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A Present For The B-Day Boss

By Boquisucio on July 29, 2010 | | Comments (11)
Just found the perfect gift for Massa John.  It's sure to give him long nights of fitful sleep.

Behold The Air Force's Flying Bayos:




Real Caption Reads:
The Air Force's drill team performs during Wednesday's arena show at the 2010 National Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Bowling Green, Va., on July 28, 2010.… (AP Photo/The Free Lance-Star, Mike Morones)
Boq

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11 Comments

By John of Argghhh! on July 30, 2010 7:09 AM
I'd a been more impressed if they were using the looooong bayonets.  I see they removed the sights, too.  Less things to catch and hold on cloth.  And the taped-on bayonets.  I can see that.  Bad enough to bayonet yourself, really bad public relations to wing a bayonet into the audience...
 
By JimC on July 30, 2010 10:20 AM
My ROTC Pershing Rifle's Trick Drill Team was performing at a basketball game on campus at a New England Land Grant College, that was by then a University, an '03 bayonet flew off toward the crowd and artfully arced through the air landing just short of the full stands and quivered in the floor.  Last time the bayonets went out where there were spectators.  At least,  during my time.
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 30, 2010 2:24 PM
Well, at least it was a *manly* bayonet!
 
By Annabelle on July 30, 2010 2:50 PM
Keith is at the Jamboree, providing PAO coverage, but it seems like the AF pukes are the ones getting out and doing stories/taking pictures that are getting published.  The commandant this year is AF- could have something to do with it; who knows.  He wrote a really cool story about the VOLUNTEER Coasties at the Jamboree, including one in his 90's.  If it doesn't get published before he leaves, I'm sure he'll give you a copy, John.  It's a story that should be told.
 
By BillT on July 30, 2010 4:13 PM
...an '03 bayonet flew off toward the crowd and artfully arced through the air landing just short of the full stands and quivered in the floor.

I doubt there's any former member of the Pershing Rifles who *doesn't* sport a "PR Scar" from a botched toss...

 
By Attila on July 31, 2010 2:32 AM
Wayward bayonets---pah! Nothing compared to the wayward AGM-65 that started chasing the crowd on the north Netherlands coast during a NATO airpower demo. Like JimC's knife, it ran out of energy before crossing the shoreline and impacted in the mud flats. 

When you go to those things, just don't wear any colors that contrast sharply with the surroundings. Of course, if it's a G-model and it goes dumb and then wakes up and locks up on you in the forced-correlate mode, step sideways just before it hits you...it can't make that sharp a turn.
 
By Attila on July 31, 2010 2:34 AM
P.S. If you're REALLY sharp, pivot 90 degrees and shout Olé!! as the Maverick goes by--major cool points if done correctly.
 
By BillT on July 31, 2010 4:31 AM
The party line is that if the guide wire on a TOW missile breaks, the missile will just respond to the last input before wire-break.

Which means that if the break occurs on launch, it'll do an inside loop and try to re-insert itself into the launch tube, and with a live warhead, you don't want to be in the same neighborhood.

Best place to observe the consternation is from Low Earth Orbit...
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 31, 2010 7:41 AM
Attila, that *does* have a certain panache, doesn't it?
 
By Justthisguy on August 1, 2010 6:32 AM
Bill, that's yet another reason not to buy weapons which purport to have brains.  My F-150 purports to have brains, and it is having definite mental problems, and sensory issues too.  I miss my 1983 Mazda B-2000, which had exactly one IC in it, an op amp in the wiper-delay circuit.  If somebody set off a nuke 100 miles up, I could have cheerfully driven around in the thing, sneering at all the people in recently-built dead vehicles.
 
By Blake Kirk on August 1, 2010 10:55 AM
Bill,

It's been a while since my PMOS was 11H3P, (Heavy Antiarmor Section Leader, for those of you who aren't old enough to remember when 11H was a valid MOS,) but if I recall correctly, the minimum arming range for the warhead on the TOW is 200 meters.  The Missile Guidance Set doesn't send the signal to enable the fuse until enough milliseconds have passed for the missile to have travelled that distance.

What got us in the TOW community a trifle disconcerted was that there was one production lot of live-warhead TOW1 missiles out there in the early 80's which had the annoying habit of doing a 180 degree turn somewhere around 1000 meters downrange.  Of course, the radical turn broke the tracking-head's lock on the IR flare on the ass-end of the missile body, and the MGS would lose control of the missile, which would then crash and blow up.  I don't think anyone ever got hurt by one of those missiles, but there were a lot of guys who wound up having to change their shorts after one of those incidents.