So, just the other day, the big news locally was that there were two Utah Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawks that crashed near the Snowbird ski resort. Thankfully, the news has reported that there were no injuries, but knowing the news, hopefully that continues to stay accurate.
Because it happened near a popular ski resort, it seems there is plenty of footage of the incident. From what I see, one pilot may have not selected an even spot to land, but was unable to see that because of the white out conditions as they approached, creating conditions, that led one of the craft to strike the other.
However, all that aside, training the mountainous regions of the Unitas is not too unusual for the UNG, but it's interesting to note how dangerous that can be, as this is far from the first time that conditions there have caused Blackhaws to crash there. I'm sure there's even more if you include all the civilian helicopter crashes as well.
As a random thought to go with this, despite being made by the lowest bidder, the UH-60 is fairly resilient as far as helicopters go. It's surprising that with how often helicopters crash, the UH-60 seems to have a better than usual track record of it resulting in either minor or no injuries.
Was just messing around on google maps and stumbled upon a little place inside the UTTR called Oasis Inn. Sitting in the middle of a large junkyard/target depot, it's pretty obvious that the place is there to support people visiting the place for short periods for various reasons. What isn't too obvious is if this place is operated by the Fed, State, or DoD, or is contracted out?
Finding any info about it is frustrating, as there doesn't seem to be much out there about it other than a disappointing one star google review. There is another place in Green River that is named the same that I initially confused it with, but there really isn't much to go on. Then again, that's probably because there isn't much to know.
However, I would love to know if it's access is restricted and if the place is civilian operated. Just kinda interesting to think about.
A google maps satellite shot of the site. Obviously there's no street view.
I've said here before that I don't really want to comment too often on current events, but I just have to say, if the Canadians had a second amendment, it's getting pretty darn close to the point they need to use it, if it's not already here. One of my favorite bloggers, Kim Du Toit often uses this pic to illustrate what tyrannical governments deserve:
Heck, while we are at it, do this to Australia's as well, along with China's. Because if your government is currently running concentration camps, they all deserve to f-off and die in the most horrific fashion. Never in my life did I think I'd want to smuggle guns into those places to help those people run amok.
Another great game from my childhood that still holds up really well is No One Lives Forever and it's sequel A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way. Part stealth game, part screwball comedy, part action game, and all of it dripping with swinging '60s style and is pure innocent fun. I don't know of any other wise-cracking female spy that can take people out with a banana peel, a robot kitten bomb, and lipstick grenades; all while handling all sorts of classic guns.
The games themselves are great, but recently it's made headlines with the confusing (and still unsolved) legal status of the licensing rights to the game. Long story short, the original studio was bought out, merged, then assets sold off in such a confusing manner, that no company involved really knows who owns the rights to it anymore. The consequence being you cannot buy a copy of it anymore unless you happen to find the disks in a thrift store.
On the bright side, this means you can actually pick up the games for free over at the fan revival site nolfrevival.tk. Some of them may require a little finesse to get running, but once again, free is free, and these games are classics that were way ahead of their time.
I would say it's worth every penny, but hey, you don't even have to give up a single one!
However, if you are really hankering for more than just the originals, there is a new game called The Spy Who Shrunk Me, which was heavily inspired by the NOLF games, and aims to be somewhat of a spiritual successor. It ain't bad at all, and I highly recommend it, but just don't pass up the originals either!
So, again we come to this week's Unsolved Mysteries, the subject today being Cryptids. Generally not my favorite topic, so it likely will not reoccur, but these were some of the best I could find on it. So, put on the awesome version of the theme song again and give 'em a read.
It's not often that I find something surprising that I had no idea about when it comes to local history, so color me surprised when I found this little nugget from NPR and another local blogger. I had no idea that Amelia Earhart had to make a forced landing after experiencing engine troubles when following the rail lines near Tintic, Utah in 1928.
One picture of an article you can find on Amelia's stay at Jacob Barlow's site. He has many more pics there of additional articles detailing her stay while her plane was being repaired.
I won't steal the thunder, but you can read a transcript of the radio broadcast of the story on NPR's website here. Another big thanks goes out to Jacob Barlow's site which introduced the subject to me and he has some really neat pictures of the original newspaper articles about it there. I would highly encourage you to check out his site as it has all sorts of cool info about old towns, ghost towns, filming locations, and lots of other assorted and interesting info about Utah.
I'm not a fan of reality TV shows, even when they were all the rage a few years ago. The only one that I could occasionally stand was MTV's Pimp My Ride, as it was a bit silly and over the top. I mean, there's a reason it spawned memes still in use today, but as it turns out, Hollywood is still a cesspool of nastyness, and the show was a train wreck behind the scenes. The ever-excellent youtube channel Weird History does a short dive into some of the controversies:
I always loved that title of the little section of Popular Mechanics magazine back in the day. They always loved highlighting things people thought was new, but was a decades old idea, but likely was only made practical by modern innovation.
Anyways, as I have said before, I have next to no interest in purchasing/owning most bullpup guns (if not all). However, I still find them very fun and interesting from an engineering perspective. The one that caught my eye lately was a prototype bullpup rifle featured on the firearm blog made by a company called Senex Arms.
Pic of the prototype obviously swiped form TFB.
The firearm blog says it's meant to be as compatible with as many AR-15 parts as possible, and mentions it uses a slightly modified AR bolt carrier group. From the looks of it, it seems it would also use the same fire control group, magazine, and barrel. However, they do say it will feature an HK-type non-reciprocating charging handle, and will have a quick change barrel as well. It's seems like an actual good idea for people that basically want a bullpup AR with parts compatibility with the AR.
Hopefully, it doesn't turn out to be like the Bushmaster M17S.
However, the whole thing reminds me of another decades old project that turned into the ill fated Bushmaster M17S. The concept was similar, make a bullpup AR18 action, but use as many AR15 parts as possible like mags, mag release, grips (on later models), pins, and springs. The whole thing just didn't pan out due to weird ergonomics, poor controls, heavier weight, and somehow it's not as accurate or reliable. The production run was small, and is not made anymore because most people just didn't like it. The Senex guys seem to have a much better, well thought out concept, so hopefully the same fate doesn't befall them.
As an aside, I found while making this post, that the M17S has been re-engineered/improved by K&M Arms to fix many of the long-standing issues of the platform, and is now back in production. Here's a picture of the modernized rifle from K&M Arms' website:
Many people wanted to know what those lights were in the Nevada skies in the 70s through the 90s. People theorized that it was flying saucers, experimental spacecraft, or UFOs of alien origin, but now we have a good idea of what most of them may have been after Constant Peg (and the F-117) was declassified.
A picture of the US crews in front of a MiG-21 from the 4477th. Sourced from Wikipedia.
What is Constant Peg, you ask? Well, it was the name of the longest continuing classified military airplane program done by the United States. Nestled in a remote locale in Nevada, is the Tonopah Test Range, with it's accompanying airfield which was home to the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, which was a joint-service effort with pilots/aviators from the Navy, USMC, and Air Force, that was also sometimes supported by the infamous Groom Lake facility. This unit was given the classified assignment described as "the testing and evaluation of foreign aircraft technology" from the years of 1977 to 1990.
A Constant Peg MiG-23 flying over the Nevada desert.
Basically, the military had been able to acquire a relatively large amount of MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-27s, Chinese copies of these planes, and others through various means, such as: political dealings, espionage, straw purchases, defections, captured, recovered from crashes, and even stolen examples. Ultimately, the Air Force (and other services) were eager to form a squadron to evaluate them and put them to use against American aircraft and pilots in wargames. Both to assess their performance and capabilities of the expected adversary aircraft, as well as understand the workings of the aircraft to better prepare US pilots against them in the event of a future war, and current proxy conflicts.
Another MiG-23 of the squadron.
The pilots selected for this mission were to be the absolute best of their fields, and would train relentlessly, as they not only had to fly missions as test pilots to evaluate the performance limits of the planes themselves, but also to fly as adversary aggressor pilots to other American aircrews. The pilots were extremely professional and dedicated to the mission, even to the point of speaking Russian when on comms with other American aircrews.
Constant Peg MiG-17 at the front, Mig-21 at the rear
As amazing as all this sounds, the real miracle of the whole story is the ground crews and maintainers of the aircraft, who were often very senior NCOs, a large number of which had served in the Thunderbirds. This was required as they needed to basically reverse engineer how to support these Russian planes with everything still labelled in Russian, with no manuals, translations, or original support crews to speak of to assist. Nothing short of astounding when you thing about that feat!
At the end of the day, I can't really do it enough justice with just a small blog write up with a few pictures. So here's a short 5 min documentary on youtube on the subject. Also, I embedded below, and even more excellent video from the 10% True youtube channel that has a couple of Constant Peg veterans commenting on recently declassified footage at Tonopah of the 4477th operations:
I think the final and most definitive work on the subject will have to be the book available by Col. Gail Peck (retired) who headed the project, which is available on Amazon:
Though, don't be fooled by the fact the squadron officially stood down in 1990, as our story doesn't end there. It was known that after the 4477th stood down, the remaining assets were reconstituted as Detachment 3 of 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, who flew much more modern threat aircraft such as MiG-29 Fulcrums and Su-27 Flankers. This was also disbanded, but is now likely operating those assets as a part of the 422d Test and Evaluation Squadron, with their aircraft likely being based out of Groom Lake itself now. It seems even locals have documented them showing up from time to time. So if you can hear or see military fighter jets in the skies of Nevada, you may want to take a closer look, to see if they are Russian in origin.
