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What the military is really like…
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The Last of the Gunfighters was a pretty decent bomber.
The Vought F-8 Crusader is famous as the last US Navy fighter designed with guns as its primary armament. It was also famous for eschewing the prevailing notion of the day that future air combat would be missile oriented, and dogfighting would be a thing of the past.*
The earlier models of the F-8 carried the guns and the Sidewinder. But starting with the F-8E, two wing pylons were added, each with the capability of carrying either a 2000lb Mk84 bomb, or a Multiple Ejector Rack with a variety of ordnance.
It’s easy to see how the adaptability of the F-8 convinced Vought they could design and build an attack plane derived from the F-8 as a replacement for the A-4 Skyhawk, what eventually became the A-7 Corsair II.
*The truth is, it’s a little more nuanced than that. ‘sader drivers spent their fair share of time practicing radar intercepts just like their Phantom cousins, and even had their own radar guided missile, the AIM-9C Sidewinder, which was less successful than even the Phantom’s AIM-7D.
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A Theft a Half Century Ago
It was a game the Boston Celtics seemingly had in hand over the Philadelphia 76ers, in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Boston led by 9 with three minutes to play, but the Sixers, behind Wilt Chamberlain, Dave Gambee, and Chet Walker, clawed back into the game with a furious late rally. Chamberlain scored on a dunk for the last of his 30 points with five seconds to play to cut the Boston lead to just one, 110-109. On the ensuing play, Celtics center Bill Russell struck the support wire behind the basket as he went to throw an overhead inbounds pass. Philadelphia would get the ball under their own basket with just five seconds to go, trailing by one. To show how much sports have changed, Russell went to the Celtics huddle (Philadelphia called a time-out) and proclaimed to his teammates, “Someone bail me out. I blew it.”
As Sixers guard Hal Greer threw the inbounds pass to Chet Walker on the right side, Boston Celtics six-foot five guard-forward John Havlicek made one of the great plays of anticipation in the history of the league. Havlicek jumped up and knocked the ball away from Walker and over to Celtics guard Sam Jones, who dribbled out the clock. The call of the play by gravel-voiced Celtics announcer Johnny Most is almost as classic as the play itself.
It was Most’s signature call. The Celtics would go on to win the 1965 NBA Championship against the Los Angeles Lakers, defeating superstars Jerry West and Elgin Baylor once again. They would win another in 1966, and two more before the decade was out, eleven championships in all, in Bill Russell’s thirteen seasons as a Celtic. No sports team, not the Yankees, nor the Montreal Canadiens, or anyone in football, has ever had such a dynasty as the Boston Celtics of the Russell era. And it was Havlicek’s steal that kept the dynasty intact for another four years. Philadelphia would win the 1967 NBA championship with much the same team as played in this game, the only interruption of a string of Celtics banners in the 1960s.
John Havlicek, a magnificent athlete drafted in three sports, had had a tryout with the Cleveland Browns in 1962 as a wide receiver, even though he had never played football for Woody Hayes at Ohio State. Havlicek was the last player cut in training camp. The WR Cleveland chose to keep instead? Ray Renfro, an all-time great for the Browns. Havlicek, nicknamed “Hondo”, is the leading scorer in Celtics history with 26,395 points. He won eight championships in his 16 seasons with the Celtics before retiring in 1978, at the age of 38. In a career full of great moments, it is his steal of Hal Greer’s inbounds pass that perhaps is most remembered. And it was fifty years ago today.
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The Estate Tax
A liberal friend of mine posted on Facebook complaining that the House is going to try to eliminate the estate tax.
She included this line:
(eliminating the estate tax)…that will cost $270 billion over 10 years.
Here’s my reply:
I’m against the estate tax on general principles. The government has already taxed those monies multiple times.
On a more practical level, I’d certainly like to see the exemption level raised far, far above what it is. Very often, the wealth being taxed is in fact a small business, closely held by a family, and very illiquid. The only possible way to generate the cash to pay the levied tax is to sell the business. Families that had worked and fully expected their progeny to carry on their business suddenly find they can no longer keep the business in the family. And of course, being compelled to sell, they frequently are forced to sell at a price less than what they should.And I loathe the formulation you used here.
that will cost $270 billion over 10 years.
That’s not a cost. That’s merely revenue the government wont be taking in over the next decade.
If that $270 billion is paid to the government, that is a cost. It is a cost to the families that have to pay that money, money that has already been taxed multiple times, to the federal government. That’s money out of the pockets of your fellow citizens.
All this at a time when the US government is bringing in more revenues than at any time in history. -
LOCUST
Or Low Cost Autonomous UAV Swarming Technology, brought to you by the fine folks at the Office of Naval Research.
ONR has taken an existing low cost expendable UAV system called the Coyote and is looking to repurpose it. Coyote is pretty interesting in and of itself. It was designed to be launched from the existing sonobouy tubes of patrol planes and ASW helicopters, and provide full motion video back to the launching plane. You might, for instance, want to take a close look at a particular building or terrain feature, but not put your big expensive airplane at risk by being too close to small arms fire. Simply pop out a Coyote, and let it take all the risks. And the Coyote is cheap enough that you don’t have to worry about recovering it. It flies for 90 minutes or so, and then simply crashes. And it is low tech enough that the enemy can’t really exploit any that it recovers.
Of course, once a drone has been designed for one method of employment, particularly one designed for containerized launch, finding other ways to use it is pretty easy. ONR is looking at methods to allow multiple UAVs organize themselves, and operate autonomously. That is, the operator just has to give general instructions, not actually hand fly each drone remotely.
The clip below shows a test of autonomous operations, and a notional use of a swarm for ISR and strike. It seems to me that the issue with such a system is less the autonomous control of the swarm, but the bandwidth required to transmit the information back to the launch platform, and finding a meaningful way to exploit that full motion video. Indeed, that’s been one of the real challenges of using UAVs is that there is so much video streaming that it’s impossible for it all to be seen. Now instead of one or two streams coming in from a Predator or Reaper, consider 10 or 20 streams coming in from a swarm. How do you know what to look at?
Mostly I just like hearing the thoooomp as the Coyotes are ejected from their launcher.
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The Democrat Party Considers Their Electoral Options in 2016
H/T to Wiser, but not Wiserbud, that jackhole.
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Secretive military jets pose threat to civil planes-air safety watchdog | Reuters
BRUSSELS, April 14 (Reuters) – Military jets which fly over Europe without identifying themselves pose a high risk to civilian aircraft, aviation safety officials said in a report published on Tuesday, after a spate of near-collisions involving Russian warplanes.
The European Commission asked the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to investigate after recent reports of the near-misses between commercial airliners and Russian military planes flying without electronic identification.
Russian planes have stepped up patrols over Europe and NATO has responded by sending more fighters to police Baltic skies amid an increase in tensions sparked by the Ukraine crisis.
EASA’s report, released by the Commission, found that safety incidents involving civil and “non-cooperative” military aircraft over the high seas, particularly over the Baltic Sea, had significantly increased in 2014.
via Secretive military jets pose threat to civil planes-air safety watchdog | Reuters.
The EC isn’t naming names, but basically, the Russians aren’t cooperating with air traffic control. Mind you, it’s technically legal, and in international airspace. But it also increases, by a small fraction, the risk on a mid air collision. More importantly, from the Russian point of view, it’s just generally a pain in the ass for European air controllers, and air defense systems to monitor and ensure civil traffic is steered clear of Russian jets that are non-cooperative.
Moscow has been trolling NATO for a while now. They see a weak response, and continue to increase their level of harassment. I think slapping them moderately hard now would probably be better than them thinking they could ratchet up the tension a few more notches.
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Statement on Alaska Airlines flight 448 | Alaska Airlines Blog
A ramp employee who fell asleep in the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines aircraft has been discharged from the hospital. The employee, who works for Alaska contractor Menzies Aviation, passed a drug test this afternoon.
The agent had been on a four-person team loading baggage onto Flight 448, which departed for Los Angeles at 2:39 p.m. The aircraft returned to Seattle after 14 minutes in flight when the captain heard banging beneath the aircraft.
via Statement on Alaska Airlines flight 448 | Alaska Airlines Blog.
Not really a whole lot to add to this.
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Pentagon: Bible, Constitution Perpetuate Sexism | The Daily Caller
According to a Defense Department approved “sexism course,” the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence all contribute to modern sexism.
Those three cherished texts all count as “historical influences that allow sexism to continue,” according to a presentation prepared by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, whose mission is to give a ”world-class human relations education.”
via Pentagon: Bible, Constitution Perpetuate Sexism | The Daily Caller.
Just a head’s up that this will be the subject of CDR Salamander’s DivThu post later this week.
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EXCLUSIVE: UK Forces test Falklands defences amid fears Argentina are on brink of invasion | UK | News | Daily Express
The surprise attack involved members of the Special Boat Service who landed from the sea tasked with capturing key strategic targets.
More than 20 troops took part in the mission, planned by senior officers at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, west London.
Landing on West Falkland in five four-man teams, each group was assigned a target and had to “leave a calling card” to prove their mission had been successful.
The troops are understood to have secured two islands without being spotted, as well as targeting an air traffic control tower and a military power supply.
In March Defence Secretary Michael Fallon announced the addition of two Chinook troop-carrying helicopters to help the islands’ garrison mount a “swift and decisive response” to any “emerging incidents”.
This sort of security exercise is rather routine. SBS needs practice doing it’s thing, and the Falklands garrison needs practice doing its thing.
Of course, announcing it sends a message to Argentina to not trying doing its thing.
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