Lace Wigs Lead to All Kinds of New Conversation

Not sure why that would be a problem in this case, but give it a go.

I was being facetious. That was always the excuse on the Mutthaboards.

Sheesh. What's up with the high altitude today?

The sound you hear is an Airbus 380 going miles above our heads.

That's one of the nicer passenger planes.

One of my friends who travels non-stop for work just flew in one for the first time. He posted pictures of it, and while Airbus jets are certainly functional, they have yet to design a plane that looks as nice as the classic Boeing 747.

You don't like the look of the Concorde?

(Technically EADS [the parent company of Airbus] designed the Concorde, but Airbus manufactured the Concorde and its maintenance parts.)

Actually, no, I was not a big fan of the look of the Concorde. It was certainly different.

I was sad the day the Concordes were decommissioned. I always wanted to fly on one and even though I knew it was only a pipe dream, at least I could dream when they were still operational.

At least you were not on flight 4590!

The Concordes were awesome planes. I believe that you can find restored examples in many aviation museums now although its obviously not the same as flying in it.

Another cool plane is the A-10. My father actually built part of the engines for them when he worked at Pratt & Whitney.

Iago wrote:At least you were not on flight 4590!

Yes. That was tragic.

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Cool story, East!

Cool story and cool plane, but sadly for most of us we had a much better chance of a ride on a Concorde!

Now guys I never said he was ever anywhere near the airframe. He built the engines...

That is still cool!

About 30 min northeast of Sparta, the Wisconsin Air Guard has a bombing range which is generally open to the public. When my kids were younger I would take them to observe. The highlight of the day would be the A-10's. When coming in low the cannon has a particularly ominous sound and I can imagine the terror it must have struck in the Iraqi's during the first Gulf War. I always thought it was one of the military's biggest mistakes to replace it with a helicopter.

Given how often helicopters seem to go down, they may have been better off sticking with the Warthog. Their reputation for durability was second to none.

I'm no expert but the rear rotor seems to be the weak point. Take that out and the entire heli goes down in the classic doom spiral type crash.

You need the rear rotor to balance any helicopter with a single-blade main rotor. Only on a co-axial helicopter can you get rid of the rear rotor, but those helicopters are generally used for hovering and lifting loads.

Are you saying that you do not need a balanced rear for lifting heavy loads?

Point taken.

I have never been a huge fan of sims, but the one that Dynamix made back in the Nineties called A-10: Tank Killer was a great deal of fun.

I've never tried that one. I assume you fly as the A-10 Thunderbolt?

Indeed. The game was pre-3d card, and if memory served used early voxel algorithms for the graphics:

I did a quick search. The game was banned in some countries because of graphic violence?