Incognito's New Livejournal

Farewell

2006-09-13T01:24:29Z

Today I flew one of our last S-3B aircraft to the "boneyard" in the middle of the Arizona desert, more formally known as the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC) at Davis Motham Air Force Base. AMARC has served, since the early 1940's, as a graveyard for retired, scrapped, or abandoned US aircraft.

As the S-3 approaches the end of its service life, we are flying most of them to AMARC, where they will be wrapped in plastic and aluminium foil, drained of fuel and oil, and parked in vacant dirt lots to bake under the desert sun. One day, if aliens invade from outer space, these wartime reserves can be activated (alongside other aircraft dating from the Korean war) and theoretically brought back into service. More likely, they'll be donated to museums or sold at bargain basement rates to foreign militaries, to whom obselescent 1970's U.S. technology is advanced enough to seem like magic (a la Arthur C. Clarke).

I, too, am approaching the end of my service life in the Navy. At the behest of the Navy, I have mastered the flying characteristics, weapons systems, and tactics of a Cold War aircraft and flown it to the maximum extent of its aging capabilities. Unfortunately, the remaining S-3 pilots are just as cheap, obselescent, and expendable as the aircraft, and so it is time for me to leave the service.

Today, I signed away custody of aircraft 724, the 160,155th aircraft manufactured for the U.S. Navy. She, like me, has seen war and peace, the majestic beauty of a dawn catapult launch, and the sometimes-terrifying, ominous deck-rush during a night recovery. She has, like me, far exceeded performance expectations and striven to find relevance in aviation's contribution to our defense. Sometimes, like me, she has even succeeded in these efforts. But, like me, she is closing a chapter of her life, and so it seems only fitting that I end this journal.

Creepingivy started this journal for me a long time ago, and now it ends. I may start another, but I bid this one, and the life it narrated (at least, whenever I got around to updating it) farewell.

And to you, aircraft 724, farewell-- it's been a great ride.

Of course, pictures are mandatory...

The long taxi from the runway, through semi-blasted wasteland, and security fences to the AMARC facility.

With the engines still cooling, techs begin scavenging spare parts and prepping the aircraft for cold storage.

724's final resting place in the Arizona desert. Rust in peace.

A signature on 724 for posterity. Farewell!

Views from the office

2005-04-28T03:47:48Z

Some random photos from my archives. I'm trying to get organized.

EULA

2005-04-21T16:11:03Z

My entries are about as long as those software EULA's (Click "Yes" to continue installation) and probably get read about as much. I've been busy the last month or so, but here's the executive debrief:

1. Got roped into organizing a change of command ceremony involving about 500 people, a band, and a ceremonial flag detail. Things went well until 5 minutes prior to the ceremony start. Noticed something was missing: the ceremonial flag detail hadn't showed up. They finally did with 2 minutes to spare, but didn't know where to stand. Things turned out well: Resembled a train-wrecky version of "A Wedding Story" where the wedding coordinator wants to shoot himself in the head, but gets better.

2. Flew (comm air) to Jacksonville, FL twice. Found out that east coast military is very anal. Unnerving evaluation flight with a co-pilot who is shaped exactly like a sausage and likes to hum along to J-Lo songs. Later, drunk friend attempts to compliment stripper by declaring, "You could park a bike between those!" Had to smooth over relations with diplomacy. Did three things rarely seen in FL gentlemen's clubs: 1) Tipped 2) Bought two consecutive lap dances 3) Did not have a mullet. Am now a rock star in said establishment.

3. Flew (tac air) to Key West, FL by way of Ellington Field, TX. Have decided that Key West is cool: Kind of like a never-ending Jerry Springer episode set to a Jimmy Buffet soundtrack.

4. Flew three bombing hops for student pilot and co-pilot training. Unnerved by the fact that the bombing target looks exactly like a white double-wide trailer.

5. Flew (tac air) back from Key West via Lakland Air Force Base, TX with squadron CO as co-pilot. CO insists that Air Force "flight kitchen" serves the best food for lunch. Am suspicious, but his enthusiasm is probably a direct order. Am impressed by Air Force cafeteria security and procedures: military ID and security checkpoint. Lunch Lady has us fill out several forms which require us to specify everything from type/model/series aircraft to social security number to preference for "nutritional supplement A" or "nutritional supplement B". Lunch Lady spends several minutes preparing elaborate lunches. Presents them in hermetically sealed boxes stamped with US AIR FORCE FLIGHT FOOD SERVICE seals. We open the boxes. Contents: 1) Vending machine triangle sandwich 2) Apple 3) Vending machine granola bar 4) Vending machine Diet Coke.

But I ordered "nutritional supplement B"...

6. Mocking unsavior because he, a rabid atheist, just happened to be in Germany at the same time they went Pope Crazy. Ha!

7. Wife (not on LJ) and I are shopping for a new house. Banks are funny organizations. Bank A says: "You are pre-approved for $X". $X buys us a studio apartment in the worst part of town, kevlar body armor not included. Bank B says: "You are pre-approved for $Y". $Y buys us a dream home in a nice part of town, but bankrupts us in about 30 seconds. Could be worse-- I could own the double-wide on the bombing range in Florida.

8. Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines kicks ass.

9. Taking 5 days of vacation to go up to Santa Barbara this weekend. Thank god!

10. Click "yes" to continue installation.
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Knights of the Old Republic 2

2005-03-13T18:50:15Z

If the movies were like KOTOR 2, they'd go something like this:

Cutscene: Darth Vader slices off Luke's hand. The scene pans to another camera angle, where Luke's hand reappears. The camera switches to a view inside Luke's head, allowing you to see Vader from the inside of Luke's nostrils.

"Join me, and we will rule the Galaxy as father and son."
Dialog options:
1. Yes.
2. [Pursuade] Yeah.
3. [Awareness] Yep.
4. [Demolitions] Uh huh.
5. Never mind.
6. What do you know about this planet?

Selecting any option leads to the same pre-rendered movie, which shows Luke (wearing the wrong costume) plummeting down into a ventilation shaft.

Cut to the scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, where the Ewoks are dancing. Roll the closing credits.

Additional content detailing what happened between Luke falling and the Ewoks dancing is available as an easter egg buried somewhere on the DVD.

KOTOR 2 tanked a perfectly good game concept.

Best euphamism ever

2005-02-27T03:49:53Z

"...may cause considerable altitude loss and contact with water".

Ah, fame and glory

2005-02-02T08:44:41Z

So those of you who know me would've noticed by now (I hope) that I'm the first one who'll point out that aviation isn't necessarily all the fame and glory it's worked up to be. No, I don't get to play volleyball in my dogtags, or hit it with Kelly McGillis in the elevator. Today's flight was a case in point.

While recovering from what should've been a benign unusual attitude (part of today's "final exam" flight involved putting the aircraft into various nose high/nose low attitudes and then evaluating how the student pilot recovers), my intrepid student overcontrolled and spiked us into a spectacular negative-g maneuver. This part probably bears a little background explanation. "Zero-G" is astronauts gracefully floating around in the International Space Station, eating perfectly spinning globules of Tang. For example, Baron Harkonnen floating around in Dune-- no problem. "Negative-G", on the other hand, is like the Magic User spell "Reverse Gravity"-- i.e. Baron Harkonnen getting squashed flat against the ceiling. My student today applied Baron Harkonnen-squashing levels of nose-down stick to the aircraft.

Now, the venerable S-3B Viking is a fairly capable aircraft, but you don't throw it around in negative-G maneuvers for the same reason that you don't take the exit off-ramp in grandma's Winnebago at 100 MPH (161 kmh). And why is that? Because the dinner china, grandma's bridge game, and the S'mores will fly around the interior cabin with Newtonian fury. And that's what happened to me today as the student's flight publications, emergency procedures manuals, and other assorted dry goods bounced around the cabin like pachinko balls. I, being somewhat expectant of various levels of student chicanery, actually secured my cockpit items. But the student's Baron-squashing maneuver apparently exceeded the limit load factors of various pieces of velcro, snaps, and other fasteners holding things like emergency pump handles, map cases, and my water bottle in place, because those were added to the general melee that ensued. For several seconds, every loose screw, dust bunny, and the complete inventory of my student (along with my water bottle) swirled with tornadic fury in the cockpit. If I had a butterfly net, I could've retrieved it all. Instead, I was focused, with some interest, on seeing if we were going to recover from the Baron-squashing maneuver without hitting the water.

Once we succeeded in regaining some semblance of upright, 1-G flight, the real fun began. I shook off my 3d6 of subdual damage and took stock: Approximately fifty dozen random items were strewn throughout the cockpit, threatening to slip into various mechanical crevices and interrupt minor cockpit functions, like control of the aircraft, pressurization, or the general fly/don't fly function. To rectify this, I had to give the student very clear, precise instructions, "Fly in a circle here. Don't crash", safed up the ejection seats, and then crawled around on my hands and knees collecting various books, pencils, and random items. A flight manual floated 15 ft. before coming to rest atop an ejection seat actuator box (many hours of practice at the game "Operation" assisted in its retrieval). The APU pump handle came to rest (after making some distressing clanging noises against some fragile-sounding objects... but everything seemed fine afterwards) wedged between the GPDC (computer) memory unit and a dangerous-looking wire harness. And my water bottle... where the hell did my water bottle go?

And so, with vast sums of taxpayer-financed training to back me up, I crawled around the floorboards of a jet for several minutes today, looking for a water bottle and other random items. (Somehow I doubt this'll ever make it into a movie, because it even beats out flying a plane full of rubber dog sh*t out of Hong Kong). I eventually gave up, we returned to base, and on landing rollout, the bottle emerged on its own and thumped against the side of my seat. Mission successful.

Now, during my advanced briefing to new pilots, I will add to my list of "don't do" items (which currently includes things like "pretty please don't fly into the ground"): "Please don't apply Baron Harkonnen-crushing levels of negative G when recovering nose-high."

Does anybody know anything about 3d rendering?

2005-01-29T23:49:28Z

I could get addicted to this thing.

Ok, so my latest dead-end schtick these days is I'm trying to get back into art. (In fact, that's the only reason I'm updating the CS website... just so I have an excuse to churn out art). I give this latest fad about 2-3 months, tops, before it sputters out. But, I have a copy of 3D Studio Max 5 and a copy of Maya 5 (purchased from a nice man in Hong Kong who was later apprehended by the customs police). I've been messing with 3dsmax, and by ripping off somebody else's model of a Lamborghini, I came up with this aerodyne (which I used for an illo on the website):

So my idea is that I want to do a bunch of 2-D art, scan and color it in Photoshop, and then use a 3-D renderer to make backgrounds (like aerodynes flying across a cityscape or something). But I'm clueless about 3-d rendering. Should I keep using 3dsmax or try Maya? Should I get Bryce instead?

CS?

2005-01-29T23:36:09Z

I'm actually in such a reminiscent mood that I created this new LJ account just so I could write about it.

I've been back on CS off and on for a bit. I'm thinking about converting the whole thing to d20 rules, but I'm not sure if it'd be worth the effort. Recently I updated the CS website. I've got a feeling I'll be done with CS once the website's complete. Things are just so different now.

So my question is, for those of you who were there while I was gone...

...what happened to CS?

Logbook

2005-01-29T23:24:32Z

I was really bored, so I decided to transfer the contents of my logbook (a record of all my flights) into spreadsheet format. This makes it easier to work out various statistics (total flight hours, total carrier landings, etc.) for various pieces of bureaucratic paperwork.

Each flight is a single line of text recorded by a yeoman or logs & records clerk in steady, pointedly legible handwriting. As I went through transcribing each line, I got to reminiscing. Condensed down to one line of textual facts, each individual flight doesn't seem very unique or significant. The compact handwriting belies the exhilaration, fear, frustration, or satisfaction of the actual event. Take this one for instance:

This is my first solo flight in an A-4 trainer jet (serial number 153463... now baking in the desert at Davis Motham AFB in Arizona, a piece of Vietnam-era military abandonware). According to the log, I flew for 1.5 hours and did 6 landings (5 touch and go's for proficiency and 1 full stop). What it doesn't say is that I took the aircraft up to 15,000' over Mississippi and, not believing the flight manual's claims that the jet can do aileron rolls at 720 degrees a second, I put the stick hard over to the right. Before I knew what happened, the jet did 3 or so rolls and my helmet clanged against the canopy.

...on second thought, it's probably for the best that the logbook sticks to "just the facts".