Remember when I said last week might be the last set of Phantom videos for a Thursday Thunder post? Yeah, turns out that’s not the case. 1-300 went (slightly) back into his archives to produce this neat video of the final departures of a few retiring JASDF birds. For these birds, at least, their final service will be as gate guardians. Certainly a better fate than the scrapyard. Shinto has the idea of ya-o-yorozu no kami, the idea that there’s a divine spirit within almost everything. If any machines deserve to have contain a guardian spirit, it would be these.
Finally, for something just a little different. Same Japanese airbase, different air force coming to play for a bit. Will Lockheed ever stop building C-130s? Humans have been been flying in heavier than air aircraft for 117 years now. Lockheed has been churning out C-130s for more than half (66, to be precise) of those years.