Oh, that’s Fred. He’s special. Officially listed as ‘165 lb. antisocial ballast’, the crew considers him to be a good luck charm.

Automatic one-star rating for any exterior lighting that takes more than 5 minutes to change a bulb:

Automatic one star rating if the back-up indicators light up for anything other than backing up. I want to throttle whoever decide it was OK to keep those lit when using the fob to unlock the doors.

While you’re at it, throw in a B-1 missile truck. Just for shits and giggles.

I was expecting some instruction on how to deal with crashing into a large pileof empty cardboard boxes or a fruit stand? Seemed to be the bane of seventies cop cars during pursuits...

I’ve shared one of my favorite stories from Maj. Brian Shul (USAF, Ret.), who flew the “Sled” and shared his experiences in the now out-of-print (and insanely expensive) autobiography, Sled Driver:

Just finished Ben Rich’s Skunk Works. It is a great book with a lot of insight into the design and production of what even today seems like it would be nearly impossible to build. Also, goes over the years at Skunk Works when the U2 and Have Blue/nighthawk programs were running. You really should go get it.

In 1970, 14 A-4K aircraft were delivered to the Royal New Zealand Air Force. These were later joined by 10 A-4G Skyhawks from the Royal Australian Navy in 1984; all were converted to A-4K Kahu standard.

Awesome original piece! thanks Tyler.

I can’t see what you did there

The damn thing still looks like it’s from the future. It’s 32 years old. 32!

This law has nothing at all to do with “kit cars”. What it has to do is with REPLICA cars. And that is a HUGE difference. We’ve been arguing this stuff over on the DeLorean boards since DMC has already set a 1-4 year goal of cranking out new vehicles, and have discovered that there are some interesting facts. Read on:

in looking at this photo I don’t know what I’m struck by more:that the An-124 is a staggeringly large plane, or that the Su-27 is massive.

Sorry to correct you but the Sioux city DC10 did not use its number 2 engine for pitch control as the fan disk had disintegrated rupturing the hydraulic lines in the tail,only engs 1&3 were runners.

I get the sophisticated bomb loads on premium aircraft, but we seldom see the after-action return of the same aircraft and loaded ordnance. It’s hard to imagine a theater commander authorizing a LGB attack on a low value target or that the same theater commander has sufficient intel to authorize a high dollar strike…

A real thing flown by Iraq. I love this photo so much.