Catching Up

I've been keeping pretty busy since my last blog post. Unfortunately, it was mostly with non-hobby stuff. But I did sneak away for a few hours on July 1 to see the Super Guppy at the Museum of Flight. The plane was in Seattle to deliver the crew cabin portion of the space shuttle trainer (the museum missed out on the opportunity to get a real shuttle, but the full-sized flight trainer isn't a bad consolation prize). The Super Guppy is a very unusual aircraft; it was built to transport over-size objects (like parts for the international space station) and the one we saw is the last one still flying.

Here I am with the Super Guppy in the background

It was pretty cool to see and we arrived early enough to watch them crack open the plane and rotate the forward part of the fuselage, which was doubly-cool.

Super Guppy open for a closer look. We we able to go up the stairs to the platform for a better view.

We got a short close-up view of the Super Guppy and the opportunity to speak with some of the flight crew. Most people asked the crew questions about what it was like flying the plane, while my wife and I were asking about the process for reattaching the forward fuselage, how they make sure the cargo doesn't shift, and what they were going to do with the specially made cargo rack for shuttle trainer (we were told they are looking to buy a portion of it for use with other cargo). After that, we made our way over to the museum's space gallery where the crew cabin had been placed.

The space shuttle trainer crew cabin at the Museum of Flight

The museum had some floor plans up showing the final layout of the space gallery and it looks like it will be another good place to visit. There are still four more sections of the trainer to come. So, the display won't be done for a while and the Super Guppy will be bringing some more of the sections and we might get another chance to see the plane. Overall, it was fun to see this plane up-close.

On the gaming front, I'll be running an War of 1812 naval game for the truants group on Saturday. I'm trying to come up with a good, fun scenario for the group. I was thinking about doing a bigger battle from 1813, but now I'm considering making up a scenario.

I'm planning on using the Sail and Steam Navies rules, with my modifications for 1812. I really like how the modifications have come together and how they played during my Enfilade game. I'm still tweaking them a little (I haven't decided the bonus for and how to measure rakes, and I'd like to add some more critical hit types), but overall I think they stand up pretty well and will be easy for newbies and land-lubbers to pick up on.

I'll be sure to get (and post) some photos from the game.