XB-70A

I finally came back to my house studio today and it's time to complete the visit. So here comes the icebraker Enerst Lapointe : Named after a politician and Minister of Justice from Québec city, the Lapointe was launched in 1939 and became fully operational two years later. Again a little turn around can be realized : Old but still charming. As you can see the ship suffer a lot from the Northern Atlantic terrible conditions during its 37 years of hard but loyal service. Transferred in 1980 the Lapointe now is enjoying the rest it clearly deserved. Now it was time to visit or rather to explore the vessel a bit more. Welcome on the foredeck with a close view of the icebreaker main anchor chains. We then came back inside to keep on the exploration : The table appeared to be the reserved not only for the officers during their diners but also to talk about the operations. Another Chef kingdom. I found it was fun to catch this. One of the "guest" reserved cabins. With a vomit emergency exit available. We could immediately think that is the Captain room but none at all. This place was reserved to special and/or important guest. With its own sink and leather sofa. Another guest room but already a bit less "class" than the first two. At this time I already was amazed by the huge presence of wood on board. And it only was the beginning! Anyway, now it was the time to go back outside: On the way to the rear deck and to find... The beautiful and original wheel of the ship. And its cable connecting it to the rudder. We will look at it later, inside the ship. And it already was the time to return inside. We now were in the bridge of the vessel with a look at one of its engine order telegraph, dedicated to the port and starboard screws control for precise maneuvers. The navigation and weather radar screen. It gives a strange impression, just like if it was a future creation in another from the past. The post of the Radio-Navigator with an impressively precise map of the Saint-Laurent river. The name of Cap-aux-Oies appearing at the right bottom of the map is concerning a cape actually located at the top right of the map, just at the North-East of the island, which is called the Île aux Coudres. An inside view of the foredeck with the museum main building on the right. We can imagine the courage of these men who fought against the rough and terrible natural elements. Here is the main engine order telegraph. Another radar screen. The range selector indicated options going from 2-3 miles to 24 miles. Ok, let's leave the bridge to go to the upper deck : Still beautiful. One of the ship's original arks is visible here. We now are entering the Captain's cabin! A world map of National Geographic from 1977! As you can see, if the Captain was not living in the "rough" conditions of his crew, he also did not enjoy the luxury of the guest room. We we pretty impressed by the simplicity of his cabin. Some stuff given by the Captains Robert Marchand (1941-67), François Breton (1976-78) and Émile Lavoie who was the last of all, serving from 1978 to the decommissioning. Let's go outside once again! One better view of the museum entrance from the upper deck. I tried to take a global picture, but my 2007 dated camera I used at this time wasn't able to imitate a wide-angle lens (sigh). It now was the time to go inside the boat! The stairs were so small. I can't imagine how many of these guys just fell from here during hard weather. The sailors dinning table. An order. Globally it should be : Canadian Coast Guards Ministry of Transports Sailor no.4 EMERGENCY STATION Your firefighting station is : bring an extinguisher. Your post for abandoning ship is the vessel : Number 2... Port side. Your function are : reach winch. ALERT SIGNAL At least seven short tones followed by a prolonged tone of the whistle or siren of the ship, complete by the ringing of the alarm bell. As soon as you hear the warning signal, put on your life-jacket and, unless reversed instructions, go to your ship abandonment station. Know what your duties and positions are; carefully read the role you have. Well, you have enough of clean locations and rooms? Let's go deeper! In the ship entrails! @carmenara I just hope you will enjoy it. Aaaah, a smell of rust and oil! WELCOME in the machinery territory! The generators section. Let's go even deeper! One of the two boilers with one of its cruise "small tubes" opened. Mmmh, how beautiful! 5 806 675 revolutions at the time of the decommissioning. Another pressure gauge. But this one suffer a lot. We then kept on traveling to reach the rudder section. Keeping on walking. Here we are! The rudder main command. A closer view at the oil and how "small" the mechanism is. One last picture, of crushed tomatoes cans, before leaving the ship. As you can see the brand mark "Heinz" was already invading the world in the 70's being even in a ship of the Canadian Coast Guard. See you Ernest. It was great to visit you.

Absolutely. Translated by the words "Bras d'Or" would be "Gold Arm". The problem being than in French "Bras" could indeed concern an "Arm", bodily talking, or an "Inlet" / "Branch of river", geographically talking. The second possibility finely being the most logical here.

Absolutely beautiful. With the kids and the sole adult walking on the dune I felt like we were in Mad Max 3.

Today was extremely particular to me and for a good reason. Just a day before I went for an umpteenth time to Melbourne in Florida for professional reasons and at the end of the day decided to "explore" a bit the region and to go to Playalinda Beach : Entering the holy place. Arrrrg. I could read at this time than the beach only was accessible by paying for a pass. $1 as a pedestrian/cyclist or $10 with a car... having only 5 on me I decided to park the car and kept on walking... Only to discover there was no service today! Ha haaaa, on the road agaaaiiiiinnnnnn!!!... at a max of 35 mph, but on the road again. I quickly found one of the "official" parking reserved to the swimmers, surfers... and launches addicted peoples. One panoramic view of the parking lot and the launch complex 39A and B plus the V.A.B... And one of the beach itself. A beautiful one which remembered me those of the Caribbean islands. A closer view of my stagecoach. Yep, a simple 210 hp Optima but which never betrayed me since I'm with her. Then it already was the time to leave as the beach was closing at 20.00... at least that's what I thought. I was supposed to drive back to Tampa after an appointment around 14.00 today but it was advanced to 10.00 this morning and ended just before 11.00. I looked once again to the expected launch departure time of the Dragon CRS-12 flight... mmmh one hour of driving if I'm respecting the speed... mmmh nearly nobody is respecting the speed... mmmh I never seen a real launch by myself... mmmh I'm dreaming of it for years and years.... mmmh... LET'S GO!!! Back to the beach! With one fan proudly waiting for the launch. The first parking lot was totally full and three later I found the sole place remaining in! And fifteen minutes later... Falcon 9 1.2 was lifting off with Dragon! WOOOHOOOOoooo. Such a wonderful melody! Like a 30/45 second long thunder! I waited about two minutes and after seeing that the first stage was shut down decided to leave as a lot of peoples were doing the same (and I really have to be at Tampa four hours later). But just when I was on the way back I'd seen a lot of fans looking for the stage at the North-East, where the launcher was before burning back. And, suddenly, I've seen it descending back through the clouds at an impressive speed and lightning its engine once again to brake. Simply impressive! If there is only one thing I regret, it's to have forgotten my camera in Clearwater, the pictures taken with my phone got terrible quality at the best. But this is a day I will never forget for sure!

Thank you NSEP. I had like to post more during the last days but my sole computer is at home and so far from me now... only the phone could help me but... big fingers + multiple links x phone = madness.

Thank you, you will probably enjoy the icebreaker with its excellent engine room and boiler. Here is an appetizer for waiting before the main diner : Thanks qz'. "Alas", the main subject of the museum are the Bras d'Or and Ernest Lapointe. Once you visited them there is not so much impressive things to do. They also have the JE Bernier II, a small sailing ship on-board which Cpt. Bouvier realize a pretty impressive travel, passing by the Northwest passage, beyond the Arctic Circle. Otherwise there is a nice collection of different old boat and their sail, plus a nice collection of different wood models with a beautiful Canadian frigate in and the battlecruiser Scharnhorst.

This museum is located along the Saint Laurent (St-Lawrence) river, about an hour of driving North-East of Québec city. The collection isn't so "huge" and the museum average number of visitor is around 15 000 per year. But! But the museum had a particular and beautiful piece, an unique model of Canadian engineering which was originally supposed to be produced at a good number... the HMCS Bras d'Or, pennant number FHE 400! Studied at the end of the 50's, the Bras d'Or was the finalisation of more than fifteen years of work looking for the creation of a new type of patrol boats to supervise then fight against the Soviets submarines patrolling near the Canadian Atlantic coast. Lets have a little look around: The front foil was realizing the biggest part of the planing when reaching the convenient speed. A role which was then shared with the main foil. A better view of the cruising propellers while the one dedicated to the high speed phase are covered by the grass. A view of then port side while one of my friend was laying close to compare the size. We then had to wait for fifteen minutes, and... Welcome aboard! One of the five stars room of the crew. The ship used to have about 25 crew members onboard during all its experimental phase but was supposed to had around 10 more during its service. The kingdom of the onboard Chef. One of the sailors and sub-officers table. And the officers one. The paint, alas, is going away. We kept on our visit in the ship's dark corridors until we found... Yes! Another super luxurious installation for the guys! It seems like the museum workers had to ensure it stays closed after having some problems with peoples in the need... We now are going to the engine room. The propulsion was ensured by a single PAXMAN Ventura 16YJCM during the cruise. But the high speed phase was possible by the action of a U.S made Pratt & Whitney FT4A-2, a lowered JT-4A/J75 engine much more knew for its service onboard civil aircraft like the 707, DC-8 or with the military with the legendary F-105, U-2 or the F-106. The engine room. Alas, as you can see, the turbine was removed. As well as the 16 cylinders diesel bloc. But any mechanics lover could enjoy it. The inside visit then was nearly over and it was the time to climb on the main bridge: A whole view from the rear of the ship and a closer one on the turbine exhaust. As you can see a door was open and lead the bridge. Welcome back inside with a close view of the navigator post and its navigation radar screen. The chief engineer post. Any 50's-70's aviation lover will be crazy with it! I probably stayed like five minutes to look at it... Informations panel. Here is a rough translation : The ship should have been equipped with a torpedo tubes system located on each side of the rear main bridge. Originally, the plans specified it would have been Mk32 torpedoes, but the Mk46 were opted instead. The system has been developed but the project was ended before its final installation on the hydrofoil. A (bad) view from the bridge with the East-North-East coast of the Saint Laurent visible. Just like with the hovercraft, the bridge looked like an aircraft cockpit, with dual yokes, task repartitions for the crew, centered engines throttle, etc... Another common point with the hovercraft is the fact that the piloting crew had to own a pilot license. Other views from the left seat. Then I turn my eyes to the port side and discovered we were annoying the tenant of the place... Bad company And I can't deny Bad company Until the day I die... Other views of the opposite coast from the main deck and while we were disembarking. Next step, The visit of the icebreaker Ernest Lapointe.

Non stop from 2001 to 2008, when I lost my XP.

Don't worry, personally I stayed years without knowing the Maple Flag exercise. The Tiger Meet is an exercise but created to enhance the solidarity between the NATO members. Each year, since 1961, multiple members are sending a squadron for the meeting but the rule is to send at least one aircraft with a Tiger theme painted on. If I'm not making any mistake it originally was a project from a French defense minister which led to an association of the Armee de l'Air, the R.A.F and the U.S.A.F a bit later for the first exercise.

If some of you like lighthouses and wroth water : Kéréon lighthouse. Nicknamed the Hell by its gardians. It is totally lost and alone between the island of Ouessant at the West-North-West and Sein at its South-East. La Jument once again, in a typical and pretty "calm" water for the season. The lighthouse is located West of Ouessant, directly in the famous Fromveur passage where one of the most strong tidal race (9 knots) in the world is. The Fromveur tidal race is easily recognizable here. The day we took this picture the wind was around 25-30 kt East, so in case of an engine failure we decided to fly at 7500 ft. Just enough to join the airfield or at worst to land in the calm bay were a lot of boats are mooring. The other lighthouse visible on the left is named Nividic. The whole view of Ouessant from our terrible lovely Robin DR-400/120 under overpowered flying tissue. The tidal race also is visible here with all its "spirals". The South-West natural bay which always makes me think about a meteor crater... but one of the island spots where the sea is the most calm and hot... around 14°C/57°F max during the summer, really cool. Eastern view of Ouessant, with the airfield perfectly visible.

Hu??? Cuz' every smart people who already waked up knew the Earth isn't totally flat... if it WaSn't the case so hOw caN ze boats could float, hu??? Smart peoples like us already knew everything is a plot from the SPECTRE of Ernst Blofeld who, from the 943rd basement of the Area-51 top-secret base, is sending his orders to the sioni... erhm, sorry, to the Zionist top secret base behind the dark side of our not totally flat Moon. They then use satellites to send top-secret waves to the others to control them! And truly everything is a plan from the Illuminatis, but hopefully we, the smart peoples, know that only the aluminium fold helmet can save us.

No, it's not a lie, it was struck in my head all the day...

A special day I will never forget : It was just an umpteenth rainbow seen from the sky for us until... We got some company! The first time in my life to realize a formation. Here we are passing the Île Vierge (the Virgin Island) and its lighthouse, still the tallest of all in Europe and the tallest of rock built lighthouse in the world, with a height of 82.5 m/270.6 ft. Small U-turn to came back over the land. The Virgin Island still is visible. Even closer! This picture perfectly depict what the Brittany region is, fields, farms, villages... and more fields. A good way to salute us before returning to LFRB. For sure the DA40 wasn't really built to realize this Passing 2 nm West of Lanildut small town, one of the most western point of France.

Taken during a short trip to the island of Ouessant : On the Road Again. Ouessant got a lot of sheep and a bit everywhere. Most of them are domesticated for the local production of wool and they are free to go anywhere. Looking at these two, they were about to get a good time together... "HG44" wasn't really happy to see us while two others simply didn't care about. A recent mowing appears clearly on the back of the closest. These sheep actually are the descendants of some "special" ones : in the night of the 16th June 1896 a British medium liner, the SS Drummond Castle, was navigating for a common travel between Cape Town and London. It previously made stopovers at Delagoa Bay, Natal and Las Palmas, the last of all before the final path. Around 23.00 local time, the liner struck on the rocks surrounding Ouessant and the southern island of Sein. The ship sank quickly, taking 242 souls with her... only two crew members and a single passenger survived the disaster. But they were not alone, the Drummond Castle was also carrying multiple sheep. Some of them survived and were or recovered by some local fishers or they swam by themselves to Ouessant or Sein, were their progeny is now living. Typical Atlantic Larus argentatus, one of the most frequent species of gull in this area. This one still wasn't a large adult. "JM47" wasn't easy to approach as it was in an enclosure made of rocks. The pictures aren't depicting the most interesting fact about it : it's an Ouessant or more typically in English, an Ushant. Named after the island this local breed actually is one of the most smallest sheep in the world. Having nearly disappeared at the end of the 19th Century, the specie was hopefully saved by transferring some of the rare subjects which were exploited on the main land to the island. Even today hybrids are pretty uncommon with this specie, results are interesting as this sheep is pretty "archaic" and way less fertilizing than most of the others all around, the female being able to spawn only one by year.

It took me about three days to make it... 12 April 1981, 12.00 UTC, OV-102 Columbia is lifting-off from the Launch Pad 39A during STS-1. Problem was, I had to work a lot, the papers I'm scrawling on are pretty small for good details (21.6 x 17.8 cm/8.5 x 5.5 in) but most of all it gave me sadness as Columbia was my favorite of all... I will never forget this 1st February 2003. There is a lot of mistakes too, like wrong elevons "paint", the SRBs look like a hybrid between the original four "segments" ones and the latter five (and I still don't know why I did that) plus the fact that "United States" and "NASA" are wrote like a 8 years old kid would mostly did.

A good summary. Nevertheless SectX has an increasing number of followers every day, the guru Musk being an excellent entrepreneur (while benefiting from very good advisers and engineers).

At the expense of passing for a boor... GO NASA!

I started to try a new craft and (by far) the ugliest I ever made to this date : Some kind of hideous, dart profiled, light shuttle, which will be sent by SRBs. It is my first try ever to use a fairing part as a nose on a spaceplane as I seems pretty elegant on some craft (and pretty useful too for the reentry...). The pilot I hate the most, the legendary Jebediah, was a given the opportunity to die to glorify its reputation. Having the crazy honor to realize the first reentry maneuver of the craft. The craft quickly appeared to be stable and maneuverable, the nose cone protecting it a lot. At my great despair the Jeb' survived once again! But it wasn't over yet! The Jeb' had to land its craft on the sea and at nearly 100 m/s MUAHAHAHAAAAaaaa... But he survived!!! Any way, I'll kill you another day Jeb' I swear it! As Ernst Blofeld the Great said, you only live twice! All alone in a lost position, we will see if the Jeb' will manage to survive MOUHAHAHAHAAAAAaaaaa...

According to what I'm seeing here, all hardpoints are empty but the canon still is present... for sure this custom officer got balls, or is stupid... or both.

I got 20 minutes only today. But it was enough to start working on another ultra light spacecraft, this time dedicated to crew transfers only : Two seats, 5 tons max, 2.9 km/s of impulsion available with its Switch engine. I only had the time to test a reentry and its bad, really, REALLY bad, attitude in the denser atmosphere. It will need a bit of work and probably will inherit of the X-20A SRB main launcher.

Absolutely not, you're totally free. I get in the minds to upload it tomorrow on KerbalX for fun, maybe you could get it like this? A lot of things could be improved indeed, it was originally supposed to get a shielded docking port at its nose for crew transfers as I chose to place a small cargo bay for payload but also for a small 2 seats Mk1 cabin instead. In case of a landing without any payload or fuel a single parachute is enough, but would have to be perfectly placed at its CoM. Also two reaction wheels are placed in the front Mk2 fuel tank to help stabilize during the reentry if its empty but could be removed. And, still about docking, it already is equipped with six RCS ports for maneuvers. The SRB first stage is mainly due to the need of a cheap launching cost but better choices are available. *** Here it is : https://kerbalx.com/XB-70A/Sleg-X-20A-Brokk

I hope it will not be considered as a "necro" but I re-up it as my father sent me some new ones. She were taken by him and other by one of his friends who also is a professional, taking aircraft pictures all around the world. One of the French Navy Rafale climbing up at full AB. Welcome to the Belgians! I'm not totally sure about the CASA 295 operator but it seems like one of the Czech Air Force. French Air Force Airbus A400M Atlas. Bongiorno to the Italians arriving onboard their Eurofighter EJ2000s... And their Bell 212, in a typical Italian paint! A tiger Gazelle. Probably a camouflage from the prey to become the predator... My two favorite. A French Navy Rafale leading a Luftwaffe Tornado ECR, a Luftstreitkrafte (Austria) Saab 105 and a Luchtmacht (Netherland) F-16A over the Mont Saint Michel. Italians again. The Czech once again made a beautiful work with one of their four Saab Gripen they sent here! Rafale pilot. Another shot of the Tiger Rafale. Dual take-off by the Rafale display team. Following the Tiger Meet they went to the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton meeting.

Just realized the second flight of the X-20A this morning (around 06:10 eeerrr...) with a super small 0.9 tons comsat as the payload : First stage propelled the craft to 1200 m/s before shutting down. A high kick which was a bit hard to control but which went well. P.S : it would be so much better if the SRBs, or at least the only the Kickback, were equipped with gimbal servo actuators... just like the real ones boosting the Rockwell Space Shuttle. Keeping on accelerating with the second stage and its Swivel while the Sun is rising... ... then circularizing the orbit at 400 km 15 minutes later. For screenshot reasons I kept the first stage tied for about 20 seconds after it shut down, the time to make the friction disappears. But it also slow down to craft to much and the second stage wasn't able to push the craft at more than 387 km before it stops. So we finished with the spacecraft. But it wasn't a problem so much as the craft still get 2 km/s available after the circularization. Releasing MunCom 2. With its single Ant engine and 0.898 units of fuel available it got 4.7 km/s of impulsion available, more than enough for any orbit changes with the futur Mun contracts. With nothing else to do in space, we came back 1 hours and 48 minutes later, the time to lower the Pe to 180 km and to de-orbit. Reentry started pretty softly, the craft slowing down well, but... as an idiot (and also due to a reflex due to my others space shuttles) I transfer the fuel from the front Mk2 tank to the two circular at the back instead of the opposite! It result in a crazy looping around 13 km... But the craft (ultra realistically) survived . Just 37 km before the touch down. This craft is even worse to control than any other one I made before, needing SAS on at any time if you don't want to enter a crazy spin (after all it was designed to land with parachutes). But it stays fun to play with it. It also is a super bad glider. Anyway it made it, nearly reaching the RWY09 before the speed drop to 20 m/s, making it logically falling like a brick. Despite getting still about the half of its fuel onboard it descended to a "soft" speed of 6.6 m/s, enough to ensure a landing without breaking anything. Tadaaaaa... we made it! 1.3 km from the Center and in a Kerbal-like logic "only" 97.9 % recovered. 12 009 funds retrieved, about 50% of the launch price.

I dont' really know if these pictures are correct for topic but here are some I took in 2014 during my first flight around NYC : And some company too! With a view of the new WTC which was just inaugurated at the time. And those ones taken by my dad during our last flight together. It also was my last in France : The bay of the island of Ouessant/Ushant at approximately 24 km/13.3 nm form the Brittany coast (but 50 km/ 27 nm from LFRB, the closest airport). We made the departure a bit late... but it gave us the chance to get the sunset. The ship photographed is the Bel Espoir II, it was owned by the now dead french father Michel Jaouen who used it since 68. Initially it was to carry young and poor peoples all around the world, giving them the opportunity to discover it while working as crew members, in the 70s they started to carry drugs addicted persons too to help them getting out. They still kept on today (they bought a second ship), even recruiting ex-prisoners for whom the life is hard to restart. The famous La Jument lighthouse. Worldly knew for a picture taken from a helicopter during a storm and where one of its last keeper is seen at the door while a huge wave is striking the lighthouse.

I just tried another launcher themed drawing by working on my favorite of all but... 22 August 2006, Zenit-3SL is lifting-off from Odyssey with the 4465 kg Koreasat 5 onboard. Once again I tried to make some fume effects but I'm still unable to realize them without spoiling everything...