At sea in an ocean of military equipment, vehicles and components

Posted by John Keller

LONDON, 13 Sept. 2011. I'm attending the monster Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi) military trade show today in London, and I'm reminded of why I never fail to leave any one of the Smithsonian museums without a vague feeling of being stuffed and starved at the same time.

The Smithsonian has too much of everything, and not enough of anything. So does the DSEi show.

Tanks, armored vehicles, machine guns, chemical protection suits, unmanned aerial vehicles, combat radios, electronic connectors, boots, body armor, navigation systems, personal cooling systems, missiles, non-lethal hand grenades (I couldn't be making this up), rubber bullets, helicopters, a non-flying F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ... the list goes on and on.

Confused yet? Imagine how I feel. At least you're probably not sore from your hips to your big toes. When I say DSEi is big, I mean really big -- two-exhibit-halls-twice-as-wide-as-a-football-field-and-probably-four-times-as-long big.

I hadn't been getting my walks in of late. Between the London-rush-hour trip over here on the Underground -- lovingly called the Tube -- and winding my away around football fields of tanks, armored vehicles, machine guns ... well, you get the idea ..., and I've gotten my walks in for weeks.

If I force myself to get past the sheer, brute incongruity of it all, there are some pretty interesting things here. Meggitt plc in Christchurch, England, for example, is getting ready to introduce a soldier's personal, body-worn air conditioner that's about the size of a soft drink can. I can only imagine how they'll do the duct work to cool a warfighter from head to toe.

The unmanned aerial vehicles on display, as usual, are head-turners. And as is becoming fashionable at big defense shows these days, DSEi has the obligatory unmanned vehicle demonstration area, complete with protective netting to keep the flying things separate from show attendees.

Oh, and I forgot to mention my favorite exhibit at the show so far.

The armored cement mixer -- no, really. I suppose you never know when you'll need to build a concrete apron fast on some battlefield while the shooting is still going on ... or a basketball court, or a built-in barbecue and patio. At least that way we'll have good use for all that body armor and bolt-less helmets.

You'll have to excuse me now; I'm not finished walking the floors at DSEi. I need to go find the Kevlar basketballs and titanium barbecue spatulas.

Some of the unsung events of 9/11 that didn't make it onto the front page

Posted by John Keller

The flaming twin towers of the World Trade Center against a crystal-blue September sky a decade ago today is seared into memory for most of us, but there are a few things about 9/11 that many of us know little about. How about tens of thousands of U.S.-bound airline passengers stranded in Canada after the FAA shut down U.S. airspace?

How about a couple of fighter pilots who took off from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington in unarmed F-16 jet fighters just after the first attacks, with intent to ram United Airlines Flight 93 -- a hijacked passenger jetliner heading for the nation's capital?

Well, I didn't know about all that stuff, either, until just a few days ago.

The morning of 11 Sept. 2001, Lt. Heather "Lucky" Penney of 121st Fighter Squadron in the D.C. Air National Guard and Col. Marc Sasseville were at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., after completing some flight training in Nevada. After hearing of terrorist planes crashing into the twin towers and the Pentagon, the two pilots sprinted to their aircraft.

The F-16s didn't have bullets or missiles, and there was no time to arm them. Hijacked aircraft, including United 93, were reported to be heading toward Washington, and they had to prevent them from hitting the Capitol, the White House, or any other civilian targets. Without weapons they had only one thing to do: crash their fighter jets kamikaze-style into the approaching United 93 to prevent it from reaching Washington.

Sasseville would go for the hijacked Boeing 757's cockpit, and Penney would go for the tail. As it turns out, they didn't have to make such an attack, which almost certainly would have cost them their lives. The passengers of United 93 did that when they tried taking the aircraft back from the terrorists, and the jetliner went down near Shanksville, Pa.

Now think about all the aircraft heading to the U.S. from Europe and Asia the morning of the September 11 attacks. An hour after the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center, the FAA closed U.S. airspace.

At the time 255 passenger aircraft were heading towards the U.S. and didn't have the option of turning back. So what did they do?

They flew to Canada, and not to major airports in Ottawa, Toronto, or Montreal, That was considered to be too risky. Instead, they flew to airports in Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, from where passengers had to wait until they could make other travel arrangements.

The airport in Gander, Newfoundland, for example, took in 39 widebody jetliners and 6,600 passengers. Now consider that the town of Gander has fewer than 10,000 residents. Taking care of all those passengers was a monumental task.

Yet it was just one of the monumental tasks that Americans, Canadians, and many others had to do that day 10 years ago. There were little things and big things that people did. All of them are worth remembering today.

The economy and what it means for the defense industry

Posted by John Keller

President Obama's speech Thursday night, it looks to me, means not much is going to change. What worries me is the president apparently believes that government directly is capable of creating jobs. Now I know all presidents talk about government's creating jobs, but I don't think any president really believed it -- until now.

The private sector is not going to shift out of neutral, and will not get on with the business of job and wealth creation, until business leaders have some sense of the tax rates they will face in the long term, as well as the burdens from government they must bear, such as minimum wages, health insurance costs, and other factors. This holds true for the defense industry, as well as for other private business.

We have an offer from Obama of only temporary tax reductions, and a looming federal health care plan that could begin placing unprecedented costs on businesses and individuals starting in 2014. In sum, no one in private business is sure what they'll face over the next few years, and as long as that uncertainty remains, don't expect private business to do much hiring or investing -- even in the defense industry.

On a simplistic level, this might not make much sense. After all, doesn't the defense industry's fortunes rise and fall exclusively on levels of federal spending? While this may be true to a great extent, the defense industry also relies on a healthy private-sector economy, which today we don't have.

Think of the many layers of the defense industry supply chain. What percentage of suppliers to the U.S. military do you think receive checks directly from the government? I'll wager it's less than half -- and perhaps far less still. Everyone else is making money from the primes and subcontractors. If those primes and subcontractors are worried about the economy, they won't spend for internal research and development, and won't be in the mood to take the kinds of risks necessary for technological innovation.

Instead, they'll spend only as much money on goods and services as they have to, and nothing more. This kind of stagnation will remain, as long as the defense industry, like everyone else, is paralyzed with uncertainty.

Now couple that with the dread building in the defense industry over prospects of deep cuts in the Pentagon's budget. There's worry about business prospects in general, and about cuts in the defense budget in particular.

These aspects don't add up to a very pretty picture.

Let Skylab be a reminder of what happens to a neglected space station

Posted by John Keller



Everyone remember Skylab? You know, that orbiting laboratory that NASA operated as America's first space station from 1973 until, neglected, its orbit decayed in 1979 and Skylab burned up in the Earth's atmosphere before its remains crashed in the Southern Hemisphere -- some of it on Australia.



Such a waste.



Yes I know, there were REASONS that Skylab met such an ignominious end, most of them involving money, or the lack thereof. Skylab was a victim of NASA's success in the Apollo program that landed men on the moon for the first time. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, 1969, Apollo 11? Of course you remember all that.



What evolved from that summer day in 1969 when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in the lunar module, within several years, was a collective yawn from the public after the first few moon missions. Everyone wondered what was next. Well what was next was the Skylab space station, but after the first moon landing even Skylab wasn't all that exciting anymore.



So for Skylab, funding ran short, and the orbiting lab was mothballed. The plan was for the yet-to-be-developed U.S. space shuttle to refurbish Skylab and reinvigorate that space station program, which fallen into disuse.



The problem with that plan was the space shuttle didn't get developed in time to save Skylab. NASA couldn't boost it to a higher orbit, and the Earth's gravity eventually sucked the orbiting lab to its doom.



Now are you wondering why I brought this up? Well, indications are that we're ready to go through Skylab Part II. The International Space Station, the multi-nation legacy of Skylab and an early Russian space station called Mir, is ready to be abandoned. Space experts are starting to fret that chances are increasing of losing the newest Space Station.



The latest chapter began with the crash of a Russian rocket that was supposed to resupply the Space Station recently due to malfunction, leaving the International Space Station short of food, water, fuel, and other essentials.



The Space Station's current crew most likely will have to leave it before another resupply mission can be attempted. Now where do we see this going? Is it sounding familiar?



I'm wondering if, due to federal budget cuts here and around the world, the International Space Station could share the same fate as Skylab. What a coincidence that would be; can't you see the scenario unfolding? Lack of money, lack of interest, lack of a way even to get to the orbiting lab.



I wish I didn't see it happening like this, but I do. Here's another delicious twist on dwindling government money. On 20 July 1969 I was a 10-year-old kid on vacation at McGrath State Beach, a campground in California, listening on a transistor radio as Armstrong and Aldrin maneuvered the Apollo 11 lunar module to the lunar surface.



This campground where I listened to history in the making is scheduled to close permanently this fall. The reason: not enough money to operate it and fix a crucial sewer line.

Launch of 737 MAX restores competitive balance between Boeing and Airbus for narrow-body jetliner market

Posted by John Keller



So Boeing's finally done it; they've introduced a fuel-efficient narrow-body jetliner -- the 737 MAX -- in response to the Airbus launch last December of the A320neo family of single-aisle medium-range passenger jets. It had been anticipated for a while, and was seen as an imperative for Boeing to come up with an alternative to the Airbus A320neo, and fast.



Airbus introduced the A320neo -- short for new engine option -- less than a year ago, and at the Paris Air Show last June absolutely wiped the floor with Boeing in the perpetual two-company struggle for a dominant share of the global airliner market.



Normally the big international air shows like Paris and Farnborough see roughly equal aircraft sales among Boeing and Airbus, but this past June it was different. Airbus took orders at Paris for 730 aircraft worth a total of $72.2 billion -- 667 of those orders for the A320neo. Boeing, by contrast, sold 142 commercial aircraft at Paris.



One of the big reasons for the lopsided sales performance at Paris was the lack of a Boeing offering to counter the A320neo, which at the time was promising to be the most fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly single-aisle medium-range aircraft available in the world. by the end of the show, orders for the A320neo family had reached 1,029, making it the best selling airliner in the history of commercial aviation, Airbus officials claimed.



The sales showing at Paris was so lopsided, that experts believe Boeing had to come up with an alternative, or continue losing sales to Airbus. That alternative was announced on Tuesday, but with strikingly few details about the 737 MAX. We know it will be a variant of the venerable Boeing 737, with three different versions, but no details on lengths or seating configurations released, as of yet.



The twin-engine 737 MAX will have will have LEAP-1B engines from CFM International S.A. that will be optimized for the new Boeing aircraft. The A320neo, by contrast, will offer a choice of the CFM International LEAP-X or the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G PurePower engines. The A320neo is scheduled to enter service in 2015 or 2016, while the 737 MAX most likely won't enter service until 2017.



Boeing's announcement Tuesday of the new 737 MAX claimed orders for the new jet, but gave no details on which airlines might be most interested in the new aircraft. At least one tantalizing possibility for the future 737 MAX might be Southwest Airlines, which operates versions of the Boeing 737 exclusively, and by 2017 might be ready to replenish its hard-working fleet.



We know something more about the A320neo than we do about the 737 MAX. The A320neo will consists of variants of the Airbus A320, A321, and A319, seating from 124 and 220 passengers in a variety of seating configurations. No details yet about seating configurations for the 737 MAX. We'll learn more as time goes on.



On hindsight, it seems Boeing had little choice in offering up its 737 model for upgrades to the 737 MAX configuration, given time constraints and intense pressure from Airbus. Still, I had been hoping for something a little different, and perhaps much bolder.



Boeing has been heavily touting its latest all-new passenger aircraft design, the 787 Dreamliner, for years. The composite-design, fuel-efficient 787 is a long-range widebody aircraft designed to compete on international routes. For an answer to the A320neo, I had hoped for a narrow-body version of the 787, with composite construction and those large passenger windows that Boeing makes so much of on the 787.



We may see a miniature single-aisle version of the 787 yet, but probably not for a while, if ever. As it is, however, we've see a restoration of the competitive balance between Boeing and Airbus for the future single-aisle jetliner market.

More meaningless posturing over "automatic" cuts in the defense budget

Posted by John Keller

I don't know whether to be amused or frustrated over political rhetoric coming out of Washington about these so-called "automatic" cuts in the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) budget over the next decade if Congress doesn't either reduce projected spending or raise taxes.

First, talking about "required" defense budget cuts right now anywhere beyond federal fiscal year 2013 is just silly, empty, political fluff. I get tired of beating this dead horse, but I'll say it again: Congress does whatever it wants to do on a year-by-year basis. There are NO "required" cuts in the future because every Congress acts on its own, regardless of promises made in the past.

Nothing's binding; it's all just a bunch of talk. Rather shocking behavior to see from Washington, don't you think?

Look at the stories making the rounds over the past few days containing dire predictions of hurting our national defense due to potential "automatic cuts totaling an additional half a trillion dollars" ... "if Congress fails to enact additional deficit reduction legislation by the end of the year." You can read rhetoric like that in a story today in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Pentagon says projected spending cuts could undermine security."

Take a close look at these stories. They all contain caveats like "unless Congress decided to overturn the cuts." IF Congress were to overturn the cuts? They actually mean WHEN Congress overturns the cuts, as lawmakers, in their wisdom and calculation, undoubtedly will do.

They always do.

Every Congress acts on its own every federal fiscal year. They're bound by nothing in the past. They start every year out with a clean slate. Overturning commitments made in the past is just part of the routine, and can be predicted like the sun rising in the east.

So, with this in mind, every dire prediction you read about "automatic" defense cuts over the next 10 years is all just political theater performed to exert pressure for the perceived need to do something now. In this case the pressure being applied is about raising taxes, and the rhetoric is intended to hold the DOD budget hostage to make that happen.

The budget will be cut drastically in the future unless Congress enacts new taxes, we hear from Washington. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta trotted out a statement this week warning these deep cuts in the defense budget would hurt national security, and that the American people should accept higher taxes, rather than deep cuts in the defense budget.

It's right off the Obama Administration script. Panetta delivered his lines like the Democrat party pro he is. I remember years ago interviewing Panetta in his Capitol Hill office when he was a congressman representing Monterey, Calif. He was a skilled, experienced political infighter then, and he's a skilled, experienced political infighter today. Same party, same script, different job.

So, if you find yourself starting to get worked up over future military budget cuts based on what you're hearing out of Washington, just take a breath and remind yourself that this is only a movie.

Because that's all it is.

Smoke, mirrors, and other hocus-pocus take center stage at U.S. deficit-reduction talks

Posted by John Keller

You gotta love some of the proposals tossed onto the table during the continuing deficit-reduction talks among members the U.S. Congress and the administration of President Barack Obama.

The latest proposal from the Senate's so-called "Gang of Six" senators from both parties seeks to make "$3.75 trillion in savings over 10 years" and "contains $1.2 trillion in new revenues."

First, predicting how Congress will spend money a decade in the future is like predicting the weather in 2086. Of the Democrat and Republican lawmakers who are trying to convince us now how they'll spend money in 10 years, well, many of them won't even be around then, so what do they care about commitments they make today?

If Congress were to approve such a scheme, they'll be able to hear the giggles in Washington from Kansas City. Some of those senators and representatives in 10 years will be out of office, some will be dead, a few might still be in Congress, but no one will remember by then. Long story short, 10-year spending plans in Congress are pure fantasy cooked up to placate important constituencies, and only for the time being.

If Congress is going to make meaningful cuts in federal spending, they have to do it now, this year, before the 2012 elections. Anything other than that is something akin to the guy staggering home with lipstick on his collar at 2 a.m., smelling of whiskey, and telling his wife that he was at a midnight mass.

You can't trust politicians to do two things: tell the truth, and not spend taxpayer money; it's just not in their makeup. History bears this out.

Second, I just love this government rhetoric about "new revenues." The word revenue means different things to different people. In the private sector, revenue means income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. More to the point, in private business revenue is earned. Not so in government.

In government, revenue refers to tax money confiscated from citizens. It's not earned, it's simply taken -- with or without the taxpayer's consent. So whenever you hear anyone in government talking about "new revenues," just substitute "tax hikes," and see how that proposal plays with you.

That's just the point, isn't it? The government is just playing with us. No wonder so many American citizens so fed up.