Why the hell does the pentagon outsource this?
There was a very nice top-level comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22834981
A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
191–200 of 349 posts
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#192I 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.
Ditto, (hi fellow Gem City-er?)
The Kirlin’s occupy a very particular role in the city.
once operating the largest franchise of Hallmark stores for nearly 60 years before quickly going out of business a few years ago. Other Kirlin defunct businesses include “The Fly”, a Blue jeans only store in the 80’s, KSNI (Kirlin Super Net Inc) a dial-up ISP in the 90’s.
The mentioned Kirlin of the story used to run “The World Freefall Convention” the largest skydiving convention in the world. For about a week and a half the small Airport would be beset by 10,000 skydivers and cessnas. One quirk of Quincys airport is a super long runway that can support a DB Cooper style 737 jet landing, so one would be chartered to allow 100s of skydivers to do high altitude jumps.
Unfortunately the convention ended because of the Bible-thumping city leaders didn’t care for the weeks of debauchery that were part of the festival attendees.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#193But 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 t…
Sigint agencies hoard 0days and know they get "burned" by using them against a serious opponent that records traffic and can analyze and reverse engineer malware. If the 0day is useful against your own systems, you would hesitate to use it before your systems are patched. I think electronic warfare and ECCM systems can have similar dynamics.
I always assumed (without any evidence) there is secret firmware or settings for these systems that will only be used in time of war and not used during training.
I guess Israeli Air Force knows countries like Iran have the Russian hardware and personnel/training for dealing with the Elta gear that Israel exports, but I also guess the Israeli Air Force has secret sauce, maybe using the same hardware, that they don't export and use only for striking strategic targets, knowing each strike teaches the opponent something.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
so then, it's not "a man owns a private airforce" but "a man who owns a company and this company owns a private airforce"
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…
Do these jets even have radar and other equipment necessary to actually employ weapons? IIRC most aggressor jets have some hardpoints and avionics removed.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#195Earlier 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…
Most UAVs are highly susceptible to ECM. The smaller your UAV the less likely it is going to be well equipped against ECM. Inertial navigation systems can be exceedingly expensive so a cheap drone will be reliant upon GPS. Something that should be obvious but is always skipped is that the operational range of quadrocopters is incredibly low and they cannot carry any significant payloads.
When you consider these reasons it becomes obvious why missiles cost $100k each. Once you actually start building a UAV that is actually useful in the roles that you describe you will exceed the cost of a single missile. The costs aren't going down. The MQ-1 cost $4 million. The MQ-9 which replaced the MQ-1 has a greater payload and costs around $16 million. The strategy clearly isn't to increase the number of drones.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#196Earlier 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…
Repeal or at least disincorporate the 2nd amendment. It's kinda ludicrous that conservative justices claim to be strict constructionists yet decided states and municipalities can't make their own rules. And yes, we should be addressing mental health regardless.
And if guns don't kill people, what vital purpose do they serve? Defend your home with a bow and arrow because it's exactly as effective as an AR-15 with 100-round clip according your reductive assertion.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
Talking about a "Bubba" is pure flamebait.
If you switched that up for a "Tyrone" you'd get flagged pretty quickly.
Try not to bring your tired culture-war tropes to Hacker News. The rest of the internet is lousy with it, you might be happier out there.
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but the joy of a yacht probably has less to do with piloting it than the joy of piloting an F18.
If you gave me the option to ride on a yacht or ride in an F18, I would 1000% choose the latter.
me too!
i'd guess that the per hour operating costs of a super yacht would be similar or higher to the operating costs of an FA-18.
i think people like larry ellison would agree. afaik he has a few ex-military jets, including a MIG-29 (a lot more capable than an FA-18 in many respects).
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#199Red team contracts are fun and pay well. Even moreso when you run a red team company
Re: A man owns the most advanced private air force after buying 46 F/A-18s
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
At one point Pepsi had the sixth biggest Navy in the world. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the...
The Knights [edit:] Hospitaller briefly had a decently sized bomber fleet after WWII, as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
True, but the whole reason this worked is that they were a sovereign international personality separate from Italy, not just a private Italian organization.