Izula explosives cutter

MarineAir said:
Cool stuff man, some of the avionics they have on the upgraded 18s are insane. The new integrated helmet/heads up display lets the pilot look down at his lap or where ever and see targets through the actual plane along with all his flight instruments. Makes me disoriented just thinkin about it :eek:

The #5 Blue Angel was parked on my squadrons ramp yesterday. I kinda miss seeing them practice all the time back in P'cola.
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I'm sure the HUD's are way more advanced than what we worked on. They actually had two plates of glass that we were told were very expensive and the pilot wouldn't see a display unless looking through both plates.
As for the Blue Angels, we used to have them practice literally 50 feet directly over our shop at Miramar NAS. Talk about cool! That was right before Navy's Top Gun left Miramar for somewhere in Northern Cali. as well so I'm sure we were surrounded by some first rate pilots.
 
hoopster said:
I'm sure the HUD's are way more advanced than what we worked on. They actually had two plates of glass that we were told were very expensive and the pilot wouldn't see a display unless looking through both plates.
As for the Blue Angels, we used to have them practice literally 50 feet directly over our shop at Miramar NAS. Talk about cool! That was right before Navy's Top Gun left Miramar for somewhere in Northern Cali. as well so I'm sure we were surrounded by some first rate pilots.
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No doubt. Yea the Blues pretty much own NAS Pensacola and none of the altitude/obstacle clearance rules seem to apply to them there. Which is just fine by me. Its certainly entertaining.
 
MarineAir said:
No doubt. Yea the Blues pretty much own NAS Pensacola and none of the altitude/obstacle clearance rules seem to apply to them there. Which is just fine by me. Its certainly entertaining.
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Suck you wont be out in the stan soon. I'd hit ya up for some CAS
 
MarineAir said:
Yea, unfortunately I'm still a long ways from my first deployment. Sucks for sure.
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Maybe I'm a pussy but being "deployed" is not something I would look forward to. Not that I don't respect the guys that are but I sorta like the farm here, my family, friends, etc.
 
R.A.T. said:
Maybe I'm a pussy but being "deployed" is not something I would look forward to. Not that I don't respect the guys that are but I sorta like the farm here, my family, friends, etc.
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Well I'm sure I won't enjoy it for the most part, I'm sure I'll get homesick as hell and want nothing more than to return stateside. Its just hard for me to watch all the guys I've spent the last few years training with, that ended up in fast track MOS's (basically anything but pilot or NFO) deploy, come back, and and then work up for another deployment, all before I've even gotten to the operating forces.

Its all relative I suppose, once I'm out of the training pipeline I'll probly long for the days of less responsibility that I'm 'enjoying' now. As far as family and friends, I've been a long way from them since I joined anyway. Not many Marine units in the Chicago area :)
 
Thanks for your service,and good luck on your solo! I will be deploying soon and my izula is following me over.
 
MarineAir said:
Its all relative I suppose, once I'm out of the training pipeline I'll probly long for the days of less responsibility that I'm 'enjoying' now.
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I was no pilot but I can definitely say I'd rather be out in the "Fleet" than in a training squadron. Responsibility is a good thing. :thumbup: It's hard to explain but I'm pretty confident you'll be glad to finally get to work at what you've been training all this time for. My training was probably 14-15 months total including boot camp and MCT. It was a relief to finally be contributing. :D

Sorry for the thread derail BjBlade. I wish I had an Izula when I was serving.
 
Hi BjBlade,

Totally a newbie here. My name is Jay.

Just a concern. Lately i've been reading about non-magnetic steel preferred in cutting explosive as it won't trigger the magnetic sensitive mines.

Are we talking about explosive or only mine that's magnetic sensitive?

Thanks

Jay
 
hoopster said:
Cool, when you say explosives cutting do you mean wires or plastics or what? The Izula is an amazing cutting tool that wants to work hard.
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Um, don't you guys get copper/berilium or ceramic knives? Just curious. As a civilian explosives user, that's all we can use. We don't use anything that might "spark" or is magnetic.
 
MarineAir said:
Cool stuff man, some of the avionics they have on the upgraded 18s are insane. The new integrated helmet/heads up display lets the pilot look down at his lap or where ever and see targets through the actual plane along with all his flight instruments. Makes me disoriented just thinkin about it :eek:
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JHMCS is cool, but it isn't that cool. Not until F-35 makes IOC. Neither the Hornet nor the Rhino currently has the cameras to support looking through the plane (like virtual x-ray, if that is what you're talking about). If not, you're right on. Don't wanna be an a... jerk or anything. Just didn't want you to say, "HEY, WTFO?!" when you get into the jet. ;) :thumbup:

As for deployment, I've yet to talk to an aviator that disliked flying over Iraq or Afghanistan; now IA's, totally different story.
 
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rockspyder said:
JHMCS is cool, but it isn't that cool. Not until F-35 makes IOC. Neither the Hornet nor the Rhino currently has the cameras to support looking through the plane (like virtual x-ray, if that is what you're talking about). If not, you're right on. Don't wanna be an a... jerk or anything. Just didn't want you to say, "HEY, WTFO?!" when you get into the jet. ;) :thumbup:

As for deployment, I've yet to talk to an aviator that disliked flying over Iraq or Afghanistan; now IA's, totally different story.
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Yea I'm not talkin about cameras, basically just the helmet mounted hud. Cameras I think would make my head spin.
 
HaroldB,
I don't know what kind of explosives you guys are using on the civi side, but the use of beryllium knives as far as we use them is extremely unnecessary. They are very expensive, and if they make contact with regular metal they become impregnated with that metal, and become useless when you actually need them, like in a mine field. Also, it is very bad for you if exposed long term. That is why we have them but only use them when needed. Ceramic is far to fragile for military use. I'd be interested to know why it the only thing you are authorized. Also, check out titanium knives, if your really concerned with sparking and magnetism, it serves the same purpose and is less harmful to you. Have fun with your bang man, by the way what kind of demo are you doing?
 
Bjblade,
We use the tools the company gives us, we have no choice. We don't grind the beryllium blades, it's only the "dust" that can effect your body. And we only cut with them on wood or cardboard, so no contact with other metals.
We bond and shape metals with explosives and have done some military contract work for the Navy. I worked on the beginnings of the "RAMICS" program, some of the Google pages will mention a small company: C-Tech Defense corp.
 
I thought non-sparking knives were an industry standard when dealing with explosives? In the Army that is all I ever used, and we kept our demo knives with our demo prep kits.
 
HaroldB,
That is very interesting stuff you worked on, are you still doing the same work? By the way, I didn't mean to come off in a way to offend you, but after reading my own post I can see if you took it that way. One of the things I hate about written dialogue is that I can never seem to write in the correct tone, if that makes sense. Anyway, I understand having to follow standards put out to you, and like I said, I don't know what compound your using. However, a clean sharp fixed blade works for me.

Partisian1911,

What did you do for the army?
 
I have 17 years of active duty service as an Infantryman. I am no expert in demo by any stretch of the imagination but I can blow some junk up and know how to do it properly rather than the average Army guy who uses P-for plenty. I took a civilian contractor demo test years ago in Washington but decided to stay in and finish up my career for Uncle Sam instead.
 
Bjblade said:
So I took my new izula to work today, ( I'm on the army bomb squad) and just so happens to get some time cutting up explosives. The knife did phenomenal work, precise cuts everytime, and really helped me accomplish what I was doing! So far excellent knife, loving it! Just wanted to share, because I love the knife and things that go boom, and when you find two that work well together it's exciting!
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Nice work Bjblades. Err... ahem... sorry... I SAID, NICE WORK! Oh never mind....
 
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