No, this isn't a story about the moon landings being fake. They were real. We hope.
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This is a story about Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, which later became Grumman Aerospace Corporation.
Grumman was a leading producer of US military and civilian aircraft in the 20th century.
It was the company that built the Apollo lunar module that landed men on the moon.
Grumman won the contract in 1962. It ended up building 13 lunar modules.
We have zero grasp of engineering and aerodynamics, but we always thought the lunar module looked like a heap of junk. It worked, though. That's the main thing.
As well as building lunar modules, Grumman built parts of the Space Shuttle. The company was also known for the Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber in World War II.
The main point of this story, though, is that a Grumman flying boat will be a key attraction of the Rathmines Catalina Festival this weekend.
Aviation enthusiast Bill Hitchcock told Topics that joy flights would be offered on a Grumman flying boat for $200 a seat.
"It's a fairly big flying boat. It'll be something unusual," he said.
"It's an amphibian. It'll taxi out of the water onto the concrete at Rathmines."
That sounds great, Bill. But next year, let's go one better. Let's bring a lunar module to the festival. Joy flights are probably out of the question. We'd be happy with a display.
A Tradie's Paradise
Tailgate parties are popular in the United States, particularly in stadium car parks.
The parties usually involve sports fans firing up a barbecue and drinking beer before heading into the stadium to watch their team.
Macmillans Accountants at Maitland has caught on to the trend. They're holding a tailgate party on Friday afternoon at Maitland Gaol.
There's no game on. Instead, the party is being held to bring together the latest ute models including RAM 1500 Laramie, Ford Raptor, Toyota Hilux, Mazda BT50, Nissan Navara, Volkswagen Amarok and Isuzu D-Max. There was no mention of the Triton that nothing can frighten, which doesn't seem right.
That aside, a barbecue and beers while kicking ute tyres? That's a tradie's paradise.
As Easy as ABC
Belmont's Eunice English said a resident told her: "I've done my voting online already. You just go to the ABC voting site and vote there".
Eunice said this person was not the only one to have mistaken the ABC Vote Compass online survey as a legitimate voting site.
"They may be penalised for not voting in the official poll," she said.
That aside, we read that Vote Compass data showed Newcastle was among the top 10 most left-leaning electorates in Australia. Newcastle was the only one of these electorates not in an inner suburb of a capital city.
