Thanks. Like I said, I have never seen this first edition. Niven spoke of it in one of his compilations where he detailed his collection of stories: their chronological order, what "series" they belonged to, etc. It is here where he "teased" the reader by mentioning his mistake. He never went into detail, but this was the only obvious place I could come up with.
Another "can't live without" compilation: "Neutron Star", which gives the reader an excellent general education on the Puppeteers, and General Products.
Yes. Rick must have gotten confused by the F-4F that went to Germany which was different than the F4F-x. Something else struck me in that discussion of McNamara. Perhaps he was ticked by the crews referring to the F4D as a 'Ford'. ;)
They did have some part numbers in common though. I was told that hydraulic fittings that say A/N on them orignally meant Army/Navy. I definitely know this was true during WW2 in the field of flying clothing and flight gear. An AN-H-15 helmet was issued to both USAAF and USN crews. The AN-V-19 Mae West was also common to both services and the AN-6530 goggles were used by USN and USAAF flyers.
And the B-1 is the Bone? Probably after his tenure, of course. Wonder how he felt about his belovved F-111 being called the 'Vark?
From my own studies of the era in question, it's evident that McNamara was a little too enamored with intelligence (including his own) and not nearly wise enough. Regrettably, he was part of a cabal of groupspeak in Washington where everyone tended to reinforce everyone else because the truth was just too unpalatable. I'm glad that can't happen in Washington any more.
Hope nobody died of convulsions just now.
And then we come to the matter of designations. Damn tooting, the Phantom was horribly sullied by no longer carrying 'F-110' data plates, nor the trailing 'H'--it became a shit plane, unable to hit targets, killed pilots, was impossible to maintain, subject to 10x cost overruns, and was suddenly much uglier, like a newly ex-girlfriend. That's what history says, right?
Oh, I'm sorry, it doesn't. Same fine airplane, even if you call it an FGR 2 and stick some weird British engines in it. As has been correctly surmised, this was mainly an accounting issue. When the Navy and Air Air Service/Army Air Corps/Army Air Force/Air Force had separate designation systems, the Navy was run by the Navy Department and the Army by the War Department. Once all the armed forces were combined into the Defense Department, the Navy system was an anomaly, and as cool as it might be to the historian or hobbyist, it was finicky because the relative ease with which typographical errors could make a document erroneous or ambiguous. The point was not really to abolish the F-110 designation--that was just the logical fallout of using airframes with substantial commonality in both the Air Force and Navy. The point was to get rid of the Navy system altogether.
I note in passing that the 1948 Air Force designation shifts were much more bothersome. The abolition of the A-for-Attack designation led to the redesignation of A-26s while B-26s were still around, albeit in fast-fading numbers. It has led to a number of errors in the historical account, when people unaware of the ambiguity are not careful about checking serials, or fail to recognize that the Douglas bird was not called 'B-26' during WWII. And theyycertainly weren't thinking of us on rms when they relabeled the F-15 Reporter RF-61C. I see posts entitled "F-15" these days and I get my hopes up, then find out the thread is about some hopelessly overpowered jet. Life's just not fair...
Difficult to vac form without seams too, I would guess! Perhaps a skilled glass blower could handle the job? Then the problem would be reduced to building the innards "ship in a bottle style" through a tiny hole. ...and you would _still_ have problems building the whole set to a consistent scale, due to relative sizes.
Well said Kurt. So there is a bit of a traditionalist in you! I'm not so much a traditionalist that I would say we ought not change anything because that's the way it's always been. On the other hand, I oppose change simply for the sake of change. That is my beef with McNamara and the aircraft designation system. It exemplifies a character deficiency in would-be leaders who don't know how to lead. They mistake shallow, superficial policy changes for substantive and meaningful action.
When I was a lieutenant, the Air Force had this marvelous personnel form called an AF Form 1098. It had combined the functions previously requiring a multitude of personnel forms into one easy to use, common sense form. What a boon to paper pushers everywhere! A great leap forward in reducing the worldwide consumption of trees. Then along came a new Chief of Staff, Personnel. One of the free world's most dangerous creatures, a three star looking for a way to make his mark and get a fourth star. What to do? Address the length and frequency of remote tours? Fight for better pay and allowances? Improve the quality of training? Enhance recruiting and retention? Of course not! Let's take the AF Form 1098 and make it into not one, not two, not three, but four forms! Yes, now we'll have an AF Form 2095, AF Form 2096, AF Form 2097, and AF Form 2098! Four forms to do what we used to do in one! Look what I've done Mr. Secretary! I've made this critical leadership decision and taken the Air Force down the road to...to...to more and better paper! So how about promoting me and let someone else deal with the real problems around here? This is the kind of crap that too often passes for leadership.
This is the kind of leadership we got from Robert McNamara. Yeah, let's standardize the aircraft designation system and make the world safe for democracy and all mankind! Take that you godless communists! If we would all just standardize our aircraft designation systems around the world, we could all get along! And we can put it in our annual report to Congress to show we really are in charge over here! We've got a plan!
OK, we've pretty much savaged McNamara. Who else needs beating up? Jeez, I miss Bill Clinton.
Heh. Just wait till the 2004 presidential campaign gets into full swing. I suspect we'll see plenty of him endorsing whoever the Democratic candidate turns out to be...... ;)
Under the current administration the First Amendment is still intact when it comes to violent comments such as this one as long as it is aimed at Democrats.
It goes out the window when it is applied to one of their cronies, high or low.
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