my Dad was in the Air Force during the early 60's, he was stationed at Kadena, Okinawa, where the CIA kept their A-12 before the Air Force had ownership and it became the SR-71. He mainly gassed KC-135's, F-4's, and the odd B-52, but his stories about the flight line shutting down whenever they brought out the Blackbird are too cool.
I love the Concorde, too. Have you seen the documentary on its last flight?
BTW, saw another Redtailed Hawk today on the way to my ballroom dance class (don't ask.)
Now the bottom line first... you don't get off that lightly... "Strictly Bassroom" ...? I am brave enough to say that I did ballroom dancing as a kid (great way to meet girls), and it has achieved new levels of popularity... and it is a hobby, so explain or forever henceforth be known as "Ballroom Dance Guy"
I was at the end of runway "Nine-Right" ("Two-Seven-Right" for the 2nd last) with my wife and daughter for both the last night flights, the last of which was the subject of that documentary - the main road was blocked (a four lane road) with people and vehicles - hundreds of us waiting for that last chance to see those four Olympus engines in the dark, and that glorious kerosine smell (cue "Apocalypse Now" scene here). The whole day was broadcast on the BBC for the return flight, which I videoed, of course... the sight of the last three Concordes coming into land, one after the other, caused the odd moist eye amongst a few out there, although a few residents of Rockaway Beach raised a glass or two at her demise...
A guy called Jeremy Clarkson (a guest on the last flight) summed it up beautifully, "for the first time in human history we are taking a step backwards, no-one will be able to cross the Atlantic so fast again..." (quote is approximately what he said...) - Concorde's fastest Atlantic flight was an accident - favourably winds ended up with her coming in far too early, which is now the record - never got repeated...
You mentioned KC135's - I was on 707 Major Overhauls... one time we were stripping down a "Dan-Dare" 707, and were suprised when this old guy in green overalls popped his head out of the electronics bay into the cockpit (green was the colour of the overalls the apprentices used to wear) and after noticing he had Boeing overalls on I joked, "Have you been stuck down there since she was built...?" to which he replied with a grin, "Jeez, only Boeing would put toilets directly above an electronics bay...!" (to get to the far end of the bay you had to crawl under the cockpit, up to the radome, and back round the wheel well to get under the front toilets to some of the electronics compartments...!)
Turntables - mine is a direct drive Technics with (i think) a Shure cartridge - in the loft with the rest of the LPs
This thread is driving me nuts...all my relevant hobby photos are on film I haven't digitized yet (vinyl, vintage 1/24th scale slot cars, high speed open track driving, etc). Guess slide conversion is going to be my hobby this year.
I have an Epson Perfection 1200 Photo scanner, which although old still is useful for odd sized negatives but I bought a budget (would be <$100) 35mm scanner called a Plustek OpticFilm 7200, which is great at budget level, which came with a useful software bundle (which contains all the drivers, so if you tried to find this it would have to be with discs) - I'd love to have some decent kit to do all mine but the budget just ain't there, and I have hundreds of thousands of pics to scan... btw came with carriers for negs and slides...
