I’m always reluctant to post these stories and I always get a lot of flak from them, but I think it’s important for folks who might not have access to them that are involved in some way with aviation to see what happened and get some “lessons learned” data that can maybe help them down […]
From the monthly archives:
August 2008
The U.S. Navy’s leadership has shown unprecedented ineptitude in the handling of surface ship programs. The previous (and ongoing) mass of problems with the amphibious ships of the LPD 17 class and the littoral combat ships (LCS) seem to pale in comparison to the handling of the DDG 1000 “destroyer” program. For eight years the […]
This article first appeared at AviationWeek.com. Sikorsky’s futuristic X2 high-speed helicopter technology demonstrator made its first flight today in Horseheads, N.Y., in the hands of chief test pilot Kevin L. Bredenbeck. The single-engined fly-by-wire aircraft features coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller that Sikorsky believes will revolutionize the helicopter world with cruise speeds of up to […]
It looks like the Air Force got a new arrow in its quiver recently with the first employment in combat of the new Guided Bomb Unit 54 — a hybrid Joint Direct Attack Munition/Laser Guided Bomb. Seems that the Air Force issued an urgent need statement for a 500 lb. munition that could take out […]
The situation in Afghanistan has gotten me pretty pissed off these days. I got off the phone a little while ago with the commander of a battalion of Marines — 2nd battalion, 7th Marine Regiment — who’s trying to hold back the waters of “Taliban” violence manning the ramparts of a 28,000 square kilometer area […]
