Scooter has a point. The KC-767 would use a lot of foreign parts and the KC-30 would use a lot of American parts, but the perception here in the USA is that the KC-767 is the American tanker and the KC-30 is the European tanker. And in politics, perception is everything.

As for the politics of the issue, consider this:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080219/EDITORIAL/914504228

And the KC-30 might get hit by flak from this story:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2008/02/mil-080207-voa02.htm

Given the political and economic situation, the most likely outcome is (a) buying the KC-767 or (b) extending the KC-135 and leave the problem of a new tanker to a future administration.

Most of the fuel is carried in the wings, so the fuel has to travel further to get to the engines.

And the fuel lines run through the fuselage aft of the wings, which some claimed was a safety hazard in a crash.

…gave a real understanding of how powerful a weapon a gun really is (A sense which I genuinely feel is eroded by Video games)…

The famous shooting expert Elmer Keith — who had a hand in developing the .357 and .44 Magnums — wouldn’t let his children have cap guns for that reason.

The other day, I saw him in a clip from a 1962 broadcast of The Bell Telepone Hour, a weekly television musical program that originally aired from 1959 to 1968. A pleasant surprise since I had known him mainly as a television guest star. He and Barbara Cook (Marian in the original production of The Music Man) were singing songs from the Broadway hits of 1961-62. The image was a bit blurred and the colors harsh — we’re talking about 40+ year old videotape — but their voices were loud, clear, and beautiful.

:confused: The first of a week of stories of high profile breakdowns:

Sean Young checks into alcohol rehab after creating a disturbance at a Hollywood awards ceremony…..Britney Spears escorted by police cars, motocycles, and a helicopter to the UCLA Medical Center after bizarre behavior…..Delta Burke checks into a clinic for treatment of depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and hoarding that “ruined my life.”

And Paula Abdul blaming some of her recent troubles on the lingering effects of her abduction by space aliens.

A thread about her on this forum is appropriate since one of her first big screen roles was a USAF two-striper in The Geisha Boy (1958).

And ironic — her best known character, Emily, the wife of Chicago psychologist Bob Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-77), had a great fear of flying. Then again, their neighbor Howard, an airline navigator, wasn’t exactly the greatest representative of commercial aviation.

Tonight, the American Life TV Network honored her with a marathon of episdoes of that series, starting with one in which she joins her husband’s madcap therapy group on an airline flight to cure them of that fear.

The airliner in the title sequence of Crime Story (1986-88) is a Capital Airlines Viscount. Del Shannon’s rendition of “Runaway” was a new recording for the series.

The series got off to a stong start with a setting in 1963 Chicago. But it took hits in its ratings due to a pair of questionable changes in its time slot (against Moonlighting and then Falcon Crest), a shift in location to Las Vegas, and ever more fantastic stories. Location shooting and period cars and costumes made it expensive to produce. So it got the chop after two years and 44 episodes. The series was later aired for a year on cable on the American Life TV Network starting in September 2005. It’s also been released on Region 1 DVD.

Sadly, Del Shannon did indeed commit suicide, shooting himself in his California home in February 1990. His widow blamed the prescription drug Prozac, which has been linked to other suicides. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nine years later.

Those interested in this thread might want to check this out:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4242974.html

The Aeros design reminds me of Thunderbird 2.

Seriously, the airship’s future might be crimped by a worldwide helium shortage that will get worse before it gets better.