IntenseDebate - Move

14 years ago @ DoD Buzz - SAS12: Despite crash, ... · 3 replies · 0 points

Come on Cunningham. You compare an aircraft with less than 150,000 hours to Army aircraft with over 3 million hours in combat. The MV and CV-22 are great machines...at twice the price of a 170 knot new CH-47F or three times the price of a rebuilt D model.

The Chinook carries far more weight and troops at altitude and you know it. Heck the UH-60L and M can hover at higher altitudes with more useful loads than a MV-22 burning far less fuel.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - A Hypothetical Intervi... · 0 replies · +1 points

MY: But General, the Apaches can’t react as fast as the door gunner, right?

General: MY, the door gunner on the side of the aircraft where the patient is being brought, has zero fields of fire. The gunner on the opposite side cannot fire to the front or rear. Both door gunners have only the unaided eye or night vision goggles not directly tied to their weapons like the Apache gunners optics. And don’t forget MY, during half the day, the enemy cannot see the red cross because it is nighttime. If they do see it, they know those pesky Apaches are nearby, don’t they.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - A Hypothetical Intervi... · 1 reply · +3 points

MY: General, why don’t we take the red cross off our MEDEVAC aircraft so that the enemy won’t know they are unarmed?

General: Well gee MY, considering that a pair of Apaches are flying overhead with a 30mm gun, 2.75” rockets, Hellfire missiles and phenomenal night vision optics, and the enemy knows it because of the red cross, I suspect they are likely to avoid the optimal fields of fire and sudden death they know would follow should they open fire on our MEDEVAC aircraft.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - Death, Taxes and War · 0 replies · +1 points

Of course home prices are related to a specific type of speculation and income-based inflation. When a pair of immigrants move into a neighborhood and can afford a million dollar house (a house identical to my mom's next door sold for $1.1 million a year ago) because they both have good Silicon valley engineering jobs, prices rise for everyone else not in computer jobs or with two great incomes.

I was just out in California for Christmas. I saw a lot of luxury cars, and new houses on lots that used to have smaller, older houses. The land prices are inflated. Yet incomes are still high enough to afford the expensive house and car. If they can swing both, they can pay higher taxes. They came to the U.S. and benefit from our economy. The least they can do is support our federal government through a fair tax rate.

As long as we encourage high house prices through loan bail-outs and mortgage interest deductions, housing inflation will screw up the rest of the economy.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - Death, Taxes and War · 1 reply · +1 points

As for estate taxes and capital gains on investments, both could also be based on the total gains made. A lower rate on inheritances and investment gains up to a certain monetary point would make sense while a higher rate would be charged on those with inheritances and capital gains on investments that exceed $1 million.

Part of our screwed up economy has been out of control inflation on housing prices in coastal and big city areas. My mom's $30K house in the bay area in 1966 is now worth over a million and it is a basic 2100 ft2 tract house. The insistence on larger houses than Americans used to own is another problem driving up house expenses. Higher house prices drive up state and city employee wages which drives up state taxes and reduces federal income tax paid...when added to deductions for high interest paid on mortgages.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - Death, Taxes and War · 0 replies · +1 points

As Niall Ferguson pointed out on Fareed Zakaria this past weekend, the Republican insistence on the message of no new taxes on the rich is hard to defend. When President Eisenhower made his "military-industrial complex" speech, the top tax rate was 91%. As late as 1981, it was 69.13%. Reagan and the Republicans reduced it to 50% in 1982. The Republicans in the Clinton years had it at 39.6%. All these figures under Republicans were far higher than today's 35% since 2003.

The relative wealth of the rich has increased by 275% while the rest of us picked up the tab. If we want an effective defense in a dangerous world, taxes on the wealthiest of us must increase.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - 13 Military Pilots Reb... · 0 replies · +1 points

To add to Si Simmons' bibliography, suggest downloading a 1984 Army history product "Dustoff Army Aeromedical Evauation in Vietnam." Read about the exploits of Medal of Honor winner MAJ Patrick Brady who flew 3 different aircraft on four trips to evacuate 51 wounded Soldiers landing in a minefield under heavy fire. On another occasion he had made four trips in heavy fog to evacuate 18 litter and 21 ambulatory patients. Obviously, neither situation would have been feasible with one or two patients per lift...even if only one flight medic was aboard.

During the war, it also was realized that a UH-1D could only lift 183 lbs at 95 degrees in the highlands while the replacement UH-1H could hoist at 20' over the jungle with over 1000 lbs payload. Obviously, the HH-60 hovers with considerably more payload, but it remainss weight-constrained in high/hot out of ground effect hoist hover conditions to far less than the max gross weight cited by one of Yon's pilot.

In the final major Vietnam battle of Lam Son 719, initially it was taking up to 7 hours to get an armed escort for MEDEVAC missions. Seems like the Army has come a long way.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - 13 Military Pilots Reb... · 0 replies · +1 points

I recall the original USAF CSAR replacement winning candidate was a MH-47, to carry additional PJs, armament, medics, security, and patients..because CSAR is a separate mission from MEDEVAC.. Does Yon think we should replace all our H-60s with Chinooks? If HH-60 MEDEVACs can carry larger numbers and support mass casualties at multiple locations because they have more space and power, why is that bad? Obviously a Chinook will not fit in every potential H-60 LZ. Does Yon advocate using more distant LZs and adding additional delays in getting the patient to the larger LZ?

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - 13 Military Pilots Reb... · 0 replies · +1 points

Agree with Forbes that compromises are possible. However, many pilot responses are theater or region-specific, yet often reinforce the need for more MEDEVAC space and weight availability.No mention is made of the need for greater power margins for the hoist mission. One pilot even mentioned his experience was in RC-S/SW which are at considerably lower altitudes than RC-East where hoist missions are more likely.

Others cited they could always cram more ambulatory patience into Pedro space available. That clearlly means more space and power for more ambulatory patients would exist without the door gunners and guns.. Others mentioned making multiple trips or sending more aircraft if they lacked space and power. But with multiple casualties elsewhere a possibility, isn't it preferred to take more per aircraft trip...because you have the weight and space available.

WIll a 60 year old Yon be saying we should have more MEDEVAC aircraft because we can only carry and work on one patient at a time and mass casualties in multiple areas have split up available assets. Not every war will have the limited casualties of Afghanistan.

14 years ago @ Kit Up! - Yon Owes Us More · 1 reply · +3 points

"For those of you too pithy to listen to a mere specialist..."

I contrast what I knew as an E-4 to what I knew when I left the Army as a an officer, to what many of the full colonels to 3-star generals know who served decades through Desert Storm, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. There is no comparison. Nor was their service and rank the result of careerism. I do listen carefully to the experiences of multi-tour E-4s through E-6s that I instruct.

Mike, you and all the current Generals I went to school with passed 4 semesters of West Point math. I have my doubts that Carl would have. My Valedictorian, biochem Magna Cum Lauda daughter is a brilliant 3rd year Med student. That doesn't mean she should be providing advice or passing judgment on multi-year doctors.

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