Oh nothing really just wanted to share

I think the twin tail and multi engine is just coincidental and not necessarily a Lockheed proclivity. Boeing and McDowell Douglas didn't adopt Lockheed's idea, it has long existed and long been used. Multi-engine twin tail is actually quite common.

The Beechcraft Model 18, Consolidated P2Y flying boat, B-24/PB4Y Liberator bomber, PB2Y Coronado flying boat, North American B-25 Mitchell, Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar (actually twin boom, twin tail, like the P-38) are all twin tailed and multi-engined. (There are doubtless many others but these came quickly to mind.
More modern aircraft are the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, McDowell Douglas F-15 Eagle, Mig-25, Sukhoi SU-27, Mig-29, Mig-31, Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt, Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, they are also multi-engined as well.
As for multi-engined, the US Navy has a preference that its aircraft be multi-engined, that's why the AH-1 Marine Corps version of the Cobra has twin -engines, as does the UH-1 naval version, V-22 Osprey, A-6 Intruder, EA-6 Prowler, F-4, F-14, F-18, among others and one of the factors for choosing the F-18 over the F-16. The US Navy while preferring twin engines saw that the stealth, performance and electronics/avionics advantages of the F-35 B/C outweighed any safety concerns with a single engine aircraft. Additionally, the F-35's engine is many times more reliable and powerful than legacy engines. Despite the preference for multi-engine's the Navy has operated many single engine jets in the past, A-7 Corsair II, F-8 Crusader, and A-4 Skyhawk among others.

 

I wonder if it might have something to do with the requirement that one version, the F-35B, be capable of vertical takeoff and landing. In the -B a nozzle directs the engine thrust downward when needed; perhaps it would be difficult to balance the thrust of two engines?

p.s. the lift fan in the forward part of the F-35B is powered by a driveshaft from the main engine; this might also be a reason for the single engine.

 

Different topic. There are posts all over Facebook about Biden sending Marines off the coast of Israel, all those ain't got a clue commenters are all taking this as a sign we're getting involved in the ground war there. Not true. It's an amphibious ready group, MEU's are almost always off the coast of some hot spot to be available to evacuate American civilians and embassy personnel, to secure an embassy, provide a QRF for Special Ops personnel or rescue downed air crews. They've been performing most of these or similar tasks for most of our history since Presley O'Bannon seized Derna, Tripoli in 1805. We won't have conventional forces joining in as a partner in Israel's ground war, without a Congressional resolution.

Ward Carrol a good level headed assessment:


This video, from a channel called "The Military", tends to use innuendo to give the impression that the deployment is to provide support for Israel's military operations. Not true! If the MEU goes into Israel, it will be to because Hezbollah or Iran come into the war and our embassy needs to be secured or Americans evacuated. They show a bunch of infantry Marines marching down a road and state thousands of Marines are sailing to Israel and 2,000 have been put on alert for "potential" deployment based on unnamed reports! It tries to give an incorrect impression and doesn't tell you the Marines sailing for the coast of Israel were already in the region with a scheduled MEU and have been for months. The video gives the impression that the marching Marines are those going, unless the video is several months old these are not the same Marines deployed.
In the referenced statement by a defense official that a "Rapid Response Force of 2,000" is headed towards Israel is again the 2,000 men of the MEU already in the region, and MEU's routinely are on station in global "hot spots" that's what they do.
Fox News reported that the Marines were the 26th MEU (which ties in with Ward Carroll's report), according to an unnamed defense official. It's like they're trying to insinuate it was a big secret. The MEU's are permanent commands that have regularly scheduled deployments to particular regions (there are currently 7 MEU's in the Marine Corps), their deployments are generally not secret. In fact here is a publicly available news story for the 26th MEU from right before this deployment:
Ready, Relevant, and Capable: 26th MEU Completes Final Certification Exercise > 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) > News

Then the report from CNN and the Wall Street Journal that 2,000 Marines have been placed on alert for possible deployment. Again, sounds sinister, but! The 26th MEU, the area crisis response force, will be occupied standing by off Israel in case they're needed to protect lives and property. Doesn't it make sense to have a backup response force standing by on deck in case something else pops up in the MEU's AOR (Area of Responsibility)? That is the way it is ALWAYS done.
Then they show Marines passing around gear in the passage way of the LHD. Then says they are there to bolster Israel. Other than the psychological effect of a MEU off the coast on suppressing enemy action, the aforementioned, protecting US lives and property, rescuing aircrews, or providing humanitarian/medical assistance, the MEU cannot engage in military operations, such as supporting the Israeli's unless authorized by Congress.
Don't get me wrong, when authorized, the MEU has enough ass to carry out just about any contingency. They are used relatively frequently all across the globe, most often the show of force is sufficient to prevent conflict and bloodshed.


I think the rest of the shipboard video of Marines is just generic MEU footage and not the actual current operations and the aircraft carrier footage at the end is of the CV-69 Dwight D. Eisenhower, but likely not of current ops since it only left Norfolk on 14 October and the video was posted on Oct. 17th.

 

In 1981 I was on the USS Saipan (LHA-2), flagship of an Amphibious Ready Group (what they now call an MEU) on regular rotation in the Mediterranean. As Price said, it was a routine six-month deployment; when we got there, we relieved another group which went home, and six months later, another group relieved us.

We happened to be in Suda Bay, Crete when President Sadat of Egypt was assassinated. We were immediately ordered to steam towards Egypt. We had no specific plans, no one knew what might happen, just be there in case we were needed; evacuating American civilians was one possibility. As it turned out, we didn't have to do anything, and went back to routine cruising, exercises, port calls.....and being ready.

We were a bit nervous as headed towards whatever. ARGs did not include combatants, just three gator freighters with a few 3" and 5" guns and a couple of BPDMS missile launchers aimed, I kid you not, by a sailor on deck pointing the director at the target. The carrier Nimitz and two nuclear-powered cruisers were on a port call in Venice and got underway the same time we did; they covered 1200 miles in 36 hours and boy were we glad to see them come up on the data link! Of course they didn't end up doing anything either, just another couple of days in the Navy.

 

Twin tails are fairly popular for naval aircraft because they can be shorter than a single fin would need to be on the same aircraft.

 

Hooking back to AI weaponry, one wonders if future wars will become robot vs robot. I struggle to see AI coping as well with insurgency / peacekeeping roles, at least not until it gets really really sophisticated

 

Mate the future of robots and AI is almost beyond most people’s imagination…I think in most cases it won’t be robot against robot…like Countries with Nukes don’t fight each other…but that too will pass…
Indeed a nuke could be walked into any area…add holographic projection (to hide - maybe as a rock or tree) Satelite link ups…The terminator was alone…Used as a system, it could also call for a satellite strike or a small smart suicide drone attack - 50 small bee like drones swarm a target) what the ground bot couldn’t do, it could call in more (unmanned) platforms…Different modes programmed into the bots which might include targeting only those with weapons…wearing uniforms…use facial recognition to take out a particular target…or beast mode where it takes anything that moves…or suicide mode where it explodes…ETC ETC

Your average soldier relies on a ‘brain’, the LT to decide what’s going on and what response his troops should take…But there are special forces who make decisions themselves…A Bot/drone can be controlled by a human (or even a bigger more sophisticated computer brain elsewhere) - Or you can deploy ‘special forces’ bots/drones that will think for themselves…

 

Dornier Do 31…

 

Many aircraft were hurt during the making of these pictures...
Always impresses me how a pilot has to choose the time to punch out...Most leave it until they know nothing else can be done.




Straight through the glass...


Fake



Seen before...Note the effort to reduce speed...Gear down air breaks deployed...








Remember this?



That'll buff right out...

 

I'm always impressed that Martin Baker still use a Gloster Meteor for testing ejection seats

 

A repost of my 92 year old talking about Tom Cruise. Hilarious! . . . . . #tomcruise #topgun #fighterpilot #koreanwarveteran #oldguysrule | John MacGregor | Kenny Loggins · Danger Zone (From "Top Gun" Original Soundtrack)

 

I've always understood that it was important for the pilot/crewman to be in the proper position, sitting up straight, before ejecting. Might there be some danger of injury in an unexpected ejection? Does the auto eject give the pilot any warning?

 

AlphaGo marked the birth of modern AI. This is the moment the world changed - ABC News