Bill Sweetman – Page 2 – Valkyrie Strategic Solutions LLC

28 Jan

The Cartman Gambit

January 29, 2024
By Bill Sweetman
0 comments

"Screw you guys, I'm going home". I have been working on a root-cause analysis of the F-35 project. As I got deeper into the subject, I realized that the impact of decisions taken in the early 1990s was not only colossal but largely unintentional.

22 Jan

Blog

Dreamland Life

January 22, 2024
By Bill Sweetman
2 comments

The last big book on Area 51 was written in 2011 by Annie Jacobsen, previously best known for throwing a case of the screaming abdabs over some Syrian musicians on a 2004 Northwest Airlines flight. It would never have gotten past an agent but for the sensational ending,...

18 Jan

Blog

Honestly, You Don’t Look A Day Over Block 30

January 18, 2024
By Bill Sweetman
1 comment

50 years ago on Saturday, January 20, 1974, the first General Dynamics YF-16 made its famously unscheduled first flight from Edwards AFB. On a high-speed taxi test, the YF-16 started oscillating in roll, scraping the stabilizer and left-hand dummy missile on the runway, and pilot Phil Oestricher decided...

13 Jan

Blog

The Myth Of Old Boeing

January 13, 2024
By Bill Sweetman
2 comments

A door blew out of a brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 9, and fingers are being pointed at the company's apparent lapse in quality inspection, and at Boeing's cost-cutting and focus on shareholder value as a root cause. Not without good reason: suppliers like Spirit, spun off in 2005...

01 Oct

Blog

F-35 And Cognitive Dissonance

October 1, 2023
By Bill Sweetman
2 comments

Doubt that anyone wants to hear my opinions on the F-35 yet, but I'd like to point out some facts that induce cognitive dissonance. There's no doubt that the F-35 has enjoyed a run of market success, particularly across NATO, leading some to call it...

23 Sep

Blog

Hit The Road, Jack

September 25, 2023
By Bill Sweetman
1 comment

It's been road-base week. In an extensive joint exercise in Finland, an RAF Typhoon landed and took off from Highway 551 near the unusually vowel-deprived town of Tervo, some 200 miles north of Helsinki. A couple of days later, the Royal Norwegian Air Force did the same with...

04 Sep

Blog

Blue Bears, WIGs and rocket fighters

September 4, 2023
By Bill Sweetman
1 comment

As I write this on Labor Day, in the residential hinterland of the Pentagon, local citizens including, no doubt, a greater-then-average number of those responsible for planning national defense, are rolling up to shop at the neighboring Costco. We're in luck! Look at all the parking spaces!

27 Aug

Blog

Civil supersonics – as difficult as ever

August 27, 2023
By Bill Sweetman
1 comment

Walking into a London office around lunchtime, and announcing that I had enjoyed breakfast in Singapore, was a memorable experience. That was at the end of the 1977 International Air Transport Association AGM, as Concorde F-BTSC completed a 30,000 mile sales tour of the Far East, including a...

18 Aug

Blog

Adios, cigar and popsicle stick?

August 18, 2023
By Bill Sweetman
0 comments

2028. Leaders of the airline and commercial airplane industry gather at an environmental conference, in the new high-tech city of Neom in Saudi Arabia. As a waterside reception flows on, eyes turn to an unfamiliar shape in the sky, growing larger by the second, something like a great...

31 Jul

Blog

A Life On The Ocean Wave

July 31, 2023
By Bill Sweetman
0 comments

Are sea-based aircraft ready for a comeback? The latest in a series of new seaplane ventures made a splash at the Oshkosh air show, where Catalina Aircraft of Florida announced plans to restart production of the classic Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat, with new turbine engines (likely the...

Posts by Bill Sweetman