Patrick Chiles's Blog, page 31
March 29, 2012
Shh…Be Vewy Quiet…
…the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon is performing. Watch and enjoy the nation's finest.
Wings in Spaaace!
From the USA Today of space news, space.com, a nicely illustrated story on the (non) evolution of space plane designs. I say "non" because precious dadgum few of them have ever made it to the cutting-metal stage. Come to think of it, we're going to need a new expression, being in the age of composites. [...]
ATB! OMG! AOG! WTF? LOL…
A quick note for you text-addicts who don't recognize aviation-speak: "ATB" means "air turn-back" and "AOG" is "airplane on ground", otherwise known as "we broke it". So, a couple of the super-jumbo A380s had some problems recently. Yawn. No one will ever mistake me for an Airbus apologist – if it ain't Boeing, I ain't [...]
March 24, 2012
Saturday Night Beer-Fueled Gun Rant
Ooh boy, I've had a whopping three Sam Adams Lights¹ and a bag of Jalapeno Combos, so look out world! Striking while the iron's hot is not something I've been particularly good at over the years. Not when it comes to those things which give me a serious case of the "I wants", at least. [...]
March 20, 2012
Nothing to See Here, Move Along…
P.J. O'Rourke once wrote that "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." Keeping that in mind, ever notice how all of the really scary news remains out of sight until it just can't be concealed anymore? Then it all pops up at once like crabgrass in [...]
March 15, 2012
Cowabunga!
Via space.com, another story about cool goings-on in commercial spaceflight: Skydiver Leaps from Stratosphere in "Space Jump" Practice. Baumgartner is gearing up for an even bigger leap — his so-called "space jump" — from 120,000 feet (36,576 m) this summer. The current record for highest-altitude skydive is 102,800 feet (31,333 m), set in 1960 by U.S. [...]
March 14, 2012
Spacemen and Supermodels
A couple of good stories appeared today in anticipation of some major milestones expected in the commercial spaceflight business this year. This has perpetually been "two years away" for a long time, but it looks like big things are finally about to start happening. First, from Reuters: Show Time for Commercial Spaceflight at Hand "The [...]
Time to Spaceman Up
A couple of good stories appeared today in anticipation of some major milestones expected in the commercial spaceflight business this year. This has perpetually been "two years away" for a long time, but it looks like big things are finally about to start happening. First, from Reuters: Show Time for Commercial Spaceflight at Hand "The [...]
March 10, 2012
Can't Get There From Here
At least not in this kind of style. Not yet. We obviously have a long way to go before the kind of technology speculated about in Perigee comes to fruition. Aerospace geeks might remember the X-30 "National Aerospace Plane" project from the Eighties; it never got off the ground (literally) but still led to ways [...]
March 8, 2012
Brazen Blogger Bait
This review, among other reasons, is why I'm a Sarah Hoyt fan even though I've yet to read her novels. Yeah, yeah, I know…but there hasn't been a lot of time for reading other people's work until very recently. I've likewise heard really good things about Ric Locke's Temporary Duty and need to get off [...]
