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cassieuncaged · 11 months

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WIP Wednesday Friday

Tagged by @emotionalcadaver

No pressure tags: @confidentandgood, @poisonedtruth, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @chadillacboseman, @roofgeese, @captastra, @illiana-mystery, @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky and anyone else who wants to share.

In the meantime, have some Maglias domestic baby fluff I've been sitting on for like a year.

TW: lightly suggestive, language, etc.

Emily frowned, watching as the infant cast a fistful of cereal to the ground. She was round and pink, a wisp of red hair growing atop an otherwise bare head.

“Do we have to give her back?” the little girl smiled as a fat fist reached out to hold onto a dark braid.

“Afraid so,” Diana sighed, plucking Rachel from the highchair. She adored babies, wishing her own hadn’t sprouted to three and five so quickly. “But they're over here all the time, Emmy. You’ll see this sweet girl more than you want, I promise.”

“She’s like a real baby doll,” The little girl followed her mother, dragging the chair from the table. It was propped next to the sink before Emily was climbing up to watch Ana gently plop the baby into side of the sink over flowing with suds. A box of Mr. Bubbles sat on the counter before the girl was sneakily pouring more in. Rachel cooed, blue eyes crinkling.

“Don’t go telling Aunt Maggie you tried to dress her in all your doll’s bonnets and hats.” Diana languidly slid her rings off before flipping a curtain of ochre hair over one shoulder.

“Aunt Maggie wouldn’t care.” Emily added sagely, “She told me she used to dress me up when I was really small.”

Before anything could be added to that, the screen door was swinging open.

“Go Packers!” Chris declared, clutching a plump bag of potato chips.

“Uncle Chris!” Emily was quick to hop off the chair before running to the young man’s side. “Did you bring me a present?”

“Emily!” Ana chided from the kitchen, watching as Taylor scooped the girl in his arms. Peeling the plaid scarf from around a tan neck, the garment was tucked around her.

“She’s fine.” Setting her back down on the chair before traipsing over to the kitchen table, “The scarf can be the present. Orange is your color, Emily.”

“But that’s Cleveland’s color,” wrinkling her nose in disgust, “We’re a Greenbay household.”

“Your dad teach you that?”

“Damn straight he did,” King boomed from the doorway, his youngest tucked in his arms. Jamie wriggled a bit before being sat on the ground. Squealing in delight, the boy darted down the hallway with his sister chasing after. “How you doing, Taylor?”

“Bout the same as always,” the men clapped hands before the younger of the two plopped into a chair, “Hope the shop wasn’t too crazy this week.”

“We managed.” King spun a chair around on its legs, sitting backwards, “Think Elias rethought giving you a whole week’s vacation after replacing five carburetors Monday. Went through a shit ton of cigarettes between the two of us.”

“Where the hell is he?” Chris looked around, making sure he hadn’t missed his buddy tucked away in the other room. King barked wolfishly while Diana shot him a look.

“Probably couldn’t get out of bed.”

“Stop being lewd,” the woman reminded him, rinsing the babbling toddler off with a glass of warm water.

“You said they probably skipped dinner plans last night but I’m the lewd one.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Chris chuckled, popping open the bag of chips.

“We gave those two the night off,” turning around from the sink, Diana proudly clutched a freshly washed Rachel bound in a terrycloth towel. The baby cooed, reaching for Chris. Smiling at the surprise, the man held her tight as bright blue eyes assessed him curiously. “Charlie probably isn’t wrong.”

“Of course I’m not wrong,” King rolled his eyes at his given name, “You know that man probably got the best head of his life this morning.”

“Shoosh,” Diana smacked the back of her husband’s head. “I’d prefer not to have that conversation with the kid’s running around. It’s bad enough that Emmy heard me refer to them as rabbits. Now she insists that if they’re rabbits, Rachel’s a bunny.”

“You are cute like a bunny, huh?” Chris grinned at the bundle in his arms, enjoying the pleasant weight of the infant. Incredibly small yet chubby. “Those rabbits haven’t been up to anything in the shop latetly, have they?”

“Not since I caught them in the office a few months back. Still embarrassed about that one.” King shook his head as the three shared a laugh. The sound of car door echoed through the open window, Diana’s eyes quick to see a shade of robin blue behind the gauzy curtains.

“Alright, quiet now.” Ana jumped back to her feet, checking the progress of a casserole in the oven, “I’d prefer not to make either of them blush anymore than they already do.”

Voices could be heard echoing from the front porch, storm door squeaking open. An elderly Major jangled in first, sprinting down the hall to where the children were squealing. Elias limped into view first, leaning on the doorframe. Maggie clung to his side, windburned face burrowed into a sharp neck.

“Sorry we’re a little late,” she chirped, peeling herself from the man, “Lost track of time.”

“Lost track of a lot of time,” Elias chuckled, pushing aviator sunglasses up in tawny waves. King held in a chuckle while Taylor turned beet red, “You make a bet or something?”

“No,” King tossed his head back in a bought of laughter, “Ana told me that would be ‘unseemly’. But I’d be a rich man if I had.”

“How was dinner?” Diana changed the subject, getting two bashful looks when the couple turned to face her.

“We didn’t make it out.” Maggie fought the rush of pink rising up her neck, pushing a ginger curl behind one ear. Ignoring the jests of her friends, the woman stalked to Chris’s side before relieving him of a bundled Rachel.

“Guess that would’ve made you a rich woman.” Elias winked at Ana who accepted a welcome kiss to the cheek.

“I don’t bet on the personal proclivities of my friends,” She squeezed the man into a hug before leaning back, “But you and your wife are painfully predictable.”

“You and Mags don’t have conversations about what we’re up when you watch Emily and Jamie?” King smirked again, enjoying watching the two squirm.

“Can’t say that we do. But I know you and Taylor gossip like old women.” Elias teased before he was at his other half’s side. Sinking into an empty chair, Maggie rocked an excited Rachel while Chris vacated his own seat for his superior. “Thanks. How was vacation?”

“Phenomenal. I’ll have to tell you about it later.” The younger man clapped his sergeant on the shoulder before taking a seat next to King. The two talked about the impending game while Ana watched the couple dote on their daughter.

“Was she behaved okay? Did she take to formula alright?” Bright blue eyes looked up to her friend who grinned warmly. Rachel squirmed in a loose grip to flip to examine the face of her father, who pressed to a kiss to a round head.

“She was a peach. Barely fussed at all. Though Emily really likes dressing her up, thinks she’s a doll.”

“I used to dress Emmy up when she was Rachel’s size.” Maggie grinned sweetly, carefully handing the bundle off to Elias. “She eat recently?”

“Had a bottle about an hour ago and just got a bit of a bath. I’m afraid I’m in love with her.”

“Want to keep her a few more nights?” Elias offered playfully, garnering King’s attention.

“How do you still have energy?”

“This would be to catch up on sleep.” He winked, bouncing Rachel in his lap.

“You’re all making her blush,” Ana cooed, wrapping her arms around Maggie’s shoulders. A large hand reached out to squeeze a small knee, lingering there for a moment.

#writing wips #wip whenever #snippets #maglias #i forgot about this one #it's so damn fluffy

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mastersoftheair · 2 months

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"Masters of the Air details. Part 6-Bombsight and bombing.

"[...] I was brought in to Masters of the Air to teach actors how to look like they knew what they were doing, and the bombardier work would certainly be important to the series.

"[...] The Norden bombsight was being developed in the 1920’s by Carl Lucas Norden, a Swiss engineer, who worked for the US Navy. He developed this sight (eventually the Mark 15 series for the Navy and the M series for the Army) and the autopilot system that goes along with it. The autopilot was needed as it could fly the aircraft more precisely on the bomb run than the pilot could. Just don’t tell the pilot this!

"The Mk 15 Norden sight was a beautiful hand-built and fit device with an analog computer that would calculate the point in space at which to drop the bombs. The Bombardier would input information to the sight in the form of altitude, air speed and the ballistics of the bomb. On the bomb run he would pick up the target with the crosshairs in the optics and engage a motor drive that would keep the crosshairs synchronized on the target during the approach. On the run he would also make fine adjustments to be sure the crosshair stayed on the target for range and drift. When the sighting angle reached the predetermined dropping angle the sight sent an electrical signal to the intervalometer that would drop the selected bombs at the specified interval.

"The mission order would define what bombs were to be used and what the nose and tail fuses were to be used and their delay settings, if any. The order would also specify the aiming point and the interval to be set in to the intervalometer. This would space the bombs across the ground as desired. Maybe you wanted the bombs dropped quickly, right next to each other, to try and put a hole in the roof of the hardened sub pens. Or maybe you wanted to walk them down a long runway. The intervalometer would be set for your ground speed and how many feet apart you wanted the bombs to hit on the ground.

"If you wanted to drop a string of bombs all down a line, like a runway or a front line, then you would want the center bomb of the stick to hit in the middle so you would adjust the trail plate on the bombsight the right amount to drop the first bomb early and have the center bomb right in the middle. This center bomb spot would be the mean point of impact or MPI.

"When I arrived on set at MoTA they had several nose sections with varying amounts of the bombardier’s equipment and controls. They had one real Norden sight head called the hero sight in the hero fuselage. The hero label was attached to the best props where special or close up filming with lead actors might take place.

"The stabilizer is the lower half of the bombsight and contains the yaw gyro for the autopilot. The bombsight head sits on the stabilizer and pivots to keep pointed at the target.

"The hero sight was sitting on a prop stabilizer, and it needed more accessories and work to look as good as the real sight head. I asked if they had a better stabilizer around and they thought so, but where it was seemed to be uncertain. It was eventually located and cleaned up for mounting in the hero nose. It was still missing some items namely the directional panel and an Automatic Bombing Computer or ABC. The ABC was used on the bomb run so they could perform evasive maneuvers and not have to do the run and drift calculations again. I was told that a Norden Bombsight expert in the UK said that they didn’t use the ABC early in the war, if at all. I had to differ with that opinion as it was most certainly used throughout the early war and almost all the way through. Its use dropped off later in the war if anything.

"The ABC is quite visible on top of the stabilizer so I thought the hero sight should have the ABC not only for authenticity but for eye candy too. I asked my daughter, Sydney, to send out the directional panel and ABC set from our museum’s bombsight back home in California.

"[...] Like with the pilots and their own preference for hand positions on the throttles, the bombardiers were given the options of the two different hand configurations bombardiers often used to adjust the sight on the run. The more uncomfortable two-handed method or the single hand. Which eye to use while looking through the eyepiece was also their own decision as this would have been a preference item as well.

"We also taught them how to look over the sight to pick up the target then transition down to the eye piece and to uncage and adjust the gyro for leveling the optics in case this might be of interest to the directors. We went over the control sequence for the bomb bay doors, bomb select and intervalometer adjustments and the bomb run itself.

"[...] The standard procedure for the bomb run was developed early on by the 8th AF which was to navigate to a point where the bomb run would begin. This was called the Initial Point or IP. From the IP it was either a straight line into the target, or evasive maneuvers along this line to the target.

"At the IP, the bombardier would open the bomb bay doors. This would change the drag and the airspeed accordingly. It was up to the pilot to adjust power to maintaining a specific airspeed and altitude which was critical to accurate bombing. The pilot would also re-trim the aircraft so it would fly hands off at which point he would engage the servos of the autopilot and turn control of the aircraft over to the bombardier. The Bombardier would fly the aircraft through the bombsight and its connection to the autopilot.

"The main bombardier actor, Elliot Warren, portrayed James R. Douglass. Elliot was a quick learn and did a great job. He was a pleasure to work with and I really enjoyed his scenes.

"[...]Props made several Norden sights. Rubber ones and some with more detail. One was set up with squibs to detonate when the sight was shot by the actor with his 45 cal M1911 pistol. They were wired and the squibs went off with the sound of the pistol. It looked pretty good on camera.

"It was AAF policy to try and destroy the bombsight so it would not fall in to enemy hands. Some of the manuals actually discuss what should be done to destroy it. I would hope that the large gyro in the sight head was not spinning at its normal 25,000 RPM when the bullet hit the 2-pound rotor, as I would imagine that it would come apart and potentially send shrapnel back at the guy holding the gun!

"The lighting folks would control the instruments and lights throughout the fuselages, like the bomb bay door open light on the bombardier’s panel. We put in a lag between the bomb door handle operation and the door open light coming on. Not an accurate lag as we obviously will not be filming for the actual 20 seconds or so needed to open the electric bomb bay doors. It was a delight to work with the lighting crew and they did magical work especially with the custom made instrumentation.

"[...] Here is a full-on rant about the Norden so you might want to skip out!

"Keep in mind that this is my own opinion. An American who is discussing the Norden sight. Your mileage may vary.

"Recently there has been, what I call a ‘revisionist historians’ view of the Norden Bombsight. In short, this modern interpretation, pretty much lead by Malcolm Gladwell’s TED Talk on YouTube and his book Bomber Mafia, calls in to question the usefulness of the Norden. Basically, saying it was not effective and some of his followers have even been using the term ‘useless’ recently.

"Just keep a few thoughts of this rant in mind.

"The bomb sighting systems we had going into WWII were based on technology left over from WWI. They were simple sights with wires to sight down. They were meant for aircraft speeds and altitudes from WWI. Now skip ahead to the new bombers flying two to three times as fast and at altitudes up to 30,000 feet instead of 3000 feet.

"An all-new system was needed to solve this new complex bombing problem. Sperry was working on it and Norden, who had left employment at Sperry, started his own effort.

"The Sperry and Norden sights were the leaders of synchronous sights going in to WWII. They both were good sights which were constantly being improved. They had each also developed a highly advanced autopilot that the bombardier used to fly the aircraft on the bomb run.

"These were visual sights, so it was necessary to see the target in order to be effective. Not so easy in Europe all year long. Radar and other methods were coming online to help with all weather bombing but there were many limitations in play.

"Results would certainly vary from target to target, and it was a brand new technology made up of gyros to keep the optics level, a mechanical computer to make the calculations, motors to drive the optics. Lots of parts needed to be able to work at 200 degrees F to 50 below, not to mention the complex autopilot system.

"So, my main question is: If this new technology was so bad then what exactly was it that brought the German war effort to its knees?

"The RAF was going after cities and targets at night and the AAF was trying to hit specific strategic targets like submarine production, aircraft and weapons plants, fuel and machine parts to make the weapons work. The very things the Germans needed to wage war.

"What brought this production essentially to a halt?

"I submit that it was the bombing campaign.

"If it was the bombing campaign, then it was likely the Norden and Sperry sights that made it possible. Mostly the Norden as it was chosen as the primary system and the Sperry S-1 sight was discontinued.

"The invasion of fortress Europe was certainly needed to push the Germans all the way back to Berlin, but I would also submit that these efforts were made easier by the results of the bombing campaign.

"There were certainly mistakes and errors all throughout this campaign as there was a massive learning curve in doing something that had never been accomplished on such a scale before. How to amass hundreds to a thousand plus bombers to rally together to attack a target effectively and then get home. The attrition was unbelievably steep in the early years as so beautifully depicted in Master’s.

"Just how do you get back in that bomber the next day and face near certain death once again like they did. Again, as seen in Master’s. Just a few of the wonderful aspects of this series and the history behind it.

"Having a PR campaign about the weapon that would help win the war, like Harold T. Barth created for Norden, was not such a bad thing. If it rallied the troops and home front to keep up morale, then I think it was a good thing. Just open any wartime magazine and look at the full page ads all throughout. Each ad promoting the companies contribution to winning the war effort. BF Goodrich with their new Rivnut or Seeger Refrigerator building bomb racks and feed chutes for the 50's. It was a nationwide industrial and personal team effort to wage this war against the Axis. Norden was one of them.

"Barth said that the sight could hit a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet. When the press asked if this was true Norden replied ‘sure if you tell me which pickle you want me to hit’. Some folks nowadays are taking this literally and complaining that it really couldn’t hit a specific pickle. No kidding. Say it isn’t so. Those bastards!

"To Mr. Gladwell and his followers, I'll ask again: What was it, in your mind, that allowed all of those bombs to take out the German AND the Japanese war efforts? If it wasn’t Sperry’s S-1 and Norden’s M series bombsights, then just exactly what was it?

"Rant over. Flak vest, with crotch protector, and helmet, on."

#this is easily the longest (due to words) post i've seen from taigh. i'm getting schooled!#masters of the air #hbo war #behind the scenes #history #history isn't enough tho. i feel like i should have an 'engineering' tag bc damn!#long post #elliot warren #james douglass #i added ellipses to skip over more of the 'fluffy' bits related to the acting stuff. and it still remains sooooo long!#i even added a 'keep reading' line break bc of the norden rant...and it's still SOOOOOO LOOOOONG!!#the link is included so anyone can read that if they're so inclined #but i just know some nerds on here wanna read this lol

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