Posted on 06/22/2019 2:11:23 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The House Armed Services Committee is preparing a budget mark-up statement that would restore funding for planned upgrades to Army Chinook CH-47F helicopters at Boeing Corp.'s Ridley Township military aircraft factory for at least a year, and urge Army leaders to commit to the program in the long term.
In a statement, obtained by The Inquirer, the committee complains that the military’s Future Years Defense Program doesn’t fund “Block II” Chinook upgrades, as the previous year’s budget did. So it is asking for an extra $28 million to keep the upgrade program active during the next five years, adding that there is a “strategic risk to the industrial base” if the Army doesn’t keep updating Chinooks and then needs to at a later date.
The committee also directed Army Secretary Marc T. Esper to produce a cost-benefit analysis of the impact of delaying the Chinook upgrades and having to reassemble the current workforce and suppliers if the effort is cut back, as in the Pentagon’s original budget....
(Excerpt) Read more at inquirer.com ...
Shiny new toys vs. proven workhorses.
C-130, B-52, C-47. Things designed with sliderules instead of computers.
Sliderule engineers got us to the moon and back; guys with computers can’t even get Americans into low earth orbit.
Like new John Deere tractors vs old ones. The issues are durability and reliability then maintainability and the new ones are none of the above. Yeah, we are really going places now.
It’s not the computer vs slid rule - it’s engineers vs risk assessment and business managers.
The CH-47 has been around since 1957. Good aircraft, but you have to ask what we could do if we designed a new one from a clean sheet of paper. I was putting playing cards on my spokes with clothespins to get extra power back then.
You calumny-spewing cockroach! American engineers are doing just fine in all sorts of fields, including rocket design.
Here is what happened:
Back in the days when engineers were using sliderules the US abandoned a certain class of very hot running, closed-cycle rocket designs, as we didn't have the metallurgy to keep burn-thoughs from happening. Instead we developed the mighty F-1 (used on Saturn V first stage, but useful only for huge payloads), the amazing RS-25 (a different class of closed-cycle engine used on the Space Shuttle), and solid rocket boosters.
The Soviets, no slacks at all at rocket design (getting the first satellite and first man into orbit) pushed ahead and developed the metallurgy we - BACK THEN - didn't think possible. And so they came up with a great class of rocket engines - NK-33 and RD-180 - which are useful and economical for a certain class of rocket design. And upon discovering the joys of capitalism - not to mention wanting to keep their jobs - when their evil empire fell, they decided to sell them to eager buyers.
So there you go: there have been many, many "low earth orbit" launches with (for American engines) the RS-25, solid rocket boosters, and the SpaceX Merlin, and, with (for Russians engines) the NK-33, RD-180, and variants.
The mighty F-1 doesn't make sense for low earth orbit, and was essentially hand-made.
SpaceX is busy developing the Raptor, which will be an amazing engine. Blue Origin is developing engines too.
I despise jerks who sit on the sidelines making snide lying remarks while others - Americans and Russians - sweat the details. Cut it out!
One problem with the CH-47 - a reasonable exhaust IR suppression system cannot be fitted to it as a practical matter. It’s a great big MANPADS magnet.
Also, remember that at this point the B-52 can only fly places where we have air supremacy and have suppressed enemy air defenses - it cannot perform its original mission of front line penetration bomber any more. The C-130 is still being built and bought; the C-47 is too small for modern military usage.
They had their Nazis, we had ours.
So there you go: there have been many, many "low earth orbit" launches with (for American engines) the RS-25, solid rocket boosters, and the SpaceX Merlin, and, with (for Russians engines) the NK-33, RD-180, and variants.
And how many of the current crop of American designed and built rockets have sucessfully taken a human to low earth orbit and back?
The RS-25, and the solid rocket boosters. Both are current, as they are going to used on the man-rated SLS.
The original SRBs, designed in the days of calculators, between slide rules and computers, were unsafe in a horizontal staging arrangement, leading to the loss of Challenger.
Are you going to apologize for your calumny?
I have little love for any ‘copter that can have a mid-air collision ...with itself.
Are you talking about the solid rocket boosters that destroyed two space shuttles? Or are these new. If new, how many humans have they taken to low earth orbit?
The SRBs, flown in conditions the engineers sounded the alarm on as being unsafe and desperately tried to stop, were involved in the loss of one orbiter and crew.
The actual cause of that accident? Management, who insisted on flying in conditions the engineers insisted - CORRECTLY - were unsafe. All systems have known limits, you exceed them, problems happen. (Your brain here is an obvious example.)
As I keep on saying, and as you keep on proving, you're just a little calumny-spewing cockroach sitting on the sidelines, sniping at those who are actually getting things done and sweating the details.
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