Valkyrie Vision
22
Jan
Dreamland Life
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
Honestly, You Don’t Look A Day Over Block 30
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
The Myth Of Old Boeing
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
F-35 And Cognitive Dissonance
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
Hit The Road, Jack
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
Blue Bears, WIGs and rocket fighters
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!