Kindle Direct - Next Subject

LowObservable

LowObservable

ACCESS: Top Secret
Senior Member
Joined
17 October 2006
Messages
2,355
Reaction score
906
Having stuck my toe into the water of Kindle Direct Publishing in both book at ePub formats, I'm thinking of some more projects.

Spirit to Raider - B-2 to B-21, including stops along the way like QSP and RQ-180

Strike Fighter - The F-16, its competitors, and 21st century air combat

Un**** This Goat - On leadership, luck, and occasional insanity in the aerospace business

Any preferences?
 
From today's perspective, one of the most startling things about the entire story is that it was three years and three months from the cancellation of the original B-1 to a solid RFP for the Advanced Technology Bomber - which if you'd explained it to anyone when the B-1 was chopped, would barely have made the cut as a sci-fi concept.

All of which happened during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
 
LowObservable said:
From today's perspective, one of the most startling things about the entire story is that it was three years and three months from the cancellation of the original B-1 to a solid RFP for the Advanced Technology Bomber - which if you'd explained it to anyone when the B-1 was chopped, would barely have made the cut as a sci-fi concept.

All of which happened during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Click to expand...
Coincidentally the same guy who spilled the beans on stealth. He needed the votes and what's one little secret when votes are on the line?
 
sferrin said:
Coincidentally the same guy who spilled the beans on stealth. He needed the votes and what's one little secret when votes are on the line?
Click to expand...
He was countering claims he was soft on defence partly caused by his cancelling of the B-1. Cancelling the B-1 in favour of the B-2 isn't soft on defence, its recognising reality.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
He was countering claims he was soft on defence partly caused by his cancelling of the B-1. Cancelling the B-1 in favour of the B-2 isn't soft on defence, its recognising reality.
Click to expand...

It's funny that at the time, there was a lot of stealth/survivability work being done outside of the XST, ATB, BSAX, etc. programs. And in many cases there were very real discussions about wether this would help, or threaten, the B-1. Some of these efforts didn't get read into the major stealth programs until the B-1 was cancelled. (none of these efforts achieved the signature reduction levels of the XST, etc.)
 
Exactly. There was a lot of unclass stuff floating around. The "scandal" over the Carter admin revealing the program was shrewd election politics. Indeed it would have been much better had a little more been said earlier, because as it was, Reagan's campaign came in deeply committed to B-1, and as a result we ended up with 100 rather mediocre bombers burdened with high-speed, low-level and M2.2-at-altitude features that aren't or can't be used, and 21 B-2s.
 
LowObservable said:
Exactly. There was a lot of unclass stuff floating around. The "scandal" over the Carter admin revealing the program was shrewd election politics. Indeed it would have been much better had a little more been said earlier, because as it was, Reagan's campaign came in deeply committed to B-1, and as a result we ended up with 100 rather mediocre bombers burdened with high-speed, low-level and M2.2-at-altitude features that aren't or can't be used, and 21 B-2s.
Click to expand...
100 bombers we wouldn't have had he not committed to them. (If you think things would have magically turned out different for the B-2 may I direct your attention to what happened to Peacekeeper under Carter's military-gutting eye?)
 
The same Carter administration that planned to deploy 200 Peacekeepers in MPS shelters?

Both greater in quantity and in a more survivable basing mode than any alternative subsequent Republican Administration actually managed to achieve.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom