Apparently, Islamic State now has an air force. Which is great news for people who like Shetland ponies and chihuahuas, since it seems to be adorably tiny. It's also good news for almost everybody else since, if their comic inability to use tanks is anything to go by, it will provide even more opportunities for sociopathic half-wits to to get themselves killed.
And Wolfe was talking about properly-trained pilots and an elite cadre of test pilots, flying properly-maintained aircraft for a superpower, not semi-trained nutjobs flying poorly-maintained kit recently captured from the motley inventory of a semi-failed state.
By the look of the Reuters vid, the only serviceable-looking planes amid the sea of wrecked MiGs and ancient Delfins are some Czech L-39 Albatroses, as used in the opening sequence of the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.
I'm guessing that this well-paced, but implausible action sequence is how the wannabe Jihadi flyboys see themselves:
The plot of Tomorrow Never Dies, I seem to remember, involves an evil media baron who tries to suck the UK into a war, by manufacturing a deadly pseudo event with a large side-order of propaganda. Just saying.
Being a fighter pilot -- for that matter, simply taking off in a single-engine jet fighter of the Century series, such as an F-102, or any of the military's other marvelous bricks with fins on them -- presented a man, on a perfectly sunny day, with more ways to get himself killed than his wife and children could imagine in their wildest fears.Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.
And Wolfe was talking about properly-trained pilots and an elite cadre of test pilots, flying properly-maintained aircraft for a superpower, not semi-trained nutjobs flying poorly-maintained kit recently captured from the motley inventory of a semi-failed state.
By the look of the Reuters vid, the only serviceable-looking planes amid the sea of wrecked MiGs and ancient Delfins are some Czech L-39 Albatroses, as used in the opening sequence of the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.
I'm guessing that this well-paced, but implausible action sequence is how the wannabe Jihadi flyboys see themselves:
The plot of Tomorrow Never Dies, I seem to remember, involves an evil media baron who tries to suck the UK into a war, by manufacturing a deadly pseudo event with a large side-order of propaganda. Just saying.
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