Model Airplanes

Children love birding, hiking, star-gazing, and sleuthing—especially if you give them the power of magnified vision.

1. Eagle Optics Kingbird 6.5×32 | $95

The Kingbird uses high-performing Porro prisms, making the binoculars heavier and more likely to go out of alignment with careless handling. But your budding birder will love its edge-to-edge sharpness, awesome color tone, and lack of distortion. As a bonus, the wider field of vision makes it easier to spot critters. Eagle Optics also offers a lifetime warranty, which will be useful when Little Sib starts asking for a turn.

BEST FOR: Discerning 7-year-olds

2. Kowa SV 8×25 | $99

Weighing just 9.1 ounces and measuring only 4.1 inches long, the Kowa SV is a good choice for kids with smaller hands and faces. The design uses roof prisms (the reflective surfaces meet at a pitched angle), which makes these binocs more streamlined and durable. Despite the Lilliputian dimensions, the Kowas offer high magnification. That’s great news for your tree house sentry, though all that power does make it harder for wee’uns to hold objects steady in the field of view.

BEST FOR: Rambunctious explorers

Styled by Grace Hartnett

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Article source: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/take-flight-back-time-historys-first-flying-toy/

On July 20, 1969, 600 million people watched as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. One of those viewers was 20-year-old Mike Nocton.

Like the rest of the nation, the moon landing captivated Nocton. He watched intently as CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite interviewed the 38-year-old astronaut.

When asked if landing on the moon was the most exciting thing he’d ever done, Armstrong surprised Cronkite and most viewers by saying no, it wasn’t. Landing on an aircraft carrier at night was the most exciting.

“It gives me chills just thinking about that again,” says Nocton, who grew up building model airplanes. “I knew I could do that. It really inspired me.”

With that inspiration, the Indiana farm boy joined the Navy, where he would land on a carrier nearly 600 times. Almost half of those landings were at night.

His career in the Navy would take him to the Coral Sea, where he would do a test flight with a nuclear weapon; Syria, where he got “shot at like you wouldn’t believe;” and Libya, where weather would keep him from participating in the strikes he planned.

While the daredevil in him embraced this thrilling lifestyle, part of Nocton’s heart was always in Richmond, Indiana, on his family farm. For more than 15 years, he managed the farm while flying with the Navy.

“I just loved what I was doing,” he says. “I loved the exhilaration of flying and

Article source: http://www.agriculture.com/family/from-fighter-to-farmer-captain-mike-nocton

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Article source: http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/mid-valley-residents-take-airplane-ride-into-the-past/article_56126105-6fc3-5bf0-acd7-1fb7bb8c8eea.html

A ceremony Friday at Tinker Air Force Base will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the KC-135 tanker. This isn’t a remembrance of a plane used back “in the good old days,” but instead a salute to an aircraft that remains — six decades after the first one came into service — an integral part of the Air Force’s mission.

The KC-135 is not alone. Lt. Gen. Lee K. Levy II, commander of the sustainment center at Tinker, points out that the average fleet age of the Air Force’s airplanes is 27 years. Every B-52 bomber at the base was built before he was born (1962). “The newest B-52 in your United States Air Force was built in 1961,” he said during a meeting with The Oklahoman‘s editorial board. Even the B-1, which many may consider a “modern bomber,” is about 30 years old.

This is a concern, understandably so. While on the one hand the excellent reconditioning and sustainment work done at Tinker keeps these planes (and others) air-worthy, there is no ignoring the costs and concerns associated with such an aging fleet.

Levy uses classic automobiles as an illustration. Many car buffs own 1957-era vehicles. But he’ll ask those people, “Do you drive it every day? Do you drive it on the beltway in D.C. to work? Would you drive it if your spouse was getting ready to have a baby and you had to get her to the hospital to deliver?

“They all say ‘No, it’s my weekend car. It’s my car

Article source: http://newsok.com/article/5521331

It has not been that many years ago that I had to stand and deliver on operational issues. Meaning, when bad things happened, I was expected to be part of the solution and generally provide leadership in one form or another in responding to a disaster. Sometimes I was more lucky than good. Intuition, the right circumstances, the right subordinates all doing a good job — contributed to positive outcomes. And, while I’ve done any number of catastrophic exercises, including thermonuclear war — I have not been the center point for a catastrophic disaster. There, but for the grace of God go I …

Which brings me to this Propublica article, Red Cross ‘Failed for 12 Days’ After Historic Louisiana Floods, which is the latest in a series of stories they have done over the months on how bad the American Red Cross is concerning their response to disasters.

In the instance of the most recent Louisiana flooding — it was a catastrophic flood event, the biggest disaster since Superstorm Sandy, and there was no “significant” warning. Since it was a “no name” storm with tropical-depression-like rain, people and agencies did not have the luxury of a multi-day warning, like the region is used to with hurricanes.

My impression after thinking about this for months now is that Propublica is muckraking, while there is some muck, they have not had to stand in the boots of Red Cross responders and try to get to a city or parish that is surrounded

Article source: http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/disaster-zone/reflections-on-the-performance-of-the-american-red-cross.html