ANZAC Day

This song by one of my favourite Australian bands plays on a perhaps slightly unfair myth about the ANZAC leadership, but still suits the day well, and is one of the better efforts in a field that often turns to the mawkish:


ANZAC day isn't, and shouldn't ever be about glorifying war or nationalism. It's a day for rememberance and acknowledgement, of what others had to go through (rightly or wrongly) in our name, and those who fell. And as an army Brigadier eloquently quoted at this morning's Lower Hutt ceremony, the bonds of mateship. Soldiers don't often fight for the higher ideals of national policy, which are close to irrelevant on the battlefield. They most often fight for those alongside them.

NB: The Christmas Truce referred to in the lyrics was a real thing that occured in 1914.

Getting it right for once

Listening to: one of my new comps, and this track right now: Run Run Run. I love the pun of the chanting at the end of the song.

It wasn't until I saw it on Huffington Post while following Boston news that I realised this had been noticed outside the country. It might not be as spontaneous as some are claiming, but this was still a pretty cool moment after the vote that made same-sex marriage legal in NZ this week.


Another unexpected viral clip from an unexpected source is this brilliant speech prior to the vote:

There's some post speech follow up including an "Ellen" invite here.

And a couple of friends of mine on why it mattered:

Compare and contrast

Interesting and historic night in parliament last night, revealing which eras some of our politicians are fond of.


Twenty-First Century New Zealand:
Bill to legalise gay marriage passes first reading

Twentieth Century New Zealand:
Talking suit calls for referendum

Nineteenth Century New Zealand:
Gay marriage conscience vote a failure of democracy apparently


I'm for the bill in case anyone is wondering. I'm old enough to remember when if you were a male it was actually illegal to be a practising homosexual in NZ, and I'm only 36. The bill is still a long way from being law, and there will no doubt be hurdles, but it is long past time that some of my friends enjoyed the same basic rights as I do. Their being able to marry affects my marriage and morals (and the morals of my children by extension) not one iota. And let's face it, straight people have been fucking up the "sanctity of marriage as an institution" for as long as marriage has been around. Letting gay people join in just adds to the flavour :)

Stuff of Legend

The other week it occurred to me that an Olympic medal may be one of the few things that render people close to immortal. Then I remembered that about 384,000 kilometers away there are some tangible human artifacts that effectively are immortal:

 Buzz Aldrin boot and lunar footprint, Apollo 11, image via NASA

The footprints and other artifacts that twelve men from Earth left on the Moon will remain recognisable for millenia at least if left undisturbed. The news today of the death of the first man to leave them reminded me of this.

Coincidentally I was reading my now well-worn copy of A Man On The Moon the other day, and came across a passage that resonated in a way I hadn't felt the umpteen times I've read it before:

"everything he did, even casual speech, seemed to be the result of a great deal of thought . . . Armstrong often kept people at arm's length. He rarely engaged in idle conversation, and steadfastly guarded his privacy.
"In time, the NACA pilots realised that Armstrong wasn't aloof; he was shy. Once they got past his great reserve, they found warmth. Once he became a friend, he was a good friend . . . If he could be reticent, then he could also become so involved in conversation while driving that his passengers nervously eyed the road. "

It's obviously describing Neil Armstrong, but I suddenly recognised a few of those personality traits in myself, especially shyness being mistaken for aloofness. That's about as close as I'll ever get to what he achieved (and the end of any self aggrandising comparisons), but it is nice to know there were aspects to him I could relate to. His modesty would mean he would even downplay his own significance at being the first moonwalker, claiming that the landing itself was the real achievement, and that was something that he and Buzz Aldrin (who made a nice statement today here) had done simultaneously. Even without Apollo 11, his combat flying career with the US Navy, his test flying career with NACA/NASA (including flying what is still the fastest manned aircraft ever), and his previous spaceflight on Gemini 8 (which he personally saved from disaster under difficult circumstances when a system malfunction occurred) would have been worthy of note. It makes me respect him and his withdrawal from publicity even more - he could have been the celebrity of celebrities had he chosen to.

Dr Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy has written a nice piece on Armstrong's passing today, and says "we can divide all of history into two parts: before humans landed on the Moon, and after". I was born 7 years after Apollo 11; I have never known a world where we haven't walked on the moon, and I'm grateful to Armstrong and all of his peers for making it that way. I have never grown out of that childlike wonder of seeing images and accounts of people walking on another world apart from our own. There are more famous images of Armstrong, but this is my favourite, taken on the Moon just after the first moonwalk concluded, and it sums up that feeling for me.

Image via NASA

There are now eight living moonwalkers of the original twelve. Hopefully there will be more before that number drops to zero.

Thoughts on the Olympic Opening Ceremony

- It worked. Potentially difficult conceptually but it was brought off well, and I really enjoyed it. But then I am fully uncynical about the Olympics, so am a bit biased. It was a marked change from Beijing.

- That said bits of it were more effective if you knew your references than others.

- The hill  built in the stadium was cool, especially as it appeared in close ups to have real dirt and grass on it.

- Watching it free to air meant some context was missed, as well as some setpieces, due to ad breaks. I only found out afterward what the whole "Abide with Me" thing was about. although I thought it was a lovely rendition.

- The setpiece of forging the Olympic Ring in the stadium was awesome. And the doves on bikes.

- This is the first time I have watched one of these things with a child alongside who needs things explained to. Particularly why daddy found the pogo-ing punks on pogos so hilarious (that was just inspired).

- The music era thing was cool (and made me think that while Rock music was technically invented in the US, it took the British to make it properly kick arse).

- I love it when directors choose good popular music as soundtracks (and in this case some pretty alternatively informed selections) for big events. It is so much easier to engage with music you already know and love than some over-earnest, usually over produced and slightly cringy commissioned piece you will likely never hear again. Plus hearing relatively obscure album tracks and recognising them from albums you own always feels ego-stroking good.

- Using movies as well was cool.

- I liked that there was a feeling of a deliberate decision on the part of the producers to make the ceremony both non traditional, knowingly self deprecating, and more interesting for certain demographics. Namely mine :).

- The Queen gets kudos points for participating in the James Bond parody, but loses some for appearing totally disinterested in person at the ceremony itself. She might have been having a good time, but looked bored, most notably during the lingering close up of her checking her nails while the Great Britain team entered the stadium. You could almost hear the producer screaming "Get me another shot, any shot!".

- The Parade of Athletes is always fun, for the uniforms (especially the Czechs in gumboots) and seeing people buzzed to be there. Although according to the three year-old the Fijian flag bearer was naughty for not having a shirt on. I'm sure though that many interested viewers might disagree on that point

-I also noticed the out of uniform Indian at the time, and wondered what was up.

-Adding to the non-traditional aspects, both the lighting of the cauldron, and the cauldron design itself were brilliant. Simple but clever concept.

-Sir Paul McCartney at the end didn't quite work so well. Still, could have been worse, could have been Status Quo.

Scale

This event  in London a couple of days has finally brought some semi official recognition of the sacrifices made by the aircrew of RAF bomber command, after they were shunned at the the end of the war by a government trying to distance itself from the outcomes of it's own strategy. It brought to mind this graphic, which I came across a wee while ago (I can't remember where), and was saving for use one day. It shows in a way that numbers can't the sheer scale at which World War 2 was fought (click to enlarge).

Each Lancaster had a crew of seven, each Mosquito two, with thousands more needed to service, arm and organise the aircraft, and thousands more on the other side trying to stop them. On this raid losses among the attackers were light at only 9 aircraft, but on one occasion (Nuremberg in 1944) 96 bombers were downed in the space of a few hours. On the ground thousands were killed or de-housed.

It's a distraction that the particular raid chosen for the graphic was the notorious one on Dresden, since it might suggest that was a special effort. In fact the horrific result at Dresden was the atypical aspect; the resources used to achieve it were not. By the mid to latter stages of the war raids of this size were sent against Germany most nights practicable, with the USAAF doing the same by day. And this was only one aspect of one theatre of the war.

Real TOPGUN

This is one of my favourite pieces of kit boxart (and aviation art in general), by one of my favourite aviation artists, Shigeo Koike, who in addition to painting exquisite aircraft portraits, has a long association with producing artwork for Hasegawa plastic kits.

It might not be the most accurate depiction of the time and place, with another one here, but it is still a great painting (I like the incidental detail of the cloud in particular) and depicts the last flight of a US Navy F-4J Phantom, callsign "Showtime 100" on the 10th of May 1972 . At work we write all the dates dd/mon/yy as a convention for clarity, and I have nearly automatically written "10 May 72" instead of "10 May 12" a heap of times today since it is a date I have seen in print so often.

It's crew that day shot down three MiGs in one mission (becoming the first US aces of the Vietnam War), including an epic final duel against arguably the best North Vietnamese pilot any US flier would encounter throughout the war, before being shot down themselves by an unseen missile (the last battle against the well handled MiG-17 flown by a mysterious pilot also the subject of myth and lore is depicted in both paintings). Swiftly rescued they were back on their carrier the same day. It is one of the most analysed and discussed air combats in history, probably second only to the Red Baron's final flight.

Forget the movie, this was real TOPGUN stuff, with their performance that day helping vindicate the formation of the then still relatively new and unproven tactics school that was created to address poor performances earlier in the war. Both of the crew were TOPGUN graduates, and would go become TOPGUN instructors, although one would subsequently fall from grace in a big way.

It was the stuff of legends, and 40 years ago today (and only four years before I was born just quietly...).

RNZAF 75th Part 2: Backstage Pass

As I mentioned in the earlier post, on the night before the airshow I was lucky enough to be part of a group invited by owner/operator Brendon Deere to spend a couple of hours in a hangar on the base housing his personal collection of flyable historic aircraft.

While we were waiting to be escorted on base, the recently refurbished gate-guardian Vampire FB.5 was looking good in the evening light.

Dominating the hangar is the recently returned to NZ Grumman Avenger. This aircraft used to fly here in RNZAF colours before heading to Australia about a decade ago. It isn't ex RNZAF itself, but it represents the Avengers the RNZAF did fly in WWII and the years after.

That's not an inspection hatch, it's an entry hatch. The Avenger is big, built around being able to carry a torpedo in an enclosed bomb bay, and enormous for a single engined aircraft. Comments about it's size on seeing one up close for the first time are quite common according to it's owner :). There is a legend that an entire fifteen man rugby team was once transported between RNZAF bases in one; looking at one up close it isn't hard to believe it might be true.

Having a look at this Avenger reminded me of the 1980's when I used to be able to go and explore a genuine RNZAF one near where I lived. The wings were stored on the ground nearby, and you could see where the paint had worn to reveal the original US Navy markings applied when it was built in 1943.

Photo credit Sean, via Wings over NZ forum

It was one of the first insights I had that these weren't just old aeroplanes; they had history and stories they could tell.

As well as the Avenger, the hangar is home to a pair of vintage trainers in the form of ex RNZAF Harvard, and Ex RAAF Winjeel.

The highlight for many though, was the presence of Brendon's Spitfire Mk.IX. Brendon was responsible for bringing this aircraft to NZ, and completely restoring it to airworthy condition. It wears the markings of his uncle Alan Deere, one of New Zealand's most well known WWII fighter pilots.

Like many surviving Spitfires, it has a varied history. Built in 1944, it served with the RAF,  Italian Air Force, Israeli Air Force and  Burmese Air Force before being retired in 1956.

In addition to all the other displays and artwork around the hangar walls, a nice touch is an original section of PV270's skin, bearing the colours and serial it wore in Burmese service.

I remember reading about this particular Spitfire in a magazine as a child while it was still sitting on a pole in Burma. As an adult to be walking around it and inspecting it in my own country as a fully restored and airworthy machine was more than a little surreal, and an enormous privilege. If you could have told me back then I would spend an evening like this in the future I probably wouldn't have believed you :).

Under The Mountain

Theme song for this post: Going Underground

We marked ANZAC day on Wednesday by going to a mid-morning remembrance service, visiting a friends for (their) birthday tea and scones, then going up to Wright's Hill Fortress in Karori for a wander in the afternoon. ANZAC Day also marks 13 years since Fi and I got together, so it was nice to do something as a family. We finished up by having a mini-picnic (cupcakes and raspberry buns) on the lawn outside the entrance :)

I've been to the fortress a few times now, and while it is interesting to see how the restoration is going (especially compared to the first time I visited it in 1989), it can be a bit creepy knowing just how enclosed you are (besides it not being a particularly welcoming place in general). It still impresses me how hidden it is. Aside from the long empty gun-pits on the surface (in a nice piece of irony, the guns and turrets were sold post-war to the Japanese the place was built to defend Wellington from), and the external access portals, there is little hint of what lies below the summit of the hill.

Charlotte liked the wetas especially. The cool and dark is a perfect environment for them:

It is open about five times a year, and worth checking out by any Wellingtonians interested in the history of their city.

NB this post was meant to go up a few days ago, but I ran into some problems with bloggers new photo uploader insisting the images I saved in portrait were really meant to be in landscape, and thus posting everything sideways. Not an improvement when the old one never had any issues with it.

Skyhawk Mythbusting

Picture credit me.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the disbandment of the combat element of the RNZAF, namely 75 and 2 Squadrons (A-4K Skyhawk), and 14 Squadron (Macchi MB-339). I was there as a guest, took the photo above, and it doesn’t seem that long ago.

In the decade that has passed, the Air Combat Force comes up from time to time again either in the media or other conversation (not least due to the debacle that was the sales process for the redundant airframes). The thing I noticed both while the force was still active and latterly is the amount of myth and misunderstanding out there on the topic, usually as not-that-funny-if-you-know-any-of-the-true-background kind of humour. The force was seen by many as at best a token, at worst as a “Dad’s Army” style joke; incompetent operators with ancient broken-down flying jalopies, just as threatening to their users as to any potential enemy.

The truth is as usual kinda different.

Growing up as a plane obsessed kid, the Skyhawk in particular was ‘our’ fast jet so I wound up focussing on it and wound up knowing possibly more than the average layperson about it (but much less than many others I know). Ten years on seems an appropriate time to kill some of the myths.

And to those readers who say this is long and boring and aren't going to read it, it's my blog so :P.

First some history.

New Zealand bought 14 brand new Skyhawks in 1970. Back then they were still very much a first line piece of equipment. It was originally conceived in the 1950’s as the smallest and cheapest way to get a nuclear bomb from an aircraft carrier to a target. It evolved into a capable light attack aircraft, and by the time we bought them, had established a reputation as a reliable and rugged little jet popular with its operators. While not a true fighter in the air to air sense, the qualities that made it a good attack aircraft also made it a useful dogfighter, hence it’s starring role in “Top Gun” in the 80’s (the USN used the Skyhawk in an adversary combat trainer role right up until the mid 2000’s). In the right hands a Skyhawk could humble a supposedly much superior aircraft. It might have been an old design, but it was a very good one.

Now on to the myths

Clapped out

This was probably most untrue thing said about them at the time of the disbandment, (one of a number of flat out untrue government public statements used to justify the decision-whether that was malice or ignorance is hard to determine), and caused a bit of offence among those whose job it was to maintain and fly the things. They were getting old and harder to maintain, but were still mission capable, i.e. able to do what they were tasked. No aircraft has an infinite life, and the end of the Skyhawk’s RNZAF career was certainly on the horizon, but clapped out they were not. Replacement by the F-16 from 2000 or so would have made it a moot point if the already signed and pending delivery deal had not been cancelled after a change of government in 1999 (the same deal would have also on-sold the Skyhawks and avoided the last decade of not selling them).

Old and Useless, always crashing

Closely allied to the ‘old’ argument is the implication that mission capability is solely determined by age. Age is a relative thing though, especially in combat aircraft. 20, 30 or more year lifespans for individual airframes aren’t uncommon these days. They might have been getting older, but they certainly weren’t useless, not least because from the 1990’s they weren’t quite the same beasts we started with in 1970.

By the early 80’s the basic 60’s avionics and systems in the jet were showing their age, and options for replacement were looked at. Since the funds weren’t around to buy new aircraft like the F-16 or F-18, the next best thing was done. We doubled the fleet size by buying ten surplus Skyhawks from the Royal Australian Navy, and rebuilt the lot by renewing parts of the airframe and replacing all the avionics with those equivalent to an F-16, optimized for our needs. The new systems also meant more modern and effective weapons could be carried. Known as the 'Kahu' upgrade, it was completed in 1991.

In terms of capability the upgrade meant effectively a brand new aircraft. In some respects the on-board systems were superior to both the FA-18’s operated by our neighbours in Australia, and the actual F-16s we scheduled to replace them. So while technically by 2001 they were 30+ year old aircraft, in other ways they were still in their prime, and still capable in the roles we used them for. It is worth noting that upgraded Skyhawks similar to ours are still in service with a couple of other countries as a front line aircraft. The US military only retired their last from true combat roles in the 1990’s, and kept a few on until a few years after we retired ours. It was certainly not in the same league performance wise as more modern types, but it was a reasonable compromise for our needs and means.

Along with the aircraft, the people maintaining and flying them were as good as anyone. It might be a joke for many Kiwi’s, but our small military is usually pretty good at what it does. Rather than always crashing, of the total of 24 operated only 7 were destroyed from any cause over 31 years. For a combat aircraft it is a very good record, and the RNZAF was very good at using the Skyhawk. It may be a small Air Force, but an incompetent one it is not and once out of a job here, the Australian and British Air forces in particular were more than happy to take on some of our pilots and technicians on reputation.

Never deployed anywhere

Unless you count the annual deployments around Southeast Asia and the Pacific for exercises, or the permanent basing of a squadron in Australia for a decade up until 2001.

Never used in combat.

The only time an RNZAF A-4 used weapons ‘in anger’ was to stop an illegally fishing trawler that was refusing to stop for the naval vessels pursuing it in 1976. While often seen as a bit of a joke, this is a pretty legitimate use of an aircraft like this in peacetime, and certainly delivered the message that we were serious about enforcing our EEZ.

What doesn’t seem to be well known is that preparations were made for deploying them for use in the first Gulf War in 1991 (we sent a couple of Hercules instead). They were also coincidentally deployed near the East Timor region in 1999 when that crisis arose, and were prepared for the possibility of being employed there also if the situation demanded it. As it was RAAF reconnaissance missions in the area at the time were counted as operational sorties rather than training ones.

Not enough of them and no-one is going to attack NZ anyway.

On the face of it it seems like a fair point, but it is actually a oversimplification that misses the real question by a wide margin, and taken to its logical conclusion brings into question the existence to the New Zealand Defence Force in general.

The thing is, the NZDF has never been capable of repelling a determined attack of New Zealand territory on its own. The intention has always been to operate with allied forces, and defending NZ’s interests is not necessarily the same as literally defending NZ soil. The question to be asked is not ‘who is going to attack us?’, but ‘what benefits do the various elements of the NZDF provide to each other and the country for the cost?’

While disbanding the ACF freed up funds for the rest of the NZDF (even if it wasn’t always used wisely, like buying twice as many new armoured vehicles as we needed), having it also provided many training and skills benefits (most of them not obvious to the layperson) both to the other elements of the NZDF making it more effective as a whole, and the country at large. Overseas they were a very visible contribution to regional security amongst our allies and trading partners. Along with the ‘clapped out’ argument, these benefits were either ignored, downplayed or completely misrepresented to the public by the government at the time.

Myths aside, by now the last RNZAF Skyhawks would have been grounded for a few years anyway. They are history. While the justification for having modern fighter aircraft in NZ is certainly arguable (despite the above I can see it both ways, although at the moment it is a moot point, since there aren’t going to be any flying with Kiwi markings anytime soon), by getting rid of them a statement is being made that not only are they not needed now, they never will be. The ‘benign strategic environment’ status suggested in mid 2001 was arguable at best then, and remains so now.

What is certain is that once gone, it is the kind of capability and skill base that takes years to re-establish if needed (waiting until you actually for-real need it is far too late) and only history will tell if it was the right call or not.

Just like the ones I make. But bigger.

One sign that we were getting close to an election in NZ was the announcement a couple of weeks ago that the RNZAF's retired Skyhawks have been sold (link). Again.

Since they were retired without replacement in 2001, announcing a deal has been struck to off-load them has become something of a pre-election tradition, with this being the fourth time it has been made, and the third in the run up to polling day. Here is the 2003 version, the 2005 version, and the 2008 version :)

I'm optimistically thinking this time it looks like the deal might actually fly. That they haven't sold yet isn't because they are rubbish or no-one wanted them. There have been other erm, issues at play.

In the meantime back in April the government decided enough was enough and started dispersing some Skyhawks to museums (link). In addition some of the also redundant Aermacchi jet trainers will be going to museums, as well as the now twice retired Strikemasters the Macchis replaced (after retirement from flying some Strikemasters were retained to train ground personnel).

The Museum Of Transport And Technology in Auckland got their Skyhawk about a month ago, and reassembling it for display looked something like this:

Big Bangs

One of the more arcane things I am mildly interested in is The Bomb, most likely due to being an impressionable pre-teen in an era when it's use was considered a strong possibility (how I never learned to stop worrying and love The Bomb is another post in itself). While not a lay expert by any means (probably a good thing), I do know a public-domain bit about how they work, how they might be used, and their history.

Which is why it was nice to see a story last week (link) about a quietly ongoing long-term process to get rid of a few of them, with the dismantling of the last B-53 gravity bomb in the US stockpile. While I am interested in them, I am not in love with them either. They are too scary, and stockpiles being ever reduced in the post-cold war era is a good thing for all of us. The active warhead numbers quoted in the article are still too high, but are now only moderately insane, in comparison to the full-tilt barking levels they attained at the height of the arms race a few decades ago.
While missiles are arguably flashier and higher tech, old fashioned free fall bombs still remain in service (and will be for the foreseeable future), not least because a bomber carrying one can be recalled; once a missile is on its way, you had better be sure you made the right decision to send it :).

The B-53 from what I can tell was intended to be used as a bunker buster, delivered in what is called a laydown attack by an aircraft flying directly over the target, with a descent slowed by parachute to give the aircraft time to escape. Detonating on the ground, the 9 megaton warhead would generate shockwaves or dig a big enough crater to destroy whatever was below it. An identical size warhead probably intended for the same purpose used to be mounted on some US ICBMs.

Contrary to some popular beliefs, while the strategic weapons deployed today are many times as powerful as those used against Japan in 1945, the trend for some time has been for warhead yields to decrease, as delivery systems got more and more accurate and reliable. The two atomic bombs used in anger are estimated to have yielded roughly between 12 and 20 Kilotons, while modern warheads seem to range between around 100 Kilotons to around 1 Megaton (Kiloton = 1000 tons of TNT, Megaton 1,000,000).

At 9 Mt, some sources have been referring to the B-53 as a 'Monster' size weapon, but in a historical context it isn't really. While it does represent a certain class (big) of weapon and for some time it was the most powerful weapon in the US arsenal, it isn't the biggest they ever fielded. That was another long retired gravity bomb, the B-41, rated at a theoretical 25 Mt (theoretical because it was never live tested at that size). In addition from what I can gather the Russians had a few 20 Mts warheads deployed on ICBMs until as recently as a couple of years ago, and fielded a few 25 Mts back in the bad old days. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bad enough, but the sheer power of larger weapons like these is hard to comprehend, especially when it is reasonably likely that had they ever been used there would likely have been more than one arriving at a target to ensure its destruction.

In all the reportage about the B-53 dismantling, the significance of the particular date seems to have been missed. Fifty years ago, in late October 1961, the largest bomb of them all was exploded. Too large in every respect to be a usable weapon, the Tsar Bomba was created as a propaganda stunt by the Soviet regime, pretty much because they could. The weapon was capable of a mind-bendingly Strangeloveian 100 Mt, but was scaled down to a merely surreal 50 Mt for safety reasons (allowing the aircrew on the delivery aircraft to survive, and not causing blast damage to or irradiating nearby countries mostly.

Here is what the fireball looked like to a heavily filtered camera just after detonation (you would be blinded using the naked eye, in addition to being exposed to potential 3rd degree burns on exposed skin up to 100km away from it according to some sources):

(image from Wikipedia, originally copyright to the government of the USSR I expect)

Doesn't look like much, until you remember the diameter of that fireball is measured in kilometers (about 8 according to most sources).

Ten years on

Front page of the Dominion, 12 September 2001 (yes, I kept the papers. I do that when I think the event warrants it).
Front page of the Evening Post (remember when Wellington had two dailies?), 12 September 2001.
The post date would suggest that this should have been written yesterday, but for us in New Zealand it was already the twelfth by the time what would become known as September Eleventh happened. Ten years removed it is still something that defies simple comprehension. The reasons for it go back many years, and it will be resonating for years to come.

The first airliner impact occurred at 12:46am NZST. Back then I was living with my girlfriend (now wife) Fi, and three other friends in the Kings Crescent flat we had occupied a couple of months previously. Fi's brother-in-law was touring the US, and the first thing we knew of anything unusual occurring was being awakened at dawn by a somewhat garbled phonecall from Fi's mum to say he was okay, but stuck in Denver since all flights had been grounded. Apparently a plane had crashed into the Pentagon or something. At the time I thought it was a Cessna or something, unusual, significant, but ultimately not a huge deal. I would check it out when I got up at the usual time an hour or so later.

September 12th was a beautiful spring morning in Wellington, the sun shining in clear blue skies. Wandering into the kitchen for breakfast I flicked on the TV for the morning news. The first thing I saw was a replay of this shot:
Naively I quickly thought "Wow I didn't realise the approach for JFK was so close to Manhattan". Then the jet didn't emerge from the other side of the towers, and the vivid orange yellow fireball manifested, accompanied by the twinkling of thousands of pieces of shattered glass.

Oh.

Unlike many, I didn't think for a second this was a movie. Having been a plane spotter all my life, I knew the real thing when I saw it. I was mistaken in one respect though. Initially I thought it was a Boeing 737 that had crashed, and thought, well it could be worse. Only a few minutes later I realised it was a much larger 767.

Oh again. In the next few minutes the whole picture as it was unfolded. This being about 7am, the Towers themselves were long down by the time I was aware of it, and the seemingly endless replaying of the events there and at the Pentagon had begun. At about that time, one of the other flatmates walked in, a mix of horror and awe on his face. He had been watching things unfold in his room, and had been to the towers themselves only a couple of years before. I don't recall much being said. I had prepared breakfast, but suddenly found I didn't have any appetite.

At work we technicians and engineers gathered around a TV, with the only conversation being educated comment on the structure of the buildings. No-one was surprised they fell. History in the making or not, there was still work to do, and gradually we drifted away. Later I would hear on the radio about carriers being deployed off the east coast, and fighters flying patrols over major US cities. These were things I had read about in speculative fiction, but hearing them in reality was surreal, and unsettling.

Getting home we watched the wall to wall coverage for a while, then just had to turn it off. The jumpers in particular choosing one final act of control over their destiny haunted me the most, and still do. A still image of one group who must have decided to go together reminded me of skydivers exiting a plane, except these people had no parachutes. Another memory is of a replay of the second WTC impact being cued up on air. The jet hit the building, then reversed out of it, then hit it again, then reversed back. For hundreds it was alive, dead, alive, dead.

Another thought that crystallised that night, was that even though they were still counting the dead, I also realised many more were going to be killed as a result of this day. Looking back, the feeling is mostly of sadness, of missed opportunities, of some justified responses, and other regrettable ones. What has truly been accomplished, what we have gained or lost in the War on Terror is uncertain. Occasionally I hear expressed a longing to return to the 'Good Old Days' of the Cold War in preference to how things are now. While I don't really agree with it (the bits of the Cold War I remember were a really, really scary time), I can understand it; there was much more perceived certainty of the challenges the world faced then.

Two weeks later my father and I hopped on a plane for a weekend in Sydney. We had been planning to go to Brisbane for an airshow, but it had been cancelled, the various militaries involved (including the USAF) suddenly having more pressing things to do, besides the airshow itself being seen as a possible target. The signs of the new world we were in were already emerging. I couldn't regard the Boeing 767's at Sydney airport the way I used to, as simple aircraft to enjoy. On ascending Sydney Tower I enjoyed the view, but suddenly got very uncomfortable. Every few seconds or so there was a small shudder on the viewing deck, I think from the revolving restaurant. Combined with the height, suddenly it was a place I was happy to leave. On leaving we noted that all the eateries at the airport had given up their metal cutlery, with apologetic notes of explanation. When breakfast was served after takeoff though, we were presented with stainless steel knives (with serrated edges) and forks to eat with. Clearly there was still some figuring out to do.

In every life there are points when things change, and the way things were before get hard to remember. Usually they are good, like me meeting my wife-to-be, or the birth of my children. Sometimes they are a bit more complicated. My daughters will grow up in a world where the events and ramifications of 9/11 are history, with no knowledge of when the Twin Towers were just a pair of very tall buildings.

Lunar awesomeness

In the past few weeks as an offshoot of it's Lunar mapping mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been taking detailed images of the Apollo landing sites of 1969-72. There is a backgrounder from stuff here, with a really nice summary at Bad Astronomy here.

Here is the LRO shot of the second landing site (Apollo 12, November 1969). You can see the footprints left by astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean as they conducted their explorations (picture credit NASA, click to enlarge):
And here is Pete Conrad making some of those footprints as he investigates the unmanned Surveyor 3 probe that preceded the astronauts by a couple of years (picture credit NASA, click to enlarge):
They are awesome because they are the most basic of human calling cards, and they on another world. And since there is no weather on the moon, they will be there essentially forever if left undisturbed (Transformers and Independence Day Aliens notwithstanding).

Eerie

Its a year ago today since the first earthquake in Christchurch, and 'normal' got redefined. A resident blogger looks back here. A year ago "liquefaction" was introduced to the national vocabulary. A little over six months later we would get "Red Zone".

I found these videos on Friday taken by a contractor working in Christchurch's cordoned off central city.







I've only been to Christchurch half a dozen times or so, never for more than a week, so can't claim to be intimately familiar with the place. I am quite familiar with some of the places in the videos though. Having seen them alive and full of energy as the central part of New Zealand's second largest city, seeing them covered in dust, empty, still and broken, knowing what happened there and that they have been that way for six months is more than a little sad and unsettling. They just look wrong.

P.S. This is post 666 of this blog. Seems mildly appropriate.

First and the Last

The thirty year shuttle era has ended, with the last glide to touchdown happening last week:


Before it did though, I snapped my own personal memento of the era, as Atlantis passed over my house a few orbits before re-entry:
I remember the very first landing in 1981. It was shown on TV late at night here, and I remember my sisters and I being got out of bed to watch. While not yet five, and having only just attended the first airshow I would remember a few weeks before, I recall saying how steep the final approach looked, and wondering why it took so long for the nose to come down after the mainwheels touched (the concept of aerodynamic braking being a few years ahead of me).


I guess my parents thought it would be a historic thing for us to watch and remember, and I'm glad they made the effort. Atlantis' pass last week was just before bedtime for Charlotte, so I got her outside and she saw it too. She described it as 'the star that was hitting the other stars' and 'Oh yes a spaceship' if prompted further. Being not quite 3 she probably won't remember it, but at least I'll be able to tell her she saw the last Space Shuttle fly.

I found this on another site and quite like it (photo credit Chris Bray):
I can relate. My generation grew up with the shuttle, and love it or hate it, for all it's costs and compromises and never quite living up to it's promise it was iconic. It had failures, but had many more moments of greatness. The aerospace world will be slightly less interesting without it.

All Good Things II

This is kinda cool. In cabin view of the final launch. I like how the guy in the middle starts grinning at lift-off (I mean really, why wouldn't you), and keeps it up even as the G loads up. Must be a hell of a ride.


Also cool is when the main engines cut off at about 9:00 and they all float forward as the G disappears. From then on it gets increasingly obvious they are in a microgravity environment. About the first thing the grinning mission specialist does is have a bite to eat :).

All Good Things

Footage of the last Space Shuttle launch ever, at about 0330 NZT this morning.

Build your own stealth helicopter!

Listening to: The Crossing - Big Country (1983).

Found the other day. Less than 8 weeks after it's unplanned revelation, Hong Kong based model company Dragon is releasing a kit of the Stealth Black Hawk (probably) variant used on the Bin Laden raid (link).

Although since all they reliably have to base it on is the one piece of intact wreckage (posted about here), and a few educated but speculative drawings (the people who really do know what it looks like aren't telling) it's accuracy is hopeful at best and possibly why it is only being released in the teeny 1/144 scale so far rather than anything bigger which would require more investment.

If it is anything like what happened when the first model kits of the F-117 were produced in the late 80's, it will make for amusing comparisons if/when the real thing is revealed some time in the future. And the guys that designed those kits had an actual image of the entire aircraft to work from:

That was the first officially released image of the original 'Stealth Fighter' back in 1988 (I posted about it a few years ago here). And probably deliberately, the image both obscures in plain sight some details, and exaggerates a couple of others. This caused a bunch of errors in interpretation, usually tending toward making the aircraft look shorter and fatter than it really was, resulting in a brief generation of weirdness as publishers and kit makers rushed to get definitive versions of something that had been rumoured for years into the marketplace without realising their mistakes. It took a few years for accurately shaped drawings and models to emerge.

Only time will tell what Dragon has got right :).

Just can't catch a break

About two weeks ago GNS announced some preliminary results (link) from their investigations into faulting in Canterbury responsible for the September and February earthquake events. A key finding was that there was roughly a 23% chance of another temblor in the Richter 6-7 range occuring in the next 12 months.

The media predictably blew up the 1 in 4 chance of it happening, while ignoring the 3 in 4 chance it wouldn't. There is some good extended discussion of what that means and the media reaction at Sciblogs here (including the interesting observation that the risk is no more than Wellington's, although we have always been told Wellington is high risk so I'm not sure how reassuring that is to Christchurch residents).

Unfortunately though, as events yesterday proved, 1 in 4 is still not zero. One blogger's account of yesterdays event is quite telling, not only for what it describes, but also what it implies, and for how routine some things are getting for the residents.

It is strange at the moment to hear people openly discussing on-line whether a major NZ city should be abandoned, or whether it is appropriate to suggest people leave. While hard to take seriously in a wider sense of totally abandoning the city, the fact such a thing is being discussed at all is slightly weird and surreal, and would have been unimaginable still less than a year ago. It will be interesting to see what Christchurch looks like twenty years from now.

Edit: This morning (wed 15th) GNS has revised their estimation to 30%.