Tactical Air Power 1968 Vintage Air Force Film

Cooking with the Troops.

Hey all.

Consider this a strategically placed stab at your pocket books.

Instead of spending money on trinkets from China that you don't need and won't last how about you support "Cooking with the Troops" with a little of that hard earned money.

I don't do this often so consider it a sign that this is indeed a worthy cause...but if you have your doubts then go here and listen to what a BlackFive writer has to say about it!

Oh and how about after you make your donation, you get your sorry ass to the gym...working out during the holidays will keep you from struggling during the next CFT/PFT.

Thompson nails it. F-35 completes this years test goals....

Thompson nails the critics once again....

Aviation Week & Space Technology reports today that the nation's biggest weapons development program has surpassed its testing goals for calendar year 2011, and is on track to do the same in 2012. The goal for 2011 was 872 flight tests, and as of last Thursday, 875 had been completed. This is very good news, since three U.S. military services and a dozen allies need various versions of the plane to replace aging Cold War fighters. Without it, they can't preserve U.S. air superiority through mid-century.

So where are all the news stories highlighting the importance of this achievement and praising American ingenuity? Over the last several years, news services and the general media have reported every setback the F-35 program has faced, real or imagined. You know, like the trillion-dollar number to operate the plane through 2065 that it now turns out none of the military users believes (they're getting ready to challenge the methods and assumptions supporting the calculation).
I checked news.google.com for F-35 stories this morning, and it came up mostly with headlines like "Lockheed's F-35 Not in Budget 'Cross Hairs', Dempsey Says," and "McCain Raises Concerns About F-35 Cost Overruns." Something tells me if I wait a few days for the Fourth Estate to digest the good news from the F-35 program, I'm still going to find mostly negative reports about how it's faring. I predict all the major news outlets will decide it isn't worth reporting that the Pentagon's most expensive and complicated weapons program is making steady progress. Aviation Week and the rest of the trade press will notice, but the New York Times? Not a chance.
This tells you some important things about the way news is reported in the general media. First, it underscores the preference of reporters and editors for stories involving conflict of some sort. If it's good news, it usually isn't considered news at all. Second, it reflects the ideological biases of some outlets, which will report any kind of lurid nonsense about big weapons programs with minimal checking, but just can't be bothered to tell you the other side of the story. And third, it suggests why people who are exposed to a great deal of daily news tend to be pessimistic about America's future -- because all the technological breakthroughs and economic achievements get short shrift, while bad news hogs the front page.
Oh, and it also tells you one more thing about the prevailing approach to gathering the news. It tells you why consumers are walking away in droves, preferring social media and internet aggregators to the daily downer they get each day from traditional outlets. People just don't believe (or don't care about) the version of reality they are getting from newspapers and television news, so they are voting with their feet to get information from other sources. If you look at the way the F-35 story has been reported over the last several years, that reaction is easy to understand. It's an essential program that is making steady progress, but you'd never know that from reading stories about it in the general media.
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.

Absolutely spot on.

I also note with a bit of sadness that there appears to be a distinct rift between Aviation Week and its blog Ares.

Note that I said appears.

This would bear watching, but I've always assumed that what was in one was in the other and vice versa.  That wouldn't seem to be the case.

Like I said ... interesting.

Shooting Positions by MagPul Dynamics...

My questions are...

1.  Is this useful in CQB?  Seems like muzzle strike are out the window when using this shooting method.

2.  When you're shooting, moving and communicating is this method as fast as the 'old' holds?  Transitioning from a sprint to the MagPul grip would seem to cost time.

3.  Its definitely not as stable on long distance shots so is this a one trick pony?  For use only on a range when engaging multiple targets?  Is it something that can be used tactically?

11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force participate in a live fire exercise

All photos by Cpl. Chad Pulliam

Cpl. Nathan M. Sleeman, a squad leader with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force, fires at targets while participating in a live fire exercise here Nov. 19. After additional training, the force will embark the amphibious transport dock New Orleans for a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

Lance Cpl. Armando F. Leal, left, provides security while Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian J. Klindt, right, moves through brush during a live fire exercise here Nov. 19. Klindt and Leal serve with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force. After additional training, the force will embark the amphibious transport dock New Orleans for a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

Marines with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force participate in a live fire exercise here Nov. 19. After additional training, the force will embark the amphibious transport dock New Orleans for a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

AV-8B Harrier takes off from USS Makin Island

All photos by Cpl. Gene A. Ainsworth III

An AV-8B Harrier with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced), takes off from USS Makin Island here Nov. 20 for a joint air-to-air training exercise with the Hawaiian Air National Guard’s 19th Fight Squadron. The training exposes pilots to different tactics, and the capabilities and limitations of different aircraft, said Capt. John D. Dirk, a Harrier pilot with HMM-268 (Rein.) Dirk, is a 31-year-old Fort Worth, Texas native. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14 to begin a seven-month deployment through the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

New Wars Blogspot's ship & aircraft costs...

Mike's New Wars Blogspot will never die...at least if I have anything to do with it.  If you don't go over there to look at some of his articles and see how far ahead of the curve he is then I recommend you do so!  Anyway, check out these stats that he acquired....

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS (VSTOL, CTOL)
Cavour CVH (Italy)-$2 billion
Charles de Gaulle (France)-$3.7 billion
CVN-78 Gerald R Ford-$13.5 billion
Queen Elizabeth (UK)-$3.7 billion
George HW Bush-$6.26 billion
Hyuga DDH (Japan)-$1.06 billion
Vikrant (India)-$762 million

Much more at his website.  You can check it out here.

AH-1Z porn...

Navantia's Amphibious Shipping Portfolio...

UPDATE:  I posted this without giving credit to Ferran.  Thanks buddy.  You and a few others are keeping a big hole in what I'm trying to do from showing up...and that would be developments overseas.  Thanks again.

JCI_en_v2

"Deliverance" type murder/attempted murder in Ohio...

Taking a break from regularly scheduled military stuff to bring you this wild ass story...Check this out from the Columbus Dispatch...oh and read the whole thing...

CALDWELL, Ohio — He lay in the woods for seven hours, with an elbow shattered by an assailant’s bullet.

Lost, covered in his own blood and unsure if the men who hunted him were still nearby, a man from South Carolina hid in the forested hills outside Caldwell until after dark on Nov. 6. Deciding it was safe, he then made a painful 2-mile journey to the nearest farmhouse to call for help.

Investigators say he was the lucky one.

On Tuesday, they found the body of a man buried in a shallow grave near the site where the other man was attacked.

By surviving his ordeal two weeks ago in Noble County, the victim, whose name authorities haven’t released, helped uncover an elaborate scheme by at least two men to lure people with the promise of work from across the country to Ohio. Authorities say the real plan was to rob and kill them.

Two suspects were taken into custody Wednesday after an investigation by a bevy of federal, state and county agencies.

The Akron Beacon-Journal reported last night that the suspects are a 16-year-old Stow-Munroe Falls High School student in Ohio and a 52-year-old Akron man. Their names had not been released.

The adult was being held in the Summit County Jail in Akron on multiple counts related to prostitution, the newspaper said. His bond was set at $1 million.

The juvenile had not yet been charged.

Noble County Sheriff Stephen Hannum said the investigation began when an officer was called to a lonely farmhouse near Fulda, about 100 miles east of Columbus, on a report of a man with a gunshot wound.

According to the victim:

He had come to Noble County after responding to a Craigslist advertisement for a job on a 688-acre cattle farm. Because he would be living at the farm, he was told to bring all of his belongings.

The victim met two men for breakfast in Marietta and then followed them in his own vehicle to Caldwell. He left his truck there, joining the men in their vehicle to complete the trip to the farm. Instead, the men pulled over on Don Warner Road, a gravel country path that winds through the hills on the eastern edge of the county.

The men said they would need to complete the trip on foot because the road ahead was impassable, so the man and one of his assailants got out of the truck and began walking through the woods. That’s when the man heard what he thought was the sound of a gun being cocked.

He looked and saw the other man had a handgun pointed at his head.

The victim was able to deflect the barrel and start running, but not before the other man shot him in the elbow. The assailant continued shooting at the victim as he ran, but the man was able to escape into the woods.

“He said he saw the house all lit up and thought it looked like a friendly place,” said a woman who answered the door yesterday at the residence where the man sought help. She would not give her name because she said she was still shaken by the incident.

Things like that just don’t happen in this tiny community of about two dozen houses that straddle Fulda Road near the almost 200-year-old St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception Church.

She said the man rang the doorbell and beat on the door until she answered, and that his shirt and pants were covered in dried blood. The man told her what had happened and said he was afraid the men were going to steal his truck and the all-terrain vehicle and motorcycle that he had brought from South Carolina.

The man was treated at the house by paramedics and eventually taken to a hospital in Akron, where he underwent reconstructive surgery on his arm.

Then, on Nov. 11, the sheriff’s office received a call from a woman in Boston who was concerned about her twin brother, who had gone missing after responding to a similar ad. The brother, who lived in Florida, had last been seen in Parkersburg, W.Va., on Oct. 22.

Hannum said his office called in help from the FBI, the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service and a laundry list of other agencies to assist with the hunt.

On Monday, they found a shallow grave that investigators think was intended for the man who escaped on Nov. 6. On Tuesday, they found a second grave near the first, only this time containing the body of a man they think was killed by the same two assailants.

Authorities have not identified the man yet or determined how he died. The Licking County coroner’s office is handling the autopsy.

Hannum said yesterday that there’s no evidence that there are more victims, but he would not rule out that there could be more people involved in the scheme than the two arrested.

The two suspects in the case were arrested in Summit County. Hannum would say only that they were not Noble County residents, but at least one was familiar with the area. The land where the graves were dug is owned by a nearby coal mine and often leased for hunting.

Hannum said authorities think the motive was simple greed. Property belonging to the victims already has been recovered by investigators.

Fred Alverson, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Columbus, said that the FBI has been assisting the Noble County sheriff’s office on the case.

“We’re reviewing the information provided by the FBI,” Alverson said.

Dispatch reporter Kathy Lynn Gray contributed to this story.