Happy St. Patrick's Day

It’s St. Paddy’s Day, innit? So…In honor of all the Irish and Irish Wanna-Bees…

Wow. That’s BAD. I apologize, Mick. I didn’t mean it. “The luck o’ the Irish,” indeed.

―:☺:―

Aging USAF airframes… I read this lil blurb in the Air Force Association’s Daily Brief this morning:

A Kennedy-era RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft surpassed 50,000 flight hours during a mission March 12 in Southwest Asia supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. The aircraft, which has been in service since 1962 and flown tours in far-flung places ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, is the first Rivet Joint and the first of any C-135 airframe, in general, to reach this milestone.

I’ll do the math for ya, Gentle Reader. 50,000 hours is 2083 days, or 69.45 months, or 5.71 years. In the air. I’ll leave it for someone else to count all the maintenance hours required to keep this geriatric airframe in service. But just as a rule of thumb, it takes anywhere from five to 15 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. And that’s not counting trips to the depot.

There’s more on your aging Air Force here. Here’s a sample, using the RC-135 as an example:

To help put this aging airframe issue in perspective, we recently matched the various dates when aircraft from the Air Force fleet officially entered service (Initial Operating Capability) with the events that were occurring during those same respective years. On a first glance this comparison is amusing. However, upon a second look it is clear that we face a very serious situation and must do everything possible to address this critical issue.

[…]

1973—RC-135 Rivet Joint

· The tiny 1973 Honda Civic debuts with the slogan: “It will get you where you’re going.”

· A ceasefire is signed, ending involvement of American ground troops in the Vietnam War.

· Chile's Marxist president, Salvadore Allende, is overthrown and Gen. Augusto Pinochet takes power.

· Fourth and largest Arab-Israeli conflict begins when Egyptian and Syrian forces attack Israel.

· Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries hikes oil prices tremendously in retaliation for Western countries' involvement in Yom Kippur War.

· President Nixon, on national TV, accepts responsibility, but not blame, for Watergate.

· Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President and then pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes while Governor of Maryland.

· US Supreme Court rules on Roe v. Wade.

· American Graffiti, The Exorcist, The Sting dominate at the box office.

· Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet.

· Skylab, the first American space station, is launched.

A lot of you hadn’t even been born yet. There's more at the link.

―:☺:―

I’m almost caught up on my Daily Reads. Almost, but not quite. It’s a great good thing I decided (?) to get sick over a weekend, because a lot of my Daily Reads post ever so lightly on Saturdays and Sundays. And I'm thankful for those posting habits, given the circumstances.

Things are better today in the body department. I was able to hold down real food yesterday for the first time since Thursday…and let me tell ya: living on bland food just ain’t any fun at all, Gentle Reader. We needs us our salsa! And LOTS of it, too… Maybe today. Or maybe I’ll decide to do corned beef and cabbage this evening, with the usual, customary, and reasonable horseradish (the real stuff. Not that "creamed" krep)... and lots of that, too. Or not.

Perhaps we shouldn’t tempt fate, eh?