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

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141–150 of 349 posts

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

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The article claims that the configuration will not change from what the RAAF had been flying, and that the planes have been more or less fitted with the most modern upgrades available.

So, nothing rivaling next generation hardware but also nothing to sneeze at either.

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

#142
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if that man who owns that company, decides he wants to change his business model? The private part is still important. It's a legitimate fleet of military aircraft that would rival the air forces of many small countries that is directed by a man who really isn't accountable to us outside our borders. This isn't new territory, it's just that you have to go back a few hundred years to see small groups of priva…

They’re not armed jets, that’s an important distinction. Short of flying into something, how would these actually pose a threat?

You didn't read the article? They are armed jets.

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

#143
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 targ…

" 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"

What? Quite the opposite, it is totally valuable information, if you know, what your enemy thinks you can do. Because then you can adjust, to surprise him in real combat. Or you find out that they over- or underestimate you in a certain area, which is very valuable tactical information as well. So they surely are a target for foreign intelligence agencies, but I am pretty sure they know that.

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

#144
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Aggressor squadrons" train very differently, to mimic potential adversaries combat doctrine. The aircraft may also be modified to perform more like the aircraft they're simulating. They're even painted differently, like this F-15 in Russian-style camo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/F-15E-80...

> "Aggressor squadrons" train very differently, to mimic potential adversaries combat doctrine. Yeah, but doesn't the US have those too, at Top Gun and Red Flag? I'd think that Top Gun would have aggressor squadron pilots qualified to fly F-18s.

Kind of. For various budgetary reasons and capex vs opex and stuff like that, the US only has two aggressor squadrons now, the 18th and 64th. The 65th shut down recently. We're kinda getting out of that business.

Something quietly muttered about is we don't have the labor force anymore, so better off having our pilots in fighting squadrons instead of training squadrons.

Another topic not mentioned much is the whole concept of aggressor squadrons and Top Gun etc came from fighting similar tier adversaries in the 60s and, while not losing, not winning at a high enough ratio, and cold war REFORGER war plan against the Soviets was to use our higher tech to hold back their larger numbers. We needed each of our F-14 to shoot down at least 7 of their Mig-21 to win WWIII in 1985, or at least to not lose too quickly. None of this has really been relevant since 1990 and drone and cruise missile tech and so forth make the whole concept pointless. So political bureaucracy rules of warfare are such that if you can't shut down an obsolete program directly, you can outsource it all on a contract that coincidentally will not be renewed in 2025 or whatever year. We're just never going to see future air combat where its a war of attrition between our small number of high tech F-14 tomcats vs a larger number of mig-21s. Put the money where it'll actually be used in the future, such as drones, cruise missiles, smart bombs, fancy AA and AG missiles, etc. The idea of training F-14 pilots to do air combat maneuvering using guns and 70s performance missiles against a number of Mig-21 is VERY 1980s.

Or future adversary isn't going to send 8 Mig-21's against each of our F-14, they're going to launch 240 anti-personnel quadcopter drones toward the airfield per day to shut down operations. Sure at a thousand bucks per drone plus COTS grenade, thats a quarter mil per day to deny air operations... now is that quarter mil cheap or expensive? Compared to the damage a functioning air force base can do to an opponent, that's cheap. Or they'll build $100 cloud steerable laser pointers and deploy them randomly across the land by the thousands to lase the eyes and sensors of every vehicle in the air that's not one of theirs. They'll win that war of attrition if they deploy 10K semi-autonomous weapons that each cost $1000 and we only have 1K ATG missiles in theater which cost $100K each, either way they win.

Well, generals always like to train to win the last war, not the next one, thats been true for a couple thousand years now.

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

#145
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but I can even use a yat.

Not many people can use an FA18... the accessibility of anysort of utility drops pretty fast when it is "can fly an f-18"

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not armed jets, that’s an important distinction. Short of flying into something, how would these actually pose a threat?

You didn't read the article? They are armed jets.

You’re right, technically. He has rounds of ammunition for the guns. What I meant was that they’re lacking the missiles. Not that you couldn’t do some damage with the guns, but those are weapons of last resort on these jets. They can’t carry many rounds.

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

#148
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…

Sounds to me like the military is simply shooting itself in the food with its "up or out" policies. Why force highly-trained and experienced people to leave just because they've gotten to a plateau in their career where they're both competent and comfortable?

Do foreign militaries also have these policies?

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

#150
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 targ…

> ‘... spies?' I thought we were chums with the Low King!’

> 'Of course we are,’ said Vetinari. ‘And the more we know about each other, the friendlier we shall remain. We’d hardly bother to spy on our enemies. What would be the point?’ - Lord Vetinari - Thud (Sir Terry Pratchett)

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