Try to find a pattern in the randomness!
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The UK Prime Minister is not rumored to have an especially deep appreciation of foreign policy, which in part explains why he gave that dreadful speech in Ankara.
David Frum, on the other hand, posits a deeper game.
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The Marine Corps’ STOVL variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is once again proving that complexity is, well: Complex.
Lockheed Martin said Tuesday that several parts on the most complex version of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter were failing more often than expected, a problem that is slowing flight testing on a model tailored for the Marines.
The company’s chief executive, Robert J. Stevens, told analysts that the problems had occurred on the version that can take off in short distances and land vertically like a helicopter.
Mr. Stevens said the defects had reduced the flight tests on that model to 74 so far this year, 21 fewer than planned. He said the company was working with suppliers to fix the problems and thought it could catch up by extending some of the flights.
The real struggle with the F-35B is behind the scenes of the Blue/Green team, where the rumor tells me that senior Navy flag and Marine general officers only speak to each other in order to shout. Navy has been counting on Marine fighter squadrons to deploy aboard aircraft carriers in order to ameliorate the fighter gap, but no one is able to suitably explain how the STOVL variant will operate of conventional carriers in cyclic operations. Not to mention heat dissipation.
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Speaking of shouting, Sal has one of his Diversity Thursday posts up that has set blood a’boiling throughout the Navy, a confidant reports. Seems that Navy is keeping a list. A very important, very private list. Eyes on the future, and that.
The Navy is ordered on businesslike lines these days, and things must have metrics. Metrics give you leverage to control processes and institute change. I get it.
But it seems to me that “accountability” had a different flavor, back in the day.
Probably I was just naive.
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Pundita has some pictures up of Afghanistan, then and now. If you don’t like to see pictures of young Afghan girls with their noses cut off, you should probably forgo the link.
Also skip it if you don’t like pictures of young Afghan girls sitting in biology classes back in the 60s. With their hair uncovered!
You should also give it a pass if you don’t like being reminded of the consequences of Realpolitik during the Cold War:
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [fundamentalism], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Something of an open question, it seems.
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Support for the Afghan mujahadin was labeled “Charlie Wilson’s War” in media.
Closer to home, Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has his own little war going on:
In laying out 13 charges of ethical violations committed by Representative Charles B. Rangel, the House ethics committee set the stage for a rare public trial of the Democratic Congressman this fall, a potential embarrassment for the Democratic leadership during the election season.
The unveiling of the charges Thursday came even as Mr. Rangel’s lawyers suggested they were trying to reach a settlement to avoid such a fate for Mr. Rangel, 80, a Harlem Democrat.
Ethics committee members appeared somber on Thursday, expressing fondness for Mr. Rangel even as they issued the stinging report, which states that Mr. Rangel’s “actions reflected poorly on the institution of the House and, thereby, brought discredit to the House.”
Two brief points: 1) Congressional approval ratings have sunk to 11%, a number chiefly made encompassing actual congressmen, staffers that depend upon them for employment and their extended families. Take away Mr. Rangel’s purported ethical lapses and that number jumps to 12%, maybe. Discredit?
You already had that.
2) Louisiana’s Edwin Wilson Edwards once boasted that the only way he could fail to win re-election was if he was found in bed with a dead woman or a live boy. One gets the sense that even these would be insufficient to stir Rangel’s constituents, who have sent the man to Washington 20 times.
Summary: Politics are local, and GOP hopefuls eying a take-over of the House of Representatives need to remember that we tend to be overly fond of our own rascals, preferring to throw other people’s bums out.
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All for now, work beckons &c.
More later, maybe.
Minor Correction, Lex. That is Louisiana former 4-time Gov Edwin EDWARDS, not *Wilson.* (I went to school with his daughter, btw, when I was in grad school at the U. of S.Western Louisiana a, Lafayette, La. where she was an undergrad but a member of the SGA [natch] and I got to know her due to SGA’s inter-action with the Student Union where I was grad-school rep on Board of Governors. A She-Tiger/Dragon-Lady type and FIERCE defender of her now incarcerated father. Mutter a bad word against? Check 6!)
VX, remember the bumper stickers when he ran against David Duke that read “VOTE FOR THE CROOK”. Only in Louisiana; or perhaps in Chicago too.
IN Chicago they don’t have to ask you to vote for the crook. Everyone running is a crook. Frankly, I think LA would have been better off if Duke had won.
Good to see the old Boss we knew so well is back on board. I missed you, even if no else did.
1. Good to see you back, but remember, this is pretty low on the priority totem.
2. When JSF was born, they should have strangled the idea of a STOVL variant in the crib. It has compromised all three variants. It would probably be a pretty decent airplane if it weren’t for those compromises. It would certainly be cheaper. And detachments aboard LHA/LHD aside, when’s the last time a Harrier really needed to be STOVL?
3. The “diversity short list” is despicable. It sure seems to be in contravention of all the laws against discrimination and favoratism as well.
Agree on all points. Especially the last one. The Diversity Zampolits are stuck in the 70′s and ought to be eliminated and returned to fleet billets or put on the streets. It’s despicable, in every permutation of the word.
As to the F-35 STOVL, yup. Should have been still-born. What the Marines need is a new-production Harrier, not an F-35. For everything they are going to be doing, the Harrier fits the bill nicely. If they need anything more, then Navy Air ought to be available for top cover. I love the Marines, but they are well off the mark in this program.
Put the Diversity Scammers in an F-35B…and toss the whole sordid mess into the sea.
F-35 w/out the STOVL variant is called an F-22…
Heh. You win that part of the thread, Bou…
How about F-11 since it only has one engine…
Do any old F-11F Tigers exist still flyable anywhere, SJS?
As I mentioned at Phibs place, CNO should be charged with conduct unbecoming, seeing how he broke his oath of office: “…to support and defend the Constitution”
Wow. Helluva post with great links. My weekend is set. Thanks Lex.
As for Rep. Charles Rangel: His constituents can vote for him if they want, but it’d be difficult for him to serve from a jail cell which is where the sanctimonious crook belongs. Actually, a lot of them belong there – might even be a quorum.
I don’t think “ALL” means what you think “ALL” means there NAVY…. What the good CDR Salamander points out.
Makes me glad I was in during a less enlightened area… where I somewhat felt that good performance meant something, stood for something, and where equivocating the meaning of “is” (strike that… “all”) was yet far in the future…. Brave new world indeed.
Ain’t *progress* wonderful?
Yes it is, as a matter of fact. If not for progress, all we would have to drink would be a thin, sour beer, bad unaged wine, and no distilled spirits.
The Moderation Whine of VX, and myself is well aged. Don’t know what kind of Brandy it would make.
My fear is that the attitude of the memo becomes widely disseminated and ends up destroying what little morale is left. For those passed over, for whatever reason will have further ammunition to fuel their dissatisfaction. Well that person only got promoted because of “X” (Where X becomes one of many ( Ethnicity, national origin, sex, relative (cousin, brother in law, etc.)) I know a b!tching sailor is a happy sailor, but after this, how is anyone going to tell? Good morale inspires the individual to do that little extra on the job. Bad morale just gives the WTF to the job. Close enough for government work. Makes *me* want to strap on 38,000 lbs of aluminum, jet fuel, and explosives and go tearing through the skies wondering if that port lower inspection panel was securely fastened… or the pins are out of the ejection seat, or the safety wires on the strut bolts are all wound in the correct direction, or……
Dang, Lex, we’re gonna need sub-committees to wrangle this critter. What a way to spend a Friday!
On the matter of wrangling, let Rangel persist. I’d very much like to see his ‘conduct unbecoming’ become a very public matter…public prison even. He reminds me of Charles Durning in his role as Governor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. “Here’s me sidesteppin, y’all!”
I’m with XBrad on killing the STOVL F-35, maybe suspending it from the production package until sorted out. Keep the Alpha & Charlie models viable as much for our own benefit, as for the benefit of nations signing up to buy. For the Brits, or anyone else looking to take it to sea, it probably would not be a bad idea to rethink their Carrier plans a bit, and build something along the lines of an ADMIRAL KUZNETSOV type.
Well, Your Brilliance, it seems we got some of both…and it ain’t looking so good. This ain’t like when we asked the French to jump in and help us fight the Brits, is it? At least the French went home after the fight, and pretty much stayed out of our hair. So, thanks a bunch for all your brilliance, Your Brilliance. You and that peanut guy…what’s his name again?
Mongo. Speaking of Rangel and Edwin Edwards, remember *Korea-Gate* when Edwards was a Representative in DC and his wife was outed for taking a $10,000 cash bribe from Tong-sun Park? Said Edwards with a straight face in her defense for keeping the money once the scandal broke: “It was only against the law for him to give it–it wasn’t against the law for her to take it.” (And he was legally right! LOL!!)
What I REALLY want to vent about is the F-35B. It was said only half-kiddingly that the only reason the Marines bought the Harrier was to get away from the Air Force and the “Single-Manger” system begun in Vietnam with the advent of the siege of Khe Sanh and Operation Niagara. Well, whatever tactical needs in the then analog world justified the Harrier (landing at FOBs to off-load film canisters from recce msns so as to speed intel to the front-line end-user,etc.,) has gone by the wayside in the digital age of in-flight down-loads, etc. THERE CAN BE NO VALID OPERATIONAL NEED FOR A HIGH PERFORMANCE VSTOL TACTICAL FIGHTER!
Why so, you politely ask? Well, aside from the carrier ops compatibility problems Lex mentions, there are 1) even more fundamental tactical problems assoc with land-based ops. and 2) fundamental design flaws resulting from the VSTOL-engine/thrust transfer mechanism placement.
Taking the last first the space taken up aft of the cockpit that might go for fuel (ala the 105) in the most *protected* part of the ac from gnd fire in what is, after all an *attack* FB, is occupied by all the vert lift stuff. This means the placement of a large fuel tank right UNDER the pilot in the under-section of the nose/fuselage–the MOST EXPOSED part of the AC to gnd fire! (well, let’s forget about the wet-wing F-4) Secondly, all this has created some serious CG & assoc handling problems. Third, like the Harrier, the increased resultant complexity (besides being a maint. problem and, ahem, seeming to cause things to break [see above]) means it is not only a bear to fly, but highly susceptible to battle damage just as was/is the Harrier.
The operational tactics? a) It has to have *some* improved runway to utilize. Vert T.O fully loaded means fuel-wise it has a combat radius of about 50 feet. So….what kind of *FOB* can it REALLY operate out of? Further, how do you get all the bombs, fuel, maint people to the FOB? And where do you store the stuff? And where do maint.personnel live? How does one provide the extra perimeter security needed when all hands need be on the offensive out in the field. And do we really want to expose all that fuel, ordinance, multi-million dollar aircraft and assoc highly trained personnel to 50$ hand-grenades, $100 mortar shells and satchel charges? Of course not. So they will be operated from long, concrete runways safely in the guarded rear areas just like they did with the Harriers in Kuwait in Gulf I.
IOW, their IS NO POSSIBLE NEED/REASON for a VSTOL F-35 in the real world. It’s all costly, needless,BS that sucks up dollars and seriously degrades our combat capability. I guess the ONLY justification left these days is the “keep it away from AF control” part.
VX is, as usual, spot on. The logistic issues associated with austere basing are ugly. That’s why we have carriers.
That being said, I can understand the Marines wanting to keep their CAS from becoming another cog in the USAF’s war-by-script approach. But a better solution would be to take TACAIR out of AF control entirely.
Taking TacAir from the AF is what I maintain is best for the entire armed services. TacAir is a dead end for an AF officer these days with the death of separate commands (the old ADC and TAC) and the AF really doesn’t want it anyway. Give the AC to the Army and Marines and be done with it.
Maybe I am way off base but it seems as if those stirred up Moslems have distracted/weakened us enough to allow the former Soviet Empire to regain some of its power.
As a New Yorker the Honorable M.r Rangel makes me proud that I don’t live in his district.
I wish ‘Phib culd record those screams from Big Navy for our edification and entertainment.
Sir Appleby may have things about right. The UK wanted into the Common Market quite badly in the 60s and DeGaulle kept them out. Of course, France and great britain have been antipathetic towards each other for centuries. DeGaulle was also a PITA to everyone for quite soem time. If I had been the allies I would have bundled him off to Rhodesia on a very long Safari and made suer he stayed there until the German Surrender. It would have helped the allies and helped France in the long run.
I have long been of the opinion that Brzezinski is better ignored. He was one of the peanut farmer’s major problems in his adminstration. The only greater incompentents in the area of foreign policy are those in the Obamination’s abomination.
I don’t have a good feeling about the F-35, no matter which version is built. It smacks too much of the ideas that led to the Thud (lead Sled)and F-4 (smoking thunder hog). Boyd’s ideas gave us the F-15, F-16, and F-18. The civvies that are trying to run things are ignoring the man that made it possible to have the Air Forces we have now, and are trying to take us back to the Vietnam type of Air Forces.
Note the term “Air Forces” is used in the generic sense and would include all our aviation forces.
The F-15 represents everything Boyd thought was WRONG with fighters. He wanted something more like the F-20. He liked the YF-16 somewhat, but he would be appalled with the F-16C Blk 52.
I don’t know about that. The F-15 was the 1st Ac that was based on his ideas, and the F-16 was right up his alley. The 15 was in service before he retired and I haven’t seen anything that said he hated the thing, and the same with the 16. Both will perform at the limits of human ability to stand it, so I’m not sure what the problem would be.
I’ve been over at Sal’s and read the diversity thing & comments. Didn’t comment there nor will I here–would be nothing but unprintable words and a trip to the Doc to get my blood pressure meds upped…come to think of it yet ANOTHER excuse for even MORE *mass quantities* of Barbancourt…dilates the blood vessel/capillary walls thus reducing likely-hood of stroke….And it’s Friday…..saaayy…..JEEVES!!
+1, Virgil, although I don’t think that the Barbancourt would be quite strong enough for my reactions to the Diversity List. Time to double check the level in my bottle of Jeremiah Weed. If THAT elixir can’t dull my senses enough to re-read that article, nothing will. [humming the Dos Lobos song as I totter off to my hoard]
You and me both, Virgil. You and me both.
If you read too much of that stuff, no amount Rum will prevent a stroke.
Sad to see the Navy self-destruct as they are. Alas, all the services are on the same track.
I’m in the middle of reading “Charlie Wilson’s War.”
I’m learning lots of interesting stuff about how one Congressman can spend millions of your dollars by working the system and also about how Afghans think and how maybe we should have thought a bit more about how they fought the Soviets when making post 9/11 decisions on warfare there.
From Van Helsing at MoonBattery.com, “Our moonbat rulers didn’t finish making history after installing America’s first Affirmative Action president. Here’s what they’re doing to the Navy…”
Sailors of the Year
“Wow, what a coincidence that in the overwhelmingly male Navy, the four most accomplished sailors are all women. What’s really surprising is that one of them looks Caucasian. Maybe she made up for her ethnic deficiencies by converting to Islam. … Political correctness has gone beyond turning awards into farces. They’ve become badges of condescension and shame. Since the actual accomplishments of these women are irrelevant, they will never be meaningfully acknowledged.”
The photo caption is not to be missed.
And he is square in the black on every point.
I went through to the NPR article in the link he gives. One of the comments was, “See what happens in a true meritocracy? The cream rises to the top.” What’s so awful for those four women who are obviously proud of their accomplishment is that my first thought after reading that comment was, “Hah!” They could very well be phenomenal sailors, but thanks to Navy idiocy, I’m not the only one whose first thoughts will be to doubt those women.
“See what happens in a true meritocracy?”
It takes four women to do the job that formerly took only one man.
End of July. Best guess is just about exactly 36 months left. Thanks, Lex and Looking Glass. I’m already feeling pretty disattached from the Navy, and then you hand me things like this. This is going to be the longest 36 months of my life.
But this was still a great line, because he’s as useless as anyone wearing a uniform today:
Master Chief Petty Officer Rick D. West obediently quacks:
36 months was halfway through my first and only tour and that meant a long time to go. If 36 months is until you retire, congratulations… relatively speaking, its a cakewalk. Only a small segment of a long career, you should be able to do that standing on your head (metaphorically speaking of course). Of course, *I* don’t have to do it either in the current Navy environment.
My husband had only 36 months left in the Airforce as of May and still couldn’t stomach it enough to stay in active duty. These days, Reserve is better.
Liz, what will he be flying? And for how long? I was on a loongg waiting list for a slot in Ky ANG flying F-4s & just as I was accepted they converted to C-130s. LOL! Thank God I hadn’t signed the paperwork yet. (I know, if not for “trash-haulers” etc., they do great, needed, work–good pilots many of them–just not MY thing.)
He has been flying more than ever since he got in the Reserve because he doesn’t have all the other queep he used to have (he was a squadron commander last). But his back and neck have been hurting for years from all the Gs and it’s getting worse so he really doesn’t care so much about flying anymore…..Which is good, because he’s an F22 guy (as well as the T38) and the F22s are now leaving Holloman.
But he likes the F16 more (which he flew last about 8 years ago), and they’ll be here (consolation prize for the community, they are really hard hit with this). And he’ll be qualified for drones as well. Works out well for us.
Find a theme to the thread? How about dishonorable conduct being plainly exposed while the electorate, as informed via the Press protected and free per the First Amendment, having exhausted itself in exersions of passivity, just considers it all what passes for “normal”. Meanwhile Liberty, the fountain of which all drink from while taking such for granted, surrenders another yard in the assault such corruption of our Founding Values is obvious to those who seek to see.
Stand by for heavy rolls: Phibs article is being run by the Washington Times (of course they didn’t credit Phib!) Wonder if CNO is getting his retirement address freshened up…
That’ll leave a BIG mark.
Personally, I think we’re seeing the Decline And Fall of the Diversity Empire.
Regarding “decline and fall,” I hope that’s not wishful thinking.
It does occur to me to wonder how many people who voted for Obama thought it would put a serious number of nails in the racism coffin and are now infuriated to find themselves immersed in a more race-conscious society than we’ve had in my lifetime. The backlash could be huge, and paradoxically this all could breed more racism and racial resentment that people would be more comfortable openly expressing.
The reason the country is more enmeshed in racialist battles is because the other side managed to get a racist black elected. The party itself is racist to its core. If someone like Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams had been elected POTUS, that party would have been absolutely beside itself as it was when Clarence Thomas was nominated to SCOTUS.
Leftists blacks can do no wrong in their book. Conservative Blacks are just Uncle Toms and useless, if not traitors, to their race or the loony leftist cause and the loony leftist cause is the most important part.
“But it seems to me that “accountability” had a different flavor, back in the day.”
Accountability has always been about ass covering first and foremost.
I see it every day at work in IT.
I’m sorry, but when did Frum become relevant again?
Frum is a legend in his own mind. He always been relevant in that sense. Otherwise he’s just a jumped up little man who found himself in a position beyond his abilities.
I had a snarky comment to make about how relevant your comment is to our own situation here in America. But, it’s early in the day yet and I suppose it’d be better to save preaching to the choir for a Sunday.
It’s Saturday and this wasn’t a Friday musing, but what the hell. We done chewed the rest pretty good, and America’s First Sergeant, as always, tore the cover off the ball in a musing of his own…about something he hates.
Which I think we’ll all find summat relevant.
Which is a good thing. Yes?
oo-rah, First Sergeant! Git some!
I’m surprised no one has commented on the vid yet. Besides that series there is the BBC TV series, “The Thick of it”– a side-splittingly hilarious, every-other-word creative foul-mouthed, expletive-laced spoof of modern bureaucrats in the Foreign Office. And not to be missed is its 2009 movie spin-off “In the Loop.” an equally hilarious take on the same subject using many of the same actors/writers. All GREAT stuff!
(Of course I’m partial to these things having lived among the Brits. Just so happened I was stationed in England during the first 3 seasons of Monty Python so viewed it live on “The Beeb.” Most American audiences actually miss about a third of the jokes–goes right over their heads–as they are all references to then current local politics, culture and customs and are quick little asides usually missed/overlooked/not understood by today’s American audiences so far removed from that time and place.)
For all the talk about wanting to kill the F-35B – we’re stuck with it. Marines will never let it be killed (they were absolutely as uncompromising back in 2002 when we were working on the first Naval Operating Concept and every other paragraph was turning into a justification for F-35B and V-22). Plus the Brits are too far in as well, so there you go. I still maintain if there is any version that stands a chance of getting axed, it will be the F-35C, mark my words.
Now then, as for mixing VSTOL with CTOL on a CV – been done before. Check out the final cruise of the FDR in ’76 with a mix of Marine AV-8As with a conventional airwing. Final judgment was mixed – assessed as “doable” but under the category of why would you ever want to. Somewhere in a pile of boxes I have the post-cruise writeup and will post it, if I can locate it that is. The archive/storage room in the basement looks like the last scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Warning. OT missive follows.
“The archive/storage room in the basement looks like the last scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.””
heh. BTDT. Finally reached a stage of my life where, other than pictures and memories, only some technological historian would ever be interested in the archeological remains of a career. So I made my effort to be green and recycled the paper innards with the copious three ring binders vanishing with the trash. It does happen on occasion I had wished I had saved some bit of trivia… especially when I see a similar object posted on EBAY. But I get over the feelings……
I would really love to see that report on the FDR cruise. I researched it for a paper and found that the concept really wasn’t tested at all during that deployment. It was a Med “presence” cruise that saw little in the way of cyclic ops – the Harriers basically rode the ship across the pond and then did multiple DACT detachments.
Lex – As always, you’re killing me with your ability to take a host of seeemingly disparate issues and package them up in a way that (I think) is an object lesson in: “Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it!”