From the desk of PMA-231:
A "twofer" today … (Aug 2 – multiple sources but h/t to The DEW Line) The Navy has announced Northrop-Grumman’s X-47B won the bid over Boeing’s X-45 for the $635M UCAS-D contract. Couple of items to note — when Boeing lost the JSF bid to Lockheed, they immediately jumped on the UCAV bandwagon and hoped…
Task Force 17 – Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher in Yorktown Task Group 17.5 Carrier Group – CAPT Elliott Buckmaster USS Yorktown (CV-5)CAPT Buckmaster CVG-5 – LCDR Oscar Pederson VS-5LT Wallace Clark Short, Jr.19 (17) x SBD-3 VF-3LCDR John Smith Thach27 (25) x F4F-4 VB-3LCDR Maxwell Franklin Leslie 18 (17) x SBD-3 VT-3LCDR Lance Edward…
It’s time to return some sanity to the way ships are named. Why? Because the silliness is upon us once again: 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. CON. RES. 83 Expressing the sense of Congress that a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the Navy, either the aircraft carrier designated as CVN-79 or the aircraft carrier designated as…
Couple of developments in the last week with regards to major systems in our Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) plans for the coming decades: Item: The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded concept definition contracts to three teams competing for the SM-3 Block IIB advanced interceptor (aka: Next Generation Aegis Missile (NGAM)). Designed to…
This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the E-2 Hawkeye’s entry into Fleet operations. Â Over the course of those fifty-years the aircraft has radically changed and grown in capabilities and mission focus, while visually remaining much the same as the first E-2A . Â From Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, Â it has been a part…
Off today to Norfolk to speak at the winging of the next class of replacement NFO’s at the E-2 FRS (VAW-120) – more on that later. -SJS 1 MAY 1951 Today’s subject – the torpedo attack on the floodgates of the Hwachon Dam, is an example of what today is described as thinking out of…
