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Sometimes Gumball can be way too cynical, always fun, but holy shit if it’s borderline nihilistic.

Fucking British humor I swear.  

From the preview of the episode The News. 

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Kc-135

What plane is this

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Britten Norman Islander

This pretty nice looking Tropical birds, sadly is no longer with us after crash landing at San Juan Puerto Rico

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#Art (via timurse)

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The Curse of the DC-10

At the very end of the 60′s, the entry of the Jumbo Jet, the Boeing 747, into the airliner world, heralded a new age of aircraft development, the wide-body airliner, and following the success of this behemoth of the skies, the world-renowned american company Douglas Commercial, legendary for planes such as the DC-3, DC-4 and DC-8, quickly entered in this new market with a brand-new aircraft of their own, the DC-10

Little would they, and really, anyone else know, that this plane seemed to be hopelessly cursed in her early years:

November 3, 1973, National Airlines Flight 27: An uncontained engine failure in the N°3 engine due to vibrations of unknown origin, launched debris at the fuselage of the plane, penetrating it and causing rapid decompression of the cabin area, alongside damage to electrical and hydraulic systems. A passenger was ejected from the hole in the fuselage, and the rest survived as the pilots managed to safely land the plane.

March 3, 1974, Turkish Airliners flight 981: A design flaw in the cargo door resulted in a catastrophic in-flight failure that lead to an explosive decompression of the fuselage, critically damaging the control surfaces and leading to a crash that killed all 346 on board. 

May 25, 1979,  American Airlines Flight 191: Improper maintenance led to the loss of the N°1 engine during take-off, which took with it most of the left wing’s leading edge, effectively destroying its lift ability, which led to a stall and subsequent crash that killed all 271 on board plus 2 on the ground.

October 31, 1979, Western Airlines Flight 2605: Pilot error led to the collision with construction equipment after landing on a closed runway at Mexico City International Airport, killing 72 of the 88 people on board and one person on the ground.

November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901: During a sightseeing flight into the Antarctic, lack of visibility and a dire navigational error by Air New Zealand’s management let the aircraft to fly into Mount Erebus on Ross Island, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board.

1979 would be the worst year of the model, and while safety improved and therefore, crashes heavily diminished after that fateful year, the ugly head of this curse would still show up in the form of two of aviation’s most bizarre accidents:

July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232: Uncontained engine failure on the N°2 (tail) engine due to a manufacturing defect of the titanium used in the engine’s fan assembly, lead to the destruction of the hydraulic systems, rendering the aircraft almost uncontrollable, where the excellent crew on board managed to control her enough with the remaining wing engines via the throttles, leading to a failed landing attempt that nonetheless managed to save 185 of the 296 people on board.

July 25, 2000, Air France Flight 4590: Curiously, the last fatalities brought by a DC-10 wouldn’t happen in the plane itself, but rather, in Concorde’s only crash, as the aircraft was lost after striking an engine thrust reverser fragment that fell from a DC-10 that belonged to Continental Airlines.

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just in case you’re having a bad day, watch this video of an otter eating lettuce.

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celestial-annihilation submitted:

Nose art on a B-29 Superfortress.

Gotta love that name!

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That close call back in 1983

In the late 1960′s an era of the Cold War known as “detente” began, which involved an easing of Cold War tensions between the United States, NATO, and the Soviet Union. Detente, however, came to a close in the early 1980′s with the election of Ronald Reagan. In his early presidency, Reagan was very critical of the Soviet Union, even referring to it as the “evil empire” in several speeches.  When the Soviets accidentally shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, mistaking it for an American spy plane, Reagan accused the Soviets of committing an intentional act of terrorism. Combined with his anti-Soviet rhetoric, the Reagan administration ordered a massive increase in military spending and the largest American military buildup since World War II. As part of this buildup was the deployment of Pershing II ballistic missiles in Europe, a newly designed missile which can reach Soviet cities in half the time as older model missiles. Finally Reagan announced the beginning of the “Star Wars” program, a strategic defense program in which satellite based weapons would intercept and destroy ballistic missiles in space while heading toward their targets. While the Americans intended Star Wars to be an entirely defensive program, the Soviets believed it’s purpose was to neutralize the power of the Soviet arsenal, giving the US every advantage in a nuclear war.

In response, relations between the Soviet Union and United States soured and the Soviets began to prepare for a massive attack by the United States and NATO. In 1982 the Soviet Aerospace Defense Force activated its early warning system called Oko. Oko consisted of a series of 86 satellites which could detect the launch of ballistic missiles by spotting the flash and plumes of missile launches using a very sensitive infrared camera. 

At the time nobody questioned the trustworthiness and accuracy of the satellites except an officer named Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov. On September 26th, 1983 Petrov was in command of the Oko early warning system when suddenly the system computer sounded an alarm that a missile launch had occurred in the US. Petrov, calm and cool headed, dismissed the alarm as a glitch and ordered the system computer overridden. A short time later, the system computer again sounded an alarm warning of five missile launches from the US. Soviet protocol dictated that Petrov had to notify command that launches were occurring, but again Petrov dismissed the alarm as an error and reset the system computers.  For years Petrov maintained that he was certain that the warnings were false, however in a 2013 interview he finally admitted that despite his calm and cool exterior, inside he was full of doubts and scared shitless. Petrov reasoned that if the Americans were launching a first strike, it was doubtful they would do so with a handful of missiles, but rather with hundreds or thousands of missiles. To Petrov, the mere five launches didn’t make any sense.

Thank God Petrov was right, that he ignored Soviet protocol, and that he stuck to his wits. His commanders commended him for his cool reason in the face of nuclear fire and promised him an award. However he was never awarded for his actions because doing so would be an admission that the event had occurred and that there were flaws in the Oko system. As it turns out, the satellites had spotted light reflecting from high altitude clouds and mistaken them for missile launches. The incident was swept under the rug and not made public until after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Lt. Col. Petrov retired early shortly after the incident. Western sources say he was forced into early retirement for his actions, but Petrov denies this, saying he retired for personal reasons after suffering an emotional breakdown. The fate of the world was on his shoulders after all. Ten years later, when his wife asked what he did that was so special, he answered, “nothing, I did nothing.”

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Watch timing mechanism 

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Gut wrenching.

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John Glenn and his battle-damaged fighter jet, Korea, 1953

via reddit

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