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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

#151

Post by xnyan »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #137
tootie wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Do something about it" like what? The 2nd amendment specifically says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. If some nutjob wants to hurt people, he can figure out a way to do it with some household chemicals and gasoline. And if we're truly worried about that, shouldn't we be addressing the mental health problems that would cause somebody to drive a tank through a mall? I know it's a cliche, but guns don't…

Have you ever killed someone without a gun? Not trying to be metal, but I was in a self defense situation many years ago and and something terrible happened.

Shooting a gun vs using "household chemicals and gasoline" to attack someone, to say nothing of knives or bare hands, are so apart from each other that I know for a fact that you have no experience with violence or how much easier it is to do violence with a gun vs other methods. You are just parroting teenager-level philosophy.

Besides all that, we have huge amounts of data over more than 100 years. Turns out, and this will shock you, when you have more guns you are more likely to shoot people and kill overall.

I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own an AR-15 they will never use except maybe to kill themselves or a family member (statistically, these are the no1 and no2 most likely people an American is to kill with their gun). Do as you will I guess but almost nobody needs to own a gun privately.

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

#152

Post by VLM »

wolf550e wrote: post #135

But surely the private pilots training against US military pilots get to see the current tactics, and the private radars and electronic warfare pods get to record the current combat settings of US military radars and electronic warfare systems. There is no way this is not all classified top secret and a major target for foreign intelligence. So all his personnel, pilots and technicians, need clearance as if they were…

That's not the secret sauce, in the same sense that keeping source closed doesn't usually improve code quality from a security standpoint.

The other counter is there are 26 operators of the F-16. Frankly it would be easier both in practice and legality to get cooperation from some dude in Pakistan or Venezuela than a US citizen who can at least sorta be watched over.

Most of the tactics are not terribly advanced in the sense of some mysterious secret martial arts kick that defeats all. Most of the time battles are won logistically long before the fighting starts. Everyone in the business kinda knows what F16s do, not any more of a secret than knowing what Mig29s do, the struggle is always having enough resources in the right places at the right times to do anything about it.

Something that often surprises civilians is most US military manuals are freeware and have always been that way. If you want to learn how an Army Brigade Combat Team operates, you don't join the KGB and steal documents, you just download FM 3-96 and read it. This is why actual veterans get annoyed about fictional hollywood military stuff; if you don't understand the role of a BCT's information operations officer sufficient to portray one in a movie, its just sheer lazyness to make something up instead of simply reading the FM.

Its all part of the interesting strategy to handling massive public communications networks; half a century ago you could have an edge if it depended on having a secret sauce. Now that anyone with a web browser can download the official F-16 flight manual your strategy for having an edge relies on other forms of secret sauces.

A good analogy for the problem is that excellent world class scientific documentation exists for weight loss and athletic performance, yet most people will not train in those areas. Olympic athletes are not high performers because the textbooks for weight lifting are kept secret and only for their reading.

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

#153

Post by magduf »

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 exactly are nutjobs going to do with any of these weapons?

We've had cases of nutjobs getting their hands on tanks, or building their own armored bulldozers, and going on rampages. It's a pain, but it's not a complete disaster. These vehicles aren't invincible. They generally get stuck somewhere, and then the police break open the hatch and shoot the nutjob. Tanks really can't do much by themselves besides drive around and run into some things (or over them, but again, you have to be careful or it can get stuck, break a tread, etc.). Tanks armed with 120mm cannon rounds, of course, can do some serious damage, but private individuals aren't allowed to own that kind of weaponry at all.

It's the same with an older fighter jet. What are you going to do with it? Fly it into a building? Sure, that'll be worse than flying a Cessna into a building, but still, it's not like a WMD. Even if you could fully load the 20mm cannon, you're not going to do that much damage; they don't hold that much ammo anyway (only enough for something like 5-10 seconds of sustained fire I think). Yeah, being able to drop a bunch of 500lb bombs would be a disaster, but again, you can't get that stuff.

Yes, if Elon or Jeff wanted a nuclear-armed ICBM, the government would certainly stop them. Building a rocket is one thing, building a nuclear warhead is something else entirely, and is not something trivial that just anyone can do. Iran (an actual nation-state) has been trying for some time and still hasn't succeeded as far as we know. It takes a lot of facilities and special materials to build something like that.

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

#155

Post by SiempreViernes »

larrywright wrote: post #146
superkuh wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And clearly a man capable of buying fighting jets couldn't source some missiles?

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

#156

Post by ardy42 »

VLM wrote: post #144
ardy42 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 c…

> 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

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

I disagree. Wasn't part of the problem in the 60s that the generals were training to win the next war, which they though would be fought at stand-off distances with guided missiles (i.e. suicide drones) carried by planes with little need to maneuver [1] [2]? It turned out they were wrong, and had to subsequently rethink their tactics and procurement requirements, which led to stuff like Top Gun and the F-14.

> [Our] 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... [more speculation about drone swarm warfare]...

Betting that some new, hot technology will obsolete old techniques can be a bad bet that puts you in a bad situation.

I don't think quadcopter drones are going to be anything near the game changer you think they'll be. For instance: if you're close enough to launch a swarm attack like you describe, you're several times closer than you need to be to launch an artillery bombardment:

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/16/new-army-arti... (quickest google result):

> Existing 155mm artillery rounds, fired with precision from mobile and self-propelled howitzer platforms, have a maximum range of about 30 kilometers; the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70 kilometers, Army developers said.

https://www.dronesglobe.com/guide/long-range-drones/#sec3 (another quicky google result). The longest-range drone listed is:

> 2.DJI Mavic 2 Pro 4K [battery:] 30min [range:] 8km

I wouldn't expect a cheap military quadcopter swarm-member to have much better performance than a civilian one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F6D_Missileer

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

#157

Post by kube-system »

duxup wrote: post #145
kube-system wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Most people can't pilot a super yacht either; they hire a full crew. The FA18 can seat two. Also, anyone who has the money to buy and operate one of these vehicles has more than enough money to get someone to teach them how to fly it.

But yes, this is not an hobby for the masses.

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

#159

Post by anigbrowl »

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).

A big one is that you can't buy air to air missiles.

That's the sort of thing that can be easily circumvented and where the legal environment can also change rapidly. I will not be in the least bit surprised if a private military company deploys air power within the next 5 years.

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

#160

Post by ngold »

burlesona wrote: post #13
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…

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. From further reading it sounds like the idea here is to get a diverse and different field of aircraft. I guess the NATO forces can practice against each other, but it’s not realistic in th…

Sounds like a great way to tinker with ai and drone pilots. I wonder what kind of ability you gain when g force is removed as a pilot weakness?
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