Sandra Fluke would tell you that the “War on Women” consists of not receiving free birth control from a Roman Catholic institution of higher learning. Barbara Boxer would tell you that Pro-Life groups and not Kermit Gosnell are the problem.
Kirstie Gillinbrand believes the “War on Women” is being waged by male service members and misogynist commanders, and is willing to dispense with anything resembling objective justice to punish the accused. (With the backing of the Commander in Chief, it would seem.)
Hillary Clinton, who, on the day an Ambassador was murdered by Islamist extremists told us that free speech should not be used to disparage someone’s religion (Crucifix in a jar of urine notwithstanding), wanted to make “Women’s Rights” a cornerstone of US foreign policy.
But the War on Women rages on. Honor killings continue, even in this country. Schools blown up, acid thrown in the faces of the innocent, mutilations. Unspeakable violence and oppression against women, perpetrated by the very same Islamist ideology that has vowed to destroy America. Yet these above-mentioned women and those of their ilk remain strangely silent on the subject of the ghastly and terrible existence women endure in the lands controlled by these cowardly and ignorant brutes. The silence in the mainstream media, usually the trumpeter of all things feminist, is positively thunderous.
Soon, Nelson Mandela, at 94 and seriously ill, will be eulogized far and wide for being willing to fight not to have his people relegated to second class status. Those same people who will praise him the loudest cannot seem to utter a meaningful sound regarding the brutalizing and virtual enslavement of women and girls in the lands under the thumb of radical Islam. They cannot, in fact, even bring themselves to identify our enemies for what they are, Islamic extremists, for fear of offending.
That they do not is hypocrisy. That they dare not, is cowardice.
The event was captured by Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne. Buddhist Monks protested the religious persecution they were suffering at the hands of the Catholic government of Ngo Dinh Diem.
To that point, Vietnam was a little-known Southeast Asian country in which the French had fought and lost a shadowy war in the 1950s, but remained largely obscure to any but the Cold War strategists of both sides of the Iron Curtain. The “Buddhist Crisis”, exemplified by Browne’s grisly and iconic photo, placed Vietnam squarely in the world headlines, where it would stay for the next dozen years.
VMA-513 has participated in major conflicts such as World War II and Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. It was one of the first squadrons to see action in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, spending nearly a year on deployment from October 2002 through the autumn of 2003.
The squadron also holds several aviation milestones, including the first kill of a supersonic drone with a Sidewinder missile in 1964, the first Corps squadron to transition to the Harrier in 1970, the only squadron in the world to simultaneously employ all three variants of the AV-8B in 2001 and the first squadron to employ the Lightning II targeting pod in combat.
The Bison was intended as a competitor to the TU-95 “Bear” but, despite it’s jet power-plants, never managed to have an extensive service life with the Soviet Air Force as the Bear did.
The Star Lab suborbital vehicle is an air-launched sounding rocket, which is designed to be reusable and can reach a maximum altitude of about 120km.
The Star Lab vehicle carrying scientific payloads is launched from the venerable F-104 Starfighter jet. After the Star Lab payload stage reaches its predetermined altitude, it will descend by parachute into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Star Lab is capable of carrying up to 13 payloads per flight
Here’s a photo of the vehicle being attached to the F-104 aircraft:
Finally, having quite a bit of time on my hands this week I found some cool walk-around photos from Warbird Radio:
The PA-48 Enforcer, is the ultimate development of the iconic P-51 Mustang fighter. The Enforcer was designed to be a cost effective, light, close-support aircraft. She’s currently on display at the National Museum of the USAF in the Research and Development Hangar.
…as in “nobody is listening to your telephone calls”.
Nobody lives here:
And here:
Oh, about US Cyber Command, a headquarters whose mission, ostensibly, is to “…conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries”…. Who is a co-occupant of their building at Bolling AFB? Nobody, of course.
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.
The troops did not fail. More than 140,000 Allied soldiers came ashore at Normandy, on this day 69 years ago. The Second Front so long in the coming was established. The cost was more than ten thousand casualties, of which approximately 4,000 were killed. The same number that died in Iraq in eight years, died on the French coast in a single morning. Tens of thousands more would die before Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally eleven months and one day later.
General Dwight Eisenhower’s famous note hearkens to a brand of leadership seemingly all but extinct today. People in positions of great responsibility shouldering the burden for their decisions and everything that is done or fails to be done by those in their charge. What difference does it make? The difference between victory and defeat, liberty and subjugation, existence and extinction.
Found this vid out on the interwebs tonight. It has some of the best Bronco footage I’ve ever seen. Flight, weapons and development test, combat in Vietnam (including VAL-4 “Black Ponies”), a subsystems overview and a performance and specification summary.
Some of the best-est Bronco footage I’ve ever seen.
December 17 1903, the Wright brothers make the first powered, sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Cables and pulleys were the flight control system of the day.
A system of pulleys and cables enabled the Wright Brothers were the first to take to the air in controllable flight on 17 December 1903. Aircraft of World War 1 methods to control aircraft remained basically the same cable and pulley system. Pilot control inputs through stick and rudder pedals were transmitted to the control surfaces via pulleys and cables.
Fokker DR1. Representative for a typical World War 1 aircraft.
By the time World War 2 started aircraft were more complex, faster and far more capable. Most flight control systems at the time remained cables and pulleys but the problem of stability remained. There needed to be a method for reducing the constant need for pilot control input especially during long flights.
Boeing’s B-29 Superfortress. Typical configuration for a World War 2 aircraft.
By the late 1940s a very primitive “assisted flight control system” had flown from Newfoundland to England aboard a C-54 entirely under the control of a flight program punched out on cards.
Douglas C-54 Skymaster
Wartime technological leaps enabled postwar aircraft designs not only increase in speed but also increase in size. At 1000 knots there simply isn’t enough time for a human being to react. The larger size of aircraft also meant there was a great deal more inertia for a human to struggle to control. Due to the increase in aircraft size, inertia and dynamic pressure, without some from of mechanical assistance flying would become too difficult for pilots to handle because of the force amount of force required to move to control surface. The solution was to connect the pilot’s stick and rudder pedals to hydraulics which were, in turn, connected to surfaces with which to control the aircraft.
Development of hydraulic flight control systems meant there was no direct connection between the stick/rudder pedals and the control surface. Pilots develop a sense of what an aircraft is doing, not only from visual cues, but also from seat of the pants flying to understand orientation of the airplane. Hydraulic systems brought about the need for “artificial feel systems” that replicated force feedback to the pilot through the stick and from the control surface.
Hydraulic flight controls are heavier than pulleys and cables, adding weight to the aircraft. That translates into less weight overall an aircraft can use for a given task. Less weight devoted to fuel for range in a fighter, less weight devoted to cargo or passengers in the airlines. In spaceflight weight is also a critical issue. The more a spacecraft weighs, the more thrust is required to bring that space to orbit. Controlling a spacecraft with hydraulics to going to be too heavy.
NASA used a simple binary logic flight control program in the Mercury program. The logical design consisted of a control signal that transmitted “on/off” commands for firing of the maneuvering rockets. The attitude of the spacecraft could be changed by the pilot’s moving a hand controller with the direction of the controller’s movement indicating pitch, roll or yaw to the control system. The control system then sent appropriate signals to fire the correct sets of rockets to achieve the desired effect. The Mercury flight control system was only capable of attitude control.
The Mercury capsule as displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum.
By 1968 all the NASA was focused on putting a human on the moon. Grumman, designer of the Lunar Module, was tasked with NASA and MIT to develop a flight control system capable of landing on the moon. The flight control system for the Lunar Module was called PGNCS (Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System pronounced “pings”). Considerable experience in developing PGNCS was gained by engineers that worked on the Polaris SLBM and Atlas ICBM programs.
The Grumman Lunar Module on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
PGNCS had all the elements that were going to be needed to develop a flight control system. The most important element was the inertial measurement unit. The Lunar Module used 3 IMUs (inertial measurement units), 1 each for each axis of flight (pitch, roll and yaw). The IMU generated analog signals that had to be read by one of the first digital computers.
Schematic cutaway of the IMU in the Lunar Module.
This video details the development of the IMU and integration with the Lunar Module’s flight control system (it’s a fascinating 3-part series).
The LLRV
The LLRV (Lunar Landing Research Vehicle) was developed to test flight control laws (programming code) for the Lunar Module here on Earth. The LLRV used reaction control jets because the Moon has 1\6th of the Earth’s gravity. The LLRV was not an aerodynamic vehicle as it used solely engine thrust to get airborne. Once flight control laws were developed, testing of the LLRV wound down but a group led by NASA thought that software developed and tested on the LLRV and the Apollo Lunar Lander might be beneficial to aircraft control. After LLRV, computers, sensors and actuators became advanced enough to start flight-testing.
Computers in flight control systems come into 2 distinct types. Analog and digital. Mechanical analog computers operate by creating a mechanical analogy between the position of numbers on various scales and the products, quotients, squares, cube roots, etc that it’s used to calculate. In terms of flight control computers, control laws are hard-wired via the circuitry in the computer. While analog computer is resistant to power surges and viruses it’s very difficult to re-program. That requires a physical reconfiguration of the embedded circuits. Analog computers also run at higher temperatures because data is in the form of amplitudes and temperature effects modulate the amplitude.
The first vehicular use of an analog computer was with the German A-4 [V-2] rocket of World War 2 fame. The A-4 used an electronic analog computer that modeled the differential equations of the control laws and accepted voltage values and input and generated voltage as output to an amplifier. The amplifier then sent those commands to the control surface actuators. This technology formed the basis for digital computers almost 40 years later.
Digital computers on the other hand read data in binary, “1”s and “0”s. Data needs to be converted to binary string of bits before it can be used by the computer. The problem is these bit streams, coming from multiple sources, can be too dense and rapid for proper computer processing into readable data sets. After 1963 improvements in transistors and work on “sampling theory” made the use of digital computers more widespread not only in aviation but a whole range of applications.
NT-33 In-Flight Simulator
In 1954, the NT-33 In-flight Simulator was developed to test other equipment that would be needed in a digital flight control system. The NT-33 tested improvements in gyroscopes, actuators, effectors, stability augmentation and pitot-static systems. Also in 1957 the USAF flew a modified B-47 (53-2280) with fly-by-wire channel in the pitch axis.
JB-74E 53-2280 Fly By Wire test-bed aircraft.
By early 1971 the NASA Office of Advanced Research and Technology wanted to see more technology transferred from the Apollo program. Luckily for them the flight control computer was, up that time, one of the most reliable computers ever built. Soon the office approved for a feasibility study to install Apollo flight control system hardware into an F-8 Crusader.
A stock Vought F-8C Crusader BuNo 146993 from VF-191 “Red Lightnings.”
The F-8 Crusader is a single seat, single engine, carrier borne fighter from the 1950s. The ‘sader, as it’s properly known, gained a fearsome reputation as a MiG killer in the skies over North Vietnam however by the 1970s the ‘sader was being phased out in-favor of the newer F-4 Phantom II. NASA chose the ‘sader because it was readily available and cost effective. The intention was to modify the ‘sader by removing the horizontal stabilizers and placing them in front of the wings (as canards). The F-8s centerline air inlet would have been unaffected by this modification. However this was considered too costly to be included in the program.
By 1970 NASA acquired 4 F-8Cs on their way to the boneyard and sent them to the Dryden Flight Research Center. Money for NASA’s Digital Fly By Wire was appropriated $1 million dollars for the first year. Over time the entire cost of the program, which ran just over 10 years, would run $12 million dollars. The program itself would be conducted in 3 phases starting in early 1971. Phase I, scheduled to start in 1971, would have 2 goals: ensuring the technology worked and developing the tools to move forward. Phase IB would introduce a second computer in the flight control system and begin to test and develop system redundancy. Phase II, scheduled to run Q2 of 1974, was to concentrate on gaining knowledge and developing techniques for increasing computer reliability. Over time the schedule wasn’t met but the objective for each phase never changed. Over the next year Flight Research Center hardware and software engineers began modification work on the F-8 aircraft.
Vought F-8C NASA 802 Digital Fly By Wire Test-bed aircraft.
The next segments will cover modification of the F-8 aircraft, phases of the flight test program and benefits to future aircraft programs.
There is nothing quite like a USMC Master Gunnery Sergeant. An E-9, but not a Sgt Major, with no place to go but sideways, a Master Guns can be ever so useful by bringing a capability to say what he thinks, and know of what he speaks. This is particularly true in some of our collective ruminations on plans for providing that ever-popular hybrid of security/humanitarian assistance to some third world hell hole where the people hate us and everything that came after the Eleventh Century, about which such discussions can be fraught with self-deception.
While listening to a brief from a COCOM staff regarding a West African nation, I had remarked that they were telling us things we already knew. The Master Guns reminded me of one of the immutable facts of life.
“The mission of a J-shop is to state the obvious.”
Well, Goldwater-Nichols was sposta clarify roles and missions. I guess it did.
Designs for more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, a U.S. report said on Monday, as a news report in Australia said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia’s new spy headquarters.
Citing a report prepared for the Defence Department by the Defence Science Board, the Washington Post reported that compromised U.S. designs included combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defences vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf.
The Defense Department has long ago missed the boat on China and PLA development efforts to penetrate the communications/information systems of the US and her allies. While there are some in the senior field grade and GOFO ranks who do “get it”, and comprehend the portent of the PRC’s course of action over the last dozen years, most clearly do not. This is reflected in the questionable conceptual assertion that “cyber” is somehow a “domain” of warfare akin to that of land, sea, and air. And that the US will somehow have “information dominance” over our foes. This, despite the fact that the US Navy in particular cannot provide a meaningful definition of the term. Indeed, the word “cyber” is a nebulous and ill-suited word under which DoD lumps together digital communications, information storage and integration, and processing algorithms critical to the function of a modern military, a modern economy, and a modern society.
As recently as 2010, I was treated to a senior policy maker’s foolishly optimistic opinion that there was no real proof that the People’s Republic of China had embarked upon the unrestricted warfare that had been outlined more than ten years before. He airily dismissed the document in question as little more than the musings of two PLA officers which did not represent any official PRC/PLA policy. This, despite the massive and mounting evidence even then of Chinese efforts to penetrate US military and civilian networks, and despite the fact that many of the exploits which resulted in the Reuters article had been in place a number of years before his rather curious assertions.
Another unequivocal indication of the Defense Department’s inability to grasp the import of China’s building capabilities has been how “cyber” is incorporated into scenarios of the various war games held by the service components and combatant commands. We have yet to break from the long-standing paradigm of action-reaction-counteraction which defines military operations against a hostile adversary, rather than a realistic scripting of what the effects of pre-conflict exploits would be to operating forces. Our comprehension of the tactics and capabilities of our adversaries, particularly non-state or trans-national actors, and how they use information networks to their advantage and our disadvantage, remains highly suspect. Time and again, contractors posit highly improbable, even fanciful, near-future capabilities to wow uniformed commanders, despite an almost complete lack of understanding as to how the adversary leverages the “big I” internet and the disruptive technologies available to him. Attribution, even detection, painstaking processes that often require months or years to accomplish, often are represented as near-real-time capabilities. Such assertions often go unchallenged by senior leaders who lack the technical savvy or systemic understanding to know better.
Here’s looking for some honest, rigorous consequence management exercises grounded in reality, which yield hard lessons for our operating forces whose two-plus decades of near-complete mastery of the electro-magnetic spectrum may be at an end. I would love to see meaningful exploration of how we would fight with critical capabilities denied or degraded, and an operational-strategic assessment of alternatives for network function and weapons employment in the face of disruptive actions by an adversary of China’s capabilities.
After all, of the really bad things that can be done to a military force (or anybody else) through exploiting network intrusions, simply shutting off critical systems is well down on the list.
As the Allied Dyle-Breda Plan collapsed under the pressure of the Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg, most of the British Expeditionary Force of more than 320,000 men fell back against the French coast around Calais and Dunkirk. Germany’s Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) had been radically modified in early 1940 from a plan looking nearly identical to that of 1914, to one which included a decisive armored thrust through the Ardennes Forest that would break the Allied armies in two and trap the preponderance of Allied combat power in a pocket north of Paris. The Blitzkrieg which began in 10 May 1940 had shattered the Dutch, Belgian, and French armies.
The Wehrmacht employment of auftragstaktik allowed German commanders at all levels to consistently defeat Allied tempo of decision-making, which led to countless occasions where German units slammed into French and British formations who were de-training or still in road march formation and unready for battle. Speed, both in tactical mobility and command and control, was as decisive as any other single factor in the Battle of France.
Sixteen days into office, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had known since 15 May that the French were finished. Despite attempts to reinforce his French allies, by 21 May the objective of the BEF was to conduct a fighting withdrawal to a Channel port, from where it might, if extremely fortunate and able to gain local air superiority, be evacuated back to Britain.
Operation DYNAMO, which would include a massive commitment of the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and thousands of small ships and craft, began on 26 May 1940. With two French divisions holding against German pressure, British units began to move toward the beaches and piers, the ships and craft (in the surf line) which would shuttle them both to larger ships and to England itself. That German pressure was not nearly as heavy as it might have been, thankfully for the British. Reichsmarshall Goering had promised Hitler that his Luftwaffe would destroy the Allied evacuation efforts without having to risk von Küchler’s Panzer and Panzergrenadier units in coastal sand unsuitable for their deployment.
In the end, German commanders convinced Hitler to launch concerted attacks on Dunkirk, but it would come too late. Dunkirk was finally captured on 4 June 1940, but by that time, 198,000 British and 123,000 French troops had been evacuated. The RAF had paid a heavy price for the furious defense of the skies over Operation DYNAMO, losing 177 precious fighter aircraft that had been jealously hoarded for the battle over the skies of England that was sure to come. The Royal Navy lost six modern destroyers, and several hundred small craft. Virtually all of the BEF’s heavy equipment, tanks and trucks, artillery pieces, and more than 70,000 tons of ammunition was left on the beach. And nearly 15% of the BEF’s soldiers were dead, wounded, or prisoner.
But the vast preponderance of British manpower had been saved. German intelligence reports in preparation for SEELÖWE noted the toughness and high quality of the British Soldiers, including the Territorials. Most of them were back safely on British soil, and the Wehrmacht would have to deal with them in the near future under far less favorable circumstances. Those plucked from the Dunkirk docks and surf included the British Commander of II Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Alan Brooke, later Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Major General Bernard Law Montgomery, in command of the 3rd Infantry Division. Dunkirk had been a miracle indeed. And the Germans would pay dearly for their mistake.
Churchill’s admonition that “wars are not won by evacuations” not withstanding, the successful evacuation of the bulk of the BEF from Dunkirk allowed England to survive until the Soviet Union and the United States entered the war. Lost on the 73 years since the evacuation of Dunkirk was the fact that there was a considerable body of opinion in Parliament that desired a negotiated peace with Germany. With the loss of the BEF, such a body of opinion might have been strong enough to have blocked Churchill’s desires to fight Hitler to the bitter end. DYNAMO signaled what Churchill told the British people, that “the Battle of France is over, the Battle of Britain is about to begin”. Defending the Island Nation was the force evacuated from France.
In January 1978, the same day the AMST program ended, the C-X (cargo experimental) program began. The CX program was needed because formulation of the Pentagon’s RDF (Rapid Deployment Force) in the late 1970s. CX would serve as RDF’s airborne transport. In short CX combined the roles of strategic and tactical airlifters. Specifically, CX requirements, among others were a max takeoff weight of 580,000 lbs, max speed of Mach0.825, a range of 2400nm, a landing run requirement of 27,000ft, and all of this with a 3 person crew (2 pilots and a loadmaster)
Boeing C-17 Globemaster 3
Out of the CX program came the McDonnell Douglas (Boeing after the 1996 merger) C-17 Globemaster 3. The C-17 first flight was on 15 September 1991. The C-17 was able to combine the tactical and strategic airlift roles because of its STOL characteristics. On the outside, the YC-15 and C-17 have a very similar appearance because both use EBF to achieve STOL.
3 view drawing of the YC-15
3 view drawing of the C-17
The YC-15 made quite a few contributions to the C-17 program. Many of the Mc Donnell Douglas personnel that worked on the YC-15 worked on the C-17 program. During it’s development the C-17 ran into many of the same problems that the YC-15 had. There were excessive thermal, air and acoustic loads on the portions of the flaps that were directly in the jet exhaust.
This table highlights further differences between the 2 aircraft.
Incorrect predictions of airframe drag again resulted in slightly reduced range at given takeoff weights. Range\payload went from 2,400 nm at 172,000lb to 167,000lb. A few years after the C-17 entered service it gained a reputation as a somewhat “short legged” aircraft when transiting the Pacific. However by the year 2000 this was resolved by adding a fuel tank in the overhead wing\fuselage body joint.
Center wing box fuel tank on the C-17
There were also quite a few “lessons learned” that were incorporated into the C-17. Windows for a downward view were moved slightly forward in the cockpit. The YC-15’s GWS was replaced, in the C-17 by an indexed switch attached to a mission computer that calculated optimal takeoff flap settings at a given gross weight. Loading ramp “toes” were added to the C-17. The thrust reversers were limited to idle when deployed in-flight. Flaps were not moved during the takeoff roll and improvements were made in the DLC. The VAM in the YC-15 became a HUD (Heads-Up Display) displaying far more information on approach to the pilot.
C-17 Heads Up Display
In 1998 the YC-15 was at AMARC and that year Mc Donnell Douglas contracted with AMARC to make the YC-15 again flyable. The YC-15 was to be used as a test-bed for testing defensive countermeasures and techniques for lowering the infared signature of the C-17. The process to make 875 again flyable began in April 1996. 875 was remarkably well preserved aside from many birds’ nests in the nooks and crannies of the aircraft. The JT9D engines had to be reinstalled and 875 was given the FAA registration “N15YC.”
On 11 April 1997 YC-15 875 again took the air from Davis-Monthan AFB for a shakedown flight. The jet flew for 2 hours 1 minute and taken to 250kt at 25,000ft. 875 was flown three more times before a planned flight to Long Beach for further modification and test work, including the addition of a new paint job.
The YC-15 in its new paint scheme seen at takeoff.
Again 875 was flown again on 11 July 1998 to the Edwards AFB test ranges and some approach work at Palmdale. It was during this work that the number one engine third stage LP turbine came apart. While able to land at Palmdale without incident the YC-15 languished on the ramp until money could be made to make repairs. This was to never be.
After the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger, the cost of repairing 875 couldn’t be justified. As of 2002, the aircraft remained at Palmdale.
There was talk of using the YC-15 as an airborne avionics test platform to support the x-32 but Boeing opted for a 737 instead. There was thought of bringing 875 back to test some concepts for the NOTAIL ATT and to test a STOL “tilt wing” concept but none of these came to fruition.
At the time of writing YC-15 72-0876 is on display of sorts at AMARC in a semi scrapped state with the engines removed. YC-15 72-0875 was moved from Palmdale to Edwards in 2008 and is on display at the west gate of Edwards AFB, just off the Century Circle.
You can learn more about the YC-15 and C-17 here and here.
The Cold War ended more than 20 years ago and things like this still make me realize just how much things have changed.
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany – The U.S. Air Force launched the final A-10 Thunderbolt II tactical sortie in Europe at Spangdahlem AB May 14, 2013.
The airframe belongs to the 52nd Fighter Wing’s 81st Fighter Squadron, which inactivates in June.
“I’m proud to be a part of the last sortie,” said Lt. Col. Jeff Hogan, 81st director of operations and a pilot from today’s flight. “It’s definitely a sad day for the (81st) as we end 20 years of A-10 operations here. I’m just proud to take part in this historic event.”
The A-10 has been a Cold War icon in Europe for over 20 years and was originally deployed to stop the hordes of Soviet armor across the Fulda Gap in then West Germany.
I’d always pictured that operations would look something like this:
On a side note there’s, as of yet, there is no comment from DoD on whether or not the 81st Fighter Squadron will be reactivated and deployed to counter the “cat-tank” threat that has recently emerged in the Chicago loop (the vid was sent to me by a friend as I was working on this post. She works here.).
I usually do a “cutaway Thursday” over that The Lexicans. It’s features unusual aircraft cutaway pictures I’ve got saved in my stack-o-stuff. This one was too awesome to not pass along.
Not posting the actual cutaway but this site for the iconic Boeing B-17 features one of the best interactive cutaways I’ve ever seen.
I’ll say this, it’s not often I come across a plane from the post-war era that went into serial production for the Air Force that I don’t instantly recall.
This week marks VE Day, commemorating the Victory in Europe over Hitler’s Third Reich. The last and perhaps the most savage battle was for the German capital of Berlin. This from the Battlefield series, which was aired weekly on Far East Network (“Forced Entertainment Network”) when I had an artillery battery in Okinawa in 1996. The entire series is superb, and if you look, you can find most of them on line. They are also available on DVD. They contain a pretty good description of the higher tactical through the strategic picture, and have enough detail and technical stuff, but not too much.
Since the series was made, Russian archives have been explored more completely, and the number of Soviet casualties have been scaled up more than two-fold, from the 305,000 quoted in this episode, to nearly 700,000. Note the ever-present use of artillery and mortars, rockets, and field guns, even in an urban environment. The episode is 116 minutes, roughly the time one spends clicking on all of Mav’s aviation links and cool pictures and videos and stuff. So get your Eastern Front geek on, and watch it. You know you wanna.
There has been a lot of interesting books to come out about the Red Air Force after the Soviet World War 2 archives were opened up. Don’t tell anyone that I’m supposed to finish a book review for that…
Used to broadcast propaganda via radio and television, the EC-130Es were retired in the mid-2000s, replaced by new airframes built on the updated C-130J airframe.
Seems it might become policy for the US Military. Unless you are Muslim. Which is fine, provided you can somehow refrain from blowing up your CO with a grenade, or shooting four dozen comrades while yelling “ALLAHU AKBAR!” And even if you do, we can conjure terms like “pre-traumatic stress” and speculate about discrimination being the cause if not the justification for such acts.
Those who believe this will end up as a “common-sense” regulation against those forcing their religion, unwelcome, upon comrades and juniors must have missed the DoD genuflecting (pun intended) to Islam, Global Warming, Diversity, Gun Control, Feminism, LGBT, and the various other “religions” that General and Flag Officers spend an inordinate amount of time proselytizing as a matter of command influence.
Could one imagine the Defense Department having ANY dealings with someone who declared sharing the Koran with fellow Muslims to be “spiritual rape” and those who do so are “enemies” of the Constitution?
The reason, perhaps, that this grates so is that it is another in a long line under this Administration, with these GOFOs, of political pandering to the far-Left, anti-Christian, anti-cleric secular progressives. With no end in sight.
But don’t worry, Marty Dempsey and your band of bended-knee political servants. Jesus loves you.
Some of the rest of us can’t stand the sight of you.
Part one is a general description of the YC-15 aircraft. You can view that here. This post will detail the flight test program of the YC-15.
There were 2 YC-15 aircraft,serials 72-01875 and 72-01876. 875 was rolled on 5 August 1975. The first flight was 26 August 1975. 875 flew from the Douglas plant in Long Beach, CA to Edwards AFB. The only problem during this 2.5 hour flight was a landing gear door found to be ajar. The flight itself was therefore speed limited to 200kts at 20,000ft.
875 flew 3 times over the next 3 days, conducting general flight envelope verification and expansion tests. A further 2 weeks were conducting 7 air-worthiness flights. On 12 September, 875 moved to a Douglas Aircraft Company (DAC) test facility at Yuma, AZ.
876 flew for the first time on 5 December 1975. This flight took the aircraft from Long Beach, CA to join 875 at Yuma AZ.
The YC-15 Joint Test Force (JTF) personnel from the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC), Air Force Test and Evaluation Center (AFTEC), McDonnell Douglas, Boeing (for the YC-14). The (Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC), Tactical Air Command (TAC), Army and the USMC played minor logistical roles in the flight test program. NASA also sent (short take-off and landing (STOL) engineers to analyse data gleaned in the AMST program. The core pilot cadre for the YC-15 was made up of 3 contractors, 3 AFFTC and 3 AFTEC pilots. The competing aircraft were housed in separate hangars with the JTF office between the 2 contactors. This became the model for both the ATF and JSF programs.
The consensus amongst the test pilots and crews was that the YC-15 had generally good handling qualities. The aircraft was easy to fly with the SCAS off and on. There was concern that the pilot could overload the aircraft with the SCAS off but control forces were considered light in both modes.
There was some discussion on whether or not the YC-15 should have a stick or yoke for control input. The intention was to have a “fighter-type” stick installed but there was some skepticism over it’s suitability from higher up the chain-of-command so the stick was removed. To counter, it was argued that the yoke obscured the view of the instrument panel.
The YC-15 had no natural warning upon entering the stall (i.e. vibration) so warning for the stall relied on an artificial “stick-shaker” to provide some warning within the critical angle of attack. This was judged as an inadequate solution because the shaker could activate in conditions of high thrust and flap settings when the aircraft clearly wasn’t in a stalling condition and because a high stink rate (such as during a STOL landing) could mask stalling conditions. As such, a Supplemental Stall Recognition System (SSRS) was developed and tested during the program. The SSRS provided an aural warning when the aircraft approached critical alpha during a given flight condition.
At gross weights of 149,300 the YC-15 flew STOL approaches at 87kts at a 6 degree glideslope giving a sink rate of 15.4 degrees per second. Conventional Takeoff and Landing (CTOL) approaches were normally made a 127 kts with a typical 8-12 feet per second sink rate with no flare at touch down. In STOL mode the aim-point for touch down was about 300 feet from the runway threshold . The YC-15 tested both flare and no-flare landing techniques in STOL mode. Testing at Edwards AFB showed the YC-15 was unable to land consistently in “hot-and-high” conditions in the required 2000 feet because of the slow actuation of the thrust reversers.
The thrust reversers could be used in-flight with some minor airframe buffet.
Testing the VAM, used approaches very similar to Navy carrier approaches were airspeed on approach is governed by angle of attack. The major issue was that the VAM didn’t display enough information to enable a completely “eyes-out-of-cockpit” approach.
33 STOL and CTOL off field demo landings, at Edwards, were conducted on 5000ft x 200ft runways with markers placed at 2000ft x 60ft. 5 pilots flew these tests and the YC-15s landing gear tire pressure was reduced. It was also found that the YC-15 could taxi over a 4-inch dump at 75-80kts. A unique procedures for the YC-15 during a STOL takeoff was extending the flaps from 14 to 23 degrees during the takeoff roll. Below is some archive video of STOL testing in 1975 (please pardon the music, Creed’s “Higher” just doesn’t work IMO):
During testing cracks were found in the blown flap material and fasteners had to replaced on a cracked rob. This was due to repeated exposure of hot jet exhaust. Direct Lift Control (DLC) (*see update below) was found to be effective for corrected high approach errors in the glide-slope but wasn’t effective for getting too low during approach. Flight path correction was done with a slightly high arrival at glideslope,correct with DLC, and then add thrust. Maximum DLC deflection angle was 20 degrees from flush on the upper surface of the wing. Orientation of the DLC actuation in the cockpit was a major “human factors” issue of debate among the pilots.
The YC-15 displayed docile engine out characteristics with mild crew indication 4-6 seconds after an engine out occurred. The YC-15 also was unable to meet the range requirement of 2600nm. The aircraft had more drag than predicted giving it a range of 1760nm.
I’ll be standing fast on this post for now. I’m splitting part 2 into this and an additional part detailing some of the operational and international demonstrations as well as technical improvements and further flight test results.
*[UPDATE]: For reader that may not know, direct lift control (DLC) is a system of spoilers, located on the upper surface of the wing. that either differencially control roll and in unison control pitch by dumping lift from the wings. They are common to most airliners.
“I think that in many ways a line’s been crossed when we see tens of thousands of innocent people killed by a regime, but the use of chemical weapons and the danger that is poses to the international community, to neighbors of Syria, the potential of chemical weapons to get into the hands of terrorists, all of those things add increased urgency to what is already a significant security problem and humanitarian problem in the region,” Obama told reporters.
So the hundreds of thousands of innocent people being killed by a regime, the use of chemical weapons, the potential for chemical weapons to get in the hands of terrorists, ARE considerations for military intervention? Could we say as a counter, perhaps, that Bashar al-Assad poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history?
Yes, indeed we could. I am not advocating for or against intervention in Syria, though I would be curious to know whom we believe we would ally with, and whom against, and just what we could accomplish given the active opposition of Putin’s Russia (not least because of the possibility of Russian fingerprints on Syria’s chemical stockpile, and on a chemical stockpile of Iraqi origin).
It seems that President Obama’s “student union view” of the world and how it works has once again collided head-on with reality. The “game-changer” bandied about so often of late has already happened. The world, our allies, and our adversaries, will see what comes next. Will we see the Obama who condemned his predecessor for Iraq? Or the Obama whose tough talk regarding Syria is a virtual echo of that predecessor? Has he the statesmanship and foreign policy acumen to act decisively and effectively? Considering the string of diplomatic failures punctuated by the Benghazi catastrophe and the ineffectual confrontation with the DPRK, I am not terribly hopeful.
The McDonnell Douglas YC-15 was a prototype developed of the USAF ‘s AMST program in 1972. The competition was the Boeing YC-14.
McDonnell Douglas developed the YC-15 from the Breguet 941s, using extensive wind tunnel testing (for optimum configuration testing) and using Cornell Aeronautical Labs B-26B In-Flight Simulator (for flight control testing).
The aircraft itself is 124.25 feet long, wingspan is 110.36ft, height is 43.30. Max gross weight is 216,680lbs. The interior cargo-box is 47 x 11.8 x 11.4.
Thrust for the YC-15 was provided by the JT8D turbofan (also the DC-9 powerplant) and produced a total thrust of 16,000lbs. The engines were mounted on shallow pylons mounted ahead of the wings leading edge. Thrust reversal was accomplished using so-called “daisy nozzles.” During final approach, with flaps fully extended and facing the engine, the engines provided 54% of the YC-15 lift.
The straight wings consisted of ailerons, double-slotted flaps, leading edge high lift devices (Kruger flaps, etc), and spoilers. The trailing edge devices, flaps and ailerons spanned 75% of the wings trailing edge. The flaps could extend as much as 46 degrees into the downstream. The YC-15 was the first jet powered aircraft to use externally blown flaps (EBF).
Flight controls consisted of the conventional hydraulic system and a stability and control augmentation system (SCAS). The SCAS was dual channel and 3 axis enabling hands off flight for high angle approaches (tactical approaches) and modes for attitude, altitude and heading.
The YC-15 saw the first use of a heads up display (HUD) system, specifically called the VAM (Visual Approach Monitor). Developed by Sundstrand, the VAM displayed the horizon, flight path scale, airspeed indexer and touchdown point.
Being essentially a research airplane, the YC-15 did not need to fully conform to MILSPECS. As such it borrowed components from various aircraft, the DC-10 cockpit enclosure, the F-15 fuel pumps, the C-141 stabilizing struts, the A-10UARRSI, the C-5 cargo handling equipment and other parts from 9 other types of airplanes. Cockpit instrumentation used components from 10 different airplanes.
Here’s a cutaway of the YC-14 and YC-15 for comparison:
Part 2 will detail the YC-15s flight test program.
Part 3 will detail the YC-15 technological contributions to the C-17.
[UPDATE- XBrad] I’ve added Mav as another author here. We’ve got a grunt, a rocket scientist, a Marine Artilleryman, a Chaplain, a Sigo/Civil War historian, and now, an aviator.
One of the annoyances of being stationed overseas was Armed Forces Networks, the provider of pretty much the only English language television available back in the late 80s/early 90s. It wasn’t so much that the programming was bad and out of date. The problem was, unlike regular commercial television, the “commercials” were in fact public service announcements from the Army reminding you of such weighty matters as “don’t bounce checks at the PX,” and “don’t beat your wife and kids,” and the ever popular “don’t abandon your privately owned vehicle when you rotate back to the states.” All delivered with the charm and panache one expects out of a government run entity.
AFN still runs overseas networks, particularly in fun places like Afghanistan, home to the sprawling Bagram Airbase. And while I’m certain most of the AFN produced content is as lame as it ever was, at least one campaign has shown someone, somewhere, screwed up and let a little humor into the system.
In the very darkest days of the Second World War, when England stood alone, and suffered alone, Prime Minister Winston Churchill replaced his friend General Edmund Ironside, veteran of two wars, as Chief of the Imperial General Staff with General Sir John Dill. Churchill told Dill:
“We cannot afford to confine Army appointments to persons who have excited no hostile comments in their careers… This is a time to try men of force and vision, and not to be exclusively confined to those who are judged to be thoroughly safe by conventional standards.”
Ponder.
But for the leadership in our Armed Forces to embrace such sentiment.
We’ve written several times about the ongoing effort by the USAF to buy an off the shelf light attack aircraft. We’ve always pretty much preferred the A-29B Super Tucano over the proposed AT-6. Mind you, we think either aircraft would be essentially suitable. Mainly our frustration is that such a simple, low cost program should be taking so long to move forward. It’s not quite a poster child for paralysis by analysis, but it’s pretty close. It also shows the costs of allowing contractors to protest competition results with impunity.
For a second time, W.W. “Bill” Boisture, the CEO of Beechcraft Corp. (formerly Hawker Beechcraft), is challenging the U.S. Air Force’s decision to award a contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. to supply 20 Embraer A-29B Super Tucano aircraft for the Light Air Support (LAS) program for use by the Afghan military.
Boisture claims the Defense Department is spending significantly more for the A-29B than it would for Beechcraft’s AT-6, its proposed LAS variant of the T-6 Texan II turboprop primary trainer. The T-6 is a well-proven platform, and the AT-6 shares about 80% of its parts.
I could see Boisture’s point if lowest cost were the only criterion for awarding a contract and if the AT-6 and A-29B offered equivalent capabilities. But neither point is the case.
I have flown both aircraft and there are significant differences. The AT-6 is a trainer that has been adapted for the LAS role with a 1,600-shp engine, a beefed-up wing with hard points, plus twin external gun pods, an electro-optical/infrared camera sensor ball and a network-centric C2ISR communications suite, among other significant improvements. On paper, that gives the AT-6 virtually the same capabilities as the A-29B Super Tucano.
Walk around the two aircraft, though, and obvious differences emerge. Built from the ground up for the light attack role, the Brazilian contender is considerably larger than the Beechcraft. The relatively small five-blade propeller offers 5 in. more ground clearance than the AT-6′s four-blade prop, and its oil cooler intake is much higher, for protection against foreign object damage. These features make the Super Tucano better suited to rough-field operations.
The A-29B’s wingspan is 4 ft. wider than the AT-6′s and the lateral distance between the landing gear is 50% greater, making the aircraft easier to handle on runways in stiff crosswinds. The A-29B’s main landing gear rolling stock is larger, featuring low-pressure 6.5-10 tires that are better suited to unimproved runway operations than the AT-6′s high-pressure, 4.4-20 tires that are designed for smooth pavement. The A-29B’s fuselage is 3 ft. longer and its vertical stabilizer is 2.3 ft. higher, providing more aerodynamic stability to handle the 1,600-shp engine.
Of course, my real first choice would be an updated OV-10.
Over on the Front Porch, the ever-thoughtful Commander Salamander has some very good thoughts on an initiative by which commanders and General/Flag Officers would be subject to evaluation above and beyond what should be the considered judgment of their reporting seniors and reviewing officers. Salamander calls it “Outsourcing Leadership”, and so it is. He makes good arguments as to why such a thing should be anathema to anyone who considers him/herself worthy of high command.
While I agree with everything Sal says, I do believe very strongly that the implications are far more destructive than he points out. What this new “review” is setting the conditions for is nothing less than an evaluation of Officers in the US Armed Forces for their political and social reliability. We have had a long tradition of political non-alignment among especially our senior commanders, but also among Officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, which has largely protected us from the scourge of a military that is a social force that has its say in national politics. No Kurt Schleicher or Francisco Franco here. Our military leaders who have held office have been retired from the Armed Forces before doing so. Any test of political and social reliability was in the obverse, in that propriety was maintained by refraining from expressing personal opinions or political views in uniform, especially as a part of official duties of office.
The landscape changed dramatically in 2009, when CJCS Admiral Mike Mullen indulged in telling Congress and the American people, unsolicited, his personally-held views on repeal of DADT and open service for homosexuals in America’s military. At the time I warned of the damage of that unprofessional, arrogant, and selfish act. Soon, Mullen informed our service men and women that, unless they held the same personal beliefs he did, they were not fit to serve, and should “vote with their feet”. We were on our way down the well-greased slope.
This Administration, many of whose principles have openly and loudly expressed their disdain for our military (Hillary Clinton conspicuously among them), has spared no effort to co-opt military leadership into conforming to a political stance. Even when Stanley McChrystal was justifiably relieved, he blithely informed the American public that he had indeed personally voted for Obama, and such a revelation garnered scant attention. One has to imagine that, had he mentioned he had voted for John McCain, the howls of the Administration and its complicit “free press” would have been deafening. Rightly. But because McChrystal voted “correctly”, not a peep of of objection was heard.
The push to allow Commanding Generals to order confiscation of lawfully-owned firearms from service members in private residences has far less to do with any kind of prevention, and much more to do with General Officers falling in behind a gun control agenda that anyone in DoD is willing to admit. Violation of due process and Constitutional liberties of those who defend our freedom is scant cost for active advocating of a Leftist crusade.
In the midst of escalation of rhetoric and sabre-rattling of a nuclear North Korea and a China bullying our allies over two sets of disputed islands, the Commander of the Seventh Fleet informs us that he believes the biggest security threat in his assigned Area of Operations is…. global warming. Someone in Locklear’s position who says something so patently absurd and politically pandering should be relieved forthwith as someone who lacks the judgment and/or integrity to lead. If he doesn’t believe his own words, he is disingenuous and untrustworthy. If he does, he is an imbecile. In either event, he does not belong where he is. But, of course, he remains. He toes the line of political agenda.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a political appointee, volunteers the US Navy to be a beta-tester of biofuels, at enormous expense, not least of which is the up-front cost of the fuel itself, but as yet undetermined is the cost of the damage that the corrosion and water will do to extremely expensive systems in ships and aircraft in the medium-long term. While Mabus doesn’t wear a uniform, I would speculate that nobody who does raised a single objection to SECNAV in any way, or told him how inappropriate such measures were, that it amounted to incestuous political pandering at the expense of readiness and warfighting. Not one.
When outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta fired his parting political broadside and removed the exclusion of putting women in combat arms units (the issue is NOT women in combat, and anyone honestly evaluating the situation knows that), there were loud promises from every corner that standards would not be lowered. Until CJCS General Dempsey quickly said that the would be, to accommodate making women successfully pass the training requirements.
To anyone who watches what is said and not said, all these occurrences are signposts that point in the direction of travel. This “review process” is another waypoint on that journey of the destruction of the fiber of our Armed Forces and its leadership. That same CJCS, General Marty Dempsey, is now mandating that the review program will include inspections.
The inspections will not be punitive, but will provide a “periodic opportunity for general officers and flag officers to understand whether, from an institutional perspective, we think they are inside or outside the white lines,” he said. In addition, new programs will be instituted to ensure that a commander’s staff, and a spouse, are fully aware of military regulations.
This is the Marty Dempsey who violated his oath to our Constitution on two occasions, actively criticizing the legal free expression of private citizens in direct violation of that Constitution he is sworn to support and defend against all enemies. In the Benghazi incident, Dempsey’s admonitions amounted to a deliberate falsehood, a lie, to perpetuate the lies told us by our State Department (and Hillary Clinton) that the attack on the embassy was a spontaneous one stemming from a demonstration regarding an online anti-Muslim video, when both he and SecState knew good and well their words were false. He readily and easily forfeited his integrity for his bosses. Are we now expected to believe that those “white lines” reflect the traditional role of the non-political military officer? The traditional tenets of leadership, technical and tactical proficiency, integrity, judgment, courage, decisiveness, and the others, will be pre-empted and eventually superceded by assurance of political reliability and the “correct” beliefs regarding social and political issues, and a willingness to set aside one’s honor at the behest of military and political seniors.
Why ever would we expect any different? Men (and women) in uniform who behave as political sycophants should not be trusted to lead. Certainly, Martin Dempsey has proven on several occasions not to be worthy of my trust, nor yours. Except to use these new standards of performance as a tool to remake the senior officers of our military in his image, that of a pliant servant of political masters, whose oath to the Constitution is a mere gesture. Those who conform to that mold will not be worthy of our trust, either. When the choice is between obedience to our Constitution or obedience to political bosses, why, it won’t be a choice at all.
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The opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent those of any other person or entity.
