Search results

As a thought bubble, would a decapiitation strike on the US Government by Iran (if they had the means) be legal, and not an act of terrorism? I think so, but could be convinced otherwise. Would civilian casualties conducting that strike be legal? Yes, as long as they were proportional to the...

Would an attack on Iranian power plants as Trump described be a war crime? My opinion is yes. Attacks a civilian infrastructure are expressly prohibited, with an explicit mention of energy systems. A caveat is provided that if the infrastructure is being used for military purposes than it is...

I would like to be pedantic… can anyone tell me what completely degrading means. Degrading means “to reduce in quality, effectiveness, etc” so there isn’t an end state; something is an undefined amount smaller. So how do you completely do that. Unless, of course, your just being bombastic and...

I was one of CanadaCom liaison watch officers to US NORTHCOM during Katrina and Rita. New Orleans was just tipping into collapse the night before the US military rolled in en masse. There were a lot of questions as to why they didn’t go in piecemeal as they arrived.

Except there is a balance. If you add tech that is needlessly complex and can't be supportable than you've disadvantaged yourself. Conversely, if you don't add tech that your potential foes successfully do, which gives them an edge in combat, then you've also disadvantaged yourself. This is one...

True that, when you have a single source and a single load. The power grid is necessarily much more complex, as both sources and loads are continuously fluctuating. Yes, the used to manual balance loads, but in Canada alone the generating capacity is around 150,000MW and the average use is...

And yet there are things that are massively more complex than either of those, each both distributed yet completely interdependant, and we just expect them to work (and whine on social media when they don't): power grids telecommunications networks air transport logistics networks In some...

I happened to be watching a video by Curious Marc on YouTube called Apollo Lunar Module FDAI Restoration - Part 1 yesterday (FDAI is the Flight Director Attitude Indicator). In it he makes the point that, like many pieces of the Apollo program, there were two completely different FDAIs, one for...

It absolutely does matter, for three reasons: The ethical one: it is their money. They should have a say in the way it’s spent. The pragmatic one: the whole discussion is on how we rebuild the surface fleet, and by extension the RCN, and indeed the CF has a whole, and the timelines involved...

With all of this, both the ships and the people to man them, the biggest problem is institutional momentum. A person whose opinion I trust once said to me that the MH community won’t change unless we fail. That is a true statement everywhere, but now large elements of the CF, in my opinion...

In my experience, military electronics design and test, and especially software design, implementation, integration, and verification do not follow modern practice. The production of software artifacts, as demanded by certification processes, does not produce more robust or reliable software...

My BSc was CompSci as well. I was an ACSO, but I used it more than most CELEs or AEREs I know. I was a bit of a special case though…

OK, but there should be some type of "top up training" between being aircrew and the ORO course, possibly as a selection course. As they are not NWOs, it would serve to fill in the gaps between being qualified MHCCs and basic NWO knowledge. You wouldn't want to do it by putting them on the NWO...

True, but the as described it could be made to fit into the current trade structure. As well, there is no requirement for everyone to be a BWK, only those who wish to get an ORO qual.

In general I agree with you. However, the devil is in the details, and there are a few important ones. The main thing that comes to mind is that Operational Airworthiness is important, and currently done by the RCAF. Which means they have all the corporate knowledge. I’m sure if we recreated...

I can show you staff work and reports from the 60s where the RCN developed the concepts to support the purchase and employment of the Sea King. I can also show you the work that was done by the RCAF because they thought (sort of) that rotary wing ASW should belong to them. That doesn’t exist...

The ISS contract was insisted upon by the GOC; it’s not the only problem but it certainly isn’t helping. The bigger problem was asking for the “best” without support (or funding) for it. Over and above the basics of unfunded spares, where does the support for tactics and training development...

As an aside, 10 years ago the PM MHP was in my lab. He wasn't really interested in what we were doing; he was trying to sell the Wing they were making the right decisions. He said to me "by staying with Cyclone and not cancelling and buying Romeos we keep control of our aircraft." Turns out his...

Which leads me straight to the crewing question, informed by Battle Management, and influences where we go from here: what the nav done historically on the Sea King was not battle management, it was plot compilation (and would have also included link management, if we had link). That is not an...

I had the welcome opportunity to talk with 3 of the pillars of all things MH at the 35th for the Persian Excursion today, and my thoughts about how we got where we are firming up. None of them disagreed with me (although they don't totally agree...). There is a need to publish it (ie in a proper...