Ah, gotcha. Kicking the bucket just made me think of buying the farm and Operation Farm Gate early on in the Vietnam War. The pilots flying the covert missions had a bit of a dark sense of humor and the name was a play on buying the farm.
One of my friends was a rigger in the 82nd Airborne before he joined the Ranger Regiment, he's the one who got me interested in a HALO jump (he had some stories about getting it wrong too). Speaking of getting it wrong, are you familiar with the old 'Blood On The Risers' song?
I've seen photos of the weird shit the air does when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier so I'd be quite happy to experience that either way but yeah, on land it would definitely have more impact.
4,300m is about the highest I've managed to summit, out in the Colorado Rockies but I suspect there would have to be some serious conditioning before I had a go at 5,000m. We've talked about the Kokoda before, I want to do that too!
As long as I don't have to ride a nuke down a la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove I might be tempted to give it a shot. The SR-71 could only do Mach 3+ and I think that was faster than any of our bombers, at least officially we don't have a Mach 4 bomber yet. The new delta wing bomber that they're developing (Long Range Strike Bomber program) may be able to do that but they're being very tight lipped about any details still.
I'm still convinced it will be ICBMs with MIRVs and hypersonic missiles rather than bombers fighting that war...
I heard about the Mach 4 thing unofficially only about a month ago and whilst it's unsubstantiated I wouldn't be surprised if it's a thing; We'll know when China get's bombed from mainland USA I guess. Although, as you say, ICBM's are a more probable weapon system, no people and pinpoint accuracy. Let's see how it goes huh?
Sorry, I wasn't sure if I had mentioned Kokoda before, I make so many bloody comments you know. To get to 5,000 metres you'd definitely need to condition I think, it's doable though, just not by me these days. 🙂
Ah yes, the song the paratroopers made famous in World War Two; Yes I'm familiar with it...A good reminder to get it right.
Well, if it is anything other than total war, I suspect the drone swarm tactics that the Turks seem to have perfected in Artsakh will play more of a role than near hypersonic bombers. Honestly, I'm not sure why we're still going that route (faster bombers), the F-22 can already pull maneuvers that it's human pilot can't handle, as the speed increases the human pilot becomes more and more of a limiting factor. I know the Navy and USAF are working on getting directed energy weapons operational in the very new future, as soon as that is more than a novelty then speeds utility diminishes dramatically.
I was quite amused when I saw that we're selling Taiwan the HIMARS, the PLA will have fun with that if it ever comes to war with China.
You're good, I think I'd dropped into another comment chain about it because I recognized it from my World War 2 readings. There's the Continental Divide Trail here that runs from Mexico to Canada along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, I've wanted to hike a good chunk of that anyway, but it would do well for conditioning I suspect.