Aviator, Backpacker, Beekeeper, Latino Anticommunist 🇺🇸/🇻🇪 | Semper Fi 🦅 | AK resident / FL raised
Orlando, FL
Joined March 2017
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Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
Ilya Alekseyev is prolly one of the best blacksmiths alive today, it's not just the blades, but the hand engraving and jewel work. Dude's an artist.
Channel on the tube is thatworks
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
JRA's official Japan Cup 2026 poster:
Features a horse and a jockey.........
#JRA
#Calandagan
#MickaelBarzalona
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
437 looks like a movie prop, it's an awesome little jet. Will NASA's X-70 be based on a similar scaled composites airframe? Unclear, but the specs match closely and its the closest looking to the render we can think of. We shall see!
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
In May 1958, CIA pilot Allen Pope was shot down and captured while flying a Douglas B-26 Invader during the Indonesian Crisis. After learning that Pope was being held on house arrest at a jungle resort on the slopes of Mt. Merapi, and had some freedom of movement outside, the CIA’s Technical Services Staff came up with a plan to air-drop an inflatable airplane to him, so he could rescue himself.
According to authors Robert Wallace and Keith Melton, CIA turned to the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which had been working to develop an inflatable rubber plane called the Inflatoplane. Several prototypes were built for the US military, including single-seat and dual-seat designs.
The single-seat model could be packed up in a mere 44 cubic feet with a 40-hp engine and propeller strapped on top. There was also an onboard air compressor which would maintain positive pressure during flight, even if the aircraft were punctured by several .30 caliber bullets. The Inflatoplane had relatively low top speeds and range but was considered more than sufficient for the Pope rescue scenario.
Inflatoplanes were designed to be filled with compressed air from a canister, but the CIA worked instead to fill the fuselage with chemical pellets. When Pope reached the aircraft, all he would need to do was pour water into the reservoir, which would react with the chemical pellets, quickly filling the rubber fuselage with an inert gas. Pope could then fly himself to safety.
The prototype was tested and ready, but the rescue operation was ultimately canceled for unknown reasons. Pope remained under house arrest until 1962, when he was released after diplomatic negotiations. Some reports indicate two paramilitary CIA officers assisted him in escaping to safety. Pope returned to service with the CIA afterwards as a pilot on covert missions.
Years later when another mission offered the potential of using the inflatable airplane, CIA technicians pulled it from the warehouse only to discover that the rubber was dried up and cracked due to lack of maintenance. The prototype was discarded, never to be used again.
#cia #indonesia #prisoner #rescue #escape
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
【コラボのお知らせ】
KANGOL REWARDさんと甲斐犬黒虎で
コラボすることになりました！
完全受注生産で、近日中に受注開始予定です！
コラボ商品は下記の4点です！
・Tシャツ
・パーカー
・スウェットパンツ
・トートバッグ
商品のデザインにつきましては
続報をお待ちください！
@KANGOLREWARD
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
The Toyota Automobile Museum just outside Nagoya is probably the best car museum I've ever visited.
They've curated the most significant cars from history and explained why. And they're all in absolutely immaculate condition and still driven! 🤩
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
The original Lord of War has some wild filmmaking lore.
Director Andrew Niccol had his crew buy 3,000 real rifles ($200 each) from a Czech arms dealer because it was cheaper than building props (later sold for a loss).
Niccol also rented 50 real T-72 tanks for $500,000 and had to return them on a tight schedule because the same Czech arms dealer later sold them to Libya (and before shooting this scene, the production had to give NATO a heads up in case the satellite images alarmed them).
***
More background here: cinemablend.com/news/2472161…
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
I'm pulled over on the side of the road on a stupid work call trying to handle someone else's problem, and I look up to see the most beautiful little New England park. God really has a way of pulling you back, man.
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
11月は、#ハチ公 の誕生月！🐶🎊
忠犬ハチ公のふるさと #大館市 では、ハチをお祝いする生誕祭を毎年開催しています🌟
ぜひいっしょにハチをお祝いしましょう🎂🎉
📅2026年11月13日（金）
🕒式典10時～（30分程度）
📍秋田犬の里 ハチ公銅像前
▶visitakita.com/tourist-guide…
※写真は昨年の様子 – at Odate-shi, Akita
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
Here’s a late Halloween Treat! How about some Tomcat photos that you’ve probably never seen before? These were shot at Wildwood by my friend at F-14 Tomcat ATG podcast (give them a follow on IG) back in 2023. Enjoy your #TomcatTuesday
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
Based
This is why we call it the “Pilot In Command”
This happened in the same vicinity where the ill-fated Lear Jet hit the storm cell.
JetBlue pilot en route from Fort Lauderdale to Austin says to ATC:
“So you're gonna make us go through a, uh, severe thunderstorm?”
The captain then commanded the situation and overrode the ATC:
“So we declare an emergency, making a left turn heading 260 for severe weather avoidance.”
Sometimes piloting demands a specific set of traits - decisiveness, independent judgment, and the backbone to reject an instruction when it doesn’t feel right.
Refusing the assigned heading showed exactly that kind of assertive leadership.
Whoever is pilot monitoring must make these tough calls but ultimately, the captain is the final authority and ultimately accountable for every soul on board.
Jet-A Scented Airborne Welder retweeted
Here's a scan-by-scan breakdown of the thunderstorm cell that N722BD flew into. We've contoured the 30 dBZ surface, which signifies where moderate precipitation was present.
The thunderstorm cell grew to 48,300 feet by 12:56 p.m., meaning that, at 12:48 p.m. when the plane flew through, it was still rapidly growing vertically. 15,000 feet of growth in under 20 minutes is a VERY intense updraft.
Now what about icing? It's true that the ambient temperature OUTSIDE the storm was around minus-45 degrees Fahrenheit. That's generally too cold for icing, which requires supercooled water droplets – i.e. water droplets that remain a liquid at temperatures below freezing. Water sometimes is slow to freeze UNLESS it has something to freeze onto – like a cold surface (a plane). At minus-45, moisture would have already frozen into ice crystals, i.e. snowflakes, which aren't really dangerous to aviation.
HOWEVER, the rapid growth of this thunderstorm cell 1.) carried LOTS of heat upwards, bending temperature surfaces and probably making the core of the thunderstorm cell 15 to 20+ degrees warmer. That warmth was probably amplified by the latent heat release of water droplets freezing, as my colleague Roger Edwards adroitly pointed out, and 2.) the swift updraft probably transported large, tropical raindrops upwards so quickly that some liquid remained even at altitude.
A study in the journal "Nature" found that deep convective (thunderstorm) clouds regularly have supercooled water droplets down to minis-38 degrees, and it's probable that, at 35,000 feet, the temperatures inside this cloud were warmer.
Therefore, while this wouldn't ordinarily be an "obvious" icing case, the forensic meteorology suggests icing as a probable contributing factor or cause. The NTSB will continue to investigate.
