Congress hasn’t formally offered them and the Ukrainian brass says it doesn’t want them but a Ukrainian unit, with help from some retired USAF Warthog pilots, has been secretly training pilots on simulators to fly A-10s in the hopes they will be donated by the U.S. government, according to an exclusive story in Time Magazine. “You will see the difference in the number of targets we’d be able to hit. You’d see that in the weakening of their offensive positions,” Alexander Gorgan, the low-level Ukrainian infantry officer spearheading the effort, told Time. “And you’d see that in the confidence of our infantry in moving from defense to offense.” Time was granted exclusive access to the top-secret facility in July.
Couldn’t just hire Fedex to ship that stuff, no, we have to look like the government is doing something important. Funny how they loaded it on Fedex trucks after the photo op. Hey, why stop there. Should have had a military convoy with guns and tanks deliver that stuff. Green uniforms everywhere. Create a crisis, exploit the crisis. Ugh.
What did I miss? This article mentions baby formula and military air transport, but as far upstream as it goes is the mention of Zurich. I know that this is an aviation oriented site, but the article just leaves one with more questions.
Why is baby formula being brought to the USA from Zurich, or wherever it originated? Have we outsourced all the USA production of baby formula to the PRC? Or, are we now another Australia bereft of baby formula because PRC nationals are buying it all to ship back to China?
A followup article could prove interesting. When the Executive Branch is requiring the US taxpayers to pay the freight for commercial cargo one just wonders who is really sitting in the left seat.
From Indiana and then straight to the Mexican border to be given away free to illegal aliens? We never had shortages before US businesses started outsourcing. The Swiss avoid this, not wanting to be dependent on others. I once toured the Pilatus factory in Stans. What impressed me most was the statement by the head of sales that Pilatus always prefers to make their own components instead of buying from suppliers. He said that slows the process down as they build skills, but has many long-term benefits. Seeing their great success, it has clearly paid off. It also helps that 80% of all careers in Switzerland begin with a 3-4 year apprenticeship at age 16. This they have a strong, nature, highly-skilled workforce. American companies often take the “easy” way out, but fail in the long-run. See the decline US GA aircraft manufacturing. Once the world’s leader, now just a skeleton of what once was. Shameful.
The initial online credit-taking announcement from the WH referenced 70,000 TONS of formula were arriving. They scrubbed that one fairly quickly. But somebody did the math and calculated the actual amount of 78,000 POUNDS will feed the USA’s hungry infants for 4 hours +/-. But don’t you worry, Joe has announced… a second flight. LGB!
Seems like an expensive exercise, but let’s see…ETAR to KIND, ~8.5 hours @ $23,811 per flight hour…78,000 pound load. Neglecting fuel stop or the big extra cost of an A-A refuel, if used, plus palletizing weight, deadheading back to somewhere, stuff like that…bare minimum, $2.60 per pound transport cost.
The lactose intolerance stuff retails for nearly $30/pound, so I guess it isn’t so awful.
Sounds like ultimately need 70,000. tons whether ‘long’ or ‘short’ (metric) ones.
Hopefully plant gets its act together soon - predicted for a few weeks hence.
There’s confusion over source of the bacteria that two infants died from, a different strain was found on some surfaces in the plant so it stopped production. And there’s a PR bunfight between Abbott and a fired whistleblower.
Reminds me of the XL Foods meat plant fiasco in Alberta. Equipment was not being cleaned deep down thus bacteria could migrate upward. That cost the owners control of their business, the Brazilian company that sells meat in the US took over to satisfy the US government to accept imports. (That company owns Burger Kringe and Tim Hurtin’s restaurants. The XL Foods plant was owned by a group of cattle farmers.)
(‘Baby formula’ can be made from different source stock, including by modifying cow milk and by a soy stock, much of both stocks in the US of course.
Addition of anti-bacterial substance is being considered as cow milk has less of it than human milk.
Formulas and ways of processing have evolved over decades.
There is powdered ‘baby formula’, that’ll be much easier to ship but dependent on quality of water used to reconstitute.
Beware that Brits use somewhat different terms than Americans.)
I have looked into this situation a little more. It would appear there is a really crooked path with many moving parts along the way that has led us to this day.
In broad strokes, it seems there are 4 major manufacturers of baby formula in the US who control about 90% of the market. When one of these four stops production that leaves the market with about a 20% shortage of baby formula.
How did we get here and why are the businesses whining about Federal regulations? If anyone recalls the demise of such as the regional meat processors and the local tire retailers who also produced recapped tires, it was the big boys selling new tires and large meat packers who sent lobbyist to Washington to seek more stringent regulations for their respective industries. The rational was the cost of compliance with the new regs would force most of the regional meat processors out of business as well as force tire retailers to stop recapping tires. The cost for their compliance with the regs requested by these large businesses would be more than made up by the increases in sales due to less competition. Is the baby formula business really any different?
How is there a shortage in the first place. Are the majority of new “birthing people” “identifying” as “non-mammalian”? It’s my understanding that the human animal produces a form of sustenance for infants that is in fact preferable to any substitute currently in existence. Sure, there will always be a statistically inconsequential segment of any given sub set that has medical issues and falls outside of the norm. If that segment has grown so large as to become a market force, we’ve got bigger problems than is there enough formula!
But seriously this can’t be real. Somewhere somehow something isn’t right here.
On the one hand, I’d LOVE to see 20 or 25 A-10’s given to the Ukrainians so that – once and for all – the value of these airplanes (the GAU-8) against the Soviet bloc could be demonstrated and embarrass senior USAF brass. On the other, I don’t want to see the USAF get rid of any of the less than half of original numbers built that still are on active or in Guard duty; the congress IS correct in ongoing efforts to keep these airplanes active. The fixation on getting rid of them by the USAF brass is myopic AND a giant mistake. These airplanes were purpose built, fulfilled the intended grunt mission and DO work … just ask any Army ground pounder who was ‘saved’ by one (I did just this year!). Just the sound of their engines is enough to scare the bejesus out of bad guys. And the notion that they’re cannon fodder is – likewise – baloney. EVERY airplane is vulnerable to those sorts of weapons. You use tactics, techniques and procedures against ground-based threats. Let’s just say … “there are vays!”
The original USAF F-4 had no gun because the numbskulls running the USAF then thought that all aerial warfare would use missiles and where did THAT wind up … by adding a gun to the F-4. The F-22 was gonna be the replacement for the F-15 and where did that wind up … with early production stop of the F-22 (less than 1/3 of original total numbers ordered were produced) while NOW the F-15ex is being ordered (a story unto itself). In fact, there’s talk of retiring the F-22 because upgrading them is too costly. In Viet Nam, simple weapons were often the ones that worked. B-2 production was stopped at 20 airplanes (vice 132) because the Soviet Union “disappeared.” Yeah, right! And now AFSOC wants to order Air Tractor airplanes w/ hard points why … they already have the A-10 ? I stood not 20 feet away from the GAU-8 INSIDE the McKinley Climatic hangar at Eglin AFB in 1975 when 30 test rounds were fired into a bullet catcher and am here to tell ya’ll … you DON’T want to be on the receiving end of that weapon. And the Guard proved that landing them on roads in the Upper Peninsula works just fine, too. I’d bet the Ukrainians would do that, as well.
Sometimes, high technology is needed to face sophisticated threats (spell B-2). And sometimes simple weaponry which is either massive OR built in numbers impossible to counter are called for (spell A-10). As I said several weeks ago, the military needs a big warehouse filled with “toys” specifically built when fighting bad boys. Let the Ukrainians have a small number, I’d vote. Hell … give 'em some mothballed F-117A’s, too. THAT’ll get 'ol Vlad’s attention right quick .
Isn’t it about time our nation stops helping people kill each other? Aren’t the biggest threats to our nation the invasion of illegal aliens, violence in the streets of major cities and runaway spending by our government that is destroying our currency?
Everybody who has been around airplanes for a little while comes to understand that some airplanes do some things very well and some other things, not so much. But other airplanes do those other things well, so the need is filled. It’s the same with cars, motorcycles, and small arms. For that matter just ask somebody coaching pee wee football. I don’t understand why the military/design/procurement process persists in trying to come up with a single solution aircraft that will fit all intended and discovered uses. Of course, their reason is MONEY, and standardization saves MONEY, but the consequence is spending huge amounts of money on equipment that still does a few things well and everything else, not as well as a purpose-built & designed aircraft. Having as many specialized, effective tools as possible in the toolbox would seem to be an asset to military commanders in the field. Maybe the USMC wants the A-10s the USAF is so eager to dump. Or do they figure their helicopters can do the same tasks?
U.S. isolationist attitudes is what allowed the German takeover of Western Europe and greatly prolonged the war in the ETO. I’ve often wondered if the attack on Pearl Harbor would have happened if we had shown an inclination to engage Germany sooner.
Failure to study and understand history allows us to make the same mistakes in later generations.
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