Posts Tagged ‘air force’

Get To the Chopper! The West Side of San Francisco to be Invaded by the US Military this Morning

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Or so they say:

“This morning from 10-11 am a large military watercraft will arrive on Ocean Beach. This is part of an exercise and is only a drill.”

“This morning 11am-1pm there will be an exercise w/2 helicopters at Sunset Blvd & Lake Merced Blvd. Noise will be elevated. It’s only a drill”

Pick a Door, Any Door: U.S. Military Recruiting Center, San Francisco – Army, Navy, Marines

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

Four signs, foor doors, four different futures for you.

As seen from the sidewalk.

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I don’t know what happened to the Air Force sign…

Armed Forces Recruiting Center, 670 Davis Near Broadway, Just North of the Financial District of San Francisco, CA

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

I’ll tell you, if you like to see people walking around 415 dans l’uniforme, then late 2001 would have been the time for you. Military-types were all over town.

But these days, you don’t see that anymore, for some reason. These days, you need to go down the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in the sleepy North of Financial District area to see men and women in uniform.

See the door on the left? They’re* hiring!

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“Navy Recruiting Station San Francisco
670 Davis Street
San Francisco, CA 94111 (415) 434-0195″

*The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, all of them, and maybe even the Coast Guard

Know Better Your Marin County: Nuclear-Capable Hill 88 Plus the West, Middle, and East Peaks of Mount Tamalpais

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

How many hills do you know of what come with their own Yelp entry?

You ought to get on up there sometime to check it out:

Hill 88 is a wild ghost town in the sky, hidden way up high in the Marin Headlands. It’s on Wolf Ridge, between Fort Cronkhite/Rodeo Beach and Tennessee Valley. You can barely see it from below, and it’s nothing like most of the old little rusty lifeless bunker sites. This is a crazy Cold War mega-complex teeming with tons of crows dancing in the whipping wind above huge expanses of the bay and SF. It’s part of the old Nike Missile program, officially SF-88C. Was apparently the radar and control center (aka the IFC, or Integrated Fire Control area) of the Nike Missile launch site that’s further down the hill to the east.”

So, those are some of the remnants of Project Nike on top of now-flattened Hill 88 in the foreground along with the three peaks of Mount Tam (with the West Peak also flattened by the Air Force) in the background.

As seen from San Francisco:

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Now, you Know Better Your Marin County.

OMG, OMG the “Wings Over Wine Country” Airshow Near Santa Rosa Looks Awesome! Get Tickets Now for August 20-21, 2011

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Oh man, your 2011 Pacific Coast Air Museum Air Show, Wings Over Wine Country, is going to be soooooo much better than the wine-sipping alternative, it’s not even funny.

Check the slideshow, baby! Check the FAQ too. Get your tickets here.

Via Tom Hardin – click to expand

So, take a vacay from your Sunday Punch routine and get out there – let’s hope that B25J will be on hand this year. (Don’t Mess With Texas, or Tennessee, or, well, just don’t mess with 12 machine guns when they’re all firing together.)

See you there!

All the deets:

“Here’s a sneak preview of just some of our 2011 Air Show performers:

  • 7:30 – 10:30 a.m. – Pancake Breakfast
  • 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. – Warbird Photo Hour
  • Radio-controlled model aircraft
  • Opening ceremony with local Police and Fire Departments commemorating the 10th Anniversary of September 11, 2001
  • Eddie Andreini Stearman
  • Greg Colyer “Blue Angels” T-33 Shooting Star
  • Beale Air Force Base Military Flyby
  • World Class aerobatics with Aerobatic Competition winner Vicky Benzing in her beatiful Extra 300S
  • U.S.Air Force Reserve C-17 Globemaster III
    Aerial Demonstration
  • Mass WWII Warbird Flyby, featuring P-40 “Warhawks”
  • Tim Decker Pitts Special
  • Team Rocket
  • Dan Buchanan towed hang glider
  • More Warbirds – CJ-6s & T-6s
  • Greg Poe - MX-2 Aerobatics
  • U.S. Navy F/A-18 “Super Hornet” Aerial Demonstration (tentative)

Broken Arrows: Remembering the Time 50 Years Ago When the Air Force Dropped Nuclear Bombs on Northern California

Monday, May 16th, 2011

The Yuba City B-52 crash that took place about 50 miles north of Sacramento in 1961.

The result was two Mark 39 (or W39, whichever) nuclear bombs tearing loose and dropping on some farmland.

See?

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Let’s hope the Air Force can go another half-century without dropping nuclear warheads on California…

This Giant C5 Galaxy is the Plane that Just Delivered Obama’s Limo to SFO

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

I was headed on down to SiliValley on bidness yesterday and what did I see but this huge C5 Galaxyheading north out of San Francisco International. At first I thought it was an old C141 Starlifter, but no, upon further review, it appears to be a C5 of some sort. Now, I’ve seen military aircraft at Honolulu International HNL (in Hawaii of course, where you can’t drive to the Costco without getting intermixed with active duty military humvees), but never at SFO.

Anyway, you can’t have an Air Force One without a cargo plane or two to come with, right?

Here’s the outside of the flying presidential garage, just after takeoff. It’s a living:

The T-tail is your clue that this isn’t a regular old Boeing or Airbus jumbo. Click to expand

And this is what it looks like from the inside.

Look for photos of Obama’s visit on SFist.com – they’ll be sure to have some shots and reports posted in a timely fashion.

California Academy of Sciences Offers Free Admission to Military, Police, Fire, Teachers Feb 1 to Mar 15

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Does that headline make enough sense? It means that if you are a member of the military (yes, including even the touchy touchy Coast Guard), or a firefighter, or a peace officer, or a teacher, then you can get into San Francisco’s awesome California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park for free over the next month-and-a half:

“From February 1 through March 15, 2010, the Academy will offer free admission to military personnel, firefighters, police officers, and teachers, in honor of their service to our communities and country. To participate, individuals must show proof of occupation and a valid ID at the ticket window. This discount applies to one individual admission only and cannot be combined with other offers.”

Just think, your camera could soon be recording the most-photographed fish in the world:

This temporary program will save you $24.99.

See you there, hero.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Don’t Work – RAND Corporation Study Suports Gays in Uniform

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

You know how to read, right? So have at it – I just found a nice link for you that I couldn’t find last month. Hai, doozo:

Attitudes of Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans toward Gay and Lesbian Service Members

So, the “unit-cohesion” rationale, the concern about risking ”the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability” and all the underlying foundation of Bill Clinton’s antediluvian, pre-Lewinsky Policy Concerning Homosexuality in the Armed Forces is out the window due to changing attitudes over the past couple of decades.

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Or if all that .pdf is too much, here’s the elevator pitch.

(President Barack Obama will end the policy, someday, maybe.)

All the deets, after the jump.

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Marin County’s Hill 88: A Wild Ghost Town in the Sky, and Former Home to Nuclear Bombs

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

This is the view from San Francisco over the Golden Gate – can you see the defunct buildings of Hill 88 in front of the East Peak of Mount Tamalpais? Those buildings were the eyes and ears of SF-88, southern Marin’s very own Nike Hercules missile complex.

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The actual nuclear warheads and missiles were stored at another facility down the hill – you can visit that place Wednesday through Saturday.

What’s shown in this photo above is the radar station part of the base, on the summit, where they had German shepherd guard dogs, machine guns, the whole magilla until the 1970′s. San Francisco also had a similar setup back in the day using the Presidio and Mount Sutro, but that was the smaller, non-nuclear Nike Ajax system and there’s really nothing left to visit anymore.

But in Marin, you can climb up to the hilltop facility of SF-88 whenever you want - you’ll get nice views and you’ll have a chance to see the graffiti.

Come visit Marin’s Wild Ghost Town in the Sky.