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This downtown Miami building combines juvenile and family courts in a non-traditional, welcoming environment. Designed to minimize stress for children and families, the 14-story building houses 18 courtrooms and 16 supporting agencies, making it easy for families to access services in one central location.
The team attempted to create the best possible experience for people who need to use this building. Five floors are flexible to support the county’s changing needs. Three floors offer families storefront locations for key support agencies. Agile courtrooms and technologies accommodate different case types.
The bright, spacious interiors communicate respect and warmth toward the children and their families. Daylit corridors and generous common spaces display public art. Several large-scale murals and tile installations feature portraits created by students.
As part of providing a healthy environment, Miami-Dade County wanted to integrate sustainability into the design. The LEED Gold building’s east-west orientation minimizes solar heat gain from the tropical sun while offering spectacular views to Biscayne Bay and the city.
A concrete screen wall on the main civic facade provides shading. Multicolored glass windows create an ever-changing daylight experience in public waiting areas. At night, light from the interior creates a random pattern of primary colors across this south-facing “confetti wall.”
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
www.jud11.flcourts.org/About-the-Court/Miami-Dade-Childre...
www.hok.com/projects/view/miami-dade-childrens-courthouse/
www.perezperez.com/miami-childrens-courthouse
www.suffolk.com/work/projects/miami-dade-childrens-courth...
www.bniengineers.com/projects-item/md-childrens-courthouse/
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
I used a higher f-stop to minimize the city lights and catch the lightning over Layton in the east.
DSC_0674-001
This is part of my pandemic project. The project was created to minimize the number of people that I would come into contact with and to help keep my sanity. The location is a local university. From what I can tell the vast majority of classes are being held online leaving the campus empty with the exception of a few nursing students and an occasional group of Frisbee golf players.
The project started when my wife and I used the campus to walk the dog in the evening. I began to notice the architecture and interesting light fixtures. I started to return and photograph and soon had a project.
The project is to examine the lights and architecture of the empty Campus at night.
Canon 6D
Oy! Is this to up-close and personal? This was effectively a test shot prior to my first Zoom as Alex.
This is my new-ish makeup regimen. Hopefully, some of this proves useful :)
First, I shave my face twice, with the grain. Going with the grain not only mitigates razor burn, but also minimizes the tiny bumps we sometimes see in closeups of a man's face. I don't want that. My neck, however, is a lost cause. Not only do I have those little bumps but it's starting to get a bit wrinkly. But, that's ok for a woman of a certain age, nest pas?
After shaving, I use Neutrogena Pore Cleaner (as it has salicylic acid to tamp down pimples) and Vitamin E Toner from The Body Shop (to keep skin healthy). Finally, I apply a moisturizer with a high SPF.
Next, I add eyeshadow primer, do my brows using MADLUVV stencils, apply eyeshadow (I prefer those with a metallic sheen), then apply a special liquid eyeliner for magnetic lashes from Kiss. After a light coat of mascara (I love BADgal BANG! Volumizing Mascara), I snap on the lashes and touch up my eyeshadow.
Following my eyes, I apply foundation. I use HD Pro Corrector Concealer by L.A. Girl (Peach Corrector) and Joe Blasco foundation in Ultra Fair. I apply as little foundation as I can get away with. I do a bit of contouring (Anastasia Beverly Hills, Light to Medium) and dust Laura Mercier translucent powder to balance things out. I have a fat nose, so a bit of contouring is helpful, but honestly for a more natural look I generally leave it be. Finally, I apply some blush and a hint of shine from the contouring kit for a slight dewy effect (very slight - I don’t want my skin to look like plastic).
My lips are lined with Shockwave lip liners using darker tones that go well with my hair color. I always follow the lip line for upper lip and go slightly outside lip line for lower lip. At the end, I apply Full-On Plumping Lip Cream from Buxom (my favorite color: Kir Royale).
I use MAC Prep + Prime Fix+ Primer and Setting Spray to set things in place. No shine, no bleed. It's awesome.
I do wear false nails. My preferred brand is Static Nails - these are just beautiful. I stick them on with super glue from my hobby room and always have the bottle in my purse for nail repairs or the random scale model I may encounter on my femme travels.
For my bod, I use Pure Grace body lotion, which provides a nice sheen to the skin and has a lovely scent. Over this, or after I dress, I apply a bit of perfume.
The whole process takes an hour and a half.
Tall, stout white spikes of white flowers are a distinctive feature of this species. It is important to be aware of the ecological sensitivity of the location. I stay on the trails and minimize my impact on the environment at all times. I practice wildflower-friendly photo techniques only, to prevent damage to flowers and their habitat. Copyright © Kim Toews/All Rights Reserved.
This set was taken during the golden hour in an area NW of town known as Burrs Spur. (and old rail spur). Im trying to minimize my processing so, only crop and orientation. tweeking the light, and removal of sensor dust. Its not easy editing through the binoculars. The colors are provide from above so enjoy
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning
In the P-38 Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his team of designers created one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation. From 1942 to 1945, U. S. Army Air Forces pilots flew P-38s over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, and from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Lightning pilots in the Pacific theater downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Allied warplane.
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1943
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 390 x 1170cm, 6345kg, 1580cm (12ft 9 9/16in. x 38ft 4 5/8in., 13988.2lb., 51ft 10 1/16in.)
Materials:
All-metal
Physical Description:
Twin-tail boom and twin-engine fighter; tricycle landing gear.
Long Description:
From 1942 to 1945, the thunder of P-38 Lightnings was heard around the world. U. S. Army pilots flew the P-38 over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific; from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Measured by success in combat, Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and a team of designers created the most successful twin-engine fighter ever flown by any nation. In the Pacific Theater, Lightning pilots downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Army Air Forces warplane.
Johnson and his team conceived this twin-engine, single-pilot fighter airplane in 1936 and the Army Air Corps authorized the firm to build it in June 1937. Lockheed finished constructing the prototype XP-38 and delivered it to the Air Corps on New Year's Day, 1939. Air Corps test pilot and P-38 project officer, Lt. Benjamin S. Kelsey, first flew the aircraft on January 27. Losing this prototype in a crash at Mitchel Field, New York, with Kelsey at the controls, did not deter the Air Corps from ordering 13 YP-38s for service testing on April 27. Kelsey survived the crash and remained an important part of the Lightning program. Before the airplane could be declared ready for combat, Lockheed had to block the effects of high-speed aerodynamic compressibility and tail buffeting, and solve other problems discovered during the service tests.
The most vexing difficulty was the loss of control in a dive caused by aerodynamic compressibility. During late spring 1941, Air Corps Major Signa A. Gilke encountered serious trouble while diving his Lightning at high-speed from an altitude of 9,120 m (30,000 ft). When he reached an indicated airspeed of about 515 kph (320 mph), the airplane's tail began to shake violently and the nose dropped until the dive was almost vertical. Signa recovered and landed safely and the tail buffet problem was soon resolved after Lockheed installed new fillets to improve airflow where the cockpit gondola joined the wing center section. Seventeen months passed before engineers began to determine what caused the Lightning's nose to drop. They tested a scale model P-38 in the Ames Laboratory wind tunnel operated by the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and found that shock waves formed when airflow over the wing leading edges reached transonic speeds. The nose drop and loss of control was never fully remedied but Lockheed installed dive recovery flaps under each wing in 1944. These devices slowed the P-38 enough to allow the pilot to maintain control when diving at high-speed.
Just as the development of the North American P-51 Mustang, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and the Vought F4U Corsair (see NASM collection for these aircraft) pushed the limits of aircraft performance into unexplored territory, so too did P-38 development. The type of aircraft envisioned by the Lockheed design team and Air Corps strategists in 1937 did not appear until June 1944. This protracted shakedown period mirrors the tribulations suffered by Vought in sorting out the many technical problems that kept F4U Corsairs off U. S. Navy carrier decks until the end of 1944.
Lockheed's efforts to trouble-shoot various problems with the design also delayed high-rate, mass production. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the company had delivered only 69 Lightnings to the Army. Production steadily increased and at its peak in 1944, 22 sub-contractors built various Lightning components and shipped them to Burbank, California, for final assembly. Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) subcontracted to build the wing center section and the firm later became prime manufacturer for 2,000 P-38Ls but that company's Nashville plant completed only 113 examples of this Lightning model before war's end. Lockheed and Convair finished 10,038 P-38 aircraft including 500 photo-reconnaissance models. They built more L models, 3,923, than any other version.
To ease control and improve stability, particularly at low speeds, Lockheed equipped all Lightnings, except a batch ordered by Britain, with propellers that counter-rotated. The propeller to the pilot's left turned counter-clockwise and the propeller to his right turned clockwise, so that one propeller countered the torque and airflow effects generated by the other. The airplane also performed well at high speeds and the definitive P-38L model could make better than 676 kph (420 mph) between 7,600 and 9,120 m (25,000 and 30,000 ft). The design was versatile enough to carry various combinations of bombs, air-to-ground rockets, and external fuel tanks. The multi-engine configuration reduced the Lightning loss-rate to anti-aircraft gunfire during ground attack missions. Single-engine airplanes equipped with power plants cooled by pressurized liquid, such as the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection), were particularly vulnerable. Even a small nick in one coolant line could cause the engine to seize in a matter of minutes.
The first P-38s to reach the Pacific combat theater arrived on April 4, 1942, when a version of the Lightning that carried reconnaissance cameras (designated the F-4), joined the 8th Photographic Squadron based in Australia. This unit launched the first P-38 combat missions over New Guinea and New Britain during April. By May 29, the first 25 P-38s had arrived in Anchorage, Alaska. On August 9, pilots of the 343rd Fighter Group, Eleventh Air Force, flying the P-38E, shot down a pair of Japanese flying boats.
Back in the United States, Army Air Forces leaders tried to control a rumor that Lightnings killed their own pilots. On August 10, 1942, Col. Arthur I. Ennis, Chief of U. S. Army Air Forces Public Relations in Washington, told a fellow officer "… Here's what the 4th Fighter [training] Command is up against… common rumor out there that the whole West Coast was filled with headless bodies of men who jumped out of P-38s and had their heads cut off by the propellers." Novice Lightning pilots unfamiliar with the correct bailout procedures actually had more to fear from the twin-boom tail, if an emergency dictated taking to the parachute but properly executed, Lightning bailouts were as safe as parachuting from any other high-performance fighter of the day. Misinformation and wild speculation about many new aircraft was rampant during the early War period.
Along with U. S. Navy Grumman F4F Wildcats (see NASM collection) and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks (see NASM collection), Lightnings were the first American fighter airplanes capable of consistently defeating Japanese fighter aircraft. On November 18, men of the 339th Fighter Squadron became the first Lightning pilots to attack Japanese fighters. Flying from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, they claimed three during a mission to escort Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers (see NASM collection).
On April 18, 1943, fourteen P-38 pilots from the 70th and the 339th Fighter Squadrons, 347th Fighter Group, accomplished one of the most important Lightning missions of the war. American ULTRA cryptanalysts had decoded Japanese messages that revealed the timetable for a visit to the front by the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. This charismatic leader had crafted the plan to attack Pearl Harbor and Allied strategists believed his loss would severely cripple Japanese morale. The P-38 pilots flew 700 km (435 miles) at heights from 3-15 m (10-50 feet) above the ocean to avoid detection. Over the coast of Bougainville, they intercepted a formation of two Mitsubishi G4M BETTY bombers (see NASM collection) carrying the Admiral and his staff, and six Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters (see NASM collection) providing escort. The Lightning pilots downed both bombers but lost Lt. Ray Hine to a Zero.
In Europe, the first Americans to down a Luftwaffe aircraft were Lt. Elza E. Shahan flying a 27th Fighter Squadron P-38E, and Lt. J. K. Shaffer flying a Curtiss P-40 (see NASM collection) in the 33rd Fighter Squadron. The two flyers shared the destruction of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200C-3 Condor maritime strike aircraft over Iceland on August 14, 1942. Later that month, the 1st fighter group accepted Lightnings and began combat operations from bases in England but this unit soon moved to fight in North Africa. More than a year passed before the P-38 reappeared over Western Europe. While the Lightning was absent, U. S. Army Air Forces strategists had relearned a painful lesson: unescorted bombers cannot operate successfully in the face of determined opposition from enemy fighters. When P-38s returned to England, the primary mission had become long-range bomber escort at ranges of about 805 kms (500 miles) and at altitudes above 6,080 m (20,000 ft).
On October 15, 1943, P-38H pilots in the 55th Fighter Group flew their first combat mission over Europe at a time when the need for long-range escorts was acute. Just the day before, German fighter pilots had destroyed 60 of 291 Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses (see NASM collection) during a mission to bomb five ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, Germany. No air force could sustain a loss-rate of nearly 20 percent for more than a few missions but these targets lay well beyond the range of available escort fighters (Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, see NASM collection). American war planners hoped the long-range capabilities of the P-38 Lightning could halt this deadly trend, but the very high and very cold environment peculiar to the European air war caused severe power plant and cockpit heating difficulties for the Lightning pilots. The long-range escort problem was not completely solved until the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) began to arrive in large numbers early in 1944.
Poor cockpit heating in the H and J model Lightnings made flying and fighting at altitudes that frequently approached 12,320 m (40,000 ft) nearly impossible. This was a fundamental design flaw that Kelly Johnson and his team never anticipated when they designed the airplane six years earlier. In his seminal work on the Allison V-1710 engine, Daniel Whitney analyzed in detail other factors that made the P-38 a disappointing airplane in combat over Western Europe.
• Many new and inexperienced pilots arrived in England during December 1943, along with the new J model P-38 Lightning.
• J model rated at 1,600 horsepower vs. 1,425 for earlier H model Lightnings. This power setting required better maintenance between flights. It appears this work was not done in many cases.
• During stateside training, Lightning pilots were taught to fly at high rpm settings and low engine manifold pressure during cruise flight. This was very hard on the engines, and not in keeping with technical directives issued by Allison and Lockheed.
• The quality of fuel in England may have been poor, TEL (tetraethyl lead) fuel additive appeared to condense inside engine induction manifolds, causing detonation (destructive explosion of fuel mixture rather than controlled burning).
• Improved turbo supercharger intercoolers appeared on the J model P-38. These devices greatly reduced manifold temperatures but this encouraged TEL condensation in manifolds during cruise flight and increased spark plug fouling.
Using water injection to minimize detonation might have reduced these engine problems. Both the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) were fitted with water injection systems but not the P-38. Lightning pilots continued to fly, despite these handicaps.
During November 1942, two all-Lightning fighter groups, the 1st and the 14th, began operating in North Africa. In the Mediterranean Theater, P-38 pilots flew more sorties than Allied pilots flying any other type of fighter. They claimed 608 enemy a/c destroyed in the air, 123 probably destroyed and 343 damaged, against the loss of 131 Lightnings.
In the war against Japan, the P-38 truly excelled. Combat rarely occurred above 6,080 m (20,000 ft) and the engine and cockpit comfort problems common in Europe never plagued pilots in the Pacific Theater. The Lightning's excellent range was used to full advantage above the vast expanses of water. In early 1945, Lightning pilots of the 12th Fighter Squadron, 18th Fighter Group, flew a mission that lasted 10 ½ hours and covered more than 3,220 km (2,000 miles). In August, P-38 pilots established the world's long-distance record for a World War II combat fighter when they flew from the Philippines to the Netherlands East Indies, a distance of 3,703 km (2,300 miles). During early 1944, Lightning pilots in the 475th Fighter Group began the 'race of aces.' By March, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Lynch had scored 21 victories before he fell to antiaircraft gunfire while strafing enemy ships. Major Thomas B. McGuire downed 38 Japanese aircraft before he was killed when his P-38 crashed at low altitude in early January 1945. Major Richard I. Bong became America's highest scoring fighter ace (40 victories) but died in the crash of a Lockheed P-80 (see NASM collection) on August 6, 1945.
Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.
Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.
In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.
One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.
Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.
Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.
Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:
6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.
6-22-45Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.
6-25-45Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.
6-27-45Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.
10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.
10-8-45Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.
10-9-45Nashville, Tennessee,
5-28-46Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?
7-24-46Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.
• • •
Quoting from Wikipedia | Lockheed P-38 Lightning:
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" by the Japanese, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, photo reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.
The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the mount of America's top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving, and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll was too slow for it to excel as a dogfighter. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.
Variants: Lightning in maturity: P-38J
The P-38J was introduced in August 1943. The turbo-supercharger intercooler system on previous variants had been housed in the leading edges of the wings and had proven vulnerable to combat damage and could burst if the wrong series of controls were mistakenly activated. In the P-38J model, the streamlined engine nacelles of previous Lightnings were changed to fit the intercooler radiator between the oil coolers, forming a "chin" that visually distinguished the J model from its predecessors. While the P-38J used the same V-1710-89/91 engines as the H model, the new core-type intercooler more efficiently lowered intake manifold temperatures and permitted a substantial increase in rated power. The leading edge of the outer wing was fitted with 55 gal (208 l) fuel tanks, filling the space formerly occupied by intercooler tunnels, but these were omitted on early P-38J blocks due to limited availability.
The final 210 J models, designated P-38J-25-LO, alleviated the compressibility problem through the addition of a set of electrically-actuated dive recovery flaps just outboard of the engines on the bottom centerline of the wings. With these improvements, a USAAF pilot reported a dive speed of almost 600 mph (970 km/h), although the indicated air speed was later corrected for compressibility error, and the actual dive speed was lower. Lockheed manufactured over 200 retrofit modification kits to be installed on P-38J-10-LO and J-20-LO already in Europe, but the USAAF C-54 carrying them was shot down by an RAF pilot who mistook the Douglas transport for a German Focke-Wulf Condor. Unfortunately the loss of the kits came during Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier's four-month morale-boosting tour of P-38 bases. Flying a new Lightning named "Snafuperman" modified to full P-38J-25-LO specs at Lockheed's modification center near Belfast, LeVier captured the pilots' full attention by routinely performing maneuvers during March 1944 that common Eighth Air Force wisdom held to be suicidal. It proved too little too late because the decision had already been made to re-equip with Mustangs.
The P-38J-25-LO production block also introduced hydraulically-boosted ailerons, one of the first times such a system was fitted to a fighter. This significantly improved the Lightning's rate of roll and reduced control forces for the pilot. This production block and the following P-38L model are considered the definitive Lightnings, and Lockheed ramped up production, working with subcontractors across the country to produce hundreds of Lightnings each month.
Noted P-38 pilots
Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire
The American ace of aces and his closest competitor both flew Lightnings as they tallied 40 and 38 victories respectively. Majors Richard I. "Dick" Bong and Thomas J. "Tommy" McGuire of the USAAF competed for the top position. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor.
McGuire was killed in air combat in January 1945 over the Philippines, after racking up 38 confirmed kills, making him the second-ranking American ace. Bong was rotated back to the United States as America's ace of aces, after making 40 kills, becoming a test pilot. He was killed on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, when his P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter flamed out on takeoff.
Charles Lindbergh
The famed aviator Charles Lindbergh toured the South Pacific as a civilian contractor for United Aircraft Corporation, comparing and evaluating performance of single- and twin-engined fighters for Vought. He worked to improve range and load limits of the F4U Corsair, flying both routine and combat strafing missions in Corsairs alongside Marine pilots. In Hollandia, he attached himself to the 475th FG flying P-38s so that he could investigate the twin-engine fighter. Though new to the machine, he was instrumental in extending the range of the P-38 through improved throttle settings, or engine-leaning techniques, notably by reducing engine speed to 1,600 rpm, setting the carburetors for auto-lean and flying at 185 mph (298 km/h) indicated airspeed which reduced fuel consumption to 70 gal/h, about 2.6 mpg. This combination of settings had been considered dangerous; it was thought it would upset the fuel mixture and cause an explosion. Everywhere Lindbergh went in the South Pacific, he was accorded the normal preferential treatment of a visiting colonel, though he had resigned his Air Corps Reserve colonel's commission three years before. While with the 475th, he held training classes and took part in a number of Army Air Corps combat missions. On 28 July 1944, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" flown expertly by the veteran commander of 73rd Independent Flying Chutai, Imperial Japanese Army Captain Saburo Shimada. In an extended, twisting dogfight in which many of the participants ran out of ammunition, Shimada turned his aircraft directly toward Lindbergh who was just approaching the combat area. Lindbergh fired in a defensive reaction brought on by Shimada's apparent head-on ramming attack. Hit by cannon and machine gun fire, the "Sonia's" propeller visibly slowed, but Shimada held his course. Lindbergh pulled up at the last moment to avoid collision as the damaged "Sonia" went into a steep dive, hit the ocean and sank. Lindbergh's wingman, ace Joseph E. "Fishkiller" Miller, Jr., had also scored hits on the "Sonia" after it had begun its fatal dive, but Miller was certain the kill credit was Lindbergh's. The unofficial kill was not entered in the 475th's war record. On 12 August 1944 Lindbergh left Hollandia to return to the United States.
Charles MacDonald
The seventh-ranking American ace, Charles H. MacDonald, flew a Lightning against the Japanese, scoring 27 kills in his famous aircraft, the Putt Putt Maru.
Robin Olds
Main article: Robin Olds
Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently transitioned to P-51s to make seven more kills. After World War II, he flew F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general with 16 kills.
Clay Tice
A P-38 piloted by Clay Tice was the first American aircraft to land in Japan after VJ-Day, when he and his wingman set down on Nitagahara because his wingman was low on fuel.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Noted aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished in a F-5B-1-LO, 42-68223, c/n 2734, of Groupe de Chasse II/33, out of Borgo-Porreta, Bastia, Corsica, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, while on a flight over the Mediterranean, from Corsica to mainland France, on 31 July 1944. His health, both physical and mental (he was said to be intermittently subject to depression), had been deteriorating and there had been talk of taking him off flight status. There have been suggestions (although no proof to date) that this was a suicide rather than an aircraft failure or combat loss. In 2000, a French scuba diver found the wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint-Exupéry's F-5B. No evidence of air combat was found. In March 2008, a former Luftwaffe pilot, Horst Rippert from Jagdgruppe 200, claimed to have shot down Saint-Exupéry.
Adrian Warburton
The RAF's legendary photo-recon "ace", Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO DFC, was the pilot of a Lockheed P-38 borrowed from the USAAF that took off on 12 April 1944 to photograph targets in Germany. W/C Warburton failed to arrive at the rendezvous point and was never seen again. In 2003, his remains were recovered in Germany from his wrecked USAAF P-38 Lightning.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
"Today's goal- maximize pleasure, minimize pain." - Eric Stoltz
The dock at restaurant In De Watertuin at the Loosdrechtse Plassen (lakes).
Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200.
Edited with Picasa.
This is part of my pandemic project. The project was created to minimize the number of people that I would come into contact with and to help keep my sanity. The location is a local university. From what I can tell the vast majority of classes are being held online leaving the campus empty with the exception of a few nursing students and an occasional group of Frisbee golf players.
The project started when my wife and I used the campus to walk the dog in the evening. I began to notice the architecture and interesting light fixtures. I started to return and photograph and soon had a project.
The project is to examine the lights and architecture of the empty Campus at night.
Canon 6D
Voigtländer Color Skopar 28mm f2.8
Griffon vultures have been used as model organisms for the study of soaring and thermoregulation. The energy costs of level flight tend to be high, prompting alternatives to flapping in larger birds. Vultures in particular utilize more efficient flying methods such as soaring. Compared to other birds, which elevate their metabolic rate to upwards of 16 times their basal metabolic rate in flight, soaring griffon vultures expend about 1.43 times their basal metabolic rate in flight. Griffon vultures are also efficient flyers in their ability to return to a resting heart rate after flight within ten minutes.
As large scavengers, griffon vultures have not been observed to seek shelter for thermoregulation. Vultures use their bald heads as a means to thermoregulate in both extreme cold and hot temperatures. Changes in posture can increase bare skin exposure from 7% to 32%. This change allows for the more than doubling of convective heat loss in still air. Griffon vultures have also been found to tolerate increased body temperatures as a response to high ambient temperatures. By allowing their internal body temperature to change independently of their metabolic rate, griffon vultures minimize their loss of water and energy in thermoregulating. One study in particular (Bahat 1995) found that these adaptations have allowed the Griffon vulture to have one of the widest thermal neutral zones of any bird.
It declined markedly throughout the 19th–20th centuries in much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, mainly due to direct persecution and "bycatch" from the poisoned carcasses set for livestock predators (Snow and Perrins 1998, Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001, Orta et al. 2015). In some areas a reduction in available food supplies, arising from changes in livestock management practices, also had an impact (Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001, Orta et al. 2015). It is very highly vulnerable to the effects of potential wind energy development (Strix 2012) and electrocution has been identified as a threat (Global Raptors Information Network 2015). Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) used for veterinary purposes pose a threat to this species. One case of suspected poisoning caused by flunixin, an NSAID, was recorded in this species in 2012 in Spain (Zorrilla et al. 2015). Diclofenac, a similar NSAID, has caused severe declines in Gyps vulture species across Asia.
REFORD GARDENS | LES JARDINS DE METIS
Beautiful flowers at Reford Gardens.
Visit : www.refordgardens.com/
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MAKING CIRCLES IN THE WATER (2011)
Faire des ronds dans l'eau (2011)
Balmori Associates, New York, USA.
Visit: www.balmori.com
GROUNDED IN ECOLOGY
Balmori Associates is an international urban and landscape design firm founded by Diana Balmori. Balmori Associates is recognized across the globe for its creative interfacing of landscape and architecture and expanding the boundaries between nature and structure. As distinguished leaders in the field of urban design and the design of innovative public spaces Balmori Associates gives form to the processes of sustainability, producing ‘green infrastructures’ while revealing the constructed and natural operations of a site.
Balmori Associates strives to achieve the highest standards of environmental responsibility by rooting our work in two basic sustainable design principles: Low-Impact and Regenerative . Low-Impact to reduce potential detrimental effects of local and project-related construction, development or consumption and to minimize environmental impacts, while sustaining the health and resilience of ecological systems. Regenerative Design to integrate building systems within landscape for resource renewal and the restoration of constructed landscape.
Our diverse portfolio includes executed projects at all scales, and award-winning competitions and has garnered numerous awards for design excellence; and sustainability is a central concern in all our work. In 1998, Balmori Associates’ Master Plan won the international competition for the waterfront development of the Abandoibarra district of Bilbao, Spain. We provided design leadership on the greenroof at Silvercup Studios in Queens, New York, the largest scientifically monitored green roof in the United States. In the fall of 2012 Korean Prime Minister and several ministries moved from Seoul to Sejong, South Korea new multifunctional administrative city, a zero-waste urban plan designed by Balmori Associates. (Info from Balmori's website)
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LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS | REFORD GARDENS
Visit : www.refordgardens.com/
From Wikipedia:
Elsie Stephen Meighen - born January 22, 1872, Perth, Ontario - and Robert Wilson Reford - born in 1867, Montreal - got married on June 12, 1894.
Elsie Reford was a pioneer of Canadian horticulture, creating one of the largest private gardens in Canada on her estate, Estevan Lodge in eastern Québec. Located in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, her gardens have been open to the public since 1962 and operate under the name Les Jardins de Métis and Reford Gardens.
Born January 22, 1872 at Perth, Ontario, Elsie Reford was the eldest of three children born to Robert Meighen and Elsie Stephen. Coming from modest backgrounds themselves, Elsie’s parents ensured that their children received a good education. After being educated in Montreal, she was sent to finishing school in Dresden and Paris, returning to Montreal fluent in both German and French, and ready to take her place in society.
She married Robert Wilson Reford on June 12, 1894. She gave birth to two sons, Bruce in 1895 and Eric in 1900. Robert and Elsie Reford were, by many accounts, an ideal couple. In 1902, they built a house on Drummond Street in Montreal. They both loved the outdoors and they spend several weeks a year in a log cabin they built at Lac Caribou, south of Rimouski. In the autumn they hunted for caribou, deer, and ducks. They returned in winter to ski and snowshoe. Elsie Reford also liked to ride. She had learned as a girl and spent many hours riding on the slopes of Mount Royal. And of course, there was salmon-fishing – a sport at which she excelled.
In her day, she was known for her civic, social, and political activism. She was engaged in philanthropic activities, particularly for the Montreal Maternity Hospital and she was also the moving force behind the creation of the Women’s Canadian Club of Montreal, the first women club in Canada. She believed it important that the women become involved in debates over the great issues of the day, « something beyond the local gossip of the hour ». Her acquaintance with Lord Grey, the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, led to her involvement in organizing, in 1908, Québec City’s tercentennial celebrations. The event was one of many to which she devoted herself in building bridges with French-Canadian community.
During the First World War, she joined her two sons in England and did volunteer work at the War Office, translating documents from German into English. After the war, she was active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Montreal Council of Social Agencies, and the National Association of Conservative Women.
In 1925 at the age of 53 years, Elsie Reford was operated for appendicitis and during her convalescence, her doctor counselled against fishing, fearing that she did not have the strength to return to the river.”Why not take up gardening?” he said, thinking this a more suitable pastime for a convalescent woman of a certain age. That is why she began laying out the gardens and supervising their construction. The gardens would take ten years to build, and would extend over more than twenty acres.
Elsie Reford had to overcome many difficulties in bringing her garden to life. First among them were the allergies that sometimes left her bedridden for days on end. The second obstacle was the property itself. Estevan was first and foremost a fishing lodge. The site was chosen because of its proximity to a salmon river and its dramatic views – not for the quality of the soil.
To counter-act nature’s deficiencies, she created soil for each of the plants she had selected, bringing peat and sand from nearby farms. This exchange was fortuitous to the local farmers, suffering through the Great Depression. Then, as now, the gardens provided much-needed work to an area with high unemployment. Elsie Reford’s genius as a gardener was born of the knowledge she developed of the needs of plants. Over the course of her long life, she became an expert plantsman. By the end of her life, Elsie Reford was able to counsel other gardeners, writing in the journals of the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society. Elsie Reford was not a landscape architect and had no training of any kind as a garden designer. While she collected and appreciated art, she claimed no talents as an artist.
Elsie Stephen Reford died at her Drummond Street home on November 8, 1967 in her ninety-sixth year.
In 1995, the Reford Gardens ("Jardins de Métis") in Grand-Métis were designated a National Historic Site of Canada, as being an excellent Canadian example of the English-inspired garden.(Wikipedia)
Visit : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Reford
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Visit : www.refordgardens.com/
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LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS
Créés par Elsie Reford de 1926 à 1958, ces jardins témoignent de façon remarquable de l’art paysager à l’anglaise. Disposés dans un cadre naturel, un ensemble de jardins exhibent fleurs vivaces, arbres et arbustes. Le jardin des pommetiers, les rocailles et l’Allée royale évoquent l’œuvre de cette dame passionnée d’horticulture. Agrémenté d’un ruisseau et de sentiers sinueux, ce site jouit d’un microclimat favorable à la croissance d’espèces uniques au Canada. Les pavots bleus et les lis, privilégiés par Mme Reford, y fleurissent toujours et contribuent , avec d’autres plantes exotiques et indigènes, à l’harmonie de ces lieux.
Created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, these gardens are an inspired example of the English art of the garden. Woven into a natural setting, a series of gardens display perennials, trees and shrubs. A crab-apple orchard, a rock garden, and the Long Walk are also the legacy of this dedicated horticulturist. A microclimate favours the growth of species found nowhere else in Canada, while the stream and winding paths add to the charm. Elsie Reford’s beloved blue poppies and lilies still bloom and contribute, with other exotic and indigenous plants, to the harmony of the site.
Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada
Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
Gouvernement du Canada – Government of Canada
© Copyright
This photo and all those in my Photostream are protected by copyright. No one may reproduce, copy, transmit or manipulate them without my written permission.
REFORD GARDENS | LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS
From Wikipedia:
Elsie Stephen Meighen - born January 22, 1872, Perth, Ontario - and Robert Wilson Reford - born in 1867, Montreal - got married on June 12, 1894.
Elsie Reford was a pioneer of Canadian horticulture, creating one of the largest private gardens in Canada on her estate, Estevan Lodge in eastern Québec. Located in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, her gardens have been open to the public since 1962 and operate under the name Les Jardins de Métis and Reford Gardens.
Born January 22, 1872 at Perth, Ontario, Elsie Reford was the eldest of three children born to Robert Meighen and Elsie Stephen. Coming from modest backgrounds themselves, Elsie’s parents ensured that their children received a good education. After being educated in Montreal, she was sent to finishing school in Dresden and Paris, returning to Montreal fluent in both German and French, and ready to take her place in society.
She married Robert Wilson Reford on June 12, 1894. She gave birth to two sons, Bruce in 1895 and Eric in 1900. Robert and Elsie Reford were, by many accounts, an ideal couple. In 1902, they built a house on Drummond Street in Montreal. They both loved the outdoors and they spend several weeks a year in a log cabin they built at Lac Caribou, south of Rimouski. In the autumn they hunted for caribou, deer, and ducks. They returned in winter to ski and snowshoe. Elsie Reford also liked to ride. She had learned as a girl and spent many hours riding on the slopes of Mount Royal. And of course, there was salmon-fishing – a sport at which she excelled.
In her day, she was known for her civic, social, and political activism. She was engaged in philanthropic activities, particularly for the Montreal Maternity Hospital and she was also the moving force behind the creation of the Women’s Canadian Club of Montreal, the first women club in Canada. She believed it important that the women become involved in debates over the great issues of the day, « something beyond the local gossip of the hour ». Her acquaintance with Lord Grey, the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, led to her involvement in organizing, in 1908, Québec City’s tercentennial celebrations. The event was one of many to which she devoted herself in building bridges with French-Canadian community.
During the First World War, she joined her two sons in England and did volunteer work at the War Office, translating documents from German into English. After the war, she was active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Montreal Council of Social Agencies, and the National Association of Conservative Women.
In 1925 at the age of 53 years, Elsie Reford was operated for appendicitis and during her convalescence, her doctor counselled against fishing, fearing that she did not have the strength to return to the river.”Why not take up gardening?” he said, thinking this a more suitable pastime for a convalescent woman of a certain age. That is why she began laying out the gardens and supervising their construction. The gardens would take ten years to build, and would extend over more than twenty acres.
Elsie Reford had to overcome many difficulties in bringing her garden to life. First among them were the allergies that sometimes left her bedridden for days on end. The second obstacle was the property itself. Estevan was first and foremost a fishing lodge. The site was chosen because of its proximity to a salmon river and its dramatic views – not for the quality of the soil.
To counter-act nature’s deficiencies, she created soil for each of the plants she had selected, bringing peat and sand from nearby farms. This exchange was fortuitous to the local farmers, suffering through the Great Depression. Then, as now, the gardens provided much-needed work to an area with high unemployment. Elsie Reford’s genius as a gardener was born of the knowledge she developed of the needs of plants. Over the course of her long life, she became an expert plantsman. By the end of her life, Elsie Reford was able to counsel other gardeners, writing in the journals of the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society. Elsie Reford was not a landscape architect and had no training of any kind as a garden designer. While she collected and appreciated art, she claimed no talents as an artist.
Elsie Stephen Reford died at her Drummond Street home on November 8, 1967 in her ninety-sixth year.
In 1995, the Reford Gardens ("Jardins de Métis") in Grand-Métis were designated a National Historic Site of Canada, as being an excellent Canadian example of the English-inspired garden.(Wikipedia)
Visit : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Reford
Visit : www.refordgardens.com/
LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS
Créés par Elsie Reford de 1926 à 1958, ces jardins témoignent de façon remarquable de l’art paysager à l’anglaise. Disposés dans un cadre naturel, un ensemble de jardins exhibent fleurs vivaces, arbres et arbustes. Le jardin des pommetiers, les rocailles et l’Allée royale évoquent l’œuvre de cette dame passionnée d’horticulture. Agrémenté d’un ruisseau et de sentiers sinueux, ce site jouit d’un microclimat favorable à la croissance d’espèces uniques au Canada. Les pavots bleus et les lis, privilégiés par Mme Reford, y fleurissent toujours et contribuent , avec d’autres plantes exotiques et indigènes, à l’harmonie de ces lieux.
Created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, these gardens are an inspired example of the English art of the garden. Woven into a natural setting, a series of gardens display perennials, trees and shrubs. A crab-apple orchard, a rock garden, and the Long Walk are also the legacy of this dedicated horticulturist. A microclimate favours the growth of species found nowhere else in Canada, while the stream and winding paths add to the charm. Elsie Reford’s beloved blue poppies and lilies still bloom and contribute, with other exotic and indigenous plants, to the harmony of the site.
Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada
Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
Gouvernement du Canada – Government of Canada
© Copyright
This photo and all those in my Photostream are protected by copyright. No one may reproduce, copy, transmit or manipulate them without my written permission.
The area that was to become West Palm Beach was settled in the late 1870s and 1880s by a few hundred settlers who called the vicinity "Lake Worth Country." These settlers were a diverse community from different parts of the United States and the world. They included founding families such at the Potters and the Lainharts, who would go on to become leading members of the business community in the fledgling city. The first white settlers in Palm Beach County lived around Lake Worth, then an enclosed freshwater lake, named for Colonel William Jenkins Worth, who had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida in 1842. Most settlers engaged in the growing of tropical fruits and vegetables for shipment the north via Lake Worth and the Indian River. By 1890, the U.S. Census counted over 200 people settled along Lake Worth in the vicinity of what would become West Palm Beach. The area at this time also boasted a hotel, the "Cocoanut House", a church, and a post office. The city was platted by Henry Flagler as a community to house the servants working in the two grand hotels on the neighboring island of Palm Beach, across Lake Worth in 1893, coinciding with the arrival of the Florida East Coast railroad. Flagler paid two area settlers, Captain Porter and Louie Hillhouse, a combined sum of $45,000 for the original town site, stretching from Clear Lake to Lake Worth.
On November 5, 1894, 78 people met at the "Calaboose" (the first jail and police station located at Clematis St. and Poinsettia, now Dixie Hwy.) and passed the motion to incorporate the Town of West Palm Beach in what was then Dade County (now Miami-Dade County). This made West Palm Beach the first incorporated municipality in Dade County and in South Florida. The town council quickly addressed the building codes and the tents and shanties were replaced by brick, brick veneer, and stone buildings. The city grew steadily during the 1890s and the first two decades of the 20th century, most residents were engaged in the tourist industry and related services or winter vegetable market and tropical fruit trade. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed by the Florida State Legislature and West Palm Beach became the county seat. In 1916, a new neo-classical courthouse was opened, which has been painstakingly restored back to its original condition, and is now used as the local history museum.
The city grew rapidly in the 1920s as part of the Florida land boom. The population of West Palm Beach quadrupled from 1920 to 1927, and all kinds of businesses and public services grew along with it. Many of the city's landmark structures and preserved neighborhoods were constructed during this period. Originally, Flagler intended for his Florida East Coast Railway to have its terminus in West Palm, but after the area experienced a deep freeze, he chose to extend the railroad to Miami instead.
The land boom was already faltering when city was devastated by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. The Depression years of the 1930s were a quiet time for the area, which saw slight population growth and property values lower than during the 1920s. The city only recovered with the onset of World War II, which saw the construction of Palm Beach Air Force Base, which brought thousands of military personnel to the city. The base was vital to the allied war effort, as it provided an excellent training facility and had unparalleled access to North Africa for a North American city. Also during World War II, German U-Boats sank dozens of merchant ships and oil tankers just off the coast of West Palm Beach. Nearby Palm Beach was under black out conditions to minimize night visibility to German U-boats.
The 1950s saw another boom in population, partly due to the return of many soldiers and airmen who had served in the vicinity during the war. Also, the advent of air conditioning encouraged growth, as year-round living in a tropical climate became more acceptable to northerners. West Palm Beach became the one of the nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas during the 1950s; the city's borders spread west of Military Trail and south to Lake Clarke Shores. However, many of the city's residents still lived within a narrow six-block wide strip from the south to north end. The neighborhoods were strictly segregated between White and African-American populations, a legacy that the city still struggles with today. The primary shopping district remained downtown, centered around Clematis Street.
In the 1960s, Palm Beach County's first enclosed shopping mall, the Palm Beach Mall, and an indoor arena were completed. These projects led to a brief revival for the city, but in the 1970s and 1980s crime continued to be a serious issue and suburban sprawl continued to drain resources and business away from the old downtown area. By the early 1990s there were very high vacancy rates downtown, and serious levels of urban blight.
Since the 1990s, developments such as CityPlace and the preservation and renovation of 1920s architecture in the nightlife hub of Clematis Street have seen a downtown resurgence in the entertainment and shopping district. The city has also placed emphasis on neighborhood development and revitalization, in historic districts such as Northwood, Flamingo Park, and El Cid. Some neighborhoods still struggle with blight and crime, as well as lowered property values caused by the Great Recession, which hit the region particularly hard. Since the recovery, multiple new developments have been completed. The Palm Beach Mall, located at the Interstate 95/Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard interchange became abandoned as downtown revitalized - the very mall that initiated the original abandonment of the downtown. The mall was then redeveloped into the Palm Beach Fashion Outlets in February 2014. A station for All Aboard Florida, a high-speed passenger rail service serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, is under construction as of July 2015.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
This downtown Miami building combines juvenile and family courts in a non-traditional, welcoming environment. Designed to minimize stress for children and families, the 14-story building houses 18 courtrooms and 16 supporting agencies, making it easy for families to access services in one central location.
The team attempted to create the best possible experience for people who need to use this building. Five floors are flexible to support the county’s changing needs. Three floors offer families storefront locations for key support agencies. Agile courtrooms and technologies accommodate different case types.
The bright, spacious interiors communicate respect and warmth toward the children and their families. Daylit corridors and generous common spaces display public art. Several large-scale murals and tile installations feature portraits created by students.
As part of providing a healthy environment, Miami-Dade County wanted to integrate sustainability into the design. The LEED Gold building’s east-west orientation minimizes solar heat gain from the tropical sun while offering spectacular views to Biscayne Bay and the city.
A concrete screen wall on the main civic facade provides shading. Multicolored glass windows create an ever-changing daylight experience in public waiting areas. At night, light from the interior creates a random pattern of primary colors across this south-facing “confetti wall.”
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
www.jud11.flcourts.org/About-the-Court/Miami-Dade-Childre...
www.hok.com/projects/view/miami-dade-childrens-courthouse/
www.perezperez.com/miami-childrens-courthouse
www.suffolk.com/work/projects/miami-dade-childrens-courth...
www.bniengineers.com/projects-item/md-childrens-courthouse/
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
Public Health advice about wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted from not being recommended for those who have not shown symptoms of infection to being a good idea. We can minimize the transmission (both ways) through adopting several measures: staying indoors as much as possible, practicing social distancing, frequent hand-washing, breaking the habit of touching our faces, and wearing masks when in public.
"Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam has new advice for Canadians: wear a non-medical face mask to help limit the spread of the coronavirus when you can’t ensure proper physical distance from others –that includes riding public transit and shopping in a grocery store. She said in a briefing today that wearing masks is now being advised to cut down on transmission by infected Canadians who may not be showing symptoms. She emphasized that masks do not better protect the user, but could help shield others."
There are many websites giving instructions on how to sew face masks, but I'm lousy at sewing. A YouTube tutorial by a medical doctor gives instruction on how to make non-medical face masks using commonly-available household items: paper towels, a ruler, scissors, stapler, and two rubber bands.
These masks are not guaranteed to block all droplet transmission and they are single-use only, but they seem better than nothing so I set about making a few for the family. I have not worn one outdoors yet, but they appear functional. They are pretty flimsy, but as the doctor who created them says "if you can make a paper airplane, you can make this." Hey, maybe paper airplanes will by my next housebound activity. :-)
Here is the tutorial:
m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2_PToMIOY3b1nLKclonnmH2tNl...
Yesterday, in an effort to minimize our exposure to the virus, we left home at 5:30 am and drove in the dark to be at the grocery when it opened. On our way back we observed a light fog, and just before the final turn toward our house, Carol saw the sun coming up and suggested I take a picture. I used one of the two cameras I always keep in the car to take my very first picture of 2020. Stay safe, everyone !
Some believe that the huge Sitka spruce was simply shaped by natural conditions such as extreme weather. However, it was Native Americans in the area who trained the tree into its cage-like assortment of thick vertical trunks. Such trees are common in the Pacific Northwest, and are known as culturally modified trees. Native Americans created the tree to hold canoes with corpses, in a practice known as “tree burial.”
I tried a multi-shot pano to try to capture the scale of this massive tree, but I think the result actually seems to minimize it. Lesson learned. I should use a corpse in the frame...
YoUnique Couture Salsa Duo for SoS
Salsa Dress in 2 Black Shades, Black Panties & Sleeves.
Compatible with Maitreya, Maitreya Petite, Freya, Isis, Hourglass, Legacy, Legacy Perky, Tonic Curvy, Fine & Minimize, eBody Curvy.
Check out more gorgeous outfits in the in-world store!!!!
Taxi: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/East%20Oakdale/17/62/23
Social Media
www.flickr.com/groups/3775265@N22/pool/
www.flickr.com/photos/150883724@N06/
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BREAK 216 OSCAR NIGHT WOMENS SET
Exclusively at Tres Chic Event - From October 19th. - November 10th.
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🏆 BREAK 216 OSCAR NIGHT WOMAN SET
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Please visit Break Concept for all of your pose needs.
Taxi: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aberdeen/108/128/29
MarketPlace: marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/227049
Break Concept Website: linktr.ee/breakstoresl
Facebook: www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=break%20concept
Worn~
Lelutka Billie
Legacy Classic
[coconut.]chae skin/icey tone
Social distancing, or physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures taken to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It involves keeping a distance of six feet or two meters from others and avoiding gathering together in large groups. By reducing the probability that a given uninfected person will come into physical contact with an infected person, the disease transmission can be suppressed, resulting in fewer deaths. The measures are combined with good respiratory hygiene and hand washing. During the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested the reference to "physical" as an alternative to "social", in keeping with the notion that it is a physical distance which prevents transmission; people can remain socially connected via technology. To slow down the spread of infectious diseases and avoid overburdening healthcare systems, particularly during a pandemic, several social distancing measures are used, including the closing of schools and workplaces, isolation, quarantine, restricting movement of people and the cancellation of mass gatherings. Social distancing measures date back to at least the fifth century BCE. The biblical book of Leviticus contains one of the earliest known references to the practice, likely as response to leprosy. During the Plague of Justinian, emperor Justinian enforced an ineffective quarantine on the Byzantine Empire, including dumping bodies into the sea, blaming the widespread outbreak predominately on "Jews, Samaritans, pagans, heretics, Arians, Montanists, and homosexuals".[11] In modern times, social distancing measures have been successfully implemented in several previous epidemics. In St. Louis, shortly after the first cases of influenza were detected in the city during the 1918 flu pandemic, authorities implemented school closures, bans on public gatherings and other social distancing interventions. The case fatality rates in St. Louis were much less than in Philadelphia, which despite having cases of influenza, allowed a mass parade to continue and did not introduce social distancing until more than two weeks after its first cases. Social distancing has also been used during the 2019-20 coronavirus epidemic. Social distancing measures are more effective when the infectious disease spreads via droplet contact (coughing or sneezing); direct physical contact, including sexual contact; indirect physical contact (e.g., by touching a contaminated surface); or airborne transmission (if the microorganism can survive in the air for long periods). The measures are less effective when an infection is transmitted primarily via contaminated water or food or by vectors such as mosquitoes or other insects.Drawbacks of social distancing can include loneliness, reduced productivity and the loss of other benefits associated with human interaction. Since January, Taiwan, India and Thailand, all of which also make face masks, have banned their export, although, to help China, India later temporarily revoked its restriction. South Korea also banned the export of masks, as will Indonesia soon. Outside Asia, Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic also stopped exports in early March. So did Kenya, where the first case of coronavirus was confirmed on March 13.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released straightforward guidance in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic: Everyone in the US should wear a cloth mask or face covering while in certain public settings. The recommendation marks a shift from the federal government. Less than six weeks ago, Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted that members of the general public should “STOP BUYING MASKS!” He added that masks “are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” The CDC is still advising against the general public wearing traditional medical masks, such as surgical variants and N95 respirators, to preserve them for health care workers. The shift in messaging on cloth masks, the agency said, came in light of evidence that people with few or no symptoms of Covid-19 can still transmit the virus. The CDC now recommends everyone use cloth masks in public. The upshot: Masks can help stop the spread of coronavirus not just by protecting the wearer, but by preventing the wearer — who could be an asymptomatic spreader — from breathing and spitting their germs everywhere. Some studies in households and colleges “show a benefit of masks,” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have described social distancing as a set of "methods for reducing frequency and closeness of contact between people in order to decrease the risk of transmission of disease".[10] During the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic, the CDC revised the definition of social distancing as "remaining out of congregrate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately six feet or two meters) from others when possible". Previously, in 2009, the WHO described social distancing as "keeping at least an arm's length distance from others, [and] minimizing gatherings".[7] It is combined with good respiratory hygiene and hand washing, and is considered the most feasible way to reduce or delay a pandemic.Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Research Program at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, told me, “so it would be plausible that they would also protect in lower-intensity transmission settings such as in the general community.” But masks do not make you invincible. They can’t replace good hygiene — Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face! — and social distancing, both of which have been key to stemming the coronavirus even in Asian countries where widespread mask use was already common. Epidemiological models also suggest coronavirus cases will rise if social distancing measures are relaxed, potentially causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths in the US alone. That’s true whether people are gathering wearing masks or not. People wear masks in midtown New York City on April 6. Kena Betancur/Getty Images. Still, the CDC’s about-face has left many people with plenty of questions: What does it mean to use a mask correctly? When should they be used and washed? Do you need them for all public situations? Can they really keep you safe? If you can’t find a mask, how can you make one? Knowing that a disease is circulating may trigger a change in behaviour by people choosing to stay away from public places and other people. When implemented to control epidemics, such social distancing can result in benefits but with an economic cost. Research indicates that measures must be applied rigorously and immediately in order to be effective. Several social distancing measures are used to control the spread of contagious illnesses. And why aren’t there more medical masks to begin with? Here’s a guide to some of the most common questions. Avoiding physical contact: Social distancing includes eliminating the physical contact that occurs with the typical handshake, hug, or hongi; this illustration offers eight alternatives. Keeping at least two-metre (six-foot) distance from each other and avoiding hugs and gestures that involve direct physical contact, reduce the risk of becoming infected during flu pandemics and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. These distances of separation, in addition to personal hygiene measures, are also recommended at places of work.Where possible it may be recommended to work from home. Various alternatives have been proposed for the tradition of handshaking. The gesture of namaste, placing one's palms together, fingers pointing upwards, drawing the hands to the heart, is one non-touch alternative. During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom, this gesture was used by Prince Charles upon greeting reception guests, and has been recommended by the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Other alternatives include the wave, the shaka (or "hang loose") sign, and placing a palm on your heart, as practiced in parts of Iran.
1) When should I wear a mask?
According to the CDC, you should wear a mask in public, particularly while in “settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies)” and “especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.” Think of circumstances where it’s going to be harder to keep at least 6 feet away from other people, especially in closed, poorly ventilated places. It’s in those kinds of situations that coronavirus-containing droplets are more likely to spread by air or surfaces. There are some exceptions to the mask guidance, the CDC stated: “Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.” The evidence for everyone wearing masks, explained. And be warned: If you use a mask incorrectly, or start acting recklessly because you’re wearing a mask, it could actually hurt you more than it helps.
If you fidget with your mask, and especially if you touch your face in the process, you can infect yourself with virus-containing droplets your mask caught. If you reuse a mask without cleaning it, you can breathe in or otherwise expose yourself to droplets the mask captured last time. If you generally ease up on good hygiene or social distancing because you’re wearing a mask, you’re putting yourself — and your community — at greater risk.
The CDC offers some tips for how to properly use a mask. Above all, don’t touch the mask and then touch other parts of your face, especially your eyes, mouth, and nose. The entire point of this fabric is to shield you from outside germs. So you don’t want to touch the part of the mask doing the shielding and then the parts of your face that are vulnerable to infection. You should also wash your hands before and after taking off a mask — before to avoid getting anything on your face and mask, and after to get rid of anything that was on your mask. Remove the mask with the loops, not by touching the front. If possible, throw away disposable masks after using them. And if you can’t throw a mask away, make sure to thoroughly disinfect it with ultraviolet light sterilizers — not something most people have around — or, if using a cloth product, throw it in the wash or clean it with soap and water. For some people, it might make sense to have multiple masks around if you have to go out multiple times on a particular day. The important thing, though, is to throw a recently used mask in the laundry or in the wash as soon as possible and avoid touching it at all until it’s clean. Do not keep dirty masks around your house, where people can easily touch them and potentially infect themselves.
2) What kind of mask should I use? The CDC recommends a cloth mask or face covering, whether a professionally made mask or a homemade variant. The CDC explicitly advises against the general public using a surgical mask, which is the standard mask you’ve probably seen doctors and nurses wear. It also advises against the public using N95 respirators, which are more complex, expensive masks meant to fit more tightly on the face.
Surgical masks and N95 respirators, the agency noted, “are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.” New York City nurses and health workers gather to demand safer working conditions, more personal protective equipment (PPE), and free virus testing during the Covid-19 outbreak on April 6. Giles Clarke/Getty Images As it stands, there is a serious shortage of PPE, including masks, for health care workers. There are reports of doctors, nurses, and other health care workers using bandanas and scarves for masks and trash bags for gowns. Hospitals are considering do-not-resuscitate orders for dying Covid-19 patients out of fear that such intensive, close-up procedures could get doctors and nurses without PPE infected with the virus. The CDC, acknowledging the shortage, previously recommended homemade masks for health care workers when no other options are available. “I am worried that telling people to wear masks will strain already weak supplies that are needed by doctors and nurses,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “If we are able to fix that supply chain, I’d feel less worried about this. But some of the shortages initially were due to members of public and medical staff raiding medical offices’ and hospitals’ supplies for home use.” Private companies and public officials are racing to fix the PPE shortage. But until it’s fixed, it’s critical that the existing supplies of surgical masks and N95 respirators are left for health care workers who are literally saving people from this pandemic.
3) Will a mask protect me from getting Covid-19? The CDC’s guidance — and the best argument for wearing a mask, according to the experts I spoke with — is primarily to stop the wearer from infecting other people. That’s especially important for Covid-19, since at least some spread happens when people are asymptomatic, when they have few symptoms, or before they develop symptoms. Universal mask use could stop these asymptomatic carriers, many of whom might not even know they’re sick, from inadvertently infecting other people. Masks also can offer some protection from others by putting a physical barrier between them and your mouth and nose. But we don’t know how much, because it’s unclear how much the virus spreads through airborne droplets or aerosols. Masks can’t replace all the other approaches needed to fight the coronavirus, like washing your hands, not touching your face, and social distancing. Still, when paired with all these other tactics — and when used correctly — masks offer an extra layer of protection.
The quality of the research on this topic is weak, with a lot of small, underpowered studies. But the studies that do exist generally favor more people wearing masks. A 2008 systematic review, published in BMJ, found medical masks halted the spread of respiratory viruses from likely infected patients. In particular, studies on the 2003 outbreak of SARS — a cousin to the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 — found that masks alone were 68 percent effective at preventing the virus. By comparison, washing hands more than 10 times a day was 55 percent effective. A combination of measures such as hand-washing, masks, gloves, and gowns was 91 percent effective.
A 2015 review, also published in BMJ, looked at mask use among people in community settings, specifically households and colleges. Some studies produced unclear results, but the findings overall indicated that wearing a mask protected people from infections compared to not wearing a mask, especially when paired with hand-washing. A big issue was adherence; people were often bad at actually wearing masks, which, unsurprisingly, diminished their effectiveness. But if masks were used early and consistently, the authors concluded, they seemed to work. MASKS CAN’T REPLACE ALL THE OTHER APPROACHES NEEDED TO FIGHT THE CORONAVIRUS, LIKE WASHING YOUR HANDS, NOT TOUCHING YOUR FACE, AND SOCIAL DISTANCING A more recent study published in Nature Medicine found that surgical masks appear to block droplets and aerosols containing some viruses, including the flu and coronavirus. Other studies have produced similar results, typically finding at least some protective value from masks as long as they’re used consistently and properly. The results vary depending on the mask. N95 respirators are, in theory, the best possible masks. But they require a bit of skill and fitting to use — to the point that a 2016 review in CMAJ couldn’t find a difference among health care workers using N95 respirators versus surgical masks for respiratory infection, likely due to poor fitting. That’s another reason these masks should be reserved for the professionals. Cloth masks, meanwhile, are much less effective than surgical masks or N95 respirators, as a 2015 study in BMJ found. And they can be extra risky, since they can trap and hold virus-containing droplets that wearers can then breathe in. But they still, in general, offer more protection than no mask at all, several studies concluded. There’s no good research on how wearing a mask could affect people’s behaviors, but the experience of some Asian countries suggests it’s possible to adopt social distancing, good hygiene, and masks in the midst of an outbreak. Taiwan and South Korea, for example, have done a better job containing Covid-19 than the US while embracing masks and all the other evidence-based measures. To emphasize: Yes, masks can help. But they’re not an excuse to ease up on social distancing, good hygiene, and all the other things public health officials are recommending right now. Do all of those things too.
4) Do I need a mask if I’m walking or running in the open air?
Probably not — but if used properly, wearing a mask probably can’t hurt, and might help encourage others to wear one too.
The CDC specifies that it’s recommending cloth face coverings where social distancing isn’t possible. A solitary walk or run outside is typically not going to fall into one of those categories.
In general, masks become more helpful as the risk of infection increases. If you’re having closer, more prolonged contact with potentially sick people, using a mask is more likely to protect you. And if you’re potentially sick and having closer, more prolonged contact with others, a mask is more likely to protect them from your germs as well. “Are people having those prolonged, close-contact interactions with people?” Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist focused on hospital preparedness, told me. “Because that’s what’s more considered high-risk. … It’s that face-to-face for a significant chunk of time.” That’s why the CDC had already recommended masks for people who know they’re sick or interacting with someone who’s sick. People who frequently interact with others as part of their jobs, like a first responder or a grocery store clerk, are more likely to get good use out of masks too. That especially includes health care workers, who spend more time with sick people than anyone else — which is why they need masks and other PPE more.
Certain populations also may want to especially consider masks in less risky environments, such as people who are older or have underlying health issues, like a compromised immune system, that put them at greater risk if they’re infected. Besides the health benefits, there’s also a potential social value to wearing a mask everywhere: It could push more people to do so as well. If more people are out in public wearing face coverings, that could help remove the stigma that only sick people wear masks. So if you go out with a mask in more situations, it could not only help you and those around you, but it might help instill a healthier norm for the rest of society too.
5) How do I make a mask? There are a lot of options! But keep in mind guidance, from the CDC, about a proper mask: It should fit snugly but comfortably around the face, be secured around the ears with ties or loops, include multiple layers of fabric, allow for breathing without restriction, and be readily washable without damage. If you have the time and can sew, the CDC recommends a face covering that can be made with two 10-inch by 6-inch rectangles of cotton fabric, two 6-inch pieces of elastic or rubber bands, string, cloth strips, or hair ties, a needle and thread or bobby pin, scissors, and a sewing machine. Here’s the agency’s four-step tutorial: If you’re like me and the idea of sewing anything sounds like a total nightmare, the CDC offers a non-sewing option. It just requires a T-shirt and a pair of scissors. Here’s the three-step tutorial: A three-step tutorial for a mask made from a T-shirt. If you’re even more like me and that mask is still too much, the surgeon general posted a 45-second video guide on Twitter for an even easier mask that can be made solely with a T-shirt or just about any other cloth fabric and two rubber bands: Chances are the less skill-intensive, less time-consuming masks will be, at the very least, less comfortable, and maybe harder to wear for long. But if you’re in a pinch, or if you’re unable to do more complicated tailoring, the easier alternatives offer more protection than nothing.
6) Why aren’t more medical masks available? The simple answer is that supply hasn’t kept up with demand. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, China made half the world’s face masks. When the outbreak took off there, China started to use its supply and hoard what remained. This problem has only spread since, as more and more countries hoard whatever medical supplies they can get — with some, like Germany, even banning most PPE exports. So as demand increased due to Covid-19 — not just from health care workers but from a general public increasingly scared of infection — there was less supply to go around. On a deeper level, though, the shortage in masks and other PPE reflects America’s — and, really, the rest of the world’s — poor preparedness for a pandemic. The mask and broader PPE shortage, in fact, was well-known to the US government before the Covid-19 outbreak, yet the US did not prepare. “When we have done exercises in the past for pandemic preparedness, supply chain issues were a well-documented challenge,” Popescu said. “This is something we’ve known about — maybe not to this extent, but this isn’t a shocker. It’s more surprising that we let it get this bad.” One of those simulations held by the federal government, as the New York Times reported, covered a pandemic that looked a lot like the one we’re facing now: a respiratory virus that started in China and made its way to the US and the rest of the world. Among the many problems, the Times found, were “deficiencies ‘in personal protective equipment use.’” The exercise found that the US didn’t have the means to quickly produce more PPE. When states turned to the federal government for help in the exercise, there was “confusion” and “bureaucratic chaos” as requests and submissions hit multiple agencies at once. This was far from the only simulation to produce these results, experts told me. Jeremy Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, argued a previous outbreak should have acted as a warning for the world: the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak. While working in President Barack Obama’s administration at the time, Konyndyk quickly realized that the US — and much of the world — was simply not ready for a major disease outbreak. “I came away from that experience just completely horrified at how unready we would be for something more dangerous than Ebola,” he said, noting Ebola was, thankfully, relatively hard to transmit. Indeed, experts and advocates argue that the US generally underfunds disease outbreak preparedness and public health programs more broadly. It’s these concerns that led the Obama administration, after the Ebola outbreak, to attempt to scale up preparedness by establishing a White House office dedicated solely to the issue and producing a 69-page playbook in case of an outbreak. But President Donald Trump’s administration neglected and rolled back these efforts, eventually disbanding the White House office.
We’ve seen the results in the botched rollout of coronavirus testing, but PPE offers another example. America could have shored up its supplies of PPE in its strategic stockpile. It could have ensured that there would be surge capacity to boost production in case of emergency. And it should have been doing this all before the coronavirus pandemic. But it didn’t, even after it became clearer, around January and February, that the coronavirus was a looming threat. By early March, federal officials acknowledged the Strategic National Stockpile had just 1 percent of the medical masks the country needed in a full-blown pandemic. “The US … was not prepared,” Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told me. “A good preparedness plan would have helped address this and had things in place to allow for that increased need to be met.” So the US is playing catch-up with different public and private interventions to boost PPE production. Until that’s fixed, we simply don’t have enough medical masks to go around.
7) If medical masks are better, why shouldn’t I get some for myself? Because health care workers need them more, since they’re constantly in contact with those who are sick — in a way not many other people, if any, in the general public are. And even if you take a totally selfish perspective on this, there are good reasons to want health care workers to get these medical masks first. As coronavirus has spread, experts have talked up “flattening the curve.” The idea is to spread out the number of coronavirus cases — through social distancing, testing, contact tracing, and other protective measures — to avoid overwhelming the health care system. Here’s what that looks like in chart form:
An infographic that shows the goals of mitigation during an outbreak with two curves. The X-axis represents the number of daily cases and they Y-axis represents the amount of time since the first case. The first curve represents the number of cases when no protective measures during an outbreak are implemented and displays a large peak. The second curve is much lower, representing a much smaller rise in the number of cases if protective measures are implemented. Christina Animashaun/Vox
The PPE shortage could make it harder to flatten the curve of new cases if doctors and nurses get sick. But the line representing health care system capacity also isn’t a constant. If we develop more capacity, it can handle more cases at once. If capacity falls — if doctors and nurses get sick because of a lack of protective equipment, or refuse to work without conditions that can ensure their safety — even a flatter curve will be hard for the system to handle. That’s why experts, even those who acknowledge that the public would benefit from using masks, say that doctors and nurses should get priority: This isn’t just about keeping people on the front lines safe; it’s about keeping all of us safe. To put it in selfish terms: If you do get sick with the coronavirus or anything else during this pandemic, and you want to make sure that there are doctors and nurses available to treat you, you should let them get the masks they need first.
It’s true that we might all be better off wearing surgical masks in an ideal world. But that’s not the world we live in right now. For all our sakes, we should act accordingly.
8) If masks are so great, why is the CDC just telling us this now?
Officially, the CDC has said it changed its stance with the changing evidence. As it became clearer that asymptomatic transmission was happening with the coronavirus, the CDC argued, the benefits of everyone wearing a mask increased, since they could help stop transmission from people who don’t even know they’re sick. Unofficially, the answer is a little more complicated. In my discussions with public health officials and experts before the CDC changed its guidance, it seemed many people were afraid of saying anything that could exacerbate the PPE shortage for health care workers or get members of the general public to think — incorrectly — that they could ease social distancing measures if they just wear a mask. “I fear that if we tell everyone they should go out and buy masks, it will not only contribute to the PPE shortage,” Jaimie Meyer, an infectious disease expert at Yale University, told me, “but it will give a false sense of a ‘quick fix’ for protection, whereas people still need to be practicing social distancing strategies that are much more effective, though perhaps socially, psychologically, [and] logistically challenging.” Trump ordered more N95 masks. 3M says his tactics could make the shortage worse. Part of the issue is the CDC also operates on a different evidence level than a lot of the public. The agency tends to follow the best reviews of the scientific evidence with very rigorous standards for what’s a good study and what’s not. So what may sound like good enough evidence and reasoning to you and me may not be good enough for the CDC. Since the scientific evidence for public mask use isn’t great — even if it’s generally positive — the CDC, as an agency filled with scientists, was just more skeptical of taking a leap than many laypeople were. Regardless of the reasoning, the CDC’s messaging backfired. As health care workers clamored for masks, it became increasingly harder to tell the public that masks wouldn’t benefit everyone else. By obfuscating and failing to fully explain the issue, officials likely sowed distrust toward their guidance. And the public rushed to buy masks anyway.
9) How can I donate masks to health care workers?
The dire shortage of masks and other PPE has led to several options for donations: If you want to make and donate cloth masks, WeNeedMasks.org provides options for most states and Puerto Rico. If you have surgical masks, N95 respirators, and other PPE around, #GetUsPPE is another option. (Although note that many places will only take unopened supplies.)
If you’re a manufacturer or supplier, the N95 Project is trying to connect companies that make or have masks with the hospitals and clinics that need them. At this point in the pandemic, health care workers and facilities all over the country will gladly accept the help they can take. Some places, like New York and Louisiana, are dealing with much worse coronavirus outbreaks right now and really need the supplies today. But it’s also worth being realistic about just how far donations can go. Given the research, cloth masks are simply not suitable replacements for actual medical masks. With medical masks, N95 respirators are widely regarded as more effective than conventional surgical masks when properly fitted. So even with donations, it’s on the federal government to set up more production and coordination of supply lines to make sure places in need get PPE. It’s on private producers to step up and do what they can. (Some car, clothing, and pillow companies, among others, have already done so.) And it’s on us — to make sure that the existing supplies of masks and other PPE are made available to health care workers. Americans can accomplish that, in part, with donations, but we can also do that by not buying surgical masks or N95 respirators until the shortage is fixed, and instead relying on cloth and homemade coverings. So, yes, health experts recommend wearing a mask in public. Just don’t take one from health care workers. And keep doing all the other things public health officials recommend, like social distancing and washing your hands, as we deal with this pandemic. Support Vox’s explanatory journalism Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today. Since the beginning of March and the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe, Chinese companies have sold nearly 4 billion face masks overseas, according to authorities. For Beijing, this is a perfect way to change the narrative: China is now offering its assistance to virus-hit countries while trying to leave the mistakes of the early outbreak in the past. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, face masks have become a hot commodity and international competition is fierce. Last week, a number of French politicians accused the US of buying up Chinese face masks ordered by France. In one case, the Americans allegedly outbid the French on the airport tarmac in China. China is the biggest producer of masks on the planet and is getting orders from around the world. With the Covid-19 pandemic now under control in the country, factories have been mobilised to boost production. Since early April, China has been able to produce 200 million masks a day. In the case of a second wave of infections, will China continue to send masks to the entire planet? With a population of 1.5 billion inhabitants, the country would need to protect itself too. Mathematical modeling has shown that transmission of an outbreak may be delayed by closing schools. However, effectiveness depends on the contacts children maintain outside of school. Often, one parent has to take time off work, and prolonged closures may be required. These factors could result in social and economic disruption. Modeling and simulation studies based on U.S. data suggest that if 10% of affected workplaces are closed, the overall infection transmission rate is around 11.9% and the epidemic peak time is slightly delayed. In contrast, if 33% of affected workplaces are closed, the attack rate decreases to 4.9%, and the peak time is delayed by one week. Workplace closures include closure of "non-essential" businesses and social services ("non-essential" means those facilities that do not maintain primary functions in the community, as opposed to essential services). Cancellation of mass gatherings includes sports events, films or musical shows. Evidence suggesting that mass gatherings increase the potential for infectious disease transmission is inconclusive.[30] Anecdotal evidence suggests certain types of mass gatherings may be associated with increased risk of influenza transmission, and may also "seed" new strains into an area, instigating community transmission in a pandemic. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, military parades in Philadelphia and Bostonmay have been responsible for spreading the disease by mixing infected sailors with crowds of civilians. Restricting mass gatherings, in combination with other social distancing interventions, may help reduce transmission.Border restrictions or internal travel restrictions are unlikely to delay an epidemic by more than two to three weeks unless implemented with over 99% coverage.Airport screening was found to be ineffective in preventing viral transmission during the 2003 SARS outbreak in Canada[35] and the U.S.[36] Strict border controls between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, imposed from 1770 until 1871 to prevent persons infected with the bubonic plague from entering Austria, were reportedly effective, as there were no major outbreaks of plague in Austrian territory after they were established, whereas the Ottoman Empire continued to suffer frequent epidemics of plague until the mid-nineteenth century. A Northeastern University study published in March 2020 found that "travel restrictions to and from China only slow down the international spread of COVID-19 [when] combined with efforts to reduce transmission on a community and an individual level. [...] Travel restrictions aren't enough unless we couple it with social distancing."[39] The study found that the travel ban in Wuhan delayed the spread of the disease to other parts of mainland China only by three to five days, although it did reduce the spread of international cases by as much as 80 percent. A primary reason travel restrictions were less effective is that many people with COVID-19 do not show symptoms during the early stages of infection.
This is part of my pandemic project. The project was created to minimize the number of people that I would come into contact with and to help keep my sanity. The location is a local university. From what I can tell the vast majority of classes are being held online leaving the campus empty with the exception of a few nursing students and an occasional group of Frisbee golf players.
The project started when my wife and I used the campus to walk the dog in the evening. I began to notice the architecture and interesting light fixtures. I started to return and photograph and soon had a project.
The project is to examine the lights and architecture of the empty Campus at night
Canon 6D
Trioplan 100mm f2.8
Barely larger than a pack of cigarettes, these two cameras are milestones in the history of analog photography.
On the left, the Rollei 35, designed by Heinz Waaske – a brilliant and far-sighted engineer. Waaske designed it while working overtime at Wirgin, whose boss rejected the project and fired Waaske. Waaske moved to Rollei, his design became one of the most famous icons (like the Mini Cooper or the Beetle in automotive history), and Wirgin disappeared from the market. The real career of the camera has accelerated even since the publication of the photo in which Queen Elizabeth II uses a Rollei 35 herself.
On the right, a similarly sized (and, according to users) much technically superior Petri Color 35. Unfortunately, none of the Japanese emperors was captured using this Petri, and the camera - although equally small, equally neat and charming, and perhaps technically better - was not as famous as its neighbor on the left.
With the summer fast approaching, the Rural Fire Service are taking out heaps of hazard reduction burns to minimize the fire potential for the upcoming fire season...
Already it is heating up and early in Spring, we have already hit the low 30c, which would translate to the mid 90F...
In the same family as North America's smaller Great Horned Owl, the Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) is one of the world's largest owls, with wingspans reaching nearly six feet. They even often fly like eagles, soaring on updrafts to minimize energy usage. This large bird lives throughout most of Asia, Europe, and northern Africa, where it hunts various hares, birds, and even baby deer.
Lucky for this one, kept by the Hawk Creek Wildlife Center, these owls have lived 60 years in captivity.
Look closely,,, water drops dot pink petals plus a bit of pale green Duckweed. But most extraordinary of all, notice the large bubbles lifting tips of the petals out of the water.
Why bubbles are round: The surface tension of water provides the necessary wall tension for the formation of bubbles. The tendency to minimize that wall tension pulls the bubbles into spherical shapes.
Surface tension is responsible for the shape of liquid droplets. Although easily deformed, droplets of water tend to be pulled into a spherical shape by the cohesive forces of the surface layer. Due to surface tension, small objects will "float" on the surface of a fluid, as long as the object cannot break through and separate the top layer of water molecules.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami FL
This is a reprocessing of an earlier m31 image to try to minimize color blotchiness in the background and also maximize galaxy detail.
Golf 1 Cabrio with 16" inch BBS RM 024 rims.
The BBS RM 024 rim specifications are 6,5J x 16 ET52, 5x108, 60.1 hub diameter.
Driving with Epytec pitch circle adapter 4x100 to 5x108, 20 mm front / 28 mm rear and 195/40 R16 Falken Ziex ZE914 tires.
Full Album: www.flickr.com/photos/123600876@N07/albums/72157666380946540
Project 2016: Technical check with the replacement of important parts. New convertible fabric roof. Complete interior replacement with carpet, seats and side panels.
Project 2017: Full change of all parts from the front axle.
Project 2018: Full restoration, with sandblast and powder coating, of the rear axle and complete change of all parts
Project 2020: Golf 1 Cabrio 16" inch BBS RM 024 rims
The BBS rim specifications are 6,5x16 ET52, 5x108, 60.1. Driving with Epytec pitch circle adapter 4x100 to 5x108, 20 mm front / 28 mm rear and 195/40 R16 Falken Ziex ZE914 tires. The BBS Rim's are originally from 1990 Renault R25 V6 Turbo Baccara. For now the middle rim is dark-grey powder-coated. All rims will get an original silver BBS paintwork next time.
Project 2021: Replacement of the alternator and the oil pan. New seat upholstery and conversion of the two front seats to consoles with height adjustment.
Project 2022: Complete replacement of the water circuit including water pump, thermostat and housing as well as all water hoses. All BBS rims got a original silver BBS paintwork.
Project 2023:
Complete replacement of the exhaust system with CAT. Completely new interior insulation with removal and installation of the inner cockpit to minimize noise with complete felt insulation. New seals on the windshield and the B-pillar.
But he's still not done...
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. Designed and built by Lockheed in 1943 and delivered just 143 days from the start of design, production models were flying, and two pre-production models did see very limited service in Italy just before the end of World War II. The XP-80 had a conventional all-metal airframe, with a slim low wing and tricycle landing gear. Like most early jets designed during World War II—and before the Allies captured German research data that confirmed the speed advantages of swept-wings—the XP-80 had straight wings similar to previous propeller-driven fighters, but they were relatively thin to minimize drag at high speed.
The Shooting Star began to enter service in late 1944 with 12 pre-production YP-80As. Four were sent to Europe for operational testing (demonstration, familiarization, and possible interception roles), two to England and two to the 1st Fighter Group at Lesina Airfield, Italy. Because of delays in delivery of production aircraft, the Shooting Star saw no actual combat during the conflict. The initial production order was for 344 P-80As after USAAF acceptance in February 1945. A total of 83 P-80s had been delivered by the end of July 1945 and 45 assigned to the 412th Fighter Group (later redesignated the 1st Fighter Group) at Muroc Army Air Field. Production continued after the war, although wartime plans for 5,000 were quickly reduced to 2,000 at a little under $100,000 each. A total of 1,714 single-seat F-80A, F-80B, F-80C, and RF-80s were manufactured by the end of production in 1950, of which 927 were F-80Cs (including 129 operational F-80As upgraded to F-80C-11-LO standards). However, the two-seat TF-80C, first flown on 22 March 1948, became the basis for the T-33 trainer, of which 6,557 were produced.
Shooting Stars first saw combat service in the Korean War, and were among the first aircraft to be involved in jet-versus-jet combat. Despite initial claims of success, the speed of the straight-wing F-80s was inferior to the 668 mph (1075 km/h) swept-wing transonic MiG-15. The MiGs incorporated German research showing that swept wings delayed the onset of compressibility problems, and enabled speeds closer to the speed of sound. F-80s were soon replaced in the air superiority role by the North American F-86 Sabre, which had been delayed to also incorporate swept wings into an improved straight-winged naval FJ-1 Fury.
This prompted Lockheed to improve the F-80 to keep the design competitive, and the result became the F-80E, which was almost a completely different aircraft, despite similar outlines. Lockheed attempted to change as little of the original airframe as possible while the F-80E incorporated two major technical innovation of its time. The most obvious change was the introduction of swept wings for higher speed. After the engineers obtained German swept-wing research data, Lockheed gave the F-80E a 25° sweep, with automatically locking leading edge slots, interconnected with the flaps for lateral stability during take-off and landing, and the wings’ profile was totally new, too. The limited sweep was a compromise, because a 35° sweep had originally been intended, but the plan to retain the F-80’s fuselage and wing attachment points would have resulted in massive center of gravity and mechanical problems. However, wind tunnel tests quickly revealed that even this compromise would not be enough to ensure stable flight esp. at low speed, and that the modified aircraft would lack directional stability. The swept-wing aircraft’s design had to be modified further.
A convenient solution came in the form of the F-80’s trainer version fuselage, the T-33, which had been lengthened by slightly more than 3 feet (1 m) for a second seat, instrumentation, and flight controls, under a longer canopy. Thanks to the extended front fuselage, the T-33’s wing attachment points could accept the new 25° wings without much further modifications, and balance was restored to acceptable limits. For the fighter aircraft, the T-33’s second seat was omitted and replaced with an additional fuel cell. The pressurized front cockpit was retained, together with the F-80’s bubble canopy and out fitted with an ejection seat.
The other innovation was the introduction of reheat for the engine. The earlier F-80 fighters were powered by centrifugal compressor turbojets, the F-80C had already incorporated water injection to boost the rather anemic powerplant during the start phase and in combat. The F-80E introduced a modified engine with a very simple afterburner chamber, designated J33-A-39. It was a further advanced variant of the J33-A-33 for the contemporary F-94 interceptor with water-alcohol injection and afterburner. For the F-80E with less gross weight, the water-alcohol injection system was omitted so save weight and simplify the system, and the afterburner was optimized for quicker response. Outwardly, the different engine required a modified, wider tail section, which also slightly extended the F-80’s tail.
The F-80E’s armament was changed, too. Experience from the Korean War had shown that the American aircrafts’ traditional 0.5” machine guns were reliable, but they lacked firepower, esp. against bigger targets like bombers, and even fighter aircraft like the MiG-15 had literally to be drenched with rounds to cause significant damage. On the other side, a few 23 mmm rounds or just a single hit with an explosive 37 mm shell from a MiG could take a bomber down. Therefore, the F-80’s six machine guns in the nose were replaced with four belt-fed 20mm M24 cannon. This was a license-built variant of the gas-operated Hispano-Suiza HS.404 with the addition of electrical cocking, allowing the gun to re-cock over a lightly struck round. It offered a rate of fire of 700-750 rounds/min and a muzzle velocity of 840 m/s (2,800 ft/s).In the F-80E each weapon was provided with 190 rounds.
Despite the swept wings Lockheed retained the wingtip tanks, similar to Lockheed’s recently developed XF-90 penetration fighter prototype. They had a different, more streamlined shape now, to reduce drag and minimize the risk of torsion problems with the outer wing sections and held 225 US gal (187 imp gal; 850 l) each. Even though the F-80E was conceived as a daytime fighter, hardpoints under the wings allowed the carriage of up to 2.000 lb of external ordnance, so that the aircraft could, like the straight-wing F-80s before, carry out attack missions. A reinforced pair of plumbed main hardpoints, just outside of the landing gear wells, allowed to carry another pair of drop tanks for extra range or single bombs of up to 1.000 lb (454 kg) caliber. A smaller, optional pair of pylons was intended to carry pods with nineteen “Mighty Mouse” 2.75 inches (70 mm) unguided folding-fin air-to-air rockets, and further hardpoints under the outer wings allowed eight 5” HVAR unguided air-to-ground rockets to be carried, too. Total external payload (including the wing tip tanks) was 4,800 lb (roughly 2,200 kg) of payload
The first XP-80E prototype flew in December 1953 – too late to take part in the Korean War, but Lockheed kept the aircraft’s development running as the benefits of swept wings were clearly visible. The USAF, however, did not show much interest in the new aircraft since the proven F-86 Sabre was readily available and focus more and more shifted to radar-equipped all-weather interceptors armed with guided missiles. However, military support programs for the newly founded NATO, esp. in Europe, stoked the demand for jet fighters, so that the F-80E was earmarked for export to friendly countries with air forces that had still to develop their capabilities after WWII. One of these was Germany; after World War II, German aviation was severely curtailed, and military aviation was completely forbidden after the Luftwaffe of the Third Reich had been disbanded by August 1946 by the Allied Control Commission. This changed in 1955 when West Germany joined NATO, as the Western Allies believed that Germany was needed to counter the increasing military threat posed by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. On 9 January 1956, a new German Air Force called Luftwaffe was founded as a branch of the new Bundeswehr (Federal Defence Force). The first volunteers of the Luftwaffe arrived at the Nörvenich Air Base in January 1956, and the same year, the Luftwaffe was provided with its first jet aircraft, the US-made Republic F-84 Thunderstreak from surplus stock, complemented by newly built Lockheed F-80E day fighters and T-33 trainers.
A total of 43 F-80Es were delivered to Germany in the course of 1956 and early 1957 via freight ships as disassembled kits, initially allocated to WaSLw 10 (Waffenschule der Luftwaffe = Weapon Training School of the Luftwaffe) at Nörvenich, one of three such units which focused on fighter training. The unit was quickly re-located to Northern Germany to Oldenburg, an airfield formerly under British/RAF governance, where the F-80Es were joined by Canada-built F-86 Sabre Mk. 5s. Flight operations began there in November 1957. Initially supported by flight instructors from the Royal Canadian Air Force from Zweibrücken, the WaSLw 10’s job was to train future pilots for jet aircraft on the respective operational types. F-80Es of this unit were in the following years furthermore frequently deployed to Decimomannu AB on Sardinia (Italy), as part of multi-national NATO training programs.
The F-80Es’ service at Oldenburg with WaSLw 10 did not last long, though. In 1963, basic flight and weapon system training was relocated to the USA, and the so-called Europeanization was shifted to the nearby Jever air base, i. e. the training in the more crowded European airspace and under notoriously less pleasant European weather conditions. The remaining German F-80E fleet was subsequently allocated to the Jagdgeschwader 73 “Steinhoff” at Pferdsfeld Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate, where the machines were – like the Luftwaffe F-86s – upgraded to carry AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs, a major improvement of their interceptor capabilities. But just one year later, on October 1, 1964, JG 73 was reorganized and renamed Fighter-Bomber Squadron 42, and the unit converted to the new Fiat G.91 attack aircraft. In parallel, the Luftwaffe settled on the F-86 (with more Sabre Mk. 6s from Canada and new F-86K all-weather interceptors from Italian license production) as standard fighter, with the plan to convert to the supersonic new Lockheed F-104 as standard NATO fighter as soon as the type would become available.
For the Luftwaffe the F-80E had become obsolete, and to reduce the number of operational aircraft types, the remaining German aircraft, a total of 34, were in 1965 passed through to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish air force) as part of international NATO military support, where they remained in service until 1974 and were replaced by third generation F-4E Phantom II fighter jets.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 36 ft 9 1/2 in (11.23 m)
Wingspan: 37 ft 6 in (11.44 m) over tip tanks
Height: 13 ft 5 1/4 in (4.10 m)
Wing area: 241.3 sq ft (22,52 m²)
Empty weight: 10,681 lb (4.845 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 18,464 lb (8.375 kg)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0134
Frontal area: 32 sq ft (3.0 m²)
Powerplant:
1× Allison J33-A-39 centrifugal compressor turbojet with 4,600 lbf (20 kN) dry thrust
and 27.0 kN (6,070 lbf) thrust with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,060 km/h (660 mph, 570 kn)
Cruise speed: 439 mph (707 km/h, 381 kn)
Range: 825 mi (1,328 km, 717 nmi)
Ferry range: 1,380 mi (2,220 km, 1,200 nmi)
Service ceiling: 50,900 ft (15,500 m)
Rate of climb: 7,980 ft/min (40.5 m/s)
Time to altitude: 20,000 ft (6,100 m) in 4 minutes 50 seconds
Lift-to-drag: 17.7
Wing loading: 51.3 lb/sq ft (250 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.249 dry
0.328 with afterburner
Armament:
4× 0.79 in (20 mm) M24 cannon (190 rpg)
2x wing tip auxiliary tanks with 225 US gal (187 imp gal; 850 l) each
Underwing hardpoints for a total ordnance load of 4,800 lb (2.200 kg), including
2× 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs, up to 4× pods with nineteen unguided Mighty Mouse FFARs each,
and/or up to 8× 5” (127 mm) HVAR unguided air-to-ground rockets
The kit and its assembly:
The idea of a swept-wing F-80 had been lingering on my idea list for a while, and I actually tried this stunt before in the form of a heavily modified F-94. The recent “Fifties” group build at whatifmodellers.com and a similar build by fellow forum member mat revived the interest in this topic – and inspired by mat’s creation, based on a T-33 fuselage, I decided to use the opportunity and add my personal interpretation of the idea.
Having suitable donor parts at hand was another decisive factor to start this build: I had a Heller T-33 in store, which had already been (ab)used as a donor bank for other projects, and which could now find a good use. I also had an F-80 canopy left over (from an Airfix kit), and my plan was to use Saab J29 wings (from a Matchbox kit) because of their limited sweep angle that would match the post-WWII era well.
Work started with the fuselage; it required a completely new cockpit interior because these parts had already gone elsewhere. I found a cockpit tub with its dashboard from an Italeri F4U, and with some trimming it could be mounted into the reduced cockpit opening, above the OOB front landing gear well. The T-33’s rear seat was faired of with styrene sheet and later PSRed away. The standard nose cone from the Heller T-33 was used, but I added gun ports for the new/different cannon armament.
For a different look with an afterburner engine I modified the tail section under the stabilizers, which was retained because of its characteristic shape. A generous section from the tail was cut away and replaced with the leftover jet pipe from an Italeri (R)F-84F, slightly longer and wider and decorated with innards from a Matchbox Mystère IV. This change is rather subtle but changes the F-80 profile and appears like a compromise between the F-80 and F-94 arrangements.
The T-33 wings were clipped down to the connection lower fuselage part. This ventral plate with integral main landing gear wells was mounted onto the T-33 hull and then the Saab 29 wings were dry-fitted to check their position along the fuselage and to define the main landing gear wells, which had to be cut into them to match their counterparts from the aircraft’s belly.
Their exact position was eventually fixed when the new swept stabilizers, taken from a Hobby Boss F-86, were mounted to the tail. They match well with the swept wings, and for an odd look I kept their dihedral.
The fin was eventually replaced, too – mat’s build retained the original F-80 fin, but with all other surfaces swept I found that the fin had to reflect this, too. So, I implanted a shortened Italeri (R)F-84F fin onto the original base, blended with some PSR into the rest of the tail.
With all aerodynamic surfaces in place it was time for fine-tuning, and to give the aircraft a simpler look I removed the dog teeth from the late Tunnan's outer wings, even though I retained the small LERXs. The wing tips were cut down a little and tip tanks (probably drop tanks from a Hobby Boss F-5E) added – without them the aircraft looked like a juvenile Saab 32!
The landing gear was mostly taken over from the Heller T-33, I just added small consoles for the main landing gear struts to ensure a proper stance, because the new wings and the respective attachment points were deeper. I also had to scratch some landing gear covers because the T-33 donor kit was missing them. The canopy was PSRed over the new opening and a new ejection seat tailored to fit into the F4U cockpit.
A final addition was a pair of pods with unguided FFARs. AFAIK the Luftwaffe did not use such weapons, but they’d make thematically sense on a Fifties anti-bomber interceptor - and I had a suitable pair left over from a Matchbox Mystère IV kit, complete with small pylons.
Painting and markings:
Since the time frame was defined by the Fifties, early Luftwaffe fighters had to carry a bare metal finish, with relatively few decorations. For the F-80E I gave the model an overall base coat with White Aluminum from a Dupli Color rattle can, a very nice and bright silver tone that comes IMHO close to NMF. Panels were post-shaded with Revell 99 (Aluminum) and 91 (Iron Metallic). An anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen was painted in the Luftwaffe tone RAL 6014, Gelboliv (Revell 42).
For some color highlights I gave the tip tanks bright red (Feuerrot, RAL 3000; Revell 330) outer halves, while the inner halves were painted black to avoid reflections that could distract the pilot (seen on a real Luftwaffe T-33 from the late Fifties). For an even more individual touch I added light blue (Tamiya X-14, Sky Blue) highlights on the nose and the fin, reflecting the squadron’s color code which is also carried within the unit emblem – the Tamiya paint came closest to the respective decal (see below).
The cockpit interior was painted with zinc chromate green primer (I used Humbrol 80, which is brighter than the tone should be, but it adds contrast to the black dials on the dashboard), the landing gear wells were painted with a mix of Humbrol 80 and 81, for a more yellowish hue. The landing gear struts became grey, dry-brushed with silver, while the inside of the ventral air brakes were painted in Feuerrot, too.
Then the model received an overall washing with black ink to emphasize the recessed panel lines, plus additional panel shading with Matt Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol 27001), plus a light rubbing treatment with grinded graphite that emphasized the (few leftover) raised panel lines and also added a dark metallic shine to the silver base. Some of the lost panel lines were simulated with simple pencil strokes, too.
The decals/markings primarily came from an AirDoc aftermarket sheet for late Fifties Luftwaffe F-84Fs. The tactical code (“BB-xxx” was then assigned to the WaSLw 10 as unit code, but this soon changed to a similar but different format that told about the unit’s task as well as the specific unit and squadron within it; this was replaced once more by a simple xx+yy code that was only connected to a specific aircraft with no unit reference anymore, and this format is still in use today) was puzzled together from single letters/digits from the same decal set. Some additional markings like the red band on the fuselage had to be scratched, but most stencils came from an all-bare-metal Luftwaffe F-84F.
After some more detail painting the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic paint, just the anti-glare panel and the di-electric fairings on the nose and the fin tip became matt.
A thorough kitbashing build, but the result looks quite plausible, if not elegant? The slightly swept wings suit the F-80 with its organic fuselage shape well, even though they reveal the designs rather baroque shape. There’s a sense of obsolescence about the F-80E, despite its modern features? The Luftwaffe markings work well on the aircraft, too, and with the red and blue highlights the machine looks more attractive despite its simple NMF livery than expected.
On February 1st, 1938, the United States Navy Bureau of Aeronautics sought proposals from American aircraft manufacturers for a new carrier-based fighter aircraft. In April of 1939, the Vought Aircraft Corporation responded with two designs, and one of them, powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine, later won the competition in June. Less than a year later, Vought test pilot Lyman A. Bullard, Jr., flew the first Vought XF4U-1 prototype on May 29th, 1940. At that time, the P&W R-2800 was the largest engine ever used on a fighter aircraft. The R-2800 radial air-cooled engine developed 1,850hp and turned into a three-blade Hamilton Standard Hydromatic propeller with solid aluminum blades spanning 13ft 1in.
The aircraft that Bullard piloted also boasted a revolutionary feature never before seen on an aircraft: a gull-shaped wing bent on both sides of the fuselage. This design provided additional ground clearance for the propeller and minimized drag at the wing-to-fuselage joint. Interestingly, for a 400mph (644kph) aircraft, Vought chose to cover the wing with fabric behind the main spar, a practice the company had previously employed with their OS2U Kingfisher floatplane.
When naval air strategists crafted the requirements for the new fighter, the need for higher speed had overridden all other performance goals. With this in mind, the Bureau of Aeronautics selected the most powerful air-cooled engine available, the P&W R-2800. Vought assembled a team, led by chief designer Rex Beisel, to design the best airframe around this powerful engine. The group included project engineer Frank Albright, aerodynamics engineer Paul Baker, and propulsion engineer James Shoemaker. Beisel and his team succeeded in building a high-speed fighter, but when they redesigned the prototype for production, they were forced to make an unfortunate compromise.
The Navy requested heavier armaments for production Corsairs, and thus, Beisel redesigned each outboard folding wing panel to carry three .50 caliber machine guns. These guns displaced fuel tanks installed in each wing's leading edge. An 897-liter (237 gal) fuselage tank was installed between the cockpit and the engine to replace this lost capacity. To maintain the speedy and narrow fuselage profile, Beisel could not stack the cockpit on top of the tank, so he moved it nearly three feet aft. The wing completely blocked the pilot's line of sight during the most critical landing stages.
The early Corsair models also had a vicious stall, powerful torque, and propeller effects at slow speed, a short tail wheel strut, main gear struts that often bounced the airplane on touchdown, and cowl flap actuators that leaked oil onto the windshield. These difficulties, combined with the lack of cockpit visibility, made it next to impossible for the plane to land on the tiny deck of a moving aircraft carrier. Navy pilots soon nicknamed the F4U the “ensign eliminator” for its tendency to kill these relatively inexperienced pilots.
The Navy refused to clear the F-4U for carrier operations until late 1944, more than seven years after the project began. When the Corsair entered service in the Pacific Theater, it became known by the Imperial Japanese Navy as the "Whistling Death." This was because the Corsairs had cooling air drawn through an opening in the leading edges on both wings close to the fuselage. At high speeds, the incoming air made an unmistakable whistling sound.
Despite these challenges, the Navy and Marine pilots did not waver in their acceptance of the Corsairs. They recognized the need for an improved fighter to replace the aging Grumman F4F Wildcats, and by New Year's Eve of 1942, the service owned 178 F4U-1 airplanes. In 1943, the Navy diverted all Corsairs to land-based United States Marine Corps squadrons and filled Navy carrier-based units with the Grumman F6F Hellcats. The Hellcat, while slightly slower than the Corsair, was a joy to fly aboard the carriers. The F6F Hellcats filled in splendidly until improvements to the F4U qualified it for carrier operations. Meanwhile, the Marines on Guadalcanal took their Corsairs into combat and engaged the enemy for the first time on February 14th, 1943, six months before Hellcat pilots on that battle-scared island first encountered enemy aircraft.
The F4U Corsair had a significant and immediate impact on the war in the Pacific. Pilots could utilize the Corsair's speed and firepower to engage the more maneuverable Japanese airplanes only when the advantage favored the Americans. Unprotected by armor or self-sealing fuel tanks, no Japanese fighter or bomber could withstand for more than a few seconds the concentrated volley from the six .50 caliber machine guns carried by a Corsair. Major Gregory 'Pappy' Boyington assumed command of Marine Corsair squadron VMF-214, nicknamed the 'Black Sheep' squadron, on September 7th, 1943. During less than five months of action, Boyington received credit for downing 28 enemy aircraft. Enemy aircraft shot him down on January 3rd, 1944, but he survived the war in a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camp.
In May and June of 1944, Charles A. Lindbergh flew Corsair missions with Marine pilots at Green Island and Emirau. On September 3rd, 1944, Lindbergh demonstrated the F4U's bomb hauling capacity by flying a Corsair from Marine Air Group 31 carrying three bombs weighing 450 kg (1,000 lbs). He dropped this payload on enemy positions at Wotje Atoll. On September 8th, he dropped the first 900kg (2,000 lbs) bomb during an attack on the atoll. For the finale five days later, the Atlantic flyer delivered a 900kg (2,000 lbs) bomb and two 450kg (1,000 lbs) bombs. Lindbergh went ahead and flew these missions after the commander of MAG-31 informed him that if he were forced down and captured, the Japanese would almost certainly execute him.
As of V-J Day, September 2nd, 1945, the Navy credited Corsair pilots with destroying 2,140 enemy aircraft in aerial combat. The Navy and Marines lost 189 F4Us in action and 1,435 Corsairs in non-combat related accidents. Beginning on February 13th, 1942, Marine and Navy pilots flew 64,051 operational sorties, 54,470 from runways and 9,581 from carrier decks. The British Royal Navy accepted 2,012 Corsairs during the war, while the Royal New Zealand Air Force received 364. The demand was so great that the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation and the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation also began producing the F4Us.
During the Korean War, Corsairs would return to Navy carrier decks and Marine airfields. On September 10th, 1952, Captain Jesse Folmar of Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-312 ("Checkerboards") destroyed a MiG-15 in aerial combat over the west coast of Korea. However, F4U pilots did not have many air-to-air encounters over Korea. Their primary mission was to provide air support for Allied ground units along the battlefront.
After World War II, civilian pilots adapted the speedy bent-wing bird from Vought to fly in competitive air races. They preferred modified versions of the F2G-1 and -2, initially built by Goodyear. Corsairs won the prestigious Thompson Trophy twice. In 1952, Vought manufactured 94 F4U-7s for the French Navy. These aircraft saw action over Indochina (now Vietnam), but this order marked the end of Corsair production. It was in production longer than any other U.S. fighter to see service in World War II. Vought, Goodyear, and Brewster built 12,582 F4Us in as many as 13 production variants.
The United States Navy donated this F4U-1D Corsair to the National Air and Space Museum in September 1960. Vought delivered this Corsair, BuNo 50375, to the U.S. Navy on April 26th, 1944. By October 1944, pilots of VF-10 ("Grim Reapers") were flying it, but in November, the airplane was transferred to VF-89 ("Pied Pipers") at Naval Air Station Atlantic City in New Jersey. It remained there as the squadron moved to NAS Oceana and NAS Norfolk. In February of 1945, the Navy retired the airplane from active service and transferred it to a pool of surplus aircraft stored at Quantico, Virginia. In 1980, NASM volunteers restored the F4U-1D in the colors and markings of a Corsair named "Sun Setter," an F4U-1D assigned to Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-113 ("Whistling Devils") in July of 1944, when that squadron was operating from a field on Engebi in the Marshall Islands during the war.
The roar of crashing waves in rough seas are subdued by a long exposure, at least in my head...minimizing the textures and details for me minimizes the visual sound of the image.
A concrete plant, also known as a batch plant or batching plant, is a device that combines various ingredients to form concrete. Some of these inputs include sand, water, aggregate (rocks, gravel, etc.), fly ash, potash, and cement. There are two types of concrete plants: ready mix plants and central mix plants. A concrete plant can have a variety of parts and accessories, including but not limited to: mixers (either tilt-up or horizontal or in some cases both), cement batchers, aggregate batchers, conveyors, radial stackers, aggregate bins, cement bins, heaters, chillers, cement silos, batch plant controls, and dust collectors (to minimize environmental pollution).
--Wikipedia
One of the massive Marine Iguanas on Isabella
Marine Iguana
The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.
Isabella
Shaped like a sea horse, Isabela is the largest of the the islands in the Galapagos, more than 4 times larger than Santa Cruz the next largest. Isabela is 80 miles (100 km) in length and though it is remarkably beautiful it is not one of the most visited islands in the chain. Its visitor sites are far apart making them accessible only to faster boats or those with longer itineraries. One of the youngest islands, Isabela is located on the western edge of the archipelago near the Galapagos hot spot. At approximately 1 million years old, the island was formed by the merger of 6 shield volcanoes - Alcedo, Cerro Azul, Darwin, Ecuador, Sierra Negra and Wolf. Five of the six volcanoes are still active (the exception is Ecuador) making it one of the most volcanically active places on earth. Visitors cruising past Elizabeth Bay on the west coast can see evidence of this activity in the fumaroles rising from Volcan Chico on Sierra Negra. Two of Isabela's volcanoes lie directly on the equator - Ecuador and Volcan Wolf. Volcan Wolf is the youngest of Isabela's volcanoes and at 5,600ft (1707 m) the highest point in the Galapagos. Isabela is known for its geology, providing visitors with excellent examples of the geologic occurrences that have created the Galapagos Islands including uplifts at Urbina Bay and the Bolivar Channel, Tuft cones at Tagus Cove, and Pulmace on Alcedo. Isabela is also interesting for its flora and fauna. The young island does not follow the vegetation zones of the other islands. The relatively new lava fields and surrounding soils have not developed the sufficient nutrients required to support the varied life zones found on other islands. Another obvious difference occurs on Volcan Wolf and Cerro Azul, these volcanoes loft above the cloud cover and are arid on top. Isabela's rich animal, bird, and marine life is beyond compare. Isabela is home to more wild tortoises than all the other islands. Isabela's large size and notable topography created barriers for the slow moving tortoises; apparently the creatures were unable to cross lava flows and other obstacles, causing several different sub-species of tortoise to develop. Today tortoises roam free in the calderas of Alcedo, Wolf, Cerro Azul, Darwin and Sierra Negra. Alcedo Tortoises spend most of their life wallowing in the mud at the volcano crater. The mud offers moisture, insulation and protects their exposed flesh from mosquitoes, ticks and other insects. The giant tortoises have a mediocre heat control system requiring them to seek the coolness of the mud during the heat of the day and the extra insulation during the cool of the night. On the west coast of Isabela the nutrient rich Cromwell Current upwelling creating a feeding ground for fish, whales, dolphin and birds. These waters have long been known as the best place to see whales in the Galapagos. Some 16 species of whales have been identified in the area including humpbacks, sperms, sei, minkes and orcas. During the 19th century whalers hunted in these waters until the giant creatures were near extinction. The steep cliffs of Tagus Cove bare the names of many of the whaling ships and whalers which hunted in these waters. Birders will be delighted with the offerings of Isabela. Galapagos Penguins and flightless cormorants also feed from the Cromwell Current upwelling. These endemic birds nest along the coast of Isabela and neighboring Fernandina. The mangrove finch, Galapagos Hawk, brown pelican, pink flamingo and blue heron are among the birds who make their home on Isabela. A colorful part to any tour located on the western shore of Isabela, Punta Moreno is often the first or last stopping point on the island (depending on the direction the boat is heading). Punta Moreno is a place where the forces of the Galapagos have joined to create a work of art. The tour starts with a panga ride along the beautiful rocky shores where Galapagos penguins and shore birds are frequently seen. After a dry landing the path traverses through jagged black lava rock. As the swirling black lava flow gave way to form craters, crystal tide pools formed-some surrounded by mangroves. This is a magnet for small blue lagoons, pink flamingos, blue herons, and Bahama pintail ducks. Brown pelican can be seen nesting in the green leaves of the mangroves. You can walk to the edge of the lava to look straight down on these pools including the occasional green sea turtle, white-tipped shark and puffer fish. This idyllic setting has suffered from the presence of introduced species. Feral dogs in the area are known to attack sea Lions and marine iguanas.
Galapagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
The "Obelisk" pose...Dragonflies utilize this method of pointing their torsos directly at the sun in order to minimize their body's exposure to the sun's rays and heat, helping them to stay cooler.
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I love their little faces; I'm sure that bugs don't.
A look to the southeast across this grassy meadow that was a delight to take in. The weather was still overcast with some times of rain, but I was minimize that look with a faster shutter speed and more open aperture (yes, one can see the rain and snow looking at the trees up close!). The idea was just a peaceful setting amongst tall trees in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
I hope you find the time to read this (long) text - Eupalinos
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In his brilliant two-part book Endgame, my friend Derrick Jensen asks:
“Do you believe that our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?
For the last several years I’ve taken to asking people this question, at talks and rallies, in libraries, on buses, in airplanes, at the grocery store, the hard- ware store. Everywhere. The answers range from emphatic nos to laughter. No one answers in the affirmative. One fellow at one talk did raise his hand, and when everyone looked at him, he dropped his hand, then said, sheepishly, “Oh, voluntary? No, of course not.” My next question: how will this understand- ing—that this culture will not voluntarily stop destroying the natural world, eliminating indigenous cultures, exploiting the poor, and killing those who resist—shift our strategy and tactics? The answer? Nobody knows, because we never talk about it: we’re too busy pretending the culture will undergo a magical transformation."
In this article, my friend Elisabeth Robson and I invite you to imagine the scope of changes necessary to make our society sustainable. This transformation could be done voluntarily. But as Derrick reminds us, there is no evidence that will happen. On the contrary, every indicator of ecological health is heading in the wrong direction, and greenwashing abounds. This, ultimately, is why I am an ecological revolutionary.
by Max Wilbert and Elisabeth Robson
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Since January 15th, 2021, we have been fighting to Protect Thacker Pass from a proposed open-pit lithium mine.
For some people, our protest is confusing. Most mainstream environmentalists support lithium mining for producing electric car batteries. Yet here we are, proud environmentalists who have fought the fossil fuel industry for many years, now fighting the electric car industry.
Electric Cars are Not a Solution
We argue that switching to electric cars won’t significantly help solve global warming—a position that is actually backed by evidence (see, for instance, this chart, or read the book Bright Green Lies).
Mining lithium and the other materials used in electric cars destroys sensitive wildlife habitat, releases toxic pollution, bulldozes Native American sacred sites—and pumps out quite a lot of greenhouse gasses.
Electric cars provide the illusion that we’re making progress. And (not coincidentally) they make car manufacturers a LOT of money. Tesla’s Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. Electric car manufacturers and the mining companies providing their raw materials are quite happy for the public to remain ignorant of what’s required to make their products. The idea that buying an electric car will save the planet is called “greenwashing”—false advertising persuasion by eco-propaganda that white washes the true ecological harm caused by a product or process.
The only thing green about EVs is the money being made.
Are Fossil Fuels the Answer?
No. Fossil fuels extraction, processing, and burning causes catastrophic habitat destruction, toxic pollution, and global climate destabilization. Look at the legacy of oil drilling in Nigeria, at the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, at the toxicity caused by the fracking industry, or at the ecocide of mountaintop removal coal mining. Continuing to burn fossil fuels is unacceptable.
As grassroots activists, we’ve spent years fighting oil pipelines and blockading coal trains to stop the destruction caused by drilling and burning fossil fuels. And we’re not funded by the fossil fuel industry. Every dollar we’ve raised comes from donations from regular people who are fed up with the greenwashing lies.
The problem is that mining lithium, cobalt, and silicon and the many other metals and minerals required to build EVs, their batteries, and other “clean” technologies is just as bad for the planet as fossil fuels are.
There isn’t much difference between an open-pit coal mine and open-pit lithium mine. Both destroy habitat. Both poison water. And both release massive quantities of greenhouse gases.
So, What’s the Solution?
One of the most common questions we’re asked is “If electric vehicles aren’t the answer, what is your solution?”
True sustainability is not nearly as simple and easy as buying different products, like electric cars, and putting up solar panels and wind turbines. A truly sustainable life doesn’t mean swapping out gas for lithium-ion batteries.
The state of the planet is dire, from melting ice caps to expanding deserts, from clearcut logging to soil erosion, from the collapse of ocean fish populations to rising temperatures. Our planet is already deep into the 6th mass extinction crisis.
Reversing these trends will mean transforming our entire society, from top to bottom. It will entail changing the foundation of our economy, our communities, our work, our political structures, and beyond. This is daunting, and it is also our only hope.
But this is still vague. What, exactly, does this transformation look like? What is our solution?
What is “Sustainability”?
In the broadest sense, sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. Hopefully it is clear to everyone reading this that the societies we live in are not sustainable in the sense of being able to be maintained continuously over time.
Almost everything we consume, do, and create currently depends on fossil fuels, which are rapidly being drawn down as the world uses over 100 million barrels of oil per day and 24 million tons of coal per day.
Look around you. It’s probably true that every human-made object surrounding you right now was created with the help of fossil fuel energy.
These minerals took hundreds of millions of years to form and, if we continue burning them, they will run out. Burning fossil fuels is causing climate change. This is on top of the harms of extracting fossil fuels—the oil spills, clearcuts, mountaintop removal mining, and so on. Relying on fossil fuels to power our lives is not sustainable.
Even if we were able to replace fossil fuel energy with solar and wind power, and fossil fuel plastics with other materials, that would still not be sustainable, since the other materials we use to construct our human “stuff” are also non-renewable. For instance, lithium, a key ingredient in electric car batteries, is concentrated by volcanic eruptions, rock weathering, and water evaporation over millions of years. Just like fossil fuels, once we use up all the lithium we can find, we will never be able to get more from the Earth. This is also true of the other metals and minerals required to build cars, wind turbines, and solar panels, among many other things. And while 100% recycling is a good idea in theory, in practice, 100% recycling is impossible — and industrial recycling is itself an energy-intensive and highly polluting industry.
The Costs of Modernity
True sustainability means meeting two conditions: first, we must use only what the Earth can regenerate on human time-scales. And second, that use must not degrade the natural world (this would reduce the Earth’s carrying capacity over time).
All of us descend from lines of ancestors who lived for thousands of years using the energy of the sun, energy stored in plants through photosynthesis, energy stored in the animals who ate those plants, and the animals who ate other animals. Living sustainably meant ensuring that we gave back as much as we took from the Earth, returning our biodegradable waste to the environment to decompose and provide food for animals, returning the energy we used to the circle of life.
If you find yourself balking, pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Your doubtfulness makes sense. We’ve all been raised to venerate technology, idolize engineers and scientists, and see modernity as progress. And it’s self-evident that modern technology is useful — and at times, lifesaving. There are certainly benefits from industrial modernity, especially for the wealthiest nations and people in the world.
Consider again, however, the costs. We live on the only planet known to support life in the universe, and as the global climate is destabilizing, 200 species a day are being driven extinct, overshoot is accelerating, and planetary life-support systems like forests and oceans are failing. Industrial civilization is undermining its own foundation; and as the historian Arnold Toynbee noted, “Great civilizations are not murdered. They take their own lives.” We are not immune from this historic pattern.
If environmental collapse is coming—or already here, with every indicator of ecological health heading in the wrong direction and accelerating—then returning to a simpler way of life is inevitable. The only question is, will we do so willingly, or will we be forced as modernity crumbles around us?
We face a choice: either we sacrifice the ability of future generations to live so that we can have another decade of smart phones and cars, or we make a change. The moral choice is clear.
The 6 Elements of Sustainability
Sustainability requires a completely different way of thinking and being in the world. It also requires concrete action. In this section, we lay out 6 elements to initiate transition to a truly sustainable society.
We Must Reduce
We Must Relocalize
We Must Ration
We Must Restore
We Must Rethink
We Must Remember
As you read through each element, you’ll see that all the elements are related to one another. We can’t ration if we don’t reduce. We can’t relocalize if we don’t restore the natural environment. And we can’t do any of this if we don’t rethink our way of being in the world, remember our connections to and dependency upon nature, and make revolutionary, not just incremental, change.
These are mutually supporting efforts that entail fundamental shifts in the goals we pursue in our culture and economy. Achieving them will require far-reaching political vision and leadership, some level of global cooperation, and an emergency mobilization of all society.(1)
Element 1: We Must Reduce
Reusing is trendy, recycling is mainstream, but reduction is taboo. We live in societies built on growth, where economic stagnation or negative population growth is considered an emergency. To move towards sustainability, we must dramatically reduce the size of the economy (including the amount we consume) and the size of our population.
Reducing consumption includes reducing and eventually eliminating our consumption of cars. The average household in the United States owns 1.88 cars. This is not sustainable.
Population, contrary to popular belief, can reduced in humane ways. It begins with making culturally-appropriate family planning, sex education, and birth control widely available. It also requires reproductive freedom for women. Such programs have been proven effective to reduce birth rates to below replacement level (2.1 children per woman), which means population will go down.
Reducing our consumption and our population is a key element to enable a rapid weaning off industrial fuels, energy, and materials, along with industrial agriculture (one of the main industries destroying the planet)
Element 2: We Must Relocalize
We live in the most mobile, globalized society to ever exist, depending on fossil-fueled trucks, cars, trains, airplanes, and ships to transport huge quantities of goods and huge numbers of people all over the planet on a daily basis. This is ecologically untenable.
The fact that many of us enjoy rapid, convenient travel is not important compared to life on this planet. Reversing ecological collapse isn’t about what we want and desire. It’s about what the planet can sustain.
A sustainable future is a local future, in which people live, work, and get the basic necessities of life close to home, and rarely travel long distances. The “locavore” movement has proposed the idea of a 100-mile diet to combat an unsustainable food system. The same concept should be adapted to travel.
Producing and powering automobiles is incredibly destructive to nature, and so a sustainable world means we must retire all cars and stop producing new ones. Reducing and eliminating car production and use means almost everything about our lifestyles has to change. If we try to completely replace cars with public transportation—attempting to allow the kind of freedom of travel we currently enjoy—we’re just going to create new problems to replace the old problems. Some public transportation will help in the transition to a world in which we all travel less, but the reality is, we’re all going to have to learn how to travel less.
This will be incredibly disruptive, but not as disruptive as ecological collapse. And there are benefits. In the future, we’ll walk and bike more, which means we’ll work close to where we live. We’ll need to depend more on our local communities. To carpool, or share a car with a neighborhood during a transition period, we’ll need to get to know the people we live next to a whole lot better. We won’t move as often, and we’ll probably live closer to our friends and families so we don’t have to travel so far to see them.
Relocalizing also means relocalizing what we consume, including food, clothes, what we use to build our homes and the stuff we put in them, medical care, and more. Currently, our society relies on global shipping networks of ships, trains, and trucks to deliver the things we use. This global shipping network cannot exist in a truly sustainable society. Therefore, we must learn how to live using only what we can get from our local areas. Initially that local area may be the entire country, then perhaps the state we live in, and then, finally, our local community.
We must be careful in the process of relocalizing because without simultaneously reducing population and consumption, this process could quickly destroy the environments around our local communities. It is critical that we prioritize what is most important—food, water, shelter, basic medical care—as we relocalize our communities and minimize our use of all material goods that are not absolutely essential.
Element 3: We Must Ration
Confronting ecological reality means confronting scarcity. When we stop making new cars, and begin gradually eliminating fossil fuels, the wealthy and powerful may seek to hoard resources (let’s be real: they’re already doing it). This results in violence and suffering, and will exacerbate shortages already occurring due to overshoot and ecological collapse.
Faced with this predicament, the moral approach is to ration what is left. Rationing must of course be accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the consumption of energy as well as material goods. A reasonable starting goal here (depending on the level of consumption in a given region) would be to rapidly reduce energy and material consumption by half, then aim for 90 percent or more.
Rationing should be implemented in fair ways and will require guardrails and procedures. For example, food, medical care, and other basic needs should be prioritized over shopping malls, consumer goods, entertainment, and so on (people should continue having fun, of course—but not in ways that are wasteful of energy and materials).
This rationing should also be implemented fairly and equitably on an international level. People in the U.S. and Europe, for example, should not be “rationed” an allotment of cobalt mined by slave labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nor should Congolese people be “rationed” an allotment of salmon exported from the Pacific Rim. Rationing will feel more dramatic in the wealthiest nations, because we use way, way too much. In poorer countries, rationing will not be as dramatic. We don’t subscribe to the colonial assertion that all countries should aim for a “Low-energy European lifestyle,” as is a common refrain in some degrowth communities. A low energy European lifestyle is grossly unsustainable when compared to land-based peoples, the only sustainable societies on Earth.
Element 4: We Must Restore
As we implement reduction, relocalizing, and rationing, we must simultaneously take action to protect forests, rivers, prairies, and other wild lands from development, logging, mining, and other destructive activities. As much as possible must be preserved.
To be effective, this will require a dramatic shift in economic structures. For example, jobs in extractive industries must be temporarily replaced with jobs in restoration (removing dams, tearing up concrete, dismantling malls and vast parking lots, earthworks to reduce erosion and build soil, waterworks to increase soil health and restore aquifers, and so on)—beginning with the least materially important/most frivolous sectors, and rapidly expanding to other areas of the economy.
As we reduce consumption—of everything—the economy as we know it will no longer exist. Going to the grocery store to get food that arrives there from all over the country and the world will no longer be an option. The food we eat will need to come from local sources, which means restoring habitat, soils, and watersheds. Surviving as part of nature rather than by dominating nature will not be an option without healthy, flourishing natural communities. Restoring these natural communities (“ecosystems”) and our relationships with the natural world should become everyone’s top priority. Restoring our local environments is also what will enable us to find enough food, clean water, and materials to build shelter without degrading the natural communities we depend on: we cannot relocalize without also restoring.
Focusing on restoration rather than a growing consumption-based economy will require global, widespread education programs and job retraining programs that can educate people in ecosystem restoration, watershed health, subsistence food production, biology, ecology, and permaculture.
This education should begin with young children, and as many people as possible should be put to work tearing down destructive infrastructure and replacing it with restored natural communities. Small-scale, place-based, ecologically embedded methods for survival and flourishing should be developed simultaneously. Shifting government subsidies from extractive, military, and other ecologically destructive activities would provide funding for these programs.
Element 5: We Must Rethink
Shifting from a lifestyle of consumption, immediate gratification, and a worldview that we are separate from the world and that the world is ours to consume will require completely changing how we think and the stories we tell. We must change from stories of domination to stories of cooperation, respect and gratitude for our place in the natural world.
Our entire media landscape is focused on selling us things, most of which we don’t really need. This is what keeps the growth economy growing. These stories perpetuate and expand unsustainable lifestyles of consumption, and they do so all around the world.
Instead, we need stories that help us understand how to live in a world of ecological collapse, a world in which our society, our population, and our consumption must scale down, rather than scaling forever up. We need stories that are local, that teach us how to live well in the place we are now, and how to deal with the challenges we all will face as we shift in our way of being in the world. And we need culture, education, music, poetry, and other traditions that support that shift.
Element 6: We Must Remember
Karl Benz was the first person to sell cars. Between 1888 and 1893, he sold 25 Benz gas-powered vehicles, or “horseless carriages,” to customers. The Motorwagen, as it was called, had a 1 liter single-cylinder engine with 2/3 of one horsepower. By 1899, Benz was the largest car company in the world, selling 572 cars.
Many of you probably have great grandparents, or great-great grandparents, who were born before 1899. It’s likely none of them owned a car. And yet it is unthinkable for most people in the United States to imagine life without a car, or without being able to get on a plane, or a train, or a bus. In little more than 130 years we’ve completely transformed our society from one in which most people walked everywhere to one in which most people own a car and drive whenever they want. Three generations—a blink of the eye in compared to the 300,000 or so years humans have been on this Earth—is all it took to forget what it’s like to get around without a motor.
We can remember. If your grandparents or great grandparents are still alive, ask them what it was like before most people owned a car. Ask them what it was like before we had plastic, when most things people purchased were made to last a lifetime.
This is just the beginning of the remembering required to change our stories. We must remember that before industrial civilization, before we forgot that we aren’t at the top of some imagined hierarchy allowed to take whatever we want from the world without giving anything back, humans lived in cooperation with the rest of the natural world, and the stories our ancestors told each other reflected that. These are the stories we must remember.
Facing Reality
If all of this sounds like a fantasy to you, we feel the same way. The massive transformation we’ve outlined in these elements is incredibly unlikely to happen at the speed and scale necessary to halt the ongoing ecological crisis. There is simply too much inertia and power behind endless growth.
This makes it likely we are facing the collapse of civilization in coming years and decades. In fact, the gradual unraveling has begun.
Everything is heading in the wrong direction: population growth and consumption goes up, so economic growth goes up, so development goes up, so extraction goes up, so pollution goes up, and so habitat and species loss goes up. These trends have been described by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) as the Great Acceleration, and you may be familiar with the graphic the IGBP published in 2015 illustrating skyrocketing trends across 24 socioeconomic and earth system categories:
In 2015, there were 7.3 billion people on the planet. There are now 8 billion. Governments encourage population growth with child tax credits and, in some countries, by paying people to have more children.
In 2015, there were 1.2 billion cars and commercial vehicles in use around the world. Now there is almost 1.5 billion. Governments encourage electric car purchases with tax credits, and encourage car corporations by lowering corporate tax rates, and by making sure these companies stay in business with bailouts and fiscal incentives.
In 2015, global average CO2 concentration was 399 ppm. In 2022, it’s up to 421 ppm. Governments work hard to ensure steady economic growth through central bank fiscal policies, laws friendly to corporations, and aid packages during recessions. Economic growth is tied to CO2 concentrations because economic growth is tied to fossil fuel use and materials use.
Each year, industrial culture grows. Each year, we get further away from sustainability.
It is anathema in our society to suggest that growth might not be desirable. Imagine a politician running for congress or the presidency in the United States, saying: “We need to cut back, reverse economic growth, tighten our belts, curb population growth, stop being consumeristic, and spend less money.” Do you think that politician would be successful in getting elected? No, we don’t either. (Nonetheless, we expect this to become a pillar of independent political parties in the future, and gradually become more mainstream).
Instead of understanding ourselves as animals completely dependent on habitat for our lives, modern society teaches us to see ourselves as consumers. The stories we are told by corporations and the stories we tell each other are that growth is good, and we get there by consuming more. And so, we are encouraged every day by our governments, by corporations, even by our peer groups, to believe that we can buy our way out of the crises we face. If we just buy an electric vehicle, or buy our electricity from a community solar project, or buy a pair of jeans from a company that has pledged to build a “sustainable supply chain,” then everything will be okay.
But we all know this is wrong. Once we begin to understand the scale and scope of the impacts of industrial culture, it quickly becomes obvious that we can’t buy our way out of this predicament, and that incremental change will never be enough. We must face that reality.
The Revolutionary Moment
Ecological collapse is already well underway and social collapse is not far behind. So what do we do?
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We need completely different ways of thinking, completely different ways of living in the world, and completely different stories. And we need concrete change to the institutions and political structures of our world. In short, we need revolutionary change.
“Revolutionary” means “involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.” When you hear the word “revolutionary” you might immediately wonder, “Does that mean I need to help overthrow the government, because maybe I’m not up for that.” Revolutionary change means changing everything, from where we get our food, to how we build our homes, to how we get around, to—yes—creating different kinds of government. In these revolutionary times, revolutionary responses are justified—especially since many powerful people and institutions are prepared to lie, cheat, and fight to defend the old status quo.
Radical changes are coming, whether we want them or not. We are entering a revolutionary moment, where the contradiction — the fundamental conflict — between civilization and ecology is coming to a head. We are already seeing increased environmental radicalism and an associated authoritarian backlash. We believe in observing these truths and acting upon them, rather than trying to deny reality. In this moment, we believe that means acting to steer the future towards the most just, humane outcomes.
It’s time to gather our courage. We are not alone. We are not alone in facing the ecological crisis, and we will not be alone if we work together on the solution. To reiterate what we said earlier, it will take all of us: all our different passions and skills, and whatever each individual has to offer. We will each play a part, and do what we can, together.
Top 15 Actions To Begin Moving Towards A Truly Sustainable Society
Governments must stop subsidizing all environmentally and socially destructive activities and shift those subsidies to activities that restore biotic communities and that promote local self-sufficiency.
Governments must ensure reproductive freedom and full political, economic, and sexual liberty for women around the world.
Immediately and permanently halt all extractive and destructive activities: mining, fracking, mountaintop removal, tar sands production, nuclear power, and offshore drilling chief among them. This includes halting manufacture and production of all cars.
Immediately and completely protect all remaining native forests, prairies, and wetlands.
Restore all damaged lands and restore soil. Confiscate land from those who do not do this.
Immediately halt all activities that draw down acquifers.
Restore all polluted and compromised rivers, including halting all dam construction and removing all existing dams.
Immediately begin phasing-out mono-crop agriculture.
Charge government with increasing the number and range of threatened and endangered wildlife and the habitat they require.
Governments stop funding for new, large infrastructure and development projects, including new highways, dams, power projects, mines, etc.
Reduce carbon emissions by 20% per year, over the next five years to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Begin to contract global economies while ensuring all have basic needs met.
Significantly reduce consumption of all but strictly necessary goods and services.
Punish environmental crimes commensurate with the harm caused to the public and to the planet.
Close all U.S. military bases on foreign soil, and bring home all military personnel within two years. Reduce the military budget by 20% per year until it reaches 20% of its current size. Replace the Department of Defense with the Department of Peace.
Despite the magnitude of change that’s required, local and regional efforts to begin the work described above will pay dividends regardless, mitigating some of the worst outcomes.
One Possible Future
There’s a lot to describe about a long term vision—we could write a book about such a vision. So we highlight just some of the ways we see our solution unfolding if humanity could come together to make it happen.
50 years:
Birth rates have fallen significantly and the great decline in population has begun, reducing pressure on Earth’s ecosystems.
The most wasteful, least-useful, most polluting industries (e.g. cruise ships, shopping malls, golf courses, chemical manufacturers) have been shut down for decades.
All new fossil fuel extraction has ended and a rationing program is in place. Fossil fuel use from the remaining stored reserves is prioritized for the most important uses: food, water, and emergency medical use, and total burn is less than 2% of peak levels.
Material extraction has plummeted. Populations have migrated from suburbs, isolated rural homes, and urban centers alike to cluster in small, widely spaced villages, where they repurpose materials from buildings torn down in areas that are being restored and engage in small scale food production and craft industry.
The foundation for new governmental structures based on direct democracy and representative assemblies has been laid. Militaries have been dramatically scaled down and restructured to focus on land restoration.
100 years:
Human population is nearing 2 billion and steadily falling.
As population has declined, most people have migrated from areas of extreme cold and heat to more temperate zones where less energy is required to stay warm and grow food. We all live hyper-local lives, living near relatives and friends for our entire lives, and spend most of the day restoring ecosystems, hunting and growing food, relaxing, and building community.
No fossil fuels are being burned. All mining and chemical manufacturing has been terminated. All nuclear power plants have been shut down and all nuclear waste has been stored as safely as possible. All large dams have been removed.
Small electrical systems are maintained in a few regional locations for medical procedures. People rely on simple, time-tested technologies such as passive solar, perennial polycultures, and animal husbandry for basic needs.
Government is becoming more local, but regional confederations and even global trade networks are maintained for diplomacy, a small amount of trade, and information sharing.
500 years:
Human population is less than 100 million.
Each year there are more salmon that return to rivers than the previous year; each year there are more songbirds than the previous year. Forests are beginning to grow old again, creating thriving habitat for plants and animals, and humans have begun to relearn how to exist as human mammals in the great web of life.
Natural communities are well on their way to recovery, so food and cleaner water are once again abundant. Forever chemicals still pollute every square inch of the world, and continue impacting our health, but over the coming millennia will gradually pose less of a problem for humans and the rest of the natural world as they become sequestered under layers of soil and rock.
Children are no longer raised learning the names of corporations, but instead learn stories about the names of plants and animals, how to hunt and fish, which plants are edible and which are not, how to build shelters, and how to stay warm. The stories told around the fire at night describe the great rehumanizing of our species, our recovered relationships with the natural world, and the sacredness of all life on Planet Earth.
Posted by Max Wilbert on facebook
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. Designed and built by Lockheed in 1943 and delivered just 143 days from the start of design, production models were flying, and two pre-production models did see very limited service in Italy just before the end of World War II. The XP-80 had a conventional all-metal airframe, with a slim low wing and tricycle landing gear. Like most early jets designed during World War II—and before the Allies captured German research data that confirmed the speed advantages of swept-wings—the XP-80 had straight wings similar to previous propeller-driven fighters, but they were relatively thin to minimize drag at high speed.
The Shooting Star began to enter service in late 1944 with 12 pre-production YP-80As. Four were sent to Europe for operational testing (demonstration, familiarization, and possible interception roles), two to England and two to the 1st Fighter Group at Lesina Airfield, Italy. Because of delays in delivery of production aircraft, the Shooting Star saw no actual combat during the conflict. The initial production order was for 344 P-80As after USAAF acceptance in February 1945. A total of 83 P-80s had been delivered by the end of July 1945 and 45 assigned to the 412th Fighter Group (later redesignated the 1st Fighter Group) at Muroc Army Air Field. Production continued after the war, although wartime plans for 5,000 were quickly reduced to 2,000 at a little under $100,000 each. A total of 1,714 single-seat F-80A, F-80B, F-80C, and RF-80s were manufactured by the end of production in 1950, of which 927 were F-80Cs (including 129 operational F-80As upgraded to F-80C-11-LO standards). However, the two-seat TF-80C, first flown on 22 March 1948, became the basis for the T-33 trainer, of which 6,557 were produced.
Shooting Stars first saw combat service in the Korean War, and were among the first aircraft to be involved in jet-versus-jet combat. Despite initial claims of success, the speed of the straight-wing F-80s was inferior to the 668 mph (1075 km/h) swept-wing transonic MiG-15. The MiGs incorporated German research showing that swept wings delayed the onset of compressibility problems, and enabled speeds closer to the speed of sound. F-80s were soon replaced in the air superiority role by the North American F-86 Sabre, which had been delayed to also incorporate swept wings into an improved straight-winged naval FJ-1 Fury.
This prompted Lockheed to improve the F-80 to keep the design competitive, and the result became the F-80E, which was almost a completely different aircraft, despite similar outlines. Lockheed attempted to change as little of the original airframe as possible while the F-80E incorporated two major technical innovation of its time. The most obvious change was the introduction of swept wings for higher speed. After the engineers obtained German swept-wing research data, Lockheed gave the F-80E a 25° sweep, with automatically locking leading edge slots, interconnected with the flaps for lateral stability during take-off and landing, and the wings’ profile was totally new, too. The limited sweep was a compromise, because a 35° sweep had originally been intended, but the plan to retain the F-80’s fuselage and wing attachment points would have resulted in massive center of gravity and mechanical problems. However, wind tunnel tests quickly revealed that even this compromise would not be enough to ensure stable flight esp. at low speed, and that the modified aircraft would lack directional stability. The swept-wing aircraft’s design had to be modified further.
A convenient solution came in the form of the F-80’s trainer version fuselage, the T-33, which had been lengthened by slightly more than 3 feet (1 m) for a second seat, instrumentation, and flight controls, under a longer canopy. Thanks to the extended front fuselage, the T-33’s wing attachment points could accept the new 25° wings without much further modifications, and balance was restored to acceptable limits. For the fighter aircraft, the T-33’s second seat was omitted and replaced with an additional fuel cell. The pressurized front cockpit was retained, together with the F-80’s bubble canopy and out fitted with an ejection seat.
The other innovation was the introduction of reheat for the engine. The earlier F-80 fighters were powered by centrifugal compressor turbojets, the F-80C had already incorporated water injection to boost the rather anemic powerplant during the start phase and in combat. The F-80E introduced a modified engine with a very simple afterburner chamber, designated J33-A-39. It was a further advanced variant of the J33-A-33 for the contemporary F-94 interceptor with water-alcohol injection and afterburner. For the F-80E with less gross weight, the water-alcohol injection system was omitted so save weight and simplify the system, and the afterburner was optimized for quicker response. Outwardly, the different engine required a modified, wider tail section, which also slightly extended the F-80’s tail.
The F-80E’s armament was changed, too. Experience from the Korean War had shown that the American aircrafts’ traditional 0.5” machine guns were reliable, but they lacked firepower, esp. against bigger targets like bombers, and even fighter aircraft like the MiG-15 had literally to be drenched with rounds to cause significant damage. On the other side, a few 23 mmm rounds or just a single hit with an explosive 37 mm shell from a MiG could take a bomber down. Therefore, the F-80’s six machine guns in the nose were replaced with four belt-fed 20mm M24 cannon. This was a license-built variant of the gas-operated Hispano-Suiza HS.404 with the addition of electrical cocking, allowing the gun to re-cock over a lightly struck round. It offered a rate of fire of 700-750 rounds/min and a muzzle velocity of 840 m/s (2,800 ft/s).In the F-80E each weapon was provided with 190 rounds.
Despite the swept wings Lockheed retained the wingtip tanks, similar to Lockheed’s recently developed XF-90 penetration fighter prototype. They had a different, more streamlined shape now, to reduce drag and minimize the risk of torsion problems with the outer wing sections and held 225 US gal (187 imp gal; 850 l) each. Even though the F-80E was conceived as a daytime fighter, hardpoints under the wings allowed the carriage of up to 2.000 lb of external ordnance, so that the aircraft could, like the straight-wing F-80s before, carry out attack missions. A reinforced pair of plumbed main hardpoints, just outside of the landing gear wells, allowed to carry another pair of drop tanks for extra range or single bombs of up to 1.000 lb (454 kg) caliber. A smaller, optional pair of pylons was intended to carry pods with nineteen “Mighty Mouse” 2.75 inches (70 mm) unguided folding-fin air-to-air rockets, and further hardpoints under the outer wings allowed eight 5” HVAR unguided air-to-ground rockets to be carried, too. Total external payload (including the wing tip tanks) was 4,800 lb (roughly 2,200 kg) of payload
The first XP-80E prototype flew in December 1953 – too late to take part in the Korean War, but Lockheed kept the aircraft’s development running as the benefits of swept wings were clearly visible. The USAF, however, did not show much interest in the new aircraft since the proven F-86 Sabre was readily available and focus more and more shifted to radar-equipped all-weather interceptors armed with guided missiles. However, military support programs for the newly founded NATO, esp. in Europe, stoked the demand for jet fighters, so that the F-80E was earmarked for export to friendly countries with air forces that had still to develop their capabilities after WWII. One of these was Germany; after World War II, German aviation was severely curtailed, and military aviation was completely forbidden after the Luftwaffe of the Third Reich had been disbanded by August 1946 by the Allied Control Commission. This changed in 1955 when West Germany joined NATO, as the Western Allies believed that Germany was needed to counter the increasing military threat posed by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. On 9 January 1956, a new German Air Force called Luftwaffe was founded as a branch of the new Bundeswehr (Federal Defence Force). The first volunteers of the Luftwaffe arrived at the Nörvenich Air Base in January 1956, and the same year, the Luftwaffe was provided with its first jet aircraft, the US-made Republic F-84 Thunderstreak from surplus stock, complemented by newly built Lockheed F-80E day fighters and T-33 trainers.
A total of 43 F-80Es were delivered to Germany in the course of 1956 and early 1957 via freight ships as disassembled kits, initially allocated to WaSLw 10 (Waffenschule der Luftwaffe = Weapon Training School of the Luftwaffe) at Nörvenich, one of three such units which focused on fighter training. The unit was quickly re-located to Northern Germany to Oldenburg, an airfield formerly under British/RAF governance, where the F-80Es were joined by Canada-built F-86 Sabre Mk. 5s. Flight operations began there in November 1957. Initially supported by flight instructors from the Royal Canadian Air Force from Zweibrücken, the WaSLw 10’s job was to train future pilots for jet aircraft on the respective operational types. F-80Es of this unit were in the following years furthermore frequently deployed to Decimomannu AB on Sardinia (Italy), as part of multi-national NATO training programs.
The F-80Es’ service at Oldenburg with WaSLw 10 did not last long, though. In 1963, basic flight and weapon system training was relocated to the USA, and the so-called Europeanization was shifted to the nearby Jever air base, i. e. the training in the more crowded European airspace and under notoriously less pleasant European weather conditions. The remaining German F-80E fleet was subsequently allocated to the Jagdgeschwader 73 “Steinhoff” at Pferdsfeld Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate, where the machines were – like the Luftwaffe F-86s – upgraded to carry AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs, a major improvement of their interceptor capabilities. But just one year later, on October 1, 1964, JG 73 was reorganized and renamed Fighter-Bomber Squadron 42, and the unit converted to the new Fiat G.91 attack aircraft. In parallel, the Luftwaffe settled on the F-86 (with more Sabre Mk. 6s from Canada and new F-86K all-weather interceptors from Italian license production) as standard fighter, with the plan to convert to the supersonic new Lockheed F-104 as standard NATO fighter as soon as the type would become available.
For the Luftwaffe the F-80E had become obsolete, and to reduce the number of operational aircraft types, the remaining German aircraft, a total of 34, were in 1965 passed through to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish air force) as part of international NATO military support, where they remained in service until 1974 and were replaced by third generation F-4E Phantom II fighter jets.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 36 ft 9 1/2 in (11.23 m)
Wingspan: 37 ft 6 in (11.44 m) over tip tanks
Height: 13 ft 5 1/4 in (4.10 m)
Wing area: 241.3 sq ft (22,52 m²)
Empty weight: 10,681 lb (4.845 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 18,464 lb (8.375 kg)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0134
Frontal area: 32 sq ft (3.0 m²)
Powerplant:
1× Allison J33-A-39 centrifugal compressor turbojet with 4,600 lbf (20 kN) dry thrust
and 27.0 kN (6,070 lbf) thrust with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,060 km/h (660 mph, 570 kn)
Cruise speed: 439 mph (707 km/h, 381 kn)
Range: 825 mi (1,328 km, 717 nmi)
Ferry range: 1,380 mi (2,220 km, 1,200 nmi)
Service ceiling: 50,900 ft (15,500 m)
Rate of climb: 7,980 ft/min (40.5 m/s)
Time to altitude: 20,000 ft (6,100 m) in 4 minutes 50 seconds
Lift-to-drag: 17.7
Wing loading: 51.3 lb/sq ft (250 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.249 dry
0.328 with afterburner
Armament:
4× 0.79 in (20 mm) M24 cannon (190 rpg)
2x wing tip auxiliary tanks with 225 US gal (187 imp gal; 850 l) each
Underwing hardpoints for a total ordnance load of 4,800 lb (2.200 kg), including
2× 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs, up to 4× pods with nineteen unguided Mighty Mouse FFARs each,
and/or up to 8× 5” (127 mm) HVAR unguided air-to-ground rockets
The kit and its assembly:
The idea of a swept-wing F-80 had been lingering on my idea list for a while, and I actually tried this stunt before in the form of a heavily modified F-94. The recent “Fifties” group build at whatifmodellers.com and a similar build by fellow forum member mat revived the interest in this topic – and inspired by mat’s creation, based on a T-33 fuselage, I decided to use the opportunity and add my personal interpretation of the idea.
Having suitable donor parts at hand was another decisive factor to start this build: I had a Heller T-33 in store, which had already been (ab)used as a donor bank for other projects, and which could now find a good use. I also had an F-80 canopy left over (from an Airfix kit), and my plan was to use Saab J29 wings (from a Matchbox kit) because of their limited sweep angle that would match the post-WWII era well.
Work started with the fuselage; it required a completely new cockpit interior because these parts had already gone elsewhere. I found a cockpit tub with its dashboard from an Italeri F4U, and with some trimming it could be mounted into the reduced cockpit opening, above the OOB front landing gear well. The T-33’s rear seat was faired of with styrene sheet and later PSRed away. The standard nose cone from the Heller T-33 was used, but I added gun ports for the new/different cannon armament.
For a different look with an afterburner engine I modified the tail section under the stabilizers, which was retained because of its characteristic shape. A generous section from the tail was cut away and replaced with the leftover jet pipe from an Italeri (R)F-84F, slightly longer and wider and decorated with innards from a Matchbox Mystère IV. This change is rather subtle but changes the F-80 profile and appears like a compromise between the F-80 and F-94 arrangements.
The T-33 wings were clipped down to the connection lower fuselage part. This ventral plate with integral main landing gear wells was mounted onto the T-33 hull and then the Saab 29 wings were dry-fitted to check their position along the fuselage and to define the main landing gear wells, which had to be cut into them to match their counterparts from the aircraft’s belly.
Their exact position was eventually fixed when the new swept stabilizers, taken from a Hobby Boss F-86, were mounted to the tail. They match well with the swept wings, and for an odd look I kept their dihedral.
The fin was eventually replaced, too – mat’s build retained the original F-80 fin, but with all other surfaces swept I found that the fin had to reflect this, too. So, I implanted a shortened Italeri (R)F-84F fin onto the original base, blended with some PSR into the rest of the tail.
With all aerodynamic surfaces in place it was time for fine-tuning, and to give the aircraft a simpler look I removed the dog teeth from the late Tunnan's outer wings, even though I retained the small LERXs. The wing tips were cut down a little and tip tanks (probably drop tanks from a Hobby Boss F-5E) added – without them the aircraft looked like a juvenile Saab 32!
The landing gear was mostly taken over from the Heller T-33, I just added small consoles for the main landing gear struts to ensure a proper stance, because the new wings and the respective attachment points were deeper. I also had to scratch some landing gear covers because the T-33 donor kit was missing them. The canopy was PSRed over the new opening and a new ejection seat tailored to fit into the F4U cockpit.
A final addition was a pair of pods with unguided FFARs. AFAIK the Luftwaffe did not use such weapons, but they’d make thematically sense on a Fifties anti-bomber interceptor - and I had a suitable pair left over from a Matchbox Mystère IV kit, complete with small pylons.
Painting and markings:
Since the time frame was defined by the Fifties, early Luftwaffe fighters had to carry a bare metal finish, with relatively few decorations. For the F-80E I gave the model an overall base coat with White Aluminum from a Dupli Color rattle can, a very nice and bright silver tone that comes IMHO close to NMF. Panels were post-shaded with Revell 99 (Aluminum) and 91 (Iron Metallic). An anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen was painted in the Luftwaffe tone RAL 6014, Gelboliv (Revell 42).
For some color highlights I gave the tip tanks bright red (Feuerrot, RAL 3000; Revell 330) outer halves, while the inner halves were painted black to avoid reflections that could distract the pilot (seen on a real Luftwaffe T-33 from the late Fifties). For an even more individual touch I added light blue (Tamiya X-14, Sky Blue) highlights on the nose and the fin, reflecting the squadron’s color code which is also carried within the unit emblem – the Tamiya paint came closest to the respective decal (see below).
The cockpit interior was painted with zinc chromate green primer (I used Humbrol 80, which is brighter than the tone should be, but it adds contrast to the black dials on the dashboard), the landing gear wells were painted with a mix of Humbrol 80 and 81, for a more yellowish hue. The landing gear struts became grey, dry-brushed with silver, while the inside of the ventral air brakes were painted in Feuerrot, too.
Then the model received an overall washing with black ink to emphasize the recessed panel lines, plus additional panel shading with Matt Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol 27001), plus a light rubbing treatment with grinded graphite that emphasized the (few leftover) raised panel lines and also added a dark metallic shine to the silver base. Some of the lost panel lines were simulated with simple pencil strokes, too.
The decals/markings primarily came from an AirDoc aftermarket sheet for late Fifties Luftwaffe F-84Fs. The tactical code (“BB-xxx” was then assigned to the WaSLw 10 as unit code, but this soon changed to a similar but different format that told about the unit’s task as well as the specific unit and squadron within it; this was replaced once more by a simple xx+yy code that was only connected to a specific aircraft with no unit reference anymore, and this format is still in use today) was puzzled together from single letters/digits from the same decal set. Some additional markings like the red band on the fuselage had to be scratched, but most stencils came from an all-bare-metal Luftwaffe F-84F.
After some more detail painting the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic paint, just the anti-glare panel and the di-electric fairings on the nose and the fin tip became matt.
A thorough kitbashing build, but the result looks quite plausible, if not elegant? The slightly swept wings suit the F-80 with its organic fuselage shape well, even though they reveal the designs rather baroque shape. There’s a sense of obsolescence about the F-80E, despite its modern features? The Luftwaffe markings work well on the aircraft, too, and with the red and blue highlights the machine looks more attractive despite its simple NMF livery than expected.
This photo was shot with a Nikon Nikkor 28mm F2.8 AiS lens on a Fotodiox TLT RKR Tilt/Shift adapter. I don't recall the shutter speed (around 1/2 second; I used a 2 second delay to minimize vibration), and I believe f8 was used. I believe about 3.5 degrees of downward tilt was used to establish the focal plane. That should have allowed me to focus the lens to infinity, but infinity focus is off on this lens, I believe. Both the Fotodiox and a K&F adapter agree on this.
Anyhow, this is my first tilt photo made with a slight amount of knowledge behind it. I used a formula to calculate the rough amount of tilt that would be needed. Note that the top of the monitor, for instance, is not in focus, but the bottom is.
COVID forced office setup, with my family's passions in ample display, from photography to a stuffed Ferengi (sp?) to books, computers, beer etc. Normally my camera is on the table, too.
More on the lens: it has oil on the iris blades, and so I need to send it out for service. The seller swore the lens was "perfect" but actual drops of oil are not perfect. Also, sometimes the lens does not stop down. But after a $50 discount and a $100 estimate for a rebuild, I should have a really, really nice lens for use with the T/S adapter. Very excited to use this lens in the future.
Yes, there is no real composition that you can see here. It is cluttered and a mess. What you don't know is what it looked like 15-20 minutes before I took the photo!
2021-08-17-000620
Update: I shot the same scene with just depth of field, and it totally misses. I accidentally had uploaded here and when I previewed before making it public, I was "what the h***, this is aweful. But then I remembered shooting the normal photo at f11 or so. Yeah.
That's Dan Winters, "Road to Seeing" behind the beer glass. What a book. Hard to find. Keep looking and you will find a copy other than the $500 ones.
Painting continues... The man door on the back of the garage hadn't been painted in 26-years and was long overdue. Now, to minimize butchering brushing oil based paint.
I try to minimize the time she spends with me waiting by taking random pictures. Since she tries to avoid that, you'd think she would be ready all the time!
Bavaria, Germany (Photo taken from a moving train. Photo touched up to minimize reflected light from train window)
Lower Antelope slot canyon. I usually try to limit my uploads to one a day and I truly appreciate all of your comments and invites on my stream. I'm just trying to get through all of the images I have from this trip.
We spent two days in Lower Antelope slot canyon (about 3 hrs. each day). This one is less traveled and a little quieter than Upper Antelope slot because all of the tours from Page go to upper. You can drive right to this one and have guided or unguided walk throughs. Middle of the day is the best time and even then the lighting is subdued so bring a tripod! It's dusty down in the slots so try to minimize lens changes or better yet take two bodies with the lens you need and don't change (wide angle is usually best. I can't imagine needing much more than 100mm).
View large - 'Where Light and Rock Meet' On Black
View the entire - Photo Tour Set
View my - Most Interesting according to Flickr.
Two of the amazingly colourful Marine Iguanas from Suarez Point on Espanola, seemingly having a cuddle!
Marine Iguana
The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.
Espanola (Suarez Point)
Approximately a 10-12 hour trip from Santa Cruz, Española is the oldest and the southernmost island in the chain. The trip across open waters can be quite rough especially during August and September. Española's remote location helped make it a unique jewel with a large number of endemic creatures. Secluded from the other islands, wildlife on Española adapted to the island's environment and natural resources. The subspecies of Marine iguana from Española are the only ones that change color during breeding season. Normally, marine iguanas are black in color, a camouflage, making it difficult for predators to differentiate between the iguanas and the black lava rocks where they live. On Española adult marine iguanas are brightly colored with a reddish tint except during mating season when their color changes to more of a greenish shade. The Hood Mockingbird is also endemic to the island. These brazen birds have no fear of man and frequently land on visitors heads and shoulders searching for food. The Hood Mockingbird is slightly larger than other mockingbirds found in the Galapagos; its beak is longer and has a more curved shape. The Hood Mockingbird is the only carnivorous one of the species feeding on a variety of insects, turtle hatchlings and sea lion placentas. Wildlife is the highlight of Española and the star of the show is the waved albatross. The island's steep cliffs serve as the perfect runways for these large birds which take off for their ocean feeding grounds near the mainland of Ecuador and Peru abandoning the island between January and March. Known as endemic to the island, Española is the waved albatross's only nesting place. Each April the males return to Española followed shortly thereafter by the females. Mating for life, their ritual begins with the male's annual dance to re-attract his mate. The performance can take up to 5 days consisting of a series of strutting, honking, and beak fencing. Once the pair is reacquainted they produce a single egg and share the responsibility of incubation. The colony remains based on Española until December when the chick is fully grown. By January most of the colony leaves the island to fish along the Humboldt Current. Young albatross do not return to Española until their 4th or 5th year when they return to seek a mate. Geographically Española is a classic example of a shield volcano, created from a single caldera in the center of the island. Over the years as the island has moved further away from the hot spot, the volcano became extinct and erosion began to occur. Española's two visitor sites offer an exceptional island visit. Punta Suarez is one of the highlights of the Galapagos Islands. The variety and quantity of wildlife assures a memorable visit. Visitors find migrant, resident, and endemic wildlife including brightly colored Marine Iguanas, Española Lava Lizards, Hood Mockingbirds, Swallow Tailed Gulls, Blue Footed and Masked Boobies, Galapagos Hawks, a selection of Finch, and the Waved Albatross.Found on the western tip of Española, Punta Suarez offers great wildlife such as sea lions, sea birds and the largest marine iguanas of Galapagos. This is one of the best sites in the Galapagos. The amount of wildlife is overwhelming. Along the beach there are many sea lions and large, colorful lava lizards and marine iguanas. As you follow the trail to the cliff's edge masked boobies can be found nesting among the rock formations. After a short walk down to a beach and back up the other side blue-footed boobies are seen nesting just off the trail. The Galapagos Dove and very friendly Hood Mockingbird are commonly found in this area. The nearby bushes are frequently home to the large-cactus finch, warbler finch, small-ground finch and large-billed flycatcher. Continuing down the trail you come to the only place where waved albatross nest in the islands. Some 12,000 pairs nest on Española each year. The feeling is very dramatic and it seems like a desolate wilderness as the waves crash on the jagged cliffs below and the blowhole shoots water 50-70 feet/15-30 meters into the air. The sky above is full of sea birds including red-billed tropicbirds, American Oystercatchers, swallow-tailed gulls, and Audubon's Shearwaters.
Galapagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
Dragonflies are amazing fliers that can move each wing independently, adjusting each wing's orientation to suit their needs. They can make sharp changes in direction, fly backwards, hover, and--at least in some cases--travel extremely long distances.
Flame skimmer dragonfly (libellula saturata), Santa Clara County, California. When perched, dragonflies angle their bodies to maximize or minimize sun exposure, depending on temperature.
“To minimize development costs, NASA evaluated variations of the proven Saturn launch vehicle as booster for the Shuttle. Here the external tank is mounted on an unpiloted rocket stage, neither of them reusable. The operational cost of this concept was judged to be too high.”
Above per the placard associated with model of this configuration on display at the NASM, linked to, and credited below.
Also, per David S. F. Portree, at his "No Shortage of Dreams" blog:
“By mid-1971, this was one of the two leading Space Shuttle design configurations. The first stage, bearing the letters "USA" and a single stabilizing oversized tail fin, might have been derived from the Saturn V S-IC first stage.”
At:
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/11/rube-goldbergs-sp...
And:
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-apollo-shuttl...
With good reason, this image has been oft-published/reproduced. However, the above are about all I could find for a “caption”. Note also that my posted photo is an earlier/original(?) publication...from 1971. The 1972 re-issue seems to be the replicated version widely reproduced. Making this crazy rare & coveted...right?!
Another interesting variation:
www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/001098.html
Credit: collectSPACE website
Lastly, the source photo:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_13_Launch_(S70-38747).jpg
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Just gonna throw it out there...possibly by Loren R. Fisher. Maybe even Don Mackey?