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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

#121

Post by samizdis »

jakear wrote: post #28
0xff00ffee wrote: post #17

I 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…

It's not about the civilians being able to overthrow the government, it's about the government not being able to overthrow the civilians. When wrongthink starts being criminalized, would you prefer to be defenseless in your home, or have some - feeble sure, but some - means of protecting yourself? Or would you rather just prefer to think wrongthink will never be criminalized? I believe The Clash puts it best: When th…

Cracking track, so may as well listen to it, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcW8VNwYvL0

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

#122

Post by stoolpigeon »

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…

My favorite milblogger retired, hated having a "regular" job, joined ATAC and then died not too long later flying an old Israeli fighter. I'm glad if these companies are getting newer aircraft.

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

#123

Post by Zenst »

astronautjones wrote: post #105
Zenst wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effectively privatised wargames. Many forces cross train in wargames scenarios on various scales, this is just a business that operates by providing services in one of those fields. Kinda neat in many ways and equally wonder how outsourcing would have financial gains for both parties. Certainly the combat/training dn flying styles will be different and with that offer some good training that flying against more forma…

> So for this to pay off as a business over being done inhouse, does make you wonder and try to work out why that is. "inhouse" is probably still a no-bid buddy contract with a large defense corporation, so his rate probably doesn't even need to be very low at all

That certainly would of played a part and in bidding for the contract the military may of needed 3 quotes. So h usual suspects quote, large amount as case of if they accept, then we can afford to just do it and still cheese happy, if not, no investment beyond a fat large quote. So only takes one serious player to do a quote more realistic and yet profitable and they are up and running.

So even without any buddy buddy contract factors, the whole bidding process and list of approved suppliers and viable suppliers would of seen the usual suspects asked to tender no matter what. Now any new party actively seeking that type of work in a new field like this would if anything be more at risk of underquoting compared to the other tenders. So be interesting if those tenders for this contract was known. Certainly be very insightful into this whole process. As it is not how this company won the contract, it's how the others lost it and I dare say, quotes so large that if taken, be impossible to lose money and if not, no investment lost. Take it or leave it type quotes though will often play out in many contracts and with that, make any quote realistic (even too realistic) stick out. Hence known people who will always pick the middle quote if down to personal choice. Business, gets down to the lowest and some various degrees of vetting if that company can do what they see, varying from none down to proven track record and some serious auditing. Hence the usual suspects quoting for many things plays out as track record and vetting and auditing done already.

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

#124

Post by DuskStar »

tootie wrote: post #118
DuskStar wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that there's a ton of precedent for privately-owned heavy weaponry in the US, right? As the 2nd Amendment folks would point out, there used to be US citizens who owned warships . F/A-18s without guided weaponry aren't really that much of a change. (they've got cannons, but afact no JDAMs, JSOWs, AMRAAMs or even dumb bombs) > Or, maybe more likely, some QAnon nutjob getting his hands on an armored vehic…

I know. There's a document out there somewhere with John Adams signature telling a merchant captain it's fine to put cannons on his vessel. Privateers were even recruited to fight the British in 1812. That's what the 2nd amendment was actually written for. And the last time it was relevant. And I think just saying it hasn't happened yet is like saying we haven't had a giant pandemic yet in 2019. I'd rather not wait f…

The thing is, the WORST case for an asshole with a tank is a few dozen deaths. Tanks are designed to be operated by more than one person, and so a loner operating a tank gets at best the driver's seat and a machine gun. And when it comes to a few hundred deaths, Timothy McVeigh [0] says hi.

Point being, a tank like that isn't really worse than a large ANFO truck bomb.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

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

#125

Post by parsimo2010 »

lostmsu wrote: post #72
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…

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.

This isn't an advantage of contractors since the military aggressor units already do a great job. They are a separate unit and do all their tactical planning separately. They attend the mass safety briefings before a mission and they provide training feedback during debriefs, but they are serious about maintaining the integrity of their training. There is no incentive to cheat- you don't win a prize for a victory and cheating might result in one of your friends dying if they had to go to war with inadequate training. There are several reasons a pilot can lose $5 during a mission but they can't win it back by cheating.

I once asked a pilot after a test mission, "if you're pretty sure they're going to do [tactic X] why don't you do [tactic that works great against tactic X]?" His response was that his mission isn't to win, it's to provide the most authentic simulation of an enemy as he can. If they don't think an enemy pilot would do something, they won't do it- even if they know they could gain an advantage using inside knowledge.

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

#126

Post by balls187 »

justaguyhere wrote: post #43
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."

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…

> Do other first world countries allow non-government companies to hold this much sophisticated military hardware?

No, they don't. And neither does the US.

The F18 is now nearly 40 years old. Typically the advanced and sophisticated aspects of airframes are not allowed for sale, to private entities, or even non-us government ones.

The advanced avionics, weapons systems, etc, are all tightly controlled.

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

#127

Post by jakear »

xxpor wrote: post #49
jakear wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the civilians being able to overthrow the government, it's about the government not being able to overthrow the civilians. When wrongthink starts being criminalized, would you prefer to be defenseless in your home, or have some - feeble sure, but some - means of protecting yourself? Or would you rather just prefer to think wrongthink will never be criminalized? I believe The Clash puts it best: When th…

Do you want every police encounter to turn into Ruby Ridge? A non-insignificant number of people would consider criminalizing drugs criminalizing wrongthink.

The criminalization of drugs was put in place to target hippies and minorities. So... yes.

"We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

- John Ehrlichman, Nixon's Aide during time of the war on drugs.

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

Aside:

Liberty - the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

What the hell ever happened to "give me liberty or give me death"?

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

#128

Post by kube-system »

duxup wrote: post #38
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…

Well even if it was private the rough estimates of cost per flight hour of an FA18 is something in the range of +$10k to +$20... That would seem pretty unfeasible / unlikely for a private owner, even a wealthy one to fly it much at all.

It would probably be accessible to ultra-high net worth folks. Something like a super yacht can cost 2 mil/yr. Back of the napkin math indicates that's about equivalent to taking an FA18 out for a few hours per week.

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

#129

Post by nomadiccoder »

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 slowest water animal in the world?

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

#130

Post by jakear »

inscionent wrote: post #48
jakear wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the civilians being able to overthrow the government, it's about the government not being able to overthrow the civilians. When wrongthink starts being criminalized, would you prefer to be defenseless in your home, or have some - feeble sure, but some - means of protecting yourself? Or would you rather just prefer to think wrongthink will never be criminalized? I believe The Clash puts it best: When th…

Death by cop. That's one way to go. P.S. Wrongthink has always been criminalized

True. War on drugs was really a war on anti-Vietnam mentalities, but 1A means you can't say that's what you're doing (yet).
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