Valkyrie Vision
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!
27
Aug
Civil supersonics – as difficult as ever
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...