Clayton Bigsby

You mean the Hatch Act that the previous President ignored and obliterated, notably holding the RNCC at the White House? I really wish they’d do away with that law entirely, seems like a Rules for thee but none for me situation. Fed employees are held to it, but the political leadership do whatever they want without consequence.

That minivan obviously lost!

Yeah. Some of it is that site’s angle is funny with the continuous updates, like it’s earth-shattering stuff that this is being done. I’m sure the sight is an odd one. Honestly though it’d be pretty irresponsible if the US WEREN’T doing some FME here.

So it’s headed to FME…not sure what the story is here.

Huh, I didn’t know that, thanks.

Ghosts big enough to have a heat signature for an IR missile to track on, apparently. I don’t think the concept of a transponder or ADS-B out requirement is unreasonable. At a certain point it’s required for drones, and obviously it’s possible to blur the lines between a balloon and a UAS. Just my personal observation, but working ATC all last week there was a bunch of depicted precipitation on my display, while we were 10+SM CLR, that normally isn’t there. Had to manually turn it off each time I took position, annoying. Now they run software updates and adjustments all the time, but that idea that the filters all got adjusted across the NAS after senior admin got caught with their pants down with the big spy balloons, and now we’re seeing a bunch of stuff that’s been there the whole time that was previously just filtered out, seems plausible to me.

Replying in kind, of course, whatever drivel a reporter conjures to prop up your worldview is gospel truth? We should ask Brian Williams what really happened, he was probably there setting the charges himself.

It’s a good thing Pulitzer-winning reporters are incapable of making shit up.

I’m not into elf of a shelf personally, but this is a cool photo from today’s fini ferry.

Windows look weird. Kinda looks TG2 Dark Star-ish from the front.

I read on Twitter the Su-25 punchout/SukaBlyat was in June, in Russia, training. Belgorod Oblast. Hit a power line. Hence the lollygagging. Also the orange parachute risers are apparently only used in the training environment. red= powerline blue= pond green= aircraft track. And marker is final location.

Also featured as a device to smuggle a Soviet defector in The Living Daylights.

As a former LM, i'd like to point out adding a boom to the back end of a cargo aircraft isn't trivial. Assuming it's a two-piece door like the C-17 and C-130 (ramp and cargo door), yeah theoretically you could add it to the cargo door, which opens up and into the upper fuselage; but obviously you'd have to have the fuel lines, necessary hydraulics/control wires etc. attached via flexible lines to the door, and still have enough clearance for the door to retract up against roof of the aft fuselage. I can't speak to the -130, but on the -17 that's not a whole lot of clearance up there, and the door is already used for ramp toe, cargo gate bar, roller tray and centerline seat stowages, along with other small items like the engine core hydraulic hand pump (if Mx actually put it away where it goes, and hasn't been lazy and left it strapped down on the cargo floor somewhere), engine covers, etc. And once the door is open, how far does the boom attachment protrusion stick down? You've now lost a bunch of vertical clearance for pallets, or vehicles driving up and over the ramp crest (which is why mil cargo aircraft have upward-bulged rear fuselages, so tall items like an 18-wheeler trailer or a Chinook helicopter or whatever have upwards room to clear when going across the ramp crest). The ramp, well on the -17 it's used as a loading and lifting surface (up to 40,000 lbs, and 4 pallet spots in Logistics bias, two in ADS), and there isn't much room to work with. The ramp is obviously intended to go down to the ground so if you somehow had a boom hanging off the bottom of it, it wouldn't be able to do that anymore, and even if it strictly went to horizontal for pallets only there still isn't a lot of clearance underneath, like 3 feet, plus you have the boom sticking out however far behind meaning a k-loader likely can't drive up to the back of the ramp for cargo transfer. Also you'd lose a point of ground egress as the ramp blowdown is somewhat negated now. Underneath the belly, between the mains yeah I suppose that's a possibility, it's just a low ground clearance (2-3 feet) as cargo planes typically sit low so they can be unloaded at truck bed height, unless you want to do a bunch of hydraulic jackscrew variable-height bullshit like a C-5 and then wonder why the fucker breaks all the time. The C-97 had a bomb-bay style cargo loading door at the aft fuselage, which looks like steep sketchy shit for loading vehicles, and for the KC-97s the boom pod and boom mount was a plug that went in, in lieu of those doors. Point of all this is I'd imagine the -390 is really similar to the -17 and -130, and I think the A400M is as well. Mil airlift moved away from the 4-5 door system of petal and bulkhead doors like in the -141, FRED, An-124 and Il-76 for a reason (and it's not like those would help in this situation), and other than manufacturer's concept art I don't think anyone has ever really put a boom on the back of a mil airlifter. It's not a casual undertaking, and I think once you've done that it's kind of a one-way street, hard to imagine it still being an effective airlifter anymore even if it's a secondary ability. Now that's all for the traditional boom grafted onto the aircraft approach. If you could have the whole tanker setup be a substantial palletized system, with the boom extending out through the cargo door/ramp opening and then down, and able to be entirely sucked back in to close those doors, that could work. But now you're depressurizing every time you give someone gas.

Hogue grips guy.

Good, fuck 'em.

Well, whatever, I'm sure the CCP will spin it as "The Great Leap Forward: Part Deux" or "The Next People's Cultural Revolution" or whichever iteration of Long March it is. But yeah maybe Pooh Bear is toast.

Awhile back you could do the PlaneTags thing and get a keychain from metal from shot down RuAF Su-34s or -35s, etc, but it was realllllll spendy. Still, what a cause.

Maybe not? https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-mig-29s-are-firing-agm-88-anti-radiation-missiles

So what’s shooting the HARMs? https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u-s-confirms-air-launched-anti-radiation-missiles-sent-to-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR1f7pWPQlNtsmgTt-4eZ9swzskGs1UB_cZ-2ps7XJImSQpQ0OoOa0_0jV8

Posted this in the Russo/Ukrainian shenaniganz thread awhile back

yeah he ragequit a long time ago

I seent it, I dug it.

It can happen to anybody. Scott Crossfield died flying into a thunderstorm.