Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

AV-8B

Your Sunday Morning Naval Air Noise

At a NAF:

Osprey, Again

An Osprey being used to ferry White House staff and government officials from an event in New York on Monday was grounded due to a safety concern, with one witness reporting flames under the right engine.

The staff and officials were removed from the aircraft, part of the Marine Corps HMX-1 presidential helicopter fleet, and transferred to a second Osprey to continue their trip accompanying President Joe Biden at a “Friendsgiving” event with members of the U.S. Coast Guard in Staten Island.

Personally, I'd take almost any other mode of transporation over flying in an Osprey.

Happy 249th

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

AV-8:

I saw one at an airshow, many years ago. When it went into a hover, it was about the loudest airplane I've ever heard.

Get-There-itis?

Five U.S. Marines aboard a helicopter that went down during stormy weather in the mountains outside of San Diego are confirmed dead, the military said Thursday.

Authorities say the CH-53E Super Stallion vanished late Tuesday night while returning to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego after training at Creech Air Force Base, northwest of Las Vegas.

Grampaw Pettibone warned Navy and Marine Corps aviators for decades about the dangers of get-there-itis. Whether the pilot wanted to get back to San Diego or command ordered the pilot to do so, flying in extremely poor weather for a non-operational emergency smacks of piss-poor decision making.

I could be jumping the gun on this. Maybe the helo went down for reasons unrelated to the weather. But the odds are that it was a weather-related crash that cost the lives of five Marines and the loss of a very expensive helicopter.

A Hundred Years Ago

There was a problem with armed robbers hitting mail trucks, as back in the day, it was not uncommon to send really valuable shit (including cash) by mail. So they sent in the Marines to guard the mail.

This is from the FAQ for the guards:

Q. Is there a general plan for meeting a robbery?
A. Yes; start shooting and meet developments as they arise thereafter.

Q. If I hear the command 'Hands Up,' am I justified in obeying this order?
A. No; fall to the ground and start shooting.

Q. Is it possible to make a successful mail robbery?
A. Only over a dead Marine.

Nobody tried to fuck with the Marine guards.

Almost Forgot About Uncle Sam's Misguided Children

Your Sunday Morning Turboprop Noise

Four C-130s on the (sub-)Mach Loop:

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The F-35 "Turkey Two":

Go about to 1:50 in to see it land vertically.

It seems that Putler has been LockMark's best salesman.

Convertible Sniper Rifles?

The Barrett Mk.22, which the marines are adopting, will fire .338 Norma Magnum, .300 Norma Magnum, 7.62mm and, .300 Winchester Magnum. The idea is that they don't have to carry different rifles, just one, with extra barrels.

I don't know how that will work in reality. At what point do they decide which barel and ammo to take? I presume that they're not going into the field with all of that stuff, but one never knows with the Crops.

One Hundred Men Will Test Today, But Only One Goes to Spy for Russia

A former Army Green Beret who admitted divulging military secrets to Russia over a 15-year period was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison Friday on espionage charges.

The sentence of 15 years and 8 months imposed on Peter Dzibinski Debbins, 46, of Gainesville, Virginia, by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton was largely in line with the 17-year term sought by prosecutors. Defense lawyers sought a 5-year term.

His lawyer sought to argue that the traitor spied for Russia out of fear of having his sexual orientation disclosed, a fact he apparently omitted to tell to the FBI when they interrogated him about his activities.

So that's two commissioned military officers who are traitors that we know about this week (the other is a Marine).

Ontos

M50 Ontos:

My uncle was a two-war Marine, who retired by the time I was of an age to know anything about it. Our familes went camping one time at Quantico; he took us to a garage of some kind where there was an Ontos. Even to a kid, it seemed pretty tiny.

(My memory was jogged by this.)

Your Sunday Morning Rotor Noise

A Super Cobra's last flight:

100 Years Ago

The Marines entered into the Battle of Belleau Wood on June 6, 1918.

It's a date that has become overshadowed by D-Day and the Battle of Midway. But it's a battle that ranks very high in the Marine canon. Reportedly, their cherished nickname of "Devil Dogs" came from the Germans referring to them as "hell hounds". So did the motivational cry of "C'mon you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?" Nearly 2,000 Marines died there.

The French government awarded the Marine 4th Brigade the Croix de guerre.

Uncle Sam's Misguided Children at Play

Warm up the NJPs and court-martials:

The U.S. Department of Defense is investigating hundreds of Marines who used social media to solicit and share hundreds — possibly thousands — of naked photographs of women service members and veterans.

Since Jan. 30, more than two dozen women – many on active duty, including officers and enlisted service members – have been identified by their rank, full name and military duty station in photographs posted and linked to from a private Facebook page.

In one instance, a woman corporal in uniform was followed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina by a fellow Marine, who surreptitiously photographed her as she picked up her gear. Those photographs were posted online in the Facebook group “Marines United,” which has nearly 30,000 followers, drawing dozens of obscene comments.

Lots of those idiots are going to end up with OTH discharges, reductions in rank and the usual menu of punishments. If they nab senior enlisted (Gunny & higher) or officers, look for court-martials.

I'd expect this story to be widely covered in Japanese media, which has often portrayed Marines stationed in Okinawa to be little more than a pack of sexual predators and child molesters.

On the other hand, our Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief might order that the whole affair be swept back under the rug.

News Not Covered Here

Since 2015, at least 36 U.S. service members on Okinawa have been arrested in child sex stings operated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Those detained have belonged to all branches of the military — with marines in the majority — and their ranks have ranged from private to lieutenant colonel. Typically they have received sentences of between two and three years in military prison, and upon their release they will be required to register as sex offenders in the United States.

At the moment, that's the top trending story on The Japan Times's website.

Also in Japan, there is a bit of a stink about their prime minister's support of xenophobic nationalists.

Interpreters are somewhat concerned that if they translate Trump's words too accurately, that people will think the interpreters are idiots.“He rarely speaks logically, and he only emphasizes one side of things as if it were the absolute truth. There are lots of moments when I suspected his assertions were factually dubious,” said Chikako Tsuruta, who routinely covers Trump-related news as an interpreter for CNN, ABC and CBS.

In New Zealand, they remember nurses who were gunned down 75 years ago by Japanese soldiers.

YouTube removed a livestream of a giraffe giving birth because of nudity. That lasted until people called out YouTube for being ignorant, after which YouTube relented.

Bravo, Marines!

A heavily armed gunman opened fire on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday, injuring two people before being overpowered by two American soldiers who were on board.

They were apparently Marines and one was apparently seriously wounded.

Update: Not Marines; they were three guys who were friends dating back to middle school, plus one Brit. One a civilian, one an Air Force paramedic, and one a specialist of some flavor in the Oregon National Guard.

How Can You Tell When a Military Public Affairs Officer is Lying?

His or her lips are moving.

An Osprey crashed and burned in Hawaii, killing one Marine and injuring everyone else on board. The PAO called it a "hard landing incident".

Riiight.

Just your typical hard landing... replace the tires, do some repairs to the landing gear and it'll be fine, suuurrre it will.

F-35 Flammenwerfer

The troubles keep piling on for the F-35:

U.S. military officials have grounded all F-35s while continuing to investigate a runway fire involving one of the fighter jets at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

In a statement issued Thursday, the Pentagon's press secretary said Air Force and Navy officials ordered the F-35 fleet grounded after initial findings in the incident in Florida on June 23.

Back in the day, when these things weren't so fucking expensive, the Army/Air Force often would buy two different airplanes and fund them through initial production in case one of them turned out to be a failure. Even now, they get the top two flying.

But in this case, I doubt if the XF-32 would have been any better. The services have "christmas-treed" too many mission requirements onto the F-35, from VTOL close-air support to air-superiority. The Air Force, Navy and Marines publicly expect the F-35 to do every fixed-wing mission except trash-hauling and strategic bombing. That strikes me as being borderline locked-ward grade insanity.

If you read between the lines of this story, the Navy is hedging its bets on the F-35.