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There are several types of aerial flight vehicles.  There are two that are easily most valuable and safe to those that fly.  This value can be seen by comparing and contrasting the A-10 Thunderbolt II and the T-38 Talon. The A-10 Thunderbolt II is an American single-seat, twin-engine, straight-wing jet aircraft. There were 715 built at a cost of $11.7 million per aircraft. It’s primary mission is one of a close support ground-attack aircraft currently in-service by the United States Air Force. The  A-10, more commonly known by its nickname “Warthog” or simply “Hog”,   provides close air support of ground forcesair support of ground forces by attacking tanks, armored vehicles and other ground targets.

 The T-38 Talon is a jet used for advanced training.  It is a two-seater aircraft that is used by Unites States Air Force, NASA astronaughts, and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.  There were 1,187 produced. It is an aircraft utilized in different Training Squadrons, Training Wings of the USAF, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard and allied national air forces. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s or N.A.S.A.’s instruction astronaut pilots use the T-38 for practicing Shuttle landing techniques. The T-38 is the aircraft of choice for a Shuttle Training Aircraft Trainer for instructing astronaut pilots and mission specialists.

The A-10 aircraft has a Length of 53 ft 4 in (16.26 m), a Wingspan of 57 ft 6 in (17.53 m) if and a Height of 14 ft 8 in (4.47) m.The A-10’s airframe is exceptionally durable. It can survive offensive onslaughts of direct hits from 57 mm armor-piercing projectiles including high-explosives and 23 mm cannon fire.  The A-10 has self sealing modular fuel tanks, and specially modified landing gear.  The cockpit and some of the internal flight control systems are shielded by 900 pounds of titanium armor, and covered by a Kevlar shield.  The A-10’s General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofan engines are located behind the wing near the rear of the fuselage. This is done to lessen the chance of sucking foreign objects into the engine air take.  Their placement also allows the dissipation of heat from the aircrafts engine operation and helps it remain “unlockable” by surface and air to air missiles.

The T-38 trainer aircraft is Length: 46 ft 4.5 in (14.14 m) long, has a Wingspan of 25 ft 3 in (7.7 m), and a Height of 12 ft 10.5 in (3.92 m).T-38 trainer aircraft is constructed of honeycomb material, configured with small protruding wings, and seats the student pilot and instructor in tandem.  The T-38 has two turbojet intakes for engines located at the wing ends, thusly making it extremely maneuverable at low altitudes.  These aircraft are used for weapons training, and are currently undergoing structural overhaul and technological avionics modifications to extend their service life to 2020.  Over 50,000 pilots have trained in this aircraft.

Thrust is given to the A-10 Thunderbolt by Two General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofans providing 9,065 pounds per engine.  The A-1o Thunderbolt is armed with one 30 mm seven barrel Gatling gun.  Its top speed is 420 MPH (Mach 0.56) and has a range of 800 miles.  

While the T-38 is powered by Two General Electric J85-GE-5 turbojet engines with afterburners that produce 2,900 pounds. The T-38 has no armament.  It can fly at a top speed of 812 MOH for 1,0000 miles.

   Both of these aircrafts are exponentially capable and superior aircraft. Their most interesting and most positive benefits are their manuvureabilty, overall enduring fortification qualities, their battlefield versatility and their upgradedibilty. Their absolute nessitiy and overall importance to the many different countries that use this aircraft as an actual flight training vehicle is very understandable; especially to the fortunate pilots that have made battlefield accomplishments and completed the transmission to orbital space flight.

    There’s this global thought process, I think, where queer people apparently need to be in urban areas so that they can find other queer people and go to their parties.  To a certain extent, I agree with that – I wouldn’t have missed living in Cape Town, London, Johannesburg, Edinburgh etc for the world.  Sometimes I miss being able to just relax with my tribe, although these days I prefer restaurants and bars to nightclubs.  Then again, I’m not on the pull any more.

The internet makes a big difference too; I hate phones and love the written word, so text-based communication is great and keeps me up to date with the scene in general and my close friends in particular.  I should mention here that I live in an area devoid of any form of broadband net access, but hey, us coastal types are slow anyway, right?

My own life seems a little unreal even to me sometimes.  I’ve seen whales from my stoep a lot over the past few months and dolphins when I walk the dogs on the beach.  Yesterday I went to work and got distracted photographing a warthog.  It’s a good sort of a lifestyle if you’re something of a hermit (and I am).

Occasionally I see one other lesbian – there used to be a pair in the next village, but I heard on the straightvine that they had a nasty breakup.  That makes a whole one incident of dyke drama in the year I’ve been here. 

My social calendar and pockets might be fairly empty down here, but my heart’s full and that’s not a bad trade.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be staring at the sea.