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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

#301

Post by ChuckMcM »

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…

Another way to write this might be,

"This guy figured it would be fun to own fighter jets and so figured out a business he could be in that would allow him to do so with the government's blessing."

I don't know if that is what he did of course, just guessing. It is a strategy I've seen employed successfully before. My daughter used this strategy by getting a research project approved for school on "studying organizing goal directed group behavior in online groups" where it was required she join several different raiding guilds in World of Warcraft to evaluate their strategies for co-operative goal seeking behavior. I thought it was pretty creative.

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

#302

Post by solidsnack9000 »

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…

It doesn't set a legal precedent of much significance, because in the USA there are people who own tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships.

It doesn't make sense to be so alarmed by it. People who own heavy weapons overwhelmingly use them for lawful purposes. This is true of people who own guns, as well. We can't treat every potentially dangerous thing as if it is a clear, present danger: that is like treating all drivers as "potential drunk drivers". You can't write policy around that.

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

#303

Post by solidsnack9000 »

xnyan wrote: post #151
TechBro8615 wrote: post #137

Earlier 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…

The reality is that many large terrorist attacks have been conducted with explosives, toxic gas and other methods.

Treating every gun as though it were a clear, present danger, is no more reasonable than treating every car that way. There are ~75 million gun owners in the USA; they are overwhelmingly harmless. Targeted policy is how you address something that is occasionally misused; and targeted policy seems to be the one thing that people keen on gun control do not want to think about.

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).

It's true that most people who die from firearms are people ending their own lives; but the next largest group are criminals shooting one another, not "family members". The average American, not otherwise inclined to end their own life, is very unlikely to be shot with a gun.

The way you are defining "use" in your statement is just wrong. People who don't shoot other people still "use" their guns, just for sport or for hunting. It's like you're saying the only people who "use" guns are killers. What if we applied the same concept to another area? "I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own a Cessna they will never use except maybe to crash and kill themselves or a family member...". It seems absurd. There is a diminishing returns element to policy and you just can't write them in a such a way that it perfects safety.

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

#305

Post by ascorbic »

mirimir wrote: post #291
stardek wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the most common North American accent "would've" and "would of" sound very similar. My suspicion is that the error tends to arise in people that have learned language more from speaking than reading.

Huh. Could "would of" be a regionalism? I sometimes say "woulda", but don't write it.

No, it's an error. "Woulda" is the correct way of spelling a regionalism. "Would of" is an incorrect spelling of "would've", which is a contraction of "would have".

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

#306

Post by mirimir »

ascorbic wrote: post #305
mirimir wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. Could "would of" be a regionalism? I sometimes say "woulda", but don't write it.

No, it's an error. "Woulda" is the correct way of spelling a regionalism. "Would of" is an incorrect spelling of "would've", which is a contraction of "would have".

Hey, just thought I'd ask. You never know when you're gonna need a new voice ;)

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

#307

Post by dlgeek »

VLM wrote: post #152
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 t…

"A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine."

(Attributed to an unnamed Soviet Staff Officer)

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

#308

Post by ezconnect »

ardy42 wrote: post #20
burlesona wrote: post #13

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. 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…

> 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-…

No profit on just calling the Navy.

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

#309

Post by angry_octet »

_2d30 wrote: post #287
angry_octet wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us not forget the hemorrhaging of pilots from the USAF, largely due to the hostile work environment and the general bullshit they have to endure. They simply don't have enough experienced people to provide this function.

This is interesting. Anywhere I can learn more about this or if you have the chance, would you expand?

https://warontherocks.com/2018/03/air-force-in-crisis-part-i...

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/dod-personnel-notebook/2019/0...

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-air-force-considering-sto...

https://www.stripes.com/news/air-force/air-force-is-still-sh...

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations...

And that doesn't even touch the shitshow which is drone crew morale.

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

#310

Post by codeisawesome »

VLM wrote: post #152
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 t…

Love the analogy! Clarifies a lot.
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