Nothing like an inad­ver­tent ejec­tion story to keep the work­day mov­ing along. (Thanks to avi­a­tion pho­tog­ra­pher Jose Ramos who shared this with us via Facebook.)

As the plane rolled into another stomach-​​churning manoeu­vre, the pas­sen­ger was prob­a­bly wish­ing that he was some­where else. Then, just like that, he was.

The man, a civil­ian joyrid­ing with his air force pilot friend, acci­den­tally grabbed the eject lever while try­ing to brace him­self. He was instantly fired through the aircraft’s per­spex canopy and blasted 320ft (100m) into the sky by the rocket-​​powered chair. He then floated down to the ground with a para­chute that opened automatically.

Experts said he was lucky to escape unharmed from the bizarre acci­dent last week in South Africa.

Read the rest of the story here.

DT read­ers may remem­ber a sim­i­lar inci­dent involv­ing a ship dri­ver acci­dently punch­ing out of a Tomcat over the ranges of Fallon a few years back. That one hap­pened after the pilot rolled inverted as well. The pilot got to drive a con­vertable F-​​14 back to the field after his black­shoe pas­sen­ger departed.

– Ward

The Pentagons top weapons ana­lysts are report­edly argu­ing that the Navy does not face a fighter gap, some­thing Boeing and var­i­ous law­mak­ers have argued is a press­ing prob­lem the coun­try must fix.

A con­gres­sional source tells us that appar­ently PA&E is con­vinced that there isnt actu­ally a strike fighter short­fall, while the Navy is con­vinced theyll be 240-​​plus planes short of Naval strike fight­ers Were try­ing to fig­ure out how PA&E can pos­si­bly come to this con­clu­sion, but were not get­ting many answers.

Several senior OSD sources told me that PA&E is mak­ing this argu­ment, based on a range of capa­bil­i­ties offered by the Air Force.

PA&Es con­tention is that we have excess Air Force strike fighter capac­ity, so the Navy short­fall doesnt affect us strate­gi­cally But I dont think the Air Force can land their fight­ers on a car­rier, our con­gres­sional source said wryly.

The fighter num­bers were sum­ma­rized recently in a study by the Congressional Research Services naval ana­lyst, Ron ORourke. The Navy projects that a cur­rent strike-​​fighter short­fall of about 15 air­craft will grow to about 30 air­craft in FY2009, to more than 50 air­craft in FY2016, and to more than 90 air­craft in FY2017-​​FY2020, before declin­ing to more than 50 air­craft in FY2021 and to roughly zero air­craft by FY2025. At its peak in FY2017, the Navy states, the Dept. of Navy pro­jected strike-​​fighter short­fall will be 125 air­craft, of which 69 will be Navy strike-​​fighters, ORourke wrote.

[Since writ­ing the above, I received the newest CRS analy­sis. It dou­bles the esti­mated short­fall. This is what the report, by Christopher Bolckum, says: “The Navy projects that if no addi­tional action is taken, a DON strike-​​fighter short­fall of about 15 air­craft in FY2009, to 50 air­craft in FY2010, and to a peak of 243 air­craft in FY2018. The pro­jected strike-​​fighter short­fall is hoped to decrease after FY2018, but the DON will still have a gap of over 50 strike fight­ers in 2025. At its peak in FY2018, the pro­jected DON strike-​​fighter short­fall will be 129 Navy strike-​​fighters and 114 Marine Corps strike-​​fighters.

“This pro­jected strike-​​fighter short­fall is twice as big as the Navys ear­lier pro­jected short­fall of 125 air­craft. 9 (See Figure 1, below) The ear­lier esti­mate was the Navys, most opti­mistic pro­jec­tion because it assumed, among other things, that the ser­vice lives of Hornets could be extended from the cur­rent plan­ning fig­ure of 8,000 flight hours to 10,000 flight hours.” You can read it here.]

Were try­ing to get more infor­ma­tion from Boeing here at the Navy League conference.

Boeing has been mak­ing a valiant effort to con­vince the Pentagon and the pub­lic that the Navys fighter gap should be closed using F-​​18 E/​Fs. These planes are cheaper than F-​​35s, are already avail­able in pro­duc­tion mod­els and they meet the ser­vices cur­rent oper­a­tional require­ments, the com­pany has argued.

– Colin Clark

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re work­ing to get more details on the sniper shot on the pirates — what weapon, what range, what optics, what rounds and also some of the tactics…We’re nar­row­ing in on the gouge but need to get it con­firmed. Will post as soon as I get it and if any­one else out there has some info on it, please email me. I promise NO FINGERPRINTS.

Naval jour­nal­ist Robert D. Kaplan had an op-​​ed in Sunday’s New York Times, “Anarchy on Land Means Piracy at Sea.” Kaplan states that the var­i­ous ships the United States Navy now pos­sesses are too big (heavy) and expen­sive to effec­tively carry out vital oceanic coun­terin­sur­gency efforts. While the safe res­cue yes­ter­day of the cap­tain of M/​V Maersk Alabama from Somali pirates hold­ing him hostage in a lifeboat demol­ishes the cen­tral argu­ment of Kaplan’s piece, his the­sis does bear fur­ther scrutiny, and rebuttal.

Vital ship­ping lanes are being rav­aged hun­dreds of miles from land by expend­able mer­ce­nar­ies com­manded by smart and ruth­less pirate war­lords. The swelling costs of con­tain­ment patrols, defen­sive mea­sures, and ran­som pay­ments impact the global econ­omy. Dispatching the 9,400-ton Arleigh Burke destroyer USS Bainbridge plus two smaller escorts was cost-​​justified and mil­i­tar­ily appro­pri­ate — in fact, was necessary.

Bainbridge is mas­sive enough to carry two heav­ily armed Seahawk helos. Her deck cranes can launch speed­boats with SEAL teams aboard, and in a pinch could deploy SEAL Delivery Vehicle under­wa­ter scoot­ers. She can keep the sea in all weath­ers bet­ter than a smaller ship, and has longer on-​​station logis­ti­cal stay­ing power. She offers more ade­quate space for spe­cial mis­sion com­mu­ni­ca­tions and plan­ning equip­ment and staff.

Bainbridge also sports pow­er­ful over the hori­zon sur­veil­lance sys­tems and weaponry, able to track and engage many tar­gets at once. She has sophis­ti­cated active sonar to search for hos­tile diesel subs, which become a real issue when the destroyer needs to dwell near one loca­tion for very long. She fields a broad spec­trum of mis­siles plus state-​​of-​​the-​​art machine guns and can­non. She’s big enough and well manned enough to take repeated hits from rocket pro­pelled grenades, and keep fighting.

The pirates had con­sid­er­able fur­ther strength in this game beyond Kaplan’s “spec­ta­cle” of Maersk Alabama’s “tiny” lifeboat with its “hand­ful” of men and a sin­gle cap­tive. They’ve com­man­deered larger ves­sels they use as moth­er­ships, and are well sup­plied with RPGs. They were send­ing in sev­eral other cap­tured for­eign cargo ves­sels loaded with hostage crews, to use as human shields. These might have tried to sur­round, or fire upon, or even ram some­thing less able to defend her­self and her escorts than USS Bainbridge.

Kaplan him­self refers to the dan­ger that mer­ce­nary pirate meth­ods could be adapted by sui­ci­dal ter­ror­ists. This argues in favor of larger on-​​scene ves­sels, not smaller ones, to pro­vide the com­mand con­nec­tiv­ity, sen­sors, weaponry, endurance, and sur­viv­abil­ity required for the U.S. Navy to pre­vail in any such fight to the death.

– Joe Buff

Are we wit­ness­ing a new form of naval con­fronta­tion, with esca­lat­ing num­bers of ves­sels con­verg­ing to one sta­tic spot on the ocean? One that doesn’t involve fast charg­ing and fast shoot­ing so much as a float­ing stand­off? A strik­ing com­mon fea­ture of the recent China vs. U.S. con­fronta­tion off Yulin Island about ambigu­ous peac­time oceanic ter­ri­to­r­ial priv­i­leges, and the tense stand­off between U.S. Navy war­ships and Somali pirates hold­ing cargo ships and crew­men hostage for size­able ran­som demands, is that tem­porar­ily every­one closes in — and then nobody moves. 

In the non-​​lethal “Battle of Yulin,” Chinese patrol boats finally let the unarmed sonar sur­vey ship USNS Impeccable leave the area when the guided mis­sile destroyer USS Chung-​​Hoon drew near, intim­i­dat­ing the 5-​​boat Chinese swarm that sur­rounded Impeccable. In the case of the USS Bainbridge ver­sus Maersk Alabama lifeboat res­cue, which had seen pirate war­lords try­ing to send in other cap­tive ships and crews as human shields, it was unclear for sev­eral days what might hap­pen next; dozens of lives were on the line with no easy way out. 

This could be the emer­gence of a hybridiza­tion of uncon­ven­tional war­fare and soft-​​power con­flict at sea. Unconventional war­fare relies on asym­met­ric guerilla meth­ods. Soft power is the art of influ­enc­ing an adver­sary to achieve non-​​military goals (say, polit­i­cal or eco­nomic) by means short of blow­ing up some­thing or someone. 

This trend calls for a stronger, broader reper­toire of USN and U.S. Coast Guard maneu­ver tac­tics and rules of engage­ment, equip­ment, train­ing — and fund­ing. It’s been sug­gested that from now on, unarmed USN sur­veil­lance ships inside China’s 200-​​mile EEZ might need armed escorts, which would put more oper­a­tional strain on the Fleets pro­vid­ing and sup­port­ing such war­ships. On the anti-​​piracy front, do we need to go back to multi­na­tional con­voy­ing, again with armed escorts, as in the Persian Gulf Tanker War in the 1980s — despite how expen­sive for all involved this prac­tice would be?

(more…)

Think we’re going to hear a speech about this from our boy in Venezuela? Can you smell the sulfer here? 

From Military​.com:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced today the re-​​establishment of the U.S. Fourth Fleet and assigned Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, cur­rently serv­ing as com­man­der, Naval Special Warfare Command, as its new com­man­der. Fourth Fleet will be respon­si­ble for U.S. Navy ships, air­craft and sub­marines oper­at­ing in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

Umm, how would you like the be the guy who’s got to secure the lines on these decks?

CUTLINE:ATLANTIC OCEAN (Nov. 6, 2007) — Rough seas pound the hull of Military Sealift Command fast com­bat sup­port ship USNS Arctic (T-​​AOE as she sails along­side Nimitz-​​class air­craft car­rier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) while prepar­ing for a replen­ish­ment at sea. Truman is a part of Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 10 and is en route to the Central Command area of respon­si­bil­ity as part of the ongo­ing rota­tion to sup­port mar­itime secu­rity oper­a­tions in the region. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Joshua A. Moore

(Gouge: NC)

– Christian

Market Watch is report­ing the fol­low­ing: “The Justice Department and the U.S. Navy have reached a set­tle­ment agree­ment with approx­i­mately 3,400 prop­erty own­ers in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Va., regard­ing lit­i­ga­tion relat­ing to jet noise at a naval air base. Under the terms of the agree­ment, the par­tic­i­pat­ing plain­tiffs agree to dis­miss their claims and acknowl­edge that the set­tle­ment does not con­sti­tute an admis­sion of lia­bil­ity by the United States.

“‘We are pleased that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment and res­i­dents near the Naval Air Station Oceana and Naval Auxiliary Landing Field, Fentress have been able to reach an ami­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion in this mat­ter and avoid fur­ther lit­i­ga­tion,’ said Matthew J. McKeown, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. ‘This res­o­lu­tion sig­nals an end to six years of lit­i­ga­tion and pro­vides pos­i­tive results for the cit­i­zens as well as the government.’

“The class-​​action law­suit stems from the relo­ca­tion of 156 Navy F/​A-​​18 C/​D Hornet fighter jets from Cecil Field, Fla., to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., between December 1998 and July 1999. Plaintiffs own approx­i­mately 2,100 prop­er­ties and alleged in a group of nine law­suits filed between April 2001 and June 2005 that the intro­duc­tion of the Hornets resulted in a sub­stan­tial increase in over­flights and jet noise. Under the set­tle­ment, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment will pay the plain­tiffs an amount not to exceed $34.4 million.”

As one who flew out of NAS Oceana for more than 15 years (and who also owned prop­erty under the land­ing pat­tern) all I can say is “are you kid­ding me?” The base has been in place since 1943. This is noth­ing but an elab­o­rate drug deal, the result of home builders in col­lu­sion with the Virginia Beach city coun­cil wan­tonly ignor­ing the exis­tence of a “mas­ter jet base” in their midst. This is the same sort of activ­ity that landed NAS Oceana back on the BRAC list for the next go ’round — a wreck­less dis­re­gard for exist­ing jet traf­fic (and known future require­ments) in the face of money-​​making opportunities.

In the mean­time pilot train­ing has been affected by “noise abate­ment” rules that grow more restric­tive with each rewrite until fighter pilots might as well be dri­ving Boeing 777s. And now the tax payer takes it on the chin on the order of $34 mil­lion because of under­handed civic deal­ings and stu­pid homebuyers?

Ridiculous …

– Ward

Defense Industry Daily has an inter­est­ing series of snip­pets about the F-​​22 posted today, and the cen­ter of the con­tro­versy appears to pit old skool think­ing against new.

The “Fighter Mafia” boys at the Center for Defense Information say the Raptor is a pig. According to the DID arti­cle “F-​​16 pro­gram ana­lyst Pierre Sprey and author James Stevenson argued that the F-22’s fuel:weight ratio, wing load­ing, and accel­er­a­tion are infe­rior to exist­ing fight­ers. They con­tend that num­bers, accel­er­a­tion, fast changes in energy state, and a 360 degree cock­pit view count for more in [dogfights].”

But Raptor dri­ver Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver basi­cally says con­cerns regard­ing maneu­ver­abil­ity are moot when one con­sid­ers the capa­bil­i­ties of a Fifth Generation fighter like the F-​​22: “It’s amaz­ing the infor­ma­tion you have at your fin­ger­tips.” He claims that in no-​​holds-​​barred mock bat­tles with F-​​15s, F-​​16s and the Navy’s F/​A-​​18 Hornets, he and other Raptor pilots gen­er­ally “destroy” their adver­saries before those foes even real­ize they’re around.

So who’s right? Are the days of “get­tin’ in the phone booth” over? Or will aero­dy­namic per­for­mance and pilot skill still mat­ter when all the high-​​techery goes kaput in the heat of battle?

– Ward

I was lucky enough to spend a large por­tion of my adult (if you can call it that) life in the rear cock­pit of the F-​​14 Tomcat. As the DT audi­ence knows, the Tomcat was retired once and for all last fall. Eleven for­mer F-​​14 squadrons are now Super Hornet squadrons (8 F/​A-​​18F squadrons and 3 F/​A-​​18E squadrons).

Of all the “home­made” Tomcat ret­ro­spec­tives I’ve seen, I con­sider this one the best. It really cap­tures the essence of life in a carrier-​​based fighter squadron: Great ship­mates, hot wives, strong fam­i­lies, and one hell of a kick-​​ass airplane.

Tomcats for­ever …

– Ward