Fanclub X-wing Series Fan Club: Home of the Dancing Gamorrean

I'm thinking Jedha would have bankrupted most insurance companies to start with... "A mining accident, Major Breen? Are you sure?" "Quite sure, Mr. Taav. One of our subcontractors had some faulty equipment, and, well, you know the rest. Any rumors of a giant battle station capable of destroying a planet are, ha ha! Well, I mean, honestly, who could believe such outlandish nonsense? Ha ha!"

 

The post-ANH conspiracy theories would be great though.

"Alderaan wasn't destroyed, they put a virus in everyone's hyperdrives to take you to a different system." "Who did?" "You know, them!"

"Alderaan never existed in the first place, have you ever been to Alderaan?" "No, but what about the people from Alderaan? I've met some of them." "Paid actors, I hear they're mostly from Naboo."

"Actually, Alderaan was a living planet with hyperdrive capability and the 'Death Star' rumour was a cover-up. It was really there to seed the system with asteroids to make it look like it was blown up." ".......... Sure, okay man."

"Alderaan is cake." "............................. Shut up."

 

Makes me think of an rpg I played with friends set in our post apocalyptic hometown where the characters believed that Australia sunk beneath the waves during the apocalypse.


As for Alderaan obviously the truth is that Bail Organa was working on a secret superweapon for the rebellion, when the Death Star arrived to arrest him he tried to activate it, but due to being poorly constructed it backfired and the resulting backlash tore Alderaan appart. Any claims the empire is responsible are dirty lies spread to cause chaos and destruction within the galaxy. If you listen to someone talking about it report them to the nearest imperial authorities.

 

@Rebecca_Daniels , I like the new avatar.

 

(Future) Ethan: Sorry Amber, its what the Eriaduan goverment wants me to say. You know as a senator I´m sometimes forced to lie.

Alec: The longer this goes the more I begin to wonder what exactly is so "new" about this republic....

 

What she said, @adaml83! No rhyshcake icon...

 

Ethan: To you? Never.

Happy Birthday @adaml83

 

As we are talking about armed services I´m currently in talks for a voluntary service of 12 months with the option of going further if I like it there.

 

Hope it works out for you.

 

Triple Ace, Robin Olds flew his final combat mission over North Vietnam on September 23, 1967.
His 259 total combat missions included 107 in World War II, officially credited with 12 German aircraft shot down and 11.5 destroyed on the ground. Olds went on to fly 152 combat missions over Southeast Asia, and a total of 4 confirmed MiG kills over North Vietnam.
On May 20, what became known as the "vengeful chase" Olds chased two MiG-17s down, and destroyed them both after his wingman was shot down in the midst of a large fur ball.
"Anybody who doesn't have fear is an idiot. It's just that you must make the fear work for you. Hell when somebody shot at me, it made me madder than hell, and all I wanted to do was shoot back."
The infamous Olds mustache also retired after leaving Vietnam.

 

Not trying to make anything political so please don't read into my posting the above image. I am simply sharing my love for aviation and aircraft. Looks like a lot of old warbirds from WW2 included 70 plus from what I was reading. Live stream event on Friday at this site:

https://ww2flyover.org/

Be cool if in our Star Wars verse we do that over Coruscant one of these days

 

Well, you've all been busy today! I finished work & logged in and saw all these updates!

The flyover looks very cool. Doesn't matter what your politics are, you can still love the old warbirds. Too bad so many people are still WFH, may not be many downtown. I think at the beginning of Bloodlines, Leia is unveiling a statue, but there's an X-wing flyover at the end of her speech, so everyone turns away from her to watch.

 

The flyover was postponed for weather, hoping to go Saturday.


@Jerjerrod-Lennox , somebody made a cartoon strip about Arty Deco's first mission:

 

Weather Saturday isn't supposed to be great, either. Hope they can do Sunday; is supposed to be perfect. Good questions from Riki, @Sarge!

 

Jolly Greens are big freakin' helicopters, but these Coasties need a bigger one to haul their balls around.

26 SEPTEMBER 1971: A Sikorsky HH-53C Super Jolly Green Giant helicopter, crewed by Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Joseph Lawrence (“Jay”) Crowe, Jr., CGA ‘62 (Pilot), Xxxxxx (FNU) Hampton (Copilot), William Simm (Flight Engineer), Daniel G. Manion (Pararescue Jumper) and Richard L. Steed (Pararescue Jumper), rescued the crew of a North American Aviation OV-10A Bronco (call sign “RUSTIC 07″), Lieutenant Lansford Elmer Trapp, Jr., and Cambodian observer, Sergeant Chap Khorn, after they ejected from their 12.7mm-damaged aircraft, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) northwest of Kampong Cham, Cambodia.
A little more...
LCDR Crowe, knowing that hostile locations and at least four large 12.7 mm anti-aircraft guns were within two miles, executed a spiraling autorotative descent from 8,000 feet to a landing.
In an interview with his grandson recorded in 2018, retired General Lansford E. Trapp described the incident:
“When I was a lieutenant, and this would have been in 1971, I was flying an observation aircraft over in Vietnam. I was on a mission over in Cambodia and we were helping ground forces who were fighting against bad guys over there. That ensuing battle that went on as I was flying over head in my airplane, we actually got hit by ground fire and the left wing of the airplane caught on fire.
“I had a Cambodian interpreter sitting in my back seat, a Sergeant Chung (Khorn), and it was his seventh ride in an airplane. I didn’t even know that the wing was on fire until one of the other airplanes came by and said “hey your left wing is on fire”. So, I looked out, my wing was on fire, and we decided that I was gonna be able to land at one of the airports that was right there. So, we came in and tried to land, but I lost control of the airplane. So, I pushed the power back in and climbed up over the airfield. Then the left wing burned off, and so we started in a pretty good spiral into the wing that had burned off. We ejected from the airplane.
“Sergeant Corn (Khorn) went out first, and then I went out. The craziest thing was that we used to fly with about 250 to 300 big maps, so we could look at the country as we were trying to figure out where we were. Those all came flying out of the cockpit as we ejected. It looked like confetti outside. As we came down sergeant Corn he got burned pretty bad from the wing fire, and I banged my ankle up pretty badly, but we were OK. We got picked up by friendly forces and I got a nice helicopter ride back to home base that night.”
Crowe’s Jolly approached at 8,000 feet (2,438 meters), safely above the range of the still-active hostile guns, while the A-1H Sandys of the 1st Special Operations Squadron (SOS) went in low to begin their routine of locating the survivors and the hostile guns. In the flat and relatively open terrain of central Cambodia, penetrating the ring of guns was going to be dicey, there not being the ridges, karsts, and dense vegetation of the 37th’s regular operating area to provide a modicum of masking for the helicopter. By this stage of the war, a low, treetop-hugging approach by the rescue helicopter was a well-known procedure, and the enemy gunners would be waiting for it, scanning the low horizon for the rescue helicopter sure to follow on the heels of the tough Skyraiders. Each gun guarded its quadrant of the circle around the downed airmen, waiting.
Crowe decided to use a variation of the diving spiral approach he had used June 4th with success, rescuing a Covey FAC crew up in southern Laos. Rather than descending some distance away prior to a low-level run-in, he entered an autorotation from directly overhead, copilot Hampton pulling the throttles of the twin engines back, and Crowe lowering the collective stick. Down the helicopter fell, with the rush of air up through the rotors keeping the blades spinning, while the engines idled (relatively quietly). The blades are unloaded in an autorotative descent, so the characteristic whop-whop is virtually eliminated, and with the engines at idle, there is significantly less of the distinctive noises that normally come from the helicopter.
With the Sandys rumbling around, strafing and bombing and attracting the eye of the gunners, the diminished but still telltale sounds made by the falling Jolly were masked. Crowe kept the helicopter in a steep turn, spiraling down inside the perimeter of the four guns around the downed aircrew, literally behind their backs, careful not to swing out too wide, where he might catch a gunner’s eye. The Jolly would be easily seen should anyone glance straight up, luckily the last place a sane gunner would be looking for a helicopter. They were falling out of the sky at more than five thousand feet per minute. As the Jolly approached the ground, Crowe began to level off, converting vertical speed to speed across the ground, still spiraling, and then raised the nose to decelerate.
At the same time, Hampton slowly and smoothly pushed the engine throttles forward, to accelerate them back into normal speed and gently engage their drive wheels with the spinning gears of the main rotors. The accelerating engines and the rotors digging into the air as Crowe pulled up on the collective and flared into a quick-stop created loud rotor beats, accenting the whine of jet turbines accelerating to maximum power, announcing their arrival to all. But the helicopter was safely down beneath the trees in a hover, and the telltale was too late to help the gunners acquire their target. This tight spiral autorotative descent and recovery to a hover requires a superior feel for the helicopter, and exquisite coordination with the copilot to return the rotors to engine-driven flight smoothly at just the right instant. Done right, the procedure is a dramatic and breathtaking maneuver and a grand entrance. But the room for error is very small, and a botched maneuver is perilous and very unforgiving.
It was not a gambit to be repeated very often; if the gunners had detected the helicopter, Crowe and company would have found themselves in a deadly crossfire. But this day it was brilliant: a tactical surprise, completely unexpected, and therefore completely effective. The Jolly crew snatched the two men quickly and escaped out of the circle with a low-level departure. A climbing spiral back up from the center of the guns, with the gunners now alerted, was clearly out of the question. The helicopter received only sporadic fire as it left the scene in the typical low-level escape, while taking no casualties.
During Jay’s distinguished career he was awarded a Legion of Merit, three Distinguished Flying Cross Medals, nine Air Medals, two Meritorious Service Medals. Three Coast Guard Commendation Medals, a Coast Guard Achievement Medal, and a Meritorious Unit Commendation. Hangar 3172 at Air Station Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was named in his honor.
Captain Crowe flew west crossing the bar February 22, 2003. His family was at his side.

 

DRL may be limiting my internet time for a while, but I'll check in when I can. I'm hoping to have good web access again in a week or two.

 

Darth RL is the worst of the Sith.

So...still WFH here. Took a break and was finishing my lunch when I heard a terrific noise overhead. Went out on to the balcony to see what was up... and two P-38s were flying overhead! Maybe on the way home from the aborted flyover @Vehn mentioned? I didn't get a picture, I was caught off guard and not entirely sure if I was hallucinating. But I went back to work with a big grin and frequent looks out the window for the rest of the day.

 

@Mistress_Renata nice!! Love the P-38!!