Speaker 1: Right, hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of AiZ on
Speaker 1: Happy New Year. Today we have the Man the Myth
Speaker 1: a Legend, Alex Hollins from Sandbox News and Airpower YouTube,
Speaker 1: the YouTube show Airpower, and of course Jason Lyons, former Marine,
Speaker 1: former CIA officer Andy Milburn is I think traveling. He
Speaker 1: went to the Motherland this during the holidays. And Mick
Speaker 1: Molroy is just you know, doing Mick Molroy stuff. I
Speaker 1: don't want to we can't talk about it. He made
Speaker 1: a sign in DA's. So the big news today that
Speaker 1: happened New Year's Day was the I guess terror attack
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Fifteen dead, at least thirty injured. Army
Speaker 1: veteran I'm gonna fuck up this name, shamsu Din Jabbar
Speaker 1: initially thought to have like people working with him and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, but that was eventually ruled out. I
Speaker 1: is inspired converted to Islam last year, and before the
Speaker 1: attack he posted a message on Facebook, I guess announcing
Speaker 1: he was gonna I didn't see the message or anything
Speaker 1: like that, you know. So it was pretty hectic yesterday
Speaker 1: in terms of like when the news is breaking and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, you know, just theories.
Speaker 2: Fine, everywhere.
Speaker 1: Initially they were like, oh, it's a guy from not
Speaker 1: a US citizen. It turns out it was a US
Speaker 1: citizen and all intensive purposes, it seemed like the guy
Speaker 1: was like a normal dude up until about a year ago.
Speaker 1: So what are you guys looking at in terms of that.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get people up to speed him. No,
Speaker 1: I know, people are you know following this.
Speaker 3: I gotta be honest.
Speaker 4: I think that this is a big indicator and maybe
Speaker 4: an important lesson that we in the United States have
Speaker 4: not been doing a good job of learning. And that's
Speaker 4: that radicalization can affect anybody. Narrative management and information operations,
Speaker 4: especially the type that are aimed at radicalizing people, aren't
Speaker 4: aimed only at stupid people, you know, to some extent,
Speaker 4: information operations are the same as marketing. And there's a
Speaker 4: reason why advertising is a multi billion dollar industry. It's
Speaker 4: because it works, and information operations work in a lot of.
Speaker 3: The same ways.
Speaker 4: And this is a strong indicator of that. This guy
Speaker 4: was in the US Army for over a decade. You know,
Speaker 4: he deployed to Afghanistan. We're not talking about your traditional
Speaker 4: the person that you would think a group would go
Speaker 4: after to radicalize, right, But we know he was going
Speaker 4: through some difficult financial times. We know he went through
Speaker 4: a very difficult divorce. We all go through really tough times.
Speaker 4: We all end up at sort of our lowest points
Speaker 4: at various times throughout our life, and at those times
Speaker 4: we're most vulnerable to these sorts of efforts, Even if
Speaker 4: someone's not aiming them directly at us, it's easier than
Speaker 4: ever to find yourself in that pipeline through different kinds
Speaker 4: of content. So I suppose for me, you know, with
Speaker 4: a background in studying perception, warfare and information operations, the
Speaker 4: big takeaway for me here is that radicalization is not
Speaker 4: something that only affects, you know, groups that are traditionally
Speaker 4: you know, it's not something that only affects low IQ people.
Speaker 4: It's not something that only affects people who are really gullible.
Speaker 4: It can affect anyone. And if you are in a
Speaker 4: position to be affected by this sort of content, it's
Speaker 4: really really difficult to intervene, right, because you need to
Speaker 4: identify what's going on and you need to gain the
Speaker 4: trust of that person who A big part of radicalization
Speaker 4: is isolation. You know, the content aims to isolate you
Speaker 4: and then point you at you know, a common enemy, right,
Speaker 4: And I guess just the biggest takeaway for me is
Speaker 4: that if an army veteran with ten years in the uniform,
Speaker 4: if you know, a guy who has a lot of
Speaker 4: things going for him but is going through a tough time,
Speaker 4: can in the span of a year, uh find himself
Speaker 4: in this position. I think that that should be a
Speaker 4: reminder to all of us that none of us are
Speaker 4: above information operations and we need to be thinking about
Speaker 4: and thoughtful about the content that we consume.
Speaker 5: I agree, I agree, and I think on a to
Speaker 5: add to that, on a personal level, people knew him,
Speaker 5: people know him, so someone may have seen I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna say someone definitely did, but someone may have seen
Speaker 5: a change in him. You know, I think I saw
Speaker 5: I read this morning that people had said that his
Speaker 5: religious viewed had views, had taken a huge turn and
Speaker 5: he was becoming more and more extreme. So we in
Speaker 5: this country like to talk about the twenty two a day,
Speaker 5: which we should talk about, you know, the veteran suicide,
Speaker 5: things like that, but that also goes towards radicalization too.
Speaker 5: Someone may not be talking about ending their own life,
Speaker 5: but they may be talking about. You know, they see
Speaker 5: something like this occur on TV and make a comment like,
Speaker 5: well that's what they get or in favor of that person.
Speaker 5: Those are things to take notice of. You don't necessarily
Speaker 5: have to go running to the police, but those are
Speaker 5: things that you need to take notice of so that
Speaker 5: you can interview however that is. I just watched the
Speaker 5: documentary on PBS. I believe it is about the shooter
Speaker 5: up in Maine. I believe it was that he was
Speaker 5: former National Guard guy or was a National Guard guy
Speaker 5: and he killed I think it was eight people, some
Speaker 5: of which were deaf from the deaf community, and the
Speaker 5: things leading up to that. Everybody people his unit called
Speaker 5: the Sheriff's apartment on this guy during an active duty
Speaker 5: deployment because up to West Point, because he had gotten
Speaker 5: into a fight, he was saying all these weird things.
Speaker 5: But everybody from his son all the way up through
Speaker 5: his chain of commands saw it. Nobody did anything about it. So,
Speaker 5: along with being aware of information operations, people who we're
Speaker 5: not targeted but are close to those people should be
Speaker 5: aware of the signs, you know, and be ready to intervene.
Speaker 4: That's such a good point that I really do see
Speaker 4: a direct correlation between veteran suicide and veteran radicalization, because
Speaker 4: I think that they're probably there are two different symptoms
Speaker 4: of the same problem, right, veterans who find themselves in
Speaker 4: a position that feels untenable and they want to take action.
Speaker 4: Because one thing that I think service members, by enlarge
Speaker 4: having common is a bias toward action, right, and that
Speaker 4: affects suicide rates the same way that it can affect.
Speaker 3: Attacks like this domestic terrorism.
Speaker 4: Right, you find yourself sort of at your lowest moment,
Speaker 4: and you want to do something that can fix it,
Speaker 4: and for some that's violence toward themselves, for others that's
Speaker 4: violence towards others. But I think you raise such a
Speaker 4: good point that these are sort of offshoots of that
Speaker 4: same mental health issue that we're not doing a great
Speaker 4: job of engaging with.
Speaker 5: No absolutely, And ye I don't know if you're gonna
Speaker 5: talk about I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Alex,
Speaker 5: but even those whose lives look like their picture perfect,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm sure we're gonna touch on the Las
Speaker 5: Vegas incident with the cyber truck. You know, this guy
Speaker 5: nineteen years SF was a master's shard and I believe,
Speaker 5: you know, we don't know what his personal life was like,
Speaker 5: whether there was any kind of strife. I believe he
Speaker 5: was married. I think his wife. They said his wife
Speaker 5: had not heard from several days or whatever, but something
Speaker 5: was going on there. So us in social media land,
Speaker 5: we're like, you know, oh, man, this guy's you know,
Speaker 5: he's got it all mash start in SF blah blah,
Speaker 5: all this other stuff, but we don't know what's to exactly.
Speaker 5: He's the guy we look up to. And this goes
Speaker 5: through I'm saying guys, but gals as well. You know,
Speaker 5: we look up to these people because much like social
Speaker 5: media is, what you know does is we see the good.
Speaker 5: You know, people are never almost never going to post
Speaker 5: the bad, so they're always posting the good. Hey, you know,
Speaker 5: just paid, you know, just bought my third house, whatever
Speaker 5: it is. But we don't see what's below the surface,
Speaker 5: whereas there are other people who do, whether it's a spouse,
Speaker 5: boyfriend or girlfriend, a child, even people I used to
Speaker 5: do security for. I set up a security plan for
Speaker 5: my a church I used to go to, and one
Speaker 5: of the things when we talked to the congregation, we
Speaker 5: said was. It's usually going to be the person you
Speaker 5: see every Sunday who has that one bad Saturday that
Speaker 5: decides to do something the next day. So that's when
Speaker 5: you take notice of those things. You know, hey Jim,
Speaker 5: how are you today? And he's not talking, or you
Speaker 5: heard he's got he's having a divorce and he comes in.
Speaker 5: We had a gentleman who he ended up being removed,
Speaker 5: but he would come into the church and with his
Speaker 5: wife and children, and then all of a sudden he
Speaker 5: was coming into the church and sitting completely separate from
Speaker 5: them and come to find out as a domestic abuse thing.
Speaker 5: So you just don't know, you know, And that's the
Speaker 5: kind of things that people need to be looking at
Speaker 5: before we get to the point that we did you
Speaker 5: know yesterday.
Speaker 4: So yeah, these special forces guys are and you guys
Speaker 4: know better than anyone guys, girls, jumans, there are people
Speaker 4: just like us who have the same sorts of vulnerabilities
Speaker 4: that we do.
Speaker 3: Despite their rommens, amount.
Speaker 4: Of training and the incredible things that they've done, there's
Speaker 4: still people at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: And you know, the toughest.
Speaker 4: People you know, have usually overcome some pretty difficult things.
Speaker 4: That's what made them the toughest people, you know, and
Speaker 4: those things can pile up on you, and they can
Speaker 4: sneak back up on you. I think everybody here can
Speaker 4: probably attest to when you go through something really difficult
Speaker 4: in life, when you lose people, you can be fine
Speaker 4: for ten years and then I can come back, you know,
Speaker 4: at the worst time, while other things are sort of
Speaker 4: piling up on you, and you know, there doesn't necessarily
Speaker 4: have to be a catalyst. There doesn't have to be
Speaker 4: a divorce or a you know, or you know, your
Speaker 4: wife leaving you or something there. Sometimes these things can
Speaker 4: just add up in such a way that you feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 4: And if there isn't an effective way for you to
Speaker 4: channel that energy, you're going to find one. And the
Speaker 4: ones that you find, especially online, and you know, in
Speaker 4: this digital environment, more often than not.
Speaker 3: Aren't necessarily good ways to channel that energy. You know.
Speaker 4: Radicalization is a science. Doctor Ajitman wrote a book called
Speaker 4: Narrative Warfare for a think thing called Narrative Strategies. She
Speaker 4: was working with so Calm a few years ago. It's
Speaker 4: how we met and in her book she talks about
Speaker 4: the radicalization process and how you won't you wouldn't think
Speaker 4: of groups like ISIS or al Qaida as people who
Speaker 4: use psychology degrees to achieve their objectives.
Speaker 3: But they do the very same way any other group might.
Speaker 4: And there really is a pretty tried and true process
Speaker 4: that you can put people through in order to them.
Speaker 4: That's not to say it will work on everybody all
Speaker 4: the time, but if you put it out there often enough,
Speaker 4: at high enough volume, you're going to catch people.
Speaker 3: In that net.
Speaker 5: You know. Yeah, and these people, you know, I think
Speaker 5: the average not the average person. But most people when
Speaker 5: they think of radicalization, they think of some guy sitting
Speaker 5: or get sitting somewhere waiting for you know, or they
Speaker 5: have a spreadsheet of people that they're gonna cold call to,
Speaker 5: you know, to radicalize. No, most of the time their
Speaker 5: people come to them. They start searching the dark web.
Speaker 5: They go to forums and asking, hey, how does someone
Speaker 5: hook up with X? And then that's when you know,
Speaker 5: keyword searches pop up, somebody will refer them and then boom,
Speaker 5: hey I heard you might be looking for a friend.
Speaker 5: Of course, they're not going to come right out and
Speaker 5: be like, hey, I heard you're looking for ISIS. It's
Speaker 5: I heard you, you know, brother, I understand what you're
Speaker 5: going through, sister. My boyfriend cheated on me or or
Speaker 5: you know, I heard you came out and your community
Speaker 5: didn't accept you, blah blah, and then and these things
Speaker 5: almost never happen overnight. Most of the time, it's what
Speaker 5: was it a year for this guy? Most of these
Speaker 5: things happened, just like most intelligence operations happen over a
Speaker 5: period of weeks, months, and years, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: we don't know with the Las Vegas guy, but obviously
Speaker 5: something happened there.
Speaker 4: You nail it because it starts with something that we
Speaker 4: all do a dozen times a day, which is like
Speaker 4: seeing a meme that makes you feel heard, that engages
Speaker 4: with your sense of identity and the community that you
Speaker 4: come by that meme from, whether it's a subreddit, whether
Speaker 4: it's a discord server, you know, whether it's an email
Speaker 4: chain for some older folks, the community that that meme
Speaker 4: arrives to your doorstep on and you feel heard, and
Speaker 4: you feel as though your grievances are being acknowledged, you're
Speaker 4: getting respect, or at least your grievances are. It makes
Speaker 4: you engage with that community that much more. And that's
Speaker 4: and those incremental movements.
Speaker 3: It's the same way.
Speaker 4: You know, like in true crime they talk about how
Speaker 4: serial killers give themselves allowances. You know, like if if
Speaker 4: you wanted to start, you know, eating people, Well, you're
Speaker 4: not gonna start by eating people, right, You're gonna start
Speaker 4: by following that woman on the bus, right, And then
Speaker 4: you tell yourself it's not that big a deal, you know,
Speaker 4: I left when it was over.
Speaker 3: But then the next time you don't, right, and then.
Speaker 4: You get progressively further along until you're willing to do
Speaker 4: things that otherwise might seem a lot of character.
Speaker 3: And this process works the same way.
Speaker 5: You know, Sorry, g we kind of no, no, no,
Speaker 5: that was incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: The thing about like, I don't know, the thing that
Speaker 1: really stuck out to me yesterday was when this happened,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, early in the morning. It's just
Speaker 1: a mildness that goes on in Twitter, like as you're reading,
Speaker 1: because like you want you want information right away right
Speaker 1: like anybody else. And it's just it's just people can't
Speaker 1: just relax and like get facts first before, whether whether
Speaker 1: reporting about them or speculating about them, and like even
Speaker 1: speculating about them, like if you're gonna speculate. Say you're
Speaker 1: this is speculation, right, Like I'm right, yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: just I was like scratching my head, be like it's
Speaker 1: like we're being attacked by one hundred cells from ISIS
Speaker 1: yesterday all over the country.
Speaker 2: It's never going to stop.
Speaker 1: Like this is like a coordinated attack that they've been
Speaker 1: planning for years. And meanwhile, I mean, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, the FBI needs to do a better job
Speaker 1: in terms of messaging and stuff like that because they're
Speaker 1: fucking horrible. Like let's let's go like the press conferences
Speaker 1: yesterday were a joke, so they I mean, they add
Speaker 1: to it a little bit, but again, like you put
Speaker 1: it into that Twitter social media world and it just
Speaker 1: spins out of control kind of yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not that parallels in severity, but we saw the
Speaker 4: same thing with the drones over New Jersey. You know,
Speaker 4: we had really poor communication on a government agencies, so
Speaker 4: people just filled in the gaps with whatever seems sexiest
Speaker 4: to them.
Speaker 3: And the social media.
Speaker 4: Economy, the digital economy is attention based, not credibility based.
Speaker 4: So the more engaging your take, the further the reach
Speaker 4: is going to be. And usually the more divorced from
Speaker 4: reality your take is the more engaging it is. So,
Speaker 4: you know, Winston Churchill said that you know a lot,
Speaker 4: I'll get around the world twice before the truth gets
Speaker 4: its pians on. It is you know a lot, I'll
Speaker 4: get around the world three dozen times now before the
Speaker 4: truth will get its pants on. And then people don't
Speaker 4: want the truth because the truth a lot of times
Speaker 4: doesn't align with like, you know, a logical narrative. And
Speaker 4: we want logical narratives, you know, culturally, it's how we
Speaker 4: tell stories. But real life a lot of times doesn't
Speaker 4: sort of like engaging. That seems sort of cause and
Speaker 4: effect chain, you know what I mean. And so what
Speaker 4: people will see something that seems as though narratively it's
Speaker 4: not necessarily logical, well, lots of people are seeing drones.
Speaker 3: Narratively, they must all.
Speaker 4: Be controlled by the same one person or one body.
Speaker 4: And if people are seeing drones, well then maybe they're
Speaker 4: not drones at all. It must be this thing that's
Speaker 4: even more you know, crazy, where in reality, a lot
Speaker 4: of what people saw we're just hobby drones or even
Speaker 4: law enforcement drones. A lot of them were just airplanes
Speaker 4: and helicopters. But that narrative is not as engaging, and
Speaker 4: so because of that, people not only will ignore it,
Speaker 4: they'll attack it, you know. And you'll see the same
Speaker 4: when we're talking about, you know, a terror attack in
Speaker 4: New Orleans, we're gonna see people who prefer the much
Speaker 4: more sexy conspiracy narrative over the possibility that there was
Speaker 4: a really troubled guy who you know, decided to do
Speaker 4: something crazy, very likely was inspired by others who.
Speaker 3: Did things that were crazy.
Speaker 4: But the conspiracy may not extend much further than a
Speaker 4: half a dozen people, you know. But that's that's not
Speaker 4: the story that people on Twitter want.
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Speaker 5: And one of the Sorry d one of the uh foolish.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, smart thing that people do,
Speaker 5: trolls on the internet do is interject. They inject their
Speaker 5: narrative that has nothing to do with it. Like I
Speaker 5: was just watching a story on the news and they
Speaker 5: had a Republican pundit and a Democratic pundit and they
Speaker 5: were talking about this and one of them we started
Speaker 5: talking about illegal immigration, and the host is like, well,
Speaker 5: we need to stop right there. You realize that this
Speaker 5: guy both of them are US citizens. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 5: but nothing has one has nothing to do with the other.
Speaker 5: But people will inject that stuff because it rolls up
Speaker 5: the base and it keeps them narrative that they want
Speaker 5: going going. And again that's not what you know, we're
Speaker 5: trying to talk about here, but it's still it's one
Speaker 5: of the reasons why.
Speaker 4: The influencers, that's what lawmakers increasingly are. They want to
Speaker 4: get as many clicks and chairs and likes, you know,
Speaker 4: they want to raise money for the next election.
Speaker 3: They're not that worried about conveying reality.
Speaker 4: You know, it's not necessarily there's there's little incentive for
Speaker 4: a politician to air on the side of reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, which is kind.
Speaker 1: Of wild to me because right like their job first
Speaker 1: and foremost is like public safety or should be anyway,
Speaker 1: and like they should kind of be the people that
Speaker 1: are the sobering kind of adults in the room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not. And it's like, you know, pretty disheartening in
Speaker 1: terms of like being an American.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not to bring it back to the New Jersey
Speaker 4: drones again, but it comes to mind because you see
Speaker 4: these lawmakers saying, well, they're not appearing on radar, they
Speaker 4: must be advanced technology. This guy doesn't know that how
Speaker 4: radar works. The radar systems that we use, by and
Speaker 4: large wouldn't detect low flying blod copters. That's not advanced technology.
Speaker 4: That's how radar works.
Speaker 3: But they don't know how radar works.
Speaker 4: So they're gonna go make a statement, and every conspiracy
Speaker 4: theorist on Reddit is going to, you know, err on
Speaker 4: the side of this mayor who now thinks he's an
Speaker 4: expert in the electromagnetic spectrum instead of like people who
Speaker 4: actually know how radar works.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a I don't know.
Speaker 4: I would say that we're in the most complicated information
Speaker 4: space age, you know, the era of the most complicated
Speaker 4: information space and human history. You know, we have no
Speaker 4: trouble looking back on the printing press and acknowledging how
Speaker 4: culturally changing the printing press was. The Internet is that,
Speaker 4: you know, X times exponentce. You know, it's it's given
Speaker 4: everyone a voice and increasingly, you know, with social media
Speaker 4: and stuff, it's not even you don't even need to
Speaker 4: have a built in audience to reach a lot of
Speaker 4: people with your message. It just needs to be engaging enough,
Speaker 4: and that can work for better or worse, you know, absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: A little bit about the Vegas guy, Matt Livelsburg. I'm
Speaker 1: probably pronouncing that wrong. He worked both bombers worked at
Speaker 1: the same base or bases, or maybe two of them.
Speaker 1: They're trying to connect that on social media and like
Speaker 1: it is an interesting coincidence or circumstance, like I mean,
Speaker 1: but the fact is Shamoud Like.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I read his rate name wrong.
Speaker 1: Shot, sham sham Budd did retire like ten years ago, right,
Speaker 1: and this guy was still so if they did work
Speaker 1: together in the same base, which means like there's probably
Speaker 1: thousands of ten or tens of thousands of people on
Speaker 1: the same base.
Speaker 3: Rights, that's a pretty big installation.
Speaker 1: So like what are the chances like ten years ago, Like,
Speaker 1: let's get together and do this on January first in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, right, Like, so let's again everybody who's
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Like, where's a conspiracy? There's got to be
Speaker 1: a conspiracy because I've seen so many people and they
Speaker 1: get to go back to that, We're like, they're here,
Speaker 1: They're here.
Speaker 2: I saw that, Like so.
Speaker 1: From like from like agency former agency people where it's like,
Speaker 1: shouldn't you know.
Speaker 5: A little bit better?
Speaker 1: Like I know you're trying to be like a Twitter
Speaker 1: person and like an influencer now, but maybe pumped the
Speaker 1: brakes a little bit.
Speaker 3: More.
Speaker 4: Is those people who know the game and are using
Speaker 4: it effectively. Yeah, that's even more dangerous than the people
Speaker 4: who are stumbling upon playing the game by just being
Speaker 4: idiots on the internet. Most dangerous ones are the ones
Speaker 4: who know exactly what they're doing and they're not worried
Speaker 4: about second or third order effects. They're worried about their
Speaker 4: mortgage and I respect that. I mean, I I pay
Speaker 4: my bills through views and very much the same way.
Speaker 4: You know, So I understand the balance that you need
Speaker 4: to sort of maintain where you're trying to get people
Speaker 4: to click on your content and you're competing against sensationalism
Speaker 4: and hyperbole. So I understand, you know, the trap that
Speaker 4: you can fall into. But if you know the game,
Speaker 4: if you've worked in countering the game, and then you're
Speaker 4: using it to your own you know, for your own
Speaker 4: financial gain.
Speaker 3: I don't know. That's uh, I don't like it.
Speaker 5: It's crazy, it is it really is. I sent you
Speaker 5: something this morning, yeah about and you know me, I don't,
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't like the name and stuff. But
Speaker 5: this influencer former Special Operations Forces, I will just say
Speaker 5: that posted something basically we told you and named all
Speaker 5: these different guests that they'd had. We told you fifty
Speaker 5: to sixty thousand Americans are going to die starting now,
Speaker 5: which and that's the thing that annoys me is they're
Speaker 5: taking what could be a bit of truth that could
Speaker 5: happen but over one hundred and two hundred year span,
Speaker 5: who knows, you know, or could happen in this year,
Speaker 5: We don't know, and they and they couple it with
Speaker 5: lies like saying this is congressionally funded, you know, these
Speaker 5: attacks and things that kind of stuff. Like what if
Speaker 5: I was ever right in front of these people, the
Speaker 5: only thing I would say is show me the proof.
Speaker 5: I want to show the things that you're claiming. I
Speaker 5: want you to show me right here and right now
Speaker 5: that you approve that these things, not because your guest
Speaker 5: told you, Because most of these guests have said what that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't tell me a guy, I said a guy.
Speaker 5: Exactly, I have it on good authority, or I'm in
Speaker 5: touch with you know, like I'm gonna say it. That
Speaker 5: guy who posted the videos about the drones and Jersey
Speaker 5: and was saying I think they're you know, sniffing for
Speaker 5: nuclear material and a friend of mine had his hand
Speaker 5: on a rogue nuke and all this other stuff is
Speaker 5: the same guy who finally admitted in his third video
Speaker 5: he's going to be running for office in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: six and then then the troop will come out. Well,
Speaker 5: if it's so important, buddy, why are you not telling
Speaker 5: us now right?
Speaker 1: If you really need to know, did you think a
Speaker 1: loose nuke would be like a kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Right, And it's happened before the president, we could look
Speaker 4: to for how they would handle it, and it wouldn't
Speaker 4: be by flying a bunch of drunes that exactly, you know,
Speaker 4: like but again, you're but again, we're speaking to that
Speaker 4: and the gaps and the official narrative creates opportunity for
Speaker 4: people like that to inject their own truth. And again,
Speaker 4: because we want a logical narrative, we want a hero's
Speaker 4: journey story like we see at the movies.
Speaker 3: We will prefer that one because it fills in all
Speaker 3: the all the gaps very well.
Speaker 4: Whereas the true story you know, at the Las vegashooter
Speaker 4: a few years ago who shot a lot of people,
Speaker 4: I forgot out of which casino. But you know, we
Speaker 4: still don't know his motive, and honestly, we may never because.
Speaker 3: His motive may have been stupid. Yeah, it might have
Speaker 3: just been a dumb thing.
Speaker 4: But we we have a lot of trouble grasping that idea,
Speaker 4: even though we do dumb things all the time. Right,
Speaker 4: you know, I do something stupid every day, and I
Speaker 4: like to consider myself a fairly bright guy. Now, imagine
Speaker 4: someone with mental health issues who's been, you know, down
Speaker 4: on their luck, who's you know, at the worst point
Speaker 4: in their life, you know, and maybe has a predisposition
Speaker 4: for violence or something along those lines. You don't need
Speaker 4: to necessarily have a logical reason for the things that
Speaker 4: you do. Humans are big brain monkeys, you know. We've
Speaker 4: got a lot of hubris. We think we're special, don't
Speaker 4: were animals, you know, And yeah, I think you hit
Speaker 4: the nail right on the.
Speaker 3: Head, honestly, this and this.
Speaker 4: You know, not to go straight back to aviation because
Speaker 4: it's my area of expertise, but we saw the same
Speaker 4: sorts of things play out over this past week with
Speaker 4: China unveiling new stealth aircraft, where what we know about
Speaker 4: these aircraft is very minimal. You know, China hasn't made
Speaker 4: any official statements about them, but you will find large
Speaker 4: creators in every platform claiming that it's hypersonic, claiming that
Speaker 4: it's capable of lower Earth orbit, you know, like stuff
Speaker 4: that is downright science fiction, especially for a nation you
Speaker 4: know that up until twenty seventeen was three and a
Speaker 4: half decades behind the United States and stealth arguably there's
Speaker 4: still a decade a decade and a half. But now
Speaker 4: we're going to pretend that they've got suborbital fighter jets
Speaker 4: because people like that sexy narrative, you know, and in
Speaker 4: the absence of real information, we're just gonna make up whatever.
Speaker 4: We'll drive them most clicks, you know. And it's frustrating.
Speaker 4: It's frustrating in my position, because I really do.
Speaker 3: I try hard to pace my car.
Speaker 4: A lot of my content is just looking at what
Speaker 4: people were saying online and going okay, well that's that's
Speaker 4: not true. Let's add some context, let's add some nuance
Speaker 4: to this conversation, you know. But that is not the
Speaker 4: way to get rich, which is why you know, I
Speaker 4: drive a used car and rend but like, but I
Speaker 4: am enthused by the fact that like I do have
Speaker 4: a pretty sizable audience for someone who is a professional
Speaker 4: party pooper at this point.
Speaker 3: And you know, you guys too.
Speaker 4: You guys are another great example of what you bring
Speaker 4: nuance and context to these conversations that people have without
Speaker 4: any expertise.
Speaker 3: You know, people talk about the intelligence.
Speaker 4: Community and the special operations world, you know, with all
Speaker 4: they've ever learned about it was stuff they read on Reddit,
Speaker 4: you know, and you guys bring actual context to it,
Speaker 4: and you have in depth conversations, and that just doesn't
Speaker 4: pay as well.
Speaker 3: Is saying it's lizard people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And me and Jack Murphy you know, host the Teamhouse podcast.
Speaker 2: We talk about it all the time.
Speaker 1: Man, if we were like if we went and they'd
Speaker 1: started doing UFO stuff and like sensational stuff, we would
Speaker 1: be you know, mansions and riding on jet skis and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, it'd be fucking nice, like and I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: Be fighting and scrambling for another one thousand subscribers.
Speaker 3: You know every quarter or whatever, have a.
Speaker 4: Million, because they'd be like, oh well, especially if you
Speaker 4: start with credibility like you guys have and Tomorrow you know,
Speaker 4: came out and was like, well, you know it's the
Speaker 4: fluoride in the water to turn the frogs gate.
Speaker 3: Blow up.
Speaker 4: It would blow up, you know, because of your credibility,
Speaker 4: and you know, and it's a it's a dangerous environment
Speaker 4: because you know, everybody does have bills to pay, you know.
Speaker 3: And it becomes a bit of a video game too.
Speaker 4: I think for some people where you know, you've got
Speaker 4: a million followers, you want two million. You know, you
Speaker 4: don't want to see those numbers decline, right, it's you
Speaker 4: derive self worth from them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I work in other with other podcasts,
Speaker 1: and these two people that I work with, they have
Speaker 1: a sizeable Instagram followings, and yeah, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: like it's they're so precious with it and they have
Speaker 1: to grow and they have to continue, you know. And
Speaker 1: I'm the same way with the team ass right, Like
Speaker 1: I want to fucking blow it up. I see other
Speaker 1: podcasts like they fucking suck. I wonder we should be better.
Speaker 1: We're better, you know, And that's that's just a fact.
Speaker 1: That's not an opinion.
Speaker 3: It's a fact. Uh, a big thing of you guys.
Speaker 3: So I agree, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like sometimes it can get you frustrating, but
Speaker 1: then it's good to like take a minute and be like, Yo,
Speaker 1: we're making podcasts about information and stuff that we like
Speaker 1: and we're interested in and interviewing great people, and we're
Speaker 1: getting paid for it.
Speaker 2: It might not be fucking.
Speaker 1: Tens of millions of dollars, but it's still pretty sick,
Speaker 1: you know, it's still pretty awesome, and we're doing it
Speaker 1: the right way, you know what I mean, like with
Speaker 1: some ethics.
Speaker 4: Ye, honestly, that's how you know I've got I have
Speaker 4: a much bigger following than I ever imagined I could
Speaker 4: get for being an airplane nerd. You know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like I am living my dream. You know, So when
Speaker 4: I talk about like you always want to grow, I
Speaker 4: don't know if I would want a million followers anything.
Speaker 3: You know, it's stressful having a few hundred thousand people
Speaker 3: paying attention to what you say.
Speaker 4: But I can also appreciate the romance of it. You know,
Speaker 4: we were talking before we came online about noblelitas and
Speaker 4: like Nobel disease, like this idea that people who received
Speaker 4: the Nobel Prize are told over and over again how
Speaker 4: smart and great they are. That you know, as they
Speaker 4: get later on in life, they start to believe some
Speaker 4: pretty wild stuff. And I mean I fall.
Speaker 3: Victim to it. I try my best not to.
Speaker 4: But with this New Jersey drone thing, I found a
Speaker 4: NASA program that, or at least it looked to be
Speaker 4: a NASA program, that established a drone test in corridor
Speaker 4: between Delaware and New Jersey. And I reported on that
Speaker 4: saying this very well could be you know what these
Speaker 4: drone sightings are. And then NASA called me and we're like,
Speaker 4: you're wrong, dude, Like we're not flying any drones. This
Speaker 4: program isn't managed by US. It's US Transcom. Now you
Speaker 4: need to talk to them. And I had to go
Speaker 4: back on you know, the next day and post another
Speaker 4: video because that video got a couple of million views,
Speaker 4: made NASA pretty upset, you know.
Speaker 1: And I but Alex at the same time, it's not
Speaker 1: like you didn't say anything or doubled down.
Speaker 5: You came back, and the point exactly.
Speaker 2: Most people are not doing.
Speaker 4: That, and you've got to come back and say I
Speaker 4: was wrong. Yeah, and you're right, a lot of people aren't.
Speaker 4: And I guess maybe those are the two things that
Speaker 4: I try my best to keep in my work, and
Speaker 4: I think more journalists would do well to do the
Speaker 4: same as the first admit that you're wrong, and the
Speaker 4: second is admit when you don't know enough about something
Speaker 4: to talk about it. You know, like, you know, do
Speaker 4: your homework, try to be well read on as much
Speaker 4: as you can. But if you don't know enough about
Speaker 4: you know, what's going on right now in Gaza, it's okay,
Speaker 4: I don't know enough, you know. And I think that
Speaker 4: that's something that the Internet has kind of made everybody not.
Speaker 3: As good at.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I agree, all right.
Speaker 1: So the Chinese j thirty six I guess they're calling
Speaker 1: it or we're calling it that. Uh, you have a
Speaker 1: video coming out when this comes out, it'll probably be
Speaker 1: right around what's coming out. It's coming out Friday right now?
Speaker 4: Should Friday afternoon for like two thirty three thirty time frames?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so this is working out perfectly. What do
Speaker 2: you got on that?
Speaker 1: Because that was the talk of the town, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure a bunch of like everyone at Lockheed and stuff
Speaker 1: will probably like, yeah, yeah, I just kick up this
Speaker 1: NGAD program again, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: That's honestly why that was the first thing I thought.
Speaker 4: So maybe the a bit of context that's worth noting
Speaker 4: for anyone who isn't aware. The United States started working
Speaker 4: on a sixth generation fighter. Sixth generation being sort of
Speaker 4: a stand in term because we don't know what capabilities
Speaker 4: actually defined six generation. It's just sort of marketing terms
Speaker 4: at this point. But the US started development on such
Speaker 4: an aircraft back in twenty fourteen with a program a
Speaker 4: study commissioned with RAN called the Dominance Initiative, and that
Speaker 4: transitioned into the Next Generation air Dominance Program. The US
Speaker 4: started testing prototypes back in twenty twenty. We know they
Speaker 4: set some sort of performance records. We don't know what,
Speaker 4: but we do know that there are three flying prototypes
Speaker 4: associated with this program and the Air Force was supposed
Speaker 4: to deliver a production contract for it this year. But
Speaker 4: you know, Northorp Drumman went about eighty billion dollars over
Speaker 4: on the sentence a ICBM program already, and they haven't
Speaker 4: built the first missile yet, So the Air Force doesn't
Speaker 4: have any money to fund this MNGAD effort anymore. They
Speaker 4: commissioned another study over the past three months with third
Speaker 4: party outsiders and a few industry insiders to see if
Speaker 4: the NNGAD program is developing in the way it should,
Speaker 4: and they determined that it is worth the money. They
Speaker 4: just don't have the money, so they kicked this can
Speaker 4: to the Trump administration. They're going to have to make
Speaker 4: a decision as to whether or not they're going to
Speaker 4: basically increase the Air Force's budget to fund this F
Speaker 4: twenty two replacement fighter, an air superiority fighter. So now
Speaker 4: fast forward to just this past couple of weeks. On
Speaker 4: the one hundred and thirty first anniversary of Chairman Mao's birthday,
Speaker 4: two stealth aircraft were photographed over China. One was over Chegdu,
Speaker 4: which is where Changdu air Aircraft or excuse me, chang
Speaker 4: Dou Aerospace Corporation is based out of them, and then
Speaker 4: the other one was out of Shenyang Aircraft Corporations headquarters.
Speaker 3: So this is sort.
Speaker 4: Of the Chinese equivalent of Lockheed Martin and Northrope Rummin.
Speaker 3: These are not two aircraft from the same corporation.
Speaker 4: They're two aircraft from effectively rival corporations, but based on
Speaker 4: their shape and size, they don't appear to be competitors
Speaker 4: for the same contract. They appear to be designed for
Speaker 4: very different things. The Shenyang aircraft is much smaller, It
Speaker 4: may be unmanned, It might be very equivalent of a
Speaker 4: CCA drone like the ones the US is developing right now.
Speaker 4: But then there's that J thirty six, that much larger
Speaker 4: aircraft with a delta wing shape. It really does look
Speaker 4: a lot like renders we've seen for American six generation
Speaker 4: fighters like MGAD or the Davies programs called FAXX, very
Speaker 4: similar concepts.
Speaker 3: They have a lot in common. But the thing.
Speaker 4: Is about this J thirty six is that what we
Speaker 4: don't know about it is significantly larger than what we
Speaker 4: do know we know that it's got a delta wing design,
Speaker 4: which suggests they're looking for larger payloads and much longer ranges.
Speaker 4: If you're familiar with the F sixteen XL, it was
Speaker 4: an aircraft that was tested back in the eighties. It
Speaker 4: was effectively an F sixteen A with a cranked errow wing,
Speaker 4: sort of like a delta wing, but with two different
Speaker 4: sweep angles. And by adding all that extra wing area,
Speaker 4: they were able to take the same F sixteen with
Speaker 4: the same engine and carry twice the payload about forty
Speaker 4: four percent further.
Speaker 3: And I think that that.
Speaker 4: Speaks to exactly what this J thirty six is meant
Speaker 4: to do. It's center fuselage looks a lot like the
Speaker 4: J twenties. It's nose stealth attributes look a lot like
Speaker 4: the J twenties.
Speaker 3: It's stealthy intakes on.
Speaker 4: The bottom side look a bit like the J thirty five's,
Speaker 4: which are very Lockheed Martin reminiscent. For good reason, a
Speaker 4: man named Subin a Chinese national name. Subin is serving
Speaker 4: a prison sentence for stealing the F twenty two and
Speaker 4: F thirty five blueprints for China. But this aircraft effectively
Speaker 4: looks like a J twenty XL. It is a platform
Speaker 4: that's designed to fly at high altitudes, lightly high supersonic speeds,
Speaker 4: and over long ranges. And to that point, it has
Speaker 4: three engines, which is really really unusual. There's inlets for
Speaker 4: two of the engines, the outermost engines, on the underside
Speaker 4: of the aircraft, and then there's a third inlet inlet
Speaker 4: for that center engine on the top. Now there's people
Speaker 4: online claiming that that's a scramjet.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 4: There's no evidence to substantiate the idea that that third
Speaker 4: engine would be a scramjet. And to be honest, China
Speaker 4: technology is lagging so far behind the US. Is that
Speaker 4: they just need three engines, three turbofan engines on that
Speaker 4: platform to move all that aircraft and its payload. Would
Speaker 4: be my assessment. It looks like it's powered by WS
Speaker 4: ten C turbofan engines right now, which are engines designed
Speaker 4: for fourth generation fighters. These are the sorts of engines
Speaker 4: that would power you know, the American equivalent of an
Speaker 4: F sixteen, you know, a non stealth aircraft. They're still
Speaker 4: working on developing engines for fifth generation platforms, like they're
Speaker 4: JAY twenty and J thirty five. So this new aircraft
Speaker 4: is being powered by engines you know, from the seventies
Speaker 4: and eighties era. Technology wise, you know, it's it's not,
Speaker 4: i guess, anywhere near as scary as a lot of
Speaker 4: content creators are making it out to be. But it's
Speaker 4: certainly got a ton of potential. You know, that delta
Speaker 4: wing design, that lack of standing vertical tail surfaces means
Speaker 4: that it's very likely extremely difficult to detect using both
Speaker 4: high frequency targeting radar arrays but also using low frequency
Speaker 4: early warning radar arrays. The lack of standing tales also
Speaker 4: makes it much more difficult to detect and target from
Speaker 4: the side, whereas today's stealth fighters. That's more of a vulnerability.
Speaker 4: So while I'm not worre, I'm not going to lose
Speaker 4: any sleep over the J thirty six right now. It
Speaker 4: is worth noting that what we're seeing are the early
Speaker 4: test flights of a platform. You know, So it's a
Speaker 4: half decade to.
Speaker 3: The J twenty took.
Speaker 4: Six years to go from test flights to service. The
Speaker 4: J thirty five now is probably going to take fourteen
Speaker 4: years to.
Speaker 3: Go from test flights to service.
Speaker 4: So this aircraft's got a lot of maturation to go.
Speaker 4: And that's actually why I'm.
Speaker 3: Worried, because it's a great design to.
Speaker 4: Start from, to continue to mature the system into something
Speaker 4: that could reasonably oppose a real threat to American air
Speaker 4: operations in the Pacific and to operations in places like
Speaker 4: bomb further away than China could ever strike before. And
Speaker 4: to that point, there are people who are calling this
Speaker 4: J thirty six a regional bomber program rather than a fighter.
Speaker 4: I think that that's a reasonable assessment to make, but
Speaker 4: I think people are making the mistake of assuming there's
Speaker 4: still a very fine and clear line between fighters and bombers,
Speaker 4: and that just isn't the case anymore. You know, we're
Speaker 4: seeing with the B twenty one Raider, there's really strong
Speaker 4: evidence to suggest that the B twenty one, America's new
Speaker 4: stealth bomber will be able to carry air to air
Speaker 4: weapons to defend itself. Now to mention the feasibility that
Speaker 4: it could carry systems like DARPA's Long Shot, which is
Speaker 4: effectively a cruise missile that carries am rams, so we
Speaker 4: can self escort things like that. So the line between
Speaker 4: an aircraft meant to engage other aircraft and an aircraft
Speaker 4: meant to engage ground targets is about as murky as
Speaker 4: they can get at this point, and it's only going
Speaker 4: to get murkier. So is it a fighter or a bomber?
Speaker 4: I would argue, it doesn't matter. Can engage ground targets
Speaker 4: and air targets all the same, and this platform likely
Speaker 4: will too, you.
Speaker 5: Know, so popping back to and ged really quick until
Speaker 5: and unless that program is heated back up, do you
Speaker 5: think that what we have in the stockpiles are capable
Speaker 5: if something were to kick off right now?
Speaker 4: That is like that's the billion dollar question, right, So
Speaker 4: the US is actively investing about twelve billion dollars into
Speaker 4: upgrading our F.
Speaker 3: Twenty two Raptor fleet.
Speaker 4: Right, the Raptor is still the most capable air superiority
Speaker 4: fighter in the sky. But the Raptors started flying before
Speaker 4: the iPhone was invented. You know, this is a pretty
Speaker 4: dated platform in this twenty first century, you know, rapidly
Speaker 4: changing digital battle space. Right, so the Raptor is getting
Speaker 4: it looks like a heads up a helmet helmet Q targeting,
Speaker 4: which is a capability it has really lacked for a
Speaker 4: long time, and it's likely getting infra red search and
Speaker 4: tract targeting capabilities, and that IRST as well as the
Speaker 4: F thirty five's distributed aperture system which can also infrared target,
Speaker 4: are really effective for countering stealth platforms. But the most
Speaker 4: important question we should be asking is how is this aircraft.
Speaker 4: This J thirty six is going to be integrated into
Speaker 4: China's air warfare strategy right, and chances are pretty solid.
Speaker 3: Like NGAD, it's going to be a bit removed from
Speaker 3: the fight.
Speaker 4: It's going to serve as sort of a battle manager
Speaker 4: for AI enabled drones. Is what I would consider to
Speaker 4: be the most likely use case, and as such, it'll
Speaker 4: be a tough target to hit. It doesn't need to
Speaker 4: be the tealthiest aircraft in the world to be a
Speaker 4: tough target to hit, especially if it's pretty far removed
Speaker 4: and it's protected by CCA type drones.
Speaker 3: You know. So does the US have the technology to
Speaker 3: counter it?
Speaker 4: I would say absolutely, But circumstance depending right, It depends
Speaker 4: on the environment you're in, the systems you have available,
Speaker 4: the circumstances of the engagement. There's a lot of variables
Speaker 4: to consider. And I was at NORAD in northcom about
Speaker 4: a month ago asking about these things and drone incursions
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And one thing that the command
Speaker 4: element at the Space Force in particular really wanted to
Speaker 4: hit home for me was that China is not the Taliban.
Speaker 4: You know, people like to dismiss technology as made in China,
Speaker 4: especially because of their long history of intellectual property theft
Speaker 4: and sort of advancement through espionage, but they are a
Speaker 4: very well funded adversary with a big and growing academic
Speaker 4: pipeline for you know, aerospace defense technology. We can't dismiss
Speaker 4: the threat that China post is out of hand because
Speaker 4: it's China. We have to acknowledge the fact that China
Speaker 4: is becoming much more capable than they ever have been
Speaker 4: in the past, and they don't need to be better
Speaker 4: than the United States at any one thing to pose
Speaker 4: a huge threat in the Pacific. You know, if the
Speaker 4: American defense apparatus is a suit of armor, you don't
Speaker 4: need to build the suit of armor that's just as good.
Speaker 4: You just need to build an arrow that can penetrate
Speaker 4: that suit of armor. Right, So what we need to
Speaker 4: be worried about isn't is china suit of armor as
Speaker 4: good as ours. We need to be worried about, Well,
Speaker 4: could this aircraft be one of those arrows, and.
Speaker 3: I do think that it has the potential to be.
Speaker 4: And because of that, you know, and I'm often called
Speaker 4: the shill for the military industrial complex because I do
Speaker 4: believe in winning the next conflict by deterring it.
Speaker 3: But I would like to see NNGA defunded.
Speaker 4: And I think that seeing how serious China is about
Speaker 4: airspace dominance, it should be a clear decision. It should
Speaker 4: be Obviously, we need to maintain this advantage because if
Speaker 4: you find yourself trailing, it becomes much more expensive and
Speaker 4: potentially deadly to try to close that gap.
Speaker 3: You know, got.
Speaker 4: Especially China's airborne early world and control apparatus is also
Speaker 4: rapidly maturing, and I would argue that that's the piece
Speaker 4: that they're missing when it comes to fielding these new aircraft.
Speaker 4: Last year or the year prior, F thirty five's and
Speaker 4: J twenties had a short interaction, a short encounter, and
Speaker 4: that was the one takeaway American pilots took from it,
Speaker 4: was that the Chinese J twenties are getting better at
Speaker 4: coordinating with airborne early warning and control. Those are the
Speaker 4: things people don't think about that America is so good
Speaker 4: at because America, you know, operated stealth aircraft. Well, no
Speaker 4: one else in the world did for more than three decades.
Speaker 3: You know, the US has a commanding lead.
Speaker 4: In establishing doctrine and procedure for these stealth aircraft operations.
Speaker 4: But again, we can't dismiss China because they are working
Speaker 4: hard to close these gaps and they don't have to
Speaker 4: worry about public buy in like we do in American politics.
Speaker 4: So if jijimping thinks it's a good idea, that's it.
Speaker 4: You know, they get the money they need, so I
Speaker 4: hope that the air force gets.
Speaker 3: The money they need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and their money goes a longer way, right, like
Speaker 1: they're purchasing power.
Speaker 3: They purchasing power parity.
Speaker 4: And it's worth noting that, you know, people say the
Speaker 4: US spends more than the next ten countries combined on defense.
Speaker 4: That is objectively false. Those are self reported figures. And
Speaker 4: it shouldn't surprise anyone that a nation that is not
Speaker 4: particularly honest about anything also isn't honest about their publicly
Speaker 4: disclosed defense spending. So independent analysis suggests China spending seven
Speaker 4: hundred billion plus on defense each year, and their dollars
Speaker 4: go further. You know, a colonel in the Chinese Army
Speaker 4: makes less than a Marine Corps lance corporal with a
Speaker 4: wife in.
Speaker 3: Camp La June.
Speaker 4: So if you think of that, if you think of
Speaker 4: it that way, they have the means to produce a
Speaker 4: great deal of military capability. There are still elements of
Speaker 4: the Chinese military with horse drawn carriages, but those don't
Speaker 4: necessarily matter if we're talking specifically about a naval and
Speaker 4: airpower engagement over the Pacific. You know, again, they just
Speaker 4: got to build the right arrows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Chinese equivalent to the B twenty one raider,
Speaker 1: the sweat wing bomb. Yeah, what's going on with that?
Speaker 2: Do they have? They have, They've tested, but they haven't deployed.
Speaker 4: So they some people claim that they have tested the
Speaker 4: Age twenty. There were some rumors it was going to
Speaker 4: be unveiled last year, but current US and TEL assessment
Speaker 4: suggest it'll probably be in the twenty thirties before it's
Speaker 4: actually unveiled. But it is I would argue, probably more
Speaker 4: akin to the B two than the B twenty one
Speaker 4: in terms of stealth and onboard avionics.
Speaker 3: But again, that doesn't mean that by the.
Speaker 4: Time it enters service it won't have advanced you know,
Speaker 4: to a large extent. But I think it is worth
Speaker 4: noting that China has had access to American stealth materials
Speaker 4: through a variety of sources.
Speaker 3: Including drones that have been downed.
Speaker 4: In different places, the F one seventeen that went down
Speaker 4: in Serbia. They've got a lot to pull from to
Speaker 4: a US American stealth practices and material sciences which are
Speaker 4: really really important, and that's all going to inform the
Speaker 4: Age twenty. Radar absorbent materials are sort of under discussed
Speaker 4: because there's not a lot of publicly available information, but
Speaker 4: that's sort of the skin on a stealth aircraft and
Speaker 4: the radar absorbent materials. The RAM on the B two
Speaker 4: is supposed to be rated to absorb upwards of eighty
Speaker 4: percent of inbound electromagnetic energy, which is radar waves.
Speaker 3: That's huge.
Speaker 4: So you know, the shape of the aircraft is what
Speaker 4: really makes the biggest difference in terms of stealth, and
Speaker 4: from there you're kind of making iterative improvements. But the material,
Speaker 4: the material science of your composite skin is the next
Speaker 4: most important variable.
Speaker 3: The United States does have a big lead.
Speaker 4: In this realm, but that lead is waning, you know,
Speaker 4: and if China has access to you know, materials from
Speaker 4: the F one seventeen and then materials maybe from like
Speaker 4: the RQ one seventy, which is a much more recent
Speaker 4: isr platform a stealth platform, and they can see how
Speaker 4: those materials have changed.
Speaker 3: It can point them in a lot of the right directions.
Speaker 2: Or that at stealth Blackhawk from the Bladen.
Speaker 4: Raid, perfect example, a perfect you know, although it looks
Speaker 4: like a stealth black Hawk was probably coded in the
Speaker 4: same half glass radar absorbent material used on some F sixteens,
Speaker 4: some wild weasels. So I would argue the counter to
Speaker 4: that is ceramic based RAM. There was a breakthrough a
Speaker 4: few years ago at a US university in the South.
Speaker 4: I can't remember the school. Cheryl Zoo is the researcher
Speaker 4: heading the program. But ceramic based RAM would be a
Speaker 4: revolution in stealth unlike anything we've seen since the seventies.
Speaker 4: Probably it can withstand significantly higher temperatures. The thing that
Speaker 4: stops the F twenty two, for instance, from being faster
Speaker 4: is that the RAM we have today is polymer based.
Speaker 4: It's plastic, and plastic burns and high heat and friction,
Speaker 4: and that's why you've probably seen pictures of like the
Speaker 4: F twenty two with like blisters on its nose and
Speaker 4: like it's you know, it's skin kind of peeling off.
Speaker 4: That's because that aircraft was sprinting, you know, for long
Speaker 4: enough to burn off the skin. Ceramic won't burn off
Speaker 4: like that, So not only can you sustain much higher speeds,
Speaker 4: but you don't need to scrape all that toxic stuff
Speaker 4: off your aircraft. They have to wear mop gear to
Speaker 4: do it, and then recoat it and then recure it
Speaker 4: for three days in an oven, effectively before the aircraft
Speaker 4: can get back out into operation. With ceramic ram it
Speaker 4: would last significantly longer. It would also make it cheaper
Speaker 4: to just coat everything in radar absorbent materials, which wouldn't
Speaker 4: make every F sixteen stealth or whatever, but would reduce
Speaker 4: their radar return, you know, buy you a little bit
Speaker 4: more time. So that is something that the US certainly
Speaker 4: has in the pipeline. Cheryl's who's got a defense contract.
Speaker 4: Whether or not it'll manifest with six Gen fighters, you know,
Speaker 4: is anybody's guess.
Speaker 3: But it's worth noting that the US.
Speaker 4: Has been making moves to maintain its competitive advantage in
Speaker 4: this realm. They just have not been consolidated and funded
Speaker 4: into that singular.
Speaker 3: NGAD program quite yet.
Speaker 4: And I do think that that's I think that there's
Speaker 4: a solid chance that Trump administration recognizes the value in NNGAD,
Speaker 4: even if Elon Musk is dumb enough to think that
Speaker 4: quad copters can replace true fighters.
Speaker 3: You know, but.
Speaker 4: For anyone out there who thinks that they can, quad copters,
Speaker 4: by their varying nature, are limited to low altitudes and
Speaker 4: short ranges. So you're never going to have a quad
Speaker 4: copter swarm flying at sixty thousand feet to engage enemy fighters.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, Listen, there's a good chance e Law
Speaker 1: muscles on Kedemy when he when he put that out.
Speaker 5: There, so different, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, but it sounds great because because it also made
Speaker 4: him think that, like the problem with targeting stealth aircraft
Speaker 4: is line of sight. When he's you know, he was like,
Speaker 4: all you need is like a low light camera and
Speaker 4: AI bro. If you have line a site with that,
Speaker 4: still a fighter, you are already screwed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Like.
Speaker 4: If you're an air defense system, the aar g M
Speaker 4: e er Our new harm Our new radar hunting missile
Speaker 4: has got like an eighty nautical mile range publicly disclosed. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you are already blown up before you have line of sight,
Speaker 4: you know, But like.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: The dude knows rockets.
Speaker 4: I'm a big fan of starship, but he does not
Speaker 4: know tactical aviation.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, I know we're running at a time, but
Speaker 5: the next time we have you on, which will be soon,
Speaker 5: I definitely want to discuss the newest Chinese aircraft carrier
Speaker 5: and your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I would look.
Speaker 4: Honestly, any people are watching this might not know, but
Speaker 4: talking about airplanes with Jason Lyons has been one of
Speaker 4: my favorite things to do without it being a podcast.
Speaker 4: So yeah, anytime you want me, whether it cameras rolling
Speaker 4: or not, you know.
Speaker 2: Awesome guys.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to check out Alex Hollings like you need
Speaker 1: this plug anyway, Sandbox News Airpower series on the Sandbox
Speaker 1: YouTube channel of course, his uh journalistic work to Sandbox
Speaker 1: news dot what's the website sandbox.
Speaker 4: Sandbox dot us, sandbox with two x's dot us or
Speaker 4: sandboxnews dot com.
Speaker 3: That's easier to remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, the link will be in the description. You could
Speaker 1: check out Alex. I'm gonna put all of his links
Speaker 1: down there. You can find them. He's probably one of
Speaker 1: the best aviation YouTubers out there. I would say at
Speaker 1: least thank you. Yes, all the stuff I say, I
Speaker 1: pair it like the ship I was saying last week.
Speaker 1: It was just the same and Fromlex's videos, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, I'm like, yeah, the J thirty
Speaker 1: six engines are a piece of shit, Like they're not
Speaker 1: up to date.
Speaker 2: And I got that from you, Like I'm not. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what do I If.
Speaker 4: You ever want to do a deep dive into turbo fans,
Speaker 4: I am happy to, but it might put the audience
Speaker 4: to sleep excited.
Speaker 2: It'd be good.
Speaker 1: It'd be like the ASMR, you know, like after like
Speaker 1: two you gotta start going to sleep talk.
Speaker 3: I'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: Guys, don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening
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Speaker 2: So you can never miss a download.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Jason Lyons all his links are in the description.
Speaker 1: Mick Molroy description everything, Andy Milliburn all everything you need
Speaker 1: to know about this show is in the description.
Speaker 2: Stop asking me. It's always in the description.
Speaker 1: Just a little deductive reasoning goes a long way, best way,
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Speaker 1: lot of the Happy New Year everybody too.
Speaker 3: Thanks