air Force doesn't attack hills, beaches, or anything other than a bar with cheap drinks, that was deemed sufficient), training to work on the Weapon Control Systems on the Phantom took nearly seven months.

And when I got to Okinawa I soon learned that I didn't know Jack. A couple of very good Staff Sergeants taught me the ropes, I was probably useful on the flightline after about six months at Kadena.

So yeah, I was a fighter guy, okay, fighter-bomber guy, the Air Force doesn't really have Attack wings, though we do have one of the finest attack aircraft ever built, the A-10 Warthog (officially the Thunderbolt II, but no one calls it that).

I was part of Strategic Air Command for four years at Offutt, SAC Headquarters. But I worked on the software the Air Force used to schedule training routes and Military Operating Areas (MOAs). I did get to see the occasional bomber, we had a lot of different aircraft coming and going at Offutt, everything from the Junkers Ju-52 to the Lockheed SR-71.

The Ju-52 was privately owned, Martin Caidin I believe, and she was parked across from my office one fine morning, all decked out in full, authentic WWII colors (swastika and all). Mind you, this was back before we hid things from the faint and delicate wienies of the world. It's history bruh, get over yourself.

Anyhoo, had a B-52 land just over my head as I was driving down Fort Crook Road. Impressive sight indeed, those eight engines made a lot of noise and a lot of smoke (on take-off).

Saw a B-1 (affectionately known as the Bone, ya know B-one) do touch and goes on the field. Guy flew the beast like it was a fighter plane. Beautiful aircraft.

Saw the B-2 after I retired, back before the idiots in government bankrupted the nation and started printing money hand over fist to give to Ukraine. It flew down the parade route where I live now in Little Rhody on Independence Day. Damn thing was scary-looking and ominous as hell. Flew low she did, got kind of excited I did. Most impressive.

So there I was ...

So bombers, I've seen 'em. One lonely night on Okinawa, we heard tell that a flight of B-52s were coming in from Guam on typhoon evac. We thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat to track them on our radar?"

Where we were situated was the radar calibration dock overlooking the runway. We could legally radiate from there (that's my claim, not sure how "legal" it was, but we were young ...).

Anyhoo, we went to Operate (see below) and commenced to picking up one, two, then three aircraft out a ways to the south.

The OPR inside the red circle, that stands for "Operate,"
the radar transmits while in that mode.
This is in the back seat, BTW.
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So we thought that was pretty awesome, we're actually picking up B-52s on our AN/APQ-109A radar set, Someone, might have been me, might have been someone else, thought "Hey, let's lock on to one of those beasts!"

Okay, scanning is pulse radar, pulse goes out, bounces off object, pulse comes back. Tracking is a little different, I couldn't tell you exactly how it works, that was a very long time ago, but the B-52's systems can tell very quickly if the B-52 is being tracked.

B-52s do not, I repeat, do not like being tracked by fighter aircraft radar. I can venture a guess as to why. But that night on Okinawa, our little fighter radar antenna went from a graceful sweep of the skies, to pointing like a hunting dog at the incoming B-52s, to slamming against every stop on the radar mount. I mean, it was shaking the damned plane it was slamming so hard!

We quickly shut the radar down (back to STBY - Standby) so we weren't radiating anymore, and the antenna ceased its insane dance.

Those of us there, I think there were three of us, quietly agreed that we would not speak of this to anyone else. We were young, we were green, most of our NCOs were Vietnam vets and would no doubt look at us as if we were insane for trying to track a B-52.

We also made damned sure that we hadn't damaged the radar by giving it a very thorough check (which is what we were there for in the first place). Yup, no harm, no foul.

Scary stuff!

But cool, very cool.

Coasting

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So, is Uprising all done? Is the story ending without us finding out how things went in California? Does Nakagawa win the referendum? What happens to all of the various characters who came and went throughout the story, which began back on the 25th of April this year. (The Ambush)

Well, to be honest, I don't know. Maybe it's over, maybe it's not. And that's me being indecisive, oh well, gomen nasai!

The story feels done, extending it beyond the short lived revolt in California feels artificial. So for now, let's call it done. (But not done done. If you know what I mean. Sequels are always possible. Right now I kinda want to get back to World War II. Book Three as it were.)

Anyhoo, while looking at photographs with which to open the post, I entered "exhausted soldier" as my search term. One of the photos which popped up is that one above.

I see the photo I automatically think 1940, France. But I don't remember rain being mentioned during that campaign. (Not saying it didn't rain, but the guy in the foreground looks wet and miserable, along with being a POW. He's sitting on the back of a Pzkw III (which model I don't know). The caption at the source (under the photo) was way off.

Because there's another photo of that scene above. Look at the next photo, same guy in the flat helmet, but turns out, he's a Kiwi (New Zealander). The original Bundesarchiv caption says so. It also says that the photo was taken in Greece, which makes sense.

So the year is 1941 and that Kiwi has been captured by the Germans. Imagine how he must feel, he's already thousands of miles from home and he faces the prospect of being in a German POW camp for the foreseeable future. (Which we now know means the next four years.) Given German success up to that point, one could easily foresee a very long stint as a POW.

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So those pictures made me itch to get back to writing about World War II. (Yes, yes, I need to get Almost a Lifetime published, I've really been dragging my feet on that. Real life and the paying job have prevented further work in that area. Without dropping a few other projects, I just don't have the time right now. Mea culpa.)

I just started reading Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller and it's pretty good. I'm not that far into it yet but I'm already disliking the Bomber Mafia. (I've always been a fighter guy.) It's not that they want to bomb the shit out of everything that moves and that they think "the bomber will always get through" and killing civilians will make them quit ...

Well yes, it is precisely that.

What's the Bomber Mafia you ask? Early advocates of airpower like Giulio Douhet, Billy Mitchell, Hugh Trenchard, Carl Spaatz, and others. All were early military air pioneers, but they thought the bomber was the centerpiece of an Air Force. And it is, it's been said that fighter pilots make headlines, bomber pilots (crews actually) make history. They didn't foresee a need for fighter aircraft, at least that's my take.

As always the reality is much more complex. Balance is essential in most things, airpower is no different.

I wonder how they would have felt about drones, which are being used to great effect in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict.

As of today, I have 94 days until I retire. That's calendar days, work days account for about 54% of that. Time at the paying gig is winding down. (Maybe then I'll get my ass in gear and publish Almost a Lifetime.)

Ciao.