Blue

I've had the pleasure of working with folks from a couple different carriers that went away via mergers, albeit corporate types, not pilots. It's been interesting to see the differences. The former Continental folks were all incredibly proud of what they had accomplished at their former carrier. Their bags and backpacks often had a tag emblazoned with "Ex-Con" and the Continental logo. Mechanics had similar stickers on their toolboxes. Newark was longtime Continental stronghold, and as late as 2013 (three years post merger), there was a Continental flag the size of a small house hanging on the wall in the hangar, and all the mechanics still had Continental logos on their uniforms. Legend has it that all changed very quickly when some higher-up took a tour of the hangar and subsequently blew a gasket. All those ex-Con folks were incredibly proud of "where they came from," and the afterglow of the halcyon days of Gordon Bethune were evident. At the same time, they didn't come across as any kind of "know-it-alls." More just proud of their heritage, and occasionally privately shaking their head at some of United's post-merger stumbles. Very much keeping with the polite, South Texas heritage of the former Continental HQ in Houston TX. The former Northwest folks didn't really have any kind of outward displays of their former employer. The odd decal here and there was about it. And they (mostly) didn't immediately revert to bellowing "well back in Minneapolis...." when in a meeting. But get those folks in private, hoo boy! Northwest Airlines was God's fucking gift to the airline industry. They were breaking new ground every time they stepped into the hangar in the morning. Every single employee from top to bottom was the world's leading expert in their field. There was no higher pinnacle in the industry than being employed by Northwest Airlines. A janitor in Minneapolis was superior to a Director at any other airline. Their way was the best way, and anyone who even approached questioning it was deemed a fool. It was very keeping with their humble, but incredibly passive-aggressive Upper Midwest ways. The corollary to "Minnesota Nice" is often "Minnesota Passive Aggressive and Back-Stabby." All the ex-United folks seemed to be merely happy to have a job, and quietly reflecting on how the proceeds from selling their 1,200 sq ft home in San Fran was able to buy a mini-estate in the Chicago suburbs. Airline history, and how some people make it part of their identity, is a weird aspect of the industry.

I don't know man. I do know that the only person talking about legal immigration - is you.

Lots of interesting technical aspects to this. None of them good. The AFRL report acknowledges "AFRL has not seen evidence that any of the suspect counterfeit components were causal in the failure of the ACES-II ejection system." and "Presence of counterfeit parts in DRS would not necessarily result in operational failure of ACES-II ejection system." So, based on what they know now, they haven't been able to tie potential counterfeit parts to the ejection seat failure. They haven't been able to rule them out, either. They also twice mention finding "obsolete" parts in the DRS. I wish they'd go into that more - how'd they know they were obsolete? Older part number, or date code, or similar? On another note, they also raise concerning questions about what Teledyne (the manufacture of the DRS) did with it after the mishap. Seems like they were doing all kinds of testing and analysis, with no regard for maintaining the DRS as a piece of evidence in the mishap. Handing the unit off to the manufacturer like that, with no controls in place, seems like a real gap. The AFRL report also brings up "Counterfeit components in DoD inventory has been an ongoing problem over the past few decades. Often the manufacturer/supplier is not aware the components are counterfeit. The DoD is aware of this problem and is working to eliminate these components from supply chains." Supposedly, there are checks and balances in place to guard against counterfeit parts. In theory, you should be able grab an avionics box, and trace the pedigree of every subcomponent back to where it was manufactured. I think in reality, that's not always the case. And when you get down to commodity-level components like flash chips and the like, it's very much a "race to the bottom." Corners inevitably get cut, and someone pads their profit margin (wittingly or unwittingly) by introducing counterfeit parts. Hadn't read the AIB before this, but the section on Substantially Contributing Factors has a section on "Ejection Seat Malfunction" on page 45-46 of the .pdf. Issues with the DRS were highlighted during an ejection in 2014: Following the 2014 DRS failure, a time compliance technical order (TCTO) 11P2-3-502, Installation of the Shorting Plug on the DRS Electronic Module, was issued on 20 January 2016. The shorting plug was designed to prevent noise bias issues observed in channel three of a three-channel system. Two channels are required to be in agreement for the DRS to function properly. Channel three noise bias issues have been observed in approximately 9% of all live ejections and sled tests. TCTO instructions allowed for installation of the shorting plug during regularly scheduled 36-month maintenance/inspections. This presence of noise on one of the channels makes this sound like a crappy design to begin with. Shit happens in electronics design, but would have hoped that aircrew escape systems would be designed to a higher standard. And adding a "shorting plug" sounds like a technical band-aid. Would like to see the TCTO itself, along with the other technical data contained in the AIB tabs, but it appears those aren't publicly available. Regardless, they issued the TCTO in 2016. The mishap airplane was on the schedule to get the mod during scheduled maintenance in 2017, but the parts were "not available." Things like a "shorting plug" are not complex, so it's kind of unconscionable that they weren't available. Regardless, because of the parts unavailability, they pushed the TCTO to the next 36 month maintenance scheduled for July/August 2020. In the meantime, much like many ejection seat components, the DRS has a limited service life (in this case, 10 years). This expired in Feb 2019, but received three life extensions from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center out to July 2020. So, I assume three individual 6 month extensions. Would like to see the technical backing for justifying those extensions. Someone within AFLCMC should be able to produce some no-shit life cycle analysis that substantiates the life extension. And maybe they can, but my limited experience has been that someone may have just signed off the extensions with a cursory glance of past data. In the meantime of all of this, a replacement for the DRS was fielded that negated the need for the TCTO. This was the Modernized ACES II Seat Sequencer (MASS), and became available in May 2020. The AIB isn't clear what happened here, but it sounds like the installation of the MASS was scheduled for the next time the seat was due for it's 36 month maintenance in July/August 2020. I don't know how it works turning wrenches on ejection seats. In a perfect world with unlimited resources, every ejection seat mod would be given the highest priority, considering the implications. But it seems like that's not the reality, and mods were scheduled with convenience and efficiency in mind, not aircrew safety. Sadly, the incident happened 30 June 2020, just short of the planned ejection seat maintenance. TL;DR: Problem with the DRS was found in 2014. TCTO issued in 2016 with what amounted to a simple, "band-aid" fix of a shorting plug. Mishap seat was pulled for scheduled maintenance in 2016, but TCTO parts not available. So, TCTO was pushed 36 months, to the next scheduled seat maintenance period in July/August 2020 In the meantime, the DRS should have been removed anyway due to reaching it's life limit. The Air Force issued three 6-month extensions, in order to line up with the next scheduled seat maintenance. There was a new and improved replacement for the DRS that was fielded, the MASS, but rather than replace immediately in May 2020, that was also lined up for that July/Aug 2020 date. Aircraft crashed just a couple months short of that next seat maintenance, and seat failed due to a faulty DRS. The DRS was past it's service life, had a known defect, and had a bunch of (potentially) counterfeit parts.

Sigh. You over-privileged, foolish fucking midwit. STFU with your Boomer nonsense.

"They're cutting our pay/manning/etc. so they can afford more F-35s!!!" has always been a common refrain. However, I always felt it was challenging to draw a real clear line between "more F-35s" and "personnel getting shafted," due to the inherent complexity of DoD budgeting That article however has this gem from Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin: Allvin acknowledged that officials do “lose touch” with the needs of everyday airmen in the process of crafting future budgets. “We carve out little bits of money here and there to afford that next F-35, or to be able to do that development and testing here. But that doesn’t resonate very well,” he said. “We all have work to do to understand the impact on recruiting and retention.” Ultimately, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, et al, all have highly paid lobbyists on Capitol Hill, looking out for those companies, working to keep the money flowing. There is something like 325k people on active duty in the Air Force. Who is their lobbyist? Who is looking out for them on Capitol Hill, to ensure they get a fair piece of the budgetary pie? The answer is no one. Absolutely no one of consequence is going to stand up on Capitol Hill and argue for less funding to F-35s and more to personnel. Folks complaining about cuts to things like Special Duty Assignment Pay need to recognize these facts, and act accordingly. Some truth to this. The old Charlie Beckwith quote “I’d rather go down the river with seven studs than with a hundred shitheads” comes to mind. There are a lot of studs, and a whole lot of shitheads. Would be great to better support and grow the studs, and weed-out the shitheads, but the entire personnel system isn't really structured to do this. Probably more accurate to say the existing personnel system is designed to coddle the shitheads, and hope enough of the studs stay in to keep the wheels from coming off.

Seriously? I mean, the entire country (and the world) was thrown into 2+ years of chaos. Lives ruined, and the after effects of it all are going to be felt for the rest of our lives. Side effects from vaccines, the reshaping of the economy, the mental damage its caused people, etc, etc. To say nothing for the subset of politicians out there that are spring-loaded to move back to lockdowns and masks just as soon as Covid numbers "spike" again.

Yeah, conservation of energy, aka There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. If you have an electric car, and try one of those power generation ideas (windmill on the roof, generator on the wheels, etc), the losses you experience from drag and friction are more than the power you generate. Exception being the "regenerative braking" setups, where some of the power is recaptured when you're braking. You're recapturing the energy that would normally be lost to heat and friction with the brakes.

Yeah, this. Holy hell, I appreciate the level of discourse here, but @Prozac, sometimes I wonder if you're a bot, a paid shill, or what. No offense or nothing. But at some point, it's quibbling, and/or nonsense like arguing the definition of "is."

It's fascinating to see otherwise intelligent people look at what's going on in the world, and think it's some screenplay being acted out in real life. The US and Ukraine are the good guys in white hats. Russia is the bad guy in the black hat. Challenges are faced, obstacles overcome, the good guys win, the bad guys retreat, and the credits roll. It's fucking bizarre.

Yeah, this is a metric shit ton of money being sent to US defense contractors, which in turn are shipping out weapons to Ukraine. If you listen closely, you can hear the champagne bottles being popped in the boardrooms at Northrop, Boeing, Lockheed, etc. Also, from the linked fact sheet: United States security assistance committed to Ukraine includes: Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems We keep littering the globe with advanced man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, we're not going to like the result. Such things have a tendency to make their way into the wrong hands. Thanks @brwwg&b for linking that fact sheet; I hadn't seen that before. As a recap, in the past 6 months, we've committed 12.9 Billion dollars in "security assistance" to Ukraine. 12.9 Billion. In "Security Assistance." Over just six months. Lemme translate that for the people in the cheap seats. The United States is at fucking war with Russia. We're in a real live shooting war, and no one even bothered to ask the American people if they cared or not. I don't know, maybe it'll turn out to be the right decision. Maybe Putin will get toppled by some of the more moderate folks in his circle, and we'll all settle back into a nice frenemy relationship. But if you take all this in, and think that everything is all hunky-dory with our support of Ukraine, then you're an absolute fucking fool.

JFC. It's a political cartoon. You gonna post a sniveling reply to every stupid meme, too?

This brings up an interesting question. How far did planning get for the Harrier follow-on, before that effort was absorbed into the JSF one-plane-for-all concept? Kinda curious what exactly the USMC had envisioned for their Harrier 2.0.

Wow. Wall of text and a lot of links. Very compelling.

This was kind of a good thread until it got drug down the usual politics path. Maybe the last page or so could be moved to the "Next President Is" thread? Also, for all the noise about the FBI's Florida Vacation at Mar-a-Lago, as far as I know, there hasn't been anything official, right? Some statements from the AG, and the usual "reports from unnamed sources familiar with the investigation." Happy to be corrected, but seems a bit premature to draw any conclusions..............

However many billions it takes to get the end result we want. Which, I'm not sure what that end result looks like, but I'm sure the people in charge know what they're doing, right? Also, don't worry, we've got the printing presses running overtime, so no worry about running out of cash.

It sure is possible. But if you can't see through the metric tons of propaganda being foisted upon the American people in regards to "climate change," then I can't help you.

It's almost as if man-made climate change is nothing but a made-up boogeyman to keep people distracted from the real ills of the world.

Got curious and spent some time trying to figure this out. They built four Scorpions, and this article from five years ago included a shot of all flying in formation, including tail numbers. Here are the most recent flights according the FlightAware, note only N534TX has been flying recently. N531TA: Aug 2017 N530TX: Dec 2017 N532TX: Aug 2021 N534TX: 28 Jul 2022 It's a shame. Given all of the commonalities with the Citation business jets, the Scorpion would have had the benefit of a ready supply base, for one thing. CH's comment below rings true. Without having any inside knowledge, I'd assume anything turbine powered was a non-starter from the beginning. Turbine military aircraft is the realm of Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop. Those companies don't want someone like Textron getting their "nose under the tent" with an aircraft that is an order of magnitude cheaper. If the Scorpion started performing well, it's possible Congress would eventually take notice and reprogram money away from the F-35 and other sacred cows. And you can't have that happening, after all.

The timing seems interesting. Wonder if the AT-6 is slated for some FMS contract as a runner-up prize to armed overwatch.

Seems like a pretty standard contract award, $170 mil to kick off the contract execution, with work to begin immediately and running through 2029, leading to delivery of up to 75 aircraft. However, do these kind of contracts usually include a "maximum ceiling value," and is it always this high? $3 Billion seems a lot for fielding less than 100 aircraft.... Related, wonder what the ferry range is on these (couldn't find it online). Saw some mention of the ease of disassembling, loading into a C-17, and reassembling. Was air to air refueling considered in AOW? Did any of the contenders consider it, or is it silly to consider air to air refueling for an aircraft with this kind of mission?

Interested to hear "the rest of the story" here. No matter how it comes out, Air Force amn/nco/snco is always an entertaining read. They also do a good job of shining the light on fraud/waste/abuse/asshole-ishness/absurdity/etc. I wish they had some kind of "Top Ten" or "Greatest Hits," because I know there have been some real changes made based on stories that were first publicized on their page.

When the topic of "energy policy" comes up, I've defaulted to tuning it all out. There is just such an absurd amount of nonsense around climate change, electric cars/planes/trains, decarbonization, etc. Anyone who tries to ask any legitimate technical or scientific questions is shouted down as a heretic. Our current standard of living depends on burning hydrocarbons. Politicians and other talking heads can do all the hand waving they want, it doesn't change that fact.

Yeah, my limited understanding is they had some level of training on what to do in the event of a school shooting. Can't comment on the level of skill of the officers involved. I've heard of PD's having a tough time recruiting/retaining officers in the wake of "Defund the Police," ACAB, etc. Maybe Uvaldle has lost experienced folks, but I expected that to be more of an issue in the blue states and not Texas. Who knows. All that aside, if it's possible for good to come out of an abhorrent event like this, maybe it'll crystallize the fact that "calling the cops" is not some panacea. Folks like the NRA like to tout clichés like "When seconds count, police are minutes away," but the fact of the matter is it's true. The 2018 Parkland Shooting resulted in the Coward from Broward. Maybe these guys will be dubbed the Uvalde Useless. I supposed it all depends on the environment in which you were raised, but most everyone I know defaults to "I'll call the cops!" when serious trouble arises. As if Johnny Law will instantaneously teleport to your location, defuse the situation, and put any preparator in cuffs and a striped shirt. Here in Chicago, violence has always ebbed and flowed. Over the years, the local government and PD seemed to be "business as usual" as long as the crime stayed in the right places and amongst the right people (i.e. on the South and West sides, and amongst the gangs and the poor). Every now and again, crime would spike in the Loop or the North side (where all the money is), and city government and PD would respond with a quickness, upping patrols and reassigning manpower until the crime abated. Now, you've got events like this. In Lincoln Park, one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city, some dude lies in wait behind a building, then jumps out to rob someone of their phone. Guy fights back, there is a struggle, and the poor SOB gets shot twice. While the victim is lying on the ground in agony, the perpetrator demands his phone password, and once he has it, he puts a bullet in the guys head. It's like something out of a movie. Since it's in a nice neighborhood full of monied people, the whole thing is caught in high definition audio and video via some homeowner's security camera. In days past, this would have ignited a flurry of police press conferences and the like. Now, it's just another Friday. Shits getting bad. It's gonna get worse. If you run into trouble, by all means, dial 911. But realize that may just get you some guys to arrive after-the-fact and take down the official report of what transpired. You may be all on your own. As awful as it is to think about "the next school shooting," I assume it's bound to happen. I'd like to think any concerned parents will wait a hot second to determine what the cops are doing. If the parents don't see immediate action, they'll take the opportunity to jump in themselves.

Try as I might, I can't look away from the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, because they do a good job of publicizing these kinds of shenanigans. They did not disappoint. Highlighted that MSgt Westmoreland wasn't authorized to be wearing the MTI hat when not acting as a MTI, some criticisms of his uniform, etc. Subsequently, MSgt Westmoreland reached out to the page mods and asked them to take down their posts. Which of course the mods declined, and published the message exchange. 400+ comments so far. Always love a "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" moment. Good entertainment with my Sunday morning coffee.

The way I read the last several posts, people expect mask mandates to be reinstituted sometime this fall or winter. Along with speculation about how the November elections play into the timing of reinstituting mask mandates. I think the unsaid implication is that Democrat politicians recognize they have an uphill battle in November, so they'll delay reinstituting mask mandates until after the election, since they know mask mandates are generally unpopular.