It is hard now to recall the electricity that surged through Washington, D.C., when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev first visited late in 1987, and jumped out of his limousine right in front of Time’s Washington bureau. Reported …
Weapons
The Pentagon’s New Year’s Resolutions
You make them, I make them, we all make them…but few of us keep them. In keeping with the seasonal delusion, let’s imagine our favorite world’s biggest office building is a sensate creature, and suffered shortcomings and …
None Dare Call It Money Laundering…
Sure it’s just a coincidence that one day after Saudi Arabia says it will help fill any oil shortage caused by cutting off Iranian exports to world markets, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia announced they have finalized a deal for 84 …
Retired Generals and Wartime Sales Jobs
Marines’ F-35 Engines Costing Way More Than Other Services’
There’s been lots of grumbling over the cost of the $380 billion F-35 fighter program, and some wheels squeak louder than others. On Wednesday, the Navy awarded a $1.1 billion contract for 30 F-35 engines to Pratt & Whitney …
Can Iran Close the Strait of Hormuz?
Since it doesn’t have nuclear weapons yet, Iran is playing the lone trump card in its hand: threatening to shut down the Strait of Hormuz through which Persian Gulf oil flows to fuel much of the world’s economy. Iranian navy …
F-22 Mishap: Pilot To Blame, Not Hardware
The accident investigation into the F-22 that crashed last November is out, and is being read closely by Air Force pilots like myself. According to an article published last week in Air Force Times, the crash has been officially …
“Respond to Query Only”
Americans often believe government bureaucracy often prevails over common sense. This certainly happened to the Air Force earlier this year, when it sought to avoid embarrassment by curtailing its workforce’s communications …
Godspeed, Mr. Withington
The last man present at the birth of the Air Force’s B-52 – which, God bless the BUFF, is still flying real-world missions nearly 60 years after its first flight – has died at 94. Not only did Holden Withington help create …
“Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., is being awarded modification P00001 under previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, fixed-price-incentive contract (N00030-12-C-0100) which is a combined definitized deployed systems support (DSS) contract and an undefinitized contract action award for TRIDENT II (D5) production.”
Iran Drone Drama Collapses into China-NoKo Christmas Comedy
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The wild and crazy guys over at Next Media Animation are poking fun at pretty much everything associated with the fumble of the U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone into Iranian hands last week. They suggest it might end up in Chinese hands, and under North Korea’s …
The Final Raptor…
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F-22 tail number 4195 rolled off Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., assembly line on Tuesday. It was the 187th, and last, of the fifth-generation super-stealth fighters to be built. When the program began – the first F-22 rolled off the line in 1997 – the Air Force said it …
