Official Cool Picture - Video Thread.

[ILexpatriot]

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[General Zod]

I've always thought these were bad ass.

Someone in or near Texas has a Hind and flies it to airshows from time to time. It was interesting to see one up close - especially how huge it...isn't. Photos and video always make them look like these huge, lumbering beasts but up close it's like a minivan with rotors and a tail boom. Not much larger than an Apache - I was really surprised that the size difference isn't that great even though the Hind has a small passenger cabin. I tried to find the pics I took but they're lost somewhere in the portable drive.

 

[General Zod]

Superhornet loaded for long-range ass-kicking...

Sporting 3 AIM-120 AMRAAM's (max. range around 110 miles), 4x AIM-174s (max. range in excess of 200 miles), and then a couple of AIM-9X Sidewinders if they decide to let something live long enough to get within 20 miles. OK, so they're all inert captive carry practice rounds, but still. Also note the IRST pod on the centerline drop tank and the new targeting pod under the left intake.

Snagged the pic from several here:

F/A-18 Super Hornet Appears With Unprecedented Heavy Air-To-Air Missile Load

This is the first time we have seen four AIM-174B very long-range air-to-air missiles on a Super Hornet, along with pods and other missiles.

www.twz.com

 

[striker55]

Took this picture on a morning ride.

 

[Rafe]

Took this picture on a morning ride.
View attachment 473712

Nice cumulonimbus incus.

 

[Chupacabra Hunter]

Apples at the beginning of the packaging process Washington State.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[ILexpatriot]

IYKYK. Darn lucky shot with a POS phone camera.

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[striker55]

View attachment 473719

Went to Baytown TX years ago, when the funny cars took off car alarms in the parking lot went off.

 

[ILexpatriot]

Went to Baytown TX years ago, when the funny cars took off car alarms in the parking lot went off.

The first time seeing top fuel is something you won't forget.. I recommend it to everyone with even borderline gear head tendencies. We usually go on qualifying days because it's half full at best. And we don't care who wins. We're just there to see the spectacle. And one hell of a spectacle it is.

 

[ILexpatriot]

We saw this car go by in St Louis and spent an hour or two searching the grounds for their pit to talk to them. It didn't mean much to anyone in IL, but maybe some folks down here will get it. Read the sponsor above the back wheel..

 

[ILexpatriot]

 

[orbitup]

I used to have a friend whos FIL worked for the company that sprayed the track with whatever and he let me hang out at the starting line during the top fuel launches. It was f'n amazing!

 

[Brains]

View attachment 473724
We saw this car go by in St Louis and spent an hour or two searching the grounds for their pit to talk to them. It didn't mean much to anyone in IL, but maybe some folks down here will get it. Read the sponsor above the back wheel..

Many years back a buddy of mine called me and asked if I could go over to Bumbera's to look at a car they couldn't get running. A pro stock C5 Corvette that would crank but not fire. This was the owner of Lupe Tortilla's car. After a bit of diagnostics I needed to rule out the PCM, and the only spare I could get my hands on quickly was my wife's (girlfriend in those years) Camaro. But that would leave her stranded at work before lunch time, so he said jump in and we ran across to the other side of Hwy 6 to his restaurant, picked up lunch for her, and traded for her PCM. His car fired up just fine with her PCM which was great, but I also determined that his PCM was actually fine. The class he ran had a custom firmware that also required a custom wiring harness because they cleverly remapped the pins so you couldn't cheat by swapping in a tuned PCM. He had prior problems and they replaced the wiring harness with a stock one, which is why it ran with a factory PCM.

 

[striker55]

The first time seeing top fuel is something you won't forget.. I recommend it to everyone with even borderline gear head tendencies. We usually go on qualifying days because it's half full at best. And we don't care who wins. We're just there to see the spectacle. And one hell of a spectacle it is.

Plus the flames during nighttime qualifying, awesome. In the 60's my friend had a top fuel dragster, at the track every weekend. I mixed fuel, packed parachutes and sometimes drove the push car (no starter motors then and no reverse gear).