The F4, Nikon's fourth generation and first autofocus pro-level camera system, was produced from 1988 through 1997.

 

--------------

 

The Nikon F4, technologically speaking, is a major upgrade from the F3HP. The F4 has autofocus, motorized film advance, program and shutter priority exposure modes (in addition to aperture priority and manual), multi-segment (Matrix) exposure metering, and advanced fill-flash capabilities. Although the camera is fully electronic, it maintains the façade of mechanical camera controls. In fact, there are no external digital readouts or multi-function dials on this camera. All controls are presented as traditional knobs or switches, although they control sophisticated electronic functions, internally. Significantly, for those with a pre-existing collection of manual focus Nikon lenses, the F4 provides matrix metering, but not Program or Tv modes, with Ai manual focus lenses. It also has a built-in diopter control in the viewfinder. Finally, the F4 system has an amazingly broad system of accessories of all types.

 

The F4 system includes the F4s, which is the basic F4 body plus the enhanced MB-21 battery grip instead of the basic MB-20 grip. The MB-21 grip uses 6 x AA alkaline batteries compared with 4 batteries in the MB-20 and provides slightly faster motor drive. Unfortunately, the Nikon F4 was not designed to work with light-weight lithium AA batteries, which are not recommended by Nikon. When I bought my F4, it was only available in a package with the larger MB-21, which I immediately replaced with the MB-20 to cut down on weight.

 

The major disadvantages of the F4 compared with its predecessor F3HP are almost 50% greater weight, and increased size and decreased battery life, primarily due to the motor drive. As indicated above, the F4's program and Tv modes cannot be used with manual focus Nikkor Ai lenses (you need a Nikon FA for that). The F4 does not yet support AF-D technology. AF-D technology, which only appears on future generations of Nikon SLRs, transmits distance information from AF-D lenses and permits better flash and fill-flash performance. Still, when combined with the concurrent SB-24 or newer dedicated flash units, the Nikon F4, even without D technology, has great flash performance in its own right. Unlike the later F90x/SB-26 combination, the F4/SB-24 is smart enough to automatically switch from balanced fill flash to full TTL flash when ambient light is insufficient.

 

I think that I purchased one of the last F4s to come off of the production line. I was perfectly happy using my F3HP, and continued to use it as my primary camera throughout the production life of the F4, which started in 1988. Finally, the F5 came out in 1996 and I saw that it had reduced functionality with manual focus Nikkor Ai lenses compared the F4. Worse, from my point of view, the F5 is also much larger and even heavier than the F4, with its permanently attached larger grip and battery pack.

 

Although I still tended to pick up the F3HP instead of the F4 for travel kits to cut down on weight, I really liked using the F4 when weight was not an issue. The F4 fits great into your hands, with its built-in hand grip and non-slip rubberized finish. The camera has the four PSAM modes, single and continuous autofocus, as well as multi-segment (matrix), center-weighted (60/40), and spot exposure metering systems. Although the camera has many electronic functions, there are no hard-to-read external digital menus. All functions are controlled with the traditional knobs and switches, which makes it really easy to adjust all features by feel or by watching the comprehensive digital display in the viewfinder. The viewfinder display is illuminated by ambient light, or by switching on the viewfinder illuminator light with a switch at the base of the shutter speed dial.

 

If you do need to use a manual focus lens, you can still take advantage of the focus indicator when focusing manually. In fact, you really need to use the electronic rangefinder, because the standard focusing screen has no split image or microprism aid besides a matte field. Just place the central focusing brackets on your subject and focus manually until the red in-focus circle is display in the viewfinder. The F4's early generation autofocusing system is slow compared with subsequent technology, but more than sufficient for stationary or slow moving subjects.

 

As an advance over the F3, the F4 recognizes DX-coded film canisters. When rewinding film, you can either use power rewind to save time, or manual rewind to save battery power and minimize noise.

 

The F4's first generation five segment matrix metering system was a major technological advance over traditional center-weighted metering. This is basically the same early generation multi-segment metering that is used in the Nikon FA. While not as sophisticated as later generations of Nikon's matrix metering systems, the F4's five segment pattern and software works fine for typical scenarios. For extreme lighting situations, it is still recommended to switch to center-weighted or spot and set exposure compensation, as necessary.

 

The F4's shutter is much more advanced than the shutter in the F3. The F4 shutter speed can be manually set as fast as 1/8000 sec. or as slow as 4 seconds. Maximum flash synch speed of 1/250 sec. is much faster than 1/80 sec. on the F3. In P and A modes, the shutter operates steplessly from 30 sec. to 1/8000 sec.

 

I use all of the F4's modes and light-metering systems, depending on the situation. But for flash photography, it is often easiest to just turn on Program mode and matrix metering to take advantage of completely automatic matrix balanced fill-flash or standard TTL flash. For special flash situations, the F4 also allows complete manual adjustment of all parameters.

 

The F4 marks marks the beginning and end to Nikon's pro-level body support for both auto focus and manual focus lenses, while also providing a mechanical style control interface. The F5 scales back support for manual focus lenses, and converts to a control dial driven interface. The F6 (like modern higher-end Nikon digital SLRs) finally adds back the F4's manual focus lens support, but of course has a modern display menu interface. The traditional mechanical interfaces are great, but the F6 is a much superior film camera because its features are state of the art across the board, including, for example, Nikon's most advanced matrix metering in a film camera. As other alternatives to the F4, one could look at the F90X, the F100 or the older FA. The F90X moves to an early-generation control dial driven interface, but offers D technology support for flash, more sophisticated matrix metering, and faster autofocusing. The F100 is an upgrade of the F90X and has technology similar to the F5 in a smaller package. The amazing FA is like the traditional-style FE-2, but with the addition of complete and unique support for manual focus Ai lenses with matrix metering (similar to F4 generation) as well as all four PSAM modes!

 

Finally, there is now a more or less similar interface alternative in the Nikon digital SLR world. The Nikon Df finally provides modern functions, some of which are descendents of the advanced features of the F4, while also resurrecting the convenient mechanical/analog interface of its famous predecessor.

 

Copyright (c) 2013 Timothy A. Rogers. All rights reserved.

  

(DSC_5919fin1)

I was testing out the capabilities of my external flash with my film camera. My Canon ETTL 430EX flash was fired from behind at 1/64.

 

This is part of a set of portraits I am doing, whereby I shoot a long shot and then a closeup giving two different perspectives of the same subject.

 

Shot on a Canon EOS 1 35mm Film Camera, using a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM.

 

Film Speed - 200

Boasting 339,404 square feet of space, the new 11-story tower features state-of-the-art surgical suites with intra-operative imaging capabilities and 167 beds in private patient rooms, each comprised of 300 square feet of space to accommodate family-centered care. Contractors for the $200 million structure include the architectural firm Stanley Beaman & Sears, construction management by Batson-Cook, Inc. and engineering by Tilden Lobnitz Cooper.

 

Baptist Health will welcome patients to the new $200-million, 11-story facility in December, expanding services offered by Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and Wolfson Children's Hospital. Boasting 338,000 square feet of space, the J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Tower features state-of-art surgical suites with intra-operative CT and MRI imaging capabilities, one of the first of its kind in North America. The 167 patient beds are all in private rooms, with more than 300 square feet to allow patients comforting places to heal with their families.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

www.baptistjax.com/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/weaver...

www.baptistjax.com/locations/baptist-medical-center-jacks...

www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-nov-inside-the-j-w...

Or

 

“Can a photographer find digital happiness in 2021 when using a camera released in 2008?”

 

Recently I broke one of my strictest rules for buying camera gear. I purchased a used Nikon D700 FX body, a piece of equipment I did not have a specific need for. It did not address a problem that my current DX gear could not handle nor offer me additional capabilities I could not achieve with the equipment I have.

 

I’ve always been a DX format photographer. Long ago I made the decision to stick to DX bodies; gear was generally smaller, lighter and cheaper and the DX magnification factor (1.5x) helped with many of the subjects I was shooting. I was happy with my 12MP D300s camera and eventually bought a second body. When I needed an action camera for low light indoor volleyball I bought a D500 which is a truly remarkable image maker.

 

When one of my beloved D300s bodies died I wondered what to do with my extensive collection of CF cards, RRS L brackets, EN-EL3e and EN-EL4a batteries and MB-D10 battery grip. I seriously considered purchase of a D3s body but at around $1000 used I could not justify purchase of an expensive camera body that could not be repaired when it died.

 

When MPB offered a D700 for $375 I jumped on the deal and bought it.

 

My “new” used camera arrived in 3 days well packed in a very sturdy, very heavy duty cardboard box padded with paper filler. The camera itself was packaged in a No Name generic camera box nestled inside. I was surprised to discover my purchase also included a brand new D700 branded neck strap and User Guide, items typically stripped out and offered for sale separately.

 

FAVORABLE IMPRESSIONS:

 

This is a professional grade camera in all ways. It is built like a tank, has extensive weather sealing and is designed with a full complement of switches, buttons and controls to activate or change most of the things a serious photographer might want to adjust quickly. No menu surfing here! I programmed the FN button to bring up the first item on My Menu (Auto ISO); I programmed the DOF Preview button to activate Auto Bracketing; I set the AE/AF Lock button to switch to Spot Metering mode.

 

12 MP is sufficient for most of my needs and a single 32GB CF card holds 1500+ RAW files!

 

IQ seems good at ISO 3200 and acceptable to the ISO 5000 – 6400 level (YMMV), about 1 – 2 EV better than my D300s bodies which crapped out above ISO 1600, again, pretty much as expected.

 

The viewfinder is big and bright and includes a viewfinder shutter to block extraneous light from entering and giving an incorrect exposure when shooting on a tripod. Nice.

 

AF is fast, even in low light.

 

With my MB-D10 and professional grade EN-EL4a batteries I get a decent 8 fps, good for sports and other action.

 

There is an apparent loss of about 1 stop of Depth of Field when shooting with the D700 over a DX body resulting in shallower DOF and better image isolation from the background. This was expected.

 

My 12-24mm f/4 DX zoom works fine when limited to 18-24mm.

 

The Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5 – 4.5 G ED AF-S VR ($275 used) makes a good starter FX lens for this body when you are watching costs.

 

NEGATIVE IMPRESSIONS:

 

The master Power On switch is stiff and somewhat difficult to turn. I would call it a sample defect but have read several other reviews that mentioned this little quirk.

 

The shutter and mirror actuations are loud; I mean LOUD. The sound they make for each exposure is a very solid KERCHUNK, much louder than my D500 for example. This is definitely not the best camera for remaining quiet and unnoticed.

 

There is no Video capability. I knew that in advance but since I don’t use my DSLRs to shoot video it was not a big issue.

 

Live View is kludgy and requires a couple of steps to activate – there is no single LV switch to change viewing modes. I haven’t really tried to use it yet but it is definitely not as quick and simple as more modern Nikons.

 

There is no in-camera RAW conversion feature in the menu system. Sometimes I like to make a quick JPEG from an NEF file and was surprised to find it missing in the D700.

 

Batteries and CF cards are no longer common among other camera bodies creating a logistic challenge to shooting with other camera models.

 

OVERALL:

 

One word sums up my thoughts on the D700 in 2021:

 

VALUE

 

The Nikon D700 is a totally professional camera available at rock bottom prices that is still capable of delivering top quality results for most photographic situations. While I feel that my DX format D500 beats it for most all categories (AF speed, IQ, high ISO, FPS, etc.) I think that photographers wanting to build a Nikon FX system for either business or pleasure will find it a good starter camera at a very affordable price. For the price of a plastic consumer D3xxx, D5xxx or even one of the D7xxx bodies, you get a solid camera that will take a beating and keep on shooting.

 

I think it would be very useful for landscapes, nature, portraits, products, weddings and family events. With the MB-D10 and upgraded battery you can easily use it for action sports if you have the right lenses. It can be the foundation of your professional level kit and then serve as backup when you can afford to step up to a D750/780 or 8xx series body.

 

I think I will keep mine and have some fun shooting with it.

 

STROBIST INFO:

 

I used a single Vivitar 283 flash mounted high and behind the D700 set at 1/16 power and triggered with a Yongnuo RF-603N. I used a piece of cardboard to make a 6” snoot to focus the light to a narrow spot and skimmed it over the top of the subject camera. A large white sheet of foam core was used camera left to bounce light back on to the front of the subject. Finally, I lowered the shutter speed so that a small LED penlight could be used to highlight the D700 badge on the body (which had been left in shadow).

      

After a few hours scratching my head with dinosaur designs, I finally got them to a good enough look.

 

The Idea for the trapper was to make it look a bit more sinister and dieselpunky, in the end it turned out looking like something Dick Dastardly would use to hunt dinosaurs (Which is perfect). I stripped a bit of the set down, instead of a net launcher the trapper uses a Harpoon/net gun, and there's a special platform for the Baron to use whenever he needs to stun or shoot a dino.

 

I didn't build the net trap either, mainly because the set is titled 'All Terrain Trapper' so the focus should be more on the vehicle and it's capabilities.

The control centre of the rover can hold a baby elephant or two oxen. The rear trailer can also carry sections of large spacecraft. Thanks to Tim Goddard (Rogue Bantha) for the loan of his elephant and half his Ice Planet ship for this demonstration at Brick Live Birmingham, 2016.

 

…oh, and also the oxen who were from an Anglo-Saxon scene and probably very confused.

SPYDR47

 

ATHENA ISR Program. US Army

 

BIZJETS OF WAR - APR 07, 2024

 

Amid program delays and revamps, the first ATHENA jet started a series of test flights in early March 2024. Shortly afterwards, the director of the U.S. Army's ISR Task Force shared the first clear image of the Global 6500 jet, showcasing its large radome and SIGINT sensor suite. The ATHENA program is the bridging phase between the ARES and ARTEMIS platforms and the final HADES jets and will consist of four Global 6500 bizjets with radome and SIGINT capabilities. Delays and supply-chain issues led to a restructuring of the program, but initial flight tests are now well underway ahead of delivery later this year.

 

The Army Theater-level High-altitude Expeditionary Next Airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ATHENA) program is the bridging phase between the contractor-owned and operated ARES and ARTEMIS jets, which are already flying operational missions, and the final HADES platform.

 

When the ATHENA contracts for the four modified Global 6500s were awarded to the MAG Aerospace-L3Harris team and SNC, the program was structured into two components: ATHENA-R and ATHENA-S. The first phase, ATHENA-R (Radar) was planned to house a DoD-provided radar system and a SIGINT suite. Delivery to the U.S. Army was set for January 2024, but supply chain and program issues have resulted in delays. In parallel, the U.S. Army assessed that both ATHENA variants require both SIGINT and radar capabilities, leading to the service dropping the ‘-S’ and ‘-R’ variants and no longer prioritizing the delivery of one ‘variant’ over the other.

 

The first ATHENA jet will be deployed to South Korea, joining ARES deployed to Japan and several other COCO ISR bizjets in the region. While the specific deployment areas of the other ATHENA jets are unknown, two airframes will presumably be deployed to the Indo-Pacific theatre and the other two to Europe.

 

Besides the clear threats, the assumption that ATHENA will join the ARTEMIS jets in Europe is also based on an announcement from last year that stated ATHENA-S will ‘‘support U.S. Army missions in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility.’’ However, the program revamps and the ever-changing ISR needs of the U.S. military may have changed those plans or will do so in the future.

____________________________________________

 

Also:

 

MAG Aerospace and L3Harris team to deliver the US Army Theater-Level, High-Altitude Expeditionary Next Airborne (ATHENA-R) ISR aircraft.

~

 

Press Release, Fairfax VA, 22 August 2023: The US Army awarded prime contractor MAG Aerospace and teaming partner L3Harris Technologies a contract to deliver two enhanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft to support the Army’s Theater-Level, High-Altitude Expeditionary Next Airborne ISR-Radar Program – known as ATHENA-R.

 

Integrated on Bombardier Global 6500 aircraft, the system will help the Army meet global intelligence requirements. Operating at high altitude will provide the aircraft greater survivability and line-of-sight, both essential to help the Army achieve its long-range precision fires modernization priorities.

 

MAG Aerospace is currently the prime contractor for the Army’s Sensor Technology Operations and Readiness (STORM) contract. Being deeply embedded in these critical capabilities is core to MAG’s mission of making the world smaller and safer.

 

“MAG is honoured to support the Army’s ATHENA-R Program. Current geopolitical circumstances dictate a need for an adaptable and resolute ISR solution that can adequately address near-peer threats and future contested environments, and we are prepared to execute,” said Joseph Reale, CEO, MAG Aerospace. “MAG has an exceptional performance history of delivering and managing extensive turnkey aerial C5ISR programs in the most austere and challenging operational environments worldwide. This award is validation of the relentless work our employees execute everyday alongside our customers.”

 

Designed to close the gap between the Army’s medium and high-altitude ISR aircraft fleet, the ATHENA-R Program will provide greater endurance, more payload capacity, longer standoff ranges and leading-edge sensor technology in support of US combatant commands.

 

“We have a great track record of working with the Army,” said Jon Rambeau, President, Integrated Mission Systems, L3Harris. “Our team understands the urgency of fielding these long-range, deep-sensing capabilities to support the Army’s mission needs and is positioned to deliver.”

 

Besides winning a contract in September 2022 to develop Phase 2 of the Army’s Multi-Domain Sensing System program, L3Harris supports an additional Army ISR mission: the Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare aircraft known as ARES.

U.S., Royal Thai and Republic of Korea Reconnaissance Marines conduct helocasting during an amphibious capabilities demonstration at Hat Yao beach, Rayong, Thailand, during exercise Cobra Gold 16, Feb. 11, 2016. CG16 increases cooperation, interoperability and collaboration among partner nations in order to achieve effective solutions to common challenges.

 

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by GySgt Ismael Pena/Released)

Greer Grant was a native of Chicago, Illinois. She was a sophomore at the University of Chicago when she met her future husband, policeman Bill Nelson. She left college to marry him. The marriage was a strong one, flawed only by Bill's overprotective nature. Bill was killed in an off-duty shooting, and Greer had to find a job of her own. After weeks of searching, she ran into her old physics professor, Dr. Joanne Tumulo, and signed on as her research assistant.

 

Dr. Tumulo was working on human enhancement methods effective for women. For several reasons, including distrust for the haphephobic Malcolm Donalbain (Tumulo's financial backer), distaste for Shirlee Bryant (his chosen subject), and Greer's own enthusiasm, Tumolo decided to let her friend undergo the treatment as well.

 

Greer emerged from the regimen with greatly enhanced physical and mental capabilities, including the peculiar tendency to feel others' pain. Shirlee emerged with similar physical capacity but considerably less mental empowerment, a result they blamed on her lack of adherence to the preparatory regimen.

 

Tumolo then investigated further, and discovered that Donalbain had created a mind-control device and a set of cat-themed gadgets, with which he intended to make Shirlee his mindless superhuman enforcer. However, she fell to her death while testing the grapple-claw.

 

Stealing away, Dr. Tumulo presented the story to Greer, along with a spare Cat costume and gadget-set as evidence. However, her intention to call the police was thwarted by a bombing at her lab, which claimed her life. Greer then donned the suit, and set out to put an end to his scheme. With her powers, she adapted quickly to the strange garb and attacked Donalbain's headquarters, before convincing him to commit suicide rather than let himself be touched. A fire set off by the earlier fight then destroyed Donalbain's headquarters, including his copy of the enhancement machine.

 

Greer then embarked on a brief crimefighting career as the Cat.

 

Years later, another of Donalbain's Cat costumes surfaced when Patsy Walker discovered it while accompanying the Avengers. Donning it, she began calling herself the Hellcat.

 

"The Tigra" is the historical defender/champion of the Cat People, a humanoid race created by sorcery during the Dark Ages. Concerned about the Cat People's uncontrollable population growth and savagery, a community of sorcerers eventually banished the entire original Cat People population to a demonic netherworldly realm.

 

The two very first Cat People, who were themselves very capable scientists and sorcerers, were able to evade banishment through their magic. They continued to live among humanity in secret and worked to refine the Cat People's biology to make a peaceful integration into the human population possible. They were constantly attacked and required a protector. Discovering that the original spell for transforming cats into Cat People like themselves had been rendered inoperative, they created a process combining science, sorcery, and focused mental power that could transform a human female into a "Tigra", a humanoid tiger-like being with abilities that far surpassed those of either race.

 

This unnamed first Tigra defended the Cat People with great effectiveness, and allowed a new community to establish themselves on Earth, separate from the group that had been banished. This new population continued to live amongst humanity in secrecy through the present day, relying on enchantments that cast the illusion of a human appearance.

 

Nothing is known about the other Tigras who may have existed, or even if there have been more than two. At the time when Greer was transformed into Tigra, "the Tigra" was only remembered by the Cat People as a distant, but powerful, legend. It has been strongly implied that only one Tigra can exist at any given time.

 

Dr. Tumulo was revealed to be one of these modern Cat People. When members of HYDRA tracked Tumolo down to obtain "the Final Secret" (the Black Death plague, which was another creation of the first two Cat People), Greer once again donned the Cat costume and drove them off. However, she was mortally injured by a blast from one of their alpha radiation pistols.

 

Greer regained consciousness in a Baja California cave, surrounded by a gathering of Cat People summoned by Tumolo. Rapidly dying from the radiation's effects, Greer was offered one last hope of survival: a combination of ancient science, sorcery, and mental power that would transform her into Tigra, the Cat People's legendary half-human, half-cat warrior. She readily consented, began wearing only her black bikini from this time on, and arose from the ceremony as a superhumanly-powered human-animal hybrid. Striped fur covered her entire body, her hands and feet bore razor-sharp claws, her teeth became long and pointed, and her eyes were now cat's eyes. In addition to superhuman strength and senses, she also gained many of the drives and instincts of a cat. Soon after, she encountered the Werewolf.

 

Though initially unable to change back to her human self, Tigra received from the Cat People a mystical cat-headed amulet that allowed her to first create the illusion of her human form and later to change at will. She seldom made use of it, preferring her feline superpowered form and mostly abandoning her life as Greer Grant Nelson.

 

Greer resumed her superhero career, with most of the world unaware that the woman who briefly fought crime as the Cat was now the feline Tigra. She fought alongside most of Marvel's heavy-hitters in wide-ranging adventures. She first battled Kraven the Hunter, and then teamed with Spider-Man against Kraven. She also became a friend and associate of the Fantastic Four.

 

When the Avengers found themselves shorthanded, Moondragon used her mental powers to compel a dozen unaffiliated heroes (apparently selected at random) to travel to Avengers Mansion and audition for the vacant position. Though he disapproved of Moondragon's methods, Captain America offered Tigra a spot on the team.

 

Although Tigra's first tenure with the Avengers was brief, she served well. She also aided the X-Men against Deathbird. Her time with the Avengers was highlighted by her saving the world from destruction by the Molecule Man single-handed, who intended to consume the planet's energy, like Galactus. Alone among the Avengers, she was able to get close enough to him to talk him out of his plan. She convinced him to seek help from a therapist and the Molecule Man has ceased to be a threat to this day.

 

The Avengers fought the Ghost Rider, who blasted the team with his terror-inducing hellfire. The nature of Tigra's powers caused her to be affected by the exposure on a far deeper level than her teammates. She was left with great self-doubts about her qualifications as a member of Earth's premier superhero team, particularly alongside such heavy-hitters as Thor and Iron Man. Ultimately she resigned her membership, leaving the team on good terms.

 

She resumed her modeling career, moving to San Francisco when employers on the East Coast proved unreceptive to the idea of a cat person model. There she befriended private investigator Jessica Drew, and aided her on several cases, but had no better luck with modeling work there than on the East Coast and accepted an offer from the Vision to become a founding member of the Avengers' new West Coast-based team. Alongside the new West Coast Avengers, she fought Graviton, and became a close friend of Wonder Man. She also began a flirtation with Henry Pym.

 

While with the West Coast Avengers, she seemed to have shed the remainders of her hellfire-induced self-doubt. However, the cat-like aspects of her personality (such as a penchant for savagery and a need for affection) had begun to dominate her human intellect, causing her increasing distress. She sought help from her Avengers teammates in overcoming the "cat" side of her personality, which had caused her to become the lover of both Wonder Man and Henry Pym. She also encountered and fought the Werewolf. She was transported with the West Coast Avengers by Balkatar to the realm of the Cat People. Ultimately, she came into contact with the banished colony of Cat People, whose king agreed to resolve her crisis in exchange for carrying out her historical function by murdering the Cat People's longtime foe, Master Pandemonium.

 

Though she initially accepted their terms, when the critical moment came at an arena in the Cat People's realm, Tigra refused to violate the Avengers' code against killing, and failed to kill Master Pandemonium. The Cat People stripped her of her "Tigra soul" (the peculiar articulation of her Tigra powers in this demonic realm). She was reduced to her normal, pre-transformation human state.

 

The Hellcat, who had accompanied Greer and the West Coast Avengers, lent Greer the super-suit that she used to wear as the Cat, and a battle ensued. As the tide began to turn against the Cat People, their leader released the "Tigra soul" as a means of confusing Greer. The tactic backfired: the cat-suit had been designed by a Cat Person (Tumolo) specifically to amplify Greer's human capabilities, so instead of Greer being dominated by the "Tigra soul" as before, the suit caused her human and feline personalities to successfully integrate together.

 

This time, Greer's transformation into the legendary cat-warrior was much more complete than before. Her strength and abilities were far greater than they were originally. Her appearance became more feline, and she grew a tail like the rest of the Cat People. She also lost the ability to shift back to a human form, though as before she showed no sense of loss for her human identity.

 

Her transformation was so complete and the Tigra legend was so strong among the Cat People that they immediately ceased hostilities. Tigra continues to hold a position of significant reverence among the Cat People.

 

The transformation also resolved the conflicts between the human and feline aspects of her personality. Tigra could now exploit the full range and ferocity of her abilities without fear of going so far that she would lose control of her actions, and she could also indulge her natural feline inclinations (such as hunting and chasing prey for enjoyment) without feeling guilty or self-conscious. This integration was confirmed in concrete ways immediately upon the team's return to Earth. Tigra performed a sport dive off the highest span of the Golden Gate Bridge, exhibiting no signs of any injury or fear of the water. She also terminated her ongoing relationship with Hank Pym, explaining that although she no longer felt a cat-like need to seek affection at every opportunity, she had no conventional human desire to be tied down to one mate, either.

 

She was captured by Graviton at one point, but freed the Avengers from him. Around this time, the Arthurian Lady of the Lake summoned the West Coast Avengers to England to aid the superhero team Excalibur. With the others, Tigra ventured into the realm of limbo to help stop Doctor Doom's mad plans to gain power at the cost of killing everyone in Britain.

 

Tigra briefly left the West Coast Avengers in a dispute over the Avengers' policy against killing. Tigra stated that she believed by her very nature that killing prey was sometimes necessary.[volume & issue needed] She joined Mockingbird and the Moon Knight in forming an independent group.

 

After returning to the team, Tigra inexplicably underwent another "inversion" and transformed into a more animal-like feline form, losing her human intellect completely and becoming a danger to her fellow Avengers. This was possibly due to the reality-warping machinations of Immortus, who at the time sought to distract the team so as to have unimpeded access to the Scarlet Witch. Tigra was forcibly shrunken down to sub-house cat size by Hank Pym and kept in a cage in his lab while the team tended to other urgent matters. She escaped and traveled into suburbia, where she lived as a wild animal.

 

She was ultimately rescued and restored to her former appearance and stability by noted witch Agatha Harkness, who was an associate of the West Coast Avengers at the time.

 

Tigra resumed her membership in the West Coast Avengers. On an intelligence-gathering mission in Japan, she and Iron Man battled a team of Asian supervillains known as the Pacific Overlords. During the fight, Iron Man was incapacitated and Tigra suffered a deep, critical stab wound to the abdomen before dispatching her attackers and making her escape. She flew away in the Avengers' Quinjet, intending to report back to headquarters on the Overlords' plans, but severe loss of blood caused her to lose consciousness and crash land in Arnhem Land, an Aboriginal territory in northern Australia. Rescued by Aborigines, she decided to stay put while she recovered from her wounds, naming Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) as her replacement. She briefly made Arnhem Land her home, enjoying the company of the Aborigines and the pleasures of living wild.

 

After the West Coast Avengers disbanded, Tigra resumed her wide-ranging adventures. Though no longer an active Avenger, she continued to participate in Avengers operations when needed as a member of the team's extended family.

 

With the aid of a new transformation device to disguise her true identity from her fellow officers, Tigra spent some time on the New York City police force. She focused much of her time on a personal case and in combating a force of vigilante police officers.

 

Later, mystical forces which attacked all Avengers brought her to the Avengers Mansion. There, she and all the other Avengers were entrapped by Morgan le Fay, to live out in an alternate universe where le Fay ruled, fighting alongside the others as one of the "queen"'s guards under the name "Grimalkin". After the defeat of Morgan, Tigra went off into space with Starfox to enjoy the pleasures found there. She appeared off and on, having a series of adventures as part of the ad hoc space-faring Avengers Infinity team in which she helps in preventing an extra-universal race from destroying all life in our universe.

 

Tigra returned to Earth with the Avengers Infinity team during the Maximum Security storyline, during which she helped to save the Earth from becoming a penal colony for alien criminals.[volume & issue needed] She played a particularly crucial role in events when the Infinity team were captured after discovering the Kree's role in recent events, with the Kree intending to lobotomize the team and make it appear as though they had destroyed another planet; due to the attention the Kree had paid to keeping the more powerful team members contained, they were unprepared for Tigra, the weakest member, to escape her bonds by returning to her smaller human form, allowing her to escape her shackles and free her teammates in time to reveal the truth.

 

⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽

_____________________________

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

Secret Identity: Greer Grant Nelson

 

Publisher: Marvel

 

First appearance: Giant-Size Creatures 1 (July 1974)

 

Created by: Tony Isabella (Writer)

Don Perlin (Artist)

 

An Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" assigned to the 3rd Wing flies over Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Feb. 27, 2018. The Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" is the U.S. Air Force’s premium fifth-generation fighter asset.

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.

 

The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 before it formally entered service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite its protracted development and various operational issues, USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service's tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness enable unprecedented air combat capabilities.

 

Service officials had originally planned to buy a total of 750 ATFs. In 2009, the program was cut to 187 operational production aircraft due to high costs, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35. The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.

  

Development

 

Origins

 

In 1981, the U.S. Air Force identified a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) to replace the F-15 "Eagle" and F-16 "Fighting Falcon". Code named "Senior Sky", this air-superiority fighter program was influenced by emerging worldwide threats, including new developments in Soviet air defense systems and the proliferation of the Su-27 "Flanker"- and MiG-29 "Fulcrum"-class of fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and most importantly, stealth technology. In 1983, the ATF concept development team became the System Program Office (SPO) and managed the program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The demonstration and validation (Dem/Val) request for proposals (RFP) was issued in September 1985, with requirements placing strong emphasis on stealth and supercruise. Of the seven bidding companies, Lockheed and Northrop were selected on 31 October 1986. Lockheed teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics while Northrop teamed with McDonnell Douglas, and the two contractor teams undertook a 50-month Dem/Val phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23, respectively.

 

Dem/Val was focused on risk reduction and technology development plans over specific aircraft designs. Contractors made extensive use of analytical and empirical methods, including computational fluid dynamics, wind-tunnel testing, and radar cross-section calculations and pole testing; the Lockheed team would conduct nearly 18,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. Avionics development was marked by extensive testing and prototyping and supported by ground and flying laboratories. During Dem/Val, the SPO used the results of performance and cost trade studies conducted by contractor teams to adjust ATF requirements and delete ones that were significant weight and cost drivers while having marginal value. The short takeoff and landing (STOL) requirement was relaxed in order to delete thrust-reversers, saving substantial weight. As avionics was a major cost driver, side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II. Despite efforts by the contractor teams to rein in weight, the takeoff gross weight estimate was increased from 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg), resulting in engine thrust requirement increasing from 30,000 lbf (133 kN) to 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class.

 

Each team produced two prototype air vehicles for Dem/Val, one for each of the two engine options. The YF-22 had its maiden flight on 29 September 1990 and in flight tests achieved up to Mach 1.58 in supercruise. After the Dem/Val flight test of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the Lockheed team as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster, while the YF-22, with its thrust vectoring nozzles, was more maneuverable as well as less expensive and risky. The aviation press speculated that the Lockheed team's design was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.

  

Production and procurement

 

As the program moved to full-scale development, or the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) stage, the production version had notable differences from the YF-22, despite having a broadly similar shape. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward 7 inches (18 cm), and the engine intakes moved rearward 14 inches (36 cm). The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and maneuver performance.

 

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. The first F-22, an EMD aircraft with tail number 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. Production, with the first lot awarded in September 2000, supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month. In 2006, the F-22 development team won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. Due to the aircraft's advanced nature, contractors have been targeted by cyberattacks and technology theft.

 

The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a total program cost of $44.3 billion and procurement cost of $26.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1985 dollars, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. A multi-year procurement plan was implemented in 2006 to save $15 billion, with total program cost projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill that raised the total orders for production aircraft to 187.

 

The first two F-22s built were EMD aircraft in the Block 1.0 configuration for initial flight testing, while the third was a Block 2.0 aircraft built to represent the internal structure of production airframes and enabled it to test full flight loads. Six more EMD aircraft were built in the Block 10 configuration for development and upgrade testing, with the last two considered essentially production quality jets. Production for operational squadrons consisted of 37 Block 20 training aircraft and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft; one of the Block 35 aircraft is dedicated to flight sciences at Edwards Air Force Base.

 

The numerous new technologies in the F-22 resulted in substantial cost overruns and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. As production wound down in 2011, the total program cost is estimated to be about $67.3 billion, with $32.4 billion spent on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $34.9 billion on procurement and military construction (MILCON) in then year dollars. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009.

 

Ban on exports

 

The F-22 cannot be exported under US federal law to protect its stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 "Eagle" and F-16 "Fighting Falcon" or the newer F-35 "Lightning II", which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.

 

Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the Japanese government's defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of its GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.

 

Production termination

 

Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated, due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after the forced resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley.

 

In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as irregular warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending production in FY2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production. They included shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G "Growler". Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.

 

In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP). A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft, or $54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling and associated documentation were subsequently stored at the Sierra Army Depot, allowing the retained tooling to support the fleet life cycle. There were reports that attempts to retrieve this tooling found empty containers, but a subsequent audit found that the tooling was stored as expected.

 

Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed General Corley's concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test EMD and 187 operational aircraft produced; the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.

 

In April 2016, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee proposed legislation that would direct the Air Force to conduct a cost study and assessment associated with resuming production of the F-22. Since the production halt directed in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Gates, lawmakers and the Pentagon noted that air warfare systems of Russia and China were catching up to those of the U.S. Lockheed Martin has proposed upgrading the Block 20 training aircraft into combat-coded Block 30/35 versions as a way to increase numbers available for deployment. On 9 June 2017, the Air Force submitted their report to Congress stating they had no plans to restart the F-22 production line due to economic and operational issues; it estimated it would cost approximately $50 billion to procure 194 additional F-22s at a cost of $206–$216 million per aircraft, including approximately $9.9 billion for non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for aircraft procurement costs.

 

Upgrades

 

The first aircraft with combat-capable Block 3.0 software flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 for Block 20 aircraft onward and enabled the employment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Certification of the improved AN/APG-77(V)1 radar was completed in March 2007, and airframes from production Lot 5 onward are fitted with this radar, which incorporates air-to-ground modes. Increment 3.1 for Block 30 aircraft onward provided improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) integration; testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2011. To address oxygen deprivation issues, F-22s were fitted with an automatic backup oxygen system (ABOS) and modified life support system starting in 2012.

 

Increment 3.2 for Block 35 aircraft is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B includes geolocation improvements and a new stores management system to show the correct symbols for the AIM-9X and AIM-120D. To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. The F-22 fleet is planned to start receiving Increment 3.2B as well as a software upgrade for cryptography capabilities and avionics stability in May 2019. A Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint (MIDS-J) radio that replaces the current Link-16 receive-only box is expected to be operational by 2020. Subsequent upgrades are also focusing on having an open architecture to enable faster future enhancements.

 

In 2024, funding is projected to begin for the F-22 mid-life upgrade (MLU), which is expected to include new sensors and antennas, hardware refresh, cockpit improvements, and a helmet mounted display and cuing system. Other enhancements being developed include IRST functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and more durable stealth coating based on the F-35's.

 

The F-22 was designed for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, with a $350 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.

  

Design

 

Overview

 

The F-22 "Raptor" is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF. It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The F-22 has four empennage surfaces, retractable tricycle landing gear, and clipped delta wings with reverse trailing edge sweep and leading edge extensions running to the upper outboard corner of the inlets. Flight control surfaces include leading-edge flaps, flaperons, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails (stabilators); for speed brake function, the ailerons deflect up, flaperons down, and rudders outwards to increase drag.

 

The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 augmented turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is approximately Mach 1.8 at military power and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.

 

The F-22's high cruise speed and operating altitude over prior fighters improve the effectiveness of its sensors and weapon systems, and increase survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft is among only a few that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; it can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The F-22's thrust and aerodynamics enable regular combat speeds of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet (15,000 m). The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The aircraft's structure contains a significant amount of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the structural weight.

 

The F-22's aerodynamics, relaxed stability, and powerful thrust-vectoring engines give it excellent maneuverability and energy potential across its flight envelope. The airplane has excellent high alpha (angle of attack) characteristics, capable of flying at trimmed alpha of over 60° while maintaining roll control and performing maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable, thus giving the pilot carefree handling.

  

Stealth

 

The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets and curved vanes that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces and turbines from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzles reduce infrared emissions of the exhaust plume to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special topcoat and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.

 

Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 has a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. While the F-22's exact RCS is classified, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating that from certain angles the aircraft has an RCS of 0.0001 m² or −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.

 

The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 "Phantom II" that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's assertion of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.

Wee test of the E-M1's low light capabilities.

Capabilities of these $35 action cameras are amazing!

Guemes Channel - Sea Trials

 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

 

R/V Sally Ride Album

 

Story Number: NNS160225-13Release Date: 2/25/2016 3:05:00 PM

ANACORTES, Wash. (NNS) -- The Navy's Auxiliary General Purpose Oceanographic Research Vessel (AGOR), R/V Sally Ride (AGOR 28), successfully completed Builder's Trials, Feb. 21, off the coast of Anacortes.

Builder's Trials for Sally Ride tested various shipboard systems and ensured readiness prior to conducting Acceptance Trials with the U.S. Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey.

The propulsion system, mission-over-the-side handling equipment, anchor handling system, and work/rescue boat launch system were among the systems successfully demonstrated.

"R/V Sally Ride performed remarkably well during Builder's Trials these past few weeks," said Mike Kosar, program manager for Support Ships, Boats, and Craft. "Our entire Navy and shipbuilder team have done an outstanding job in preparing the vessel for upcoming acceptance trials."

Based on a single-hull commercial design, R/V Sally Ride is approximately 238 feet long and incorporates the latest technologies, including high-efficiency diesel engines, emissions controls for stack gasses, and new information technology tools both for monitoring shipboard systems and for communicating with the world. Oceanographic Research Vessels provide scientists with the tools and capabilities to support ongoing research, including in the Atlantic, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean regions across a wide variety of missions.

Upon delivery, the ship will be operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography under a charter party agreement with Office of Naval Research. The vessel has accommodations for 24 scientists and will operate with a crew of 20.

This is the second ship of its class built by Dakota Creek Industries. The shipbuilder also constructed R/V Neil Armstrong (AGOR 27), which delivered to the Navy in September 2015.As one of the Defense Department's largest acquisition organizations, PEO Ships is responsible for executing the development and procurement of all destroyers, amphibious ships, special mission and support ships, and boats and craft.

 

The Neil Armstrong-class of research vessels are modern research vessels based on a commercial design, capable of integrated, interdisciplinary, general purpose oceanographic research in coastal and deep ocean areas. The Neil Armstrong-class will feature a modern suite of oceanographic equipment, state of the art acoustic equipment capable of mapping the deepest parts of the oceans, advanced over-the-side handling gear to deploy and retrieve scientific instruments, emissions controls for stack gasses, and new information technology tools both for monitoring shipboard systems and for communicating with land-based sites worldwide. Enhanced modular onboard laboratories and extensive science payload capacity will provide the ships with the flexibility to meet a wide variety of oceanographic research challenges in the coming decades.

 

U.S. Navy research vessels being built at Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes will be named after Neil Armstrong & Sally Ride

Mission: Integrated, interdisciplinary, general purpose oceanographic research in coastal and deep ocean areas.Oceanographic sampling and data collection of surface, midwater, sea floor, and sub-bottom parameters.

Quantity: Two (2)

User: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (AGOR 27),

Scripps Institution of Oceanography (AGOR 28)

Ship Names: R/V Neil Armstrong (AGOR 27)

R/V Sally Ride (AGOR 28)

Builder: Dakota Creek Industries, Inc.

Contract: FFP (Firm Fixed Price)

Contract Value: $177.4M

ROM Unit Cost: $74.1 M (lead), $71.0M (follow)

 

Key Characteristics:

• Hull Material Steel; Aluminum pilothouse

• Length 238 ft

• Beam (Max) 50 ft

• Draft 15 ft

• Displacement 3043 LT (Full Load)

• Sustained Speed 12 kts

• Range 10,545 nm

• Endurance 40 days

• Propulsion 4 x 1044 kW Diesels, 2 x 879 kW Electric

Propulsion Motors, 2 x Controllable Pitch

Propellers, Bow & Stern Thrusters

• Accommodations 20 crew, 24 science berths

• ABS Classed/ABS Designed to ABS !A1 Circle E, !AMS

A Boxer ARM replaces an APC module on a second Boxer, displaying the capabilities of the modular system in the field.

 

The Boxer is a modular design, consisting of a base vehicle that houses the engine compartment and driver in the long, sloped front. Right behind that, depending on the need of vehicles and their roles, various mission modules can be fitted. Modules can be swapped rapidly and this can even be done in the field with minimal equipment.

 

The Boxer is the backbone of ZEUS' mechanized infantry and has been in the alliances service since before its founding, where its early versions (A0-A3) served with the German and Dutch forces. Other countries that adopted the vehicle later on were Lithuania, Australia and the UK. ZEUS Boxers are all A4/5 iterations and are constantly upgraded to maximize their capability.

 

The Boxer is one of my oldest models and I've had one built in one form or another since about 2010 - and even that wasn't the earliest version, I just don't remember what year the previous ones were done. I've had these latest iterations for some time now, and finally got around to taking pictures. The main changes are an overall more stable design and a much more true-to-life design for the different modules. On previous versions, only the 'roof' was changed, so to speak. On this version, the rear modules are fully enclosed.

 

----

 

This is part of a joint upload with the usual suspects, so go check their models out too!

 

- Brian's Gharir MBT

- Evan's M6A4 Jackson MBT

- Matt's C3 Timberwolf MBT

- Seth's Polish T-72 MBT

Listen 🙏

Off/ On 📷

Wave

  

Taking pictures a tool (camera), not a photographer.

The choice of tool limits the possibilities.

Experience allows him (instrument) less and less to limit their capabilities.

The ability to see is given only when the observer allows ...

The moment of observation is the real find ...

Training and mastering it defies. Training leads to poor imitations of the original.

Often the result should ripen, like wine. Although time is the understanding of the mind, therefore it is very speculative.

The meaning of all this is the process!

Find someone who inspires shooting the camera!

www.instagram.com/listenwave_photography/

 

Often we are visited by thoughts that may reveal something unknown ... Our mind many times tries to solve a problem with known methods ... This is its main mistake! The path of the heart opens the doors that appear in our path. It is a pity that not everyone has the courage to insert the keys that are always with us ...

(Listenwave- 圣彼得堡). #Lakhta. #Listenvawe #Light. This small village on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, about 15 km north-west of the city, is the birthplace of human settlements on the banks of the Neva. It was in the territory of Lakhta that the remains of a man’s camp of three thousand years ago were found.

In official documents, the settlement named Lakhta has been dating since 1500. The name is derived from the Finnish-language word lahti - "bay". It is one of the few settlements that has not changed its name throughout its 500-year history. It is also known as Lahes, Lahes-by, Lahes and was originally inhabited by Izhora. In the last decades of the 15th century, Lakhta was a village (which indicates a significant number of its population) and was the center of the same name of the Grand-Ducal volost, which was part of the Spassko-Gorodensky pogost of Orekhovsky district of Vodskaya Pyatina. In the village there were 10 yards with 20 people (married men). In Lakhta, on average, there were 2 families each, and the total population of the village probably reached 75 people.

From the marks on the fields of the Swedish scribal book of the Spassky Pogost of 1640, it follows that the lands along the lower reaches of the Neva River and part of the coast of the Gulf of Finland, including Lakhta Karelia, Perekulyu (from the Finnish "back village", probably because of its position relative to Lakhta) and Konduya Lakhtinsky, was granted royal charter on January 15, 1638, to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, General Rickshulz Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, of Dutch origin. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nuena (Nyenskansu). With the arrival of the Swedes in the Neva region, Lakhta was settled by the Finns, who until the middle of the 20th century constituted the absolute majority of the villagers.

On December 22, 1766, Catherine 2 granted the Lakhta manor, which at that time belonged to the Office of the Chancellery from the buildings of palaces and gardens, "in which and in her villages with yard people 208 souls" to her favorite, Count Orlov. Not later than 1768 Count J.A. Bruce took possession of the estate. In 1788, the Lakhta manor with its wooden services on dry land (high place) and the villages of Lakhta, Dubki, Lisiy Nos and Konnaya, also on dry land, were listed there, in those villages of male peasants 238 souls. On May 1, 1813, Lakhta was taken over by the landlords of the Yakovlevs. On October 5, 1844, Count A. I. Stenbok-Fermor took possession of the Lakhta estate, in which there were then 255 male souls. This genus was the owner of the estate until 1912, when his last representative got into debt and the nobility was established over the estate. On October 4, 1913, the count, in order to pay off his debts, was forced to go into incorporation, and the Lakhta estate became the property of the Lakht Joint-Stock Company of Stenbock-Fermor and Co.

After the revolution, Lakhta was left to itself for some time; on May 19, 1919, in the former estate of the Stenbock-Fermor estate, the Lakhta sightseeing station was opened, which lasted until 1932. In the early 1920s, sand mining began on the Lakhta beaches, and the abandoned and dilapidated peat-bedding plant of the Lakhta estate in 1922 took the Oblzmotdel department under its jurisdiction and launched it after major repairs. In 1963, the village of Lakhta was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

AMR 35 ZT3

 

The AMR 35 ZT3 was a french light self propelled gun used during WW2. It was developped on the AMR 35 ZT1 chassis and had the mission to provide mobile anti-tank capabilities to the reconnaissance groups (GRDI...).

Each group had 2 of these along with 2 AMR 35 ZT2 (which had the same role but had a 25mm gun in a turret and not in the hull).

 

I've already made this tank in the past but I wanted to make a complete new one, so I went back to the drawing board and this is the result ! The gun can elevate and depress and there is a hatch to fit the tank commander.

 

Instructions are available on my Rebrickable: rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-100700/Spartane/amr-35-zt3/#details

 

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AMR 35 ZT3 était un canon autopropulsé français utilisé durant la 2GM. Il fut développé sur le chassis de l'AMR 35 ZT1 et avait la mission de conférer des capacités anti-char mobiles aux groupes de reconnaissances (GRDI...).

Chaque groupe possédait 2 de ces véhicules avec en complément 2 AMR 35 ZT2 (qui avaient le meme role mais possédaient un canon de 25mm en tourelle et non sous casemate).

 

J'ai déjà fait ce blindé par le passé mais je tenais à en faire un complètement nouveau, donc je suis reparti de zéro et voici le résultat ! Le canon peut s'élever et s'abaisser, il y a également une trappe pour y disposer le commandant de char.

 

Les plans sont dispos sur mon Rebrickable: rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-100700/Spartane/amr-35-zt3/#details

Saturday Self Challenge

 

You must take only one shot of anything of your choosing, relying on your knowledge of manual settings. If your camera doesn't have manual capabilities, then focus on composition (rule of thirds, getting horizon straight, or some other way to arrange your image attractively, etc.). The idea is to plan your shot carefully, not take 50 images of the same thing to choose the best one among them. Here is what Kenny says about it:

"...by only getting one chance at the shot, doing it that way would make everybody have to really visualize beforehand what they want, how they would go about getting what they visualized, AND also know how to use their camera to make sure the shot turns out properly exposed."

 

The most important goal of this challenge is to get to know your camera better and learn to visualize how you want this image to look before you take it.

 

I must admit manual settings on the camera are a bit of a no go area for me, I’ve only ever used them once and that was to get a photo of the moon without it being over exposed. I do however like stained glass windows, but have found in the past that they too can be over exposed, just like the moon, because I haven’t quite got things right in camera to deal with the bright light.

 

I normally shoot indoors in AP mode, but when I spotted this window in Selby Abbey I thought I’d give it a go for the challenge. I was determined to only take one shot as per the instructions, so I adjusted the settings to the same ones I used for my moon shots. I also used the Nikon kit lens as I’ve found it’s a lot better in low light than my Tamron 16-300mm, it’s also a lot lighter for hand held shots.

 

Anyway, this is the result of my only shot, the glass in the window is much clearer than my past efforts, although the surrounding stonework is dark, that I’m not too bothered about as it was the detail in the glass I was aiming to get right. I would normally have processed this image and cropped it square, I would also have altered the perspective to set the window straight - which I’ve done to a copy of the photo in the comments below. The edited photo is the one which I prefer.

 

Thank you for your visit and your comments, they are greatly appreciated.

 

Web • Instagram

Exploring the capabilities of my new phone. Took advantage of the “night mode” to capture the Big Dipper. Polaris is next to the top of the tallest tree. You can see the Little Dipper going off to the right. There are a few stars below the Big Dipper are the tail of Draco.

Pictured is A Gunner carrying the New Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) before carrying out a live firing exercise...British Army’s Combined Arms Manoeuvre Demonstration held at Knighton Down, Salisbury Plain Training Area in October 2016. The aim was to demonstrate the capabilities of an Armoured Infantry Battlegroup as part of the Vanguard Armoured Infantry Brigade within a Reaction Force Division context...As well as a series of static stands there were two demonstrations. The first was a blank firing manoeuvre showing minefield crossing and a hasty attack. The second, a live firepower demonstration, using an enemy counter attack on a defensive position..

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© Crown Copyright 2014

Photographer: Stuart Hill

Image 45161445.jpg from www.defenceimages.mod.uk

  

This image is available for high resolution download at www.defenceimagery.mod.uk subject to the terms and conditions of the Open Government License at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/. Search for image number 45161445.jpg

 

For latest news visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-defence

Follow us:

www.twitter.com/defenceimages

 

See Part 1 in my archives Peepz. And if you're in a hurry, you may want to read this later, or in bits...it's bloody long. It's a work in progress...

 

"The Diamond Ring"

 

As my gaze scanned the small, crowded bus depot in Adelaide that December morning, I had all but given up trying to find a lift with anybody from the bus, as I hadn't met anybody on the truck stops we'd made along the way. The ticket counter wasn't open yet, so I decided that I should just wait there until it opened, and figure out what to do next after that. In the meantime I could put out some feelers and try and sense whether anybody else there looked like they might be headed for the eclipse. At that point I was still convinced I should try to get on a connecting bus to Ceduna, where most of the eclipse watchers would be, but I was sure that the tickets were sold out. I hadn't ruled out hitching on the road, but hoped it wouldn't come to that. I was also a little dubious about the weather. It was seven thirty in the morning, and the clouds formed a thick blanket of grey above the city.

 

The day before, I'd checked the weather forecasts to see what the outlook was like and it was sketchy. There was going to be cloud cover in most of the places along the path of totality, but the forecast said that the clouds should clear to just a scattering by mid or late afternoon. It might have prevented me from going at another time, but because I felt so driven to go I trusted that wherever I ended up would be the right place, with the right people and the right conditions. Still, I couldn't help having a slight sense of trepidation over whether all my efforts would end up in travelling over a thousand miles to watch a total eclipse of a total eclipse.

 

So with all that and more whirring around my skull, I let my eyes skim the crowd while my otherware kicked in at the non-local levels, and before I knew it I couldn't help but notice these two guys who were standing in one of the aisles a few feet away from me. It was their wooden case that first caught my attention and it got me pretty excited when it looked liked it was just the right size for a telescope. When I looked for who might own it, I scoped them. They looked a little fatigued, but ready for action.

 

The tall one that looked like Tom Selleck was dressed in loose khaki shorts with cargo pockets, a matching polo shirt, chunky white socks and brown suede walking boots. Short blondish-brown hair peeked out from beneath a baseball cap that made his rugged features look slightly boyish, but he looked to me to be around forty. Standing next to him was a guy of similar age, who looked like your classic computer programmer or science genius. He was more slightly built, had a pale complexion and black rimmed glasses. He was wearing a black leather jacket over his knitted jumper and polo shirt (which was underneath and neatly tucked in to his jeans), a black belt and some well-worn brown leather shoes.

I was totally loving their look. I had to meet them.

 

I approached them and asked if they were going to see the eclipse.

I think they might have been a bit surprised to have been approached but they smiled and said yes. I found out that their names were Gerard and Alan, then they told me that they'd been on the same bus from Melbourne I'd been travelling on. I had been all the way up the front in seat 1D behind the driver, and hadn't seen them behind me in seats 11C and D.

 

I told them that I was going to try to get to Ceduna. They glanced at each other making me feel uneasy and they said that the weather forecast didn't look so good there. It was much better where they were going, the Wirraminna Rail Siding, in the desert, but first they had to go to Port Augusta where they would be picking up their car.

 

It became instantly apparent that going to the desert over the coast was a way better idea given the weather, so I figured that the best thing for me should be to try to get to Woomera with them (which is where I thought the Wirraminna Rail Siding was). I imagined this really cute country town where there would be balloons and streamers in the streets and lots of bakeries. I thought that we'd get there, mingle with the others who'd gathered, and then I could find accommodation and another lift back to Adelaide the next day. I asked that if I could get Port Augusta, would they let me hitch with them to Woomera? We all decided to have breakfast together and see.

 

As soon as we sat down they were pulling out all these crazy maps and charts that they'd downloaded off the net, one with a pencil line drawn by hand marking the path of totality. Others had bright highlighted sections where they'd made other notes. They had made all the calculations for latitude and longitude, timing down to the second, were a wealth of astronomical knowledge and they told me all about the amazing capabilities of the camera gear they'd brought. They were prepared for everything. I could not believe my luck. They even had spare eclipse glasses! They were able to tell me everything I needed to know and I really hoped it could all happen so that I could travel with them.

 

After breakfast I noticed that the ticket counter was about to open and I watched as about twenty people formed two queues in front of the two nearest windows. A third window had also opened but no-one seemed to want to go there and at first I stood at the end of one of them then figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, so I went over to the third window. When I asked if that was the right ticket counter for a bus ticket to Port Augusta I was told it was and got my ticket in about 30 seconds, beating everybody. It was a completely full bus, confirming to me again just how much we make our own luck.

 

The guys agreed to let me join them in Port Augusta and I felt this wave of gratitude leave my body and travel out into the cosmos. As I looked at them hanging out together with their impressive assortment of camera gear, tripods, bags and telescope, with their open, friendly faces, smart casual clothing and a tendency toward geekishness, they looked like my very own Batman and Robin. I smiled inwardly. My prayers HAD been answered! I DID find the right people to travel with right there on the bus!

 

It was a moment I'll never forget.

 

After that I found a pay phone and rang Bimbo Deluxe, a bar I had a residency at, and left a message letting them know I wouldn't be coming in for my set that night.

 

We got on the next bus, me alone behind the driver in 1A again, and them just a few seats behind. I spent a bit of time visualising a bright blue, cloudless sky for the eclipse, and reminding myself to be in the moment, trusting as much as possible that life would take me where I needed to go, as the frequencies of gratitude for all that had occurred up until then filled me and flowed outwards from me. All the seeds sown by reading the CWG series which had tied up so many loose ends for me in my esoteric studies, were beginning to sprout and I wanted to breathe as much life into them as possible. I wanted to see how they might grow, as I did. I thought about Time. Then I slept deeply.

 

"Alan and Gerard spent the trip working out the orbital distance of the Moon and the rotation of the Earth in order to finally understand the path taken by the Moon during the eclipse and the speed at which it travelled. This was facilitated by the calculator in the mobile phone. Alan also worked out how photo exposures and bracketing points using full and ½ stops."

 

This is what Gerard wrote about what he and Alan did on the bus to Port Augusta, in his own account of our travels called "Eclipse 2002". He has even named the subtitles in Chapter 1, which will give you a greater idea of what's to come.

 

Subtitle 1: Alan's, Gerard's and Liz's Big Time-Warp Adventure

Subtitle 2: Port Augusta or Bust!

Subtitle 3: The Kangaroo Did It

 

I believe all time is happening in one eternal now. Especially since studying the Maya's supreme understandings of cosmic timing cycles and mathematics. Whenever I begin to worry about anything "in the future", I ask myself, "Am I OK, in this moment?", and the answer is always yes, so it's a good way for me to quell my fears and anxieties, and to trust life more. I really started this practice on a regular basis during this trip. And I was more than ok, as I was soon to see..

 

When we arrived at Port Augusta, the sky had cleared and a few tufts of white dotted the sky, which was a relief, and a beautiful gleaming silver sedan met us at the terminal. It belonged to Gerard, and I asked how even though he lived in Melbourne, his car was quite conveniently waiting for us in Port Augusta, at the bus terminal. After we piled into the car I heard the first of many stories during that trip that would change me forever.

 

The guys had so much gear it was hard to believe they'd carried it all by themselves and for a few moments I had my doubts that we would fit everything of theirs into the car, let alone have room for me or my scant belongings. After some tricky packing though, a space was made available for me to squeeze into in the back seat, behind Alan who was in the passenger seat, and with Gerard expertly handling the wheel, we set off for last minute supplies.

 

The whole transition from the bus to the car couldn't have been timed more perfectly or executed with more ease. It was a good sign, but once we got in the car I really knew that the gods had smiled down on me. They could've had a big old pick up truck for all I knew, but instead I was able to relax in the luxury of black leather seats and enjoy the views from air conditioned comfort, gaze out at the sky through the sunroof and tinted windows and tell the outside temperature from a LED display in the wood dash. To top it all off, I had just met the two coolest, smartest straight guys I'd met in ages, and we were about to embark on a truly amazing adventure together. I was happy and grateful to be alive.

 

We stopped in Pt Augusta's main shopping drag for some lunch, supplies and fuel for the trip. After some bad cafe food Alan and I headed off to the supermarket while Gerard attended to some other business and we quickly dashed around picking up water, bags of fruit, nibbles, and chocolate (for me). I asked Alan if they'd like to have something to eat later, maybe for a picnic? This seemed like a good idea to him (I don't know if the guys, for all their planning, had considered the necessity for food at all), and I picked out a roast chicken and some salads. I completely forgot to buy a disposable camera in Adelaide so I tried finding one there only to discover they were sold out. There was a Woolies a block down too (also sold out of cameras), but I quickly purchased a cotton blanket as I had nothing warm with me, and hoped it would come in handy, seeing I already had my pillow and I had no idea where I was sleeping that night. All I knew was that the eclipse was in less than four and a half hours and when we met up with Gerard a short time later, it was agreed that there was no time to spare, so we, and the fully-laden car, swung back onto the road and headed for the outback. Alan had a collection of maps in the glove box that he would refer to from time to time as Gerard brought us up to a comfortable cruising speed of 130 kph. ETA was going to be 17:45 at our desired spot.

 

They were both great story tellers, although you could see that Alan's more outgoing personality was more suited to it, but Gerard certainly didn't seem concerned, and I realized later that even though Gerard had heard Alan tell most of his stories several times before, he obviously still liked to hear them, and he often helped coax a story out of Alan's memory banks by reminding him of some of the funny details.

 

I began to hear about how they had been driving through the South Australian countryside a month earlier, taking photos and generally enjoying a break from work for a few days when they had hit a kangaroo when it suddenly jumped out in front of the car and stopped them all in their tracks. Gerard's car had been in the shop at Port Augusta getting extensive repairs done ever since, and as the eclipse was occurring at the same time they could collect the car, they decided (at the last minute too) to come and get it and see the eclipse at the same time. At the end of their story we all fell silent for a moment as it dawned on us that their encounter with the kangaroo had actually created the conditions for us to meet as we did. The kangaroo was pivotal to the whole story and we knew it. I silently thanked the kangaroo for it's role in all this, and for the ripples that that moment created when it lost its life that night, as I marvelled at the way our lives had intersected.

 

Whatever green countryside there was around Pt Augusta soon made way for flat, dry earth covered in clumps of long grasses, low bushes and small trees as we sped towards Woomera. We passed a few old run down towns that looked like the only public outlet was the petrol station, and I wondered how people out there spent their time, and how children, if any, could cope with the sheer barrenness and isolation. Then we passed Pimba. It was so third world I was totally taken aback. I felt like I'd stepped into an alternate reality, into another version of Australia, one I would never want to dream into reality, but it already was. It was quite a sight. We all unanimously agreed that it was a "hole" of gargantuan proportions, a "standard reference hole" at that, as we passed the shabby weatherboard houses that all seemed to be just barely standing, with each and every backyard sporting massive piles of rubbish and broken down, rusting machinery. I thought I'd seen bad, after all, some of my poor Filipino relatives used to live in houses where to get there, you'd have to walk on wooden planks to avoid the mud, streams and little fishes everywhere, but this was BAD.

 

I could see why the area we were fast approaching was home to a detention centre for illegal immigrants, a former nuclear missile testing ground and hot spot for UFO sightings. There was nothing. For miles around, nothing. Just red earth, a bit of scrub, and the wind and sky. I must admit as well as watching for the clouds to clear up even more, I was constantly on the lookout for any unusual aerial phenomena as I'd thoroughly done my research and the probability for a sighting was in my estimation, high.

 

While we drove to our destination we all got to know each other a bit better which was easy as we all seemed to like one another. At first I was a little unsure about whether Alan was actually happy about me being in tow, as the two of them had conferred briefly before deciding to let me come, and I'd picked up on a vibe. I couldn't blame him if it he wasn't all too pleased, as my coming along had interfered with their plans and well, "guy time". I soon put those thoughts to rest though as it as it soon became apparent to all of us that that the extra pair of hands I now afforded them, might've actually come in quite handy.

 

We went over a few things about the way the guys wanted to set up their gear, and what we would do when totality arrived. Then they started describing to me how they would like me to help change a solar filter on "the Lens", this massive super-telephoto thing. They explained that When Gerard said "totality", I had to take the filter off and to put it in a special Tupperware container that they had brought with them. I was like, "Oh my God, are these guys for real? We're actually practicing a DRILL for taking photos!". Say what you will, I thought they were unreal.

 

I know that sort of daggy technical stuff about photography and math and astronomy that we talked a lot about is pretty boring for most people but I frickin love it! And I didn't even need a camera after all! It was almost too much, too good.

 

When we passed Woomera it dawned on me that we weren't going to stop there, and that I'd gotten my wires slightly crossed. But as we drove past it, I thanked my lucky stars I wasn't going. The town looked horrible, with a big vintage fighter plane mounted on a big metal brace near the "Welcome to Woomera" sign near the town's entrance, to show off our so-called military "might", right(?), and the selfish misuse-use of our country's resources by stupid white guys who are all dead now anyway. I didn't see one person anywhere. The whole town looked deserted and felt like a museum you'd never go want to go visit. It didn't look like anywhere I could find accommodation at either, that's for sure. The Wirraminna Rail Siding was another 73 km on from Woomera, as I quickly learned, as the guys handed me the map and asked me to calculate the distance.

 

When I realised that I had no plan of action for after the eclipse, or anywhere to stay, and that I was in the middle of nowhere, I decided to just go with the flow, and didn't worry too much about it, and drew comfort from the fact that at least I'd had the foresight to bring dinner.

 

When we started getting close, the energy in the car changed from quiet expectation to a more intense, hair prickling kind of anticipation. I'd been chatting quite animatedly with the guys from the back seat the whole way there, but now I was nearly bouncing up and down like a child with excitement as we passed the parked cars, then bus loads of Japanese tourists, four-wheel drives and camper vans. The Japanese tourists had lined up all their shiny camera gear in front of their respective buses and had about 30-50 telescopes per bus pointed at the Sun. We kept driving though, for another couple of k's, headed for as close to the centre line of the path of totality as possible. When they explained this to me, I nearly exploded with glee, although I didn't really grasp the enormity of this fact until the moment of the eclipse itself.

 

The sky had finally cleared to just a bit of late afternoon haze, and the temperature was up around 27 degrees, a far cry from the sombre 11 degrees that morning in Adelaide. I was being taken to a spot on the earth that would be precisely in line with the Moon and the Sun as the eclipse took place. I thought back to the day before when all of this had been just a dream. I knew I was experiencing life at a much a higher frequency than the one I normally did, and things that would normally take a lot longer to materialize, seemed to be taking form almost instantly.

 

We finally saw a place where we could park. There were a few people dotted around the brush nearby. Some guy was hanging out at his ute with his sheepdog about 30 metres away. He looked liked a local with his cut-off sleeves and messy shoulder length hair. There were a couple with a tent next to their car some distance away too, as well as a tourist bus parked on the other side of the road behind us. Although there were really only a few others in the close vicinity, the air still felt tantalisingly pregnant with expectation.

 

We began unpacking the car and setting up all the gear. Alan had cut some sheets of polystyrene back in Melbourne to make a viewing box and we set about putting it together. The tripods were set up and the telescope came out of it's handsome handmade box. Gerard took care of setting up his two cameras and the Super Lens and soon everything was done. He found himself afterward, aching for somewhere to relieve himself and decided the only gentlemanly thing to do was drive the car down the road a couple of k's and find somewhere totally private. I think he had to go quite a way though as he was gone for quite a few minutes...

 

I had mentioned to Alan and Gerard earlier that I was interested in UFO's and I was secretly hoping I might get to see one fly past as the only other time was a long time ago, and it was pretty far away. I kept my eyes peeled to the skies, which by now were absolutely clear of any haze and a vivid, bright blue. YAY.

 

During the 1991 eclipse in Mexico City, tens of thousands of spectators saw a huge metallic disc sitting stationary as it slowly spun in the air and emitted a reddish glow. It was captured by 17 different cameras at the time and you can get the videos online if you do a search. Anyway, it was in the air above the city for 30 minutes before, during, and after the eclipse. But that is something I have learned since.

 

We did the practice run of the drill for when totality struck, when Alan would have me change the solar filter on the camera lens. Gerard was supposed to alert us when totality came, which only lasted 32 seconds, by saying "Totality". I would quickly remove the filter and say "Off", and put it into the special Tupperware container, heh. When totality was nearly over I was to put the filter back on and say "On" and he would continue snapping. It was a pretty funny and well, beyond cute for me. We laughed a lot while we were practicing too, so you can see they don't take themselves too seriously. Along with their brain power, personalities, preparedness and 5 star transport, it was everything that worked for this li'l diva. It was so hard to believe how amazing this was all turning out, but I kept reminding myself to accept it, because it was exactly what I'd set out to create. I was ticking off all the things on my checklist of requirements effortlessly. They were the perfect eclipse companions.

 

It was getting close to the time when "first touch" was going to occur and both Alan and Gerard started getting really anxious and a bit fidgety. They made last minute checks of their gear, which turned out to be good thing, as Gerard realised that one of the lenses on his camera wasn't right and changed it. They checked their watches, which had been synchronised to the second (NO! Really? Yes...REALLY), and I got some of the prepared polystyrene board so Alan could project the Sun's image onto it from the telescope's eyepiece while they both took pictures. The wind was up and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold it so that it was straight, but I managed, and they were able to capture all the crucial moments without too much trouble in the end, but how the hell they'd planned to do all that on their own, I have no idea. There was only about an hour to go until totality and I wondered when the sky would begin to grow dark.

 

We occupied our time by switching from eclipse glasses to looking through the Super-Lens and watching the projector board. After 40 minutes or so I noticed that the desert was beginning to look darker and redder. It was so beautiful with the contrast in colours so much more pronounced all around us. Then it became darker and darker very quickly. The soil, the rocks, the trees, everything now looked like a deep blood red. We looked at each other and knew that this is what we'd all come so far to see. The hairs began to stand on end on the backs of our necks. The Moon's disc was almost all the way across the Sun, and we couldn't wait for the last of it to be covered. As Alan was focussing through the camera, Gerard and I put the glasses on and watched. We grew more and more animated as the last couple of minutes ticked by, talking about how it was going to be great. They'd told me earlier that when the Sun was in totality, it was ok to remove the glasses due to the rays being blocked, which I didn't know, so now I was really hanging out for when I could look at the Eclipse with my naked eyes.

 

"All is ready. The sky is clear of any obstruction, the gear is set-up and as good as it can be. 14.5cm telescope, low power eyepiece and reflective board, Nikon 1200mm lens on a cinematographic tripod with a Nikon F100 behind it loaded with several feet of Fuji's finest 400 ASA film ready to go. All the planning has been for this moment. Researching the websites for eclipse locations, photographic exposure tables, rain and cloud-cover forecasts; the planning, the buying, the hiring, the building, the packing and the travelling have come down to this moment, which finds Alan, Gerard and Liz at the side of the Stuart Highway A87 halfway between Pimba and Glendambo in South Australia on Wednesday Dec 4 2002, at 19:40 and 43 seconds local summer time."

 

More from "Eclipse 2002".

 

Then Gerard yelled out "Totality!" and exactly what happened next is rather hazy. I know that at some point filters must have been changed and photos were taken, but what I do remember is Gerard saying, "Liz, you should take the glasses off". I turned my back to the sun, whipped them off my face and when I jumped back to look at the sky, my jaw fell. It was so incredible. Oh my God, OH MY GOD, the COLOURS!" And then I was suddenly going "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" at the top of my voice and started pogo-ing up and down on the spot like an African Masai tribesman, not caring at all what Alan and Gerard must have thought about my rather vociferous, ebullient display. It was just so stunningly beautiful. Think of Jodie Foster's face in Contact when she travelled through the wormhole and saw the galactic core for the first time. Ok? Awesome. That was me. That was ME!!!!!

 

It was so ineffable, so untranslatable, so profound, to watch the perfect circle of the Moon's disc finally moving into place, and exactly covering the Sun's. The resulting diffuse flares of intensely-hued colours that began around the white-hot corona, and radiated trails that filled the entire dome of the sky overhead and as far as one could see. They formed in streaks of rich fire-orange, electrically charged gold, plasma-perking purples, reds of all shades, the deepest royal blues and St Germaine's violet flame. Small fiery orbs of intense orange, called Bailey's Beads, gathered and bubbled around the edges of the Moon's jagged mountain peaks and looked like liquid mercury. Stars became visible for those few moments, as did the planet Mercury, which hung like a small jewel in the sky beneath the Sun.

 

Nothing can prepare you for that moment. No photo can ever do it justice, no words can completely convey all the emotions that you experience or what your eyes actually see. It is like looking into the Eye of God.

 

Physically being a part of that alignment makes you understand just how synchronised this universe is. As I watched the Moon gliding over the Sun, as our planet turned, I felt like I was a both a witness to and a part of a great cosmic clock, and I was watching as the cogs were sliding perfectly into place. It stirred something so deep and ancient within me, my enduring connection to the Sun, and I knew that I could never be the same again. Looking back I realise that the rays of light I was exposing myself to were in fact carriers of particular frequencies that open usually inactive codes within our DNA, often referred to as "junk". What a crock. It's not junk, it's programs and codes that help re-install our Otherware, and we all have it in our DNA.

 

All across the desert, from all the different groups of people scattered around us and beyond our line of sight came cries out to the sky like mine. People cheered, hooted, honked, laughed, screamed, clapped, cried. Dogs howled. Their voices were carried by the outback winds high up into the air where they met and playfully merged with the sounds of others that had come from further away, then they dropped back down to earshot where my ears would catch them, and I could feel their wonder too. We all knew we were part of something infinitely greater than us, that we were seeing something incomparable, that we were part of some vast intelligence that permeates and synchronises the entire Cosmos.

 

The guys were similarly affected and started exclaiming things, which again are hazy. What is clear, is how we all just looked at each other at one point, and with crazed smiles across our faces, spontaneously hugged all at once, laughing. Then they both paced around our site afterwards saying things like, "No one can ever take this away from us. We can say WE WERE HERE", and "We saw it!" We really saw it!" and, "We can never say "Awesome" about anything else again!" I thought statements like these, especially from Gerard, were rather brave, as I couldn't imagine him having outbursts like this very often, and we all went "Yeah!" quite loudly in agreement...and laughing that excited laugh that is almost the same as the one you do when you drink too much red cordial.

 

I thought a lot about the unbelievable relationships of proportional size and distance that it takes to actually create a total solar or lunar eclipse from our vantage point on earth. It is not a coincidence that the sun is 400 times bigger than our Moon, or that it also happens to be 400 times further away from the Moon than the Moon is to Earth. Unsurprisingly, I've wanted to learn a lot about sacred geometry since then and from what the astronomers are saying about the layout of the Universe, it seems nothing has been placed anywhere by accident.

 

At the end of 32 seconds, after the Moon began to move again, the first rays of light emerged again and for the briefest time, we were treated to the dazzling "diamond ring" effect that results. It's what most of the eclipse watchers as their favourite moment and I now know why. We took more photos and continued to watch through the cameras or the on the projector board for at least another half an hour. The Sun had only been 14 degrees above the horizon when totality had occurred so the Sun set quickly as the last whiskers of the pinks and oranges of sunset trailed across the sky. We packed up and left there, as I continued to watch the sky out of the car's back window, for as long as any traces of light remained. By 9:15 they'd all disappeared, having been devoured by the by the encroaching darkness, and we were plunged into night once again.

 

Then I realised I could start looking for UFOs so I spent the next twenty minutes scouring the skies some more.

 

We were all still pretty high from the eclipse experience, but by that time we had settled into our own reveries and the car was silent. We decided to drive down the road a little further until we found a spot to stay at for the night. The guys figured they'd just sleep in the car, and that was fine by me. I was SO glad I'd bought that blanket, let me tell you, as it can get nippy out there in the desert, even in summer. We'd passed some lovely salt lakes on our way there during the day, but hadn't had time to stop so we decided to try and find one to make camp at. Gerard found a great spot down a dip off the road beside one of these giant salt lakes that was quietly shimmering as it reflected the starlight. As there was no moon or cloud, the stars lit up with sparkles over the black canvas of the sky. It had been awhile since I'd been out to the country and I'd forgotten just how many stars there were up there, but it was great to be reminded. I breathed in deeply and imprinted all I could about that moment into my DNA. The Milky Way was looking particularly milky, and when I remembered we had a telescope with us I nearly lost it. I completely forgot all about stargazing that day, which for me is unusual. I'd wanted to bring my own telescope but knew it wasn't practical, and I hardly thought I would get the chance for sky watching without having my own transport.

 

It was becoming more and more evident that our meeting was no accident. Every single thing that I had visualized was coming true, and I felt totally in the zone. The best part was that I could get an astronomy lesson too, something I hadn't even thought remotely possible when I left for Adelaide the night before. I'd only just begun studying backyard astronomy on my own for a few months at that stage, so I really appreciated the opportunity to learn some more from people who actually knew their stuff.

 

We set up a rug to sit on, a buffet was laid out on the boot of the car, and we had a fabulous starlight picnic, then Alan got to work putting the telescope back together. He'd not only painstakingly constructed the box for it, he's also done several clever modifications to the telescope itself. It was incredibly smooth to manoeuvrer and the viewfinder was mounted in such a way that made it permanently aligned to the eyepiece. Not bad compared to my clumsy thing, which was big and had a great lens, but needed constant adjusting.

 

Gerard had a red-light torch for perusing the star map, and between them both they had all the star maps you could wish for, including a current one. I'd brought my Mighty Bright light as well so we consulted the maps for awhile under the open hood of the boot, deciding finally that we should definitely try to get a rare glimpse of the Andromeda galaxy, which was going to be low on the horizon, but still visible for a little while from where we were. It's the closest spiral galaxy to ours, and part of our local system of stars, but it's still 2.2 million light years away!

 

So we began. We looked at binary star systems including Sirius A and B, the Great Square of Pegasus, found Andromeda (it looked amazing, though tiny - but who cares, I saw it with my own eyes), some pretty star clusters, a wild nebula in the Orion constellation, and loads more. We had a ball. I was completely enthralled. Alan turned to me after awhile and asked whether there was anything I would like to see, and I faltered for a minute. I tried to pull a star's name, a constellation, anything from my rather limited astronomical knowledge that I'd like to view. Then I remembered! It slipped off my tongue so easily like it was something I said all the time: "I'd like to see The Pleiades please". With a quick look at the sky map, he and Gerard quickly turned the scope into position and aimed. When Alan told me I could take a look, I put my eye up to the lens. I could not have been less prepared for the reaction that I had next. It all happened in the instant when the photons of light, carried across space for my eyes to see, entered my retina. I was greeted by the most gorgeous display of hundreds of shining points of light, like diamonds on black velvet, in a beautiful cluster formation, with the seven main stars of the constellation contained within my field of view. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I gasped audibly. Within nano-seconds every part of my being, down to my DNA, was resounding with the recollection that the stars I was looking at, were HOME. Yes home. H-O-M-E. What!?@!

 

Tears had welled up in my eyes and I just wanted to cry it was so beautiful, but I had to catch myself in front of the guys, as I didn't want to come across as a complete lunatic. I didn't even know what to think myself. I had to process this. It was happening so fast. So I composed myself and said something like, "Wow. That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." (twice in one day, shit, what was happening to me?), and I found it very hard to tear myself away from the telescope after that .

 

We did however move away for awhile, and we all sat around chatting some more, and telling more stories. I didn't speak about what had just happened to me. I just sat with it and tried to make some sense out of it. I really knew very little about them, except that they were also known as the Seven Sisters and were a favourite for stargazers. The Pleiades weren't a part of my research or knowledge base at all. I don't even know how I even remembered the name. Whatever was unfolding though, I knew one thing was undeniable. I must be going insane. NO, just jerkin with ya, sorry, anyway, it was undeniable.

 

Everything in me knew that I was somehow deeply connected to this star system, but how? I resolved to do some investigating when I got home. But that night in the Australian Outback, in my planetary home, I knew that I had remembered another home, a galactic home, and that it was just as real. It thrilled me to the core. I was beginning to remember who I was!

 

Gerard retired early that night, and went to sleep in the driver's seat fully reclined, while Alan and I told a few more stories. I'd asked him earlier in the car if he'd ever seen any UFO's and had hinted at something but didn't really want to discuss it much. But when we were alone I asked him to tell me again and he did, reluctantly at first, but then much more engagingly, as he began describing some unusual sightings he'd had growing up on the coast in New Zealand.

 

These were not some pissy two second glances at a tiny little light in the sky type of sightings, his were skilfully detailed, varied, and in one case he watched some craft over a few hours. He eventually worked out that there must have been a flight path near his home because he would regularly see them all following the same course. Commercial and Air Force planes would also fly past but whenever he would ring Air Traffic Control at any of the Air Force bases or airports, he would be told that it was one of their regular flights, just a bit off schedule. Then he would say, "NO, I saw Flight Number so and so depart on time, this was something else," which always fucked them up. I heard some pretty amazing stuff and realised there was more to this funny computer guy cum action hero, than I thought. It didn't surprise me in the least that we could have something like that in common. I've always been attracted to people that, despite appearances, upon scratching their surface, you find that there's a whole lot more going on with them than you knew.

 

Alan declared he was sleeping outside on the rug, and I stayed up late into the night, just me, the telescope, and the stars. I finally had to go to bed when I looked directly up at the sky overhead a couple hours later, and the black void turned into a flat plasma screen and the stars became eyes, and they were all looking at, Me. That was the limit.

 

I was able to lie down quite comfortably in the back seat if I lay on my side in the Toblerone-shaped wedge that had formed under the reclined seats from the front. I adjusted my pillow, put the blanket over me and slept like a baby.

 

I found out later that the salt lake we were led to is named, quite appropriately, Lake Hart. Heart....geddit? Can you believe it? I actually couldn't. The gods have such a sense of humour.

 

Since then a lot has happened, and my kin in the Pleiades are now a big part of my life. They have taught me so much. I'll write a lot more about them in later posts, trust me.

 

And for the next two and a half days Gerard, Alan and myself ended up staying together. I gave them several opportunities to ditch me, but we were really having a lot of fun, and they would always invite me to stay on. We were well matched intellectually, but we all had quite different worldviews, so it was nice challenge for us to be mutually respectful of each other's ideas while trying to challenge one another as coherently as possible. We spent much time on the road exchanging ideas, trying on stuff for size, or sometimes throwing them in the 'too hard" basket. If Alan slept then Gerard and I would talk about stuff and vice versa. They both worked as computer technicians, which is how they met, and pretty early on it became obvious to me that some of my ideas about reality were pretty hard for them to hear. They were always open-minded enough to let me speak though, and they'd bounce things off me. We talked sporadically about some of the ideas in the CWG books that were relevant to that moment, or about a particular insight I'd had, or how you might apply some of the ideas to your daily living, and it sparked much interest and debate. I found out about a year later that Alan and Gerard had both decided to give the books a read a few months after our trip, which was brilliant.

 

It was always reciprocally enlightening, being in their company. They were an absolute mine of information about all sorts of things and we never ran out of topics to discuss. And it wasn't long before I threw away my return bus ticket and we leisurely drove me around some of the most beautiful South Australian countryside on a very scenic route back to Melbourne. We went through quaint little towns that they'd found on previous jaunts, and I saw the constantly changing landscape from high lookouts and wide open roads.

 

I've experimented with stretching time ever since I first discovered that when you fall in love, you can make a kiss last an eternity. You can also make a boring flight pass more quickly if you get good at it, or create an atmosphere at a party where a deep, lengthy, important conversation that seems to last for hours, passes in only twenty minutes. I've always liked bending and stretching time to suit my needs and on that trip it happened constantly, but it felt out of our hands for the most part, like we were caught in a strange time-warp so we just surrendered to it. "Is that the time?" was something we ended up saying more times than I can remember. And the best part was, it wasn't just me saying it, we all were.

 

We "parked" out the next night in a back street of a village. We got there quite late at night, and parked the car at what appeared to be a dead end street, with no neighbours to annoy. The next morning, we were mildly shocked to discover that we'd parked only a short distance away from the municipal dump! A few curious Jersey cows had congregated at the fence beside the car as well, and from beneath thick eyelashes, they were casually eyeing its sleeping inhabitants. The next night we were in the Barossa Valley, slightly more prepared, and we woke up to a gorgeous view of a hillside covered in rows and rows of lush green grapevines and blue sunny skies.

 

Once we got back to Victoria, we made for the Grampians, where time seemed to bend and take on a mind of its own again. No matter how we tried to stick to a schedule, or drive faster it just seemed to take a really long time to get back to the City. We saw wild deer in the mountains though, which I loved, and we used the drive to delve a little deeper into our exchanges. My cheeks welcomed the break too as they'd begun to ache a little due to all the laughing I'd done over the last few days, and especially that last day. Alan had let loose with some of his real life death-defying adventures at around lunchtime and he had me crying with laughter a few times. He really is Batman if all that stuff is true, and he told them like it was. So at around dusk, the tone changed slightly and I got to hear about a poltergeist that he'd lived with for over a year, and some other pretty far-out stuff that had happened to him. Gerard spent some time wanting to discuss the Akashic Field, so I fielded questions from both of them about that for awhile. We talked about reincarnation, dimensions of reality co-existing in the same space without knowing about each other, consciousness, the astral world, the Noetic Sciences Institute, a whole lot of stuff that I really love and it was a nice way to leave things.

 

We'd gone from being complete strangers to all being deeply transformed in some way by our meeting, in three and a half days. We'd trusted in our flexibility in each moment, and stretched ourselves beyond our normal comfort zones, creating or participating in large and small miracles, so it seemed, at every turn. We used our brains, which came as a great joy to me as I don't get to talk quantum physics with many of my disco friends. It's not their fault I know...but it was a nice change. I also knew that I'd helped to open up their perspective in many ways, as they did for me, in HUGE ways. My heart knew that I had been drawn to them because their soul's urge for change, and expansion, had already begun, by nudging them into unconsciously creating the conditions for me to enter their lives. I'd definitely sent out a call for them too, for the same reasons. The difference was that they had no idea I was coming along. I, on the other hand, had been certain that I would find them.

 

We finally made it back to Melbourne sometime around 9 pm that night. It was a lot later than we all thought we'd be back by, and we'd all been together non-stop for 3 and a half days. On our way home, I told them where I lived and it turned out that Alan lived just around the corner from me! It was nice, as dropping me off didn't pose any inconvenience at all. We swapped numbers and said our farewells amidst bear hugs and kisses goodbye. It was good to be home, back to my bed, but I could've kept going for at least another day if I'd had to. They dropped me off right to my front door.

 

We all knew it was meant to be, and it was.

We've all kept in touch too, Batman, Robin and I.

 

I'm forever in their debt for everything they shared with me, for their kindness and generosity and for behaving like perfect gentlemen the entire time. Men like these are really rare... but if you are one them, you should try going to an eclipse!

My first really good outcome of an insect shot. Still no macro lens, but I'm happy with this lens' capabilities.

During the mid-1970s, Yugoslavia began the process of trying to revitalize its light armor capabilities after studying the maneuverability and firepower of the Soviet VDV. During the JNA's intensive interaction with the Soviet airborne forces, the Yugoslavian brass gained a particular soft spot for the Soviet's air-mobile assault gun, the ASU-85. After purchasing three specimens for further study, the Yugoslavs began manufacturing a domestic copy of the design in the early '80s, albeit with some significant modifications.

 

The most substantial change came with upgrading the gun from an 85mm to a 120mm smoothbore. The upping of the design's firepower came from the understanding that most armored fighting vehicles would have too much baseline and applique armor for an 85mm to be relevant. However, the increase in gun size came with a decrease in magazine size. Whereas later models of the Soviet ASU-85 could still carry thirty-nine rounds, the M-120 can only carry twenty-nine. Furthermore, the larger gun and heavier ammunition meant that the puny V6 engine had to be upgraded to a V8. Although crews of the vehicle have come to love the raw power that the bigger engine provides, they decry the monstrous fuel consumption which led to external fuel tanks being permanently added to the vehicle's rear.

 

Despite all the trade-offs and dated casemate design, the Porewit has become a legendary defender of the Socialist Republic. Because of its relatively low profile and grotesque glacis (and indeed thickened frontal armor), the -120 is the perfect vehicle for conducting defensive ops against intruding armored forces as it can deflect rounds with ease and return with a bite just as fierce. Whereas the West (and later the Soviet Union) was belittling turretless AFVs per the case of the Swedish Stridsvagn 103, Yugoslavia was embracing them. Especially after the Porewit generated a tremendous kill record during the Wars of Dissolution.

 

Still, even with all of these successes, the M-120 faces one of the cruelest twists of irony: it has never fulfilled its essence. The whole purpose of introducing the Porewit was to have an airborne tank in the JNA; however, because of Yugoslavia's meager air corps, there have never been aircraft big enough to carry the M-120 into the skies. Thus, the expeditionary vehicle has languished in a Camusian identity crisis as it serves as Yugoslavia's third-rate MBT.

  

Huge shout-out to my boy Evan Melick for helping me with some of the more frustrating aspects of the design and putting up with the tantrums this thing ignited.

I just took it to test the macro capabilities of my new OnePlus phone, come to think of it macro is something I rarely turn to. Having dropped my compact Canon Powershot S95 I found it so hard to find a click and go with some functionality that worked for me the Canon was brilliant but was no longer sold, I even tried a Sony mirrorless without success. At the time I needed a new phone so I went looking for a phone with the best camera and after some research I came away with the OnePlus which ticked all the boxes for half the price of an iPhone and Samsung

So this took me a lot longer than expected to get out there, but anyways, here they are! Justice League Dark, assembled by Madame Xanadu to deal with mystical/supernatural threats that the normal Justice League don't have the capabilities of fighting. The members starting from the back are:

 

Raven- Embraces her powers, but uses them for good. She's close friends with Rose Constantine.

 

Jason Blood/Etrigan- I only pictured Jason here, as I was mostly lazy, but anyways, what's a JLD team if it doesn't have him right? So here he is!

 

Deadman- After his death at the hands of Grant Wilson, Dick Grayson became Deadman, joining the JLD soon after. He sometimes goes back to Bludhaven so he can see Bette again though she doesn't know about him being Deadman now.

 

Ragman- A man covered by rags to hide the scars of his past, he usually stays quiet, unless necessary.

 

Doctor Fate- Khalid Ben Hassin being the current Doctor Fate joined the team early on.

 

Kid Devil- One of the newest recruits, alongside Raven. He's still trying to figure out his place on the team, but has been able to find a friend in Ragman.

 

Madame Xanadu- The leader of the team, who obviously brought them all together in the first place.

 

Rose Constantine- Constantine's daughter, all grown up (well sort of). She has her father's personality, though she's more mature than he ever was. She always saw his smoking as a bad habit, so she doesn't smoke.

 

Like all of my recent Rogueverse team pictures, a huge thanks goes out to Ken, as he's helping me big time with these rosters.

Bill showing off his flight capabilities.

Finally using the Play Memories App and Testing its capabilities.

Details best viewed in Original Size.

 

We were driving down the Lamar Valley when a herd of several dozen cows their calves and associated adolescent males decided to cross the road right in front of our car. This happened over a dozen times during our stay at the park, but this was one of only a couple of those times in which a bison herd had crossed so close to us. I hung out the window of our SUV and fired away. 70 Frames later, they had all crossed. All the captured images had great direct lighting, but I chose this shot from early in the sequence (few cars had accumulated in the bison jam) because this frame captured all the vital parts of both the mother and the calf and because their eyes caught the light just right. As you can see, the mother has shed a substantial amount of her winter coat where her summer coat is showing. The calf had been born early this spring.

Bison are particularly dangerous animals. They seem docile or even domesticated, but are unpredictable, are very muscular and big (this one was at my eye level and I was sitting on the driver's seat of an SUV and the heaviest wild bull ever recorded weighed in at 2,800lbs (1,270kg)), at 35mph (56kph) they can easily outrun Olympic sprinters, and naive visitors approach them with cheap cameras and/or cell phones with few if any telephoto capabilities. Most of these visitors take home some souvenirs of their visit, others take home large medical bills, and unfortunately some are killed each year.

According to Wikipedia, Bison are large, even-toed ungulates in the genus Bison within the subfamily which includes common cattle. Two still living and four extinct species are recognized. Of the two surviving species, the American Bison, is found only in North America and is the more numerous. Although sometimes referred to historically as a "buffalo", it is only distantly related to the true buffalo. The European bison, or wisent, is found in Europe and the Caucasus, and has been reintroduced after being extinct in the wild.

A tactics and capabilities demonstration from the Timorese national police's UIR (Rapid Intervention Unit), in cooperation with the Bangladeshi Formed Police Unit, at Tacitolu shooting range in Dili, Timor-Leste.

Photo ID 452384. 25/09/2009. Dili, Timor-Leste. UN Photo/Martine Perret. www.unmultimedia.org/photo/

The Optio 33WR is one of the latest (in 2003) "square" offerings from Pentax, a camera maker with a long tradition in the film-based world, but one of the newer entrants to the digital arena. They initially co-developed several cameras with Hewlett Packard, a relationship that has since ended.

 

Compact, well-designed cameras have become something of a specialty for them, as seen in their "Optio" lineup. Building on the strengths of this well-received line, the Optio 33WR offers many of the same great capabilities, but in a compact, water-resistant package.

 

www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/O33WR/33WRA.HTM

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SMC Pentax-A 50mm F1:1.2

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Hit the L key for a better view. Thanks for the favs and comments. Much appreciated!

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All of my photographs are under copyright ©. None of these photographs may be reproduced and/or used in any way without my permission.

 

© VanveenJF Photography

 

Owls are silent predators. In addition to keen eyesight, and their nocturnal hunting capabilities...owls are able to snag prey before they even know the owl is approaching in flight. Owls have soft down feathers on the wing top, which dampen noise in flight. Scientists are studying the feather composition of owl wings in an effort to improve noise reduction in aircraft, and other machinery such as turbines.

 

Reference...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513106/Secret-owls-silent-flight-revealed-Scientists-uncover-birds-soft-feather-technology-used-make-quieter-aircraft.html

 

Explore 03/18/2016

 

あなたはいくつかのレンズの"色を高める機能"について聞いたことがありますか？

 

Taken with the EF 50 1.8 II

There are so many reasons to love the high-ISO capabilities of modern DSLRs, but more than anything I love that, with the right lenses and careful technique, we can actually take portraits and casual photos at night, that really shows wsa night looks like. Night is not the bright blue lighting cinematographers have had to use for decades to connote darkness. It is a barely grey darkness punctuated only by the things that humanity have made, the areas and objects that we deem important enough to light up when the sun goes down. It is many-colored, shiny and complicated. I love it.

 

I sometimes will be out shooting people at night with the tiniest of lights or no light at all, and I will see other photographers walk by , and I know they think I'm nuts. Right after this shot, a team walked by with a battery pack and a giant octobank on a boom. The way that you're *supposed* to take photos at night, the way that destroys the night. It's a good way to shoot, too -- octobanks are killer light sources. But I love the freedom of choice.

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Ryan Brenizer Photography Blog. Photography tips, wedding photos, events and portraits from New York City and beyond

1. Taking pictures a tool (camera), not a photographer.

2. The choice of tool limits the possibilities.

3. Experience allows him (instrument) less and less to limit their capabilities.

4. The ability to see is given only when the observer allows ...

5. The moment of observation is the real find ...

6. Training and mastering it defies. Training leads to poor imitations of the original.

7. Often the result should ripen, like wine. Although time is the understanding of the mind, therefore it is very speculative.

8. The meaning of all this is the process!

9. Let it be!

 

youtu.be/2pQrWPpUN1U

www.facebook.com/oleg.pivovarchik.1971

listenwave.smugmug.com

#FilmOFone

See my story about this #Flickr secret Секрет продвижения во Flickr фотография с Фовеонычем

youtu.be/wu1Mu2d7zCQ

  

Панорама - пейзажная фотография как снимать с Фовеонычем и Квадрокоптером DJI Air 2s

youtu.be/bHKeKGdRxOo

 

Taking pictures a tool (camera), not a photographer.

The choice of tool limits the possibilities.

Experience allows him (instrument) less and less to limit their capabilities.

The ability to see is given only when the observer allows ...

The moment of observation is the real find ...

Training and mastering it defies. Training leads to poor imitations of the original.

Often the result should ripen, like wine. Although time is the understanding of the mind, therefore it is very speculative.

The meaning of all this is the process!

Find someone who inspires shooting the camera!

www.instagram.com/listenwave_photography/

 

Often we are visited by thoughts that may reveal something unknown ... Our mind many times tries to solve a problem with known methods ... This is its main mistake! The path of the heart opens the doors that appear in our path. It is a pity that not everyone has the courage to insert the keys that are always with us ...

(Listenwave- 圣彼得堡)

 

Lakhta .This small village on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, about 15 km northwest of the city, is home to human settlements on the banks of the Neva. It was on the territory of Lakhta that the remains of a man’s parking site of three thousand years ago were found.

In official documents, a settlement named Lakhta dates back to 1500. The name is derived from the Finnish-speaking word lahti - "bay". This is one of the few settlements that has not changed its name throughout its 500-year history. Also known as Laches, Lahes-by, Lahes and was originally inhabited by Izhora. In the last decades of the 15th century, Lakhta was a village (which indicates a significant population) and was the center of the eponymous grand-parish volost, which was part of the Spassko-Gorodensky graveyard of the Orekhovsky district of the Vodskaya Pyatina. In the village, there were 10 courtyards with 20 people (married men). In Lakhta, on average, there were 2 families per yard, and the total population of the village probably reached 75 people.

From the notes on the margins of the Swedish scribe book of the Spassky graveyard of 1640, it follows that the lands along the lower reaches of the Neva River and parts of the Gulf of Finland, including Lakhta Karelskaya, Perekulya (from the Finnish “back village”, probably because of its position relative to Lakhti) and Konduy Lakhtinsky, were royal by letter of honor on January 15, 1638 transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickschulz general Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, a Dutchman by birth. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). With the arrival of the Swedes in Prievye, Lakhta was settled by the Finns, who until the middle of the 20th century made up the vast majority of the villagers.

On December 22, 1766, Catherine 2 granted Lakhta Manor, which was then in the Office of the Chancellery from the buildings of palaces and gardens, "in which and in her villages with courtyards 208 souls," her favorite Count Orlov. Not later than 1768, Count J.A. Bruce took over the estate. In 1788, Lakhta Manor was listed behind him with wooden services on a dry land (high place) and the villages Lakhta, Dubki, Lisiy Nos and Konnaya belonging to it also on dry land, in those villages of male peasants 238 souls. On May 1, 1813, Lakhta passed into the possession of the landowners of the Yakovlevs. On October 5, 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered into the possession of the Lakhtinsky estate, which then had 255 male souls. This clan was the owner of the estate until 1912, when its last representative got into debt and noble custody was established over the estate. On October 4, 1913, in order to pay off his debts, he was forced to go for corporatization, and the Lakhta estate passed into the ownership of the Joint Stock Company “Lakhta” of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co.

After the revolution, Lakhta was left on its own for a while, here on the former estate of the counts Stenbock-Fermorov on May 19, 1919, the Lakhta excursion station was opened, which existed there until 1932. In the early 1920s, sand mining began on Lakhta beaches, and the abandoned and dilapidated peat plant of the Lakhta estate in 1922 took over the Oblzemotdel and put it into operation after major repairs. In 1963, the village of Lakhta was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

  

At the beginning of Lakhtinsky Prospekt, on the banks of the Lakhtinsky spill, there was the village of Rakhilax (Rahilax-hof, Rahila, Rokhnovo). Most likely, under this name only one or several courtyards are designated. There is an assumption that the name of the village was formed from the Finnish raahata - “drag, drag,” because there could be a place for transportation through the isthmus of the Lakhtinsky spill (we should not forget that not only the bridge over the channel connecting the spill with the Gulf of Finland was not yet here, the duct itself was many times wider than the current one). The search book of the Spassko-Gorodensky graveyard of 1573, describing the Lakhta lands, mentions that there were 2 lodges in the “Rovgunov” village, from which we can conclude that we are talking about the village of Rohilaks, which the Russian scribes remade into a more understandable to them Rovgunovo. The village was empty in Swedish time and was counted as a wasteland of the village of Lahta.

  

On the banks of the Lakhtinsky spill, near the confluence of the Yuntolovka River, from the 17th century there existed the village of Bobylka (Bobylskaya), which merged into the village of Olgino only at the beginning of the 20th century, but was found on maps until the 1930s. It is probably the Search Book that mentions it Spassko-Gorodensky churchyard in 1573 as a village "in Lakhta in Perekui", behind which there was 1 obzh. With the arrival of the Swedes by royal letter on January 15, 1638, the village was transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickshaw General Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, a Dutchman by birth. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted Lahti lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). On the Swedish map of the 1670s, in the place of the village of Bobylsky, the village of Lahakeülä is marked (küla - the village (Fin.)). The village could subsequently be called Bobyl from the Russian word "bobyl."

The owners of Bobylskaya were both Count Orlov, and Count Y. A. Bruce, and the landowners Yakovlev. In 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered into the possession of the Lakhtinsky estate (which included the village of Bobyl). This family was the owner of the estate until 1913, when the owners, in order to pay off their debts, had to go for corporatization, and the Lakhta estate was transferred to the ownership of the Lakhta Joint-Stock Company of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co. By the middle of the 20th century, the village merged with the village of Lakhta.

  

The name Konnaya Lakhta (Konnaya) has been known since the 16th century, although earlier it sounded like Konduya (Konduya Lakhtinskaya) or just Kondu (from the Finnish kontu - courtyard, manor). Subsequently, this name was replaced by the more familiar Russian ear with the word "Horse". In the Search Book of the Spassko-Gorodensky Pogost in 1573, it is mentioned as the village "on Kovdui", where 1 obzh was listed, which indicates that there most likely was one yard. On January 15, 1638, together with neighboring villages, it was transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickschulz General Bernhard Steen von Stenhausen, of Dutch origin. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). In a deed of gift, Konduya Lakhtinskaya is called a village, which indicates a noticeable increase in its population. Later, on the Swedish map of the 1670s, on the site of the present Horse Lahti, the village of Konda-bai is marked (by - village (sv)).

The owners of Konnaya Lakhta, as well as the villages of Bobylskaya and Lakhta, were in turn Count Orlov, Count Ya. A. Bruce, and the landowners Yakovlev. In 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered the possession of the Lakhta estate (which included Konnaya Lakhta. This family was the owner of the estate until 1913, when the owners had to go to corporations to pay off their debts, and the Lakhta estate became the property of Lakhta Joint Stock Company of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co. In 1963, Horse Lahta was included in the Zhdanov (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

  

As the dacha village of Olgino appeared at the end of the 19th century and initially consisted of both Olgin itself and the villages of Vladimirovka (now part of Lisiy Nos) and Aleksandrovka. In the first half of the 18th century, this territory was part of the Verpelev palace estate, which in the second half of the 18th century was granted to Count G. G. Orlov, then it was owned by the family of landowners the Yakovlevs, in the middle of the 19th century the estate was transferred to the counts of Stenbock-Fermor. In 1905 A.V. Stenbok-Fermor, the then owner of Lakhta lands, divided the lands around Lakhta into separate plots with the intention of selling them profitably for dachas. So there were the villages of Olgino (named after the wife of Olga Platonovna), Vladimirovka (in honor of the father of the owner; the coastal part of the modern village of Lisy Nos) and Alexandrov or Aleksandrovskaya (in honor of Alexander Vladimirovich himself). It is likely that on the site of the village was the village of Olushino (Olushino odhe) - a search book of the Spassko-Gorodensky churchyard in 1573 mentions that there were 1 obzh in the village of Olushkov’s, which suggests that at least one residential the yard. On behalf of Olushka (Olpherius). Most likely, the village was deserted in Swedish time and then was already listed as a wasteland belonging to the village of Lahta. Thus, the name of the village could be given in harmony with the name of the mistress and the old name of the village.

The villages were planned among a sparse pine forest (the layout was preserved almost unchanged), so there were more amenities for living and spending time there than in Lakhta. A park was set up here, a summer theater, a sports ("gymnastic") playground, a tennis court, and a yacht club were arranged.

In the 1910s about 150 winter cottages were built in Olgino, many of which are striking monuments of "summer cottage" architecture. In 1963, the village of Olgino was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

  

Near Olgino, in the area of ​​the Dubki park, there was a small village Verpeleva (Verpelevo), which consisted of only a few yards. In the first half of the XVIII century. this territory was part of the palace estate "Verpeleva", which in the second half of the XVIII century. It was granted to Count G. G. Orlov, then passed to the Counts of Stenbock-Fermor. The village has not existed for a long time, but the entire reed-covered peninsula (barely protruding above the water of the Verpier-Luda peninsula (Verper Luda (from the Finnish luoto - “small rocky island”)) still existed, and there was another spelling the name of this island is Var Pala Ludo).

  

Kamenka. The Novgorod scribal book mentions two villages in the Lakhta region with a similar name, referring to the possessions of Selivan Zakharov, son of Okhten, with his son and 5 other co-owners. On the lands of this small patrimony, which, unlike the estate was inherited, peasants lived in 3 villages, including: the village "Kamenka in Lakhta near the sea" in 5 yards with 5 people and arable land in 1,5 obzhi, the village "on Kamenka "in 2 courtyards with 2 people and arable land in 1 obzhu. For the use of land, the peasants paid the owners of the patrimony 16 money and gave 1/3 of the rye harvest. Thus, in the 16th century on the Kamenka River (another name for the Kiviyoki River, which is the literal translation of kivi - "stone", joki - "river") there was one large village of Kamenka near its confluence with the Lakhtinsky spill and the second, smaller, somewhere upstream. On the drawing of Izhora land in 1705, a village under this name is depicted in the area of ​​the modern village of Kamenka. The village of Kamennaya in the middle reaches of Kamenka and on the map of 1792 is designated. Other name options are Kaumenkka, Kiviaja.

In the second half of the 18th century, Kamenka became a vacation spot for Russian Germans. Here in 1865, German colonists founded their "daughter" colony on leased land. Since then, the village has received the name Kamenka Colony (so called until the 1930s). In 1892, a colony near the village of Volkovo "budded" from it. The inhabitants of both colonies belonged to the Novo-Saratov parish and since 1871 had a prayer house in Kamenka, which was visited by 250 people. He maintained a school for 40 students. The house was closed in 1935 and later demolished.

Currently, Kamenka exists as a holiday village, located along the road to Levashovo. Since 1961 - in the city, part of the planning area in the North-West, from the mid-1990s. built up with multi-storey residential buildings and cottages.

  

Volkovo. The settlement is about southeast of the village of Kamenka - on the old road to Kamenka, on the bank of a stream that flows into Kamenka between the village of Kamenka and the Shuvalovsky quarry. In 1892, a German colony emerged on the territory of the village, "budding" from a nearby colony in the village of Kamenka. The origin of Volkovo is not clear, the village is found only on maps of 1912, 1930, 1939, 1943. and probably appeared no earlier than the 19th century.

  

Kolomyagi. Scribe books of the XV — XVI centuries and Swedish plans testify that small settlements already existed on the site of Kolomyag. Most likely, these were first Izhora or Karelian, then Finnish farms, which were empty during the hostilities of the late XVII century.

The name "Kolomyag" connoisseurs decipher in different ways. Some say that it came from the "colo" - in Finnish cave and "pulp" - a hill, a hill. The village is located on the hills, and such an interpretation is quite acceptable. Others look for the root of the name in the Finnish word "koaa" - bark - and believe that trees were processed here after felling. Another version of the origin of the name from the Finnish "kello" is the bell, and it is associated not with the feature of the mountain, but with the "bell on the mountain" - a tower with a signal bell standing on a hill.

The owners of Kolomyazhsky lands were Admiral General A.I. Osterman, Count A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a family of Volkonsky. In 1789, the Volkonskys sold these lands to retired colonel Sergei Savvich Yakovlev. On his estate S. S. Yakovlev built a manor and lived in it with his wife and seven daughters. The once-Finnish population of Kolomyag was “Russified” by that time - it was made up of descendants of serfs resettled by Osterman and Bestuzhev-Rumin from their villages in Central Russia (natives of the Volga and Galich) and Ukraine. Then the name "Kellomyaki" began to sound in Russian fashion - "Kolomyagi", although later the old name also existed, especially among local Finns. And not without reason the indigenous Kolomozhites associate their origin with the Volga places, and the southern half of the village is now called “Galician”.

Yakovlev died in 1818. Five years after his death, a division of the territory of the manor was made. The village of Kolomyagi was divided in half between two of his daughters. The border was the Bezymyanny stream. The southeastern part of the village of Kolomyagi beyond Bezymyanny creek and a plot on the banks of the Bolshaya Nevka passed to the daughter Ekaterina Sergeevna Avdulina.

Daughter Yakovleva Elena Sergeevna - the wife of General Alexei Petrovich Nikitin, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, who was awarded the highest military orders and twice a gold sword with the inscription "For courage", died early, leaving her daughter Elizabeth. The northwestern part of Kolomyag inherited the young Elizabeth, so this part of Kolomyag was practically inherited by the father of Yakovlev’s granddaughter, Count A.P. Nikitin, who in 1832 became the owner of the entire village. It is his name that is stored in the names of the streets - 1st and 2nd Nikitinsky and Novo-Nikitinsky. The new owner built a stone mansion on the estate’s estate - an excellent example of classicism of the first third of the 19th century, which became his country house and has survived to this day and has been occupied until recently by the Nursing Home. It is believed that this mansion was built according to the project of the famous architect A.I. Melnikov. The severity and modesty of the architectural appearance of the facades and residential chambers of the Nikitin mansion was opposed by the splendor of ceremonial interiors, in particular the two-light dance hall with choirs for musicians. Unfortunately, with repeated alterations and repairs, many details of the decor and stucco emblems of the owners disappeared. Only two photographs of the 1920s and preserved fragments of ornamental molding and paintings on the walls and ceiling show the past richness of the decorative decoration of this architectural monument. The mansion was surrounded by a small park. In it stood a stone pagan woman brought from the southern steppes of Russia (transferred to the Hermitage), and a pond with a plakun waterfall was built. Near the pond there was a "walk of love" from the "paradise" apple trees - it was called so because the bride and groom passed through it after the wedding. Here, in the shadow of these apple trees, young lovers made appointments.

Under the Orlov-Denisov opposite the mansion (now Main Street, 29), the structures of an agricultural farm were erected, partially preserved to this day, and the greenhouse. Behind the farm were the master's fields. On them, as the New Time newspaper reported in August 1880, they tested the reaping and shearing machines brought from America.

In the 19th century, the provincial surveyor Zaitsev submitted for approval the highway called the Kolomyagskoye Shosse. The route was supposed to connect the village, gradually gaining fame as a summer residence of the "middle arm", with St. Petersburg. The construction of the road ended in the 1840s, and then horse-drawn and country-house crafts became the most important articles of peasant income. In addition, peasants either built small dachas in their yards, or rented their huts for the summer. Located away from the roads, surrounded by fields, the village was chosen by multi-family citizens.

The income from the summer cottage industry increased from year to year, which was facilitated by the summer movement of omnibuses that opened on the new highway from the City Council building. They walked four times a day, each accommodated 16 people, the fare cost 15 kopecks. Even when the Finnish Railway with the nearest Udelnaya station came into operation in 1870, the highway remained the main access road through which public carriages pulled by a trio of horses ran from the Stroganov (now Ushakovsky) bridge.

Testing the exposure, low light and image stabilization capabilities of an iPhone 6+. For a mobile phone in challenging lighting and with low light shadows, it turned out really well!

 

Verizon says that I have to wiat for my iPhone 5S contract to run its course through next November to upgrade. I can't even buy the contract out. Technically I could probably go to another carrier and pay some early termination penalties to Verizon and transfer my phone number, but if I do the same thing and buy a phone at Verizon then end my contract on my iPhone 5S, they say in the Verizon store that I would lose my existing phone number.

 

It's like Verizon would rather see me go to another carrier for a while than sell me a new phone (and make a little extra revenue off of me in the process.

 

I've been in 2 Verizon stores and a Verizon reseller, plus online chatting with Customer Service at VerizonWireless.com trying to determine the options for the 4 lines we have. It's extremely confusing. I've already bought and cancelled an iPhone 6+ order as details of what we'd get and for how much seem to change.

 

I'd love to switch to Sprint, but we tried that a couple of years ago and they cancelled our "unlimited data" plan halfway into a 2 year contract and refused to finish out the contract. Now they ofer something similar, but if you read the small print, they give you a lower quality of service, so it's unlimited in volume at a snail's pace, so it's actually limited. Reduced bandwidth is also what you'll get if you look at the small print on their "50% of your current data plan charges" they're currently advertising.

 

I'd consider AT&T, but they don't have good coverage here in the Eastern Sierra, and rural coverage in general doesn't seem to be a high priority for them... not so great for landscape photography.

Guemes Channel - Sea Trials

On July 1, 2016 after four years of construction the Research Vessel Sally Ride was officially signed over to Scripps Institution of Oceanography by the builder Dakota Creek Industries of Anacortes, Washington.

 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

 

R/V Sally Ride Album

 

Story Number: NNS160225-13Release Date: 2/25/2016 3:05:00 PM

ANACORTES, Wash. (NNS) -- The Navy's Auxiliary General Purpose Oceanographic Research Vessel (AGOR), R/V Sally Ride (AGOR 28), successfully completed Builder's Trials, Feb. 21, off the coast of Anacortes.

Builder's Trials for Sally Ride tested various shipboard systems and ensured readiness prior to conducting Acceptance Trials with the U.S. Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey.

The propulsion system, mission-over-the-side handling equipment, anchor handling system, and work/rescue boat launch system were among the systems successfully demonstrated.

"R/V Sally Ride performed remarkably well during Builder's Trials these past few weeks," said Mike Kosar, program manager for Support Ships, Boats, and Craft. "Our entire Navy and shipbuilder team have done an outstanding job in preparing the vessel for upcoming acceptance trials."

Based on a single-hull commercial design, R/V Sally Ride is approximately 238 feet long and incorporates the latest technologies, including high-efficiency diesel engines, emissions controls for stack gasses, and new information technology tools both for monitoring shipboard systems and for communicating with the world. Oceanographic Research Vessels provide scientists with the tools and capabilities to support ongoing research, including in the Atlantic, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean regions across a wide variety of missions.

Upon delivery, the ship will be operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography under a charter party agreement with Office of Naval Research. The vessel has accommodations for 24 scientists and will operate with a crew of 20.

This is the second ship of its class built by Dakota Creek Industries. The shipbuilder also constructed R/V Neil Armstrong (AGOR 27), which delivered to the Navy in September 2015.As one of the Defense Department's largest acquisition organizations, PEO Ships is responsible for executing the development and procurement of all destroyers, amphibious ships, special mission and support ships, and boats and craft.

 

The Neil Armstrong-class of research vessels are modern research vessels based on a commercial design, capable of integrated, interdisciplinary, general purpose oceanographic research in coastal and deep ocean areas. The Neil Armstrong-class will feature a modern suite of oceanographic equipment, state of the art acoustic equipment capable of mapping the deepest parts of the oceans, advanced over-the-side handling gear to deploy and retrieve scientific instruments, emissions controls for stack gasses, and new information technology tools both for monitoring shipboard systems and for communicating with land-based sites worldwide. Enhanced modular onboard laboratories and extensive science payload capacity will provide the ships with the flexibility to meet a wide variety of oceanographic research challenges in the coming decades.

 

U.S. Navy research vessels being built at Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes will be named after Neil Armstrong & Sally Ride

Mission: Integrated, interdisciplinary, general purpose oceanographic research in coastal and deep ocean areas.Oceanographic sampling and data collection of surface, midwater, sea floor, and sub-bottom parameters.

Quantity: Two (2)

User: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (AGOR 27),

Scripps Institution of Oceanography (AGOR 28)

Ship Names: R/V Neil Armstrong (AGOR 27)

R/V Sally Ride (AGOR 28)

Builder: Dakota Creek Industries, Inc.

Contract: FFP (Firm Fixed Price)

Contract Value: $177.4M

ROM Unit Cost: $74.1 M (lead), $71.0M (follow)

 

Key Characteristics:

• Hull Material Steel; Aluminum pilothouse

• Length 238 ft

• Beam (Max) 50 ft

• Draft 15 ft

• Displacement 3043 LT (Full Load)

• Sustained Speed 12 kts

• Range 10,545 nm

• Endurance 40 days

• Propulsion 4 x 1044 kW Diesels, 2 x 879 kW Electric

Propulsion Motors, 2 x Controllable Pitch

Propellers, Bow & Stern Thrusters

• Accommodations 20 crew, 24 science berths

• ABS Classed/ABS Designed to ABS !A1 Circle E, !AMS

The Su-35 has had a long development, beginning with the Su-27M (internally known as the T10M) in 1982. The Su-27M had canard foreplanes and a multi-function radar, giving it multi-function capabilities. Its maiden flight was in June 1988. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Sukhoi redesignated it as the Su-35 in the hopes of attracting export orders. Response was marginal, but Sukhoi was able to use the aircraft prototypes and demonstrators to test new systems, avionics, and thrust-vectoring engines. In 2003, Sukhoi embarked on a second generation modernization of the Su-27 (internally known as the T10BM) to serve as an interim aircraft awaiting the development of the Sukhoi PAK FA (Su-57) program and provide a single-seat alternative to the Su-30MK for the export market. Also known as the Su-35, this version has a redesigned glass cockpit, the powerful N035 Irbis-E passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radar, a new weapons-control system, and the Saturn AL-41F1S turbofan thrust-vectoring engines in place of the canards. The engines give the Su-35 supercruise capabilities, which is the limited ability to sustain supersonic speed without the use of afterburners. The first Su-35 flew in February 2008 and production began in November 2009, officially designated the Su-35S Flanker-E.

 

The Russian Air Force purchased the Su-35S in December 2013 and by 2020 has 98 aircraft in service, with another 30 aircraft on order. These Flankers serve with the 23rd IAP, 22nd GvIAP, 159th IAP, 790th IAP, 929th GLITs, and the 4th TsBP i PLS. Four aircraft were also deployed to Syria in January 2016 and flew fighter escort and ground strike missions. The Su-35S aircraft often flew intercept missions, preventing Turkish and Israeli aircraft from entering Syrian airspace or carrying out airstrikes. After prolonged discussions and lengthy intellectual copyright agreements, China has also purchased the Su-35S for the PLAAF. 24 aircraft currently serve with the 6th Aviation Brigade at Suixi Air Base. The Egyptian Air Force (EAF) currently has 17 aircraft in service, delivered in 2020, with 24 on order. The Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) has also placed an order for 11 aircraft in February 2018, but this is complicated by US pressure to buy the F-35 instead.

 

In this image, a S-35S from the 23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment (IAP) stationed at Dzyomgi Airport in Khabarovsk Krai performs the famous Cobra Maneuver. Sometimes referred to as Pugachev’s Cobra, the aircraft pulls its nose momentarily beyond vertical before dropping back to normal flight. This dynamic deceleration and extremely high angle of attack momentarily stalls the aircraft and is only possible in aircraft with a strong airframe and sufficient engine thrust (and a skilled pilot). It is often used as an example of supermaneuverability and its merits in close-range combat are highly debated. Some see the maneuver as an example of a new era in dogfighting where others see it as a last-ditch effort to avoid getting shot down.

Since years I use this tombstone as a neutral object to test protrait capabilities of a lens. And of cause it's out of focus quality.

 

And I cannot stop complaining about vandalism since one part of the cross is broken.

 

---

this time I used a Samyang MF 85mmF/1,4

The tilt capabilities of this Nikon prime lens produces a miniature effect. Thus, the roller coaster and its passengers appear to be a model.

 

Nikkor 85mm f/2.8 T/S PC

as an artist I experiment with different types of paints and their capabilities to grow into interesting forms on their own

  

We make each decision of our capabilities within our own reach and sometimes we can let that disappear without even noticing it leave.

Thats why im so thankful for photography.. It lets you create those moments that only exist in a split second in front of your eyes and nowhere else in the world.

Be who you are, express yourself, cook a new supper tomorrow, join a sewing class, take up a hobby like pottery or yoga or gardening, just let yourself find who you are ---you owe it to your soul to be happy.

Have a great day everyone.

Thanks again to the model for being so awesome.

WELL ENHANCER LWI / DIVE SUPPORT VESSEL

COILED TUBING CAPABILITIES, MONOHULL PERFORMANCE

  

The Well Enhancer is designed to minimize production downtime and provides cost effective well maintenance, production enhancement and well abandonment solutions. With 1,100m2 of main deck space and the ability to run rigid riser and coiled tubing, the vessel can also perform a range of well testing and production flowback services.

 

The vessel features a 150 Te multi-purpose tower (MPT), capable of deploying wireline and coiled-tubing. The vessel also features kill pumps and a 100 Te main crane and is currently capable of conducting LWI operations to a depth of 600m.

 

The DP3 Well Enhancer features a purpose built derrick over a 7m x 7m moonpool and has a travelling block rated to 150 Te capacity in passive mode.

 

The Well Enhancer’s 18 man saturation diving spread is rated to 300 m, and combined with the vessel’s work/observation class ROVs, provides for full IRM and light construction services and diving support for any tree systems which require manual intervention to facilitate LWI operations.

Listen 🙏

Off/ On 📷

Wave

  

Taking pictures a tool (camera), not a photographer.

The choice of tool limits the possibilities.

Experience allows him (instrument) less and less to limit their capabilities.

The ability to see is given only when the observer allows ...

The moment of observation is the real find ...

Training and mastering it defies. Training leads to poor imitations of the original.

Often the result should ripen, like wine. Although time is the understanding of the mind, therefore it is very speculative.

The meaning of all this is the process!

Find someone who inspires shooting the camera!

www.instagram.com/listenwave_photography/

 

Often we are visited by thoughts that may reveal something unknown ... Our mind many times tries to solve a problem with known methods ... This is its main mistake! The path of the heart opens the doors that appear in our path. It is a pity that not everyone has the courage to insert the keys that are always with us ...

(Listenwave- 圣彼得堡). #Lakhta. #Listenvawe #Light. This small village on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, about 15 km north-west of the city, is the birthplace of human settlements on the banks of the Neva. It was in the territory of Lakhta that the remains of a man’s camp of three thousand years ago were found.

In official documents, the settlement named Lakhta has been dating since 1500. The name is derived from the Finnish-language word lahti - "bay". It is one of the few settlements that has not changed its name throughout its 500-year history. It is also known as Lahes, Lahes-by, Lahes and was originally inhabited by Izhora. In the last decades of the 15th century, Lakhta was a village (which indicates a significant number of its population) and was the center of the same name of the Grand-Ducal volost, which was part of the Spassko-Gorodensky pogost of Orekhovsky district of Vodskaya Pyatina. In the village there were 10 yards with 20 people (married men). In Lakhta, on average, there were 2 families each, and the total population of the village probably reached 75 people.

From the marks on the fields of the Swedish scribal book of the Spassky Pogost of 1640, it follows that the lands along the lower reaches of the Neva River and part of the coast of the Gulf of Finland, including Lakhta Karelia, Perekulyu (from the Finnish "back village", probably because of its position relative to Lakhta) and Konduya Lakhtinsky, was granted royal charter on January 15, 1638, to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, General Rickshulz Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, of Dutch origin. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nuena (Nyenskansu). With the arrival of the Swedes in the Neva region, Lakhta was settled by the Finns, who until the middle of the 20th century constituted the absolute majority of the villagers.

On December 22, 1766, Catherine 2 granted the Lakhta manor, which at that time belonged to the Office of the Chancellery from the buildings of palaces and gardens, "in which and in her villages with yard people 208 souls" to her favorite, Count Orlov. Not later than 1768 Count J.A. Bruce took possession of the estate. In 1788, the Lakhta manor with its wooden services on dry land (high place) and the villages of Lakhta, Dubki, Lisiy Nos and Konnaya, also on dry land, were listed there, in those villages of male peasants 238 souls. On May 1, 1813, Lakhta was taken over by the landlords of the Yakovlevs. On October 5, 1844, Count A. I. Stenbok-Fermor took possession of the Lakhta estate, in which there were then 255 male souls. This genus was the owner of the estate until 1912, when his last representative got into debt and the nobility was established over the estate. On October 4, 1913, the count, in order to pay off his debts, was forced to go into incorporation, and the Lakhta estate became the property of the Lakht Joint-Stock Company of Stenbock-Fermor and Co.

After the revolution, Lakhta was left to itself for some time; on May 19, 1919, in the former estate of the Stenbock-Fermor estate, the Lakhta sightseeing station was opened, which lasted until 1932. In the early 1920s, sand mining began on the Lakhta beaches, and the abandoned and dilapidated peat-bedding plant of the Lakhta estate in 1922 took the Oblzmotdel department under its jurisdiction and launched it after major repairs. In 1963, the village of Lakhta was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

I have finally, after what felt like saving up forever, upgraded my macro capabilities with a second-hand 'L' class 100mm. Haven't had much of a chance to test it out but it does seem sharper than the standard 100mm wide open and off-centre. This was taken on a very gloomy day.

The monthly Derby R.T.C - Carlisle High Wapping test train ran last Tuesday.

Several times throughout the Summer months I have been out for it, and also the 1Q82 regular Carlisle HW - Blackpool North, and only once have I had anything remotely resembling sunshine for either working.

This was the last chance for the northbound working this year and the forecast gave a slim hope of brightness.

No chance!

I went out anyway as there's little point in having ISO6400 capability if you can't use it to the max'.

With a fair bit of grain 37219 leads the plot into Workington and past stabled 37604.

 

Ray Palmer - discoverer of the shrinking capabilities of white dwarf star matter and Ivy Town's resident superhero! In 1962, Ray became the ninth member inducted into the Justice League of America - the second member to join after the initial Starro attack that formed the League, after Green Arrow.

 

This is my third attempt at Ray, and it's not one I can take much credit for. My only real contribution is one I'm shocked hasn't been done before (to my knowledge): using the CMF Daredevil's hips for that iconic blue dwarf star alloy belt! Honestly, the only way I think we can realistically improve on a Silver Age Atom figure at this point is with red legs with normal blue boots. Otherwise, we're just waiting on an official figure! That doesn't mean my Atom days are done, though - we still have at least one whole Ryan Choi to go!

Took the Triss dress setup for CBBE body and added bodyslide capabilities

The Borg threat and the Dominion War proved that the pure science vessel was an outdated and, in hindsight, dangerously optimistic concept. The push for a more capable starship in terms of offensive and defensive capabilities resulted in the Venture-class starships, the first class to balance the capabilities of an exploration vessel with the more robust tactical capabilities of the Defiant-class battleships. The result is a multirole starship able to switch roles in a moments notice when the need arises.

WELL ENHANCER LWI / DIVE SUPPORT VESSEL

COILED TUBING CAPABILITIES, MONOHULL PERFORMANCE

 

The Well Enhancer is designed to minimize production downtime and provides cost effective well maintenance, production enhancement and well abandonment solutions. With 1,100m2 of main deck space and the ability to run rigid riser and coiled tubing, the vessel can also perform a range of well testing and production flowback services.

 

The vessel features a 150 Te multi-purpose tower (MPT), capable of deploying wireline and coiled-tubing. The vessel also features kill pumps and a 100 Te main crane and is currently capable of conducting LWI operations to a depth of 600m.

 

The DP3 Well Enhancer features a purpose built derrick over a 7m x 7m moonpool and has a travelling block rated to 150 Te capacity in passive mode.

 

The Well Enhancer’s 18 man saturation diving spread is rated to 300 m, and combined with the vessel’s work/observation class ROVs, provides for full IRM and light construction services and diving support for any tree systems which require manual intervention to facilitate LWI operations.