Model Airplanes

On New Year’s Day, Mike Dunleavy Jr. of the Chicago Bulls injured his foot in a game against the Denver Nuggets. Neither the severity of his injury nor the impact of his pending loss were immediately apparent. What’s happened since then, though, has made it obvious just how much he means to the Windy City.

Anyone who has ever built a model airplane knows the importance of glue: You don’t see it, but it’s the substance that holds all the pieces together. And when you’re putting the plane together there’s always the ones labeled “A” and “B,” which are the big parts that form the body of the airplane. Those are like the stars, like Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler.

Then there are the smaller pieces, like the parts that make up the tail or the wings. Those are the other significant players who may not be All-Stars but are still major components of winning—players like Taj Gibson.

But then there’s the substance that holds it all together and remains completely invisible—the glue guy. These aren’t the guys who fill up the stat sheet. The glue guys are just there to hold everything else together.

When you’re building your model, the goal is to keep the glue hidden. You don’t want big globs spilling over and ruining the aesthetic. And thus is the fate of the glue guy. In a way, you don’t even want to “see” him. That’s not his role.

But here’s the other thing about glue guys:

Article source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2355604-a-healthy-mike-dunleavy-may-hold-hidden-key-to-chicago-bulls-ceiling

It may look like the SR-71 Blackbird, but this sleek flying beast is not the most famous supersonic spy plane ever created but its father, the A-12 Oxcart. In some ways, it was a better machine than the famous Blackbird. This is its history.

The story of this Mach 3.2 technological wonder starts in 1957 and, like all secret flying things full of gadgets, it’s fascinating.

The OXCART program story began in 1957, when a contractor suggested that high-altitude supersonic flight was the only way to avoid Soviet air defenses. The CIA’s Richard M. Bissell, who was directing the 1954 U-2 spy plane program at the time, was concerned about their vulnerability to USSR radars and anti-air missiles. He was right: in 1960 the Soviets shot down Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 near Sverdlovsk.

By then the A-12 program was already under way: after Lockheed Aircraft completed “antiradar studies, aerodynamic structural tests, and engineering designs,” the CIA gave the green light to produce the 12 aircraft on January 30th, 1960. It was still called the A-11 at the time and Lockheed engineer Clarence L. Johnson was the main designer. He also was responsible for the U-2 but, for some reason and after months of drawings and wind-tunnel model testing, people were still not convinced this beast could fly.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-story-of-the-ultrasecret-a-12-oxcart-father-of-the-1684070908

Outline

• Allegiants 4Q2014 profits tumble on aircraft write down
• Allegiant takes the 757 write down after studying falling residual values of the aircraft
• Allegiant should see some easing of unit cost pressure in mid-2015
• Allegiant continues to post solid gains in ancillary product sales
• Allegiants plans for international service become more fuzzy as it opts on more domestic
• Allegiant takes an interesting path in 2015 with new medium sized market push

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Allegiant’s 4Q2014 profits tumble on aircraft write down

Article source: http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/niche-airline-allegiants-unit-cost-pressures-soften-as-it-makes-a-push-into-medium-sized-markets-207958

(c) 2015, The Washington Post.

One day in 1977, about a year after Bruce Jenner shattered a world record to win the decathlon gold medal at the Montreal Summer Olympics, he met up with his sportswriter friend Barry McDermott to play tennis in New York City.

McDermott suggested a match at his private club — but that wasn’t Jenner’s style. Privacy was never his priority.

The pair went to Central Park, where word quickly spread that Bruce Jenner (Bruce Jenner!) was playing on the public courts. McDermott remembers the crowd growing, as he had known it would, gawkers pressed against the chain-link fence, watching the handsome star athlete’s every move.

It wasn’t a bid for publicity, McDermott insists: Jenner — as celebrated in that era as Michael Phelps or Lance Armstrong at their peak — already had plenty of that. “It was more of a ‘Let’s hang out with the people instead of the elitists,‘ “ his friend recalled.

Four decades later, Jenner is still hanging out with the people: the millions of viewers tuning in to “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” the popular E! reality franchise starring America’s most shamelessly oversharing celebrity family. Jenner — once the most famous of the clan — is largely a supporting player on the show and its four spinoffs, the weary, eye-rolling dad overshadowed by his preening ex-wife Kris, the self-proclaimed “momager,” and their many camera-friendly kids.

But now the buff heartthrob of America’s disco era is poised again to be the center of attention, in a way few

Article source: http://www.standard.net/Movies-TV/2015/02/04/The-forgotten-history-of-Bruce-Jenner-How-the-1970s-all-American-hero-ended-up-here.html