This report (paid subscription required) says that the Navy wants to start replacing the C-2 in 2017, with a complete replacement by 2026.
They are planning to let out the contract in 2011.
It’s not going to happen. Big defense cuts are on the way, and the 6 year time frame for designing what has to be a from scratch replacement (carrier landings, folding wings) given the ponderous nature of defense procurement.
Yesterday, I said that remarks by air force general Bruce Carlson regarding F-22 procurement amounted to insupordination.
It appears that Secretary of Defense Bob Gates agrees with me, as he has privately rebuked the general for his comments.
I would have fired his blue clad ass.
It appears that tapes of interviews and torture interrogations were routinely overwritten, in defiance of a court order.
Not only does cast a pall over the Guantanamo show trials, it may make it impossible to hold a trial in a real court as a result.
The cynic in me believes that this was the intent. Screw it up so badly that the only alternative is a Kangaroo court.
Look at Saddam Hussein’s trial. How you run such an unfair trial, when the defendant was so plainly guilty, is completely beyond me.
The Thai government has basically signed with the Swedes for the backbone of their air force moving forward.
They have purchased, “six JAS 39C/D gripen swing-role fighters, a Saab 340 Erieye airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) aircraft, a Saab 340 transport aircraft, and an air defense command & control system from Sweden.”
Sweden is actually doing a good job staking out the bottom of the current aerospace market, giving capabilities close to those of the big guys for less.
This is not good, but nothing ever is in the Middle East.
The Israeli defence minister warned today that armed forces were preparing for a broad offensive against Gaza in response to rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns.
Yes, Bush and His Evil Minions™ are claiming that Veterans not entitled to mental health care in a federal lawsuit in San Francisco.
I guess that PTSD must be an existing condition or something.
Basically, this means that George W. Bush cannot invalidate a court ruling through executive order, at least for now.
An appeal is certain.
The words of a soldier on the Stryker mobile gun system deployed to Iraq.
The reviews from the soldiers are in, and they hate it.
Your military industrial complex at work.
Remember Bush’s comments about troop cuts in Iraq?
He’s “recondidering troop cuts“.
To Bush and His Evil Minions™, winning is staying in, whatever the consequences, because it makes them feel like they did not dodge the draft in the 1960s.
Four months after announcing troop reductions in Iraq, President Bush is now sending signals that the cuts may not continue past this summer, a development likely to infuriate Democrats and renew concerns among military planners about strains on the force.
Mr. Bush has made no decisions on troop reductions to follow those he announced last September. But White House officials said Mr. Bush had been taking the opportunity, as he did in Monday’s State of the Union address, to prepare Americans for the possibility that, when he leaves office a year from now, the military presence in Iraq will be just as large as it was a year ago, or even slightly larger.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bush wanted to tamp down criticism that a large, sustained presence in Iraq would harm the overall health of the military — a view held not only by Democrats, but by some members of his own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
DARPA is getting$750 million for its “Blackswift” hypersonic demonstrator.
It’s performance is fairly mild as hypersonics go, about Mach 6-7, but it will take off and land under its own power, and use conventional hydrocarbon, as opposed to cryogenic fuels, so the utility of such a craft is significantly more than a lot of the other demonstrators.
It won’t need fuel tanks that are basically Dewar flasks, and it’s tanks should be much smaller, since hydrogen is much less dense than conventional jet fuel.
It integrates a turbine for low speed propulsion, using an, “inward turning inlet”
As you can see, this concept looks a bit less “tubby” than hydrogen powered systems/
Constant Peg, where the USAF evaluated Warsaw Pact aircraft, largely from defections, during the Cold War, has been declassified.
I had no idea that it was still classified, as I recall reading about the program in the context of the death of a USAF Brigadier General around 1984, but it means that this information is now available to the public.
I have no clue as to the reliability of the source, but we have a report that Lockheed Martin will be offering the F-16 with a supercruise capability to India for it’s massive mid size fighter purchase.
I would assume that this would involve a growth version of either the F-100 or F-110 engines, probably the former, as it is lighter, and possibly some aerodynamic tweaks.
I also know that a clean F-15 exhibited low supercruise (below Mach 1.2) nearly a decade ago in a clean (no external stores) configuration.
I’m a little dubious of the report, there are a number of errors in the article, it states that the F-35 supercruises, and implies that the Typhoon does not.
Additionally, the F-16’s wing configuration tends to be draggy in the transonic and supersonic regime, and for meanigful supercruise, this ability would have to be exhibited while carrying at least 4 air-to-air missles, 2 on the wing tips, and two under the wings.
I think that he is done, and that his options will be death or exile.he’s losing retired military officers, the new Pakistani Chief of Staff, General Ashfaq Kiyani, is forbidding active duty military men from meeting with him, etc.
Of course, through all this, Bush and His Evil Minions™ are without a clue:
Frustration is growing among Musharraf’s military and political allies partly because he is not listening to their advice, U.S. and Pakistani analysts said. “He’s locked in his own bubble that ‘l’etat, c’est moi’ — the state is me. He doesn’t understand how anti-democratic he is. He’s not thinking clearly anymore,” said the senior congressional official.
The Bush administration is still backing Musharraf, even as officials speak more frequently of working with “the Pakistani people,” instead of “the Pakistani leader.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday met Musharraf on the outskirts of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in the highest-level contact since he declared emergency rule in November.
Rice pressed him to ensure that the vote is free and fair and that the Pakistani people have confidence in the results, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Such remarks suggest that the administration is discounting the new assessments on Musharraf from intelligence and congressional officials.
This is unlikely to end well.
The US Army has missed its recruiting benchmarks by an alarming margin:
Heck of a job there, Rummie.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England wants to use GWOT money to to keep the F-22 line open.
With no meaningful difference in stealth, and the F-35 being smaller, supposedly cheaper, more flexible (adapting it to electronic attack is easier) and capable of carrying a better bomb load, the only thing you get for the F-22 is that it flys higher and supercruises, neither of which have any meaning in the strategic context of any potential opponent we can see.
Read the article. It’s fairly clear that this is the result of mindless USAF lobbying over the past dozen years or so, and this is a case where the adults in the DoD, by which I mean the JCS and the civilian leadership, have been far too passive in reigning the flyboys in.
We are looking at somewhere around 100 dead after clashes in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
There appears to be artillery in use by the army, and militants have apparently seized a border fortress.
This is getting worse, not better.
It appears increasingly as if Pakistan, a nuclear armed nation, may be on the verge of descending into anarchy.
Damn good work.
Russia has licensed the Thales Damocles targeting pods with Su-27 class fighters. It’s flown on Malaysia’s Su-30MKM, and the Russian air force will be adopting the pod, which was chosen after a competition with the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant (UOMZ) Sapsan and Solux targeting pods.
This is fairly significant, for a number of reasons.
I believe that this is the first time that Russia has license produced a western weapons system of this sophistication, and it is the first time that the manufacturer has incorporated sophisticated western electronics into one of their aircraft.
This may make it much easier for operators of western equipment to integrate fleets of Russian aircraft in the future.
I think that this is another indication of how Russia is rearming, and I think that it is driven by a fear of NATO in general, and the US in particular.
Of course, this suits the Republicans just fine, because they want a scary opponent who justifies high tech white elephants like the F-22.
FWIW, “New Build” appears to be kind of a technicality. It appears that the aircraft was manufactured from a partially completed airframe dated from the 1990s.
Yes, he says that he he is open to the possibility of slowing or stopping plans to bring home more U.S. troops from Iraq, which means that he’s not going to bring them home.
He’ll make some announcements, but when the tire hits the road, they won’t be redeployed.
Why, because George W. Bush thinks that all that matters is “victory”, which he defines as staying in Iraq, no matter how many terrorists are created, or how many troops are lost, or how many unstable nations move toward nuclear weapons.
It’s all about him, and he needs to show that he’s “brave and resolute” with other people’s lives and other people’s money.