Since the Colorado Democrats passed a draconian and totally unnecessary ban on many types of firearms and high-capacity magazines, causing many shooting-related companies to move out of that state, taking their jobs and tax dollar with them, you might be wondering what Coloradans do in their free time now.
I have to admit, that would probably never occurred to me. I'd have probably just gone out quietly to shoot my stockpiled guns and ammo in some remote location and not made a big deal of it. Of course Taylor and her pals don't really sound like gun folks, what with all of the poor judgement and illegal behavior and such. Still, I guess that's what Colorado wants instead of us shooters.
I have to note though that thirty-five rescuers showed up? I suspect that if I was lost in the woods and called for help, even clothed I'd probably be lucky to have Ranger Smith and his dog show up in a day or so. but put out a call for "Naked girl on the trail" and "Shaazam!" Everyone shows up including the garbage man.
And I know--you're like me and you want pics, so here:
Yeah, I might have had to tag aong and lend a hand as well.
But now the big question for Taylor has to be a simple one: How is Taylor going to get any potential employer to take her seriously when she graduates from the expensive school that daddy paid big bucks to send her to? Absent a slot on a reality show, I'm seeing a lot of paper hats and french fries in her future.
So all day yesterday, I sat around reading Forever Flying by Robert Hoover. I should probably not read books like that when I have the keys to an airplane, because I start feeling like I need to do more with it, to push myself a bit. And sure enough, towards evening, I decided that I needed to fly. But I didn't just want to fly, I wanted to do something a bit more challenging. A cross-country flight? A night flight? I've got it! A cross-country flight at night! THAT was what I wanted to do. Let's put some real time in the log book.
I ooked on my maps and decided that Luray, Va (LUA), home of Luray Caverns, was just far enough to count as a cross-country flight. The local flight school uses it for that, and I've never been there, myself. Luray sits down in a mountain valley and a straight flight in would necessitate my hopping over a mountain ridge that I really didn't think would be a good idea to tangle with in the dark, but I did a bit more plotting and determined that if I flew to Front Royal(FRR) first, I could, from Front Royal, slide down the valley to Luray while staying between two ridges, meaning that I would't have those nice dark obstacles in my way if I stayed on my plotted course. As an added plus, the map shows a prominent road between Luray and Front Royal that I could just follow back out as an extra navigation aid. Easy Peasy! So with the flight properly planned and the weather checked, I took off and headed sorta southish.
I've been to Front Royal before. It's a neat little country airport and easy to find if you know where to look for it. I dropped in and made a full-stop landing, intending to grab a snack at their FBO, but alas, it was already closed for the night. I did notice some families of geese about mid-way down the runway as I'd come in though. So on take-off, I made a 10-degree flap short take-off to get up in the air quickly before I reached them. I sure don't need a joust with a big angry bird or a bird strike in a remote, closed airport.
Then it was on down towards Luray, another 20 miles past Front Royal. As you can see, the sun is setting beyond the mountains.
And yeah, I need to get some more glass cleaner on that door panel.
Shortly, I was setting up a landing at Luray, shown here in all of it's metropolitan glory.
I landed, then got out and looked around.
OK, I've seen it all now. No one's here and there's nothing to do. I gave the plane another pre-flight check, called Brigid to say hello, and took a few more sunset pictures.
Then I checked out the pilot-controlled lighting to make sure that I could activate the field lights after dark, called Flight Services for a weather update, looked over my departure path to ensure that there would be no unlit surprises in the way and then sat around and played with my iPhone until full dark. IPhones are handy things at times when you forget to pack a book. (I wish I'd brought the Bob Hoover book...)
Finally it was dark. Real dark, I noticed. Luray proper, just to the east of the airport, doesn't seem to cast a lot of light. So I fired up, turned on the field lights, and taxied out to the departure end of Runway 4. I could no longer discern the ridges a few miles away on either side, but this heading of 040 would have me almost perfectly on course back to Front Royal and points beyond. I just had to lift, keep the city lights below me, and follow the road right back out of here.
I found the error in my plan the moment that I rotated and lifted off the runway--there are no "city lights" there for me to orient on! This is farm country, much of it forested, and the few lights from various houses and cars that I could make out around me really weren't enough to give me a sense of orientation. Damn, this was a lot different from just flying over populated areas at night like I've been doing. "No problem," I told myself. "Just climb, keep the wings level, and fly the plan." And sure enough, as I held steady with the artificial horizon on the console and climbed to the altitude that I knew would keep me ridge-free even if I did go off course, I was able to discern the lights of the town of Front Royal twenty miles ahead. Then it was just a matter of keeping the nose pointed at those lights and staying wings-level in a slight ascent. Easy Peasy!
Once past Front Royal, the Shenandoah Valley opens up into the flat farmland that I'm used to, and I could make out the lights of all of the towns that I know. No worries here. So to build some time, I flew around from town to town for a while, just enjoying the sights below. I talked briefly with a helicopter who was inbound for Winchester as I was leaving that area because I wanted to make sure that, for noise abatement purposes, we knew right were each other was at. (A Cessna smacking a helicopter can make quite a lot of noise, or so I'm told.) Neither one of us manged to spot the other, but with proper altitude separation, we passed each other without incident in the same patch of sky. Finally I brought my plane back into my home airport, set it down, taxied over to my tie-down area, and put it to bed with 2.4 hours added to the logbook, All cross-country time and 1.3 of it night-flight. More importantly, I learned a bit more, and learning is the whole point of trying new things.
OK, it's Saturday night, and time to do what I should have done a few days ago: put some music on, crack a beer and clean "The Pig".
We shot it, and I put it up dirty, meaning to get back to it. I dithered a few days, but now it's time.
I apologize in advance for the crappy pictures. I ran out of batteries for my dedicated camera and I'm doing these off my iPhone. But the music's good. Tonight, we're doing Meatloaf.
And the beer: Yeungling.
Step one: Barrel off. Rotate this little catch 90 degrees and remove the barrel assembly.
Those of you familiar with the older M60's will see some differences here, this being the newer M60E4, or more accurately, the MK43 Mod 0. It's the upgraded version now in use by the Navy special teams. This one started out as a stock model but it was worn out and beat to the point of being unsafe when I got it (and the seller knew it but swore that it was in great shape) so I sent it out to Desert Ordnance, which is the civilian sales side of US Ordnance, the company the rebuilds the M60 for the Navy. They completely rebuilt my shot-out old junker and sent me this one back--a zero-time, brand new gun (with a factory warranty) and fixes for all of the problems that the old M60 was known for. So that being the case, if you are used to seeing the traditional 60, bear in mind that this one's going to be a mite different. And the barrel assembly above is a great example of that. It's tougher, lighter, shorter, and it comes with a fully adjustable front sight post, which means that spare barrels can be zeroed to the gun in advance. Plus, the carry handle is on the barrel, so you can grab it when changing barrels. Also, to reduce the weight of the spare barrels, the bipod is now mounted to the gun, not each barrel.
The buttstock is shorter and lighter, too. But it comes right off, and then you can pull the retaining clip out, take out the buffer assembly, and pull the drive spring out, just like the original.
Then the bolt and operating rod come out. These are seriously improved metallurgically, and good for about 30,000 round each now, instead of being virtually disposable like the old ones.
The top cover and feed guide come out just like always. The top cover is improved now in that is allows the cover to be slammed shut on an ammo belt without damaging it. It also has about 30% more pulling power on the belt.
Next, the retaining spring is removed and the trigger assembly comes off. This also is lighter and improved with the addition of an ambidextrous safety.
So, with the trigger assembly removed from the gun, I naturally turned it upside down only to hear that sound that every amateur gunsmith fears: the clink of some mystery part falling out of it's place before you saw what it was or how it sat in place.
Yep, there on the floor sat the gun's sear. Fortunately function and wear patterns pretty much indicate how it's supposed to be, so after double-checking with the gun's spare trigger pack and having another beer, I put the sear back in where it was supposed to go.
With all of the components removed, all you have left is the receiver with the operating rod tube, rear sight and ammo hanger. It's pretty easy to clean this out.
Then I work on the barrel assembly. The bore gets cleaned and the gas system gets taken apart. Again, many changes to this area. The gas system has a nice retaining ring set-up which eliminates the need for the safety wire that used to be necessary to keep the gun from disassembling itself, and the gas piston has been modified--it can go in either way and still run, so no more worrying about putting it in backwards and creating a 23lb. single-shot rifle like was commonly done with the old style sixty.
Everything gets scrubbed and oiled, and then I put it all back together. Then I had another beer.
Perfect...oh wait--what's that on the floor?
Please God, please don't let that be an M60 part...please.
It was. It was a small plunger, with a spring beside it. I didn't have to be Kreskin to figure out where that came from. Sure enough--a quick check of the spare trigger pack showed me that I was looking at the sear plunger and spring. Yeah, just great. So the trigger pack came pack off the gun and the sear came back out, and there was an empty hole where the plunger assembly should have been. Derp.
Trigger pack re-assembled and re-installed on the gun again, and it passed it's function check flawlessly. Yay, me. Just as well, too. The beer's all gone and I'm starting to feel like a General Motors line worker here. So that concludes our Saturday Night gun cleaning session.
In The Comancheros, Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (John Wayne) is working a deal to get inside a gunrunning gang by stringing along drunken killer Tully Crow (Lee Marvin). But as he and Crow sit down at a card table, he comes face to face with Paul Regret(Stuart Whitman), a man who'd escaped from him following a prior arrest. And Crow's a sore loser.
Florida's Bryan Zuniga still has me laughing every time I see his mug shot.
Bryan jumped out of his car, kicked through a fence, and fled into the swamp to get away from the police, who were stopping him for a traffic infraction last week. He escaped the police officers initially, but ran smack into the jaws of an alligator, which administered a righteous chomping on him.
He managed to escape the alligators as well, but when he went to the hospital for treatment for the gator bites, the police showed up and locked him up for running away initially and for driving on a suspended license.
Go Gators, indeed!
I'm thinking that the police might just want to get a few of these reptiles in place of the usual German Shepherd or Malinois dogs. I know that I'd surrender right quick if I heard them yell: "Come out now or we'll send in the alligators!"
On Monday morning, I and my guests and a few other people we know went to Arlinton National Cemetery to see the Tomb of the Unknowns and the Changing of the Guard.
As many times as I've seen this, I never tire of it; it's always beautiful.
We then walked down to the Columbarium to pay our respects to Captain Ralph Goranson, who was being interred with Honors on this day. Capt. Goranson was an Army Ranger who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944, and he was the real-life Ranger Captain that Tom Hanks' character was based on in the movie Saving Private Ryan.
And I could not leave without checking up on a friend.
The marker is not set yet, and there's precious little grass, but I threw a nickel just the same.
As it turns out, Ed's got some fantastic neighbors.
I didn't even know that General "Boots" Blesse had passed, but there he is, just a few graves away. Like Ed, this man had what it took to be one of America's best.
On the other side, a few more markers away, there's Lt. Colonel Walter Sanders. one of the US Army's most famous Rangers.
LTC Sanders was one of the early advisers to the South Vietnamese in 1962 and he led Rangers and ARVN troops in battle over three tours, He soldiered on through 26 years and was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame in 2004. Again, I hadn't heard that he'd passed and had no idea that he was in Arlington, much less right there.
There are countless others in the immediate area worthy of note as well.
Ed is definitely in good company. And I'll be back from time to time to pay my respects, both to Ed and to the countless other heroes that lie in repose in this hallowed ground.
This week is Police Week, in honor of the men and women of law enforcement who have laid down their lives in service to their communities.
If you're one of those cop haters that seem to infest the internet, go read something else for a while.
On second thought, stick around. Maybe you'll learn something.
In 1962, President Kennedy proclaimed May 15th as National Peace Officers Memorial Day and the calendar week in which May 15th falls, as National Police Week. Established by a joint resolution of Congress in 1962, National Police Week pays special recognition to those law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others.
Traveling down to the LE Memorial Service on Monday night with my houseguests, I was honored to once again spend a few hours in the company of thousands of the finest men and women from around the globe, the law enforcement officers who came to pay tribute to those fallen in the line of duty. And the did indeed come from all over the world. Here we have two officers from India and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer.
The gathering took place, as it does every year, at the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, DC. ON this memorial are the names of over 19,000 law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. Every year, the list grows longer; 321 names were added this year, including 120 who were killed in 2012.
My pictures won't do the memorial justice as it was so crowded just prior to the official ceremony, but I'm going to try to convey just a bit of what we all saw there, including a few of the personal memorial displays set up for specific officers by their family members and peers.
There were thousands of letters, pictures and mementos left, reminding us that each of these heroes was a very real person who left behind loved ones. One such display was that of Atlantic City, NJ Patrolman Thomas J. McMeekin jr..
Just below this, was a small memorial to M.I.T. Officer Sean Collier, murdered by the Boston Marathon bombers.
Officer John P. Kalaman, Centerville, Ohio. He was 21 years old when he and two firefighters were struck by a car while working to rescue people on a crash scene.
Police Officer Luke T. Hoffman, Montgomery County Police Department, Maryland. Struck by a car while pursuing a fleeing drunk driver on foot.
Deputy William Giacomo, Nicholas County Sheriff's Department, WV. Shot by a suspect that he'd just arrested for drunk driving.
Pittsburg, PA Officer Larry Elwood Lasater, Jr.. This USMC veteran was shot and killed while trying to apprehend two robbery suspects. His son was born two and a half months after his funeral.
Deputy Sheriff Kyle Pagerly, Berks County, PA. Deputy Pagerly was a K9 handler attempting to serve an arrest warrant on a fugitive when the suspect shot him with an AK-47. WHen he was hit, his K9 partner, Jynx". tried to drag him back out of the line of fire. Deputy Pagerly had been on the job five years and was a prior US Army veteran and current volunteer firefighter.
Investigator Robert Van Hall Jr., New York State Police. He was a Greet Beret in Vietnam, but he was murdered in New York by two drug traffickers with a sawed-off shotgun.
There were so many more. I couldn't even get near most of them. But they were not forgotten on this day, that's for sure. Police agencies from around the world were represented.
There were horses.
There were motorcycles.
And yes, those are short-barreled M-16 machine guns on those bikes. It's a dangerous job, and our best and most dedicated need the best tools available because they do rush into trouble as everyone else is rushing out.
And there were cops. Thousands of cops. And the vast majority of them came here at their own expense, because this is who they are and this is what they do.
These three troopers came from Alaska.
Hey--I know that one in the middle!
There were speakers, an Honor Guard, and a candle light vigil, with thousands of candles visible for a block in every direction.
I have seldom been in the company of so many great Americans at one time. Probably not since I was last down in DC for Police Week, 2009.
I've got to start making this a yearly pilgrimage. And if you are one of those people who thinks that having a concealed weapons permit makes you the equal of a police officer, you might want to show up as well. Just make sure that you keep your hat in your hand, because you will be in the presence of some of America's truly heroic men and women who have earned the respect of a great nation.
