Picture this. East v. West relations have deteriorated to the point where somebody in the Soviet Union launches a flurry of nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) at the USA. Suddenly, as they begin to re-enter the atmosphere over northern Canada, a set of steel hatches behind a...
The city of Jacksonville on the NE Florida coast has been working for almost 10 years on a project to bring the former cold-war guided-missile destroyer, USS Charles F. Adams to the city’s waterfront as a museum ship attraction, and the finishing line is almost in sight....
The National Park Service (NPS) in Hawaii has announced the immediate closure of one of America’s most famous memorials – the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. The closure is due to a “critical structural and safety issue impacting the USS Arizona Memorial dock and visitor loading...
Gulliver’s Gate is a miniature world in Times Square, New York. I love a good modelscape. How did I miss this one? How did I miss this one for a whole year?? It turns out NYC launched its own version of Hamburg’s fabulous Miniatur Wunderland back in...
Virgin Galactic has just successfully tested its new spaceship, Unity. Yesterday’s flight was the first powered flight for a Virgin Galactic spaceship since the fatal accident on a test flight in 2014. VSS Unity took off from their base in the Mojave desert at 8:02am with...
The Henry Ford had a record-setting year in 2017, welcoming over 1.77 million visitors. What is it? Well, it’s not exactly a museum or attraction. It describes itself as a “history destination that explores the American experience of innovation, resourcefulness and ingenuity that helped shape America”. Located...
It seems almost inconceivable that the United States Army doesn’t have a national museum! Everyone else has one. The Marines have one, the Air Force has one, the Navy has one… hell, even Navy Aviation and US Army Aviation have them! Most countries have one. I’ve been...
I had heard of the Japanese WW2 balloon bomb campaign, but until I was reading David Hambling’s new book, Swarm Troopers – How small drones will conquer the world *, I hadn’t been aware that there had been civilian casualties. In fact these were the only deaths...
The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, has been working with Microsoft to digitise the interiors of some of its aircraft. It means that visitors to the museum, and to the museum’s website, can wander through the cockpit and interiors on the Surface Pro tablets carried by...
On 14 May, a Grumman EA-6B Prowler was delivered to the Hickory Aviation Museum in North Carolina from the US Marines Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 1 (VMAQ-1). The Prowler is an amazing aircraft, but not perhaps the prettiest (!) and not one seen often exhibited in aviation...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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