Of course this does not do the original picture justice.  It is about 24 inches by 12 inches in size so you see a lot more detail.

Ken

Son Of Medicine Man

Hi Everyone,

I found an old aerial photograph of Okinawa that the 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron that my Dad was in had produced.  It was in pretty bad shape so I took it to a local photo shop that had a roller scanner that was capable of scanning it in and did some touch up on it.  I did some more touch up on it when I got it from them.  This is I am guessing around 1964 or earlier:

Ken 

Wow, nice photo, Ken! Since there weren't too many surveillance satellites operating in those days, I suspect this was done by a Habu (SR-71) or maybe a U2. There was a group of SR-71s stationed at Okinawa in 1968, but I'm not sure just when they moved there. Has to be a Habu or U2 since it says it is a mosaic.

Russ

Striker8241

Son Of Medicine Man

Hi Everyone,

I found an old aerial photograph of Okinawa that the 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron that my Dad was in had produced.  It was in pretty bad shape so I took it to a local photo shop that had a roller scanner that was capable of scanning it in and did some touch up on it.  I did some more touch up on it when I got it from them.  This is I am guessing around 1964 or earlier:

Ken 

Wow, nice photo, Ken! Since there weren't too many surveillance satellites operating in those days, I suspect this was done by a Habu (SR-71). There was a group of these stationed at Okinawa in 1968, but I'm not sure just when they moved there. Has to be a Habu or satellite image since it obviously wasn't pieced together from lower altitude shots.

Russ

Thanks Russ.  I know Russ knows where to look but for the rest of you, since you can't see the words very well, to the left of where the large word "OKINAWA" in the lower right, that is Kadena AFB.  You can see the runways.  And above the word "OKINAWA" is Naha AFB (at least it was when this picture was taken, it belongs to Japan now).  At the top right is "Suicide Cliff" where hundreds of Okinawans commited suicide during WWII when we took over the island.  About in the middle on the top is "Yaka Beach" (Rest Center for the enlisted men, at least when this picture was taken).  Further left is "Nago", then the far left is "Okuma Beach" (Rest Center for the officers, at least when this picture was taken).

Russ, I imagine not much changed when you were there from when this picture was taken.  But I am sure much has changed since then!

Ken

Ken:

Thanks for that photo of Okinawa.

Is Kadena big, or Okinawa small? -rhetorical question

Home of the Shtoryu Itosukai Karate style, ironically, developed to

defend against the Samurai.

Dom

Striker8241

Dom

Bockscar

Striker8241

 

 

Does anyone know why the bottom edges of those intakes are so badly scratched?

Dom

 

I've noticed that in a number of pictures of the SEA painted B52s. It may be scouring due to air flow or ice crystals. Below is another picture with the same effects, and you can see the same thing along the leading edge of the wing and the nose of the pylon. It may be that this was a normal result of B52 flight, much like the wrinkled skin along the fuselage. It may be more noticeable here because of the SEA colors.

Well;

Rich isn't the only guy around here with whacky styrene Karma:

I snapped the canopy frame off my F-4P......where did it go.....

Striker8241

Bockscar

Striker8241

Does anyone know why the bottom edges of those intakes are so badly scratched?

Dom

I've noticed that in a number of pictures of the SEA painted B52s. It may be scouring due to air flow or ice crystals. Below is another picture with the same effects, and you can see the same thing along the leading edge of the wing and the nose of the pylon. It may be that this was a normal result of B52 flight, much like the wrinkled skin along the fuselage. It may be more noticeable here because of the SEA colors.

ladder and hooking it onto the rack like that, and he still has half the rack to go, yikes, what did the AF feed these guys for breakfast???

Hey, I gotta' keep asking dumb questions to keep getting all these great BUFF shots....lol.....

Thanks!

Dom

That's right... Pick on the guy with the ball in his brain... LMAO...  What kit exactly.  I may have a spare.

Rich

Bockscar

Well;

Rich isn't the only guy around here with whacky styrene Karma:

I snapped the canopy frame off my F-4P......where did it go.....

Bockscar

Russ, that trooper isn't a real big guy, but holy cow, carrying a 500 lb bomb up an aluminum

ladder and hooking it onto the rack like that, and he still has half the rack to go, yikes, what did the AF feed these guys for breakfast???

Lol, they fed em a lot of SOS and also, that's an extra strong ladder!  Seriously, what he's doing is dangerous enough. He's checking the shackle to be sure the bomb is hung right and secure, and then he'll attach the arming safety wire. They jerk those things back and forth to be sure they're on there tight - if it was to drop, he might not get his arm out of the way in time. And they did fall off occasionally. I was riding launch one morning and we were parked about 30 yards away watching a B52 taxi out of the revetment when a 750-lb bomb dropped off the pylon onto the tarmak. Took a few seconds to get my heart started again once I realized I wasn't dead . Never heard of one dropping while a crew was loading though.

Hi Everyone,

I guess I should poke around on this site more often instead of just inside this group build.  I just now learned about the new Kinetic Models 1/48 F-5A Freedom Fighter that just came out!  Awesome!  I have to have one!  Gimmie!  Gimmie!   

Ken

My dad told me a story of a canberra loaded up with 500's, taxied out, tapped the breaks a bit hard on the end of the runway and one of the 500's clanged onto the ground.

Bah, dont worry about the rest of the site Ken. This threads the most interesting

Scorpiomikey

Bah, dont worry about the rest of the site Ken. This threads the most interesting

  So true!

Where else you gonna' see a 140 pound man lift a 500 pound bomb onto a rack?

I ask you....

By the way, I would hate to see what happened to the guy when that other ladder fell over.....lol

Scorpiomikey

My dad told me a story of a canberra loaded up with 500's, taxied out, tapped the breaks a bit hard on the end of the runway and one of the 500's clanged onto the ground.

Where was this, Mikey?

Ohakea. My partners dad confirmed it for me a few years ago. My dad was a grease monkey, her dad was a cracker stacker.

Nice work guys!

And it's great to see the AH-64 on her feet Mike!

I needed a break from styrene so I spent some time working on one of my 3D projects.  What do you think of this WIP?  It's by no means a final render, but it gives an idea of the design.

Very nice, how long did that take you?

Sparrowhyperion

I needed a break from styrene so I spent some time working on one of my 3D projects.  What do you think of this WIP?  It's by no means a final render, but it gives an idea of the design.

Sums up so many cool designs I always liked.

Uhhhh......need a new movie to go with that......

I'll post some golden oldies I have...

I sure hope the raptor pod can fly independently.......

Well done man.

It reminds me of 'SONICA'.

Of and on, about 2 months so far, w few hours here and there when I had time.  I still have to do a lot of detailing and the engine pods need to be finished.  Then I have to design the skins for the final model, and texture it to give it some detail and markings.

Scorpiomikey

Very nice, how long did that take you?

Ack i hate skins and texturing. My least favourite part.

This is a Firehawk class heavy attack cruiser.  It's the next generation upgrade from my original Sparrow and Sparrowhawk designs.  It's also from the book I am working on.  The ship is close to 5 miles long, and has a crew of over 100,000 including dependent families and civilian personnel.   She is powerful enough to easily destroy an entire solar system.  She's meant to fight ships many times her own size, and win.  She is also a living ship.  Instead of conventional computers, she has a crystalline control entity, which controls all of the ships autonomic functions like life support maintenance etc.  It also works with the crew to manage the other critical functions.  The crystal is an artificial life form, but it is truly sentient and truly intelligent.  The crystals tend to think of the crews as their kids. lol  You can read the rest when I get the first book done.  Baen is interested in the book series, but I don't know.  I am thinking of self publishing the books online initially.

And Dom.  If by Raptor Pod, you mean the forward section at the very front of the ship; That's called the command hull and is the primary control complex for all ships systems.  It also houses military crew's quarters and the Crystals memory and C&C functions.  And yes, in an emergency, it can detach and operate interdependently of the aft "Engineering hull" if that section is damaged beyond repair in battle. 

She also carries 600 Fighters of various types, and other shuttles and auxiliary craft.

The long neck structure connecting the command and engineering hulls is called the Fly Tube.  It is called that because most of the crew of the ship are on 2 Avian species and can fly.  So a large open tube is the fastest way for them to get around the ship.  It also serves an a fully self contained ecosystem with fields of grass, plants, trees and even a small river.  This helps with Life Support and the gardens provide quite a good amount of fresh vegetables.  In the center of the flytube, about half way down, there is a largish building you can't see in this image.  It's called the resource center and serves as a rec hall, social meeting place and school for the ship's children.

As you can tell, I have been developing the book for quite some time. lol

Rich

I managed to get all of the putty off of the F86F, so I just reglued the wings.  With any luck, I should be able to finish it this week sometime.  I tried a trick I remembered from High School science class.  I kept continually freezing and then fast warming the Sabre, and eventually the putty became so brittle, that it actually flaked off without any need  for further sanding.  I hope I got the Dihedral right on the wings when I re-glued them...

Bockscar

Sparrowhyperion

I needed a break from styrene so I spent some time working on one of my 3D projects.  What do you think of this WIP?  It's by no means a final render, but it gives an idea of the design.

VERY COOL Rich!

Sums up so many cool designs I always liked.

Uhhhh......need a new movie to go with that......

I'll post some golden oldies I have...

I sure hope the raptor pod can fly independently.......

Well done man.

It reminds me of 'SONICA'.

Yeh me too, but someone has to do it.  The only issues I am having are some problems with the UV mapping.  It keeps skewing for some reason.  I think it's because of how I prefer to work.  I hate the Vertex Modeler, so I do as much as I can in the Spline Modeler and then convert the individual components into vertex objects before I do their UV map.  I have not had this issue before, so I think it may be some bug that crept into the software somewhere in the last couple of updates.

I use Carrara 8.1.1 for just about everything.  Great software.  And one of the least expensive out there.

Rich

What do you normally use?

Scorpiomikey

Ack i hate skins and texturing. My least favourite part.

I use 3DSMax, Solidworks and Inventor, all of questionable origin. Ive also used Rhino, Promodeller, Zmodeller, Blender etc. Id like to try out Carrara, and Catia.

My main work station at work has Solidworks and AutoCAD LT 2012 on it.

Im mainly mechanical, but i do enjoy playing with 3DsMax occasionally.

UUhh Rich...can I get a hobby space on that thing......

Rich: Super cool! Keep us informed on how the novel goes, sounds interesting.

I've always thought video art like that's cool but I know almost nothing about it.

I'm glad you guys liked it.  Yeh Dom, you'd have a rather large hobby space. lol  

Scorpio, Carrara is a great package and one of the really nice things is that it can directly open Poser content.  So the figures I do on Poser can be loaded right into a Carrara scene.  It can also do animation, although my machine doesn't have the Kahoneys to do that yet...  Maybe on the next upgrade in a few years.  Here is a link to my Gallery on Renderosity.com if you want to see some older stuff I have done.  I haven't updated it in quite some time since I have been too busy Plastic modeling lol.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=sparrownightmare

Hmm, another one i havent used. The list is getting longer dammit lol.

Wow, the Kiwi female shot putter Val Adams has been upgraded to Gold after the Bellarussian girl was found to be doping. From the interviews Val doesnt know weather to be happy or angry.