FastCargo

Jedi, You and I need to do some Portal 2 co-op my friend! Just got done playing single player Portal 2 and loved it...Valve has done it again! For those who get tired of the same ol' same ol' FPS genre, give Portal 2 a try. “I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!” FC

Love it! Or, how about a scene from going through training...a story from "Phantom Over Vietnam" by John Trotti. Or this one... FC

I love this line: Yea buddy!

Done it the other way around as well...running Win7/WinXP/OSX 10.5.6 on a Dell m1530. SF2 runs just fine... FC

JM, I saw the same analysis...it's basically about 70% of the debt is to ourselves. Still trying to figure out that one...if that's true, I'll put in a bid for one of the Space Shuttles please... FC

Note...don't EVER stand in between 2 of them at full grunt during takeoff. I made this mistake during a Red Flag 15 years ago. I think that's the only time I ever got physically ill from pure jet noise... FC

Lexx, The only problem I've had with your analysis (and similar analysis by others of the same track), is the reliance of investment in precious metals (gold of course being the big one). The thing is, even gold has no intrinsic value...only a value that we as people assign it. If the big collapse happens, I'm not concerned about having enough gold. I'm concerned about having enough food, water, shelter, medicine and ammo. I guarantee if the collapse comes, I'm not wasting my time taking shiny metal in exchange for services or goods. If a service that exists will take gold, that's fine...I have my 'clinky' reserve. But that's not what I'm relying on to get by through the dark days of the collapse of fiat money. FC

I'll repeat what Jedi and I said eariler: The Saturn 5 blueprints still exist and are stored away. It's the tooling and manufacturing jigs that are all gone. FC

Not quite that impressive...they had a full crew. This was done by one person for the most part: FC

...model rockets that is. My older son is getting to the age to be able to start watching and enjoying model rockets, if not quite old enough to build them properly yet. So, I dug out my old model rockets. Now, realize that I hadn't done any sort of rocket building or flying since 1996. But I used to be seriously into rockets, even had started into LDRS territory. Still collected kits, but like my plastic models, they sit gathering dust because of lack of time. So, it was old nostalgia week as I broke into the storage area to dust off the 'flyables' and get them ready: Kind of an overcast day, but the winds were relatively mild. However, finding a decent amount of room is still tough to do around here. There are some soccer fields a little further away, but this school field/track was within walking distance. So the wife and the 2 boys went there today. First flight for this one, a nice boost glider. The delay was a little long (my fault), and I thought it was going to prang in, but it popped just in time for the glider to get good air and the engine pod to recover nicely. This model was probably one of the more delicate, but it flew and landed just fine...better than some of the other models did... First flight for this one, a scale replica of the Little Joe II (a rocket used to test the escape system on the Apollo). Again, too long of delay, but the chute popped over the grass with just enough time to slow the impact. Result, the escape tower broke, but cleanly, so was able to repair on site. Now that she's flown...she goes back on display. Those towers are too delicate... Semi scale model of the Patriot in prototype colors...flew fine, but came down on the track instead of the field, breaking a fin. Clean break, fixed at home. Laying on the ground next to it (the white rocket) is what I've come to call 'old reliable'. It's a rocket I got 24 years ago, and it's been a steady flier. Flies straight, has always been recovered, outlasted several parachutes and shock cords...makes a nice demo rocket, even if it's a bit worse for wear. Took a pic a little too early, this is a boost glider based on the NASA A-7 that they were going to use for swing wing testing, except the swing wing used a single pivot (yep, one tip would go forward, the other backward). For this boost glider, it takes off with the wing parallel to the fuselage, then when the engine pod pops, the wing swings to 90 degrees to the wind and the aircraft glides down...in theory. Unfortunately, this one took the top part of the launch rod with it, causing a death spiral. Did less damage than I thought it would (considering it came down in the parking lot)...the nose took most of the impact. The nice thing is, it's a standard diameter body tube, and except for the A-7 nose, the rest of the model is standard parts I can make out of stuff from a hardware store. Worse case, I can keep the nose and rebuild the whole thing with brand new parts... SR-71 model...not a boost glider (too bad). Nice model, and flew very well considering it's weight. High winds caused it to drift farther than I wanted, but we were able to recover it with no damage. First flight...a ready to fly X-15. Flew nice, but chute didn't open completely, coming down a little hard. The chute issue plagued most of the flights today, even though I had dusted them the night before. I think they needed more powder to facilitate them opening better...most of them sat a LONG time and that can be tough on mylar when it's crunched up in a tube... Semi scale Shuttle/ET/SRB combo. Shuttle is a glider that separates. Flew okay but popped later than expected...over the parking lot, not the field. Shuttle came down okay, but ET/SRB came down hard. ET/SRB will need extensive repair/repaint. And since most of the stuff (tubes, nose cones, etc) are unique, it means once it's all repaired and repainted, she'll be a display only bird...but she did at least fly a few times. Not pictured but brought/flown: Estes Scout - Flew straight, high on a C6-5...and promptly disappeared after the ejection charge. Got it from a friend of mine who was cleaning out the closet. Painted a dark grey...probably not the best color to fly on a day like today. Presumed intact...just missing. Mini-Patriot - Semi scale Patriot (even smaller) using 1/2A engine. First flight of the day to test winds. Flew great, no issues on recovery. Bomarc (not flown) - Rebuilt version of kit, converted to "D" power. Works great as Astrocam lofter - not flown due to increasing winds Defender (not flown) - 2 stage "D" power bird, also a Astrocam lofter - not flown due to increasing winds Rockets are cheaper to build and fly than RC, but it still sucks when you break em. I still have a lot of kits, including a few high power ones, and have built and flown my 1/5 scale Patriot (yes, I have 3 different sized Patriot missiles). That one is a lot of fun...a 4 "D" power cluster that roars off of the pad...obviously I didn't fly it today. Anyone else still have the rocketry bug? FC

AGM-69A SRAM - C6-3 - Not changed from last time, but because the winds were so much less, the rocket flew much nicer, with only a slight spin: Mini Saturn V - 1/2A3-4T - Couldn't get a good pic of the rocket on the pad because the camera kept focusing on the grass: But the flight was stable, smooth with a good recovery. Will be a favorite of smaller fields in the future... Estes SR-71 - C6-3 - Nice, straight flight up to the ejection charge, where the shock cord broke. But the rocket was recovered fine because the nose didn't weigh enough to open the chute fully, and the body tumble recovered. No damage: N-1 - D12-3 - I'll let the pictures speak for themselves: The third picture is a composite of the flight showing the flight path. Luckily, the rocket fell flat, with little damage. Will need minor repair. But will probably not fly again. We think it's a 'drag stable' rocket like a saucer, but doesn't have enough flat surface. The other option is adding significantly more weight to the nose...but the rocket is already pretty heavy as it is. Cosmic Cobra - C6-5 - Nice flight...good airborne video: Patriot Pro - 4xD12-5 - Awesome flight! Of course, it decides to parachute down on the only gravel road near the field. Minor damage to one fin: Satellite Interceptor and Interceptor - C6-5 for both - Straight, nice, textbook flights with no damage...even caught the Interceptor while it parachuted down: Overall, a good day. 10 rockets launched, all recovered (plus one...Art brought my Patriot that I left on the field from the last club launch). 6 rockets had no damage, 4 with trivial to little damage. Only 2 rockets didn't fly as expected...though I was surprised by both as they had passed the swing test. Plus, I'm figuring out those keychain cams.... Time for repairs, building more rockets, and getting those boost gliders airborne... FC

Our club had a launch on Saturday morning...but we moved the hours to 0730-1130 because it's so friggin hot by mid day. I basically jumpseated in that morning at 0530, prepped rockets, packed the car, and made it out about 0800 ourselves. On to pics and video! First, pictures of the day's fleet (upright Saturn V is a plastic model, not miine, but same scale as N-1): Alpha III 2 stager - C6-0/C6-7 - Flew this combination in the same configuration as the last club launch. But this time, it was viciously unstable: I think the reason it was unstable this time was due to me rotating the lower stage 60 degrees to the upper stage. I'll have to do another swing test...

I'll send you the S-60. It's a bit of high poly and it's not mapped. But you can probably shave it down quite a bit. Check your PMs. FC

There is radiation as well...radiation that can't be stopped unless you have shielding...and a LOT of it. That's why all astronauts had a time clock, and when that limit was reached, you were done going into space. Also, building a spinning station is conceptually very easy, but practically is very difficult, especially if you trying to get to a full G. FC

Real Trekker's work out at the He's Dead Gym... FC

Jedi is correct...the plans for the Saturn 5 all exist. But tooling is EXPENSIVE... FC

Folks, uncleal has no one to blame but himself. No one here precipitated his departure...he did it to himself and it was a long time coming. FC

Hey folks, just wanted to chime in here to let people know what's going on. Unfortunately, uncleal was banned. The method we used is a 'one click' program that flags the culprit as a spammer. The effect is that every post ever made by that individual is deleted as well. Some of those posts may be recoverable. However, he was given absolutely every opportunity to not have this happen. Posts and threads were removed, edited. He was warned, multiple times in public and in private by several folks. There is an area called 'The Arena' on our website where we specifically allow controversial topics to be discussed (see here: http://combatace.com/topic/57713-political-discussions/ for more details). This area was created in large part for uncleal to play in. He was put on moderated status for a while as a 'you're quickly running out of rope' warning. Many posts were controversial and a few were borderline racist. In short, he was banned because he refused to respect the website. This forum is like a private party...you can play as long as you play by the rules. We'll let small stuff slide on a case by case basis. But if you're consistently obnoxious about not staying within the guidelines, you're not long for this website. Uncleal was actually given far more leeway than most members would get because he has contributed a significant amount to the OFF community. However, if you get to the point where you are pissing off the owner of the website (probably the most tolerant of all the admins and moderators), you're screwing up by the numbers. We understand that uncleal has had a rough time in the real world these last several years, which has shaped his outlook on life and online. It's not an excuse. We have members here who've had to deal with homelessness, clinical depression, addiction, debilitating cognitive or physical challenges, cancer and other illnesses. They don't use that as an excuse to behave badly here. Anyway, that's the full story of what has happened to uncleal. FC

We Are Klingons! FC

Interesting...nice that TK finally activated that feature (yep, I'm late to the party). FC

Er...no! They wouldn't fit anyway...I'd have to use 1/8A MMX engines. Just one big D or E. First flight is expected to be this weekend on a D12-3. FC

Man!!! About friggin time...great for those aircraft that have been around a LONG time... FC

It 'should' work...but like everything else, ymmv. FC

No kiddin...great way to use up those nukes every one has... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) FC

Congrats Super Dave! Welcome to 'Why back in my day...' land! FC