Defence`s Feeds

F-35Bs showcase their STOVL capabilities that can be useful for remote airfield ops. Taken on May 6, 2015 the following footage features two F-35Bs from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, based out at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, practicing short take off and vertical landings as part of required flying field carrier landing practices (FCLP) […]

The B-2 Rose Bowl flyover as seen from  above. As already reported, on Jan. 1, 2016, a B-2 Spirit belonging to the 509th Bomb Wing from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, opened the 102nd Rose Bowl Game between the Big Ten Conference West Division champion Iowa Hawkeyes and the Pac-12 Conference champion Stanford Cardinal, at the […]

The Royal Bahraini Air Force (RBAF) has lost one of its F-16s performing a mission to support the Saudi-led air offensive in Yemen. The Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) General Command reported that am RBAF‘s F-16 jet went down in Jizan province, Saudi Arabia, on Dec. 30, 2015, while it was undertaking the national duty of […]

A month ago I remarked on the non-sensical decision by Britain’s parliament to authorise bombing by the RAF in Syria–see Britain’s Stupidest War. My point then, the clincher at any rate, was that I thought we would come to regret how as a society we’d allowed our wars to be so totally hijacked by domestic politics that they now served essentially little more than as props in political theatre. This piece then in today’s Telegraph caught my eye for the obvious reasons: RAF bomb raids in Syria dismissed as ‘non-event’. It turns out that not only are we not really doing much in the way of bombing (we may be doing a bit more on reconnaissance, but we were doing that before the momentous vote too), but actually the target that got all the attention was actually one that had been serviced by the USAF over a month before.

So, what’s up KOW readers? What’s the point of it? Obviously, Shakespeare came to mind first–Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5:

And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

But, honestly, very shortly thereafter I realised the more appropriate metaphor was from the genius pen of Harold Ramis–Caddyshack, scene something or other:

But what does it mean? I hear you say. What’s the strategy? How does action X contribute to the realisation of policy Y? Wrong question, Grasshopper! What’s important is how it makes you feel. Blessedly, we made it through the new year celebrations without a major terror attack on revellers enjoying the peaceful fireworks shows that just lit the skylines of the world’s major cities. There’s going to be one, though, for sure, and another one after that, and another one after that, and so on and so forth, and so far not much sign of a plausible concept of avoiding them either. At which point the government can say ‘we’re doing our best!’ It’s down to you to forget that doing their best consisted of driving the occasional ball 10,000 feet down a crevasse.

Anyway, happy 2016!

 

Developed by a private Russian design bureau, the SR-10 (CP-10) is a single engine, all-composite jet trainer with a (moderate) forward-swept wing. The footage below shows the first flight of SR-10, a Russian subsonic, single engine, all-composite dual-pilot jet trainer aircraft developed by KB SAT. Developed by a private Russian design bureau called KB SAT, […]

B-2 Stealth Bomber at today’s Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game. On Jan. 1, 2016, a B-2 Spirit with 509th Bomb Wing from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, opened the Rose Bowl college football bowl game played at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California with a flyover that was filmed from a helicopter. Here below […]