Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Animal on October 20, 2001, 01:03:00 PM
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I hate to read about our guys dying because of helicopter crashes. Read in CNN.com that two Rangers died in a helo crash. This is becoming some sort of trend? something should be done about this roadkill.
The embarassing Delta Force crash incident with Reagan, the Apaches crashing in the Kosovo conflict, and now this.
Not to mention the marines who died in those Ospreys a few months ago.
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Actually, it was a Blackhawk prepping for CSAR(combat search and rescue). There were 2 Rangers slightly injured in the parachute drops, but none died. Blackhawks have a very low incident rate nowadays, however, when they first entered testing and active service, they acquired the nickname "Crashhawk" becuase, well, they did rather frequently.
Desert One was an accident, where a CH-53 (i think) collided with an K/MC-130 in the dark. They were in the middle of Iran and didn't have any, or only mininal, lights on.
And what do you think should be done? Raise taxes so you can raise military spending? Or use the budget surplus for it? Becuase it's really only a matter of money, getting enough people to work on the birds, and enough money for spare parts, etc.
Feel free to offer other solutions, instead of just whining.
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A helicopter is intrinsically far more difficult to fly than an airplane animal. And when you're in one you have to take many things into account that an airplane pilot doesnt have to (like a slight wind or power lines)...and they dont have the same survivability (autorating down IF they can is the only thing they can do.. you can jump, eject or glide in a plane with no engine... try that in a helo!).
Its a more dangerous machine. But hey, the motto is still true: "To fly is fine, to hover, DIVINE!"
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whining?
lol. i'm not whinning, i'm diddlyING PISSED OFF that guys have to die in such incidents.
yeah, the pentagon reads the AH bbs for suggestions!
the millions they put into smart bombs going thru windows so the CNN viewers can see it on green-night vision, should be spend on more safety precautions for this kind of thing. the ground troops the guys who get the hands dirty and the TRUE guys who win wars, deserve more money if needed to so they can have more manteinance crews, better lighting/navigation/etc equipment.
those helos carrying troops are MUCH MORE important than those nifty propaganda B-2 Spirits that the public "ooohhhh!! ahhhh!!"'s so much.
yes Tac, I know helos are much trickier than fast movers. yet the comanche seems like a very simple to fly craft with many automated systems.
we dont see many US soldiers dying by the enemy in conflicts. i see much more friendly fire and accidents. More money has to be put for the safety of our guys, than it should be to have sexy stealth planes, amazing cyborgh sighting systems, and money sent to other contries for THEIR military.
[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: Animal ]
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helos carrying troops are MUCH MORE important than those nifty propaganda B-2 Spirits that the public "ooohhhh!! ahhhh!!"'s so much
hmm, funny, what ever happened to "he controls the air above the battlefield, is destined to control the battlefield"
sadley that was just some idiot general in WW2, probably didnt know that much about war.. :D
with a military as big as that of the US with that many people, no matter how careful you are, accidents will happen.. ya cant really beat the laws of probability.
[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: Wobble ]
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hmm, funny, what ever happened to "he controls the air above the battlefield, is destined to control the battlefield"...
[/b]
It was disproved as a hard and fast rule in Vietnam and in Afghanistan.
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EXACTLY Dowding.
And you dont really need B-2 to fight the new world threat, terrorism.
B-52 and strike planes can do that job just fine, saving $20,000,000,000.
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B52 and strike planes can do that job just fine, saving $20,000,000,000.
fly solo over SAM defended ares, no I think not.
Vietnam and Afgan were both a-typical wars, against low tech enemies and No front lines..
they are the exception, not the rule.
[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: Wobble ]
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I agree that they need to get to bugs out of the choppers. More like out of the tactical systems. However, seeing those Navy F-4's fly over always gave me a warm happy feeling.
And then there was Puff. That was like having Godzilla on your side.
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hehe, i heard that for quite a while NVA officers ordered their troops not to fire at puff with small arms, because all they would do is piss it off..
hell, I wouldent shoot at it, I wouldent want its attention.
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hahahahha yeap, the Taliban is gonna shoot down many, many US planes!!
please.. what are they gonna use.. obsolete russian SAMs, leftover Stingers from their war against the ruskies, and AK-47
I'm all for the F-117, and even those are overkill against the Taliban.
Did you know that a B-2 costs more than two billion dollars each?
All that money could be used for other stuff like what I mention, with spare change for the International Space Station, and other such advancements for mankind.
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Oh, and I forgot to mention: put more money into specialized teams like Delta, SEALs, etc.
Need I put more suggestions for all those pentagon officials and generals reading this board?
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well, i guess some people can put a preic tag on human lives..
sure we could accomplish the same taskes just fine with lesser planes.. sure it would be more dangerous, but hey its cheaper.. thats what counts.
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Do you have a clue why i started this thread, or are you too busy blowing up pepperspray cans shirtless and sweaty?
I am talking about saving US soldiers lives.
I doubt the taliban will ever get to shoot down a B-52, a cruise missile, an F-15 Strike Eagle, much less an F-117.
I dont know how much an F-117 costs, but a B-2 is amazingly expensive. With the price of a B-2 you can buy many Comanches, cruise missiles, and more advanced and safer systems for troop transport.
But I guess too many people like cool looking planes from the future.
The B-2 is a propaganda weapon.
edit: another suggestion to our noble generals reading this bbs: hurry up making the F-22 operational, and the JSF too. And please pick Boeing's prototype.
[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: Animal ]
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I doubt the taliban will ever get to shoot down a B-52, a cruise missile, an F-15 Strike Eagle, much less an F-117.
most pilots doubt they will ever be shot down, they doubt that those old ruskie SAMS are worth a crap..
you can DOUBT all you want, but you will never KNOW.. thats why the overkill in safty of these giant planes..
sure the B-2 and F-117 is expensive.. but how many have we lost? how many were show down in desert storm? none.. and in the beginning they had more and better SAM sites than were EVER active in Vietnam.. yet we didnt lose a single F-117 or B-2.. we didnt lose any B-52s either.. but thats because they didnt.. COULDENT come in untill the AA defences were severley degraded.
the B-2 is a necessary tool, especally these days, when even a little toejampot like Afganistan could get ahold of SAM sites.. and they DID have them, or was that footage of SAM spreades being blasted to hell all fake? and I wonder what blew them away? yup, B-2s
spend more money on better troop stuff :YES
take that money from our Airpower: NO
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Sorry Animal, that's just what it sounded like to me. I've heard too many people complain about things like that and then not be willing to do what it takes to try and fix the problems.
And you never know, the Pentagon and Congress just might be reading this for suggestions :)
The jobs that the military does tend to be dangerous, and accidents and mechanical failures happen, even in training. And while safety records aren't perfect yet, they have been getting better over the years. 220 days(and counting) until i'm in the hotseat, i suppose i've been lucky thus far not having lost any friends.
And the generals and congress are going as fast as they safely can with the limited amount of $ that they have.
P.S.
And the Boeing guppy thing is ugly. The Lockheed one is much better looking IMO. :D
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Originally posted by Dowding:
[/b]
It was disproved as a hard and fast rule in Vietnam and in Afghanistan.
Yeah, it's probably not a correct "rule" when almost all the strikes and attacks have to be approved by little Bobby McNamara sitting back at his desk in DC, resulting in a 2-3 day delay in hitting anything. Can't shoot SAMs stacked in the railyards, they have to be emplaced before they're a target. :rolleyes:
What VietNam proved about Air Power is that you can't micromanage it from half a world away... and you REALLY can't let some forking Harvard Professor turned WW2 AAF beancounter with NO military combat experience play air strategist.
Who controlled the air above Iraq in '91? Who TOTALLY controlled that battlefield?
16 January to 24 February... a little over a month of airstrikes. Air-Land battle folks... there's a reason "Air" is first in that name. There's a reason the "Land" part was 100 hours long... and they were routed long before that. That was 10 years ago. We'll be even better at it next time.
I'm guessing what we've seen in Afghanistan is merely the validation of new Air/Land battle concepts/doctrine. For example, we didn't have Predators in the Gulf. New technology, new tactics, new procedures, much more joint integration of services. It all has to be smoothed out... in the Afghan proving grounds.
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I hate to hear of US aircraft going down, but what is the root cause? Pilot error, maintenance, poor quality, critical part failure, etc... Until the cause is determined, we can only speculate as to the solution.
Talking about the B-2's price tag... isn't cost relative to the quantity ordered? Generally, the greater the quantity of aircraft ordered, the lower the price. Combine that with an optimum production move rate and typically product quality will benefit as realization improves. B-2 was a cost-plus program, limited to 20 aircraft... consider the technology developments that had to be accomplished by the manufacturers in order to build that plane, they were essentially starting from scratch and did so in secret. Neither of which come cheap. But I believe the Govt has learned some lessons from programs such as the B-2. Just look at the recent proposal submitted to the USAF on the C-17! Manufacturers can cut costs provided the customer agrees to an economical order quantity. Wonder how that JSF is coming along...
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In the worst Australian peacetime military disaster, 15 SASR troopers were killed and five injured in the crash of two Blackhawk helicopters near Townsville in 1996.
The Blackhawks from 5 Aviation Regiment were participating in a six-ship counterterrorist exercise (code named Day Rota) when two helicopters collided while flying at between 90 and 100 knots approximately 30 meters off the ground. The SASR members had opened the doors of the aircraft and were preparing to exit via fast-rope when the main rotor blade struck the tail rotor of the lead. The helo plummmeted to the ground and burst into flames.
The second helo crashed moments later killing five, but most of the crew managed to escape before it too exploded. The remaining Blackhawk were used to medevac the injured troopers to nearby Townsville General Hospital.
:( horrible way to go
<S> Beer
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wChance you've got the right idea. It doesn't cost anything like $2B to build additional B-2's.
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And then came the microwave oven. What's the cost effectiveness for that little piece of deception?
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I know how you feel, Animal. However, it is inevitable that some will die in this war. Fortunately, so far we have had fewer deaths then the same number of people would have experienced driving the streets of America. It would be nice to get out of this with no deaths, but it is statisically improbable.
Regardless, of what people think about complex helicopter systems and violent conflicts, it is a fact that people die everyday and these guys (the military) put their lives at stake just preparing for war.
I have to point out, though, that Operation Desert One was a Carter debacle. It took place in April 1980, which would be before Reagan was even elected.
Also, I don't think that a helicopter is more difficult to fly. It is a more complex system from typical general aviation aircraft in and of itself, but flying one is not as complicated as it might have been at one time. Helicopters have changed over the years and so have our front line aircraft. Today, neither system can be flown without the aid of computer systems.
Anyway, the problem is that no matter how much money they put into combat gear and flight systems, the guys inside are still soft fleshy beings. The only way to keep these guys safe is to keep them remote, and even that is no guarantee.
It sucks, but you can't stop it.
Back during the Monica Lewinsky deal, they knew precisely when this amazinhunk (bin Laden)was going to hold a meeting in Afghanistan. They had a chance to kill him then, but they waited for twelve hours after the meeting to launch the cruise missiles. Now THAT should piss you off.
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While the Taliban has nothing now to threaten US fighters and bombers, choppers are a whole other deal.
I just hope that the CAS is so good that there won't be too many US casualties.
And, FWIW, I am not convinced the US population is willing to have a conflict where there are thousands of US troops dead over a couple of years.
Not sure the coalition will last for much longer than a couple of months, either. And if the US strikes Iraq, other than the no fly zone stuff, it'll fall to pieces.
Oh, back to the subject: accidents happen, regrettably. Everyone does their best to avoid 'em, but anything involving stuff that goes faster than 10 mph is dangerous. :/
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Take the sheer number of helicopters over there now and factor in the fact that they seldomely fly "out of danger" in relation to people on the ground and the ground itself. Then factor in that they often fly with night vision which is still 2d rendered. Oh and don't forget to factor in that a single malfunction in the transfer case/main shaft means you have a spinning brick heading for earth. Oh.. and power lines and birds and whatever else.
There's a reason that helicopter crashes are so prevelant. They're dangerous vehicles.
AKDejaVu
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...and every piece that makes them fly is a moving part! <Shudder>.
http://www.adam2fly.com/Humor.html (http://www.adam2fly.com/Humor.html)
"Here is a story which concludes a very famous quote:
Helicopter Pilots Are Different! Helicopter Pilots are a Different Breed, never to be confused with airplane pilots.
Consider this:
An airplane is a marvelous vehicle that can easily "slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the sky with its laughter-silvered wings".
Being a fixed-wing aircraft, a lightweight, sleek airplane WANTS to fly and does so by utilizing a unique and very natural physical principle which involves air pressure over and under the airplane's wings.
The airplane pilot simply climbs inside, sits down, and leaves the earth on a joyously smooth, quick flight with only a minimal amount of care and concern: physics will keep it flying! He is reasonably assured that this will be another comfortable and pleasurable flight.
However, the helicopter's plight, I mean flight, characteristics bear no resemblance to those of an airplane.
Except for the very latest new models,helicopters are a piece of machinery that DOES NOT WANT TO FLY! Top-heavy and cumbersome, they carry a gigantic engine that is still too weak but nevertheless one that drains the fuel tank at an unrealistic rate.
The helicopter's constantly-rotating (hopefully!) rotor blades, which serve as wings, are forever trying to find more fresh air in a laborious effort to sustain even the barest production of flight through the air.
This complex rotor system in effect is constantly attempting to beat the air into submission! When the Helicopter Pilot climbs and securely straps himself into this mysterious machine, he utters a few choice words of confidence to himself.
These tend to increase his soon to be required sense of awareness and further remind him that what he is about to do is Not Natural:
To Fly a Helicopter!
Now end all Normal processes involving Life and reality! Occasionally, like the Bumble Bee which also generally is considered to be a flightless creation, this seems to work...for a while!
But then all the UNnatural imbalances and forces building up in that rotor system, compelled by Nature, attempt to gain control.
Not to forget that the Great Physical Force called Gravity which tries again and again to bring this twirling, overweight, fuel-guzzling contraption down to a final resting place upon the earth.
And Guess Who is trying to control all this by attempting to create a small Balance out of a great IMbalance?
Who shakes that little control stick around, hoping desperately to be The Master of the Forces of Nature while he is a Victim in a Box?
You guessed it:
The Helicopter Pilot. And the whole time while he's jockeying that Monster around through the skies, he's staying assured of one fact:
"If nothing has gone wrong in the last few moments,
IT IS ABOUT TO!"
HATS OFF to All Helicopter Pilots, everywhere! Good Luck!
- compiled by Ronald S. Donakowski"
Indeed. <S> to all Helicopter Pilots.
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Well, Toad, I think the saying should be 'he who controls the skies has a pretty good, better than average with all things considered (although not concrete) chance of controlling the battlefield'. ;)
Didn't the Russians have complete air supremacy over Afghanistan? It didn't seem to help them complete their objectives. I guess it depends alot on the terrain under the sky you control.
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There was a joke I heard a while ago about a potential war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. It goes like this:
Two Russian tank commanders are sitting in Paris, and one turns to the other and asks, "Who won the air war?"
What this adds to the discussion, I honestly don't know. Just that some of the posts here reminded me of it. Oh well, carry on with your debate.
-math
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Dowding, they had air supremacy until the Stingers showed up.
That pretty well stopped their successful helo/Special Forces operation.
I don't, however, think they ever applied the amount of Strategic and Tactical air that is our usual wont. I have not researched that so it is a guess.
So, I think it remains to be seen how we deal with manpads like the Stingers. In short, the jury is still out on this one.
You can't deny, however, that we dominated the skies over Iraq, manpads and all. And we rolled the huge Iraqi forces up like a cheap carpet as a result.
A desert is just about the ideal terrain for air ops against ground forces. Afghanistan is pretty much desert-like but they do have more folds in the ground to hide in.
It'll be another test of Air-Land doctrine. Be interesting to see how it plays out because play out it will, to the last card
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It was definitely that way in Iraq. And those deserts make for an excellent tank war I should think - all that open expanse with decent visibility.
Like you say, Afghanistan is different. It will be a good test of the doctrine. The Taliban could just hole up in the mountains and we'd never find them.
Until they got hungry, that is. ;)
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One of the largest changes is night capability.
With manpads you pretty much have to be able to see the target to lock on. If you can't, you might get lucky sweeping the skies with the narrow apeture of the senor but it would be luck to find many targets.
I'm fairly certain the Russians didn't have the almost universal capability to operate effectively at night that we are bringing to Afghanistan. It's no coincidence that the SF ops are at night. Those guys have a saying.. "we own the night".
Another thing that has changed is space based intelligence. Those poor bastages are going to be sitting in some cave in the winter and the outside landscape is going to be frozen solid. They're going to light a fire to keep warm and guess what? The hot air from the cave mouth may well show up on the Satellite sensor. If not satellite, Predator infrared sensors.
If you've got bunker-busters up on data-link capable aircraft, that cave may get REALLY warm before the first load of wood burns down to coals.
It's indeed a new kind of warfare.
As to tanks.. tank battles are going to be very tough to start for any side that doesn't own the air over the battlefield, particularly in a desert environment.
Just too d*mn bad it always seems to come down to this.
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the way I see it, If you own the air above the battlefield, the safest place to be on the ground is in a Modern Battle Tank.. ft the other guy owns the air above the battlefield.. the LAST place you want to be is sitting in a Tank.
Depending on who has the supreme air power, a Tank can either be a massive weapon or destruction capable of decimating enemies a great range.. or a giant bullseye.
[ 10-21-2001: Message edited by: Wobble ]
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Animal...that crash was probably pilot error, but sometimes toejam happens. Brownouts and whiteouts are very tough conditions to function in. In snow or dust, the rotor blades can kick up a blanket of crap that totally obscures your vision and it's very disorienting. These are actually a major focus of Army aviation training, because they cause many accidents and some deaths every year. I've been in brownouts in Desert Storm and a few whiteouts flying in the mountains in Washington. If you're taking off it's not too bad, but on final it can be very dangerous...especially in a Blackhawk because they flare so nose high. Probably doesn't make you feel any better about it, but I hope it explains that toejam like that happens every year, not just in conflicts.
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Are you asking for a anti-crashing stick (tm), or better training. I imagine that the US army helo pilots are pretty well trained. But, toejam happens. No disrespect but planes and helos crash...for many reasons. And you can't account for all the variables. You train the pilots as best you can. You maintain the aircraft as best you can and that is all you can do. The rest is very sad happenstance.
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In a related story, the wreckage the taliban are claiming is from a downed chopper looks like could be from a CH-47. It's made by Boeing as some pieces read, and those big undercarriage wheels seem similar to those on the Chinook.
The army special forces use the CH-47E version of that helo
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yet its interesting that they make no effort to show of the dead bodies or the crash site or anything, all they have are some chunks of metal and a wheel... seems a bit fishy
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Sometimes I wonder if all the education certain people have is from television.
1. In real life accidents happen all the time, especially in the military. In fact, during the Gulf War fewer people were lost to accidents and casualties then the same number troops would have lost to accidents during peacetime operations - mostly because soldiers were more alert.
If not for the lucku Scud hit, a huge majority of the Gulf war casualties would have been accidents and friendly fire.
2. For those 2-billion dollar B2 planes to be effective (otherwise why spend all that money) they have to be flown every week. If they are doing that anyway, they might as well go to Afghanistan and drop a few bombs on the way.
miko
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My roommate and I looked at pictures of blackhawks on the net last night. We saw the taliban with the wheels yesterday on the news. The wheels they ahd looked like a strut with 2 wheels on either side of the shaft. In all the blackhawk pictures we saw the blackhawks had a strut with only ONE wheel.
I don't think they shot one down. I could be wrong, but I believe the pentagon on this one...
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Just watched a briefing broadcast on cspan. Apparently a Chinook rubbed a wall or something and knocked a wheel off. The Blackhawk went down in Pakistan...no details about why.
Tumor
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wars are fought by politians,service men and women are just one of the tools used in that war.yes f117's, b1's,are a big dollar tool and they do the job they where designed to do and do it well.but i think in some cases these stealth aircraft are used for another reason.you say that b52's and conventional attack aircraft could do the same job and you maybe right.but i wonder how the american public would feel about a large chunk of they taxes going to pay for this stealth technology and along comes a flight of virtually antique b52's and desimates the whole of afganistan.i think maybe these mega buck planes are used on times to justify thier cost and to assure that the budget keeps flowing for even more expensive and sophisticated technology.as for the helicopter crashes the ones that stick in my mind were the apache crashes in bosnia what was said on the news here in the uk,was that a statement was issued saying that the aircrew were not used to training in that terrain.yet the terrain seemed ideal helicopter country,pop up over the hill tops acquire tgt kill.it made it sound like apache crew practise at the salt flats.but there is always one thing to keep in mind with any war, never underestimate your enemy we see that even in this game we play but we only pay for our mistake with a little damaged pride.atitudes vary across the globe most british people think the americans a strange race and i'm sure americans feel the sme about us.the taliban don't view life the same way as most western races.vietnam was bombed by conventionalweapons,napalm,poisons etc but still did'nt go under.
a political decision was made and that was an end to that and the longer this conflict goes on the will tend to change.
on the day of the trade centres incident i think it was a senator holbrooke said that these terrorists must be hunted down and punished and any country harbouring them being just as guilty as the terrorists themselves.this was said without taking into account that for years the ira who have been bombing innocent people in ireland and the uk
had been made welcome in the usa,a fellow nato country who also supplied money to them.a couple of days later your president with this in mind stated that."from this day forward we wont tollerate etc etc".politians again let them fight the dam wars and there more than likely would'nt be any.britain is paying 500.000 gbp for every missle fired yet a man down the road from me has died from cancer because he's had to wait 2 years for an operation due to lack of money and then it was to late.now that makes no sence.
to end i'd like to sympathise with all those who lost someone,family or friend in the trade centre and pentagon attacks.
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i read this late and not everything in it
1) in the development of a weapons system cost vs life is considered. in the case of the jsf, my school did a study about whether it should have 1 engine or 2. having 2 engines would make each plane cost $5 million more but would save an estimated 20 lives over the life of the program. the cost won out in favor of the benefit.
2) i am pretty sure the b2 lines are long long shut down. if the tooling has been destroyed it would cost a fekload to start up production again.
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My first flight in Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield, we had to fly our aircraft from the port to our camp. It was around dusk, visibilty was crap and we clipped a low hill. Ripped the skids right off the Huey...we had to radio ahead and have them build a pedestal of sandbags for us to land on. toejam happens. Those wheels were Chinook wheels and I'd bet the same thing happened.