… and copy paste reporting.
Not mentioned in this article is that they don’t know what they are building because it hasn’t been verified by thousands of flight tests that are supposed to happen. What we have for flight testing so far is a handful. A large majority of these flight tests by a non-production representative aircraft; AA-1.
But yeah, keep repeating the script from the Ponzi scheme.
Interesting photo…
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks with Bono, rock star and activist, at the annual Atlantic Council Awards Gala in Washington, D.C., April 26, 2010. DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley
A huge NASA balloon loaded with a telescope painstakingly built to scan the sky at wavelengths invisible to the human eye crashed in the Australian outback Thursday, destroying the $2 million astronomy experiment and just missing nearby onlookers, according to Australian media reports.
Here are some good detail photos of Australia’s Wedgetail.
Lockheed will be setting up USAF F-15s with IRST.
My first thought is that it would be like the Japanese F-15s where it is up in front of the windscreen like a Flanker or F-102.
However with the limited details of this press release it seems that it may go the way of the Super Hornet where the IRST is put in the front of a centerline fuel tank.
I look forward to more details on this.
Now all we need is an AMRAAM with an AIM-9X seeker-head.
H/T-Alert5.com
The real problem isn’t that we don’t have enough tankers.
The root cause….the real problem is; that we don’t have enough air power leadership. Today; Gates, Schwartz and Donley ain’t it. Far from it.
Also; consider this. In the 1980′s a Wing was run by a full colonel. After the Cold War as part of a no-general-left-behind act; one-stars started showing up doing jobs full colonels could do. It has improved some as of late, but really, for the USAF a full-colonel can do a lot of things well. There are still some one-stars that need work.
It seems there are limits. Will we see one admiral per ship?
Was at one site and an advert for the F136 popped up. Yikes.
Here is the update on their latest marketing effort….
Pratts F135 marketing routine is here.
This from ARES (which was also in today’s links of interest)
Also:
“I did not buy the F-15 to have it fly like a F-5.”
Update-
The Dew Line-How real is F136 fixed-price offer?
and
We will know next year….
New naval combat helicopter tender release
The Minister for Defence, Senator John Faulkner today announced that the Defence Materiel Organisation has released project solicitation documents to the United States Navy and Australian Aerospace for the supply of a new naval combat helicopter under Defence Capability Plan project AIR 9000 Phase 8.
Under this project, the Government will acquire sufficient helicopters to provide at least eight helicopters concurrently embarked on ships at sea, which under the White Paper requires a fleet of 24 helicopters.
Senator Faulkner said that “The new naval combat helicopter will enhance the Royal Australian Navy’s ability to conduct a range of maritime combat and other operations, including anti-submarine and surface warfare.”
As announced by the Government in February 2010, the new helicopter will be either the Sikorsky-Lockheed Martin built MH-60R sourced through the United States Navy, or the NATO Helicopter Industries NH90 NFH sourced through Australian Aerospace.
“The competition to select a new helicopter has commenced on schedule ahead of a final decision about the new helicopter in 2011″ Senator Faulkner said. “The release of tender documents now is in line with the schedule determined by the Government when it considered the project for First Pass Approval in February of this year.”
The Minister for Defence Materiel and Science, Greg Combet, said “This marks the transition of Project AIR 9000 Phase 8 to a formal competitive solicitation phase.”
“A competitive process is consistent with the Kinnaird and Mortimer procurement reforms,” Mr Combet said. “It will allow the companies to offer innovative solutions that satisfy the capability, cost and schedule requirements and detail what opportunities they will offer local industry.”
Senator Faulkner said that any decision Government makes in 2011 will take into account all relevant considerations including capability, cost, interoperability with other ADF capabilities, Australian industry opportunities, risk and value for money.
