After two previous snafu's, Boeing got the Air Force contract for the KC-46 tanker. That only took 7 or 8 years of well paid lawyer work to sort out. The original idea was to buy the well proven Boeing 767 airliner, take out the seats and fill the cabin with tanks. Somewhere along the line, the gold plate boys slipped in a few cost enhancements. They called for the aircraft wiring to be redesigned to USAF specs. Never mind that the commercial 767 has been flying safely for 25 years using Boeing designed wiring. Never mind that Boeing knows more about how to wire an aircraft than everyone in the Air Force all put together. And to add insult to injury, someone dropped the ball, and the first few aircraft off the line lacked the USAF spec wiring. Boeing last year took a $425 million pre tax charge for this. Cost enhancement at work, again.
And then someone slipped in a requirement for extensive flight testing. They are talking about making 65 test flights a month, which is a helova lotta flying. I doubt they will make that schedule. Never mind that this is a well proven commercial airliner with an excellent safety record going back 25 years, we are gonna flight test it like it is a brand new clean sheet design that have never flown before. Cost enhancement at work, again.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Infantry tactics, close vs open order
Close order tactics go back to the Greek phalanx. You form your men into a line, shoulder to shoulder, have them march in step to keep the line straight, and have at it. At Marathon a much smaller force of Athenian heavy infantry defeated utterly a far larger Persian army. Close order tactics were the only tactics known from that day down to modern times. The replacement of spears an pikes by muskets didn't change tactics much. You still formed your men into line, in the open, and had at it. The colorful uniforms and tall hats of the period were designed to make your formed line of troops look bigger, taller, and more dangerous to the enemy. Close order tactics persisted down to World War I. Officers liked them because it kept the men together, in sight, and within earshot of shouted commands. At the battle of the Somme in 1915, the British infantry "went over the top" in line and marched thru no mans land toward the German trenches. The Germans machine gunned the assaulting British with gusto.
Open order tactics go back to the battle of Kings Mountain in the American Revolution. A superior force of loyalist militia, commanded by the famous Major Patrick Ferguson was wiped out in South Carolina by a patriot militia composed of Scots Irish back woodsmen. Major Ferguson positioned his men on high ground, in line, ready for an infantry attack which never came. The patriot backwoods men moved up under cover, in small groups and when close enough, fired into the massed loyalists. The loyalists replied with volleys of musketry and sometimes massed bayonet charges. Some two thirds of the loyalists were shot down against patriot casualties of only a few dozens. At the end, Major Ferguson attempted to break out of the encirclement on horseback. The patriots fired a volley and blew the major out of his saddle. Later they counted seven bullet wounds in Ferguson's body.
Open order tactics didn't catch on in a big way until the very end of World War I. Dubbed "Ludendorf's infiltration tactics" they contributed to the success of the last German drive on the Western Front in 1918. Open order was adopted generally after that. In modern form, a dozen men, a squad, with a light machine gun, led by an NCO, is the lowest level of organization. On attack, the squad moves up until resistance is encountered. At which point, the machine gun is emplaced in a likely location, and under cover of its fire, the riflemen move up until they reach another likely location for the machine gun. The riflemen then give covering fire while the machine gun is moved up closer to the enemy. This process is repeated until the objective is taken.
Open order tactics go back to the battle of Kings Mountain in the American Revolution. A superior force of loyalist militia, commanded by the famous Major Patrick Ferguson was wiped out in South Carolina by a patriot militia composed of Scots Irish back woodsmen. Major Ferguson positioned his men on high ground, in line, ready for an infantry attack which never came. The patriot backwoods men moved up under cover, in small groups and when close enough, fired into the massed loyalists. The loyalists replied with volleys of musketry and sometimes massed bayonet charges. Some two thirds of the loyalists were shot down against patriot casualties of only a few dozens. At the end, Major Ferguson attempted to break out of the encirclement on horseback. The patriots fired a volley and blew the major out of his saddle. Later they counted seven bullet wounds in Ferguson's body.
Open order tactics didn't catch on in a big way until the very end of World War I. Dubbed "Ludendorf's infiltration tactics" they contributed to the success of the last German drive on the Western Front in 1918. Open order was adopted generally after that. In modern form, a dozen men, a squad, with a light machine gun, led by an NCO, is the lowest level of organization. On attack, the squad moves up until resistance is encountered. At which point, the machine gun is emplaced in a likely location, and under cover of its fire, the riflemen move up until they reach another likely location for the machine gun. The riflemen then give covering fire while the machine gun is moved up closer to the enemy. This process is repeated until the objective is taken.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Best announcement speech yet
Donald Trump. Announced that he is really running. Spoke for an hour, live on Fox News. Talks good. Speaks using facts, numbers, concrete examples. Makes campaign promises. Specific ones, ones that we can understand. Published his net worth, on TV, he says he is worth $8 billion and some change. Compared to Trump, everyone else is speaking in bafflegab, vague sound goods that really don't mean anything. Listening to The Donald, you know exactly what he means to do. And it all sounds realistic, like he could make it happen.
Lets see how far good speeches can take him. I mean Obama got to be president mostly cause he gave an inspiring speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. Why cannot Trump go as far, especially as he is a much better speaker than Obama?
Lets see how far good speeches can take him. I mean Obama got to be president mostly cause he gave an inspiring speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. Why cannot Trump go as far, especially as he is a much better speaker than Obama?
Monday, June 15, 2015
Coffee Making
Good coffee is enjoyable to drink black. Poor coffee needs cream and sugar to kill the bad taste. One secret to good coffee is a scrupulously clean coffee maker. An oily residue settles out of brewed coffee and then turns rancid, giving a nasty flavor to the next pot of coffee until it gets washed away in hot soapy water. Some coffee makers, percolators especially, have interior nooks and crannies that are impossible to clean, short of wrecking the thing. Whereas the French press is the most easily cleaned coffee maker out there. The old all glass vacuum Silex was OK providing you had a long thin brush to clean the inside of the suction tube to the upper bowl. The all glass Chemex with the paper filters is OK. I don't trust the plastic Mr. Coffee machines, I think the plastic takes up the rancid taste of coffee oils. For myself I have been using a small two cup French press I got from LaHoutes camping supply store.
I get excellent results buying plain ground canned coffee. The $3 a can Shurfine Columbian makes as good a cup of coffee as the $10 a can Dunkin Donuts and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. I keep the coffee can in the refrigerator to reduce evaporation of the coffee essences.
My rural water supply system has gone ape on chlorine lately, the tap water can smell like a swimming pool. I let my coffee water stand in a pitcher on the kitchen table overnight. Improves everything.
I put two rounded tablespoons of coffee and a shake of the salt cellar into the French press. The salt smooths out the flavor and takes the edge off the bitterness. Fill it up with boiling water and let it brew four minutes.
Good coffee, drinkable black.
I get excellent results buying plain ground canned coffee. The $3 a can Shurfine Columbian makes as good a cup of coffee as the $10 a can Dunkin Donuts and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. I keep the coffee can in the refrigerator to reduce evaporation of the coffee essences.
My rural water supply system has gone ape on chlorine lately, the tap water can smell like a swimming pool. I let my coffee water stand in a pitcher on the kitchen table overnight. Improves everything.
I put two rounded tablespoons of coffee and a shake of the salt cellar into the French press. The salt smooths out the flavor and takes the edge off the bitterness. Fill it up with boiling water and let it brew four minutes.
Good coffee, drinkable black.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Windows 8 does its own thing, Touchpad
In order to make a laptop usable, you need to disable the touchpad while typing. Your typing hands hover over the touchpad, and the damn pad sees light finger brushes as solid mouse clicks. Each time that happens, bad things happen to your text, random cursor moves, weird escape sequences inserted in your text, or whole pages of text just gone. I use a plain jane USB mouse, the kind with real mechanical buttons that click when pressed. So I have no need of the touch pad, in fact it messes up my typing.
So, off to Windows 8 configuration land. Stroke your finger from the right hand screen edge toward screen center, and a mystery menu pops up. Click on "Settings" (bottom gear wheel icon). Click on "Control Panel". Sort thru the hundred or so icons in ControlPanel and click on "Mouse". Inside the "Mouse" program, click on "Touchpad" tab. Check "Disable internal pointing device when USB mouse is present".
Make a record of how you did this. Windows 8 will occasionally clear the checkmark and your typing goes to pieces again. When that happens, repeat the whole procedure, and the problem will go away again, at least until Windows 8 decides to liven up your life.
It ought to be a felony to release software this flaky, but heh, if you are Micro$oft, anything goes.
So, off to Windows 8 configuration land. Stroke your finger from the right hand screen edge toward screen center, and a mystery menu pops up. Click on "Settings" (bottom gear wheel icon). Click on "Control Panel". Sort thru the hundred or so icons in ControlPanel and click on "Mouse". Inside the "Mouse" program, click on "Touchpad" tab. Check "Disable internal pointing device when USB mouse is present".
Make a record of how you did this. Windows 8 will occasionally clear the checkmark and your typing goes to pieces again. When that happens, repeat the whole procedure, and the problem will go away again, at least until Windows 8 decides to liven up your life.
It ought to be a felony to release software this flaky, but heh, if you are Micro$oft, anything goes.
American Cops need flack jackets
Baltimore, Ferguson, New York City, all have demonstrated deep seated hatred for the police among the population. And taking pot shots at the Dallas cops last week is hardly an advertisement for good police community relations. And yet, we need the police to protect us from the small number of ruthless criminals among us. Here is my list of things the cops ought to be doing to set things right.
1. Hire locally. Cops on a municipal force ought to be long time residents of the city. Long time means they attended elementary school and high school in the town. This gets you cops with some local roots, some local connections, who can reach out to old childhood friends in the community for tips and intelligence.
2. Get out of the squad car, and talk to people. Find out what's going down, who is who. Assign the same cops to the same neighborhoods day after day, to give 'em a chance to get to know people. Cases are solved by tips, and you need connections to get tips.
3. Police uniforms should be blue, not black. Only bad guys wear black.
4. Stop harassing innocent citizens and enforcing petty laws. Texas cops just busted a pair of seven year old girls for running a lemonade stand. Eric Garner died in New York when arrested for selling single cigarettes. Stop grabbing kids off the street just cause their parents let them out of doors for a few minutes. Legislatures and municipal governments ought repeal petty laws.
5. Organize and support youth activities, little league, youth soccer, scouting, after school activities, what ever. In addition to keeping kids busy after school, and hence out of trouble, it gives an opportunity to build relationships with kids. Kids grow up and turn into adult members of the community remarkably quickly.
6. Talk before you shoot. Call for backup. Remember the citizens hate it when one of their own is shot down by a cop. American cops kill more citizens than the cops anywhere else in the world.
7. Legalize pot. Nearly everyone smokes it now, it is not a violent crime, and busting people for smoking or possession of reasonable amounts is counter productive. It produces a life long bad attitude, makes the victim practically unemployable for the rest of his life, and fills expensive jail cells with non dangerous people. Legislatures take note.
8. Stop doing no-knock raids. Doing one can be a death sentence for someone. If the suspect has a gun, not unlikely, they will always open fire when they hear their door busting down. The cops will always shoot back. Mostly the suspect gets killed, occasionally the suspect can take a cop or two with him. But starting a gunfight in a citizen's home at zero dark thirty is not constitutional law enforcement.
1. Hire locally. Cops on a municipal force ought to be long time residents of the city. Long time means they attended elementary school and high school in the town. This gets you cops with some local roots, some local connections, who can reach out to old childhood friends in the community for tips and intelligence.
2. Get out of the squad car, and talk to people. Find out what's going down, who is who. Assign the same cops to the same neighborhoods day after day, to give 'em a chance to get to know people. Cases are solved by tips, and you need connections to get tips.
3. Police uniforms should be blue, not black. Only bad guys wear black.
4. Stop harassing innocent citizens and enforcing petty laws. Texas cops just busted a pair of seven year old girls for running a lemonade stand. Eric Garner died in New York when arrested for selling single cigarettes. Stop grabbing kids off the street just cause their parents let them out of doors for a few minutes. Legislatures and municipal governments ought repeal petty laws.
5. Organize and support youth activities, little league, youth soccer, scouting, after school activities, what ever. In addition to keeping kids busy after school, and hence out of trouble, it gives an opportunity to build relationships with kids. Kids grow up and turn into adult members of the community remarkably quickly.
6. Talk before you shoot. Call for backup. Remember the citizens hate it when one of their own is shot down by a cop. American cops kill more citizens than the cops anywhere else in the world.
7. Legalize pot. Nearly everyone smokes it now, it is not a violent crime, and busting people for smoking or possession of reasonable amounts is counter productive. It produces a life long bad attitude, makes the victim practically unemployable for the rest of his life, and fills expensive jail cells with non dangerous people. Legislatures take note.
8. Stop doing no-knock raids. Doing one can be a death sentence for someone. If the suspect has a gun, not unlikely, they will always open fire when they hear their door busting down. The cops will always shoot back. Mostly the suspect gets killed, occasionally the suspect can take a cop or two with him. But starting a gunfight in a citizen's home at zero dark thirty is not constitutional law enforcement.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
EPA gets airborne
The EPA just claimed jurisdiction over the world's airlines. They are gonna publish regulations on aircraft emissions. Not that this will reduce emissions, it will just serve as a tax on air travel.
The best engineers in the world have been working flat out for 100 years to make aircraft more efficient. They have had some success, new airliners with the latest engines are a tad more fuel efficient than ones built 10 years ago. Boeing and Airbus salesmen claim as much as 20%, most people will allow them 5%. That's enough for the airlines to order new planes and mothball what they are flying now. Boeing has a backlog of 900 orders for its latest 787 model. And nearly as many for its re engined 737 MAX. Airbus is doing likewise. In short, the most fuel efficient possible airliners are in full production and going into service as fast as they roll off the production line.
With jet fuel at $2.50 a gallon the airlines have all the incentive necessary to conserve fuel as much as possible. The air frame builders have every incentive to improve fuel burn, namely, planes that burn less fuel have better range and can haul bigger loads.
In a nutshell, market forces have made air travel as fuel efficient as possible. EPA regulation won't improve anything, it will serve in place of a tax. In the depths of Great Depression 2.0, we don't need more taxes.
The best engineers in the world have been working flat out for 100 years to make aircraft more efficient. They have had some success, new airliners with the latest engines are a tad more fuel efficient than ones built 10 years ago. Boeing and Airbus salesmen claim as much as 20%, most people will allow them 5%. That's enough for the airlines to order new planes and mothball what they are flying now. Boeing has a backlog of 900 orders for its latest 787 model. And nearly as many for its re engined 737 MAX. Airbus is doing likewise. In short, the most fuel efficient possible airliners are in full production and going into service as fast as they roll off the production line.
With jet fuel at $2.50 a gallon the airlines have all the incentive necessary to conserve fuel as much as possible. The air frame builders have every incentive to improve fuel burn, namely, planes that burn less fuel have better range and can haul bigger loads.
In a nutshell, market forces have made air travel as fuel efficient as possible. EPA regulation won't improve anything, it will serve in place of a tax. In the depths of Great Depression 2.0, we don't need more taxes.
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