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birdguy

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About birdguy

  • Rank
    Member - 3,000+
  • Birthday 12/25/1933

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Roswell New Mexico
  • Interests
    Flight Simming, Train Simming, Bird Photography, Fly Fishing.

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    IVAO
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About Me

  • About Me
    Retired military after 26 years of service including serving with the US Marine Corps during the Korean War, the US Air Force in Vietnam, and as an Air Force weather forecaster assigned to a US Army armored cavalry regiment.

    My wife and I have 4 children, three grand children, and four great grandchildren.

    Am a rated commercial pilot with about 400 hours of flying time mostly in Piper Cherokees and a Piper Aztec. Had to give it up when my medical was pulled because of glaucoma.

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  1. The history of the implementation of science and technology for good also has a history of the same implementation of science and technology for evil. As we close in on mind control for good how can we prevent that good from being used for evil? I don't think we can. This one is truly scary. While a miracle for it's use as described in the following link it also has potential for great evil if misused in the wrong hands. https://www.ign.com/articles/first-human-patient-to-receive-a-neuralink-brain-implant-used-it-to-stay-up-all-night-playing-civilization-6 This can go orders of magnitude beyond The Manchurian Candidate. Is the risk worth it? The futurists and techies among us will say not to worry. But if I were a young man I certainly would be worried. Especially if the military-industrial complex gets a hold of it. Fortunately I won't be around to see if it is. But my grand kids and great grand kids will. We talk of science fiction becoming non-fiction reality. Michael Chrichton's 'The Terminal Man' comes to mind. Noel
  2. If they have been observing us for very long they are well aware of our propensity for shooting first and asking question later not to mention that humankind has been at war since the first humanoid species cracked the skull of another one with a rock. As for our blood sport of war The Hittites, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Israelites, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, European wars and colonization, African tribal warfare, America's westward expansion under Manifest Destiny, the War of 1812, WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, etc-etc-etc (I could go on for pages) would give any extraterrestrial observer cause for concern before landing here in person unless he wanted to serve humanity fattened up on the pastures of Sol 3. Noel
  3. One of the advantages here in the warehouse with having virtually nothing to do is watching old TV series and movies. While gunsmoke is my favorite I had a real treat this afternoon watching and old 1941 movie titled 'Dive Bomber' starring Fred MacMurray and Errol Flynn. It was fun to watch and had some laughable moments that weren't intended to be funny. The plot of picture is the Navy is trying to find ways to fly at high altitudes. They start out by pressurizing the cabin of a Lockheed Electra and flying it to 41,000 feet on it's two reciprocatng engines. Then, at 41,000 feet in clear air it starts icing up. Great shots of the Electra's icing boots cracking a thick layer of ice off the leading edge of the wing. They scrap that idea and finally come up with flight suits with deep sea diving helmets mounted on them. That works! Ya gotta love what Hollywood came up with in those days. But how they got that Electra and those pre WW2 dive bombers got up to 40,000 feet still eludes me. Another gaff are is the footage of the Electra in flight. Sometimes it's bare metal and they switch to the cockpit and some dialog and when they go back to the outside view the aircraft is painted olive drab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dive_Bomber_(film) Noel
  4. Having crossed the Pacific Ocean three times on troop ships and being bored silly most of the time I would think on-line boredom would be more than I would care for unless the sim included pornographic novels to read while cruising the ocean blue. Noel
  5. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/12/feels-like-the-enemy-is-within-boeing-airplanes-says-pilot-who-flew-for-the-air-force-during-operation-desert-storm.html Noel
  6. Especially during rush hour in Los Angeles. Noel
  7. I think the significance of the occasion has been lost over the years. I was 12 years old on VJ Day and recall what a momentous occasion it was. More than a victory it was so many loved ones coming back home. The sailor in that photo wasn't going to be sent into harms way anymore and was going to shed that uniform and go home to his family and perhaps his wife or girl friend. Time has a way of diluting memories and those of us who still have them are replaced by those who don't. Words and pictures are all we have left of WW2. Very few who lived through it and still feel the memories of it are left. Not just the fighting men who were over there, but those left behind on the 'home front'. It was called the 'home front' with gasoline and meat and sugar rationing. The paper and scrap metal drives. Once a month my Boy Scout Troop went from door to door collecting tin cans for the war effort. We were made to feel a part of the war unlike today when few us know what wars were fighting and who is out there fighting them. Walking down the street and seeing the little flags with blue or perhaps gold stars on them signifying one or members of that household were out there in harms way or, if the star was gold, had been killed in action. I suppose the memories die away as those of us who remember die away until all we left have are pictures and printed words. Like the picture of the flag raising on Iwo Jima the picture of the sailor kissing a young woman in Times Square on VJ day. Please leave those to our children and grand children and great grand children to remember the huge sacrifices those who fought made and the lesser sacrifices those of us left behind on the 'home front' made. Noel
  8. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/03/05/va-order-remove-iconic-world-war-ii-kiss-photo-facilities-reversed-secretary-mcdonough.html Noel
  9. Retiring Lufthansa performs a wing salute on his last flight in an Airbus A380 at KLAX. https://supercarblondie.com/lufthansa-airbus-a380-wing-wave/ Noel
  10. Shows how behind the times I am Bob. Even more so now that I am almost sequestered in an old folks home. Noel
  11. Ride along with a current day training flight in a B-52 which made it's first flight in 1952, 72 years ago. https://www.militarytimes.com/video/2024/03/04/ride-along-for-a-simulated-bombing-run-in-a-b-52-stratofortress/ One thing in the video disturbed me. Is 1st Lt Hulgren's haircut in compliance with current Air Force grooming standards. In my day if one of my troops showed up to work with a hair looking like that I would have have sent him home and told him not to come back until he got a haircut in compliance with AFR 35-10 (Air Force grooming standards). Have things changed that much? Noel
  12. Agreed. But there are some that pique my interest. Like the Unknown hosted by Captain Kirk. Noel
  13. It played fine here in Roswell. Noel
  14. The following was written by the wife of a man who worked at White Sands in New Mexico in the early days of rocketry. It was the Unidentified Flying Objects that seemed to confirm to us that something important was going on. UFO’s — and whoever or whatever was inside — were apparently fascinated by the events underway at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico during the 1950s and ‘60s. For those of us who lived and worked there, it was business as usual, as we got used to the fact that our everyday visitors seemed to be more than passive observers. They were there every morning as commuters came across the Organ Mountains heading to work from Las Cruces and Alamogordo. A headline in the Alamogordo Daily News on Nov. 5, 1957 reads “Car stalled by UFO.” This nearly everyday experience didn’t even rate much notice. Frequently, as the UFOs appeared over The Organ Mountains, they seemed to stall the cars of commuters. The cars just stopped as if the batteries were drained while the space ships — or whatever they were — hovered above. There was nothing to do but wait until the flying objects zipped away, and the cars automatically started up again. One theory was that these were visitors from outer space and they were as fascinated as the rest of us with the events going on around us at the installation that has been called “the launching pad for the space age.” We got used to names like Athena and Nike Zeus, but in later years it was the more down to earth Honest John. The families never guessed at the nuclear capabilities of these missiles. So you see, Martin, this nothing new. It has been going on for more than 70 years. Some of us here on the forum might remember the names Athena and Nike and Honest John and, like myself, might have even seen them (Honest Johns...not UFOs).. Noel.
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