If you had flown into Las Vegas on Alamo Airways in the late 1950s this 1956 Thunderbird would have guided your plane to the terminal.

Cool! I always thought the guide vehicles were boring tractor-like affairs.

So, as summer settles in, here's a nice cool scene to remind us of what we're (not) missing:



(Of course, those down under may be seeing way too much of this at the moment)

I have had to move out of my house while it is being rebuilt, Victor seems to like it here as it's quiet and has plenty of gardens.

Plants are persistent!

There's quite a story behind this Cessna 172. It holds the record for the longest manned, refueled flight of 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes, 5 seconds. The Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas sponsored the flight, as two men stayed aloft while they were refueled and resupplied from a truck that raced underneath them at intervals. The pilots dropped a hose to the truck which then pumped fuel to the plane (that silver thing under the cockpit is an external fuel tank); they also had a winch to lower a basket to be filled with food and supplies. The flight lasted from December 4, 1958 to February 7, 1959. On Christmas day the hotel sent over a turkey dinner to be uplifted to the men.

The Thunderbird in the picture I put up yesterday also figured into it, as a passenger in the T-Bird, which maneuvered under the plane, used a paint roller with a long handle to paint the plane's tire treads white so it could be proven that they didn't land surreptitiously during the flight. The plane now hangs from the ceiling of McCarran Airport's Terminal 1, very near the walkway where the T-Bird is parked.

"Sacre bleu! Invaders!" (Lumiere, from "Beauty and the Beast")



Pretty darn brazen invaders, at that.

Tower blocks in Acton

In the woods near Hanging Rock, NC

A footbridge over the main road in Richmond.