onetrack

Every rubber band I go to utilise, generally snaps as soon as I stretch it! I have yet to find a rubber band actually made of durable rubber!

A half-price aeroplane made from plastic cardboard, and held together with sticky tape, and glue from a $2 shop! What could possibly go wrong?

Boeing and Cessna will be in touch with you shortly, they're desperately looking for ways to cut production costs!

I had to close my eyes several times during that video, when I saw the way that Russian laddie uses trimming knives - aimed directly at his fingers whilst cutting!!

He obviously never got taught the old adage - "Cut towards your chum, not towards your thumb!!"

I didn't see the wing attachment method in this video, but in another video, he attaches the wing with two rubber bands! Does this design utilise the same wing attachment system?

KGW - before the WWW, we had a very much lower chance of being scammed, or our personal information being acquired by crims in 3rd world countries, that have weak and corrupt law enforcement.

But in todays world, the criminal gangs operating in the WWW have increased exponentially, thanks to the total anonymity of the 'net, the inability to find those crims - and even if they are found, the inability of our law enforcement to do anything about their criminality.

It's reported that Australians lose $900,000 a day to scammers. Here in W.A., scammers even managed to acquire major house purchase payments, during house purchasing transactions, by hacking computers and diverting funds.

The total value of CC fraud is colossal, the U.S. CC companies lost US$24B last year. We pay for those CC fraud losses in many hidden ways, even though the CC companies tell us they are wearing the losses.

Fraud and ID theft is big business, and it is increasing rapidly year on year - and no Govt., nor any law agency, can do anything to peg it back.

Octave, I am extremely wary of holding any personal information on my smartphone, and I do not use my phone for any banking transactions whatsoever.

I only do internet banking on my desktop, via a separate token system, which provides a high degree of security, as both devices need to be together, to access my account.

The problem with IT and apps and smartphones is the gradual erosion of our privacy, personal details, movements, and permissions, by stealth.

An app, programme or some other IT arrangement is devised and before long the "holes" are found in it, and it is being abused. We are being tracked without our permission as I speak - by nameless overseas corporations.

Do you know how many unknown companies are tracking you right at this moment? No, you wouldn't - it's in the hundreds, and you wouldn't even know the names of the companies that are tracking you.

Download Ghostery and see how much you're being tracked, and your data used without your permission, by companies and organisations you never gave any permission to, to use your information.

Nothing is secure in this world, and even encryption can be hacked. Police depts are supposed to have secure databases, yet corrupt Police access police databases regularly without permission, for nefarious purposes.

I can't wait for the Russian hackers to break into the app and render it nearly useless. Because for every website and app every produced, there are hundreds of IT scammers and criminals and low-lifes, seeking an easy way to scam people.

I am registered with a major Auction House, who were hacked and scammed. The hackers wanted $30M out of this Global Auction House, to regain access to their website.

They didn't get it, of course, but the hackers destroyed the Auction Houses website, and they had to rebuild it from scratch.

But the Auction House went to great pains to tell all us registered buyers, that "our personal details were not hacked, they were secure and safe". What a crock of absolute SXXX!!!

Ever since that Auction House was hacked, I have been receiving at least 50 scam emails a day - whilst previous to that, I was lucky to get a one a month.

I have Mailwasher installed, and spot their sleazy attempts, and "bounce" their scam emails back to them - which only makes them send me twice as many emails!!

Obviously, some thick dropkick with an IQ of about 25, in some sewer of a 3rd world country, is being paid by the hackers to continually try and get through my email defences.

The Vietnam War was the greatest military disaster ever undertaken by the Americans - and it initially started because the Americans backed Ngo Dinh Diem, the corrupt, despotic leader of South Vietnam from 1955.

The U.S. backed Ngo Dinh Diem, because he was Catholic and the Americans thought Diem was the best hope for overturning a Communist takeover of South Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese were initially reluctant to start a war in the South, because they suspected that by doing so, it would mean American intervention.

But Diem turned out to be worse than any Communist or Revolutionary terrorist - he constantly murdered the Buddhists, harrassed them, and made their lives unliveable.

Unfortunately, only 10% of SVN was Catholic, the Buddhists made up about 60% of the SVN population. Then the Buddhists started self-immolating in protest (I can remember these events well, and I wasn't yet a teenager when this happened).

But Diem and his nasty piece of work of a wife, only got worse and worse. Madame Diem referred to the Buddhists self-immolations as "barbecues", such was her lack of humanity.

Ngo Dinh Diem was finally overthrown by his own troops, and executed. He and his wife were hated beyond belief in the South. But John F. Kennedy had already sent U.S. troops to SVN in May 1961, no doubt due to Catholic support.

Things just went from bad to worse, and then JFK was assassinated, only 20 days after Diem was executed. Lyndon B. Johnson ramped up the troop numbers in SVN, on the basis of the false Gulf of Tonkin incidents, and then commenced all out war from there. The Gulf of Tonkin incidents were on a par with Saddams "Weapons of Mass Destruction" - pure fabrication.

It's rumoured that LBJ was merely a puppet of the Military-Industrial Complex in America, and LBJ was also reported as having major ties to the contractors, Brown & Root, who secured massive U.S. Govt contracts in Vietnam.

Brown & Root were well named, they bent the U.S. Govt over and reamed them in every orifice. Massive overcharging on contracts, huge losses of materials (which the U.S. Govt had paid for), and dodgy accounting were just a few examples of the Brown & Root rorting of the U.S. Govt.

Johnson was a warmonger in the best U.S. fashion - but the problem was, he was not skilled as a leader, and the U.S. troops were unprepared for a guerilla war, and gung-ho in their application of force.

The U.S. troops couldn't distinguish between friend and foe, and considered all "Gooks" as sub-standard people, to be shot on a random basis, with little interest as to whether they supported the Americans or not.

Add in General William C. Westmoreland, one of the most incompetent military leaders the U.S. has ever seen - and then add a politically-driven War policy, of utter idiocy, that involved no taking of land, in any military fighting action.

The very basis of War is to fight for, take, and secure land areas. But the Americans would fight on a patch of turf, then retreat to their fortified bases - and do the same thing again, the next day!

Then the American troops were so badly trained and led, they killed and injured hundreds, and possibly thousands, of their own men, in their so-called "friendly fire" incidents. No proper record was ever kept, of FF incidents.

If you want a prime example of how not to run a War, then Vietnam has to be the outstanding example. The worst part is, the Australians had the VC and NVA under control, and largely neutered in Phuoc Tuy Province by 1971 - but all that was thrown away, when Sir William McMahon ended the Australian Forces commitment to SVN in late 1971, under pressure from anti-Vietnam War protesters.

.....soaking wet, after a long session with Mavis, because her stamina was unparalleled when it came to quelling the fires of passion. It generally took Loxie a week to recover after one of these sessions, but the.....

There will be a lot of cheap aircraft when the dust settles, and this will mean a boom in air freight, and more freighter conversions.

There will certainly be a period of probably at least 3 years ahead, when there will be a pilot surplus, and pilot training will be a very subdued business.

If you go to the main Banggood site, you will find they have stores for each country. They have an "Australia" store. The store and its products are obviously not located here, they only have the store section set up to deal with Australian buyers.

There are several models of the Voluntex Ranger, and some are now obsolete. But the current model Voluntex Ranger, available on the Banggood Australia store is the V757-8, with a 2000mm wingspan. It is listed at AU $204 with free shipping.

You will see a heading "13 answered questions". This is the reviews section. Click on that heading and that will direct you to buyers reports. Use Google Translate to translate the foreign languages.

Most buyers are happy, the main problems appear to relate to poor handling in transit, and some minor construction or design faults.

https://au.banggood.com/Volantex-Ranger-2000-V757-8-2000mm-Wingspan-EPO-FPV-Aircraft-RC-Airplane-PNP-p-1151700.html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=AU

The whole story of U.S. Forces brutality in Vietnam is a lot more involved. The North Vietnamese Communists were excellent at indoctrination, to the point of utilising children if needed as combatants.

A little known story of the Vietnam War, is the "Coke girl" murderer. Pre-pubescent girls would sell bottles of Coca-Cola from a little trolley on the street to thirsty G.I.'s.

Then the girl would wait until about 10 G.I.'s were clustered around her, and then lift her skirt and pull the pin on a hand grenade taped to her thigh.

The Mad Muzzies are not alone in practising suicide bombings, it was common practice in Vietnam.

One must never forget the people of South Vietnam did not capitulate to the Communists of the North by general agreement or by any ratified arrangement.

They were, and still are, a people who were overthrown by the most brutal terrorism, called Vietnamese Communism, one could ever hope to not see.

Typical VC and NVA actions were to enter a village that was known to be anti-Communist. They would then slaughter the headman and his whole family in cold blood, in front of all the assembled villagers.

If there were any protests or allied supporters of the headman, they would be slaughtered, too.

Then the remaining villagers would be told that the Communists ruled this village and this part of the country - and that the villagers would be taxed (via money or food contributions) to support the VC and NVA.

This is not democracy, this is brutality and terrorism on a scale with Stalins and Lenins purges of Russia, and the North Vietnamese followed Marxist-Leninist techniques with little modification.

"Modern" Vietnam is a country founded on brutal, ruthless murder and terrorism, on a par with Pol Pot and his ilk.

But Pol Pot is vilified, and the leaders of Vietnam today are treated as worthy leaders, and Western business people flock to deal with them. I find this kow-towing to murderers and terrorists, detestable.

There is no other buy box and no way to contact cheapdrones.

Bruce, your clue is right there, in the line above. All genuine businesses have full contact details and preferably, a physical address listed.

The cheapdrones site is a "come-on" website, set up to redirect you to Banggood and away from Amazon, eBay, and local businesses. They often use reviews copied from other sites and make them look like their own.

Be very alert when buying directly off the internet. Check out the site thoroughly, check out the company with a Google search, check out if they have a physical location.

There are numerous scam websites who have items for sale, who look genuine, but they are simply scammers - they take your money and never deliver the goods.

They can usually be identified by having a wide range of unrelated items for sale. If you search Google images, using the photos of their products, you find the photos of the items are often stolen from eBay.

To call Clive Palmer a "successful businessman" is a joke. He's a real estate pegger and seller, he's made his billions pegging very valuable sections of Australia and selling it to the Chinese for billions.

He makes Alan Bond look like an amateur, in the scheming stakes. Then of course, there's his celebrated legal abilities. Threaten to sue anyone who offends him, then settle out of court, without ever arguing his case.

You can buy Dome shelters that fit between 2 x 40' seatainers. They're very popular with the miners and mining contractors for cheap covered storage.

One of their advantages is that they can be moved or resold easily. This would be pretty important if you wanted to build a hangar at an airstrip where you weren't the landowner.

https://www.domeshelter.com.au/steel-shed-or-dome-shelter/

The best people who should be running the country, are too busy running their own successful businesses. You wouldn't let any politician try to run a sweet shop next to a girls school, they'd send it broke.

.... desire to proceed with any of my plans! She was like a wild animal, I had no hope of controlling any of her actions, and before long.....

Everything about virus control and movement restrictions by the Govts (both State and Federal) has been half-cocked from the word Go.

New legislation and highly punitive penalties were introduced, and the Police administered them on an ad-hoc basis with little understanding, and even less compassion. So much so, a percentage of the fines issued were cancelled.

I got a W.A. Movement Pass between regions, because I'm doing some freight movements. But then I find highways that are not even covered by roadblocks/checkpoints between the regions.

Then I find a roadblock/checkpoint, and it's staffed by a couple of Police and several soldiers. The soldiers are bored out of their brain, because this isn't what they signed up for - to stop people and ask where they're going.

I've downloaded the W.A. Govt G2G app, and I have the Q-code on my phone. So I ask the young soldier if he wants to see my paper pass (printed off my computer), or read my Q-code.

He says, "I'm sorry I can't read your Q-code, only the Police have Q-code scanners, so I'll have to look at your printed pass". I show him my pass, and he glances at it, and he's happy, and waves me through.

Now, I've been through several regional checkpoints at this point - and NOT ONE has asked me for any personal ID, in the form of an MDL! I could have pinched anyones G2G pass, and be someone completely different!

I would have thought, the very first thing to be done at checkpoints, is ask for ID to verify the persons identity. But no-o-o, that seems to be completely unnecessary in W.A.!

With the clusterfXXX associated with every piece of Govt legislation and movement controls at this point, I won't be downloading any app - which is bound to contain major flaws!!

What happens when someone steals your unlocked phone? They could travel through a list of infected people and you'd get all the penalties!! - for life!! There'd be no way of correcting any major errors in the system!!

And of course, we constantly have politicians telling us the app is safe and secure, when they themselves have no idea how it works!

The problem is also, that shortly, the virus controls will become secondary, as attention to the damaged economy, joblessness and other major disruptions will take over!

Enemy deception is a complete field in itself, in the military. There are large teams involved in enemy deception.

During WW2, they built dummy airfields complete with buildings, built thousands of tanks and truck dummies, and even produced dummy large scale troop movements, complete with washing on the lines! They even set up dummy harbours!

The U.S. started their "Ghost Army", an Engineer group, modelled on the British enemy deception effort in the Middle East, called Operation Bertram.

Where the British used dummy tanks and vehicles built from plywood, the U.S. used inflatables for tanks!

The Americans indulged in electronic and signal deception on a huge scale, and even had huge sound systems broadcasting military movement noises!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army

https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/06/06/ghost-army

The RAAF operated Bell 47G's in South Vietnam, under the auspices of 161 (Independent) Reconnaissance Flight. Specifically Bell 47G3B1 Sioux, in the RAAF description.

They were primarily used as forward observation for artillery spotting, but their uses were extended to multiple other roles.

Here is one shot I took in October 1970, when I was in the Land Clearing Team in SVN, specifically at Night Defensive Position (NDP Helen). NDP Helen later became Fire Support Base (FSB) Helen.

I have never posted this photo anywhere on the 'net before, because I am very protective of my photo privacy. I would appreciate if members ask me before reposting this photo anywhere.

I was with 17 Construction Squadron, and we built the NDP from scratch in the Jungle. We had 4 x Cat D8H dozers in the team, and we would clear a sizeable patch of the Jungle each day to deny the VC and NVA a place to hide.

The clearing was also designed to assist local farmers to acquire extra land for farming purposes. We had good protection in the form of Centurion tanks, M113 APC's, and the infantry patrolled regularly.

Despite the protection, it was dangerous work, the VC and NVA targeted us continually, M16 mines were common, being mortared was common, and RPG's were a major threat.

The dozers were fitted with rudimentary 16mm armour plate on 3 sides, designed to resist rifle fire only. The VC got one of the dozers with a buried 200 litre drum of explosive, they blew the motor right out of the chassis.

Then there was the weather. In the photo below, you see the results of the tail end of a Hurricane, where we got a staggering amount of rain overnight. The landing pad is Marsden matting.

We had duckboards made from used pallets to get out to the landing pad. You sank to above your knees, if you tried to walk anywhere off the duckboards!

U.S. Army Chinooks would deliver our fuel in huge rubber bladders, and the Hueys would deliver daily, with resupplies of parts and consumables - and dinner in hot boxes at tea time!!

I believe the photo is of A1-641 - which was lost in a crash at Lanefield QLD, in September the following year. It's not clear in my photo, but an M60 MG is fitted to a pintle mounting on the right forward landing skid, support tube.

There is a much clearer shot of the M60 mounting in the ADF serials page of A1-641. Interestingly, Bell did not recommend the mounting of any armaments to the Sioux!

Below is the link to the RAAF, ADF Serials page on the Bell choppers. Below that, is a link to a very good outline, by Sgt Tom Jobling, of "Chopper life" in a Sioux in SVN.

http://www.adf-gallery.com.au/3a1.htm

https://mhhv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/A-Tour-of-Duty-with-161-Independent-Reconnaissance-Flight.pdf

I'd really like to inspect the Wrigley familys DC-3 (that's the chewing gum billionaires). Their DC-3 is the lowest hour DC-3 in the world, something like 3400 hrs TT, I've been told.

The boating fraternity with inboards can't drain their oil in the normal manner, via a sump plug. So they use a sump pump and suck the sump dry. You can get one off Whitworths for $19.95.

https://www.whitworths.com.au/engine-steering/engine-accessories/oil-extractor-pumps

Sure beats a mouthful of highly carcinogenic engine, with lots of pollutants in it, from by-products of combustion.

And yes, used engine oil is highly carcinogenic, it's the reason mechanics have a 5 yr shorter lifespan than the males who don't paddle in oil every day.

Yes, a high-flying real estate company that crashes and burns, in a widely-viewed public display, is something they'd probably prefer to avoid.

With that nose-high approach, definitely a major miscalculation with C of G being too far aft. Solution? Don't fill the pollen baskets on the back legs, so full of pollen!

Robinson Caruso? Is that the Italian Opera Singer who got shipwrecked?

You should pay more attention to how and where your food is produced because you have zero idea

I have plenty of knowledge about farming. I was raised in a dairy-farming family, owned a 900Ha farm producing grains and sheep, sharefarmed another 1000Ha, and operated as an agricultural contractor in water harvesting, flood control, earthworks, clearing, and land development, for 30 years.

If you're the source of all knowledge on food production, let's hear about your knowledge and track record.

Australia's food production capacity is only limited by the amount of investment in it. Unfortunately, it's the Chinese who have seen the agricultural potential of Australia, and who have been investing huge amounts into it.

The world has the capacity to feed 50 billion people. The problem is, financial markets are angry that the lockdown is ruining their fat daily scheming profits. Money before people is their mantra, a principle espoused by the U.S. President.