Member Since: 14 Jan 2008
Location: Aberdeen
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Great pictures Derek Its not the height of the fall but the sudden stop at the bottom that hurts!!
6th Nov 2024 10:29 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73121
Difficult to get a bad pic here, even for Mrs DSL.
I am so much in trouble now.
6th Nov 2024 11:17 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73121
PS this train trip. Big of a long haul!
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6th Nov 2024 11:55 pm
nigethecat
Member Since: 11 Sep 2016
Location: Marnoch
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I would ask if you visited all the "Swing States"? but I think the evidence from your visitations has become very clear I want to see the sweets before I get into your windowless van... I'm not stupid!
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7th Nov 2024 9:50 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
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U mean the Swung States!!
Every time I see Trump speaking I think of that Trumpy Trout. It’s an image I can’t get out of my head!!
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7th Nov 2024 12:38 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
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And greetings from New Orleans, on National Fried Chuck Day according to the TV. Loooooooooooooong train ride down here, sleeper “roomette” on an Amtrak so can lie out but was glad to be here.
Yesterday was pretty much all day at the Nat WW2 museum, riding the 5 minute ferry across the Mississippi River, and back. Mrs DSL’s a bit disappointed we haven’t seen any gators but there is time yet. Went out for scoff last night, it’s a bit sleazy and didn’t stay out much after dark, deffo our least fave city so far.
Getting rest of to-do stuff done here today as Hurricane (now Tropical Storm) Raphael is due to sling a load of rain our way tomorrow. Plus glad we’re hugging the Mexican border (ish) as from top of New Mexico up is big time snow, up to 42” in places!!
Gratuitous pic of B-17 hanging around.
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C-47, not unlike the one we slept to in WA many moons ago. Except this one doesn’t have a kitchen in the back and shower behind the cockpit.
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Finally as a nod to us Brits, though the US did fly spitfires themselves back in the day.
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Bit more culture, and tram streetcar riding, today. Which is better than the laundry day we’d planned. That can wait. It might keep the gators away!
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10th Nov 2024 8:27 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
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Getting a bit dodgy here, one of these was not far from us. Like a street across and a few up.
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I might be able to help NOPD as this veeeeehickle is deffo suspect!
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We’re getting a lot of rain at the mo, Rafael is just spinning around in the Gulf ruining the weather here. First officially miserable day of the jolly.
10th Nov 2024 2:13 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
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And greetings from Houston, in the Great State of Texas. Latter part of that needs to be said in a John Wayne voice. Sun is going down, wine is served and all is well with the world.
Gratuitous sunset pano from a few mins ago.
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In the medical area, never seen so many hospitals in one place!
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And a few sweet ducks from the ponds in Herrmann Park. Would have been rude not to include them.
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Re New Orleans, glad to be out of there. Did not like it one bit, it’s grim with a capital G, R, I and M! Not many places we’d not return to, NO is on #1 that list! Long AMTRAK ride yesterday, was glad to get to our hotel here. Too late for lounge food, instead hit the bar for a light snack and a glass of VC. Note Mrs DSL tucking in without delay, it was a long day and we were hungry!
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Hire car is in the hotel’s garage ready to head down to Johnston Space Centre tomorrow, full day of astronautical fun and frolics planned. Mind you, they’ll need to dig out the heavy lift boosters to get me into space! Should be lots of pics of space type things, normal service will be resumed.
12th Nov 2024 11:48 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73121
Looooooooong day today. First proper foray into Houston traffic, first time navigating (well following Suzie SatNag) various Interstates around Houston, making sure we avoid the Toll roads. I haven’t done US big roads since the early naughties, luckily now I have Mrs DSL riding shotgun and making sure I stick to the right side of the road, literally! Rental car is a Chevy Malibu, it has a boot and works CarPlay so happy days.
Today was spent all day at Johnston Space centre so needless to say a few pics. Great pair of T-38s on the way in.
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And the 747/Shuttle (latter a mock-up) up front and centre. This is one of 2 747s that did this job, the other one is over in Palmdale CA, and is on the To-Do schedule.
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And to the ultimate big boys toy, the good old Saturn V rocket. And this one is the only one that’s flight certified! Bung some LOX in there, point it in the right direction and The Moon here we come. It’s actually bits from Apollos 18, 19 and 20 so never got to fly. It’s truest mahooooooosive and in a big shed. Alongside a few Texas Longhorn cows cattle.
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We were there when it was pretty quiet, it can get a bit packed on w/ends in the summer.
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Then back and straight off for the historic Mission Control tour. The actual place where the Apollo missions were ran, incl Apollo 13. All it needed was Gene Kranz in there with his signature waste-coat. We had a chat with one of the Cust Service peeps (weirdly she was from Berwick upon Tweed) and she told us that Kranz still regularly pops in, wearing his waste-coat, to check all was good and do talks & Q&As.
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As someone who is old enough to remember the moon landings it was like reliving a chunk of history. Re the 66 Sea King, we saw that almost 2 years ago on the USS Hornet on a prev trip, well kind of. It was the one painted up as 66 for the Apollo 13 movie. It got taken out of service shortly after filming so kept the paint scheme.
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And now for something completely different, the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Lab. A massive great swimming pool where Astronauts and Ass-Cans (yes, that’s the official title of trainee wanna-be astronauts) do micro-grav training. At the time we were there, 2 Ass-Cans were in there from ESA, one Spanish and a Swiss. Difficult to get pics of as it just looks like a giant hotel pool.
A couple of the present capsules for training. First SpaceX one then the Boeing one, if I got that right.
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The area of the pool that has a black cover is currently used for a DoD project, much secretness and nothing to do with aliens. Allegedly!
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In this pic there are 4 divers and an AC (being kind and not calling him an Ass-Can), just impossible to see.
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Easier to see on the screen but didn’t think to take a pic until there was no-one in the shot.
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No pics of the only simulator we could try, the restroom sim. Skipped the selfie opertunity!
And to a lab where they do engineering mock ups of stations, vehicles (space and surface), incl the Artemis Gateway station that’s due to be built to orbit the moon in prep for the Mars mission. Subject to Artemis surviving Musk’s scalpel.
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I’m assuming this is Boeing’s attempt at humour!!
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And part of a mock-up of the Soyuz vehicle. The top of it is a mock-up but the lower part is an actual Soyuz capsule that went into space and returned. That got added to Apollo 11 capsule in the list of space vehicles touched. And 3 peeps returned to Earth in that!
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Ah, make that the 3rd as there was a Soyuz capsule in the tank & aircraft museum in Warsaw.
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And a few last pics. A couple of rovers, the first as seen driven by Matt Damon in The Martion.
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Scary NASA robot. Very Iron Woman.
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747/Shuttle combo.
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Lunar rover and the crew capsule from Apollo 17.
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We were flagging by then, gift shop had closed and explorers were due to be evicted in 10 minutes so we headed for the traffic. Final shot of the SpaceX Falcon rocket thingie as seen from the car on heading off.
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Busy day, tomorrow is start of road trip across to LA. With a load of stops on the way.
14th Nov 2024 3:14 am
Gareth Site Moderator
Member Since: 07 Dec 2004
Location: Bramhall
Posts: 26779
That is very interesting. We’ve been to Kennedy Space Centre in Florida a few years ago.
14th Nov 2024 7:10 am
Moo D3 Decade
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I've been to Kennedy Space Centre a few times. I still find it incredible what they did with the space program so quickly after the war. Those astronauts strapping themselves onto those rockets had real guts.D4 HSE EU6 (Known as Jeeves)
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14th Nov 2024 10:18 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73121
Also went to Kennedy about 20 years ago, it’s on the to-do-again list with SWMBO. Off to San Antonio today, going to try and take the “normal” road rather than the freeway, but first pop in here https://lonestarflight.org/ as we’re virtually passing it and it’s half price today. Half price = more to spend on merch. Also it’s right next to where astronauts fly their T-38s, they might have laid in an airshow for us.
14th Nov 2024 1:38 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73121
And a “few” pics from the Lone Stat Flight Museum. Absolutely fantastic little aircraft museum, all the exhibits looked like they came out the factory yesterday. And lots of them actually fly!
SWEEEEEEEEET! Bear on a Steerman.
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Gorgeous TA-4J that last flew 3 weeks ago. And is for sale! Sadly they don’t take credit card or cheques but would be handy for this trip.
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Also notice tail bit of O-1A Bird Dog. It “served” in the Vietnam/SE Asia war as part of the Raven FACs. Think equiv of Misty FACs over Ho Chi Minh Trail but in little prop planes cf twin seat supersonic F-100Fs. Not sure if mad or brave.
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And while talking re SE War, a gorgeous A-1 Sandy. Seen a fair few of these on my travels, mostly in Vietnam and Thailand, but this one was the best looking by a long chalk.
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Some more prop stuff from bye gone days.
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Me flying a fimulator in F-18 mode.
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Not sure I’d fit in this sim, a real sim that helped train 500,000 pilots in WW2. Defo sweet looking.
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First sighting for me, Predator drone.
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And some NASA stuff. Rover as seen yesterday and The Martian, just no holes cut in the roof and Matt Damon falling through to David Bowie.
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And yet another very strange NASA robot. Very strange indeed!
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And the Vomit Comet 707 zero G a/c outside. Notice blue skies. Good for watching 2 x F-16s playing over the Ellington field.
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But the cherry on the cake, the B-25 Mitchell in Doolittle colours that regularly flies. This B-25 flew last year to Palmdale for the first flight of the new B-21 Raider. We’ll be near Palmdale plant in a week or so, who do I email to arrange a B-21 fly past?
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Lovely to see all the drip trays under most of the a/c, that means real engines and could be airworthy.
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And the cream on the cherry on the cake? We were chatting with one of the volunteers, chewing the fat re aircraft, and he invited us up into the Mitchell. FANTASTIC!
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And that’s all folks from today, the rest of the day was battling freeway traffic on I45 & I10. Scary stuff at times.
15th Nov 2024 2:14 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73121
Enjoying a nice cup of coffee with deffo the best view EVER! But my interests make me biased.
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And it’s yet another BOOOOOOOOOTIFUL day. A teaser pic.
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And we thank the USAF for the air show. F-16s, A-10s and Pave Hawks. All while enjoying a cuppa.
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