Comments for The Aviationist

Comment on Video: unidentified flying object trailing a C-17 over the U.S. West Coast by Kocrachon

Kocrachon — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:01:02 +0000

Well.. I hope you realize how crazy you are.. now that the US Airforce has an official image of it release, showed it was just stuck cargo…

Comment on UK about to launch air strikes to take out the Somali pirates once and for all. With some U.S. help. by @RaphiRS

@RaphiRS — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:01:48 +0000

I’ll believe it when the first PGMs hit their marks (humming):

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery;
In short, when I’ve a smattering of elemental strategy,
You’ll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.

Comment on Never seen before F-35′s centerline gun pod unveiled by David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:15:09 +0000

The shape is such to let you store weapons in the internal bay.

Comment on Never seen before F-35′s centerline gun pod unveiled by john

john — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:13:23 +0000

So whenever the 25mm gun is mounted, you can’t store any weapons in the internal weapon bay?

Comment on Never seen before F-35′s centerline gun pod unveiled by IK-3

IK-3 — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:03:21 +0000

A Joint Strike Frankenstein, that’s what it is. Good luck LM in making this a viable design – it would truly be a triumph of will over reason.

Comment on Never seen before F-35′s centerline gun pod unveiled by Marco Meschino

Marco Meschino — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:40:02 +0000

Addirittura il pod esterno per il cannone?!?

E’ veramente un pozzo inesauribile di novità e di costi questo F35!

Comment on Captured U.S. stealthy drone was hijacked exploiting GPS vulnerability. But hack description does not solve the mystery by brad

brad — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:47:05 +0000

I know I’m late on this but I need to make a few points that you all are missing.
1) Beings that this is a military aircraft it is likely using military grade GPS. Military grade gps is much more difficult to jam. And it can’t really be “faked out” because it is encrypted. The Iranians would have to have had the encryption key, which is extremely unlikely because these keys have the same level of security classification as the project itself (Secret or Top Secret).
2) Autonomous landing of a UAV is a relatively simple task, and almost all of our modern systems are capable of it. We are currently developing a drone that can land autonomously on a aircraft carrier.
3) The most likely scenario is that there was some sort of software glitch that put the aircraft into auto-land mode.
4) Even if the Iranians were able to detect the aircraft, it is extremely unlikely that they were able to hijack it. Everything on that aircraft is encrypted. And if they do have other U.S drones in their possession, they would be of limited value to them. All systems of this type have “anti-tamper” technology on them. This basically means in the event of a failure or crash, all of the electronics are fried to prevent the enemy from obtaining the code and reverse engineering or exploiting vulnerabilities.
5) Iran just got lucky, they had nothing to do with this aircraft crashing.

Comment on F-35 progress report. The year so far in review. by @RaphiRS

@RaphiRS — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:03:13 +0000

David,
You can add the following to your progress report:
Israel Air Force ordered 20 F-35s in October 2010, from LRIP 8 & 9.
Delivery will begin in 2016 and extend to 2018.
Depending on financing, IAF may order another 20 planes in 2012.

Comment on Canopy fogging caused F-16 runway overrun at Oshkosh by David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:28:35 +0000

That would be a pleasure!

Comment on Canopy fogging caused F-16 runway overrun at Oshkosh by Joseph Volpendesta

Joseph Volpendesta — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:12:44 +0000

Saw that one, David! Hope you can make it to Oshkosh someday.

Comment on F-104 by Shinji

Shinji — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:43:03 +0000

Interesting aircraft. Closer to a missile than to an airplane. Reminds me of the B1 Lancer

Comment on F-18 shows “God’s light” deploying flares at airshow by falco243ico

falco243ico — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:49:53 +0000

hi dude! I only have a question for you… do you know what is that stick with mop (it seems to be) that the crew-chief uses to “clean” or do smthg on the canopy…?!

ciao!

Comment on Alleged killing of two Indian fishermen in anti-piracy operation sparks diplomatic crisis between India and Italy by vishalvkale

vishalvkale — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:14:28 +0000

Frank and Honest Answer…. and I concur on quite a few points. Best of all, both you and I want the same thing: Justice if the Italians are guilty. Good Enough for me – and it should be good enough for everyone concerned. Perhaps Richards has the best answer of all: lets wait and not jump to conclusions either way!

Comment on [Updated] Air Force Special Operations Command using Russian encryption software on made-in-China iPADs by Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:59:32 +0000

GoodReader would not be used for approach plates…the NGA has developed an app, as has Jeppesen for that purpose, which is far more efficient at recalling the data and much more manageable–these are not PDFs. The AF has an app approval process whereby additional evaluations are made on top of what Apple levy’s or any other non-iOS app store for that matter.

Additionally, the devices will be locked down, non-configurable by the aircrew and monitored with an AF provided MDM solution as well as a MRM solution which is FIPS 140-2 certified.

By the way, aircrew currently carry the data on unencrypted, non-password protected DVDs, so IF the data was even worth protection what’s more at risk at being compromised a DVD or an iPad with a PIN code, that can be remotely wiped if lost? Even without the MDM or MRM solution some people are forgetting that the iPad itself is natively AES 256-bit encrypted…overkill for housing unclassified data.

Comment on Here’s the M-346 in Israeli Air Force colors by Y.K.

Y.K. — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:23:59 +0000

Nice. An Israeli modeler had a different scheme in mind:

http://www.fresh.co.il/vBulletin/showpost.php?p=4188089

I find Clark’s version to be better looking.