Meanwhile, back at the mead hall...

Just a nice pic from last Saturday, when everyone (except the photographer) suddenly went for a refill.

50 Years Ago, Right About Now

... we left the Moon for the last time in the 20th Century.  Article at This Day in Aviation.

Shouldn't be too much longer until we're back.

Bonus posts in the back catalogue: The Day the 60's Ended and 5 Lessons from Apollo

Wasn't Me

I can't vouch for this poster's veracity, but even if it is a prank it still needs posting:

Beyond that, not a lot going on here.  Just the mid-winter scramble.

Cool, but still Do Not Want

Every once in a while something crosses my desk that makes me do a double-take.  Such is the old Soviet TU-123 Hawk reconnaissance drone.  Take the cheaper, disposable version of a MiG-25 Foxbat engine and shove it into a pointy supersonic airframe with a bunch of cameras in the nose, and you end up with something right off of Wile E. Coyote's design table:

Yeeesh.  Glad these never got used for real.  Article at Wikipedia.  Not sure how to tag this one, so file it under "scifi."

ps: I knew that thing looked familiar.  Definitely scifi.

There's a Lesson in this Article Somewhere

However, I don't think the right people will be listening.  Crucial Computer Program for Particle Physics at Risk of Obsolescence at Quanta Magazine.  Top-of-article tag line:

Maintenance of the software that's used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely on a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

It's odd, but it is also true.  The crazy thing is that funding managers too often don't want to hire on a pipeline of young up-and-comers to fill these gaps, and then there's a mad scramble when The Old Dude up and decides he'd rather be sailing with the grandkids.  It's akin to the deferred maintenance problem, but with a multi-decade time scale.

Other than get better management, no, I don't have a solution either.

A Front Panel Protector Cap for the FT-891

After this week's earlier post on getting the FT-891 going, here's one more on getting this thing trail-ready.  Some time back I'd put a set of Portable Zero rails on my FT-817nd, and had added a cardboard cap to protect the front panel when I shove it in a pack next to who-knows-what, so of course I had to do the same for the FT-891.  Looking around for a suitable piece of cardboard to construct this, it was right in front of me: the box the rails came in.  Just had to cut down the width a little, fit it all together, and tape the new end securely.

In pics, here it all is:

Rails installed (l) and the box they came in (r).

Yeah, just the right height.  In fact, made for it.

Mark it before cutting.  Leave some extra for the fold-over tabs; test fit and trim as needed.  Kitchen shears work well here.

Fold over the ends, close with packing tape, and finish with painter's tape to hold it on to the radio.  Done!

To quote Darth Vader, "All too easy."  You can find the rails from Portable Zero here for a price much, much lower than repairing a broken front panel.  Adventure awaits.

Happy First Day of Not Hurricane Season

Sure, that's yesterday's date.  I queued this up to post yesterday for today.  Doesn't change much (I hope).