I haven't been in much of a modeling mood lately with the world situation the way it is. I find it sad that despite
all the changes in the world over the last fifty year, some things just seem to be stuck with no end in sight.
Recently I was going through my flight log book from my time in the USAF. Forty years ago I was crew member on
E-3A AWACS aircraft. A log entry got me thinking, "We're still advisories". The entry was for an active scramble on the
27th of August, 1981. We were the primary AWACS alert crew (30 minutes to be airborne) at Keflavik, Iceland. After being
scrambled, we took off at 0328Z, taking station near Jan Mayen island hunting Bears. The TU-95s were detected and successfully
intercepted by F-4s from the 57th FIS (callsign SloeGin 1 & 2). The F-4s escorted the Bears to the south and our mission was over.
The weather had gone down back at Keflavik so we diverted to RAF Lossiemouth, landing at 0904Z. I remember the crew had a good
night, thanks to our 8 Squadron hosts.
Anyway, to think that more than forty years on, there remains an ongoing animosity between the West and the Soviets/Russians, it makes me sad.
I think of how much better things have become for other peoples in eastern Europe and can only wish the same for the people of Russia.
Enough thinking, maybe I'll try some modeling to relax my mind.
Kevin