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What was supposed to be a two week road trip turned into a five week journey, and a right costly one at that.  Hopefully things will settle down for a few weeks.

Here’s a collection of some of my best salvos from the past couple months.

On this day in 1987, the USS Stark (FFG-31) was operating in the Persian Gulf near the exclusion zone declared because of the ongoing Iran-Iraq War. An Iraqi Mirage F1 launched two Exocet anti-ship missiles at the Stark. Both impacted the port side of Stark. The first failed to explode, but flaming fragments of its unburned propellant ignited fires. The second missile’s warhead exploded.

The Stark was badly crippled. It would take 24 hours to extinguish the blaze. 37 American Sailors died, and a further 21 were injured.  The Stark’s captain, Captain Glenn Brindel, would be relieved of command for failure to defend his ship. He shortly thereafter retired.

The Stark would limp under her own power to Bahrain, where she underwent temporary repairs alongside the destroyer tender USS Acadia (AD-42).

She would then travel to Pascagoula, MS for her definitive repairs.

After repairs, Stark rejoined the fleet until her decommissioning in 1999, and scrapping in 2006.

The Stark was non-mission capable after the attack. But she should have been a loss. The sterling damage control efforts of her crew were very closely studied by the Navy. Many lessons had been learned from the loss of HMS Sheffield in the Falklands, and had been incorporated into US Navy damage control training. And those lessons, as well as new lessons learned the hard way aboard Stark would be further tested in later years, notably aboard USS Princeton, USS Tripoli, and USS Cole.

So, the Friday before Easter, I set forth from Palm Desert, and headed north. A quick swing by my sister’s place in Orange County, and then up the 5. I was headed to Oregon, for to help my niece. She’s a mother of three, and wanted to attend her bestie’s wedding as maid of honor. Rather than her husband having to take a week off work, if I was there, he could keep working, and the kid’s schedule would face minimal disruption. Plus, it’s always good to spend time with family.

After facing terrible traffic in LA (even by LA standards) I was far short of my mileage target on the first day, and had to drive an extra long way on Saturday. Still and all, no major issues on the trip up.

And the stay in Oregon was good, overall. Dealing with a teen, a tween, and a toddler is a challenge, and since I don’t have kids, it was even more so. Still, they’re all basically good kids, and no one died or was arrested. Which is pretty much the extent of what I promised my niece in terms of child care.

Said niece and hubby live on was is essentially a small farm. I’ve worked on a farm. And hated it. Thankfully, there was no expectation that I would do the farm work. Still, I felt compelled to make a social call upon all the critters.

They also have dogs. While I love my cat Sox, I’ll admit that I cheat on him and pet every dog I can.

And if a bar cat wants to be friendly, who am I to say no?

Farm life isn’t always pretty, and a couple of the lambs faced serious injury during my tenure. But excellent care from the local vet was on hand, and they’re making a good recovery.

A friend’s dog thought the lamb was an exceptionally cool squeaky toy. Oops.

I did find a bit of time to enjoy the local attractions.

First up was the Tillamook Air Museum. Sadly, it seems to be in decline, with its collection much diminished from when I last visited 7 years ago. Still, it’s housed in an old blimp hangar, as it was a WWII Naval Air Station responsible for patrolling the western shore for Japanese subs.

Since Tillamook was a bit of a bust, I took advantage of getting comped into the Evergreen Air Museum in McMinnville, OR.  Mac is the middle of nowhere small town Oregon, but it has a fabulous collection of aircraft, including its crown jewel, the mighty Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose. It’s so massive, you actually kinda overlook it when you first step into the museum.  From the upper viewing gallery, however, it’s great size is readily apparent.

Niece’s trip completed, I stuck around in Oregon a few days. I wanted to enjoy the tween’s 12th birthday, and simultaneously plan a meetup with long time friend of the blog LT Rusty. So, this past Friday, I hopped into the trusty ‘97 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and hit the road. 12 hours of driving took us from just south of Portland to the small town of Atwater, CA, in the heart of California’s Central Valley.

Atwater’s biggest attraction is probably the Castle Air Museum, on the grounds of the former SAC base, Castle AFB.

And that’s when my troubles began.

The plan was to meet LT Rusty at the museum when it opened at 10am, tour the museum, spend the night at LT Rusty’s house a half hour south of there, and then reach my sister’s Orange County home on Sunday.

Hopping into the Jeep Saturday morning, it immediately became clear that the transmission was trashed. It simply wouldn’t shift out of first, and if it did, it slipped very badly.

Out comes the AAA app on the smart phone. Within half an hour, the local towing service was there. But the auto shop the app recommended was closed on Saturday. And it took a while to find a transmission shop. Which, of course, was closed as well. So, I stashed the Jeep in a parking lot that looked like I probably wouldn’t have the Jeep broken into, and figured I’d come back on Monday to find it stripped. 

Back to the museum with LT Rusty, where we had a great time. You kinda really have to want to see the museum to get there. Atwater (near Merced) is a long way from most tourist attractions, but it has a fabulous collection of
interesting aircraft on display. Virtually all the aircraft are simply staged outside, but they have a lot of planes you simply won’t see anywhere else. How many other museums have both a B-18 Bolo and a B-23 Dragon?

How about a WB-50?

Oh, there’s an Avro B2 Vulcan as well.

And to me, the most impressive part of the collection, an RB-36.

Even though LT Rusty is a godless heathen, he subscribes to the theory that Sunday should be a day of rest, which meant we farted around the house, and played World of Warships. Watching Rusty play on his big screen TV was a bit of a trip.

Monday morning, Mrs. Rusty kindly dropped me off at the transmission shop. Amazingly, my car hadn’t been stripped nor looted. I also found out I’d completely forgotten to lock the damn thing.

Got the truck in the shop, and the staff were great, quickly getting to work on it. The diagnosis was a failed governor solenoid and governor sensor. With a touch of luck, they could have the parts that afternoon, and perhaps even have me on the road by the end of the day.

Luck? Oh, we have luck. Bad luck. Turns out, the solenoid and sensor failed because their filters were clogged with metal shavings. The transmission oil pan was utterly full of metal shavings. Clearly something inside the transmission was being ground to bits.

New plan- find a used transmission, and hope we could find one with less that 200,000 miles for a reasonable price. Under the best of circumstances, it was going to be a few days before it would arrive. While LT Rusty kindly offered his hospitality for as long as needed, I had to get to Orange County to care for Sox while my sister was out of town for a few days. And I really wanted to get home. So, off to Enterprise Rent a Car. Finally hit the road late afternoon on Monday. Fatigue meant I only made it as far as Bakersfield, where I grabbed what looked like a decent motel room, but was in fact, quite shabby.

Tuesday, up and at ‘em, hit the road, and it was just a three hour trip over the Grapevine, through LA and into OC.

Unfortunately, I’d only rented the car through Saturday, and it now appears the Jeep won’t be ready until Tuesday at the earliest. So I need to let Enterprise know I’m not stealing their car. Which, it’s a decent rate, but between paying Blue Book value to repair the Jeep, and renting the car, this is getting expensive!

And I get to spend two days on the road next week. So, yeah, blogging has been pretty sporadic lately. And likely will be for a bit. I just thought you should know why.

Sorry for the lack of narration. I’m away from my regular studio set up.

Via the NYT

Col. Leo K. Thorsness, one of the most highly decorated American airmen of the Vietnam War and a belated recipient of the Medal of Honor for his heroism on a mission that took place 11 days before he was shot down and taken prisoner, died Tuesday in Jacksonville, Fla. Colonel Thorsness, who had been brutalized during his six years of captivity at the notorious North Vietnamese prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, where he was a cellmate of John McCain’s, was 85.

His wife, Gaylee, said the cause was leukemia. He died at a Mayo Clinic. Colonel and Mrs. Thorsness had been living in St. Augustine, Fla., for the past year and half.

The EC-130H Compass Call is the Air Force’s primary communications jamming system. It’s also one of the oldest airframe fleets in the force.

It’s one of the lesser-known — but also one of the most important — weapons in the fight against the Islamic State: The EC-130H Compass Call, a suite of complex communication-jamming systems, stuffed into aging cargo planes that date back to the Vietnam War.
But over the next dozen years, the Compass Call will get a new lease on life. By the end of 2029, the Air Force is planning to transplant the guts of its EC-130Hs into 10 new airframes, dubbed the EC-X.
And not a moment too soon. The airframes that make up the Air Force’s current fleet of 15 EC-130Hs date back decades, and they’re growing increasingly creaky. The 386th Expeditionary Wing in the Middle East, for example, has one Compass Call aircraft that dates back to 1973 and another that first flew in 1964.

What’s interesting here is the airframe selection approach. The obvious answer would be to stuff the mission components into new-build C-130J airframes.  Instead, the Air Force is leaving airframe selection and integration to the prime contractor, L3 Systems. L3 will choose an existing commercial airframe, and design the electronic integration. We’ll be very curious to see how that selection goes.