Moving On

The life of a defense contractor is never boring. Projects run out of money and engineers must shuffle off to a new/different project. New to them, sometimes new to the company and usually different from the project they just left.

Sometimes they have to find employment elsewhere. Like at a different company. Fortunately, that's not the case. This time.

Yes, I find myself caught in the never ending funding spiral. It's always feast or famine. Everyone must suffer eventually.

While I knew this was coming, I thought I had a job to jump too. Turns out I do. Just not the one I thought.

It seems that one manager thought another manager was going to keep me informed. As it turns out, neither told me anything. Each thinking that the other would take care of that. One of them (once notified, by me, of the error) referred to this as a "miscommunication". I'm thinking that my own characterization of it as a Mongolian cluster bleep, could be misconstrued. So I held my piece. And thought happy thoughts.

So...

Surprise!

Don't know what I'll be working on come Monday. But at least I'm still employed.

For now.

My Thoughts on Military Affairs, For What They're Worth...

Reminders of a Bygone Era

Last week I chimed in on a post over at Bring the Heat, Bring the Stupid concerning the independence of the Air Force. If you need to refresh your memory, XBradTC's take on things is here, my two cents was here. The reason I bring this up again is that some of the comments I received on that post made me think. A lot.

First of all, the comment which really set the creative juices flowing was this one, from Pogue, a blogger-in-arms and Navy veteran currently serving in the Army National Guard -

I actually believe the Army and Air Force should both be reduced to cadre during peace time, using the Guard and Air Guard to handle the nickle and dime stuff that comes up. The Navy and Marine Corps should be the power projection forces in peacetime. As far as the Air Force and Army Aviation being rejoined, I can see ups and downs either way. We would probably get more value out of eliminating a percentage of the staff bloat. As a modest proposal, how about we get rid of 90% of the O-9s, 80% of the O-8s, 70% of the O-7s ans 60% of the O-6's - either eliminating their function all together or moving it down a couple grades. All services. I wonder if anyone would notice? :-)

 My co-blogger, Tuna, who is a retired Naval Flight Officer (NFO), chimed in with this -

As a taxpayer, I'm 100% in agreement. As a military guy, I'm not as convinced, at least for the combined USA/USAF. As for merging other areas (USAF or USN taking over USMC Air, for instance), we'd lose a lot of specialization that each service brings to the table, and we'd have even more parochialism within the force than we do now. Now if you want to just unify the training systems at the basic level, I'd wholeheartedly agree. You could have a computer guy (using the exact same computer systems that his Navy Information Tech brothers in arms are learning. Afterwards, they can attend a service school to give them the advanced training the USAF or USA wants them to get. We already do this with basic flight training and intermediate Navigation training. That's what JPATS Joint Primary Aircraft Training System) was built for. I'd also agree with merging our individual intelligence services, and not just for the military- for the other organizations in the government as well.

Long time reader and frequent commenter Juvat, who flew both the F-4 Phantom and F-15 Eagle as an officer in the Air Force, had this to say -

My job in CinCPAC involved training JTF staffs how to do Campaign Planning. I'll confess, I learned a lot more from them than they learned from me, but one thing struck me as common throughout many of the people I worked with. They took Air Superiority as a given. IIRC the last American killed by an enemy aircraft occurred in North Africa in 1942, that's a long time not having to worry about a basic requirement of battlespace prep.

But juvat, they would say, nobody can stand up to us Air to Air wise, heck, the Eagle has well over 100 kills without a loss and the Raptor is even better, we don't need to worry about that. Yep, unless we're fighting China.  

So, my concern is a Combat Commander who doesn't really appreciate the need, downplaying the priority and not allocating assets to a problem 
resulting in a disaster. Notice I didn't mention another service Combat Commander, because in this day, I don't believe many USAF Generals 
appreciate the danger either.

Finally, there was this from HMS Defiant, who is a retired Navy captain (O-6 for you non-nautical types). He's held command at sea and knows his stuff inside and out - 

I commented on XBradTC's place. I started out Air Force but, when faced with a hole in the ground, I went upstairs and joined the navy. If we look at the astonishing number of fighter aircraft in the USAF we could probably scream out loud. Why do we have so many? They can self-deploy anywhere so all we need is a couple of hundred and they can destroy any air force in the world and be home the next day. I agree with Pogue above. There is a lot of excess that needs to go. There's a difference between the services and within the services. Even in the naval service we have aviation rates and seagoing rates that provide the same function but differently. The sailors that do the jobs are not 
interchangeable without some severe drawbacks. Nobody ever talks QDR* anymore, or, at least not out here in MetroParkCentralis.

So, a quartet of guys whose opinions carry a lot of weight with me. They've all "been there, done that". So, like I said, all of that got me to thinking.

First of all, Pogue's idea of reducing the Army and the Air Force to a cadre intrigues me and concerns me at the same time. First of all, what's a cadre?

A nucleus of trained personnel around which a larger organization can be built and trained.

Reducing the Army and Air Force to just a cadre would save a lot of money. Rather than having approximately a million people on active duty, you could probably reduce that to perhaps a hundred-thousand. On the other hand, the size of the reserve would have to increase tremendously. Those cadre would only be useful to expand the size of the force, they would be, by themselves, useless. Calling up the reserves, men and women who have already been trained would be the only way to go. The intake of civilians would have to be a continuous process. Training them from scratch at the start of a conflict would take far too long. By the time they could be fielded, there would no longer be a use for them. The war would be over.

Things have changed since World Wars One and Two. While those oceans are still pretty big, modern air transport can put troops on the ground in hours. Troops to overrun our airfields prior to bringing in follow on forces. Who would stop them? The TSA? The Transit Police?

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it well, "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

All a cadre and a large reserve will get you is a force ready to re-fight World War One. Lots and lots of semi-trained infantry. That's not going to deter anyone. And really, it's all about deterrence. If you can't deter an enemy, you will have to fight him. Or yield the field to him.

A cadre would also be useless for the Air Force. Pilots and aircrew need to fly nearly constantly to maintain proficiency. The only way around having a large active force is to increase the size of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. And you still have to pay for all of those aircraft.

Having the Navy and the Marine Corps handle the "nickel and dime stuff" which occurs from time to time might be feasible. But then what would be the proper size for those two services? Again, I think they would need to be expanded greatly. What do we consider to be nickel and dime stuff? Afghanistan?

However, eliminating the hugely bloated staffs we have now would save a lot of money. I would wager we could cut staff at the Department of Defense by at least 50%.

What Tuna has to say about combined training is a game winner. The WSO went through her training with both Air Force and Marine officers. No need to pay for the same training in two different services. If we can do it there in a highly technical field, we can do it for other things as well.

Both Juvat and HMS Defiant address the current size of the Air Force. Some serious study is needed in that area. How many fighters are enough? Do we still need manned strategic bombers? Though the ability of the B-52s, B1s and B2s to reach out and touch someone from literally thousands of miles away is impressive, those missions have, in recent years, been virtually unopposed.

Like Juvat said, many take air superiority for granted. However, not all of our potential opponents are lacking a modern Air Force. Many of them have very good planes and pilots. As good as ours? Maybe yes, maybe no. We don't want to come up short when the time comes to find out.

I will agree with all of those knowledgeable guys above that there is a lot of fat which can and should be cut. But cut fat, not muscle.

There are procurement programs that have been, and continue to be, money pits. Those should be eliminated entirely and the people behind them disbarred from ever spending another taxpayer's dime. If not actually put in prison. There is far too much waste in the defense industry. I see it every day.

But if you simply want to have the cheapest military possible, first step is to do this...

Bring back the draft?

And that is simply not going to happen any time soon. For many reasons.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

*The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is a legislatively-mandated review of Department of Defense strategy and priorities.

This Time It's Juvat's Fault

So frequent commenter and long-time reader Obi Wan Kenobi Juvat felt a disturbance in the Force that I needed to post another quiz.You can kinda-sorta guess what kind of quiz it is.

Guess who got that result?

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy.

If you're thinking I'm desperate for material, you'd be wrong. But I am desperate for sleep. Had an 0400 go to take The WSO to the airport this morning. And we're minding our three year old granddaughter for a few weeks while her parents are out skylarking about in their F-18s.

The last time we had a three year old (for whom we were totally responsible for) was 26 years ago. When The WSO herself was three.

So far it's been good.

Perhaps I'm just too tired to notice the chaos!

Goin' Up to Boston

Friday night The WSO and Little Bit flew into Boston. So we had to go pick them up at Logan International. Yes, I had to drive up to Boston. During rush hour. Fun? No, not at all. But there is a certain charm in taking an hour to go seven miles. Gives one time to ponder all the mysteries of how some people actually managed to get their driver's license.

But, it's great to have the youngest daughter and her daughter (my oldest granddaughter) around. The WSO heads back to Lemoore on Monday. Lots of carrier aviation type flying for her in the offing and Big Time is out in the wild training newbie pilots. So Little Bit gets to hang out with us here in Little Rhody for a spell.

Will she be spoiled? Of course.

The Missus Herself has already taken her to Toys 'R Us. I don't think it will be the last time.

Blogging will be light this weekend. As I sat down to write this short blurb, a little voice wanted to know, "What are you doing Grandpa?"

"I'm blogging sweetie."

"No. We have to watch Curious George."

Oh well. After all I am a fan of the wee monkey. But what's the deal with that guy in the yellow hat? Does he have a job? How does he support himself and George?

Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.

The Friday Flyby - 17 January

Lightning Encounter
Nicolas Trudgian

I was not surprised when I found the painting above and saw that it was another masterpiece from Mr Trudgian. The man can paint!

Wikipedia -

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" (der Gabelschwanz-Teufel) by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" (2 飛行機、1 パイロット Ni hikōki, ippairotto) by the Japanese, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, night fighting, photoreconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.

The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the mount of America's top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war.

The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving, and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll in the early versions was too slow for it to excel as a dogfighter. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.

Sayonara Zeke!

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning

If you love the P-38, how about FIVE P-38s!

Some of you may have seen the next video before (I posted it last year) but I liked it so much, I thought I'd post it again. I mean it does have a P-38 AND a Corsair. Great video!

One of the things I always found surprising about the P-38's cockpit was the control wheel (later a yoke), rather than the more normal "stick" you see in most fighter aircraft.

Cockpit of Glacier Girl

P-38 with Control Yoke

Glacier Girl

On July 15, 1942, a flight of six P-38s and two B-17 bombers, with a total of 25 crew members on board, took off from Presque Isle Air Base in Maine headed for the U.K. What followed was a harrowing and life-threatening landing of the entire squadron on a remote ice cap in Greenland. Miraculously, none of the crew was lost and they were all rescued and returned safely home after spending several days on the desolate ice.

Fifty years later a small group of aviation enthusiasts decided to locate those aircraft, which had come to be known as "The Lost Squadron," and to recover one of the lost P-38s. It turned out to be no easy task, as the planes had been buried under 25 stories of ice and drifted over a mile from their original location. - Wikipedia

Glacier Girl where they found her...

What her cockpit looked like back then (see her cockpit photo above)

Glacier Girl after restoration. She looks good!

Many of you might remember that Brigadier General Robin Olds is one of my favorite pilots. As I'm an old 8th Tac Fighter Wing guy and he commanded the wing in SE Asia, it seems natural.

Robin Olds

Here's something I didn't know -

Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently transitioned to P-51s and scored seven more kills. After World War II, he flew F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general with 16 kills. - Wikipedia

P-38J

Another aviation legend met his fate while flying the P-38 -

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944, Mort pour la France), was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.

Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa and South America. At the outbreak of war, he joined the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air), flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany. Following a 27-month hiatus in North America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, he joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared over the Mediterranean on his last assigned reconnaissance mission in July 1944, and is believed to have died at that time. - Wikipedia

A fascinating man, you can read more about him here.

One of the legendary accomplishments of the Lightning was the downing of the aircraft carrying the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (山本 五十六). (Note that in Japan, as in Korea, the family name is listed first. A convention I always follow.)

Admiral Yamamoto

To boost morale following the defeat at Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to make an inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. On 14 April 1943, the US naval intelligence effort, code-named "Magic", intercepted and decrypted a message containing specific details regarding Yamamoto's tour, including arrival and departure times and locations, as well as the number and types of planes that would transport and accompany him on the journey. Yamamoto, the itinerary revealed, would be flying from Rabaul to Balalae Airfield, on an island near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, on the morning of 18 April 1943.

On the morning of 18 April, despite urgings by local commanders to cancel the trip for fear of ambush, Yamamoto's two Mitsubishi G4M bombers used as fast transport aircraft without bombs left Rabaul as scheduled for the 315 mi (507 km) trip. Sixteen Lightnings intercepted the flight over Bougainville and a dogfight ensued between them and the six escorting Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes. First Lieutenant Rex T. Barber engaged the first of the two Japanese transports which turned out to be Yamamoto's plane. He targeted the aircraft with gunfire until it began to spew smoke from its left engine. Barber turned away to attack the other transport as Yamamoto's plane crashed into the jungle. - Wikipedia

Operation Vengeance
(Read more here.)

One of the earliest stories I remember my Dad telling me concerned the P-38.

I had just received a toy Lightning (either for my birthday or Christmas, I don't remember which) and my Dad told me the story of a friend of his who became a P-38 pilot back during the Second World War.

Seems his friend had not survived the war, he had been killed bailing out of his crippled P-38. Seems the bird had a bad reputation for killing its pilots if they had to jump. My Dad's buddy had hit the horizontal empennage, which some pilots called the "cheese knife".

As with any machine, there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Which led me to this video -

This also reminded me of the briefing I received from the crew chief when I went on my aerobatic flight in the SNJ-6: "If the pilot says jump, pull back the canopy, hit that quick release on the harness and dive over the right side of the aircraft head first. Aim for the trailing edge of the wing. Then when you're clear, pull that D-ring. If your chute doesn't open, we'll refund your money."

Then my back-seater (the guy actually flying the plane) chimed in, "And if I say jump, don't ask any questions, because you'll be talking to yourself."

Aviation humor. I love it...

Porky II and Glacier Girl

The Red Bull P-38

My buddy "Spill" likes these cutaway views...
(So do I!)

P-38s out at Chino in 2010

P-38 in fine company...
(Four of my favorites!)

And you thought I wouldn't manage to squeeze in an F-4...

The Independent Air Force

F-15s of the Massachusetts Air National Guard

Over at Bring the Heat, Bring the Stupid, xbradtc has an interesting post up regarding one man's view of the "need" for an Air Force. You can read that here. (Xbradtc has some interesting thoughts on the topic himself.)

As many of you (some of you?) might recall, I am an Air Force retiree. So you might think that I have a dog in this hunt. While I love the Air Force I was in, I'm not sure it's still the same Air Force. My old service has been in the news a lot lately. And not always in a good way!

There's this concerning the cheating scandal involving missileers (the guys and gals who are responsible for launching ICBMs) and then there was this scandal involving the commander of 20th Air Force.

So what's my take on "Do we need an independent Air Force?"

Well, to tell you the truth, I have mixed feelings. My gut feeling to keep the Air Force as an independent service is based solely on emotion. I do understand that as national defense gets more and more expensive, it's really rather stupid to not look for ways to make our Armed Forces more effective and less expensive.

The real problem is ensuring that the tools of war are wielded by someone who knows how. Doesn't matter if that wielder is wearing Army green, Air Force blue or whatever.

During my time "in harness" I saw a lot of duplication in the various schools maintained by the different services. A computer operator is a computer operator regardless of what uniform they wear. Ditto for a logistics specialist, a military policeman, a computer programmer etc. Yet in my day each service had their own schools for these fields. (Some service's schools were better than others. And no, it wasn't always the Air Force who led the way. I had the chance to work with some Marine software guys. Those guys were sharp and better than a lot of airmen I worked with. Oorah!)

Most importantly it's the generals and admirals who will be leading these forces who need to know what they're doing. A bad general is a bad general, regardless of what color uniform he or she is wearing. As more and more joint commands and assignments have been all the rage over the past twenty years (or so), many officers have learned how their sister services operate.

If it makes sense to re-organize the services (perhaps even eliminating the Air Force), then do it. Hell, the Marines have pilots, infantrymen, tankers and all sorts of different roles. Heck, with the right training they could even drive ships!

Harrumph, let's just put the Marines in charge and let them organize the services. Simplistic yes, but maybe not a bad idea.

Another idea would be to study what our neighbors to the North have done -

The Canadian Forces (CF) (French: les Forces canadiennes; FC), officially the Canadian Armed Forces (French: Forces armées canadiennes), is the unified armed force of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."

This unified institution consists of sea, land and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Personnel may belong to either the Regular Force or the Reserve Force, which has four sub-components: the Primary Reserve, Supplementary Reserve, Cadet Organizations Administration and Training Service, and the Canadian Rangers. The Department of National Defence provides Parliamentary oversight and is the civilian support system for the Canadian Forces. - Wikipedia

To tell you the truth, some of the inter-service rivalries and infighting have embarrassed the Army, the Navy and the Air Force over the years. That nonsense has also cost the taxpayers an awful lot of money as well over the years.

After all, we have more generals and admirals now than we had in World War II. In 1945 there were over 12 million Americans on active duty. Currently there are slightly over 2 million Americans wearing the uniform, active and reserve. So yeah, we're a little top heavy.

We need to take a long hard look at how to fix the system. If it requires some streamlining and re-organizing, so be it.

Anyway, that's my two cents...

Work, Work, Work...

As some of you may (or may not) remember, I work for a defense contractor. Considering the amount of money the Pentagon pays for weapon systems and such, you'd think we'd all be driving one of these -

Nope. Not even close!

There are times when I wonder where all that money goes. $4000 toilet seats? $250 hammers? Nope.

Meetings.
Meetings and "process".

There are folks where I work who do nothing (it seems) but go to meetings. Where (and I'm not kidding) they spend time planning their next meeting, or series of meetings. Where they discuss flying out to meet with the customer. In order to discuss the agenda for their next meeting.

I try to avoid meetings. I have had to actually hold meetings from time to time. As they were my meetings they were always an hour or less.

One guy told me that sometimes meetings had to be longer than an hour.

I said, "Never. If it lasts longer than an hour it's a conference or a seminar. And the company best plan on providing food. And coffee."

I have been known to get up and walk out of meetings that were one of the following:

• boring
• stupid
• a waste of time
• all of the above

It costs a lot of money to tie down 6 to 10 engineers and a manager (or three) in a meeting for an hour. So it better be worthwhile.

We have a bunch of folks where I work whose job it is to make sure we "follow the process". Actually what they view as "process" we view as capturing "metrics". Ya know, bean counting. (I think one of the "metrics" they feed into the "process" is how many meetings the team holds each month. There might even be a quota.)

So yeah, the glamorous world of defense contracting as a software engineer.

Hey, it's a paycheck. And every now and then I actually make a difference.

Just not today.

Sigh...