BIGGEST SHIP EVER FOR AUSTRALIAN NAVY

(Department of Defence photo)

The biggest ship ever built for the Royal Australian Navy has been launched amid pomp and ceremony at the northern Spanish port of Ferrol.

HMAS Canberra and the HMAS Adelaide are amphibious assault ships being built by a Spanish ship-building company, and they are not expected to be in service for three years.

While they are based on an off-the-shelf aircraft carrier design, the ships are billed as a whole lot more.

More HERE




Saturday Bird HERE


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CUTTING EDGE FRENCH TECHNOLOGY

France Shows Off Cutting-Edge Navy Ship in Russia




By IRINA TITOVA, AP - Nov 23, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – A cutting-edge French warship sailed into St. Petersburg Monday to show off its capabilities to potential buyers in the Russian navy, whose pursuit of an amphibious assault capacity is frightening some neighboring countries.


Oh really? What a yawnfest . . . so they've got an amphibious carrier and they want to sell it to the Russkies, huh? NO BIG DEAL . . . just so happens we've got a "Gator Navy" of our own -



* Wasp class
o USS Wasp (LHD-1), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Essex (LHD-2), Sasebo, Japan
o USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Boxer (LHD-4), San Diego, California
o USS Bataan (LHD-5), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), San Diego, California
o USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Makin Island (LHD-8), San Diego, California

* Tarawa class
o USS Nassau (LHA-4), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Peleliu (LHA-5), San Diego, California



Then on top of all that, we've got THIS:



Three carrier strike groups in formation for a great photo op: USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) and their associated carrier strike Groups steam in formation formation while 17 aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fly over them while preparing for Exercise Valiant Shield 2006.


Here's a close-up:






'Bye now . . .


And that's only a QUARTER of what we've got:

Enterprise class:

* USS Enterprise (CVN-65) — Norfolk, Virginia

Nimitz class:

* USS Nimitz (CVN-68) — San Diego, California
* USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) — Norfolk, Virginia
* USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) — Norfolk,Virginia +
* USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) — Norfolk, Virginia
* USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) — Everett, Washington
* USS George Washington (CVN-73) —Yokosuka, Japan
* USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) — Bremerton, Washington
* USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) — Norfolk, Virginia
* USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) — San Diego, California
* USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) — Norfolk, Virginia

Ford Class:
* USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) — Under Construction, will replace the USS Enterprise +


Then on top of all that, we've got THIS thing:







The plane in these pictures is still officially the 'Air Vehicle Number 1', a prototype, on board the USS George Washington CVN-73 for catapult fit checks. Not exactly still Top Secret but certainly not yet made public.





It will be known as the F/A-37. Although specs are classified, it is believed to be Mach 3.5 (top speed in the Mach 4 range), super-cruise stealth fighter/bomber/ interceptor with approximately a 4,000nm range.

Check out the Navy test pilot in the cockpit of the F/A-37 . . . LT Kara Wade:




BUT WAIT ! ! ! THERE'S MORE ! ! !



Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet that could reshape the Air travel industry for the next 100 years. The radical Blended Wing design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Center. The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747's 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide.

The new 797 is in direct response to the Airbus A380 which has racked up 159 orders, but has not yet flown any passengers. Boeing decide to kill its 747X stretched super jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown by airline companies, but has continued to develop the ultimate Airbus crusher 797 for years at its Phantom Works research facility in Long Beach, Calif.

The Airbus A380 has been in the works since 1999 and has accumulated $13 billion in development costs, which gives Boeing a huge advantage now that Airbus has committed to the older style tubular aircraft for decades to come.

There are several big advantages to the blended wing design, the most important being the lift to drag ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50%, with overall weight reduced by 25%, making it an estimated 33% more efficient than the A380.



I can just imagine a fleet of these babies unloading the entire 82D Airborne Division over Drop Zone Managua - Look out Chavez, HERE WE COME ! ! !


High body rigidity is another key factor in blended wing aircraft, It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the air frame which adds to efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 8800 nautical mile range with its 1000 passengers flying comfortably at mach 0.88 or 654 mph (+-1046km/h) cruising speed another advantage over the Airbus tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 mph (912 km/h).

The exact date for introduction is unclear, yet the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for civilian air supremacy.


Now where were we? Oh yeah - the French have a new toy? And the Russkies want to buy it? Y-A-W-W-W-N-!-!-!


- S.L.

NAVAL AIR OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN

From:
Date: 6/13/2009 8:05:51 PM
To:
Subject: Naval Air Operations in Afghanistan


This is me in the cockpit and my large Martian helmet. The weapon that is out on the right wing of the aircraft is a 500-lb laser guided bomb. On the other wing that you can't see is a 500-lb GPS guided bomb. That is our standard load out on these missions.


Hello everyone,

I just wanted to send another update to let you know how things are going out here on the good ship USS Eisenhower. We're in our seventh week of deployment and have 108 days to go. We began combat operations on March 21st and have been flying over the beach almost every day since then. This is the most flying that I've done in all my 17 years. Naval aviators are limited by instruction to 30 flight hours a month and, to exceed that, you must have a written waiver by the Flight Surgeon. As of today I have 65 hours in the last 29 days.

Our missions are regularly 6 hours long. Its an hour transit to and from the ship just to get on station in southern Afghanistan . All the air traffic travels up a common air route that we call The Boulevard that traverses Pakistan and crosses the border into Afghanistan. All the traffic on the boulevard is either Naval aircraft from our ship or Air Force tankers coming from Qatar.

Most of our missions thus far have been in southern Afghanistan near the city of Kandahar. That is where a lot of the poppy harvest is taking place right now and that is where a lot of the enemy forces are dug in. On a typical mission, we check in with a Joint Tactical Air Controller (JTAC) on the ground who is part of a ground unit. The JTAC is trained to communicate with aircraft and if necessary call in for air support in case some shooting starts. They used to be called Forward Air Controllers.

Thus far I have worked with American Special Forces, British Forces, Australian and Danish Forces. It is very interesting to see the mix of troops on the ground. But its nice to see that all the procedures are very standardized no matter what nationality that you are supporting. On most of our missions we provide Armed Reconnaissance, which has us watching over a friendly ground patrol, in vehicle or on foot, and looking ahead of their route of travel to try and find enemy fighters or potential spotting positions.

A few days ago I was watching over an Army Special Forces unit. There were about 15 to 20 guys all riding four wheelers in the hills overlooking a small village. We do most of our searching using our FLIR camera which is an infrared camera that has the ability to zoom in pretty close. The JTACS on the ground can also link up with our FLIR camera and see what we are seeing on their laptop computer.

We look for bad guys in groups digging or potentially placing roadside bombs. A lot of times the JTACS give us coordinates of known bad-guy locations and have us watch for movement or activity.

A few nights ago I was talking to a JTAC and I could hear the gunfire over the radio and he calmly said they were taking fire from an unknown locations and wanted us to scan the hills surrounding them for any activity. On average our Air Wing drops four or five bombs a day or conducts a few strafing runs on enemy positions.

We also do a lot of Shows of Force which is simply a high speed low-altitude pass over an enemy position to get them to stop shooting or even run. Although I haven't yet gotten a chance to drop a bomb, I can say that I'm not in a rush. My time will come. I did have a wingman who conducted a strafing run on two individuals who were digging at a roadside intersection. It was at night so the complexity of shooting bullets from an aircraft moving 500mph at a small moving target in the dark is absolutely amazing.

I enjoy working with the guys on the ground. I think it’s a comforting feeling for them to know that we are overhead and can deliver a devastatingly accurate blow within seconds of asking for it. Even if we don't find bad guys, I feel a lot of job satisfaction just being up there and talking to the guys on the ground. These guys are pretty amazing. I will hear them say something like, "We are taking fire from an unknown location so we are going to get out of our vehicles and move into the open so we can try to locate where the fire is coming from." Amazing bravery. Our team is killing a lot of bad guys right now.

Some of the most harrowing parts of our mission is refueling . . . particularly in the dark or in bad weather. On a typical 6-hour mission, we refuel off of big wing Air Force tankers three times.


This is my wingman tanking from an Air Force KC10.

There is a point on the boulevard that once I cross it I know that if I have a problem with my tanker, that I do not have enough fuel to get back to the carrier and would have to divert to one of the three occupied airfields in the country. The tankers all hold at specific points and altitudes around the country.

I know before I launch what my tanker's call sign is, what point he will be at, what time I'm supposed to be there, what altitude he will be at and what frequency I will talk to him on. There is an overarching control agency that runs the tanker plan and it is constantly changing usually based on the fight that is going on the ground. A lot of times tankers get pushed over an area where there is fighting so that the airborne assets don't waste time trying to get to their tanker and back into the fight. Once one tanker moves it starts a domino effect that effects almost everyone. Its like a shell game. They are constantly shuffling tankers around. I don't think I've launched on a single mission and hit all my tankers that I was originally scheduled for. I have tanked off American and British Air Force tankers.

Two days ago I was on a tanker and two French Rafael fighters were waiting in line with me at 22000 feet for their gas. When the mission is over we hit the tanker one last time before exiting the country and fly the boulevard south and the hour flight back to the carrier. When its all done then I get to look forward to that night carrier landing.

Luckily the North Arabian Sea is calm and the weather has been good. No pitching deck out here so far. By the end of the mission I'm usually starving. I try and take food and water with me in the cockpit and typically I get a chance to eat and drink something on the trip back to the carrier at the end of the mission. But you don't want to drink too much because that presents a whole new problem for a single seat cockpit.

Thank goodness for altitude hold. The cockpit gets pretty crowded with all of our extra gear. We have our standard issue gear for going in country which includes our pistol and two magazine clips, our blood chit which is basically a piece a paper that we use in case we find ourselves on the ground that is written in several different native languages and basically says "I'm an American and you will be paid if you help me return to friendly American forces." We carry a camelback* full of water that is sewn into our flight vest.

* plastic collapsable bladder with drinking tube, commonly worn on the back - S.L.

On every mission we go on, we have a stack of papers that have coordinates and radio frequencies. I also have my new helmet-mounted targeting system which is a new visor that clips to the regular helmet and projects vital information on my visor (I've attached a picture of me wearing that helmet in the cockpit.) It looks like a Martian helmet, but it is honestly the best piece of gear that I carry with me. I can type in the coordinates for a friendly unit on the ground and then look outside the cockpit and diamond will be projected on my visor directly over the position of that unit on the ground. It's very useful in locating things on the ground, but it also helps me find things in the air.

Yesterday I saw my tanker from 28 miles away because my helmet puts a box around the radar contact that I have locked up so I know exactly where to look. Pretty cool. I also take a pair of NVGs on every flight. Night-vision goggles are absolutely necessary once the sun goes down. The ground units use a lot of infrared lights to help mark their positions or the positions of enemy units and I can see all of that from 20000 feet with my NVG's on.

Well I've written way more than I should have. I hope I haven't bored you. I know many of you have asked what I'm doing over here. This email was to try to help you understand what I've been doing. It in no way is meant to be tooting my own horn.. The guys on the ground are the real heroes. I'm simply a supporting element to the fight.

I want to say thank you to all of you who have sent Care packages. They were very much appreciated by me and all the guys in my ready room. Keep watching the news. If you hear about airstrikes in Southern Afghanistan there is a good chance it came from my Air Wing.

This is me flying in Aircraft 401 taken two days ago.

I COULD HAVE BEEN A FIGHTER PILOT . . .

. . . except I had trouble with the math thing . . . so instead I humped the pain bag . . .