Military

it seems that F-35 can’t end it’s failure series. despite GAO audits, model of building military equipment for biggest army in the world didn’t change a bit since end of second world war. they’re still ordering and building things that will bring maximum revenue to military vendors and not what military customers actually need. i immediately got back to one of the articles i’ve read recently in ACM Queue - responsive enterprise: embracing the hacker way. it’s great piece and synthezies todays world - not only corporations are dinosaurs of our current times. a big portion of industry is. on normal market, companies that can adapt or use feedback loop tu build better and better products thrive. and those, who need years and still are not able to produce competitive products should vanish in history books. ...

after reading ridiculous, made up story of british SAS, hiding under alias “Andy McNab”, trying to tell his version of Rambo&Commando-style fictious account of Iraq operation i couldn’t find story that was so exaggerated and made-up. in reality, his total ineffectual commanding style and bravado led to death one of his own team members, and injuries as well as captivity for rest of them. that was independently verified by Michael Asher and Peter Ratcliffe. ...

…a book by Steve Davies is a very interesting coverage of USA pilots testing Russian Soviet-era MiG 15s, 17s, 19s, 21s and 23s at Tonopah range. the same that was used to test Lockheed F-117 and launch to simulated sorties with F-4, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18s coming in from Nellis AFB as part of Top Gun training. there’s next book on the same topic waiting for me in stack. recently, i was digging through a lot of air combat material, mainly because of getting hold of Osprey Combat Aircraft series. that included Vietnam-era series on MiG-17/19/21s, on F-14 in Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, F-15C, F-15E and F-117 during Desert Storm and SR-71 operating over Europe and middle East. on top of that, i recently read Skunk Works by Leo Janos, Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War and Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War. i highly discourage you for even trying to get hold of “Bandits Over Baghdad”. it contains a lot of errors, wrongly described photos and it seems - a lot of other content from both Skunk Works and F-117 books. ...

you could meet me sometimes during late night hours on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer servers. now, i decided to change environment a bit and return to love of my life - flight simulators. i dusted off CD with Microprose Falcon 4.0 and i’m downloading BMS patches while reading about Allied Force (CD is already on my way from one of the Amazon warehouses). i’m still using Saitek Fly 5 but if i’ll be able to find more time to fly - there are couple of better sticks out there. after watching some youtube videos, old memories are coming back - with packs of friends doing missions together. ...

it was a rule some time ago, right now its rare luxury - to have time to sit down with book that’s not about networking and spend time reading it from start to finish. i got back to most of Stanislaw Lem books, Anthony Beevor monography of both Berlin and Stalingrad battles. i’m still in front of Norman Davies ‘Uprising ‘44’ (i’m ashamed to admit, but no, I haven’t read it yet). also, i can recommend “www.1939.com.pl”, “www.1944.waw.pl”, “Mayor”, “Steel Curtain”, “Caucasian Epicenter”. i also had great time re-reading again “On the Beach”. ...

i’ve read two books recently, essentially as you can say ‘on one breath’. our polish books, important ones. first, legendary today is Black crosses over Poland by Stanisław Skalski. every military aviation fan should read this one, because it brilliantly and lively describes how it was in september 1939 to fight loosing war for polish sky. it was relentless, there was no integrated strategy, but pilots shown their best. cruel reality of second world war squeezed and twisted their lifes and they tried to live through it. would our current generation fare so well as they did? Robert Gretzyngier wrote ‘second part’ to this book - Poles in defense of Great Britain. i highly recommend for all of those that want to check what was after Skalskis book ends, and how despite Great Britain failed us as ally - we still fought for their freedom. ...

probably everyone watching TV and listening to the radio, or with Internet access knows about Belarussian Su-27 crash. two-seater version went down, killing both pilot and weapons operator. the flight itself, before the crash, was beautiful - as usual in the case of russian fighters. the real honor for sacrifice goes however to both pilot and weapons operator. why? despite the fact, that the fighter hit high voltage lines and they were perfectly capable of ejecting, they decided against. they were positioned directly in front of the small estate. so, in split second both of them decided not to eject and instead, seconds before crash, they redirected their struck bird right into nearby forest. having done that however, they’ve lost time they could use to eject. essentially - they sacrificed their lives for people below them. ...