THE ICE LIMIT & BEYOND THE ICE LIMIT
Greetings All,
Just to show I'm not TOTALLY obsessed with Flying Saucers. LOL
I like the writings of Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, and probably Child's solo efforts even more so. Unlike many of their diehard fans though I don't rate them as Great Writing, but file them more under FUN Pulp type SF/Horror. Especially Child's solo runs. = Interesting, STRANGE, and FUN. Their team effort of THE ICE LIMIT and its sequel BEYOND THE ICE LIMIT certainly fall into those categories. = If you want to escape the summer heat for awhile take an adventurous ride with them down toward the South Pole and into some SF/Horror weirdness --- FROM SPACE! LOL
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If you still need more chilling, try Child's TERMINAL FREEZE.
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Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Greetings All,
Not all UFO sightings from the Atomic Age were "Swamp Gas". The US Pye Wacket program got a number of actual Flying Saucers airborne. Born as a very interesting, innovative, and working Air-To-Air missile system that actually functioned better than the the standard Tube type missile, the Pye Wacket almost had our astronauts flying Saucers rather then Tin-Cans!?
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Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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D Keyhoe and FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL
Greetings All,
Been spending a good bit of time trying to track down more info regarding The Black Knight Satellite. Especially regarding its early pre and Sputnik late 50s early 60s appearance. Which, IMO, is the most relevant to the whole issue. Major Donald E Keyhoe (USMC) seems to be a rather prominent, and himself, a controversial figure in the early BKS controversy/conspiracy. Not very surprising considering his contacts and prominence in the UFO field of the time. Unfortunately, other than a couple of brief newspaper statements, I can't find much elaboration on the actual BKS subject from him. --- No, I never did read his original book (FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL) but that will change shortly as I've recently stumbled over a free audio version via LibriVox. (see link below) {There is also a free e-book and downloadable pdf version at Gutenberg} So I'm keeping my fingers crossed. (but not very tightly. LOL)
One of the "issues" most folks seem to have with Keyhoe was his writing stories for Pulp magazines back in the day. I reckon that they figure that if he wrote Fiction, than everything he wrote was probably fiction as well. Go Figure. --- Me, I ran into some of his WWI ace/spy/super agent Capt Philip Strange stories in a couple of Weird War type anthologies way back in my teens and LOVED THEM! But just couldn't find any more back then in those "stone-age" pre-internet days. Today I found Amazon has a number of re-released collections that I'll be sure to gather up! (any other Weird War fans see 2nd link) --- To me, his writing fiction only demonstrates that he has a sharp and open flexible mind. IMO, something highly required for Thinking Outside Of The Box. And I sure ain't going to gig somebody for what they do to put food on their table!
Another "issue" folks seem to have with him was with his inability and alleged even further mishandling of the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomenon (NICAP) when he took it over after it had been abused and imbesaled by its former director. Even though under his leadership it was one of the key elements pushing the Feds (Both the Military and the CIA) to release their UFO information. (I've even seen some hinting that he worked for MJ-12 and their Office Of Dis-Information. = ????) Again, Go Figure.?
Anyhoo, IMO, a pretty darn interesting person from the early UFO era, and a darn FUN Pulp era Weird War writer!
LibriVox -- Flying Saucers Are Real
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Amazon -- Capt Philip Strange: STRANGE WAR
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Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Re: New aircraft, new colors?
Greetings Terry and All,
GO NAVY! (colors) --- Hey, what did you expect from an Old Salt??? LOL
I've always been a fan of the "Flying Circus" type color schemes where camouflage is not an issue. With your heat sensing Bugs I reckon camouflage would be about as useful on them as it is on a heat seeking missile. (and, IMO, the same would go for spacecraft in near any universe. As exemplified by B-5's Star Furies.) = Might as well go whole hog. = Garish tiger stripes, bird-of-prey wing feather patterns, clown or lionfish patterns, snake patterns, hot-rod flames, etc??? In the HQ&C universe this could even replace the Nose Art of ours.?The only drawback might be with squadron recognition in mixed squadron and/or mixed national forces combat where pilots have to rely on the old Mark-I Eyeball to keep together with their mates. But easily gotten around (and might even prove beneficial) if each squadron boasted its own color scheme.?
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Keep It FUN!
Dan G?
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Re: Aircraft-Speed vs Manueverability
Greetings Terry and All,
I would think that the Combat Environment would be the chief dictator in any military weapons evolutionary development. Aircraft of WWI, II, Korea, etc and even today's most high tech machines were/are designed to respond to the threats posed by what the enemy might field at that point of time in history, and to neutralize those threats with extreme prejudice. --- But those are still HUMAN engineered threats.?With your HQ&C Bugs the humans would not be facing the same combat environments as our pilots did in WWI or II. I would think that both the pilots and the engineers of HQ&C would be forced to develop their approaches to What Works For Them very differently than we did in our Real World Human vs Human universe.?
A couple of things that I think might carryover are the Two Man Fighter concept of WWI & II with the rear facing Navigator/Gunner operating a swivel-mounted machine gun while the pilot controls the forward facing guns/cannons. (Way lower tech than a modern chopper's chin gun, but . . . ) --- Not sure if you've "evolved" your tech to include guidance systems. If not, you might take a look at some of the air-to-air rocket barrage systems used by early straight-wing jet fighters. Not very accurate for targeting single small highly maneuverable flitters, but a barrage could put a world of hurt on a big critter, or destroy one of comparable human fighter size, or clear some air space if fired into a swarm. Being an area effect weapon, a barrage ~ might ~ even be able to catch a flitter if the pilot's any good and lays down a good spread. Or just gets real lucky.
What the heck. They're Only Bugs. How tough could they be??? LOL
Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Re: New aircraft, new colors
Great idea for the aircraft, I sure hope we get to see they when your?done.
Ron
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Re: Aircraft-Speed vs Manueverability
Hey Terry,
I agree with your sentiment at this point in time, but I think that fairly soon auto piloted drones will be able to out maneuver piloted aircraft as drones aren't susceptible to the same stress as a human body. Just my musing.
- Tim
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New aircraft, new colors?
I'm putting together at least one and possibly two, new squadrons (and I may finally be able to put some US Army Mustangs into play!) One squadron is of high wing monoplane Cayley pusher planes with a twin tail and a centrally mounted internal combustion engine. They are two-seaters and optimized for air to air combat, being faster than the bugs and having a heavy armament of forward firing automatic weapons.?
The other model I'm working on will be an intermediate sized aerolyth?flyer. It should have a three-man?crew, two forward and one in a tail turret. It will have a pair of swiveling?ducted fan propellors and twin tails. The basic fuselage will be a 1/72 scale Hawker Sea Hawk.?
Wing roots will be from the Sea Hawk, with the jet intakes being used as air intakes for the internal engine and the jet exhaust being extended as an exhaust/smoke pipe.?
The outer wings (which are mostly used to hold extra aerolyth?panels, carrying ordnance and providing control and control surfaces) might be from an A-10 in 1/100 scale.. I'll cut the wingtips off but might leave the wheel nacelles on as hardpoints or something else.
The question?is; who is operating these craft? I might do the airplanes in US Navy late prewar colors.
I'm not sure about the bigger craft.?
Since these are fighting The Hive in my setting it means that there is little reason for craft to be painted in colors to mute them in air to air combat. The flying bugs have excellent hearing as well as fairly decent eyesight into the infrared. On the ground some camouflage is helpful in visible light, some most ground landers have some sort of cryptic colors.?
Not sure about the colors for the bigger craft. I'm not even sure which nationality they are from. I haven't done anything for the Triple Empire (Spain, Portugal, and Brasil). Maybe that should be that country? Something like the Spanish aircraft from the Spanish Civil War?
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Re: Aircraft-Speed vs Manueverability
In WW2 a huge number of enemy planes were destroyed not by plane to plane dogfighting but by maneuvering into a position to "bounce" the enemy. So I would have to say there are to many "what if's" to really make a solid case for dogfighting or not.
That said, I don't see an old aircraft having much of a chance at anything that might be out there today no matter what the pilots could do.
I do recall an article of one US Navy pilot talking about the Russian planes that can stop in mid air while maneuvering ... it went something like this: The last thing I want to do is stop moving with a missile on my tail! LOL
Ron
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Aircraft-Speed vs Manueverability
In our technological world speed is far more important in air combat than agility, generally speaking. the classic example of this was in the Pacific in WW2 where once the Allies fielded fighters like the F6F and the P-38 and refused to dogfight with the agile Japanese aircraft like Type 0. Faster air superiority fighters can choose to engage or not to. There never seems to be enough of an agility difference to allow the slower aircraft to refuse an engagement by maneuvering out of the way.
I am not certain this will still hold true with flying creatures vs flying machines. The intrinsic ability of a flying animal to quickly change direction and to not have the time lag required by the man/machine interface.?
If creatures like Flying Lancers, Skrill riders, Bestial High Martians, the goofy critters from Pandora and suchlike can dodge and stunt their way away from aircraft will human-piloted aircraft ever be capable of effectively engaging them with fixed forward firing weapons? I can easily see things like the turrets on modern attack helicopters being very effective, but something like a Spitfire or P-51 might be at a serious disadvantage.
Thoughts?
Terry Sofian
tsofian@...
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[TMP] "Friday and Saturday Hive battle at Origins" Topic
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=483170
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[TMP] "Attack on the Hive; Origins 2018" Topic
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=482957
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Re: The Black Knight Satellite
SO TRUE! -- Even the alleged "Freedom Of Information Act" will only get us so far, and THAT is often So Far from "The Truth". --- But it would sure be cool to be one of the "In The Know" crew!?
Just to throw in a Left Field (probably more like a SF/AH) tweak to this BKS thing. === What if those original sightings from the 50s/60s where of something the Nazis put up there before the end of the war??? (We don't even need to throw in Nazi Saucers for this one! LOL) --- Yeah, I know, if they could've done that then our Op Paperclip or the Soviet's same ex-Nazi rocket scientists like von Braun wouldn't have taken so long to get us up there as well. AND we would have been in a LOT more trouble than we were at the time. Right? . . . But, just ~ maybe ~ we missed the Key Guy, and von Braun & Co sure as heck would never admit that they weren't The Best Of The Best and run the chance of loosing their Free Ride. Right? Soooo, . . . ???? --- Hey, it ~ could ~ make for a good story! LOL
Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Re: The Black Knight Satellite
Sorry I can't remember his name but I believe it is as the head of Project Blue Book said at the end of the book HE wrote after being so mad at the government covering up so much good, solid information -
They can't explain it - they can't control it ... therefore it doesn't exist.
In our lifetimes I highly doubt we will ever know the truth about almost anything "out of the norm" of life.
Ron
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Re: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah, I gotta agree. I think it's a bit "Odd" that so many legit tracking facilities (the USAF, the USN, the Venezuelan Communications Ministry, the Smithsonian Observatory at Harvard, the Grumman Aircraft Corp in NY, the French Space Commision, the Australian Space Command, and others) and even a visual observation by a NASA astronaut all saw this "object" (or possibly, TWO!) in a ->POLAR <- orbit back in the 50s and 60s(!!!), yet we're supposed to believe it was a sheet of insulation lost in 1998(!!!) by the STS???? --- I'm sure the STS lost a "space blanket" and that is what's in all those photos popping up on the net, but unless that thing found John Crichton's wormhole (Farscape) and traveled Back In Time, . . . these just ain't the same critters.?
Personally, I don't give much credence to those radio messages from Mars, or Epsilon Bootis, or wherever that some folks like to have lumped into this "conspiracy". I think their inclusion is just a further attempt to cloud the issue and shove it hard over into the Pure Nutter Files. (Thank You MJ-12/13 and your host of loyal minions. LOL)
IMO, ~ something ~ was, and possibly still is, out there, and WE of planet Earth sure as heck did not put it there! === It would sure be a nice change of pace to get some REAL answers to yet another Amazing Space Mystery rather than just more Humbug & Hogwash!?
Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Greetings All,
Up for a little Time Travel??? Yeah, I know, Time Travel in/out of WWII has been done SOOOOOO Many Times that it should get a genre or at least a "Punk" heading all of its own. (LOL) But FATA MORGANA by SR Boyett & K Mitchroney is one of the few stand alone (non series!) novels that actually seems to do a Darn Good job of the subject. Good characters, good action, plenty of plot twists, and Strange Doings make it a FUN read or listen.
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Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Greetings All,
Teddy has long since been one of my favorite historical figures. One of those who's Real Life is so BIG that it needs little to no garnishment to make it seem like fiction. But a little garnish can sure be FUN at times! ROOSEVELT'S BEAST by Louis Bayard throws a rather interesting garnish on Teddy's trek through the Amazon jungle in 1914. = Old School Jungle Adventure complete with cannibal tribes, Strange Doings, and, of course, Teddy, and I'm hooked!?
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Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Re: The Black Knight Satellite
Space blanket - Ba HUMBUG!!!!!!!? Alien craft ... YEA!!!!!!!!!!!? :-)
Ron
On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 11:18 AM, Dan G via Groups.Io <Grauwulf@...> wrote: Greetings All,
From my Weird Files --- The Black Knight Satellite (Conspiracy?)?
Another Nutter Conspiracy Infatuation? Or is (was) there ~ something ~ really up there that MJ-12/13 was Covering Up? (just had to throw a "space blanket" pun in there.LOL) The Net will bounce you from one side's view to the other. MJ-13's lackeys at Wiki do their typical claim of its all Nutter Trash, and the UFO sites scream CONSPIRACY!!!?
I find it rather strange that this thing was supposedly spotted so many decades ago and nobody to my knowledge has ever used it in an SF/AH or even comic book story. = More "proof" of MJ-12/13's suppression of "The Truth"??? = Enquiring Minds Want To Know! LOL
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Just to show I can be Fair & Open Minded. (And to try and keep MJ-13 from shutting me down! LOL)
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Keep It FUN!
Dan G
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Dan G
