The Aviationist By David Cenciotti
On May 23, 2018, Donald Trump traveled to New York City in one of the Presidential VH-3D helicopters operated by the U.S. Marine Corps HMX-1 (Marine Helicopter Squadron One).
Here’s a video of the Marine One helicopter flying over NYC the POTUS shared on his favorite social media:
Shannon Corbeil By David Cenciotti
Oscar-nominated Sam Elliott will narrate the four-part docuseries Honor Guard, which follows U.S. Army soldiers throughout the grueling training required to serve at the 3rd Infantry Regiment. Also known as The Old Guard, the 3rd Infantry Regiment is perhaps best known for hosting the Sentinels who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Honor Guard is the follow-up to Time to Kill Productions’ award-winning 2016 feature documentary The Unknowns, which follows the training of the Sentinels. Creators Neal Schrodetzki and Ethan Morse, who served together as guards at the Tomb, will now follow the intense training cycles that prepare soldiers for The Regiment, the Honor Guard Caisson Platoon, the U.S. Army Drill Team, or a Full-Honors funeral ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Morse and Schrodetzki have exclusive access provided by the United States Army to capture these never-before documented training cycles. Their mission is the same as Sam Elliott’s, and the reason he agreed to join the project: to honor the fallen.
Elliott’s contributions to military story-telling helped inspired Morse to serve in the first place. “I first became interested in the military after seeing Sam Elliott as the Union Cavalry General John Buford in Gettysburg. Fast forward a few years and I’m serving in the California Army National Guard, just like Mr. Elliott did.”
Elliott has a distinguished and longstanding reputation with the military community, due in part to the iconic roles he has played in films like We Were Soldiers and Once an Eagle.
Plus, his voice is smooth as molasses. You just know it is.
A lot happens in a week. Lately it seems like a lot more happens in a week than usual. Every day seems more eventful than the last. So be ready for anything.
You know what you should really get ready for? Memes. More specifically, military memes.
Even more specifically, these military memes.
Have a good weekend.
Business Insider By David Cenciotti
Army personnel recently traveled from Germany to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for testing and training on new variants of the Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle.
The soldiers tested out Strykers armed with a 30mm cannon as well as with a common remote-operated weapons station that allows soldiers inside the vehicle to fire Javelin antitank guided missiles.
Twelve of the Stryker variants — six with 30 mm cannons and six with Javelin missiles — will head to Germany in January for more evaluation by US troops before the Army hopes to deploy them to a forward position in Europe next summer.
Troops from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, who took part in the testing in Maryland, spoke highly of the new features on the vehicle, which has been nicknamed “Dragoon” after the regiment.
Previous variants of the Stryker have been armed with either an M2 .50-caliber machine gun or an MK19 grenade launcher. The request for more firepower came in response to recent military operations by Russia.
“This capability coming to [2nd Cavalry] is directly attributable to Russian aggression and we are actively working with our foreign partners in how to help shape our formation,” said Lt. Col. Troy Meissel, the regiment’s deputy commanding officer, according to the Army.
The new armaments don’t make the Stryker a fighting vehicle, but Meissel said the search for heaftier weapons stems from the reduction in manpower in Europe from 300,000 during the Cold War to about 30,000 now.
“How do we, as an Army, make 30,000 soldiers feel like 300,000?” Meissel said. “This new ICV-D is one of the ways that can help us do that.”
Advancements in Russian armor have been cause for concern among military planners in the West. Moscow’s new Armata tank will reportedly be outfitted with an active-protection system, which uses radar and projectiles to detect and counter antitank and anti-armor weapons.
The US Army is also looking at APS for the Stryker and its Abrams tank, though the latest variant of the RPG is rumored to have an APS countermeasure.
Relations between Russia and US allies in Eastern Europe have grown more contentious in recent months, particularly in the run up to Russia-Belarus military exercises in September that will reportedly see 60,000 to 100,000 Russian troops deployed to Belarus and western Russia.
Countries in the Baltics have warned of more ambitious Russian espionage efforts, and NATO aircraft have tangled with their Russian counterparts numerous times in over the last year.
The US has done several military exercises with partners in the region this year and increased deployments, including of Patriot missile air-defense systems, to NATO member-states in Eastern Europe.
Military.com has more footage of the new Stryker variants in action.
Business Insider By David Cenciotti
US F-16s in South Korea and Japanese F-35s are both set to get long-range missiles that are ideal for striking North Korean mobile missile launchers.
The US Air Force in South Korea recently increased the range and strength of its aircraft with 10 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, or JASSMs, that can hit Pyongyang with 2,000 pounds of explosives from almost 200 miles away, according to Yonhap News and other South Korean media reports.
The JASSM allows US F-16s to safely strike nuclear infrastructure and targets deep into North Korea from secure locations near Seoul.
The munition isn’t the only signal that the US is ramping up its response to North Korea.
A defense official told Yonhap that US military leaders were considering “making public a live-fire drill involving the JASSM in case North Korea carries out another strategic provocation, such as a sixth nuclear test.”
Lockheed Martin, the JASSM’s manufacturer, is working on an even longer-range variant of the missile that should be able to accurately strike targets over six hundred miles away.
Meanwhile, Japanese F-35s are expected to field the Joint Strike Missile, developed primarily by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence Systems, according to the South China Morning Post. The JSM has an extremely stealthy profile, high precision, and can fly just a few yards above the ground to deliver its 500-pound warhead before ever being detected.
“The JSM has a tremendous capability and Japan has never previously had anything like this,” Lance Gatling, a defense analyst and president of Tokyo-based Nexial Research Inc told the South China Morning Post.
“This weapon, combined with the F-35, will permit Japan to get much closer to targets with a high degree of stealth,” he added.
The JSM can sit inside the F-35 and fly almost 200 miles before hitting a moving target, meaning an F-35 could take out a North Korean mobile missile launcher without even getting close to the country.
This update to the firepower of US and Japanese jets comes after a series of North Korean missile tests that could spell out danger in the very near future. North Korea recently tested a rocket engine that could be used to power a missile with sufficient range to hit the US mainland. In the past, rocket engine tests like these have been closely followed by testing of actual missiles.
Business Insider By David Cenciotti
A U.S. Marine Corps photographer took some incredible portraits of Marines assigned to the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group.
The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group “support[s] maritime security operations, provide[s] crisis response capability, and increase[s] theater security cooperation while providing a forward naval presence in Europe and the Middle East,” according to the Navy.
The photographer, Sgt. Matthew Callahan, took portraits of Marines assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Kuwait and in Romania, as well as the Marines’ Romanian counterparts with whom they were training.
Check out his photos below:
Pfc. Ken Sicard, a rifleman assigned to Lima Co., 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, poses at Camp Beuhring, Kuwait. He said his uncle, who has since passed away, worked to put his three kids to college. In honor of his uncle, Sicard said he puts a portion of every paycheck in a savings account for his cousins.
Winsler and her military dog, Bella, have been together “since day one,” she said. “I got to train with Bella for six weeks, certify her, bring her to the fleet and stay on her. I am her first handler and she’s my first dog. I have to rely on her for my life and she has to rely on me for everything else.”
An Alabama native and gunner with Tank platoon, US Marine Sgt. Seth Mullins’ duties are operating and firing the weapons systems on board the M1A1 Abrams.
Lance Cpl. James Nemger, a dog handler assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, poses with his military dog, Caesar. “Caesar has taught me to love life … We can be in the field working on no sleep, out all day in the hot sun doing patrols and Caesar is always having a good time.”
Romanian Sailor Cpl. Pintilie Madalina, a communications specialist, poses during Spring Storm 2017.
US Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Hecht, an assault amphibian crewman, smokes a cigarette in front of an assault amphibious vehicle, which he’s tasked with operating and maintaining.
Romanian Army Lt. Preda Laura poses during Spring Storm 2017. In 2015, the Associated Press reported that Romania began making specialized flack jackets for female soldiers.
The Canadian government is in negotiations to buy 18 Super Hornet fighter jets, a blow to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which was originally envisioned to replace Canada’s 30-plus-year-old CF-18 Hornet fleet.
Canadian officials will explore upgrading the country’s aircraft to the Super Hornet as an interim option before final decisions are made for an open competition — a process that could still include procuring the F-35 for its aging fleet.
Just not yet.
The Liberal Party of Canada, headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on Tuesday announced an urgent need for “a new squadron of interim aircraft” and turned to Boeing to recapitalize the country’s CF-18s.
Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said during a press conference in Ottawa that the overuse of Canada’s McDonnell Douglas-made CF-18 fleet “would carry risk this government is not willing to take” to sustain current supplemental operations in NATO and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.
Competition to purchase an entirely new fighter jet will come at a later date, Sajjan said.
“The government will launch, in its current mandate, a wide-open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fleet,” he said.
Even though Canada has been in discussions for years to purchase approximately 60 F-35 jets, lawmakers have grown weary of setbacks in the stealth jet program.
In June, Trudeau called the aircraft one that “does not work and is far from working.”
In the latest setback, a Marine Corps F-35B based out of Beaufort, South Carolina, caught fire in mid-air last month. The service is investigating the incident.
In September, the Air Force ordered a temporary stand-down of 13 out of 104 F-35s in its fleet “due to the discovery of peeling and crumbling insulation in avionics cooling lines inside the fuel tanks,” according to a statement at the time. Two additional aircraft, belonging to Norway and stationed atLuke Air Force Base, Arizona, also were affected.
The 13 F-35s, plus the two belonging to Norway, are back up and running, according to a story from Defense News on Friday.
In a statement Tuesday, Lockheed Martin said that although it is “disappointed with this decision, we remain confident the F-35 is the best solution to meet Canada’s operational requirements at the most affordable price, and the F-35 has proven in all competitions to be lower in cost than 4th generation competitors.”
“The F-35 is combat ready and available today to meet Canada’s needs for the next 40 years,” the statement said.
Blake Stilwell By David Cenciotti
Earth has been invading Mars in fiction since people with telescopes could see the canals on the red planet. Mars is a place where women formed a feminist utopia, where the British transported convicts cast out of Earth, and where Soviets even fomented Communist Revolutions in Martian society. So, why shouldn’t America send Marines there?
According to a select few, that last notion is, apparently, not a work of fiction.
An American named Randy Cramer claims he spent 17 years deployed to Mars as part of the “Mars Defense Force” and then flew anti-gravity vehicles throughout the solar system as part of the “Earth Defense Force.” On his website, Cramer says his old command structure believes the weakening of the U.S. economy and divisive political infighting is a threat to national security, and they asked him to step forward to tell the story.
Randy Cramer lectures about anti-alien tactics.
Cramer says the Marine Corps trains certain Marines under a program called “Moon Shadow” starting at age four. Under the umbrella of what he calls the U.S. Marine Corps special section, or “USMC ss,” he says they implanted a device in his brain, and the brains of 299 others, that allows members of the special section to communicate via electronic telepathy. He would be trained for weeks at a stretch and then transported through time to when he was first taken, so it would appear to others as if no time had passed at all. At 17, he was finally sent off.
After coming of age into the secret space program in 1987, Cramer was taken to an advanced, secret base on the moon before beginning his tour on Mars. The moon base was first established as early as 1953 and this is where he signed his enlistment papers. After arriving on Mars via teleportation portal, his mission was to help defend five human settlements on the red planet, the biggest called Ares Prime.
“Eisenhower was able to avoid her recruitment and was awakened to the false matrix of reality, blinding us from seeing the truth behind the military-industrial complex’s hidden agenda.” That’s a real quote.
(CollectiveEvolution.com)
The existence of a secret space program is “corroborated” by Laura Eisenhower, granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike’s famous “military-industrial complex” speech hit Laura harder than anyone else. She believes President Eisenhower knew about extraterrestrials on Earth and formed the last Earth-Alien treaty in 1954. She claims that, through a black-budget DARPA project, we’ve already established a human base on the red planet.
This is where she was invited to go by a man she calls “Agent X” in 2007. She also discovered how chemtrails, genetically-modified food, false flags, and the media are all controlling the population on Earth.
Supposedly a photo of a Draconian on Mars. It’s a little blurry because of course it is.
Laura Eisenhower says she devotes her life to spreading the divine, feminine “Gaia-Sophia” energy to free us from the faux power structures of today.
Meanwhile, Cramer tells stories of deadly battles between Marines and native people of Mars before he was redeployed back to the moon to spend his last three years in service. Allegedly, the two main indigenous species on the planet are Reptilian and Insectoid — Cramer was told they were just dumb, savage beasts. But, of course, he soon found out they were intelligent beings who lived underground in hives and nests. The three eventually signed a peace treaty.
The treaty stipulated that Marines would not invade the sacred places of either Reptilian or Insectoids. It also committed all three sides to defending Mars from an external invasion at the hands of a species known as the Draconians. The evil Draconians were eventually defeated by this joint force and were forced to leave Mars for good.
He claims humans have been traveling to Mars for decades and he, personally, was around for two of those decades. Mars is supposedly a U.S. territory. After his service ended, he was sent to the moon to undergo a “reverse-aging process” that would return his physical body to age 17 before being re-inserted into the timeline, taking him back to 1987.
Since Cramer spoke up, at least two others have come forward to claim they were also abducted into the secret space program. One claims he worked cargo between Mars and Jupiter and another claims Lockheed-Martin is heavily involved in the program.
These days, Cramer offers consulting services to help law enforcement agencies and military units prepare for “exo-invasions” and “unnatural disasters,” complete with a tactical analysis of many different alien species. The self-proclaimed super-soldier and pilot is also developing a holographic medical bed that will regrow limbs and cure disease.
United States Air Force By David Cenciotti
Just after completing the final flight of the Southern Hemisphere winter Antarctic season, the 304th Expeditionary Air Squadron was alerted there was a medical emergency at the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station Aug. 25, 2018.
In the face of rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, the 304th EAS was able to redirect a mission to respond to the medical evacuation and use a local Christchurch New Zealand Life Fleet medical team to save time.
“We were in alert position to leave for Guam, and when I woke up, there was a note under my door that read we were now going to do a medevac mission,” said Lt. Col. Bruce Cohn, 97th Airlift Squadron pilot.
Planners worked throughout the night to switch from a ‘go home’ mission to medevac mission in order to airlift two patients to medical facilities in Christchurch. During the flight to the Antarctic, aircrew were able to interact with the New Zealand Life Fleet medical team to orient them to the C-17 Globemaster III.
“The team was great to work with, and this was their first aeromedical evacuation mission and flight on a military aircraft,” Cohn said.
Upon landing, weather impacted the medevac mission.
“Weather was favorable for the arrival except temperatures at the time of landing were much colder than previously forecasted,” said Lt. Col. Trace Dotson, the 304th EAS commander.
The crew worked quickly in negative 65.2 Fahrenheit conditions to safely evacuate one critically ill patient and another patient needing medical care.
A Christchurch New Zealand Life Fleet medical team loads response equipment onto the C-17 Globemaster III for an emergency medevac from the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station.
“There was a lot of coordination with the New Zealand Life Fleet medical personnel as we usually work with Air Force Aeromedical Evacuation teams,” said Tech. Sgt. Seth Lewis, 7th Airlift Squadron loadmaster. “The increased coordination helped us perform the medevac safely. It was so cold that we weren’t able to open up the back of the aircraft, so the patients were loaded through the crew door, which is located on the front left side of the aircraft.”
With a wind-chill of negative 94 Fahrenheit, crew minimized time on the ground due to the extreme cold and returned the patients to Christchurch within 24 hours from the time we were notified of the evacuation request, Dotson said.
“This mission was outside normal operations since it was an emergency situation,” Cohn said. “The rapidness of how we changed gear to respond really showed the teamwork of all who were involved.”
The rapid, life-saving response demonstrated the flexibility and capabilities of the Joint Task Force-Support Forces Antarctica to respond quickly to emergency situations in the Antarctic. The patients were treated in New Zealand medical facilities.
“This was a complete different mission from what we typically do,” Lewis said. “It was really special to be part of something that you weren’t expecting. I was expecting to go home, but then I got to participate in a medical evacuation to help two people.”
The last dedicated medevac mission the 304th EAS supported was in 2013. The 304th is comprised of blended aircrews from the active duty 62nd Airlift Wing and the reserve 446th Airlift Wing.
The NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic Program. Operation Deep Freeze is the logistical support provided by the DoD to the U. S. Antarctic Program. This includes the coordination of strategic inter-theater airlift, tactical intra-theater airlift and airdrop, aeromedical evacuation support, search-and-rescue response, sealift, seaport access, bulk fuel supply, port cargo handling, and transportation requirements supporting the NSF.
This is a unique mission that demonstrates U.S. commitment to stability in the Pacific and research programs conducted for the betterment of all mankind.
Featured image: A C-17 Globemaster III sits on the runway at McMurdo Station in Antarctic.
This article originally appeared on the United States Air Force. Follow @usairforce on Twitter.
Christian Lowe By David Cenciotti
It’s the first time the U.S. military has made a major upgrade to personal weapons in over 30 years, and so far, the only way anyone’s gotten an impression of what this new gun can do is to look at press releases and a few pictures from test ranges.
But as the Army is set to field upwards of 500,000 new M17 and M18 Modular Handguns to replace the 1980s-era M9 Beretta pistol, We Are The Mighty got an exclusive look at the impressive new firearm from the folks who designed and built it.
Comparing the M9 to the M17, gone are the external hammer, double action and decocker, and in its place is a slick handgun with a streamlined build based on the most modern technology available in pistol operation and design.
Engineers with M17 maker Sig Sauer likened switching from the M9 to trading in a 1980 Pontiac Bonneville station wagon for a 2015 Honda Accord.
“That old car works just fine, but think of how far car design has come in over 30 years,” one Sig official said. “That’s kind of what’s happening here with the M17. Pistol design has come a long way since the 1980s.”
The new M17 — and its smaller cousin, the M18 — is a 9mm handgun based on the ground-breaking P320 civilian pistol, which is a lot like a pistol version of a Lego set.
The M17 is built with a removable trigger module that can be inserted into new grips and mated with new barrels and slides to make a whole new handgun based on whatever the mission calls for.
But the main difference most soldiers will notice with the M17 is the change from a double action to a striker fired operation. What that means is an end to that heavy first-shot trigger pull with much lighter follow-up pulls. With the M17, every tug of the trigger is the same — and that makes for easier training and better familiarity with the handgun during yearly qualifications, Sig officials say.
“Soldiers will have a consistent trigger pull every time they shoot the M17,” said Sig Sauer pistol product manager Phil Strader.
Also, the M17 does away with the need for a decocker, so soldiers won’t have to be taught how to drop the hammer before holstering the weapon. Now, once you’re done shooting, you simply engage the external safety and put the gun on your belt.
Shooting the M17 is a no brainer. The design of the grip encourages a natural aim and the 4.7-inch barrel provides good balance between accuracy and compactness. During quick draw-and-shoot drills engaging steel targets at 10 meters, the M17 hit the target every time, even in this amateur’s hands and without taking the time to line up the sights.
For those not used to an external safety on a striker-fired handgun, switching from safe to fire and back again takes a bit of getting used to, and lining up your grip hand thumb so that it doesn’t engage the slide released takes a few mags to drill into muscle memory.
But other than that, the M17 and M18 are pretty much as easy as any modern pistol to figure out.
The M17 also comes with glow-in-the-dark Tritium sights. The sights have a green front sight and orange rear sights to encourage proper alignment under stress, Strader said. What’s more, the M17 and M18 slides have a removable rear plate so soldiers can install Delta Point red dots optics.
All that, and the M17 is being outfitted with two extended 21-round magazines and a standard 17-rounder. The more compact M18 uses the same frame as the M17 with a size-medium grip and features a 3.9-inch barrel and shorter slide.
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division will reportedly be the first to receive the M17, with more units following closely after. Rumor has it that the M17 and M18 have attracted the attention of the special operations community as well, with SEALs — who recently ditched their Sig P226 handguns for Glocks — particularly digging the ability to tailor the same gun to a variety of missions.
It was a tough fight that took many years, but in the end the U.S. military is poised to field an innovative, modern new handgun that makes the most of today’s technology and could give troopers a big advantage for a last ditch defense.
The Fallout game series does a great job of giving the player choices. Particularly, they give you the option to choose whatever faction is warring over the region of the post-apocalyptic wasteland you’re playing around in. New Vegas is no exception. The thing that stands out is the fact that, out of the factions warring over the New Vegas Strip, none of them are really that awesome. The worst of them, however, is Caesar’s Legion.
At the start of the game, the looming threat of a second battle of the Hoover Dam is coming with Caesar’s Roman Empire inspired Legion and the New California Republic’s Troopers and Rangers. Caesar’s Legion, with or without the help of the Courier, was doomed from the beginning. Even if they win the battle, eventually, they’re bound to fall.
Here’s why:
Here’s what the Legion has to say about it.
(Bethesda/Obsidian)
The issue here is that Caesar is automatically cutting a large potential portion of his ranks by only limiting them to males. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, any army should be open to taking as many bodies as they can get. If most of the human population has already been wiped off the planet and the survivors face worse dangers than other humans, why not include women? After all, two guns in a fight are better than one.
Oh, and they’ve got slaves.
(Bethesda/Obsidian)
The Legion built an infamous reputation by tearing up enemy tribes and killing those who didn’t want to fall under their banner. Anyone else was tortured and killed. Ruling with an iron fist is a great way to get the civilians to rise up against you and usurp you from command.
There’s that old saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight, right?
(Bethesda/Obsidian)
The Legion absolutely uses guns. However, they find it more honorable to fight with bladed weapons or meet their opponents in close combat. While one may commend this mentality, it’s just not sensible.
When the Legion’s greatest adversary, the NCR, finds its strength in the use of snipers, when will your best get to fight if they get dome-pieced 500 yards away?
They’ve also got cool armor.
(Bethesda/Obsidian)
The NCR, though not in the best shape during the events of New Vegas, have greater willpower and cause. While they may not be perfect, they’ve still got a much stronger will than the Legion. Even if the Legion beat the NCR back, the NCR would find a way to regroup and strike back harder than before.
Business Insider By David Cenciotti
On Wednesday, the US for the first time sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for “notorious abuses of human rights,” a decision that prompted the hermit kingdom to call the sanctions a “declaration of war.”
The sanctions affect 10 other individuals besides the North Korean leader, five government ministries and departments, and property within US jurisdiction, according to the US Treasury Department statement.
“Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,” Adam J. Szubin, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said in a statement.
“Considering the sanctions name Kim Jong Un, the reaction from Pyongyang will be epic,” Michael Madden an expert on North Korean leadership told Reuters. “There will be numerous official and state media denunciations, which will target the U.S. and Seoul, and the wording will be vituperative and blistering.”
The Ministry of State Security engages in torture and inhumane treatment of detainees during interrogation and in detention centers. This inhumane treatment includes beatings, forced starvation, sexual assault, forced abortions, and infanticide.
According to the State Department report, the ministry is the lead agency investigating political crimes and administering the country’s network of political prison camps, which hold an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 people, including children and other family members of the accused. In addition, the Ministry of State Security’s Prisons Bureau is responsible for the management and control of political prisoners and their confinement facilities throughout North Korea.
The Ministry of People’s Security operates a network of police stations and interrogation detention centers, including labor camps, throughout North Korea. During interrogations, suspects are systematically degraded, intimidated, and tortured.
The Ministry of People’s Security’s Correctional Bureau supervises labor camps (kyohwaso) and other detention facilities, where human rights abuses occur such as those involving torture, execution, rape, starvation, forced labor, and lack of medical care. The State Department report cites defectors who have regularly reported that the ministry uses torture and other forms of abuse to extract confessions, including techniques involving sexual violence, hanging individuals from the ceiling for extended periods of time, prolonged periods of exposure, and severe beatings.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry called on China to urge North Korea to cooperate on human rights standards.
“China’s engagement is critical,” Kerry said during a news conference while visiting Kiev. Kerry also added that the US is “ready and prepared” to return to discussions of North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
United States Air Force By David Cenciotti
In early May, 2018, Tech. Sgt. Chance Cole, 386th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron flight line expediter, came up with an idea – and it’s going to save the Air Force a lot of money.
“We were wrapping up a twelve-hour shift, and two of my guys just spent nearly an entire day replacing a single part on the MQ-9 Reaper,” Cole said. “It was frustrating, because we knew there had to be a more efficient way of doing this job.”
Cole described the issue, saying the part they were replacing actually didn’t need to be replaced at all. The real culprit was just a $53 sub-component held within, named the “spline insert.”
According to Cole, each time maintenance personnel were unable to replace the insert, they actually had to remove and replace a much larger and more complex assembly, the Permanent Magnetic Alternator. This process had been accomplished multiple times in the past due to an inability to remove a damaged insert and it added unnecessary time and expense.
Cole asked co-worker Staff Sgt. Hermann Nunez, 386 EAMXS crew chief, to stay after his shift to help him create a solution. Mere hours later, they brought their idea to life and fabricated what they described as a crude prototype designed to remove the damaged insert.
Although the prototype was functional, Cole and Nunez concluded they needed assistance in creating a more-refined product to be used the next time the need arose. The next morning, they decided to bring the tool to the 386th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Combat Metals Flight. There, Senior Airman Alex Young and Senior Airman Elio Esqueda, aircraft metals technicians, decided to take action.
“They brought their prototype to us and asked for some advice,” Young said. “One look at the tool and we knew exactly what to do – so we got to work.”
According to Young, the tool initially provided was simply a long bolt that matched the insert threads, which the crew chiefs used to extract the insert. However, use of the tool required a decent amount of strength – as the user had to physically pull the crude tool to remove the insert from the PMA.
Young and Esqueda fabricated something called a slide hammer, which provides the user a counter-weight to slide along the tool’s shaft in order to hammer the piece out with ease.
The device, which the four Airmen named the “Spline Insert Extractor,” was completed May 5, 2018. The four Airmen then routed the product through their chain of command before implementing its use. After passing multiple inspections and approval from their leadership, the tool was put into service locally.
According to the maintainers, the finished product prevents at least four hours of maintenance each time they use the tool to replace the insert instead of replacing the PMA. Use of the tool is projected to save more than $123,000 annually – and that’s just at the 386th EAMXS.
According to Cole, the tool is currently in the process to be approved for use throughout the Air Force on all MQ-9 Block 5 Reapers. Once adopted by the enterprise, he expects the tool will be modified and adapted for usage on the MQ-9 Block 1, as well.
“When we first started the process to create the tool, we only had the intention of fixing a problem we were having here locally,” Cole said. “Thanks to Airmen like Staff Sgt. Nunez, Senior Airman Young and Senior Airman Esqueda helping me with this simple fix, we now have the opportunity to make a lasting impact for our peers across the globe.”
This article originally appeared on the United States Air Force. Follow @usairforce on Twitter.