Old Sailors' Almanac - Week 31, 2020 (Fluid Design based on percentage of screen platform

First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress on July 28, 1935

First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress: On July 28, 1935, the Model 299 prototype for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress takes off from Boeing Field on her maiden flight. The four-engine behemoth roars down the runway and, as it climbs into the air, is greeted by the rising sun over the Cascade Mountains, which glints off its polished wings. One reporter dubs it a “veritable flying fortress”. The 299 will go on to set a new speed record on August 20 by flying 2,100 miles nonstop from Seattle to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, at an average speed of 232 miles per hour. However, the airplane crashes during later tests.

Boeing Gambles the Company

Less than a year earlier, on August 8, 1934, a circular addressed to Boeing had arrived in the mail from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. The circular contained specifications for a multi-engine bomber that could carry 2,000 pounds of bombs over 2,000 miles. The document asserted that any company that could produce such a plane would receive a production order for at least 20 aircraft. Good news for Boeing and the depression-era workforce, if it could actually be built.

Boeing was in a slump. In early 1934 total employment was 1,700, but by August it was down to 600. The 247 commercial transport was not selling well: Profits were down. By the end of the year the company was $266,000 in the red. Nevertheless, the board of directors voted $275,000 for the design and construction of the bomber, effectively betting the entire company on one project.

A Veritable Flying Fortress

Because a super-airplane of this type had never been designed before, old engineering methods were set aside. In their place, new ideas in aircraft design were implemented - a wing so large that a crawlspace was built in it to allow the engines to be accessible during flight; a flight deck instead of a cockpit, with enough space for a flight engineer, navigator, radio operator, and two pilots; two tons of landing gear; a kitchenette with a hot plate.

“Multi-engine” was a phrase usually used by the Air Corps to describe twin-engine planes, since tri-motors were occasionally submitted. Chief engineer Claire Egtvedt used this phrase to Boeing's advantage and opted for four engines, another innovation. Costs escalated. The board kept the faith and voted in another $150,000 needed to complete the project.

Until maiden flight, the plane was covered in canvas for military security reasons. Newspaper reporters at Boeing Field stood by in awe and amazement as it was unveiled and put through taxi trials. The size and sturdiness of such an airplane had never-before been seen. As the mammoth took to the air, one reporter described the plane as a “veritable flying fortress”, and the name stuck.

Tragedy in Ohio

The Model 299 flew from Seattle to Wright Field, in Dayton, Ohio, on August 20 with Boeing test pilot Les “Cowboy” Tower at the controls. It covered 2,100 miles in nine hours, maintaining an unprecedented average speed of 232 miles per hour.

Flight tests continued under the watchful eye of the Air Corps, with great success. Twin-engines planes from Martin and Douglas were in the competition, but it was obvious to all that the Flying Fortress would be the ultimate winner. Then, tragedy struck.

On the morning of October 30, 1935, the plane took off at Wright Field for further testing. As it cleared the ground, it started climbing too steeply. It headed almost straight up, then fell off on one wing. It sliced through the sky, crashed into the ground, and exploded, killing Les Tower and Major Pete Hill.

The crash was attributed to a gust lock that was still engaged. Although the Air Corps declared that the accident was not due to any structural or design flaws, Douglas ended up winning the contract for 133 B-18 bombers. Fortunately for Boeing, all was not lost. The Air Corps, impressed with the B-17, awarded a second contract for 13 B-17s.

Going to War

Boeing's future depended almost entirely on this contract. Time, being the best test of an aircraft's worthiness, eventually saved the company. By World War II, the Douglas B-18s were relegated to training flights, owing to their slowness and lack of defensive armaments. Meanwhile, the Flying Fortress, through ruggedness and speed, quickly became one of the many “heroes” of the war.

The plane was a hero at home, too. During peak production, more than 200 Fortresses were turned out every month. Overall, Boeing turned out 6,981 aircraft and Vega and Douglas produced another 5,745 B-17s under license, for a total of 12,726 airplanes (Redding and Yenne, 74).

The success of the B-17 led to the creation of the B-29 Superfortress, and Boeing began conceptual work on its B-47 and B-52 jet bombers before the war's conclusion. The B-17 also provided the foundation for Boeing's Model 307 Stratoliner, which in 1939 became the world's first pressurized, high-altitude airliner.

Boeing / Wikipedia / Encyclopedia Britannica / History Link.org / Airman DOD Live.mil / Experimental Aircraft Association EAA.org / Air Mobility Command Museum / First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress on July 28, 1935 (YouTube)

This Day in History July 28

• 1540 Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.

• 1635 Eighty Years' War: Siege of Schenkenschans the Spanish capture the strategic Dutch fortress of Schenkenschans

• 1656 Second Northern War: Battle of Warsaw begins.

• 1794 French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France.

• 1809 Peninsular War: Battle of Talavera British, Portuguese and Spanish army defeats a French force led by Joseph Bonaparte

• 1854 USS Constellation (1854) is the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy, is commissioned.

• 1939 Sutton Hoo helmet is discovered.

• 1942 World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227. In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in a shtrafbat battalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.

• 1943 World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.

• 1942 World War II: A U.S. Army Empire State Building B-25 crash: A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.

• 1957 Heavy rain and a mudslide in Isahaya, Japan, kills 992.

• 1976 Tangshan earthquake: measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 moment magnitude flattens Tangshan in the People's Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.

Understanding Military Terminology

Outsized cargo

(DOD) A single item that exceeds 1,000 inches long by 117 inches wide by 105 inches high in any one dimension.

The Old Salt’s Corner

“The Odyssey”

Book XII

“After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into the open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there is dawn and sunrise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to the sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep and waited till day should break.”

“Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I sent some men to Circe's house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut firewood from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and after we had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral rites. When his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised a cairn, set a stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the oar that he had been used to row with.”

“While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got back from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast as she could; and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread, meat, and wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, 'You have done a bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades, and you will have died twice, to other people's once; now, then, stay here for the rest of the day, feast your fill, and go on with your voyage at daybreak tomorrow morning. In the meantime I will tell Ulysses about your course, and will explain everything to him so as to prevent your suffering from misadventure either by land or sea.' ”

“We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong day to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came on dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables of the ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away from the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all about our adventures.”

“The Odyssey” - Book XII continued ...

~ Homer

Written 800 B.C.E

Translated by Samuel Butler

“The Odyssey” - Table Of Contents

“I’m Just Sayin”

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others,

that in the end,”

we become disguised to ourselves.”

“Nothing is impossible;

there are ways that lead to everything,

and if we had sufficient will

we should always have sufficient means.

t is often merely for an excuse

that we say things are impossible.”

“Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul,

whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it.”

~ François de la Rochefoucauld

“Thought for the Day”

“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity,

you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips,

be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”

~ Francis of Assisi

“What I Learned”

“A youthful figure is what you get when you ask a woman her age.”

“Fear gives intelligence even to fools.”

“Most of us know how to say nothing;

few of us know when.”

~ Anonymous

Second Hand News: Articles from Week 31 - July 27, 2020 - August 02, 2020

Coronavirus lawsuits still a concern even if Congress passes liability protections • Republicans call for end to politicizing intelligence on 2020 election meddling • Department of Homeland Security chief calls Democrats' condemnation of law enforcement 'dangerous'

Democrats embrace foreign policy delusions • Department of Homeland Security plane covertly surveilled Portland amid riots • Federal judge denies Oregon AG motion to restrain federal officers in Portland • Judge orders Seattle media outlets to provide officers with unpublished protest videos

MOST READ: Primary source for Christopher Steele's anti-Trump dossier identified • Filled with racism and hatred: Louie Gohmert introduces legislation banning Democratic Party from Congress • Department of Homeland Security’s deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot 'turned 180 degrees' on working with Trump • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduces amendment to defund Trump 'opportunity zones' • Rep. Ted Yoho resigns from board of Christian organization after clash with Rep. AOC Washington Examiner

Why John Durham Should Release His Spygate Findings Before November • Viral Video Of Teen Discovering Taxes Is A Moment More Americans Need To Experience • NO MORE BETRAYALS: Sen. Josh Hawley Just Set The Standard For Conservative Supreme Court Justices • To Keep Society Functioning, Businesses Need COVID Liability Limits

Associated Press, ABC News On Violent Oakland Riot: ‘Peaceful Demonstration Intensified’ • It’s Time For Congress To Get Serious About Big Tech’s Threats To Individual Rights • FBI Docs: Source For Federal Surveillance Of Trump Campaign Made Up ‘Rumors’ With Drinking Buddies • Obama administration National Security Advisor Susan Rice Spreads Conspiracy Theory About Federal Agents In Portland

MOST READ: ‘Obamagate’ Isn’t A Conspiracy Theory, It’s The Biggest Political Scandal Of Our Time • Why Are House Republican Liz Cheney’s Neoconservative Allies Pretending Her Problems Are About Trump? • New FBI Notes Re-Debunk Major New York Times Story, Highlight Media Collusion To Produce Russia Hoax • New York Times Fudges Data To Claim Huge Spike In COVID-19 Hospitalizations

Legal Docs: St. Louis Prosecutor Tampered With Evidence In McCloskey Gun Case • Black Portland Police Officer Shocked At Racist Things BLM Protestors Scream At Him • The Democrat Party Is Destroying America • Black Portland Police Officer Shocked At Racist Things BLM Protestors Scream At Him

1.5 Million Sign Petition To Shut Down Pornhub For Child Pornography, Sexual Abuse The Federalist

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES: Judicial Watch Sues On Obama Oval Office Meeting – On #Obamagate

“Investigating the Investigators:” Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education for Records about Investigations of Foreign Money in Colleges and Universities

George Soros Funds Campaign of St. Louis Prosecutor Charging Couple for Protecting Home from BLM Protestors

State Department to Purge “Non-Inclusive” Language in Agency Materials; Traditional Nuclear Family, Stereotypical Gender Roles

New FBI Emails – The “Frantic” Targeting of President Trump Judicial Watch

OUTING FAKE NEWS OMISSIONS and DISTORTIONS: Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty broke a Twitter Moment: “Trump and RNC Stop using Ronald Reagan's Name in Campaign” • MSNBC's Biden Backers Demand Voters End Trump's 'Reign of Terror' • Puppet for Democrats: CBS Host Interrupts EVERY Cruz Answer on Stimulus Bill • After 59 Days of Riots in Portland, ABC Claims 'Weeks' Since Protests Were Violence

Task Force Admiral Calls Out CNN’s Jake Tapper for LYING About COVID Testing • CNN Shames Small California Christian Concert as Corona-Threat, But NOT Leftist Protests, Rioys and Looting • MSNBC's Ali Velshi Asks Viewers If They Know They Still Live in America: 'Democracy Starts to Slip' • >MSNBC's Joy Reid Replacement Suggests Trump Bribed Black Supporter News Busters

Mr. Answer Man Please Tell Us: Can Birds Control Their Bladders and Bowels?

Birds don’t have a urinary bladder. Doing away with that is one of the hallmark adaptations of birds for flight, as a urine-filled bladder would weigh them down. They excrete their “urine” as a white paste, resembling toothpaste, mixed with feces, from a single opening called a vent, rather than an anus—although some sources, like the one I quote next, take a little liberty with the terms.

Contrary to another answer already given to this question, one ornithology website speaks of the birds’ “outer anal opening, which is closed by a strong sphincter muscle” (known as the cloaca). From my observations of birds, I feel sure that is correct.

Among other such observations, I’ve often watched the ground-nesting blue-footed boobies in the Galápagos Islands. When they’re sitting on the nest and have to defecate, they stand up, point their tail end away from the sun, and let out a white pasty squirt of mixed feces and urine. As the sun crosses the sky, they face in a different direction hour after hour, like feathered sundials, so the white guano forms a spoke-like array around the center of the nest. I don’t think they could do this if they didn’t have control over an anal (cloacal) sphincter.

I know also that many birds defecate just before they take flight (so do bats) in order to lighten the body a little. In tree-nesting birds (cup nests in branches, stick-nests of hawks and eagles, tree-hole nests of owls and woodpeckers), when the bird has to defecate, it stands up and hangs its tail end over the edge of the nest or outside the rim of the tree hole and lets go, rather than defecating in the nest. When seagulls and terns mob a person or a predator, they hover overhead and defecate profusely on their enemy. These behaviors, too, speak of a sphincter with voluntary control.

Audubon.org / Wikipedia / Encyclopedia Britannica / Science Daily / Live Science / Pet Central / Pet MD / Quora / Can Birds Control Their Bladders and Bowels? (YouTube)

NAVSPEAK aka U.S. Navy Slang

OBA: Oxygen Breathing Apparatus. Used mostly to supply breathing air to shipboard firefighters before civilian firefighter equipment was approved and adopted. Before OBAs the Navy developed and used RBAs - Rescue Breathing Apparatus.

OBE: Overcome By Events. Moot.

OBNOB: Only Black Nuke Onboard. Self-explanatory. Usually only found on submarines due to a significantly smaller number of nukes stationed onboard a submarine vis-à-vis a carrier.

Occifer (derogatory, pronounced “ossifur”): Any officer, especially a junior officer.

Officer's Candy: Urinal cakes.

Officer's Country: The area of the ship where the Officer's berthing area and Wardroom are located; Enlisted men are not allowed into Officer's Country without permission, with certain rating exceptions.

Wiktionary.org

Just for you MARINE

OCONUS: Outside CONtinental United States, as opposed to CONUS.

O-Course: Obstacle course..

OCS: Officer Candidate School, recruit training for officers

O-dark thirty: Very early hours before dawn, See also military time, Zero-dark thirty. The custom of saying “oh” instead of zero has diminished, but remains in this expression.

Office Hours: Administrative ceremony where legal, disciplinary, and other matters (such as praise, special requests, etc.) are attended, designed to dramatize praise and admonition, in a dignified, disciplined manner, out of the ordinary routine. Known as Captain's Mast afloat. An award given during a positive office hours or Mast is known as a Meritorious Mast, a negative office hours with punishment awarded is an example of non-judicial punishment.

Officers' Country: Living spaces for officers aboard ship, or portion of post or station allocated for the exclusive use of officers.

Wikipedia.org

Naval Aviation Squadron Nicknames

HSM-73 Helicopter Maritime Strike (HSM) Squadron SEVEN THREE - nicknamed the “Battle Cats”

United States Navy Naval Air Station - Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, California / Coronado, California / Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron - Squadron Lineage: HSL-43 October 5, 1984 - February 2012 / HSM-73: February 2012 - present.

Where Did That Saying Come From?

“The proof is in the pudding:”

Meaning: To fully judge how effective something is you need to use it for its intended purpose.

History: 'The proof of the pudding' is just shorthand for 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. That longer version makes sense at least, whereas the shortened version really doesn't mean anything - nor does the often-quoted incorrect variation 'the proof is in the pudding'. The continued use of that meaningless version is no doubt bolstered by the fact that the correct version isn't at all easy to understand.

The meaning become clear when you know that 'proof' here is a verb meaning 'test'. The more common meaning of 'proof' in our day and age is the noun meaning 'the evidence that demonstrates a truth' - as in a mathematical or legal proof. The verb form meaning 'to test' is less often used these days, although it does survive in several commonly used phrases: 'the exception that proves the rule', 'proof-read', 'proving-ground', etc. When bakers 'prove' yeast they are letting it stand in warm water for a time, to determine that it is active. Clearly, the distinction between these two forms of the word was originally quite slight and the proof in a 'showing to be true' sense is merely the successful outcome of a test of whether a proposition is correct or not.

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' is a very old proverb. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations dates it back to the early 14th century, albeit without offering any supporting evidence for that assertion. The phrase is widely attributed to Cervantes in The History of Don Quixote. This appears to be by virtue of an early 18th century translation by Peter Motteux, which has been criticised by later scholars as 'a loose paraphrase' and 'Franco-Cockney'. Crucially the Spanish word for pudding - 'budín', doesn't appear in the original Spanish text. It is doubtful that 'the proof of the pudding' was a figurative phrase that was known to Cervantes.

The earliest printed example of the proverb that I can find is in William Camden's Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine, 1605:

“All the proof of a pudding is in the eating.”

It is worth remembering that, as the phrase is quite old, the pudding wouldn't have been a sticky toffee pudding from the sweet trolley, but a potentially fatal savoury dish.

In Camden's listing of proverbs he also includes “If you eat a pudding at home, the dog may have the skin”, which suggests that the pudding he had in mind was some form of sausage. THE OED describes the medieval pudding as 'the stomach or one of the entrails of a pig, sheep, or other animal, stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, suet, oatmeal, seasoning, etc., and boiled'.

Those of you who have ventured north of the border on Burns Night will recognize this as a fair description of a haggis - “the great chieftain o' the pudding-race”, as Burns called it in the poem Address to a Haggis, 1786. medieval peasants, faced with a boiled up farmyard massacre, might have thought a taste test to have been a wise choice.

Phrases.org UK

Science & Technology

Mars 2020 rover to seek ancient life, prepare human missions • How signalling proteins affect wound healing • Diet has rapid effects on sperm quality • Paving the way for spintronic RAMs: A deeper look into a powerful spin phenomenon Phys.org / MedicalXpress / TechXplore

U.S. tests ways to sweep space clean of radiation after nuclear attack • How ants walking backward find their way home • It’s ‘nature’s sports drink’: Ants live off urine on dry Australian island • Top stories: Breakthrough of the Year, 6000-year-old chewing gum, and a monarch mystery solved Science AAAS

Bizarre News (we couldn’t make up stuff this good - real news story)

NASA maps inner Milky Way, sees Cosmic 'Candy Cane'

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Summary: A feature resembling a candy cane highlights this colorful composite image of our Milky Way galaxy's central zone. But this is no cosmic confection. It's part of a set of radio-emitting filaments extending 190 light-years.

This image includes newly published observations using an instrument designed and built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Called the Goddard-IRAM Superconducting 2-Millimeter Observer (GISMO), the instrument was used in concert with a 30-meter radio telescope located on Pico Veleta, Spain, operated by the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range headquartered in Grenoble, France.

“GISMO observes microwaves with a wavelength of 2 millimeters, allowing us to explore the galaxy in the transition zone between infrared light and longer radio wavelengths”, said Johannes Staguhn, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who leads the GISMO team at Goddard. “Each of these portions of the spectrum is dominated by different types of emission, and GISMO shows us how they link together.”

GISMO detected the most prominent radio filament in the galactic center, known as the Radio Arc, which forms the straight part of the cosmic candy cane. This is the shortest wavelength at which these curious structures have been observed. Scientists say the filaments delineate the edges of a large bubble produced by some energetic event at the galactic center, located within the bright region known as Sagittarius A about 27,000 light-years away from us. Additional red arcs in the image reveal other filaments.

“It was a real surprise to see the Radio Arc in the GISMO data”, said Richard Arendt, a team member at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Goddard. “Its emission comes from high-speed electrons spiraling in a magnetic field, a process called synchrotron emission. Another feature GISMO sees, called the Sickle, is associated with star formation and may be the source of these high-speed electrons.”

Two papers describing the composite image, one led by Arendt and one led by Staguhn, were published on Nov. 1 in the Astrophysical Journal.

The image shows the inner part of our galaxy, which hosts the largest and densest collection of giant molecular clouds in the Milky Way. These vast, cool clouds contain enough dense gas and dust to form tens of millions of stars like the Sun. The view spans a part of the sky about 1.6 degrees across -- equivalent to roughly three times the apparent size of the Moon -- or about 750 light-years wide.

To make the image, the team acquired GISMO data, shown in green, in April and November 2012. They then used archival observations from the European Space Agency's Herschel satellite to model the far-infrared glow of cold dust, which they then subtracted from the GISMO data. Next, they added, in blue, existing 850-micrometer infrared data from the SCUBA-2 instrument on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope near the summit of Maunakea, Hawaii. Finally, they added, in red, archival longer-wavelength 19.5-centimeter radio observations from the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, located near Socorro, New Mexico. The higher-resolution infrared and radio data were then processed to match the lower-resolution GISMO observations.

The resulting image essentially color codes different emission mechanisms.

Blue and cyan features reveal cold dust in molecular clouds where star formation is still in its infancy. Yellow features, such as the Arches filaments making up the candy cane's handle and the Sagittarius B1 molecular cloud, reveal the presence of ionized gas and show well-developed star factories; this light comes from electrons that are slowed but not captured by gas ions, a process also known as free-free emission. Red and orange regions show areas where synchrotron emission occurs, such as in the prominent Radio Arc and Sagittarius A, the bright source at the galaxy's center that hosts its supermassive black hole.

Science Daily (12/18/2019)