A Few Pictures from The Edwards AFB Museum

I didn't take my "real" camera with me as I didn't know if they'd allow it on the base without some kind of special permission. Seeing as it took us 30 minutes to clear the main gate with our vehicles, it probably wouldn't have been allowed.
BTW...I thanked all the young 'uns doing guard duty, and they all said "You're welcome"!
Some of the pictures were taken at "Century Circle", which is a little park outside the West gate where we waited for our escort. The others were taken outside the museum where they have a small static exhibit of various aircraft. I didn't try to take any pictures inside, as I was too awed at the items in the museum, and just wanted to soak up the experience rather than trying to get some decent pictures with my cellphone camera.
They're taking donations to get a much larger building to house the incredible array of Really Neat Stuff they have in storage, so I dropped $20 into the donation box.
I bought some tee shirts and a nice print called "The Golden Age Of Flight Test" which is numbered and signed by the artist, and six of the test pilots who helped make all this happen.
Enjoy the slide show, meager as it is, and you can learn more about the museum here.
Air Force Flight Test Center Museum

For more information on SR-71A #61-7955, go to SR-71 Online.

Tough Sledding

They showed us this film the first day of the seminar.
It's hilarious!

High-Speed *Imaging* Seminar

Well....turns out this seminar covers a whole lot more ground than I was told.
You know that great footage you see on TV showing a bullet coming out of the barrel at, oh, 5000 frames-per-second?
HAH! That stuff is downright SLOW compared to what I saw today, and we're just getting started!
Some of the systems on display here are easily capable of doing ONE-HUNDRED THOUSAND frames-per-second. We set one up and watched a strobe tube fire, and then watched the images. From the initial trigger pulse, to the gas starting to ionize, to the initiation of the main discharge, and this thing didn't even break a sweat.
We also have systems on display here that can do well over ONE MILLION frames-per-second, and one of the companies presenting here has a system that can do ONE BILLION fps!
Astounding stuff, that was "undreamable" just a few short years ago.
And of course, we had footage of APFSDS projectiles coming out of the barrel, the sabot petals peeling back, and the round hitting the target.
And the images are so clear you can read the information printed on the round as it travels downrange.
Kinda makes the 400 fps Milliken camera I brought with me look like a real antique!
HOWEVER....film is still unsurpassed for certain applications, and ours is one of them. We simply don't need the ability to record at a frame rate that's high enough to watch a block of TNT detonate, and accurate color rendition, from a well understood media, is essential for our application.
Still, it's absolutely staggering what these imaging system can do.

And as a preview of what we're going to do Thursday after class concludes, I heard several sonic booms today while I was outside during lunch.

ba-BOOM.....Edwards AFB is only about 20 miles from here, and from the looks of the contrails up there today, our flyboys were out playing.

High-Speed Camera Seminar Next Week

They popped this on me Thursday morning. The company that services our D.B. Milliken High-Speed film cameras is having a training seminar next week up in Lancaster, CA, and I get to go.
These cameras are mechanical marvels....400 frames-per-second of pin-registered 16mm color film, fully self-contained, except for the lens. I've seen them apart on the bench a few times, and was really impressed with how well they're made.
We have 10 of them running during the launch. Four of them are in two separate blast-proof housings made of 3/8" armor plate covered with ablative coatings, and have a 6" diameter double-pane borosilicate glass window. These are located about six feet from the edge of the flame bucket, and really get hammered during a launch. The windows usually get pitted, broken, melted, or "all of the above", but we have had times where the windows came out unscathed.
Three more are located in an enclosure about thirty feet away, mounted at different angles of elevation. They catch the launch vehicle once it comes up out of the flame bucket and the nozzles start to gimble.
The remainder are located up on the hangar roof and catch the view from a different perspective.
Our partners who build the launch vehicle can tell a lot of things from the flame color, and how the nozzles move during ascent, but that's not my area of expertise. Since I'm in "Operations Support", helping the Range Operations Team includes work with the Photo-Optics guys who document the entire launch process, from integrating the payload, to the launch vehicle going out of sight after liftoff.
It should be an interesting class/seminar, as I enjoy working on this kind of stuff.
And the BEST part is that after we "graduate" Thursday morning, we get a private tour of the Edwards Flight Test Facility!
Should be "just a little" fun to see things that the public doesn't normally get to see.
The embedded video is shot from these cameras, and is a montage of the various views. I think the launch was for the XM-3 mission, or at least that's where I remember the music during that footage.
This video looks like it was ripped from the souvenir "Mission Highlights" DVD that we make for every mission.
Enjoy!

11-11-11

Thank you all for serving.
May God bless you and keep you close to Him.

Range Day!

Always good to spend some time at the range!
We had a ball today shooting my Marlin 336/30-30, my son's Savage 17HMR, my "Zombie Zapper MkI", and my son's step-dad's Browning 300 Winchester Magnum.
We also went through about 50 rounds each with our pistols, but that's not why we went.
I finally have a decent bench rest, so I was able to check the zero on my Marlin. Turns out I had it just about spot-on! The picture of the black target was from the first few rounds I fired at 50 yards, and I was pretty happy with it. The picture of the "Shoot-N-See" target was what I fired at 100 yards. I would have liked a closer grouping, but this was around 2pm, and the wind was blowing cross-range pretty hard, about 10~15MPH according to one of the guys there who had a little anemometer. He was shooting a 22-250, and complaining how he was "all over the place" at 100 yards. I looked at his target, and he had around 10 shot is a 2~2-1/2" group! And for the first time, I was also able to hit the steel targets 100% of the time. I think they're about 10" in diameter, and they were at 102 yards, according to my little Bushnell laser rangefinder.
Then we broke out the Browning in 300 Win Mag.
BOOM! It's got quite a kick to it, and my son was right; it just isn't much fun to shoot more than 3 rounds through it. His step-dad has it dialed in at 100 yards (quite a waste), and I was able to hit the 9 ring consistently. It's a beautiful rifle, with a humongous (to me, anyway) Tasco scope on it. I've always heard "Tasco is junk", but it has a beautiful, crisp, clear image, and handles the pounding it gets from the rifle just fine. I don't know how well it would hold up out on a hunt in rough country and bad weather year-after-year, but it seems like a nice scope to me.
As far as my Remington 1100 with the rifled barrel, I was really disappointed with the little Simmons scope I had on it. The images just didn't seem "right", and I felt I would have done much better with ghost-ring sights on it. Really disappointing. We picked up my new Nikon scope on the way back from the range, so after I clean the 1100, I'll put the new scope on it, and we'll head back to the range next month.
The inexpensive slug rounds I bought were quite nice to shoot, and as the first one ejected I was amazed at how light the recoil was. I figured it was the Lead Sled absorbing most of the recoil, so after firing a few more of those, and getting nowhere fast with the Simmons scope, I stepped up to one of the 325 grain, 1800fps Winchester slugs I got the other night.
HOLY SMOKES!
It roared like a Naval 3-pounder, and knocked the Lead Sled back about 6"!
People turned around and looked every time I fired it. I was missing the steel at 100 yards, but sure raising a huge cloud of dust out of the berm behind the steel!
And then I found out what was going on with the Simmons scope.....
As we were packing up to leave, one of the range officers came over and looked at it. He asked how well I could see with the scope, and I replied not very well, and I wasn't happy at all with it. Then he said "You've got it mounted BACKWARDS. Didn't you notice the image was smaller than one-to-one?".
OOOPS.....
DOH!
This little scope has one big lens, and one small lens. I thought the big lens went in the front (gathers more light, you know), and the small lens was the one for your eye.
I don't think I've ever been this embarrassed over something shooting related.
Still, we had a great time, the weather was beautiful, except for the wind, and we met some very nice fellow shooters today.

****UPDATE****

My son sent me the video he took with his iPhone.

Headed Out To The Range!

My son and I are headed out to Angeles Shooting Range Wednesday morning. I got the barrel swapped out on my Remington 1100, the scope mounted and 'rough zeroed', and a LimbSaver recoil pad added.
I also checked my Marlin 336 out, and re-centered the reticle in the scope on that one. Since I now have a Lead Sled and some shot-filled bags, I'm going to re-zero the scope on that one, too.
The scope on the 1100 is a cheapie Simmons 2.5x20, identical to the one I gave wirecutter to use on his air rifle, but it's called a "Shotgun Scope", so we'll see how well it holds up to the battering an 1100 shooting slugs gives it. When I went to install it Monday afternoon, I realized I had the wrong mounting rings for it. ARRRRGH! I fired off a quick order to Cabela's, and also ordered a 2-7x32 Nikon ProStaff 'Shotgun Hunter' scope, as I have my doubts about the Simmons lasting very long!
Well, like a dummy I ordered it shipped overnite, and right after I clicked "Submit Order", I realized it couldn't possibly be here Tuesday (today), as I ordered it after 11:30 CST, which is Cabela's cut-off time!
DUH!
SO.....I hopped in the car, and drove over to Turner's Outdoorsman, and picked up a set of Leupold rings for it.
Now this, of course, means another trip up to the outdoor range (Oh, DARN!) to sight in the new scope after it gets here and I swap out the Simmons.
And I picked up a couple of boxes of Winchester "Supreme Elite" (kinda sounds like the current government, eh?) Sabot slugs so I can compare them to the Remington "Premier Copper Solid" Sabot slugs I already have.
The Winchester's have a 375 grain slug, and an "On-The-Box" muzzle velocity of 1800 fps!
I'll bet they kick like a mad mule.
A real MAD mule.
So, looking forward to a nice, pleasant, relaxing ( ! ) day at the range on Wednesday sighting in the Marlin (Thanks OldNFO!!) and seeing if I can even control the slugs out of "Zombie Zapper MkI".
I have a funny feeling my right shoulder is going to be screaming at me all the way home......

Minor PC Upgrade

Spent a little time this morning giving my PC a minor upgrade. I was running an Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @3GHz, and upgraded it to an Intel Core2 Quad @2.83GHz. The individual cores are about 6% "slower", but now I've got 4 of them.
Should make multiprocessing tasks run a bit quicker, and I got it at a price that was too good to pass up.
Back to work on the antenna article......

Expedient Antennas for HF (Shortwave) Use

Sometime ago, our good friends over at the Western Rifle Shooters Association had an article on "Anti-Materiel" shooting, and one of the commenters had in his post the necessity of "proven capability to construct field expedient antennaes (sic) and use a HF radio and get out long distance comms".

Well, me being a "Radio Guy", and a proud member of the Unorganized Militia Signal Corps, replied back words to the effect that although I didn't know much about that type of shooting, I was a fairly competent and experienced radio guy.

So, I promised to write something up and submit it to them.

I'm trying my best to write down the things I know work, their advantages and pitfalls, and keep it non-technical enough so that an average guy could implement it. I've got the outline, and some fleshed out sections, and I'll be presenting it here in sections, as well as sending the complete article over to the WRSA, over the next few weeks.

It's a simple matter to make an antenna, but getting one that radiates well, and is repeatable, and usable without a lot of technical knowledge, takes some thought, and is somewhat dependent on what type of radio you'll be using. There are a ton of excellent quality portable antennas on the market (and some real JUNK, too!), so I'll go over those, too, along with some easy, cheap, and reliable ones you can construct for next-to-nothing.

Hang in there, guys, and I'll get something up here over the weekend.

As they say in the broadcasting industry, "Stay Tuned"!

****** UPDATE ******

I've got the intro written, and I'm well along on the "Resources" section. If I get real ambitious on Sunday, I'll get the "Introduction" posted. One of my friends is going over it for me, and he'll give me some feedback on it.

Top 10 Mall Ninja Guns

I saw a post over at Tam's place that really cracked me up. It's a piece that includes a link over to the LonelyMachines site where the origins of the term "Mall Ninja" are explained. It cracked me up so hard, that I checked Wikipedia for the term, and *surprise*, they had no listing for it. I knew what it meant from hanging around various forums and blogs, but thought Wikipedia might have a listing.
A Google Search fared much better, and led me to this page with the "Top 10 Mall Ninja Guns".

Now in Days of Old, I did some security consulting for people that thought their offices were being bugged, and as a result of that, I got hooked up with a PPO who wanted me to be his "Tactical Stealth Electronics" operations guy. The owner of this place had this brilliant idea to have a one-stop "Security Mall" where you could hire a Private Investigator (an active-duty LAPD guy, no less!), go to school and get your Guard Card (LONG story on that!), hire his security officers, and pretty much "Take Care of ALL Your Security Needs Under One Roof!". Well, I hung around for a while, made some decent bucks sweeping offices, and got to know a bunch of security guards. Back then, they weren't called "Mall Ninjas", but rather "Cowboys", which considering who the term was applied to, I thought insulted real cowboys!
Some of these guys were freakin' NUTS! There are VERY strict rules for running a PPO (Private Patrol Operator) in Kalifornia, and they cover vehicle types and paint schemes, officer uniforms and badging, and a host of other rules and regulations. To make a long story short, the PPO MUST ensure that his patrol officers CANNOT be mistaken for a Duly-Sworn Peace Officer, a.k.a., a REAL Cop.
This is where the "Cowboy" part comes in. Some of these guys went out of their way to look, and act, like real police. One guy bought a used Kawasaki "Police Special" from the CHP, and bought the correct style pants, boots, shirts, and helmet. He looked scary good, and after being told THREE times by the owner of the place to "Knock it off, or we'll BOTH get in trouble!", he got fired.
Same thing with a "Motor Unit" guy who'd bought himself a used Crown Victoria from the CHP, and outfitted it with all the gear the CHP had, except for the light bar. He had all yellow lenses in his, but again, same thing happened. Repeatedly warned, then canned.
Anyway, I heard one of the line managers mutter something one day, and I asked him what he said. "Goddamn COWBOYS!", and then explained the whole situation to me.
It's funny, but a lot of people seem to want to be police, but either can't or won't make the effort to actually do what it takes to be one.
I see the same thing among Amateur Radio operators who get involved with EMCOMMS, too. Some of these guys just have to have the same style vest, pants and shirt that the real first responders wear, and when they get told they can't, get all hissy about it. Some of these guys even have official looking badges, fer Pete's sake!
Maybe someday the term "Radio Ninja" will enter the popular lexicon, but for now all we have is Mall Ninja.

Pouring Lead Shot

Into my Lead Sled shot bags, that is.

Some things I learned, that I *should* have known.

1) #9 lead shot is tiny!
It came streaming out of the 25lb sack like sugar on steroids.
I couldn't control it, and wound up with 10 pounds in the Caldwell bag before I could stop it, and wound up with a handful scattered all over the place.

2) It doesn't pour back out of the Caldwell sack as easily as it went in.
Another handful or two all over the place.

3) If you do this, make sure you have a BIG pan underneath to catch all the shot you will spill.
I tried using the big styrofoam box our latest order from Omaha Steaks came in, and it was barely big enough.

4) Even if you use a scale to weigh the bags as you pour the shot in, the first bag will be heavier than the last (see #1).

5) Next time, buy "BB" size shot as it's much easier to handle!