Keith Thomson's Blog, page 3
June 21, 2015
P-38 vs. Dragster
The 2012 Sacramento Air Show featured a race between a Lockheed P-38 Lightning and a jet dragster. The P-38, a fighter aircraft that first flew in 1939, has a cruising speed of 275 miles per hour. The jet dragster, a car propelled by a jet engine, tops out at 300 mph, and goes from 0 to 60 in just one second. Who won?
Let's go to the videotape.
This P-38 photo is gratuitous
Related Links: Lamborghini vs. SU-27 , 7 Grams of Lead
June 18, 2015
Good Blackbird News
Over the past year, I've posted photos of the awesome US Space and Rocket Center's A-12, one of nine still in one piece—albeit barely in this case.
People who saw the photos took to social media to vent. If ever someone asks what good that does, you can cite this case. Space Center officials told me that a corporate benefactor has just stepped up. Later this summer, the Blackbird will receive a grade-A restoration and placement at the Space Center a lot better than a crumbling parking lot and temporary fence and a bomb on a cart for no reason. Here's the plan so far:
Here's a comparable fixture, at CIA HQs in McLean, VA.
More to come…
Related Links: SR-71 Blackbird, Once a Spy
June 14, 2015
Rustbird 2015
Up at the singular US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville today, and, of course, visited the A-12. She's looked better.
The Blackbird is the greatest plane in history, as well as one the greatest inventions [read why here]. So what's to become of this one?
In 2014, the Space Center unveiled a plan to turn the plane into signage [you can read the plan here], not unlike CIA HQs' Blackbird. But they need half a million bucks is the thing.
Let me just get this out of the way: Made of titanium, the Blackbird doesn't rust, by the way, though the ferrous metal in the radar-absorbing paint and rivets does. So we're talking a fresh coat of paint needed to remedy the superficial problem. The bigger issue is one faced by preservationists everywhere: After you preserve it, what the heck do you do with it? I would love to start a Blackbird Museum—if it were sustainable, but, as much as I love the BBird, most people only know as the Blackbird as the smaller version of the Raven. And readers ask me if that 2,400-mph spy plane in my novel Once a Spy is real.
Please hit me with your thoughts via the below email form, or in the comments.
UPDATE 6-15: I've just received word from the Space and Rocket Center that, thanks to contributions from Blackbird fans, among others, the A-12 will be restored later this summer. I'll write another post re: that when I have more info.
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Related Links: SR-71 Blackbird, Once a Spy
June 6, 2015
World's Coolest Robot?
Yes, there are systems with greater functionality and superior tech, but the Navy's new GhostSwimmer shark UUV—unmanned underwater vehicle—may win the title of Hardest to Take Your Eyes Off Of. Kind of a mouthful for a title…
Without further ado, let's go to the videotape.
Related Links: Album of UAVs (a.k.a. DRONES)/ COMMERCIAL BIRDS/ FLYING CARS, technothriller 7 Grams of Lead
May 23, 2015
Awesome Military Group Photos
This blog post doesn't have a theme or a point, or any more sentences after this one; it's just that I've noticed that no one does better group shots than the military, and I thought I'd put a few of them in one place.
Got a good one? Please post it and/or a link.
Related Links: The Best Ads in the Seven Seas; Dispatch from Area 51
April 23, 2015
Solve the TR-3B Mystery, Win a Book
I saw the following image on Tiexue.net, a Chinese military news site. Depending on whom you ask, TR-3B, as its known, is an alien craft, a classified US system, or complete fiction.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: Tiexue.net's TR-3B's shadow falls the opposite way of those of everything else in the picture. Also the thing looks totally fake. Of course these could be the results of alien tech designed to mess with our minds.
There are more photos—all blurry, unfortunately (alien tech messing with our cameras?), but they've made it onto actual news sites since word got out of Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical's patent for a triangular spy plane—patent #4,019,699.
There's no shortage of videos of TR-3B videos either, including one in which the craft is actually in okay focus, over Eau Claire, Wisconsin:
Is TR-3B real? Is it a latter-day SR-71 reconnaissance craft that will be declassified to our amazement in a few years or decades, but public knowledge of it now would impair national security? I don't need to know. But I'd like to. And I'll give a copy of Once a Spy to anyone who gives me a good answer, via the form below. Good comprises correct and/or entertaining.
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April 20, 2015
April 16, 2015
Identify the Unidentified Flying Object and Win!
Below is the unidentified flying object seen Tuesday in Chile. It's a still from a video, which follows. Yes, like so many other UFO photography, it's blurry. Nevertheless, declares the editor of UFO Sightings Daily: "Awesome UFO catch, and although it is short, I am confident it is real."
Now, here's the video, and, after that, a form. If you can identify the UFO, send in the form. Good answers (right or wrong) may win copies of Once a Spy. A correct answer, and you may win fame, as I will almost certainly report on it for the New York Times or Huffington Post.
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Related Links: My True Area 51 Story; Once a Spy
April 14, 2015
Alien Technology?
Technically, yes. The Project Zero electric tilt-rotor aircraft, was developed by the Italian-owned AgustaWestland. The hybrid tilt rotor/fan-in-wing technology demonstrator aircraft first flew in 2011.
More info: http://www.agustawestland.com/about-us/driving-innovation/advanced-concepts/project-zero
Related Link: The TR-3B Mystery
Observational Skills Test
Why is this aircraft handling officer abandoning his position, as fast as he can? Scroll down for the answer.
This isn't an ad or anything. Just taking up space to enhance your scroll effect.
Ditto.
Really, this is not a sales gimmick. Just keep scrolling.
Related Link: Amazing F/A-18 Crash, Unfreakingbelievable Helicopter Crash,
