Remembering Ernie Kovacs, who died in January of 1962… It might have helped had he read Ralph Nader’s book, “Unsafe at Any Speed” – Except that it wouldn’t be published for 3 more years… Still, the book led to the creation of the Department of Transportation and the predecessor agencies of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration… Making driving somewhat safer for all of us…
Today’s adventure kinda goes to show just how well Bunz can evaluate the situation… “It just couldn’t get any worse,” she says, and then immediately it gets even worse…
Let’s see… what kind of missile do you select to engage a plywood flying saucer running on vacuum cleaner engines? Heat signature can’t be very much. The radar return off of plywood has to suck. How do you get a lock? Paint it with a laser designator and guide it in manually? The bloody thing’s all over the sky! Good luck slowing that Falcon down enough to paint a target. Well I guess old fashioned targets require old fashioned solutions. Engage with guns. 20mm Vulcan ought to do the job. Now if they can just get the intruder “aircraft” to do something aeronauticaly sensible for about 3 seconds…
Bunz – the greatest inadvertently evasive pilot in the Negafleet. (I hope she’s keeping her logs up to date.) OMG! What if Katz installed offensive/defensive capability? “Nerf potato guns coming online now captain!”
Indeed, Bill, targeting that flying junkheap with modern weapons might be somewhat of a challenge… the way it’s tumbling, whatever radar signature it has would be constantly changing, and about the only solid metal in it is that Studebaker flathead six, consisting of a little cast iron and aluminum… whose modest exhaust heat signature would also be obscured by said tumbling. The Mz. Snackman arcade game Katz modified for a control panel might emit some electronic noise, but Ghu knows where that might direct a sophisticated modern missile!
How about a Maverick anti-tank missile? It uses Optical guidance locking onto a Target. It’s even thought it could take out a small naval ship. Its original use was to kill tanks.
I wouldn’t suppose that a F-16 would carry those Maverick missiles in an air intercept roll (I could be wrong)… On the flip side, it could be that the Saucer’s metallic paint that shows, once Katz scraped off all the crud, is reflective enough for the F-16 radar to get a lock-on tone… Or perhaps it’s just comic book Physics… In any case, these are Air Farce Guys, they can shoot down anything in the sky! Just ask one, they’ll tell you it’s so!
Katz totally mastered the UFO impossible moving craft tradition. Good for him. And reporting their sighting should be easy for the pilots — “UFO” in great big letters will show up clearly in any photos. What would be left to say?
Late Breaking News Reminder – Bunz and Katz can also be found on Tumblr and Facebook, as part of the “Quagmire Komix Werkz” pages… Just klick on either link to take you there…
Oooooo the Bismarck conundrum! How to hit a Fairey Swordfish, (the old stringbag) moving at the speed of molasses in wintertime, with modern anti-aircraft weapons!
Assuming that command, in some frustration merely says, “fighters just simply force it to the ground!” Will Bunz get to practice the “When the earth stood still” tradition of saying “take me to your leader”? And what exactly is our working definition of “your leader”. The guy who controls all the weapon codes, or the gal who approves all the checks that pay people to actually do things? Each gets to say very reasonably, “I’m co-equal to the other”.
Remembering Ernie Kovacs, who died in January of 1962… It might have helped had he read Ralph Nader’s book, “Unsafe at Any Speed” – Except that it wouldn’t be published for 3 more years… Still, the book led to the creation of the Department of Transportation and the predecessor agencies of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration… Making driving somewhat safer for all of us…
Today’s adventure kinda goes to show just how well Bunz can evaluate the situation… “It just couldn’t get any worse,” she says, and then immediately it gets even worse…
Let’s see… what kind of missile do you select to engage a plywood flying saucer running on vacuum cleaner engines? Heat signature can’t be very much. The radar return off of plywood has to suck. How do you get a lock? Paint it with a laser designator and guide it in manually? The bloody thing’s all over the sky! Good luck slowing that Falcon down enough to paint a target. Well I guess old fashioned targets require old fashioned solutions. Engage with guns. 20mm Vulcan ought to do the job. Now if they can just get the intruder “aircraft” to do something aeronauticaly sensible for about 3 seconds…
Bunz – the greatest inadvertently evasive pilot in the Negafleet. (I hope she’s keeping her logs up to date.) OMG! What if Katz installed offensive/defensive capability? “Nerf potato guns coming online now captain!”
Indeed, Bill, targeting that flying junkheap with modern weapons might be somewhat of a challenge… the way it’s tumbling, whatever radar signature it has would be constantly changing, and about the only solid metal in it is that Studebaker flathead six, consisting of a little cast iron and aluminum… whose modest exhaust heat signature would also be obscured by said tumbling. The Mz. Snackman arcade game Katz modified for a control panel might emit some electronic noise, but Ghu knows where that might direct a sophisticated modern missile!
How about a Maverick anti-tank missile? It uses Optical guidance locking onto a Target. It’s even thought it could take out a small naval ship. Its original use was to kill tanks.
I wouldn’t suppose that a F-16 would carry those Maverick missiles in an air intercept roll (I could be wrong)… On the flip side, it could be that the Saucer’s metallic paint that shows, once Katz scraped off all the crud, is reflective enough for the F-16 radar to get a lock-on tone… Or perhaps it’s just comic book Physics… In any case, these are Air Farce Guys, they can shoot down anything in the sky! Just ask one, they’ll tell you it’s so!
Katz totally mastered the UFO impossible moving craft tradition. Good for him. And reporting their sighting should be easy for the pilots — “UFO” in great big letters will show up clearly in any photos. What would be left to say?
Late Breaking News Reminder – Bunz and Katz can also be found on Tumblr and Facebook, as part of the “Quagmire Komix Werkz” pages… Just klick on either link to take you there…
Wow! They’ve got a Big Mouth Billy Bass, possibly the most annoying toy, accessory, thingamabob ever invented, I love it!
Might be going too SLOW to hit…
Oooooo the Bismarck conundrum! How to hit a Fairey Swordfish, (the old stringbag) moving at the speed of molasses in wintertime, with modern anti-aircraft weapons!
Assuming that command, in some frustration merely says, “fighters just simply force it to the ground!” Will Bunz get to practice the “When the earth stood still” tradition of saying “take me to your leader”? And what exactly is our working definition of “your leader”. The guy who controls all the weapon codes, or the gal who approves all the checks that pay people to actually do things? Each gets to say very reasonably, “I’m co-equal to the other”.
Depends on who’s flying them F-16s… a couple of by-the-book, longtime USAF fighter-jockeys, or some hotshot, trigger-happy ANG cadets?