The horrors of drone Warfare!

 Being hunted down?

A new development has come to the fore in the use of drones, that involves landing on a individual with an explosive device!

It is believed what the IDF is using the drones in Lebanon, which originated in the Ukraine by he forces to take out Russian soldiers, with the cheap ability to mass produce and develope a small device that can be made cheaply a new era in urban warfare has began?

Meanwhile the Hezbollah have also taken advantage of the situation with a large bomb drone, that causes considerable damage and is hitting targets in N-Israel with effectiveness!

U.K. No Air-defense Cover!

 The Bloodhound Last!

We once lead the world in military production, but with joining the European union and having various Labor parties in government, we have lost out in many areas including air defense, because NATO relied on the U.S.

But now that relations have soured with the U.S. we will either have to buy from Europe or develop a new system, despite the big words to Russia over the Ukraine, we are really defenseless to Russian attack?

Hoping that they won't attack is a bit arrogant and asking the U.S. is now off the table, so where do we go and what do we do, who knows and who cares!

No more Sci-Fi!

 Drone Warfare?

We are living in the age of drone warfare and ways to counter them, since they come in all sizes from a small aircraft to something that can be hand held and from firing a bullet to a large stand-off missile, rocket pods or bombs, right down to a grenade!

Israel is facing an onslaught from Yemen, Lebanon and now Iraq, while NATO is encouraging the Ukraine to use the basic ones on the Russians and the Iranian supplied ones on the Ukraine?

But as with all military type weapons, it will only be time before criminals and terrorists deploy them against the police and civilian targets in the U.K., U.S.A. and others, the scorpion always has a sting in its tail, and one cannot have a snake as a friend?

Electric power flight!

 Still early days?

There are many designs and concepts out there and the few that are operating are still classed as very unstable and dangerous, but as time moves on better engines will be developed and some aircraft will make it to the civil market on the air taxi scale two-four passengers?

Embraer is leading the way with the possibility of commercial aircraft within the next ten years, while several others are moving into combination powered aircraft, just like hybrid automobiles, but the development of new lighter carbon materials is opening the door for some serious models to come to the fore?

Meanwhile the drone is now at its current height of being militeriesed, as seen in the Ukraine on both sides, but they have limited range still and one is only seeing old NATO models being used on the battlefield, rather than anything that is really new.

The future may see drones being used as AI driverless cars in the future and that will be something of a change?

A year on and Russia is winning!

 Ukrainian Bragging?

It is unlikely that the Ukraine will beat Russia in a war of any kind, since the deployment of the hypersonic Sukhoi SU-50 and its variant's will obliterate any western aircraft that might be deployed against it and what the west is providing Kiev in now old stock?

Russia has raced ahead in the field of hypersonic and the United States has lagged behind, due to financial crises that has plague the states since the end of the era of President George Bush.

These new types can our run and gun any other aircraft and if the U.S. and Europe were to deploy the good tech such as the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning and the Typhoon, Swedish JA-27, they still would be no match for this unique aircraft.

Ukraine Situation?

 What is really Airborne!

The media reporting if true makes out Russia to be a weak superpower, but that cannot be so when it has a population of over two hundred and seventy three million people thus its military is far bigger compared to Ukraine's 17 million population and size of its armed forces?

Meanwhile it is not clear what is flying and what is getting shot down since we do not have accurate footage of both air and ground and much of what we see is actually old films of the Soviet era and the war in Chechenya?

Russia has some state of the art air power such as the KA-52 Hokum helicopters and it Sukhoi and MiG jets, which the Ukraine and the west are way behind in technology!

What NATO and the European Union is supplying is unwanted and out dated stock pile, with some battlefield drones

Ten Day Civil Alerts.

Germany and France Issued Today.

What is one talking about?

During the years of the Cold war between NATO and the Eastern-Block Soviet pact nation regular alerts were sounded in both East and West-Germany. This morning one was issued in the unified Germany for the first time since the fall of the Berlin wall?

Within two hours supermarkets were cleared out of food. Civil alerts were issued in the event of a nuclear strike, but it has been announced in Germany that from tomorrow the alert will be in effect for a serious emergency situation over the next 10 days?

There is much one can do in a nuclear war situation, but just continue life and hope for the best. This may be more in connection with reports of heavy weapons fire reported in the Eastern-Ukraine and the possibility of the shutting down of both the gas and Oil pipe-lines from Russia?

Malaysia and Indonesia.

Three Airliner Losses.

Is there something going on here that we do not fully know about yet? Three commercial aircraft from two countries in  the region have lost their aircraft, one disappeared from radar on a flight to China, a second was shot down in the Ukraine by unknown hostiles while on a flight from the Netherlands to Australia. Now we have a possible thunder and lightening strike on this Indonesian aircraft flying to Singapore.

The first loss is an enigma? Australian security specialist suggested it was Cyber Hijacked and this type of crime has recently been seen emanating from North-Korea in relation to a Sony film. 

Second we have the conflicting reports of who and how the aircraft over the Ukraine was destroyed, was it shot down by a Russian missile or by a Ukrainian fighter jet mistaking it for a Russian commercial overflight?

This last one would seem it was struck by lightening, while trying to divert from developing storms. But as yet these are all ideas. The one thing which does not seem to be urgently addressed, is the essential need to secure the transponder and black boxes, so that they continue to ping long after an aicraft disappears or crashes?

Narrow Gauge Railways.

Wales, Isle of Man and Quarry's.

The Narrow Gauge was in its hey day associated with quarrying, this is so in Wales with slate. Today many of these railways in the UK are now tourist attractions. It was in World War-I (1914-18 that a portable railway was used to supply front line British troops.

Being small with engines only up to four tons, if the track was damaged by German shelling it could be quickly repaired and replaced. But this had not seen an end to the uses of the narrow gauge railway. In the Ukraine and Belarus there are extensive networks of these lines for the production of peat.

Ireland also has an extensive network operated by Board Na Mona in its own peat production. I have come across some very good narrow gauge models in the Railway Modeller magazine of layouts based on Irish scenes.