Maverick and Goose ... Where Are You?

The Navy's X-47B UCAS demonstrator recently completed its next phase of flight tests.  The unmanned aircraft was launched from the deck of the USS George H W Bush (CVN-77), and performed a touch and go landing before recovering backs at its shore base.  Next step is a launch and full, arrested, recovery back aboard ship.

Maverick and Goose are going from the Danger Zone to the pile of discarded parts and pieces pretty soon.  How sad.

Photos credit U S Navy

US Forces Massacred, Part I

The immediate cuts supposedly caused by the sequestration have been announced by the US Navy and Air Force.  They are devastating. 

In this first part, we'll look at what happens to the US Navy.

Naval Aviation will bear the brunt of the cuts.  The Navy has nine Carrier Air Wings.  These are groups of squadrons that deploy on aircraft carriers.  Four of the nine will be disbanded.  Two more will be dropped into a 'reserve' status, performing only minimal flight training and maintenance.

Here is what will be lost, in order:

Air Wing 2 (USS Ronald Reagan)
VFA-2  (F-18F)
VFA-34 (F-18C)
VFA-137 (F-18E)
VFA-151 (F-18E)
VAW-113 (E-2C)
VAQ-131 (EF-18G)
HSC-12 (MH-60S)
HSM-77 (MH-60R)
VRC-30 Det.2  (C-2A)

Air Wing 7 (USS Eisenhower)
VFA-83 (F-18C)
VFA-103 (F-18F)
VFA-131 (F-18C)
VFA-143 (F-18E)
VAW-121 (E-2C)
VAQ-140 (EA-6B)
HS-5 (SH/HH-60)
VRC-40 Det.3  (C-2A)

Air Wing 9 (USS Stennis)
VFA-146 (F-18E)
VFA-147 (F-18E)
VFA-192 (F-18C)
VMFA-323 (F-18C)
VAW-112 (E-2C)
HSC-8 (MH-60)
HSM-71 (MH-60)

Air Wing 17 (USS-Vinson)
VFA-22 (F-18F)
VFA-81 (F-18E)
VFA-94 (F-18C)
VFA-113 (F-18C)
VAW-116 (E-2C)
VAQ-139 (EF-18G)
HS-15 (MH-60S)
HSM-73 (MH-60R)
VRC-30 Det.  (C-2A)

Here is what will be placed in 'minimal readiness status':

Air Wing 1 (USS Roosevelt)
VFA-11 (F-18F)
VFA-211 (F-18F)
VFA-136 (F-18E)
VMFA-251 (F-18C)
VAW-123 (E-2C)
VAQ-137 (EA-6B)
HS-11 (SH/HH-MH-60)
VRC-40 Det.1  (C-2A)

Air Wing 11 (USS Nimitz)
VFA-154 (F-18F)
VFA-147 (F-18E)
VFA-146 (F-18C)
VMFA-323 (F-18C)
VAW-112 (E-2C)
VAQ-133 (EA-6B)
HSC-6 (MH-60S)
HSM-75 (MH-60R)
VRC-30 Det.5  (C-2A)

The squadrons in these two air wings will fly just enough to maintain safety of flight proficiency.  To return them to combat ready status will take over a year, and cost 3 times more than it would to have kept them fully active in the first place - making it unlikely that either of these wings will ever become fully active again.

An additional unit that was already planned to be cut due to budget cuts that had already been mandated before sequestration is VAW-77.  This Naval Reserve E-2C squadron, operating out of NAS New Orleans, had been the main drug interdiction surveillance force in the Caribbean.  The radar equipped aircraft watched over hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Caribbean, and had been directly responsible for the seizure of $17 billion worth of cocaine and pot that had been destined for the US.  The unit was disbanded in March, and there is no replacement for their capabilities.

All recruitment and training of Naval Aviators, Naval Flight Officers, and aviation related support positions is to be halted.

This is just Naval Aviation.  Although the surface fleet wasn't hit as hard, the cuts there will also be dramatic.  For instance, if you have only 3 Carrier Air Wings, you don't need 9 carriers, do you?  If you don't need 9 carriers, you don't need 9 Carrier Battle Groups.  You don't need 9 sets of support ships.  You don't need 9 sets of crews for all of those ships.  You don't need the home port support infrastructure and man power.  You don't need the civilian contractors and defense company workers who support those ships.  Hundreds of thousands of trained, skilled people are going to lose their jobs. 

The impact on our carrier capability is devastating.  If we only have three Air Wings, then that means we will only have two combat equipped carriers that can be deployed at any given time.  The third carrier/Air Wing will be undergoing maintenance/training/regeneration.  Two carriers to cover the entire world's oceans.  Today, we often deploy two carriers to a single location in the event of brewing trouble.  That will no longer be an option.  Having carriers on station in different parts of the world, ready to respond to threats to the US and our citizens (and our allies) will no longer be possible.

This blow is the worst attack/disaster suffered by the US Navy in its history.  Pearl Harbor is a drop in the bucket compared to these losses.  The drawdown of US forces after WWII, Korea, and Vietnam pale in comparison, even those were massive in their own rights.  To realize that this is all caused by ourselves, caused by political games being played by our supposed Commander-In-Chief, is heartbreaking.  Republicans tried to remove the military parts of the sequestration legislation several times - Obama threatened to veto any such action.  Part of his grand plan in authoring the sequestration in the first place (the idea came from the White House, not Congress) was to cut a huge chunk out of our defense - and then work it around so that he could blame Republicans in the House for it.  The blame game didn't work, but it doesn't matter that much.  While sequestration cuts in all other departments have amounted to a tiny inconvenience, what the Department of Defense has been forced to do is truly devastating. 

Obama has shot to the top of the list of people who have done the most harm to the security of our country.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh ... none of them even came close.

These Guys Had A Bad Day

National Air Cargo (civilian) 747 N949CA crashes on takeoff from Baghram AB, Afghanistan.  April 29, 2013.  Speculation is a load shift on takeoff, causing a loss of balance - critical during takeoff.  All 8 on board perished.

I can't imaging the terror these guys felt in those last few seconds when they realized what was going to happen.



Godspeed, gentlemen ...

Sequestration Sucks

The USAF has announced that due to the sequestration budget cuts, it is suspending all participation at public events for the rest of the year.

That means no open houses at USAF bases.  No airshows.  No Air Force aircraft will participate in any civilian airshow.  The Thunderbirds season has been cancelled before it even starts.  Heritage Flights - gone.  Flyovers - none.  Aircraft demonstrations - nada. 

No statement yet from the Navy or Marines, but I suspect they will do the same.

So, we can't afford to have airshows.  But, we can afford to spend billions on Obamaphones ...  makes perfect sense in a liberal frame of mind.

Somewhere, our Commie-in-Chief is laughing his ass off (probably on the golf course)... 

A Hero Passes

Maj. Thomas Griffin, USAAF (Ret.) passed away this past Tuesday, Feb. 26, at the age of 96.

Major Griffin was the navigator on B-25 #9, during the Doolittle Raid in 1942.  His passing leaves just 4 Doolittle Raiders still with us, out of the 80 men who flew the 16 bombers off the deck of the USS Hornet to attack Japan.

Major Griffin parachuted from his B-25 over China as it ran out of fuel after the bombing raid.  He evaded capture, and returned to action.  He flew bombing missions out of North Africa, before being shot down in 1943.  He then spent the final two years of the war in a German POW camp.

 

Godspeed, Major ...

Dave Menard, RIP

Dave Menard passed away last week. Dave was a world class aviation photographer. Thousands of people who never met him will recognize the name, for he provided so many historical military aircraft images for publication over the years. I never met Dave, but corresponded with him quite a few time back in the '80s. Heck of a nice guy, and a hell of a photographer. The world is a little sadder with his passing ...


David Walter MENARD

Obituary

MENARD, David Walter died on Feb. 5, 2013, in Dayton Ohio
where he lived since 1977. He was born in Elmhurst Ill on May 5,
1936, moved to Lombard Ill in 1945 where he graduated from
Glenbard High in 1954, followed by a year of study at the U
of Illinois at Navy Pier.  He followed his boy hood dream and
joined the air force in 1955 where he served as a maintainer of
aircraft in Africa, four countries in Europe, Greenland, and five
Asian countries, in addition to six stateside postings. After retiring
as a master sergeant in 1977, he immediately continued his work
on aircraft at the Air Force museum at Wright Patterson AFB in
Dayton, later serving as an historian due to his encyclopedic
knowledge of aviation history. Retiring from that is 1999, he
began following his other passion, care of children by volunteering
at the Dayton children's Hospital, amassing 32,000 hours, the
equivalent of working 16 years at forty hours a week fifty weeks
a year!!! Meanwhile he develop a passion for Irish step dancing,
viewing River Dance over sixty times and supporting several Irish
dance troupes. He lived his life in service to his country....and
children in general. He leaves a brother Mike (Marita) from
Madison Wisc., four nieces and nephews and five grand nephews.
 His other brother Herbert James preceded him in death just
two months ago. A memorial service will be held on Monday,
Feb. 11 at 7 PM at the Taggert auditorium at Dayton's Children's
Hospital, One Children's Plaza 45404, to which donations can
be made in lieu of flowers.

Published in Dayton Daily News from February 7 to February 9, 2013.

Your Tax Dollars At Work, Part II

I caught these two F-16Ds, 9822 and 9823, on a test flight at NAS Ft. Worth on 1/11/13.  Both of them are now wearing US Star and Bar markings, the Egyptian markings that were previously carried have been painted out.

You might think that this change of markings would indicate that our government was rethinking delivery of these state of the art F-16s (plus 18 others) to an Egyptian government that is not exactly a friend.  No ... quite the contrary.  Combat aircraft that are delivered from US manufacturers to foreign governments have US markings applied just before their delivery flights, to avoid political issues arising from the countries that the aircraft stop in for refueling/rest.  In addition, these two were carrying a full load of external tanks, indicating they were running fuel feed checks - again, something done just before delivery.  I would guess that these two will be on their way to Cairo within a few days.  Absolute lunacy ...

These 20 aircraft would make a great addition to our Air Force ... or the Air National Guard.  This is a full squadron's worth of the latest F-16s - superior to any currently flying in US service.  Failing that, they could be diverted to a country that is actually an ally of ours - Israel ... Singapore ... South Korea ... Japan ... Since the American tax payers funded every dollar spent on them, we should be able to do with them what we want.  Instead, the Obama Administration will go ahead and deliver all of them to the Muslim Brotherhood - where they will expand the spear that is pointed across Sinai at our true ally.  Stupid ...

Update - Four of these F-16s departed NAS Ft. Worth on their delivery flights to Cairo before dawn on Jan. 22.

Update II - Internet reports state that the four ship delivery included these two F-16Ds, along with F-16C 9753 and F-16D 9824.

Missing Persons Report

Maverick and Goose are missing!

The Navy is rapidly moving forward in its testing of the Boeing X-47B stealth fighter/attack demonstrator aircraft.  This next generation machine is destined to operate from our carriers in the future, alongside the current F-18s and (maybe) future F-35s.

Catapult tests have recently started at NAS Pax River.  Landing tests have been underway for some time.  One example of the jet was just placed aboard the USS Harry Truman for deck handling tests.  I have not seen a schedule for actual launch and recovery tests on the carrier yet.

OK ... its a new airplane.  So what, you might ask.

There's nobody in it.

It's a UCAS ... Unmanned Combat Air System ... drone ...

Yes, the United States Navy is planning on operating unmanned jet attack aircraft from our carriers.  This is not a surveillance aircraft that is supposed to putt-putt around in circles way up high using its cameras to spy on bad guys.  This thing is intended to carry weapons and attack the bad guys, much the same way our manned fighters do.

You know, drones have come a long way.  The technology needed to operate one of these from the deck of a ship is way beyond that needed for land base operations.  If I'm a Deck Boss, Air Boss, Captain, or anyone stationed anywhere near the flight deck of a carrier that has these things on it, I'm going to be more concerned with keeping myself alive than doing my actual job.

Accidents in carrier operations are more frequent than most folks know about.  Lots of airplanes get damaged or destroyed, lots of folks get hurt, and a few die.  That's normal for the beast.  I just am concerned about how those accident rates my go way up in the days of mixed drone/manned aircraft operations.  I wouldn't want to be on deck for that first cruise!

Photos credit US Navy.

How Many More?

Will we see thousands, as planned, or only a handful more?

Obama's win may very well spell the end of this aircraft.  The sequestration budget cuts, scheduled to happen on Jan. 2 by law, IF Obama and Republicans in Congress can't figure out how to cut $1.2 trillion out of the budget before the end of the year, will hit the Pentagon hardest of all.  Procurement funds are likely to dry up to nothing.  The F-35 is a very high dollar program that is in the early stages of production, and so would make a choice, juicy target for Obama to slash.

Even if the unthinkable happens and an agreement is reached to avert the sequestration cuts, the F-35 is still a prime target for Obama.  Democrats have the Defense Department in their sights, and want to castrate our ability to defend ourselves.  The huge amount of money that will need to be invested in procurement of this aircraft for service in the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps in numbers great enough to replace the F-16, legacy F-18, and Harrier aircraft that are reaching the end of their service lives make the program a prime target.  At around $100 million apiece, Democrats are salivating at the money they can take from this program and spend elsewhere.

Cancellation of the program would cause tens of thousands of defense workers to lose their jobs.  In a twist of irony, many of those workers are unionized, and voted for Obama.  It would hit Texas very hard, since large portions of the aircraft are built here, and it is assembled and tested here.  Unfortunately for Texas, our clout in Washington is very small these days, so we don't have a lot of political capital to fight with.

The photos are of F-35A 10-5011, on a test flight out of the Lockheed-Martin factory in Ft. Worth.  It is destined for delivery to the 53WG, 422TES, for operational test and evaluation use ('OT' tail code).  Photos by yours truly.

Update, Dec. 7 - Yesterday, the Canadian Government decided to cancel its partcipation in the F-35 program.  The reason cited was that misleading cost figures were used when the Canadians originally decided to procure the aircraft for their Air Forces.  The Canadians will now look at existing fighter aircraft to fill the requirement to replace their fleet of aging F-18A/B Hornets. 

This decision, along with the apparent cancellation from the Dutch government (also due to cost) will drive the per aircraft cost for the remaining countries up significantly. 

The F-35 just became an even bigger cancellation target for the Obama Administration.

This photo is of F-35C CF-05, the fifth Navy carrier based version of the Lightning II.  I shot this as it was landing after its first flight, November 30, 2012, at the L-M factory at NAS Ft. Worth.

 

 

 

F-35B 168721, VMFA-121, on a pre-delivery test flight at NAS Ft. Worth on 1/11/13.  This aircraft will the the third delivered to the first operational Marine Lightning squadron, based at MCAS Yuma, AZ.

Oh, this was fun!

A couple of weekends ago, I was down in Galveston/Houston for the Wings over Houston airshow.  During preparation, I got the opportunity to fly in Lone Star's P-51.  The pilot was Cousin Gumby.  The flight was some formation work with the museum's P-47, flown by Tuna, out over the beach in preparation for their performance in the USAF Heritage Flight.  Way cool.

(Actually, it was way hot!  It is very warm with the sun beating down through that canopy, and this thing doesn't have an air conditioner!)

  

All photos by yours truly, except the top one, graciously provided by Outlaw13.

Sabre Rattling

A few shots of a couple of restored F-86 Sabre Jets, seen at the recent Alliance Airshow.  There were actually 3 of them in attendance, and all three flew together on the show days, but the weather was lousy.  I took these during Friday's practice show.  It was a rare treat to see these awesome pieces of history beating up the field!

Spitfire Heaven

The aircraft shown above is a British Spitfire, one of the premier World War II fighter aircraft.  It was used in every major theater during that war, and for several years afterwards by many allied air forces.

David Cundall spent 16 years pursuing a legend, that a number of these aircraft were delivered to Burma during the early days of the conflict for use by the British Far East Forces.  As the Japanese approached, the Brits buried the aircraft, still in their shipping crates unassembled, to keep them out of the enemy's hands.  After the Japanese were run out, the aircraft were deemed obsolete, and not worth retrieving - and they were forgotten except for a very few people who were aware of the initial burial. 

12 trips to Burma (or Myanmar,  or whatever it calls itself now) and a couple of hundred thousands of dollars in expenses finally yielded success when Mr. Cundall located the site.  Then the fun started.

A Spitfire on the open market these days will fetch in excess of a million dollars.  How much in excess relies on how good a condition the aircraft is in, and how rare the actual model is.  Warbird operators/enthusiasts will spend well in excess of that figure taking pieces and parts and restoring one to flyable condition.  That equates to a whole lot of money buried under Burmese soil ...

Once Mr. Cundall located the aircraft and word of his discovery leaked out, a cat fight broke out, mainly between Cundall, the English Government, and the Burmese Government.  Each claimed the aircraft.  Mr. Cundall thought they were his by right of salvage.  The English thought they belonged to their government, stating that even though they were abandoned and forgotten, they were still English property.  The Burmese felt that since they were buried in Burma and forgotten, it was their land and anything left behind had become theirs (as had been the case with enormous amounts of war material left in place all over the world after the end of the war).

Anyway, a battle ensued over about two years, with a lot of negotiation between all parties, the installation of a new more pro-Western government in Burma, and the British Prime Minister getting personally involved.  An agreement was reached between Mr. Cameron and the new President of Burma, Mr. Sein, during a meeting between the two earlier this year.  I don't have a lot of detail on the agreement, except the announcement that Mr. Cundall, his company, and their Burmese partners will be allowed to excavate the aircraft and take them back to England.

Excavation is to begin in late October.

This is a double edged sword for the Warbird movement.  If you are looking to procure a Spitfire for your collection, chances just went way up that you will be able to get a zero time, essentially brand new one sometime in the next few years.  If you currently have a Spitfire and are looking to get rid of it, the resale value on it just fell through the floor.

As an aviation enthusiast, I am thrilled by this.  The Spitfire is an awesome aircraft.  It is probably second to the Mustang in WWII aircraft (non-trainer) in the number that are on display or flying today.  To see a huge infusion of new ones into the warbird movement will ensure the Spitfire will grace the skies for many, many years to come.

Now, if only someone can find a bunch of brand new buried Mustangs ... or Thunderbolts ... or Warhawks ... or Lightnings ...

Photo - Lone Star Flight Museum's Spiftire LXFVIe, registered as N97RW - shot by yours truly at its home field in Galveston.