VonoTemp

KC-135 Crewmember taking a sextant reading, view looking aft from pilot and copilot seats. from http://research.archives.gov/description/6365717         Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above; Join with all nature in manifold witness, To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.                                                 — Thomas O. Chisholm Retired now. Starting to pick up some habits I very much enjoy.  I get up early as usual. My wife is a late sleeper. That is, she does not get up at 5 am. I make the coffee, grab the newspaper, and head to my mountain-facing second floor deck to enjoy the spectacle of dawn.  Give me some quiet time and I am bound to wax philosophical: Perhaps part of Purgatory is not only to purge sinfulness but also to help us remember how to slow down and enj...

Per popular request, I’ll start throwing out, so to speak, some stories from my Air Force flying days. We go fairly far back for this one, pilot training, 1977. In the Air Force, at least in my day, the first flying lessons in jet aircraft occurred right after graduation from college. The course was called “undergraduate pilot training” or (the military loves acronyms) UPT. My tour of UPT occurred at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi.  In an earlier blog ( here ), I mentioned some surgery I had in high school. It was major surgery to remove a tumor from inside and outside of my sinuses, just below the brain. It went so well, the Air Force considered me medically OK to be a “rated officer”, a pilot. But perhaps they shouldn’t have. Truth was, one of the surgeries apparently “stretched my left Eustachian tube” per one of the doctors. See illustration below. It was not enough to affect my normal life, but I was a little slower to equalize the pressure in my ears with this stretch...

I am retired now, but as a systems engineering on intercontinental ballistic missiles, a typical concern of mine (and many others) was to continually look at large amounts of data to draw conclusions on the readiness of the weapon system to meet its mission. The mission of intercontinental ballistic missiles is to deter war through readiness, and if deterrence fails, to take out the enemy’s military capability.  I needed to understand, is the reliability improving or decreasing? Is accuracy remaining adequate? Will the missile still fulfill its mission under the effects of nuclear war? Fundamentally, were the readiness metrics trying to tell me something? An important corollary question was always: “Is this a real trend, or is there something wrong with the data or how I am looking at it?” Strict systems engineering disciplines and strong leadership made this process very effective.  It can work quite well when done correctly.  In my situation, the mission was clear and c...

When this blog refers to a cold war or the cold war, it has something specific in mind. The natural state of mankind is war. We hope it remains cold. We stay strong to give it the best chance to stay cold. That great generational record of human behavior, the Holy Bible, reminds us that our species is capable of limitless cruelty in the hope of gain. More recently, in the last century, we just concluded the bloodiest experiments in socialism across the globe from the USSR to China to Cambodia and countless other countries. Non-socialist countries are not immune. Countries with the greatest hopes of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” can quickly drive down the path of violence as well. So if anyone points me to a “scientific” study that seems give us “…hope for the whole human race living in peace if we were only to A, B, or C…” I will not be impressed. I will not be willing to bet against the cruelty of my species. A peaceful country requires a strong military. Fortunately, I live in a co...

As a junior in high school, I had a serious medical issue with a non-cancerous tumor growing in and outside my sinuses. The surgery to remove it took 5 hours and lots of transfused blood. It occurred at the UCLA Medical Center.   UCLA did a wonderful job as evidenced by the fact that later the USAF allowed me into pilot training. We didn’t have much money to begin with, so my Mom was very worried about finances on top of everything else. UCLA deferred most of the cost; due to the rare nature of the tumor I was the perfect teaching prop. With the cost less in terms of dollars, there was still a certain other cost that could be tallied by the example on one occasion of every doctor-student getting to put their fingers in my mouth. Being a fairly private person, this was not something I was used to. Other minor indignities occurred, but nothing that overrode my gratitude that the burden on my Mother was less. In the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after surgery, lots of drugs ensured a comf...