To All,
Good Thursday Morning August 8. Well I got all three of the little egg laying houses cleaned out yesterday and filled with new mini flakes for them. Not my favorite chore and thank heaven it did not get to 90. Hope your week is going well.
Warm Regards,
skip
HAGD
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/. Go here to see the director's corner for all 83 H-Grams
This Day in Navy and Marine Corps History:
August 8
1860 Screw frigate USS San Jacinto, commanded by Capt. William M. Armstrong, captures the American slaver Storm King with 619 slaves on board, off the Congo River. A prize crew from the steam frigate sailed the captured slaver to Monrovia and turned 616 freed Negroes over to the United States agent there before proceeding to Norfolk with the prize.
1861 During the Civil War, the frigate USS Santee commanded by Capt. Eagle captured the schooner C.P. Knapp in the Gulf of Mexico.
1863 During the Civil War, the screw steam gunboat, USS Sagamore, commanded by Lt. Cmdr. English, seizes British sloop, HMS Clara Louisa, off Indian River, Fla. Later the same day, Lt. Cmdr. English captures British schooners, HMS Southern Rights and HMS Shot, and Confederate schooner, CSS Ann, off Gilberts Bar.
1924 USS Shenandoah (ZR 1) secures herself to the mooring mast on USS Patoka (AO 9), making the first use of the mooring mast erected on shipboard to facilitate airship operations with the fleet.
1933 Commander, Aircraft Battle Force, requests the authority to use variable-pitch propellers during forthcoming exercises on six Boeing F4B-4s of VF 3 based on board USS Langley (CV 1) and on one (F4B 4) of (VF 1) on board USS Saratoga (CV 3).
1942 USS Narwhal (SS 167) sinks Japanese crab boat, Bifuku Maru, southeast of Sharia Saki while USS S-38 (SS 143) sinks Japanese transport, Meiyo Maru, at the southern entrance of St. George Channel, between New Britain and New Ireland. Also on this date, USS Silversides (SS 236) attacks a Japanese convoy emerging from Kobe Harbor and sinks freighter Nikkei Maru in Kii Strait.
1987 USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) is commissioned at Lockheed Shipyard, Seattle, Wash. The Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship is named for Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Md., the fort for which its 1814 defense inspired Francis Scott Key to write the lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner.
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Today in World History August 8
1306 King Wenceslas of Poland is murdered.
1570 Charles IX of France signs the Treaty of St. Germain, ending the third war of religion and giving religious freedom to the Huguenots.
1636 The invading armies of Spain, Austria and Bavaria are stopped at the village of St.-Jean-de-Losne, only 50 miles from France.
1648 Ibrahim, the sultan of Istanbul, is thrown into prison, then assassinated.
1786 Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard become the first men to climb Mont Blanc in France.
1844 Brigham Young is chosen to head the Mormon Church, succeeding Joseph Smith.
1863 Confederate President Jefferson Davis refuses General Robert E. Lee's resignation.
1876 Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph.
1899 The first household refrigerating machine is patented.
1925 The first national congress of the Ku Klux Klan opens.
1937 The Japanese Army occupies Beijing.
1940 The German Luftwaffe attacks Great Britain for the first time, beginning the Battle of Britain.
1942 U.S. Marines capture the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal.
1944 U.S. forces complete the capture of the Marianas Islands.
1945 The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
1950 U.S. troops repel the first North Korean attempt to overrun them at the Battle of Naktong Bulge, which continued for 10 days.
1963 England's "Great Train Robbery;" 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) is stolen
1974 President Richard Nixon resigns from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal.
1978 Pioneer-Venus 2 is launched to probe the atmosphere of Venus.
1979 Iraq's president Saddam Hussein executes 22 political opponents.
1983 Brigadier General Efrain Rios Montt is deposed as president of Guatemala in the country's second military coup in 17 months.
1988 Angola, Cuba and South Africa sign a cease-fire treaty in the border war that began in 1966.
1989 NASA Space Shuttle Columbia begins its eighth flight, NASA's 30th shuttle mission.
1990 Iraq annexes the state of Kuwait as its 19th province, six days after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait.
2000 The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to surface, 136 years after it sank following its successful attack on USS Housatonic in the outer harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
2007 An EF2 tornado hits Brooklyn, New York, the first in that borough since 1889.
2008 Georgia invades South Ossetia, touching off a five-day war between Georgia and Russia.
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OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT Thanks to the Bear
Skip… For The List for the week beginning Monday, 5 August 2024 and concluding Sunday, 11 August 2024… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (1968-1972)
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 4 August 1969… A bit about Bob Scott's book "God Is My Copilot," with a link to Barrett Tillman's superb 2018 short bio: "Colonel Robert Lee Scott, Jr: God's Pilot."… also: remembering the hundreds of heroic Forward Air Controllers who were killed in action in SEAsia…
OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (1968-1972)
(Please note the eye-watering ongoing revamp of the RTR website by Webmaster/Author Dan Heller, who has inherited the site from originators RADM Bear Taylor, USN, Retired, and Angie Morse, "Mighty Thunder")…
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and can read what happened each day to the aircraft and its crew. .Micro is the one also that goes into the archives and finds these inputs and sends them to me for incorporation in the List. It is a lot of work and our thanks goes out to him for his effort.
From Vietnam Air Losses site for "for 8 August a Thud driver with an amazing story
8-Aug: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=736
If memory serves me correctly I think that Mike was surrounded by local farmers AND ONE TRIED TO CUT HIS HEAD OFF WITH A SHOVEL UNTIL THE ARMY CAME IIN AND SAVED HIM…skip
Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
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So that we do not forget who was in charge when this happened
Thanks to Shadow
I'm sitting here watching the families of those lost in the withdrawal from Kabul testify…with tears in my eyes! Turn it on… watch it… never forget it!
Shadow
This is a national tragedy from the top down. Absolutely unforgivable
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From the Archives
Those who are not interested in the dialogue that follows, will enjoy the link at the bottom showing the history of the aircraft.
Make sure and watch the video after you read the story of the flight's captain. This is an interesting story. It shows how it was first proven possible using radio control models.
Be sure to watch the video at the end
A quick "trip report" from the pilot of the 747 that flew the shuttle back to Florida after the Hubble repair flight. A humorous and interesting inside look at what it's like to fly two aircraft at once. (I have decided to adopt one of "Triple Nickel's" phrases : "That was too close for MY laundry!")
Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight. Iin fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal. Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It was like a dream -- someone else's dream.
We took off from Columbus Air Force Base on their 12,000-foot runway, of which I used 11,999 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, the copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from flaps 20 to flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold it's wings and fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe. I said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"! I said "TIRES? . . . OURS? . . ." They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their captain an amateur. Okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced. Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?
The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000' The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet at mach .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs . . . and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back" . . . not a good thing I kept telling myself. So I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.
Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel . . . too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea . . . let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St. Johns, and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a little league baseball game stoped to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see...
After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the shuttle landing facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach . . . they were all standing and waving!" What a sight" I thought . . . and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land.
They kept saying "Not yet triple, keep showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land . . . still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh, thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!"
So, we landed at 603,000 pounds, and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing, and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again . . . IT IS COMING DOWN! So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this!
Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long. Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet.
I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again, I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.
And a video, in case you haven't seen the shuttle carrier aircraft:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcI1e4KiDv0
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Thanks to Dr. Rich
On Aug 6, 2023, at 11:31, DD Wolfe wrote to Dick Rutan:
Click on screenshot for Amazon site … or HERE
Dear Sir;
If I may: "your next 5 minutes"........
I just finished your excellent book. You are one of those guys that I wanted to be like when I was a kid growing up on a diary farm in "no-where" Ohio.
There have been many mentors sent my way over the years. With their help, a solid 2.0 GPA and 2 years of college I ended up slopping in to an F-100 Air Guard slot in the Ohio Guard at age 20. 2 of my F-100 IP's in the Tucson ANG in 1975 were Don Sheppard and Ted Powell, as you know both Mistys. Those guys were "Av- Gods" to me as were many more of the Nam Vet IPs there.
Our first 5 rides in the Hun were in the backseat and Powell was my IP. Ride 1 I'm strapped in the back: "Lt Air Training Command", sleeves down, gloves on, mask on and both visors down. Powell came up the ladder, looked at me with disgust and gave the "hit the air" signal to the mechanic. He proceeded to complete the start standing outside on the ladder and climbed in following air and elect disconnect. Connected to the intercom he said," Wolfe, you look like an idiot back there, these things can blow up during start ya know."
"Really ? Should I stand outside with you during start on the next ride Sir?" Powell replied; " No, I'm just letting you know these things blow up during start and you look like an idiot." I knew he was jerking my chain and frankly, I loved it. The Tucson ANG in those days was Fighter Pilot Hun Heaven!
Eventually the mentors led me to United Airlines in 1978. In 1981 I was furloughed from UA and got a job working for Beech during the Starship years. We ( the Beech employees) were at the NBAA Convention in Dallas when Linden Blue showed the video of the Starship coming in from space and flying a low level over Lake Powell (you?). Man was that cool ! Following the video we were escorted out to see the real Starship. HOLY CRAP that plane was beautiful ! The Cheyenne 4 parked next to it looked ancient.
Back at UA and in the sunset of my career I ended up flying the B-747 demo in the Fleet Week airshow for 5 years. I was the "line stiff" representing the 12,000 UA pilots. Why was I selected? Line check airman qualified in both seats and "Hun Driver". The other 2 pilots were from the UA flight test section; USN test pilot George Silverman and USAF test pilot Joe "Sack" Sobczak.
A couple of years ago I was at Oshkosh with Joe and you joined us for dinner. That's when I found out about your book.
Your book spoke to me on many levels Dick, from overcoming an occasional " not wanting to be there" in fighters to being involved with those self serving schmucks with zero integrity. I have no tolerance for those people.Your chapter about running for Congress speaks volumes about a very serious problem in our country- Politics. I was once a Republican but I no longer recognize the party and have become an "independent". Again, honesty, integrity on both sides of the aisle. WTF?
Dick, thank you for your service to our nation and thank you for everything you and Burt have done for aviation and space. It's amazing that you flew the Voyager all the way around the world and that Burt's space ship beat the altitude record of the Gov-Funded X-15 !
I'm planning to attend the next SSS reunion. If you're there, I'll buy ya a beer.
"Your 6 is Clear Sir......Shoot Shoot Shoot "
Wolfman out
Don Wolfe, Auburn CA
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One of the Most memorable events in my life.
That day at Luke AFB 1966 when that Blue Crew Van pulled up and dropped me off in front of an F 100D all by myself and were going to let me fly it solo for the very first time.
Then riding one on fire from over north VN trying to make it feet wet.
Dick RUTAN
Ltc USAF (Retired)
Fellow Aviator
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Thanks to Dr.Rich
Colonel McPhail
Thanks to Mike R.
For your pilot buddies. My friends uncle…
Friends, my dad's little brother was honored at last weekend's Osh Kosh Air Show.
They believe he is the last Corsair pilot from World War 2. He will be 102 in October. He flew 241 missions in WW2 and Korea. Here is an interview if you are interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-GaK4oryNA
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From the Archives
Thanks to Dan
Skip,
After reading your "Chicken" stories, I thought I would add my own "chicken story", which your readers might find entertaining:
As a prelude, let me explain to your readers that I had two combat tours in Vietnam, the first in the Infantry, the second flying AH-1G Cobra Attack Helicopters, but both tours with the 101st Airborne Division. The Division is known as "The Screaming Eagles", due to the famous Division patch. However, the Vietnamese had never seen an Eagle, and referred to us as "The Chicken Men".
The Army's uniform code states that the patch of the unit to which you are currently assigned, is worn on the left shoulder of the uniform. However, once you have been assigned to any unit in combat, that unit patch can be worn on the right shoulder. Therefore, once I returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour, both with the 101st Airborne Division, I could wear a "Screaming Eagle" patch on both shoulders.
At the time that I returned for my second tour, I was one of only seven people in the entire 101st Airborne Division, that could wear the patch on both shoulders, sort of a mark of distinction. But, remembering that the Vietnamese thought of us as "Chicken Men", and the fact that aviators always treat each other with irreverence, none of your readers should be surprised to learn that everyone referred to me as a "Chicken Sandwich"!
Dan Bresnahan
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This Day in U S Military History
1942 – The invasion of Guadalcanal continues as the remainder of the first wave of American troops come ashore. Advancing rapidly inland, they capture the Japanese airstrip intact, renaming it Henderson Field. The missions on Tulagi and Gavutu are completed and the islands captured. Due to Japanese air and submarine attacks, Admiral Fletcher decides to withdraw his carriers, leaving the cruisers and transports near the island. .
1942 – During World War II, six German saboteurs who secretly entered the United States on a mission to attack its civil infrastructure are executed by the United States for spying. Two other saboteurs who disclosed the plot to the FBI and aided U.S. authorities in their manhunt for their collaborators were imprisoned. In 1942, under Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's orders, the defense branch of the German Military Intelligence Corps initiated a program to infiltrate the United States and destroy industrial plants, bridges, railroads, waterworks, and Jewish-owned department stores. The Nazis hoped that sabotage teams would be able to slip into America at the rate of one or two every six weeks. The first two teams, made up of eight Germans who had all lived in the United States before the war, departed the German submarine base at Lorient, France, in late May. Just before midnight on June 12, in a heavy fog, a German submarine reached the American coast off Amagansett, Long Island, and deployed a team who rowed ashore in an inflatable boat. Just as the Germans finished burying their explosives in the sand, John C. Cullen, a young U.S. Coast Guardsman, came upon them during his regular patrol of the beach. The leader of the team, George Dasch, bribed the suspicious Cullen, and he accepted the money, promising to keep quiet. However, as soon as he passed safely back into the fog, he sprinted the two miles back to the Coast Guard station and informed his superiors of his discovery. After retrieving the German supplies from the beach, the Coast Guard called the FBI, which launched a massive manhunt for the saboteurs, who had fled to New York City. Although unaware that the FBI was looking for them, Dasch and another saboteur, Ernest Burger, decided to turn themselves in and betray their colleagues, perhaps because they feared capture was inevitable after the botched landing. On July 15, Dasch called the FBI in New York, but they failed to take his claims seriously, so he decided to travel to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. On July 18, the same day that a second four-man team successfully landed at Ponte Verdra Beach, Florida, Dasch turned himself in. He agreed to help the FBI capture the rest of the saboteurs. Burger and the rest of the Long Island team were picked up by June 22, and by June 27 the whole of the Florida team was arrested. To preserve wartime secrecy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a special military tribunal consisting of seven generals to try the saboteurs. At the end of July, Dasch was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Burger was sentenced to hard labor for life, and the other six Germans were sentenced to die. The six condemned saboteurs were executed by electric chair in Washington, D.C., on August 8. In 1944, two other German spies were caught after a landing in Maine. No other instances of German sabotage within wartime America has come to light. In 1948, Dasch and Burger were freed by order of President Harry Truman, and they both returned to Germany.
1945 – The Soviet Union declares itself to be at war with Japan as of midnight (August 9th), citing the Japanese failure to respond to the Potsdam Declaration. Commissar Molotov says that the USSR has declared war because Japan is the only great power preventing peace. He indicates that it was in the interests of shortening the war and bring peace to the world that the Soviet Union has agreed to the Allied request made at Potsdam to join the war. Furthermore, Molotov states that the Soviets had been asked to mediate by Japan, but that proposal had lost all basis when Japan refused to surrender unconditionally.
1945 – The Japanese Supreme War Council agrees, late that night, that they should accept the Potsdam Declaration if the monarchy is preserved. Some of the objections from the military are overruled by the Emperor himself.
1945 – The survivors of the USS Indianapolis are rescued. Only 316 of the 1196 men onboard the ship have survived.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
GROBERG, FLORENT A.
Rank and Organization: Captain, U.S. Army, Company: 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Division: 4th Infantry Division, Born: 8 May 1983, Poissy, France, Departed: No, Entered Service At: Bethesda, Maryland July, 2008, G.O. Number: , Date of Issue: 11/12/2015, Accredited To: , Place and Date: Asadabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan, 8 August 2012. Citation: Captain Florent A. Groberg distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Personal Security Detachment Commander for Task Force Mountain Warrior, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, during combat operations against an armed enemy in Asadbad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan on August 8, 2012. On that day, Captain Groberg was leading a dismounted movement consisting of several senior leaders to include two brigade commanders, two battalion commanders, two command sergeants major, and an Afghanistan National Army brigade commander. As they approached the Provincial Governor's compound, Captain Groberg observed an individual walking close to the formation. When the individual made an abrupt turn towards the formation, he noticed an abnormal bulge underneath the individual's clothing. Selflessly placing himself in front of one of the brigade commanders, Captain Groberg rushed forward, using his body to push the suspect away from the formation. Simultaneously, he ordered another member of the security detail to assist with removing the suspect. At this time, Captain Groberg confirmed the bulge was a suicide vest and with complete disregard for his life, Captain Groberg again with the assistance of the other member of the security detail, physically pushed the suicide bomber away from the formation. Upon falling, the suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest outside the perimeter of the formation, killing four members of the formation and wounding numerous others. The blast from the first suicide bomber caused the suicide vest of a previously unnoticed second suicide bomber to detonate prematurely with minimal impact on the formation. Captain Groberg's immediate actions to push the first suicide bomber away from the formation significantly minimized the impact of the coordinated suicide bombers' attack on the formation, saving the lives of his comrades and several senior leaders. Captain Groberg's extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty at the risk of life are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect credit upon himself, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division and the United States Army
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
The U.S. Coast Guard once trained pigeons to spot people lost at sea.
Enlisting animals into military service isn't entirely unusual — dolphins have been used for underwater surveillance and even camels have helped haul supplies. Those successes could be why a Coast Guard program meant to train pigeons for search and rescue missions was able to get off the ground in the late 1970s. Project Sea Hunt's goal was to more easily (and quickly) find people lost at sea using trained pigeons to act as real-time spotters. Despite their reputation as nuisance fowl, pigeons are easily trainable creatures with outstanding eyesight; they (like many birds) may even have better vision than humans, thanks to their ability to see UV light.
Pigeons selected for the program underwent six months of training to spot yellow, orange, and red objects in the ocean (the most common colors for flotation devices and rafts), and were then placed in special pigeon chambers underneath helicopters that had a view of the water below. When the trained birds spotted a bright color, they could signal to Coast Guard pilots above by pecking a special pedal that flashed a signal in the cockpit. Test runs found that the pigeons were able to spot targets 90% of the time, compared to the human success rate of just 38%. The pigeons were also faster than their human counterparts, spotting potential victims before humans did 84% of the time.
Despite these successes, Project Sea Hunt was shuttered due to federal budget cuts in the early 1980s. In the years since, the Coast Guard has combined flyovers, ocean-tracking software, and other methods to quickly and safely rescue those lost at sea.
There's no scientific difference between pigeons and doves.
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I HOPE THAT THIS ONE COMES THROUGH IT IS QUITE A STORY
Thanks to Dr. Rich
EARTHQUAKE: Fighter Pilot, Test Pilot, Leader. The Story of Brigadier General Robert F. Titus
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Thanks to Bill
America's first 'top secret' Medal of Honor went to a Japanese-American fighting in Korea James Elphick, We Are The Mighty Hiroshi Miyamura Wikimedia Commons Hiroshi Miyamura was born to Japanese immigrants in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1925. This made him Nisei — Japanese for "second-generation."
At the outbreak of World War II, Miyamura witnessed many of his fellow Nisei being shipped off to internment camps. Gallup, however, was not located within the relocation zone, and even if it was, the townspeople were ready to stand up for their Japanese neighbors.
Safe from the internment camps, Miyamura enlisted in the US Army volunteering to serve with the famed Nisei 100th Battalion, 442ndRegimental Combat Team. Unfortunately for Miyamura, by the time he reached Europe to join the unit, Germany had surrendered.
He returned home, stayed in the Army Reserve, and married a fellow Nisei woman who had been interned in Arizona.
Miyamura looked like he might pass his time in obscurity until North Korea charged across the 38th Parallel on June 25, 1950.
Recalled to active service, Miyamura joined the 3rd Infantry Division's 7th Infantry Regiment in Japan as it prepared to join the combat on the Korean peninsula.
Landing on Korea's east coast, Miyamura and the rest of the 3rd Infantry Division stormed into North Korea before being driven back by the Chinese intervention.
The 7th Infantry Regiment helped cover the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir and was the last unit to leave Hungnam on December 24, 1950.
Miyamura and his comrades were then placed on the defensive line around the 38th Parallel where they actively repelled numerous Chinese Offensives.
The war then became a bloody stalemate with each side battling across hilltops trying to gain an advantage.
One such hilltop, located at Taejon-ni along a defensive position known as the Kansas Line, was occupied by Miyamura and the rest of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment. 2
A map of China's offensives in the Korean Peninsula. Wikimedia Commons After dark on April 24, 951, Miyamura quietly awakened his men – a trip flare had gone off in the valley below their position. In the faint light of the flare, the Americans could make out large masses of Communist troops advancing on their position.
The Chinese 29th Division smashed into the entire 7th Infantry Regiment. The hardest hit was the 2nd Battalion holding the right flank. By 2:30 the next morning, they were surrounded by the Chinese.
Miyamura, leading a machine-gun squad, ordered his men to open fire. As the American guns roared to life, the Chinese fell in droves. But still they kept coming.
After two hours of relentless fighting, Miyamura's machine-guns were down to less than 200 rounds of ammunition. He gave the order to fix bayonets and prepared to repulse the next wave of Chinese attackers.
When that attack came, Miyamura jumped from his position and savagely attacked the enemy. He blasted off eight rounds from his M-1 Garand before dispatching more Chinese with his bayonet.
He then returned to his position to give first aid to the wounded. When he realized they could no longer hold, he ordered his squad to retreat while he gave covering fire.
He shot off the last of the machine-gun ammunition and rendered the gun inoperable before pouring another eight rounds into the advancing Communist. Machine-gunners. Wikimedia Commons According to Miyamura's Medal of Honor citation, he then "bayoneted his way through infiltrated enemy soldiers" until he reached a second position and once again took up the defense. During his withdrawal, Miyamura was wounded by a grenade thrown by a dying Chinese soldier.
The attacks grew fiercer against the second position. Elsewhere along the line, the rest of the battalion had been ordered to begin a withdrawal south to a more tenable position. Miyamura, realizing their position was in danger of being overrun, ordered the remaining men to fall back as well while he covered their retreat. 3
Miyamura was last seen by friendly forces fighting ferociously against overwhelming odds. It is estimated he killed a further 50 Chinese before he ran out of ammunition and his position was overrun.
Exhausted and depleted from blood loss, Miyamura and numerous other men from the 7th Infantry Regiment were captured by the Communists.
Despite his heroic efforts, Miyamura's ordeal was far from over.
After being captured, the men were marched North for internment camps. Miyamura set out carrying his friend and fellow squad leader, Joe Annello, who had been more severely wounded.
Others who fell out of the march were shot or bayoneted. At gun point, the Chinese forced Miyamura to drop his friend. Miyamura initially refused but Annello convinced him. They said goodbye and Miyamura marched on.
He would spend over two years as a prisoner of war at Camp 1 in Changson.
Men of the 1st Marine Division capture Chinese Communists during fighting on the central Korean front, Hoengsong. Wikimedia Commons While he was there, the decision was made to award him the Medal of Honor for his actions on the night of April 24 and 25.
However, due to his staunch defense and the large numbers of enemy he killed, it was decided to keep his award classified until he could be repatriated for fear of retaliation by his captors.
Finally, on August 20, 1953 Miyamura was released from captivity as part of Operation Big Switch. When he arrived at Allied lines, he was taken aside and informed that he had been promoted to Sergeant and also that he had received the Medal of Honor.
Miyamura returned to Gallup after the war and settled down.
Then, in 1954, over a year after the war ended, a man walked into Miyamura's work – it was his old friend Joe Annello. Both had been sure that the other had died in captivity until Annello read Miyamura's story and traveled all the way to New Mexico to see if it was true.
Miyamura is still in Gallup, in the same house he bought all the way back in 1954.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for August 8, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
8 August
1903: The Langley gasoline engine model plane was successfully launched from a catapult on a houseboat; however, the flight did not last very long and the vehicle was uncontrollable. For this reason, the Wrights received credit for the first sustained, controllable flight. (24)
1908: At Camp d'Auvours, France, Orville Wright broke French records for duration, distance, and altitude. (8)
1910: A civilian mechanic, Oliver G. Simmons, and Cpl Glen Madole built and installed the first tricycle landing gear on the Army Wright plane. (4) (24)
1913: Lt Harold Geiger (US Army) flew a military airplane for the first time in Hawaii at the Fort Kamehameha Aviation School. He flew a Curtiss E two-seater, Signal Corps No. 8, over Pearl Harbor. (21)
1933: The Navy accepted the variable-pitch propeller. (24)
1945: At NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, scientists published an article suggesting that it may possible to fly an aircraft with an atomic engine and brick-sized fuel source around the world nonstop several times. (8: Aug 90)
1946: The Convair XB-36 Peacemaker flew its first flight. The "Peacemaker" was a strategic bomber that was built by Convair and operated by the USAF from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engine aircraft ever built. It had the widest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built, at 230 feet. The B-36 was the first bomber capable of delivering any of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal from an internal bomb bay without aircraft modifications. With a range of 10,000 miles and a maximum payload of 87,200 lb., the B-36 was capable of intercontinental flight without refueling.
We had these beasts at Loring AFB just a bit from the Canadian border and they made a sound that was awesome. You could hear it when the aircraft was just a dot in the sky above you. With 6 turning and 4 burning it was something to behold…Skip
1947: A. L. Berger of Wright Field received the Thurman H. Bane Award for 1947 for work in developing new types of high temperature ceramic coatings for use in aircraft engines. (24)
1950: KOREAN WAR. Advancing N. Korean forces caused the 18 FBG to evacuate Taegu to Ashiya. The 307 BG, newly based in Okinawa, flew its first mission. (28)
1952: KOREAN WAR. Fifth Air Force fighters flew 285 close air support sorties, the highest daily total for the month. At night B-26s flew three voice broadcast sorties totaling almost four hours over enemy-held positions near the east coast. (28)
1955: Over Edwards AFB, the X-1A rocket research plane exploded on its B-29 carrier and was jettisoned to destruction. NACA pilot Joe Walker escaped safely. (3) (8: Aug 90)
1961: The USAF launched the Atlas F from Cape Canaveral for the first time. It was designed to store liquid fuels for a long time and for a short countdown. It was the only Atlas model put in hardened underground silo lift-launchers. (6) (24) Operation SWIFT STRIKE. This joint USAF-Army exercise at Fort Bragg began when USAF airplanes dropped 7,500 paratroops of the 82d Airborne Division into the area. (16)
1962: In tests to reveal the relationship of speed, altitude, and angle of attack to aerodynamic heating of an aircraft's exterior surfaces, the X-15 No. 2 reached nearly 900° F while flying at about 90,000 feet and about 2,900 MPH. Major Robert A. Rushworth flew the aircraft. (24)
1967: McGuire AFB received the last C-141 Starlifter, the "Garden State Starlifter," to be delivered to a MAC base from Lockheed. (18)
1969: The C-131A Samaritan flew its last domestic aeromedical evacuation mission. Samaritans flew nearly 437,000 accident-free flying hours to airlift some 400,000 patients during their 14-year history in domestic service. (18)
1972: An over-the-horizon radar system radar system, capable of detecting missiles as they penetrate the ionosphere, came under the operational command of ADC. This system had sites in both the Pacific and European areas.
1975: Five AFRES and ANG C-130s flew 104 sorties through 15 August to drop 1,400 tons of fire retardant on fires in southern California. (21)
1984: The first USAFE C-23 Sherpas entered USAF service in the European Distribution System. (16)
1990: Operation DESERT SHIELD. The first USAF transport, a C-141, arrived in Dhahran. The aircraft had a reserve aircrew. (16) (26)
1998: Boeing-Rocketdyne and Air Force Research Laboratory personnel conducted the first successful test burn of the RS-68 rocket engine at Edwards AFB. It was the first new large liquid-fuel rocket motor developed in the US in 25 years. (3)
2007: Air Force officials in Washington DC signed a production contract with Lockheed Martin to add 60 F-22 Raptors to the Air Force inventory by December 2011. The multiyear contract for the fifth-generation fighters saved the Air Force $411 million as compared to a traditional annual procurement program of three separate, single-year contracts for 20 aircraft. (AFNEWS, "Air Force Signs Multiyear Contract for F-22," 8 Aug 2007.) Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne certified the synthetic Fischer-Tropsch fuel blend for the B-52H Stratofortress in a ceremony at Edwards AFB, Calif. (AFNEWS, "SECAF Certifies Synthetic Fuel Blends for B-52H," 8 Aug 2007.) Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, welcomed its first F-22 Raptor. Its arrival made Elmendorf the second operational base in the Air Force and the first base in Pacific Air Forces to receive the new air superiority fighter. At Elmendorf, the F-22s joined the 3rd Wing and the Air Force Reserve Command's 477th Fighter Group. The 477th Fighter Group became the first Air Force Reserve unit to operate and maintain the F-22. (AFNEWS, "Elmendorf Welcomes F-22 Raptor," 8 Aug 2007.) .
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