Many of you asked for it because HTTP isn't allowed on computers at your place of work.
I/We listened.
SNAFU! is now secure and available under HTTPS protocols.
What does that mean? A more secure connection for you. Less "false" or "cloned" blogs masquerading as SNAFU! and a general win across the board.
You probably won't notice a thing but I'm beyond pleased.
The only other part of news I have is that its been BEYOND busy this week and I'm just beginning to hit e-mails. If you wrote and I haven't responded, I apologize in advance and want to let you know that I'll be in touch over the next 3 days...with the bulk of the "catch up" hitting on Friday.
Capt. Brock McGehee, a pilot from Kadena’s 44th Fighter Squadron who has been flying F-15s for two years, characterized the F-35 as an “extremely capable” air-to-air fighter, during a February interview with Defense News.
“It’s just kind of scary a little bit to fly around in the dark with an invisible airplane that’s around you somewhere,” he said. “Those guys are very good pilots, their situational awareness is very high and they do a good job of keeping us in the loop of where they are when they’re on the same team as us.”
McGehee compared the F-35 to its fifth-generation brother, the F-22 Raptor. Both are stealth aircraft, making them very difficult to detect at long distances. But in close combat, an F-15 will engage an F-22 and F-35 very differently, he said. He declined to discuss specifics that could reveal tactics, techniques and procedures and provide an adversary with hints about how to best either aircraft.
“An F-22, if you’ve ever watched the demo of it, you can turn inside out. It’s ridiculous,” he said. “An F-35, it turns differently. So that’s just [basic fighter maneuver] kind of awareness for us of what to do differently.”
So can the F-15 beat the F-35 in dogfights?
“I mean, sometimes,” McGehee said, adding that all aircraft lose in aerial combat sometimes, and for various reasons. “Part of it is the aircraft and part of it is the man in the aircraft,” he continued. “We’ve got some really talented pilots here who are able to gain the offensive on a lot of other pilots. A pilot who understands this aircraft very well and is very skilled at it is pretty lethal no matter what he’s flying, so it’s possible.”
This isn't your usual F-35 article where I critique the plane. No this is about current DoD policy and how its skewing things toward the technological....instead of equipping the man, we're manning the equipment.
That pilot said something that is well known to many here. God knows I've heard it screamed enough times.
It's not about the airplane but the pilot!
Well this F-35 jockey just confirmed that.
It's also stunning. I've never heard a F-22 state that if he flew his airplane correctly, if the rules of engagement didn't tie his hands during a training exercise etc...that he would fall prey to a 4th gen fighter.
Sure we've seen all kinds of planes have F-22's on their gun camera film but we've also heard explanations for it almost EVERY time.
We're not hearing that with the F-35. Dude is saying that if he runs up against a capable F-15 driver that he can lose. I assume the same applies to an F-16, F-18, Rafale, Gripen or Typhoon.
Did we labor mightily and do the wrong thing?
Should we have pumped more money to training up our pilots to top gun instructor status and having a cadre of airman that could fly the wings off the enemy in updated aircraft or shot for the moon and missed with the horrible F-35?
Let's call this what it is. Chinese porn. The fanboy sites are going crazy talking about the might of the Red Dragon and how the future belongs to them.
To our Neo-Cons, Democrats, Establishment Republicans and Eastern Europeans that see Russia as I threat I simply ask this question.
Are you fucking smoking crack?
Russia has a small conventional force that IS NOT equipped to challenge NATO. If you INSIST on making them the enemy then understand that they can easily be contained.
What Russia has is a formidable strategic force that should give pause but that is a defense force, not offensive.
The real focus for ANYONE that is seriously looking at defense issues should be China.
They are building a force to directly confront us and beat us at our own game. The days of an enemy using asymmetric warfare because we were so overpowering is over.
China is staring us in the face and telling us that they'd take pleasure in gutting us. We got to get hard fast.
The mistake that many are making?
They refuse to see the real face of China and hope for the best. China is the most dangerous of foes.
They're an ancient country, with animosity that stretches back centuries, but they're fueled with modern tech and a renewed martial attitude not seen since Genghis Khan roamed the earth.
Resolve, focus, hard work and the willingness to do the hard thing is what's required to win the coming war of national survival.
A landing craft, air cushion assigned to Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 5 transports an M1A1 Abrams tank to the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) during an amphibious squadron and Marine Expeditionary Unit integration (PMINT) exercise. PMINT is a two-week training evolution between Essex Amphibious Ready Group and 13th MEU, which allows Sailors and Marines to train as a cohesive unit in preparation for their upcoming deployment.
I'd prefer a few more pictures outside of a trade show floor but I'll take what I can get. The Army and BAE are moving with speed on this program and I'm impressed.
I'm waiting to see more variants, hopeful an uptick in production and finally a few in the wild with their operating forces.
A quiet, well run program. That's kinda refreshing if you think about it.
I'll shout this to the rooftops. We made the monster that is modern day China. Between greedy capitalists that wanted to make money on the back of poorly paid labor to maximize profits in the US, to idiot politicians/think tanks that decided that by offshoring our production to a backwards (at the time) communist country that we could get them to flip to becoming a democracy, the results are the same.
We created Frankenstein's monster that will challenge us for our very existence.
The funny thing (not funny funny but funny ironic) is that two high profile early trade items are replacing each other and are/have form the backbone of their rotor winged aviation.
The French went against all common sense and sold them Super Frelons back in the day and Sikorsky did the same with a few models of the Black Hawk.
Now?
Now check this out via China Defense Blog.
The PLA Army Aviation has not been happy with their Changhe Z-8A mainly due to its low performance, heavy maintenance overhead and worst of all, prone to stall at mid-air (here). After only 6 years of service the 76th LH Brigade is ready to rip-and-replace it with Z-20.
The Z-8A variant is in limited service with the PLA, no one will miss them when they are gone. The improved B, K, S and J variants seem to enjoy a greater success with the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.
My only hope? I hope that whoever was stupid enough to make these deals has a child that is involved on the battlefield in the future fight.
I wonder how they'll feel about their grandparents then?
