^ spoiler alert (Holy shit GOT finale <3)

^ Last week Snek suggested I go multi-eyes on the BMPT “terminator” and I know know he is fucking genius. In ifv’s with strange turrets and multiple optics it just makes scene to go multi-eyed even if sometimes it makes it look like the top and bottom half are 2 different entities (They are not, there are just one entity.) I mean, technically, these things have either full 360 or almost 360 scanning range plus FLIR. “eyes” are just something to help communicate with humans a formality, and don’t represent the true omni-sight these vehicles actually have. I find this very alien and very robot-like…

^Ingo plane and ratbat at the California science center in Los Angeles CA 2016

 *Warning large file sizes

http://planesoffame.org/ During the 4rth of July weekend I took a trip down south to LA with last minute mechaphillia guest star Ingo on a military museum tour of epic proportions. Took my car on an 800 mile odometer busting adventure to 5 places over the course of 3 days. On Saturday we went to 2 places: Planes of fame in Chino, and the American military museum in South El Monte with another special guest “She who shalt not be named on this website”.  After dropping off a care pkg and going to breakfast we drove on up to chino and where we were promptly greeted by a B-17 in various states of restoration in front of the building. On that day, they were going to be flying a P-51 mustang after an hour long presentation (we missed it looking around at various things) witch we got to see and I took a movie of just after the startup. This museum is mainly about WW1 and WW2 and their claim to fame is that a good 80% of their collection are in fine working order as evidenced by the German plane being wrenched on in the garage hangar. To me the most notable thing was the p-38 “23 Skidoo” chilling in its own hangar towards the back. Make no mistake this is a rare thing, as there are only 7 of them left in flying order in the whole world. They also had a Sopwith camel (completely covered in canvas and wood) and a Bf-109 pulled from the arctic with the original German paint and bullet holes. While they did have a hangar with a Dempsey (f-86 sabre) plane and a bunch of old Korean war migs, This museum is not really a place to visit if you are looking for more modern offerings (1960’s and up). Its also not the place to go if you are looking for the F7F tigercat likely stored in planes of fame: Arizona. During the summer is suggest sunscreen.. fucking seriously. Because if you wanna look at their boneyard your going to have to venture into the courtyard and walk around in 90 degree heat being irradiated by an unforgiving fireball. I wish I had more time. To do everything we could only spare between an hour and a half to 2 hours per museum just to ensure drive time didn’t fuck us over. I could go on and on about what I saw, the little tortoise shell cat that lived in the maintenance hangar, how small the B-17 actually is on the inside, how fucking colossal the skyraider actually is– but you’re just going to have to go visit and see for yourself. Its worth the trip.

Tankland.com After we had watched P-51 mustang “spam in a can” do its start up sequence and roll out for a couple of flights above the crowd, we followed “she who shalt not be named” out to a little hole in the wall ground unit museum she had volunteered at for 4 years prior. TankLand/American military museum has a lot of kindly folks maintaining the area (witch a guy in the back usually wrenching on an engine or two) and it comes with an assortment of trucks, tanks, tugs, apcs, afvs, and a custom painted arty all waiting for you to gawk at. It has the feel of a pick n’ pull with the quiet effectiveness of a park, complete with shady benches to retreat to. When you consider how much Americans aren’t really known for their ground vehicle museums (Go to Europe or Russia for that) Then you may actually be impressed with what you find. I did not expect to find warship howitzers, and torpedo tubes lined up alongside old Normandy-esque landing crafts. I didn’t expect to see military motorcycles, Saracens, and old staff cars. I did expect the half-tracks, the m3 lee, and the Sherman however. kept thinking “damn, wish cerebral was here.. hed have fucking loved this”. if there ever was a low point of the trip, it was that the star of the attraction: The Sheridan tank was on loan to someone for a film shoot and so, I wasn’t able to see it. Bummer.  We hung around shooting the shit till the heat got to be too much and had to find a hotel room to wash, rest and prepare for dinner.  everyone was invited to lawry’s for prime rib and yorkshire pudding. We fucking splurged until we hated ourselves and headed back to the motel to draw.

^ A gift image to me from our very own curator (Love you H.), as well as some early concepts of another success machine boss monster for Atoll Lab, and the beef I had to kick off the weekend.

http://www.midway.org/exhibits-and-activities?gclid=CMCavbKw4M0CFYqPfgodCz8JuA Day 2 kicked off hard core with a race down to San Diego when we had both determined that there wouldn’t be enough time for Blackbird park and midway in the same day. I had fucked up about a week earlier thinking that fireworks on the midway wouldn’t be a popular event. Figured I had a few more days to buy tickets for and when I found them sold out, kicked myself because That meant that the 3rd was our only day to go do this. Let me just re-iterate something, PUT THE USS MIDWAY ON YOUR BUCKET LIST OF PLACES TO GO VISIT. Let the movies and panorama shots sell this whole pkg to you: Admission is 20$, parking is 10$. Stay the whole God damned day if you can. Outside is a buffet of modern and cold war jets along with an awacs craft and several helicopters (one of which clothes-lined me in the tit). Inside you can get a nice little presentation of world war II planes including a walking tour through the engine room. It was so fun, the exhibits were fresh, well-maintained and shiny. I saw several children loosing their shit in line for a flight simulator ride too. It makes the uss Hornet museum look like a ghetto in comparison (You were right Delta). I was so horny the whole time.. yet time, sunburns, hunger was wearing on us and we did stick around for the bridge tour. This was probably a mistake on our part.

http://www.marchfield.org/ March Airfield along with the midway turned out to be my favorite events of the trip, mainly because they delt in modern-ish planes and also because they had an pristine indoors Sr-71 blackbird for witch Ive fapped too 8 times this month alone. We made sure to get our jankey “joo gonna get raped” motel within 30 minutes of this place because we absolutely needed to make sure we got the California science center and this done on the 4rth witch was our last day together. March was an absolutely pleasant surprise and had as many planes if not more planes then Planes of fame had. Some noticeable shit was the inclusion of a B-29, B-52, B-25, and B-17 all in the same area. along with every notable mig up to the 23. They had a Vietnam helicopter section, and a whole lot more stuff I just didn’t have time to fully look at even with the 2 hours that we spent. Bring sunscreen if you are going to visit, as most of the museum is outside in the burning sun. Most of my attention was devoted to the Sr-71 inside (the one machine i could not leave LA without seeing) and again, I was kinda upset that this museum also did not have an F7F, but it pretty much had a hellovalot of everything else. In coming to this place, ive started to realize that the only way to up the ante is by exodus to Ohio for USAF museum or an AFB airshow. Ingo and I agreed that we need to up escalate the situation, hopefully we’ll be heading east next year to maybe catch us some b1, b2 action before we get to old to walk. Once again, if you are not visiting blackbird park, you should come here for the most biblical Sr-71 experience you will ever have. Had people not been around, I likely would have messed around with my Friend in the wheel wells of one of the Boeing planes.

https://californiasciencecenter.org/exhibits/endeavour-experience/space-shuttle-endeavour When we reached the science museum I practically shat myself that there was yet another blackbird decorating the park on a stand. We had exactly 2 hours left before close however, so we scurried over to what Ingo and I were really interested in: the space shuttle endeavor. Pictures of this too does not do it justice. The darkened room and its giftshop existed under the ever benevolent shadow of this aged space plane so worshiped by adults and children alike. Had they sold pieces of what Snek called “mecha scales” the heat tiles- I would have bought one for Ingo. I wish I could tell you more about our experience here as it was like a similar experience Ive had at the San Fransisco academy of science years ago just without the hard core rush to see everything before doors shut. In another couple of years they are expanding out the aerospace portion of the museum and want to include more aircraft in the exhibit. This will be the most opportune time to revisit i think, especially considering they put an f-117 silhouette in the proposed plans.  we did a few misc. things like petting starfish and gawking as rotting corpses being eaten by carrion beetle worms. Hopefully we will come back some day when we can spend the whole day there. 2 hours is not enough to enjoy something like this.

http://afftcmuseum.org/visit/blackbird-airpark/ By the end of the day, we were too tired to even see fireworks having ran our asses all over town without a solid good nights sleep. We ordered pizza, took down a couple of bottles of wine and shot the shit about life, people, and the future in general. I got to see what it was like to vape from a hand-made rig, and managed to wake my friend up with whimpering and moaning from a Silent Hill-esque shadow-baby nightmare. Overall  we got a lot done, and It will be a memorable experience for years to come. I loathe the fact that i needed to let Ingo go home, especially seeing as (LAX was a bitch to navigate even at 5:30am). In the end, I got to have real LA Mexican breakfast with another friend, and escaped the whole thing with a detour into Palmdale hoping that Blackbird park would be open. I drove that one hour out of my way for nothing, because the gate was shut. So I climbed the sign and took a snap of the BB’s and the U2 dragonlady behind them. If your in the Palmdale area next to the Lockheed aircraft testing facility, Make sure you do it on a Friday,sat, or Sunday. they are not open during the weekend. so sad..

There IS not much else to tell you except that I left the best for last. Please enjoy all of the short 1 minute movies I took during my trip, and do please forgive me shitty speech, I was really excited and exhausted during the trip. MOVIES