How the US Military Spends Over $44 Billion On Warplanes | Boot Camp | Insider Business

thanks The Department of Defense has a budget of $817

billion

for fiscal year 2023. More than $44

billion

will go toward adding new fighter jets to its fleet, which does not include training and maintenance costs for maintaining lifetime estimate of 75 billion for the mv-22 Osprey Fleet to the 400,000 helmets fighter pilots wear to operate the F-35 here's how the

military

spends

billions of dollars on its Lightning Two fighter jets the plane Marine Corps multirole fighter is equipped with the most advanced sensor suite of any fighter in history, the most powerful engine of any jet aircraft in the world, which can reach a top speed of 1,200 miles per hour, it simply has revolutionized what fighter jets are capable of and these are the pilots who train to fly that $100 million plane a lot.

Most people just think that you know, you fly in and then you go home and have a beer, but it's not all like that, you're not just flying, you're talking about four different radios, you're working on the radar, you're working on the flare T. you're working on the actual optical system there while you're still sailing, talking to ATC and then working with weapons on top of that, and the pilots spend a year training to fly the F-35 Bravo here at Air Station Marine Corps in Beaufort, South Carolina. This is a pilot's last stop before being deployed to a fleet squadron overseas and it is here where they learn to operate the multi-role fighter aircraft on a variety of missions.

We do attacks, air interception, we do ocadca, offensive counter-error, defensive counter-error, arm recognition. and then really the bread and butter are seeds, expression of enemy air defenses, the pilots we met are part of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 501, also known as Warlords, once you complete here, they send you to the squadrons of fleet you meet in Yuma o Japan's student pilots in the training squadron have already completed flight school, so the training focuses specifically on operating the F-35b. Eventually, all fighter pilots who come through the Marine Corps will fly foreign F-35s. Michael Watts, my specialty in the Marine Corps.

My grandfather was a pilot in World War II and I always went to his house to see his models of his B-25 bomber and also my father was a Navy pilot in Vietnam, so I grew up with that, you know, I carry it in the blood. Here we're basically starting out, you learn how to fly the plane and then you go through all the different mission sets and basic skills because there's a limited number of planes that can fly at once, most of the pilot briefing is done on the ground. In the simulator and classroom we were not allowed to film some classified aspects of pilot training, but we were allowed to film pilots practicing the aircraft's most unique capabilities and go behind the scenes as they suited up for a training mission. during the training.

It is crucial that pilots feel comfortable executing the F-35b's stove maneuvers because they will have to master those techniques on an aircraft carrier. Actually, the main thing is when we get off the ship, so when it leaves for Japan here in a few weeks. Eventually I'll learn how to fly off the ship, how we get there, do vertical landings, how we take off, do short takeoffs and that's really the big reason why we're doing that. Lockheed Martin makes three variations of the F-35 Lightning II, but the Marine Corps F-35 Bravo is the only one with stove capability.

This feature is a major reason why the Marine Corps' 2019 Aviation Plan called for replacing its current fleet of aircraft with more than 350 F-35bs. We are replacing all Hornets, all areas and all Prowlers with F-35s. Conventional Jets need about 3,000 feet to take off, but under optimal conditions an F-35b can take off in just a couple hundred feet for a takeoff we reach. the runway and then at that point when we start a conversion we literally just press a button and then the airplane light goes through its transformer sequence right once it's completed we're now in what's called stove mode there's different types of short takeoffs that we can I do my favorites the button is called the store button and as I accelerate down the runway and I literally just click a button and then the plane will take off on its own it's pretty amazing and then shortly after takeoff , we can convert it back to Conventional. mode once we reach a certain air speed once in the air handling the plane is not the most difficult aspect of operating it, it is actually a very easy plane to fly, it is more difficult to process the amount of information it gives you I would say I.

Knowing where to look at the right time Student pilots already have experience flying planes, so much of their training focuses on using technology unique to the F-35B, much of the difficulty is trying to absorb all the information that the plane It gives you to operate everything. sensors and systems at the same time and flying and really that's probably the number one struggle once a practice mission is completed. Pilots must take on another of the Jet's unique characteristics: executing a vertical landing without having ever done it was an experience that my brain told me about. I didn't slow down because uh and the Hornet slowed down, that meant you were going to fall out of the sky.

It's a normal approach to landing, like you go to the right runway and then you go. to level and then set a certain forward speed and then at a certain distance from the platform it will start a deceleration and all it is is just a click of a button and then from there it will make sure that When you are centered on the platform , you simply push the lever forward and then descend directly to the platform. I would say the first time you do a vertical landing and the F-35b is pretty crazy, you practice it a lot on the Sim, you do it.

You know this dozens of times in the simulator, but the first time you do it in the plane, just slowing down for the first time like that and floating on a platform with over 30,000 pounds of metal 150 feet in the air is Pretty good, you usually have it. like the world is coming at you when you're flying to the right and that's why you're sitting there, looking out, like you're in the tower or something, and you trust that you're okay there. You know you're still flying before you set foot in the student cabin. Pilots must familiarize themselves with the equipment needed to operate the F-35B, starting with its anti-gravity suit that helps them avoid losing consciousness while operating the plane.

Cloth material that has bladders inside it and every time you pull G, it uses the pressure of the motor to inflate and then prevents the blood from going down to your legs and pushes it towards your abdomen as much as possible. Every pilot G suit. It's custom made to fit perfectly around the lower part of your body and then we have a flight jacket that we put on and it has a ton of survival gear. The pilot's flight jacket is filled with a multitude of survival tools in case they have to get ejected. The plane includes a flare, emergency strobe light, compass, survival knife, extra water whistle, radio and an oxygen mask, they have a code card for hand and arm signals, just a search and rescue signal In the reflection, some less conventional survival tools are provided by the pilots themselves.

I was trying to grab my wallet in case I have to land somewhere else other than here. That happened to me before you went somewhere yesterday. You dont have anyone. wallet or phone or anything that's a little difficult, definitely carry my wallet with me whenever in case the pilots have to eject from the plane, their flight jacket has a unique safety feature built in, there are armor train lines that extend throughout the jacket. When you eject, they basically pull your arms towards your body, basically making sure that your arms don't flap in the wind. The jacket is also equipped with a flotation device in case the pilot has to eject onto a body. of water so that as soon as it hits the water it inflates the entire jacket so they don't have to do anything if they break their arms or anything after ejection.

Last but not least, pilots learn to use the most technologically advanced equipment. In its 400,000 helmets, each helmet is custom-fitted to its user based on a 3D scan of the pilot's head. It's also equipped with noise-cancelling headphones, night vision, and a forward-facing camera that records every flight. The pilot's head-up display is projected directly onto his visor rather than onto the glass at the front of the cockpit, thanks to two small projectors inside the helmet, this allows the pilot to easily see key data such as altitude, airspeed and air and direction, since the plane can help us a lot, it really should be flying.

That way you can focus on all the information the Jets are giving you. Finally, the f-35's distributed aperture system creates a 360-degree view of the Jet's surroundings by stitching feeds from six cameras mounted on the aircraft, allowing the pilot to see through. the base and walls of the plane I think many people underestimate the amount of work it takes to become a pilot and firefighter pilot, specifically a one hour flight, even a simulated one, could mean up to six additional hours of briefing to prepare. flight inspections and debriefs, not to mention the hours spent studying for each mission, so you could spend an entire day preparing and debriefing on a single hour flight.

I think it's incredible to be in the fifth-generation stealth fighter at the tip of the spear, it's a heavyweight aircraft in terms of the combat power that the Marine Corps brings to the fight and I'm honored to be a part of that. It's definitely cool, you know, to continue that tradition and talk to my dad about everything that I am. is doing now and how it relates to what he did all the airports he flew to, you know some of the ones I've flown too, so you have stories that it's pretty cool that the F-35 could be the latest breakthrough in

military

aircraft but the A-10 Warthog has been supporting troops on the ground for almost 50 years.

In 2007, the Air Force spent $1.1 billion to upgrade and replace the wings of 173 A-10 Thunderbolt 2 aircraft, which it hopes will keep the aircraft flying until late. 2030s, this is the A-10 Thunderbolt 2. More commonly known as the Wild Boar, the Air Force uses the A-10 for close air support missions that require the aircraft to fly low to provide cover and assist ground troops in the battle, so our whole mission in life and all our work in life is to take care of the men and women on the ground. This is the only thing we think about, the only thing we train on, this is the only thing we talk about, this is exactly what this plane is designed to do, but these pilots. may be among the last to be trained to fly it for years, the Air Force has considered retiring the A-10 in favor of the new F-35 fighter jet and that could finally be happening when Congress approves the Air Force's plan to phase out the A-10 over the next five to six years, but the public debate about the need for the A-10 continues and although some A-10s are up to 50 years old, the F-35s cost about 60 million more per plane and They were not built exclusively to support ground troops, there may be a day when I am called upon to potentially help save someone's life when they are having the worst day of their life, which is due to my training and making sure I know what I am doing. the plane, so how vital is the A-10?

Could the Air Force soon be without one of its most iconic fighter jets? The only base where 18 pilots train is at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base before flying the A-10 pilot train. the t-38 Talon during its initial flight training in Texas they fly completely different depending on their performance and flight characteristics the t-38 is like a sports car it is fast it is agile but the A10 drives more like a Cadillac after graduating from Flight Training, the new pilots moved into their assigned positions and really liked the A-10's mission and thought it was cool. I like the idea that no matter what I'm doing, I'm strictly there for the people on the ground, if you look at it, it's not the most attractive plane, so to speak, it's quite ugly, it doesn't have swept wings. towards the back, it has, you know, a big Hershey bar.

Wings for stability, so it's just a bad looking airplane and that's ultimately what a boar is, what sound the A-10 makes when it fires, you know, like a bird, a bird, and in reality is just the noise of the bullets coming out of thecannon, this is the Galway Avenger, is a 30 millimeter Gatling gun built by General Electric. and this is the largest Gatling gun ever built and put on an airplane, so it has seven barrels, fires at a maximum speed of about 3,900 rounds per minute, there is almost no target that the Galway is not a weapon against Valid to use as we move forward. around the titanium tub is one of the features designed specifically to protect the pilot in the airplane, so this whole panel here where you see these giant Phillips head shaped fasteners, that whole panel is titanium, so you can hear that all of these are hollow aluminum. and that's Rock Solid titanium right there this was one of the first fighter types to incorporate that into the aircraft design and it's the only one I know of that has a full cockpit that encompasses the pilot uh behind this panel right here this is our Single refueling system right here, so take off the cap and fill the plane with fuel.

We have four fuel tanks for a total of about 11,000 pounds of gasoline. If I'm full I can fly for about three hours and then once I add in aerial refueling we can fly pretty much indefinitely and then when you look towards the back of the plane you can see we have a lot of hard spots. a lot of weapons stations on the plane, there are 11 in total, between them we can carry up to 16,000 pounds of ammunition in those 11 weapons stations. This is a Mark 82 bomb body, so a 500 pound bomb body is just a blast and fragmentation type weapon. that you drop it it's not guided on impact and it detonates this is a GPU 31 it's a 2000 pound bomb with a GPS guidance kit on the back so it's a coordinate finding weapon which means I can enter a GPS coordinate and that's exactly where The weapon is going to disappear, but how does the A10 compare to the F-35 intended to replace it?

Supporters of the F-35 say it has a strong stealth advantage, but detractors say it doesn't have the durability that the A10 has thanks to its features. Like the titanium tub, another concern is how F-35 pilots are trained. Insider reported that, according to a 2022 training memo, F-35 pilots are not required to run close air support training simulations in 2023 or 2024. for A-10 pilots' close air support is in the center of their training, which starts here in a virtual reality simulator lab, so they will start in the virtual reality lab and that will give them the site images and the references on the ground and the references in the plane for the first time , so simulators are extremely important, they can practice everything in a safe environment with well-known professional instructors before going out and flying them alone, students become familiar with the A10 control panels and start-up procedures before moving on to the simulator of flight we are going to open our air to air refueling door at this point he was doing aerial refueling the presentation that the students actually do on the airplane fairly early in their training process historically without this lesson usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes of talking to students to achieve a successful connection in Flight, while now that we can get them to practice with this lesson, they go out on that first flight having done it before, we want to make sure that we want to take a look at our air speed while we are in formation with the tanker.

Now the feedback we're getting from instructors is that they're just stepping up to the plate and plugging in on their first attempt at VR. Sim, you get muscle memory, so the first time we practice on the jet we physically know what we're doing with our hands and we know where our eyes should be, where we should measure and then our IPS helps us fine-tune. those things after spending a month in the simulator and learning the basic operations of the aircraft Pilots begin flying training missions in the A-10 Captain Lindsay MADD Johnson has five years of experience flying the A-10 today she is training for a new role as a pilot on an A-10 demonstration team where she will highlight the capabilities of the warthog.

I'm about two hours away from 1200 hours on the A-10, they call it a Rock Run crawl process, so I did it on the Sim a few times, then we went out into the airspace for the first time with a flat, not a flat real, but a simulated four or five thousand pagl and then I go here 2000 feet AGL, a thousand feet AGL and then 500 feet a jail until I passed. my first certification after Johnson completed some rolls and dives, he moved on to simulate strafing, which is an attack technique on enemy Ground Forces used in close air support operations, so when we provide close air support, we come out as I say from the front. from the target area, I'll come out about two and a half miles away, about 500 feet, and then I'll come around like this and, since I'm a little over a mile away, I'll jump at about 30 degrees of nose altitude, which which allows me to get high enough that I can see if there is what would be designated as friend and what would be designated as enemy on the terrain and then when I visually acquire it over the railing of my canopy, I am then taxiing using both ailerons, my throttles are already at Max.

I'm rolling and then I basically put my nose down on what we think of as a 20 degree cable, so instead of straightening out, I'm 20 degrees nose down. I learned about the A10 when I was a kid. I knew I wanted to do something to pay tribute to my father's time and service. I was young. When 9/11 happened, I was nine years old and he was deployed two months after September. The 11th happened, that stuck in my mind and I knew I wanted to do something that would also help my country. A10 debuted in combat in 1977, so he is barely 50 years old, which is one of the reasons why many want him to be that way.

Retired for years, the wild boar has been the subject of debate between the U.S. Air Force and Congress. Some members of the Air Force leadership have suggested retiring the A-10 to focus on developing more modern aircraft like the $80 million F-35. I want to retire the most accurate and least expensive close air support system. I don't want a retired senator, but the Air Force has to grow to do all of this, but Congress has fought those requests because of the success of the A-10 in recent conflicts. with Isis and the Taliban and the overall profitability of the plane, it has not broken the conflict that the United States has been in since Bosnia Grenada, almost all the contingents that the United States has been part of the A-10 have been practically the leader of all.

While Congress last year approved an Air Force proposal to retire the 21A10s, reducing the total fleet to 260. It plans to decommission the remaining aircraft over the next five to six years, people don't realize how much maintenance is actually needed. to keep these planes airworthy. It's not like a car, you know, when we wake up in the morning, we get in the car, start it and drive properly. They have starting problems. They have leaks. They are between 40 and 50 years old. They all have between 13,000 and 15,000 flight hours. They, uh, and that exceeds the actual life expectancy of the fuselage by five thousand seven thousand hours.

Critics of the A10 may use the plane's maintenance problems to fuel their argument, but the F-35's maintenance cost increased by 15 between 2018 and 2020. What's going on? for you when you finish the bases, so next time I will go to Korea. It's fun to fly, it does a job that no one else does and you're good at it, that's your thing, that's what the a10 does later. Completing the six-month training program at Davis-Monthan. Newly certified A-10 pilots will begin their careers as fighter pilots in the US Air Force. The plane was built long before I was alive and knew as were the generations of people who flew the plane. .

Before me they were looking at the exact same meters that I'm looking at, so it's a pretty unique experience. I knew when I was a younger kid that I wanted to fly the A-10. My grandfather was in the army and saw the A-. 10 like when he was in the military he does things and that was even more of an added drive to pursue the aircraft while everyone knows us for the weapon and its capabilities, something we are very proud of as an A-10 community. protect the lives of men and women on the ground not all aircraft in the military arsenal are intended for combat, transporting troops and casualties over long distances is essential for any military and the Air Force has a $340 million solution to do a little low actually these Air Force pilots are refueling their C-17 Globemaster III at 26,000 feet in the air effect now be patient to see what happens here really good pilots encounter a kc10 refueling plane pumping gasoline through a controlled arm at 1100 gallons per minute yes, separate, separate, separate, it is one of the three missions we saw while we were embedded with a crew training to fly the C-17 at 174 feet long and 55 feet wide. high, the C-17 has a maximum payload of about 170,000 pounds and can land on runways shorter than 3,500 feet with only three crew members.

By flying the plane we can do everything, from supporting contingencies to war. The range we can support Cove admissions has been a big thing recently. We can also carry out humanitarian missions, so help. Evacuation of sick patients injured soldiers due to their high payload capacity The C-17s were used in August 2021 to evacuate people from Afghanistan with a plane carrying 823 passengers the basic crew of a C-17 there are three of us there is a pilot one co-pilot and A loadmaster for my role here as a C-17 loadmaster is to load these aircraft, whether they be helicopters, tanks, Humvees, outpatients, ultimately our mission is to support someone else.

The average salary for a C-17 pilot stationed at Travis Air Force Base is around $117,000 and the typical tour lasts approximately three years. Training takes place here at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, an hour northeast of San Francisco, and before pilots complete missions in the sky, they practice the complicated maneuvers in a state of -. Art simulator, it's pretty realistic, we use it to practice emergencies that you can't practice on the plane or wouldn't want to practice on the plane, whether it's multiple engine stalls or really bad weather conditions. Students train for emergencies such as enemy and hydraulic threats. failures, but the first scenario is a simulated engine fire.

Could you please scan engine number two for us? Engine fire indications and then I have the radios. You have the checklist. Roger, a lot of crew coordination happens at that point. that's a good safe space for young copilots to get a feel for what the stick feels like and the power inputs before they go do it in the airplane. The emergency shutdown checklist is complete. The other two will include the land we are on as well. one left after practicing in the simulator, the crew meets in the briefing room to plan a live training mission, so tomorrow's training flight the schedules are a bit non-standard, we can do 6 30 local times at the base.

The pilots and operations crew spend hours the day before the mission discussing the route, objectives and backup plans if something goes wrong, so if we don't manage to disengage the position, the main thing is to maintain a good stable platform and keep doing what you are doing if you are the pilot flying. The crew finished. their plans and were fired to prepare for the flight at precisely 10:00 the crew boarded the plane and went over their final checklists the first exercise of the mid-air refueling training mission so the refueling in air is basically anything over a gas station in the sky the whole concept We have two planes that are at the same point in space so it may be a potentially sensitive cargo that you are carrying and you don't want to stop or maybe you just don't there's a good place to land or maybe you don't have the It's time to land, yeah, a little low, actually, where you kind of want it right now.

I would keep this so we're about a thousand feet below the other plane and then eventually we'll close that altitude gap to where their boom is, that's the long pole that sticks out of the plane to pass the gas from their plane to ours we end up making contact with your boom now be patient a good saying is uh you know point little Miss little when we are refueling in the air we are concentrating on very small details and trying to see small movements because theSmall movements that come closer can have a big impact. Refueling occurs while pilots maneuver the C-17 at 300 miles per hour at nearly 30,000 feet in the sky.

Contact for me. I was thinking about improving. My power moves, so my stick moves, so my right hand, I was sitting in the right seat, were pretty solid, but like my acceleration moves could have been a lot better, so that's something that I can work in the future. break break good update phase two of the mission involves low level flying so by flying low level during the day we can get as low as 300 feet above the ground which is pretty low for large aircraft and the intention is to stay below the radar image. from a potential adversary, so when you are lower, we have some tactical benefits that help us get to a not so good place in a safer way, that is what we need to provide the correct seat that we need to fly 290.

We are watching our altitudes and making sure we clear any obstacles or something like that. We also had another pilot in the back looking at the map in the box indicating different Towers on each side of the route and helping us avoid. and clean them that way, appreciate the view, uh, yeah. C-17 headed north toward Moses Lake, Washington to practice landing in an assault zone, so an assault zone is a short runway, usually about 3,500 feet long and then has a marked zone that It is 500 feet long and our goal is to place our plane in the 500 foot box and then use maximum effort to stop on the remaining runway.

Crews have to master landing on a traditional airstrip as well as temporary runways, so the tactical part of the C-17 is going to fields that perhaps have shorter runways or dirt runways and often are in combat locations or our steering fields pull back on the stick and put a little power in 500 feet will stop everyone a minimum of 300 feet from the zone at 50 feet. the final mission is a combat discharge at Travis Air Force Base, basically what we will do is simulate an accelerated discharge, usually if we are in a situation where we do not have the equipment to do a discharge if we have to get in and out very quickly, maybe a hospital location, once we release the locks, we'll say the brakes were also released to the pilots and then they'll step on the accelerators, release the brakes and the platform will exit the app towards the plane.

I'll call the charge, clear close and then we'll get out of here. Overall it's a great story for everyone, it was very busy and very long so it's always difficult to fly for six hours and be constantly engaged, but I think everyone really performed. Well, I think a lot of people relate the cargo jet as an airliner, but I think what we do is very different, specifically we go anywhere and everywhere in the world, sometimes that means you have a lot of information about that airfield, sometimes it means you don't have any and like I said, you have to be a problem solver and really think on your feet, so it's really rewarding when you go to pick yourself up. meet 150 guys who have been deployed for six months and you can take them home to their families, the MV-22 Osprey not only provides close air support, but also transports troops and cargo on and off the battlefield, uses a feature unique that gives it the ability to land in hostile environments where traditional aircraft cannot, but with several fatal accidents in the Osprey's past and high maintenance costs, proponents of the plane find themselves defending its place in the military fleet.

This is the MV-22 Osprey flown by the United States. United States Marine Corps, with a unit cost of approximately $84 million, is the world's first production tiltrotor aircraft, meaning it takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter, but flies like a traditional turboprop aircraft. , we don't need that runway to land and we don't need any kind of air traffic control agency to get there, we can do it ourselves when we are on the ground. Its rotor blades fold in on themselves, making them small enough to travel on naval aircraft carriers. Its main function is what we call assault support.

What that means is that we are good at transporting people to places 1,500 feet above range. Insiders spent a day at Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina to find out what it takes to fly the Osprey before flying the Osprey. Marine Corps pilots must receive a four-year college degree and attend flight school to learn the basics, then you get your wings and you report to the fleet and you have about two months and three months to learn how to fly the Osprey. Osprey pilots spend 20 hours training in a simulator. that was out of range of our cameras.

I wanted to have an airplane that was at the forefront of where the Marine Corps wanted to send things. Turns out this was exactly the right plane for me. Today when we go flying we'll do a With a bunch of different flight profiles we're going to go and shoot tail gunners and then we move on to doing confined area landings the training mission starts with a briefing in the ready room of the squadron, we will be taking off on a new river as a section for departure will be a standard vertical takeoff to climb to our en route altitude of 3500 feet.

Safety is one of the most important topics of any Osprey Mission briefing. Three US Marines are currently missing off the coast of Australia. There have been 33 accidents resulting in 42 deaths reported since the Osprey's first flight in 1989. The MV-22 originally in its induction and testing phases unfortunately ended up having a few accidents along the way, things that were essentially resolved along the way. of the years. It went into operation in 2007 and since then safety components such as nacelles and software have been redesigned and reconfigured. I have over 800 flight hours in this aircraft without a problem, which is largely due to the maintenance efforts the Marines perform here every day.

The crew chiefs on New River work as simple maintenance bins when they're not assisting on missions, even the smallest things on the Osprey need to be checked and kept in good working order. We make sure we are flying in the safest way. Possible aircraft Before each flight, the pilots and crew take a tour of the Osprey to make sure everything is operational. go from zero to 280 knots and climb from the surface always up to 25,000 feet this is the air-to-air refueling probe this thing sticks out and allows me to connect and refuel with all kinds of different refueling resources and it extends my range More beyond three hours to go, my limits are that I can stay awake because these big missiles here contain the engine itself and then they will also contain all the different gearbox systems and different accessories.

Propulsion systems that keep my plane powered and flying both hydraulically and electrically we have seats up and down on the left and right side with capacity for 24 soldiers and then any type of loading we can do here we have a lot of redundancy we have three hydraulic systems we have three computers They have four generators that will work and they can all back up each other, so if any of the components fail, there are numerous layers of backup and redundancy that allow this plane to continue flying and fighting regardless of what happens to the water. coming out of the Osprey.

It is approximately the same as a Category 2 hurricane 219. Takeoff begins with the rotors in a vertical position lifting the aircraft off the ground after reaching the desired altitude. The pilots convert the plane to airplane mode. I have what is called a thumbwheel on the accelerator. There is a small knob that I simply move with my thumb. As easy as this requires little to no effort for me, what that means inside the airplane and what the airplane is doing is that I have three different hydraulic systems that control what are called conversion actuators and these conversion actuators are giant screws. and those screws turn and make the entire nacelle structure move up and down the crew flies north to begin the first exercise of the mission firing the Ospreys machine gun at ground targets on the MV-22 we have a system of rat mounted weapons we will fire the m240 Delta Today, which is a 7.62 by 51 caliber belt fed machine gun, the mounted weapon system is used in a defensive role, as we carry troops and cargo to an area, If we are engaged, we can effectively suppress enemy fire or foreign threat.

The standard Osprey crew of four consists of two pilots and two crew chiefs, so I'll guide the plane through the flight profile. I serve as a liaison between the pilots and the back of the plane, which is between our cargo and whoever we are with. carrying I shoot the gun, whatever. Sergeant leneve will also help train an additional member on today's flight. I'm Lance Copper Trantham and I'm a crew chief on the v22 Osprey. Every day is a new challenge and a new opportunity to learn. something today we are going to simulate the confrontation of a ground-to-air threat that will be a missile system and we are going to try to suppress that threat, okay, let me, that's the clue.

Objective, there are now multiple vehicles. and things on the runway, all the fires will be north of the runway, so on the left side of the plane right now we have a contact with two target managers trained to point and fire the m240 Delta using the forward momentum of the plane . It definitely takes a lot of concentration with the effects of your forward momentum to make the rounds hit your target. You have to aim a certain way for your rounds to achieve proper momentum if their target is to the left of the aircraft they are aiming at. low and to the left if they shoot from the right side of the plane they aim up and to the right we will basically look for good hits on the target in the second phase of the training mission the crew flies over a field to practice landing in a confined space area without a runway, so we will do what we call tactical direct where we go from airplane mode at 240 knots and take it to a hover within the area so that it goes to its kind of theater in the automated software.

It's going to fly the plane throughout the entire flight path and take us to hover over a specific landing point, so it's cool. Ford's thrust comes out of the propellers and generates lift on the wing like any traditional fixed-wing aircraft. The pilots redirect that thrust turning it into helicopter mode, we start moving that Lift Vector backwards to slow down or forwards to accelerate and we go from there after completing the landings and takeoffs in confined areas, the focus shifts to the third exercise of the mission training team leaders. How to measure the distance of the plane to the ground with just your eyes, they have to calibrate them to give accurate distance calls to the deck and that is a challenge and changes depending on what you expect to see, but they need to happen quickly.

They need to say exactly the right thing at the right time so that we know what we need to do and take that information as actionable information. She will score it during a daytime landing within a grassy area and afterwards. we'll take her and fly her at night and put the mbg night vision goggles on her and she'll have a 40 degree field of view looking through toilet paper tubes and then all that distance estimation she's worked on starts to disappear that's part of the training we worked on with them to fly the Osprey for the Marine Corps has meant for me that I can be operationally employed in a wide range of mission profiles as we shift to the Pacific Theater, what we are dealing with are transits longer over water without land bases so we can operate from the Osprey.

It is also used to provide humanitarian aid personally. I have done hurricane relief operations in Puerto Rico and I have been able to deliver food and water to the people who needed it NAB we were able to land in areas of baseball fields throughout the island people were writing uh help in their yards and rocks and trash to having the ospreys come in and land and we were able to bring food, water and medical supplies to the entire island today was great, it was a good flight many of the Marine Corps' future operational concepts will focus on the Osprey doing more than it does and does it better.

In fact, I'm applying to the Naval Academy right now because I'm interested in becoming a pilot, if they accept me. I will have four more years of school and will graduate and take up the position of officer. all the wayWhat the Marine Corps trains in is to add more resources and be able to take a more complicated fight to the battlefield. We are just one small aspect and one small part of it, but that's what we bring to the fight fully loaded with a weapons system designed for precision strikes on the ground. The cost of 165 million dollars. -130j Ghost Rider is a key asset in the Department of Defense's strategy to deter adversaries from provoking future conflicts.

He weighs about 43 pounds around him, so he's pretty big, normally every time we shoot this he recoils about 43 inches back, so you'll definitely feel the kick. sorry from the pilots in front fill it, everyone fill it this is the 105 millimeter cannon on the ac-130j gunship nicknamed Ghost Rider the cannon is located here on the left side of the plain along with a 30 millimeter cannon both weapons eliminate Extremely precise targets For the past 20 years in the Middle East, the US military used the AC-130 to fire heavily on insurgents to protect US forces on the ground, but now the military says its current adversaries in places like The Asia-Pacific and European region requires you to be more specific and the newest model of the AC-130 is intended to help you achieve this mission.

Continue to let this goal play out for a second, let's keep an eye on them and if they start moving in this direction, let me know which direction. BP will be the closest Insider to visit Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico, to discover how the Ghost Rider is built for precision and how training on this gunship is evolving to prepare crews for the threats of the tomorrow we can face. It goes on faster and stays there longer. His engines are about 25 percent more efficient, which means we have about 25 percent more time. We have the ability to stay on station much longer as well with the more fuel efficient engines and it's about 20 percent longer.

Faster compared to the AC-130W, the J model became fully operational in 2017 to assist in close air support to ground troops, gather information from above and conduct precision controlled bombing raids, so yes, this will be the one to 30 millimeters, she's our girl. 23. It is an incredible weapon, very precise. The J model was built with a precision strike package that has two weapons starting with the 30 millimeter weapon, so it will be composed of an upper barrel receiver on the feeder assembly and then inside it. have flexible shots that feed the ammunition. Air Force leadership has said that because of its accuracy, the 30-millimeter weapon is almost like a sniper rifle.

This will be the 105 millimeter Hauser. Normally you have two gunners who will be here working, one is going to load it, the other is going to remove the brass and then there will be the place where we keep the ammunition, so the shot will also be the same for the 30 millimeters that it has. the staff. the mission operator paddle will select the weapon and from there where the sensor is pointing the gun will adjust to that position and then you will simply fire it with a trigger based on the handy throttle and stick so this will be the mop or refer to the mission operator palette, so in these two seats here you will have the combat system officer in the left seat and then the weapons system officer here in the right seat and these are correlated with the sensors in the outside of the plane so for this one it's going to be the sensor on the nose of the plane and then for this seat it's going to be the sensor on the left side there so this is where we control all the munitions a lot of the radios we're talking to the guys on the ground and then with both weapons.

What's unique about us is that we have two of the best sensors in the Department of Defense, personally, and the MX 20 and the mx25. These two sensors are a key element in how the AC-130J crew gathers precise intelligence and confirms the locations of targets before employing their weapons. Due to the classified design of the sensors, our cameras were not allowed to film them when the lenses were well exposed, so here in the pilot's station, which is also located in the co-pilot's station, you'll have your head-up display, um, just an extra test for the pilot, it'll give them a lot of their navigation tools. so they can see and then keep rehearsing while having their eyes open on the wall of the plane as they fly, that way they don't have to look down, it just helps keep the crew safe, in addition to the head-up display it has.

Side forward display for the pilot Because both guns are on the left side of the plane, pilots fly in circles when observing and shooting at targets, this will help them with ammunition utilization and give them better field testing of battle. J model are its more efficient engines that allow the aircraft to fly 25 percent farther and 25 percent higher than previous AC-130 models. Fortunately, there are several amenities on board to provide comfort on these longer flights. A very interesting feature is that we have a microwave. Plus a coffee maker, it's a nice way to heat up food on longer flights, that way you're not eating cold things all the time, so yes, I was actually on the longest flight in ACJ history.

We're headed to Japan for 16 hours and it was nice to heat up some hot burritos instead of eating a cold sandwich, something like that, so we have a bathroom on the plane for the longer flight, which is super nice, so just show up. down like this and then there's a little curtain for privacy and then you just pull it up and yeah, like a normal toilet, so it's definitely necessary on those longer flights now that we're out of the global war on terrorism. I mean, it's not a pride. We're already moving on to more current events happening in the Pacific, uh, maybe some things in Europe we've seen on the news.

Nicknamed the Angel of Death, the AC-130 has been used in past wars to provide heavy fire to protect troops on the ground. or to clear an area of ​​enemy forces, but that mentality is changing in previous conflicts, they are really simple, people were running up the side of the mountains with Soviet-era machine guns and you knew for a fact that this guy was abiding by the Rules of Engagement that was a legal attack according to the 2022 national defense strategy published by the Department of Defense, a key priority going forward is integrated deterrence, which, according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, means having weapons systems and technologies that make the Opponents think twice before participating. conflict, that's why the Model J's precision weaponry and sensors make it a crucial military asset and why Ghost Rider pilots are now trained to know when to engage in conflict.

A lot of training is required to steer us away from the global war on terrorism. We still fundamentally want to protect the Friendly Force, but we have to be picky and that's the really hard part, so you want to train for hey, you've got your spider sense, your spider senses are tingling, let's play this, let's play this scenario out without putting the Friendly Force on. at risk at this time we want to stop before the actual conflict we were going to take off we are going to the Clovis area to receive artillery The crews will prepare for potential conflicts abroad and become experts in precise deterrences conduct weekly training Missions at the Base Cannon Air Force, which begin with a pre-flight briefing.

I prefer to break a schedule, but be safe and rush towards failure. Today's mission leader is Major Riley Feeney, a weather assessment pilot out here today, it looks like it will be fine for takeoff, however we may have wind gusts from 270 uh up to 30, possibly 35 knots. for methamphetamine. Today's flight will begin with basic pilot training, but will then move into a simulated capture-or-kill mission, a training scenario that will take lessons learned from previous wars and force the crew to be more precise and cautious. He has been a guy, he is an arm. The smuggler has been working in the city of Clovis as a weapons officer.

Captain Rushi Gohel is tasked with creating a mission that he will train. the team in the scenarios they encounter, everything is made up, but it is based on the different threats that we will see and that we are fighting in the current fight that we will work on to build 1-0, particularly he is hiding in the shed right in the Back in the stories it seems that he is known to be traveling with a small group, the crew will attempt to locate a fictional threat that is believed to have a cache of weapons, the team must find the threat, relay that information up the chain of command and then decide whether to neutralize it, okay, let's go to the war boys and copy the takeoff clearance, let's straighten here the bottom checklist has been called complete, that's our ready to use Coca-Cola ready, all good, textbook well done Once in the air, the crew begins training scenarios.

So we went to Roswell to get a couple of instrument approaches. There are specific approaches with ground navigation aids that allow us to get the plane into a safe position to land at Roswell. The Speed ​​Center Line employer first does not burn anywhere. No factor, today was a great training iteration because there were turbulent winds with wind gusts basically an eight on the 10 difficulty scale, which I love, even if it's difficult for the rest of the people on the team, it's okay, Yes, I only did a little. a little too stable 50. 40. 30. 20. kids and walk down so we have extra capacity on this plane that can take us up to a hundred feet, let's say you have to absolutely absorb the weather and the ceiling is very low.

You can use this system to land safely and be aligned with the runway, where you simply could not visually see the runway. You need to follow these guidelines, get very close to the ground and land, which is incredibly important if you have a group on the ground that is 300 miles away. away and they need you to come help them once the pilots finish practicing landing at Roswell, the training moves to the back of the plane, unfortunately the live firing range was closed due to the extreme weather that occurred recently, however , what we did was a dry fire. scenario all players all players the soft force is internal to the target building the team began searching the terrain for the location of their fictional Insurgent okay, I'm in the target area uh, I'm just getting a quick building from Eyes On Target, still I can't use weapons After several minutes, he saw a potential target.

I am currently in contact with about eight packages. They are unloading weapons from two trailers located 300 meters away. It seems like they are planning a game and preparing to move. I don't know in which direction. Okay, hey and uh, from Devil's Jackal, continue to let this target play out for a second, let's keep an eye on them and if they start moving in this direction, please let me know which BP will be the closest. We will postpone infringement until we have an idea of ​​what these packages are going to do. One of the elements that the crew was practicing today was following the rules of engagement before firing at a target, so the rules of engagement are very well defined by the tail end type. of what was the global war on terrorism, the explicit verbiage in them is relatively classified, but the idea is that you must meet certain criteria to be able to participate in the PID.

Two packs want to carry some kind of long cylindrical object before they go to hell. fire the weapons the aircraft commander must give consent, you can face 30 and 105 Mike five four three two one Splash several we are taking cover you continue processing until all the packages are down I have six that do not move just uh Duo running South approaching friendlies, okay, good impact, good impacts, all players score the jackpot goal, the mission was a success and a vital stage for possible future threats. We wanted to give a little more flavor to, say, the next theater we'll see.

We're looking into what the Indo-Pacific theater is and what we wanted to do today was throw it out. Look at this, should you film it and really challenge people? Well, it meets the rules of engagement. Awesome, I appreciate you playing. today I realized that today was a lot more eventful than you wanted, it was good news, you really did the mission, we have some parole to come back and I honestly thought it was a very good training representative for us today , I thought the team did very well, they were very fast and in all their commitments, and it is illegal the only thing I wanted to mention is that we were very expeditiousand we were about 20 meters from danger near the engagement of that Romeo nine Echo that we didn't do. anything was wrong, it was contact, everything was within limits, we were about 230 meters away, but it's one of those also as a technique and this is my instructional solution for the crew: every time you are within 25 meters of a Danger of close confrontation, you should probably talk to the J-Tech, so I thought they did a good job, but I thought Captain Booed did an exceptional job leading the crew, which for me, the most important thing here is to observe pilots to observe how aircraft commanders develop.

In leaders, the potential of the AC-130J continues to grow to keep up with the military capabilities of its potential adversaries. The Air Force Special Operations Command has begun testing a new high-energy laser weapon that could one day replace the Air Force's leading 105-millimeter cannon. He says that with this the targets could be permanently disabled without the slightest pop, hiss, explosion or even the hum of an aircraft engine. It's so fun to take this tool that has been absolutely a hammer to go to war on terrorism and then turn it into something queer. creativity is king and allowing that, see if I can find, I see Lowe's, I see Walmart, yeah, put a new skate park there next to the Green Acres skate park.