Lydia Litvyak

Sometimes you just find yourself wandering around the internet.  I was doing so and ended up researching Lydia Litvyak.  I knew about her before, but hadn’t realized that a couple of German aces were among her victims.

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Zvezda Pe-2

While one of my areas of modeling interest has always been post-WWII Soviet aircraft, I never had much interest in the WWII Russian stuff.  Recently, with more manufacturers in the east, we are starting to see more quality models of WWII Russian aircraft.  Zvezda has announced a new Pe-2 WWII Russian bomber kit.

It would take a heart of stone……

not to laugh at this story.  First the Russians sink the only dry dock capable of servicing their only carrier, and at the same time it is extensively damaged.  Now, they may just scrap the thing.  While I have some worries about the current state of the USN (the LCS, the DDG-1000, the Fitzgerald incident, etc) I am sure we are worlds better off than the Russian military.  Frankly, that is why we need to spend more of our time and resources addressing the Chinese threat.

Russian GPS spoofing

The Russians have been engaging in GPS signal manipulation for some time now.  The Norwegians have been complaining about it in northern Norway.  I suspect that in this case it is part of security measures, which may say a lot about how safe Putin feels.

Su-30SM

Yes, I want one of these.

Venezuela news

Man, if the news out of Venezuela gets any darker, we’re going to need miner’s helmets.

The Russians have decided to stick their noses (and some troops and equipment in)

The infrastructure continues to fall apart.

This is a story from a very brave female reporter who has been in Venezuela for some time. It is not very optimistic.

Here is a take from NPR on the current situation.

The US needs to stay out of this mess, but I do feel sorry for these folks.  You notice in the pictures of the average citizens, how they all look so gaunt.

An-225

Holy crap.  Modelsvit is actually producing an An-225.  Where would I put it?

Zvezda Su-30SM

Test shots of the upcoming Zvezda Su-30SM kit.  Oh boy.

Stealth

How hard is defeating stealth technology?  Pretty hard according to this article.  While I think 5th generation technology is pretty good, I am skeptical that it can’t be defeated.  Quantity has a quality all its own. 

Finland

Finland is looking to acquire EF-18Gs.  The stated need is for up to date electronic warfare aircraft.  I would not be surprised to see more countries trying to acquire these as there are very few of this class of aircraft available on the current market.