Sweetman Goes "All In" on F-35 QLR

I think maybe he is trying to 'nag' his way onto the F-35 program.
(But it's just too much fun watching him flail around)

Bill Sweetman has his spleen vent set to ‘Full Snark Mode’ in an ongoing series of posts that tail-twist the F-35 program over the F-35 Quick Look Report and what (he thinks) 'it all means’ from the Ragin’ Hedge Baby from the Shires© perspective. I noticed that in the manner of Brave Sir Robin said gadfly decided to go deep (as in shovel ready) on this topic while the Aerospace industry in general is in its ‘end of year’ hiatus. I have had more important things to do (and kill) than negative memes over the Christmas break, so I haven’t given too much attention to the uninformed ruminations of itinerant journolistas, their codependent Non-State-Actor friends, or the rest of the merry Anti-JSF tribe until tonight.

I hit the ARES blog looking for details on the latest Saudi/F-15 deal before I head back to work tomorrow and what do I find? Yeah…. another Sweetman ‘piece’ taking a swipe at the F-35 and ‘its supporters’ titled: “F-35 Proponents Say The Darndest Things”. No snark there eh?
The article is as full of the simplton-ian analysis we’ve come to expect from the source, but what really caught my eye was the closer:

So where do all these tales come from? Check out an Australian government audit report, released on December 20. In its discussion of Australia's JSF program (p261), it notes that one of 11 "major challenges" to the project, on the same level as dealing with schedule and cost changes, is to

"appropriately manage JSF misinformation in the media".

Do they mean correcting misinformation, or maintaining misinformation at an appropriate level?

Since Mr. Sweetman is apparently at a loss (in more ways than one) as to what the Australian GOVERNMENT AUDIT (i.e. outside the JSF program) report means, let us use a suitable example of media misinformation to help correct misinformation and perhaps clarify for Mr. Sweetman to what the Australian Government seems to be referring.

Let’s see. How about a corrective rewrite of of Bill Sweetman’s “Why the QLR is News” piece, so that it is a little less ‘misinformative’? (Corrections and new content in Blue)

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There is no faster way for an adept flack to kill take 'cheap shots' at a story program than to conflate a the "nothing really new on the technical front” report into a “this program is as bad as we wished” gambit. We've seen a good deal of that in the six days since the Quick Look Review report escaped from its cage.
A typical story might use a report that quotes an unattributed analyst as saying that:

"the F-35 was turning out to have the same schedule, cost and technical issues suffered by most aircraft programs, including Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner. 'It's not a pleasant picture, but it's far from a terminal one either'."

and diminish the impact of said quote by adding something like:

If "most programs" had the Dreamliner's issues, this would be one depressingly incompetent industry to work in. And the 787's problems so far have translated into strategic failure: The goal was to bury Airbus in the mid-market, but the old-school A330 is still alive and kicking, while Airbus outmaneuvered a distracted Boeing in the narrow-body segment.

Notice the overt obfuscation of the main “same schedule, cost and technical issues suffered by most aircraft programs” point by focusing on an alleged Dreamliner failure? So what if the final Dreamliner story is yet to be written? It would appear that it is apparently within “someone’s” journalistic license to ‘beg the question’ even when employing misdirection.
Using evidence in hand, and avoiding unsubstantiated speculation, a disinterested observer would have to conclude that the JSF problems are not may or may not be terminal, and he or she would be cautious concerning a report that was built upon largely antiquated data and not assert that but the idea that a major take-away from the first full year of flying (F-35s this year have flown twice as many sorties as the program had notched up a year ago) is that the production ramp-up needs to be stopped is something new, and not normal. After all, greater concurrency has been seen more often since at least WW2.
For the F-35, it's also not news that a critical report leaked as ‘fast’ as it did. That Such a leak in this day and age can just as readily be  usually an indication of a malcontent in any of the program office, test, operational, or competing (F-18?) communities rather than evidence of any high-level dissent. It could even be evidence of political hardball coming from the office of the Acting Undersecretary’s office (After all, it was, Jame G. Burton, one of the less famous and perhaps less capable but slightly more honorable of the so-called ‘reformers’in the 70s-80s who observed (to paraphrase) ‘Acting’ Something-secretaries tend to very much want to be permanent Something-secretaries.
Most Some of the press coverage to-date misses the point of the report’s incomplete nature on the subject of concurrency,and instead the coverage seems to be focusing on building a narrative which is asserts there is an unusual and the looming collision between discovery in flight and fatigue testing and planned production increases .
If one desired to build a narrative around the meaning of the QLR supporting a ‘negative’ POV, they might focus on the report’s concerns that Ggiven the status of testing, and the lag time in developing and implementing fixes, the report concludes that there is:

"a high risk that rework and retrofit costs... will continue to be realized across the entire LRIP production flow" - including LRIP-9 deliveries in 2017. Those aircraft are due to be ordered just after high-angle-of-attack flight tests are completed, and while second-lifetime fatigue tests are still under way.”

While the previous is 'true' (to a point), informed and balanced reporting would also note that the QLR does not take into consideration the risks and associated costs of NOT proceeding as planned and the threats those risks pose to the program. It is not as if the fact that the technical aspects of a program pose far less total cost risk to a program than programmatic aspects is not well known. The largest drivers have been shown to be #1: quantity changes (22 percent), #2: requirements growth (13 percent), and #3: schedule changes (9 percent).
Competent reportage would take into consideration what is missing from the QLR and what the impacts of following the recommendations might afflict on the program. The QLR recommends changing quantities and schedule, two of the three largest cost drivers? Where is the reportage asking the hard questions on that apparent conflict?

A cynical member of the press might attempt to counter the fact that the The ‘play-down’ reports also invariably note that the report did not recommend terminating production. Such an approach might employ a snark-laden false allegory such as:

That's the good-news story? "Hi, dear, how was the check-up?" "Fantastic! I don't have Ebola yet!"

When a truer, albeit far less entertaining, one might read:

“That's the good-news story? "Hi, dear, how was the check-up?" "Doc says I have to work on things but nothing that we don't think we can work out."

Of course, why bring up the allegory at all if it doesn’t support the negative meme drivng a story in the first place?
Let's look at that the wording in detail (page 7). The QLR team separated the program issues into four categories. Category I: "Areas where a fundamental design risk has been identified with realized consequences sufficient to preclude further production."
They didn't find any, but those with bias, or insufficient technical backgrounds and experience might brush this point off by asserting something akin to:

"it would have been a damning indictment of program management if they had. For a team of outsiders to walk in and, in 30 days, discover an unfixable problem sufficient to terminate the program on the spot would point to ineptitude at best."

 When in reality, a problem of that magnitude on a program as far along as the F-35 is more often as plainly obvious to an experienced program manager as the nose on any obdurate journalist’s face.
As noted above, the categories were set by the QLR team on the basis of what they found. Also, the team's original charter was not to determine whether the program should be whacked, but to investigate concerns about testing delays, and concurrency costs.
It would be beyond the pale, but alas I fear not beyond the limits of some in the aerospace trade press to read into the QLR something that is not there: to create a ‘absence of evidence is evidence of something’ argument. Perhaps by contriving a question similar to:

So if they didn't find any Category I issues, why is there a Category I at all - except to provide the program's defenders with a soundbite? If anyone has a brilliant alternative answer to that question, I'm all ears.

But you may ask “Certainly, no journalist, not even one apparently having an axe to grind on this particular topic, would fail to grasp that when one organizes information, the FIRST step is to create the categories for what you MIGHT find and THEN categorize what is found, as it is found, by the predetermined categories?”

Apparently not.

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"Happy New Year" indeed

Merry Christmas To All GIs Everywhere

(Bumped: Originally posted Christmas Eve 2007 & time hasn't changed a thing)

Just after Thanksgiving every year I start thinking about how Christmas in the military can be a little different than the average American’s. Maybe it is because when you join up, you gain another family to think about: and you think about them every year, whether we’re at war or at peace.
I get particularly sappy about it I guess, because I worked my first 10 Christmas Eves and Days.
My first Christmas Eve with my new family was when I was still in Basic Training. We were far enough along in the program that on “non-training” days we had some liberty in the immediate area of our WWII-era barracks (only the wusses were in the 1000-man dorms at that time ~wink). We actually built a Christmas tree of sorts, out of 7-Up and Coke cans on a picnic-type table while waiting our turn to call home from an adjacent bank of payphones. I spent my first Military Christmas Eve sitting around the aluminum can tree exchanging family Christmas traditions and stories.
My second Christmas was when I learned about “SP Augmentees”. I spent 12 hours guarding a stateside bomb dump with a brick (radio) and an empty M-16. The single guys pulled ‘the duty’ on Christmas Eve and Day so the married guys could be with their families and the married guys who “didn’t party” pulled the duty on New Year’s Eve and Day. It was a ‘win-win’ for everyone. For the next eight years it was usually the same thing. In Alaska and Iceland, the Godless Soviets liked to exercise the Air Defense Intercept Zones on holidays -- So we’d spend Christmas building, fixing, and hauling weapons to the flight line or, if we were lucky, we’d just spend all night plowing and re-plowing the road between the munitions storage and alert facilities IN CASE the Bears came to town. Now in the end we weren’t getting shot at, and we were always pretty thankful for that. But we knew it could have been different any time some world leader cleared his throat or tripped over his own feet.
The public tends to forget how close we came to Armageddon several times over the length of the Cold War, if they ever noticed at all, and the American Military is what lets them get away with such poor situational awareness and a peculiar forgetfulness. As our brothers and sisters now serving can attest, a lot of the Public doesn’t really like to think too much about how dangerous the rest of world is, and some of the less gifted in the populace actually think it isn’t that dangerous of a world at all.
Thank you to all of those now serving EVERYWHERE for joining and becoming part of the continuum: forever protecting the appreciative and the oblivious alike and without reservation. May you have a most merry and memorable Christmas with many, many, more to come.
(original photo was ABC News)

Success! Thanks Again For Everything Brother B!

I'd like to thank the fine folks at B&L Outfitters at the Clairette Bar and Grill once again for hosting me on my hunts this season, and for setting the standards so high while providing brotherly encouragement.
A couple of old adages about hunting have certainly applied this year.

First: If you're going to hunt, Hunt! The deer don't have a schedule and nothing beats persistence and consistency. Yesterday I did the AM and PM hunts and was still exhausted at 4AM today when the alarm went off. I almost slept in based upon what happened yesterday, but today, the ebbing moon rose an hour later this morning (new moon on Christmas BTW) and there was a little more cloud cover which gave me the edge moving to the blind. Yesterday, all the deer were jumpy due to high winds. In the morning I had some of the 'local girls' show up, then a forked-horn I've come to think of as Decoy Boy would show up to chase them. The doe would run away and then come back, then Decoy Boy would come back. All through the morning hunt. They were even looping behind me and coming in from different directions. The old doe did not like my blind, and stomped and huffed a couple of times, but she was more concerned with Decoy Boy, and then it was as if she forgot about me. Afternoon session was much the same, only Decoy Boy came in first. Normally what has happened in the PM is his running-buddy, a marginally-legal, "barely-8" point (Eastern Count) would soon follow. Not last night. Last night Decoy Boy moved off quickly and was hanging in the bushes until the doe showed up, and then it was the AM session all over again, until it got too dark to shoot. I had to sit it out to keep from being busted until the Decoy Boy finally moved off. This AM was also projected to be colder and calmer, so I dragged myself out of bed, knowing full well adage number two still applied, but also knowing that the deer weren't going to parade past at midday either.

Second: They call it "hunting" and not "shooting" for a reason. It's a good thing I like the 'hunt' as much as, if not more than, the 'kill'. Because there is a whole lot of the former and little of the latter even if you are lucky AND you're doing it right. In my younger days, I tended to focus on the finish and would feel disappointed when it didn't 'happen'. This year (and the last season about three years ago), I could have and did get 'skunked' (i.e. struck out) and still felt the season was worthwhile, and worth remembering.  I saw deer almost every session, knowing there was the right one (or three-four) cruising my Brother's ranch and surrounding area. This AM, before it was really light enough to count points on an antler, a big buck came in and didn't like my blind (my setup worked better for afternoon light. I think what he REALLY didn't like was the steam of my breath rising in the still air. I could see his breath coming out of him easier than I could see him. He was traveling with two other bucks, and he feinted into the clearing a couple of times, raised a false alarm flag but didn't spook. Those three bucks slinked through the brush on the other side of the clearing and  I got one look at the big guy's head when he paused to check my way once. Perhaps longer, higher tines on his rack, but they were also lighter in color and weight.
I thought that the AM session was going to end early on that note, when 2 then 3 then 4 doe moved in front of me, coming from the same direction as the earlier bucks. They were only on the scene a short while with the old doe casting evil looks my way and being the most cautious about moving into the clearing, when out stepped.....

The Chocolate 8 Point.

He's shown up on the trail cameras quite a bit, and considering it is a drought year, he was remarkably heavy-bodied. And I've always been impressed with his rack color, weight, and shape, but the real kicker was the mass and length of his brow tines.

 Gnarly Baby! 

With all the doe and this buck present I had to be painfully careful getting into firing position. I elected to only project my barrel out of the blind and scope the buck through the blind screen (still blew a small hole in the screen though ).

I dropped him in his tracks, but still don't understand how I could have missed my aimpoint as much as I did. I sighted in the new scope on this rifle with only 9 rounds, and the last 3 holes in my target you could cover with a nickel. Some of the error could be from having a live target and my excitement, but not all of it. I think it could be due to the fact I was using a shooting stick for the very first time (but not the last!) and I didn't secure my foregrip well enough. It would bother me a lot more if my poor aim had resulted in a prolonged death of the animal, but as the shot dropped him in place, I'm extremely pleased with the result.

BTW: I also learned that field dressing a deer is not the same as learning to ride a bike. If it has been more than 2 decades, you should probably have someone on your shoulder to knock the rust off.

Update 12/25/11: After reviewing game camera films, and a snapshot my Brother's neighbor took on Dec 7th, I've determined that this buck was the same one as in the first encounter that morning, and that he had just double-backed into the field of fire once his does came up and he thought the coast was clear. I'm always amazed at how different the deer appear in different light and backgrounds. I'm also convinced now that this is the same buck I watched for 20 minutes behind some brush back on the evening of the 8th and never gave me an opportunity to take a high percentage shot.
Later Note: made some typo and grammar corrections on 28Dec11.

F-35: STILL Just a Typical "High-Tech" Program

But the point seems to gets lost on the casual observers, the Druids and the 'droids. I wonder if pictures would help them understand?

I've been considering for some time doing a graphic or series of graphics that would show the comparable development milestones and the fielding of technical capabilities of the F-35 and the planes it is slated to replace or other 'successful' legacy programs . I think this would help get the point across to the illiterate, innumerate, and just plain lazy. Of course it won't do a thing for the 'Haters', but they're more manageable without their chorus of enablers.

This is actually more time consuming than just iterating the facts in words, but points can be more compelling when graphically shown.  For example, when someone trots out the F-16XL as a 'simple' replacement for the F-16, do they know exactly how different the two designs are?

F-16 Block52 vs. F-16XL

The recent Admiral Venlet Vent-let has stirred much of the "hater" noise making the last few days and   graphics, a timeline perhaps,  might prove handy to point to in the future when beating down hysteria over the next gasping F-35 factoid-of-doom that comes up. 

Constructive and serious suggestions as to the design(s) to get the point across are welcome.

AR Project: Lower Complete

I got a great deal on a mil-spec UTG Pro 6-position collapsible stock, and buffer tube assembly. My initial thinking was that it would be "suitable" at least until I decided on one of the more 'robust' options, but when it arrived I found it of impressive quality (AND made in the USA). Right now, I think I'll keep it.

To install the stock, I needed an M4 stock wrench.  Several phone calls later and after dropping by 'Cheaper than Dirt' (CTD) first,  I found none available and all on 'backorder'. I was also looking for some spare piece parts, and those were unavailable at CTD at the moment as well. The catalog desk rep at CTD recommended I order the parts through Rock River Arms - and it was a good tip. I ordered the parts AND the wrench at what were the lowest prices that I'd seen (wrench was 6 bucks!) and the shipping via USPS was trivial. The magazine is a Magpul 5.56 20 Rd, picked up at the Carswell JRB BX gun shop (no sales tax). 

Next Decisions:

1) 16" or 20" stainless steel bull barrel?

2) Buy or build the upper? Dollar wise, it's very close. May come down to what bells and whistles I 'need' vs 'want'  

Poser Update: DT is aware of the problem

A DT/Military.com rep has contacted me: they're doing what they can.
The person responsible for managing the 'back-end' of the Military.com blogs is aware of the troll who has posed as me and is making sue DT is doing what it can to contain the outbreak'. I don't want to mention details because that could be counterproductive.

I know they're only able to do so much and I know what their limitations are. I also understand that they can't provide me with the little troll's e-mail and IP address, but I still wish they could - as I have access to certain...ahem,,,'technical' capabilities that I wouldn't mind employing in a just cause.

The 'troll factor' was a minor contributor to my getting out of a side web-design business I had in the 90's [main reasons being 1) the unreasonableness of small business demands for the $: the smaller the business, the more unreasonable the demands, and 2) getting stiffed by the same small businesses].

Of Imposters and Living Life

Well, yesterday an impostor using my handle trashed the Marine Corps at Defense Tech in the opening comment. I made a couple of comments in the last couple of days in different places but nothing about the Marine Corps Birthday. [An odd honor of sorts I suppose, having the trolls take a personal interest in you.]

So while the troll with no life is trying to smear my good name, I'm on vacation and was again out at my Brother's ranch yesterday and today (got back tonight).  Last night, the 'local girls' were out early.

It was a cloudless, gorgeous evening last night (tonight we had high clouds).

Tonight, the two older doe were out so early that there was only a few feet of shadow on the oat field, and I had to move the two early birds off just to get to my stand.  They came back later with three friends and moved down the field in front of me. I kept watching the top of the field and pretty soon (almost too dark) a nice buck came out. He scraped the ground and ran his antlers into some low branches and proceeded to move towards my position almost on a bee line.

He's that spot at the top of the field (sorry about the poor quality, but it was so dark I had the camera on 'aperature priority' and had to snap a quick one so I could have my rifle ready before he got too close.). He veered straight down the field towards the doe such that his line took him even to my position. As he approached, I decided he was the same pretty boy I saw last Saturday night pacing a doe in the same place, only tonight I could ID him as the non-typical 10-point (Eastern count) that has been showing up on my Brother's game cameras.

He looks like an 'eight' but he has nice little double brow tines. Nice buck, but next year (if he makes it) he might be a 'great' buck --his peak is yet to come. This guy worked his way down in front of me no more than thirty yards out. About the time he pulled even the wind from behind me picked up, and he caught some of my scent. He couldn't locate me, but he knew he didn't like me very much and after giving me a left view, a front view, and a right view, he decided to pull out fast - back to whence he came. It was a great show tonight. Thanks Brother B!

P.S. I'm looking for something more along the lines of a mature 'Hard Eight' or another mature buck that's showing up in the cameras. Meet Mr. Midnight:

DT, Winslow Wheeler and 'Manufacturing' Problems

Defense Tech is 'moderating' a comment of mine I tried to post on this thread. The last time they did this my comment disappeared into the Ether. I suspect it is an administrative thing where they don't like a .com, or an acronym vs. malevolence (how petty would it be otherwise?), but no matter-- I saved a draft first. I tried to post:

Stop the presses! Winslow Wheeler has discovered that the entire logistics support package for the F-35B was not prepositioned on the Wasp. Someone tell Winslow that the WASP is cruising about 80 miles from F-35B home base in Pax River and that this is NOT a supportability test. Then ask him exactly DoubleU Tee Eff is his point?  I would also suggest the unattributed 'author' of this piece refer to earlier Mil.com articles that note the 2 weeks was the shortest(!) expected period expected for this round of shipboard trials and that the WASP was booked for much longer. Are 'we' now beating up programs for accomplishing tasks slightly slower than the fastest possible time?

And this is what I got:

Update at 2005 Hrs: My guess is is that ol' Winslow Wheeler just couldn't let positive news get out on the F-35 without a little caviling. This fey attempt at shaping the budget battlefield is pathetic in light of the real story:

Bloomberg: The F-35B short-take off and vertical landing version finished three weeks of tests on the Marine amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, achieving “all planned flight envelope test points,” Joseph DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Joint Strike Fighter program, said in an e-mail. “We’ve been pleased with the initial sea trials” and the aircraft “performed to predictions.”

Update 25October2011: Eventually my comment appeared at DT sometime today with the original time tag from last night.

AR Project: It Has Begun

As I've noted elsewhere, I've never been a huge fan of the AR-15/M-16 family of rifles. Not because of the issues (largely mythical or self-inflicted) surrounding the AR, but because my experience was only with full-stocked M-16s on active duty. Aside from the fact that we qualified on some pretty worn-out armory queens every year, I never liked how the M-16 'fit' me. My attitude towards the ARs started changing some when a friend stuck behind the Moron Curtain in the People's Republic of Kalifornia let me try on his custom AR with an adjustable stock. Hey! - for once it didn't feel like I was holding a 2x4.
I couldn't rationalize buying/building one though just to have a .223, and I already have (almost) enough rifles in the larger calibers for hunting so I couldn't see shelling out the bucks for one.
Then the .300 Blackout round came to town. Suddenly, I could have a rifle to take to the range all year and shoot on the 'cheap' and just either swap out the barrel or more likely the 'upper' and take the same weapon hunting.
So today I went shopping for a 'lower' at the Ft Worth Gun Show. I had a goal to get a populated Mil-Spec 'lower' for under $200. I succeeded thanks to the folks at the SOG Armory table. I also got quite a few leads on the rest of the parts that I'll need as I go along.

No hurries and no worries on this build. I'm not looking to create the UberAR, just a useful one. Anyway, my deer rifle for this year is re-stocked, re-scoped, all 'snapped in' and Good to Go.

F-35B: an 'Audacious Display'

Dave Majumdar with Defense News reports:
"In an audacious display of confidence, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program office demonstrated short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) tests of the F-35B Lightning II to reporters onboard the amphibious assault ship Wasp on Oct. 18."

 Sorry Ladies!
Audacious? I suppose in some people's minds. I'd say the opening of the article smokes the 'no news is bad news' angle I've read in the comments at other sites. The rest of the article pretty much debunks darned near every negative speculation I've heard or read about the plane on the 'major' websites and their peanut galleries.  Oh! What shall we EVER fret over next?

Lucky

Or: How I flew on C-130B 57-0526 to the very end and lived to tell the tale.

Going through the web looking for planes I flew on, tested, or supported-- and C-130B S/N 57-0526 at the Hill AFB Museum came up on the search engine.

   I have mixed feelings about this bird, which had a pretty unusual history-- even before my unit flew it. On the one hand, over the years it always got us home. On the other hand, I’m lucky it didn’t kill me and the rest of the crew in the end. I flew on the last test missions the bird ever flew, and then we flew it back to Hill AFB from Edwards AFB. After we brought it home it went into heavy depot maintenance. It never really came out, though it took a while for the powers that be to decide to pull it from service permanently.
   We took the plane to Eddy because we had done yet another modification to the plane and successful Performance and Flying Quality (P&FQ) testing was necessary before we would be allowed to use it under anything but the most benign flight conditions. I was Safety Observer and Flight Test Engineer in the 'backend'. My palletized crew station was positioned at the left paratroop door where I would have an unobstructed view of the ‘tufted’ shape we had hanging on an outer pylon, normally used to launch ‘stuff’. There was also a very large turret-shaped blister that was to be a camera fairing installed above and behind my station. My job was to run the backend test cards and observe and note the tuft behaviors as well as any unusual buffeting or other evidence of turbulent flows at all the different test points. I seem to remember two days of preparation and one very long flying day to hit all our test points. The reason we had to go to Eddy is that was where the Pacer aircraft were (A-37 on this mission). It was supposedly less hassle for us to go down to the Flight Test Center and coordinate use of the Pacers and crews than vice versa.     
   The ‘downside of this arrangement was that our (the 6510th) Wing Commander required us to use a local (Eddy) Test Pilot instead of one of our own on the reasoning that the local pilot would be most familiar with the local airspace, The fact that our test pilots flew down to Edwards (our parent organization) nearly every week seemed to escape the logic of the Wing King. The day of the mission we flew innumerable "Tower Fly Bys" (No top Gun BS: just like this video only slower and tighter) at different airspeeds while cinetheodolites tracked us on the ground, then we moved to higher altitudes for the ‘fun’ stuff. At varying airspeeds we followed the test card that took us through (among other things) Max Q rudder kicks, and other maximum control deflections to test the effect of the stability of the aircraft with those new large and unusual shapes glommed on to the left side. I dutifully recorded my observations (which probably helped me from getting airsick) throughout the mission. The rest of the backend of the C-130 was empty, as the Loadmaster had the good sense to sit up on the flight deck during most of the gyrating. As my station was just in front of the ramp, I was getting wild rides left and right and up and down as the pilot intentionally tried to add in energy and make the deviations as wide as possible before releasing the controls and observe the natural damping effects of the design return the plane to a stable flight condition. So far, it was a pretty long and boring mission.
   We returned to base, and when we entered the pattern, I could see the B-2 (in those days it was deep in flight test) beginning to move out onto the taxiway from its South Base facilities. Our ‘local’ test pilot landed a little longer than he wanted to, but no problem right? Heck, Edwards has one of the longest paved runways in the world! Except this runway was only as long as the turnoff the local Golden Arm wanted to make, and he leaned on the brakes- Hard. I’m on headset of course, and all I hear in short succession is our Pilot calling our ‘Easy!’, then ‘Load!’ The Loadmaster immediately chimes back “I’m on it”. He swings down off the flight deck and checks the inside of each wheel well using his gloved hand pressing against each side. The Load looks at me shaking his head and tells the flight deck. “Yeah we've got hot brakes”.
   The pilot informs the tower and then we sit and wait right where we are lest a fire breaks out. We have to wait for enough time to pass to be safe enough for the Fire Crews who come up to clear us for a taxi in. The B-2 in the meantime, turns around and goes right back to South Base because its mucho-expensive range-time window will close before he will get there. We eventually taxi in and are ‘welcomed’ by our superiors with the question: “How in the hell does a C-130 get hot brakes on a 15000 foot runway?” The ‘local boy’ has to do the Mea Culpa.
   We blast out for home later (I think it was the next day), and the next week C-130B 57-0526 goes into the depot, conveniently for us right there at Hill (Depot was moved from Kelly to Hill during the early BRAC rounds). I don’t think the plane was even finished in the teardown during the next week when we get word that the plane will never fly again for fear that the entire tail will fall off. There was "massive" hidden corrosion all around the bulkhead immediately aft of the paratroop doors (where my crew station was and where the ramp attaches). They told us it is the most severe case that had ever been seen. And I got to spend the week before as part of a crew trying to make it come apart.
Lucky.   

Occupy Fort Worth A Total Bust So Far

Or: 'Dude! If you are bald or gray ditch the ponytail - you're creeping out the children!
First - I'm not going to dive into the cognitive dissonance required for people to blame 'Wall Street' over the housing bubble bust  or the crap economy the last couple of years,  yet do not Grok the link between the Crony Capitalists and the Socialist-Left Democratic Party--Whom they SHOULD be blaming for most of our problems (with a relatively minor role played by the Quislings of the irritatingly clueless Republican Establishment).  I'm going to write a blurb here about the people involved in this 'Occupy' farce. A farce which I believe that when all is said and done, will be shown to have been blown all out of proportion, and someday someone will admit as having had the express purpose of furthering the Leftist subversion of America.

About 'Occupy Fort Worth'

So few people have showed up for this 'epic fail', the local newspaper was able to put a story up with pictures identifying by name what looked like a significant number of people (who weren't minors) who showed up. Article with photos here.

The cross-section was cliche. They had freshly-minted college grad 'filmmakers', angst-ridden musicians, full-bore vegans, retired 'teachers', and my favorite: Geriatric Hippies. I believe I've made it quite clear what I'm most looking forward to on the Hippie Question.

Geriatric Hippie 'Jack Smith' (If that is his real name)

(Crop of Star-Telegram/Rodger Mallison Photo. Find Original Here)

Outside enclaves of idiocy in Dallas, Houston, and most of Austin, Texas has an acute shortage of the type of people who have either the time or inclination to gather and bi*** about how unfair life is. This is true mainly because MOST people understand life IS unfair. From what I can tell of this so called 'movement' to date, it is largely populated by people who made life choices that didn't turn out as well as they thought they should have. Tough. There are some involved who ARE victims of fate, I'm sure - and creating a narrative to explain away misfortune is a human tendency and therefore understandable. Just don't expect the rest of us to buy into whatever story you built around your misfortune to cope with it. I'm more interested in being supportive of friends who are in dire straits and are working through the situation without giving up. My sympathy extends as far as your willingness to help yourself. Can't find a job where you live and there are jobs elsewhere? MOVE. Don't have the skills needed? Get them. I know people that are doing both and they're not wasting time at the park looking for handouts.

Same Old Scum Protest....UAVs?

This time at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

They're pretty much the same sh**head losers that pop up at all the anti-this-or-that "protests" organized in support of the far left and DNC (but I repeat myself) policies. This time, they got 'maced' trying to penetrate the confines of the museum with their 'protest' paraphernalia. Seems the museum has an exhibit about military unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), and the scum took offense. The museum had to close because some of it got inside, so I wonder how many tourists had their day or vacation ruined because of the petulant little sh**s? Way to build support there morons!

My biggest beef is with the press who 'somehow' fail yet again to mention one of the biggest drivers behind this foolishness: INTERNATIONAL A.N.S.W.E.R.

Who is A.N.S.W.E.R.? Per discoverthenetworks.org , they are/are about:

Anti-war front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party
A major organizer of the massive anti-Iraq war rallies of 2002 and 2003
Opposes embargo against Communist Cuba
Supports convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal

...frickin' COMMIES fer crying out loud. How.... 'last century'.

If you jerk any of these 'groups' chains they all go back to the same small set of leftards, whackos, and losers. It is not as if these morons keep it a big secret from the press - all they'd have to do is read the freakin' signs!

But the mainstream media seems to try to downplay the angle to the American public, and you have to pick through the more obscure (read 'local') materials to find any photos showing those signs
(photo WJLA):

 The two on the left want to 'feel' good about themselves and the two on the right just want to get laid. All four are 'tools', in more definitions than one.

You will still be hard pressed to find any references to the groups behind this idiocy in any actual texts of accompanying articles.

The one UAV on exhibit that the losers are probably most upset about is the direct descendant of a development program we (my unit) was involved with in the 1980's, Project Amber:

It was a brilliant design by Abe Karem ( I won't comment on the crowd he hired to build and integrate it.) and I'm proud to have played a very small role in it. The concept's strongest point was a phenomenal endurance that screamed 'surveillance missions'. I also will not comment as to how the follow on design was brought into the world by a privately held company that until that point had nothing to do with aircraft of any type.

One last shot (also from WJLA) of the Smithsonian yesterday. Visitors are leaving the building, having had their time at the museum ruined by the self-absorbed and hopelessly stupid 'activists.'

Dad: I don't know Son, I suppose it could have been human.

I've got a trip to DC coming up. Hope these A**hats have moved on to their next bath by then. 

F-35B Performed First At-Sea Takeoff Today

After slacking off all night. (Just kidding!)

Today,the aviation world is abuzz  over the F-35 landing on the USS WASP yesterday. Solomon at SNAFU! had the first pics and video that I saw (link here and the above photo from same) later in the same day it happened.
Today, Av Week's  ARES blog leads their story on the milestone with "NEW VIDEO UPDATE: F-35B Finally Lands on the Wasp!" .

Also today, Defense News reports the F-35 made the first STOVL takeoff. No video of the event...yet. 10/05 Update! Video here.--lots of takeoff and lamding angles.

But I wonder....will the ARES blog lead the story with "F-35B Finally Takes Off off the Wasp?" Depends on the editorial guidance (again?) I suppose.

Dead Terrorists & Stupid Politicians: Anwar al-Awlaki Edition

Updated and Bumped!
News reports today have now added a third significant 'kill' to the list of 'al-Qaida' operatives:
One "Ibrahim al-Asiri"



"--Top bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri 'killed' in triple hit drone strike Anwar al-Awlaki killed by same unit that took out Osama bin Laden
 --Al-Awlaki first American on 'kill or capture' list
-- Linked to 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood shooter
-- Officials say al-Awlaki planned to use WMDs on the U.S.

Read more.

100% confirmation would be nice, but I'll take what we can get.


Original Post:
My wife was going across the TV dial looking for news with details about the good guys winning one and killing Anwar al-Awlaki (earlier video of the loser in action here). Lo and behold! Gary Johnson (s*) was just on Fox News (video) claiming this is the first time we have killed an ‘American Citizen’ instead of giving him ‘due process’. (*Sack of Sh**)

NOT in war, you Effing Idiot!

From the AP Report:

In a significant new blow to al-Qaida, U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on Friday killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American militant cleric who became a prominent figure in the terror network's most dangerous branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks in the United States…..

Blah Blah Blah….‘Civil liberties groups’ have questioned the government's authority to kill an American without trial. Blah Blah Blah….’  

…The 40-year-old al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for al-Qaida's ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the United States were widely circulated among militants in the West. But U.S. officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen. Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who on Christmas Day 2009 tried to blow up a U.S. airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants.  

Yemen's Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki — Samir Khan, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced "Inspire," an English-language al-Qaida Web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the United States. U.S. officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but that they were still trying to confirm his death. U.S. and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them.  

Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the United States after it plotted that attack and a foiled attempt to mail explosives to synagogues in Chicago.

Good. A traitor who was a key enemy operator and recruiter gets his due on the global battlefield and we get a traitor enemy propagandist as a bonus. Hey! That’s like a ‘50% off all Terrorists’ sale! Yea!
Go Modernity! Boo Dark Ages!

Johnson is one of those ‘Republicans’ who are more correctly described as ‘Business -Friendly libertarians’. Think ‘Ron Paul’… only more self absorbed and insufferable.

Graphic based on October 2008 AP File Photo/Muhammad ud-Deen)