They’re still pointy. 
As Pat Conroy explained in The Great Santini, his novel about a Marine aviator’s family in the early Sixties South, the Officer of the Day at a Marine installation is (or was, at the time) required to have his Corps-issued Mameluke sword with him at all times while on duty as a badge of office.
The Great Santini (1979) was mostly set in and filmed in Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, SC. MCAS Beaufort is home to four F/A-18 Hornet attack squadrons and two F-35 Lightning training squadrons. These squadrons belong to MAG-31, Marine Aircraft Group 31. MAG-31 was initially commissioned in 1943 and is part of 2nd MAW, the 2nd Marine Air Wing.
MCAS Beaufort was built in 1943 as a Naval Air Station, and since 1960 it has been an MCAS.
MCAS Beaufort hosts a bi-annual air show open to the public. In April 2007, a fatal crash occurred involving an aircraft from the Blue Angels demonstration team during the show. The Blue Angels has finished their show and all six planes were making their final turn to the airfield when LCmdr Kevin “Kojak” Davis, USN, piloting Blue Angel #6, became disoriented by the G-forces of the turn. His airplane flew behind the audience and low over a tree-line, three miles away from air show center. The aircraft slid for two hundred to three hundred yards after it hit the ground. This was followed by a plume of black smoke, which Blue Angel #1 immediately began to circle while the others landed.
This is Kojak’s #6 on the day of his fatal flight. R.I.P., Kojak.
The water tower at MCAS Beaufort bears the label, “FIGHTERTOWN”. MCAS Beaufort‘s nickname is FIGHTERTOWN EAST. NAS Miramar was, when TOPGUN was there, known as FIGHTERTOWN USA.
The Blue Angel is a 1930 film about a teacher who ruins his life due to his lust for cabaret singer Lola Lola. It made Marlena Dietrich into a star for her performance. Emil Jannings had already won the first Best Actor Oscar, though he actually finished second in the balloting to Rin Tin Tin; the Academy did not want to give the award to a dog.
In the 1954 Hitchcock thriller Rear Window, a small terrier is killed in the courtyard where evidence of a murder may be buried. This incident prompts Jimmy Stewart to further investigate the crime. Later in the movie, Grace Kelly remarks "Why would Thorwald want to kill a little dog? Because it knew too much…?”
The Jack Russell Terrier is a breed of small terriers – they have a primarily white coat, though their coats can also contain other colors, and can be smooth, rough, or broken-coated. The breed traces its origin to 19th Century England, where a parson and hunting enthusiast, John “Jack” Russell, bred fox terriers, and created two new varieites: the Jack Russell Terrier, and the Parson Russell Terrier.
A treaty between France and Monaco in 1918 stated that if Prince Rainier did not produce an heir, then Monaco would revert to France. Prince Rainier and Princess Grace had three children: Caroline, Albert, and Stéphanie. Princess Grace retained her American roots, maintaining dual U.S. and Monégasque citizenship.
Never mind — ninja’d.
Although rat terriers have a long history as household working dogs, they were not recognized by the AKC as a breed for competition until 2010.
Rat tail files are tools, files that are thin, long, and round. They are called that because they look like a straightened rat’s tail.
Rat tail files are used to enlarge holes and to increase the radii of curves.
An Episcopal priest told me recently that a pet rat was the most unusual animal she had ever blessed as part of the annual Feast of St. Francis of Assisi blessing of the animals; dogs and cats are far more common.
The word “episcopal” appears in the Asimov Black Widowers short story, “The Curious Omission”.
The Episcopal Church of the United States of America, the American offshoot of the Church of England, is actually an international church, with dioceses in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Venezuela, Cuba and the Virgin Islands.
While the official religion of Haiti is Roman Catholicism, a majority of Haitians also practice some aspects of voodoo. Most of these practitioners also believe that this religion can coexist with Catholicism.
The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo jet fighter first flew in 1954 and was in service until being retired in 1984. Its top speed was Mach 1.52 and it was designed to carry a nuclear bomb. Voodoos flew during the Vietnam War until they were eventually replaced by the F-4 Phantom.
The F-101 was one of a series of fighter/bomber and interceptor aircraft designed and produced in the 1950s and known collectively as the “Century Series”, due to their numeric designation being ‘100’ or higher. These aircraft were:
(the F-100, F-101, and F-105 were designed as fighter/bombers, and the F-101B variant, F-102, F-104, and F-106 were intended as pure interceptors)
There were three others in the series – Republic’s XF-103, which existed only as a conceptual mock-up, as well as North American’s XF-108 Rapier, which never made it past the test prototype stage and did not go into production. In addition, there was North American’s F-107, but that design was cancelled by the Air Force in favor of the F-105 after fewer than ten models, mostly testing prototypes, had been constructed.
-“BB”-
“Century Circle” is a display of the Century Series aircraft at the southwest gate entrance to Edwards AFB. Edwards used to be named Muroc Air Force Base, for Muroc Dry Lake. On 05 June 1948, test pilot Captain Glen Walter Edwards, a Canadian (he was born in southeastern Alberta) crashed and died while testing the “Jack Northrop Flying Wing”, the Northrop YB-49. Edwards was the copilot on this test flight with a total of five crewmen aboard. All perished in the crash
In 1950, Muroc Air Force Base was renamed to Edwards.
On Google Maps’ satellite view you can zoom in and see them. From the North at 12 o’clock and around in a counterclockwise manner, the display contains in order:
F-100 Super Saber
F-101 Voodoo
F-102 Delta Dagger
F-104 Starfighter
F-105 Thunderchief
F-106 Delta Dart
Click on the Satellite View icon (lower left) to see the planes —
King George VI wore Royal Air Force uniform at least once after taking the throne; his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, never did, as far as I have been able to determine.
Dave MacKay, a former Royal Air Force Harrier pilot, was the UK’s first commercial astronaut when he flew into space aboard the Virgin Space Ship Unity. He flew into space on 22 February 2019, when Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity made its second successful flight into space above California. Dave MacKay became the 569th human in space and the first Scottish-born astronaut.
Charles I was the last Scottish-born British monarch.
The monarch butterfly is one of the most recognizable North American butterflies with its distinctive orange, black, and white markings. During the annual fall migration, monarchs cover thousands of miles to their winter homes in the southern United States and Mexico. Since the adult butterfly lives for only 2 to 5 weeks, several generations pass before the return migration takes place the next spring.
Papillon is a 1973 film, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, about inmates at a French prison colony in French Guiana during the 1930s. The film’s name is the French word for “butterfly,” and refers to the nickname of McQueen’s character, safecracker Henri Charrière, who had a butterfly tattoo on his chest.