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A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

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Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#81

Post by dv_dt »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #59
ardy42 wrote: post #20

Earlier 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…

I think this is "cheaper" like - its cheaper to to have supply chains for critical medical gear in China.

Makes for a great target for espionage on military tactics and capabilities for one risk.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#82

Post by salmo »

I think a lot of folks are skimming the top of this and missing the really interesting parts.

Their focus doesn’t seem to be providing adversaries against pilots, but adversaries against weapons systems.

He’s essentially selling organic data to train JTACs against.

The goal here isn’t as much great avionics, but great combinations of sensors and sensor jamming.

The military focuses on having a combat ready fleet, while he focuses on a fleet that can provide lowest cost options to provide appropriate training data.

A lot of that fleet is made up of trainers fit with electronics packages and Cessnas similarly Frankensteined. Then the military and manufacturers rent it out vs maintaining their own limited-use fleet.

The hornets are great, not just because they’re sweet jets, but because of the electronics packages and maintainability.

...and then he has a paramilitary nut/Bond villain vibe that keeps the story less dry and probably appeals to the intended audience.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#83

Post by slg »

mlyle wrote: post #58
slg wrote: post #45

Earlier 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).

Do these not have modern radar? The article said they were being purchased without any downgrades from their time flying with the RAAF.

Also does this mean they can be legally outfitted with air to ground armaments? I don't know much about these aircraft, but I imagine since they are used for simulated combat that they have decent evasive capabilities even if they can't directly engaged other aircraft.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#84

Post by Tuxer »

bpodgursky wrote: post #19
save_ferris wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds fairly straightforward, but what happens if that business plan changes? If private paramilitary aviation is anything like other private security services, then there’s definitely a market with some pretty deep pockets with questionable motives.

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…

those aren't super hornets by the way (no civilian would get an authorization to fly a super hornet). They're the A/B, original hornet version, and any superhornet would fly circles around one.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#85

Post by jrockway »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #29

Why the hell does the pentagon outsource this?

I'm guessing that paying a contractor to support both the Navy and the Air Force is easier than figuring out who from the Navy and Air Force will lead the combined training effort.

I assume this is like one department of a company using Azure and the other using AWS because nobody wants to share their turf. Writing a check is easier than talking to your coworkers.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#86

Post by sixQuarks »

atdrummond wrote: post #54

I grew up in the town where Mr Kirlin and his businesses are based, have lived there on-and-off, and know him through various personal and professional circles. I also am formerly of the aerospace industry myself. I’m happy to answer questions people may have.

What is the fastest land animal in the world?

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#87

Post by sudosysgen »

varjag wrote: post #64
sudosysgen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fighting a war abroad and inside your own borders is very, very, very different. An air force isn't that useful against a political faction at home.

It's extremely useful when you are vastly outnumbered in the opposing population and much of the ground forces would rather desert than execute their own people. See Syria.

The only reason it worked in Syria is because of Foreign support. And because a large faction of the population decided that actually they were fine with Assad.

If you were vastly outnumbered and tried to wage war against your population they can just strike. And just like that all your advanced weapons won't be able to be maintained.

If you want to force people to work on your factories, bombs won't be very useful, but guns will be.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#88

Post by tootie »

Giorgi wrote: post #68
blakesterz wrote: post #8

His company buys these things and then has a contract with the Navy for when they do training. So IF I'm reading this correctly, it's not just some random dude buying all this stuff for fun, it's his company and they have a very clear business purpose for doing this. "He was also one of the early pioneers of the then-fledgling, if not wholly experimental, adversary air support market. In the early 2000s, he joined fo…

Yes, that's exactly the "Catch" here, even though article presents it as if some random dude buying up expensive things for leisure.

The article explains all of this really clearly from the start.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#89

Post by atdrummond »

sixQuarks wrote: post #86
atdrummond wrote: post #54

I grew up in the town where Mr Kirlin and his businesses are based, have lived there on-and-off, and know him through various personal and professional circles. I also am formerly of the aerospace industry myself. I’m happy to answer questions people may have.

What is the fastest land animal in the world?

Not sure what cheetahs have to do with Kirlin or his jets.

Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s

#90

Post by toast0 »

paulie_a wrote: post #6
SloopJon wrote: post #4

I'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."

At one point Pepsi had the sixth biggest Navy in the world. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the...

They needed that Navy for the Cola Wars.
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