Not the ancestor of what would become the SR-71, this A-12 was to be the US Navy's very own stealth bomber.
Some time after the events of Dangerous Ground, Jerry Mitchell heads north again in USS Seawolf. Mild spoilers will follow.
1996, dir. Jan de Bont, Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton: IMDb / allmovie
A team of atmospheric scientists chases tornadoes. Action ensues.
One of the desiderata of an air defence system is to put defending fighters close to the high-value targets. That way they don't get decoyed away by diversionary attacks, giving the enemy bombers a clear run, because they're dedicated to protecting a specific target; nor do they need massive endurance (adding to weight), if they don't need to make long-distance flights.
Fourth of Winton's novels and in the loosely-connected series. The Artful Bodger (Commander R. B. Badger, RN) takes over public relations for the Royal Navy, and gets involved in running a horse in the Derby.
A short session this time as I was a bit weary. New venue, just re-opened that day after an emergency closure which hadn't done the beer much good, and mildly tricky to get to with Reading Station being rebuilt nearby.
For convenience, wargamers tend to split history into periods with broadly similar weapons and tactics.
A Los Angeles-class submarine, USS Memphis, goes on an intelligence-gathering mission off Novaya Zemlya.
Yesterday was the second one-day convention organised by the yog-sothoth.com crew.
The Cutlass was a high-subsonic carrier-borne fighter, flying off Essex and Midway-class carriers.
In 1997, an Improved Los Angeles-class attack submarine, USS Cheyenne, joins the war against China.
There seem to be two basic approaches to command in wargames: do you get to move every unit as you'd like to, or are you restricted in what you can do?
The Helistat was a hybrid airship/helicopter combination, designed for heavy vertical lift.
After the total nuclear war, the captain of a missile destroyer leads his crew through the irradiated world and towards a new life.
I am going to talk about plot details, so if you care about not knowing that sort of thing you probably shouldn't read this review.
Things heard, and links, from the Not-Barbecue on Saturday. In no particular order.
As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Kershaw examines ten choices made during the years 1940-1941 that, in his opinion, substantially affected the course of the Second World War.
One of the great scars on the American military-aviation psyche was the unescorted bomber. As the men who'd been on the front lines during the Second World War became the leaders of the Air Force, they tried to do something about it.
Where on the road am I five minutes from home?
I have data. I can check this. (Images follow.)
Here's what I've read in February.
Sub-Lieutenant Clive Royce is assigned to a Motor Torpedo Boat working off the east coast of England during the Second World War.
The Hustler was not just the first aircraft to be named after a pornographic magazine (this is a lie, it first flew nearly twenty years before that was thought of), it was the world's first operational supersonic bomber.
The Same Page Tool is a series of questions to try to get players and GMs onto the "same page" in terms of the sort of behaviour they expect in a game.
Seventh in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series.
The Peacemaker was the world's first intercontinental bomber, and the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built.
There's one bit of the canonical route to Cambridge where I have a choice: from the M25, should I leave at junction 21a, 22 or 23 to reach the A1(M) northbound? If in doubt: data! (Images follow.)
Some time in the future, most major countries have space fleets and interstellar colonies. Ark Royal is an outmoded carrier left in a parking orbit, not broken up only because of her famous past, and her captain's a drunken embarrassment. Then the aliens arrive, and blow straight through the more modern fleet…
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Jo Grant - Katy Manning
Last Sunday I visited Overlord, a one-day wargames show in Abingdon.
I've updated my Academy Awards Predictions post now that the results are in. I called ten out of twenty winners, not bad for me.
Three men find themselves successful, but un-challenged, and bored with their lives. They decide to take on a challenge: they will poach from well-defended estates in Scotland, and warn the owners that they're coming, by sending letters over the name "John Macnab".
Douglas Cole asks about experiences with RPGs played on-line and/or with virtual tabletops.
The Short Mayo Composite was a solution to the range problem of fixed-wing aircraft.