Bill Whittle: What Liberty Looks Like

His latest Afterburner:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G76h9QPIw0c?rel=0]
“If America’s not evil, then the Left is out of business.”

They haven’t gotten the memo, Bill.

“This is what Liberty looks like.  It is not and it has never been the default condition of mankind.”

Flashback

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It’s been ten years since I posted this:

As some of you may know, I grew up on Florida’s Space Coast. My father was a Quality Control engineer for IBM, working on the Instrument Unit (guidance system) for the Saturn V rocket. I got to see all of the manned missions up through Skylab launch from just across the Indian River, except for Apollo XVII – the only night launch. I watched that one from my front yard in Titusville.

There were two dawns that day.

Consequently, I’ve been a space exploration enthusiast from a young age. I try to watch all the launches, or at least listen to them on the radio. I remember listening to the launch of the Challenger early in the morning here in Tucson, and thinking – as the station broke for a commercial – “At least this one didn’t blow up on the pad.”

Morbid, I know, but I’m also an engineer. I wasn’t then – I had just graduated from college in December and didn’t have a job yet – but that’s been my orientation for most of my life. I knew that each manned launch was a roll of the dice, a spin of the cylinder in a big game of Russian Roulette, and that NASA had become just another government bureaucracy. (And I also knew just how close we had come to losing three men in Apollo 13 because a series of small, innocuous errors had cascaded into a catastrophic failure in a system that was almost neurotic in its quest for safety.)

It was just a matter of time.

Still, I was shocked when they came back from commercial to announce that Challenger had been destroyed in a launch accident just minutes after liftoff. I knew that all seven of the astronauts were dead. I knew that the “teacher in space” wasn’t going to get there, and that a classroom of students had to be devastated by that realization. Many, many classrooms, but one in particular.

I watched the footage of the liftoff, now splayed in endless grisly loops on every network – all of which had previously declined to show the launch live and interrupt really important stuff like “Good Morning America.” I watched as the flame bloomed out from a Solid Rocket Booster joint, impinging on the huge external fuel tank, and said, “That’s what killed them. What the hell caused that failure?” I watched the Satan’s horns of the SRB exhaust tracks as they trailed up and away from the epicenter of the blast. And then I watched it all again.

Over and over.

Later I discovered that the engineers at Morton Thiokol had tried to get the launch scrubbed, knowing the problems that cold weather caused in the O-ring joint seals of the SRBs, but they had been told to “take off their engineer hats and put on their manager hats” in order to make a launch decision. The launch had been delayed too many times, and President Reagan would be making his State of the Union address that night, with a call to Crista McAuliffe – Teacher in Space.

I decided right then that I didn’t ever want to be a goddamned manager.

I also found out later that the crew, at least most of them, probably survived the destruction of the Challenger, and were alive and aware all the way to impact in the Atlantic. I like to hope not, but facts are sometimes ugly things.

And I wondered if NASA could regain the spirit, professionalism, and devotion to excellence it’d had during the race to the moon – and doubted it severely. As I said, NASA has become just another government bureacracy, more interested in expanding its budget and not making waves than in the visceral excitement and attention to minute detail that space exploration should inspire. (I’m speaking of the upper-level management, and many of the lower-level drones. I’m quite certain that there are still hundreds of people there still dedicated to the dream. They’re just shackled and smothered by the career bureaucrats and the nine-to-fivers who punch the clock and wait for retirement.)

Anyway, all this is leading to a blog I found while perusing my sitemeter links tonight. GM’s Corner, which linked to me last month, has a recurring “new blogs” post. This month’s entry is Dr. Sanity, the blog of Dr. Pat Santy – who happened to be the flight surgeon for the Challenger mission. She has a post up about that day, and it’s well worth the read: Challenger – A Flight Surgeon Remembers.

Highly recommended.

That link still works.  It’s still highly recommended.

6.5 Gibbs?

Anybody out there own or shoot the 6.5mm Gibbs?  It’s the 6.5-06 carried to its maximum case capacity.  I’ve been doing research into the various 6.5 wildcats and this one in particular has piqued my interest.

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That’s a .270 on the left, 6.5 Gibbs on the right.
Ballistically, it’s supposed to push 140 grain bullets to 3100-3200 fps out of 24″ barrel, and the B.C. of the very good 140gr projectiles runs from about .580 to .612.

And it fits in a standard “long” action.

OK, Who Ordered the Gale?

I got to the range this morning right at 0700. The gate was open and there was no one else there. It was also still pretty dark. I got my truck unloaded and started setting up my steel when reader Mike C. and his lovely wife E. showed up, followed by reader Brad all the way from Sierra Vista. The wind was blowing hard enough that I didn’t bother to put up my regular target stand, but after about 8AM the wind dropped off and it was, while still cool, fairly pleasant.

Mike C. also brought some steel, so with our various firearms (M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, .458 SOCOM AR, PS90 carbine, a .300BK AR and a .300BK Handi-Rifle, various and sundry handguns) we rang steel for a while. Finally the wind dropped off enough that we decided to set up our target stands.

It was a trick.

A bit after 0900, reader DC and a friend showed up, followed by Primeval Papa. And somebody turned on the wind machine. Nothing that wasn’t steel remained standing.

That’s not to say the firing line wasn’t full – it was. There were a lot of hardy people out this morning to throw lead downrange, but by 10AM I was pretty much done. I shot until the next cease-fire, packed up my stuff and was off the range by 11:00.

So, the Central Arizona Blogshoot had seven attendees, two of us actually bloggers.

Sorry, but I don’t think anyone took pictures. When we weren’t shooting, we were trying to keep our hands warm.

Book Bleg

Since I cut back on blogging, I’ve gone back to reading novels in a big way – 1-3 per week.

I’m a relatively eclectic reader, though I love Science Fiction the most. Not a huge fantasy fan, but there’s some I like. Mysteries are OK, though again not a huge fan. Let me list some of my favorite authors in no particular order:

Robert A. Heinlein,
David Drake
S.M. Stirling
John Ringo
Lois McMaster Bujold
John D. MacDonald
Robert B. Parker
Larry Correia
Larry Niven
Elizabeth Moon
William Gibson
Jerry Pournelle
Eric Flint
David Weber (most of the time)

I’ve said elsewhere, my personal and political philosophy is in large part due to Robert Heinlein’s entire catalog, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels, and Robert B. Parker’s Spenser. I think if I had to pick one very finest Sci-Fi novel ever written, it would be Frank Herbert’s DUNE, though I don’t think much of the sequels or really anything else he wrote.  I’ve read most of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, all of Jim Butcher’s Dresden books to date, all of Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books, most of Isaac Asimov’s Sci-Fi and much of his non-fiction work (not a big fan of the Foundation trilogy).  I’ve read (I think) the entire Berserker catalog from Fred Saberhagen, but liked his Empire of the East series much, much more.  I’ve read all of Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet mysteries” so far.  I just finished all of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder mysteries, and a couple of months ago I finished all of Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher novels.  (Good, but don’t hold a candle to Travis McGee.)  I’ve read W.E.B. Griffin’s Brotherhood of War novels through The Generals, and his The Corps series.  Liked those, but the repetition got a bit old.  I’ve read the entire Stephen Hunter Bob Lee Swagger catalog, and a couple of his non-Swagger novels.

So, anything out there that’s knocked your socks off?  Couldn’t put down?  I’m pretty open to anything short of bodice-rippers and Mack Bolan knock-offs.

Blogshoot!

Just a reminder to my Arizona readers that there’ll be a shoot in Casa Grande next Saturday, 1/24 at the Elsy Pearson Public Shooting Range in Casa Grande beginning at 0700 and running until we get tired and go home. 

Same as last year, the range opens at 7:00AM. There are no rangemasters. There are no chairs – bring something to sit on. The firing line is covered and there are concrete shooting benches, however.


The city has porta-potties out there on a permanent basis, so we don’t have to rent our own (but bring your own TP just in case.)

The rules are pretty simple:


No explosives, no .50BMG rifles, no tracers, no incendiaries, clean up after yourself, don’t be a dick.

The rifle range is 300 yards deep with the first berm at 200.  The mountains that form the ultimate backstop are another 300 yards out and farther.  The ground there is reinforced concrete disguised as sun-baked clay. Forget about any target stand that needs to stick into the ground, it ain’t happenin’ short of bringing a sledgehammer. Steel and targets that don’t need taping are best, but if you bring something frangible be prepared to clean it up after it’s blown to pieces. And the benches are funky-shaped. Regular camping chairs are marginal, stools and folding chairs are better. I bring a folding chair, a target stand made of 2″ PVC pipe, and my 1″ thick AR500 plate steel swingers. I also have some .22 rimfire rated rolling targets made of steel, and some polymer self-sealing targets.  I think I still have a case of bowling pins, and some clay pigeons.

It appears turnout will be light – I’ve gotten five confirmed replies so far, and a couple of maybes.

I recommend you bring:  water or other non-alcoholic beverages (no alcohol on the range), sunscreen, ear and eye protection.  Ladies, don’t wear anything low-cut or open-necked.  Yes, I’m sure it looks lovely, but you don’t want to catch hot brass down in there.  OPTIONAL:  Something to shoot with, and something to shoot AT.  If you’re a reader or a non-gun blogger interested in coming to a off-the-cuff funshoot, please come on down!  I imagine most of us will be bringing multiple firearms and lots of ammo, but if you don’t, well, I’m willing to let people shoot my stuff (with my ammo), and I’m willing to let them shoot at my targets.

If you’re coming, please let us know in comments.

UPDATE:  Looks like seven or eight of us so far.