Free Ride!

 

OK, I don't think I've written about this subject before.  I don't know if what I'm going to talk about is still being done. I don't think it is, but it had a lot of good results in it's day.

The program was called "Incentive Rides".  Members of the non-rated Air Force (AKA not Pilots or WSO's*) who had impressed their chain of command could be selected for an Incentive Ride in one of the Base's jets.  

Yes, Beans, in a two seater.

They would get some basic training on emergency equipment just in case things went south.  Then they would be put on the flying schedule with a very experienced pilot.  They would be briefed on what was going to happen on the ride, and how to deal with it. 

Basically, this was pulling G's.  When a fighter turns, the pilot rolls the jet into an appropriate angle of bank.  Airliners do the same, but it's usually no more that 10 degrees of bank.  Fighters generally turn using 70+ degrees of bank.  

Oh, did I mention that when a fighter goes into a high bank angle,  the G-Load gets pretty high pretty fast. Which can include, if not prepared, the possibility of losing consciousness.  That could ruin the mission of the incentive ride because the rules state if someone loses consciousness, whether a person on an incentive ride, or a experienced fighter pilot/WSO, returning to base and landing is mandatory.  

Oh yeah, a visit to the Flight Surgeon is also required.

I always enjoyed giving them that ride so I went to great extremes to keep them happy (and avoid them having to visit the Flight Surgeon).  It was a reward for excellent effort on their part in getting their job done.  As such, in the brief, I would ask what kind of ride they would like.  The options were anything from a fantastic view of the local area in complete comfort (OK relative comfort, they WERE strapped in to an ejection seat) up to a ride that would make the best Disneyland E-ticket ride feel like a walk in the park.

I distinctly remember one of the incentive rides I gave.  I was scheduled to fly a ride with a Senior Airman (E-3) Crew Chief who'd had a very good record in keeping "his" F-4 mission ready.

In the briefing, I mentioned those briefed options   This Airman was from the deep south.  He answered.  "Sir, I don't wanna do any "Loop-de-Loops".  

OK.

We take off and are in the local practice area, driving around like a Cadillac.  I'm bored to tears.  I hear him ask "Sir, can we do a little faster turn?"

"Why, yes I can". I roll into bank and pull 2 G turn.  He says, "That was great, can you turn faster?"

 "Why, yes I can".  I roll into about 70 degrees of bank and pull on the stick to 6 G's (our g-loading limit).  I hear this loud yell over the intercom, so immediately roll wings level and ease off the stick to 1 G.

"Airman, are you ok?"

"Sir, that was Sheet Hot!"

I immediately went into demonstrating high speed, 2 or 3 G maneuvering.  After a bit, he asks "Sir, can we do a Loop Dee Loop?"

A loop is a 4 or more G maneuver.

I start the maneuver. 

At the top of the loop, I look in the mirror, he's got his head back looking at the ground above him.  He lets out a "Yeee HAWWWW!' over the intercom.

Brought a smile to my face, yes it did. 

Suffice it to say, whenever I got assigned his aircraft, I got treated  quite well. 

Based on that ride, I volunteered to fly any incentive ride I could.  The people that were going for the ride were the cream of the crop, so this was a reward for both of us.

 

 

This was another ride I knew about.  Somebody I'm deeply proud of, even now, got selected for an incentive ride in the F-4E.  The pilot is on the left,  next to him is the Wing Executive officer, next is his assistant executive officer, next is my Weapons System Office (WSO AKA Back Seater), Me, then my Flight Commander.

The young lady in the middle is also my wife.  One of the traditions of flying a fighter in the USAF is soaking one down on their final flight at that assignment.  When she landed the tradition was carried out.  

I asked the Pilot how she did.  No problems and a lot of fun.  Excellent!

 We received orders shortly thereafter. She and I were going to Holloman AFB to fly AT-38s.

That would be Captain/Mrs. Juvat in the back seat

 Fast forward 3 years. We're now at Holloman and about to leave,  Mrs J (AKA Capt/Mrs J) gets scheduled for another incentive ride.  There is one obstacle, she is pregnant with our son.  The flight surgeon said "No" to the flight. So, they do a high speed taxi ride.

 Shortly thereafter, it's my turn, the squadron members (who weren't flying, briefing or debriefing met me at the jet with fire extinguishers  to wet me down and present me with a cheap bottle of Champagne.  I had enjoyed the time, but had bigger, better, faster things ahead of me.

 

The guy to the left in the picture?  Yeah, I took some gun camera film of him

Yep, that's me after my last ride in the Eagle, also the last airplane I was at the controls of.  Mrs J (at the time Major J) only got a taxi ride in the Eagle because of a medical condition which is obvious in this picture.  MBD was born a month or so later.

 I really enjoyed taking folks on incentive rides, they were satisfying to both parties.

So..a little music about the subject, just because it seems right! 

 

 

*WSO -Weapons System Officer. Basically the non-pilot on board a fighter responsible for a lot of different jobs in some fighters (F-4 and F-111, back in the day, F-15E nowadays)

The Well is Running Dry

Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the Panther
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Contrast the German Panther commander's position above with that of the Soviet KV-1 commander's position below ...

Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the KV-1
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Note the game play aids along the bottom of the screen along with the mini-map in the lower right hand corner.

I've had this game for a long time, couple of years at least. When I got it my machine didn't really have the cojones to run the game, it IS a resource hog, comparatively speaking. My Razer laptop could run it but that poor beast died before I could really get to this game. Okay, I have a LOT of games for the computer.

My current laptop has the cojones to run the game but, and this is a big but, the laptop heats up quickly when playing games of this sort and I don't really want to burn up another laptop. Laptops are deuced useful when traveling dontcha know? But the smell of hot electronics bothers me. A lot. Can't imagine why. (Bit of snark there, I used to work avionics and the smell of hot electronics meant there was something we had to fix ... Which is exactly why I don't like that smell.)

My current desktop machine has lots of power and lots of cooling fans, seven to be precise, and the CPU is liquid cooled, not quite like a Maxim machine gun but you get the idea.

I'm still getting to know this new machine (so far I love it) and I do that by playing games on it. It's who I am, it's what I do. Can't command armies in the field but I certainly can on my computer. Best of all, no one gets hurt for real.

A game I am anxiously awaiting is Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). The following screenshot might tell you why ...

Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)

I have the American Civil War version of this, Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) and enjoy it though the graphics aren't quite as good as what is shown above. As can be seen below ...

Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

The units seemed to be scaled better in the former, by which I mean the number of men represented on the display matches what the actual unit would have. If a battalion has 500 men, you'll see 500 men. The latter game seems to have fewer soldiers on the display than would be present in real life. Then again, that might be a setting the user can fiddle with. More items to display takes longer and on lower end machines could really bog down the game play. We shall see.

So that's what I'm up to, as for material for blog posts the well does seem to be running dry. Maybe it's me being lazy (or tired, I stay up way too late playing these damned games) or perhaps I need a break.

Might take a couple of weeks away from the hurla burla of the internet, I'm starting to need it. Failbook is driving me nuts (too much political shit) so I'm cutting back on my time spent over there. I'll read friend and family posts about their families and vacations but not much more. It's getting out of hand. (And don't get me started on the number of bloody ads Failbook inundates us with.)

Anyhoo, enjoy your Sunday. See you ...

Uh, scratch that, be back on Tuesday with something, I dunno ...

Maybe inspiration will hit, you never know.

Good Times

Source

Thursday, the first of the so-called “crazy days” leading up to Lent, is known as Weiberfastnacht or the Women's Carnival, where women cut off men's ties as a symbol of power reversal. The women sometimes reward obliging men with a bützchen, or friendly peck on the cheek, a less common tradition today. Source (You can also read about it in more detail here.)

So yes, Thursday, Lincoln's Birthday, was Altweiberfastnacht. (I think the "Alt" part of the name was lost to political correctness some time ago, as it means "old," just like no one says "Fräulein" any more. Modern times, yuck.) I saw mention of this on the internet on Friday, brought back a memory it did. Of the old days. (Hhmm, mentioning the "old days" and Germany in the same context is problematic, innit?)

Anyhoo.

There I Was ...

Sitting at my desk at Geilenkirchen AB, Germany, compiling a bunch of C++ code as I recall. It was a large-ish program and compiling and linking all of it took some semi-lengthy amount of time. Perhaps 30 minutes or so. Then if something is amiss, you fix it and start over again.

Normally (normalerweise, auf Deutsch) I would occupy my time during a long compile by playing cards (FreeCell to be precise) on the computer while monitoring progress. One Altweiberfastnacht (I believe it was 1999, some three months prior to retiring from the Air Force) I was doing just that. While doing so, a band of celebrants of the female variety entered my office on a mission to cut the ties off of any man they encountered.

As I normally wore my BDUs¹ to work, having occasion to sometimes crawl about the lab and other places where computer equipment was in use to check on cables (which the cleaning staff would sometimes inadvertently unhook or otherwise cause to lose connectivity) and having once destroyed a rather pricey pair of uniform pants doing that, I felt justified in doing so. (My colonel once chided me for that, after explaining myself, he relented, in fact he started wearing his BDUs to work as well. Now it seems to be all the rage.)

Long story short, one does not wear a tie with BDUs, now on Altweiberfastnacht the ladies, especially the European ones, get annoyed if one does not wear a tie so that they can destroy it, so I adopted the expedient of fashioning a false tie out of cardboard and affixing that to my attire in lieu of wearing an actual tie, which would get destroyed. Not being made of money, as the saying goes, I did not wish to lose a tie once a year. So ...

Anyhoo, long story short ...

I'm sitting at my desk, monitoring my compile job and having a game of FreeCell when I hear the clamor of a group of females approaching my position. When they entered I presented my fake tie for destruction which some of the ladies (the Europeans) chuckled at, as they knew me well by this point, this being my 8th Altweiberfastnacht. They snipped it and prepared to move on to find their next victim when one paused, looked at my computer screen, then looked at me. I should note that this lady was an American captain (O-3 Air Force type, not O-6 Navy type).

"Playing games on Air Force time?" she asked in a semi-serious tone.

"I'm compiling ma'am, while I'm compiling I play FreeCell. And yes, I'm compiling on Air Force time, as well as playing a game."

"Hhmm, that seems less than professional."

I realized at that point that she might be serious after all, it seems to be a habit of our non-rated officers to be somewhat, shall we say, pretentious. As a senior noncommissioned officer, I felt it was my duty to respond in a corrective manner.

"Perhaps ma'am, but maybe just as professional as running around the building cutting off ties."

At which the European ladies all had a good laugh and our young captain blushed mightily, realizing the absurdity of her position. The ladies left without further ado.

When the compile was done, I went and picked up The Missus Herself and went to join the festivities at the club on base. Fun times were had, no ties were harmed on my part.

I miss Germany at times.

Good times.

¹ Battle Dress Uniform, or BDUs for short.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Source

So a few years back I had the privilege of "flying" the F/A-18 simulator out at NAS Lemoore, where Big Time and LUSH live. While Big Time is still on active duty, he's now on CAG staff aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) so he doesn't fly as much as he used to. Odds are I won't get another sim ride in this lifetime. More's the pity.

Anyhoo, I was reminded of that sim ride when Michael mentioned in yesterday's comments how the Navy uses a lot of simulation to train their sailors. So I went down memory lane and decided to repost this one from 2013. I mean I'm really busy playing games at the moment, so ...

One more thing, Beaner49 asked if there were any new tank sims for the PC and I had mentioned Sherman Commander being (maybe) released this year. I went to Steam to see if there were any updates and lo and behold discovered that they had released a demo of that sim. I downloaded it, checked it out, and all I can say is ...

TAKE MY MONEY!!

Anyhoo, here's a blast from the past, perhaps I'll ...

Damn it, gotta run, got a contact off the port bow, might be a sub, might be a whale, but I have to check it out ...

Okay, that's not the view from a Rhino as you approach "the boat", but it gives you a pretty good idea what I was seeing in the simulator today. Well, kind of...

I was always a bit high. To my credit I didn't do a ramp strike.

So I had that going for me.

Got to the sim building on time (which can be a minor miracle when you have to get a three year old ready at the same time!) I settled into "the jet" right around 1045 local. After adjusting the rudder pedals and the seat, we were ready to go. Son-in-law Big Time was my instructor and he's a good one. Tells you what to do and why you do it a particular way.

After an unfortunate, "What the Hell was that?" incident, (Big Time hit a button, all I saw was the "red screen o' Death" then we reset) we were ready for take-off. Out of NAS Miramar of all places!

F9F-6P of VC-61 over NAS Miramar
(Back in the day)

When Big Time said we were ready to go, the throttles went forward, past the detent and into 'burner. As he put it, "Guess you know about that part..." As he started to speak again I had already eased in a bit of right rudder to correct a rather disturbing "Hey look, I'm heading off the left side of the runway" problem.

In moments we were "airborne", simulated of course.

This sim was rather placid, no movement to give you a feel for flying, but rather nice displays and sound. We seemed to be flying around the time of nautical twilight. Either that or someone needed to crank up the brightness and contrast. Heh.

I was at 20K in no time flat so we played around for a while. Did a loop, which was alright until I did the old "look straight up and back to acquire the horizon" thing only to note that the all-around displays weren't quite 360-degrees. Directly overhead, nothing. So I looked right, reacquired the horizon and pulled out comfortably with beaucoup altitude to spare. I hadn't tied the low altitude record yet!

Next I wanted to build up some smash. I suppose I could have put the nose down to gain airspeed but where's the fun in that? Past the detent and into 'burner I went (after all we're in the sim, who cares about fuel conservation?)

When I got her going pretty good, I pulled back to military power, rolled left and pulled the stick back hard into a pretty sweet high-G turn. Big Time showed me the read-out, I think I got it up to 5-Gs. But as you couldn't really feel it, it wasn't that much fun. So I figured I would do some more maneuvering to see if I could at least not look like an idiot while "flying".

Did a rather nice Immelmann (again, the lack of a full 360 display was a bit disconcerting), then from there went into a Split-S. (Yes, I did check the altitude first!) While enjoying the sight of the displays reacting to my maneuvering I kind of lost my situational awareness. Next thing I know "Bitching Big Time" is muttering in my ear, "Pull up, pull up". Oh yes, boys and girls, the Old AF Sarge was rapidly approaching tying the low altitude record but through judicious back pressure on the stick (as in trying to touch my spine with the joystick) I managed to level off at a rather uncomfortable 100 feet.

By the way, the simulator displays are rather 3-D. 50 feet lower and I do believe I would've plowed into a ridge. At least it looked like a ridge as it passed rather rapidly under the jet.

So, let's find the boat and try and land this beast.

After some fooling around (and a reset to give me a bit more fuel, remember I went into 'burner more than was probably prudent early in the flight) there was this disturbance on the ocean's surface.

"That's the wake?"

"Yup, of course we're pretty far out yet. It'll get bigger."

Well, technically yes, it does get bigger. But OH MY GOD I HAVE TO LAND WHERE?

Yes, big ocean, small boat. Relatively speaking.

First approach wasn't too bad. Of course, the old timers would no doubt argue that the jet practically lands itself. You can set Automatic Throttle Control (ATC) which will manage your airspeed pretty nicely. Unless you jerk the controls around a bit much. Then the onboard computers decide, "Well, the meatware seems to want to do things his way, alright, YOUR JET!"

Yup, ATC will shut off if your control inputs are, shall we say, a bit rough. Ditto the autopilot. Kind of sucks when you're slamming the jet around trying to stay on path and on glideslope. Gently does it cowboy, gently! 

Rhino Heads Up Display (HUD)

So I'm coming in pretty good, just a tad high. Big Time says "chop the power" (or words to that effect), I pull the throttles all the way back. I'm on the deck.

Um, shouldn't I be stopping now? Laughing maniacally, I push the throttles into 'burner and start yelping "bolter, bolter, bolter". Time to try again.

"So Big Time, what happened there?"

"Well, you came down a little hard, so I'm guessing you managed to bounce your 'hook over all four of the wires."

"Well. That sucks."

"Hey, it happens."

"To you?"

"Of course not."

So we went around again. For two more touch and goes. And one low pass over the boat when I realized I had pulled back on the stick instead of pushing forward like my nice IP told me to.

"What was that?"

"Uh, I wanted to wave at the Admiral?"

"Right..."

So our sim time was up. I never did trap, but I didn't damage the carrier in any way. No sailors were harmed.

I also was amazed at just how much seawater those General Electric F414 engines can suck down and still function.

(While I never hit the boat, we did go swimming a couple of times.)

As we departed the sim, the operator guy who controls everything said, "You need a little work on your landings." Yes, we all had a good laugh at that. Nice of him to say "a little", rather than, "Hey, you suck at this!"

All in all, three things today -

1) It's not easy landing on an aircraft carrier,

2) Big Time is a superb instructor,

3) Aircraft carriers only look big when you're not trying to land on them.

Today was:

AWESOME!!!

Oh Yeah!!!

What? No Tanks?

Screen shot from the game (splash screen)

Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age

Nope, no tanks today, I've been too busy learning a new game on the computer. It's one of those games about which my former naval officer son once remarked, "Too much like what I do for work for me to really enjoy it ..."¹

And this one is pretty good.

I picked this up a few months back but haven't really had the chance to really get into it until now. I did play it once right after I got it, decided to jump straight in without playing any of the tutorials and got my ass kicked.

I was in charge of two ships doing gunfire support off the coast of Vietnam, feeling my way through the controls. A couple of enemy aircraft came on scene, seeing a MiG make a low pass over my flagship, unopposed because I forgot to tell the lads to engage, made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

Seeing BOTH of my ships dead in the water and on fire, really got my attention. This time, I'm going through all of the tutorials, multiple times no doubt, before going to sea again!

There's a lot to this game and it's going to take some time to get good at it, or I might suck at it forever, that happens. So bear with me, if the posts seem short, it's probably because I'm out at sea somewhere, stalking someone, or running from someone.

So far, I am very impressed.

It's something to watch your aircraft come up on the elevators (on a carrier) or come out of the hangar (helicopters on destroyers), watch them preflight, then launch. The graphics are pretty good, much sharper than the release trailer above.

I should note that this game is in "Early Release," which means we get to pay to play and provide bug reports and suggestions to the developers. I should note that I have zero problems with this. In my old job I remarked on more than one occasion that that was the sort of work I'd pay someone to let me do. So getting paid to do it was a bonus.

The time period is the Cold War, so think Sprucans and older non-nuke carriers as well as the first three nuclear carriers, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), USS Nimitz (CVN-68), and USS Dwight  D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). Hopefully they'll include Burkes at a later date. For now, I'm happy with what there is.

Here's a series of screen shots I took while launching a helo from USS Gallery (FFG-26). In the first shot you can see the port side hangar door opening. On the lower right of the screen is the flight deck window which indicates that I've got an SH-2F heading towards the launch point.

Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)

Now in the next screen you can see the helo is out of the hangar but hasn't moved to the launch point yet (the middle of the circle on the flight deck).

Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)

Once the aircraft is at the launch point, you can listen as the engines spool up, the sound is pretty awesome. After a short wait, the rotors begin to spin. Although you can't see it in the shot below, the rotors are spinning and it's shortly before the pilot "pulls pitch." If you look close, you can see the rotor wash on the sea from the helo!

Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)

Now the aircraft is airborne and awaiting your orders.

Really cool stuff if you ask me.

Screen shot from the game (Actual game play)

So if the posts seem short (maybe even non-existent), you'll know why.

Okay, sea and anchor detail have been called away, gotta run, see you when I get back. Virtually, of course.

Ciao!

¹He does play now, after being out of the Navy for over a decade.

Is the Main Battle Tank Obsolete?

Source

In yesterday's post more than one commenter mentioned that the advent of the drone has made the tank as useless as horse cavalry. (Note, horsemen were used to some good effect in Afghanistan. Horses are still useful in getting people from point A to point B.)

I wanted to address that idea, that thought. While I thought about how I would answer the question, I turned to The Chieftain. I was quite sure that Nicholas Moran might have some thoughts on the subject. Better than mine, that's for sure.

And of course he does.

Now the video is three years old, back when people were starting to notice all the drones flitting about Ukraine destroying Russian vehicles (including tanks) and hapless infantrymen who were caught in the open. (Anyone who has survived infantry combat will tell you that it's a very bad thing to be caught in the open.)

So rather than try to argue the point myself (and I am no expert on armored combat) I'll let the SME do it. Take it away LTC¹ Moran!

Note: YouTube has been having some issues lately, if the video claims it's "not available at this time," just refresh your screen.

So yes, the tank ain't dead yet, probably won't be for quite some time.

And it isn't because they look cool, it's because they are still bloody effective.

As to what lessons we can learn from Ukraine and all of those videos on X and YouTube? Here's LTC Moran's take on that ...

He knows his stuff and he knows when not to opine. Good man that.

¹ Proper abbreviation for a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.

The New Tank on the Block

Source

Militaries which don't evolve to meet the ever-changing demands of the battlefield waste human lives and resources. It's nice to know that the U.S. Army is not falling into that trap.

My old buddy Dwight (retired Navy and fellow Lexican) tipped me off to this new armored fighting vehicle currently in work. A few things about it raised a few warning flags in this old engineer's brain, so I went looking for The Chieftain's thoughts on the project. I feel a whole lot better now and I think that this "new" vehicle will be a war winner if, God forbid, we need to ever deploy tanks on a future battlefield. (From what I understand, many of the lessons learned in Ukraine will be considered. Just in case you were worried about that.)

Okay, this is a long video, but well worth your time. Nicholas Moran knows his business, he's an armor officer, and puts a lot of thought into the subject matter. He is truly a Subject Matter Expert when it comes to armored fighting vehicles and mobile warfare, both the history and the practice thereof.

Before jumping into the video, there were a couple of things I noted as a former engineer who saw the many ways people could find to kill a viable weapon systems concept.

The Chieftain asked (around the 25:50 mark of the video) why this wasn't a new tank but still an M1 variant. Colonel Howell's answer was that this wasn't really a new tank, because ...

"They did the requirements right back then ..."

Something Zumwalt (my big project as a worker bee) never really got right and never really finished. Requirements churn was a HUGE problem in the early days. If you can't nail those down, why the heck are you spending money on building the damned thing?

This machine is being built with the users in mind, the folks who will actually be manning the thing. (I mean it will even have cupholders! You'd be surprised how nice those are to have! Go to 27:30 in the video for a good talk about crew amenities.)

Anyhoo, here's the video, if you have any interest in how your tax money is spent on new military hardware, you should watch the whole thing.

The only thing which makes me nervous is the software for this beast. Believe me when I say, I know how easy it is to make a mess of that. You don't want your gunner to have to stop and say, "Sorry Skipper, you'll have to wait, the computer is rebooting ..."

Been there, done that and it does not impress the customer.

Enjoy.