Meet the Men Who Deploy Airstrikes

Lanxon writes "Wired followed US Army Staff Sergeant Kevin Rosner into Afghanistan to see first-hand the tools, tactics, and pressures involved in coordinating military airstrikes. This lengthy piece explores the people and technology involved in high-risk airborne warfare, from their perspective. From the article: 'Strapped to his chest, Rosner carries a handheld video player called a "Rover," built by L3 Communications, a New York-based defense contractor. The device, the size and shape of a PSP game console and costing tens of thousands of dollars, reads signals transmitted by the camera pods strapped to the underside of all NATO fighter aircraft. With his Rover, Rosner can see everything a pilot sees, from the pilot's perspective. On his back he carries a radio programmed with secure frequencies that tie him directly to the pilots overhead and to his unit's headquarters, several miles away. At the headquarters, another JTAC monitors a bigger, more sophisticated video terminal that displays the same video Rosner sees, plus other data.'"

Comments

Re:Oh

[ibsteve2u]

• Iraq under Sadam after first Gulf war, wasn't producing oil at 100% therefore; the price of oil was historically (at the time) high.
• When oil prices are high, US economy goes into the toilet because our economy is based on cheap oil.

I would argue with that; you have to remember that there were oil men from Texas in the White House.

• Increasing tension in the Middle East drives speculation which in turn increases oil prices
• Speculation enables plain old-fashioned price gouging and thus incredible profits
• High oil prices are good for Texas as they subsidize their state government with healthy severance taxes on the market value of oil
• High oil prices provide an excellent lever to use to force the opening of near-shore drilling as well as ANWR
• The Bush Administration was so interested in seeing the right people make a lot of money that when energy prices really began getting out of control they flat-out refused to do anything about the hedge funds

My point being that the invasion of Iraq had NOTHING to do with lowering the price of energy, which would have been good for ALL of the American people; rather, it had to do with enabling a few people to increase their rate of wealth accumulation. Consider: The former objective is Democratic; the latter, Republican.

Re:U.S. Air Force Sergeant, Not U.S. Army

[karlwilson]

How good do you have to be to shoot down rusty Soviet cast-offs and bomb weddings? The US air-force is probably the safest job in military history.

It's safe because we are that good. Let me give you a little perspective on what it takes to get into a fighter cockpit these days. I'll keep it simple and give you my own personal story of getting there. My ROTC class started with 80. Of that, only 15 graduated and became officers in the Air Force (19%). Of those 15, 4 of us received pilot slots (26%). At initial flight screening, 16/20 graduated and were able to go to Undergraduate Pilot Training (80%). At pilot training, 11/14 students in my flight made it through primary training (79%). 1 of those 11, me, was selected for T-38s (Fighter/Bomber track) (9%). And in my T-38 class of 6 people, we might see 2 fighters (more likely 1) (17%).

So through my own personal path, 5/1000 people who try, will make it into a fighter cockpit.

That's how good you have to be.