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  1. #61
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Question: Why are men in U.S. Prison(s) building Patriot Missles?

    Answer: 1. so we dont have to build them to prop up our declining manufacturing base and

    2. So we dont have to pay the Chinese to build them
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    U.S. Prisoners Build Patriot Missiles for 23 cents an hour

    http://www.alipac.us/f19/u-s-prisone...s-hour-219886/ <---LINK
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    Prisoners Help Build Patriot Missiles

    By Noah Shachtman
    March 8, 2011



    This spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.

    But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour. (Credit Justin Rohrlich with the catch.)

    The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.

    One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts. “UNICOR/FPI supplies numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile,” Unicor’s website explains. “We assemble and distribute the Intermediate Frequency Processor (IFP) for the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and filters radio-frequency signals that guide the missile toward its target.”

    The missiles are then marketed worldwide — sometimes by Washington’s top officials. Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pitched the Patriots to the Turkish government last year, a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reveals: “SecDef stressed that ‘nothing can compete with the PAC-3 when it comes to capabilities.’”

    Patriot assemblers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin aren’t the only defense contractors relying on prison help. As Rohrlich notes, Unicor “inmates also make cable assemblies for the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter, as well as electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder.”
    Unicor used to make helmets for the military, as well. Bu
    t that work was suspended when 44,000 helmets were recalled for shoddy quality.

    Government agencies — with the exception of the Defense Department and the CIA — are required to buy goods from Unicor, according to a Congressional Research Service report (.pdf). And no wonder: the labor costs are bordering on zero. “Inmates earn from $0.23 per hour up to a maximum of $1.15 per hour, depending on their proficiency and educational level, among other things,” the report notes.

    Last year, Unicor grossed $772 million, according to its most recent financial report (.pdf). Traditionally, inmate salaries make up about five percent of that total.

    Unicor insists that the deal is a good one for inmates — and for the government. The manufacturing work offers a chance for job training, which “improves the likelihood that inmates will remain crime-free upon their release,” the company says in its report. (Some reports suggest that Unicor prisoners are as much as 24% less likely to return to crime.)

    The work also keeps the inmates in check, Unicor insists. “In the face of an escalating inmate population and an increasing percentage of inmates with histories of violence, FPI’s programs have helped ease tension and avert volatile situations, thereby protecting lives and federal property,” the company says. “Prisons without meaningful activities for inmates are dangerous prisons, and dangerous prisons are expensive prisons.”

    Photo: U.S. Army

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...riot-missiles/

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    Slip-Up in Chinese Military TV Show Reveals More Than Intended

    Piece shows cyber warfare against US entities


    By Matthew Robertson & Helena Zhu
    Epoch Times Staff


    EXPOSED: A picture of the hacking software shown during the Chinese military program. The large writing at the top says "Select Attack Target." Next, the user choose an IP address to attack from (it belongs to an American university). The drop-down box is (CCTV)

    Updated August 28, 8:50am EDT

    A standard, even boring, piece of Chinese military propaganda screened in mid-July included what must have been an unintended but nevertheless damaging revelation: shots from a computer screen showing a Chinese military university is engaged in cyberwarfare against entities in the United States.
    The documentary itself was otherwise meant as praise to the wisdom and judgment of Chinese military strategists, and a typical condemnation of the United States as an implacable aggressor in the cyber-realm. But the fleeting shots of an apparent China-based cyber-attack somehow made their way into the final cut.
    The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds—between 11:04 and 11:10 minutes—showing custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university. As of Aug. 22 at 1:30pm EDT, in addition to Youtube, the whole documentary is available on the CCTV website. But by Aug. 25, multiple media noted that the video had been removed.
    The screenshots show the name of the software and the Chinese university that built it, the Electrical Engineering University of China’s People’s Liberation Army—direct evidence that the PLA is involved in coding cyber-attack software directed against a Chinese dissident group.
    The software window says "Choose Attack Target." The computer operator selects an IP address from a list—it happens to be 138.26.72.17—and then selects a target. Encoded in the software are the words "Falun Gong website list," showing that attacking Falun Gong websites was built into the software.
    A drop-down list of dozens of Falun Gong websites appears. The computer operator chooses minghui.org, the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice.
    The IP address 138.26.72.17 belongs to the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), according to an online trace.
    The shots then show a big "Attack" button on the bottom left being pushed, before the camera cuts away.
    "The CCP has leaked its top secret here," says Jason Ma, a commentator for New Tang Dynasty Television. "This is the first time we see clearly that one of the top Chinese military universities is doing this research and developing software for cyber-attacks. There’s solid proof of it in this video," he said.
    The Chinese Communist Party has consistently denied that it is involved in cyber-attacks, but experts have long suspected that the Chinese military engages in them.
    "Now we’ve got proof," Ma says. "They’re also extending their persecution of Falun Gong overseas, attacking a civil website in the U.S. These are the clear messages revealed in these six seconds of video."


    Network administrators at UAB contacted on Friday took a look at the IP address on their network and said it had not been used since 2010.


    One of the technicians also recalled that there had been a Falun Gong practitioner at the university some years ago who held informal Falun Gong meetings on campus. They could not confirm whether that individual used that IP address.
    A UAB network administrator assured The Epoch Times that they have safeguards against both network intrusions, and that their network is not compromised.
    After the short interlude, the documentary continued with the themes it had started with for another nine minutes.
    Last month McAfee, a network security company, said that an unprecedented campaign of cyber-espionage—affecting over 70 organizations or governments around the world and implicating billions of dollars in intellectual property—was being carried out by a "state actor."
    Later evidence traced IP addresses involved in the attack to China, and a growing mountain of other circumstantial evidence also suggests that the attacks originated from China.
    The military documentary on July 17, on the other hand, was meant to show that the United States is the real aggressor in cyberspace, and that China is highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. “America is the first country to propose the concept of a cyberwar, and the first country to implement it in a real war,” the narrator said at one point.
    It might have worked, except for those screenshots.
    UPDATE 2: On Aug. 26 Government Computer News (GCN)—a publication for U.S. government IT professionals—called the six seconds of cyber-attack footage "the smoking gun on China’s U.S. cyberattacks." In July, GCN had published a report on the anatomy of a cyber-attack that appeared to originate in China. It was an attack on a "honeypot" network—a trap GCN created specifically to attract an attack to examine hackers’ modus operandi. GCN’s John Breeden writes that the type of "push of a button" attack documented in the CCTV footage, "is exactly what I said happened to the GCN honeypot network."
    GCN "focuses on how to buy, build and manage the technologies that run [U.S.] federal, state, and local government," according to its online description.

    Related Articles



    UPDATE: The University of Alabama at Birmingham made a statement after the news broke, noting that the IP address belonged to a website that was decommissioned in 2001 because it had been created against UAB rules. They said that they believe the purpose of the action demonstrated in the video was not to launch an attack from that website, but to block access to it, and that they’re not aware of any such attack, past or present.

    chinareports@epochtimes.com

    Follow Matthew on Twitter @mprobertson.

    Follow Helena on Twitter @HelenaZhu.

    Follow The Epoch Times’ China feeds on Twitter @EpochTimesChina.

    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/chin...ded-60619.html

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    China's 'Ripples of Capability': An Interview with Andrew Erickson

    By David Axe
    Published: August 29, 2011



    For any Westerner observer struggling to understand Chinese military developments -- and let's be serious, that's most of us -- Andrew Erickson is an indispensable resource. A professor at the Naval War College, Erickson has edited an influential series of books about the People's Liberation Army, each volume based on close scrutiny of Chinese-language journals and new sources. Erickson's latest volume, Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles, takes a hard, sober look at Beijing's growing air and missile forces and their effect on the Pacific balance of power.

    For more news and information on the swiftly-changing defense industry, please sign up for the AOL Defense newsletter. For the quickest updates, like us on Facebook.


    In this interview with AOL Defense, Erickson corrected what he views as widely-held misconceptions about China's military, its strengths, limitations and purposes. Where many analysts fall into opposing camps -- one inclined to inflate China's military strength, the other inclined to downplay it -- Erickson occupies a nuanced middle position. He argues that the PLA, specifically the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy, must be assessed through the lens of distance. Erickson says the most profound Chinese developments are aimed at securing Beijing's "backyard," while farther afield China remains relatively weak.

    AOL Defense: What is the biggest misconception inside the Pentagon regarding Chinese maritime power?

    Andrew Erickson: I can't speak to Pentagon assessments per se, but the most common source of error in Chinese and U.S. analyses of PLA(N) development is the conflation of two factors: scope and intensity. A stone dropped into the water forms waves that radiate outward, gradually dissipating in the process. Close to home, China's military capabilities are rapidly reaching a very high level. However, they are making much slower progress, from a much lower baseline, farther away.

    To call this a "tale of two navies" oversimplifies, since some platforms and weapon systems can contribute in both areas -- but it captures the basic dynamic. Many vehicles and armaments are primarily relevant in one area or the other. Cherry-picking the characteristics of either of these "layers" or "levels" to characterize overall Chinese military/maritime power with a broad brush risks fundamentally misrepresenting its critical dynamics.
    The most dangerous scenario is one in which Washington claims to maintain capabilities that Beijing believes it no longer has, thereby emboldening Beijing to challenge the status quo by force.
    On one hand, it is a mistake to exaggerate the scope of intense build-up: China is simply not moving to develop a "blue water" power-projection navy at the same rate that it is deploying shorter-range platforms and weapon systems such as missiles -- many on land, but also on air-, sea-, and undersea-based platforms. On the other hand, it is equally misguided to suggest that restraint and limitations in the "Far Seas" indicates restraint and limitations in the "Near Seas."

    "Counting all the beans" by treating side-by-side comparison of all Chinese and U.S. forces as the key metric, as sometimes done by those who would minimize the PLA(N)'s significance, is only relevant if one assumes that the relevant scenario is a Cold War-style Sino-American global conflict -- a virtual impossibility, fortunately.

    Rather, China is seeking to further its core interests by pursuing an asymmetric approach. As Tom Christensen wrote in International Security, this involves "Posing Problems Without Catching Up."

    AOL Defense: So if we view China's capabilities as "capability ripples" that diminish as they expand, how should the Pentagon shape its response? Does each ripple require a unique American approach?

    Erickson: Each Chinese "capability ripple" does not require a unique American military approach, but there should be a corresponding continuum of responses. This suggests a clear set of force structure priorities -- or "hard choices," given Washington's current budgetary difficulties.

    As a rising great power, it is natural that China has increasing influence and responsibility in the international system. America must be judicious in disagreeing with China, but act firmly and credibly when it does. The most dangerous scenario is one in which Washington claims to maintain capabilities that Beijing believes it no longer has, thereby emboldening Beijing to challenge the status quo by force.

    To avoid this destabilizing outcome, America must back up its rhetoric with enduring capabilities. Nowhere is this more important than on, above and under the Near Seas, where China is rapidly improving Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) capabilities by systematically targeting physics-based limitations in U.S. and allied military platforms.

    To shape a force structure that is less vulnerable to asymmetric Chinese challenges, and thereby "reclaim the right end of physics," Pentagon planners must follow these principles:

    1. Shift to less-manned and unmanned systems, which - while they face limitations given current technologies - can already be smaller, cheaper and more disposable; enabling better persistence, maneuverability and tolerance of losses. Personnel costs absorb an ever greater proportion of the U.S. military budget, making it extremely important to limit reliance on manpower wherever feasible.

    2. For a limited number of relevant applications, consider shifting at least some operations from large, tightly-grouped targets -- e.g., a Carrier Strike Group -- to smaller, dispersed, networked elements.

    3. Move from the sea surface to the harder-to-access undersea - and in some cases air - realms. Space, by contrast, is expensive to enter, hard to sustain assets in, contains no defensive ground, and - barring energy-intensive maneuvering - forces assets into predictable orbits. Moreover, some of the most debilitating asymmetric tactics could be employed against space and cyberspace targets.

    4. Substitute passive defenses -- e.g., dispersion of assets, reinforced concrete -- for active defenses such as missile defenses, in contexts in which this is cheaper and/or more effective.

    Bottom line: U.S. Carrier Strike Groups and other platforms are increasingly threatened by A2/AD weapons like Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and streaming cruise missiles. Regardless of how much the U.S. spends on Ballistic Missile Defense and other countermeasures -- limits are already emerging -- its CSGs may still face restrictions in future high-intensity combat operations. Beijing knows this and already appears to be seeking deterrent effects with its small but likely growing number of deployed ASBMs, whatever their precise level of capability at present.

    Despite its dramatic progress in A2/AD, however, China has minimal missile-defense, Anti-Submarine Warfare and Mine Counter-Measure capabilities. U.S. investment in missiles, submarines and sea mines, therefore, can reverse the military equation in America's favor.

    The goal is not to attack or threaten China, but rather to deter it from using force or displays of military might to change the regional status quo unilaterally.

    AOL Defense: Cultural bias can result in serious misunderstandings between nations and armies. How does this play into Americans' perception of China's military rise, and China's own perception of its place in world security? In other words, are the U.S. and China "talking past each other" in a military sense?

    Erickson: Yes. Never before has the world witnessed the simultaneous presence of a powerful United States and a powerful China, let alone their interaction. Nearly as exceptional is the phenomenon of two great powers in the international system with two very different cultures, political systems, geographic regions and sets of national interests poised to avoid a great power war.

    Most fundamentally, the U.S. fears that China seeks to, and is increasingly capable of, undermining the U.S.' preeminent position in world affairs, achieved through its successful manner of governance and performance in World War II, subsequent construction of the postwar international system, and ongoing status as an indispensable provider of global public goods.

    China, for its part, fears that the United States and other Western powers will never accommodate its return to its hard-won position as an autonomous, ideologically-ordered and powerful civilization with a preeminent regional role.

    The fears and aspirations of the United States and China draw on powerful currents of national identity and experience. Consequently, they are easy to reinforce and difficult to moderate. In coming years, driving factors, such as their constant development of new high-end military capabilities, are likely to become more significant.

    Lack of strategic transparency and understanding remains a major problem between the U.S. and China. Beijing has traditionally disclosed far less information about the most critical aspects of its military capabilities than has the U.S.; its strategists believe that as the weaker party it must use ambiguity to compensate for technological inferiority.

    This has been exacerbated by ongoing efforts by China to use suspending military-military relations as a means of expressing umbrage at U.S. policy; this has happened twice in two years, in 2008 and 2010. While China's rising military strength increasingly incentivizes the PLA to engage in "selective transparency" to attempt to impress its populace and deter its U.S. competitor with improved capabilities, this remains insufficient to reassure Washington.

    Meanwhile, Beijing complains that Washington lacks "strategic transparency," or credible explanations, regarding its own intentions. This issue raises the larger question as to what degree military-to-military activities will be subject to ever-shifting political winds and strategic disagreement; or rather, if there is any hope that they will not be the first casualty of such challenges in the future.

    The yawning gulf between U.S. and Chinese strategic perceptions is readily apparent in the latest reports produced by their respective militaries. China's latest Defense White Paper (2010) outlines a purely "defensive" national-defense policy of "active defense." It vows that China will "never seek hegemony."

    Where the Chinese report focuses on intentions, policies and history and gives virtually no details on China's current military capabilities, the U.S. Department of Defense's annual report on China's military power focuses on specific capabilities. The DoD engages in broad speculation about China's intentions but emphasizes that the lack of transparency leaves significant uncertainty.

    Beijing's official spokespeople and media denounce each year's DoD report, yet fail to offer specifics regarding which facts they consider wrong or what the correct information is. Xinhua's response to the 2011 edition, just released this Wednesday, while more positive than in past years, states that since 2000 the Pentagon report has "drawn protest from China over its interfering nature, distortion of facts and baseless speculations."

    Not surprisingly, the reports' differences are rooted in something much deeper than technical analyses. Several fundamental differences in viewpoint obscure U.S.-China security relations, posing major obstacles to mutual understanding, let alone cooperation. Their very different modern histories have produced a significant strategic cultural divide. Much work remains to be done for the two Pacific powers to achieve some form of "competitive coexistence."

    David Axe, a member of the AOL Defense Board of Contributors, is a freelance war correspondent and author. His most recent book is a graphic novel, War is Boring.

    http://defense.aol.com/2011/08/29/un...ec1_lnk2|90524
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    China Developing Star Wars Missile Defense While Obama Disarms

    China is developing a missile defense system in the highest layer of the atmosphere and outer space using high-end technologies like laser beams and kinetic energy intercept.

    In 2007, China successfully tested a direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon against a weather satellite, demonstrating its ability to attack satellites in low-Earth orbit. It has also been developing other kinetic and directed-energy technologies for ASAT missions like lasers, high-powered microwave, and particle beam weapons, according to a report released by the U.S. Defense Department last week.

    With its manned and lunar space programs, "China is improving its ability to track and identify satellites -- a prerequisite for effective, precise counterspace operations," the report said.

    The Defense Department speculates that China already has the technology to counter low-flying cruise missiles or short-range ballistic missiles. It is believed to be using Russian-made SA-20 ground-to-air missiles or its own homegrown HQ-9 long-range SAM missiles.

    "China is proceeding with the research and development of a missile defense 'umbrella' consisting of kinetic energy intercept at exo-atmospheric altitudes (>80 km), as well as intercepts of ballistic missiles and other aerospace vehicles within the upper atmosphere," the report says.

    In January 2007, China joined the space war by launching an interceptor missile against a superannuated weather satellite floating 859 km above the earth. In January last year, it also successfully tested a ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) system, demonstrating its ability to intercept midcourse ballistic missiles at an altitude of 20 km.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. obtained information at least two days before China's GMD test in January last year and notified allies like Australia, the U.K., New Zealand, and Canada of this, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported Monday.

    "A classified cable from the U.S. secretary of state to diplomats in allied countries on Jan. 9 last year indicated that Washington knew details of the sensitive missile test days before the launch," the daily said. "Xu Guangyu, a retired PLA general and a researcher with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, said the cable, if authentic, indicated the possibility that U.S. intelligence had reached into the heart of the Chinese government or military, or both."

    englishnews@chosun.com / Aug. 30, 2011 11:47 KST

    Related Articles



    http://english.chosun.com/site/data/htm ... 00948.html
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    China Analyst: U.S. Can't Win in Space, So Why Bother Racing?

    By David Axe August 31, 2011 | 10:30 am | Categories: China




    With access to more than 400 satellites plus at least two tiny, maneuverable robotic shuttles, the U.S. military is the clear leader in military spacecraft. But with 70 orbiters of its own, China is catching up fast. Last year, Beijing matched Washington in space launches for the first time, boosting no fewer than 15 satellites into orbit. It was the first time any nation China kept a celestial pace with the U.S.

    The new space race is on. But in the view of one influential analyst, the race isn’t worth the prize. Space “is expensive to enter, hard to sustain assets in, contains no defensive ground, and — barring energy-intensive maneuvering – forces assets into predictable orbits,” Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College professor and editor of the new book Chinese Aerospace Power, told me as part of a longer interview over at AOL Defense.

    No one disputes that China is gaining “ground” in space. The [People's Liberation Army] is acquiring a range of technologies to improve China’s space and counter-space capabilities,” warned the 2011 edition of Congress’ annual report on the Chinese military (.pdf). But the Pentagon’s official response is to dig in deeper in orbit, with newer and better spacecraft costing at least $10 billion a year, in total. Erickson is virtually alone in fundamentally questioning the Pentagon’s space presence — and recommending an orbital retreat.


    “Some of the most debilitating asymmetric tactics could be employed against space and cyberspace targets,” Erickson explained. In other words, spacecraft are highly vulnerable to physical and electronic attack, and so are their control stations. To avoid these “asymmetric” assaults at which China has proved particularly skilled, the Pentagon should take its current space-based equipment and move it downward to the atmosphere. The air is more secure than space, Erickson insisted.

    The Pentagon is already following Erickson’s advice with a handful of new systems. The Air Force’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node, a collection of radio relays, is the kind of thing that might normally be installed on a satellite. But for expediency, the Air Force fitted it to small jets and Global Hawk drones. Several types of high-altitude unmanned planes and blimps function essentially as low-altitude satellites, but with added flexibility and, usually, lower cost.

    For a successor to the current, satellite-based GPS navigation system, the Air Force is looking at non-space systems including “cold atoms, pseudolites [satellite surrogates such as drones and blimps], and image-aided inertial navigation systems that use laser radar,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has said.

    This trend should continue, Erickson recommended, with terrestrial robots in particular standing in for orbital hardware. “Less-manned and unmanned systems, which — while they face limitations given current technologies — can already be smaller, cheaper and more disposable; enabling better persistence, maneuverability and tolerance of losses.”

    In Erickson’s perfect world, U.S. forces probably wouldn’t rely on space at all. With no one to beat, China wouldn’t lose the new space race. But it wouldn’t win, either.
    Photo: Chinese space agency

    See Also:


    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...na-space-race/
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    20,000 SA-24 Shoulder Launched Surface-to-Air Missiles Looted From Libyan Warehouse

    http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/s ... e_09072011

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -side.html

    http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol ... =pm_latest

    Escobar: Al-Qaeda asset is military commander of Tripoli

    Video:
    http://rt.com/usa/news/al-qaeda-libya-c ... cobar-269/
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    'Aircraft Carrier Killer': RT aboard Varyag guided missile cruiser




    Sep 19, 2011

    RT has been allowed to film aboard the Varyag missile cruiser, the flagship of Russia's Pacific Fleet, as it took part in large-scale war games in the country's Far East. Dubbed the 'aircraft carrier killer', Varyag boasts a variety of weapons from 15-ton anti-ship guided missiles, to anti-submarine mortars, to anti-aircraft missiles.

    Read the full report at https://rt.com/news/varyag-pacific-flagship-drills-805/
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    Air Force Resends Grounded Stealth Fighters Into Action Without Fixing Them



    By David Axe September 20, 2011 | 1:00 pm | Categories: Air Force

    Four months after grounding its entire force of F-22 Raptors, the Air Force has cleared the roughly 170 high-tech stealth fighters to resume flying.

    Just one little problem: The brass still doesn’t know why a dozen Raptor pilots blacked out and one fatally crashed, prompting the May 3 no-fly order.

    Officials suspected the oxygen system aboard the $300-million, radar-evading superfighter. Ground crews starting up the jets in sealed, garage-like hangars might also have been a factor. After months of study, the Air Force still can’t say for sure.

    But the Lockheed-built F-22s comprise around half of America’s dogfighting fleet. They can’t stay grounded forever without eventually jeopardizing national security.


    Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said the risk should be manageable. “We now have enough insight from recent studies and investigations that a return to flight is prudent and appropriate,” Schwartz said. He ordered careful monitoring of the jets and their pilots as the F-22 training system slowly cranks back into gear over a period of months.

    The return to flight marks the end of a troubling period for America’s small fleet of stealth aircraft. Soon after grounding the F-22s, the Air Force also briefly suspended flying for its 20 stealthy Joint Strike Fighters. The problem in the F-35′s power system has now been resolved. But now, a new design flaw has emerged.

    The problems with the F-22 and its stealth stablemates highlight the risk with small, “silver-bullet” fleets of similar aircraft. Larger numbers of more different kinds of jets means greater redundancy and fewer single points of failure. F-22s and F-35s could be the Air Force’s only fighters after 2030 or so. What happens if both types get grounded then?

    Photo: Air Force

    See Also:


    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...fighters-back/
    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 02-15-2012 at 06:37 PM.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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