Desert Tortoise comments

Posted in: Pentagon study finds no sign of alien life in reported UFO sightings going back decades See in context

The propulsion described in this patent looks an awful lot like sightings of the TR-3B, for example what my team lead saw in the desert.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10144532B2/en

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Posted in: Pentagon study finds no sign of alien life in reported UFO sightings going back decades See in context

There's no known physics that makes travel between stars possible without generational ships.c it's the law. Moving matter faster than c is unlikely for the next 1000+ years, perhaps never.

The physics of warp drive exist and doesn't violate General Relativity. Achieving the necessary material science and engineering solutions appear to be distant but it would not surprise me if some secret entity within the US defense establishment is already there.

https://interestingengineering.com/science/warp-drive-not-science-fiction-faster-than-light-travel

https://thedebrief.org/is-warp-speed-possible/

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Posted in: Pentagon study finds no sign of alien life in reported UFO sightings going back decades See in context

I think what people are seeing are terrestrial in origin, probably the most advanced tech the US and perhaps other military's possess and are trying to keep secret. It is not such a bad thing from the standpoint of the military if a report of a sighting of one of their secret systems is dismissed with a wave of a hand as the rantings of a kook. The whole idea that the US could be operating something that behaves like the Tic Tac for example gets dismissed as the pilot saw something mundane but misinterpreted it.

My team lead is a non nonsense aerospace engineer. He is not prone to any kind of wishful thinking. He doesn't spout conspiracy theories. No time for anything that is not supported by data. But he and his wife on a cross country road trip encountered something weird that rose up above a long sand berm that paralleled the road out in the desert near a big military test range. Whatever it was looked an awful lot like what you read about as the TR-3B. It rose up noiselessly, then descended back below the berm, and the triangular body was rotating around its center. He is not someone who's observations I can dismiss as the rantings of a kook.

The Germans were reportedly experimenting with anti gravity propulsion immediately before and during WWII. A lot of German scientists landed in the US after that war. Who knows what they might have taught the US? My guess and that is all it is, is that the US has something or some things, some eye watering technologies, it prefers nobody knows about and will never willingly admit to having. I am fine with that too.

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Posted in: U.S. eyes extensive repair of warships at Japan shipyards: sources See in context

No, I think high security and strategic assets like warships should be handled by Japanese and American workers ONLY.

china spies know how to use Vietnamese, Cambodians at el. to spy on American warships & steal the blueprints.

Japanese ships are filled with classified hardware and software of domestic Japanese, American and European origins. The big Maya and Atago class DDGs have the same Aegis combat system and SPY-1 radars found on the newer Arleigh Burke class destroyers. Japanese shipyard workers already require security clearances to work on new Japanese ships. The incentive to spy on Japanese yards has been present for many decades. The US Navy must be satisfied their classified systems will be protected using Japanese shipyards.

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Posted in: U.S. eyes extensive repair of warships at Japan shipyards: sources See in context

Another point of fact, the Japanese already build large guided missile destroyers with the same radars and Aegis combat management system used by US Navy destroyers. I have been on a few Japanese warships and they are built for all intents and purposes to the exact same standards as US Navy warships. European warships are very different. The Japanese have the same water tight doors, hatches, explosion proof lighting, damage control equipment, etc. etc. found in the US Navy. You could almost put a US Navy crew on a Japanese warship and they would have it figured out in a week. Even the equipment tags inside are in English and Japanese characters and use the exact same marking protocols the US Navy uses.

In any event Japanese shipyard workers at the Yokosuka and Sasebo naval shipyards have been overhauling US Navy warships since the end of WWII. The old USS Midway is filled with writing from Japanese shipyard workers who made notes and measurements on various parts of the ship they worked on. This just expands the same kinds of work to commercial yards, the ones that build Japan's outstanding warships.

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Posted in: U.S. eyes extensive repair of warships at Japan shipyards: sources See in context

Will they be carrying nuclear weapons? If so, they cannot do this.

Just as a point of fact, the only ships in the US Navy today that carry nuclear weapons are ballistic missile submarines. The US Navy has no other nuclear weapons in its inventory. They once did, but by the early 1990s all nuclear weapons had been removed from US warships and attack submarines.

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Posted in: Lithium-ion batteries don’t work well in the cold − a battery researcher explains why See in context

No mention of lithium ferro-sufate batteries. They do not catch fire, can handle ten times as many charge-discharge cycles as lithium ion batteries and are becoming the battery of choice for the battery back up of residential solar power systems.

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Posted in: Ospreys cleared to return to flight, 3 months after fatal crash in Japan See in context

I flew the Osprey's predecessor, the CH-46, aka the Phrog. We flew it for several years with an airspeed restriction. Why? There is something called the "quill shaft" that connects the "mix box", the gearbox that combines the power of the two turbine engines through sprag clutches into one rotating shaft that powers the forward and aft rotors. The small shaft from the mix box to the aft transmission is the quill shaft. These started to fail, causing catastrophic rotor de-synchronization and mid-air break up of the helicopter. Not even remotely survivable. After a period of grounding the source of the problem was determined and our maximum airspeed was reduced from 145 knots to 120 knots. At that reduced airspeed we had no more failures. Eventually the entire CH-46 fleet was sent back to the depot for a big upgrade program that included new composite rotor blades, an entirely new digital flight control system and a stronger quill shaft. Once rebuilt maximum airspeed was once again 145 knots. But during the fleet overhaul period which lasted a couple of years we always had to be careful not to exceed 120 knots in aircraft that hadn't yet been overhauled.

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Posted in: Ospreys cleared to return to flight, 3 months after fatal crash in Japan See in context

No country besides US and its colony use Osprey.

The Italians have one of their own designed mostly for offshore oil support and executive travel, but are considering adapting it to military missions.

https://www.defensenews.com/2015/03/29/italian-military-industry-eye-tilt-rotors/

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Posted in: Ospreys cleared to return to flight, 3 months after fatal crash in Japan See in context

Wow! The US asks and Japan agrees in just a couple of days. Master and servant.

The Japanese are involved in the mishap investigation and have as much information as the US has. These are decisions made mutually among all the users.

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Posted in: Japan-bound United Airlines plane makes safe emergency landing in LA after losing tire during takeoff See in context

The A&P license holders are employees of the manufacturer.

No. You find A&Ps at every airport at just about every level of aviation. Every airline has their own army of A&Ps to maintain their aircraft as do the any maintenance shops at airports around the US.

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Posted in: Japan-bound United Airlines plane makes safe emergency landing in LA after losing tire during takeoff See in context

Just hire the best pilots, crew, and mechanics. Safety is obviously more important than pushing social agendas.

Cutting corners to save a buck has nothing to do with pushing social agendas /: Find out just how much work is required to earn an A&P license that qualifies you to work on aircraft and to be able to sign off the work was done according to the manufacturers recommendations. Somebody might just loose their A&P license over this.

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Posted in: Japan-bound United Airlines plane makes safe emergency landing in LA after losing tire during takeoff See in context

That's the important point. The maintenance guys may not be responsible either, though how a number of bolts holding the tire on the plane would all sheer off concurrently is something I can't imagine. If any were missing, the pilot should have noticed on his pre-flight inspection before taxiing.

Aircraft wheels are not held on the same way as a car or truck. There is just one big nut on the end of the axle holding the wheel on the axle. Bolts around the perimeter hold the stack up of brake discs on the wheel (wheels with brakes will have multiple brake discs with friction materials between the discs and on each outside surface). On the smaller aircraft I flew there was a big cotter key on the end of the axle that fitted through a hole in the axle and into slots in what we called a "castleated nut" preventing the nut from turning but the landing gear on heavy transport aircraft that I have seen do not have this.

It could be the nut was not torqued to spec, something that is not visible on a pre-flight inspection or the bearing inside the wheel failed allowing the wheel to separate from the axle.

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Posted in: Violence in Mideast, rising threats from Islamic State group in Afghanistan pressure US, allies See in context

The nexus of all of these problems lies in Tehran. Taking down the mullahs, ending their rule, would solve many problems but alas the US is I think husbanding their weapons for what the US increasingly seems to see as an inevitable naval and air war with China to defend Taiwan. As much as the US body politic would probably love to go after Iran they know they cannot afford the weapons expenditure necessary to do so as it would deplete weapons the US would need in vast quantities to fight the Chinese. Other means of deterring Iran short of a war will have to be found.

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Posted in: Violence in Mideast, rising threats from Islamic State group in Afghanistan pressure US, allies See in context

In other comments, he said ****the U.S. has been using directed energy weapons to shoot down drones but could use more of those so the Navy doesn't have to use large, expensive missiles to take out the smaller threats.

That is far and away the most interesting sentence in the whole article.

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Posted in: Exporting next-generation fighter jet would serve national interest: Kishida See in context

India produces SU-30MKIs under license for the IAF, and the MKI version is considered to be the most sophisticated Flanker variant produced anywhere as it has all aspect thrust vectoring and advanced avionics. India also produces the single engine Tejas, which is a purely Indian design and built only in India.

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Posted in: Exporting next-generation fighter jet would serve national interest: Kishida See in context

When the tri-partite project to develop next-generation fighter jets came up on the table, probably with support by the U.S. government, which wants to make Japan a future partner in jointly developing lethal weapons, such as Aegis Ashore, for example,

Your information is old. Aegis Ashore is already old news. The US was considering it for Guam and Hawaii but decided to make the whole system mobile. The Navy has reduced the software in the Aegis combat system down to something that fits in a standard ruggedized military laptop. They have a DDG out in the Pacific right now with all the systems including the radars operating off a single laptop. Instead of a big fixed shore installation the Missile Defense Agency has put the SPY-6 radars along with the SM-3 and SM-6 missiles on trailers that can be moved around behind a standard semi-tractor so they can be moved around and hidden. The trailer mounted SPY-6 becomes TYP-6. The US Army has Tomahawks and SM-6s on trailers in the Indo-Pacific theater now. TYP-6 is in testing.

Theoretically any ship with a radar can now use Aegis on a laptop to integrate weapons added to the ship, and there are already shipping containers converted into launchers for SM-3 and SM-6, and Tomahawk. Combat power can be dispersed and hidden.

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Posted in: Publishing Taylor Swift’s flight information: Is it stalking or protected free speech? See in context

The movements of civil aircraft are public information, like the minutes of public meetings or court hearings. Ms Swift needs to accept this or find a more secure way to travel. I tend to view her has one of the classier and more well adjusted people in show business, kind of an anti-Brittney if you will, but on this matter she has it wrong.

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Posted in: Exporting next-generation fighter jet would serve national interest: Kishida See in context

So according to Kishida, Japan's national interest is synonymous with the military industrial complex's interests.

Larger production volumes reduces the unit cost, which is beneficial for the Japanese taxpayer.

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Posted in: Trade, submarines feature at ASEAN talks in Australia See in context

The Soviets lost a then front line SSN in the Indian Ocean in early 1986 that never shows up among the listings of their losses

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Posted in: Trade, submarines feature at ASEAN talks in Australia See in context

Anyway, operating submarines is very dangerous. BTW, for some reason that list didn't include the CHINA, CHANGCHENG 361 (2003) incident which killed 70.

Well, your list shows the Scorpion twice.

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Posted in: Trade, submarines feature at ASEAN talks in Australia See in context

Hopefully there's no actual accident really happened like what happened in the past,

Kursk was lost due to the detonation of a faulty torpedo.

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Posted in: Philippine Coast Guard says ship damaged in collision with Chinese vessel See in context

Need an Asian NATO to counter China. Or could just expand the franchise from Europe.

Or, some existing members of NATO could start another identical organization that includes Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Philippines but excludes Hungary and Turkiye, then withdraw from NATO, leaving only the Turks and Hungarians left as a rump NATO. Solves a couple of problems.

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Posted in: Philippine Coast Guard says ship damaged in collision with Chinese vessel See in context

The US Coast Guard should begin escorting Philippine ships to their islands. The Chinese pull that nonsense with the US Coast Guard.

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Posted in: Philippine Coast Guard says ship damaged in collision with Chinese vessel See in context

Also this:

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/china-coast-guard-injures-four-with-water-cannon-in-s-china-sea-standoff

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Posted in: Philippine Coast Guard says ship damaged in collision with Chinese vessel See in context

Here is video of the encounter from the article in gCaptain.

https://twitter.com/jaytaryela/status/1764832675830088025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1764832675830088025%

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Posted in: Masked shooters kill 4 people and injure 3 at outdoor party in California See in context

This occured on a private property, where the keeping of guns for defense has been a constitutional right since at least 2008, per Heller.

It was a birthday party for the one female who died. She was a nurse at the hospital she was taken to for treatment and where she subsequently died.

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Posted in: Masked shooters kill 4 people and injure 3 at outdoor party in California See in context

Not likely a drug/gang related incident, the masks and them getting out of the car to take up shooting stances is a completely different dynamic.

The dynamic it does fit is altright violence against non Whites. I can't say for sure, but I believe that the area's demographics skews significantly in the direction of people who the altright hates

Sigh. King City is a small farm town of around 13,000 residents in the Salinas Valley. It sits along the Salinas River surrounded by some of the most fertile farmland on Earth. It's not like the high desert where you have a lot of poor whites and some white power drug gangs. The area is overwhelmingly Hispanic, farm workers and their families. It's a pretty nice little town.

If I had to guess I would guess this shooting was drug related. Ever since the voters in California legalized pot illegal drug grows and drug violence have escalated. Pot possession is no longer a crime and the cop isn't going to ask where you bought your stash, but the legal pot suppliers who pay taxes, pay rent for their land and storefronts and follow the law are at a price disadvantage to the drug cartels and their bootleg grows that steal water and electricity and dump waste into local waterways. Just a few weeks ago there was a similar shooting over a drug dispute out near El Mirage Dry Lake in the high desert.

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Posted in: Masked shooters kill 4 people and injure 3 at outdoor party in California See in context

More young black men shooting other young black men. But we are not allowed mention the real problem so a real solution will not be found.

Pretty unlikely in King City. It is a farming community in the Salinas Valley where farm workers and their families predominate.

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Posted in: Masked shooters kill 4 people and injure 3 at outdoor party in California See in context

How is it that a country like Switzerland has a high rate of gun ownership, but one of the lowest homicide rates in the world?

Because most guns in Switzerland belong to the Swiss Army, issued to all adult males of a certain age for their required military service and subsequent status as reservists. The use of these guns is very strictly regulated by the Swiss Army for reservist training. They are not personal weapons for recreational use.

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