Bullethead

Mankind will never be free until the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last lawyer! I paraphrased this from the fin de siècle anarchists and nihilists. The original version was the last king being strangled with the entrails of the last priest. I just substituded the contemporary words for the same people. Being a modernday anarchist, I completely echo the sentiment. But while I'm glad to see a kindred spirit, I think this is getting off topic, perhaps because of a misunderstanding of what PTSD really is. There's a huge difference between the perfectly normal desire to kill people who, by any rational analysis, heartily deserve it as much as rabid dogs, and PTSD. PTSD is the irrational, knee-jerk tendency to treat every disagreement, no matter how trivial, literally as a matter of personal survival, and reacting accordingly. Or so my shrinks tell me. I've been seeing shrinks periodically for the last 20 years and they've been saying that all along, so I figure that's the correct definition. See, when you're in combat, EVERY decision you make, no matter how trivial, really is a matter of life and death. I'm talking all the way down to how often you change your socks. So naturally, the longer you survive, the more confidence you get in doing things your way, and the more you regard any suggestion to change as a deliberate attempt by the other person to kill you. The longer you're in such an environment, the stronger this habit of mind becomes, so the harder it is to come back to civilization, where NOTHING AT ALL is a matter of life and death, unless you're a fireman or some such danger-courting thing, and even then it's only the odd decision once in a while. IOW, PTSD is primarily a problem in dealing with other people in non-stressful situations. People with uncontrolled PTSD tend to fly off the handle over stupid, minor, BS issues. People with controlled PTSD have the urge, which gradually goes away over time if they work on it, but know what the problem is and rein themselves in before beating a coworker to death over leaving the sink full of dirty coffee mugs pr whatever. I'm in the latter phase, but I'm a fireman so keep getting booster shots of stress every few days. Thus, every couple of years, when I notice myself starting to bite folks' heads off for no good reason, I go see the shrinks again for a reinforcing lesson on PTSD. Bottom line is, PTSD comes from focusing totally on survival, to the point of not being able to distinguish survival from nonsurvival situations. As long as you can tell the difference, you either don't have PTSD or it's controlled.

I think it's hilarious. It's deliberately exaggerated to be funny. It's about the eternal conflict between cops and firemen, in this case told from the cop's POV. So the video shows firemen going way overboard and making a huge mess out of what really was a nothing, the implication being that firemen always do this. And I have to admit, it does happen, so I like to show my troops this video once in a while to remind them to keep things in perspective. However, the cops are just as guilty of their own types of sins, and there are similar things out there as told from the firemen's POV :). See, cops and firemen often work at cross-purposes. This is because they not only do different jobs, but work for entirely separate organizations which have very different official goals and unofficial agendae. Thus, when both agencies go to the same incident, they usually have completely different sets of tactical objectives and overall strategies, which often conflict. One of the main areas where conflicts occur is at wrecks. Cops think they're in charge because most wrecks happen because somebody broke the law, and because dealing with traffic is a traditional cop job. Firemen think (and in Lousy Anna, legally are) they're in charge as long as there's any sort of ongoing emergency (fire, hazmat, rescuing trapped victims, etc.) Cops and firemen agree that the ambulance crew is in charge of patient care, which is really the most important thing, so both cooperate with them. But everything else, the cops and firemen usually argue over. The main thing that they argue over at wrecks is the flow of traffic. Firemen don't want to get run over so want traffic stopped. Cops work for elected officials who don't want a bunch of voters stuck in traffic any longer than necessary. So even if passing cars are going by within 6" of firemen cutting a victim out of a wreck, that's perfectly fine with the cops. And when firemen exercise their statutory power and block the road with their big red trucks to stop traffic, the cops get mad. There have been firemen arrested over such things. I hpe I get arrested someday like this, so I can retire on the lawsuit loot :).

My favorite. Attempting to embed but if it doesn't work, here's the link: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=YzYxz_uvtSI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzYxz_uvtSI

Sims do not have to be realistic to cause PTSD. I used to play a game from Kesmai called Air Warrior. This game actually debuted in the late 80s and I played it all through the 90s. While the final AW3 version looked halfway decent for its day, most of my time was in the older DOS and AW2 versions, which looked like crap. Here's a pic of what it looked like back then: http://www.mylot.com/w/image/694738.aspx But regardless of the bright colors, carboard-looking planes, billaid table-looking land, and pyramidal mountains, this game really got to you. That's because it was an MMO, perhaps the 1st MMO ever. Every other plane was flown by another person. So you knew you were fighting and "killing" real people. I got into it shortly after Desert Storm so already had PTSD from that. Thus, it was perhaps easier for me to get into the same combat mindset over the game. But it also had the same effect on just about all other players, most of whom weren't veterans. This was evident not only in the game but also in the forums devoted to it. This was back in the "Wild West" days of the internet, before they started letting women and children on it, so the vitriol definitely flowed in the uncensored forums. The game took over peoples' lives and personalities. I remember reliving dogfights in my dreams and waking up sweating. Most other players were the same way. So anyway, there's nothing new about games causing PTSD.

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IIMHO, von Bredow's "Death Ride" was of no more tactical value to the Germans than the Charge of the Light Brigade was to the British. He knew it was a desperate enterprise so consumed well over an hour (some accounts say 2 hours) reconnoitering the ground prior to initiating the charge. That was a significant delay during which the German infantry had to continue coping with whatever problems had prommpted the order to charge the guns in the first place, especially because by then it was late in the day and sunset was about to solve the problems anyway. And after von Bredow finally charged, his efforts only silenced a couple batteries for a short time. Most of the gunners did what had been standard practice for about a century, seeking cover amongst formed infantry nearby while the cavalry got slaughtered in a crossfire amongst unmanned guns. But because he actually managed to reach the objective, regardless of cost, the "Death Ride" was touted as a great success (the unmentioned elephant in the room being that for many years, cavalry had generally failed to reach such an objective). In fact, the same name was given to a phase of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, when Scheer ordered Hipper's battlecruisers to charge the British line to cover the withdrawal of the German battleline after Scheer had stupidly returned to have his T crossed a second time. The "Death Ride of the Battlecruisers" was thus held up as yet another "gallant show" in a forelorn hope. There's a lot to be said about cavalry failures in the Franco-Prussian War. The battle of Vionville - Mars-la-Tour, however, concentrates many of them in 1 time and place. But the main reasons the Germans won (not only that battle but most others) was due to the supreme incompetence of Marshal Bazaine, combined with the initiative of German division and corps commanders compared to the lack thereof in their French opposite numbers.

Never heard of that cavalry action. Thanks for sharing. I'm not surprised they were still trying to use cavalry as a shock weapon in 1918. The surprising thing to me is that shock cavalry still existed in 1914. The Napoleanic wars had shown over and over that infantry armed with just short-range muskets and bayonets could utterly defeat and often annihilate shock cavalry, at least if the infantry wasn't taken by surprise. All the cavalry usually accomplished was to slow the infantry's advance for a little while; not much return on the huge expense of equipping and supplying the cavalry. As the 19th Century went on, the infantry got rifles, breechloaders, and ultimately machineguns, while artillery got shrapnel, breechloaders, and high explosive. Thus, attempts to use cavalry for battlefield shock action in the wars of the 1800s usually produced even more dismal results than they had in the Napoleanic wars. So you'd think that no later than the Franco-Prussian War, battlefield shock cavalry would have gone the way of shock infantry and there wouldn't have been any left by 1914. I can attribute its continued existence only to the fact that ever since the Indo-Europeans moved into Europe from the steppes, the European nobility had distinguished itself from the common masses primarily by riding horses to war while the peasants walked. So at a time when nobles continued to run many European states, doing away with shock cavalry was opposed by thousands of years of both military and family tradition. They played up the rare cavalry successes and memorialized the more spectacular examples of the much more common cavalry disasters as "gallant shows", and held onto their sabres. Seriously, I don't think there was much difference between charging a regiment in line firing rifled minieballs across 1000m of open ground than charging a couple machineguns. That said, however, cavalry still has a battlefield role even to this day. It's as dragoons, though, not as shock. And of course the non-battlefield roles of scouting and raiding are still practiced. But the battlefield itself became too lethal for shock cavalry long before WW1.

Such as everything French with more than 1 seat

They're pulleys for the aileron cables, which you can see beautifully modeled in OFF. If anybody besides me flew the Fee, they'd know these things

@Olham I don't think that's the same plane. Besides the lack of fence points right in front of it, there are a number of structural differences. The one in your pic is a definite factory-fresh FE2b, but the one in Lou's pic is a mongrel. Lou's has the FE2d landing gear, despite the FE2b nacelle and radiators. Also, there are different exhaust pipes.

Certainly! It would be a pleasure. As long as you hang it on your wall with a brass plaque saying it was signed by the greatest Fee driver ever :). On a more serious note, you could perhaps get a general timeframe from looking at the uniforms and lack of winter clothing. Knowing you, you've probably already done this. But obviously this pic was taken far behind the lines. Nobody is carrying a rifle, nobody's covered in mud, and all the enlisted men on the left have the full-checked, clean-shaven look of REMFs. Also, most of them look rather annoyed at being taken away from their soft living to pose for this picture, which involved standing in the mud. Yes, that's quite plausible. I've seen that happen many times, when I've actually made it across the lines, that is. Usually I get bounced long before then. But when I do manage to get across, the universal feeling amongst the German infantry is that if they can look up and see a Fee, then the war is surely lost and they surrender en masse

That's my plane! Some time ago, I made the Worst Navigation Error Ever (at least at the time--it was recently surpassed by an Italian cruise ship captain ). Warp went haywire on me and before I realized it, my whole flight was in the vicinity of Dusseldorf . We tried to get home but ran out of fuel and ditched in the SE corner of The Netherlands. But the bloody Dutch handed us over to the Germans, who made a big deal out of attempting to bomb their cities, even though we were on a photo mission. So propaganda pics all around, including this one. If you want, I'll autograph that photo for you

I'd never seen a prop plane do it (and a taildragger at that--must have to lock the tailwheel). But it's pretty commonplace amongst commercial airliners these days. Most of them back themselves out of the gate with their thrust reversers instead of having to be pushed back by a tractor like in the old days.

Next time you see cropdusters working, stop and watch the show. Those pilots are INSANE! And their planes are quite impressive when you think about it. Being able heave a heavy load up vertically over a treeline, with all the Gs that entails, over and over all day long. So there are still true barnstormers today, but they're too busy doing actual work to put on shows :).

My favorite, which I still frequently see employed around my part of the world, is the Grumman Ag-Cat cropduster. A rather rugged, pugnacious-looking beast designed for hard work. I prefer the looks and sound of the original radial-engined versions, but the re-engined turboprops are pretty cool, too. One of the benefits of living in a rural area is that you get free airshows all the time from the cropdusters. They do some truly amazing flying. I'm not just talking about wheels-in-the-weeds passes between trees and under powerlines, but also just their takeoffs and landings. Often, they fly off of dirt tracks beside roads with powerlines down one side and barns on the other. Here are some very good vids vids of Ag-Cats in action:

Thanks. That's pretty cool ;)

Damn it OvS, look what you've done. I've had all this OT fireman stuff bottled up and now you've pulled the plug on it. As you know, firemen like nothing more (after doing something particularly gallant for a damsel in distress and hooking up with them afterwards) than showing off their toys. But I figure it's for recruting. After all, 3 out of 4 US firemen are volunteers, so if this thread convinces just 1 more nutjob to join our ranks, it's a service to humanity. It's either that or prison for most of us. Seriously . As such, I've taken the liberty of expounding on some fireman stuff for potential recruits. If you look closely at some of my pics, you'll see a section on the side of the truck just behind the cab with all sorts knobs and dials. That's the control panel for the pump. Now admittedly, this looks as complicated as a cathedral organ, such as might stymie even JS Bach. But fear not. Firemen by and large are entirely paleolithic, brute-force-and-ignorance guys and in recent years pump control panels have begun to take that into account. When I came up, being a pump operator was a sort of mystic thing. You were the witchdoctor of the tribe, possessing arcane knowledge handed down in secret by previous shamans. But that was just hype to breed egos. Seriously, back then, all you did was open the hose valve and turn up the throttle until you could see about 1 finger of air between the nozzleman's boots and the ground, then back off about 1/4 turn. Of course, there was this tedious relief valve you had to set, too, depending on how many hoses you had in action, but that was even simpler. Nowadays, things have been reduced to an even lower common denominator. On my truck, you just push the "Preset" button on the throttle panel (see pic below--it's the green one) and some computer in the truck takes care of the throttle and relief. It doesn't care how many hoses you have going, it'll keep them all at the right pressure so the nozzlemen are just barely touching the ground. The pump operator doesn't even have to see them. In fact, he can walk away and use a hose himself, which is of course why we all got in the business. So here's a close-up of my engine's pump panel, with legend. See, all the valves have their gauges right next to them, as if you'd ever look at them. Even newer trucks color-code everything to make it even plainer. This is a far cry from our 1987 pumpers, which were a bit voodoo. See? Nothing to it.

And when I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was about WW1 airplane construction . But all is not lost! Just call in your riggers and have them take care of your desk. If they can sort out your combat ride, they can certainly handle a mere desk To me, avoiding the tangle issue starts with the order in which you plug wires into the box. Things that will never move (speakers, rudder pedals, etc) go in before stuff that does move (headphones, TIR), etc. Also, I like using a powered USB hub on my desk behind the monitor, to which the keyboard, mouse, and TIR run, so only 1 wire from them all goes to the box.

I'm a full-time fireman. My department is like 95% volunteer but I'm one of the few paid guys. But on my days off, I'm a volunteer, so I really never have a day off unless I leave town. The official name of my department is Fire Protection District #1 of West Feliciana Parish, but we call ourselves WFFD. We cover all of West Feliciana Parish except the town of St. Francisville (population ~1500, the only incorporated town in the parish) and the Angola State Penitentiary (22,000 acres, ~5000 inmates). Both of those places have their own fire departments but we have automatic aid with them so I've fought many fires in both places. All told, WFFD's 1st-in area is 432 square miles, pretty much all rural, with about 8500 people spread over it. To cover this, we have a maximum of 2 paid people on duty at any given time, so rely on volunteers for the vast bulk of our manpower. We have 9 stations. The main one is on the north outskirts of St. Francisville, the other 8 are scattered about the parish near various hamlets where the houses and trailers are a bit closer together than elsewhere. Most of these stations have a set of 1987 FMC pumper (1000gpm, 750 gallons) and tanker (300gpm, 1500 gallons) on Ford F800 chassis, although in the last few years we've gotten a few newer and bigger pumpers at a couple of them. Also, 2 of these stations have rescue trucks on Ford Super Duty chassis. The main station has our latest and greatest trucks: A 2011 Ferrara MVP rescue-pumper (2000gpm, 1000 gallons, heavy rescue stuff), and a 2011 Ferrara super tanker on a KW chassis (1500gpm, 2500 gallons). The MVP is our 1 and only custom cab. We don't have any aerial trucks, although St. Francisville has a telesquirt we can borrow. When I'm on the clock, I go to 2 of the outlying stations per day and check all the stuff there, then base at the main station. On the volunteer side of things, I'm the captain (our word for supreme warlord) of the outlying station in the unincorporated hamlet of Wakefield. I own a 2008 Ferrara pumper (1250gpm, 1000 gallons) on a KW chassis, a 1999 rescue truck, one of the old FMC tankers, and have a spare 1897 pumper stashed in my extra bay in reserve. I have 8 volunteer troops, half of whom are the wives and daughters of my other troops :). This is my own personal pumper at the Wakefield station. You can see what our patch looks like on the door. This is me leaning on our new MVP shortly after its delivery: This is our new super tanker: And this is me investigating a possible arson fire at a restaurant. This was back around Thanksgiving. Actually, we'd done the investigation enough to call in the fire marshals. They're looking at it right now. You can see their flashlight beams by the corner of the building in the background there, where the suspicious burn mark is on the outside of the wall. Fire started at 2345, this pic was taken about 0530. And the Hell of it was, during overhaul, we couldn't find a single intact beer