Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The BONE:

The Most Racist Administration Since Woodrow Wilson's Keeps On Showing Their Racism

Removing the portrait of Chappie James, the first Black Air Force four-star general, is a new low.

Yeah. Gotta make sure those minorities aren’t recognized for their contributions to the country. pic.twitter.com/jJZOzW59j5

— tim russ (@timruss2) June 11, 2026

Hegseth wouldn't be worthy of polishing General James's flight boots.

But hey, MAGA, he's your guy. Put down your computer and ensure that the holes line up in your white sheets.

And to every general officer in the Air Force and the Space Force: If you don't stand up, now, you're a pack of fucking cowards, regardless of how much fruit salad you wear on your chests.

That's Not Going to Buff Out

An E-3 "AWACS" was apparently destroyed in an Iranian missile attac on Prince Sultan airbase:

I don't know if it's an honest mistake, Gen. Sedgwick-grade arrogance or utter stupidity to put very high-value airplanes at a base within reach of Iranian missiles.

Wikipedia claims that the Air Force had sixteen E-3s in service. Losing one isn't good.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Habu!



I saw one paint on a SPS-40. The radar made something like four sweeps and it was gone.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

A B-57:

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The Lawn Dart:

Same as It Ever Was, Aviation Ed.

A deadly Osprey aircraft crash last November off Japan was caused by cracks in a metal gear and the pilot’s decision to keep flying rather than heed multiple warnings that he should land, according to an Air Force investigation released Thursday.

First off, it's always easy to blame the dead pilot(s). The manufacturer has technical people and lawyers to throw shade and deflect blame. The Air Force has senior officers and more technical people and JAG officers to deflect blame and throw shade. the dead crew has nobody to speak for them.

Second, this accidents points to a syndrome known as "alarm fatigue", which is when too many alarms keep going off, most of which are meaningless, and, if one terminates a flight because of them, results in an ass-chewing. It's a phenonemon that goes back a very long time (as in The Boy Who Called 'Wolf'). Easier to blame the dead pilots for not figuring out which of the pasta-gazillion alarms were valid, instead of fixing the damn bastardized aircraft.

The SS doesn't let POTUS fly on the MV-22s operated by HMX-1, which should give you some idea how safe they believe those critters are.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

(Somehow, this went live last Tuesday. Deleted and reposted. Maybe.)

A KC-135 in the Mach Loop.

Not exactly a low pass, but that airplane's probably older than the pilot's parents.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

C-17 rapid drill.

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KC-10s.

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B-2:

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The B-3 B-21.

Amazing footage! Stablized and post-processed to reduce that jitter. pic.twitter.com/u0gjTD1KoP

— C Schmitz (@chrisschmitz) November 10, 2023

It still irks me that the mentally-deficient leaders in the Zommies got to trash the aircraft designation system because some alcohol-besotted functionary thought that "B-21" was a cooler designation than "B-3" for their latest flying money-sink.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Last week, I posted a current video of a C-5.

Here's an older one of a C-5, with the old "growling" engines. Time was, one could pass over head a couple of miles up and you'd know it was a C-5 just from the sound.

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C-5 at Oshkosh this year:

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C-17:

More Tinfoil Hearings From the Party of Q.

The U.S. is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects, a former Air Force intelligence officer testified Wednesday to Congress. The Pentagon has denied his claims.
...
Grusch said he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UAPs to identify all highly classified programs relating to the task force’s mission. At the time, Grusch was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites.

I smell bullshit. In part, because if there is some seriously sentitive work to be done, they're not giving it to some damn major who comes across as a guy who was shoved into a corner to wait out his twenty.

Plumbing

The "Polar Plunge" brought us a gift: A busted pipe.

So today has been fun.

The Chinese Spy Balloon was shot down today.

Shoot the Fucker Down, Already

The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace for a couple days, but the Pentagon decided not to shoot it down due to risks of harm for people on the ground, officials said Thursday. The discovery of the balloon puts a further strain on U.S.-China relations at a time of heightened tensions.

I'm guessing it's more likely that the Zoomies can't shoot it down.

Every Cargo Airplane is Now a Bomber

The Zoomies have tested a weapon system that turns a lot of cargo airplanes into bombers. The Rapid Dragon is a palletized cruise missle. The loadmasters shove the pallet out of the back, a parachute stabilizes the pallet and then the missile launches.

The term "force multiplier" gets tossed around a lot, but it seems applicable in this case.

"Every Trash-Hauler, a Bomber."

Non-Flying Pilots

The Air Force is moving more and more towards training their pilots in simulators.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. It certainly will likely be cheaper,[1] which will satisfy the flag officer/bureaucrats in Ft. Fumble. The airlines were early adopters of simulator training because it's supposedly almost as good, it's a lot cheaper to do it that way and their stockholders don't like training crashes.

But airlines fly the same routes. The crews bid on those routes. The Air Froce suppsedly has to be ready to go anywhere at anytime. Flying real airples has the potential to introduce elements that are not in the lesson plan for that day's flight, which may teach adaptability. And it may concentrate the mind to know that fucking up a flight could lead to going home in a box.

But maybe not.
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[1] Air Force procurement can't even buy a fucking tanker without incompetence and massive cost overruns. The Air Force procurement offices should be moved to Stockholm.