XBradTC

Well.

The U.S. Justice Department has given immunity from prosecution to a State Department employee who helped set up and manage the private email server Hillary Clinton used for her work as secretary of state, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before joining the State Department with her and setting up the server in her New York home in 2009, the newspaper reported.

Here’s the thing. The FBI doesn’t just offer immunity. They make you an offer you can’t refuse. The FBI has a pretty good idea that Pagliano can provide evidence or testimony to further their case against Clinton, et al. Which, Pagliano obviously doesn’t want to get on Clinton’s bad side. The FBI, again, doesn’t offer immunity on the outside chance a witness might somehow be able to help them. First things first, they build a credible, in fact, usually air tight, case against the witness whose cooperation they seek. Off the top of my head, the feds probably used a recordkeeping statute to pressure Pagliano.

Even better, the FBI doesn’t just lay out the case against the witness, and then offer immunity. Oh, no. The witness has to provide an overview of what evidence or testimony he can provide. Only if the FBI is satisfied that the evidence is worth it will they then offer immunity.

I had thought from the first that DoJ was going to sweep this whole thing under the rug. But the FBI doesn’t offer immunity unless they’re pretty damn sure they’re going to get a conviction down the road. Maybe not Hillary herself, but Huma Abdein and Cheryl Mills might start thinking about lawyering up.

So, Montgomery, TX has a new golf course, co-designed by Tiger Woods. And the very first shot on the course goes to an 11 year old kid. Watch.

H/T to Spill for pointing this one out to us. 

Bonus points for folks who can give the timestamp for the Phrog snuck into the video. 

I mean, I could almost understand a mistake on some obscure Yugoslavian fighter from the 70s, but the F-35?!

The manual is available here. 

You're no doubt familiar with Israel's Iron Dome interceptor missiles for short range rockets. The Iron Dome's big brother system is the David's Sling, designed to counter long range rockets and short range ballistic missile systems. 

So, some 16 years later, the DoD acknowledges that an accident report that placed the blame for the loss of an MV-22 on the crew was, in fact, misleading.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Marine Corps pilots Maj. Brooks Gruber and Lt. Col. John Brow were incorrectly blamed as the primary cause of a V-22 Osprey crash that took their lives and killed 17 other Marines in April 2000, the Pentagon said Tuesday in an unusual reversal clearing the pilots' names.

While the crew did have some responsibility for the crash, they were also ill equipped by training and operational experience to prevent the mishap. What is shameful here though, is that by blaming the crash on the crew, the Marine Corps could essentially shrug off suggestions that the aircraft needed continued development and testing. Which, it obviously did, as it took another 7 years from the crash before the MV-22B even reached operational capability.

Sadly, blaming the crew seems to be something of a trend in the MV-22 story.

The father of one of two Marines killed in an MV-22B Osprey crash last year in Hawaii said he plans to sue Boeing and the other companies that make the aircraft…

… While investigators found the MV-22B pilots partially at fault for the May crash, they also determined that the pilots pilots did not violate any regulations or flight standards, Burns said.

Emphasis mine. So, the crew of the mishap aircraft in Hawaii did everything by the book, but they are still partially at fault? We take some personal interest in this, as we happen to know one of the crewmembers.

Building trust and credibility within an aircraft type community is a large part of enhancing operational safety in that community. Instead, the Marines are essentially telling all its Osprey crews that it's their fault, at least a little bit, when the bird lets you down. That's hardly going to foster a great deal of trust.

The entire ceremony is interesting, but I'll admit at 51 minutes, it's a bit long.  But if it's too long for you, do skip ahead to the 40 minute mark to hear Senior Chief Byers comments. 

Matt Lauer experiences life as an Air Traffic Controller in JFK Airport @TheTodayShow https://t.co/AYYxy3vHzR pic.twitter.com/x3xtN9Civj

— The FAA (@FAANews) March 2, 2016

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I now have several sorties behind me in the F-35 where the mission has been to train within visual range combat one-on-one, or «Basic Fighter Maneuvers» (BFM). In a previous post I wrote about aerial combat in general (English version available), and about the likelihood that the F-35 would ever end up in such a situation. In this post, however, I write more specifically about my experiences with the F-35 when it does end up in a dogfight. Again, I use the F-16 as my reference. As an F-35-user I still have a lot to learn, but I am left with several impressions. For now my conclusion is that this is an airplane that allows me to be more forward and aggressive than I could ever be in an F-16.

I’ll start by talking a little about how we train BFM. This particular situation – a dogfight one-on-one between two airplanes – may be more or less likely to occur, as I have described in a previous blog post (Norwegian only). Nonetheless, this kind of training is always important, because it builds fundamental pilot skills. In this kind of training we usually start out from defined parameters, with clearly offensive, defensive or neutral roles. This kind of disciplined approach to the basic parameters is important, because it makes it easier to extract learning in retrospect – a methodical approach to train for air combat.

via nettsteder.regjeringen.no

As always, the truth is a little more nuanced than most in the defense press would have you believe.

The F-35 isn't optimized for the visual dogfight. It's an attack aircraft with a formidable beyond visual range air to air capability.

But if you fight your plane's strengths, and exploit your opponent's weakness, the F-35 can handle itself just fine in the close in fight.