Thousands of original North American Aviation technical drawings undergo preservation and cataloguing, highlighted in museum exhibit. //

In April of 2023, Ester Aube finalized and installed an exhibit at the EAA museum using the drawings and telling the story of the draftsmen from North American and highlighting their contribution to the war efforts. When the collection was initially received from Ken Jungeberg, they had promised to do something to help get the story of the draftsmen out to the general public and get some of the drawings in public view so that people could enjoy and learn. The exhibit will be in the museum until September of 2025. “I chose some, cherry-picked some really amazing drawings to highlight in that exhibit,” says Aube. //

With so many drawings and aircraft to sort through, Aube started the project working on a specific aircraft, the P-51, because both AirCorps Aviation and the many aircraft in the warbird community would get a lot of benefit from such extensive original engineering drawings. At this point she estimates she has catalogued a little over 15,000 drawings just for the Mustang, and has also ventured into the smaller size drawings for the early B-25 models, which will be her next branch to catalogue. “The cataloging process is very labor intensive,” she says. “So I’m cataloging part number and the description, which under normal circumstances isn’t as important. But because this collection contains so many experimental and pre-production drawings, you have to catalog the description because that part number isn’t listed anywhere in a parts catalog or it’s not referenced.” North American did have a part numbering system, but all the pieces of data are needed or else the searchability is difficult. So part number, description, the date it was drawn, name of the draftsman, the material the drawing was done on, and the factory it was made in all are recorded during the cataloguing process. There are drawings from factories in Inglewood, Kansas City, Dallas, and even some from the Canadian Car Foundry in Ontario, Canada’s largest aircraft manufacturer during World War II.

Ken Jungeberg’s efforts saved a vast collection of North American Aviation’s WWII engineering drawings from being lost. In this interview, Ester Aube of AirCorps Aviation shares his story and her role in their preservation. //

During World War II, long before the advent of computer-aided design, thousands of skilled draftsmen meticulously created tens of thousands of engineering drawings for every aspect of each aircraft model produced. These drawings were not only precise and detailed—ensuring different factories could manufacture components to exact specifications—but also works of art in their own right. Without the dedication of preservationists and archivists, many of these irreplaceable documents might have been lost forever. Thanks to the vision of a select few, however, these drawings are being safeguarded—not just as historical artifacts but as invaluable resources for the warbird restoration community. In 1988, Ken Jungeberg, head of the Master Dimensions Department at North American-Rockwell’s Columbus plant, was granted permission to save a large collection of non-current engineering drawings from the company archive. //

In this video interview, Ester Aube, Manager at AirCorps Aviation, shares Ken’s story and her role in preserving these invaluable engineering drawings.
https://youtu.be/eK--vNanN_U

Delta Air Lines is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a grand renovation of the Delta Flight Museum, reopening on April 7. Located at the airline’s Atlanta headquarters, the museum showcases a century of aviation history with expanded exhibits, interactive experiences, and rare aircraft like the Douglas DC-3 and Spirit of Delta Boeing 767.

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is intended to provide a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution as envisioned by the Framers and as applied in contemporary law. Its particular aim is to provide lawmakers with a means to defend their role and to fulfill their responsibilities in our constitutional order.

What role did religion play in Johnson’s life? Boswell tried to present him as a High Anglican Tory and Christians today of a conservative inclination today see Johnson as an antidote to what they consider to be the optimistic rationalism of some enlightenment thinking. //

Nicholas Hudson, in his book Samuel Johnson and Eighteenth Century Thought, sums this up:

Few writers were so knowledgeable or sociable to combine many sides of contemporary thought into an understanding of life distinctive for its humanity and good sense. His learning and complexity make his writings especially useful as the starting point for a broader investigation of eighteenth century thought. [18]

then write up the marketing letter, format it and let it all rip on a Diablo 630 daisy wheel printer. Many, was that thing loud. Made the whole office grimace when I kicked it off. //

Re: Loud printers
You've obviously never used an ICL 1900 lineprinter: these could print at 160 characters per line at up to 1300 lines per minute. The mechanism was based round a hollow drum the full width of the paper with 160 rings of characters, each containing the complete character set. These were organised so that each embossed row had the same character in every position. The embossed drum was installed behind a row of 160 hammers and a inky ribbon the full width of the paper: both paper and ribbon scrolled vertically, though not at the same speed. The print hammers were driven off a very latge capacitor in the printer's body.

The printer was loud enough when printing invoices, etc, but George 3's print driver could easily outdo it. It separated documents by outputting, IIRC, a page throw, a job title, 10 full width lines of 160 asterisks and another page throw: when this happened the printer almost jumped off the floor and made a noise similar to a short burst from a machine gun.

These ICL printers were much louder than any IBM lineprinter I've ever heard running. That's because IBM used train printers: the character set formed a rotating chain running across the paper path and were designed so that only one character could hit the paper at a time. //

Re: Loud printers
Impact printers were getting fairly close to their practical limits in terms of printing speed. There was a flurry of development in the early 1970s to come up with better solutions. Xerox produced something that was kind of a hybrid between a drum printer and a photocopier - a set of flash lamps illuminated the correct characters on a drum transferring their images optically to the selenium copier drum. That got printing up to around 4000 lines a minute. Honeywell introduced an electrostatic system using a dielectric paper that raised speeds to 18,000 lines per minute.

However, it was IBM that developed the first laser printer - the IBM 3800. Its initial version managed only a shade under 14,000 lines per minute, but a later version raised the speed to over 20,000 lines per minute - around 2.8 km/h. With paper running that fast , a laser and a hot fuser unit, suddenly noise was not the only hazard. There's a fascinating training video for operators that shows the massive scale of the beast.

Francos said the order to release the files came directly from the president, and it would be part of a larger Milei project to declassify and release information about the 1970s military crackdown on government opponents, many of whom disappeared.

The government announcement came on March 24, which in Argentina is a public holiday to commemorate the victims of the political strife during the so-called Dirty War. The Dirty War ran roughly between the 1974 death of President Juan Peron and the subsequent 1976 military coup, through to the junta’s fall in 1983.

Peron, who was sent on a 1939 mission to learn about Italian fascism, is an essential figure in the Nazi migration to Argentina. He was a senior member of the fascist government coup that took over the country in 1943. That government declared war on Germany in February 1945, which could be seen as a fig leaf for its true leanings.

In a 1969 interview with historian Felix Luna, quoted by Tomas Eloy Martinez in his Wilson Center paper, “Peron and the Nazi War Criminals,” Peron said he reached out to influential members of the German community to explain that the war was over and Argentina needed to act. “Please understand, we have no choice but to go to war, for if we do not, we will go to Nuremberg.”

Eloy Martinez said Peron told him in 1970 that he orchestrated the effort to collect as many worthy Germans as possible—just as the United States, Russia, England, and France were doing—and because they were technically on the winning side, they would have a free hand.

Peron, who began his first of three presidential terms in 1946, also said he coordinated with Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who had remained formally neutral throughout the war.

Every year, nearly 1 million new citizens are welcomed into the United States through naturalization ceremonies, all of whom must pass the American citizenship exam by answering 6 out of 10 questions correctly.

While 90% of legal immigrants pass the exam, only 36% of Americans can pass it!

The document is about Gary Underhill, a CIA special assignments operative who dropped a major bombshell the day after Kennedy's assassination. This wasn't some conspiracy theorist in a tin foil hat—Underhill was a World War II military intelligence veteran and former Life magazine photojournalist who was linked to high-ranking CIA officials.

On November 23, 1963, a clearly disturbed Underhill made a desperate journey from D.C. to New Jersey to warn friends about a "small clique within the CIA" being responsible for Kennedy's death. A memo with the subject line "Ramparts" (the name of a magazine that featured investigations of the CIA) notes that friends described him as "sober but badly shook."

This is quite telling for someone who was a "perfectly rational and objective person," as his friends described him. //

Less than six months later Underhill was found shot to death in his Washington apartment. The coroner ruled it suicide. //

Underhill claimed Kennedy was about to “blow the whistle” on a corrupt CIA faction involved in “gun-running, narcotics, and other contraband.”

Although the friends had always known Underhill to be perfectly rational and objective, they at first didn't take his account seriously. “I think the main reason was,” explains one friend, “that we couldn't believe that the CIA could contain a corrupt element every bit as ruthless—and more efficient—as the mafia.”

Now, here’s where things get weird. Underhill was found dead months later with a bullet in the left side of his head.

The verdict of suicide in Underhill's death is by no means convincing. His body was found by a writing collaborator, Asher Brynes of the New Republic. He had been shot behind the left ear, and an automatic pistol was under his left side. Odd, says Brynes, because Underhill was right-handed. //

Pat W 48
4 hours ago
I always wondered about Jack Ruby killing Oswald while he was being transferred from the jail. Ruby was a night club owner deeply in debt to the Mafia bosses. Would a grown man with his lifestyle be so "heartbroken" by the death of the president waltz into an apparently unrestricted police area to kill the assassin?. I guess life in prison was preferable to the punishment of not following Mafia orders to shut up Oswald. I remember seeing it live on TV as my father, a NYC cop, jumped up and screamed "He's got a gun"!!!

The question we should all be asking is: what else are they hiding? If the CIA ignored clear warnings about Kennedy's assassination and potentially played a role in silencing a whistleblower, what other deadly secrets are buried in the thousands of pages of files?

There are plentiful documents about the Cuba connection with the CIA because of Operation Mongoose, the plot to assassinate Castro by "the anti-Castro group." The CIA was angry that Kennedy left their anti-Castro Cuban assets unprotected during the Bay of Pigs. And believe it or not, some of those same anti-Castro Cuban spooks were also connected to the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, a break-in that was ultimately used to frame Richard Nixon. Yes, really. //

So why has the information been hidden and redacted for so long? Robenalt believes both President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wanted to rush the Warren investigation to stop speculations about Oswald and the Soviets. They were concerned about triggering World War III.

"They were worried that it was going to be blamed on the Cubans; they were worried it would be blamed on the Russians, and they were not willing to risk nuclear war over all of this," he says. //

Eupher
7 hours ago

both President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wanted to rush the Warren investigation to stop speculations about Oswald and the Soviets. They were concerned about triggering World War III.

Much more likely, IMHO, was Johnson wanted to get the Warren Commission's "work" neatly packaged and wrapped up just in time for the '64 election. And it worked. //

Isaiah53_5
5 hours ago
“…there wasn't enough time for Oswald, armed with a bolt action rifle, ‘to shoot, load and shoot again…’”

I read about this years ago. If memory serves, Oswald fired three shots in about 11 seconds. Critics said it would take longer to shot three aimed shots. They concluded that Oswald fired two shots and another gunman fired the third.

The counter to this argument is to note the shot “clock” starts with the first shot. The shooter would then have 11 seconds to make two more aimed shots.

Keyways, Inc. buys - sells - repairs - trades DEC and DEC-compatible parts.

WE HAVE OVER 75,000 MODULES AND OTHER PARTS IN STOCK.
We now have 30,000 sq. ft. facilities to better serve our customers.

But David Seubert, who manages sound collections at the University of California, Santa Barbara library, told Ars that he frequently used the project as an archive and not just to listen to the recordings.

For Seubert, the videos that IA records of the 78 RPM albums capture more than audio of a certain era. Researchers like him want to look at the label, check out the copyright information, and note the catalogue numbers, he said.

"It has all this information there," Seubert said. "I don't even necessarily need to hear it," he continued, adding, "just seeing the physicality of it, it's like, 'Okay, now I know more about this record.'". //

Some sound recording archivists and historians also continue to defend the Great 78 Project as a critical digitization effort at a time when quality of physical 78 RPM records is degrading and the records themselves are becoming obsolete, with very few libraries even maintaining equipment to play back the limited collections that are available in physical archives.

They push back on labels' claims that commercially available Spotify streams are comparable to the Great 78 Project's digitized recordings, insisting that sound history can be lost when obscure recordings are controlled by rights holders who don't make them commercially available. //

Music publishers suing IA argue that all the songs included in their dispute—and likely many more, since the Great 78 Project spans 400,000 recordings—"are already available for streaming or downloading from numerous services."

"These recordings face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed," their filing claimed.

But Nathan Georgitis, the executive director of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), told Ars that you just don't see 78 RPM records out in the world anymore. Even in record stores selling used vinyl, these recordings will be hidden "in a few boxes under the table behind the tablecloth," Georgitis suggested. And in "many" cases, "the problem for libraries and archives is that those recordings aren't necessarily commercially available for re-release." //

That "means that those recordings, those artists, the repertoire, the recorded sound history in itself—meaning the labels, the producers, the printings—all of that history kind of gets obscured from view," Georgitis said.

Currently, libraries trying to preserve this history must control access to audio collections, Georgitis said. He sees IA's work with the Great 78 Project as a legitimate archive in that, unlike a streaming service, where content may be inconsistently available, IA's "mission is to preserve and provide access to content over time."

"That 'over time' part is really the key function, I think, that distinguishes an archive from maybe a streaming service in a way," Georgitis said.

An ARSC member and IA supporter, Seubert agreed with IA that any music fan wanting to listen to songs "for entertainment purposes" would go to Spotify or Apple Music, rather than IA, which is more for "people who for whatever reason need to take a deep dive into some obscure corner of recorded sound history."

To Seubert and IA fans, there seems to be little evidence that the Great 78 Project is meaningfully diverting streams from labels' preferred platforms. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" is perhaps the most heavily streamed song in the case, with nearly 550 million streams on Spotify compared to about 15,000 views on the Great 78 Project.

For John Morgan, the sky has never just been a career—it’s been a lifelong journey. A journey that has taken him from the left seat of a Cherokee 140 at age 17 to the controls of the world’s last Douglas DC-8 flying humanitarian missions around the world.

As recently as two years ago, there were five operational Douglas DC-8s around the world. Sadly, with the retirement of NASA’s DC-8 last April, N782SP became the sole operational DC-8 after more than five decades of service. Between 1958 and 1972, 556 DC-8s were built at Douglas’ (later McDonnell Douglas) Long Beach, Calif. factory.

That makes John a member of a very elite club in aviation today.

The Vickers VC10 holds a special place in aviation history as one of the most elegant and innovative airliners ever built. Designed in the early 1960s to meet the unique requirements of British overseas routes, it became a distinctive icon of British engineering. Though it never achieved the commercial success of its American counterparts, the VC10 remains beloved for its quietness, comfort, and exceptional performance. It also just happens to be this author’s all time favorite passenger jet. Whilst I never flew on one, I had the pleasure of being around the jet in the UK and Cyprus as an air cadet, as well as seeing the last ‘living’ RAF VC10 displaying a fast taxi at Bruntingthorpe’s Cold War jets display back in 2019. Let’s explore the history of the VC10, its design, legacy, and influence on aviation.

https://dailysceptic.org/2025/02/22/sensational-findings-published-in-nature-blow-politicised-wildfire-climate-scam-out-of-the-water/

Sensational new findings published in Nature Communications effectively blow the politicised wildfire climate change scam out of the water. Far from human-caused climate change making wildfires worse across the United States and Canada, it was found that recent fires occurred at a rate of only 23% of that expected from a review of the previous historical record going back to the 17th century. The researchers note that a current “widespread fire deficit” persists across a range of forest types and the areas burned in the recent past “are not unprecedented” when considering the multi-century perspective. //

These are facts. Fire scars are actual, physical evidence of a historic event, one that, due to stacking historic tree-ring data, can be very accurately dated. The records go back to the mid-1700s, conveniently when European explorers and settlers first came into the various landscapes and started cutting trees for building houses and other buildings - and some of these trees bore fire scars, and some of those structures are still standing.

It's an interesting technique.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56333-8

Quizzical
3 hours ago
You say that this is journalistic malpractice. But many journalists have no other type of practice besides malpractice.

Today is Presidents Day. It shouldn’t be.

It’s yet another example of Washington politicians screwing around with important, organic commemorations that celebrate key national figures in our country’s history for superficial contemporary priorities.

Most recently, in 1968 a Democrat Senate, a Democrat House, and a Democrat president eliminated the national celebration of George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 22. The first president was dead, so he couldn’t object. //

News Flash! George Washington was not born today, on Feb. 17. No president was. He was born on Feb. 22, 1732, in Virginia just in time for his historical calling. He reportedly paid little attention to his birthday. No bouncy tent, no clowns and balloon tricks.

But in 1789, a grateful new nation began celebrating Feb. 22 as a government holiday in Washington, along with July 4th. In 1879, that became the official national holiday. //

The same was true for No. 16, Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12, 1809, the first president born outside the 13 original colonies (KY). //

We did not learn much about the president’s four sons. I suspect because three of them died as children. That and the Civil War would explain their father’s sad face shortly before his murder in 1865 (on the right above). //

But that all ended in 1968.

That’s when Congress turned the third Monday in February into Presidents Day.

Who cares about actual history if you can wrangle another three-day weekend by ignoring it.

The invention of "Presidents Day" from whole cloth has sapped most of the meaning from its observance.

Largo Patriot
31 minutes ago
It's so typical of a federal bureaucracy run by Democrats for the last half century that two of the most consequential presidents in our nation's history have to share a holiday so one black civil rights hero can have his own.

KanekoaTheGreat @KanekoaTheGreat
·
Al Sharpton Asks: Can you imagine if James Madison or Thomas Jefferson tried to overthrow the government?

🙄🙄

9:04 PM · Feb 16, 2025.

One day, our children's children will read American history, and can you imagine our reading that James Madison or Thomas Jefferson tried to overthrow the government? So they could stay in power? That's what we're looking at, we're looking at American history. //

Lisa Steves @theLisaSteves
·
Replying to @KanekoaTheGreat
Thomas Jefferson along with 55 other men committed treason by signing the Declaration of Independence from the British Government. So Yes, I can 100% see Thomas Jefferson overthrowing a government.
10:28 PM · Feb 16, 2025

Almost 70 years ago, the U.S. State Department dispatched a new ambassador to a Southeast Asian nation. As often seemed to happen, the new U.S. official was no expert on the nation, its economy, or its culture. He did not speak the language. And his concerns were more geopolitical and career-oriented. //

Communism at the time of that ambassador’s appointment was the worst threat ever to global democracy. It had already taken over Eastern Europe, prompted the Korean War, and was inspiring guerrilla movements around the world, especially in Asia, where some colonial powers like France still reigned.

Using the American Revolution against Britain as his model for successful guerilla warfare, Ho Chi Minh was succeeding in ousting the French from Indochina, soon to become Vietnam.

It turns out, this story about the ignorant, bumbling new U.S. ambassador was all made up, total fiction. It was the plot of “The Ugly American,” a blockbuster 1958 novel that would shape the thinking of a future president and millions more through a successful movie starring some actor in his 30s named Marlon Brando.

The compelling book by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer was a longtime best-seller. It spoke to a deep-seated American fear, which survives to this day, that the world’s bad guys would be victorious because a naïve United States, geographically isolated from foreign trouble spots, failed to fully accept its responsibility to help other countries and thereby protect itself. //

During and long after World War I, the U.S. produced and sent millions of tons of food to feed war-torn Europe. That effort was spearheaded by an Iowa orphan and mining engineer named Herbert Hoover, who gained international fame.

He also served as Secretary of Commerce and, in 1928, became the first Quaker and last Cabinet member to win election as president.

The vast Marshall Plan to feed and rebuild Europe after World War II cemented a reputation for generosity in the minds of the world and ourselves and a dawning awareness that Americans had a strong self-interest in helping others.

As someone who read Ugly American at the time, I can say the psychological impact of that book was even stronger than the 1974 one for “Jaws,” which unleashed our inner fears of immense monsters just out of sight.

The warnings of Ugly American — that the U.S. had to be smarter abroad — so impressed first-term Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-MA) that he gave copies to every other senator. And then, two years later, he took those impressions with him into the White House with some lethal consequences. //

Just four months into his presidency, Kennedy reversed President Eisenhower’s policy of non-intervention in foreign conflicts. That had kept the U.S. out of fighting in Indochina and Egypt when France and Britain seized the Suez Canal.

Fatefully, in May 1961, Kennedy sent 500 troops to South Vietnam. They were just going to advise the local army, you understand, in its struggle against Communists infiltrating from North Vietnam. //

Fast forward to Afghanistan, 2001. The initial decision seemed reasonable for the U.S. and NATO allies to attack al Qaeda there and the Taliban, which had hosted terrorist training camps for the 9/11 attacks.

But then, once again, mission creep slipped in. //

Three hundred years before Christ, Alexander the Great could not pacify what became Afghanistan. Nor could the British in the 1800s. In 1989, the Soviets gave up their attempt after 10 years.

It took the U.S. and allies 20 years before they gave up and left in a humiliating 2021 withdrawal that Joe Biden's ineptness made worse than necessary.

The Western costs were 2,465 U.S. service fatalities, 1,144 allied and contractor deaths, and $2.3 trillion.

The Taliban won anyway.

Now, we return to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was active there. The goal of President Kennedy, who also founded the Peace Corps, was to unite scattered foreign aid programs in one semi-independent agency under the State Department to promote social and economic progress in other countries. //

There is no doubt, however, that some of the billions distributed by USAID have benefited many millions. The agency helped eradicate smallpox, stemmed the spread of AIDS in Africa, and provides treatments.

The mission was to make investments abroad that would encourage and ignite further progress. Not provide free lunches today but teach literacy so people could get better jobs tomorrow. Help provide clean water and teach better health care, especially for infants and children. Provide nutritional guidance. Improve agricultural methods to boost production and reduce erosion and pests. //

The fact is that although the U.S. is by far the world’s largest provider of foreign aid, such spending only runs around one percent of the total federal budget of $6.1 trillion; in Fiscal Year 2023, it was 1.2 percent. //

A Warning Written for Tomorrow

January 18th, 2021.

The capital of the free world looked like a war zone.

Armed troops patrolled empty streets. Barriers rose like steel forests. And in a quiet corner of the White House, someone uploaded forty-five pages to the government website.

No ceremony. No press release. Just a document dropped into the digital void.

"The 1776 Report"

But Two days later, it vanished.

Scrubbed from official servers.

Dismissed as propaganda.

Lost in the chaos of transition.

And yet, something survived.

What most Americans never knew was that this wasn't just another government report. This was a diagnosis of what was killing the American spirit—and more importantly—a blueprint for its renewal.

Written not for 2021, but for this exact moment in 2025, as things begin to change.

"We have arrived at a point," it warned, "where the most influential part of our nation finds these old faith-based virtues dangerous, useless, or perhaps even laughable."

Simple words. Surgical precision. Like a doctor naming a disease everyone felt but no one would acknowledge.

But here's what made the report extraordinary:

it mapped the exact pressure points where renewal would begin.

Like a military assessment written for civilians like me.

A battle plan disguised as historical analysis.

"The facts of our founding," it declared, "are not partisan. They address the concerns of ALL Americans—every class, race, religion, and region. Properly understood, these facts resolve the concerns and fulfill the aspirations of our entire people."

Critics called this empty rhetoric in 2021.

They should have read more carefully.

Those weren't just words.

They were coordinates, marking exact points where American renewal would begin. //

The sun rises early in Washington. Its first rays catch marble columns that have watched over the capital for centuries. But something's different in these opening weeks of 2025. Something electric. Something unstoppable.

Inside those buildings and institutions being audited and gutted for the first time in forever, a forgotten report's prophecies are finally becoming reality.

Look closer.

The DS meeting its match in digital sunlight.

Critical Theory crumbling against hard truth.

Identity politics dissolving in the face of American renewal.