The US would make more ground investigating the US bank accounts of certain very rich nations who export petrochemicals and use profits to make this whole thing happen.
What makes you think that this wasn't one of the parameters this thing would look for.
From the summary above:
"However, according to the article, a DHS spokesman assures that the program will be restarted once the security and cost are re-evaluated."
From the article: "DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told The Associated Press on Wednesday the project was being dropped.
"ADVISE is not expected to be restarted," Knocke said."
The next sentance in the article is the problematic one.
"DHS' Science and Technology directorate "determined that new commercial products now offer similar functionality while costing significantly less to maintain than ADVISE."
So they're not restarting it, they are dropping it. They are not, however, dropping the functionality. Just moving to another platform.
Learn to read. I was very obviously talking about the nuclear warheads. The sentence I quoted clearly said "nukes".
The words missile and nukes have been used interchangeably in here (and very incorrectly). When someone says "the nukes", it is not immediately clear whether they are refering to just the warhead, or the complete assembly. No, the warheads weren't supposed to be transported. Yes, the missile bodies were.
Actually I *would* argue the latter... that USA should *first* eliminate its own stockpile of nuclear weapons to something matching at *least* the Russian or Chinese levels,
Seeing as the Russian stockpile is larger than that of the US, you are suggesting we increase? Interesting.
And the botched operation ni this article was purportedly doing exactly what you suggest. Removing operational missiles from the stockpile.
An actual training munition is marked with blue paint. As this was a former operational weapon being decommissioned/destructed, I imagine it looked exactly as it did before the warhead was removed. And I imagine the security, transport, custody, prep, and loading procedures went exactly as they would have had it been live.
You can't 'accidentally' nuke things left and right. 1. They look completely different than a conventional weapon 2. They are handled completely differently. 3. They are launched and armed differently.
You can't mistake a cruise missile for anything else. Evidently, you CAN mistake a cruise missile with no warhead, with one that does have a warhead.
In addition to procedural changes, I expect the Air Force will retrofit some kind of visual indicator on the outside of the weapon.
They were supposed to be carrying the missiles. They were supposed to be carrying them on the wing pylon. They just weren't supposed to have the warhead inside. From the outside, they look exactly the same.
I've heard reports that there is an inspection window on the ALCM, whereby you can see the existence or non existence of the warhead. Not having worked ALCMs, I don't know if this is true. I know on other munitions that does not exist. If there is one, then many, many people screwed up. Load crew, delivery crew, aircrew. Which I also find incomprehensible...that all of them screwed up in exactly the same way.
I saw claims that one could verify the presence of a warhead by looking in an eyelet *and* that that was part of the checklist for these things for both the pilots and the crew that loads the missiles.
Not having worked the ALCMs, I don't know if there is or isn't. I know on other similar munitions, there isn't.
If there is and that is part of the checklist to check it (as I imagine it would be), many more people fucked up. But to have so many people in the chain fuck up in exactly the same way is a pretty far stretch.
(disclaimer: I was a USAF armament specialist for most of 2 decades) They weren't mistakenly mounted. It was a deliberate flight from Minot to Barksdale, with missiles on the wing, just as planned. The issue is that the missile bodies, which were supposed to be empty, weren't empty.
But no, we didn't almost nuke ourselves. USAF aircraft are never accidentally loaded with nukes. There is no way for a single load crew to do it, nor a single aircrew to cause it to be loaded. And as far as an accidental nuclear explosion. I won't use the word "impossble". But its as close to that as you can imagine.
The problem here lies not with the load crew, the crew chief, nor even the pilots. There is no way to tell, by looking at the outside, whether the warhead is inside or not. And it is none of those peoples responsibility to ensure that it is or isn't. In fact, they don't have the clearance in to the backshop where such operations are performed.
The breakdown came somewhere earlier in the chain.
The pilots were told to take 6 empty missile bodies from Minot to Barksdale for eventual destruction. They get to the aircraft, lo and behold, 6 missiles on the wing. All is good.
Earlier that day, a load crew was tasked to load 6 ostensibly empty missile bodies onto Aircraft XYZ.
The delivery crew brought out the correct 6 supposedly empty missiles.
And the exact same custody and handoff procedures are used for empty missiles as well as those with warheads.
So the delivery crew brings them out, the load crew loads them and then turns the aircraft over to the crew chief and aircrew. Everything checks out as it should.
Off they go to Barksdale.
The missile shop, for whatever reason, did not remove the warheads from the missiles identified for destruction.
The relevant questions are: Did they mistakenly not remove the warheads? Major screwup, as they were now missing 6 warheads) Or did they knowingly leave the warheads in, under the mistaken assumption that the complete missiles were to be destroyed?
Either way, many heads will roll. Some already have.
This has nothing to do with the ABM treaty, and everything to do with the START treaty. Which Bush (the elder) signed in 1991. Bush (the junior) announced in 2001, "further reduce the number of operationally deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next ten years"
There is no need to move missiles from Minot to Barksdale. Barksdale already has a very large storage area of it's own.
Not that they needed as Kiev class aircraft carrying cruisers did not use a steam catapult anyway. They did not need to as all of their aircraft are VTOL. It is just about now they start looking into using steam catapults on the latest generation of aircraft carriers.
All of their aircraft are VTOL? Hardly. The Kiev class ships carried the Yak-38 Forgers. Those are/were VTOL. However, the aircraft reportedly sucked, and it could only carry a dozen or so. Why did the Kiev not carry other aircraft? Because it was too small to carry any other fighter aircraft of the day. At roughly 1/2 the displacement, and a 150' shorter flight deck, the Kiev is significantly smaller than a Nimitz-class ship. So no cat, because it couldn't carry aircraft that would need one.
The next 'class' of Russian carriers, Kuznetsov, does carry conventional/non-VTOL aircraft such as the MiG-29K and Su-33, but still only a dozen or so. Launched off a ski-jump deck. Even though the Kuznetsov is again smaller than the Kennedy, it can have a longer takeoff roll because there aren't so many aircraft cluttering up the deck. Because of the ski-jump and the longer roll, no cat needed.
I put 'class' in quotes, because there is only the one. In fact, the Kuznetsov is currently the entirety of the active Russian carrier fleet. And just a couple of weeks ago, they restarted flight ops from the Kuznetsov after a two year break.
The 'next' generation of Russian carriers? Vaporware.
What if they offer a 15% discount and allow you to walk in the shop take what you want and leave without ever having to stop (they bill you later), it would be a fantastic convenience, sure you might not like it but many other people would think its great.
The beginnings of this are already in use, via customer loyalty cards and fingerprint swipe payment devices.
(unless someone has stolen your implanted RFID, after all they will be so secure that they cant be cloned..)
No need to clone the RIFD, someone just has to hack into the database.
nd how the F-35 uses two separate engines; a fan with doors for upward thrust, and an engine with a swivel nozzle for forward and upward thrust.
No. The front lift fan in the F-35B is shaft driven off the one engine seen here.
8 engines in Mollers abomination introduces more points of failure.
And the M200 saucer, rather than being 'abandoned' is the article reference, and is supposedly going to be manufactured and sold. According to the article, and the good Dr. M, anyway
My suspicion is it wouldn't. The passenger knows why you stopped talking, and likewise shuts up. The person on the other end of the phone continues to shout at you "Are you still there?!?"
Can you state exactly which models that he has designed and built working prototypes of, use those 8 engines?
The M400 (his regular red carlooking thing) and the saucer in this article both have 8 engines. The M400 has 2 in each nacelle, and the saucer arranged in a ring around the driver.
As far as 'working prototypes'...if you consider what he has as 'working', there it is.
The F-35 and Harrier fail as comparisons, because they have insanely powerful engines. Plus, they actually have wings for forward flight. And they are not trying to be a car as well.
but don't try to tell me that the frame is not strong.
Yes it is. But designed to handle completely different stresses, and to give a different level of comfort. A ride that is acceptable in a Cessna going down the taxiway is completely unacceptable for a car on the road hour after hour.
Why does the fact that the conversation is on a phone make a difference?
Because the focus of your conversation is outside the vehicle. Add in the generally crappy nature of a cellphone signal, and your brain is really, really concentrating on something other than actually piloting the vehicle.
I agree with your sentiment in regards to hand-held communicators - but I believe that a headset is less distracting and in fact might slow drivers down.
This has happened for me, I am in a good conversation and I find that my speed has decreased and that I am a more stable element in the system as a result.
When most traffic is going 65, and you're tooling along at 50 because you're too engrossed in your phone call, you're more unpredictable.
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The US would make more ground investigating the US bank accounts of certain very rich nations who export petrochemicals and use profits to make this whole thing happen.
What makes you think that this wasn't one of the parameters this thing would look for.
I don't care what data mining tool they use, as long as it actually works. The problem is that they have all this data to mine in the first place.
From the summary above:
"However, according to the article, a DHS spokesman assures that the program will be restarted once the security and cost are re-evaluated."
From the article:
"DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told The Associated Press on Wednesday the project was being dropped.
"ADVISE is not expected to be restarted," Knocke said."
The next sentance in the article is the problematic one.
"DHS' Science and Technology directorate "determined that new commercial products now offer similar functionality while costing significantly less to maintain than ADVISE."
So they're not restarting it, they are dropping it. They are not, however, dropping the functionality. Just moving to another platform.
Learn to read. I was very obviously talking about the nuclear warheads. The sentence I quoted clearly said "nukes".
The words missile and nukes have been used interchangeably in here (and very incorrectly). When someone says "the nukes", it is not immediately clear whether they are refering to just the warhead, or the complete assembly.
No, the warheads weren't supposed to be transported. Yes, the missile bodies were.
Actually I *would* argue the latter... that USA should *first* eliminate its own stockpile of nuclear weapons to something matching at *least* the Russian or Chinese levels,
Seeing as the Russian stockpile is larger than that of the US, you are suggesting we increase? Interesting.
And the botched operation ni this article was purportedly doing exactly what you suggest. Removing operational missiles from the stockpile.
It-wuz-them-terrorists apart, tell us the official word again why USA should have the biggest pile of nukes/WMDs in the world,
They don't. Russia does.
while attacking/sanctioning/threatening other countries for possessing/trying to develop any?
The Non Proliferation Treaty. Which almost everyone, including Iran and North Korea, signed.
We just told the enemy that B-52's are not routinely armed.
That's been common knowledge for years.
An actual training munition is marked with blue paint. As this was a former operational weapon being decommissioned/destructed, I imagine it looked exactly as it did before the warhead was removed.
And I imagine the security, transport, custody, prep, and loading procedures went exactly as they would have had it been live.
You can't 'accidentally' nuke things left and right.
1. They look completely different than a conventional weapon
2. They are handled completely differently.
3. They are launched and armed differently.
You can't mistake a cruise missile for anything else. Evidently, you CAN mistake a cruise missile with no warhead, with one that does have a warhead.
In addition to procedural changes, I expect the Air Force will retrofit some kind of visual indicator on the outside of the weapon.
They weren't supposed to be transported to begin with. You obviously didn't bother to RTFA at all.
You obviously didn't RTFA either. The missiles were supposed to be transported. The warheads were supposed to be removed first. They weren't.
They were supposed to be carrying the missiles. They were supposed to be carrying them on the wing pylon. They just weren't supposed to have the warhead inside. From the outside, they look exactly the same.
I've heard reports that there is an inspection window on the ALCM, whereby you can see the existence or non existence of the warhead. Not having worked ALCMs, I don't know if this is true. I know on other munitions that does not exist.
If there is one, then many, many people screwed up. Load crew, delivery crew, aircrew. Which I also find incomprehensible...that all of them screwed up in exactly the same way.
I saw claims that one could verify the presence of a warhead by looking in an eyelet *and* that that was part of the checklist for these things for both the pilots and the crew that loads the missiles.
Not having worked the ALCMs, I don't know if there is or isn't. I know on other similar munitions, there isn't.
If there is and that is part of the checklist to check it (as I imagine it would be), many more people fucked up.
But to have so many people in the chain fuck up in exactly the same way is a pretty far stretch.
(disclaimer: I was a USAF armament specialist for most of 2 decades)
They weren't mistakenly mounted. It was a deliberate flight from Minot to Barksdale, with missiles on the wing, just as planned. The issue is that the missile bodies, which were supposed to be empty, weren't empty.
But no, we didn't almost nuke ourselves. USAF aircraft are never accidentally loaded with nukes. There is no way for a single load crew to do it, nor a single aircrew to cause it to be loaded. And as far as an accidental nuclear explosion. I won't use the word "impossble". But its as close to that as you can imagine.
The problem here lies not with the load crew, the crew chief, nor even the pilots. There is no way to tell, by looking at the outside, whether the warhead is inside or not. And it is none of those peoples responsibility to ensure that it is or isn't. In fact, they don't have the clearance in to the backshop where such operations are performed. The breakdown came somewhere earlier in the chain.
The pilots were told to take 6 empty missile bodies from Minot to Barksdale for eventual destruction. They get to the aircraft, lo and behold, 6 missiles on the wing. All is good.
Earlier that day, a load crew was tasked to load 6 ostensibly empty missile bodies onto Aircraft XYZ. The delivery crew brought out the correct 6 supposedly empty missiles. And the exact same custody and handoff procedures are used for empty missiles as well as those with warheads.
So the delivery crew brings them out, the load crew loads them and then turns the aircraft over to the crew chief and aircrew. Everything checks out as it should.
Off they go to Barksdale.
The missile shop, for whatever reason, did not remove the warheads from the missiles identified for destruction.
The relevant questions are:
Did they mistakenly not remove the warheads? Major screwup, as they were now missing 6 warheads)
Or did they knowingly leave the warheads in, under the mistaken assumption that the complete missiles were to be destroyed?
Either way, many heads will roll. Some already have.
This has nothing to do with the ABM treaty, and everything to do with the START treaty. Which Bush (the elder) signed in 1991.
Bush (the junior) announced in 2001, "further reduce the number of operationally deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next ten years"
There is no need to move missiles from Minot to Barksdale. Barksdale already has a very large storage area of it's own.
I'm confused as to the details here. It says the "missiles" were being decommissioned. Is that the missile itself or the warhead?
The missile.
If it's the missile, first off why the hell are we decommissioning cruise missiles,
START treaty with the Russians.
and second how did the pilots not notice the nuclear warheads on the missiles they were carrying when they did their preflight inspection?
The warhead is on the inside.
A lot of people stated they would refuse to vacation in the States anymore because of the fingerprinting at Customs. This is far, far worse.
All of their aircraft are VTOL? Hardly. The Kiev class ships carried the Yak-38 Forgers. Those are/were VTOL. However, the aircraft reportedly sucked, and it could only carry a dozen or so. Why did the Kiev not carry other aircraft? Because it was too small to carry any other fighter aircraft of the day. At roughly 1/2 the displacement, and a 150' shorter flight deck, the Kiev is significantly smaller than a Nimitz-class ship. So no cat, because it couldn't carry aircraft that would need one.
The next 'class' of Russian carriers, Kuznetsov, does carry conventional/non-VTOL aircraft such as the MiG-29K and Su-33, but still only a dozen or so. Launched off a ski-jump deck. Even though the Kuznetsov is again smaller than the Kennedy, it can have a longer takeoff roll because there aren't so many aircraft cluttering up the deck. Because of the ski-jump and the longer roll, no cat needed.
I put 'class' in quotes, because there is only the one. In fact, the Kuznetsov is currently the entirety of the active Russian carrier fleet. And just a couple of weeks ago, they restarted flight ops from the Kuznetsov after a two year break.
The 'next' generation of Russian carriers? Vaporware.
What if they offer a 15% discount and allow you to walk in the shop take what you want and leave without ever having to stop (they bill you later), it would be a fantastic convenience, sure you might not like it but many other people would think its great.
The beginnings of this are already in use, via customer loyalty cards and fingerprint swipe payment devices.
(unless someone has stolen your implanted RFID, after all they will be so secure that they cant be cloned..)
No need to clone the RIFD, someone just has to hack into the database.
Good for California!
(One of the few times I might agree with the Cali govt.)
or have one on staff at your office.
Do NOT do this with the office notary. You may introduce some ownership/conflict of interest issues.
nd how the F-35 uses two separate engines; a fan with doors for upward thrust, and an engine with a swivel nozzle for forward and upward thrust.
No. The front lift fan in the F-35B is shaft driven off the one engine seen here.
8 engines in Mollers abomination introduces more points of failure.
And the M200 saucer, rather than being 'abandoned' is the article reference, and is supposedly going to be manufactured and sold.
According to the article, and the good Dr. M, anyway
My suspicion is it wouldn't. The passenger knows why you stopped talking, and likewise shuts up. The person on the other end of the phone continues to shout at you "Are you still there?!?"
Can you state exactly which models that he has designed and built working prototypes of, use those 8 engines?
The M400 (his regular red carlooking thing) and the saucer in this article both have 8 engines. The M400 has 2 in each nacelle, and the saucer arranged in a ring around the driver.
As far as 'working prototypes'...if you consider what he has as 'working', there it is.
The F-35 and Harrier fail as comparisons, because they have insanely powerful engines. Plus, they actually have wings for forward flight.
And they are not trying to be a car as well.
but don't try to tell me that the frame is not strong.
Yes it is. But designed to handle completely different stresses, and to give a different level of comfort. A ride that is acceptable in a Cessna going down the taxiway is completely unacceptable for a car on the road hour after hour.
Why does the fact that the conversation is on a phone make a difference?
Because the focus of your conversation is outside the vehicle. Add in the generally crappy nature of a cellphone signal, and your brain is really, really concentrating on something other than actually piloting the vehicle.
I agree with your sentiment in regards to hand-held communicators - but I believe that a headset is less distracting and in fact might slow drivers down.
Hands free or hand held makes little difference.
This has happened for me, I am in a good conversation and I find that my speed has decreased and that I am a more stable element in the system as a result.
When most traffic is going 65, and you're tooling along at 50 because you're too engrossed in your phone call, you're more unpredictable.