Well, I’m impressed…

Posted on 1 May 2011 by SJPONeill

One of my virtual stomping areas, the Unofficial Airfix Modellers Forum, UAMF for short, has just relocated and upgraded to a new site and a long history of issues with its host at forumer…with the 21st Century Airfix going from strength to strength and with its new Valiant due out any day, this site will also go from strength to strength…not only does it have an iconic focus but it is also mercifully free of the prima donna modellers that haunt some other sites…the old site will be locked off but remain as an archive…The transfer process has been about as painless as such things can be and a hearty well done to those who have been beavering away behind the scenes for the last few months getting it all set up and tested…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Light

Posted on 3 April 2011 by SJPONeill

…is the theme for WordPress’ photo of the week challenge…I’m on the road this week and so don’t have access to my photo files at home…so will have to make do with a shot of DC by night from my hotel room…

I like DC…there are some cities I just can’t wait to get out of…I was starting to feel that way about Auckland before I flew out on Friday afternoon…just too much too slow traffic for this country boy…I’ve had a good wander around today and not too much has changed since my last visit and I braved the Metro today to get a round a bit more – think I have that pretty sussed now…

I was dreading the flight up as I opted to do Auckland-DC in one hit but it was actually quite pleasant – a lot of work has gone into slicking up the LAX arrival processes and these were actually pretty slick this time. My only adverse comment on the journey up is that if Qantas can’t get the onboard video playback system to work, then I can see why they might be having problems with their engines…

But while it was working I got to see (couldn’t sleep the whole leg to LAX):

I thought this was a bit slow but the special effects were definitely a legacy from the original. Due to the problems with the QANTAS playback system, I couldn’t figure out the relationship between Tron and Flynn, and certainly couldn’t recall from the only time I saw Tron in the 80s…hopefully they will both be released as a double pack in the near future. The ending, I thought, was a bit weak and rather predictable – a second viewing on a screen bigger than 7″ and with better sound might change that opinion.

I stated in Fill your hand, you sunnovabitch!!! that I wasn’t sure that there was much new to look forward to in this year’s remake of True Grit with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon (still a step up from Glen Campbell!). Even on the small screen, I was pleasantly surprised by the new version. I don’t think it is better than the original but it certainly complements it and I am going to buy the book to see which version most closely adheres to the actual story. The main difference between the two is that the ‘Le Beef’ character is not as well developed in the new version as it was in John Wayne’s original big screen telling – this underdevelopment is to such an extent that you wonder why they bothered with the character at all – apart from his being part of the original book.

A bunch of old hands running around having a ball and making a movie at the same time – a very entertaining and light-hearted way to kill off a couple of hours and highly recommended. Great to see Helen Mirren in a comedy role….

Even though I still think that Dawn Treader is a stupid name for a boat, this is a fine addition to the Narnia series and it certainly recovers the franchise from the damage done by the rather dreary Prince Caspian.

Assuming that QANTAS gets its movie system sorted in the next week or so, there are still a good bunch of movies in its April line up to keep me occupied on the long haul home…

No pictures as I couldn’t have maintained my death grip on the side rail and juggled a camera but I went ice-skating last night with the guys I’m meeting with next week. It’s a regular Friday night activity for them and the fact that I had just arrived after a solid 24 hours of travel was not considered any excuse for non-participation. I hadn’t skated since 1982 at the rink that was (still is?) out Kaikorai Valley Road in Dunedin and that was just a single night out…still by the time the hour was up. I was only touching the side rail a couple of times each circuit…I’m still here next Friday so may have another chance to risk life and limb before I fly out…

I’m sad to say they’re on their way…

Posted on 4 December 2010 by SJPONeill

RAAF F-111 Farewell

Air Force’s iconic F-111s were farewelled today at a parade at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland following nearly four decades of service to Australia. The retirement of the F-111 fleet marks a significant milestone in the history of Australian military aviation. The long range strike bombers have supported Australia’s national security by providing a potent strategic deterrent.

The Air Force component of the Australian Federation Guard from Canberra acted as the Escort Squadron for today’s parade and the Air Force Band from Melbourne also participated.

The parade was hosted by Air Commodore Chris Sawade, CSC and the Parade Commander was Group Captain Steve Roberton, Officer Commanding Number 82 Wing. Commanding Number 1 Squadron was Wing Commander Glen Braz, and commanding Number 6 Squadron was Wing Commander Micka Gray.

Air Vice Marshal Mark Skidmore AM, Air Commander Australia, Air Vice Marshal Geoffrey Brown AM, Deputy Chief of Air Force were official guests. The Reviewing Officer of today’s parade was Air Marshal Mark Binskin AO, Chief of Air Force.

The hundreds of RAAF air crew and thousands of ground based personnel who have worked hard to fly and maintain F-111 capability during the last 37 years were recognised at the parade today.

Those who lost their lives in F-111 accidents and who died or have suffered serious health effects from working on the deseal reseal programs were also remembered.

Australia has been the sole operator of F-111s for more than 10 years, and recently the aircraft have become increasingly expensive to operate and maintain. The F-111G models were withdrawn from service in 2007 and today the F-111Cs and RF-111Cs retired.

A sad day as the last of the ‘Pigs’ disappear from our skies…too expensive by far to keep as a warbird display like Vulcan XH588, cool as they are…can’t see Superbug or F-35 doing burn-off displays…

I only ever had one real contact with the F-111 but it was impressive…we were a Territorial company on annual training in late 1984, dug-in on a hill overlooking the small Waitaki town of Kurow…a contact erupted around the bridge that was the main axis and as the defending platoon withdrew, there was a low rumbling further down the valley…As it grew louder and LOUDER, firing petered and halted as everyone (on both sides) turned to face downstream as a single F-111 barreled up the river, leaving an impressive wake, conducted a simulated strike on the bridge, pulled up into an Immelmann and disappeared back the way it had come…an RAAF F-111 out of Amberley on a trans-Tasman single aircraft penetration…

We were just blown away…obviously this had all been set well previously and we could see why the umpires had so tightly controlled the timing of the first contact on the bridge…still, to have arranged and coordinated that, in 1984, to have a strategic strike aircraft from one Air Force fly 1200+ km ‘in support’ of a Territorial company in another Army was certainly some achievement…

A Coy, 4 O South, Annual Camp, Tekapo - RAAF F-111 strike on Kurow bridge In Other News

It’s somewhat ironic that PFC Bradley’s Manning’s charge sheet has itself been leaked…hmmm…maybe he’s NOT the only leaker in the US DoD…now there’s a thought…and although Julia Gillard decreed Assange’s actions as illegal on Thursday, it seems now that, independent of the Aussie PM’s opinion, that Assange may in fact be criminally liable…remember how the FBI finally pinged Al Capone for the rather mundane offense of tax evasion (Wesley Snipes gets to report next Friday to serve his three years in a Pennsylvania medium security facility for the same offence)? Well, Amazon has just booted Wikileaks for allegedly copyright infringement…which makes sense in that most official documents have some sort of fine print declaring them to be property of the/a government…and thus unauthorised publishing, especially for gain, could be construed as a breach of copyright…certainly, that charge holds more water than the allegedly Swedish rape charges, about which Swedish authorities only get excited when there is a major Wikileaks release (what secrets could Sweden possibly have…?)…

The PC brigade got all excited on Close-Up last night over the NZ Girl “I’ve Got A Lovely Pair” campaign in support of breast cancer awareness…unfortunately the haridan fronting to attack this campaign was rude, strident, ill-informed and poorly prepared as well as living firmly in the dark ages…I’d be more worried about Ms Hansen teaching kids than I every would be about mature adults posting legal pics of themselves on the interweb thingie…

A Worthy Cause

Posted on 17 October 2010 by SJPONeill

On the R&R front…

Posted on 25 September 2010 by SJPONeill

A slow day today, just taking advantage of it being the weekend to catch up on some work – I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather this week so haven’t gone home for the weekend and have stayed on base to just have a quiet weekend without the 600+ km round trip home…I also don’t really want to drive the little red car too much until the ding I put in it during the snow storm on Wednesday morning is repaired – well, actually, I didn’t ding it…there was this old guy, see, who jammed on his brakes on the snow and slid across the centreline – all I did was broadside trying to get out of his way and he smacked, tapped actually into the rear panel between the passenger door and the rear wheel – fortunately only pushing the panel in and not inflicting any sort of mobility kill: an MX-5 is the last thing I’d be wanting to shelter in waiting for the snow to clear and the towie to arrive…I have pictures but they are stuck on the camera as I left the (cursed proprietary!!!) cable at home…

Leon Scott Kennedy from Resident Evil

Saw this picture on Paper Modelers this morning: a pretty good effort, I thought, considering that it is, of course, ‘only’ constructed from folded and curved paper.

Also, in ‘tidying’ the study on Tuesday, I found the manual for the big Dora which has been hiding for a couple of years…this means that this monster should rise somewhat on the production schedule over the next few months…

It’s a monster!

After a number of (dis)organisational issues i.e. I needed to get my act together and arrive on base with both model parts AND tools, I have made some progress on my upscaling of the Modelik Udarnyj…this is start #3 after the first two attempts aborted after I found that I had made some serious error s in the upscaling conversion process…anyway, now back on track and this is my on-base project when I am away from home…it’s working out to be a little bigger than expected as seen by the CD case for size comparison…the parts here are just sitting in place hence the slightly out-of-kilter appearance…

First hull formers

It was Carmen’s birthday the other weekend and one of the things that she got from the kids was the Ultimate (with the two pistols) version of House of the Dead for Wii – we both miss not be able to use the Xbox guns on the plasma TV so this brought this capability back – we both really like the Wii because a. you have to get up off your butt to play and b. you don’t have to be a competent thumb twiddler to play as you must with Xbox and Playstation…

A bit of a disappointment…

While blasting away at the screen is a ton of fun, the game itself is a bit of the disappointment…the video cutscenes that players are forced to endured are not only poorly rendered and constructed but the add nothing to game play and are riddled with bad language…so I’m now on the hunt for a better (which wouldn’t be hard) Wii shooter…I did see Marines Urban Combat on the shelf in JB Hifi the other day but we’ve got enough hand cannons now so just want the game on its own….

Nice

Posted on 17 August 2010 by SJPONeill

I see that the lads at Hawkeye UAS have updated their website from cool to uber-cool…(click above)

Also on the cool front…

From some very talented and generous folk in Poland…a new release in large scale paper planes…a Hawker Tempest V in 1/33….

Nice

…and something completely different…

While I totally lack anything like the hand-eye coordination needed to play even outdated computer games, let alone modern ones, I do really like the weird creations that seem to populate some of them…this too in in paper…

Ugly but cool

A little Kiwi ingenuity

Posted on 17 July 2010 by SJPONeill

…can go a long way…

For decades, futurists have been predicting the advent of practical exoskeleton systems as being ‘just around the corner’; I remember reading about them in Look and Learn and TV Action in the early 70s…back when tilt-rotors and space stations were ‘newly-emerging’ technologies as well…well, a couple of enterprising Kiwis have advanced the cause quite dramatically as covered in Friday’s Herald…while there is clearly a lot of development life left in the design and the price will need to come down (running around US$130k at the moment), this seems to be a major breakthrough which obvious benefits for those with critical mobility illnesses and/or injuries. Down the track we may see spin-off designs heading off down the path of the Aliens’ PowerLoader…for more info check out the Rex Bionics site and this Gizmodo item…

XSTOL

Extremely Short Take-Off and Landing (XSTOL)

Pacific Aerospace has a long history of practical solutions to light air transport problems, especially those with s blend of flexible configuration, large/heavy loads and short strips…the P-750 XSTOL is its latest creation, a ten-seater (when configured for passengers) that can:

Take off and landing in less than 800 ft (244m), even when it is hot and high.
Operate off semi-prepared airstrips in all types of terrain.
Carry a load of more than 4,000 lb even in hot and high conditions.

Is this the sort of thing that might be quite useful hopping in and out of short unprepared strips i.e. fields, paddocks, roads, etc, in support of land forces, manoeuvring or static, supporting air and reconstruction efforts, especially for those forces and nations that might not have ready access to helicopter support…

I also wonder how much of that 4000lb payload might be converted to light ballistic armour around the engine, pilot and other critical systems for a potential return to the (still valid) 1960s concept of the COIN support aircraft..?

More than meets the eye

And these guys seem to be quietly going from strength to strength too…Hawkeye UAS…

UAS - more than just an airframe

And now for something completely different…

Not Kiwi…just cool…

475 Coke cans flying in formation in a 1/18 scale Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird…for more info and a great ‘how-to’ tutorial, read on…

Keeping above the radar horizon

Posted on 10 June 2010 by SJPONeill

Real life has really been impacting on my post-writing time in the last fortnight or so… definitely not part of the annual plan which is for 3-4 contemporary posts each week…such is life…so this post is really just to keep my profile above the radar horizon…

On the up side I have been accepted into the RNZAF and I have been very pleasantly surprised at how painless this process has been on the Air side…what has been tying up a large proportion of my time is getting out of the Army Reserves in order to join another service…which has not been anything like as simple as you might think…

31 March is also the end of the commercial financial year here and I have been doing the year end accounts for Carmen’s business – this is the first time I have done it all from scratch and getting all the bits and pieces organised into a coherent picture for the accountants has been ‘interesting’ – that’s interesting in the same sense as the Chinese curse…and, yes, I am getting soft: while renovating the study, I’ve had to shift the computer down to the dining table. An upside of this is that I can have TV or a movie on while I am working as I do seem to function better with some background activity; the downside is that the chairs around the dining table are hard wood and not that comfortable on butt or back…any extended periods of work tends to become feats of endurance…like I said, getting soft…

Winter’s first snow 9 June 2010

Winter is quite clearly here now so we’ll also gearing up to run the guest house over the ski season so we’re doing final tidy-up and touch-up projects around the property before the season opens…

I’m off to a workshop on aspects of hybrid war next week (touch wood and so long as the snow doesn’t close the road) and am thinking that the nights, rather than spend them in the bar, might be an opportunity to progress so paper projects like the Kitakami which is a rather unusual looking cruiser with four gun turret and ten quadruple torpedo turrets, designed against the requirements of naval battles like those around Guadalcanal in 1942 and 1943…this can be my night time away project…

…and the big 1/32 Heritage Aviation Vulcan will remain my at-home spare time project…this thing is a real pig…it was my gift to me after Carmen sold a property in 2008…at the time it seemed like a great project and an impressive attention-getter when completed and on display…as one of only 25 models built it cost an arm and a leg and it’s size meant that just getting it to New Zealand from the UK was a major pain..

…but that pain was nothing compared to finding that it only bears the flimsiest resemblance to any version of the actual aircraft and that by the time all the errors are fixed, I might as well build it from scratch…but…due to the cost involved and the lack of a local market to sell it on (especially since it’s reputation as model now precedes it), it has had to become a builder as the domestic issues arising from keeping this level of investment as a hangar queen in the garage are just too great. So, slowly, piece by piece, I’m building it as close as I can get it to an original straight wing Vulcan before they started to do all sorts of ugly things to the wings…with parallel build threads on Large Scale Planes and Paper Modeling – a completed build can be seen on Britmodeller…

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho…it’s not snowing or raining at the moment so it’s off to (outside) work I go…

Getting it right

Posted on 3 June 2010 by SJPONeill

Japanese tank Type 2 Ka-Mi 1:25 by mrafalsk

Just snippets today…

A couple of interesting comments (edit: made by visitors to his page – I just omitted the names for privacy reasons) on one of Michael Yon’s Facebook threads…

I’ve been in the army since Regan was president. i lived through the drawdown and saw how within several years the Army culture changed dramatically. zero defects was the norm… PC culture was jammed down our throats by new “sensitivity” initiatives. anyone that dared cross a PC line was slammed and pushed aside. when i attended the Strategy program at CGSC, we were fed a steady diet of liberal internationalist philosophy by Barnett, Nye, Fukuyama , and surprisingly the failed Sec of State Kissinger. these aren’t the people that are going to solve our strategic problems. in fact, they are the problem. we need to return to the classics of Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Clausewitz, etc.

Personally I despise Sun Tzu, or certainly the popular pulp interpretations of his philosophies…I always mentally deduct marks when I see Sun Tzu quotes in papers and books I am reviewing…it’s, like, couldn’t you apply yourself enough to find a supporting quote with some substance behind it? But that’s just me…I do however support a return to study based upon the classic thinkers, especially as a foundation upon which to consider more contemporary works…

The government of South Vietnam was inept and corrupt … so it was illegitimate as far as the population was concerned. The South Vietnamese gov’t never won the support of its people and could not stand on its own without massive U.S. financial and military support. So the end was inevitable. I don’t know how much effect we can have on Karzai and his clown posse, but without an effective government in Afghanistan the fight is already lost.

The positive and negative parallels with the war in Vietnam continue to grow…on the positive side we see the incredible dedication and professionalism of individuals at the sharp end, regardless of the direction and reasons for the conflict; and we see the opportunity to get it write through the writings of people like Jim Gant, Josh Wineera and Steve Tatham, all of whom have identified key aspects that might make this war winnable – although chance is becoming slim indeed as the US prepares to meet its 2011 drawdown target…On the negative side we see war in an environment we do not understand; the top-down political meddling in the campaign plan; and the bolstering of a government that only serves to reinforce the opposition…

The Enemy Within

As I type this morning, the news is covering a taxi driver’s murderous rampage in Whitehaven in the UK…already here, commentators are noting the difficulties faced by UK Police due to their unarmed posture and linking this to our own unarmed police force. The anti-gun lobby hasn’t arced up yet but it must be winding up already…the simple fact is that the UK already has very strict gun control laws ans still something like this occurs…

More guns, less guns is not the core issue…if someone wants to go out like this, they will find a way, guns or no guns…and while I support the arming of Police (why not? everyone else is armed), that is a response whereas I think that we need to be looking at how to interdict this threat before it ever gets played out…

On the run…

Right that it for now…have to dash as I have a big day ahead maximising the sun while it has been out…we have had a lot of rain over the last few days and everything is drenched. Fortunately we live in top of a hill and have escaped the floods that hit Whakatane and Oamaru this week…

I have made considerable progress this week is identifying potential options that might finally get us (affordable) broadband access at home – I do so miss being able to listen in on the monthly Virtual Brown Bag sessions at the CAC COIN Center – either through the miracles of satellite or mobile technologies…

I also am steeling myself for the inevitable jabbing and stabbing medical assessments as part of transferring across to the Air Force…so long as there’s no pysch assessments, I should be OK…!!

My two COIN-related priorities remain completing my review of the Mandelbrot book and offering my two cents to the incredible amount of great insights that Dean @ Shiloh brought back from the COIN Symposium at Ft Leavenworth last month…

Edit: This Just In…

Hawkeye UAV in action

This came in just as I hit the Publish button…it’s some of the imagery captured during Hawkeye UAV sorties in the South Island last week that shows off the Hawkeye capability – like Transformers, ‘more than meets the eye’…it is way more than just a little UAV with a camera…the true value to the client is the real time geo-referencing and overlay of imagery over 3D terrain models and subsequent analysis using the Hawkeye suite of tools…all this happens in the field in real or close to real time…very cool…

Tres way cool…

Posted on 21 May 2010 by SJPONeill

Once upon a time, the Hind was the boogeyman helicopter that was going to sweep all before it on the battlefields of Western Europe…

Major Caleb Nimmo of the 438 Air Expeditionary Wing, Combined Air Power Transition Force, poses next to a Russian made Mi-35 attack helicopter at the Afghan National Army Air Corps base in Kabul, Afghanistan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 1st Class (AW) Elizabeth Burke/RELEASED)

U.S. Air Force Maj. Caleb Nimmo is the first American Mi-35 HIND attack helicopter pilot to fly in combat. He is deployed to Afghanistan advising the Afghan National Army Air Corps’ rotary wing squadron as part of the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, Combined Air Power Transition Force.

The 377th Rotary Wing Squadron of the Kabul Air Wing is advised by CAPTF’s coalition partners from the Czech Republic, Hungary and the U.S. The squadron flies the Russian made Mi-35 attack helicopter and the Mi-17 transport helicopter.

Major Nimmo received his Mi-35 training from a civilian contractor in the United States. The training consisted of 40 hours of basic familiarization: maneuvers, emergency procedures-engine fires, failures and autorotation. He also received instrument training and mission specific escort and weapons training. He followed that up with ten hours of military training with the Czech Republic in close air support, escort, formation with reference to high density altitude and also mentor training.

Afghan National Army Air Corp Airmen pilot two Mi-35 helicopters during a training sortie, with support from Czech Republic and U.S. coalition partners, over southern Afghanistan Oct. 3, 2009. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Angelita Lawrence)

U.S. Air Force Capt. R. Tyler Rennell, a pilot mentor from the 450th Air Expeditionary Training Squadron, signs a receipt for fuel at Kandahar Air Field Oct. 2, 2009. Captain Rennell is part of the 438th AETS, the units mission is to mentor Afghans on flying operations. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Angelita Lawrence)

Army Sergeant First Class Joseph Lemons, ANNAC flight medic advisor from the 438th Air Expeditionary Training Group, and his Afghan counterpart provide surveillance and security aboard an Afghan-piloted Mi-35 Hind helicopter on a training sortie over southern Afghanistan Oct. 3, 2009. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Angelita Lawrence)