olofscience

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Everything posted by olofscience

  1. olofscience
    Which they can't even afford to produce. It's such a paper aircraft that India has backed out of acquiring those even before the Russian forces' pitiful performance in Ukraine. And the IRST issue has been around for a while - your linked article is from 2009. With what fab capacity will Russia make those sensors? They only have 1 silicon fab - and those aren't any good at making IR sensors, since they top out at about 1100nm. They'll need InGaAs sensors there, and they've been importing those from France and Germany. While the US MIC has its share of "all talk and no substance" people the problem is far worse in Russia. Interestingly, the article you linked actually lobbies for more funding for the military by bigging up this "infrared gap" similar to how they hyped up the "bomber gap" in the 60s.
  2. olofscience
    I haven't tried the VOG or the FDS ones yet, but I was imagining that pulling out your phone in the aircraft to change alarms is easier than removing your helmet, taking out the audible and pressing buttons on it. Could anyone with one of those audibles share their experience?
  3. olofscience
    As an aviation fan I was always an admirer of Soviet and Russian aircraft - their looks. They kept focusing their performance on high-AOA tricks which was good for air shows, but I suspected that actual combat had moved away from dogfights given the US's focus on stealth, sensors, and avionics. Same with logistics and communications - it's boring and uninteresting compared to shiny new weapons, but is the main deciding factor in a conflict. I even know a lot of people who are like the Russian military - all talk and show, no substance. So I'm not that surprised they did so badly in Ukraine.
  4. olofscience
    Agreed about the rechargeable batteries - my biggest annoyance with L&B is they didn't use a commonly used battery! Interesting, I haven't heard about GEMINI, and I haven't found anything on the alti-2 website about it. Are you part of alti-2?
  5. olofscience
    NATO gains the entire Baltic sea, which is a big gain. If Russia attacks a non-NATO Finland, the Russian army will be destroyed. That much is already clear from their performance against Ukraine. Yes it might add a trigger point. No it won't give Russia additional political leverage. Their complaint that NATO caused their invasion of Ukraine was like a rapist blaming their victim that they were "forced" to do it.
  6. olofscience
    um, nope, if you think that's the narrative, that's not coming from me. I don't think billvon has said anything of the sort either. I think the conservatives here in this forum are firmly against Putin. (The Hundredth Monkey doesn't count - he's probably a russian bot) Even me and brent are on the same side! But your narrative that Trump is firmly against Putin is what's getting pushback, so calm down. From what I've seen, the most extreme leftists have also sided with Putin, as have the extreme right (which Trump is part of). Little do they realise what they have in common!
  7. olofscience
    Well, the US can't control what Finland does either - and what they've done is apply to NATO. Russia's army has gotten decimated in Ukraine and Finland's army is far better equipped. With Putin now dialing down his threats to Finland I don't see what the problem is. Could you clarify? Only Turkey stands in the way, and I've explained how they might negotiate something.
  8. olofscience
    I've found it mentioned in other forums, but the Baltic is way more strategic for NATO than the Black Sea. Having Finland would effectively make the Baltic a complete NATO lake. Russia's Baltic fleet is bigger and more important than the Black Sea fleet. It would also move NATO closer to the Kola Peninsula, which is very strategically important. Erdogan has a good negotiating starting point, but not unlimited. He'll probably use whatever leverage he has to negotiate some concessions and Finland will eventually join. Turkey's order of Russia's S-400 missile system has already caused way more friction than whatever Finland has done.
  9. olofscience
    Good point about the size. But $60 more for just 3 more alarms, when both products are probably using the same electronics inside, seems a bit much. Hopefully there are more interesting devices in the pipeline as they've mentioned these are just the first of a product family.
  10. olofscience
    Decisive, yes, but not irreplaceable. The US can just supply Reapers, and IAI has plenty of alternatives too.
  11. olofscience
    you do see this, right? You are aware of the implications of this word, right?
  12. olofscience
    Turkey joined NATO in 1952, so it's not really living memory anymore why they joined. But this NATO article has some explanation: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_191048.htm
  13. olofscience
    He's doing lip service, the bare minimum to condemn Putin because in truth he loves Putin. He can't hide it. But given how selfish he is, even he can see being linked to Putin isn't going to benefit him. And benefiting Trump is all Trump cares about. Even after the war started he was still heaping praises on Putin - that falls in the category of "these days". No, you're just telling yourself that because you dislike lefties more than you dislike Trump. Fine, dislike lefties, but lying to yourself won't do you any good.
  14. olofscience
    And again... At least we can be confident that these Russian bots have not achieved any sort of self-awareness or self-consciousness.
  15. olofscience
    Like how the Ontario "Freedom Convoy" got repeated in the US? Did you attend that by any chance? It's definitely reached critical mass by now. Like how Ukraine has now been defeated in day 80 of the 2-day war...
  16. olofscience
    In other news, Ukraine has won the battle of Kharkiv: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/14/ukraine-has-won-the-battle-of-kharkiv-analysts-say-as-kyiv-warns-of-long-phase-of-war
  17. olofscience
    well...you're not wrong there. Have you read your own posts?
  18. olofscience
    Just like the ruble's real value... (which is probably what they're paid in)
  19. olofscience
    As inept as the Russian army was in trying to take Kyiv?
  20. olofscience
    Not sure where you get your flight dynamics from, but the fact that Andy wasn't able to get in was pretty much it "flying away". It didn't go very far, but I doubt enough analysis had been done to make sure it didn't. Aircraft have very different spin and spin recovery characteristics, and it was never tested in any of the training runs with the large air brake.
  21. olofscience
    Wow, what would vehicle safety engineers ever do without brent? Have you added "vehicle safety expert" to your CV (which presumably already includes "NOAA press release re-interpreter")? In other news, here's a puppy with a bigger contribution to public service than that:
  22. olofscience
    Try telling that to the relatives of the hundreds of diesel bus fire victims who died.
  23. olofscience
    The crashes could have happened after the fire. The articles themselves say so. (EDIT: of course brent didn't read all the articles - he could barely read titles - in fact most of the articles showed fires BEFORE crashes, or no crashes at all.) The bus I was in burned all by itself, no crash required.
  24. olofscience
    How many people have died in diesel bus fires? Hundreds. At least 45 people - including 12 children - have been killed after a bus caught fire on a highway in western Bulgaria Two children among 35 dead in Chinese tour bus fire 26 dead in tour bus blaze EV buses? Zero.
  25. olofscience
    Years ago, I was actually on a (diesel) bus that caught fire. I was on the top level. We evacuated to another bus, and from there I took this photo: Brent really, really wants us to be scared of electric buses and cars.