#Airborne early warning aircraft

[nocternalrandomness]

Navy E-2C from VAW-125 approaching the USS Dwight D Eisenhower in the Arabian Sea - Jan 2007

[classyclips]

This is the second one lost in Ukraine war. Russia only has nine A-50 machines in service.

[judgemark45]

SOUTH CHINA SEA (Dec. 28, 2024) E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes assigned to the “Black Eagles” of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 113 are taxied onto the carrier aircraft elevator aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (CVN 70), Dec. 28, 2024. Vinson, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group ONE, is underway conducting routine operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nate Jordan)

[pukindog-v2]

EA-6B Prowler of VAQ-140 'Patriots' assigned to CVW-3 'AC' aboard CV-67 USS John F. Kennedy in 1986, with other air wing aircraft behind (air wing units listed below)

CVW-3 August 18, 1986 - March 2, 1987 (Mediterranean Sea) aboard USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67)

Fighter Squadron 14 (VF-14) ‘Tophatters’ - F-14A Tomcat

Fighter Squadron 32 (VF-32) ‘Swordsmen’ - F-14A Tomcat

Attack Squadron 66 (VA-66) ‘Waldos’ - A-7E Corsair II

Attack Squadron 75 (VA-75) ‘Sunday Punchers’ - A-6E & KA-6D Intruder

Marine All-Weather Attack Squadron 533 (VMA(AW)-533 ‘Hawks’ - A-6E Intruder

Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 126 (VAW-126) ‘Seahawks’ - E-2C Hawkeye

Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 140 (VAQ-140) ‘Patriots’ - EA-6B Prowler

Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 7 (HS-7) ‘Dusty Dogs’ - SH-3H Sea King

Carrier Air Anti-Submarine Squadron 22 (VS-22) ‘Checkmates’ - S-3A Viking

Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 2 (VQ-2) ‘Batmen’ - EA-3B Skywarrior

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Two years after being ordered on an urgent basis, a new defence policy for Canada was unveiled Monday that promises — among other things — to bolster the military's surveillance and combat capabilities in the Arctic.

The strategy commits to delivering new equipment, including airborne early warning aircraft (AWACs), long-range surface-to-surface missiles for the army and utility helicopters that may or may not be manned.

The plan also lists new equipment the Department of National Defence is considering acquiring, such as air defence systems to protect critical infrastructure and new submarines.

The new policy, entitled Our North, Strong and Free, includes an additional $8.1 billion in new defence spending over the next five years and commits to an additional $73 billion in defence spending over the next two decades.

The additional investments will not bring Canada all the way to meeting NATO's military spending target for member nations — two per cent of national gross domestic product. The Liberal government estimates that the new policy will see military spending rise to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2029-30. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: So NATO's mad at Canada for not doing enough imperialism and military pollution? Remind me what the Paris accords were for again?

[planesawesome]

Carrier Air Wing Fourteen (CVW-14) aircraft from the USS CARL VINSON (CVN-70) fly in formation above their carrier in the Persian Gulf . The squadrons represented are: Fighter Squadron Eleven (VF-11) Red Rippers and VF-31 Tomcatters flying the F-14D Tomcat; Anti-submarine Squadron Thirty-five (VS-35) flying the S-3A Viking; Strike Fighter Squadron One-One-Three (VFA-113), First of the Fleet, and VFA-25 Stingers flying the F/A-18C Hornet; Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron One-Three-Nine (VAQ-139) Cougars in the EA-6B Prowler; Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron One-One-Three (VAW-113) Black Eagles flying the E-2 Hawkeye; and Attack Squadron One-Nine-Six ..., 5/1/1994.. USN Image LT. Mitchell Of Vf-11

[henrysglock]

D.A.D. and The Squawk: Radio-Based Mindflayer Tracking Devices

The WSQK van was leaked showing it with the radar dish/antenna that was originally in Steve’s car:

I've talked before how the antenna was reminiscent of Bob's D.A.D. (Directional Antenna Device) from TFS, which he, Joyce, and Hopper used to track down the weird radio emissions that happened every time Henry had a Mindflayer attack.

Now that the van has it, I want to talk about the WSQK slogan:

"The Squawk"

What's so special about the squawk? Well.

First: The Definition

The main protest we see is in ST3, when a guy named Henry is leading a protest against the construction of Starcourt (a cover for the Russians trying to open a gate to the UD, which would activate the Mindflayer ...interesting connection, that). It also has other ties to protesting and Starcourt, like Murray's code name being Bald Eagle and him/Nancy "squawking" about Barb's death re: HNL and the UD. You could even say Terry "squawked" about Brenner, and we all know she has an absolutely insane number of ties to both in-show Henry and TFS Henry. There's also the fact that it's vomiting rainbows vs Will vomiting up slugs vs the ties between the slugs, the Mindflayer, and Brenner/HNL.

So right off the bat the slogan is a tie to Henry, Brenner/HNL, the Mindflayer, and fighting The Man.

Second: Squawk Codes

I'm not sure how many of y'all are military/aircraft loons, but "squawk codes" were invented during WW2 as radio-transmitted codes to distinguish between Allies and Axis to avoid friendly fire as part of the IFF system "Parrot". They range from 0000 to 7777, and each one has a meaning.

This, of course, immediately had me thinking of this:

In Squawk, 3700 becomes:

What's an AEW aircraft?

Airborn Early Warning. AEW aircrafts patrol to keep on the lookout for incoming aerial and/or maritime attacks.

They're even used to track UFOs

So, given that these were implemented in WW2, we can all see the ties to Victor, yes? And how this creates a nice web of connections between all this:

And Henry/TFS? Nifty.

One last thing: IFF "Parrot"

Are we 100% sure the bird on the van is an eagle? Because while it does resemble an eagle, it also resembles a parrot.

Given that it has a short lower beak and ruffled feathers (it also happens to be colorful), whereas a screeching eagle is sleek and has an elongated lower beak:

I talked about it with Em, and we both agree that it looks like a weird eagle-parrot hybrid, which may be an intentional stylization to cover both the eagle symbolization and the IFF references (parroting having ties to mind control and the Mindflayer, as well as the threads of word repetition in ST as a whole).

In summary: If the antenna and the radio station are being used the same way Bob's D.A.D. was in TFS, then it essentially functions as a radio-based early warning system against the Mindflayer, which is supported by the design and slogan of the WSQK van.

Additional support:

There’s a poster of “The Squawk” in the theater of The First Shadow, tying the two directly together. It’s a nice final piece to the puzzle!

[usafphantom2]

#TomcatTails

#TomcatTuesday

Super Low Transition or

“How to Make Friends and Influence People”

I owe this one to @TomcatJunkie as he’s been very helpful in getting #TomcatTails going and has voted for this story a number of times. First, the technical. On a normal takeoff, once you’re cleared by tower you’ll go to full military power and wipe the controls out to ensure they’re not binding (hitting all the corners….forward, aft, left, right, circle all around). Once good to go and no warning lights are on, you’d let go of the brakes (pressing the top of the rudder pedals to brake) and then select afterburner as the roll starts. The RIO is reading off the speed and monitoring how much runway is left (with a full afterburner jet, normally it’s “plenty”) and once he got to “130 knots”, you’d set the stick back a bit and as the nose lifted you’d set the climb angle to 10°. As the jet came off the deck, you’d maintain the 10°, raise the landing gear (wheel shaped handle on the left) and as speed got to 180 knots or so, you’d raise the flaps (flap shaped handle on the throttle quadrant on the left).

Normally, the course rules (how you’re supposed to depart an airport, altitudes, headings, airspeed) would hold you down to 1200-2000 feet until over water and then you’d climb out to do the mission. All fairly benign, all fairly routine, which is why any Fighter Pilot worth a sh*t would do a low transition on occasion, provided you can get away with it.

Low Transition – a takeoff maneuver where the pilot lowers the nose to level just after the aircraft gets airborne and levels off at a very low altitude (20-50 feet), then accelerates as the gear and flaps are raised to arrive at the end of the runway hauling ass like a raped ape (technical term), to ultimately a hard vertical or semi vertical pull, showing full planform of the jet to an appreciating audience on the ground and in the tower.

One had to be pretty good at this because there were a number of ways to totally f**k this up and get famous (or infamous). The first way was to raise the gear too early. In the Tomcat, there was a thing called the Weight on Wheels switch in the landing gear. When compressed, the gear would close that switch and a number of things would happen (can’t remember them all). When going flying, the second you got weight OFF wheels and the switch opened, the first thing you’d see was your AOA indicator lighting up (upper left on glare shield). Unfortunately, that switch opened JUST before the wheels were actually off the ground so if you were too quick on it and slapped the gear handle up the second you saw the AOA lights come on, the one thing the WOW switch did that I DO remember would happen next.

Once the landing gear is in transit, the braking system would lock the brakes to prevent you from having a very heavy, high RPM tire spinning inside the wheel well around all the electric and hydraulic lines. Too dangerous to risk the tire coming apart in there. In fact, I had a couple flights where you could literally hear the wheel spinning as that system was broken. That’s a gripe they took very seriously. So back to our low transition; if you were too quick on slapping the gear handle up, the wheel break would engage. While you were still on the ground. Moving at 140 knots. Yes, both tires would immediately blow. As it happened, you’d normally have enough smack to climb away from the ground, but now you’ve got several hundred pounds of savaged rubber in your wheel wells and you now have to come back for an arrested landing. Yay, you’re famous!!!

The other danger was a thing called ground effect, a flight condition where you’re technically airborne but not really flying. You’re not getting laminar flow across the wings producing lift, you’re just riding a cushion of air that develops under your jet. It’s never happened to me but as described, you’re in full blower, mushing along at 140 knots, 20 feet off the deck and not accelerating because of the massive drag in that regime. You can’t lower the nose to get airspeed and you can’t raise the nose to get altitude, so you’re stuck. The one story I heard about, the guy just maintained level and slooooooowly got some extra knots until he could actually get away from the ground and fly away after a very long (12,000 foot) trip down the runway.

All in all, there’s an old saying about low transitions: “You can only tie the record.” Implying that the record low transition was zero feet when the guy screwed it up and skidded to a stop after coming back down on the runway. Accordingly, it’s a bit of a risky maneuver, but it’s a considered risk leavened by skill and is always something you talk to your RIO about.

On this particular flight, myself and Blaster (from the Mirage 2000 story) were launching out of El Centro, CA to head back to Miramar after a detachment. It’s 90 miles away, we have a full bag of gas with no real mission, we’re a couple of JOs, we’re BFFs, and we’re in the desert with no one watching. License to steal.

Man up, start up, taxi, and then position and hold on the runway, taking off toward the west on Runway 26 (it points 260° on the compass). I tell Blaster we’re doing a low transition and going to see how many knots I can get to at the end of the runway. He asks if he should request unrestricted climb out (also a cool thing to go pure vertical on takeoff) and I tell him “Nah, just normal departure.”

We get cleared and we run ‘em up. Off the brakes and to full blower. Good acceleration, “130”, set the nose and lift off the runway. Give it an extra potato (second) to get REALLY off the runway, raise the gear and lever off at about 30 feet. Get the flaps up and maintain level and the jet starts to really accelerate. El Centro has an 8,000 foot runway so you’ve got about 1.3 miles to the end. And so you’re aware, every runway has markers left and right indicating how many thousands of feet are left before the end. So we’re hauling ass at 30 feet, nearly to 300 knots and Blaster’s reading the boards off; “3 board………2 board……….1 board………”…….and we get to the end of the runway.

At this point Blaster is expecting something to happen, minimally a little nose up to start climbing out. Nope. A few seconds later, Blaster says “field boundary”, meaning we’ve left the airfield proper and are now over the farming fields to the west of El Centro. I tell him we’re gonna just keep this profile for a bit longer and he says “cool”. We elevate just partially to 50 feet (because we’re not COMPLETE idiots) and just trundle west, accelerating the whole time.

Sh*t is going past us REAL quick now. Roads flash by in a blur. Riverbed……..FLASH! Power lines……ZIP!!! We’re trucking along at almost 450 knots by now, just over 7 miles a minute. I THINK we flew over some farming areas but things are just a blur. In the distance I can see a large tractor spewing a dust cloud behind it. Okey doke, he’s my pull up point. Just a little right stick, getting closer, just about to go under the nose and WHAM slap on a 6 G pull in full grunt to the vertical right over him. We come out of blower and roll inverted to pull down and stop at our transit altitude back to Miramar, like 16K’ or something.

I like to think that the hard-working farmer really enjoyed that show, having 60,000 pounds of Grumman Ironworks thump him at 50 feet and 500 knots. I like to think he went home that night and told his family all about “this really cool thing that happened”. I like to think that maybe even today he hoists his grandkids on his lap and tells them about “that one time I was in the presence of American greatness.”

But he probably still thinks “those #$%%$ #$#&*# Fighter Pilots!!!!!”

@RSE_VB via X

[ghostwarriorrrr]

🔴E-2C Hawkeye Land On Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier

PACIFIC OCEAN (Aug. 7, 2007) - An E-2C Hawkeye, attached to the squot; Golden Hawks squot; of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 112, lands on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) after completing a training mission as part of exercise Valiant Shield 2007. The John C. Stennis, Kitty Hawk and Nimitz Carrier Strike Groups are participating in Valiant Shield 2007, the largest joint exercise in recent history. Held in the Guam operating area, the exercise includes 30 ships, more than 280 aircraft and more than 20,000 service members from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jon Hyde

[tomorrowusa]

Ukraine just put two key Russian military aircraft out of commission. It will now be more difficult for Russia to direct operations against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Air Force shot down a Russian A-50M/U intelligence gathering plane – somewhat similar to US Air Force E-3 Sentry (AWACS) aircraft. And it severely damaged an Il-22M11 command and control aircraft which was able to land but is beyond repair.

It’s official. Russian and Ukrainian sources have confirmed that Ukrainian air-defenses on Sunday hit, over southern Ukraine and the Sea of Azov, two of Russia’s rarest and most valuable support planes: a Beriev A-50 radar early-warning plane and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post. “Who did this?” the Ukrainian air force quipped. The answer, it seems, is the air arm’s 90-mile-range Patriot PAC-2 air-defense missiles. The jet-propelled A-50—one of nine A-50M/Us in service—fell into the Sea of Azov in flames, likely killing everyone on board: potentially 15 people including high-ranking officers and highly-trained radar specialists. The propeller-driven Il-22, with up to 10 people aboard, managed to land in Anapa on the Russian side of the Sea of Azov’s southern coast. “Urgently requesting ambulance and fire crew,” the crew radioed as they wrestled their shrapnel-holed plane toward the air base. Photos of the damaged Il-22, snapped after it landed, illustrate the extent of the damage—a mangled tail fin and fuselage—and also reveal the plane’s exact variant. It’s an Il-22M11, and it might be a total write-off. This version of the 1950s-vintage Ilyushin turboprop is rare. The Russian air force has maybe 12 Il-22Ms after mutinous Wagner Group mercenaries shot down one of the planes over western Russia back in June. While the Russians could modify an old Ilyushin airframe into a replacement Il-22M, they probably can’t do so quickly—or cheaply. An A-50 or Il-22M might cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Russia had only about ten of the A-50 planes. One was blown up by Belarusian partisans 11 months ago south of Minsk. And now one is sleeping with the fishes in the Sea of Azov.

Here are pictures of the Il-22M11 which was able to make an emergency landing at Anapa in Russia.

Just to rub it in to Putin, here's a graphic from Ukraine's military announcing its hits on the two Russian planes.

ЗНИЩЕНО = destroyed По��ітряні Сили = Air Force

The two planes together would cost Russia over half a billion dollars to replace. 😁😎

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Russians Lose Second A-50 Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft shot down by Ukrainians: A large piece (upper tail elevator assembly) of the downed Russian A-50 rests in a field, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, February 23, 2024. Source: OSINTtechnical

P.S. The achievement of Ukrainian air defense is quite impressive! Very impressive, indeed, and spectacular result with far reaching consequences! This airborne early warning and control aircraft was used by the Russian war criminals for long-range radar detection, control and targeting for attacks on Ukrainian civilians with missiles launched from strategic bombers.

[nocternalrandomness]

US Navy E-2C Hawkeye's of VAW-115 fly past Mount Fuji in Japan

[classyclips]

There are only 9 such aircraft in the aerospace forces of the Russian Federation, and only 6 with improved digital avionics. One such aircraft is operated by 19 people (5 flights, 11 radio and 3 engineering and technical personnel). The cost of such an aircraft is USD 330 million.

[misfitwashere]

Stockholm is donating its remaining pair of long-serving ASC 890 airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, a platform based on the Saab 340 regional airliner and equipped with an Erieye active, electronically scanned array radar. The move aims to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and complement a soon-to-be-delivered Lockheed Martin F-16 combat aircraft fleet. The ASC 890s will give Ukraine’s air defenses an all-seeing eye across the theater, provide timely information about incoming air attacks and transmit situational data to the F-16s via Link 16.

This is a puzzle piece that will make F-16s very, very effective.

[warriormale]

A Beriev A-50.WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Ukrainian air-defenses reportedly shot down two of the Russian air force’s rarest and most valuable command aircraft on Sunday: a Beriev A-50 radar early-warning plane and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post. (Forbes)

Support Ukraine Freedom!

WarriorMale

[defencestar]

Saab Delivers Fourth Global Eye Aircraft to the UAE

Abu Dhabi, UAE – April 25, 2024 – Saab, a Swedish defense and security company, has delivered its fourth GlobalEye Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This marks the completion of the fourth aircraft out of a total order of five within just four years. The handover ceremony took place on April 18, 2024, at Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi. This…