If i am not mistaken particularly you see this also on takeoff in commercial AC: If something happens after the V1 speed (takeoff decision speed) it's to guarantee one or the other does not alter the throttle due to some event that is not catastrophic, e.g. tire blowout etc since you would not be able to safely stop…

not sure if you ever spent time around service academy kids (the majority of pilots in AF and Navy come out of the service academies) — but they pretty much appear under the definition of bro.

Was just curious about the logistics behind getting all the partner country aircraft up here - How do the Aussies and Indians, for example, get their fighters up here? Hopping from airport to airport ? Or a marathon flight with in air refueling?

Question if anyone knows: I saw the Marine V-22 demo team at an airshow last summer — I was super surprised at how much freakin smoke those engines cough out when they fire them up for the first time ... anyone know why?

"FA should do a story about me sometime..."

... or like Tyler mentioned - they know that these evil bastards are 10 miles from the city their family lives in and they know what will happen to them if ISIS comes to town...

any idea what system that is? thought the uh1-y etc. all only had .50bmg and true HEI is pgu-13,14,m5x etc and all 20mm + ... was thinking it was something like the m156 hydra-70... but it doesn't seem like as much smoke... either way its either WP or zirconium fragments burning white hot are going to give those SOBs…

pretty sure it is white phosphorous (willie pete) ... notice how it "dances and skips" ... it's used for marking targets and incendiary / AP purposes (and screening defensively).

Love the willy pete at 0:46 ... burn you fuckers.

The A10 technically has more air to air kills than the F22 even. ha.

Was interesting to see the level of OPSEC in this vid — they never show how the PJs interact with the aircrew when they first contact them on the ground, though I thought it usually involves assuming the pilot is OPFOR with a suicide vest.

Sabotage? Let's talk Treason: Knowingly acting and organizing to replace a system that has a proven ability and mission template to save the life of the U.S. Serviceman with a system that as yet, does not have the same ability is treason.

Tyler - Please continue to cover this angle (Jordan's campaign) as a way to keep us posted on the "ground truth" of what's happening in any level of tactical detail... It's been nearly impossible to find any sort of detailed coverage except for the weekly frag press releases from AFPS like:

look closely in the trees.

I was surprised not to see any MQ-x types on that APKWS marketing collateral. Is it just me? Seems like this would be perfect for UAVs in terms of cost/number of kinetic actions per sortie with the same sort of precision and smaller blast radius.

Love all your stuff Tyler - my new favorite global-sec/defense blog for sure. However, I believe that Putin actually has a black belt in Judo.

Wow never saw that... Looks a lot like an SU-25?

so I am curious then, which platform are you claiming has a lower operating cost with the equivalent capabilities in terms of: loiter time (1.8h full load), payload ( 11k lb), ease of maintenance (all parts from left right side are interchangeable; 45 min to swap an engine), min airspeed and service ceiling, etc. etc.…

False actually bob - the A-10 now runs on biofuel and at full power is 5x more efficient than the F-35 engine.

For cult A-10 fan's like myself a few jokes (from Doug Campbell's A-10 book) I found while doing research on cost:
What is the air speed indicator in an A-10?
- A calendar
What is the biggest threat to an A-10 during low level flight?
-Bird strikes from behind.