Not Gonna Happen

There are very few things that I am certain about. 

One thing that I an certain of is that when a largely unknown aircraft manufacturer claims that it will build a transport that dwarfs the AN-124, it ain't gonna happen.

As rarities in aerospace go, the outsize cargo aircraft—or purpose-designed large airlifter—is among the most unique. Limited in number yet indispensable for key commercial and military roles, the outsize freighter fleet is rarely augmented or refreshed. Debuts of new options with tail or nose loading ramps are separated by decades, and relatively low flight hour accumulations mean that aging aircraft remain in service for years.

………

Under the Next-Generation Airlift (NGAL) program, the U.S. Air Force is poised to begin an analysis of alternatives for a single future airlifter to replace the C-17 and C-5. In parallel, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Propulsion Directorate is working with engine-makers on studies of propulsion systems for a future aircraft.

………

Another startup targeting military airlift is Colorado-based Radia, which is developing the enormous WindRunner. The 356-ft.-long, 261-ft.-wingspan aircraft is designed to carry payloads up to 160,000 lb. and 344 ft. long. With the capability to operate from a runway length of 6,000 ft., the WindRunner is planned to fly 1,200 nm at Mach 0.6 powered by four commercially available turbofans in the 55,000-lb.-thrust range.

Despite the emergence of an active Air Force RFI, Radia is proposing a nearer-term military WindRunner variant dubbed the C-242, founder and CEO Mark Lundstrom says. “The Pentagon is starting to turn the gears for the Next-Generation Airlift, and it is a process which would create a new capability sometime probably in the early 2040s,” he says. “Radia’s intent is to provide service in the early 2030s.”

The manufacture of large air-lifters is not a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movie.

You can't just go and say, "My dad has a barn, let's assemble an 800 ton aircraft!"

Well, you can go and say that, if you are smoking the right stuff. 

Human Sacrifice, Dogs and Cats Living Together, Mass Hysteria!

That's a fine looking flying squid And now we have Neon Flying Squids.

This is a harbinger of something, and I do not think that it will end well.

On a research vessel 15 years ago, a group of Japanese scientists documented something that had only previously been described by startled sailors to disbelieving listeners. They saw a formation of squid flying through the air.

The shoal of about 100 squid rose unexpectedly from a patch of the Pacific Ocean around 370 miles from Tokyo and glided near the boat for about 30 metres. The astonished researchers were the first to capture photographs of such a thing, which looked like the early stages of an alien invasion.

They were probably neon flying squid (Ommastrephes bartramii), the subsequent study states, a species that is part of a 20-strong flying squid family that was known to leap from the water but, until then, was only rumoured to also be able to glide above it.

The neon flying squid was able to gain such elevation by using the hyponome, a funnel-like muscular organ also present in other cephalopods, such as octopuses. The organ is able to force water out in a jet, propelling the body along both in and out of the sea. Photographs of the gliding squid show them with their arms (they have 10 limbs in all) splayed outwards.

Neon flying squid are about the length of a rolling pin and tend to gather near the surface to feed upon fish and crustaceans. It’s unclear exactly why they would fly in unison in this way, with one possible explanation being that they were evading a predator, such as a shark.

This is some seriously weird sh%$.

Meanwhile, in Air Force One Failures

For some unspecified security reason, Donald Trump decided to switch to one of the older 747s to fly back to the United States.

I am wondering just how many listening devices were planted in the plane. 

Nobody is buying President Donald Trump’s shady excuse for leaving Air Force One behind in Europe.

While taking questions from the press at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, Trump was asked to respond to speculation that security concerns had forced him to ditch the newly renovated, Qatar-gifted plane after the president scrapped his own ceasefire deal with Iran.

You know, maybe it is a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

No Blogging Tonight

Power has been out since about 7pm, and as yet, a crew had not been scheduled. 

As to what I did today, I was down in Cheverly for a sewing circle and terrorist society meeting, and I caught the July 4 flyover. 

I just saw some F-18s, some F-22s, a VC-25, a KC 135, and a KC 46.

Posted via mobile.

Best Military in the World

The F-35 has only a 25% mission read rate.

No wonder Iran won the war.

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter’s readiness rates continued to decline through fiscal 2025, with the fleet’s full mission capable rate falling to 25%, according to a new Government Accountability Office report released Thursday.

The mission capable rate, which measures the percentage of time aircraft can perform at least one of their tasked missions, dropped from 67% in fiscal 2021 to 44% in fiscal 2025, GAO found.

The full mission capable rate, the share of time aircraft can perform all assigned missions, slid from 38% to 25% over the same period.

Air Force officials attributed part of the fiscal 2025 drop to new jets that couldn’t perform their missions because of software delays, along with scarce parts and corrosion problems, according to the report.

“The F-35 is DOD’s most costly weapon system, but it hasn’t met performance goals and costs to sustain the aircraft continue to increase,” GAO wrote in a summary accompanying the report.

The Military Industrial Complex is now eating itself.

This Was Inevitable

The French and German future fighter project has been shut down over disputes over workshare.

This is not a surprise.  Dassault has always insisted on having complete control of so-called, "Joint," projects, with its partners getting little beyond serving as the program's banker.

One need only look at the two modern examples of cross border aviation projects that actually reached production, the SEPECAT Jaguar, (A joint venture of Breuget and  British Aircraft Corporation) and the Concorde. (A joint venture of Sud Aviation and British Aircraft Corporation)

You will notice that the Dassault had no part in any of this.

More than 40 years after France withdrew from the Future European Fighter Aircraft program, Paris and Berlin have called it quits on their effort to work on a sixth-generation combat aircraft in a partnership also involving Spain.

………

Dassault, which was the industrial lead on the fighter program, a year ago voiced displeasure with the program’s structure. The company said it lacked sufficient control and wanted change. That set off months of industrial bickering. The issue came to a head with a new phase of the development program that was due to start in October.

………

Geopolitics also collided with the FCAS. When the governments shook hands, their ambition to develop a fighter was more an industrial and jobs undertaking than a military necessity. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 drove a change in mindset, making defense more central to French and German motivations. That also crystallized requirements differences. France needs a fighter that is carrier-capable and can deliver nuclear weapons. Germany does not.

………

Fighter requirements are likely to be reset. Germany and Spain are no longer driven to shoehorn their needs into those of France, which were constrained by carrier compatibility. Throughout the program, Dassault and Airbus concept drawings for the fighter differed, suggesting the gap in requirements definition.

………

When an Anglo-French project to develop a variable-geometry combat aircraft failed in the 1960s after Paris pulled out, London pursued a program with Germany and Italy that ultimately produced the Panavia Tornado. The French withdrawal from the pan-European Future European Fighter Aircraft came two decades later, birthing the Rafale on one side and the Eurofighter Typhoon on the other. In the 2010s, Paris and London explored development of an uncrewed combat air vehicle. The two split when the UK voted to leave the EU, spurring France and Germany to explore the FCAS instead.

Rather unsurprisingly, Germany is working with Spain to resurrect the program.

In a significant development for Europe’s future air combat ambitions, Airbus is trying to restart the program to develop a sixth-generation combat jet, now under German and Spanish leadership. This comes less than a week after the Franco-German-led New Generation Fighter (NGF) effort effectively collapsed in its original form, amid acrimony between Paris and Berlin. The NGF was planned as the crewed centerpiece of the pan-European Future Combat Air System (FCAS), which Airbus, as the leading European aerospace corporation, now hopes to get back on track.  

Partnering with Dassault on a fighter project is a losing proposition. 

The End of an Era

The US Marine Corps has retired its final AV-8B Harriers from service.

The unmistakable howl of the AV-8B Harrier II has been a soundtrack to U.S. Marine Corps aviation for more than four decades. From the deserts of the Middle East and Afghanistan to the decks of amphibious assault ships at sea, the aircraft’s ability to take off from short runways, operate from austere forward bases, and land vertically made it one of the most distinctive combat aircraft ever to wear American markings. Before then, its predecessor, the first-generation AV-8A Harrier, had pioneered the ‘jump jet’ in U.S. service, after entering Marine Corps service in 1971.

Now, that illustrious era has come to an end.

In a ceremony today, the Marine Corps said its official farewell to the AV-8B when its final operational Harrier II squadron, Marine Attack Squadron 223 (VMA-223), known as the “Bulldogs,” marked the retirement of the aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.

The event closes a remarkable chapter in Marine aviation history. The Harrier’s departure marks more than the retirement of an aircraft; it represents the conclusion of a concept that shaped Marine air power for generations and helped define the Corps’ expeditionary character.

It provided some unique capabilities, though these capabilities led to a high loss rate. 

Bad Day st the Office

There was a midair collision at an air show in Idaho.

Two F/A-18G Growlers collided, but all 4 pilots ejected safely.

Two E/A-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft collided during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show in Mountain Home Idaho on Sunday, in a mishap captured in dramatic videos. The four crew members of the aircraft, from Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 129‘s NAS Whidbey Island-based Growler Airshow Team, were able to eject right after the collision and are being evaluated by medical personnel, according to media reports. The incident took place two miles northwest of the base, according to the 366th Fighter Wing’s Facebook page. The Growler Airshow Team puts on two-jet displays.

Video of the incident showed the one of the Growlers close in on the other from behind and then collide, striking the lead aircraft’s rear with its nose from above. They then became entangled together, nose up, and then down, before tumbling to the ground. Four small explosions from ejection seats blasting out of the falling Growlers can be seen before the parachutes of the four crew members opened up. The Growlers hit the ground, exploding into a ball of flames, followed by the crew members floating down in their parachutes.

The latest report is that the pilots are being checked out, but it appears that there have been only minor injuries.

Isn't This Supposed to Take 25 Years and Be Over Budget?

The first production KF-21, South Korea's stealth(ish) fighter jet, has rolled off the assembly line.

Considering that the program officially launched in 2015, this is faster than I would have anticipated.

 By way of comparison, it took the US F-22 about 15 years and the US F-35 took about 20 years.
 

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has rolled out the first production KF-21 Boramae fighter jet, less than two years after construction on it began and four years after the first prototype aircraft made it maiden flight.

The aircraft, a two-seat jet carrying the serial number 26-001, rolled out at KAI’s facilities at Sacheon on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, where he said the program embodied the country’s aspirations to be reliant in self-defense, according to national news agency Yonhap.

………

The rollout was a significant development for the KF-21 program, which marked another milestone in January with the completion of its flight test program.

South Korea first conceptualized its own indigenous fighter program 25 years ago, although the final go ahead to start development was only made in 2015. Beside KAI, its development also involving stakeholders such as South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development and Korean defense giant Hanwha.

The KF-21 is considered a 4.5 generation fighter jet and will be equipped with a mix of indigenous and Western sensors and weapons in service, including the KGGB precision glide bomb and European MBDA Meteor air-to-air missile, according to South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).

Maybe the DoD should look at the RoK's defense procurement practices.
 

On the Road Tomorrow and Thursday

Heading to a customer meeting in Dayton, Ohio, which means light posting.

That being said, I do think that I will have time to hit the US Air Force Museum there, and hopefully, I will generate some kick-ass photographs. 

About El Paso

It turns out that the 10 day (rescinded after a few hours) airspace shut-down over El Paso was a party balloon, not any real sort of security threat.

Don't worry though, they shot it down with a laser. 

The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.

Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”

But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said. 

I'm going to give these incompetent idiots the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that it was one of the shiny silver Mylar balloons, which, because of their aluminum coating, are readily picked up on radar.

The level of incompetence here is stunning. 

 

Another Blue Circle Fighter Jet

If you are not a plane nerd who remembers British procurement in the 1980s, I will mention a rather peculiar moment in British procurement history, when the British variant of the Tornado strike fighter was delivered without radar because it was not ready.

Instead, it was delivered with concrete ballast in the nose.

The aircraft, or its radar depending on contemporaneous accounts, was nicknamed, "Blue Circle," after a popular brand of concrete at the time. 

Well it appears that the latest configuration of the F-35 is being delivered with ballast in place of radar.

This is not because the new APG-85 radar is not ready, but rather because these aircraft were made with mounts for the older APG-81 radar.

The whole JSF program really is a complete cluster-f%$#:

Radar mountings in the nose of the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter are different for the current AN/APG-81 by Northrop Grumman and the future AN/APG-85 radar, also by Northrop Grumman–a difference which has helped complicate fielding of the new radar which was to deliver with F-35 Lot 17 but may now instead deliver later, possibly in Lot 20 in the next two years.

“The APG-81 is different than the APG-85, and therefore delivering the aircraft, as currently configured, with an APG-85 radar versus an APG-81 radar is challenging,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said in an interview off the House floor on Feb. 3.

“The bulkhead configuration is key because for both of the radars, they are very different,” he said. “Remember, the bulkhead configuration allows the placement of the radar towards the attitude of the array, and the attitude of the array makes all the difference in the world about how the radar operates.”

A dual mount to accommodate either the APG-85 or the APG-81 would take two years to field, a source told sister publication Defense Daily.


“I know all about it, but the delivery of the aircraft is classified,” Wittman said when asked whether he knew if it were true that Lockheed Martin has been delivering F-35s to the military services since last June without radars, including all F-35As. “I can’t speak to the condition of the aircraft so you’ll have to go to the Air Force, the customer, and ask them about that.”

 To say that this is f%$#ed up and sh%$ is an understatement.

 

A Bad Day at the Office

It appears that one of NASA's WB-57 high altitude Camberra research aircraft had a spot of trouble with its landing gear.

There were no injuries, but the plane might be a write off. (It's more than 50 years old)

Headline of the Day

Elon Musk Is So Unlikable That His Feud With Random Airline Is Doing Wonders for Sales, Says CEO

—Futurism, discussing the recent dustup between the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ and the CEO of Ryanair over the latter's choice not to put Starlink™ on its planes.

Ryanair is literally offering Musk discount fares. 

Elon Musk tried to pick a fight with a major airline CEO — who says thanks for all the additional business you’re bringing in with your public tantrum, sucker.

“We love these PR spats that drive bookings on Ryanair,” the budget airline’s chief Michael O’Leary said at a news conference in Dublin on Wednesday, as quoted by CNN. “And we want to thank him sincerely for the additional publicity.”

The trash talking began last week when the Irish airline, the largest in Europe, said it wouldn’t install its fleet with Starlink technology, a satellite-based internet service operated by Musk’s company SpaceX. O’Leary claimed that the Starlink antennas would add drag to the planes and drive up fuel costs.

Musk could barely hide the sting he felt from the snub. He initially responded by calling O’Leary “misinformed” and added that he doubted Ryanair “can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately.”

Smelling controversy, O’Leary went on a interview with the Irish radio station Newstalk to taunt the world’s richest man.

………

Musk even threatened to buy out the airliner and posted a poll asking his fans whether he should “restore Ryan as their rightful ruler” once he does. Clearly, Grok was not consulted before putting up the poll: the “Ryan” Musk is presumably referring to is the Irish billionaire Tony Ryan, who died in 2007.

Elon Musk is a fucking moron. 

 

The Swedes Are Not Known for Their Senses of Humor

But they should be.

Even Ingmar Bergman, who is better known for his brooding films directed a very good comedy, Smiles of a Summer Night  which I rather liked, even with subtitles.

The humor definitely has been effected by the dark cold winters of Scandanavia, but unlike, for example, Russian humor, which tends to be dark, Swedish humor is more wry and playful. 

This Swedish pilot's walk around of the Saab Gripen is very funny.

McDonnell's Widebody, Huh?

Not good So, a UPS freighter lost an engine on takeoff at Louisville and crashed, killing its three crew and at least 9 more on the ground.

By, "Lost an engine," I mean that the engine fell off.

The aircraft was an MD-11, basically a rebadged DC-10.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it's because a DC-10 crashed at Chicago O'Hare in 1979 after its engine detached from the wing.

That plane is cursed.

An engine on the UPS cargo jet that crashed in Louisville, Ky., this week fell off moments before the plane took flight, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday.

The jet, with a crew of three, plunged to the ground seconds later and erupted into flames as it careened through industrial buildings at the edge of the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport Tuesday evening.

At least 12 people died, officials said on Wednesday. A coroner was at the crash site on Wednesday, and the condition of some of the bodies could make it difficult to confirm their identities,  Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said. The identities of the victims have not been released.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Todd Inman, a member of the transportation safety board, said that, according to security footage, the plane’s left engine had detached from the wing while the aircraft was rolling to take off. 

Bad Day at the Office

Looks like the engine started throwing blades shortly after it left the ground:

🇲🇾 F/A-18D Hornet belonging to the Royal Malaysian Air Force crashes on takeoff from the Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Airport in Kuantan. The jet’s pilot and weapons systems officer safely ejected.

According to a statement released by RMAF, the incident occurred during a night flight… pic.twitter.com/iqqbhuV5MB

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 22, 2025

Pilot and WSO/RIO both survived.

And Now the Swiss

It looks like a move is afoot among the Swiss polity to cancel their F-35 order.

Once again, it's tariffs.

The F-35 never made sense for the Swiss:

• They do not need a long range aircraft.
• They do not need aggressive interoperability with NATO forces.
• They do not need stealth.
• They do not need a plane that large.  (They carved aircraft hangars into mountains in the 1960s to fit Mirage IIIs, and need to enlarge them to fit)
• They do not either a CATOBAR or STOBAR capabilities, because they have no aircraft carriers.
• There are significant concerns that the US can shut down the operations of the F-35 at the flip of a switch.
• The aircraft are expensive to operate, particularly since major maintenance has to be performed by Lockheed Martin.
• New weapon systems must be qualified through Lockheed Martin. 

Seriously, the Typhoon, Rafale, Gripen, J-10 all cost less to operate, and have architectures that allow the operator to develop their own systems.

They need a relatively inexpensive fighter, and lots of well trained pike-men.

And the Spanish Armada Gets Boned Again

According to reports from El Pais, (translation here) the Spanish government is ending its plans to buy the F-35 from the United States.

Instead, it will buy some European fighter aircraft instead, most likely the Eurofighter Typhoon or the in-development Future Combat Air System.

This is a problem for Spain's aircraft carrier, the Juan Carlos, since it is a STOVL carrier, with a ramp in the front and no arresting gear, and as it stands now, it will not be able to maintain its AV-8B Harriers much longer.

In order to accommodate something like the Rafale-M, they would need to add an arrester gear and angled flight deck, which is a significant rebuild.

The purchase of F-35 Lightning II aircraft, the fifth-generation American stealth fighter, for the Spanish Armed Forces has been definitively shelved, according to a report published by the Spanish newspaper El País, citing government sources.

Preliminary contacts that had already begun have been suspended indefinitely. Although the government approved a 10.471 billion Euro plan last April and has committed to spending 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on security and defense, the decision to invest 85% of these funds in Europe is considered incompatible with acquiring an American aircraft.

………

Spain’s defense ministry never moved beyond a non-binding RFI (Request For Information) for the Lightning II. The 2023 budget even penciled in 6.25 billion Euro for “replacement aircraft for the AV-8B and C-15M, phase 2” (in other words, the Navy’s Harriers and the Air Force’s remaining F-18 Hornets). Looks like those plans are now scrapped.

That leaves the Armada (Navy) in a corner. The AV-8Bs are expected to be retired by 2030, and extending their service is no longer realistic: the aircraft are aging, and with both the USMC and Italian Navy phasing theirs out (and replacing them with the F-35B), Spain would be left as the only operator, facing a vanishing spares market. The only viable STOVL replacement is the F-35B. Passing on it would mean the Juan Carlos I loses its fixed-wing fast jet capability and reverts to helicopters only.

Spanish Armada has a problem.

Maybe they could license the Yak 141 from Russia.

Someone Noticed

Lawmakerssaying that Delta Airlines' use of AI to price gouge should be made illegal. 

How about you do this for Uber and Lyft, whose apps got caught raising prices on riders when their cell phone batteries were low, because they knew that they were desperate. 

One week after Delta announced it is expanding a test using artificial intelligence to charge different prices based on customers' personal data—which critics fear could end cheap flights forever—Democratic lawmakers have moved to ban what they consider predatory surveillance pricing.

In a press release, Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) announced the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act. The law directly bans companies from using "surveillance-based" price or wage setting to increase their profit margins.

If passed, the law would allow anyone to sue companies found unfairly using AI, lawmakers explained in what's called a "one-sheet." That could mean charging customers higher prices—based on "how desperate a customer is for a product and the maximum amount a customer is willing to pay"—or paying employees lower wages—based on "their financial status, personal associations, and demographics."

It's more than that.  They can determine who has to get to a funeral of a family member, and jack up the prices using online information.

Sound creepy enough for you yet.

Tlaib called companies using AI to "exploit" workers in "desperate" situations "appalling," with the one-sheet specifically shaming delivery services that lower drivers' wages based on their "pattern of taking orders" and health care companies that base nurses' pay on "an algorithmically-manipulated-bidding war, not the tasks they perform." 

Delta's counter argument is that this is a well established business practice, by which they mean, "Uber has been doing this sh%$ for years."

As I noted just yesterday, this is why the Gypsy cab companies are busy enshittifying themselves into oblivion right now.

I am not surprised that Delta did this first, for as John Mulaney obsurved:

I'll book a ticket on some garbage airline---
You know, I don't wanna name an actual airline so let's just make one up; let's call it "Delta Airlines." 

We really need to make jailing senior corporate executives great again.