When I was working at NASA/Ames on Moffett Field in California, Clinton came to give a speech in Mountain View. Being the closest military airfield, Air Force One landed there. We expected a motorcade to close the base down but he ended up taking a helicopter. Just like in the video, two Blackhawks (which were a common sight on Moffett, but not usually green) lifted off and flew really fast and low away towards Mountain View.

AF1 stayed overnight, and had floodlights positioned all around it so that nobody could sneak up unnoticed. We were on the other side of a chain link fence near the blimp hanger, but we got within a few hundred meters of the plane. Really neat.

Thanks! Shifty Sifty...

*kill double post

First time I did a big air, I didn't commit, burned too much speed, and landed on the flat. Knee to the chin, bit through my tongue.

I heard a *wilhelm!

Upvote just for a proper Wilhelm.

I noticed that too. Sad that it's fake, it looked plausible and his intonation would have been really impressive.

It sounds like a bunch of Videosift regulars are from the SF bay area. I grew up in SJ, worked at NASA/Ames for a few years, had friends at Berkeley and IBM research and Cisco and Apple and... yeah, small world.

Very interesting (to probably nobody except me): this video sounds like it's narrated by a native, but I think it's not. He pronounces Marin County like "MAIR-in", but everyone I've ever met in and around the SF Bay Area says "mah-RIN". Like my mom who was born there. Also: "berk-eh-ley"? It's pronounced "berk-ley"!

/rant

And U-Boats...

Definitely don't try this at home. He has a snorkel so his engine won't ingest water and hydrolock, cracking the cylinders and ruining the engine. A normal car would be done in that much water. Some sports cars with a low cold air intake pipe can't even drive through puddles.

This is 50% of a good video. The first half presents actual facts, which make a strong case that classic dogfighters are being made obsolete by very long range, stealthy aggressors. Simply put, fighters aren't fighting the same fight anymore. Muskets and grenadoes are out: rifles and mortars are in.

The second half, however, is propaganda and promises. Describing the goals of a program isn't itself a good defense of the demonstrated capabilities of a program.

It's true that the F-35 is being built to counter advanced technology opponents (Russia and China and their customers), and it's further true that we will probably (hopefully) never use them. This is not an argument against building the F-35, however: Russia and China are building their versions and the US would be at a strategic disadvantage if we effectively ceded air control of every conflict zone to the Russia-backed side. It's an arms race whether we like it or not.

It does feel like we're spending way too much on a overly compromised aircraft, though.

I had an HO scale model railroad as a kid, so at first watching this I thought "neat". Then "whoa". "Holy shit". And at the end... THAT WAS ALL LEGO?!!! Where the hell was this 30 years ago?!!

I can confirm this effect. I drove a Honda S2000 2-seater with the top down in the rain hundreds of times, and as long as I was going above about 35 MPH I never got wet. With the top down, windows up, and the heater blasting, I could drive in the rain at night in winter perfectly comfortably. God I miss that car.

I was hoping for a wilhelm!