SM-72 Tactical Transport.

Stavatti Military Aerospace has come up with another unusual airplane. I have absolutely no idea why a wing in that configuration is considered optimal and their website doesn't give details...but for pure fantasy its hard to beat.

Merry Christmas to you and yours....

F-35A AF-3 In Acceptance Test Facility

F-35A AF-3 is the first flyable F-35 to go through the Acceptance Test Facility. The facility is used to measure radar cross section to ensure that the aircraft meets low observable requirements. The facility was used to test the full-scale pole model of the F-35 in 2009. AF-3 was tested in late October 2010.

Quote of the week...

"Energo - I stand corrected. LockMart has indeed predicted an F-35 unit recurring flyaway cost of $60 million, current dollars, in full production, complete with engine and upholstery protection..."
...Bill Sweetman's response to a post on the "F-35 Target Price Revealed"

ARH...I mean OH-58F moves forward.

via Defense News...

The U.S. Army has decided to move ahead with its F-model upgrade program for the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, while completing analysis on a future scout helicopter...

...The OH-58F will feature a cockpit and sensor upgrade, including digital flight controls and cockpit displays, nose-mounted sensors and aircraft survivability equipment.
The Army's Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program was supposed to replace the OH-58 Kiowa Warriors, which have seen heavy use in Iraq and Afghanistan. When ARH was canceled in October 2008, the Army began redirecting the program's money toward the effort to keep the Kiowa Warrior flying until 2025...

Is combat making Ranger school unnecessary?

via Stars and Stripes...

After a decade of extended war deployments and with little time back home for training, there is now a “critical” shortage of Rangers needed to fill hundreds of crucial combat leadership positions intended for them across the Army, school officials say.
The dearth is particularly noticeable among noncommissioned officers — the sergeants, staff sergeants and sergeants first class who lead small units of enlisted soldiers through combat — and among all ranks of combat maneuver operators — the infantry, armor, field artillery and cavalry units fighting at the front lines.
Because of the shortage, soldiers without Ranger training increasingly are filling those leadership positions. Officials at the Army’s exclusive Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga., and elsewhere said lives may be at risk because soldiers are going into battle without the best possible leaders.
“The best life insurance policy that a person can have ... is his leader being Ranger qualified,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Dennis Smith, who heads Fort Benning’s Ranger Training Brigade.
But others, including some who are Ranger qualified, believe that combat trumps training, that the hard-earned Ranger tab worn on the left shoulder after completing a brutal 61-day regimen through mountains, woods and swamps, on minimal food and sleep, is no substitute for years spent fighting real-life enemies in Afghanistan or Iraq.
NCOs with extensive combat experience are good enough for some.
“They’re as qualified as anybody else,” said Sgt. Maj. Thomas Dartez, who earned his tab in 1985, served with the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and taught at the school twice, most recently in 2004.

Advertisement

Combat is ultimately the best teacher “because you learn from experience,” Dartez said, using roadside bombs as an example. “Having a tab doesn’t prepare you for that.”

Read the whole thing...fascinating.  It makes the massive push by the former SecDef to get the Marines into the Special Ops arena make more sense.

Misery...

Lance Cpl. Andrew S. Puckett, a rifleman and Aitkin, Minn., native with Fox Company, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, sits in his fighting hole watching a nearby tree line during a defensive training exercise aboard Fort Pickett, Va., Dec. 10, 2010. The BLT defended a small village against enemy sniper teams and by locating weapons caches. The 22nd MEU is a multi-mission capable force of 2,200 Marines and sailors and comprised of Aviation Combat Element, Marine Tilt Rotor Squadron 263 (Reinforced); Logistics Combat Element, Combat Logistics Battalion 22; Ground Combat Element, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment; and its command element.