Design and development.

The C-97 Stratofreighter was developed towards the end of World War II by fitting an enlarged upper fuselage onto a lower fuselage and wings that were essentially the same as those of the B-29 Superfortress with the tail, wing, and engine layout being nearly identical.<ref name="Swanborough / Bowers 1989, p. 125">Swanborough and Bowers 1989, p. 125.</ref> It was built before the death of Boeing president Philip G. Johnson. It can be easily distinguished from the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser by the "beak" radome beneath the nose and by the flying boom and jet engines on later tanker models.  The prototype XC-97 was powered by the Wright R-3350 engine, the same as used in the B-29. The XC-97 took off for its first flight on November 9, 1944. On 9 January 1945, the first prototype, piloted by Major Curtin L. Reinhardt, flew from Seattle to Washington, D.C. in 6 hours 4 minutes, an average speed of with of cargo, which (at that time) was impressive for such a large aircraft. Production models featured the Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major engine, the same engine as for the B-50. The tenth and all subsequent aircraft were fitted with the taller fin and rudder of the B-50 Superfortress.  The C-97 had clamshell doors under its tail, so that two retractable ramps could be used to drive in cargo. However, unlike the later Lockheed C-130 Hercules, it was not designed as a combat transport that could deliver directly to primitive forward bases using relatively short takeoffs and landings. The two rear ramps could not be used in flight; but removed, the C-97 could be used for air drops. The C-97 had a useful payload of and could carry two normal trucks, towed artillery, or light tracked vehicles such as the M56 Scorpion. The C-97 was also the first mass-produced air transport to feature cabin pressurization, which made long range missions somewhat more comfortable for its crew and passengers.  The civilian derivative of the C-97 was the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, a very luxurious transoceanic airliner that featured a lower deck lounge and could be fitted with sleeper cabins. The first Stratocruiser flew on July 8, 1947. Only 56 were built.

Operational history.

The C-97 entered service in 1947, during a period of rapid development of heavy transport aircraft. Only 77 were built before the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II was delivered in 1950, with nearly twice the payload capacity of the C-97. The USAF Strategic Air Command operated C-97 Stratofreighters from 1949 to 1978. Early in its service life, it served as an airborne alternative SAC command post. While only 77 C-97 transports were built, 811 were built as KC-97 Stratofreighters for inflight refueling. The KC-97 began to be phased out with the introduction of the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker in 1957. Many KC-97s were later refitted as C-97G transports and equipped several squadrons of the U.S. Air National Guard.  One YC-97A (45–59595) was used in the Berlin Airlift during April 1949, operating for the 1st Strategic Support Squadron. It suffered a landing gear accident at Gatow and by the time it was repaired, the Soviet Blockade was lifted.  C-97s evacuated casualties during the Korean War. C-97s also participated in the Biafran airlift, delivering relief materials to Uli airstrip in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. Flying under the cover of darkness and at treetop level to evade radar, at least two C-97s were lost. Only one C-97 is still airworthy at the present day, (S/N 52-2718, named "Angel of Deliverance") operated by the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation. It is painted as YC-97A 45-59595, the only C-97 to participate in the Berlin Airlift.  The Israelis turned to Stratocruisers and KC-97s when they could not buy the preferred C-130. They adapted Boeing 377 Stratocruiser airliners into transports, including many using C-97 tail sections including the loading ramps. Others were adapted with swiveling tails and refueling pods. One Israeli C-97 was downed by an Egyptian SA-2 Guideline missile on 17 September 1971, while flying as an electronic counter-measures platform some 12 miles from the Suez Canal.

Operators.

U.S. Air Force units.

The following Air Force wing organizations flew the various C-97 models at some time during their existence:

The Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter was a long-range heavy military cargo aircraft developed from the B-29 and B-50 bombers. Design work began in 1942, the first of three prototype XC-97s flew on 9 November 1944 (none saw combat), and the first of six service-test YC-97s flew on 11 March 1947. All nine were based on the 24ST alloy structure and Wright R-3350 engines of the B-29, but with a larger-diameter fuselage upper lobe (making a figure of eight or "double-bubble" section) and they had the B-29 vertical tail with the gunner's position blanked off. The first of three heavily revised YC-97A incorporating the re-engineered wing ( higher strength 75ST alloy), taller vertical tail and larger Pratt and Whitney R-4360 engines of the B-50 bomber, flew on 28 January 1948 and was the basis of the subsequent sole YC-97B, all production C-97s, KC-97s and civilian Stratocruiser aircraft. Between 1944 and 1958, 888 C-97s in several versions were built, 811 being KC-97 tankers. C-97s served in the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Some aircraft served as flying command posts for the Strategic Air Command, while others were modified for use in Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadrons (ARRS).

Die Boeing C-97 "Stratofreighter (deutsch: "Stratosphärenfrachter"), auch Boeing 367", war ein ab 1944 gebautes militärisches Langstrecken-Transportflugzeug aus US-amerikanischer Produktion, ausgelegt als viermotoriges Propellerflugzeug mit Kolbenmotoren. Aufbauend auf der Boeing C-97 wurde das Langstrecken-Passagierflugzeug Boeing 377 Stratocruiser entwickelt.


Life and career.

1946–1967: Early life.

Patricia Lee Smith was born in 30 December 1946 at Grant Hospital of Chicago in Chicago to Beverly Smith, a jazz singer turned waitress, and Grant Smith, who worked as a machinist at a Honeywell plant. The family was of part-Irish ancestry and Patti was the eldest of four children, with siblings Linda, Kimberly, and Todd. At the age of 4, Smith's family moved from Chicago to Germantown, Philadelphia, before heading to Pitman, New Jersey and later to The Woodbury Gardens section of Deptford Township, New Jersey.  At this early age Smith was exposed to her first records, including "Shrimp Boats" by Harry Belafonte, Patience and Prudence's "The Money Tree", and "Another Side of Bob Dylan", which her mother gave to her. Smith graduated from Deptford Township High School in 1964 and went to work in a factory. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter, on April 26, 1967, and chose to place her for adoption.

1967–1973: New York.

In 1967, she left Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and moved to New York City's Manhattan. She met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe there while working at a bookstore with friend and poet Janet Hamill. She and Mapplethorpe had an intense romantic relationship, which was tumultuous as the pair struggled with times of poverty, and Mapplethorpe with his own sexuality. Smith considers Mapplethorpe to be one of the most important people in her life, and in her book "Just Kids" refers to him as "the artist of my life." Mapplethorpe's photographs of her became the covers for the Patti Smith Group albums, and they remained lifelong friends until Mapplethorpe's death in 1989. Her book and album "The Coral Sea" would be an homage to the life of Mapplethorpe and "Just Kids" would tell the story of their relationship. She would also write essays for several of Mapplethorpe's books, starting from one, at his request, for his posthumous "Flowers".  She went to Paris with her sister in 1969, and started busking and doing performance art. When Smith returned to Manhattan, she lived in the Hotel Chelsea with Mapplethorpe; they frequented Max's Kansas City and CBGB. Smith provided the spoken word soundtrack for Sandy Daley's art film "Robert Having His Nipple Pierced", starring Mapplethorpe. The same year Smith appeared with Wayne County in Jackie Curtis's play "Femme Fatale". Afterward, she also starred in Tony Ingrassia's play "Island". As a member of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, she spent the early 1970s painting, writing, and performing. In 1971 she performed – for one night only – in "Cowboy Mouth", a play that she co-wrote with Sam Shepard. (The published play's notes call for "a man who looks like a coyote and a woman who looks like a crow".) She wrote several poems, "for sam shepard" and "Sam Shepard: 9 Random Years (7 + 2)" about her relationship with Shepard.  Smith was briefly considered for the lead singer position in Blue Öyster Cult. She contributed lyrics to several of the band's songs, including "Debbie Denise" (inspired by her poem "In Remembrance of Debbie Denise"), "Baby Ice Dog", "Career of Evil", "Fire of Unknown Origin", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini" (on which she performs duet vocals), and "Shooting Shark". She was romantically involved at the time with the band's keyboardist, Allen Lanier. During these years, Smith also wrote rock journalism pieces, some of which were published in "Rolling Stone" and "Creem".

1974–1979: Patti Smith Group.

By 1974, Patti Smith was performing rock music, initially with guitarist, bassist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later with a full band comprising Kaye, Ivan Kral on guitar and bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums and Richard Sohl on piano. Kral was a refugee from Czechoslovakia who had moved to the United States in 1966 with his parents, who were diplomats. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he decided not to return. Financed by Sam Wagstaff, the band recorded a first single, "Hey Joe / Piss Factory", in 1974. The A-side was a version of the rock standard with the addition of a spoken word piece about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst ("Patty Hearst, you're standing there in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with your legs spread, I was wondering were you gettin' it every night from a black revolutionary man and his women..."). A court later heard that Hearst had been confined against her will, and had been repeatedly threatened with execution and raped. The B-side describes the helpless anger Smith had felt while working on a factory assembly line and the salvation she discovered in the form of a shoplifted book, the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud's "Illuminations". In a 1996 interview which discusses artistic influences during her younger years, Smith said, "I had devoted so much of my girlish daydreams to Rimbaud. Rimbaud was like my boyfriend." Later that same year, she performed spoken poetry on "I Wake Up Screaming" from Ray Manzarek's "The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It's Out of Control" album.  The Patti Smith Group was signed by Clive Davis of Arista Records, and in 1975 recorded their first album, "Horses", produced by John Cale amid some tension. The album fused punk rock and spoken poetry and begins with a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria", and Smith's opening words: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine" (an excerpt from "Oath", one of her early poems). The austere cover photograph by Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images. As the popularity of punk rock grew, Patti Smith Group toured the United States and Europe. The rawer sound of the group's second album, "Radio Ethiopia", reflected this. Considerably less accessible than "Horses", "Radio Ethiopia" initially received poor reviews. However, several of its songs have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them regularly in concert. She has said that "Radio Ethiopia" was influenced by the band MC5.  On January 23, 1977, while touring in support of "Radio Ethiopia", Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, and fell 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit, breaking several neck vertebrae.  The injury required a period of rest and an intensive round of physical therapy, during which time she was able to reassess, re-energize and reorganize her life. Patti Smith Group produced two further albums before the end of the 1970s. "Easter" (1978) was her most commercially successful record, containing the single "Because the Night" co-written with Bruce Springsteen. "Wave" (1979) was less successful, although the songs "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay.

1980–1995: Marriage.

Before the release of "Wave", Smith, now separated from long-time partner Allen Lanier, met Fred "Sonic" Smith, former guitar player for Detroit rock band MC5 and his own Sonic's Rendezvous Band, who adored poetry as much as she did. "Wave"s "Dancing Barefoot" (inspired by Jeanne Hébuterne and her tragic love for Amedeo Modigliani) and "Frederick" were both dedicated to him. The running joke at the time was that she married Fred only because she would not have to change her name. They had a son, Jackson (b. 1982) who would go on to marry The White Stripes drummer, Meg White in 2009; and a daughter, Jesse Paris, who is also a musician and composer (b. 1987).  Through most of the 1980s Smith was in semi-retirement from music, living with her family north of Detroit in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. In June 1988, she released the album "Dream of Life", which included the song "People Have the Power". Fred Smith died on November 4, 1994, of a heart attack. Shortly afterward, Patti faced the unexpected death of her brother Todd.  When her son Jackson turned 14, Smith decided to move back to New York. After the impact of these deaths, her friends Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Allen Ginsberg (whom she had known since her early years in New York) urged her to go back out on the road. She toured briefly with Bob Dylan in December 1995 (chronicled in a book of photographs by Stipe).

1996–2003: Re-emergence.

In 1996, Smith worked with her long-time colleagues to record "Gone Again," featuring "About a Boy", a tribute to Kurt Cobain. That same year she collaborated with Stipe on "E-Bow the Letter", a song on R.E.M.'s "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," which she has also performed live with the band. After the release of "Gone Again," Patti Smith recorded two new albums: "Peace and Noise" in 1997 (with the single "1959", about the invasion of Tibet) and "Gung Ho" in 2000 (with songs about Ho Chi Minh and Smith's late father). Songs "1959" and "Glitter in Their Eyes" were nominated for Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. A box set of her work up to that time, "The Patti Smith Masters," came out in 1996, and 2002 saw the release of "Land (1975–2002)," a two-CD compilation that includes a cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry". Smith's solo art exhibition "Strange Messenger" was hosted at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on September 28, 2002.

2004–2009.

On April 27, 2004, Patti Smith released "Trampin'" which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother, who had died two years before. It was her first album on Columbia Records, soon to become a sister label to her previous home Arista Records. Smith curated the Meltdown festival in London on June 25, 2005, the penultimate event being the first live performance of "Horses" in its entirety. Guitarist Tom Verlaine took Oliver Ray's place. This live performance was released later in the year as "Horses/Horses".  On July 10, 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In addition to Smith's influence on rock music, the Minister also noted her appreciation of Arthur Rimbaud. In August 2005, Smith gave a literary lecture about the poems of Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake. On October 15, 2006, Patti Smith performed at the CBGB nightclub, with a 31⁄2-hour "tour de force" to close out Manhattan's music venue. She took the stage at 9:30 p.m. (EDT) and closed for the night (and forever for the venue) at a few minutes after 1:00 am, performing her song "Elegie", and finally reading a list of punk rock musicians and advocates who had died in the previous years.  Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007. She dedicated her award to the memory of her late husband, Fred, and gave a performance of The Rolling Stones staple "Gimme Shelter". As the closing number of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Smith's "People Have the Power" was used for the big celebrity jam that always ends the program.  From November 2006 to January 2007, an exhibition called 'Sur les Traces' at Trolley Gallery, London, featured polaroid prints taken by Patti Smith and donated to Trolley to raise awareness and funds for the publication of Double Blind, a book on the war in Lebanon in 2006, with photographs by Paolo Pellegrin, a member of Magnum Photos. She also participated in the DVD commentary for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters". From March 28 to June 22, 2008, the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris hosted a major exhibition of the visual artwork of Patti Smith, "Land 250", drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007. At the 2008 Rowan Commencement ceremony, Smith received an honorary doctorate degree for her contributions to popular culture. Smith is the subject of a 2008 documentary film by Steven Sebring titled "". A live album by Patti Smith and Kevin Shields, "The Coral Sea" was released in July 2008. On September 10, 2009, after a week of smaller events and exhibitions in the city, Smith played an open-air concert in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, commemorating her performance in the same city 30 years earlier. In the meantime, she contributed with a special introduction to Jessica Lange's book "50 Photographs" (2009).

2010–present.

Smith's book, "Just Kids", a memoir of her time in 1970s Manhattan and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, was published in 2010; it later won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. In 2018 a new edition with many added photographs and illustrations was published. She also headlined a benefit concert headed by bandmate Tony Shanahan, for The Court Tavern of New Brunswick. Smith's set included "Gloria", "Because the Night" and "People Have the Power." She has a brief cameo in Jean-Luc Godard's 2010 "Film Socialisme", which was first screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.  In 2012 Patti Smith received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Pratt Institute, along with architect Daniel Libeskind, MoMA director Glenn Lowry, former NYC Landmarks Commissioner Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, novelist Jonathan Lethem, and director Steven Soderbergh. Following the conferral of her degree, Smith delivered the commencement address and sang/played two songs accompanied by long-time band member Lenny Kaye. In her remarks, Smith explained that in 1967 when she moved to New York City (Brooklyn), she would never have been accepted into Pratt, but most of her friends (including Mapplethorpe) were students at Pratt and she spent countless hours on the Pratt campus. She added that it was through her friends and their Pratt professors that she learned much of her own artistic skills, making the honor from the institute particularly poignant for Smith 43 years later.  Patti Smith was one of the winners of the 2011 Polar Music Prize. She made her television acting debut at the age of 64 on the TV series "", appearing in an episode called "Icarus". In 2011 Smith was working on a crime novel set in London. "I've been working on a detective story that starts at the St Giles in the Fields church in London for the last two years", she told NME adding that she "loved detective stories" having been a fan of British fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and U.S. crime author Mickey Spillane as a girl. Part of the book will be set in Gothenburg, Sweden.  Following the death of her husband in 1994, Smith began devoting time to what she terms "pure photography" (a method of capturing still objects without using a flash). In 2011, Smith announced the first museum exhibition of her photography in the United States, "Camera Solo". She named the project after a sign she saw in the abode of Pope Celestine V, which translates as "a room of one's own", and which Smith felt best described her solitary method of photography. The exhibition featured artifacts which were the everyday items or places of significance of artists whom Smith admires, including Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Keats and Blake. In February 2012, she was a guest at the Sanremo Music Festival.  Smith recorded a cover of Buddy Holly's classic "Words of Love" for the CD "Rave on Buddy Holly", a tribute album tied to Holly's seventy-fifth birthday year which was released June 28, 2011. She also recorded the song "Capitol Letter" for the of the second film of the "Hunger Games"-series "".  Smith's 11th studio album, "Banga", was released in June 2012. Music Journalist Hal Horowitz wrote : "These songs aren't as loud or frantic as those of her late 70s heyday, but they resonate just as boldly as she moans, chants, speaks and spits out lyrics with the grace and determination of Mohammad Ali in his prime. It's not an easy listen—the vast majority of her music never has been—but if you're a fan and/or prepared for the challenge, this is as potent, heady and uncompromising as she has ever gotten, and with Smith's storied history as a musical maverick, that's saying plenty." The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a score of 81, indicating "universal acclaim".  Also in 2012 Patti Smith recorded the cover of "Io come persona" by the Italian singer-songwriter Giorgio Gaber, translated into English "I as a person", contained in the anthological album "...io ci sono".  In 2015, Adult Swim offered Smith the opportunity to perform a song to commemorate the series finale of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Smith, an avowed fan of the series, recorded the song Aqua Teen Dream with the help of her children and band. The vocal track was recorded in a hotel overlooking Lerici's Bay of Poets. On September 26, 2015, Smith performed during the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony.  In 2016 Smith performed "People Have the Power" at Riverside Church, Manhattan, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Democracy Now. She was joined by Michael Stipe. On December 10, 2016, Smith attended the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm on behalf of Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who himself could not be present due to prior commitments. After the official presentation speech for the literary prize by Horace Engdahl, a member of the Swedish Academy, Smith sang the Dylan song "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Possibly overcome by nerves she sang "I saw the babe that was just bleedin’", the wrong words to the second verse and became unable to continue. She stopped, and after a brief apology, resumed the song, which earned her a jubilant applause at the end.  In 2017, Smith appeared as herself in "Song to Song" directed by Terrence Malick, opposite Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling. She later made an appearance at the Detroit show of U2's The Joshua Tree 2017 tour and performed "Mothers of the Disappeared" with the band.  In 2018, Smith's concert-documentary film "Horses: Patti Smith and her Band" premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival to wide acclaim.  In 2019, Smith performed her anthem "People Have the Power" with Stewart Copeland and Choir! Choir! Choir! at Onassis Festival 2019: Democracy Is Coming, co-presented by The Public Theatre and Onassis USA. Later that year she released her latest book, "Year of the Monkey". "A captivating, redemptive chronicle of a year in which Smith looked intently into the abyss." stated Kirkus Reviews.  Smith is set to receive the International Humanities Prize from Washington University in St. Louis in November 2020.

Legacy.

Smith has been a great source of inspiration for Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Listening to her album "Horses" made a huge impact on him; he said later, "I decided then that I was going to start a band."  In 1998, Stipe published a collection of photos called "Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith." Stipe sings backing vocals on Smith's songs "Last Call" and "Glitter in Their Eyes." Smith sang background vocals on R.E.M.'s songs "E-Bow the Letter" and "Blue".  The Australian alternative rock band, The Go-Betweens dedicated a track ("When She Sang About Angels") off their 2000 album, "The Friends of Rachel Worth", to Smith's long time influence.  In 2004, Shirley Manson of Garbage spoke of Smith's influence on her in "Rolling Stone"s issue "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in which Patti Smith was counted number 47. The Smiths members Morrissey and Johnny Marr share an appreciation for Smith's "Horses," and revealed that their song "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is a reworking of one of the album's tracks, "Kimberly". In 2004, Sonic Youth released an album called "Hidros 3 (to Patti Smith)". U2 also cites Patti Smith as an influence. In 2005 Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall released the single "Suddenly I See" as a tribute of sorts to Patti Smith. Canadian actress Ellen Page frequently mentions Smith as one of her idols and has done various photo shoots replicating famous Smith photos, as well as Irish actress Maria Doyle Kennedy who often refers to Smith as a major influence. In 1978 and 1979, Gilda Radner portrayed a character called Candy Slice on "Saturday Night Live" based on Smith.  Alternative rock singer-songwriter Courtney Love of Hole heavily credited Smith as being a huge influence on her; Love received Smith's album "Horses" in juvenile hall as a teenager, and "realized that you could do something that was completely subversive that didn't involve violence [or] felonies. I stopped making trouble," said Love. "I stopped." Hole's classic track "Violet" features the lyrics "And the sky was all violet / I want it again, but violent, more violent", alluding to lyrics from Smith's "Kimberly". Love later stated that she considered "Rock n Roll Nigger" the greatest rock song of all time.  American pop singer Madonna has also named Smith as one of her biggest influences.  Anglo-Celtic rock band The Waterboys' debut single, "A Girl Called Johnny", was written as a tribute to Smith.  In 2018, the English band Florence and the Machine dedicated Smith the "High as Hope" album song "Patricia". The lyrics reference Patricia as Florence Welch's "North Star".  Canadian country musician Orville Peck cited Smith as having had a big impact on him, stating that Smith's album "Horses" introduced him to a new and different way to make music.

Activism.

In 1993, Smith contributed "Memorial Tribute (Live)" to the AIDS-Benefit Album "No Alternative" produced by the Red Hot Organization.  Smith was a supporter of the Green Party and backed Ralph Nader in the 2000 United States presidential election. She led the crowd singing "Over the Rainbow" and "People Have the Power" at the campaign's rallies, and also performed at several of Nader's subsequent "Democracy Rising" events. Smith was a speaker and singer at the first protests against the Iraq War as U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. Smith supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election. Bruce Springsteen continued performing her "People Have the Power" at Vote for Change campaign events. In the winter of 2004–2005, Smith toured again with Nader in a series of rallies against the Iraq War and called for the impeachment of Bush.  Smith premiered two new protest songs in London in September 2006. Louise Jury, writing in "The Independent", characterized them as "an emotional indictment of American and Israeli foreign policy". The song "Qana" was about the Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana. "Without Chains" is about Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany, held at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp for four years. Jury's article quotes Smith as saying:  In an interview, Smith stated that Kurnaz's family has contacted her and that she wrote a short preface for the book that he was writing. Kurnaz's book, "Five Years of My Life", was published in English by Palgrave Macmillan in March 2008, with Patti's introduction.  On March 26, 2003, ten days after Rachel Corrie's death, Smith appeared in Austin, Texas, and performed an anti-war concert. She subsequently wrote a song "Peaceable Kingdom" which was inspired by and is dedicated to Rachel Corrie. In 2009, in her Meltdown concert in Festival Hall, she paid homage to the Iranians taking part in post-election protests by saying "Where is My Vote?" in a version of the song "People Have the Power".  In 2015, Smith appeared with Nader, spoke and performed the songs "Wing" and "People Have the Power" during the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony in Winsted, Connecticut. She performed "Wing" again in 2016 in homage to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks during the "First they came for Assange..." event at Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, to mark the 4th year of Julian Assange's attempt to avoid prosecution by taking refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Smith spoke, read poetry, and performed several songs accompanied by her daughter Jesse at Nader's "Breaking Through Power" conference at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.  A long time supporter of Tibet House US, she performs yearly at their benefit at Carnegie Hall.  In 2020, Smith contributed signed first-edition copies of her books to the Passages bookshop in Portland, Oregon, after the store was burgled of a number of valuable first-edition and other books by various authors. She did so after reading about the burglary and its impact on the owner, stating that she "loves bookstores."

Beliefs.

Religion.

Smith was raised a Jehovah's Witness and had a strong religious upbringing and a Bible education. She left organized religion as a teenager because she felt it was too confining. In response to this experience, she wrote the line "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" in her cover version of "Gloria" by Them. She has described having an avid interest in Tibetan Buddhism around the age of eleven or twelve, saying "I fell in love with Tibet because their essential mission was to keep a continual stream of prayer," but that as an adult she sees clear parallels between different forms of religion, and has come to the conclusion that religious dogmas are "... man-made laws that you can either decide to abide by or not."

Feminism and women in music.

According to biographer Nick Johnstone, Smith has often been "revered" as a "feminist icon", including by "The Guardian" journalist Simon Hattenstone in a 2013 profile on the musician.  In 2014, Smith offered her opinion on the sexualization of women in music. "Pop music has always been about the mainstream and what appeals to the public. I don't feel it's my place to judge." As at points earlier in her life and career, she declined to embrace politicized feminism: "I have a son and a daughter, people always talk to me about feminism and women's rights, but I have a son too—I believe in human rights."  In 2015, writer Anwen Crawford observed that Smith's "attitude to genius seems pre-feminist, if not anti-feminist; there is no democratizing, deconstructing impulse in her work."

Band members.

Current  Former Timeline

Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and poet who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album "Horses".

Patricia Lee „Patti“ Smith (* 30. Dezember 1946 in Chicago, Illinois, USA) ist eine US-amerikanische Lyrikerin, Punk- und Rockmusikerin, Singer-Songwriterin, Fotografin und Malerin. Sie gilt als „Godmother of Punk“.


Early career.

Pak began his career in 1962 as manager of the Yongchon food factory in North Pyong'an Province. He became an alternative member of the ruling Korean Workers' Party (KWP) Central Committee in October 1980, and chief of the Namhung Youth Chemical Combine Committee in July 1983. In May 1993, he became vice director of the KWP's Light Industries Department, and in March 1994, he was the vice director of the party's Economic Policy Supervisory Department. In July of that year, Pak ranked 188th out of 273 members on the funeral committee of the late leader Kim Il-sung, indicating that he was on the periphery of the elite hierarchy. However, in September 1998, he was appointed to the chemical-industries portfolio under premier Hong Song-nam, and replaced him five years later.

First Premiership (2004–2007).

In 2005, in a plenary session of the Supreme People's Assembly Pak spoke regarding the reintroduction of the public distribution system. Pak proposed an administrative solution to food distribution and labeled it the party's position: "By all means, we must reach this year’s grain production targets by thoroughly implementing the party’s policy of agricultural revolution by fully concentrating and mobilizing the entire country’s efforts into the agricultural front".  On 11 April 2007, the Korean Central News Agency reported that during the 5th session of the 11th Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, Pak Pong-ju was "relieved... of premiership" and Kim Yong-il elected the new premier. He had not been seen in public since May 2006. It is rumored that he was removed from office because he misused oil funds to be used for the farming sector, or that he was too heavily focused on economic development suggestions from the People's Republic of China, instead of home-grown ideas.  As Premier, Pak Pong-ju is the head of government in the DPRK, and formed the top executive leadership of the DPRK with other executive officials. The other branch of the executive government was the National Defense Commission of North Korea, led by Chairman of the National Defence Commission Kim Jong-un. As premier, he is responsible for organizing the cabinet and appoints ministers and vice-premiers upon confirmation by the Supreme People's Assembly. Prior to becoming Premier, Pak had served as Chemical Industry Minister. He serves as part of a committee heading the executive branch of the North Korean government, along with Kim Jong-un and SPA Presidium chairman Kim Yong-nam. Each man nominally holds one-third of the powers held by a president in most presidential systems. Pak handles domestic affairs, Kim Yong-nam conducts foreign relations and Kim Jong-un commands the armed forces. On 23 August 2010, "The New York Times" reported that Pak Pong-ju "resurfaced at a state function in the capital, Pyongyang, on Saturday, carrying the title of first deputy director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, according to the North’s state-run Korean Central Television." He effectively replaced Kim Jong-il's sister Kim Kyong-hui as director of the Party Light Industry Department in 2012 (he was its vice-director from 1992–1998 and 2010–2012).  He was reputedly close to Jang Sung-taek and part of the current shifting of the government's attention to the consumer economy.

Second Premiership (2013–2019).

On 31 March 2013 he was elected to Politburo Standing Committee. On 1 April, he replaced Choe Yong-rim for a second term as Premier. On 22 April, he chaired the first full session of the cabinet which included a discussion of the ""byungjin" line" of co-developing the economy and nuclear weapons, as well as budgetary issues for the People's Economy in the first and second quarters of 2013. In July, it was announced that Pak's cabinet had taken full authority over economic measures by calling to "unconditionally executing the cabinet’s decisions and instructions". On 11 April 2019, Pak was replaced by Kim Jae-ryong during the first session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly and given vice-chairmanship of the Workers' Party of Korea.

Pak Pong-ju (; born 10 April 1939) is a North Korean politician who served as Premier of North Korea from 2004 until 2007, and again from 2013 until 2019. He was elected a member of the Presidium of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in 2016.

Pak Pong-ju (* 10. April 1939 in Sŏngjin, damaliges Japanisches Kaiserreich, heutiges Nordkorea) ist ein nordkoreanischer Politiker und Wirtschaftsfunktionär. Er amtierte von 2004 bis 2007 und erneut von 2013 bis 2019 als Regierungschef von Nordkorea.


Early life.

Falcone was born in 1939 to a middle-class family in the Via Castrofilippo near the seaport district La Kalsa, a neighbourhood of central Palermo that suffered extensive destruction by aerial attacks during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. His father, Arturo Falcone, the director of a provincial chemical laboratory, was married to Luisa Bentivegna. Giovanni had two older sisters, Anna and Maria. Falcone's parents emphasised the importance of hard work, bravery and patriotism; he later said they 'expected the maximum' from him. At school Falcone would get into fights with larger children if he thought his friends were being picked on.  The Mafia was present in the area but quiescent; Tommaso Spadaro, a boy with whom he played ping-pong in the neighbourhood Catholic Action recreation centre, would later become a notorious Mafia smuggler and killer, but mafiosi were not a major presence in his childhood. As boys, Falcone and Borsellino, who were born in the same neighbourhood, played soccer together on the Piazza Magione. Both had classmates who ended up as mafiosi. Falcone grew up at a time when Sicilians did not acknowledge the existence of the Mafia as a coherent organised group; assertions to the contrary by other Italians were often seen as 'attacks from the north'. After a classical education, Falcone studied law at the University of Palermo following a brief period of study at Livorno's naval academy. Falcone and Borsellino met again at Palermo University. While Falcone drifted away from his parents' middle-class conservative Catholicism towards communism, Borsellino was religious and conservative; in his youth he had been a member of the "" (FUAN), a right-wing university organisation affiliated with the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano. However, neither ever joined a political party, and although the ideologies of their political movements were diametrically opposed, they shared a history of opposing the Mafia. Their different political leanings did not thwart their friendship. Falcone wanted a naval career but his father thought him too independent-minded for the armed forces, and sent him to study law.  Graduating in 1961, Falcone began to practice law before being appointed a judge in 1964. Falcone eventually gravitated toward penal law after serving as a district magistrate. He was assigned to the prosecutor's office in Trapani and Marsala, and then in 1978 to the bankruptcy court in Palermo.

First trial against the Mafia.

In early 1980, Falcone joined the ‘Office of Instruction’ (Ufficio istruzione), the investigative branch of the Prosecution Office of Palermo. He started to work at a particularly tense moment. Judge Cesare Terranova, a former parliamentary deputy and Antimafia reformer who had been the main prosecutor of the Mafia in the 1960s, was to have headed this office, but he was killed on 25 September 1979. Only two months earlier, on 21 July 1979, Boris Giuliano had been assassinated; he headed the police investigation squad investigating heroin trafficking by the Mafia headed by and Salvatore Inzerillo. Taking Terranova's place was Rocco Chinnici, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1983.  On 5 May 1980, Giuliano's successor in investigating the heroin network, Carabinieri captain Emanuele Basile, was killed. The next day, the prosecuting judge Gaetano Costa signed 55 arrest warrants against the heroin-trafficking network of the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino clan. From Sicily heroin was moved to the Gambino crime family in New York, who were related to the Inzerillos. Chinnici appointed Falcone to investigate the case, one of the biggest Antimafia operations in more than a decade. Costa signed the indictments after virtually all of the other prosecutors in his office had declined to do so – a fact that leaked out of the office and eventually cost him his life. He was murdered on 6 August 1980, on the orders of Inzerillo. Falcone was given bodyguards the next day.  In this tense atmosphere, Falcone introduced an innovative investigative technique in the Spatola investigation, seizing bank records to follow "the money trail" created by heroin deals to build his case, applying the skills he had learned unravelling bankruptcies. He was probably among the first Sicilian magistrates to establish working relationships with colleagues from other countries, thus developing an early understanding of the global dimensions of heroin trafficking, while enhancing the ridiculously meagre investigative resources of his office. A colleague was astonished to discover that Falcone, who had no computers at his disposal, was personally recording the details listed on printouts of transactions that he had requisitioned from every bank in Palermo province.  He learned that the chemists of the French Connection had moved clandestine labs for refining heroin from Marseilles to Sicily. At the end of 1980 he visited the United States and started to work with the U.S. Justice Department, resulting in “some of the biggest international law enforcement operations in history” such as the Pizza Connection. The inquiries extended to Turkey, an important stopover on the route of morphine base; to Switzerland, where bank secrecy laws facilitated money laundering; and to Naples where cigarette smuggling rings were being reconfigured as heroin operations. At the end of 1981, he finalised the Spatola case for trial, which enabled the prosecution to win 74 convictions, based on Falcone's “web of solid evidence, bank and travel records, seized heroin shipments, fingerprint and handwriting analyses, wiretapped conversations and firsthand testimony” that proved that “Sicily had replaced France as the principal gateway for refining and exporting heroin to the United States”.

Antimafia pool.

Falcone was plagued by a chronic lack of resources in his capacity as magistrate. A law to create a new offence of Mafia conspiracy, and confiscate Mafia assets was introduced by Pio La Torre but it had been stalled in parliament for two years, La Torre was murdered 30 April 1982. In May 1982, the Italian government sent Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, a general of the Italian Carabinieri, to Sicily with orders to crush the Mafia. However, not long after arriving, on 3 September 1982, the General was gunned down in the city centre, his young wife by his side. Sicilians rose up in outrage. Outside the church, the politicians who attended were jeered and spat on, and blamed by Sicilians for tolerating the Mafia for so long. In response, the Italian government finally offered investigators the backing they needed, and Pio La Torre's law was passed 10 days later.  Falcone's responsibilities as a magistrate put tremendous strain on his personal life. In May 1986, he married his fiancée, Francesca Morvillo; Falcone had Mayor Leoluca Orlando himself conduct the private ceremony.  He became part of Palermo's informal Antimafia Pool, created by Judge Rocco Chinnici. This was a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together sharing information and developing new investigative and prosecutorial strategies. Most important, they assumed collective responsibility for carrying Mafia prosecutions forward: all the members of the pool signed prosecutorial orders to avoid exposing any one of them to particular risk, such as the one that had cost judge Gaetano Costa his life. Next to Falcone, the group included Paolo Borsellino, and.

Maxi Trial.

The Antimafia pool laid the groundwork for the Maxi Trial against the Sicilian Mafia at the preliminary investigative phase. Following Chinnici's murder in July 1983, Antonino Caponnetto headed the pool. Falcone's friend Antonio Cassara (who headed the police squad hunting fugitives) was murdered in 1985. Falcone led the prosecution for the trial, which began 10 February 1986, and ended on 16 December 1987. Of the 475 defendants—both those present and those tried "in absentia"—338 were convicted. 2,665 years of prison sentences were shared out between the guilty, not including the life sentences handed to the 19 leading Mafia bosses and killers, including Michele Greco, Giuseppe Marchese and—"in absentia"—Salvatore Riina, Giuseppe Lucchese and Bernardo Provenzano.  One of the most important factors in the trial was the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the first ever Sicilian Mafiosi boss to become an informant (pentito). His assertion that the Mafia was not a collection of separate gangs but a single organisation led some magistrates and detectives to question his credibility. After an interview, Falcone became convinced that Buscetta was genuine and treated him with respect. Buscetta's key revelation was that a governing council, known as the Commission or "Cupula" headed a collective structure, thereby establishing that the top tier of Mafia members were complicit in all the organisation's crimes. This premise became known as the Buscetta theorem.

Setback.

When Falcone's record of success and high-profile led to resentment from some quarters, he was not given the job he coveted as chief prosecutor in Palermo. The new incumbent did not accept that the hierarchical Mafia structure revealed by the Maxi Trial actually existed, and he attempted to force Falcone to work on cases of wife beating and car theft. Falcone became so frustrated that he spoke of resigning. During 1988 Falcone collaborated with Rudolph Giuliani, at the time U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in operations against the Gambino and Inzerillo families. Rumours impugning his integrity deeply troubled Falcone during this period.  On 20 June 1989, a sack filled with dynamite sticks was discovered near a beach house Falcone had rented in the town of Addaura by policeman Nino Agostino. Although Falcone had been threatened before, this failed attempt bothered him in the extreme because it had all the signs of an inside job. At the time, he was meeting Swiss prosecutors Carla Del Ponte and Claudio Lehman from Lugano who were helping to investigate the Mafia's financial holdings in Switzerland. Falcone believed that the assassination attempt not only involved the Mafia but some people in government as well. During the investigations into the money laundering networks of the Mafia, it became clear that former Palermo police chief Bruno Contrada, who had moved to the intelligence service SISDE, had warned a suspect about his impending arrest so that he could escape in time.  Falcone received an effusive congratulatory phone call from Giulio Andreotti after the narrow escape. Falcone privately thought it odd that Andreotti, who he had never spoken to, would suddenly contact him, and he mused about the significance of the incident to a friend. Unknown to Falcone the efforts to kill him were suspended while the Maxi trial verdicts went through the appeals process that had often set convicted Mafia members free. Later investigations into the murders of two police officers, Antonino Agostino and Emanuele Piazza, who worked for the secret service, revealed that they had secretly defused the bombs that had been placed by a Mafia commando aided by other secret service men. Agostino and his wife were killed on 5 August 1989 outside their home, and Piazza on 15 March 1990.

Transfer to Rome.

Exhausted and frustrated by the antagonism in Palermo, Falcone accepted a post in the Ministry of Justice in Rome offered to him by Claudio Martelli, the new minister of Justice in a new government of Giulio Andreotti in March 1991. The transfer was initially seen as a capitulation by Falcone, but he himself thought of it as a tactical move to better fight the Mafia. His first action was to prepare a decree to repair the disastrous sentence by Supreme Court judge Corrado Carnevale, known as the “sentence-killer”, that allowed most of the remaining defendants of the Maxi Trial to walk free from prison. The Martelli decree led to the immediate re-arrest of the Mafia bosses.  While in Rome he started to restructure the Italian prosecution system, creating district offices to fight the Mafia and a national office to fight organised crime. Next was his move to prevent Carnevale from reviewing the sentence of the Maxi Trial. In a blow to the Mafia, the Maxi Trial convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court in January 1992. To the surprise of many, Falcone's move to Rome was very successful. He achieved a genuine revolution in the judiciary. The Mafia began to realize that Falcone was even more dangerous in Rome than he had been in Palermo.

Death.

The Maxi trial sentences being upheld by the Supreme Court were a blow to the Mafia's prestige. The council of top bosses headed by Riina reacted by ordering the assassination of Salvatore Lima (on the grounds that he was an ally of Giulio Andreotti), and Falcone. Lima was shot dead on 12 March 1992.  Giovanni Brusca was tasked with killing Falcone. Riina wanted the murder carried out in Sicily in a demonstration of Mafia power; he instructed that the attack should be on Highway A29, which Falcone had to use to get from the airport to his home on his weekly visits. 400 kilograms (881 lbs.) of explosives were placed in a culvert under the highway between Palermo International Airport and the city of Palermo, near the town of Capaci. Brusca's men carried out test drives, using flashbulbs to simulate detonating the blast on a speeding car, and a concrete structure was specially created and destroyed in an experimental explosion to see if the bomb would be powerful enough. Leoluca Bagarella assisted at the scene during preparations.  Brusca detonated the device by remote control from a small outbuilding on a hill to the right of the highway on 23 May 1992. Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and police officers Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Montinaro and Vito Schifani were killed in the blast. The explosion was so powerful that it registered on local earthquake monitors. Riina reportedly threw a party, toasting Falcone's death with champagne, according to the pentito Salvatore Cancemi.  Thousands gathered at the Church of Saint Dominic for the funerals which were broadcast live on national TV. All regular television programs were suspended. Parliament declared a day of mourning. His colleague Paolo Borsellino was killed in another bombing 57 days later, along with five police officers: Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, and Claudio Traina.  In the major crackdown against the Mafia following Falcone and Borsellino's deaths, Riina was arrested on 15 January 1993, and was serving a life sentence, until his death in 2017, for sanctioning the murders of both magistrates as well as many other crimes. Another Mafioso convicted of the murder of Falcone is Giovanni Brusca, also known as "lo scannacristiani" (the people slaughterer). He was one of Riina's associates, who admitted to being the one who detonated the explosives.  Reports in May 2019 indicated that a Cosa Nostra insider revealed that John Gotti of the Gambino crime family had sent one of their explosives experts to Sicily to work with the Corleonesi Mafia clan to help plan the bombing that would kill Falcone.

Legacy.

Palermo International Airport has been named "Falcone-Borsellino Airport" in honor of the two judges and hosts a memorial of the pair by the local sculptor Tommaso Geraci. Monuments commemorating Falcone and the other victims of the Capaci bombing were placed around Italy, including in Peschiera del Garda. Falcone was posthumously awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize, which recognises "extraordinary heroes of conscience". A monument to Falcone stands also at the FBI's National Academy in Virginia to honour his contributions to the "Pizza Connection" case.

External links.

Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci.

Giovanni Falcone (* 18. Mai 1939 in Palermo; † 23. Mai 1992 in Capaci bei Palermo) war ein italienischer Jurist und aktiv im Kampf gegen die Cosa Nostra. Er gilt als Symbolfigur des Kampfes gegen die organisierte Kriminalität auf Sizilien.


History.

The first breadmaker was released in Japan in 1986 by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (now Panasonic) based on a year of research by project engineers and software developer Ikuko Tanaka who trained with the head baker at Osaka International Hotel to learn how to optimally knead bread, and involved adding special ribs inside the machine.  The Funai Electric company's machines added a fan to cool the bread after baking, which allowed for full unattended operation, and so claims to have produced the world's first full-fledged entirely automatic bread-making machine on the market, sold as the Raku Raku Pan Da in Japan in 1987 and sold in the US as the Dak Auto Bakery model FAB-100-1.  A decade later they had become popular in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. While not viable for commercial use due to the fixed loaf shape and the limited duty cycle, bread machines are very suitable for home use, producing their best results when dealing with kneaded doughs.

Use and features.

To create a loaf of bread, ingredients are measured into the bread pan in a specified order (usually liquids first, with solid ingredients layered on top) and the pan is then placed in the breadmaker. The order of ingredients is important because the instant yeast used in breadmakers is activated by contact with water, so the yeast and the water must be kept apart until the program starts.  The machine takes a few hours to make a loaf of bread. The ingredients are first rested and brought up to optimal temperature. The ingredients are then turned into a dough by stirring with a paddle. The dough is then proofed using ideal temperature control, and then baked.  Once the bread has been baked, the pan is extracted from the breadmaker, leaving a small indentation or hole from the rod the paddle attaches to. The shape of the finished loaf is often considered unusual, with many early bread machines producing a vertically oriented, square or cylindrical loaf very different from commercial breads; however, more recent units generally have a more traditional-appearing horizontal pan. Some bread machines are in the standard rectangle shape two lb loaf using two paddles. One of the Zojirushi models even has a heating element in the lid to brown the crust.  Bread machine recipes are often somewhat smaller than standard bread recipes, and are sometimes standardized based on the capacity of the machine's pan; most common in the United States market are 1.5 lb/700g units, and the majority of recipes are written for that capacity; however, 2 lb/900g units are not uncommon either. Packaged bread mixes are available, specifically designed for breadmakers, containing premeasured ingredients including flour and yeast, as well as flavorings and occasionally dough conditioners. Only water usually needs to be added. Bread machines generally do not deal well with non-wheat flours, so any recipe that requires a substantial addition of a grain such as rye or corn that lacks gluten will prove difficult at best in a bread machine, as will any dough with unusually large amounts of liquid (such as ciabatta).  Generally, homemade bread goes stale faster than bread from a commercial baker because the former does not include preservatives. However, it is possible (though a bit more difficult) to use a natural leaven or a pre-ferment in breadmaker dough recipes if the starter is sufficiently fast to rise. Sourdough contains a symbiotic culture of yeast and lactobacteria; the yeast provides some flavor as well as carbon dioxide to provide lift, while lactic acid produced by sourdough's lactobacteria greatly preserves bread, as well as affecting its flavor, while pre-ferments provide some of the same benefits as a sourdough culture with the greater predictability of domesticated baker's yeast.  Breadmakers are often equipped with a timer to control when the breadmaking begins. This allows them, for example, to be loaded in the evening but only begin baking early in the morning, to produce a freshly baked loaf for breakfast. They can also be set only to make dough, for instance to be used to make pizza. Some can also be set to make other things besides bread, such as jam, pasta dough, udon or mochi, a kind of Japanese rice cake. One of the most recent innovations is the facility to add nuts and fruit during the kneading process automatically from a tray.  Traditionally, breadmakers take between three and four hours to bake a loaf. However recently "fast bake" modes have become common additions, many of which are able to produce a loaf in under an hour. The bread is generally not of as good quality as that produced by a longer program, but for many users this is a useful feature.  Some breadmakers sold in the 1990s had vertical pans, some horizontal. Today, the vast majority available retail make horizontal loaves. For that reason, they produce a smaller, shorter loaf than their predecessors. It is more difficult to mix a long, horizontal loaf because the ends are distant from the mixer-paddle and gravity does not assist the distribution of the dough. Some machines attempt a better kneading by using two paddles, one at each end. The vertical loaf machine may require a higher powered motor, because the entire mass of the dough-ball is on the paddle as it kneads the dough against the nearby sides of the loaf-pan. Economy in production may account for the manufacturer's preference towards horizontal loaf-pans. Finally, a vertical loaf-pan yields a uniform slice from end to end of the loaf rather than a loaf that is smaller at the ends.  Most of the best bread machines have a cold wall which usually protects the surface getting hotter during the baking process.

A bread making machine or bread maker is a home appliance for turning raw ingredients into baked bread. It consists of a bread pan (or "tin"), at the bottom of which are one or more built-in paddles, mounted in the center of a small special-purpose oven. This small oven is usually controlled by a simple built-in computer using settings input via a control panel. Most bread machines have different cycles for different kinds of dough—including white bread, whole grain, European-style (sometimes labelled "French"), and dough-only (for pizza dough and shaped loaves baked in a conventional oven). Many also have a timer to allow the bread machine to activate without operator attendance, and some high-end models allow the user to program a custom cycle.

Ein Brotbackautomat (auch Brotbackmaschine oder Brotbackgerät) ist ein elektrisches Küchengerät, das teilautomatisch Brot herstellen kann. Der erste Automat dieser Art wurde 1986 von der japanischen Firma Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. respektive Panasonic als "Bread Bakery" auf den Markt gebracht. In Deutschland wurde das Gerät unter dem Namen "Der Hausbäcker" vertrieben.


Name.

In German, it is known as "Groß Sankt Nikolaus", in Hungarian as "Nagyszentmiklós", in Banat Bulgarian as "Smikluš", and in Serbian as Сент Николаш / "Sent Nikolaš". It is translated as "Great St. Nicholas" in English.

History.

Near Sânnicolau Mare there are the remains of Morisena, an ancient town, seat of Roman legions and of medieval dukes of Banat. After the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718) until 1918, Sânnicolau Mare (and the Banat) was part of the Austrian monarchy, Temes District; in Transleithania after the compromise of 1867 in Austria-Hungary. In the late 18th century, the Habsburg dynasty of Austria recruited German farmers and artisans to resettle areas along the Danube that had been depopulated during the Ottoman reign and the plague. They were allowed to keep their own religion, language and culture, and many German villages were founded in the Banat. The descendants of the ethnic Germans became known as Danube Swabians ("Donauschwaben") and spoke a distinct form of German that became different from what evolved in the principal states. This is one reason for the high proportion of ethnic Germans in the town before World War II. After the war, many left the area to escape Soviet dominance; others were expelled because of anti-German sentiment throughout eastern Europe.  The town was a district center in Torontal County during Habsburg rule. The town served as the county seat between 1807 and 1820 due to a great fire in Großbetschkerek, the county seat. Occupied by Serbian troops in 1918 during World War I, the town became part of Romania in 1919 during the realignment after the war.  Sânnicolau Mare is known for the Treasure of Nagy Szent Miklos, a treasure of 23 gold objects discovered here in 1799 (it was then called "Nagy Szent Miklos" / "Groß-Sankt-Niklaus" in the Habsburg Monarchy). The pieces are on display in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the National Museum of History, Sofia. The town is the birthplace of Béla Bartók, the great 20th-century Hungarian composer, and of Karoly Szenassy, the great Hungarian-Yugoslavian violinist. The town is 64 kilometers away from Timișoara, the biggest city in the region.

Demographics.

At the 2011 census, the town counted 12,312 inhabitants: 73.7% Romanians, 7.2% Hungarians, 3.1% Roms, 3.0% Serbs, 3.0% Bulgarians, 2.1% Germans, 0.3% other and for 7.5% no ethnic information was available.

Sânnicolau Mare (formerly spelled "Sînnicolau Mare", ) is a town in Timiș County, Romania and the westernmost of the country. Located in the Banat region, along the borders with Serbia and Hungary, it has a population of just under 12,000.

Sânnicolau Mare [] (auch "Sânnicolaul Mare", alte Rechtschreibung "Sînnicolau Mare"; "Groß Sankt Nikolaus" oder "Großsanktnikolaus", "Nagyszentmiklós") ist eine Stadt im Kreis Timiș, Banat, Rumänien mit ca. 12.000 Einwohnern.


History.

In 1999, Toyota launched Project Genesis, an effort to bring younger buyers to the Toyota marque in the United States. This project aimed to create a "marque within a marque" in sales and advertising strategy for compact and coupe models sold by Toyota. The effort, which included the introduction of the Toyota Echo economy car, along with late generation Toyota MR-2 and Toyota Celica models, was judged unsuccessful and cancelled in 2001. In response, Toyota chose to launch a separate marque, an effort called Project Exodus. A Los Angeles-based digital design company, Fresh Machine, was retained by Toyota to develop the brand, logo, and website. This project became known as Scion. Toyota had previously participated in a project in Japan with other Japanese companies who attempted to market products to younger buyers. Toyota manufactured three vehicles under the WiLL brandname, which were exclusive to "Toyota NETZ Store" Japanese dealerships.  Scion was marketed as a youth brand and was first introduced in March 2002, at the New York Auto Show. There were just two concept vehicles, the bbX (which became the xB), and the ccX (which became the tC). The 2004 xA and xB were unveiled at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show on January 2, 2003. They were available only in 105 Toyota dealerships in California at their initial launch on June 9, 2003. The subsequent rollout of the brand to the South, the Southeast, and the East Coast occurred in February 2004. Scion vehicles were available nationwide in June 2004, coinciding with the release of the 2005 tC. On December 16, 2006, Scion unveiled the next-generation xB, based on the t2B concept, and the new xD, successor of the xA, at an invitation-only, no-camera event in Miami. Both cars were then publicly unveiled on February 8, 2007 at the Chicago Auto Show. The xD, a 5 door-subcompact car that is sold in Japan as the second generation Toyota ist, was based on the Yaris platform with the tenth-generation Corolla's engine.  In September 2010, Scion expanded into Canada, with vehicles offered at 45 selected dealers starting in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, followed by other cities. Launch models included the tC, xD, and xB. The first new Scions were shown in Canada at the 2009 Montreal International Auto Show.

Struggles.

Sales of the Scion brand were down to a low of 45,678 for the 2010 model year, compared to over 170,000 for 2006. The management tried to resuscitate the brand, hoping to sell 35,000 to 45,000 tC in a year after the model was redesigned for 2011. In October 2011, the iQ, an ultra-compact city car, debuted as a 2012 model. In April 2012, Jack Hollis (Vice President of Scion) announced that the xB and xD would be dropped after 2012, supposedly in favor of all new models from Toyota's hatchback division, Daihatsu; the same month, the FR-S sports car went on sale as a 2013 model. Later in 2012—despite the announcement of its imminent discontinuation—a facelifted version of the xB was unveiled.  In late 2013, the xD and second-generation xB were in their seventh year without a substantial redesign, and Scion sales were still far short of their 2006 peak. Toyota began allowing dealers to drop the Scion marque without penalty. The recently-introduced FR-S had strong initial sales, but combined sales of the new FR-S and redesigned tC did not equal sales of the tC alone during 2005 through 2008, and industry observers concluded that the FR-S was cannibalizing sales of the similar tC. iQ sales never met expectations, and by 2014, observers were characterizing it as a "disappointment." A primary goal of the Scion brand was to introduce young first-time buyers to Toyota products, but analysts found that relatively few Scion buyers were making follow-on purchases from the more profitable Toyota and Lexus lines, and Gen Y buyers were generally making more pragmatic car-buying choices than their predecessors due to economic factors.  For the 2015 model year, Scion released the iM hatchback, based on the international Toyota Auris, and the iQ, xB, and xD were discontinued. Scion also introduced the iA sedan, a rebadged version of the Mazda2; however, to capitalize on the popularity of subcompacts in Canada generally and Quebec specifically, the iA was instead sold as the Toyota Yaris sedan in Canada.

Discontinuation.

On February 3, 2016, Toyota announced that the Scion brand would be phased out in August after the 2016 model year, arguing that the company no longer required a specific marque to target younger demographics. The FR-S, iA, and iM models were amalgamated into the Toyota marque for the 2017 model year, as the Toyota 86, Toyota Yaris iA, and Toyota Corolla iM respectively, while the tC was discontinued. The then-upcoming C-HR was also moved to the Toyota marque after originally being unveiled as a Scion. The change was not expected to cause disruption to service options, as Scion models were sold and serviced at Toyota dealerships.

Lineup.

See List of Scion vehicles

Pricing, accessories, and availability.

Scion used sales tools such as "Pure Price" and monospec trim levels with a wide selection of factory and TRD accessories. Extensive market research and testing with Generation Y consumers formed the basis of the Scion badge.  "Pure Price" means that the price posted, whether on the vehicle, in an advertisement, or on a menu display board in the dealership, was the price customers would pay. This included the vehicle, accessories, finance and insurance products. Pure Price was designed to ensure a shorter and simpler process, eliminating all negotiation, though it was common for dealers to add aftermarket accessories and mark vehicles up to increase profits. The concept aimed to be open and consistent to all customers. The concept was not new to the U.S. market, having been introduced in the early 1990s by the Geo and Saturn marques of General Motors.  Scion's sales approach differed greatly from that of the Toyota brand. In the United States, for instance, the Toyota Camry was offered with four different trim levels intended for different crowds (budget-conscious, mainstream, sports-oriented and luxury); all Scions, in contrast, had only one standard trim level (monospec) and were designed to be uniquely customized for the driver.

Post-production accessories.

Scion offered about 150 different accessories; other after-market companies through the Optōmize Scion program offer to add other accessories, as well. For example, one can add a subwoofer as well as different types of decals. The tC had offered an optional supercharger to increase power from 161 to 200 hp (120 to 150 kW), but this option was since discontinued in 2007 due to early failure of the bearings inside the centrifugal blower. All accessories are sold individually, and do not require special packages. However, some options, such as Ground Effects, do prevent other accessories (such as mud flaps) from being installed. Companies that participated in the Optōmize Scion program include GReddy, OBX, RÄZO, a few car detailing companies, and others.

Release series.

Beginning in the second quarter of 2004 with the launch of the 2004 Scion xB RS 1.0 (Release Series 1.0), followed by the Scion xA RS 1.0, Scion decided to create limited edition vehicles pre-packaged with exclusive accessories in limited quantities. Limited Edition vehicles from a marketing standpoint were used to create a buzz for the brand name, with their exterior colors tending to be loud or bright hues (e.g. orange, yellow, red, blue, green). Because of the growing popularity of the Scion product line and the scarce production runs (most dealers only get 2-3 of each RS model), these limited edition vehicles quickly sold out. Pre-ordering is available at each dealership on a first-come, first-served basis. To the customer's benefit, Scion's "Pure Price" MSRP bounds dealerships against market-demand vehicle mark-up. Naturally, resale values of Release Series vehicles command a premium because of their packaged options and scarcity.  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014 2015 2016

Target market.

In 2007, the median age of a Toyota consumer was 54 years old. Comparatively, Scion's average buyer age at that time was lowest in the industry, at 39.  Initially, Scion's first two cars (the xA and xB), while unusual for American roads, were well received among consumers not interested in standard entry-level vehicles. The tC was also well received with brisk sales.  The marque's best-selling year was 2006, with 173,000 vehicles sold. Sales dropped in the ensuing years, to 57,961 vehicles in 2009. By 2010, the tC was the mainstay of the brand, accounting for over 40% of all Scions sold since the brand was established. However, some sales of the second-generation tC were cannibalized by the similar FR-S. In the U.S., sales of the xB declined after the introduction of the second generation, from a peak of over 60,000 to 17,017 in 2011; sales of the xD fell to 9,573 in 2011 from 32,603 in 2006.  By the time it was discontinued, over a million Scion-branded cars were sold. Over 70% were sold to people new to Toyota and just over 50% of the cars sold were to people under the age of 35; tC buyers had an average age of 29, the lowest in the industry.

Advertising.

To advertise Scion, Toyota began a promotional campaign using a form of guerrilla marketing, using posters and ads in movie theaters and TV to direct consumers to its various "want2bsquare" web sites. Scion's marketing endeavors extended to sponsorships, such as that of VBS.tv's show, "Thumbs Up!", which featured David Choe hitchhiking across the United States. Scion sponsored two commercials featuring Concours race car driver Matt Verbin during the Castle Hill Concours d'Elegance, showing him racing a custom painted yellow and orange xB on Cambridge streets. Scion also teamed with Gaia Online, providing the xB, xD, and tC as a choice for user cars, as well as other things across the site.  Scion also used smaller, regional viral campaigns to reach niche demographics. Online campaigns such as "Scion xPressionism" allowed a user to modify and design their own Scion with graphics, decals, and aftermarket car parts. Online advertising, much of it quirky and offbeat, was part of Scion's marketing mix for both these campaigns and for the launch of new models. Shows like "Slick's Picks" went around the country interviewing artists, stores, and events and put short videos on the site. "Scion Radio 17" was an internet-radio initiative that features 17 non-mainstream channels, ranging from rock and hip hop to electro and soul. Scion AV served as the brand's lifestyle marketing initiative, funding projects in music, art, and film.  In August 2008, Scion released the "United by Individuality" ad campaign, featuring over 300 Scion owners' vehicles in various magazine articles, commercials, and billboards. The latest commercial video showed a convoy of Scions parading through the desert in Boulder City, Nevada. These videos and ads could be seen on Scion's website.

Scion is a discontinued marque of Toyota that debuted in 2003. Intended to appeal to younger customers, the Scion brand emphasized inexpensive, stylish, and distinctive sport compact vehicles, and used a simplified "pure price" sales concept that eschewed traditional trim levels and dealer haggling; each vehicle was offered in a single trim with a non-negotiable base price, while a range of dealer-installed options were offered to buyers for personalizing their vehicles. The "Scion" name, meaning the descendant of a family or heir, refers both to the brand's cars and their owners. In an effort to target the generation Y demographic, Scion primarily relied on guerrilla and viral marketing techniques.

Scion war eine Automarke des japanischen Automobilherstellers Toyota, die zielgerichtet jüngere Kunden ansprechen sollte. Als Projektversuch für den japanischen Heimatmarkt im Jahre 1997 ins Leben gerufen, vertrieb Toyota die Fahrzeuge der Marke Scion seit 2003 ausschließlich in den Vereinigten Staaten, Kanada sowie in einigen Ländern des Nahen Ostens. Einige Modelle wurden in Japan und Europa als Toyota vermarktet. Produziert wurden die Pkw der Marke Scion vorwiegend in Japan.


Design and development.

The F-106 was the ultimate development of the USAF's 1954 interceptor program of the early 1950s. The initial winner of this competition had been the F-102 Delta Dagger, but early versions of this aircraft had demonstrated extremely poor performance, limited to subsonic speeds and relatively low altitudes. During the testing program the F-102 underwent numerous changes to improve its performance, notably the application of the area rule to the fuselage shaping and a change of engine, and the dropping of the advanced MX-1179 fire control system and its replacement with a slightly upgraded version of the MX-1 already in use on subsonic designs. The resulting aircraft became the F-102A, and in spite of being considered barely suitable for its mission, the Air Force sent out a production contract in March 1954, with the first deliveries expected in the following year.  By December 1951 the Air Force had already turned its attention to a further improved version, the F-102B. Initially the main planned change was the replacement of the A-model's Pratt & Whitney J57 (itself replacing the original J40) with the more powerful Bristol Olympus, produced under license as the Wright J67. By the time this would be available, the MX-1179 was expected to be available, and was selected as well. The result would be the "ultimate interceptor" the Air Force wanted originally. However, while initial work on the Olympus appeared to go well, by August 1953 Wright was already a full year behind schedule in development. Continued development did not resolve problems with the engine, and in early 1955 the Air Force approved the switch to the Pratt & Whitney J75.  The J75 was somewhat larger than the J57 in the F-102A, and had greater mass flow. This demanded changes to the inlets to allow more airflow, and this led to the further refinement of using a variable-geometry inlet duct to allow the intakes to be tuned to best performance across a wide range of supersonic speeds. This change also led to the ducts being somewhat shorter. The fuselage grew slightly longer, and was cleaned up and simplified in many ways. The wing was slightly enlarged in area, and a redesigned vertical tail surface was used. The engine's 2-position afterburner exhaust nozzle was also used for idle thrust control. The nozzle was held open reducing idle thrust by 40% giving slower taxiing and less brake wear.  A mock-up with the expected layout of the MX-1179, now known as the MA-1, was inspected and approved in December 1955. With growing confidence that the aircraft was now improving, an extended production contract for 17 F-102Bs was sent out on 18 April 1956. On 17 June, the aircraft was officially re-designated as the F-106A.  The first prototype F-106, an aerodynamic test bed, flew on 26 December 1956 from Edwards Air Force Base, with the second, fitted with a fuller set of equipment, following 26 February 1957. Initial flight tests at the end of 1956 and beginning of 1957 were disappointing, with performance less than anticipated, while the engine and avionics proved unreliable. These problems, and the delays associated with them, nearly led to the abandoning of the program, but the Air Force decided to order 350 F-106s instead of the planned 1,000. After some minor redesign, the new aircraft, designated F-106A, were delivered to 15 fighter interceptor squadrons along with the F-106B two-seat combat-capable trainer variant, starting in October 1959.  On 15 December 1959, Major Joseph W. Rogers set a world speed record of 1,525.96 mph (2,455.79 km/h) in a Delta Dart at 40,500 ft (12,300 m). That year, Charles E. Myers flew the same model aircraft at 1,544 mph (2484 km/h).  The F-106 was envisaged as a specialized all-weather missile-armed interceptor to shoot down bombers. It was complemented by other Century Series fighters for other roles such as daylight air superiority or fighter-bombing. To support its role, the F-106 was equipped with the Hughes MA-1 integrated fire-control system, which could be linked to the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) network for ground control interception (GCI) missions, allowing the aircraft to be steered by controllers. The MA-1 proved extremely troublesome and was eventually upgraded more than 60 times in service.  Similar to the F-102, the F-106 was designed without a gun, or provision for carrying bombs, but it carried its missiles in an internal weapons bay for clean supersonic flight. It was armed with four Hughes AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missiles, along with a single GAR-11/AIM-26A Falcon nuclear-tipped semi-active radar homing (SARH) missile (which detected reflected radar signals), or a 1.5 kiloton-warhead AIR-2 (MB-2) Genie air-to-air rocket intended to be fired into enemy bomber formations. Like its predecessor, the F-102 Delta Dagger, it could carry a drop tank under each wing. Later fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle carried missiles recessed in the fuselage or externally, but stealth aircraft would re-adopt the idea of carrying missiles or bombs internally for reduced radar signature.

Ejection seats.

The first ejection seat fitted to early F-106s was a variation of the seat used by the F-102 and was called the Weber interim seat. It was a catapult seat which used an explosive charge to propel it clear of the aircraft. This seat was not a zero-zero seat and was inadequate for ejections at supersonic speeds as well as ground level ejections and ejections at speeds below and. The second seat that replaced the Weber interim seat was the Convair/ICESC (Industry Crew Escape System Committee) Supersonic Rotational B-seat, called the supersonic "bobsled", hence the B designation. It was designed with supersonic ejection as the primary criterion since the F-106 was capable of Mach-2 performance. Fighter pilots viewed high speed ejections as the most important. Seat designers viewed an ejection at low altitude and slow speed as the most likely possibility. The ejection sequence with the B-seat was quite complicated and there were some unsuccessful ejections that resulted in pilot fatalities. The third seat, that replaced the Convair B-seat, was the Weber Zero-Zero "ROCAT" (for Rocket Catapult) seat. Weber Aircraft Corporation designed a "zero-zero" seat to operate at up to. High-altitude supersonic ejections were rare and ejections at relatively low altitudes and low speeds were more likely. The Weber "zero-zero" seat was satisfactory and was retrofitted to the F-106 after 1965.

Operational history.

The F-106 served in the contiguous US, Alaska, and Iceland, as well as for brief periods in Germany and South Korea. The F-106 was the second highest sequentially numbered P/F- aircraft to enter service under the old number sequence (the F-111 was highest), before the system was reset under the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system. In service, the F-106's official name, "Delta Dart," was rarely used, and the aircraft was universally known simply as "The Six."  Although contemplated for use in the Vietnam War the F-106 never saw combat, nor was it exported to foreign users. Following the resolution of initial teething problems – in particular an ejection seat that killed the first 12 pilots to eject from the aircraft – its exceptional performance made it very popular with its pilots. After the cancellation of their own Avro Arrow, the Canadian government briefly considered purchasing the F-106C/D.  In an effort to standardize aircraft types, the USAF was directed to conduct Operation Highspeed, a flyoff competition between the USAF F-106A and the U.S. Navy F4H-1 (F-4B) Phantom, which was not only as capable as the F-106 as a missile-armed interceptor, but could also carry as large a bomb load as the Republic F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber. The Phantom was the winner, but would first be tasked to escort and later replace the F-105 fighter-bomber in the late 1960s before replacing older interceptors in Air Defense Command in the 1970s. The F-106 was progressively updated in service, with improved avionics, a modified wing featuring a noticeable conical camber, an infrared search and track system, streamlined supersonic wing tanks which provided virtually no degradation to overall aircraft performance, better instrumentation, and features like an inflight refuelling receptacle and an arrestor hook for landing emergencies.  Air-to-air combat testing suggested "The Six" was a reasonable match for the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II in a dogfight, with superior high-altitude turn performance and overall maneuverability (aided by the aircraft's lower wing loading). However, the Phantom had better radar – operated by an additional crewman – and could carry a load of up to four radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow and four infrared AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, while the AIM-4 Falcon missiles carried by the F-106 proved a disappointment for dogfighting over Vietnam. The F-4 had a higher thrust/weight ratio with superior climb, better high speed/low-altitude maneuverability, and could be used as a fighter-bomber. Air combat experience over Vietnam showed the need for increased pilot visibility and the utility of a built-in gun, which had been added to the "E" variant of USAF Phantoms.  In 1972, some F-106As were upgraded in Project Six Shooter that involved fitting the F-106 with a new canopy without metal bracing which greatly improved pilot visibility. Also added was an optical gunsight, and provision for a single M61 Vulcan 20 mm cannon. The M61 Vulcan had 650 rounds of ammunition in the center weapons bay and it replaced the AIM-26 Super Falcon or Genie.  The F-15A started replacing the F-106 in 1981, with "The Sixes" typically passed on to Air National Guard units. The F-106 remained in service in various USAF and ANG units until 1988.

Retirement and conversion into drones.

Between 1 June 1983 and 1 August 1988 the Delta Darts were incrementally retired and sent to the Military Storage and Disposition Center in Arizona. When the need for a high performance Full Scaled Aerial Target Drone was required the USAF began withdrawing Delta Darts from storage. Starting in 1986, 194 of the surviving surplus aircraft were converted into target drones and these were designated QF-106As and used for target practice vehicles under the "Pacer Six Program" by the Aerial Targets Squadron. The last was destroyed in January 1998. The drones were still capable of being flown as manned aircraft, such as for ferrying to a test; during the test they were flown unmanned. The QF-106 replaced the QF-100 Super Sabre drone; the last shoot down of a QF-106 (57-2524) took place at Holloman AFB on 20 February 1997 after which the QF-106 was superseded by the QF-4S and QF-4E Phantom II drone.

NASA research and test aircraft.

Six F-106s were retained by NASA for test purposes through 1998. An F-106B two-seat trainer was operated by NASA Langley Research Center between 1979 and 1991. This Delta Dart was used in research programs ranging from testing supersonic engines to improving maneuverability of fighters. Between 1980 and 1986 the aircraft was modified for the purpose of lightning strike research and became known as the "Lightning Strike Plane" and was struck 714 times without damage. On one hour-long flight at in 1984, lightning struck the research aircraft 72 times. One significant modification was the replacement of the composite nose radome by a metallic radome. Although the maximum speed of the F-106 was Mach 2.3, during the lightning experiments it was flown at subsonic speeds into clouds at from. The aircraft was equipped with optical sensors which consisted of a video camera and a light detector. Data acquisition was performed with 1980s state of the art digital waveform recorders.

Eclipse project.

NASA used six drones in its Eclipse Project which ran from 1997–1998. The Dryden Flight Research Center supported project Eclipse which sought to demonstrate the feasibility of a reusable Aerotow-launch vehicle. The objective was to tow, inflight, a modified QF-106 aircraft with a C-141A transport aircraft. The test demonstrated the possibility of towing and launching a space launch vehicle from behind a tow plane.

The Cornfield Bomber.

On 2 February 1970, an F-106 of the 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, piloted by Captain Gary Foust, entered a flat spin over Montana. Foust followed procedures and ejected from the aircraft. The resulting change of balance caused the aircraft to stabilize and later land "wheels up" in a snow-covered field, suffering only minor damage. The aircraft, promptly nicknamed "The Cornfield Bomber", was then sent back to base by rail, repaired and returned to service, and is now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

The Convair F-106 Delta Dart was the primary all-weather interceptor aircraft of the United States Air Force from the 1960s through to the 1980s. Designed as the so-called "Ultimate Interceptor", it proved to be the last dedicated interceptor in U.S. Air Force service to date. It was gradually retired during the 1980s, with the QF-106 drone conversions of the aircraft being used until 1998 under the "Pacer Six" program.

Die Convair F-106 "Delta Dart" war ein einstrahliger, allwetterfähiger Hochleistungs-Abfangjäger mit Deltaflügeln aus US-amerikanischer Produktion, der von 1959 bis 1988 im Einsatz war. Die F-106 wurde maßgeschneidert für das Luftverteidigungssystem der Vereinigten Staaten entwickelt und deshalb nur von den US-Luftstreitkräften eingesetzt. Dieses Flugzeug weist viele Besonderheiten auf und hielt bis 22. November 1961 den von der FAI anerkannten absoluten Geschwindigkeitsweltrekord mit 2.455,736 km/h (1525,93 mph) Diese Leistung stellt bis heute eine der höchsten mit einem einstrahligen Jets offiziell anerkannten Geschwindigkeiten dar. In der Folgezeit gab es nur noch ein einstrahliges Flugzeug, das einen offiziellen Fluggeschwindigkeitsweltrekord aufstellte – die Mikojan-Gurewitsch Je-166 am 7. Juni 1962 mit 2.681 km/h.


History.

When in 1964 the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) was founded, its younger members began to call themselves "Junge Rechte", in order to differ from Nazi models and to counter the German student movement. Contrary to their hopes, the NPD failed to enter the Bundestag parliament in the 1969 federal elections, whereafter they initiated a far-right renewal movement. In 1972, Henning Eichberg drafted the policy declaration of the "Aktion Neue Rechte" offshoot, conveying ideas of an 'anti-imperialistic liberation nationalism', which included the expulsion of the Allied 'occupying forces' to pave the way for German unification and national rebirth.  From 1974, the movement disintegrated into numerous splinter groups, some defending the traditional ideas of a German "Volksgemeinschaft", some affiliating to the rising ecology movement. Eichberg and his followers continued to fight an 'over-foreignization' ("Überfremdung") by the superpowers and advocated a Third Position in opposition to both capitalism and communism. They made attempts to build up ties to left-wing sectarian and ecological groups, as well as to the German peace movement.  About 1980, a new tendency arose to approach the ideas of the French Nouvelle Droite and its founder Alain de Benoist. The adherents stressed the perspective of a pan-European 'cultural struggle'; their concepts were embodied by the foundation of the Thule-Seminar as the German branch of the French Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne (GRECE). In the late 1980s, proponents of a national revolutionary movement attempted to infiltrate right-wing populist parties like The Republicans, while other associated with the national liberal spectrum.  The movement gained a new momentum in the course of German reunification. The rise of right-wing parties as The Republicans led by Franz Schönhuber, the Pro Movement, and recently the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a matter of ongoing debate among German political scientists. They draw parallels to the success of European parties such as the Italian Alleanza Nazionale and the Lega Nord, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), the French Front National, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) or the Belgian Vlaams Belang as well as to the US Tea Party movement. The programmatic statements of 'New Right' parties span from neoliberal to far-right elements and thereby have become compatible to conservative and liberal circles.

Ideology.

Historically, the "Neue Rechte" is linked to the positions of right-wing ideologues in the Weimar Republic, later summarized under the heading 'Conservative Revolution' by apologists like Armin Mohler. These forces included such people as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck ("Das Dritte Reich"), Carl Schmitt, Edgar Julius Jung, Ernst Jünger, Oswald Spengler ("The Decline of the West") and Ernst von Salomon. During the interwar period, they openly rejected Marxism as well as liberalism and the parliamentary system in favour of an authoritarian regime and a German "Sonderweg". Their views towards rising Nazism remained ambivalent, nevertheless they contributed to the fierce political infighting that preceded the Nazi seizure of power in 1933.  Several members of the "Neue Rechte" also refer to theorists like Georges Sorel, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels, Julius Evola, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera seen as fascist pioneers. Some even base themselves on Marxist philosophers like Antonio Gramsci and his ideas of cultural hegemony.  Textually, the "Neue Rechte" challenges the principles of the Enlightenment, such as pluralism and social equality underlying the doctrine of human rights. Racist elements are superseded by the concept of ethnopluralism, combining both neoconservative and far-right approaches. Ideologists disparage the ideals of the 1968 protests and feminism, they refuse to accept a multicultural society and seek for a strengthened 'national identity'. Therefore, they tend to historical revisionism and to battle against what they call a German 'cult of guilt' with regard to The Holocaust. According to Roger Griffin, the "Neue Rechte" share the deep cultural pessimism of their precursors in the interwar period. Referring to a "völkisch" nationalism, the movement seeks refuge not in the restoration of traditional values, but in a 'national rebirth' according to palingenetic concepts.  They parallel the French "Nouvelle Droite" as a political movement, somewhat similar in their general political stance including the Anti-American sentiment advocated by Alain de Benoist. However, the "Nouvelle Droite"'s neo-pagan leanings are the opposite to the Christian foundation of many "Neue Rechte" members, though the movement also comprises occult groups.  So far, the "Neue Rechte" movement has not achieved an integrated opposite position to Western liberalism: while a main neoconservative tendency strongly refers to pre-war traditions and even affect centre-right parties, a second wing openly uses terms like "revolution" or "socialism" in political disputes, based on the model of Ernst Niekisch and Strasserist concepts. They have made attempts to build up a "Querfront" strategy with originally 'left' anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist circles.

Networks.

Well-known scholars and influential figures of the "Neue Rechte" beside Henning Eichberg and Armin Mohler include Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner, Hans-Dietrich Sander, Robert Hepp, Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing, Karlheinz Weissmann and Götz Kubitschek.  The medium commonly associated with the "Neue Rechte" is the weekly newspaper "Junge Freiheit" founded in 1986. However, its chief editor Dieter Stein, a former member of The Republicans, denounces the term and instead advocates a more traditionally Christian, yet decidedly nationalist and democratic conservatism. Yet the term is frequently used as a self-description by the bi-monthly magazine "Sezession", which is closely linked to "Junge Freiheit". Other periodicals affiliated with the "Neue Rechte" are "Nation und Europa" (discontinued in 2009) and its "Zuerst!" successor. The Studienzentrum Weikersheim founded by the CDU politician Hans Filbinger considers itself a Christian-conservative think tank.  The Bibliothek des Konservatismus (BdK) is another connecting element in the Nnetwork of the far-right in central Europe. Opened in 2012 and located in Fasanenstraße in Berlin-Charlottenburg the main focus of the library is conservative and far-right literature. It is the first library with this content in Germany and was founded by Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing and his foundation "Förderstiftung konservative Bildung und Forschung (FKBF)". FKBF is running the library. There are 27.000 medias (2014) in the library.

Neue Rechte ("New Right") is the designation for a right-wing political movement in Germany. It was founded as an opposition to the New Left generation of the 1960s. Its intellectually oriented proponents distance themselves from Old Right Nazi traditions and emphasize similarities between the far-right and the conservative spectrum.

Der Begriff Neue Rechte (, ) bezeichnet die Konzeption und ist zum Teil auch Selbstbezeichnung einer uneinheitlichen, rechtsextremen politischen Strömung in verschiedenen Staaten. Die deutschsprachige Variante wird als „Gegenmodell“ zur Neuen Linken verstanden, grenzt sich von der dem Nationalsozialismus verhafteten „alten Rechten“ ab, ist vor allem intellektuell ausgerichtet und sucht Querverbindungen ins konservative Spektrum. Charakteristisch für die Neue Rechte ist eine Fundamentalkritik an zentralen Verfassungsnormen, in Deutschland auch die Ablehnung tragender Prinzipien des Grundgesetzes; einige Gruppierungen wollen einen völkischen Nationalismus erneuern.


Solving a Toeplitz system.

A matrix equation of the form  is called a Toeplitz system if "A" is a Toeplitz matrix. If "A" is an formula_5 Toeplitz matrix, then the system has only 2"n"−1 degrees of freedom, rather than "n". We might therefore expect that the solution of a Toeplitz system would be easier, and indeed that is the case.  Toeplitz systems can be solved by the Levinson algorithm in "Θ"("n") time. Variants of this algorithm have been shown to be weakly stable (i.e. they exhibit numerical stability for well-conditioned linear systems). The algorithm can also be used to find the determinant of a Toeplitz matrix in "O"("n") time.  A Toeplitz matrix can also be decomposed (i.e. factored) in "O"("n") time. The Bareiss algorithm for an LU decomposition is stable. An LU decomposition gives a quick method for solving a Toeplitz system, and also for computing the determinant.  Algorithms that are asymptotically faster than those of Bareiss and Levinson have been described in the literature, but their accuracy cannot be relied upon.

Discrete convolution.

The convolution operation can be constructed as a matrix multiplication, where one of the inputs is converted into a Toeplitz matrix. For example, the convolution of formula_22 and formula_23 can be formulated as:  This approach can be extended to compute autocorrelation, cross-correlation, moving average etc.

Infinite Toeplitz matrix.

A bi-infinite Toeplitz matrix (i.e. entries indexed by formula_26) formula_6 induces a linear operator on formula_28.  The induced operator is bounded if and only if the coefficients of the Toeplitz matrix formula_6 are the Fourier coefficients of some essentially bounded function formula_31.  In such cases, formula_31 is called the symbol of the Toeplitz matrix formula_6, and the spectral norm of the Toeplitz matrix formula_6 coincides with the formula_35 norm of its symbol. The proof is easy to establish and can be found as Theorem 1.1 in the google book link:

In linear algebra, a Toeplitz matrix or diagonal-constant matrix, named after Otto Toeplitz, is a matrix in which each descending diagonal from left to right is constant. For instance, the following matrix is a Toeplitz matrix:

Toeplitz-Matrizen sind (endliche oder unendliche) Matrizen mit einer speziellen Struktur. Sie sind nach Otto Toeplitz benannt, der ihre algebraischen und funktionalanalytischen Eigenschaften in dem 1911 erschienenen Artikel "Zur Theorie der quadratischen und bilinearen Formen von unendlichvielen Veränderlichen" (Mathematische Annalen 70, S. 351–376) untersuchte.