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

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

#91

Post by Spinosaurus » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

Air USA (Don Kirlin, president), along with a bunch of other companies were selected as contractors for the U.S. Air Force to provide "Red Air" (adversary training) services. This is not new; the Air Force uses private companies for training as the cost savings are immense:

• Reduced flight hours and maintenance on fleet aircraft.

• Instructors do not need to be pulled from schedules.

• Fleet aircraft do not need to be hard scheduled.

• Cost per flight hour is much lower for common aggressor platforms (A-4, L-39, F1M, and now these legacy F-18s) than the aircraft the Air Force is training in.

• Private companies can more easily maintain and source parts for aircraft the military cannot (Migs, for instance).

This particular sale was the remainder of the RAAF's retired F-18 fleet, which Canada started buying in early 2019. These are _not_ Super Hornets.

Some of these companies have been around for decades. Some competitors:

• ATAC

• Top Air

• Draken

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

#92

Post by riazrizvi » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #29

Why the hell does the pentagon outsource this?

It’s a great solution to a problem of conflicted interests. If the USAF gets a massive budget to protect us against air threats, how can you trust them to conduct honest tests? They are motivated to only ever report great news on how awesome a job they are doing always. Here you create an incentive structure for people to really try to figure out how to beat them.

It’s the same reason a company might hire an outside firm to do penetration testing, rather than ask its head of cyber security, “Hey why don’t you conduct a test to see if you are doing an awesome job, as we need to figure out whether to fire you or give you more money”.

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

#93

Post by ForHackernews » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

whatsreal wrote: post #11

ForHackernews wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His company is a US Air Force contractor, so I'm sure they don't have a problem giving him parts and maintenance help. Is this another example of the DoD contracting out something that would cost half as much for them to do themselves?

From the article he is saving the DoD some money on JTAC training operations. I'd imagine their role here would also save some money.

Maybe. The text hints that they also maintain their own adversary fleet in addition to hiring contracting firms like the one in the article.

> These Israeli-designed pods are pretty much the world standard in modular self-protection jamming systems and are used on the Pentagon's own aggressor fleet...

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

#94

Post by parsimo2010 » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #81

parsimo2010 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I won't say that they offer perfect security, but these are military contractors, not part-timers from a temp agency. They are mostly ex-military (you can't get trained Hornet drivers anywhere else except for a few civilian test pilots), still have to maintain their security clearances, and are subject to security audits.

They probably have vulnerabilities but I don't think a training contractor is as juicy of a target as you might think. They only maintain information on the capabilities of the enemies they are supposed to simulate- aggressor units don't have information on the blue air capabilities. It not useless information, but it mostly doesn't make sense for Russia/China to spend their effort finding out what the US thinks Russia/China is capable of. They already have a pretty good idea.

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

#95

Post by tootie » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

salmo wrote: post #82

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, whi…

I read it all and while it's great that he has a legitimate reason to own these, it doesn't change the fact that he owns a private air force, heavy weapons and state-of-the-art countermeasures. It's a terrifying legal precedent and he's opened the door for a new market niche that less savory people can sneak into.

The US already has ludicrously expansive personal rights to weapons ownership for any reason. We have a guy buying up a private air force. We have several guys building space vehicles. If Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos wanted a nuclear-armed ICBM could we actually stop them? Or, maybe more likely, some QAnon nutjob getting his hands on an armored vehicle and driving it through a shopping mall in Atlanta?

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

#96

Post by stouset » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

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…

These seem to be F/A-18A/B models so just regular hornets. Which also tracks with their acquisition since the RAAF is selling off and replacing their aging A/B hornet fleet (the US has already retired theirs, except for the Blue Angels). That said I agree with everything else you said, just wanted to point that detail out.

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

#97

Post by brenden2 » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

aaronmdjones wrote: post #55

brenden2 wrote: post #52

It's not really an "air force" in the military sense, as these planes are unarmed and can't shoot anyone down unless the pilot carries a handgun or rifle. EDIT: Actually it looks like they do have machine guns with rounds, but nothing such as guided missiles.

On the contrary, the cannons are still intact and functional and they have over 74,000 high-explosive rounds for them. This is in the article.

I stand corrected.

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

#98

Post by tptacek » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #95

salmo wrote: post #82

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, whi…

I read it all and while it's great that he has a legitimate reason to own these, it doesn't change the fact that he owns a private air force, heavy weapons and state-of-the-art countermeasures. It's a terrifying legal precedent and he's opened the door for a new market niche that less savory people can sneak into. The US already has ludicrously expansive personal rights to weapons ownership for any reason. We have a…

What precedent? Virtually all heavy weaponry is sourced from private companies. The last DoD contract Don Kirlin was involved with was worth $6.4B.

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

#99

Post by throwaway373438 » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

ausbah wrote: post #77

throwaway373438 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree those are examples of maintaining (often racist) power systems. But what you're providing aren't examples of gun rights, they're examples of gun control initiatives -- which are the opposite of gun rights.

This extends beyond such obvious examples as the Mulford Act (California's foray into gun control, banning open carry in response to armed protest by Black Panthers). Gun control often focuses on removing access to arms by any poor and disenfranchised groups. So called "Saturday night special" legislation seeks to ban cheap guns, with disproportionate impact in disadvantaged communities.

Access to arms has historically been a key element of people maintaining their freedom from government abuse. Your examples of gun control indeed do undermine this freedom.

The history of gun control in the US is deeply tainted by racist motivations.

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

#100

Post by icarus_camp » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #81

parsimo2010 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a pro and con type of thing. For example you can go out and hire a former Soviet MIG driver and get him to drive the the Hornet just like he say taught the Iranians to drive their MIGs (limiting the performance of the Hornet to match that of the older aircraft, etc).

For the military to directly hire a foreign national who served in a different military is a ton of paperwork. It's much easier to have the contractor do it.

There obviously is a security risk, but as long as you compartmentalize the risk it's okay. It's also the issue of keeping said Soviet MIG driver busy, in that maybe you have 6 months of work for him a year. Other six months of the year he can't exactly hang around the Pentagon and help with reports since as you mention, it's a security risk. The contractor can keep him working by say doing 6 months a year of training with the American military, 3 months of training with the Canadians, 2 months with the Swedish, etc.

There are proven models for minimizing risk. The intel agencies often like to hire foreign nations because they have local expertise with regard to their home country, but the CIA can't exactly just make a Chinese national a W-2 employee and let them run around Langley.