When most of you see the name Saab, you think about cars. And that's natural enough, since there's probably a Saab dealership within driving distance. But cars weren't Saab's original product. The name is an acronym for Swedish Aeroplane Limited. Yes, the original Saab made jets. Cars were a side-line.
After World War II, Sweden took a good look around them. There was one alliance forming up to the west, and another to the east. They decided not to join either one of them. On the whole, they were friendlier with the West than with the East ... but they'd learned from hard experience what "guarantees" of safety and security could actually mean once the fat was in the fire. Sweden was, by God, going to be prepared to meet its fate, alone if need be. In part, this meant a commitment to build their own armaments, from guns to tanks to fighter planes.
The result? Some of the most beautiful aircraft that have ever flown.
The Saab J-35 Draken is a spectacular airplane. In aviation, so often form follows function, and if it looks right, it probably is right. And, oh yes, the Draken looks right.
When I look at this, I have a hard time believing this is a design that's a dozen years older than I am. Surely, something so clean, so streamlined, has to have come along later than 1955? What I don't have any trouble believing is that some of them are still flying.
That arm of Saab is still in business. After building the J-35 Draken, they built a follow-on fighter, the J-37 Viggen. Today, they're building the JAS-39 Gripen, which is in service with Sweden, the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, Switzerland, and Thailand.
The interesting thing about the Gripen is that it can refuel and rearm with a pickup truck's worth of crew and tools. The Swedes really take austere basing seriously. Of course, they knew all along that in a real war, their airfields would have been smashed almost immediately ... they always expected to have to operate from remote highways.
As an engineer, I find it interesting how a different set of constraints and priorities evolve a different approach to solving the same problem. In the unlikely event that the F-35 falls through, I wonder if one of our prime contractors would be interested in offering the Marines a license-built Gripen?
Never happen, of course, but it's interesting to think about.
Showing posts with label Military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Military. Show all posts
Friday, June 14, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Memorial Day, 2013
(Mostly reposted from 2009)
From the Lay of Horatius, by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
But the Consul's brow was sad, and the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
"Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down,
And if once they might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"
Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,
"And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for his wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?
"Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three,
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?"
Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Ramnian proud was he,
"Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, and keep the bridge with thee."
And out spake strong Herminius, of Titian blood was he:
"I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee."
"Horatius," quoth the Consul, "As thou sayest, so let it be."
And straight against that great array, forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son, nor wife, nor limb, nor life, in the brave days of old.
We Americans celebrate three major patriotic holidays throughout the year. People tend to say the same things at each, forgetting sometimes that each one has its own character. On Veterans' Day, we celebrate the service of all of our veterans, honoring all who have taken their turn keeping the bridge. On Independence Day, we honor everyone, veterans and others, who have served our nation's institutions, faithfully bequeathing a legacy of freedom under law that, God willing, we will in turn bequeath to our children. But on Memorial Day, we specifically honor those who paid the ultimate price for our liberty.
Memorial Day is for Nathan Hale. It's for Sullivan Ballou. It's for Lloyd Williams, who led his Marines into that French forest that would be known forever afterward as the Bois de Brigade de Marine. It's for Rodger Young on New Georgia, Ernest Evans off the island of Samar, and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. on Utah Beach, each earning a Medal of Honor posthumously. And it's for Mel Apt, who was all too briefly the fastest man alive, until his X-2 went into an unrecoverable flat spin and hit the unforgiving desert floor.
Not many of us know that the Star-Spangled Banner has more than one verse. Francis Scott Key originally wrote four stanzas. The last one begins:
O, thus be it e'er when free men shall stand
Between their loved home, and the war's desolation!
The young men and women we have recently commissioned as Second Lieutenants and Ensigns have signed on to lead their comrades into making that stand, knowing full well what the cost might be. They have volunteered to stand their post upon that bridge, just as the Romans Horatius, Spurius Lartius, and Herminius did back in their day. Most of them will survive their experience. Macaulay tells us that all three survived the battle. But he also tells us that in some versions of the story, Horatius died holding the end of the bridge while his companions withdrew. Some of the young men and women we've commissioned this week will find that fate to be their own.
The task they leave to us is to honor their memory. We must never forget those things for which they gave their last full measure of devotion. We must remember their courage, their honor, their dignity. And we must teach our children to remember, to make these stories of bravery and sacrifice live for each new generation.
For as long as we remember them, they never truly die.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
From the Lay of Horatius, by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
But the Consul's brow was sad, and the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
"Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down,
And if once they might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"
Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,
"And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for his wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?
"Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three,
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?"
Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Ramnian proud was he,
"Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, and keep the bridge with thee."
And out spake strong Herminius, of Titian blood was he:
"I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee."
"Horatius," quoth the Consul, "As thou sayest, so let it be."
And straight against that great array, forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son, nor wife, nor limb, nor life, in the brave days of old.
We Americans celebrate three major patriotic holidays throughout the year. People tend to say the same things at each, forgetting sometimes that each one has its own character. On Veterans' Day, we celebrate the service of all of our veterans, honoring all who have taken their turn keeping the bridge. On Independence Day, we honor everyone, veterans and others, who have served our nation's institutions, faithfully bequeathing a legacy of freedom under law that, God willing, we will in turn bequeath to our children. But on Memorial Day, we specifically honor those who paid the ultimate price for our liberty.
Memorial Day is for Nathan Hale. It's for Sullivan Ballou. It's for Lloyd Williams, who led his Marines into that French forest that would be known forever afterward as the Bois de Brigade de Marine. It's for Rodger Young on New Georgia, Ernest Evans off the island of Samar, and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. on Utah Beach, each earning a Medal of Honor posthumously. And it's for Mel Apt, who was all too briefly the fastest man alive, until his X-2 went into an unrecoverable flat spin and hit the unforgiving desert floor.
Not many of us know that the Star-Spangled Banner has more than one verse. Francis Scott Key originally wrote four stanzas. The last one begins:
O, thus be it e'er when free men shall stand
Between their loved home, and the war's desolation!
The young men and women we have recently commissioned as Second Lieutenants and Ensigns have signed on to lead their comrades into making that stand, knowing full well what the cost might be. They have volunteered to stand their post upon that bridge, just as the Romans Horatius, Spurius Lartius, and Herminius did back in their day. Most of them will survive their experience. Macaulay tells us that all three survived the battle. But he also tells us that in some versions of the story, Horatius died holding the end of the bridge while his companions withdrew. Some of the young men and women we've commissioned this week will find that fate to be their own.
The task they leave to us is to honor their memory. We must never forget those things for which they gave their last full measure of devotion. We must remember their courage, their honor, their dignity. And we must teach our children to remember, to make these stories of bravery and sacrifice live for each new generation.
For as long as we remember them, they never truly die.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Iranian Stealth Fighter
One of the news stories you've seen making the rounds this week is that Iran claims to have built a stealth fighter. I say "claims to have" because...
... that's about fifteen different kinds of wrong, for an airplane where you expect the number of landings to be approximately equal to the number of takeoffs.
First, no way in Hell are those supersonic inlets. They're too small, for a start, and very badly placed. There's no evidence of ramps for compressing the inbound supersonic airflow. And sitting up there? That's a guarantee that you'll stall the engine at a high angle of attack. At which point, the pilot will have to pull the loud handle, and get the heck out of Dodge.
Second, where's the nozzle? Inside the fuselage? Holy crap, that's a really stupid place to put it. If this beast allegedly has an afterburner, you'll only get to use it once. Because, just like after he would after stalling the engine after pulling a high-pitch turn, he'll have to pull the loud handle, and...
Third, where's the radar? That nose is nowhere near big enough to carry anything like a useful military radar. If you go up against an adversary who really does have a proper go-to-war radar, you're going to have a very bad day, because he's going to see you before you see him. Which means that he's going to get the first shot. At which point, you'll have to pull ... well, you get the idea.
And the instrument panel ... no, that doesn't look real either.
Now the wings, I'm fairly sure those wings could keep it airborne. Nice to see they got something right.
No, this isn't a stealth fighter. It's not even a mockup of a stealth fighter. It's an elaborate hoax. To what end, I can't imagine, because exactly no one in our defense establishment is taking this seriously. I mean, people were worried about the Chinese stealth fighter a few years ago. More worried than it deserved, true enough, but at least they're flying an actual prototype.
Nobody should be worrying about this stupid thing. Except, that is, for Iranian test pilots.
... that's about fifteen different kinds of wrong, for an airplane where you expect the number of landings to be approximately equal to the number of takeoffs.
First, no way in Hell are those supersonic inlets. They're too small, for a start, and very badly placed. There's no evidence of ramps for compressing the inbound supersonic airflow. And sitting up there? That's a guarantee that you'll stall the engine at a high angle of attack. At which point, the pilot will have to pull the loud handle, and get the heck out of Dodge.
Second, where's the nozzle? Inside the fuselage? Holy crap, that's a really stupid place to put it. If this beast allegedly has an afterburner, you'll only get to use it once. Because, just like after he would after stalling the engine after pulling a high-pitch turn, he'll have to pull the loud handle, and...
Third, where's the radar? That nose is nowhere near big enough to carry anything like a useful military radar. If you go up against an adversary who really does have a proper go-to-war radar, you're going to have a very bad day, because he's going to see you before you see him. Which means that he's going to get the first shot. At which point, you'll have to pull ... well, you get the idea.
And the instrument panel ... no, that doesn't look real either.
Now the wings, I'm fairly sure those wings could keep it airborne. Nice to see they got something right.
No, this isn't a stealth fighter. It's not even a mockup of a stealth fighter. It's an elaborate hoax. To what end, I can't imagine, because exactly no one in our defense establishment is taking this seriously. I mean, people were worried about the Chinese stealth fighter a few years ago. More worried than it deserved, true enough, but at least they're flying an actual prototype.
Nobody should be worrying about this stupid thing. Except, that is, for Iranian test pilots.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Video Del Fuego, Part LV
During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union had rather large programs dedicated to building bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons to the other's territory. Needless to say, both sides also spent quite a bit of effort on defensive measures. Sometimes, the cycle of move and counter-move had some surprising results.
In the middle of the 1950s, the United States began to get concerned about the ability of their then-current nuclear bombers to reach their targets deep within the Soviet Union. Why they were so concerned is an interesting question, since the aircraft whose survivability they were so concerned about is still flying combat sorties, while most of its intended replacements bleach in the sun at Davis-Monthan ... but I digress. Anyway, planners decided that higher and faster was definitely the way to go. And so, they decided to proceed with plans to build a bomber capable of flying at altitudes of over 70,000 feet, and at speeds of up to Mach 3. And so, the XB-70 project was born.
Born, but never brought to maturity. By 1959, it was apparent to the Air Force that the B-70 as designed would be vulnerable to Soviet anti-aircraft missiles. It was downgraded to a research and development project studying high-speed flight.
Not that everyone believed that it was being downgraded, mind you. The XB-70 and the SR-71 both represented an unprecedented ability to penetrate Soviet airspace, which was a major cause for concern. Therefore, there was a very sudden need for an interceptor capable of meeting these possible intruders. This would prove to be a very tall order, indeed. One that was just barely possible.
Building an aircraft capable of cruising at Mach 3 at high altitude is one kind of technical challenge. But to build an interceptor, you don't need to meet that kind of sustained performance, you only have to get close enough, and that only long enough to get a couple of missiles off. So, a plan began to come together...
First, get a couple of engines. Really BIG engines. The biggest and most powerful that can be built. Then, because the airplane would have to deal with a lot of heat, build the airframe out of nickel steel. It'll be heavy as hell, but you've got two whacking huge engines, so who cares? And put an enormous radar in the front, so you can spot the intruder far enough away to tell your missiles to sic 'em. This was more or less how the MiG-25 Foxbat came about.
The best word to describe this airplane is enormous. Its simple, spare lines howl pure power. It was built to go in a straight line very fast, and it does that quite well. It doesn't turn worth a damn. And if you do get it up to Mach 3, you won't ever be able to use those particular engines again. But the engines will last just long enough to drag down a high, fast intruder, or to overfly a contested area for some surveillance pictures.
Now, here's where the story gets a little weird. While the Soviets were building an interceptor to take down a bomber that the USAF decided not to build in the first place, the USAF began to get wind of this hot new super-fighter the Russians were building. The specifications were troubling: two powerful engines, large delta wings, and a powerful radar. Clearly, the Soviets were building an air superiority fighter, one that would outmatch anything in the American inventory. So, the USAF put out an RFP for a fighter that could beat this new menace. And so, McDonnell Douglas responded with what would become the F-15.
For years, analysts debated what would happen if these two behemoths ever went head-to-head. In 1991, they finally found out. American F-15s squared off against Iraqi MiG-25s ... and it wasn't a particularly close fight. The MiG was built to kill bombers, not fighters, and the results showed it. The pure interceptor is an idea whose time has been and gone. The only airplane that can stand up to something built to kill fighters, is another airplane built to kill fighters.
Still, this is one magnificent beast. How big are the engines, you ask? Check out the guy sitting on the nozzle lip. He's not a dwarf.
And dear God, it's a loud 'un. It'll shake your fillings loose, if you get close enough.
There are still a few two-seaters kept in flying trim, to take a few paying customers up to the edge of space.
The older I get, the more I realize that while there's beauty in sophistication, there's also a beauty and an elegance in simplicity. And the Foxbat is a very straightforward, uncomplicated thing. They sure don't make them like that anymore.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ten Years.
The relentless fury of the August sun has retreated. I believe I've said elsewhere that Autumn in Texas is usually a time when God apologizes for leaving the oven on Broil for a few months, and the apology takes the form of cool mornings and warm sunshine. Ten years ago today, it was almost exactly the same kind of morning. But with a difference.
That Tuesday morning began for me like any other: I was at my job, wrestling with a pile of code that was stubbornly refusing to do what it was supposed to be doing. The company I was working for had a piece of the FAA's Free Flight Phase 1 project. The specific piece I was working on was the adaptation of pFAST (Passive Final Approach Spacing Tool) to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. It was hard sledding, but that's a tale for another day. After a couple of hours, I'd reached an impasse, and decided to check the news as a bit of a break.
That was as much productive work as I, or anyone else in my office, got done that day.
The news that an airplane had collided with one of the towers didn't really register yet. I thought it was an accident. Something like that had happened once before, back in the '40s, when a B-17 hit the Empire State Building. How something like that happened with modern navigation equipment, though, was a mystery. Then, the second airplane hit, and all doubt was gone.
Once could have been an accident. Twice? No, twice meant it was deliberate action. And what's more, I knew who was responsible. I'd been following the story for years. I remembered the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Khobar Towers. I remembered his 1998 fatwa against Americans, and the attack against the USS Cole. This was his way of finishing the job. A cold fury gripped my heart. They must be made to pay. And I was not alone in that sentiment.
Five years ago, the memory still stung with the ache of unfinished business.
Today, the memory still stings. But at least there is some closure, some completion.
The architect of those attacks is in custody and will never again be a free man, and the man who gave the order is part of the marine food chain. Both lived long enough to see their ideology utterly discredited. The crowds that mobbed Tahrir Square, the citizen-soldiers who liberated Libya inch by inch, they had no use at all for the theocratic state Osama bin Laden championed. The throngs who overthrew one-time strongmen from the Atlantic coast to the Arabian peninsula weren't chanting his name, or that of his movement. Rather, they wanted democracy and self-determination. They had weighed his ideas in the balance, and found them wanting. Bin Laden did not die in glory, but in defeat and despair.
And for our part? On this anniversary, when we look back and reflect on the very real pain and loss of that day, we can look forward as well. When we think of those who lost lives and loved ones that day, we can take solace in the fact that they have been avenged. When we think of the lives and loved ones lost in the wars, we can take comfort in the fact that they did not die totally in vain. From the Maghreb to the Hindu Kush, people have a chance at freedom and self-determination that they have not had in many years, if ever. Some of those stories will end in success. Some will not end so happily. But the ends of those stories will not be written in English, by an American author. Those stories will be written by the people who live them, as is right and proper.
And for our part, our story will also go on. We have our full share of problems. But on the whole, I wouldn't trade them for anyone else's on this Earth.
May God be with you all, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Chinese Stealth Fighter
The wires are abuzz this week with new pictures of what is supposed to be China's answer to the F-22 Raptor. After taking a critical look at the pictures, I am somewhat less than worried, although I understand how a casual viewer might be alarmed.
For purposes of comparison, here's a picture of the F-22 Raptor. The first example, a YF-22, first flew in September of 1990; and the first F-22 squadron came on-line for duty in December of 2005.
At first glance, this looks scarily similar:
There are, however, a few key differences, as well as a few important details to point out.
(1) The first is, of course, the time delay between the first flight of a new prototype and the IOC date of the first operational squadron. For the F-22 Raptor, that was just over fifteen years, from 9/1990 to 12/2005. Now, I have no reason to believe that the Chinese engineers are total idiots, but at the same time neither do I have reason to believe that they're supermen. I don't see them paring too many years off that figure. So, if we're to believe that the first flight was fairly recent, IOC can be no sooner than 2020-2025. By which time, we'll have ... well, I'll save that point for later.
(2) The second is that, while the fuselage sure looks like it's got a nice low-observable shape, the devil's in the details. For one, the shape is only half the story, there. Do they also use the right radar-absorbing materials in the skin? And, taking a closer look at the front view, we see a huge potential problem:
I count four under-wing hardpoints. External carriage of weapons and/or fuel tanks pretty much destroys any stealthing advantage your fuselage shape gives you. Unless this aircraft has provisions for internal weapon carriage, they lose the stealth part of the battle pretty horribly. (Caveat: those may not be hardpoints, but may instead by housings for control actuators. Even so, those 90-degree corners make nice little echo boxes that render the sloping fuselage moot.)
(3) The third point is readily apparent from a rear-view shot:
Oh, dear. Fixed axisymmetric nozzles. No thrust vectoring for you! Thrust vectoring is damned useful to have. Not having it, and then getting into a turn-and-burn fight with an airplane that does, is going to suck.
(4) The fourth problem is something I once heard described as the Montana Syndrome, after the Montana-class battleship. The Montana-class battleship was supposed to be the U.S. Navy's answer to the Japanese super-heavies Yamato and Musashi. It wasn't. Yamato and Musashi both got their tickets punched by the Grumman Avenger and the Curtiss Helldiver, and the Japanese sailors never once saw the American carriers that did them in. The few hulls of the Montana class that had been laid down were never completed. The battleship was an idea whose time had come and gone. I'm fairly convinced that the manned tactical fighter is headed down the same road. So far as I'm concerned, the Chinese are welcome to spend as much money as they like on last year's model. By the time this sees service in squadron quantity, air combat will have changed almost beyond recognition, and the skies may well be dominated by laser weapons and unmanned combat aircraft.
In short: panic is unwarranted. Calls for extending the production run of the F-22, likewise. This fighter doesn't look as good as what we're already fielding in the first place, and it's the wrong answer to an almost outdated question, anyway. We've already got a solid lead in UCAV technology. Extending that lead is fairly easy, provided we don't let ourselves get goaded into reprising last century's best technology.
For purposes of comparison, here's a picture of the F-22 Raptor. The first example, a YF-22, first flew in September of 1990; and the first F-22 squadron came on-line for duty in December of 2005.
At first glance, this looks scarily similar:
There are, however, a few key differences, as well as a few important details to point out.
(1) The first is, of course, the time delay between the first flight of a new prototype and the IOC date of the first operational squadron. For the F-22 Raptor, that was just over fifteen years, from 9/1990 to 12/2005. Now, I have no reason to believe that the Chinese engineers are total idiots, but at the same time neither do I have reason to believe that they're supermen. I don't see them paring too many years off that figure. So, if we're to believe that the first flight was fairly recent, IOC can be no sooner than 2020-2025. By which time, we'll have ... well, I'll save that point for later.
(2) The second is that, while the fuselage sure looks like it's got a nice low-observable shape, the devil's in the details. For one, the shape is only half the story, there. Do they also use the right radar-absorbing materials in the skin? And, taking a closer look at the front view, we see a huge potential problem:
I count four under-wing hardpoints. External carriage of weapons and/or fuel tanks pretty much destroys any stealthing advantage your fuselage shape gives you. Unless this aircraft has provisions for internal weapon carriage, they lose the stealth part of the battle pretty horribly. (Caveat: those may not be hardpoints, but may instead by housings for control actuators. Even so, those 90-degree corners make nice little echo boxes that render the sloping fuselage moot.)
(3) The third point is readily apparent from a rear-view shot:
Oh, dear. Fixed axisymmetric nozzles. No thrust vectoring for you! Thrust vectoring is damned useful to have. Not having it, and then getting into a turn-and-burn fight with an airplane that does, is going to suck.
(4) The fourth problem is something I once heard described as the Montana Syndrome, after the Montana-class battleship. The Montana-class battleship was supposed to be the U.S. Navy's answer to the Japanese super-heavies Yamato and Musashi. It wasn't. Yamato and Musashi both got their tickets punched by the Grumman Avenger and the Curtiss Helldiver, and the Japanese sailors never once saw the American carriers that did them in. The few hulls of the Montana class that had been laid down were never completed. The battleship was an idea whose time had come and gone. I'm fairly convinced that the manned tactical fighter is headed down the same road. So far as I'm concerned, the Chinese are welcome to spend as much money as they like on last year's model. By the time this sees service in squadron quantity, air combat will have changed almost beyond recognition, and the skies may well be dominated by laser weapons and unmanned combat aircraft.
In short: panic is unwarranted. Calls for extending the production run of the F-22, likewise. This fighter doesn't look as good as what we're already fielding in the first place, and it's the wrong answer to an almost outdated question, anyway. We've already got a solid lead in UCAV technology. Extending that lead is fairly easy, provided we don't let ourselves get goaded into reprising last century's best technology.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Video Del Fuego, Part XXXI
Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.
French missile technology is, on the whole, quite good. In fact, the survivors of the HMS Sheffield would say it's just a little bit too good. But the ERYX Anti-Tank Guided Missile is known to be something of a stinker.
I'm sure those guys all got out OK. ATGMs have to fly a certain distance downrange before the fuze will arm. The state of their laundry, on the other hand...
French missile technology is, on the whole, quite good. In fact, the survivors of the HMS Sheffield would say it's just a little bit too good. But the ERYX Anti-Tank Guided Missile is known to be something of a stinker.
I'm sure those guys all got out OK. ATGMs have to fly a certain distance downrange before the fuze will arm. The state of their laundry, on the other hand...
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day, 2009
From the Lay of Horatius, by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
But the Consul's brow was sad, and the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
"Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down,
And if once they might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"
Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,
"And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for his wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?
"Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three,
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?"
Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Ramnian proud was he,
"Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, and keep the bridge with thee."
And out spake strong Herminius, of Titian blood was he:
"I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee."
"Horatius," quoth the Consul, "As thou sayest, so let it be."
And straight against that great array, forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son, nor wife, nor limb, nor life, in the brave days of old.
We Americans celebrate three major patriotic holidays throughout the year. People tend to say the same things at each, forgetting sometimes that each one has its own character. On Veterans' Day, we celebrate the service of all of our veterans, honoring all who have taken their turn keeping the bridge. On Independence Day, we honor everyone, veterans and others, who have served our nation's institutions, faithfully bequeathing a legacy of freedom under law that, God willing, we will in turn bequeath to our sons and daughters. But on Memorial Day, we specifically honor those who paid the ultimate price for our liberty.
Memorial Day is for Nathan Hale. It's for Sullivan Ballou. It's for Lloyd Williams, who led his Marines into that French forest that would be known forever afterward as the Bois de Brigade de Marine. It's for Rodger Young on New Georgia, and Ernest Evans off the island of Samar, and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. on Utah Beach, each earning a Medal of Honor posthumously. And it's for Mel Apt, who was all too briefly the fastest man alive, until his out-of-control X-2 hit the unforgiving desert floor. (If any of those names are unfamiliar to you, please take time to read the linked entries.)
Not many of us know that the Star-Spangled Banner has more than one verse. Francis Scott Key originally wrote four stanzas. The last one begins:
O, thus be it e'er when free men shall stand
Between their loved home, and the war's desolation!
The young men and women we have recently commissioned as Second Lieutenants and Ensigns have signed on to lead their comrades into making that stand, knowing full well what the cost might be. They have volunteered to stand their post upon that bridge, just as the Romans Horatius, Spurius Lartius, and Herminius did back in their day. Most of them will survive their experience. Macaulay tells us that all three survived the battle. But he also tells us that in some versions of the story, Horatius died holding the end of the bridge while his companions withdrew. Some of the young men and women we've commissioned this week will find that fate to be their own.
The task they leave to us is to honor their memory. We must never forget those things for which they gave their last full measure of devotion. We must remember their courage, their honor, their dignity. And we must teach our children to remember, to make these stories of bravery and sacrifice live for each new generation.
For as long as we remember them, they never truly die.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Friday, May 08, 2009
A Matter of Priorities
This is an old news item, but I wanted to chew on its implications for a while before I said anything about it. When he unveiled the proposed 2010 DoD budget, the line item that drew the most attention was his announcement that he would end F-22 Raptor production at 187 aircraft. I am somewhat ambivalent about this. On the one hand, our current doctrine relies upon air superiority. Staying ahead is easier than catching up, after all, and we never really want our guys to find themselves in a fair fight. On the other hand, there's a conversation we really need to have about missions and force structure.
Let's roll back the clock about 20 years. Back in the late 1980s, the mission and force structure was fairly plain. We were built up and deployed to receive a Warsaw Pact assault in Western Europe. Some days that looked more likely than others. There was a time when I fully expected to cash in my chips fighting Russians somewhere in Germany. At a minimum, we had good reason to hedge our bets. After World War II, Stalin's policies were expansionist and aggressive. We saw that in both Berlin and Korea. Stalin's successor Khruschchev wasn't as blatantly expansionist, but his rhetoric wasn't what you'd call friendly, either. If you took their founding documents seriously, if you believed that they meant what they appeared to say, there were few conclusions you could reach other than they really believed that the world wasn't big enough for both Communism and Capitalism. They would carry by the bayonet what they couldn't carry by persuasion.
Under that threat, we had to be prepared to defend our allies against aggression. We maintained a large peacetime standing army, something unheard of in American history. We continued to spend at an almost wartime level on national defense. The weapons we developed during those years were designed around that threat.
Then, something totally unexpected happened. The Warsaw Pact fell apart. In the aftermath of that collapse, we never really took a hard look at our force structure, never really figured out exactly what it is we're trying to do with this new world we find ourselves in. We continued to build a Navy designed to take on the Red Banner Northern Fleet, an Army intended to turn back the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and an Air Force meant to chew up Soviet Frontal Aviation. I've long thought we needed to re-think things. But that never quite happened.
Maybe, just maybe, that conversation will happen now. We need to establish new priorities. We need to structure our defense establishment around what our needs really are today, not around what they were twenty years ago. The question on the table -- and I don't pretend to have a complete answer, much less the right one -- is this: What is America's role in the world? Knowing that, what kind of military can best fill that role?
Breaking it down yet further: Are we the world's policeman? Or are we the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guardians only of our own?
Like I said, I don't yet have an answer. I just have the question. The conversation is way, way past due; and we can't really know what our military should look like until we have it.
That said, I have a few observations about military policy:
1) My esteemed colleague, the anonymous Chair Force Engineer, makes a very good point about the drawbacks of our somewhat ADD approach to military planning. We tend to go through cycles of "Ooh! That looks neat!" followed by "Damn! That's expensive!" This idiocy tends to drive up acquisition prices. Once we know what we need, we should then buy what we need. Just that.
2) As a related point, there's something goofy about the way airplane costs are accounted for. When a news article reports the cost of an F-22 Raptor fighter, for example, that per-airplane cost amortizes the RDT&E cost over the entire buy. This makes each individual airplane look much more expensive than it actually is, based on the marginal cost of building the damn thing. If I had my 'druthers, we'd do it differently. You'd pay up front for the factory, tools, dies, and everything you have to have to build the first example. You'd eat that in the program start-up cost. You have to build that infrastructure anyway, whether you build one or ten thousand. After that, the unit cost would be the marginal cost of actually building each additional airframe that rolls off the assembly line: mostly time and materials. If you build enough, process improvements make each successive lot cheaper, not more expensive. However, I doubt that'll ever happen.
3) I'm not all that upset about the F-22 ending production. She's a lovely bird. And the Raptor rules the skies -- today. But all the same, I know an incipient dinosaur when I see it. Two technologies are coming to maturity that spell doom for the manned tactical fighter. One is the airborne laser, the other is the unmanned combat aircraft. Within fifteen years, we'll see a laser-armed unmanned fighter that is smaller, cheaper, and far more maneuverable than any fighter in the world today. Its main weapon fires line-straight at the speed of light, and cannot be jammed or evaded. If the gunner lays cross-hairs on you, you're done for. I'd rather we started making the down payments on this next turn of the technological wheel than putting another coat of polish on last year's model.
4) In the current budget climate, it really comes down to a matter of priorities. One way of setting priorities amongst services and programs is this: if you can only fully fund one, which one should it be? If you put that question to me, I'd look you straight in the eye and say without flinching -- it's the Navy. Understand that it's a former Air Force man saying that. My father was a career USAF NCO, and I was an AFROTC cadet myself, but I've read enough military history to know what's important. We are safe from invasion not because we have a powerful Army, nor because we have the world's best-equipped Air Force. Those are nice things to have, but they're not defensive arms for us. Those are the things we use to strut our funky stuff on someone else's real estate. No, the service that keeps them from returning the favor is the Navy. We sleep soundly without worry that rude foreigners will interrupt our rest mainly because the United States Navy is bigger than the next seventeen put together. The USN may not rule the waves, but no one else swings the heavy iron to seriously contest the matter. I'll trade Raptors for more Littoral Combat Ships every day and twice on Sundays. I'm a flyboy born and bred, but still, that's a thief's bargain. As long as we have a nice, strong Navy, I will sleep soundly and contentedly.
5) One last thing about force structure: back before WWII, the general arrangement was that the President did what he wanted with the Navy, but the Congress owned the Army. I'd kind of like to get back to something like that. If I had my way, I'd draw down the regular Army somewhat, and transfer assets to the National Guard in the various States. Then, I'd change the law such that the National Guard could only be mobilized by the President pursuant to a Declaration of War passed by Congress. Not an "authorization of force." Not a "state of emergency." An honest-to-God Declaration of War. Congress needs to step up and do its damn job. The last President ran amok, true enough, but he was aided and abetted by a supine, servile Congress. If we force them to "own" the Army again, maybe that'll change.
In summary: there are both winners and losers in the 2010 DoD budget. But on the whole, things look pretty good.
Let's roll back the clock about 20 years. Back in the late 1980s, the mission and force structure was fairly plain. We were built up and deployed to receive a Warsaw Pact assault in Western Europe. Some days that looked more likely than others. There was a time when I fully expected to cash in my chips fighting Russians somewhere in Germany. At a minimum, we had good reason to hedge our bets. After World War II, Stalin's policies were expansionist and aggressive. We saw that in both Berlin and Korea. Stalin's successor Khruschchev wasn't as blatantly expansionist, but his rhetoric wasn't what you'd call friendly, either. If you took their founding documents seriously, if you believed that they meant what they appeared to say, there were few conclusions you could reach other than they really believed that the world wasn't big enough for both Communism and Capitalism. They would carry by the bayonet what they couldn't carry by persuasion.
Under that threat, we had to be prepared to defend our allies against aggression. We maintained a large peacetime standing army, something unheard of in American history. We continued to spend at an almost wartime level on national defense. The weapons we developed during those years were designed around that threat.
Then, something totally unexpected happened. The Warsaw Pact fell apart. In the aftermath of that collapse, we never really took a hard look at our force structure, never really figured out exactly what it is we're trying to do with this new world we find ourselves in. We continued to build a Navy designed to take on the Red Banner Northern Fleet, an Army intended to turn back the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and an Air Force meant to chew up Soviet Frontal Aviation. I've long thought we needed to re-think things. But that never quite happened.
Maybe, just maybe, that conversation will happen now. We need to establish new priorities. We need to structure our defense establishment around what our needs really are today, not around what they were twenty years ago. The question on the table -- and I don't pretend to have a complete answer, much less the right one -- is this: What is America's role in the world? Knowing that, what kind of military can best fill that role?
Breaking it down yet further: Are we the world's policeman? Or are we the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guardians only of our own?
Like I said, I don't yet have an answer. I just have the question. The conversation is way, way past due; and we can't really know what our military should look like until we have it.
That said, I have a few observations about military policy:
1) My esteemed colleague, the anonymous Chair Force Engineer, makes a very good point about the drawbacks of our somewhat ADD approach to military planning. We tend to go through cycles of "Ooh! That looks neat!" followed by "Damn! That's expensive!" This idiocy tends to drive up acquisition prices. Once we know what we need, we should then buy what we need. Just that.
2) As a related point, there's something goofy about the way airplane costs are accounted for. When a news article reports the cost of an F-22 Raptor fighter, for example, that per-airplane cost amortizes the RDT&E cost over the entire buy. This makes each individual airplane look much more expensive than it actually is, based on the marginal cost of building the damn thing. If I had my 'druthers, we'd do it differently. You'd pay up front for the factory, tools, dies, and everything you have to have to build the first example. You'd eat that in the program start-up cost. You have to build that infrastructure anyway, whether you build one or ten thousand. After that, the unit cost would be the marginal cost of actually building each additional airframe that rolls off the assembly line: mostly time and materials. If you build enough, process improvements make each successive lot cheaper, not more expensive. However, I doubt that'll ever happen.
3) I'm not all that upset about the F-22 ending production. She's a lovely bird. And the Raptor rules the skies -- today. But all the same, I know an incipient dinosaur when I see it. Two technologies are coming to maturity that spell doom for the manned tactical fighter. One is the airborne laser, the other is the unmanned combat aircraft. Within fifteen years, we'll see a laser-armed unmanned fighter that is smaller, cheaper, and far more maneuverable than any fighter in the world today. Its main weapon fires line-straight at the speed of light, and cannot be jammed or evaded. If the gunner lays cross-hairs on you, you're done for. I'd rather we started making the down payments on this next turn of the technological wheel than putting another coat of polish on last year's model.
4) In the current budget climate, it really comes down to a matter of priorities. One way of setting priorities amongst services and programs is this: if you can only fully fund one, which one should it be? If you put that question to me, I'd look you straight in the eye and say without flinching -- it's the Navy. Understand that it's a former Air Force man saying that. My father was a career USAF NCO, and I was an AFROTC cadet myself, but I've read enough military history to know what's important. We are safe from invasion not because we have a powerful Army, nor because we have the world's best-equipped Air Force. Those are nice things to have, but they're not defensive arms for us. Those are the things we use to strut our funky stuff on someone else's real estate. No, the service that keeps them from returning the favor is the Navy. We sleep soundly without worry that rude foreigners will interrupt our rest mainly because the United States Navy is bigger than the next seventeen put together. The USN may not rule the waves, but no one else swings the heavy iron to seriously contest the matter. I'll trade Raptors for more Littoral Combat Ships every day and twice on Sundays. I'm a flyboy born and bred, but still, that's a thief's bargain. As long as we have a nice, strong Navy, I will sleep soundly and contentedly.
5) One last thing about force structure: back before WWII, the general arrangement was that the President did what he wanted with the Navy, but the Congress owned the Army. I'd kind of like to get back to something like that. If I had my way, I'd draw down the regular Army somewhat, and transfer assets to the National Guard in the various States. Then, I'd change the law such that the National Guard could only be mobilized by the President pursuant to a Declaration of War passed by Congress. Not an "authorization of force." Not a "state of emergency." An honest-to-God Declaration of War. Congress needs to step up and do its damn job. The last President ran amok, true enough, but he was aided and abetted by a supine, servile Congress. If we force them to "own" the Army again, maybe that'll change.
In summary: there are both winners and losers in the 2010 DoD budget. But on the whole, things look pretty good.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Video Del Fuego, Part XVII
Back in the late 1950s, the Eisenhower Administration had a problem. The United States had an adversarial relationship with a foreign power that, geographically, we knew almost nothing about. To the Soviet Union, accurate maps were state secrets. They were simply unavailable. So, if we were to have accurate information about where their new missile programs were located, we'd simply have to make our own maps. Not to put too fine a point on it, we'd have to fly overhead and take pictures.
The first aircraft the CIA built to accomplish this mission was the Lockheed U-2. As mentioned before, its basic design was an F-104 fuselage with a gigantic glider wing. It could fly higher than any other aircraft then in existence, and it was thought that this would give the U-2 a measure of protection from surface-to-air missiles. And it did, for a while. Between 1956 and 1960, the U-2 made a number of overflight missions of Soviet airspace, mapping sensitive missile sites. But with each year, Soviet defenses got progressively better. In May 1960, a U-2 flown by Gary Powers was brought down inside Soviet airspace, and the cover was blown.
But a replacement aircraft was already on the drawing board. In 1959, the CIA selected another Lockheed aircraft, the A-12 OXCART, as the replacement for the U-2. It was intended to fly higher and up to four times faster than the U-2: what it couldn't outclimb, it could outrun. The A-12 first flew in 1962, and was flown by the CIA between May 1967 and May 1968.
The interesting thing here is that Johnson introduced this aircraft as an interceptor, not as a spy plane. A natural enough bit of confusion, since there was an interceptor version in the works, the YF-12A Blackbird.
The major differences between the YF-12A and the A-12 are the addition of a second crewman to man the radar and missile systems. The recon equipment was replaced by a powerful AN/ASG-18 fire control radar, paired with the AIM-47 Falcon missiles originally developed for the XF-108 Rapier. There are a few other differences as well, easily visible from the front and side.
But the YF-12A was never authorized for full production. The Soviet bomber threat it was built to counter never really materialized. Instead, when manned recon was transferred from the CIA to the USAF, the USAF wanted a new aircraft developed from both the A-12 and YF-12A. The new aircraft would retain the second crewman, and would also add side-looking radar to the list of capabilities. This new aircraft would become the undisputed King of Speed: the SR-71 Blackbird.
Everything about this airplane is extreme. No manned air-breathing vehicle has ever flown faster or higher. The crews must wear full pressure suits. On the ground, the airplanes fuel tanks seep fuel from numerous seams, to give room for thermal expansion at speed and altitude. The engine lubricant is solid at room temperature, and must be preheated prior to engine start. The Blackbird's structure almost never experiences metal fatigue, since the heating it receives with each mission re-tempers the metal each and every time it hits Mach 3. And it demands the utmost attention from its pilots. At two thousand miles per hour, a pilot's attention cannot wander. A course error of one degree means half a mile per minute lateral deviation. The extreme operational conditions impose a hazard on the crew. Of 32 SR-71s built, 12 were lost to accidents.
But despite numerous missions over North Vietnam and other denied airspaces, no Blackbird was ever lost to enemy action. This isn't to say that it hadn't been tried. SR-71 crews had a fool-proof anti-missile system. Whenever they heard a launch warning, they simply advanced their throttle. Those few missiles that could reach their operational altitude of 85,000 feet poked through the empty air below and behind their intended target.
In the end, the march of technology brought the Blackbird's end. Not in the form of better defenses, no one ever did manage to build the system that could bring her down. But in the form of ever-improving satellite photography. The Eisenhower Administration was also pursuing a third recon option in the form of the Corona program. The technology was a long time in gaining maturity. But the latest generation, capable of beaming their pictures in real time back to headquarters, finally bring a capability to the table that the SR-71 can't match. Finally, in 1999, the Blackbird made its last flight, leaving several records that will probably stay untouched for decades to come.
But there's a postscript to the Blackbird story. Remember the YF-12A? Even though it never saw full production, its fire-control radar and missiles were such a useful combination that a slightly more advanced variant ended up finding life in the proposed F-111B air-to-air version of that aircraft. Well, the Navy decided that the F-111B was a stinkburger, but kept the AWG-9 radar and AIM-54 missiles for their new fleet-defense interceptor: the F-14 Tomcat. The combo of the AWG-9 and Phoenix could simultaneously track and engage six targets at once, at ranges of up to 100 miles away. Not that this has ever been proven in action. The U.S. Navy only fired two AIM-54s in anger, in 1999 against Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both missed.
It's really weird how things work out sometimes.
The first aircraft the CIA built to accomplish this mission was the Lockheed U-2. As mentioned before, its basic design was an F-104 fuselage with a gigantic glider wing. It could fly higher than any other aircraft then in existence, and it was thought that this would give the U-2 a measure of protection from surface-to-air missiles. And it did, for a while. Between 1956 and 1960, the U-2 made a number of overflight missions of Soviet airspace, mapping sensitive missile sites. But with each year, Soviet defenses got progressively better. In May 1960, a U-2 flown by Gary Powers was brought down inside Soviet airspace, and the cover was blown.
But a replacement aircraft was already on the drawing board. In 1959, the CIA selected another Lockheed aircraft, the A-12 OXCART, as the replacement for the U-2. It was intended to fly higher and up to four times faster than the U-2: what it couldn't outclimb, it could outrun. The A-12 first flew in 1962, and was flown by the CIA between May 1967 and May 1968.
The interesting thing here is that Johnson introduced this aircraft as an interceptor, not as a spy plane. A natural enough bit of confusion, since there was an interceptor version in the works, the YF-12A Blackbird.
The major differences between the YF-12A and the A-12 are the addition of a second crewman to man the radar and missile systems. The recon equipment was replaced by a powerful AN/ASG-18 fire control radar, paired with the AIM-47 Falcon missiles originally developed for the XF-108 Rapier. There are a few other differences as well, easily visible from the front and side.
But the YF-12A was never authorized for full production. The Soviet bomber threat it was built to counter never really materialized. Instead, when manned recon was transferred from the CIA to the USAF, the USAF wanted a new aircraft developed from both the A-12 and YF-12A. The new aircraft would retain the second crewman, and would also add side-looking radar to the list of capabilities. This new aircraft would become the undisputed King of Speed: the SR-71 Blackbird.
Everything about this airplane is extreme. No manned air-breathing vehicle has ever flown faster or higher. The crews must wear full pressure suits. On the ground, the airplanes fuel tanks seep fuel from numerous seams, to give room for thermal expansion at speed and altitude. The engine lubricant is solid at room temperature, and must be preheated prior to engine start. The Blackbird's structure almost never experiences metal fatigue, since the heating it receives with each mission re-tempers the metal each and every time it hits Mach 3. And it demands the utmost attention from its pilots. At two thousand miles per hour, a pilot's attention cannot wander. A course error of one degree means half a mile per minute lateral deviation. The extreme operational conditions impose a hazard on the crew. Of 32 SR-71s built, 12 were lost to accidents.
But despite numerous missions over North Vietnam and other denied airspaces, no Blackbird was ever lost to enemy action. This isn't to say that it hadn't been tried. SR-71 crews had a fool-proof anti-missile system. Whenever they heard a launch warning, they simply advanced their throttle. Those few missiles that could reach their operational altitude of 85,000 feet poked through the empty air below and behind their intended target.
In the end, the march of technology brought the Blackbird's end. Not in the form of better defenses, no one ever did manage to build the system that could bring her down. But in the form of ever-improving satellite photography. The Eisenhower Administration was also pursuing a third recon option in the form of the Corona program. The technology was a long time in gaining maturity. But the latest generation, capable of beaming their pictures in real time back to headquarters, finally bring a capability to the table that the SR-71 can't match. Finally, in 1999, the Blackbird made its last flight, leaving several records that will probably stay untouched for decades to come.
But there's a postscript to the Blackbird story. Remember the YF-12A? Even though it never saw full production, its fire-control radar and missiles were such a useful combination that a slightly more advanced variant ended up finding life in the proposed F-111B air-to-air version of that aircraft. Well, the Navy decided that the F-111B was a stinkburger, but kept the AWG-9 radar and AIM-54 missiles for their new fleet-defense interceptor: the F-14 Tomcat. The combo of the AWG-9 and Phoenix could simultaneously track and engage six targets at once, at ranges of up to 100 miles away. Not that this has ever been proven in action. The U.S. Navy only fired two AIM-54s in anger, in 1999 against Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both missed.
It's really weird how things work out sometimes.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Video Del Fuego, Part XVI
I'm in the mood for another round of Vintage Thunder Chariots. Here's another one of my all-time favorites, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter:
For a fairly long time after the introduction of the jet fighter, conventional thinking had it that speed was king. So, throughout the '50s and '60s, designers pursued straight-line speed to the exclusion of all else, such as maneuverability and even weapons load-out. The F-104's air-interception load was, basically, a brace of Sidewinders plus its internal 20mm cannon. The theory was that it could chase down its prey in a tail chase, unleash a missile barrage, and call it a day. But in an old-fashioned dogfight, it would quite often come in second best. A clever pilot could always use the vertical to escape an unfavorable engagement, but it would almost always lose a turning fight. Climbs like a bat out of Hell, steers like a cow.
But God Almighty! There's not a production fighter in the world today that can catch it in a horizontal sprint. Every line screams speed. Its design is simplicity itself: a gigantic afterburning engine, with wings, tail, and cockpit grafted on almost as afterthoughts. It was, and is, an aircraft that demands respect from its pilots, and does not suffer fools gladly. But for those pilots willing to undertake its discipline, it offered an unmatched experience.
There's an interesting post-script to the Starfighter story. Back in the mid-'50s, the CIA wanted a high-altitude aircraft capable of penetrating Soviet airspace for purposes of reconnaissance. Kelly Johnson's Skunk Works undertook the assignment. Their basic design was to take the F-104's fuselage, lengthen it slightly, and add gigantic glider wings. The result:
The U-2 has, in a way, been far more successful than its progenitor. While the F-104 was retired by most of its users by 1990, the U-2 is still the go-to manned recon platform for the USAF, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Still, the Starfighter is the prince of the high-speed Thunder Chariots. But not the King. That honor is reserved for another fine Lockheed product, that we'll profile on another day.
For a fairly long time after the introduction of the jet fighter, conventional thinking had it that speed was king. So, throughout the '50s and '60s, designers pursued straight-line speed to the exclusion of all else, such as maneuverability and even weapons load-out. The F-104's air-interception load was, basically, a brace of Sidewinders plus its internal 20mm cannon. The theory was that it could chase down its prey in a tail chase, unleash a missile barrage, and call it a day. But in an old-fashioned dogfight, it would quite often come in second best. A clever pilot could always use the vertical to escape an unfavorable engagement, but it would almost always lose a turning fight. Climbs like a bat out of Hell, steers like a cow.
But God Almighty! There's not a production fighter in the world today that can catch it in a horizontal sprint. Every line screams speed. Its design is simplicity itself: a gigantic afterburning engine, with wings, tail, and cockpit grafted on almost as afterthoughts. It was, and is, an aircraft that demands respect from its pilots, and does not suffer fools gladly. But for those pilots willing to undertake its discipline, it offered an unmatched experience.
There's an interesting post-script to the Starfighter story. Back in the mid-'50s, the CIA wanted a high-altitude aircraft capable of penetrating Soviet airspace for purposes of reconnaissance. Kelly Johnson's Skunk Works undertook the assignment. Their basic design was to take the F-104's fuselage, lengthen it slightly, and add gigantic glider wings. The result:
The U-2 has, in a way, been far more successful than its progenitor. While the F-104 was retired by most of its users by 1990, the U-2 is still the go-to manned recon platform for the USAF, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Still, the Starfighter is the prince of the high-speed Thunder Chariots. But not the King. That honor is reserved for another fine Lockheed product, that we'll profile on another day.
Monday, August 18, 2008
National Aviation Day
According to Wikipedia, August 19 is National Aviation Day. In honor of the event, I would like to present a few of my favorite "aviation oddity" photos.
(1) Adventures in Traffic Enforcement. Please, oh please, tell me this fool wasn't trying to pull a fighter jet over for speeding...
(2) Tail Number of the Beast. Apparently, Satan used to fly a Starfighter for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Who knew?
(3) The Things You Find on Google Earth. Methinks some poor Lieutenant got lost trying to park his Eagle at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska.
MEMO
FROM: Gen. Anger
TO: Lt. Fumducker
RE: Parking at Elmendorf AFB
Be advised that you turn LEFT off the runway to get to USAF Base Ops, and RIGHT to get to General Aviation. LEFT, not RIGHT. LEFT. Next time you do this, your ass is PUSHING that damn jet back.
(Note: I actually met a Major Anger once, call sign "Rage". He's actually a really nice guy.)
(4) Learning to Fly. Learning to fly is good. Learning to land? Even better!
These are my current favorites. More to come, infrequently, as I find them.
(1) Adventures in Traffic Enforcement. Please, oh please, tell me this fool wasn't trying to pull a fighter jet over for speeding...
(2) Tail Number of the Beast. Apparently, Satan used to fly a Starfighter for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Who knew?
(3) The Things You Find on Google Earth. Methinks some poor Lieutenant got lost trying to park his Eagle at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska.
MEMO
FROM: Gen. Anger
TO: Lt. Fumducker
RE: Parking at Elmendorf AFB
Be advised that you turn LEFT off the runway to get to USAF Base Ops, and RIGHT to get to General Aviation. LEFT, not RIGHT. LEFT. Next time you do this, your ass is PUSHING that damn jet back.
(Note: I actually met a Major Anger once, call sign "Rage". He's actually a really nice guy.)
(4) Learning to Fly. Learning to fly is good. Learning to land? Even better!
These are my current favorites. More to come, infrequently, as I find them.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day 2008
From the Lay of Horatius, by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
XXI.
- But the Consul's brow was sad, and the Consul's speech was low,
- And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
- "Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down;
- And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"
XXVII.
- Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
- "To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
- And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
- For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,
XXVIII.
- And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
- And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
- And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
- To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?
XXIX.
- Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
- I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
- In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
- Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?'
Oh, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry.
Oh, they've got no use for praises loudly sung.
But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.
Shines the name, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
To the everlasting glory of the Infantry.
Lives the story of Private Rodger Young.
Caught in ambush lay a company of riflemen
Just grenades against machine guns in the gloom.
Caught in ambush till this one of twenty riflemen
Volunteered, volunteered to meet his doom.
Volunteered, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
In the everlasting annals of the Infantry
Glows the last deed of Private Rodger Young.
It was he who drew the fire of the enemy
That a company of men might live to fight.
And before the deadly fire of the enemy
Stood the man, stood the man we hail tonight.
On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons
Stands a simple wooden cross alone to tell.
That beneath the silent coral of the Solomons
Sleeps a man, sleeps a man remembered well.
Sleeps a man, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
In the everlasting spirit of the Infantry
Breathes the spirit of Private Rodger Young.
No, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry.
No, they've got no use for praises loudly sung.
But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.
Shines the name, Rodger Young!
Fought and died for the men he marched among.
To the everlasting glory of the Infantry
Lives the story of Private Rodger Young.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots." We are free today because every generation of Americans has faithfully taken their turn to water that tree. They will not be forgotten.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Video Del Fuego, Part IV
Ordinarily I have little use for the French. But whatever their other proclivities, there's nothing at all wrong with the products of Dassault. Their thunder chariots have always been first-rate. This video features a Mirage 2000 fighter, with a few guest appearances by a Dornier Alpha Jet.
Really, the worst you can say about the Mirage 2000 (or, for that matter, the Rafale) is that it's not a Raptor. But what else is?
Bonus Feature: Speaking of Raptors, if you're a Chinese military aviator, scenes like this probably loom large in your nightmares:
Really, the worst you can say about the Mirage 2000 (or, for that matter, the Rafale) is that it's not a Raptor. But what else is?
Bonus Feature: Speaking of Raptors, if you're a Chinese military aviator, scenes like this probably loom large in your nightmares:
Monday, March 03, 2008
Video Del Fuego, Part II
Continuing to mine the vein of vintage thunder crates, here's a 1986 Van Halen music video featuring the Blue Angels.
The A-4 Skyhawk was a simply astonishing airshow airplane. Fast, nimble, and they can damn near fly them right on top of one another. I realize that they had lots of good reasons for switching to the F-18, starting with the fact that logistical support was getting expensive, and ending with the fact that military pilots really need to keep currency with their go-to-war airplane.
Be that as it may, I loved Heinemann's Hot Rod, and I still miss it.
The A-4 Skyhawk was a simply astonishing airshow airplane. Fast, nimble, and they can damn near fly them right on top of one another. I realize that they had lots of good reasons for switching to the F-18, starting with the fact that logistical support was getting expensive, and ending with the fact that military pilots really need to keep currency with their go-to-war airplane.
Be that as it may, I loved Heinemann's Hot Rod, and I still miss it.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Video Del Fuego, Part I
New semi-regular feature: videos from YouTube that I like. For the first entry in this series, let's get acquainted with thirty tons of angry St. Louis steel -- The McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom.
The Smoking Thunderhog lives!
The Smoking Thunderhog lives!
Friday, October 20, 2006
Nukes for Beginners
What with all the news about North Korea and Iran, I figured it might be worthwhile to go over some of the basics of how these things work. There's a lot of misinformation out there. And while there's a lot to be worried about, there's a lot going on that you really don't have to be so upset about.
Now, we all know about radioactivity, and how uranium and plutonium can be used in nuclear reactors to generate electrical power. Just about anything that can give off heat slowly can be goaded into doing it faster. But the devil's in the details.
To make uranium or plutonium go boom, you have to achieve critical mass. There are two ways of doing this.
The easy way is just to get enough highly purified metal in the same place at the same time. Collect enough highly enriched uranium in one lump, and it will explode all by itself, without any outside encouragement. That's how the Little Boy bomb worked. They had two parts of a sphere of uranium, and at the appropriate time, all they had to do was slam them together. The reason this approach isn't taken anymore is that it's all to easy for such a bomb to go off before you really want it to. It doesn't matter if the parts all come together on purpose or by accident, when they're united, it's flame on.
The hard way is to compress the metal so that, locally, it's dense enough to constitute a critical mass. This is somewhat tricky. It requires the use of specially-shaped explosives to squeeze down a sphere of already fairly dense metal in exactly the right way to produce the desired result. Do it wrong, and all you have is a very expensive mess.
What got me thinking about all this, is that NK claims to have designed and built a four-kiloton warhead.
It's freaking hard to build a small-yield weapon. Hard enough that, today, the US doesn't think it's even worthwhile. We've had a few, but only a few. Some, like the AIR-2 Genie nuclear air-to-air missile (Mk. 25 Mod. 1), were made obsolete by guided missiles. Others, like the Davy Crockett nuclear bazooka, were just plain stupid ideas to begin with. (What kind of idiot designs a bazooka with a blast radius that exceeds the range?) But by the late '60s, we'd given the whole lot up as a bad idea. The results don't justify the expense.
But ... if your missiles aren't all that big, you need a small payload if you're going to air-mail it to anybody. We had a similar problem in the late '50s, but we also had Edward Teller.
The easiest uranium bomb to build would be something along the lines of Little Boy: weighing in at something like 4 to 5 tons. The upside: you know it's gonna work, first time, every time. The down side: there's no good way to get it to anybody you think needs blowing up. Dragging a five-ton parcel across somebody's border is bound to attract all kinds of unwanted attention.
So: you have to think small. But that takes a lot of sophistication. It takes very meticulous scientific work, and extraordinarily precise machining. And you have to have done your preparation work right. If your metal isn't of the highest purity, it's all wasted effort. Reactor-grade won't cut it, not even a little bit.
Steven Den Beste had an article up a few days ago, referring to this issue. He was wondering if the North Koreans' plutonium hadn't been refined too hastily. Apparently, if you rush the job, you don't get the right mix of isotopes, and it won't catch.
And if their plutonium is, in fact, just plain bad ... well, they can test all they want. The bomb might make a big, awful mess, but it won't go "boom".
Now, setting one of these off in downtown Seoul would be horrible enough for any ordinary purpose. But it's not something that will inspire fear so much as it will inspire all-consuming homicidal rage. Somehow, I don't think that's the effect Mr. Kim was looking for.
So. Now, we wait to see if they're going to have another go at lighting it off. But can Mr. Kim afford another fizzle? Can his credibility afford it, what's left of it? Can he afford yet another spectacle that enrages what few friends he does have left in the world?
Be afraid, Mr. Kim, be very afraid: that next knock at the door won't be us, it'll be the Chinese secret service. And they won't be happy with you. No, not even a little bit.
UPDATE: Mr. Kim takes the hint, and sings a few verses of the Very Sorry Song to China. (Page down for the lyrics.)
Now, we all know about radioactivity, and how uranium and plutonium can be used in nuclear reactors to generate electrical power. Just about anything that can give off heat slowly can be goaded into doing it faster. But the devil's in the details.
To make uranium or plutonium go boom, you have to achieve critical mass. There are two ways of doing this.
The easy way is just to get enough highly purified metal in the same place at the same time. Collect enough highly enriched uranium in one lump, and it will explode all by itself, without any outside encouragement. That's how the Little Boy bomb worked. They had two parts of a sphere of uranium, and at the appropriate time, all they had to do was slam them together. The reason this approach isn't taken anymore is that it's all to easy for such a bomb to go off before you really want it to. It doesn't matter if the parts all come together on purpose or by accident, when they're united, it's flame on.
The hard way is to compress the metal so that, locally, it's dense enough to constitute a critical mass. This is somewhat tricky. It requires the use of specially-shaped explosives to squeeze down a sphere of already fairly dense metal in exactly the right way to produce the desired result. Do it wrong, and all you have is a very expensive mess.
What got me thinking about all this, is that NK claims to have designed and built a four-kiloton warhead.
It's freaking hard to build a small-yield weapon. Hard enough that, today, the US doesn't think it's even worthwhile. We've had a few, but only a few. Some, like the AIR-2 Genie nuclear air-to-air missile (Mk. 25 Mod. 1), were made obsolete by guided missiles. Others, like the Davy Crockett nuclear bazooka, were just plain stupid ideas to begin with. (What kind of idiot designs a bazooka with a blast radius that exceeds the range?) But by the late '60s, we'd given the whole lot up as a bad idea. The results don't justify the expense.
But ... if your missiles aren't all that big, you need a small payload if you're going to air-mail it to anybody. We had a similar problem in the late '50s, but we also had Edward Teller.
The easiest uranium bomb to build would be something along the lines of Little Boy: weighing in at something like 4 to 5 tons. The upside: you know it's gonna work, first time, every time. The down side: there's no good way to get it to anybody you think needs blowing up. Dragging a five-ton parcel across somebody's border is bound to attract all kinds of unwanted attention.
So: you have to think small. But that takes a lot of sophistication. It takes very meticulous scientific work, and extraordinarily precise machining. And you have to have done your preparation work right. If your metal isn't of the highest purity, it's all wasted effort. Reactor-grade won't cut it, not even a little bit.
Steven Den Beste had an article up a few days ago, referring to this issue. He was wondering if the North Koreans' plutonium hadn't been refined too hastily. Apparently, if you rush the job, you don't get the right mix of isotopes, and it won't catch.
And if their plutonium is, in fact, just plain bad ... well, they can test all they want. The bomb might make a big, awful mess, but it won't go "boom".
Now, setting one of these off in downtown Seoul would be horrible enough for any ordinary purpose. But it's not something that will inspire fear so much as it will inspire all-consuming homicidal rage. Somehow, I don't think that's the effect Mr. Kim was looking for.
So. Now, we wait to see if they're going to have another go at lighting it off. But can Mr. Kim afford another fizzle? Can his credibility afford it, what's left of it? Can he afford yet another spectacle that enrages what few friends he does have left in the world?
Be afraid, Mr. Kim, be very afraid: that next knock at the door won't be us, it'll be the Chinese secret service. And they won't be happy with you. No, not even a little bit.
UPDATE: Mr. Kim takes the hint, and sings a few verses of the Very Sorry Song to China. (Page down for the lyrics.)
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Now, This Is Just Sad
A few days ago, we all woke up to the news that North Korea had claimed that it tested a nuclear weapon.
It would appear that the operative word here is, in fact, test.
The word from CNN (and you can believe as much of that as you want to) is that NK had told China that the yield would be about 4 kilotons. Our guys, after looking at the seismic data, say that it looks more like a half-kiloton. Maybe less.
Now, that's just sad. Our first attempt was four times their claimed yield, and our first one worked. Granted, we had the finest scientists in the world working on it, and they're making do with used chewing gum and bailing wire, but still ... These are the big leagues, dude. Four kilotons doesn't even get you in the door of the game room.
In another piece I saw earlier today, Mr. Kim was threatening his neighbors with nuclear-armed missiles.
Memo to Mr. Kim: Before your ego starts writing checks your Army can't cash, do observe that if you're going to make that kind of threat, you need three things:
1) A working atomic weapon
2) A working atomic weapon that's small enough to put on a missile
3) A working atomic weapon that's small enough to put on a missile that is capable of leaving North Korean airspace. (By the way, in colloquial English, NoDong is the perfect name for a North Korean weapon system.)
You appear to be batting zero so far, sir. But do try again. It enrages your friends and amuses your enemies. And it wastes plutonium. Feel free to waste as much as you like.
My earlier statement stands: Your first shot had damn well better be a doozy, because you won't be getting a second.
It would appear that the operative word here is, in fact, test.
The word from CNN (and you can believe as much of that as you want to) is that NK had told China that the yield would be about 4 kilotons. Our guys, after looking at the seismic data, say that it looks more like a half-kiloton. Maybe less.
Now, that's just sad. Our first attempt was four times their claimed yield, and our first one worked. Granted, we had the finest scientists in the world working on it, and they're making do with used chewing gum and bailing wire, but still ... These are the big leagues, dude. Four kilotons doesn't even get you in the door of the game room.
In another piece I saw earlier today, Mr. Kim was threatening his neighbors with nuclear-armed missiles.
Memo to Mr. Kim: Before your ego starts writing checks your Army can't cash, do observe that if you're going to make that kind of threat, you need three things:
1) A working atomic weapon
2) A working atomic weapon that's small enough to put on a missile
3) A working atomic weapon that's small enough to put on a missile that is capable of leaving North Korean airspace. (By the way, in colloquial English, NoDong is the perfect name for a North Korean weapon system.)
You appear to be batting zero so far, sir. But do try again. It enrages your friends and amuses your enemies. And it wastes plutonium. Feel free to waste as much as you like.
My earlier statement stands: Your first shot had damn well better be a doozy, because you won't be getting a second.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Time and Tide Wait for No Man
Last time, I made a point that I didn't have time to elaborate on, but I probably ought to. It's not necessarily obvious, and it bears some reflection.
I said: "They (meaning revolutionary movements like al-Qaeda) have about ten years before they either (a) win, or (b) metastasize into fairly conventional criminal syndicates."
It's a pattern we've seen before, in organizations as diverse as the IRA in Northern Ireland and FARC down in Colombia. Both groups started as hard-core revolutionaries, both are now pretty well consumed with self-preservation. And most of that self-preservation takes the form of criminal activites that make their daily bread. And that's not the only place this trend is evident. You can also see it in labor unions, your local PTA, or NASA.
It's called the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
I can't take credit for it, of course. Credit for this observation belongs to Jerry Pournelle, whose site I link above. But I'll restate it here:
Any organization has two kinds of people working for it. The first kind work for the intended aims of the organization. The second kind work for the organization itself. While organizations tend to be founded by the first kind, eventually they always end up being run by the second kind.
My observation above is a logical extension of this principle.
Any organization, any at all, needs its "organization" men. They're the ones who keep your books straight while the "true believers" are hard at work doing whatever it is that they're supposed to be doing. We've been treated to some stunning pictures from Mars this last week, from a pair of rovers that have far outlived their design lifetimes. Those would never have been possible without the efforts of the men and women who do the scut work of NASA, lobbying Congress for funding, reminding our representatives why their work is important.
But it's important to remember that the scientists and engineers don't run NASA. The bureaucrats do.
No organization is immune. And this has some interesting consequences for revolutionary movements.
Revolutionaries have a sticky problem. In order to overthrow the existing regime, they need the wherewithal to do it: guns, bombs, recruits, facilities. To get those, they need to have people on staff who can get that stuff for them, and manage it. In short, they need Organization Men.
While the movement is young, the original founders are still in charge, and their hand-picked men are in all the important leadership spots. So, all's good. And if they win, they will all move on to posts in the new order, so it's all still good. But if they don't win ...
That's when things get interesting. Revolutionaries have a way of coming to bad, violent ends. So, who ends up getting promoted, when the alter Kampfern start getting fitted for English hempen neckties?
You guessed it: the Organization Men. And why not? They've proven their ability to handle affairs, haven't they?
But here's the problem: they work first for the organization, then for its goals, in that order. Once you have a critical mass of Organization Men in the upper ranks, most of the activity of the group becomes geared towards support and maintenance, with only lip service being paid to the "real" cause.
I mean, what is FARC today but a glorified cocaine cartel? And when was the last time the IRA was politically meaningful? For most of the men in those groups, it's a paycheck, not about changing the world. Not anymore.
And absent a major victory, al-Qaeda is headed down the same road. It's an inevitability. And they're farther down the track than many Americans realize. Remember, they got their start in the early '90s, right after the first Gulf War. Say, fifteen years of organizational history.
And, in the last five years, they've suffered fearful losses amongst their True Believers...
You know, when I consider the amount of paperwork it takes to do anything really worthwhile over here, I can almost feel sorry for them.
Then again, not really. They are welcome, and more than welcome, to as much self-induced agony as they can muster. I wonder if anyone's ever translated Robert's Rules of Order into Arabic? That ought to put a couple of handfuls of sand in the gears...
I said: "They (meaning revolutionary movements like al-Qaeda) have about ten years before they either (a) win, or (b) metastasize into fairly conventional criminal syndicates."
It's a pattern we've seen before, in organizations as diverse as the IRA in Northern Ireland and FARC down in Colombia. Both groups started as hard-core revolutionaries, both are now pretty well consumed with self-preservation. And most of that self-preservation takes the form of criminal activites that make their daily bread. And that's not the only place this trend is evident. You can also see it in labor unions, your local PTA, or NASA.
It's called the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
I can't take credit for it, of course. Credit for this observation belongs to Jerry Pournelle, whose site I link above. But I'll restate it here:
Any organization has two kinds of people working for it. The first kind work for the intended aims of the organization. The second kind work for the organization itself. While organizations tend to be founded by the first kind, eventually they always end up being run by the second kind.
My observation above is a logical extension of this principle.
Any organization, any at all, needs its "organization" men. They're the ones who keep your books straight while the "true believers" are hard at work doing whatever it is that they're supposed to be doing. We've been treated to some stunning pictures from Mars this last week, from a pair of rovers that have far outlived their design lifetimes. Those would never have been possible without the efforts of the men and women who do the scut work of NASA, lobbying Congress for funding, reminding our representatives why their work is important.
But it's important to remember that the scientists and engineers don't run NASA. The bureaucrats do.
No organization is immune. And this has some interesting consequences for revolutionary movements.
Revolutionaries have a sticky problem. In order to overthrow the existing regime, they need the wherewithal to do it: guns, bombs, recruits, facilities. To get those, they need to have people on staff who can get that stuff for them, and manage it. In short, they need Organization Men.
While the movement is young, the original founders are still in charge, and their hand-picked men are in all the important leadership spots. So, all's good. And if they win, they will all move on to posts in the new order, so it's all still good. But if they don't win ...
That's when things get interesting. Revolutionaries have a way of coming to bad, violent ends. So, who ends up getting promoted, when the alter Kampfern start getting fitted for English hempen neckties?
You guessed it: the Organization Men. And why not? They've proven their ability to handle affairs, haven't they?
But here's the problem: they work first for the organization, then for its goals, in that order. Once you have a critical mass of Organization Men in the upper ranks, most of the activity of the group becomes geared towards support and maintenance, with only lip service being paid to the "real" cause.
I mean, what is FARC today but a glorified cocaine cartel? And when was the last time the IRA was politically meaningful? For most of the men in those groups, it's a paycheck, not about changing the world. Not anymore.
And absent a major victory, al-Qaeda is headed down the same road. It's an inevitability. And they're farther down the track than many Americans realize. Remember, they got their start in the early '90s, right after the first Gulf War. Say, fifteen years of organizational history.
And, in the last five years, they've suffered fearful losses amongst their True Believers...
You know, when I consider the amount of paperwork it takes to do anything really worthwhile over here, I can almost feel sorry for them.
Then again, not really. They are welcome, and more than welcome, to as much self-induced agony as they can muster. I wonder if anyone's ever translated Robert's Rules of Order into Arabic? That ought to put a couple of handfuls of sand in the gears...
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five Years?
Has it really been five years?
I have to confess: I haven't been watching the news today. Partly because I've been waiting on a phone call from the air-conditioning repairman, but mostly because I didn't want to hear it. The endless on-and-on by the talking heads, mumbling sonorously and decorously about the anniversary of the tragedy.
Which shows how truly and deeply they just don't get it.
When a good friend gets cancer, that's a tragedy. Somebody flying a fully-loaded airplane into a building is an act of war.
I remember quite cleary my thoughts and feelings that day. I remember hearing about the first plane crashing, and wondering how it could have happened. Accidents do happen, after all. During WWII, in heavy fog, a B-17 ran into the Empire State Building. I was still wondering about the odds of something similar happening today when the second one hit.
I don't believe in coincidences.
More to the point, I knew who was responsible, and more or less where he was.
I knew who Bin Laden was several years before 9/11, knew that he was responsible for the '93 WTC bombing, and knew that he was enjoying the hospitality of the Taliban. Putting two and two together wasn't exactly rocket science. It took me all of about ten seconds.
The only question remaining to my mind was, how do we respond?
On the whole, I think we've responded appropriately. We've used considerable restraint. In my angrier moments, I sometimes think that turning the whole region from the Jordan River to the Hindu Kush into a solid field of Trinitite might not be such a bad idea after all. But cooler heads have prevailed.
We smashed the Taliban. There are still a few remnants around today, but they aren't running the country anymore.
We smashed Al-Qaeda's training and supply infrastructure. Now that the training camps are gone, every casualty they suffer is expenditure from capital, not income. They haven't been totally destroyed. It's damn hard to totally destroy a cell-based organization. I'm reasonably sure it's a practical impossibility. But things like this have a relatively short shelf life as revolutionary movements. They have about ten years before they either (a) win, or (b) metastasize into fairly conventional criminal syndicates. They've shot their wad, and have nothing at all to show for it. Five years ago, they were the supermen of the Arab street. Now? They're rather less popular, especially since someone did the math and realized that most of Al-Qaeda's victims were other Muslims. Own goals never win friends or influence people.
We smashed Saddam Hussein. He had precisely bugger-all to do with 9/11, but Iraq's bizarre neither-fish-nor-fowl status simply had to be resolved sooner or later. Removal of his regime allowed Iraq's re-entry into the realm of nations. What becomes of it in the long run is, of course, up to the Iraqis. They can still make a total hash of it. But, they've got something like a fighting chance now, which is more than they had before.
Five years on, we haven't done as well as we might have, but we have done better than some have feared. In this "the glass might be half full but the damn thing leaks" world, that's about as good as anyone can hope for.
A few thoughts for the day:
StrategyPage has some thoughts on how far we've come since the attacks five years ago.
OpFor fires up the way-back machine, recalling September 11th, 1565, and the Battle of Malta.
And a neighbor here on Blogspot recalls yet another September 11th, the Battle of Brandywine, from the Revolutionary War.
Stout hearts, citizens. They cannot win unless we lose our nerve.
I have to confess: I haven't been watching the news today. Partly because I've been waiting on a phone call from the air-conditioning repairman, but mostly because I didn't want to hear it. The endless on-and-on by the talking heads, mumbling sonorously and decorously about the anniversary of the tragedy.
Which shows how truly and deeply they just don't get it.
When a good friend gets cancer, that's a tragedy. Somebody flying a fully-loaded airplane into a building is an act of war.
I remember quite cleary my thoughts and feelings that day. I remember hearing about the first plane crashing, and wondering how it could have happened. Accidents do happen, after all. During WWII, in heavy fog, a B-17 ran into the Empire State Building. I was still wondering about the odds of something similar happening today when the second one hit.
I don't believe in coincidences.
More to the point, I knew who was responsible, and more or less where he was.
I knew who Bin Laden was several years before 9/11, knew that he was responsible for the '93 WTC bombing, and knew that he was enjoying the hospitality of the Taliban. Putting two and two together wasn't exactly rocket science. It took me all of about ten seconds.
The only question remaining to my mind was, how do we respond?
On the whole, I think we've responded appropriately. We've used considerable restraint. In my angrier moments, I sometimes think that turning the whole region from the Jordan River to the Hindu Kush into a solid field of Trinitite might not be such a bad idea after all. But cooler heads have prevailed.
We smashed the Taliban. There are still a few remnants around today, but they aren't running the country anymore.
We smashed Al-Qaeda's training and supply infrastructure. Now that the training camps are gone, every casualty they suffer is expenditure from capital, not income. They haven't been totally destroyed. It's damn hard to totally destroy a cell-based organization. I'm reasonably sure it's a practical impossibility. But things like this have a relatively short shelf life as revolutionary movements. They have about ten years before they either (a) win, or (b) metastasize into fairly conventional criminal syndicates. They've shot their wad, and have nothing at all to show for it. Five years ago, they were the supermen of the Arab street. Now? They're rather less popular, especially since someone did the math and realized that most of Al-Qaeda's victims were other Muslims. Own goals never win friends or influence people.
We smashed Saddam Hussein. He had precisely bugger-all to do with 9/11, but Iraq's bizarre neither-fish-nor-fowl status simply had to be resolved sooner or later. Removal of his regime allowed Iraq's re-entry into the realm of nations. What becomes of it in the long run is, of course, up to the Iraqis. They can still make a total hash of it. But, they've got something like a fighting chance now, which is more than they had before.
Five years on, we haven't done as well as we might have, but we have done better than some have feared. In this "the glass might be half full but the damn thing leaks" world, that's about as good as anyone can hope for.
A few thoughts for the day:
StrategyPage has some thoughts on how far we've come since the attacks five years ago.
OpFor fires up the way-back machine, recalling September 11th, 1565, and the Battle of Malta.
And a neighbor here on Blogspot recalls yet another September 11th, the Battle of Brandywine, from the Revolutionary War.
Stout hearts, citizens. They cannot win unless we lose our nerve.
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