LEAVING FLORIDA - DUSTING OF WINTER SNOW - CITRUS JUICE AND HOMEMADE SOUP - 3D MODEL RADIAL ENGINE PROGRESS - JIBBER JABBER

Adventures of SV Airspeed returns season #3. The captain and crew of SV Airspeed are starting to check in and share videos and photos.  I will share more as they sail south.

 A new boat, same name. I asked my friend how he likes the new boat.

"OMG, the new boat is incredible!. This is a serious ocean-going machine. It's fast, it's comfortable, it doesn't bob and roll much at a "rolly anchorage." We've been in some extremely heavy seas and the boat always feels comfortable and safe. So happy with it."

SV AIRSPEED LEAVING FLORIDA

FALCON 9 STARLINK ROCKET LAUNCH

 

LARGE SHIP PHOTO

I would enjoy a walk through visit.

 

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WINTER 2025 EAST TEXAS

Thirteen degrees this morning. The coldest day of the year and hopefully this will be the last of it. A dusting of snow was winter 2025. Maybe I am calling this too early, but temperatures are increasing each day and spring is springing. Nothing compared to winter around the nation, but we will take it. 

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FINALLY TRIED A SHOT OF LEMON/LIME JUICE IN HOMEMADE SOUPS

The slice of lime is only for the photograph.

Over the course of time, I have read that adding citrus will bolster the flavor of soups/stews. I have not tried this until now. 

In the cup of beef soup above, I added drops of lime juice (I had lime parts in the fridge) and stirred it in. Who knew?

I figured that one cup of soup was worth trying this hack. Nothing to lose. 

I was surprised that adding some lemon or lime juice does increase the flavors of  soup to the point that I will continue this. The flavors "brighten and sharpen" noticeably. 

Give this a try

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3D PRINTING MODEL RADIAL ENGINE

I have been trying to design and print a reasonable 3D model, 7 cylinder radial engine. I do not need a high degree of detail but more that I have currently produced. The black cylinder picture below is a failure as trying to print any kind of overhang without some bracing does not work with 3D printing. Think of trying to print a solid in mid-air. 

I have thus decided to try to print the cylinders one piece at a time. The center shaft with each spacer and cooling fin placed on the shaft, one at a time. It is going to work much better, just taking more time.

The new cylinder in the upper left corner has a few rings on it showing that the idea is workable. The cylinder in the upper right hand corner shows the mess with adding bridging (scaffolding, if you will) support when printing overhangs. The bridging (scaffolding) has to be peeled off and in this case there is so much that it trashes the finished part. 

The round rings are spaces and sized cooling fins.

I am close to a finished cylinder but ran out of time last week. Next posting should show a completed cylinder, maybe even the engine. 

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 JIBBER JABBER

Cold here in bedroom/office. We just have the fireplace going in the center living room which is toasty, but the back rooms need a little boost from the heat pump. A warm cup of tea helps, though. 

Friends from NH were down and visited a few days over Valentine's Day weekend. It has been 5 years and the only thing that has changed is that we are a little older. The hugs, well-wishes, smiles and laughter as we were getting caught up, seemed like yesterday. Good friends are just that. They are still young enough to do all the traveling. We are still young enough to host. Good eats, too.

I am looking forward to warmer weather. Who isn't? I want to get onions in the ground and I am already behind. Yard cleanup beckons but it does everyday I venture outside. Throwing birdseed down on the sidewalk, hanging suet on trees and a large bucket lid of bird seed on the side of the driveway. I see more and more birds flitting back and forth this afternoon. Feeding birds is rewarding.

Another plane crash. Hard landing followed by a landing completed upside down. No one hurt for the most part and given all that can go wrong,"any landing you can walk away from is a good landing." The end of this investigation will be an interesting read.

Pilot(s) information still not being released as of this posting. 

Airline Pilot Review. Good information, well presented.

Appreciate your visit this week.

 
 

HOMEMADE BISCUITS - LAND CLEAN UP - LAWN MOWING IN FEBRUARY - JIBBER JABBER

 I use this video for making homemade biscuits. Works perfectly.

How to cut butter into flour.  

We have friends arriving soon for a few days' visit. Thought that they might enjoy breakfast one morning with homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. It has been a few years since I have made biscuits so thought a test of the old recipe was in order. Bingo!

I have included that site above. I make 2% milk from morning coffee cream by adding a little cold water to fill up the 1/3 cup portion of the recipe. The self-rising flour was also over 2 years old, but still worked. Fresh flour will be used for guests. 

My try with this batch was a little wet compared to the video. Adding some flour to the cutting board as I folded worked just fine. Do not over work the dough. I folded 7 times and cut 2 biscuits and also baked the leftover "play dough." 

These biscuits were a real treat for us. 

Give this a try if you want to be the biscuit king in your kingdom.  Doubling or tripling the recipe works just fine.

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LAND CLEAN UP  (FINALLY)

We had two dump trucks of brush, fallen and dead trees hauled out. The Kubota Skid Steer (above) is one of the most useful workhorses for this kind of job. The kid operating this was a surgeon with a very special skill set.

We now have a cleaned out trail I can drive the side-by-side on to maintain a big part of this small acreage. We also had some low hanging pine tree branches cut away from the house.  

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FEBRUARY LAWN MOWING (PLANNED)

It was 81 degrees yesterday and I had plans for a second day of front lawn mowing/mulching. By end of day, that front yard project would have been completed, checked off the long list of outside chores. 

But the wife yelled at me as I started down the driveway. A yell that stopped me dead and pissed me off. I was not expecting her to do anything like that. "Why yell at me" I thought. A flat left rear tire was why. I filled the tire with hand pump air and limped into the garage with the tire flat again. 

The air compressor filled the tire instantly and I could hear the leak. Fairly large cut in the rear tire from something large and pokey.  

I used a tire repair plug kit for the first time and it worked perfectly. Lawn mower tires, side-by-side tires and equipment such as this often requires a quick tire repair fix somewhere out in the fields or on the back roads. The repairs will last damn near forever. Anyone who runs any off-road equipment has several of these repair kits with them at all times. 

I decided to check all of the other tires for air and found the left front also flat. Front wheel zero-turn tires are a major pain in the ******** for going flat. So much so that many folks go to the hard front tires that never goes flat. 

The tire shop in town told me that they could not/do not repair tire tubes because inner tubes now are made with different materials on which the old inner tire repair methods do not work. 

So, the new zero-turn is down and the work I wanted to do, well, you probably know the drill!

I will find an answer for this situation tomorrow when I go to the fellow I purchased the mower from. I have had too many flats with these front tires already and only have 30 hours on the machine. But I not want a rough ride from hard front rubber tires. What to do?

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JIBBER JABBER

From the story above, it is still rings true in my 80th year. Things always fail on the weekends when the availability to get repairs done is nearly impossible.

Thirty degrees colder today with rain in the forecast for the next few days. The bride and I did get some hand-trimming done of bushes and trees yesterday. Added tree fertilizer spikes to many of the small tree shrubs around the front yard. 

I am noticing more and more that all of the hundreds of things I use to do with ease and without issue are no more. I am not liking aging and hate asking anyone for help or assistance. It is a man thing. BUT, I can still function well enough to get basic outside chores attended to. Right now, I believe I have one more good year in me with hopes for this to extend for a few more years. And we have good neighbors that will help. 

As for worldly worries, I may be leaving more and more of these off the posting table here. Sitting in lawn chairs with my wife yesterday, surveying our kingdom, with a warm breezed blowing and two cats rolling at our feet was a simple slice of heaven. We both believe we can become experts at this behavior. 

Appreciate the visit this week. Have a very good week. God Bless. 

EARLY FEBRUARY JIBBER JABBER

 

The video above well demonstrates the unusually warm sunny weather we are experiencing in east Texas. It appears that this will be a norm for the month leading into spring. Already, mosquitos are a problem working out in some of the fields. 

I have been in shorts and t-shirts for two days and this morning a rack of ribs were seasoned and set in the Pit Boss at 09:00. I cannot control the urge.

 

The zero turn has been serviced for the season, the bride's cub cadet tractor has been run through upgrades here and ready to go. The side by side goes in this morning for seasonal oil change, filters, tune up and inspection. Tree guys have been hired to trim pine trees close the house within the next several weeks. Fence painting is in the queue, a job the wife and I will be doing. 

Friends scheduled to visit a few days over Valentines Day and a young couple with children return for a visit at months end. 

The wife's eye surgeries are over and all appears to be 100% successful. We are most thankful as her eye sight was slowly deteriorating.  

Yard cleanup hangs over our heads.

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Aviation accidents have been in the news for nearly a week now. Digging for truths finds more and more coming out about the Black Hawk flight. As all of this is still in an investigation phase I will not put in my 2 cents, but I can tell a story.

"Operation MGM", the name we pilots and crews gave to a fiasco set upon our company in Vietnam in 1967. Someone wanted to make a film of all of our available helicopters flying in formation and all diving and firing rockets at the same time. Yep! Maybe a dozen plus helicopters at one time. A one-time shot. Show of force.

We were all to be in echelon formation, flying up the An Lao Valley. A command was to be given to 'ARM' the rockets. Next, a command to start our dives in formation. Then the command to fire in which all helicopters would expend their 96 rockets in unison. We would then all fly/climb out straight ahead. Sounded wonderful. 

We spent time in the briefing, asking questions and confirming the commands and command sequences. In a perfect world, every pilot/helicopter would execute at the same time.

I was flying near the left side of the formation, maybe third or fourth helicopter in. Captain's helicopter was flying on my right.

When the command to dive was given, the formation did just that, except him. He kept flying straight and level. Realizing that he was behind, he began his dive while drifting left over the top of my helicopter.  It was the crew chief and door gunner on my helicopter that saved our lives. They screamed over the intercom that Captain was descending directly over top of us. Coming directly down on top of our rotor system.

I bottomed the collective causing my helicopter to drop out of the sky. I banked left to get completely out of the formation. I could only hope that others were seeing what was happening and that I was not banking into another helicopter.

It was the eyes of the crew chief and gunner and their immediate input that saved our day. Somewhere in the Army archives there is footage of that flight event. I would so love to see that.

The only time in my Army years flying did I ever face off against a higher ranking officer/anyone. I got in his face, yelling and screaming at how badly he fucked up. I did not quit and was physically pulled away. I knew that my wings and rank were all on the line. But the stupidity, inattention and incompetence of this pilot had me livid. Those emotions all surfaced after we landed.

I was talked to by leadership, calmed down and warned to never ever do that again. But everyone knew what had happened. I never ever had to fly with captain on any mission. Someone was indeed looking out for me on so many occasions.

I will offer this here that for the nearly 1000 combat sorties and other flying I did as a Warrant Officer, every single person associated with any and all missions I participated in, were gold standard. Gold standard in leadership, performance, experience and operations. I was and still am a most proud Army Helicopter pilot and Vietnam combat helicopter pilot with utmost respect for military aviation. 

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God Bless. 

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Behind on postings. Missing my posting dates. I have no viable excuse or reason but I am looking for one.

Have a wonderful week and I appreciate your visit.