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US Herk

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US Herk last won the day on October 21 2022

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  1. Although it only makes a brief appearance, here's an old A-model (N-466TM) doing what she was built to do:
  2. Don, it was indeed IAR's N119TG. What I know so far is it was coming back from Malaysia, stopped in Guam, Hilo, Santa Maria and it was after Santa Maria that it had issues enroute to Mesa, so diverted to Santa Barbara. From the pictures, it appears they departed the runway, but I'm hearing it was a very complex EP... Glad the crew all got out and are OK!
  3. I'd be interested in a copy as well
  4. I've done all 3 flap configuration takeoffs...other than 50%, not on purpose. The plane flies fine....but the 0% flap was a bit 'heavy' on the yoke. ? (thankfully, a very long runway too)
  5. US Herk

    AMP

    I will be very surprised if they make that deadline for MC-J to get TF. Nope. No TF. Latest I heard was the MC-130H is extended to 2025-28, but it all depends on the MC-J getting some form of operable TF radar.
  6. US Herk

    AMP

    No MC-130H ever did any AMP stuff to my knowledge. An MC-130E did quite a bit of the TF testing, however, but I don't believe it ever got much installed other than the AMP TF that Boeing was working on with Northrup/241.
  7. That's because of that huge nose...below 110KCAS or so, airspeed becomes unreliable...they should've moved the pitot tubes out to the wings or something!
  8. I beleive 404 is parked. If I recall correctly, it needed both inner and outer wings and at the time, they were a little slow, so it got parked at Kingman initially - no idea where it is now. As for the P4 registration, I heard they pulled out of P2 (Papau New Guinea) and reregistered in Aruba??
  9. Saw that being built a few years back. Who has this cockpit config other than foreign customers? Lynden & Tepper have Honeywell systems.
  10. Please don't make the mistake that I don't think the Air Force has a huge portion of blame here, but this isn't about who shares more blame. This is about getting the best system to the warfighter the quickest and cheapest way possible. Military acquisitions long ago became a tool of the military industrial complex only muddied by idealists in uniform... I've always said that the acquisition cycle is best described as: the military requests a galaxy, industry promises a solar system for IOC, and the military ends up accepting a planet with the promise of an extra moon in spiral development. All over cost and late. Yes, the military shoots themselves in the foot with changeover of personnel in key acquisitions programs. Yes, the military fails to put the right people in the right places (and not just in acquisitions). Yes, both sides view the others as necessary evils. But I'm in industry now - I've seen the sausage being made - I know how "corrupt" the industry can be. I witnessed industry BD guy tell industry supplier, "We now need to write the RFP for the customer, tell them what they want, and make it so it's sole source". Makes good business sense to me, but as an operator, it makes my skin crawl...so don't pretend that all the onus is on changing military desires; it's a combination of poor compromises made by industry in the first place - whomever agreed to AMP version 1.0 was an idiot. All of the change that was requested, not just by AFSOC, was to fix a poor agreed-upon design...I'm not saying the military didn't agree to it, simply that it didn't fit the bill. Slick salesmanship, corrupt AF officials, standard marketing/BD hype - whatever - it doesn't matter. AMP did start working in the end - great. How late? How over budget? Forget whose fault, set that aside because there's blame on both sides - where that blame starts/ends is largely irrelevant, but it colors our perspective. From your perspective, the change was what caused the problem and that falls squarely on AF acquisitions shoulders. From my perspective, the blame lies in the original contract, so the change the AF acquisitions guys pushed was a necessity caused by poor initial contracting. Regardless of who is right (we both are), the end result is we still don't have a system on the plane and the operators are the ones suffering - Boeing still got paid. The bottom line is, now AMP technology is another decade or two old. Do we really want to bolt on obsolete technology that will have to be updated again soon, or should we just start over. I vote start over...warts and all. Your example of the J-model not being able to fly a GPS approach actually proves my point - the certification standard the J-model was built to is now 30 years old and now requires updating. The HUD will be deemed obsolete and non-supported beginning in 2020 - even for planes rolling off the line in 2019. Technology, once cemented into a contract, is immediately dated and has a limited shelf life - so too is the AMP technology and we're over a decade into it...and it was old when we started. Let's move on. Believe me, I know how passionate things get when you're personally involved in a project - I had many that never came to fruition, but would answer several capabilities gaps - sometimes though, the best answer is to move on.
  11. Do the min RNP or bolt in the Honeywell system the civil operators are using and use PFPS moving map for software, 3.5 engines and 8-bladed props with EVH. 80% of a J for 60% of the cost. Done. Seriously, use a SMP to run tactical applications, but default to proven civilian software that's modern. Open architecture wouldn't hurt either. Yes, let a new contract. I don't care what it will cost or how long it takes - the attitude that we should stick with a proven losing program because we've already spent so much is why we're here in the first place - THIS is what's wrong with contracting. I'm not slamming the people working the issue, including yourself, rather, the lunacy that even allowed the Boeing win in the first place - 737 FMS for a tactical aircraft = dumb. But someone signed off on it - wait, wasn't that the general that got fired? Too bad, ink is dry. No, this isn't about the guys in the trenches who want to see a good product on the airplanes, but AMP is a failed experiment...sunk cost. Let's move on. Heck, we could almost put Garmin 1000 in and be so far further down the road than we are today, it's infuriating. Most modern displays are smart, so have their own processors. Database storage is cheap. The only "developmental" cost would be tactical employment stuff - airdrop, airland, low-level. Moving maps with synthetic terrain and color-coded heights are in GA now, so the technology is not only available, it's affordable. But we'll continue feeding the military industrial complex and our warfighters will get inadequate equipment, late, and overpriced....
  12. So we'll bolt 15 year old technology on to modernize our Herks? Geez...let a new contract already...or bring back C-130X!
  13. A big loss...spent nearly half my career there
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