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[mexblue]

BB:
What an incredible story about your father. My dad was part of the GE team that designed the aiming controls on the later AC 130 Spectre gunships. He met lots of Gunship crews and has some great stories from those guys. One of the controls they designed was to take into account the kick of the 102mm Howitzer which when fired, shifted the entire aircraft...they designed controls to adjust the miniguns and other weapons to keep them on target when the big howitzer went off.

Spooky and later Spectre were very feared by the North..as they were deadly acurate and could loiter on call many hours awaiting a call from the ground for support

I got to climb through a B-52 at Griffiths AFB during an airshow..incredible aircraft. I believe there may be crews flying 52's that their grandfather flew..I can't imagine any other us military aircraft with those bragging rights

[Jazzbass]

OK, time for a break from war photos. 45 years ago 2 guys finally did something that was the culmination of decades of work and hundreds of thousands of man hours of effort from scientists, engineers, pilots, etc. It is still considered one of the crowning achievements of mankind.

Dr Alrdin, showing up for launch in his Stingray like a f**king boss.


Apollo 11 crew having breakfast before launch.



Apollo 11 launch, 16 July 1969


Saturn V, supersonic


Looking back at Earth on the way to the moon


Dr Aldrin looking back at the Eagle lander


One of the few (if not only) good pictures of Neil Armstrong on the moon. Armstrong took most of the photos, so most pictures from Apollo 11 feature Aldrin.


Armstrong after his first EVA on the moon:


Lift off from the moon, going back to rendezvous with the command module in lunar orbit. Probably my favorite Apollo mission picture.


Talking to Tricky Dick from quarantine aboard the USS Hornet (CV-12) after splashdown on 24 July 1969. As it turns out, they were not infected with moon cooties after all.

[Jazzbass]

100 Years ago today - 28 July 1914 - World War I started. Always overshadowed here in the US history books by WWII, this was an awful, terrible ordeal that changed the course of history for pretty much everyone on earth.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand right before his assassination. His death would set things in motion.


Trench warfare at night


Trenchworks in France. British on the left, Germans on the right:



French attacking a German position


Machine gun mounted Harley:

[ausgeflippt951]

More phenomenal photos, Chris. I wish I knew more about WWI; growing up, we spent almost no time on it in school.


As for the Apollo 11 pics. What is there to say? They've always been my idols. Had the opportunity to meet Aldrin and Michael Collins when I was younger; my dad's books were on sale at a book signing of Buzz's.

My father also corresponded for a while with Neil in the 70's; he was a mutual friend/colleague of my dad's best friend through grad school. I've read some of the letters -- what a superhero. He hated the attention.

[Trak Ratt]

Interesting story how the US got drawn into the war. German embassy in US asked to use a secure telegraph line to Mexico. Only problem was they were trying to get Mexico to invade US across the Rio Grande - the goal was for the Mexicans to regain the southwestern states lost to US in mid 19th century AND keep the US occupied and out of the World War. US was predictably pissed and that as they say was that. Remember that a few years earlier a Mexican general/revolutionary attached a small town in Texas. Raid killed a few soldiers and civilians and let to Blackjack Pershing leading an "expeditionary force" into Mexico for a few months to track the raiders down.

Germany was really just following up on an earlier plan that worked quite well. They'd financed a Russian expatriate to return to the mother land and start a revolution! Which he did and eventually let to the Russian's pulling out of the war and eventually the birth of the USSR.

History!! Learn from it or live it all over again

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stylin'

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just your average Moscow night

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