Model Airplanes

World War II-era planes will perform a flyover of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the allied victory in Europe, or V-E Day.

The event, dubbed the Arsenal of Democracy Flyover, will feature some 55 vintage aircraft, including the iconic P-51 Mustang fighter and the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. The 50-minute airshow is set to begin 12:10 p.m. local time and will follow ceremonial events at the World War II memorial.

“We’re flying a huge array of aircraft, all vintage of World War II,” said Nancy Kwiecien, a volunteer with the Commemorative Air Force, a Texas-based nonprofit that owns and operates some of the planes participating in the event. “They will be staged in chronological order according to the war.”

The flyover is being sponsored in part by aerospace and defense companies, including Boeing Co., General Electric Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., among others.

The formations will kick off with trainers and biplanes representing the period leading up to the war, followed by P-40 Warhawk aircraft marking the attack on Pearl Harbor, B-25 Mitchell bombers representing the raid on Tokyo, and B-17 and B-29 bombers marking the air wars in Europe and the Pacific, Kwiecien said. The flyby will culminate with a P-51 missing man formation, she said.

“It’s going to be stunning,” she said. A detailed lineup of the scheduled formations can be found on the event’s website, http://ww2flyover.org/flyover-formations/.

Reporters, photographers, history buffs and even a few World War II veterans gathered on the tarmac to

Article source: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/05/07/world-war-ii-era-planes-to-perform-flyover-of-national-mall.html

One of the nice things about living out in the country is that you can actually hear the sounds of nature. Big trucks, loud motorcycles and junk cars with rusted out mufflers typically aren’t around to drown out the sounds of chirping birds, croaking frogs and buzzing bees. Unfortunately, all of that is about to change.

If Dr. John Cooley of the University of Connecticut is correct, the entire Tri-State is about to witness the emergence of a huge swarm of M. Neotredecim- Brood XXIII to be more precise. For folks like me who barely made it through Biology I in high school, that would be the 13-year cicada swarm. Once cicadas arrive and fire up their mating calls, forget about hearing the birds, bees and frogs or anything else for that matter.

The 13-year cicada should start to emerge a little later this month. According to Dr. Cooley, they will be around for 4 — 6 weeks after they first start emerging from the ground. Most individual cicadas live only a few weeks, but since they emerge over a period of two weeks or so, the whole event lasts longer. The really serious cicada noise will get going about a week and a half after you first notice them and will last about two weeks more.

As you might expect, it’s the male cicada that makes all of the noise. “The males produce `songs’ using a pair of tymbals, or rigid membranes found on the first abdominal segment,” said Dr. Cooley. “The

Article source: http://www.courierpress.com/news/local-news/southern-illinois/len-wells-13year-cicada-ready-to-appear_13566470