NAS Oceana is the largest Navy air training base in the country. Hillary and Alex live only a mile from the base. We often see F-18s ripping by low overhead, often on full thrust for takeoff or landing. This is like having the Blue Angels here every day!
What is this antenna? Seen at NAS Oceana near the F18 on display.
Have I really been gone three weeks on this trip already?
Today is Memorial Day so we joined Hillary and Alex at a local gathering of their friends for grilled hamburgers and seafood. We met Tom (local police detective) and Meg (amateur photographer) and many others.
For dinner, Juanita and I drove to 11th Street Taphouse on the big public beach resort area. Highly recommended. And went for an evening walk on the beach. I will never get used to an eastward beach with a westward sunset! It just feels very strange to me.
It was hot today: 95F and humid. I wish I could find a motorcycle route to Seattle that was cool and pleasant, but I must ride through tornado alley to get home. I will leave Virginia Beach and start home on Thursday 6/2.
What if coilguns could be used to disable improvised explosive devices (IEDs)?
I visited a coilgun hobbyist in Virginia Beach to talk about it. He must have the most interesting job in the world. As a Navy specialist in IED disposal he gets to do lots of fun things: jump out of perfectly good airplanes, use the latest weapons, play with explosives and even build IEDs.
The best thing about coilguns is how they dodge red tape at high speed. Today, a Navy technician must requisition shells containing gunpowder or other explosives to do his job. This requires massive paperwork (“red tape”) to track and protect the dangerous cartridges. But if they could use coilguns the “shell” is an inert projectile and that only requires a nearby electrical generator for charging capacitors. The paperwork, if any, becomes trivial for storing and transporting these projectiles.
Disarming an explosive IED is usually done with more explosives. They examine the IED and identify the battery, trigger and payload. This often means taking an x-ray of the IED. The technician figures out how to disable the circuit without setting off the charge. The idea is that a rifle slug (or other projectile) can open the circuit faster than the trigger can trigger it. The disarming must do its job faster than the IED’s triggering mechanism can do its thing; hence, some kind of high-powered rifle is very effective at cutting wires.
A complicating factor are the bullet’s side effects. They must also be careful that firing a gun at the IED does not produce a shock wave or do anything to move parts out of the way before the wire-cutting action begins. Although they would like to get maximum accuracy by firing the bullet from a very close distance, the shock wave side effect can cause problems, so they need to move back far enough that the bullet reaches the IED before the shock wave.
Another complicating factor is the cloud of expanding gas from conventional bullets. There are cases when the disarmament technician would really prefer not to surround an IED with combustible or explosive gas. Yes, really. So in these cases it could be a big advantage to use electromagnetic launchers instead of gunpowder.
It would sure improve safety if electromagnetic launchers can do even part of this job!
What sort of little air museum can be found near the Oceana Naval Air Station? We had no idea, but Alex and Barry had some time without any girls to entertain. As it turned out, the Military Aviation Museum is very, very good!
The airplanes are shiny and spotless. They look new but date from the 30s, 40s and 50s. All of them are kept inside, protected from the elements and ready to fly.
Even the maintenance hangar is gleaming and clean. The floor has been recently painted and everything is in its place.
It was fun to see a BMW motorcycle with sidecar. Should I trade in my own BMW for this one? And I noticed that even the building sports a propeller, but I doubt it can fly!
Today’s ride was in three parts: leisurely picturesque ride across West Virginia, spectacular 105-mile ridge ride on Skyline Drive, then finally a battle with nature to reach Virginia Beach.
This turned out to be 16 hours on the road and 575 miles. Here is how my day went…
Starting in Parkersburg WV and travelling due east on Hwy 50 is a wonderful scenic road through the countryside. First are many miles of smooth divided highway at good speed.
Along the way I saw a turtle trying to cross the road! “Frogger” he is not. I almost circled back to rescue him. I hope he made it.
This almost-freeway road finally gave way to a two-lane road deep in the back country. It winds up and down from valley to ridge to valley again, over and over. This is quite possibly one of my favorite roads to meander of my whole trip. Absolutely wonderful for a motorcycle.
Upon entry to Virginia, I was greeted with a series of road signs:
Our country’s national park system is an incredible treasure of natural resources. Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park is a shining example. Think of it: 105 miles of winding road along a ridge line on the Appalachian Trail. All of it to preserve natural wildlife and it’s all open for our enjoyment.
I paused at the ranger station near the entry for riding tips.
Barry: “Is there any wildlife that may be hazardous to motorcycle riders?”
Ranger: “Pretty much everything is hazardous to motorcycles.”
Barry: “Can you tell me about the bears in the park?”
Ranger: “These brown bears mostly keep to themselves, eating things like grubs and berries.”
Barry: (Makes a Jedi hand motion) “I am not the berry you’re looking for.”
With a park speed limit of 35 mph, it takes three hours to drive the entire length. I took four hours. There are 75 scenic overlooks and I paused at about half of them. Riding a motorcycle makes it very easy to snap a photo without dismounting.
Mother Nature suddenly realized I was almost arrived and tried to make up for lost time. Although I had come over 4,000 miles in mostly mild weather, she turned everything loose in the last 30 miles.
First I was tricked into taking off my rain gear. Although Skyline Drive was 71F and sunny, temperatures rose steadily coming down off the mountain until I reached the freeway’s rest area at a steamy 84F. No rain yet, so I removed my Goretex liner to get a badly needed cooling effect.
This caused the rain to begin immediately. However, Alex said the skies were clear at his place so I rode on without stopping.
This made the rain increase, but it cycled off soon enough that I kept riding. Which in turn made the rain come and go several times, sometimes hard, until I got good and wet.
My full-face helmet is good for keeping my head warm and dry in any weather. I had closed the front vents but figured the rear vents are behind me and therefor no rain could enter. I was wrong, of course. I soon learned that rain can come in backwards and uphill in order to drip slowly down your head inside the helmet. And there is nothing you can do — you can’t touch it, and you cannot remove the helmet or it simply rains directly on your head.
Then it got worse. Once I figured I could handle the rain, the wind picked up. It gusted first from one direction then another. This big half-ton motorcycle felt like a tinfoil ball batted around by kittens. Fortunately traffic was light and nothing came of it.
I had been watching a distant lightning storm rip jagged strips in the sky. Now it became non-distant.
One big flash struck nearby and all the freeway’s street lights and road signs went dark. Too bad this happened just before my turnoff! But my headlight illuminated the overhead signs just enough that I recognized the proper exit and turned off properly.
As if this wasn’t enough, the side street was completely dark, including its stoplights. This was a problem because my instructions were “turn left at the second stoplight.” I guessed where it was (correctly as it turned out) and pulled into McDonald’s.
Enough is enough. I texted Hillary and Alex for a pilot guide car home. In this picture, Hillary’s Dodge pickup pulls in next to Barry’s motorcycle. They were just a block away and brought me in safely.
Today’s elapsed travel: 575 miles and 16 hours of riding.
The morning of Tuesday, May 24th, 2011. It’s now exactly two weeks since I left home, and I’ve ridden 3,688 miles so far.
The plan was to arrive at Hillary’s house tomorrow night but I’m so eager to get there that I’ll try to ride all the way today. It’s about 500 miles from here, including one of the most famous motorcycle routes in the country: Skyline Drive.
The trip has been a whirlwind of travel, camping, meeting friends along the way, and then three days of sensory-overload convention. The Midwest has lots of warm welcoming people, it’s been fun to meet so many, and they sure make the typical Seattle-ite seem cold and aloof.
The convention was fun. A hundred acres of flea market stuff and, although I was somehow expecting a finer quality of crap at the world’s largest hamfest, it was all the usual old trash and I left that part and never went back. The commercial vendor participation was outstanding – every manufacturer had all their latest and greatest. Every top developer and famous technical mover and shaker was there. I shook hands with several luminaries that I’ve read and followed for years. I saw an uplifting presentation by an astronaut. I tried out the rig of my dreams and didn’t like it, so I bought something else.
Raining hard outside my kabin right now. I was planning to leave for a two-day ride to Hillary’s place in a few hours. We’ll see.
