M20J Intercepted in San Francisco

[1980Mooney]

3 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Excellent summary of the FUBAR by N531DD, a 1980 Mooney M20J.  The owner, age 69, has owned it since 2001.  He doesn't seem to be on MS.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/watch-f-35-head-butt-private-plane-during-low-level-intercept-over-marin

N531DD Flight Tracking and History - FlightAware

Watch the F-35 maneuver in front of the Mooney (with ATC audio)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1671267902639722497

This should work....Overlays both planes with audio.

Edited June 23, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[1980Mooney]

33 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

I never go near the SF or LA Class B unless I’m IFR or on flight following. I think I’ll stick to this policy. 
 

It’s going to be hard to explain how he didn’t know about the TFRs. Hopefully he had a valid license and medical/basicmed since I’m sure multiple agencies will do a very thorough investigation. Seems something like this could end your flying career.

Owner information....assuming he is the pilot.

[Yetti]

Looks like a Posse Commits violation.   Unless the Air Force is moving faster these days.    https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-new-guard-locations-f-35-f-15ex/

[A64Pilot]

On 6/24/2023 at 2:10 PM, Yetti said:

Looks like a Posse Commits violation.   Unless the Air Force is moving faster these days.    https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-new-guard-locations-f-35-f-15ex/

I hadn’t considered that.

They need Guard birds for that, the Guard being the States militia isn’t hamstrung by Posse Comitatus, only Federal troops are.

Interesting problem, but honestly it seems to be truthful that many rules are ignored now and Presidents (both parties) make proclamations that they have no legal right to do so, and they stick and that rolls down hill

As an Active duty Aviator we were used to surveil the Southern border years ago, (1989) but other than observing and reporting to the then Border Patrol we took no other action due of course to Posse Comitatus

It was JTF-6 then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Task_Force_North

Edited June 26, 2023 by A64Pilot

[OR75]

On 6/22/2023 at 1:19 PM, FlyingDude said:

Here is the headbutt with a video of the headbutt...  More like "cut him off" like you would on the highway.

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/jet-intercepts-plane-over-san-francisco

This is where gulped:

TFR violations can carry severe penalties, potentially including criminal charges with up to a year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine. In addition, offenders may face the suspension of their pilot’s license or other civil penalties. 

Of course I was expecting some sort of penalty.  But 100k$...  Geez.

probably not much when compared with the cost of operating an F-35 for an hour

[Pinecone]

On 6/26/2023 at 4:41 PM, OR75 said:

the cost of operating an F-35 for an hour

Last number I saw published was that they were working on getting to DOWN to $36,000 per hour.

 

FYI, the A-10 is around $6000 per hour.

[N201MKTurbo]

9 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Last number I saw published was that they were working on getting to DOWN to $36,000 per hour.

 

FYI, the A-10 is around $6000 per hour.

When I was contracting for Raytheon a few years ago, that factory puts you very close to the departure end of runway(s) 11 at KTUS. KTUS has a guard base with about 50 F16s. They fly all day long. They almost always take off with afterburner. Every time two would take off (almost always two at a time, sometimes four, rarely one) I would look over and think "Hay that's my tax money blowing out your tailpipe!"

[OR75]

9 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Last number I saw published was that they were working on getting to DOWN to $36,000 per hour.

 

FYI, the A-10 is around $6000 per hour.

they were 2 of them so thats $72,000 right there 

[A64Pilot]

IF it’s only 35K an hour I’d be very surprised, way back more than 20 yrs ago we were funded 5K an hour to fly the AH-64D

That didn’t include any fuel and of course didn’t include personnel, it was just parts, most of the parts $$ was electronics.

Every modern combat aircraft has become primarily an electronic machine, sure the airframe is cool, but it’s the electronics that make it so capable, and bleeding edge , very low production rate electronics that meet Mil-spec are very expensive.

A class A accident back in my day was the worst, it meant more than 1 mil in damages or a death. On the Longbow if the Master Zeroize switch was flipped, it was a Class A accident, because it fried over 1Mil in circuit boards, mostly the FCR (radar).

So my bet is the F-35 is over 35K an hour, because the Military and particularly the Air Force have been known to do some interesting bookkeeping 

Edited July 1, 2023 by A64Pilot

[Ragsf15e]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

When I was contracting for Raytheon a few years ago, that factory puts you very close to the departure end of runway(s) 11 at KTUS. KTUS has a guard base with about 50 F16s. They fly all day long. They almost always take off with afterburner. Every time two would take off (almost always two at a time, sometimes four, rarely one) I would look over and think "Hay that's my tax money blowing out your tailpipe!"

I wanna say that guard base does training for foreign F-16 pilots.  Their country pays us for training, so maybe it’s not your tax dollars out the tailpipe!  But likely, you’re right…

[A64Pilot]

41 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

I wanna say that guard base does training for foreign F-16 pilots.  Their country pays us for training, so maybe it’s not your tax dollars out the tailpipe!  But likely, you’re right…

Yeah, trust me there is a lot of interesting bookkeeping.

For instance, one year when a certain Tx Presidency’s term was about to end one Arab country wanted to buy a bunch of F-16’s, F-16’s were built I think in Texas, FT Worth.

Well it seems Israel had enough pull in Congress to block that sale, so an entire Squadron of US Army AH-64’s were pulled and through foreign military sales were sold to the Israeli’s. So the Arab country was allowed to purchase the F-16’s, because the Israelis were allowed to buy Army AH-64’s.

The rest of the story is that Israel was quickly forgiven the debt, so the cost to the taxpayer was 24 AH-64’s for General Dynamics to make a big sale.

The Army did not replace those aircraft, they were just gone.

I’m nearly certain all the military hardware going to the Ukraine is being pulled from active duty Army units, there is no excess stock of that hardware, no Army store where you can just buy a large bunch of MLRS rockets etc. and I’d bet lunch no big contracts have been made to replace what has been given away, it’s just gone. Seems some contracts have been let, but in many key systems we have drawn down so much it will take years to replenish.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-running-out-weapons-send-ukraine

There is historic precedence for this, in the 73 Arab / Israeli war we pretty much stripped all the ammunition stockpile in Europe and lots of equipment and shipped it to Israel, if the Russians had wanted to they could have marched through the Fulda gap and been unstoppable. But it was replaced in an almost Emergency rate. So I am not playing politics here, just a lot goes on that for some reason doesn’t make the news, any news.

It’s my understanding that if all goes well the US strategic oil reserve will be back to the level it was last year in 2022 in 2027 for instance, if all goes well, so one years sell off will take at least four years to replenish, if all goes well. It’s being replenished by a Congressional mandate I think.

Edited July 1, 2023 by A64Pilot