ClearedHot

Word just now flowing on CNN. No details on which base (Eglin or Tyndall).

Military Flybys are worth ten times the cost. As has been pointed out, great advertising, but more importantly, they remind Americans that we need a strong military.

Military Jet Flyovers Thrilling But Very Expensive '08 Super Bowl flyby cost $36K for 4-second event By Orlando Sentinel ORLANDO, Fla. — A flyby at a sports event can inspire a crowd like nothing else. But is it the best use of military time and money? The noise inside University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale grew deafening as Jordin Sparks finished the national anthem before the start of this year's Super Bowl. It was time for that newly minted American sports tradition that puts an exclamation point on the pregame ceremonies: a military flyover. Only this time, no one at the game noticed. The stadium's roof was closed. No one could see the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels overhead. And it was so loud inside that no one could even hear the jets. But the almost 100 million watching on TV did get to see them for about four seconds. A spokesman estimated the cost of sending the six F/A-18A Hornets from their training home in El Centro, Calif., to Arizona and back at $36,000. Flybys fairly easy to get Flyovers, once unexpected moments at major sporting events, are now almost the norm, expected parts of pregame festivities. But an Orlando Sentinel investigation has found that you don't have to reach a very high bar to get one. At a time when the United States is fighting a war, flybys provide feel-good moments for fans, for sports leagues and even for athletes themselves — a spectacle that gives any sporting event added prestige and excitement. But are flyovers worth it, or are they a high-priced folly? "For the publicity aspect of it, I'd say it's definitely well worth it when you consider the cost to advertise during the Super Bowl," Blue Angels press officer Capt. Tyson Dunkelberger said. "The more people see our blue jets and recognize the Navy, the better it is for us." The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will perform a similar fly-by today before the Daytona 500. An Air Force spokeswoman said eight F-16 Fighting Falcon jets will fly from Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas to Daytona Beach and back at a cost of $80,000. For the flyover itself, six jets will be in the air for 40 minutes, at an approximate fuel cost of $6,000. "We have this mission to bring the story of the Air Force to people who may not have an Air Force base near them," Thunderbirds press officer Capt. Elizabeth Kreft said. "We're going to reach an untold number of homes with the Air Force message, and that's why we were given permission to do it." Military officials say the fly-bys boost recruiting efforts and give Americans an opportunity to see their aircraft in action. Officials also insist that flyovers don't cost taxpayers any additional money, because each flyover counts as a training flight and comes out of already existing training budgets and schedules. "Baloney," said Winslow Wheeler, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. "It's atrocious training. They're flying from Point A to Point B. They're doing a couple of sort of low-altitude passes over the events and they go home. That's what pilots call 'converting gas to noise.' " The Orlando Sentinel investigation shows the Air Force, the Army, the Marine Corps and the Navy receive about 850 requests for flyovers or parachute jumps at sporting events each year, and the vast majority of those requests are deemed eligible for aerial support — even if they're opening ceremonies for local Little League games or international tennis matches or minor-league baseball games. Once an event is deemed eligible, usually it's up to individual teams or leagues to find available squadrons to perform the flyby. Department of Defense Form 2535, the three-page application that must be filled out for every flyby request, makes no mention of sporting events. Its instructions state that "requests for flyovers will be considered only for aviation-oriented events . . . or for patriotic observances (one day only) held in conjunction with Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, POW/MIA Recognition Day or Veterans Day."

Marines Protest Cost $93,000 For Police OT By Carolyn Jones Berkeley spent $93,000 on police overtime to control the Marines protest outside City Hall Tuesday, a city official said. About 140 Berkeley police officers worked at the protest, which drew more than 2,000 demonstrators from around the country, said Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, public information officer. There were four arrests, all misdemeanors. The protest was over the City Council's Jan. 29 statement that the Marines, who have a recruitment center downtown, are "unwelcome intruders." After 3 1/2 hours of public comment and debate, the council voted early Wednesday to back down from the statement. To prevent similar controversies in the future, City Councilman Gordon Wozniak has proposed that every item submitted by the Peace and Justice Commission - where the Marines statement originated - undergo two readings by the council. Usually commission items need one reading. Peace and Justice commissioners were not happy with the idea. "It's like he's trying to legislate himself to read what's on his own agenda," said the commission's former president, Steven Freedkin. Meanwhile, protests continue at the recruiting center on Shattuck Square. About 50 people from Code Pink and World Can't Wait blocked the center entrance for several hours Friday and then marched to UC Berkeley, a block away. There were no arrests.

Russia Doubts Motive In U.S. Satellite Shot By Associated Press MOSCOW — Russia said Saturday that U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite may be a veiled test of America's missile defense system. The Pentagon failed to provide "enough arguments" to back its plan to smash the satellite with a missile in the next several days, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement. "There is an impression that the United States is trying to use the accident with its satellite to test its national anti-missile defense system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites," the ministry said. The Bush administration says the operation is not a test of a program to kill other nations' orbiting communications and intelligence capabilities. U.S. diplomats around the world have been instructed to inform governments that it is meant to protect people from 1,000 pounds of toxic fuel on the bus-sized satellite hurtling toward the Earth. The diplomats were told to distinguish the upcoming attempt from last year's test by China of a missile specifically designed to take out satellites, a test that was criticized by the United States and other countries. Known by its military designation US 193, the satellite was launched in December 2006. It lost power, and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor. Left alone, the satellite would likely hit the Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft probably would survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles. Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.

Not really... Using the PAC3 reduces your engagement options to friendly land masses that might not be the optimal points to engage the satellite in order to bring it down over the water. Engaging it with a Standard-3 means they can hit it while the orbit is over the ocean and any variations in orbit caused by the impact/explosion can be better mitigated. I believe they are going to engage at a reasonable altitude (150 Miles), just outside the atmosphere and the smaller pieces will decelerate and reenter much quicker over the ocean. Just my thoughts as I am not a Rocket Surgeon.

Please choke yourself. You are comparing pulling your socks up to meet he standard of some Nazi who has never been outside the wire or in any real danger to some thug with his arse hanging out. I believe as your name implies, you have tumbled your gyros and lost all SA.

FWIW, I was said three stars exec and he is not one to take backtalk lightly. I've seen him mad (usually at me), and you don't want to be on the receive end when he is pissed. I would bet $ Mr. Thug is out of the USAF by then end of the month.

You posted the wrong picture... Look at the "I won the rodeo" belt buckle in the other picture.

Steve, I have to disagree. EADs getting a foothold is NOT a good thing for the U.S. Defense Industry. The job discussion Brick mentioned is a large portion of the argument, and I don't mean raw jobs, I mean skilled workers. One of the primary reasons the F-22 buy was stretched out was to allow the line to remain open until F-35 production could begin and thus save those skilled and very knowledgeable workers. A move to Alabama would certainly lose a large portion of workers who would not be willing to move to the south. Additionally, Alabama has sold it's soul to get this contract. Tax incentives, environmental waivers, and god knows what has happened behind the scenes. As for the distribution of ownership in EADS, I get your point, but I think it is does not answer bigger question. While France and Germany are not the majority, they do wield considerable power and will be able to influence production and pricing. Form a nationalistic perspective, if there was a large scale conflict, Boeing would have an incentive and could even be ordered to produce for the U.S. Military. As EADs is European, they could slow leak or set false price caps or any number of combinations that European politics would allow to affect foreign influence over U.S. Defense capability. Not acceptable in my book. I am not banging the nationalistic drum and reasserting our right to unilateral action, the oblivious sieeffects will plague our image an economy for years, but we MUST have control over our own destiny when it comes to defense.

One of these days the weather is going to go to shit and someone who is trying to follow the policy is going to crash. At least there won't be much of a fire...

STS

Well Played...

The "Cock-pit".

It was a few months ago...Next girlfriend or next wife. And you are right, when you find a good one, hang on. Lord knows mine has put up with my stupidity for years.

Cigar bar...motorcycle..."my next girlfriend" comments...is your wife on sabbatical?

That dude is a Cliché wrapped in a rainbow flag. How in the world can his SA be this low?

If you want to be a cud-chewing herbivore, put on your Gucci tag and fly the T-2. If you want to actually contribute to the war on terror by killing people, become a carnivore and fly the gunship.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted almost to his dying day that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night. Tibbets died at his Columbus home, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months. Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said. Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime. The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others. Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war. "I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing," Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published on the 60th anniversary of the bombing. "We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible." Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do. "I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did," he said in a 1975 interview. "You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal." He added: "I sleep clearly every night." Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and spent most of his boyhood in Miami. He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps. After the war, Tibbets said in 2005, he was dogged by rumors claiming he was in prison or had committed suicide. "They said I was crazy, said I was a drunkard, in and out of institutions," he said. "At the time, I was running the National Crisis Center at the Pentagon." Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He later moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in 1985. But his role in the bombing brought him fame — and infamy — throughout his life. In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud. He said the display "was not intended to insult anybody," but the Japanese were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology. Tibbets again defended the bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution. The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have examined the context of the bombing, including the discussion within the Truman administration of whether to use the bomb, the rejection of a demonstration bombing and the selection of the target. Veterans groups objected, saying the proposed display paid too much attention to Japan's suffering and too little to Japan's brutality during and before World War II, and that it underestimated the number of Americans who would have perished in an invasion. They said the bombing of Japan was an unmitigated blessing for the United States and the exhibit should say so. Tibbets denounced it as "a damn big insult." The museum changed its plan and agreed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay without commentary, context or analysis. He told the Dispatch in 2005 that he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war. Newhouse, Tibbets' longtime friend, confirmed that Tibbets wanted to be cremated, but he said relatives had not yet determined how he would be laid to rest. Him Him :beer:

I am not anything close to an Osprey expert, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night... As I understand the CV-22 in order to get the capability that was originally laid out in the requirement, it was designed to a load factor of 1.05 rather than the traditional 1.5 most other aircraft are designed to. Therefore, it will be far more difficult to strap-on (sts) other gear like side mounted guns.

You are correct, current CSAR/AFSOC "choppers" don't have a forward firing gun. HOWEVER, they do have side firing guns in addition to the tailgun that allow some ability to suppress targets in front of the aircraft. As I understand it, for a variety of reasons side guns will not work on the Osprey, One of the most obvious is the two gianormous rotors that you would have to shoot through.

After investing $20 billion over 25 years and losing 30 lives in the development of the controversial V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, known as the Osprey, the U.S. military might like to think that its long-awaited combat debut would go relatively smoothly. But even as 10 Marine V-22s have just arrived in Iraq, the Air Force - which is buying V-22s for special operations missions - has decided the gun on the marine's version isn't good enough for an aircraft expressly designed to ferry troops into hot landing zones. The Marines now flying the $120 million aircraft have insisted that the small gun slung from the aircraft's opened rear ramp is adequate for war. That's a claim disputed by retired Marine general James Jones, who ordered a beefed-up, forward-firing gun for the V-22 when he was serving as the Corps' top officer from 1999 to 2003. The requirement evaporated after Jones stepped down as commandant, but the Air Force, which is buying 50 V-22s for the Special Ops command, seems to agree with Jones. "It is critical that the CV-22 possess a self-defense capability that will provide maximum protection from threats in the vicinity of the landing zone," the Special Op Command says in a recent message to contractors seeking an improved gun. Its list of requirements shows that the gun now on the V-22s in Iraq falls far short of what it wants, including "maximum coverage of all quadrants" - in other words, the ability to fire in the direction that the V-22 is going, not merely where it has been, as is the case with the current gun. The special-ops V-22 is slated to enter service in 2009. This dispute is just the latest chapter in a troubled program begun in 1981 to provide a troop transport for all four military services; the Army dropped out two years later for cost reasons, and then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, also citing cost, failed to kill it over objections from Congress - and the Marines. The V-22, built by Bell Helicopter and the Boeing Co., was deemed ideal for carrying troops because it can take off and land like a helicopter, then tilt its engines and rotors forward to fly like a turboprop airplane. After three fatal crashes, numerous delays and compromises that some inside the military believe endanger those on board, the 10 V-22s are finally based at al Asad air base in western Iraq (the Marines have clamped down on all information about their operations, but expect a formal Iraqi unveiling of the V-22s soon). At least one contractor agrees with the Air Force that the interim gun aboard the V-22 is wanting. BAE Systems has been investing in the development of a remotely-aimed gun that could be slung from the V-22's belly and installed starting in about a year, BAE officials say. The gun, which could range in size from 7.62 mm (the size of the current gun) to .50-cal. (the size Jones wanted) would protrude from the V-22's belly, just forward of the swiveling gun. A V-22 crew member located in the passenger compartment would fire the gun, based on the video images displayed, with a hand-held controller. A Pentagon official says this design, while perhaps adequate for special-ops V-22s, wouldn't replace the need for a final weapon for the Marine V-22 that would be integrated into the aircraft's internal electronic and computer systems. The Pentagon is seeking $82 million to develop a permanent gun, on top of the $45 million it already spent trying to meet Jones' requirement for one. V-22 pilots like Marine Lieutenant Colonel Anthony "Buddy" Bianca know their aircraft is heading off to war with inadequate firepower. "It says right there in the ORD" -- the Operational Requirements Document specifying what the aircraft must be able to do -- that "the aircraft is supposed to have 360 degrees field of fire with a defensive weapon," says Bianca, who has spent 1,300 hours flying the V-22 over the past eight years. "I don't care if its a turret, you stick it out of a window or you patch it on with bubblegum, but we've got to find a way to do that." Bianca, 40, told TIME that the current rear gun is "not the answer," and that Marines are planning on installing a better gun eventually. He pauses when asked if he thinks the V-22 should be sent to Iraq with the small, ramp-mounted gun as its only weapon. "That question," he says, "is not mine to say." But as has always been the case in war, the more junior the officer, the less concerned he is about the weapon he is bringing to the fight. The gun doesn't faze Captain Justin "Moon" McKinney from Albany, Georgia, who has spent nearly 200 hours flying the V-22 over the past year. McKinney, 30, and his fellow "Thunder Chickens" of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 from Jacksonville, N.C., are now in Iraq. "I think the weapon," he said as he readied for the deployment, "is very sufficient." Bianca recalls why Jones' original scheme for a bigger gun was scrapped. "It was primarily cost, to be honest with you," he said. "I was in the room when (the contractors) were basically told that `this was our price-tag limits to develop this weapon' and they came back with a price tag and were told, `Well guys, you just designed yourself out of a weapons system.'" The gun's ultimate cost - $1.5 million a copy - ended up being too expensive in the Pentagon's eyes. That price - barely more than 1% of the V-22's current cost - ultimately doomed it, and sent the aircraft to Iraq sporting a weapon some Marines deride as a "peashooter."

Going through some old pictures from UPT (yes we had cameras back then), and I was reminded of a dude in my class who was on the verge of washing out for air sickness. On one flight he horked into his mask then mucked it back down so as to avoid being washed out...total dedication. Anyone else have some good puke stories? Just to set the right tone, please enjoy this clip from a Swedish game show...

Thank the contractors and lawyers...