Monday, February 28, 2005

Jamming so good that even the media can't spot them.

Chief rejects Air Force 'death spiral' talk, Sig Christenson - San Antonio Express-News, 28th Feb 2005
The service that dominated the sky over Iraq and single-handedly won the 78-day Kosovo war has wanted to buy 381 Raptors and scrap 800 aging jets.
It must be quite a surprise for the pilots and crew of the 37 EA-6Bs that flew in the Kosovo conflict to suddenly be assigned to the Air Force.

Just remember that Air Force stealth is so good that it can't go anywhere without Navy department jammers to blind enemy radars so that they don't spot these aircraft that are "invisible" to radar.

-HJC

Friday, February 11, 2005

Raptor now only twice as expensive as Super Hornet.

I don't have a media reference for this one, because it hasn't been covered.

Just as the F/A-22 costs are getting under control the plane is being cut back.

By the Defence Department's budget for 2006, 4.1 billon dollars bought 22 F/A-22s in the 2004 budget while it only takes 3.7 billion dollars to buy 24 of them next year. That's only 153 million dollars each.
-HJC

Commander of the Naval Surface Forces confused about LCS.

Admiral faces uncharted waters with new classes of surface ships - Jack Dorsey, The Virginian-Pilot
plus a Littoral Combat Ship, LCS, built for high speed in shallow waters and with a variety of functions, using either the twin hulls of a catamaran or a single hull to skim the water.
Neither of the two current contenders for the final LCS design are catamarans.
At first I thought that the reporter badly mangled this, but the quote seems to be accurate. Perhaps Adm. Etnyre should follow the lead of Air Force Gen. Jumper and spend some time on the ships he'll be looking after.
-HJC