Obama on the budget

Obama was on TV a few minutes ago urging passage of his next budget. He talked for 15 minutes without uttering a single number. He did use a couple of percentages, like "I will reduce the deficit 50%" when the deficit last year was $1/2 a trillion and the Obama deficit will be $1.5 trillion. But he didn't tell us how big the budget was, where the money was going, and any reasons for spending the money. He was eloquent without informing. Four square for motherhood and apple pie.

Mini Spooky with Windows

US Special Operations Command is agitating to replace the AC-130 gunships with something new. Granted the AC-130 has been around since Viet Nam. but it still works well. The proposed replacement would be the smaller twin engined C-27 light cargo plane, just coming into service.
Not too sure about that. The first gunships were C-47's about the same size as the C-27 and the program moved up to the C-130 to gain the size needed for bigger guns, lots of ammunition, and a larger crew. The C-130, large as it is, can operate out of short dirt runways, which is as difficult as it gets.
USAF Lt Col Brenda Cartier was quoted in Aviation Week saying she hopes to upgrade the old fire control computers on the AC-130 to a Windows-based System. Arrgh. What has happened to the Air Force? Everyone knows Windows is too crash prone and virus vulnerable to be used for anything serious.

Bonuses for Boneheads

AIG is still stuck on stupid. They are paying out $160 million in bonuses, after accepting $140 billion in taxpayer bailout. Geithner claims to have jawboned AIG management about it and AIG said they were contractually obligated to pay the bonuses. The proper response should have been "Pay bonuses after loosing $140 billion dollars and that's the last bailout you are ever going to get."

2300 Jet liners parked 'cause of Great Depression II

Aviation Week has a graph of grounded (parked and retired) airliners going back to 1989. Pretty steady rise from 400 in 1989 to 2300 today. The post 9/11 peak was only 2100. Two questions. What can you do with elderly airliners? How can Boeing's backlog of almost 900 orders for the 787 hold up with 2500 old but flyable planes sitting in the Arizona desert for cheap?

Is Osama still alive?

These folk think he is dead. They claim voice print analysis and comparison of the last dozen Osama tapes doesn't match earlier recordings which are known for sure to be from Osama. They claim CIA is getting it wrong. CIA has repeated helped bin Ladin by authenticating "his" audio tapes. CIA should NEVER comment upon the authenticity of anything from bin Ladin. The CIA seal of good housekeeping should never be given to enemy propaganda. Let the enemy do the work of selling their propaganda, don't do their work for them.

Plastic in the hot section

According to Aviation Week, General Electric and Rolls Royce are going to make the third stage low pressure turbine vanes from a composite material on the F135 engine for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Revolutionary. The hot section of jet engines runs so hot that up til now only exotic nickel super alloys could take the heat. The improvements in engine specific fuel consumption since the 1940's all come from better alloys that allow engines to run hotter with out melting the turbine. Now we have a composite that can take the heat.
Composites started with fiberglass (still used to make boats and Corvettes) and moved up to carbon fiber composites used for the fuselage of the newest Boeing 787 airliner (so new it hasn't made it's maiden flight yet). Composites offer far greater strength to weight ratios than metals. This composite is made from silicon carbide fibers with a ceramic binder. The final trick appears to be infiltrating the material with molten silicon to fill any voids. The high temperature composite can reduce the weight engines (the weightiest part of aircraft) giving better fuel consumption and longer range.
Hot section service is the most demanding application. A composite tough enough for the hot section is tough enough for plenty more applications.

Toxic Assets

Newsie after newsie tells me that the US banking system would be OK if only those toxic assets would some how go away. Presumably they are talking about those securities backed by mortgages that are now in foreclosure, the underwater mortgages that will likely default in a few weeks, and the bond insurance ("credit default swaps") issued on the bonds of Lehman, Bear Stearns and other losers.
"Somehow go away" means Uncle Sam takes this dodgy paper and gives the banks some amount of cash for the privilege.
Why do the banks care so much? Probably 'cause of the "credit default swaps". These are legally enforceable contracts. In the event of some company (Citi? GE? GM? Plenty-of-Others) goes bankrupt, the proud owner of the "credit default swap" has to pay off the bond holder, the full face value of the defaulted bond. These deals looked really good a couple of years ago when the banks were stuck on stupid, and they look like instant bankruptcy bombs now. Some big outfit is going to go broke, and when that happens the "credit default swaps" will take down the holders. Where as if the banks could get good old Uncle Sam to take these things they are home free. When the big bankruptcy happens Uncle has the money to pay them off, or Uncle has good lawyers to weasel out of them, or Uncle runs the courts in which the creditors have to sue. One way or another, Uncle, using our tax money, can cope, whereas the tottering banks cannot. This is why bank stocks have dropped into in dollar a share (next thing to worthless) area.
Question for Obama. Is Uncle gonna take this loss, or is it cheaper to let the stupider banks take the fall?