Random News and Notes 8 March
I hope everyone remembered to turn their clocks ahead an hour last night/this morning. Daylight savings Time started for most of the US at 0200 local time this morning.
It’s about damned time. Last week, an American Airlines passenger – who appeared to be intoxicated – refused crew requests to use headphones while blasting videos at 50% volume. She was cursing at staff and dismissing passenger complaints. Police escorted her off the plane, drawing applause and thanks from fellow travelers.
The incident, captured in a TikTok video, coincides with United Airlines adding a no-headphones rule to its policy, allowing removal or bans for audio violators amid rising device use.
Now, can we get infants banned too?
A Chinese Twitter user decided he wanted all the smoke. He posted a video of a Hornet cat shot with the caption Still using steam catapults huh? Probably not the smartest thing they’d ever done. As Bohemond points out below, the full-size carrier count is 11-3 with our 11 being nuclear powered. The PLAN carriers are two ski jump, steam turbine powered and one catapult assisted still conventionally powered.
The next time you see someone bagging on the US Navy for technological reasons think about this for a second.
I should also point out that if you add the 9 LHA/LHD (and you should, they can launch and recover F-35B) the US has more carriers than the rest of the world combined.
There was an amusant incident at a Portland ICE facility protest. A video shows a protester in black bloc attire setting them self on fire while attempting to burn a U.S. flag.
They are clearly not sending their best and brightest.
Epic Fury News
CENTCOM seems to be taking a page out of the Israeli playbook. The command issued a warning to Iranian civilians to stay inside. CENTCOM’s advisory from the Tampa HQ accuses Iranian forces of basing drones and ballistic missiles in densely populated areas of cities like Dezful, Isfahan, and Shiraz, stripping those sites of protected status under international law.
CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper condemned the regime for endangering its own people.
There are conflicting reports about a strike on an Iranian desalinization facility. It is being reported that UAE Air Force jets hit a key desalination plant on Iran’s Persian Gulf coast as retaliation for missile and drone attacks. UAE’s Dr. Ali Al Nuaimi called it ‘fake news’ on X, stating ‘The UAE didn’t do that’.
These claims – which are apparently not true – highlight the need to be discriminating when it comes to the news out of this and any other conflict. Mario is on my shortlist of generally trustworthy Tweeps. Even he got fooled on this one. It seems the claims can be traced back to a single Israeli journalist from the Kann news outlets quoting an anonymous IDF source. The story then spread to other outlets like the Jerusalem Post.
Unlike a lot of people, I would rather be right than first, which is why you will occasionally see me holding off on certain stories until more is known. And not just war/conflict stuff.
C-RAM is the trailerized ashore version of the Navy’s CWIS system. The acronym is short for Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar. It uses the same 6 barrel 20mm electrically powered Gatling gun and has the same rate of fire – 4500 RPM – but fires a high-explosive incendiary tracer projectile with a self destruct rather than the tungsten penetrator round of the naval version.
Ok, I was going to end on the C-RAM post, but as I was looking for a closing meme I saw this:
I’m not sure if all of you understand how big a deal that is. Not the drone overflight, that is pretty routine at this point, but the fact that it ran a surveillance route with the transponder on. That’s the equivalent of putting on HiViz clothing while sitting in your tree stand bow hunting for deer. And the Iranians couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
The MQ4 is a relatively rare – about 48 have been built – high endurance naval/maritime surveillance drone based on the older RQ4 Global Hawk drone.