This is also a great way to keep several squadrons of reasonably capable fighters maintained and in operation. In a time of national emergency they (and their pilots) could be drawn on.
A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
71–80 of 349 posts
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yeah I had to follow a bunch of the links to figure this out, but in short, he runs an air combat training company, and the Air Force and Navy pay him to field a training “adversary” for the military pilots to fight in mock combat. The thing that I don't get is why would the US hire him to provide adversary aircraft that it already operates? I could totally understand them hiring someone who operated a bunch of ex-…
It's often more expensive to create specialized training capabilities in house. Contractors have an advantage with both equipment and personnel costs. A contractor can maintain their jets however they want as long as it's safe and they can meet their contract requirements. The contract maintainers can stay at their job as long as they want. The USN and USAF maintainers move every few years and have pretty good retire…
It might also be beneficial to have a training combatant, who is not in the same chain of command as the trainees. Gives external perspective, and reduces the chance of collusion to show "good results" if done right.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#73I'm amazed that this is even possible. I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance. The article indeed states: "the purchase does include all of the RAAF's F/A-18 spare parts inventory and test equipment, valued at over a billion dollars alone."
> I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance.
Fighter jets are heavily dependent on spares and expertise, but Iranian F-14 Tomcats managed to score something like 50 or 60 kills during the Iran-Iraq war, which happened after the US stopped playing nice with them. They're still flying a few of them today.
If this makes you wonder how they're doing this if everyone is playing by the export rules involving selling arms to Iran, you wouldn't be the first. They have some native production capacity, but...
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#74I used to have a single shut-down in 2nd amendment arguments. When my opponent would claim that the 2nd amendment gives civilians the power to overthrow a government, my favorite response was to compare poorly armed and trained americans to essentially the Taliban, and follow that up with: and then the US would drone/bomb you to oblivion with their air force superiority, like how Israel dominated the no-air-force Mid…
Or you could compare them to the partisans that conducted sabotage against the Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe, for instance. The military would grind to a halt without a functioning supply chain, and it's very difficult to protect all of the links in that chain against an armed and hostile population.
Many more of those links would be physically inside the US than were inside Afghanistan.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 2nd amendment does not give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government, it prevents the government from restricting the right to bear arms because bearing arms is necessary for a free state. The people, in a Democracy, are the arbiters of power and the government serves the people. If the government does not serve the people, the people have an a priori right to reform that government.
>The 2nd amendment does not give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government, it prevents the government from restricting the right to bear arms because bearing arms is necessary for a free state. Why is the right to bear arms necessary for a free state if not to give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government? It's not as if indian raids or an invasion from Spain or Britain are causes for concer…
it's probably not possible for armed citizens to actually overthrow the US government without support from the conventional armed forces. but it's not necessary to completely overthrow a government to extract concessions. a credible threat of widespread chaos and violence might tip the scales against a very unpopular policy.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#76I'm amazed that this is even possible. I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance. The article indeed states: "the purchase does include all of the RAAF's F/A-18 spare parts inventory and test equipment, valued at over a billion dollars alone."
I too am amazed that this is even possible, but for different reasons. Do other first world countries allow non-government companies to hold this much sophisticated military hardware? Maybe so, I just haven't heard of it. The other day I was reading about some Saudi prince's half a billion (!!!) dollar yacht. Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same planet as these people. It is hard for me to imagine such wealth and…
This company is a US military contractor so they're effectively part of the government.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#77I used to have a single shut-down in 2nd amendment arguments. When my opponent would claim that the 2nd amendment gives civilians the power to overthrow a government, my favorite response was to compare poorly armed and trained americans to essentially the Taliban, and follow that up with: and then the US would drone/bomb you to oblivion with their air force superiority, like how Israel dominated the no-air-force Mid…
The argument you're describing is missing the point. Historically, most government abuse occurs at the local level and this is where a personal right to bear arms becomes relevant. Decades ago, a gun could prevent a lynching by a racist sheriff. Today, perhaps it prevents a rape during a rural traffic stop. Government is a diverse collection of entities. It's a mistake to assume that resisting the government means ov…
"Guns rights" for minorities in America has rarely ever been about personal protection or what not, it has been about keeping those in power in power and keeping the.
Large swaths of American history of American history are likely being ignored with assertion like "gun ownership could prevent a lynching". Take pre-Civil War laws making gun ownership of African Americas (free and enslaved) illegal, the continuation of those laws under "Black Codes" in both the North and South post Civil War, and the extension of similar acts post Civil Rights Act with laws like California's 1967 Mulford Act.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because they have been hired to pretend kill Navy pilots doesn't necessarily rule out that they are a "mercenary for hire airforce" that could also be hired for other more violent tasks. OP was questioning what regulation exists to stop that from happening.
A big one is that you can't buy air to air missiles. There's talk that these types of aggressor squadrons might be a last-ditch aircraft reserve for the US or allies, but they're not exactly primed/ready for war without armament or modern radars. (No, the fact that some of their aircraft have functional cannons and cannon rounds doesn't count).
How about the fact that they have modern radar? :-)
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) It's enormously expensive and difficult to arm disarmed 4th gen planes. You'd need another extremely expensive military contractor to equip them with (expensive) missiles, rockets, or whatever. Plus, in all likelihood, the defense contractors would refuse, if it did anything to risk federal contracts. 2) These planes (superhornets) are is a wildly inefficient way to arm a paramilitary. These things cost tens of th…
1) like the article states, infact these things are not disarmed at all. and yeah federal contracts... Who else was he contracting again currently and what's the purpose of the whole endeavour then (there's definitely more money there except for fleecing the air force...). I would understand allowing such a business when it was a direct front for CIA-CAS (which it very well might be), but just to extend the private c…
I think “disarm” here was used in the sense of reloading ammo vs. making the weapon itself usable or not.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 2nd amendment does not give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government, it prevents the government from restricting the right to bear arms because bearing arms is necessary for a free state. The people, in a Democracy, are the arbiters of power and the government serves the people. If the government does not serve the people, the people have an a priori right to reform that government.
>The 2nd amendment does not give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government, it prevents the government from restricting the right to bear arms because bearing arms is necessary for a free state. Why is the right to bear arms necessary for a free state if not to give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government? It's not as if indian raids or an invasion from Spain or Britain are causes for concer…
This is going to sound fussy but it's a really important point to understand. This is not the case of a bunch of farmers rebelling against a king, or a duke staging a coup. The people reforming the government is akin to the CEO of a private company firing their mid-level managers. That's the right of the people, and the members of the government serve the people.
The reason why the right to bear arms is important to a free state is because both sides of a negotiation must possess power. Kent State was a tragedy, but it's aftermath happened in a court room with lawyers and journalists. Tienanmen square on the other hand saw a government run over it's people with tanks and then pretend it never happened.
When one side of a power dynamic has no power, the opposite side can do whatever it wants - install a president for life, promote the president to a position without any checks, directly compromise basic human rights for short term political wins, and so on.
A "revolution by force of arms" isn't very likely, but a large well armed group of protestors is a great way to convince a government to show up in court and use words and lawyers instead of tanks.