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PHILIPPINE SEA (Aug. 12, 2020) The forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) conducts a replenishment at sea with the dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Cesar Chavez (T-AKE 14). America, flagship of the America Expeditionary Strike Group, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Matthew Cavenaile)
PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 14, 2020) Sailors work with Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to move pallets of dry goods during an underway replenishment aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18). New Orleans, part of the America Amphibious Ready Group assigned to Amphibious Squadron 11, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kelby Sanders)
U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kyle Davis
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
Official Twitter Feed: www.twitter.com/usarmyafrica
Official YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/usarmyafrica
TAIWAN STRAIT (June 4, 2020) - The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Russell (DDG 59) transits the Taiwan Strait, June 4, 2020. Russell is deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Sean Lynch) 200604-N-CU072-3002
** Interested in following U.S. Indo-Pacific Command? Engage and connect with us at www.facebook.com/indopacom | twitter.com/INDOPACOM |
www.instagram.com/indopacom | www.flickr.com/photos/us-pacific-command; | www.youtube.com/user/USPacificCommand | www.pacom.mil/ **
Stability was better than yesterday, but transparency wasn't as good due to very thin and wispy clouds. The NEB looks turbulent. There is a long barge on the SEB that I've heard is a result of a merger of two smaller barges. Oval BA is setting on the bottom right.
Guests chat at an informal get-together Feb. 1 in advance of the opening of the second annual U.S. Africa Command C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference in Vicenza, Italy.
U.S. Army Africa photos by David Ruderman
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
“The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
Official Twitter Feed: www.twitter.com/usarmyafrica
Official YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/usarmyafrica
Oesterreichische Nationalbank
Logo of the Austrian National Bank
Headquarters Vienna, Austria
Central Bank of Austria
Currency€
To ISO 4217 EUR
website
Previous Austro- Hungarian Bank
List of Central Banks
Oesterreichische Nationalbank, at Otto-Wagner -Platz No. 3, Vienna
The Austrian National Bank (OeNB), Austria's central bank as an integral part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the Eurosystem. It is instrumental in the design of the economic development in Austria and in the euro area. Legally, the OeNB is a public limited company.. However, it is also subject to further enshrined in the National Bank Act regulations resulting from its separate position as a central bank. In the framework of the Eurosystem, the OeNB contributes to a stability-oriented monetary policy. At the national level, it cares about the preservation of financial stability and the money supply and manage foreign exchange reserves to hedge against the euro in times of crisis. The guideline values in terms of the tasks of the Austrian National Bank are "security, stability and trust".
Contents
1 History
1.1 1816 to 1818
1.2 1818 to 1878
1.3 1878 to 1922
1.4 1922 to 1938
1.5 1938 to 1945
1.6 1945 to 1998
1.7 From 1999
2 The OeNB as a modern central bank
3 Legal form and organs
3.1 Legal framework
3.2 organs
3.2.1 General
3.2.2 General
3.2.3 Board of Directors
4 Tasks
4.1 Monetary policy strategies and monetary policy decision-making process
4.1.1 Economic analysis
4.1.2 Production of statistical information
4.1.3 Contribute to international organizations
4.2 Implementation of monetary policy
4.2.1 use of monetary policy instruments
4.2.2 Reserve Management
4.2.3 Money Supply
4.3 Communication of monetary policy
4.4 ensure financial stability
4.4.1 Financial Stability
4.4.2 Payment System Stability and payments
5 The OeNB in the European System of National Banks
6 President / Governors
7 See also
8 Literature
9 links
10 Notes and references
History
1816-1818
As long as 50 years before the founding of the National Bank the Habsburgs carried out first experiments with securities in the form of paper money. Finally, in the 18th Century the issue of banknotes transferred to a state independent institution, while the issue of paper money called "Banco notes," founded in 1705 by the "Vienna City Bank" took place in 1762.
In wartime governance took back control of the money issue, so there was an inflation of Banco-Zettel 1796-1810. The state ordered the forced acceptance of paper money in private transport, which led to a fast-growing discount on bills in the market. 1799 was therefore one for 100 guilders paper money only 92 guilders in silver coins, and at the end of 1810 the value of the paper florin had fallen to 15 % of the nominal value of the Banco-Zettel. Later, the Habsburgs declared a devaluation of the Banco-Zettel in the ratio of 5:1. This act was considered by the business community as a sovereign default, which the paper money experienced a rapid devaluation.
At the end of the Napoleonic wars the Habsburg multinational state ( → Habsburg Monarchy) faced a new challenge: the restoration of a European balance. Church, the nobility, the army and the bureaucracy as elements in the Ancien Régime were not sufficient to solve this problem, a well -founded economic situation was needed. Moreover, one could not ignore readily the laws of supply and demand.
In this regard, were the first June 1816 by Emperor Francis I two patents issued (later to distinguish the "main patent" or "bank patent"), the "privileged Austrian National Bank", conceived as a public company, had to constitute itself as soon a possible, propose the emperor three of its directors for selection of the governor and take up their activity provisionally on 1 July 1816.
The National Bank had henceforth a monopoly on the issuance of paper money, which led to a slowdown in the Austrian monetary system and an increase in the value of paper money. The economy was again a solid source of money keeping constant the value of money regardless of the spending plans of the State. The equity of the Bank justified this by share issues.
Initially comprised the activities of the bank - under temporary management - the redemption of paper money and the issuance of shares. The full effectiveness attained the National Bank until after the issue of 1,000 shares and the associated possibility of shareholders to set the management themselves.
1818-1878
On 15 July 1817 recieved the National Bank as the "first Bankprivilegium" the exclusive right to unrestricted issue of banknotes and in this context a special position in terms of Rediskontgeschäfts (rediscount business). Beginning of 1818 the definitive bank management was ready. Part of it were among leading figures of Viennese society, including the banker Johann Heinrich von Geymüller and Bernard of Eskeles. From 1830 to 1837 the Office of the Governor was held by Adrian Nicholas Baron Barbier.
In the countries of the Habsburg Monarchy, which were characterized in large part by an agricultural oriented activity pattern, some regions showed a lively commercial-industrial growth. The goal now was to create a system of economic exchange between these areas. Successively established the National Bank branch network and thus guaranteed a uniform money and credit supply. From its headquarters in Vienna this network extended over early industrial areas and commercial centers in Eastern and Central Europe to the northern Mediterranean.
Trade bills and coins were preferred assets of the National Bank, less the supply of money to the state. With the exchange transactions, the National Bank supported the economic growth of the monarchy and secured at the same time the supply of silver coins in the event that the need for these increases in exchange for bank notes, contrary to expectations. 1818 was the National Bank, however, by increasing public debt, due to high spending in times of crisis, not spared to make an increase in the government debt positions on the asset side of its balance sheet.
The patent provisions of the founding of the National Bank not sufficiently secured against the autonomy of governance. At the center of the struggle for independence, this was the question of the extent to which the issue of banknotes must be made on the basis of government bonds. In 1841, a renewal of Bankprivilegiums got a weakening of the independence by pushing back the influence of the shareholders in favor of the state administration. During the revolution of 1848/49 followers of constitutional goals received great support from senior figures in the National Bank. For about a hundred years, the Austrian branch of the Rothschild bank (from which from 1855, the "Royal Privileged Austrian Credit-Institute for Commerce and Industry", the later Creditanstalt, was born) was playing a leading role in the banking center of Vienna. Salomon Mayer von Rothschild was involved during the pre-March in all major transactions of the National Bank for the rehabilitation of the state budget.
Special focus the National Bank was putting on the development of the premium that was payable at the exchange of banknotes into silver money in business dealings. The increase, which corresponded to a depreciation of the notes issued by the Bank should be prevented. From an overall state perspective, the increase of the silver premium means a deterioration in terms of the exchange ratio towards foreign countries, influencing the price competitiveness of the Austrian foreign trade adversely. The stabilization of the premium were set some limits. Although the height of the emission activitiy was depending on the Bank, but also the price of silver and the potential effects of increased government debt materially affected the silver premium. Especially the 1848 revolution and conflicts in the following years caused an increasement of the silver premium.
Mid-century, the private banking and wholesale houses were no longer able to cope with the rapidly growing financial intermediation of the Habsburg monarchy. New forms of capital formation were required. From an initiative of the House of Rothschild, the first by the government approved and private joint-stock bank was created. This formation was followed in 1863 and 1864 by two other joint-stock banks, whose major shareholders included important personalities of the aristocracy, who possessed large liquid funds. Overall, grew with these banks the money creation potential of the "financial center of Vienna".
The central bank faced another difficult task: with its limited resources it had to secure sufficient liquidity on the one hand and on the other hand prevent the inflationary expansion of the money supply. Through close contacts with the shareholders of Vienna was a financial center (informal) ballot, especially in times of crisis, easily dealt out. In contrast, it gave differences of opinion in the Fed Board, which required enforcement of decisions.
In 1861, Friedrich Schey Koromla became director of the National Bank. On 27 December 1862 experienced the Bankprivilegium another innovation. The independence of the National Bank of the State was restored and anchored. Furthermore, was introduced the direct allocation of banknotes in circulation by the system of "Peel'schen Bank Act", which states that the fixed budget of 200 million guilders exceeding circulation of banknotes must be covered by silver coins. In 1866, when the German war ended in defeat for Austria, the compliance of the system was no longer met. The state felt itself forced to pay compensation for breach of privilege. This balance was supported by a law of 1872, after the National Bank may issue notes up to a maximum of 200 million guilders and each additional payment must be fully backed by gold or silver.
1873 the economic boom of the Habsburg monarchy was represented in a long-lasting rise in the share price. A now to be expecting break could by the behavior of the Vienna Stock not be intercepted, so it came to the "Great Crash of 1873". The in 1872 fixed restrictions of the circulation of notes for a short time have been suspended. Contrary to expectations, the money supply in crisis peak but only outgrew by nearly 1% the prescribed limit in the bank acts. The banks and the industrial and commercial companies survived the crash without major losses, although the share prices significantly lay below the initial level.
The years with high growth were followed by a period of stagnation.
1878-1922
As part of the compensation negotiations between Austria and Hungary in 1867, the National Bank was able to exercise fully their Privilegialrechte, the Kingdom of Hungary but now had the certified right, every ten years exercisable, to found an own central bank (bank note). As resulted from the first 10 -year period that furthermore none of the two parts of the monarchy wanted to build an independent money-issuing bank (Zettelbank), was built on 28 June 1878, initially to 31 December 1887 limited, an Austro-Hungarian Bank, and equipped with the Fed privilege. The first privilege of the new bank was a compromise in which on the one hand, regulations on liability for national debts as well as regulations limiting the influence of the government on banking businesses were included. 1878 Gustav Leonhardt was Secretary of the Bank.
The General Assembly and the General Council formed the unit of the bank management. Two directorates and major institutions - in Vienna and Budapest - represented the dual nature of the bank. 1892-1900 followed a long discussion finally the currency conversion from guilders (silver currency) to the crown (gold standard) with "Gold Crown" said coins.
Since the new banknotes were very popular in the public, now many gold coins piled up in the vaults of the Austro-Hungarian Bank. This period was characterized by a balanced combination of price growth and damping, the "per capita national product" grew while prices remained mostly stable. Against this background, it was easy for the Fed to encourage a new wave of industrialization.
With a third privilege in 1899 conditions were established under which the bank could be put into the financial services of the two countries, on the other hand there have been important innovations that paved a good exchange policy. By 1914, the exchange ratio of the Austro-Hungarian currency was unchanged with only minor fluctuations. In contrast, was the by conflicts marked political development.
The expansive foreign policy quickly led to high costs from which had to be shouldered by the central bank a significant part. The stability of the currency was in danger. Shortly after the beginning of World War I in 1914, laid down the Military Command to indemnify any seized property with double the price. There was an increasing scarcity of goods, connected with an ongoing expansion of the money supply and finally the increase in the price level on the 16-fold.
The resulting cost of the war of the Dual Monarchy were covered to 40% on central bank loans and 60% through war bonds. Over the duration of the war, the power force built up in recent decades has been frozen at the end of the conflict in 1918, the real income of the workers had fallen to one-fifth of the last year of peace.
With the end of the war the end for the old order had come, too. The decay of Cisleithania and Transleithania caused in several successor states, despite the efforts of the central bank to maintain the order, a currency separation (see Crown Currency in the decay of the monarchy, successor states). First, a separate "Austrian management" of the bank was introduced. It was encouraged to shoulder the shortcomings of the state budget of the Republic of Austria founded in 1918.
The new South Slav state began in January 1919 stamping its crown banknotes. The newly founded Czechoslovak Republic retained the crown currency (to date), but their printed banknotes in circulation as of February 1919 with indications that now these ar Czechoslovak crowns. (The country could an inflation as experienced by Austria avoide.) In March 1919, German Austria began to stamp its crown banknotes.
The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 10 September 1919, by Austria on 25 October 1919 ratified and which on 16 July 1920 came into force, determined the cancellation and replacement of all crown banknotes of all successor states of Austria-Hungary as well as the complete liquidation of the Austro-Hungarian Bank under the supervision of the war winners. The last meetings of the Bank took place mid 1921 and at the end of 1922.
After a period of overvaluation of the crown the dollar rate rose from 1919 again. 1921, had to be paid over 5,000 Austrian crowns per dollar. In addition to the significant drop in the external value existed in Austria rising inflation. End of 1922 was ultimately a rehabilitation program with foreign assistance - the "Geneva Protocol" - passed which slowed down the inflation.
1922-1938
With Federal Law of 24 July 1922 the Minister of Finance was commissioned to build a central bank, which had to take over the entire note circulation plus current liabilities of the Austrian management of the Austro-Hungarian Bank. With Federal Law of 14 November 1922, certain provisions of the law were amended and promulgated the statutes of the Austrian National Bank. By order of the Federal Government Seipel I 29 December 1922, the Board of the Austrian Austro-Hungarian Bank issued authorization for the central bank union activity with 1 January 1923 have been declared extinct and was made known the commencement of operations of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank this day.
The statutes of the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) secured the independence from the state, the independence of the Bank under exclusion of external influences and the corresponding equity. First, the stabilization of the Austrian currency was at the forefront. With the Schilling Act of 20 December 1924 was the schilling currency (First Republic) with 1 Introduced in March 1925, it replaced the crown currency. For 10,000 crowns now you got a shilling.
As an important personality in terms of the order of the state budget, Dr. Victor Kienböck has to be mentioned. He was in the time from 1922 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1929 finance minister of the First Republic and from 1932 to 1938 President of the Austrian National Bank. Through his work remained the Austrian Schilling, also beyound the global economy crisis, stable. Under this condition, the Fed was able to cope with the large number of bank failures of the past.
1938-1945
According to the on 13th March issued Anschlussgesetz (annexation law) , the Reichsmark with order of the Fuehrer and Chancellor of 17 was March 1938 introduced in the country Austria and determines the course: A Reichsmark is equal to one shilling fifty pence. On the same day, the Chancellor ordered that the management of the to be liquidated National Bank was transferred to the Reichsbank.
With regulation of three ministers of the German Reich of 23 April 1938, the National Bank was established as a property of the Reichsbank and its banknotes the quality as legal tender by 25 April 1938 withdrawn; public funds had Schilling banknotes until 15th of may in 1938 to accept. All the gold and foreign exchange reserves were transferred to Berlin.
The Second World War weakened the Austrian economy to a great extent, the production force after the war corresponded to only 40% of that of 1937 (see also air raids on Austria). To finance the war, the Reichsbank brought to a high degree banknotes in circulation, which only a great victory of the kingdom (Reich) actual values would have been opposable. Since prices were strictly regulated, inflation virtually could be "banned" during the war.
1945-1998
In occupied postwar Austria about 10 billion shillings by Allied military occupying powers were initially printed, which contributed to significant price increases.
With the re-establishment of the Republic of Austria by the Austrian declaration of independence of 27 April 1945, it came to the resumption of activities of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. By the "Fed Transition Act" of July 1945 preliminary legal regulations for the operations of the Bank have been established. The restoration of the Austrian currency was their first big job. The goal was the summary of all currencies, which at the time were in circulation, and their secondment to a new Austrian currency. The "Schilling Act" of November 1945, the basis for the re-introduction of the Schilling (Second Republic) as legal tender in Austria. The next step was to reduce excess liquidity to make necessary funds for new business investment available and to make the external value of the shilling for the development of the economy competitive. First, however, less changed the inflationary situation and also the shilling was still significantly undervalued in relation to other currencies.
The "Currency Protection Act" of 1947 brought a significant change in the monetary overhang. Some deposits have been deleted without replacement, others converted into claims against the Federal Treasury. The following exchange operations also significantly reduced the amount of cash: banknotes from 1945 were canceled and exchanged for new schilling notes in the ratio 1:3. Only 150 shillings per person could go 1-1.
To control inflation, the social partners came to the foreground. The associations of employers and employees set in 1947 prices for supplies, wages were also raised. This was the first of the five "wage-price agreements" of the social partners. In 1952, inflation was held back by limiting the use of monetary policy instruments by the National Bank. Also, the external sector slowly relaxed after the end of the Korean War.
In 1955, the Austrian National Bank was re-established by the new National Bank Act as a corporation and the by the National Bank Transition of Authorities Act (Nationalbank-Überleitungsgesetz) established provisional arragement abolished. The National Bank Act stipulated that each half of the capital should be situated at the federal government and private shareholders. In addition to the independence of bank loans of the state, the new National Bank Act also contained an order that the central bank must watch within their monetary and credit policies on the economic policies of the federal government. From now on also included within the instruments of the National Bank were the areas open market and minimum reserve policy.
The Austrian economy increasingly stabilized, through good fiscal and monetary policy a high growth could be attained, with low inflation and long-term maintenance of external equilibrium.
1960, Austria joined the European Free Trade Association and participated in the European integration.
In the sixties came the international monetary system based on gold-dollar convertibility into currency fluctuations and political reforms were necessary. First, the loosening of exchange rate adjustments between several states was an option. However, U.S. balance of payments problems brought with it restrictions on capital movements, and then the Euro-Dollar market was born. In 1971, the convertibility of the U.S. dollar was lifted.
1975 interrupted a recession increasing growth time. International unbalanced ayments caused very extensive foreign exchange movements, whereby the intervention force of Austrian monetary policy has been strongly challenged. Their task now was to control the effect of foreign exchange on domestic economic activities to stabilize the shilling in the context of constantly shifting exchange rates and to control the price rise appropriately. Since the inflow of foreign funds reached to high proportions, so that the economic stability has been compromised, the policy went the way of the independent course design in a pool of selected European currencies.
The collapse of the economy forced the policy makers to a new course with active mutual credit control, subdued wage growth, financial impulses in supply and demand, and interest rates are kept low. This system of regulation, however, kept back the need for structural change, so it had to be given up in 1979. In the same year a fire destroyed large parts of the main building of the Austrian National Bank in Vienna. The repairs lasted until 1985.
Target in the eighties was to strengthen the economic performance using a competitive power comparison. The findings from the seventies stimulated the Austrian monetary policy to align the Schilling course at the Deutsche Mark to ensure price stability in the country. In addition, the structural change was initiated by inclusion in a large area. Stable, if not necessarily comfortable environment of monetary policy was a prerequisite, to secure the companies long-term productivity gains and thus safeguard their position in the economy.
Initially, this development stood a high level of unemployment in the way. Growth until the second half of the decade increased, at the same time increased the competitiveness and current accounts could be kept in balance.
In the nineties, the annexation of Austria took place in the European Community. 1995 Austria became a member of the European Union (EU) and joined the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. In 1998, the Central Banks (ESCB) have established the independence of institutions or bodies of the European Community and the governments of the EU Member States through an amendment to the National Bank Act of the Austrian National Bank to implement the goals and tasks of the European System. Thus, the legal basis for the participation of Austria in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was created in 1999.
As of 1999
The Austrian National Bank, and other national central banks including the European Central Bank ( ECB), belongs to the European System of Central Banks.
On 1 January 1999 was introduced in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union in Austria and ten other EU Member States, the euro as a common currency. The European Central Bank is henceforth responsible for monetary and currency policy, decisions in this regard will be taken in accordance with the Council of the European Central Bank.
Since May 2010, the OeNB is in full possession of the Republic of Austria, after originally lobbies, banks and insurance companies were involved with 50 % of the share capital in it. In 2011, the National Bank Act was adapted by an amendment (Federal Law Gazette I No. 50 /2011) in this circumstance, a renewed privatization is thus excluded by law.
The OeNB as a modern central bank
With the withdrawal from the retail business in the sixties as well as the first major internationalization and implementation of a strategic management in the seventies, the OeNB went on the way to a future-oriented central bank. Another major reform of banking began at the end of the eighties.
In terms of global development, the OeNB established in 1988 as a service company and expanded its guiding values - "security, stability and trust" - to the principles of " fficiency" and "cost-consciousness". The business center was optimized and strategic business experienced through targeted improvements a reinforcement. Be mentioned as examples are intensifying domestic cooperation in the area of payments by encouraging the creation of the Society for the Study co-payments (STUZZA), the liberalization of capital movements, the professional management of foreign exchange reserves, the improvement of the supply of money through the construction of the money center and the internationalization of business activities through the establishment of representative offices in Brussels (European Union), Paris (OECD) and the financial center of New York.
After Austria's accession to the EU in 1995, the OeNB participated in the European Monetary System (EMS ) and its Exchange Rate Mechanism. The integration in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was the next step towards further development of policy stability. Since the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty, the Austrian National Bank has very fully considered its role in the ESCB and created a basis for inclusion in the community. The profound economic and monetary policy of Austria was also a reference that qualified the OeNB to actively participate in the monetary future of Europe, a greater harmonization of the statistical framework and monetary policy instruments with a view to the euro system, the preparation of the issue of European banknotes, and the establishment of operational processes and organizational integration of business processes within the ESCB being specific objectives of the OeNB.
In the following, it came, inter alia, to the establishement of an economic study department, of an education or training initiative and to strengthen the position of payment transactions through the TARGET system.
A in 1996 created "OeNB master plan" provided important points for the upcoming transition to the euro.
In May 1998, a new pension system came into force, by which new employees were incorporated into a two-pillar model.
1999, Austria's participation in the third stage of EMU was manifest. The Austrian National Bank - as part of the ESCB - became the owner of the European Central Bank and received new powers in this context in the sense of participation in the monetary policy decision-making at the level of the European Community. With the introduction of the euro, monetary policy functions of the General Council have been transferred to the Governing Council. However, the implementation remains the responsibility of national central banks.
Activities of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank were or are, for example, the further professionalization of asset management, the expansion of the network of representative offices by opening a representative office in the financial center of London, preparation of the smooth introduction of euro cash in 2002 and the participation of the OeNB on the creation of the "A-SIT" (Center for secure Information Technology Center - Austria) and the "A-Trust" (society of electronic security systems in traffic GmbH ) in order to promote security in information technology.
Vishnu (/ˈvɪʃnuː/; Sanskrit: Viṣṇu) is a popular Hindu deity, the Supreme God of Vaishnavism (one of the three principal denominations of Hinduism) and one of the three supreme deities (Trimurti) of Hinduism. He is also known as Lord Narayana and Lord Hari. As one of the five primary forms of God in the Smarta tradition, He is conceived as "the Preserver or the Protector" within the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the divinity.
In Hindu sacred texts, Vishnu is usually described as having dark complexion of water-filled clouds and as having four arms. He is depicted as a blue being, holding a padma (lotus flower) in the lower left hand, the Kaumodaki gada (mace) in the lower right hand, the Panchajanya shankha (conch) in the upper left hand and the discus weapon Sudarshana Chakra in the upper right hand.
Adherents of Hinduism believe Vishnu's eternal and supreme abode beyond the material universe is called Vaikuntha, which is also known as Paramdhama, the realm of eternal bliss and happiness and the final or highest place for liberated souls who have attained Moksha. Vaikuntha is situated beyond the material universe and hence, cannot be perceived or measured by material science or logic. Vishnu's other abode within the material universe is Ksheera Sagara (the ocean of milk), where he reclines and rests on Ananta Shesha, (the king of the serpent deities, commonly shown with a thousand heads). In almost all Hindu denominations, Vishnu is either worshipped directly or in the form of his ten avatars, the most famous of whom are Rama and Krishna.
The Puranabharati, an ancient text, describes these as the dashavatara, or the ten avatars of Vishnu. Among the ten described, nine have occurred in the past and one will take place in the future as Lord Kalki, at the end of Kali Yuga, (the fourth and final stage in the cycle of yugas that the world goes through). These incarnations take place in all Yugas in cosmic scales; the avatars and their stories show that gods are indeed unimaginable, unthinkable and inconceivable. The Bhagavad Gita mentions their purpose as being to rejuvenate Dharma, to vanquish those negative forces of evil that threaten dharma, and also to display His divine nature in front of all souls.
The Trimurti (three forms) is a concept in Hinduism "in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the maintainer, preserver or protector and Shiva the destroyer or transformer." These three deities have also been called "the Hindu triad" or the "Great Trinity", all having the same meaning of three in One. They are the different forms or manifestation of One person the Supreme Being or Narayana/Svayam Bhagavan.
Vishnu is also venerated as Mukunda, which means God who is the giver of mukti or moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirths) to his devotees or the worthy ones who deserve salvation from the material world.
ETYMOLOGY
The traditional explanation of the name Vishnu involves the root viś, meaning "to settle" (cognate with Latin vicus, English -wich "village," Slavic: vas -ves), or also (in the Rigveda) "to enter into, to pervade," glossing the name as "the All-Pervading One". Yaska, an early commentator on the Vedas, in his Nirukta, (etymological interpretation), defines Vishnu as viṣṇur viṣvater vā vyaśnoter vā, "one who enters everywhere". He also writes, atha yad viṣito bhavati tad viṣnurbhavati, "that which is free from fetters and bondages is Vishnu".
Adi Shankara in his commentary on the Sahasranama states derivation from viś, with a meaning "presence everywhere" ("As he pervades everything, vevesti, he is called Vishnu"). Adi Shankara states (regarding Vishnu Purana, 3.1.45): "The Power of the Supreme Being has entered within the universe. The root viś means 'enter into'." Swami Chinmayananda, in his translation of Vishnu Sahasranama further elaborates on that verse: "The root vis means to enter. The entire world of things and beings is pervaded by Him and the Upanishad emphatically insists in its mantra 'whatever that is there is the world of change.' Hence, it means that He is not limited by space, time or substance. Chinmayananda states that, that which pervades everything is Vishnu."
SACRET TEXTS - SHRUTI & SMRITI
Shruti is considered to be solely of divine origin. It is preserved as a whole, instead of verse by verse. It includes the four Vedas (Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda) the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads with commentaries on them.
Smṛti refers to all the knowledge derived and inculcated after Shruti had been received. Smrti is not 'divine' in origin, but was 'remembered' by later Rishis (sages by insight, who were the scribes) by transcendental means and passed down through their followers. It includes the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana which are Sattva Puranas. These both declare Vishnu as Para Brahman Supreme Lord who creates unlimited universes and enters each one of them as Lord of Universe.
SHRUTI
VAISHNAVA CANON
The Vaishnava canon presents Vishnu as the supreme being, rather than another name for the Sun God, who also bore the name Suryanarayana and is considered only as a form of Vishnu.
VEDAS
In the Yajur Veda, Taittiriya Aranyaka (10-13-1), Narayana suktam, Lord Narayana is mentioned as the supreme being. The first verse of Narayana Suktam mentions the words "paramam padam", which literally mean "highest post" and may be understood as the "supreme abode for all souls". This is also known as Param Dhama, Paramapadam, or Vaikuntha. Rig Veda 1:22:20a also mentions the same "paramam padam". This special status is not given to any deity in the Vedas apart from Lord Vishnu/Narayana.[citation needed] Narayana is one of the thousand names of Vishnu as mentioned in the Vishnu Sahasranama. It describes Vishnu as the All-Pervading essence of all beings, the master of - and beyond - the past, present and future, one who supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within. This illustrates the omnipresent characteristic of Vishnu. Vishnu governs the aspect of preservation and sustenance of the universe, so he is called "Preserver of the universe".
Vishnu is the Supreme God who takes manifest forms or avatars across various ages or periods to save humanity from evil beings, demons or Asuras. According to the extant Hindu texts and traditions, Lord Vishnu is considered to be resident in the direction of the "Makara Rashi" (the "Shravana Nakshatra"), which is about coincident with the Capricorn constellation. In some of the extant Puranas, and Vaishnava traditions, Vishnu's eye is considered to be situated at the infinitely distant Southern Celestial Pole.
Following the defeat of Indra and his displacement as the Lord of Heaven or Swarga, Indra asks Lord Vishnu for help and thus Lord Vishnu takes his incarnations or avatars to Earth to save mankind, thus showing his position as Supreme God to all of creation.
In the Puranas, Indra frequently appears proud and haughty. These bad qualities are temporarily removed when Brahma and/or Shiva give boons to Asuras or Rakshasas such as Hiranyaksha, Hiranyakashipu and Ravana, who are then able to defeat Indra in wars between Devas and Asuras. The received boons often made Asuras virtually indestructible.
Indra has no option but to seek help from Vishnu. Indra prays before Vishnu for protection and the Supreme Lord obliges him by taking avatars and generating himself on Earth in various forms, first as a water-dweller (Matsya, fish), then as an amphibious creature (Kurma avatar or Tortoise), then as a half-man-half-animal (Varaha the pig-faced, human-bodied Lord, and Narasimha the Lord with lion's face and claws and a human body). Later, Vishnu appears as human beings (Vamana the short-heighted person), Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and finally as Kalki for performing his task of protecting his devotees from demons and anti-religious entities.
Vishnu's supremacy is attested by his victories over those very powerful entities. It is further attested by the accepted iconography and sculptures of Vishnu in reclining position as producing Brahma emerging from his navel. Brahma the creator is thus created in turn by Vishnu out of his own person. Instead Vishnu takes various avatars to slay or defeat those demons. But it is to be noted that Vishnu also provided boons to Akupresura, a bear faced demon who was destroyed by Lord Shiva.
Vishnu's actions lowered Indra's ranking among Hindu deities and led to the ascendancy of Vishnu.
Few temples are dedicated to the Sun or Suryanarayana, nor indeed Indra, nor does Indra figure largely in the Hindu religion.
Indra is almost completely absent from the deities considered as the chief or most important deity.
RIGVEDA
In the Rigveda, Vishnu is mentioned 93 times. He is frequently invoked alongside other deities, especially Indra, whom he helps in killing Vritra and with whom he drinks Soma. His distinguishing characteristic in the Vedas is his association with light. Two Rigvedic hymns in Mandala 7 are dedicated to Vishnu. In 7.99, Vishnu is addressed as the god who separates heaven and earth, a characteristic he shares with Indra.
The Rig Veda describes Vishnu as younger brother to Indra as Vamana. In Vaishnava canon the 'Vishnu' who is younger brother to Indra is identified as Vamana, Avatar of Vishnu, hence referred to as Vishnu by Vaishnavites. Vishnu is the Supreme God who lives in the highest celestial region, contrasted against those who live in the atmospheric or terrestrial regions. Vishnu is content with mere prayer, unlike almost all of the other gods who receive sacrificial offerings such as Havis, which is given using clarified butter, or Soma. Later foreign translators have view that Vedas place Indra in a superior position to Vishnu's Avatar of Vamana but in fact Vamana helps Indra by restoring his Kingdom.
An alternate translation is provided by Wilson according to Sayana:
When Thy (younger brother) Viṣṇu (Vamana) by (his) strength stepped his three paces, then verily thy beloved horses bore thee. (Rigveda 8:12:27)
Wilson mentions Griffith's possible translation as a footnote. However the following verse from Rigveda renders the above translation by Wilson more probable.
Him whose three places that are filled with sweetness, imperishable, joy as it may list them, Who verily alone upholds the threefold, the earth, the heaven, and all living creatures. (Rig veda 1:154:4)
Wilson offers an alternate translation for Rigveda 10:113:2:
Viṣṇu offering the portion of Soma, glorifies by his own vigor that greatness of his. Indra, the lord of heaven, with the associated gods having slain Vritra, became deserving of honour. (Rigveda 10:113:2)
This verse sees Vishnu as one who is glorified by his own strength, while Indra became deserving of honor after having slain Vritra only in association with other gods.
However Vishnu's praise for other gods does not imply worship. Wilson translates:
Viṣṇu, the mighty giver of dwellings praises thee, and Mitra and Varuna; the company of Maruts imitates thee in exhilaration. (Rigveda 8:15:9) (page 280)
The following verses show categorically Vishnu as distinguished from other gods in Rigveda.
He who presents (offering) to Viṣṇu, the ancient, the creator, the recent, the self-born; he who celebrates the great birth of that mighty one; he verily possessed of abundance, attains (the station) that is to be sought (by all). (Rigveda 1:156:2) (page 98)
No being that is or that has been born, divine Viṣṇu, has attained the utmost limit of thy magnitude, by which thou hast upheld the vast and beautiful heaven, and sustained the eastern horizon of Earth.(Rigveda 7:99:2) (page 196)
The divine Viṣṇu, the best of the doers of good deeds, who came to the pious instituter of rite (Indra), to assist (at its celebration), knowing (the desires of the worshiper), and present at the three connected period (of worship), shows favor to the Arya, and admits the author of the ceremony to a share of the sacrifice. (Rigveda 1:156:5) (page 99)
Jan Gonda, the late Indologist, states that Vishnu, although remaining in the background of Indra's exploits, contributes by his presence, or is key to Indra's success. Vishnu is more than a mere companion, equal in rank or power to Indra, or sometime the one who made Indra's success possible.
Descriptions of Vishnu as younger to Indra are found in only the hymns to Indra, but in a kathenotheism religion like that of the Rigveda, each god, for a time, is supreme in the mind of the devotee.
In the Rig Vedic texts, the deity or god referred to as Vishnu is the Sun God, who also bears the name 'Suryanarayana'. By contrast, the 'Vishnu' referred to in 'Vishnu Purana', 'Vishnu Sahasranamam' and 'Purusha Sooktham' is Lord Narayana, the Consort of Lakshmi. Vaishnavites make a further distinction by extolling the qualities of Vishnu by highlighting his differences from other deities such as Shiva,[citation needed] Brahma or Surya.
THREE STEPS
Hymn 7.100 refers to the celebrated 'three steps' of Vishnu (as Trivikrama) by which he strode over the universe and in three places planted his step. The 'Vishnu Suktam' (RV 1.154) says that the first and second of Vishnu's strides (those encompassing the earth and air) are visible to men and the third is in the heights of heaven (sky). This last place is described as Vishnu's supreme abode in RV 1.22.20:
The princes evermore behold / that loftiest place where Vishnu is / Laid as it were an eye in heaven.(trans. Griffith)
Griffith's "princes" are the sūri, either "inciters" or lords of a sacrifice, or priests charged with pressing the Soma. The verse is quoted as expressing Vishnu's supremacy by Vaishnavites.
Though such solar aspects have been associated with Vishnu by tradition as well as modern-scholarship, he was not just the representation of the sun, as he moves both vertically and horizontally.
In hymns 1.22.17, 1.154.3, 1.154.4 he strides across the earth with three steps, in 6.49.13, 7.100.3 strides across the earth three times and in 1.154.1, 1.155.5,7.29.7 he strides vertically, with the final step in the heavens. The same Veda also says he strode wide and created space in the cosmos for Indra to fight Vritra. By his stride he made dwelling for men possible, the three forming a symbolic representation of the dwelling's all-encompassing nature. This nature and benevolence to men were Vishnu's enduring attributes. As the triple-strider he is known as Trivikrama and as Urukrama, for the strides were wide.
BRAHMANAS
The Brahmanas are commentaries on the Vedas and form part of the Shruti literature. They are concerned with the detail of the proper performance of rituals. In the Rigveda, Shakala Shakha: Aitareya Brahmana Verse 1 declares: agnir vai devānām ava mo viṣṇuḥ paramus, tadantareṇa sarvā anyā devatā - Agni is the lowest or youngest god and Vishnu is the greatest and the highest God.
The Brahmanas assert the supremacy of Lord Vishnu, addressing him as "Gajapati", the one whom all sacrifices are meant to please. Lord Vishnu accepts all sacrifices to the demigods and allots the respective fruits to the performer In one incident, a demonic person performs a sacrifice by abducting the Rishis (sages), who meditate by constantly chanting God's name. The sacrifice is meant to destroy Indra. But the rishis, who worship Indra as a demigod, alter one pronunciation of the Veda Mantra, reversing the purpose of the sacrifice. When the fruit of the sacrifice is given and the demon is on the verge of dying, he calls to Vishnu, whom he addresses as Supreme Godhead and "the father of all living entities including himself".
Aitareya Brahmana 1:1:1 mentions Vishnu as the Supreme God. But in the Vaishnava canon, in different ages, with Vishnu in different avatars, his relationship with the asuras or demons, was always adversarial. The asuras always caused harm, while the sages and devas or celestial beings, did penance and called to Vishnu for protection. Vishnu always obliged by taking an avatar to vanquish the asuras. In the Vaishnava canon, Vishnu never gave or granted any boons to the asuras, distinguishing him from the gods Shiva and Brahma, who did. He is the only God called upon to save good beings by defeating or killing the asuras.
Sayana writes that in Aitareya Brahmana 1:1:1 the declaration agnir vai devānām ava mo viṣṇuḥ paramus,tadantareṇa sarvā anyā devatā does not indicate any hierarchy among gods. Even in Rigveda Samhita, avama and parama are not applied to denote rank and dignity, but only to mark place and locality.
In Rigveda 1:108:9,: yadindrāghnī avamasyāṃ pṛthivyāṃ madhyamasyāṃ paramasyāmuta sthaḥ | i.e., in the lowest place, the middle (place), and the highest (place). Agni, the fire, has, among the gods, the lowest place; for he resides with man on the earth; while the other gods are either in the air, or in the sky. Vishnu occupies the highest place. The words avama and parama are understood as 'First' and 'Last' respectively. To support this claim, Sayana adduces the mantra (1,4. As'val. Sr. S. 4, 2), agnir mukham prathamo devathanam samathanam uttamo vishnur asit, i.e., Agni was the first of the deities assembled, (and) Vishnu the last.
In the Kausitaki Brahmana (7.1) Agni is called Aaradhya (instead of avama), and Visnu parardha(instead of parama),i.e., belonging to the lower and higher halves (or forming the lower and higher halves). The Vishnu Purana gives tremendous importance to the worship of Vishnu and mentions that sacrifices are to begin only with both the lighting of fire or 'Agni', pouring of sacrificial offerings to Vishnu in 'Agni' so that those offerings reach and are accepted by Vishnu. Worship of Vishnu through Yajnas (or Homams) and other rituals, will not achieve the desired result if Agni's role is neglected.
Muller says "Although the gods are sometimes distinctly invoked as the great and the small, the young and the old (Rig veda 1:27:13), this is only an attempt to find the most comprehensive expression for the divine powers, and nowhere is any of the gods represented as the subordinate to others. It would be easy to find, in the numerous hymns of the Veda, passages in which almost every single god is represented as supreme and absolute."
However this notion is not completely correct as per the following verses, which shows Rigveda describe one or more gods as subject to other god(s).
Him whose high law not Varuna nor Indra, not Mitra, Aryaman, nor Rudra breaketh, Nor evil-hearted fiends, here for my welfare him I invoke, God Savitar, with worship. (Rigveda 2.038.09)
I invite to this place, with reverential salutations, for my good, that divine Savita, whose functions neither Indra, nor Varun.a, nor Mitra nor Aryaman nor Rudra nor the enemies (of the gods), impede. (Rigveda 2.038.09)
SMRITI
VISHNU SMRITI
The Vishnu Smṛti, is one of the later books of the Dharmashastra tradition of Hinduism and the only one that focuses on the bhakti tradition and the required daily puja to Vishnu, rather than the means of knowing dharma. It is also known for its handling of the controversial subject of the practice of sati (self-immolation of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre). The text was composed by an individual or group. The author(s) created a collection of the commonly known legal maxims that were attributed to Vishnu into one book, as Indian oral culture began to be recorded more formally.
BHAGAVATA PURANA
Vishnu is the only Bhagavan as declared in the Bhagavata 1:2:11 in the verse: vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvam yaj jnanam advayam brahmeti paramatmeti bhagavan iti sabdyate, translated as "Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this non-dual substance as Brahman, Paramātma and Bhagavan."
VISHNU PURANA
In the Vishnu Purana (6:5:79) the personality named Parashara Rishi defines six bhagas:
aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya yaśasaḥ śriyaḥ
jñāna-vairāgyayoś caiva ṣannāḥ bhaga itīṇganā
Jiva Gosvami explains the verse in Gopala Champu (Pūrva 15:73) and Bhagavata Sandarbha 46:10:
jñāna-śakti-balaiśvarya-vīrya-tejām.sy aśeṣataḥ
bhagavac-chabda-vācyāni vinā heyair guṇādibhiḥ
"The substantives of the word bhagavat (bhagavat-śabda-vācyāni) are unlimited (aśeṣataḥ) knowledge (jñāna), energies (śakti), strength (bala), opulence (aiśvarya), heroism (vīrya), splendor (tejas), without (vinā) objectionable (heyair) qualities (guṇādibhiḥ)."
SANGAM LITERATURE
Tamil Sangam literature (300BCE to 500CE) mentions mAyOn, or the dark one, as the supreme deity who creates, sustains and destroys the universe. Paripadal 3 describes the glory of Thirumal in the most superlative terms.
Paripadal by kaduvan iLaveyinanAr:
"thIyinuL theRal nI poovinuL naaRRa nI kallinuL maNiyu nI sollinuL vaaymai aRaththinuL anbu nI maRaththinuL mainthu nI vEthaththu maRai nI boothaththu madhalu nI vencudar oLiyu nI thingaLuL aLiyu nI anaiththu nI anaiththinut poruLu nI"
The last line states that Lord Vishnu is the supreme deity who is the inner controller (Antaryamin) of the entire universe. This is one of the Lord's glories, which is first mentioned in Vedas and later propounded by Alwars in Prabhandams and Sri Vaishnavaite Acharyas in various commentaries
The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple and Vishnu, Lakshmi is mentioned in Tamil works of literature of the Sangam era, including the epic Silapadikaram (book 11, lines 35–40):
āyiram viritteḻu talaiyuṭai aruntiṟaṟ
pāyaṟ paḷḷip palartoḻu tētta viritiraik kāviri viyaṉperu turuttit tiruvamar mārpaṉ kiṭanta vaṇṇamum
On a magnificent cot having a thousand heads spread out, worshipped and praised by many, in an islet surrounded by Kaveri with bellowing waves, is the lying posture of the one who has Lakshmi sitting in his chest.
THEOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES
The actual number of Vishnu's auspicious qualities is countless, although his six most-important "divine glories" are:
Jnana (Omniscience); defined as the power to know about all beings simultaneously;
Aishvarya (Sovereignty), derived from the word Ishvara which means unchallenged rule over all;
Shakti (Power or Energy), the capacity to make the impossible possible;
Bala (Strength), the capacity to support everything by will and without any fatigue;
Virya (Vigour), the power to retain immateriality as the Supreme Spirit or Being in spite of being the material cause of mutable creations;
Tejas (Splendor), which expresses self-sufficiency and the capacity to overpower everything by spiritual effulgence.
Other important qualities attributed to Vishnu are Gambhirya (inestimatable grandeur), Audarya (generosity), and Karunya (compassion). Natya Shastra lists Vishnu as the presiding deity of the Sṛngara rasa.
The Rigveda says: Vishnu can travel in three strides. The first stride is the Earth. The second stride is the visible sky. The third stride cannot be seen by men and is the heaven where the gods and the righteous dead live. (This feature of three strides also appears in the story of his avatar Vamana/Trivikrama.) The Sanskrit for "to stride" is the root kram; its reduplicated perfect is chakram (guņa grade) or chakra (zero-grade), and in the Rigveda he is called by epithets such as vi-chakra-māņas = "he who has made 3 strides". The Sanskrit word chakra also means "wheel". That may have suggested the idea of Vishnu carrying a chakra.
FIVE FORMS
In Shree Vaishnavism, another school dating from around the 10th century AD, Vishnu assumes five forms:
In the Para Form, Para is the highest form of Vishnu found only in Sri Vaikunta also called Moksha, along with his consort Lakshmi, (and Bhumi Devi and Nila devi, avatars of Lakshmi) and surrounded by liberated souls like Ananta, Garuda, and a host of Muktas (liberated souls).
In the Vyuha form, Vishnu assumes four forms, which exercise different cosmic functions and controls activities of living beings.
In the Vibhava form, Vishnu assumes various manifestations, called Vibhavas, more popularly known as Avataras from time to time, to protect the virtuous, punish evil-doers and re-establish righteousness.
In the Antaryami; "Dwelling within" or "Suksma Vasudeva" form, Vishnu exists within the souls of all living beings and in every substance.
In the Arcavatara or Image manifestation, Vishnu is visible and therefore easily approachable by devotees since Para, Vyuha, Vibhava and Antaryami forms can only be imagined or meditated upon because they are beyond our reach. Such images can be
Revealed by Vishnu, for example, a self-manifested (Swayambhu) icon (murti), e.g. The Mahavishnu Temple at Tirunelli, The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam, The Tirumala Venkateshwara Temple, etc.; or
Installed by Devas or celestial beings such as such as Guruvayur Temple installed by Vayu; or
Installed by humans, and consecrated according to Vaishnava Agama shastras or scriptures such as Lord Jagannatha of Jagannath Temple (Puri) at Puri.
RELATIONS WITH OTHER DEITIES
SHIVA
The three gods of the Trimurti clan are inseparable and in harmony in view of their common vision and universal good. They are perfectly ideal in all respects.
Both Asuras and Devas played supportive roles in this story by keeping company with Vishnu in his incarnated forms. Hanuman is a vanara who is completely dedicated to Rama. He gives Vishnu company and obeys his command, while playing an important part in Rama's life. He is regarded in Vaishnava canon because it is through blessings that Hanuman is born. Thus, Hanuman, Vishnu's constant companion, with his idol appearing temples of Rama, Krishna and Narasimha, i.e. all of Vishnu's avatars, is considered by Vaishnavas.
Syncretic forces produced stories in which the two deities were shown in cooperative relationships and combined forms. Harihara is the name of a combined deity form of both Vishnu (Hari) and Shiva (Hara). This dual form, which is also called Harirudra, is mentioned in the Mahabharata.
LAKSHMI
Vishnu's consort is Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth (also known as Maya). The Samvit (the primary intelligence/dark matter) of the universe is Vishnu, while the other five attributes emerge from this samvit and hence Maya or dark energy of the universe is Lakshmee is his ahamata, activity, or Vishnu's Power. This power of God, Maya or Shakti, is personified and has multiple names: Shree, Lakshmi, Maya, Vishnumaya or Mahamaya. She is said to manifest as Kriyashakti, (Creative Activity) and Bhutishakti (Creation). This world requires Vishnu's creativity. He therefore needs Lakshmi to always be with Him. Her various avatars as Lord Vishnu's consorts are Varahavatar (Bhoodevi) or Bhoomi, Ramavatar Seeta, Krishnavatar Rukmini)
SARASWATI & GANGA
According to Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Lord Vishnu had three wives Lakshmi, Saraswati and Ganga. Due to their constant quarrelsome nature among them. Once Ganga tried to be close with Vishnu, this rebuked Saraswati but Lakshmi tried to pacify them but faced a curse rather. As per the curse, Lakshmi to appear as Tulasi. Sarawati cursed Ganga to run as a river in the world and Saraswati was cursed to run as a river in the netherworld. After this, Lord Vishnu transformed and became Brahma and Shiva to pacify Saraswati and Ganga.
GARUDA
Vishnu's mount (Vahana) is Garuda, the eagle. Vishnu is commonly depicted as riding on his shoulders.
ICONOGRAPHY
According to various Puranas, Vishnu is the ultimate omnipresent reality and is shapeless and omnipresent. However, a strict iconography governs his representation, whether in pictures, icons, or idols:
He has four arms and is male: The four arms indicate his all-powerful and all-pervasive nature. His physical existence is represented by the two arms in the front, while the two arms at the back represent his presence in the spiritual world. The Upanishad Gopal Uttartapani describes the four arms.
The Shreevatsa mark is on his chest, symbolizing his consort Lakshmi.
He wears the auspicious "Kaustubha" jewel around his neck and a garland of vaijayanti flowers (Vanamala). Lakshmi dwells in this jewel, on Vishnu's chest.
A crown adorns his head: The crown symbolizes his supreme authority. This crown sometimes includes a peacock feather, borrowing from his Krishna-avatar.
He wears two earrings: The earrings represent inherent opposites in creation — knowledge and ignorance; happiness and unhappiness; pleasure and pain.
He rests on Ananta, the immortal and infinite snake.
Vishnu is always to be depicted holding four attributes:
A conch shell or Shankha, named Panchajanya, is held by the upper left hand. It represents Vishnu's power to create and maintain the universe. Panchajanya represents the five elements or Panchabhoota – water, fire, air, earth and sky or space. It also represents the five airs or Pranas that are within the body and mind. The conch symbolizes that Vishnu is the primeval Divine sound of creation and continuity. It also represented as Om. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna avatara states that of sound vibrations, 'He is Om'.
The Chakra, a sharp, spinning, discus-like weapon, named "Sudarshana", is held by the upper right hand. It symbolizes the purified spiritualized mind. The name Sudarshana is derived from two words – Su, which means good, superior, and Darshana, which means vision or sight; together. The Chakra represents destruction of ego in the awakening and realization of the soul's original nature and god, burning away spiritual ignorance and illusion, and developing higher spiritual vision and insight to realize god.
A mace or Gada, named "Kaumodaki", is held by the lower right hand. It symbolizes that Vishnu's divine power is the source of all spiritual, mental and physical strength. It also signifies Vishnu's power to destroy materialistic or demonic tendencies (Anarthas) that prevent people from reaching god. Vishnu's mace is the power of the Divine within us to spiritually purify and uplift us from our materialistic bonds.
A lotus flower or Padma is held by the lower left hand. It represents spiritual liberation, Divine perfection, purity and the unfolding of Spiritual consciousness within the individual. The lotus opening its petals in the light of the Sun is indicative of the expansion and awakening of our long dormant, original spiritual consciousness in the light of god. The lotus symbolizes that god is the power and source from which the universe and the individual soul emerges. It also represents Divine Truth or Satya, the originator of the rules of conduct or Dharma, and Divine Vedic knowledge or Jnana. The lotus also symbolizes that Vishnu is the embodiment of spiritual perfection and purity and that He is the wellspring of these qualities and that the individual soul must seek to awaken these intrinsic Divine qualities from Vishnu by surrendering to and linking with Him.
To this may be added, conventionally, the vanamaala flower garland, Vishnu's bow (Shaarnga/Kodand) and his sword Nandaka. A verse of the Vishnu Sahasranama stotram states;vanamālī gadhī shārngī shanki chakri cha nandaki / shrīmān nārāyaņo vişņo vāsudevo abhirakşatu//; translation: Protect us Oh Lord Narayana who wears the forest garland,who has the mace, conch, sword and the wheel. And who is called Vishnu and the Vasudeva.
In general, Vishnu's body is depicted in one of the following three ways:
Standing on a lotus flower, often with Lakshmi, his consort, beside him on a similar pedestal.
Reclining on the coiled-up thousand-hooded Shesha Naga, with Lakshmi seated at his feet; the assemblage rests on the "Kshira Sagar" (ocean of milk). In this representation, Brahma is depicted as sitting on a lotus that grows out of Vishnu's navel.
Riding on the back of his eagle mount, known as Garuda. Another name for Garuda is "Veda atma"; Soul of the Vedas. The flapping of his wings symbolizes the power of the Divine Truth of Vedic wisdom. Also the eagle represents the soul. Garuda carrying Vishnu symbolizes the soul or jiva atma carrying the Super soul or Param atma within it.
AVATARS
Ten avatars (dashavatara) of Vishnu are the most prominent: Apart from the most prominent incarnations there are believed to more.
The most commonly believed incarnations of Vishnu are:
Matsya, the fish that kills Damanaka to save the vedas and also saves Manu from a great flood that submerges the entire Earth.
Kurma, the turtle that helps the Devas and Asuras churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality.
Varaha, the boar that rescues the Earth and kills Hiranyaksha.
Narasimha, the half-lion half human, who defeats the demon Hiranyakashipu.
Vamana, the dwarf that grows into a giant to save the world from King Bali.
Parashurama, "Rama of the battle axe", a sage who appeared in the Treta Yuga. He killed Kartavirya Arjuna's army and clan and then killed all the kshatriyas 21 times.
Rama, the prince and king of Ayodhya who killed the Demon King Raavan.
Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, who takes part in the Mahabharata epic. Krishna is worshipped as the Supreme Avatar of Vishnu (Supreme Personality of Godhead) in Gaudiya-Vaishnava philosophy.
Buddha, the ninth avatar of Vishnu.
Kalki, the tenth Avatar of Vishnu and said to be the harbinger of the end Kali Yuga. This avatar of Vishnu is yet to come.
Some versions of the above list include Hayagreeva among the Dashavataras while some include Buddha as ninth avatar of Vishnu. Another 22 avatars are given in Chapter 3, Canto 1 of the Bhagavata Purana, although it states that "the incarnations of the Lord are innumerable, like rivulets flowing from inexhaustible sources of water".
BEYOND HINDUISM
SIKHISM
Guru Granth Sahib of Sikhism mentions Vishnu, one verse goes:
The true Vaishnaav, the devotee of Vishnu, is the one with whom God is thoroughly pleased. He dwells apart from Maya. Performing good deeds, he does not seek rewards. Spotlessly pure is the religion of such a Vaishnaav; he has no desire for the fruits of his labors. He is absorbed in devotional worship and the singing of Kirtan, the songs of the Lords Glory. Within his mind and body, he meditates in remembrance on the Lord of the Universe. He is kind to all creatures. He holds fast to the Naam, and inspires others to chant it. O Nanak, such a Vaishnaav obtains the supreme status.
BUDDHISM
While some Hindus consider Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu, Buddhists in Sri Lanka venerate Vishnu as the custodian deity of Sri Lanka and protector of Buddhism. Lord Vishnu is also known as upulvan, or uthpala varna, meaning "Blue Lotus coloured". Some postulates that Uthpala varna was a local deity who later merged with Vishnu while another belief is that Uthpala Varna was an early form of Vishnu before he became a supreme deity in Puranic Hinduism. According to Chronicles "Mahawamsa", "Chulawamsa" and folklore in Sri Lanka, Buddha himself handed over the custodianship to Vishnu. Others believe that Buddha entrusted this task to Sakra(Indra) and Sakra delegated this task of custodianship to god Vishnu. In contrary to vedic Hinduism, in assimilation of Hindu god Vishnu into Sinhalese Buddhism, Vishnu becomes a mortal being and a Bodhisattva aspiring Buddhahood. Additionally, Vishnu is considered as the god of home and hearth representing mercy, goodness, order and stability. Many Buddhist and Hindu shrines are dedicated to Vishnu in Sri Lanka. In addition to specific Vishnu "Kovils" or "devalayas", all Buddhist temples necessarily house shrine rooms (Devalayas) closer to the main Buddhist shrine dedicated to Vishnu. John Holt in his groundbreaking study examines the assimilation, transformation, and subordination of the Hindu deity Vishnu within the contexts of Sri Lankan history and Sinhala Buddhist religious culture. He then explores the role and rationale of medieval Sinhala kings in assimilating Visnu into Sinhala Buddhism. According to Holt the veneration of Vishnu in Sri Lanka is evidence of a remarkable ability, over many centuries, to reiterate and reinvent culture as other ethnicities have been absorbed into their own. Though the Vishnu cult in Ceylon was formally endorsed by Kandyan kings in early 1700s, Holt states that vishnu images and shrines are among conspicuous ruins in the medieval capital Polonnaruwa. In Buddhist mythology, when Vishnu failed to traverse the universe in three steps, he was given the title "Ardha Vishnu (Half-Vishnu)" and when Vishnu banished demons from the Vaishali (Vishala)in India, he became "Mulu Vishnu or Whole Vishnu". The extreme significance of god Vishnu in Sinhala society is reflected in recitals of the traditional "Offerings to dwarfs and crossing the door frame (bahirwayanta dola pideem saha uluwahu peneema)" that starts with Sri Vishnu invocation.In the recitals,mentioning of the aspiring Buddhahood of Vishnu which is of prime importance to Buddhists and wishes for him to live five thousand and more years highlight the central role of Vishnu in the psyche of Sri Lankan Buddhists.
OTHERS
James Freeman Clarke, Richard Leviton, James Cowles Prichard, and others have noted the similarities between Vishnu and Ancient Egyptian God Horus.
During an excavation in an abandoned village of Russia in the Volga region, archaeologist Alexander Kozhevin excavated an ancient idol of Vishnu. The idol dates from between the 7th and 10th centuries. In the interview Kozhevin, stated that, "We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a hypothesis, which requires thorough research"
THOUSAND NAMES OF VISHNU
Vishnu's many names and followers are collected in the Vishnu Sahasranama, (Vishnu's thousand names) from within the larger work Mahabharata. The character Bheeshma recites the names before Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, praising him (Vishnu) as the supreme god. These Sahasranama are regarded as the essence of all Vedas by followers of Vaishnavism, who believe sincere chanting of Vishnu Sahasranama results in spiritual well-being and a greater awareness of God.
The names are generally derived from the Anantakalyanagunas (meaning: infinite auspicious attributes).
According to the Siddhartha-samhita there are twenty-four forms of Lord Vishnu. The twenty-four forms are
Vasudeva
Sankarshana
Pradyumna
Anirudha
Keshava
Narayana
Madhava
Govinda
Vishnu
Madhusudana
Trivikrama
Vamana
Sridhara
Hrishikesha
Padmanabha
Damodara
Purushottama
Achyuta
Narasimha
Janardana
Hari
Krishna
Adhokshaja
Upulvan, Uthpala Varna - In Sri Lanka, Vishnu is also referred to as Upulvan ( Blue Lotus Coloured)
WIKIPEDIA
I bought my Jeep Wrangler assuming that, of all vehicles out there, certainly a Jeep would have stability control that could be fully disabled, because it's often helpful for off-roading to turn it off. Stability control is mandated on new cars, but fortunately it's still legal to equip cars with a kill switch from the factory. New Jeeps like mine have factory ESP disabling buttons, but the problem is, it never fully goes off. The ESP still prevents you from doing donuts, even when it's "off." You can tell because when you try to go sideways with the ESP off, the warning lights still flash on the dash and your fun is quickly stifled. Why the most off-road-capable vehicle on the market would not have the ability to completely defeat stability control is beyond me. Presumably it's fear of a lawsuit, but there are lots of other vehicles on the market that allow you to shut it off.
Here's how to add a switch to let you keep the stability control on for scary winter storm driving and turn it off when you want to do donuts on the beach.
Be advised that this will also deactivate cruise control when you turn the switch off. But you shouldn't turn off stability control with cruise control on anyway.
Be advised that this will also deactivate antilock brakes when you turn the switch off. But that's actually a good thing, because when you are off-road you will actually brake more effectively without antilock brakes.
Be advised that this may void your warranty.
Supplies: a $5 (or nicer if you like) SPST switch, 10 feet of 14 gauge wire from a hardware store, screw wire connectors, electrical tape.
Tools: various screwdrivers, Torx drivers, wrenches.
Time: All frickin day if you're an idiot like me.
Step 1 is to remove the Torx screws holding the rear of the console in place, as shown.
Soldiers with the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo quick reaction force (UMIR) assesses patients at the triage tent during a simulated mass casualty bus crash exercise, Sept. 16 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Kassidy Snyder
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Congolese and American medical specialists participating in MEDFLAG 10 conducted a mass casualty exercise Sept. 16 as the culminating training event of the 10-day exercise.
The exercise followed four days of humanitarian assistance to Kinshasa residents by the combined forces.
Thursday’s scenario centered on a simulated bus crash resulting in approximately 50 casualties, and highlighted Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s quick reaction force (FARDC UMIR) demonstrating their techniques and skills as first responders to a catastrophe.
“My role was to check the level of bleeding and monitor the patient’s blood pressure once they arrived,” said Ndaya Lilian, a female UMIR laboratory technician. “Outside of the military I am a specialist in child delivery, and the experience and knowledge I gained over the last few weeks will help me out tremendously in the future.”
The UMIR unit demonstrated its expertise in three areas of response: picking up of casualties, triage at the advanced medical point, and a mobile surgery hospital. The hospital included three main services: emergencies, surgery room combined with intensive care and hospitalization.
As the exercise progressed, 1st Lt. Coty Sicble, a medical administrator with the North Dakota National Guard’s 814th Army Support Medical Company based in Bismarck, gave the audience a step-by-step narration of the action taking place. Sicble described the intense preparation and execution the UMIR members demonstrated during the exercise.
After the mass casualty exercise, participants conducted a closing ceremony at the Command and Staff College in Kinshasa, where the MEDFLAG 10 exercise first began Sept. 6.
“MEDFLAG 10 has taken place and was a moment of an intense scientific, technical, social and psychological communion in perfect harmony between the American forces and FARDC respective health services,” said FARDC Surgeon General Col. Gilbert Kabanda, during the closing ceremony, Sept. 17.
As part of MEDFLAG 10, U.S. and Congolese troops worked closely together to increase the combined readiness of their medical forces to respond to humanitarian emergencies. MEDFLAG is a key program in United States efforts to partner with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to further the development of a professional military that is accountable to civilian authority, and provides stability and security to the people.
“We can confirm, without contradiction, that MEDFLAG 10 has achieved all its objectives assigned by both military hierarchies, American and Congolese,” said Kabanda.
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PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 10, 2020) Deck department Sailors lower a rigid-hull inflatable boat from the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42) for a visit, board, search and seizure exercise. Germantown, part of the America Amphibious Ready Group assigned to Amphibious Squadron 11, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners, and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Taylor DiMartino)
Frenchman Roland Magallon developed a microlight aircraft called the Mosquito in 1979 to fill the need for an aircraft combining the simplicity and maneuverability of hang gliders with the stability and flexibility of more traditional powered, fixed-wing aircraft. As the unique configuration became popular, it acquired the nickname 'trike' in reference to the distinctive three-wheeled enclosure suspended beneath the wing and containing the cockpit and engine. Thirteen years the Mosquito, another French designer named Renaud Guy introduced the Cosmos Phase II in 1992. He marketed the aircraft to pilots who wished to operate from airfields, snow, or water, and to those who wanted a good training aircraft. The trike soon found favor as a stable platform for aerial photography, and for towing aloft hang gliders. The pilot flying a Phase II could takeoff and land in less than 61 m (200 ft) and expect to fly approximately 322 km (200 miles) under most conditions. The ultralight cost about $14,000 in early 2004. Production ended in 2005 after dealers sold more than 800.
Trike ultralights such as the Phase II is well-suited to lead the migrations of large birds. Pilots can safely match the bird's cruising speed, which for Whooping cranes is about 24 km/h (38 mph). Trikes are highly maneuverable, they provide excellent visibility, and a guard is fitted easily to the aircraft to shield the birds from the spinning propeller. Direct control of the wing via the crossbar allows a pilot to concentrate more attention on the flock's position relative to the ultralight.
Operation Migration is a member of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, along with seven organizations dedicated to saving the Whooping crane from extinction. For many bird species, the ability to migrate is a learned process. Canadian Bill Lishman founded Operation Migration as a non-profit charitable organization in 1994 to develop methods for teaching captive-reared birds to migrate by following ultralight aircraft. Lishman got the idea after watching John Moody fly his Easy Riser at Oshkosh in 1976. Another Canadian, Bill Carrick had trained Canada geese to fly alongside his motorboat using methods pioneered by the 1973 Nobel Prize-winning animal behaviorist, Konrad Lorenz. Carrick encouraged Lishman who in 1988 succeeded in training geese to fly with his own Easy Riser ultralight during short flights near his farm. Lishman teamed with Joe Duff in fall 1993 and the two Canadians led 18 Canada geese from Port Perry, Ontario, to Warrenton, Virginia. Thirteen of the birds proved that the idea worked when they returned to Ontario from Virginia the following spring.
Standing at 1.5 m (5 ft), Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America. Their wings span 2.1-2.4 meters (7-8 ft) and they prefer to sleep standing in shallow water to deter predators. They feed on clams, frogs, crabs, and aquatic plants and they mate for life. Whooping cranes are the rarest of the world's 15 crane species. Biologists have estimated they once numbered between about 500 and 1,400 before European settlement began to alter their habitat in 1870. The population had dwindled to just 15 Whooping cranes by 1941 but rebounded to 200 wild birds by 2004. Despite their recovery, a single catastrophe such as a hurricane, avian disease, or a chemical spill could extinguish the species.
Teaching the cranes to follow the ultralights begins before they hatch when aviculturalists expose the eggs to the recorded sound of an ultralight engine. At around 5-7 days old, a silent and disguised aviculturalist wearing a hand puppet that looks like the head and neck of an adult crane introduces each chick to an ultralight aircraft, accompanied by recorded crane brood calls to reassure the youngster. A bird seeing a human face or hearing a human voice while under the staff's care could 'imprint' on humans, losing its natural fear and dramatically decreasing its odds of surviving in the wild. As the bird matures, it will after a few years lose interest in the ultralight. By eight weeks, the bird is following the ultralight as it taxis and flying with the aircraft when the crane is 80-90 days old. Training flights can last as long as a half-hour and each chick can require an average of more than 11 hours to train.
The ultralight pilots lead the Whooping cranes along a migration route that stretches 1,932 km (1,200 miles) across seven states, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. In 2005, the Operation Migration staff arranged accommodations for the birds at 38 sites spaced from 32 km (20 miles) to 113 km (70 miles) apart, each one selected to avoid populated areas. The migration that year lasted 50 days, split about evenly between flying with the birds and waiting for flyable weather. With the help of a tail wind, a single flight leg can cover 322 km (200 miles) in just over 3 hours. When either weather or cranes refuse to cooperate, a flight can cover less than 37 km (23 miles).
After taking off, the Whooping cranes jockey for the best position and then 'surf'' the strong wing tip vortex generated by the ultralight. A bird can fly with considerably less effort from this coveted position. The other birds maneuver into a diagonal line, wingtip to wingtip, each surfing a similar but less intense vortex generated by flapping wings. The flock settles down and all goes well until, without warning, the crane surfing the ultralight (which it considers another crane thanks to months of careful imprinting) decides to challenge aircraft for the right to lead the formation. The other birds follow and quickly envelope the aircraft. The pilot is suddenly "IFR in cranes" with no choice but to back away from the gaggle, climb above it, and then drop back into the lead. A particularly aggressive bird will sometimes repeatedly challenge for the lead until the ultralight pilot is nearly exhausted.
Crossing the Appalachian Mountains is the most difficult part of migrating with the birds because of the elevation but there are other hazards in the air and on the ground. The birds will follow the ultralight as it descends to treetop height or climbs to several thousand feet, however, low flying is dangerous. Cranes have been injured and killed in collisions with power lines and aircraft. One year during an overnight stop, a Whooping crane succumbed to a bobcat. Another year, a crane probing mud for food lodged its beak inside a spent shotgun shell. An ultralight pilot noticed the bird's predicament during flight and plucked the shell after landing. The birds can tire, break formation, and land, often taking several flight mates with them. When this happens, one of the two ultralight pilots supporting the lead aircraft gives chase, rounds up the stragglers, and then reunites them with the main flock as soon as possible. As John Christian of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service said, Operation Migrations' work "is the wildlife equivalent of putting a man on the moon."
A significant step toward establishing what biologists believe is necessary to insure species survival - two independent groups of 25 wild breeding pairs that can migrate on their own - occurred in March 2006 after a Whooping crane trained using the Operation Migration ultralights migrated on its own from Florida to Wisconsin, the first to do so in more than 100 years. Yet the year also saw the program threatened by land development. Pilots noted a significant increase in the number of houses and businesses occupying once wild habitat along the migration route. The staff must abandon a regular stop in Tennessee because developers had planned to build 1,000 new homes adjacent to the site in 2007. A crane nest site in Florida is also threatened. Despite many difficulties, Operation Migration has developed one of the most innovative and important wildlife conservation programs in history. They are well on their way to saving a species from extinction, and their efforts have boosted public interest in wildlife conservation. Joe Duff's role was critical to the program's success. He led the organization from its inception and developed the training protocols. By 2007, Duff had flown with birds longer than anyone had. He and his staff also led migrations of Trumpeter swans and Sandhill cranes.
Pilots volunteering for Operation Migration flew the Phase II now belonging to the NASM. Using this aircraft, they led Canada geese to South Carolina in 1995, Trumpeter swans to the Chesapeake the following year, Sandhill cranes in 1997, 1998, and 2000, and the first Whooping cranes from Wisconsin to Florida in 2001. In 1996, the aircraft also appeared in the Columbia Pictures film Fly Away Home, starring Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels. The trike is equipped with a custom-built bird guard enclosing the propeller; radios, GPS navigation, and a sound system to broadcast adult crane calls while flying with the birds.
From 1933 to 1990, Reimar Horten, assisted by his brother, Walter, designed and built a series of swept-wing aircraft without fuselages or tails and they did not use any other surfaces for control or stability that did not also contribute lift to the wing. The National Air and Space Museum owns a Horten II L, Horten III f, Horten III h, Horten VI V2, and the Horten IX V3 turbojet interceptor.
Reimar Horten continued to refine the all-wing sailplane with his third design, the Horten III. Compared to the H II, the wingspan grew about 4 m (13 ft 3 in) but the root chord decreased by .25 m (9 in). By narrowing the root chord and lengthening the wings, Horten increased aspect ratio and this trend continued with Horten's next two sailplane designs. Like the Horten II, the H III center section consisted of welded steel tubes covered with plywood and sheet metal. Horten built the wings entirely from wood. He refined the flight control system by adding a second set of elevons.
From July 1938 until October 1944, at least eighteen Horten III aircraft were constructed at Köln, Berlin, Fürth, Giebelstadt, Minden, Bonn, and Göttingen. This model was built in greater numbers than any other Horten design and both Horten brothers and other pilots flew Horten III gliders in the German national glider competition in 1938 and 1939. Reimar successfully motorized several Ho III sailplanes using a variety of powerplants including Walter Mikron and Volkswagen engines. Horten also modified an Ho III b to carry ammunition in support of Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of England.
Horten fitted the NASM Horten III f with a flat-prone couch for the pilot. This wing, the Horten VI-V3, and the Wright brothers 1903 Flyer are the only aircraft in the NASM collection configured for prone pilotage. Other nations built aircraft to test this unique layout but these NASM artifacts are among the few examples known to exist today. Horten had experimented with seating position to reduce drag as early as 1935 when he designed the first Horten II with supine seating and flew it in May. At first the seatback in the Horten II was inclined just 18º to the horizon but a 23º position became standard. Even with the pilot's head more upright at this setting, visibility was dangerously limited particularly in the slow speed/high-angle-of-attack regime sailplane pilots often operated in. As Reimar put it, the "main drawbacks are poor forward visibility (even worse to the rear), the pilot's knees being in the field of vision, and difficulties developing proper [control] feel and coordination" (quoted in Reimar Horten, "Flying Wing Pilot Position and Design Options," "Soaring," August 1980, translated by Jan Scott, 23).
Supine seating proved a dead end until the postwar revival but in 1938, work at the Akademische Fliegergruppe Stuttgart led Horten in a new direction. The institute built the all-wood Fs 17 with a flat-prone cockpit to conduct aero medical research on pilots subjected to high-G maneuvers. Reimar saw in the new layout intriguing possibilities for drag reduction. In 1941 he completed the Horten IV, the first all-wing aircraft equipped for prone pilotage. Reimar and Walter Horten intended to acclimate pilots to the prone position by using gliders such as the NASM Horten III f. They hoped to smoothly transition pilots to high-performance Horten aircraft equipped with prone cockpits. These "hot rod" Hortens included the H IV and H VI sailplanes, and the jet-propelled H X.
In spring 1944 at Göttingen, a young mathematician named Karl Nickel sampled the prone layout when he flew a Horten III f (it is not known if this same airplane is now in the NASM collection). Nickel's skeptical friends sounded the alarm. How could a pilot maintain proper 'feel' for the aircraft, whether it was banking slightly left or right, while lying on his stomach? It would be impossible, they claimed, to fly instinctively! The controls could not be moved unless the pilot carefully considered each movement beforehand. What of the pilot's personal comfort? Cross-country glider flights often lasted for hours. Even a thick-necked flyer could not hold his head, particularly in high-G thermalling turns. Blood would pool and the limbs would fall asleep! After landing the stiff, immobile pilot would be unable to hoist himself from the prone couch!
Dr. Nickel's fascinating report appears in Karl Nickel and Michael Wohlfart, "Tailless Aircraft in Theory and Practice (AIAA, 1994) on pages 351-355. It conveys his thoughts and feelings as he flew an all-wing Horten glider from the prone position. "I climb from behind [the aircraft] on the center-section of the flying wing to step inside and lie down in it." His parachute hung across his chest and the packed canopy pillowed his torso. The "lying-trough," he continued, "is well-upholstered with foam rubber and artificial leather. . . there is the chinrest which is easily adjustable. The designer has thought of everything and wants to accommodate the pilot in comfort." Horten had fitted seat belts but their operation was unorthodox. "They are fastened over the back and are released automatically as soon as the cockpit is opened. How Practical!"
The prone position demanded a novel control system. Reimar designed one and installed it in all his prone aircraft. He used a yoke-type wheel to transmit pitch and roll inputs to the elevons. Nickel continues: "For fore and aft movements [the wheel] slides back and forth on almost frictionless bearings along a horizontal tube. Will it be possible," he wondered, "to get quickly accustomed to this?" Once airborne, Dr. Nickel had the answer.
"All of a sudden I am completely baffled: there is nothing unusual, it's exactly as flying while sitting in a seat! I feel the stick force, the sailplane reacts to the smallest control movements. I completely forget that I am lying horizontally in space, that the control column [wheel] looks so strange, that the H III is no normal aircraft."
"[It is as though] I had been flying in prone position for years. . . The first gusts are felt and are counteracted automatically, without thinking. I see my hands moving to act in the correct way, but there is no conscious command from the brain. The bird feels good . . . [and this] reaction comes so strong and unexpected that I wish to sing at once. . . I am so delighted . . . there is nothing to learn about prone flying and everything is so simple. But don't start celebrating too early! We [glider and towplane] just crossed the airport boundary as some heavy gusts arrived. No problem to counteract them, but the result is astonishing: suddenly the tow-rope approaches me at full speed, collides with the canopy and disappears aft [the towpilot released his end of the tow rope]. Instinctively my arm shoots up to protect my head, even though it's unnecessary. Next reaction, release the rope too. In front of me lies an "inviting" high-tension line. Hence push [the wheel to maintain speed], [execute a] 180° turn and with the aid of a tailwind, [fly] back over the fence [airport boundary]. Is there enough altitude for a second turn into the wind [to set up for landing]? There better be; carefully "scraping" the turf a flat turn [at very low altitude] is achieved, [landing] skid lowered, no brake necessary, hold off, and here we are back at the starting point of the flight. Ugh!!!"
A half-hour later he was back in the air: "I am floating again in the air . . . flying over the houses and streets of Göttingen. Wonderful, this marvelous view down through the acrylic glass pane. Exactly as on a street map I can track the roads and alleys with my finger. Seemingly just in front of my face there is that hive of activity. Magnificent to soar and glide high over the rooftops, horizontal in space like a bird. This sort of flying really is the only natural way, how could anybody doubt it ever? The view is unobstructed on all sides through the large canopy, but the most astonishing aspect is the excellent view downward. Slowly we are losing altitude. It's time for a thermal to appear. Oops, here it is. Rudder and aileron, slowly pull up, it's just the same as with any other sailplane. Only the banking at first seems to be excessively large . . ."
Nickel initially made excessively shallow, flat turns but after two hours of practice, he adjusted. His mind began to accept and trust the new sight-picture of a standard turn presented by the Horten III f prone position. Banking turns of 60° became easy and "remained the only difficulty I encountered and it didn't occur anymore during later flights." As he built time flying prone, Nickel considered the problem of pilot comfort on long flights.
"Well, after two hours no bodily strain could be felt, but this could perhaps come with longer flights? . . . on the 7th of August 1943, a comparision test was made. . . Hermann Strebel made the first motorless flight of more than 10 hours in prone position with the Horten H IV over the Wasserkuppe mountain. At the same time I myself [flew] for 7 ½ hours in the [Olympia Meise glider]. [Strebel and I were] quite happy together up there, even though he could often out-fly me because of the better performance of his sailplane. After landing I went to him limping with aching backside. But he approached me laughing and completely fresh and could only shake his head to my envious questions: "No, no bruises, no limbs which went to sleep, no stiffness of the neck, nothing!"
Nickel found other reasons to like the prone pilot position. " . . . for tailless sailplanes the prone position is appropriate. . . The main reason for this is the better view of the outside world . . . This is important in particular during aero-tow. Especially with tailless sailplanes a good view of the towing aircraft can be decisive against flying too low and, consequently, being dragged down by the downdraft behind the tow aircraft."
The H III also had good handling qualities and this no doubt boosted Nickel's enthusiasm for the prone layout. He often witnessed Heinz Schiedhauer putting the Horten III d motorglider through its paces at Göttingen in 1943-44. During Schiedhauer's routine, "he did a flyby a few meters above the ground and, just in front of the onlookers, pulled back the stick abruptly. This created a 'whip stall' with a nearly vertical attitude. There was no tail-slide or roll-off, but rather the flying wing fell down into the normal flying position without loss of altitude and continued her horizontal flight."
Horten assigned Werk Nr. 32 to a Horten III f built in 1944 at Göttingen. The NASM III f may be the last of three 'f' subtypes built. All three aircraft featured prone cockpits for minimum drag. The pilot stretched flat on his stomach, bent slightly at the waist and knees, feet resting on rudder pedals hinged above his heels. A padded chin rest supported his head, which projected into the leading edge of the wing. Clear plastic panels formed the leading edge for several feet above, below, and to either side of the pilot. Visibility was excellent and drag greatly reduced. The wing had a maximum speed of 210 km/h (130 mph) and a best glide speed of 63 km/h (39 mph).
Details about the operational history of this glider remain unknown. One month after the war ended, a team of aviation experts working for the C. I. O. S. (Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee) found both the NASM H III f and the H III h. The gliders were recovered "in perfect condition in trailers, with a [sic] full set of instruments" at Rottweil, Germany, on the Neckar River, approximately 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Stuttgart on June 11, 1945.
For a time, the United States Army Air Forces' Air Technical Intelligence (ATI) branch was interested in Horten flying wing aircraft. ATI assigned inventory control numbers to track the thousands of pieces of German military aircraft, equipment, and hardware obtained during and after the war. The following numbers identified Horten gliders now part of the NASM collection:
Horten II L - T2-7
Horten III f - T2-5042
Horten III h - T2-5039
Horten VI V2 - T2-5040
Inexplicably, ATI lost interest and declared "the Horten Tailless Gliders are of no value to us," according to the "Weekly Activity Report - Technical Intelligence - Week Ending 26 June 1945." The H III f and 'III h vanish into an historical black hole for the next two years. The story resumes on October 22, 1947, when Stanley A. Hall wrote a report called "Horten Tailless Sailplanes." Hall explained that the U. S. Air Force loaned the Horten III f, III h, and VI V2 to the Northrop Aeronautical Institute, across the road from the Northrop Aircraft Company in Hawthorne, California. This loan answered a "joint petition of Northrop Aircraft Inc., and the Southern California Soaring Association [SCSA]." The two organizations wanted the sailplanes "for purposes of inspection by West Coast engineers who, in interests of the development of all-wing aircraft, sought for evidence of similarity between the design practices of American and German engineers."
Northrop personnel planned to test-fly the two Horten III gliders but they arrived "damaged beyond reasonable repair [and] too badly damaged to make photography worthwhile." Despite their condition, a throng of aeronautical professionals turned out to inspect them. Among the curious crowds were Northrop engineers and students of the Northrop Aeronautical Institute, members of the Society of Automotive Engineers and the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. Many SCSA members turned out too, including engineers from Douglas, North American, Lockheed, and Consolidated. Much attention fell on the Horten VI V2. The sailplane was intact and in fair condition and Northrop considered flying it but decided not to because of safety issues.
The Air Force reclaimed the gliders in 1948 and stored them at the Chrysler's World War II aircraft assembly plant at Chicago Orchard Airport, Park Ridge, Illinois. This huge building also housed more than 80 other World War II Allied and Axis airplanes.
In 1950 hasty preparations for war in Korea forced the eviction of more than fifty of these priceless artifacts, including the Horten gliders. Air Force personnel shipped the aircraft by rail and any too large to fit a boxcar surrendered to the cutting-torch. The collection went to an open plot of land near Silver Hill, Maryland, across the Anacostia River south of Washington. For more than 10 years, most of the collection remained outdoors. In 1962, the site started to take the form we know today as the Paul E. Garber Restoration, Preservation, and Storage facility.
In January 1994, NASM shipped the Horten glider collection (H II L, III f, III h, and the VI V2) to the Museum für Verkehr und Technik Berlin, later renamed the Deutsches Technikmuseum (DTM), and that museum worked to restore and preserve these artifacts until 2004.
Wingspan 20 m (66 ft)
Center Section Length 5 m (16.4 ft)
Height 1.6 m (5.4 ft)
Weight Empty 250 kg (550 lb)
Weight Flying 360 kg (792 lb)
Reference Sources and Suggested Further Reading:
Horten, Reimar. "Flying Wing Pilot Position and Design Options," "Soaring," August 1980.
Lee, Russell. "The National Air and Space Museum Horten Sailplane Collection: Horten II L, III f, III h, and VI-V2," "Bungee Cord," Vol. XXIII No. 4, Winter 1997.
Myhra, David. "The Horten Brothers and Their All-Wing Aircraft." Atglen, Penn.: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1998.
Nickel, Karl, and Wohlfahrt, Michael. "Tailless Aircraft in Theory and Practice." Reston, Va.: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1994.
Selinger, Peter F., and Horten, Reimar. "Nurflugel: Die Geschichte der Horten-Flugzeuge 1933-1960." Graz, Germany: H. Weishaupt Verlag, 1983.
Beckh, Harald J. "The Development and Airborne Testing of the PALE Seat."
Horten, Reimar. "Flying Wing Pilot Position and Design Options," "Soaring," August 1980, 23.
Russ Lee, 9-2-04
Secretary Wilkie Speaks at VSO Conventions, Tours VA Facilities
Customer service, stability and quality care for Veterans remain top priorities for Secretary Robert Wilkie at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He reinforced that pledge as incoming VA Secretary while visiting medical facilities and attended national Veteran engagements in three states last week. Secretary Wilkie served as keynote speaker at the American Legion’s 100th National Convention in Minneapolis, MN. He called members of the nation’s largest wartime Veterans service organization “powerful advocates” and said “let me thank you, thank the entire American Legion past and present for everything you have done to make this the last best hope of man on earth.”
In referring to his prime directive of customer service, Secretary Wilkie said “we have to talk to Veterans, we have to listen to Veterans, because every major advance and relief for those who have ‘borne the battle’ has come through the efforts of Veterans themselves, not waiting on the slow machine of government to move.” He also lauded the passing of the MISSION Act in making it easier for eligible Veterans of all eras to navigate the system and ensure they receive the best health care possible whether delivered in VA facilities or in the community.
While in Minnesota, the Secretary also visited with patients and was given an expansive tour and briefing by leadership at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. The facility has an excellent reputation and is known worldwide for its strong research and academic services focused on Veterans. The facility is recognized for its overall performance and rated a 5-Star. Secretary Wilkie was particularly impressed with the advancements in prosthetic technology that is now available to Veterans there.
Secretary Wilkie was also welcomed at Fort Snelling National Cemetery which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery is the final resting place for Minneapolis area Veterans dating back to the Revolutionary War era with more than 225,000 interments.
The Secretary then headed to Dallas, TX to visit with Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) leadership and speak to hundreds of attendees at the PVA’s 8th annual Heath Care Summit & Expo. The Secretary reinforced his top priorities and his commitment to working hand in hand with health care professionals saying “as the Secretary of this department, I am the temporary custodian of the flame that first burned on Revolutionary fields in the 1700’s, it is a flame that you all carry and are trusted with and my pledge to you is to be part of your team.” He went on to say, “I am honored to serve with you and I thank you for carrying on the most noble mission in the federal government.”
Secretary Wilkie also engaged with Veterans and leadership at the VA North Texas Health Care System (VANTHCS) in Dallas. Topics of discussion included progress in suicide prevention and mental health awareness outreach, innovative surgical care procedures and modernization efforts. As VA’s second-largest health care system, VANTHCS is available to 600,000 Veterans that live in the northern Texas and southern Oklahoma region.
At the final stop in Cleveland, OH, the secretary served as a keynote speaker for the unveiling of a Gold Star Families Memorial Monument and Medal of Honor ribbon cutting ceremony alongside retired U.S. Marine Corps warrant officer and VA Veterans service representative Woody Williams. Williams received the Medal of Honor during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Secretary Wilkie also participated in several media interviews including Cleveland’s Morning News in which he told the host “the Gold Star Families…have given the most of all of us and they remind us every day why all of us sleep soundly at night.”
Photos Courtesy Dept. Veteran Affairs
U.S. Army Africa photo by David Ruderman
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U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
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Sukha *Freedom of flexibilty* + Sthira *Stability* =
Sthira sukham asanam: the posture is steady and comfortable.
An opportunity to find the right balance between being powerful and flexible in your everyday life :)
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SASEBO, Japan (Oct. 27, 2020) Fire fighters from Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo (CFAS) rest after fighting a mock fire during a Federal Fire integrated firefighting drill aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18). The fire drill integrates Federal fire fighters from CFAS with Sailors aboard the ship to train on fighting in-port fires. New Orleans, part of the America Amphibious Ready Group, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kelby Sanders) 201027-N-KL617-1128
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EAST CHINA SEA (Aug. 6, 2020) Sailors assigned to the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42) pilot a covered rigid-hull inflatable boat in the East China Sea. Germantown, part of America Expeditionary Strike Group, is operating in the 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners, and serves as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Taylor DiMartino )
OKINAWA, Japan (Aug. 21, 2020) Sailors man the rails on the fo’c’sle as the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42) gets underway during a sea and anchor evolution. Germantown, part of America Expeditionary Strike Group, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit team is operating in the 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners, and serves as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Taylor DiMartino)
Borinqueneers Open Doors to Peace and Security
Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa
Story by Master Sgt. Ruby Zarzyczny
Date: 10.23.2009
ENTEBBE, Uganda—"Borinqueneers" from Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa opened the doors to its seventh Counter Terrorism Course for the Ugandan People's Defense Force, July 30, at the Kasenyi Military Training center.
The four-month course is being taught by "Borinqueneer" Soldiers from the 1/65th Infantry Battalion, Puerto Rico National Guard. According to historical records, the men of the 1/65th IN BN came up with the nickname "Borinqueneer" during a long sea voyager while serving in the Korean War. It is a combination of the words Buccaneers and Boriquen which is the name the Tainos Indians called the island (Puerto Rico) before the arrival of the Spaniards.
This is not the first time the 1/65th IN BN has been deployed to Africa. According to 1/65th IN BN historical documentation, they were deployed during WWII to North Africa in 1943. In 1944, they moved forward from Casablanca, Morocco to Italy and then France to join the 3rd Battalion and defeated Germany's 34th Infantry Division's 107th Infantry Regiment.
Sixty-six years later, the 1/65th IN BN is once again deployed to Africa. This time, they are deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti to support the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa's mission to foster regional stability, build security capacity, and forge relationships with our African partner nations.
In July, the 1/65th IN BN open the doors to teach the counter terrorism course for the first time in Africa. During the course the instructors and assistant instructors from the UPDF (soldiers who have graduated from previous courses) will partner to share their knowledge and skills with the UPDF student soldiers to help the UPDF develop counter terrorism practices to increase peace and security in Uganda, said Sgt. 1st Class Heriberto Crespo CJTF-HOA Counter Terrorism Course non-commissioned officer in charge.
Before deploying, most of the instructors received additional training in Puerto Rico to become instructors and some have experience mentoring Afghani soldiers during the unit's previous deployment to Afghanistan.
"It's a great experience to be able to mentor the UPDF students by giving them the knowledge I have as an infantryman," said Specialist Jose Alicea, 1st Platoon instructor. "It's a great feeling knowing you're able to help someone be more proficient at their job. I'm not only teaching them, I'm also learning from them as I see their progress."
The course is taught using UPDF equipment, supplies and weapons used by the Soldiers to perform their duties. The instructors received additional training on the AK-47 rifle used during the course. Private Kamba Boaz, UPDF soldier and 1st Platoon assistant instructor, works with the instructors and helps keep communication flowing during the classes.
"It's a very good opportunity for me because I am learning more and have the opportunity to bring my skills to the training," said Pvt. Boaz. "Working with the men from the 1/65th (IN BN) from Puerto Rico is the most wonderful thing. They are good friends. They are real professionals. Through our friendship, we are able to learn more from them and they are able to learn more from us."
Before the students start learning counter terrorism techniques, they will learn basic soldier skills during the first eight weeks of training. Some of the skills include individual movement, map reading, land navigation, first aid, search techniques, improvised explosive devices recognition, HIV prevention and human rights. Once these skills are mastered, the students will progress to squad operations and learn to work as a team.
Each squad is made up of nine soldiers. During this section of the training they will learn to move as a team to maneuver through danger areas and identify details as a group. Supervised by the instructors, the students practice these skills in training scenarios called training lanes. Using the standard operating procedures the students are evaluated to ensure they understand the basic skills before moving to the second phase of the course Military Operation Urbanized Terrain training.
"We train to standards not to time," said Crespo. "We will take as much time as needed until each student performs to standard. We move as fast as the slowest soldier and the training platoons move forward at the same time."
The course is divided up into four platoons of 40 students each having four to five instructors and an assistant instructor. The training is progressing at a steady pace as the UPDF students are fast learners and some have already faced combat in the Congo, said Crespo. Despite the language barriers and slow supply lines the students are motivated to learn.
"Both students and instructors face the challenge of English as a second language," said Crespo. "We all understand English, but we add different accents to the language. After about three weeks, we were able to understand each others accents and now we are sharing languages. Many of the students are learning our language, Spanish."
The instructors anticipate the MOUT training to start sometime in late October. The UPDF leaders have asked the CJTF-HOA to provide the students with realistic training. The 1/65th instructors have created a MOUT site to resemble an urban environment similar to a Ugandan village.
"Terrorist don't fight in the open with soldiers," said Crespo. "They attack cities, hospitals, churches, schools, urban areas with innocent people. That's where terrorists attack. We will build a MOUT site resembling a city in Uganda and train the UPDF students to detect and respond to terrorist attacks."
These instructors from the 1/65th are the tip of the spear for their unit. The course is expected to finish later this year and will end with a graduation ceremony attended by UPDF and CJTF-HOA military leaders. Successful completion of this course will open doors for similar training opportunities for the 1/65th IN BN with CJTF-HOA's African partners throughout the Horn of Africa, said Sergeant Crespo.
Photo Caption:
ENTEBBE, Uganda--During a break at the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa Counter Terrorism, Spec. Jose Alicea, 1/65th Infantry Battalion 1st Platoon instructor discusses search procedures with a Ugandan People's Defense Force student Sept 23, 2009. (Photo/Released Master Sgt. Ruby Zarzyczny)
As stability advances, the population in the AAA are rebuilding their homes but do not necessarily have livelihood opportunities to get back to. To support agriculture, FAO delivered seeds and tools to farmers in order to support self-sufficiency and reinforce their food security status.
Read more about FAO and the crisis in South Sudan.
Photo credit must be given: ©FAO/Lieke Visser. Editorial use only. Copyright FAO
U.S. Army interpreter, Mohamed Said, instructs soldier of the Djiboutian Army’s 1st Quick Reaction Regiment his sector of fire during a training scenario at Camp Ali Oune, Djibouti, Feb. 2, 2011.
Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Lindsey
ALI OUNE, Djibouti– Under an overcast sky, nearly 200 members of the Djiboutian Army’s elite 1st Rapid Action Regiment honed their infantry skills, mentored by members of the U.S. Army National Guard’s 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 137th Infantry Regiment.
The training included instruction on squad movements, convoy operations, contact drills, camp security and marksmanship, and was part of a one-month course which began Jan. 16 and culminated with a graduation Feb. 10. The instruction included mortar crew training and a combat engineering course, according to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Nelson Perkins, mission commander and member of Charlie Company.
“Our mission here is to mentor the Djiboutian military as they prepare for upcoming missions. We’re trying to help them so they are capable of preventing conflict, establishing regional stability, and protecting coalition interests here,” said Staff Sgt. Travis Elder, an infantry squad leader with the 137th, who is a sheriff’s deputy in his hometown located near Topeka, Kan.
“My team and I are out here mentoring the soldiers and helping them along, basically giving them more tools for their toolbox. We’re showing them things that have helped us get through certain operations, and we want to help them so they can get through their future missions without any problem,” he said.
One of the biggest challenges the instructors faced was the language barrier due to few Djiboutian soldiers speaking English, according to Sgt. Jonathan Moyer, a team member with Echo Company. Instructors relied heavily on 2nd Lt. Omar Ali, Djibouti Army 2nd Company commander, who is fluent in four languages, and Mohamed Said, a Somali-born U.S. Army interpreter.
Throughout the morning, the small groups practiced team movements, and communicated contact and direction of fire. Loud whistle bursts signified enemy contact, and the Djiboutian soldiers moved succinctly, went into the prone position and assumed their staggered firing positions.
The regiment, which was established in 1991 and is comprised of a number of 20-year combat veterans, is the first unit in the Djiboutian Army called to deploy during a contingency, according to Ali. The regiment also provides border security on the Somaliland border located approximately seven miles from the camp.
“The goal for my soldiers is to prepare them for their mission and especially for a deployment under the United Nations, like they did in Haiti and Central Africa,” Ali said, who has been in the army since 2001. He attended an officer’s course with Germany’s mountain troops from 2004-2008 and will soon attend the Infantry Career Captain’s Course at Fort Benning, Ga.
According to Ali, the training is part of a continuation of training that began in September 2010 that included effective methods of instruction, commander operation skills course, a command post exercise, and company grade and noncommissioned officer courses.
Just one month ago, the newly-formed training camp consisted of just six concrete pads. Today the camp consists of about 12 tents, a mosque and a large covered classroom area.
“Camp Ali Oune is actually the first of its kind. The Djiboutians don’t have any bases here on the Somali border, and this camp is supposed to be here for quite a while. They will be utilizing the camp as a training area and for continuing operations to keep this region safe,” he said.
About two miles away in the shadow of a steep hill, other members of the Rapid Action Regiment sharpened their marksmanship skills using the Russian PKM 7.62-mm machine gun, which is the equivalent of the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Automatic gunfire and the ricochet of rounds echoed from the large rock-covered hill as each two-man team practiced firing in staccato bursts of three and five rounds.
“Very well done,” one of the instructors exclaimed after seeing a bullseye on the target of one team.
Ali said the training and mentoring provided by the 137th is beneficial because the cadre of instructors bring real-world operational experience.
“We already had a good relationship with the U.S. Army, and I have to say it’s a good thing and we have a good image of the U.S. Army,” Ali said.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
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Lamborghini Veneno
In the year of its 50th anniversary Automobili Lamborghini is presenting an extremely exclusive model at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Only three unique units of the Lamborghini Veneno will be built and sold. Its design is consistently focused on optimum aerodynamics and cornering stability, giving the Veneno the real dynamic experience of a racing prototype, yet it is fully homologated for the road. With a maximum output of 552 kW / 750 hp, the Lamborghini Veneno accelerates from 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and the top speed for this street-legal racing car stands at 355 km/h. It is priced at three million Euros plus tax - and all three units have already been sold to customers.
The Lamborghini Veneno features a twelve-cylinder power unit with a displacement of 6.5 liters, an extremely fast-shifting 7-speed ISR transmission with 5 driving modes and permanent all-wheel drive, as well as a racing chassis with pushrod suspension and horizontal spring/damper units. Above all, however, the Veneno benefits from the very special expertise that Automobili Lamborghini possesses in the development and execution of carbon-fiber materials - the complete chassis is produced as a CFRP monocoque, as is the outer skin of this extreme sports car. The inside, too, features innovative, Lamborghini-patented materials such as Forged Composite and CarbonSkin.
Fully in keeping with the tradition of the brand, the name of the Veneno originates from a legendary fighting bull. Veneno is the name of one of the strongest and most aggressive fighting bulls ever. He is also famous for being one of the fastest bulls in the history of bullfighting. His name became popular in 1914, when he fatally wounded the famous torero José Sánchez Rodríguez during the bullfight in the arena Sanlúcar de Barrameda's, Andalusia, Spain.
Lamborghini Veneno (2013)
2013 Lamborghini Veneno
The Design
The Lamborghini Veneno brings the aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype to the road. Every detail of its form pursues a clear function - exceptional dynamics, optimum downforce with minimal drag and perfect cooling of the high-performance engine. Yet the Veneno is unmistakably a Lamborghini; it sticks firmly to the consistent design philosophy of all the super sports cars from Sant'Agata Bolognese. That includes the extreme proportions, as well as the powerfully arrow-shaped front end and the interplay between razor-sharp lines and precise surfaces.
The entire front end of the Lamborghini Veneno has been laid out for perfect airflow and downforce. The front end works as a large aerodynamic wing. Large channels guide the air to the outlets in the front hood and in front of the windshield, as well as to the front wheels. Characteristic for Lamborghini is the Y shape of the angular headlamps that reach well into the fenders as well as the scissor doors.
The division of the fenders from the car body is a reference to the world of sport prototypes and optimizes at the same time the aerodynamic flow. The side line of the Veneno is therefore dominated by enormous sills and the mighty wheel arches front and rear. Here, too, sophisticated aerodynamics ensure perfect airflow to the large openings for engine cooling and intake air.
Just like the front end, the rear of the Lamborghini Veneno has also been optimized for underbody aerodynamics and high speed cornering stability. The smooth underbody transitions into a substantial diffuser framing the four sizable exhaust pipes divided by a splitter to increase the level of downforce peak. Large openings serve to ventilate the engine bay and manage the airflow to the rear wing, with the only sealed area at the rear being reserved for the license plate. The rear lights, including brake lights, indicator lights and fog lights, pick up the Y theme as well. The engine cover sports six wedge-shaped openings, with the focus here, too, on optimum dissipation of heat from the engine. The engine cover extends into a large central "shark" fin, which improves efficiency during braking and rear-end stability, by delivering additional downforce at high yaw angles and thus increasing the high-speed cornering performance.
The adjustable rear wing's design is the product of Motorsport experience and extensive aerodynamic simulation to ensure the best performance of rear wing interaction with rear diffuser air flow.
The exclusive alloy wheels measure 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear and are equipped with center mountings. Their design is also determined by aerodynamic functionality - a carbon-fiber ring around the wheel rim works like a turbine to deliver additional cooling air to the carbon-ceramic brake discs.
The Lamborghini Veneno is painted in an all-new, grey metallic-look color with individual parts gleaming in the black of the visible carbon-fiber structure. The only car to display all three colors of the Italian flag as an accent is the car shown at Geneva, the unit which will remain property of Lamborghini. The three cars sold to customers each feature a single color of the Italian national flag, together a triology in green, white and red accents and thus representing each a unique piece.
The Technology
The Veneno is further proof of Automobili Lamborghini's unique competence in CFRP-based lightweight design. A monocoque made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer forms the basis of the Veneno. It is largely similar to the Aventador monocoque - as are the aluminum sub-frames front and rear - although its form has been adapted to the new design. All exterior parts are made from CFRP. The Lamborghini Veneno meets all safety and registration requirements worldwide, and naturally also incorporates a full complement of safety systems from airbags through to the adapted ESP handling system.
Carbon fiber dominates the interior of the Lamborghini Veneno, too. The carbon fiber monocoque becomes visible inside the car in the area of the central tunnel and the sills. The two lightweight bucket seats are made from Lamborghini's patented Forged Composite. The woven carbon-fiber CarbonSkin® is used to clad the entire cockpit, part of the seats and the headliner. This unique material is soaked in a very special kind of resin that stabilizes the fiber structure, while allowing the material to remain supple. Like a hi-tech fabric, this extremely fine-looking carbon-fiber matting fits perfectly to any form, and it reduces weight.
The racing personality has been transferred also to the instrument panel. It has been completely redesigned and now, thanks to an aggressive graphics and to the introduction of some additional features like the G-meter, provides all necessary information to the driver for control of the car.
The systematic, carbon-fiber, lightweight design of the Lamborghini Veneno is not only visible, it is also evident on the scales: With a dry weight of just 1,450 kilograms (3,190 pounds), the Veneno is even 125 kilos (275 pounds) lighter than the already extremely lean Aventador. The highly beneficial power-to-weight ratio of 1.93 kg/hp (4,25 lbs/hp) guarantees a performance that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Even the stunning acceleration figure of 2,8 seconds cannot adequately describe it. Despite an aerodynamic setup configured for extreme downforce, the Veneno possesses exceptionally low wind resistance which allows it to reach a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph).
The twelve-cylinder with a displacement of 6.5 liters is a thrilling combination of absolute high-revving frenzy and phenomenal pulling power. Its output has been raised to 552 kW / 750 hp, facilitated through enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, a slightly higher rated rpm and an exhaust system with even lower back pressure. The ISR manual gearbox, permanent all-wheel drive and pushrod suspension have all been specifically adjusted to meet the demands of the Lamborghini Veneno.
The Lamborghini Veneno celebrates its first public appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The vehicle on show is the number 0, the Lamborghini test vehicle. Its future has not been determined yet, but it will allow Lamborghini to continue its activity of testing and innovation, both on the road and on the race track. The trilogy made of three unique vehicles will be produced in the course of the year 2013 and handed over to their future owners.
AB Europa® Collection combines the stability of large modular units with the timeless look and feel of weathered stone. The collection is made of 4 blocks, which can be used individually or combined together to create stunning woven designs
The Aggregate Stability Comparison display, (left) using two clear pipes with water, demonstrate the structural stability of healthy soil that has organic matter from cover crops and aeration created by worms and roots, verses soil that is mechanically tilled on a regular basis and falls apart in water, during the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS soil health demonstration event “The Bundled Benefits of Soil Health” on Thursday, September 18, 2014 in the People’s Garden,at the USDA headquarters, in Washington, D.C. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
On October 21, 2014, CSIS and USAID/DCHA's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) will host a major event, Advances and Challenges in Political Transitions. In honor of OTI's 20th anniversary, this conference will feature more than 40 experts and senior officials focusing on the challenges and opportunities of working in conflicts, crises, and political transitions. What will new conflicts look like, region by region? What role will extremism, organized crime, and chaotic violence play? What contributions will youth, women, the private sector, and technology make to prevention, mitigation, and recovery? And what tools, approaches, resources, and support will be needed to build more resilient societies in the coming years?
Agenda
Welcome and Opening Remarks
John Hamre, President, CEO, and Pritzker, CSIS
Nancy Lindborg, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, USAID
Keynote Address
Ambassador Alfonso E. Lenhardt, Deputy Administrator, USAID
Opening Presentation
Robert Lamb, Visiting Research Professor, U.S. Army War College, and Director and Senior Fellow (on leave), Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation, CSIS
Morning Plenary: Conflict Response and Recovery in Complex Environments
Moderator: Stephen Del Rosso, Program Director, International Peace and Security Program, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Panelists:
Stephen Lennon, Acting Director, OTI, USAID
Ambassador William Swing, Director General, International Organization for Migration
David Yang, Deputy Assistant Administrator, DCHA Bureau, USAID
Morning Breakout Panels
Track 1: Violent Extremism in MENA
Moderator: Tom Sanderson, Codirector, Transnational Threats Project, CSIS
Panelists:
Robbie Harris, Senior Transition Advisor, USAID/OTI
David Hunsicker, Senior Conflict Advisor, USAID/CMM
Hunter Keith, Development Specialist, DAI
Mona Yacoubian, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Middle East Bureau, USAID
Track 2: Geography, Technology, and Data
Moderator: Amy Noreuil, Data Analysis Support, USAID/OTI
Panelists:
Noel Dickover, Senior Program Officer, PeaceTech Initiative, USIP
Ian Schuler, CEO and President, Development Seed
Jessica Heinzelman, Manager, ICT Strategic Initiatives, DAI
Ivan Sigal, Executive Director, Global Voices
Track 3: Urban Violence and Organized Crime
Moderator: Lt. Col. (Retired) Scott Mann, CEO and Founder, Stability Institute
Panelists:
Miguel Reabold, Honduras Country Representative, USAID/OTI
Scott Aughenbaugh, Fellow, International Security Program and Deputy Director, Strategic Futures, CSIS
Enrique Roig, Coordinator, Central America Regional Security Initiative, USAID
Lunchtime Plenary: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Moderator: Jim Kunder, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States
Panelists:
Robert Jenkins, Deputy Assistant Administrator, DCHA Bureau, USAID
Rick Barton, Former Assistant Secretary, Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations, Department of State
Johanna Mendelson Forman, Scholar in Residence, American University, and Senior Associate, CSIS
Steve Morrison, Senior Vice President and Director, Global Health Policy Center, CSIS
Afternoon Breakout Panels
Track 1: Future of Conflict in Africa
Moderator: Jennifer Cooke, Director, Africa Program, CSIS
Panelists:
John Langlois, Africa Advisor, USAID/OTI
Pauline Baker, President Emeritus, Fund for Peace
Track 2: Future of Conflict in Eurasia/Pacific
Moderator: Susan Kosinski Fritz, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Europe and Eurasia Bureau, USAID
Panelists:
Oren Murphy, Ukraine Country Representative, USAID/OTI
John R. Deni, Research Professor of Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational Security Studies, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Track 3: Future of Conflict in Latin America
Moderator: Katie Prud'homme, Latin America and Caribbean Team Leader, USAID/OTI
Panelists:
Beth Hogan, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator LAC, USAID
Steven Dudley, Codirector, InSight Crime
Douglas Farah, President, IBI Counsultants, and Senior Fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center
Afternoon Plenary: Evolution of Agencies and Resources
Moderator: Kathleen Hicks, Senior Vice President; Henry A. Kissinger Chair; Director, International Security Program, CSIS
Panelists:
William Brownfield, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State
Tom Perriello, Special Representative for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, Department of State
Melissa Brown, Director, Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, USAID
OTI in Transition: A Brief Oral History (film)
Programs
PROGRAM ON CRISIS, CONFLICT, AND COOPERATION (C3)
Topics
DEFENSE AND SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND RECONSTRUCTION, GOVERNANCE, DEVELOPMENT POLICY
Sgt. John Wanyama of AU Kenya.
U.S. Army Africa photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kyle Davis
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
Official Twitter Feed: www.twitter.com/usarmyafrica
Official YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/usarmyafrica
International Monetary Fund Financial Economic Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department Tobias Adrian (C), Deputy Division Chief Evan Papageorgiou (L), Division Chief Anna Ilyina (2nd L), Deputy Director Fabio Natalucci,(2nd R) and Senior Communications Officer Randa Elnagar (R) hold a press conference on the Global Financial Stability Report at the IMF Headquarters during the 2019 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, October 16, 2019 in Washington, DC. IMF Staff Photograph/Stephen Jaffe
Hosts and guests of the U.S. AFRICOM C4ISR Senior Leader Conference tour a winery in the hills above Vicenza, Italy, Feb. 3, 2011.
U.S. Army Africa photo by David Ruderman
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
Official Twitter Feed: www.twitter.com/usarmyafrica
Official YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/usarmyafrica
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Saab JAS 39 Gripen (griffin) is a light single-engine multirole fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab. In 1979, the Swedish government began development studies for an aircraft capable of fighter, attack and reconnaissance missions to replace the Saab 35 Draken and 37 Viggen. The preferred aircraft was a single-engine, lightweight single-seater, embracing fly-by-wire technology, canards, and an aerodynamically unstable design. The powerplant selected was the Volvo-Flygmotor RM12, a license-built derivative of the General Electric F404−400; engine development priorities were weight reduction and lowering component count. A new design from Saab was selected and developed as the JAS 39, first flying in 1988.
The Gripen is a multirole fighter aircraft, intended as a lightweight and agile aerial platform with advanced, highly adaptable avionics. It has canard control surfaces that contribute a positive lift force at all speeds, while the generous lift from the delta wing compensates for the rear stabilizer producing negative lift at high speeds, increasing induced drag. It is capable of flying at a 70–80 degrees angle of attack.
Being intentionally unstable and employing digital fly-by-wire flight controls to maintain stability removes many flight restrictions, improves manoeuvrability and reduces drag. The Gripen also has good short takeoff performance, being able to maintain a high sink rate and strengthened to withstand the stresses of short landings. A pair of air brakes are located on the sides of the rear fuselage; the canards also angle downward to act as air brakes and decrease landing distance
To enable the Gripen to have a long service life, roughly 50 years, Saab designed it to have low maintenance requirements. Major systems such as the RM12 engine and PS-05/A radar are modular to reduce operating cost and increase reliability. The Gripen’s systems were designed to be flexible, so that newly developed sensors, computers and armaments could be easily integrated as technology advances. The aircraft was estimated to be roughly 67% sourced from Swedish or European suppliers and 33% from the US.
To market the aircraft internationally, Saab formed partnerships and collaborative efforts with overseas aerospace companies. One example of such efforts was Gripen International, a joint partnership between Saab and BAE Systems formed in 2001. Gripen International was responsible for marketing the aircraft, and was heavily involved in the successful export of the type to South Africa; the organisation was later dissolved amidst allegations of bribery being employed to secure foreign interest and sales. On the export market, the Gripen has achieved moderate success in sales to nations in Central Europe, South Africa and Southeast Asia.
The Swedish Air Force placed a total order for 204 Gripens in three batches. The first delivery of the JAS 39A/B (single seat and two seat variants) occurred on 8 June 1993, when aircraft “39102” was handed over to the Flygvapnet during a ceremony at Linköping. The final Batch three 1st generation aircraft was delivered to FMV on 26 November 2008, but in the meantime an upgraded Gripen variant, the JAS 39C/D already rolled off of the production lines and made the initial versions obsolete. The JAS C/D gradually replaced the A/B versions in the frontline units until 2012, which were then offered for export, mothballed or used for spares for the updated Swedish Gripen fleet.
A late European export customer became the nascent Republic of Scotland. According to a White Paper published by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2013, an independent Scotland would have an air force equipped with up to 16 air defense aircraft, six tactical transports, utility rotorcraft and maritime patrol aircraft, and be capable of “contributing excellent conventional capabilities” to NATO. Outlining its ambition to establish an air force with an eventual 2,000 uniformed personnel and 300 reservists, the SNP stated that the organization would initially be equipped with “a minimum of 12 interceptors in the Eurofighter/Typhoon class, based at Lossiemouth, a tactical air transport squadron, including around six Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules, and a helicopter squadron for transport and SAR duties”.
According to the document, “Key elements of air forces in place at independence, equipped initially from a negotiated share of current UK assets, will secure core tasks, principally the ability to police Scotland’s airspace, within NATO.” An in-country air command and control capability would be established within five years of a decision in favor of independence, it continued, with staff also to be “embedded within NATO structures”.
This plan was immediately set into action with the foundation of the Poblachd na h-Alba Adhair an Airm (Republic of Scotland Air Corps/RoScAC) after the country's independence from Great Britain in late 2017. For the fighter role, Scotland was offered refurbished F-16C and Ds from the USA, but this was declined, as the type was considered too costly and complex. An offer from Austria to buy the country’s small Eurofighter fleet (even at a symbolic price) was rejected for the same reason.
Eventually, and in order to build a certain aura of neutrality, Scotland’s young and small air arm initially received twelve refurbished, NATO-compatible Saab JAS 39 Gripen (ten single-seater and two two-seaters) as well as Sk 90 trainers from Swedish overstock. These second hand machines were just the initial step in the mid-term procurement plan, though.
Even though all Scottish Gripens (locally called “Grìbhean”, designated F.1 for the JAS 39A single seaters and F.2 for the fully combat-capable JAS 39B two-seaters, respectively) were multi-role aircraft and capable of strike missions, its primary roles were interception/air defense and, to a lesser degree, reconnaissance. Due to severe budget restrictions and time pressure, these aircraft were almost identical to the Flygvapnet’s JAS 39A/B aircraft. They used the PS-05/A pulse-Doppler X band multi-mode radar, developed by Ericsson and GEC-Marconi, which was based on the latter's advanced Blue Vixen radar for the Sea Harrier that also served as the basis for the Eurofighter's CAPTOR radar. This all-weather radar is capable of locating and identifying targets 120 km (74 mi) away and automatically tracking multiple targets in the upper and lower spheres, on the ground and sea or in the air. It can guide several beyond visual range air-to-air missiles to multiple targets simultaneously. Therefore, RoScAC also procured AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM as primary armament for its Grìbhean fleet, plus AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles.
The twelve Grìbhean F.1 and F.2s formed the RoScAC’s 1st fighter (Sabaid) squadron, based at former RAF base Lossiemouth. Upon delivery and during their first months of service, the machines retained the former Swedish grey paint scheme, just with new tactical markings. In 2018, the RoScAC fighter fleet was supplemented with brand new KAI/Lockheed Martin TA-50 ‘Golden Eagle’ armed trainers from South Korea, which could also take over interceptor and air patrol duties. This expansion of resources allowed the RoScAC to initiate an update program for the JAS 39 fleet. It started in 2019 and included in-flight refueling through a fixed but detachable probe, a EuroFIRST PIRATE IRST, enhanced avionics with elements from the Swedish JAS 39C/D, and a tactical datalink.
With these updates, the machines could now also be externally fitted with Rafael's Sky Shield or LIG Nex1's ALQ-200K ECM pods, Sniper or LITENING targeting pods, and Condor 2 reconnaissance pods to further improve the machine’s electronic warfare, reconnaissance, and targeting capabilities.
The aircraft’s designations did not change, though, the only visible external change were the additional IRST fairing under the nose, and the machines received a new tactical camouflage with dark green and dark grey upper surfaces, originally introduced with the RoScAC’s TA-50s. However, all Grìbhean F.1 single seaters received individual fin designs instead of the grey camouflage, comprising simple red and yellow fins, the Scottish flag (instead of the standard fin flash) and even a large pink thistle on a white background and a white unicorn on a black background.
Despite being 2nd hand aircraft, the Scottish JAS 39A and Bs are expected to remain in service until at least 2035.
General characteristics:
Crew: one
Length: 14.1 m (46 ft 3 in)
Wingspan: 8.4 m (27 ft 7 in)
Height: 4.5 m (14 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 30 m2 (320 sq ft)
Empty weight: 6,800 kg (14,991 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 14,000 kg (30,865 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Volvo RM12 afterburning turbofan engine,
54 kN (12,000 lbf) dry thrust, 80.5 kN (18,100 lbf) with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: 2,460 km/h (1,530 mph, 1,330 kn)/Mach 2
Combat range: 800 km (500 mi, 430 nmi)
Ferry range: 3,200 km (2,000 mi, 1,700 nmi)
Service ceiling: 15,240 m (50,000 ft)
g limits: +9/-3
Wing loading: 283 kg/m2 (58 lb/sq ft)
Thrust/weight: 0.97
Takeoff distance: 500 m (1,640 ft)
Landing distance: 600 m (1,969 ft)
Armament:
1× 27 mm Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon with 120 rounds
8 hardpoints (Two under the fuselage, one of them dedicated to FLIR / ECM / LD / Recon pods plus
two under and one on the tip of each wing) with a capacity of 5 300 kg (11 700 lb)
The kit and its assembly:
Nothing spectacular – actually, this build is almost OOB and rather a livery what-if model. However, I had the plan to build a (fictional) Scottish Gripen on my agenda for some years now, since I started to build RoScAC models, and the “Back into service” group build at whatifmodlers.com in late 2019 was a good motivation to tackle this project.
The starting point was the Italeri JAS 39A kit, a rather simple affair that goes together well but needs some PSR on almost every seam. Not much was changed, since the model would depict a slightly updated Gripen A – the only changes I made were the additional IRST fairing under the nose, the ejection handle on the seat and a modified ordnance which consists of a pair of AIM-9L and AIM-120 (the latter including appropriate launch rails) from a Hasegawa air-to-air weapons set. The ventral drop tank is OOB.
Painting and markings:
The motivation a behind was actually the desire to build a Gripen in a different livery than the usual and rather dull grey-in-grey scheme. Therefore I invented a tactical paint scheme for “my” RoScAC, which is a modified RAF scheme from the Seventies with uppers surfaces in Dark Green (Humbrol 163) and Dark Sea Grey (164), medium grey flanks, pylons, drop tank and a (theoretically) grey fin (167 Barley Grey, today better known as Camouflage Grey) plus undersides in Light Aircraft Grey (166), with a relatively high and wavy waterline, so that a side or lower view would rather blend with the sky than the ground below. The scheme was designed as a compromise between air superiority and landscape camouflage and somewhat inspired by the many experimental schemes tested by the German Luftwaffe in the early Eighties. The Scottish TA-50 I built some years ago was the overall benchmark, but due to the Gripen’s highly blended fuselage/wing intersections, I just painted the flanks under the cockpit and the air intakes as well as a short portion of the tail section in Barley Grey. That’s overall darker than intended (esp. in combination with the fin decoration, see below), but anything grey above the wings would have looked awkward.
As a reminiscence of the late British F-4 Phantoms, which carried a grey low-viz scheme with bright fins as quick ID markings, I added such a detail to the Gripen, too – in this case in the form of a stylized Scottish flag on the fin, with some mild 3D effect. The shadow and light effects were created through wet-in-wet painting of lighter and darker shades into the basic blue (using Humbrol 25, 104 and ModelMaster French Blue). Later, the white cross was added with simple decal stripes, onto which similar light effects were added with white and light grey, too.
Even though this one looks similar to my Scottish TA-50, which was the first model to carry this paint scheme, I like the very different look of this Gripen through its non-all-grey paint scheme. It’s also my final build of my initial RoScAC ideas, even though I am now considering a helicopter model (an SAR SA 365 Dauphin, maybe?) in fictional Scottish markings, too.
U.S. Army Africa photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kyle Davis
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
“The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
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Official YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/usarmyafrica
Aston Martin DBS is a 6.0-litre V12 powered, race-bred, two-seater shaped by the aerodynamic demands of high performance, with an exquisite interior that marries beautifully hand-finished materials with the very latest in performance technology. Race-derived materials and components and Aston Martin’s unrivalled hand-build expertise makes the DBS a luxury sports car without equal.
Aston Martin DBS Specifications:
Body:
- Two-door coupe body style with 2+0 seating
- Bonded aluminium VH structure
- Aluminium, magnesium alloy and carbon-fibre composite body
- Extruded aluminium door side-impact beams
- High Intensity Discharge headlamps (dipped beam)
- Halogen projector headlamps (main beam)
- LED rear lamps and side repeaters
Engine:
- All-alloy, quad overhead camshaft, 48-valve, 5935 cc V12. Compression ratio 10.9:1
- Front-mid mounted engine, rear-wheel drive
- Fully catalysed stainless steel exhaust system with active bypass valves
Projected Performance figures:
- Maximum power: 380 kW (510 bhp/517 PS) @ 6500 rpm
- Maximum torque: 570 Nm (420 lb ft) @ 5750 rpm
- Maximum speed: 307 km/h (191 mph)
- Acceleration: 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in 4.3 seconds
Transmission:
- Rear-mid mounted, six-speed manual gearbox
- Alloy torque tube with carbon-fibre propeller shaft
- Limited-slip differential
- Final-drive ratio 3.71:1
Steering:
- Rack and pinion
- Servotronic speed-sensitive power-assisted steering
- 3.0 turns lock-to-lock
- Column tilt and reach adjustment
Wheels & Tyres
Wheels:
- Front: 8.5" x 20"
- Rear: 11" x 20"
Tyres:
Pirelli P Zero
- Front: 245/35
- Rear: 295/30
Suspension:
Front:
- Independent double wishbone incorporating anti-dive geometry
- Coil springs
- Anti-roll bar and monotube adaptive dampers
Rear:
- Independent double wishbones with anti-squat and anti-lift geometry
- Coil springs
- Anti-roll bar and monotube adaptive dampers
Adaptive Damping System (ADS) with Track mode
Brakes:
Front: Ventilated carbon ceramic discs, 398 mm diameter with six-piston calipers
Rear: Ventilated carbon ceramic discs, 360 mm diameter with four-piston calipers
Dynamic Stability control (DSC) with Track mode, including anti-lock braking system (ABS), electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD), emergency brake assist (EBA) and traction control.
Dimensions:
Length: 4721 mm
Width: 1905 mm excluding door mirrors, 2060 mm including door mirrors
Height: 1280 mm
Wheelbase: 2740 mm
Fuel tank capacity: 78 litres
Weight: 1695 kg
Interior:
- Semi-aniline leather and Alcantara interior
- Matrix alloy facia trim and Iridium Silver centre console finish
- Carbon-fibre door trims and door pulls
- Auto-dimming rear-view mirror & garage door opener (USA and Canada only)
- Sports seats with ten-way electric adjustment, including height, tilt and lumbar adjustment
- Memory seats & exterior mirrors (three positions)
- Dual-stage driver/passenger front airbags
- Side airbags (sports seats only)
- Heated seats (sports seats only)
- Heated rear screen
- Automatic temperature control
- Organic Electroluminescent (OEL) displays
- Trip computer
- Cruise control
- Hard Disk Drive (HDD) satellite navigation system*1,2
- Bluetooth telephone preparation*1
- Powerfold exterior mirrors
- Front and rear parking sensors
- Tyre-pressure monitoring*1
- Alarm and immobiliser
- Remote-control central door locking and boot release
- Battery disconnect switch
- Battery conditioner
- Tracking device (UK only)
- Boot-mounted umbrella
*1 Not available in all markets
*2 Includes Traffic Messaging Channel (TMC) in Continental Europe
In-car entertainment:
- Aston Martin 700 W premium audio system with Dolby® Pro Logic II®
- MP3 player connectivity
Optional Equipment:
- Lightweight seats with six-way adjustment, including front and rear height adjust (Does not include side airbags or heated seats feature. Not available in USA or Canada)
- 20" alloy wheels with graphite finish
- Satellite radio system (USA only)
- Piano Black facia trim and centre console finish
- Leather storage saddle
- Personalised sill plaques
- Auto-dimming interior rear-view mirror*1
- Auto-dimming interior rear-view mirror with garage door opener (Europe only)
- Alarm upgrade (volumetric and tilt sensor)
- Tracking device*3
- First-aid kit
- Ashtray and cigar lighter
*1 Not available in all markets
*3 Complies with UK Thatcham Category 5 requirements. Excludes subscription. Standard in UK.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
BEWARE: nothing you see here is real, even though many conversions and their respective background stories were built upon historical facts.
The Messerschmitt Me 510 was a further development of the Me 410 Hornisse ("Hornet"), a German heavy fighter and Schnellbomber used by the Luftwaffe during World War II. The 410 itself had a troubled start, because it essentially had only been a straightforward modification of the Me 210, which had suffered from serious stability flaws and had a bad reputation among its crews.
The 410 handled better but did not show much improvement in performance, though. Me 410 deliveries began in January 1943, two years later than the original plan had called for, and continued until September 1944, by which point a total of 1.160 of all versions had been produced by Messerschmitt Augsburg and Dornier München. When it arrived, it was liked by its crews, even though its performance was not enough to protect it from the swarms of high performance allied fighters they faced.
Still not giving up on the original construction (and with the jigs and tools still available), Messerschmitt started in early 1944 with research into further means of improving the Me 410's performance. One direction was the addition of one or two jets under the fuselage as boosters for combat situations.
Another design path, which eventually led to the Me 510, was the development of turboprop and compound engines as propulsion options, which were based on the respective pure jet engines but offered much better performance and fuel economy than the pure jets. It would also be the more efficient solution compared to added turbojets for pure piston planes, since no dead weight had to be carried, and the overall system was less complex than a mixed powerplant system.
This turboprop concept, as best compromise between performance and short-term readiness for service, was chosen and the modified aircraft, called Messerschmitt Me 510, came to be. The design target was to outperform the Me 410 with as little change to the overall construction as possible, so that old tooling could be used for new aircraft cells. Alternatively, old aircraft should potentially be converted to the improved standard.
Core of the new development was the compact HeS 021 turboprop, a PTL development of the HeS 011 jet engine which was also planned for Focke Wulfs FW P.0310226-127 fighter (a turboprop version of the light 'Flitzer' day fighter). This engine was theoretically to deliver up to 3.300hp (2.426 kw) shaft output, plus 1.100kg (2.424 lb) additional thrust, even though serial types would produce less power under the aspect of reliability.
In order to incorporate this engine into the modified Me 410 a new main wing with laminar profile and new engine nacelles had to be designed. The HeS 021sat in the front part of the engine nacelles above the wings, driving four-bladed propellers. The landing gear retracted into the nacelle's lower section, rotating 90°, much like the Me 410, with the exhaust running above the landing gear wells.
In order to improve directional stability further, the tail surfaces were slightly enlarged, receiving characteristic, square tips. The fuselage was more or less taken from the original Me 410, since it offered a very good field of view and appropriate aerodynamics. With this package, the idea of retrofitting former Me 410 cells was kept, even though later flight tests showed that some more detail modifications had to be made. Most of these concerned the internal structures, the most obvious external change was the nose section, where the original glazing had to be reinforced and finally replaced by solid material – an experience similar to the modification from Douglas’ piston-driven XB-42 to the faster, jet-driven XB-43 of the same era.
Maiden flight of the first prototype took place in Augsburg on 6th of May 1945, with little problems. As benchmark, the Me 410's maximum speed was 625 km/h (388 mph), a cruise speed of 579 km/h (360 mph) and a combat range of 2.300 km (1,400 mi) with up to 1.000 kg (2,204 lbs) of disposable stores carried in- and externally.
The overall flying characteristics of the Me 410 did not change much, but rate of climb and top speed were considerably improved. In level flight, the third prototype Me 510 V3 reached a top speed of 812 km/h (504 mph), and even the serial version with added armament and equipment easily reached 750 km/h (465 mph) top speed and a cruising speed with no external stores of 650 km/h (405 mph). At its time, the Me 510, which quickly received the rather inofficial nickname "Bremse" (Horsefly), was superior to its pure piston engine and turbojet rivals, even though it was clear that the turboprop was only a preliminary solution.
Due to its high speed and under the pressure of Allied bomber raids, the Me 510 was primarily used as a Zerstörer against daylight bombers. Many aircraft received additional weapons, both directly incorporated at the factory but also as field accessories. Popular modifications included two extra 30mm guns (MK 108 or 103) in the bomb bay, or provisions for guided and unguided air to air missiles. A camera equipment package (Rüstsatz 'U3') allowed the fast aircraft to be used for daylight reconnaissance.
Many equipment packages from the earlier Me 410 could be fitted, too, including the massive 50mm BK 5 auto cannon against allied bomber groups. Initially, this package (‘U4’ Rüstsatz) comprised the original autocannon which fired at 45 RPM, with 21 shells in a drum magazine.
This weapon soon was replaced by the even more effective MK 214 B gun of 55mm caliber (Rüstsatz 'U5'). The BK 214 B fired at 180 RPM and proved to be a highly effective weapon at long ranges, outside of the bombers’ defensive armament range. As a drawback the heavy system (the gun plus the ammunition belt with 96 shells weighed 1.124 kg/2.475 lb) filled the whole internal bomb bay and precluded heavy external stores. Therefore, the 13mm machine guns in the nose were frequently removed in order to save weight, sometimes the weapons in the side barbettes, too. But: a single hit with one of the 1.54kg (3.4 lb) shells was enough to bring down a four-engined bomber, so that the fast Me 510 with this weapon became a serious threat in the course of late 1946.
510 general characteristics:
Crew: 2
Length: 42 ft (12,60 m)
Wingspan: 49 ft (14.69 m)
Height: 13 ft 1½ in (4.0 m)
Wing area: 480.11 ft² (44.78m²)
Empty weight: 10.665 lb (4.842 kg)
Loaded weight: 14.405 lb (6.540 kg)
Max. take-off weight: 18.678 lb (8.480 kg)
Maximum speed: 790 km/h (490 mph) at 7.200m (23.500 ft)
Range: 1.400 mi (2.300 km ) with full combat TOW
Service ceiling: 40.900 ft (12.500 m)
Rate of climb: 4.635 ft/min (23,6 m/s)
Wing loading: 29.8 lb/ft² (121.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.24 hp/lb (0.39 kW/kg)
Engine:
2× Heinkel-Hirth HeS 021 turboprop engines, 1.438 kW (2.500 hp) plus 980 kp (2.158 lb) residual thrust each
Armament: Varied, but typical basic equipment was:
2× 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons with 350 rpg, fixed in the nose
2× 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131 machine guns with 500 rpg in the nose flanks
2× 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131 machine guns with 500 rpg, each firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remote-operated turret, one per side;
Up to 1.200 kg (2.643 lb) of disposable stores in- and externally
In the field, many modifications were made and several additional weapon packages with guns, guided and unguided missiles or special weapons were available (so-called ‘Rüstsätze’).
The kit and its assembly:
I am not certain when inspiration struck me for this fantasy aircraft - I guess it was when I tinkered together the Hü 324 whif, which was itself based on a 1:72 scale Il-28 bomber. When I browsed for a respective donation kit I also came across the 1:100 scale kit of the Soviet light bomber from Tamiya, and that stirred something: The Il-28's vintage contours would perfectly suit a Luft '46 aircraft, and with some calculations it was clear that the 1:100 wings would be suitable for something in the class of a 1:72 DH Mosquito or Bf 110. Then, the ill-fated Me 410 came to the scene as a potential late war basis aircraft, and from this starting point the idea of an evolutionary next step of the type, the Messerschmitt Me 510, was born.
Basically this model is a kitbashing of a Tamiya Il-28 in 1:100 (wings & engine nacelles) and the fuselage of a Matchbox Me 410. The IL-28's wings were turned upside down, so that the nacelles would now ride on the wings' top.
This not only looks cool and 'different', it's also plausible because the landing gear could retract into the wings under the nacelles (with the main landing gear doors closed, just like the original Me 410), it would also reduce the angle of the aircraft on the ground to a sensible degree - with the engines under the wings plus the landing gear would have been much to steep!
Fitting the wings to the fuselage was pretty easy, even though the original Me 410 wing profile was much thicker than the slender Il-28 wings. Cleaning and blending the wing root areas was a bit tricky, but the parts get together well.
As a design twist and for a uniform look I also replaced the whole tail section, matching the angular look of the thin new main wings. The horizontal stabilizers are wing tips from a Matchbox Me 262, the vertical fin is a modified outer wing part from a Matchbox Grumman Panther.
The engine nacelles were taken OOB. I just filled the Il-28's landing gear wells and their covers with putty, since they'd end on top of the new engines.
The propellers come from Matchbox P-51 Mustangs, outfitted with pointed spinners and held by a metal pin in a polystyrene tube which runs through the original intake splitter. Looks pretty martial, even though the nacelles ended up a bit close to the fuselage. The overall look reminds of the Short Sturgeon, but is not inplausible. A compact aircraft!
The cockpit received some side panels, news seats and some equipment, since the original Matchbox kit features almost nothing beyond a floor plate, two broad benches as seats and pilot figures. I also opened the cockpit hatches, since the aircraft would be built for ground display, with the landing gear extended.
From the original kit the BK 5 cannon installation was taken over, but I added a scratch-built, bigger muzzle brake. Since the aircraft was to become a high speed interceptor/Zerstörer for daylight operations, I did not add any further external ordnance.
Painting and markings:
I pondered about a potential livery for a long time. Almost any Me 410 was delivered in RLM 74/75/76 livery, and some at the Western front in France were operated in RLM 70/71/65, with a low waterline. But I found this pretty... boring. So I made up a fantasy livery which I found suitable for high altitude operations and based on my knowledge of late Luftwaffe paint scheme - pretty complex:
The aircraft was to be light in color, primarily camouflaged for aerial combat. I ended up with something that was planned as something that could have almost been called 'low-viz': all lower surfaces received a basic tone of RLM 76 (from Testors), with a raised waterline on all flanks. This light blue-grey would blend into a slightly darker FS 36320 on the higher flanks, almost up to the upper surfaces.
But in the end, the flanks received more spots than intended, and I ended up with a rather conservative livery - but it ain't bad at all. But so it goes...
The upper wing surfaces received a wavy scheme in RLM 71 (Drak Green) and 75 (Middel Grey). These are not typical late war colors, I rather used them due to the lighter shades. On the fuselage, just the fuselage crest was painted with more or less dense blotches of these tones, blending into more patches of RLM 02 on the flanks.
To add some more unconventional detail, the fuselage sides and undersides also received large, cloudy patches of RLM 77 - a very light grey. This detail was featured on some late-war He 177 bombers, but you can hardly tell these extra blotches because they have only little contrast to the RLM 76.
The tail fin was painted all white - a formation sign for a squadron leader, typical for German late WWII fighters. The black and white fuselage stripe is the ID of Jagdgeschwader 26 (which operated Fw 190D-9 from airfields in northern Germany, Flensburg was one of them), the red number abd the "+" code identify the machine as being part of the eighth Staffel.
In the end, a very subtle whif. The new engines are most obvious, and they change the look of the Me 410 dramatically. But only on second glance you recognize the other changes. The new wings/stabilizers with their square-shaped tips create a very slender and elegant look, the aircraft just looks fast and agile like a true heavy fighter should. Mission accomplished!
A couple of kids, January of 1946, Kyoto, shot taken by a member of the US occupation forces. I processed this mostly as a test to see what could be done to rescue the colour, since it was shot on Anscochrome, not noted for its long-term stability. Photo courtesy of Flickr user m20wc51. The original can be found here. As you can see, the lab has gone for a more blue-gray look, whereas I've tried to pull some of the reds and yellows back into the shot. I've also tried to pull whatever details I can out of the shadows, with mixed success.
Update, 2023: I've gone over this one more time, using a few more muscles I've acquired over the last year or so. Not much different, but slightly more colour in it than the last iteration. Note also that it's something of a tradition to wear a special new kimono for New Year's Day, hence the evident pride of the wearers.
NY Jets vs. Buffalo, Oct 2009 - 24
(more details later, as time permits)
*************************
In mid-October, I attended my second professional football game, with a photographer's press pass that let me get down on the field to photograph players, referees, cheerleaders, other photographers, fans in the stand, and anyone else who looked interesting. (My first such game was a pre-season contest between the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles, which you can see by clicking here.)
I learned some lessons from photographing the Jets-Eagles game, and I showed up this time better prepared, and with some new equipment. It was great having the Nikon D700 with the capability of shooting at ISO 6400; but the 2X extender that turned my 70-300mm FX lens into a 140-600 lens seemed incapable of focusing automatically; I finally gave up and removed it. Overall, probably the best improvement came from the monopod that I dragged along on the trip; it greatly improved the stability of long shots with a telephoto. Ironically, it may also have created the illusion that I was a professional photographer, for the "real" professional photographers (who had studiously ignored me during the previous game) actually chatted with me a couple of times. I didn't have any of the bazooka-sized monster-telephoto lenses they had, but maybe they thought I wasn't a completely unprepared hobbyist...
Anyway, I shot the first half of the game with the D700 and the 70-300mm zoom lens by itself; and I shot the second half of the game with my older D300, whose half-frame body turned the 70-300mm zoom into a 105-450mm zoom. The stadium was sufficiently well lit that I could shoot at a reasonably high speed (typically 1/640 second) without having to go above ISO 3200 most of the time.
But technical details aside, this game was very much like the last one: I was down on the field, surrounded by 76,000 roaring fans who made conversation virtually impossible. I'm accustomed to watching most sports on television these days, with magical close-up shots provided by TV cameras like the very ones I saw strategically placed around tonight's football game; and when I'm befuddled by something complex or unexpected in whatever I'm watching, I know I can always depend on multiple instant replays (from various angles) and the incisive commentary from a TV sports anchor who knows far more about the players, the rules, and the details than I ever will.
Down on the field, all I could do was try my best to follow the action, and shoot anything that looked interesting. It usually (though not always) started with a snap to the quarterback -- but it was sometimes on the other side of the field, or down at the other end of the field. Like the other photographers, I scurried back and forth from one end of the field to the other to be as close to the action as possible ... but in many cases, all I ended up with was a picture of a tangle of bodies, and no clear idea of what had just happened.
After watching the Flickr statistics associated with my previous Jets-Eagles set, I was amused to see that the most popular photos were those of the cheerleaders ... so I included about 5 photos of the cheerleaders in this set. (And for whatever it's worth, I certainly did not envy them in their skimpy uniforms, while they did their best to cope with the 45-degree weather, and the chilly wind that whipped across the field.) I also found the fans interesting and occasionally picturesque, so you'll find about 10 fan-related pictures in this set.
Since I was on the field through the generosity and permission of the New York Jets, I naturally rooted for them to win. But they played pretty sloppily, and their rookie quarterback (Mark Sanchez, whose #6 jersey appears prominently in some of the photos) was intercepted five times. The regulation game finished in a 13-13 tie, so the game went into overtime ... and I'm such a dummy about football that I didn't even realize that it was a sudden death overtime. But when the Buffalo Bills kicked a three point field goal with 2:44 remaining in the overtime period, and all of the players immediately walked off the field, I quickly figured out what was happening...
Anyway, I took a little over 1,200 images and whittled it down to 60 "keepers" that I think you'll enjoy looking at. Another 200 had to be deleted immediately because they were out of focus, or because a referee decided to run in front of my camera just as I was pushing the shutter button ... but I've still got roughly 940 images of jumbled piles of football players that will probably continue to sit on my computer until I run out of space on my hard disk. C'est la vie...
U.S. Army Africa photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kyle Davis
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
“The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
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Hosts and guests of the U.S. AFRICOM C4ISR Senior Leader Conference tour a winery in the hills above Vicenza, Italy, Feb. 3, 2011.
U.S. Army Africa photo by David Ruderman
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted its second annual C4ISR Senior Leaders Conference Feb. 2-4 at Caserma Ederle, headquarters of U.S. Army Africa, in Vicenza, Italy.
The communications and intelligence community event, hosted by Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, AFRICOM C4 director, drew approximately 80 senior leaders from diverse U.S. military and government branches and agencies, as well as representatives of African nations and the African Union.
The conference is a combination of our U.S. AFRICOM C4 systems and intel directorate,” said Ferrell. “We come together annually to bring the team together to work on common goals to work on throughout the year. The team consists of our coalition partners as well as our inter-agency partners, as well as our components and U.S. AFRICOM staff.”
The conference focused on updates from participants, and on assessing the present state and goals of coalition partners in Africa, he said.
“The theme for our conference is ‘Delivering Capabilities to a Joint Information Environment,’ and we see it as a joint and combined team ... working together, side by side, to promote peace and stability there on the African continent,” Ferrell said.
Three goals of this year’s conference were to strengthen the team, assess priorities across the board, and get a better fix on the impact that the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command will have on all members’ efforts in the future, he said.
“With the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, it brings a lot of unique challenges that we as a team need to talk through to ensure that our information is protected at all times,” Ferrell said.
African Union (AU) representatives from four broad geographic regions of Africa attended, which generated a holistic perspective on needs and requirements from across the continent, he said.
“We have members from the African Union headquarters that is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; we have members that are from Uganda; from Zambia; from Ghana; and also from the Congo. What are the gaps, what are the things that we kind of need to assist with as we move forward on our engagements on the African continent?” Ferrell said.
U.S. Army Africa Commander, Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, welcomed participants as the conference got under way.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the host for this conference, and we hope that this week you get a whole lot out of it,” said Hogg.
He took the opportunity to address the participants not only as their host, but from the perspective of a customer whose missions depend on the results of their efforts to support commanders in the field.
“When we’re talking about this group of folks that are here — from the joint side, from our African partners, from State, all those folks — it’s about partnership and interoperability. And every commander who’s ever had to fight in a combined environment understands that interoperability is the thing that absolutely slaps you upside the head,” Hogg said.
“We’re in the early stages of the process here of working with the African Union and the other partners, and you have an opportunity to design this from the end state, versus just building a bunch of ‘gunkulators.’ And so, the message is: think about what the end state is supposed to look like and construct the strategy to support the end state.
“Look at where we want to be at and design it that way,” Hogg said.
He also admonished participants to consider the second- and third-order effects of their choices in designing networks.
“With that said, over the next four days, I hope this conference works very well for you. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay better, please let us know,” Hogg said.
Over the following three days, participants engaged in a steady stream of briefings and presentations focused on systems, missions and updates from the field.
Col. Joseph W. Angyal, director of U.S. Army Africa G-6, gave an overview of operations and issues that focused on fundamentals, the emergence of regional accords as a way forward, and the evolution of a joint network enterprise that would serve all interested parties.
“What we’re trying to do is to work regionally. That’s frankly a challenge, but as we stand up the capability, really for the U.S. government, and work through that, we hope to become more regionally focused,” he said.
He referred to Africa Endeavor, an annual, multi-nation communications exercise, as a test bed for the current state of affairs on the continent, and an aid in itself to future development.
“In order to conduct those exercises, to conduct those security and cooperation events, and to meet contingency missions, we really, from the C4ISR perspective, have five big challenges,” Angyal said.
“You heard General Hogg this morning talk about ‘think about the customer’ — you’ve got to allow me to be able to get access to our data; I’ve got to be able to get to the data where and when I need it; you’ve got to be able to protect it; I have to be able to share it; and then finally, the systems have to be able to work together in order to build that coalition.
“One of the reasons General Ferrell is setting up this joint information enterprise, this joint network enterprise . . . it’s almost like trying to bring together disparate companies or corporations: everyone has their own system, they’ve paid for their own infrastructure, and they have their own policy, even though they support the same major company.
“Now multiply that when you bring in different services, multiply that when you bring in different U.S. government agencies, and then put a layer on top of that with the international partners, and there are lots of policies that are standing in our way.”
The main issue is not a question of technology, he said.
“The boxes are the same — a Cisco router is a Cisco router; Microsoft Exchange server is the same all over the world — but it’s the way that we employ them, and it’s the policies that we apply to it, that really stops us from interoperating, and that’s the challenge we hope to work through with the joint network enterprise.
“And I think that through things like Africa Endeavor and through the joint enterprise network, we’re looking at knocking down some of those policy walls, but at the end of the day they are ours to knock down. Bill Gates did not design a system to work only for the Army or for the Navy — it works for everyone,” Angyal said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Searyoh, director general of Defense Information Communication Systems, General Headquarters, Ghana Armed Forces, agreed that coordinating policy is fundamental to improving communications with all its implications for a host of operations and missions.
“One would expect that in these modern times there is some kind of mutual engagement, and to build that engagement to be strong, there must be some kind of element of trust. … We have to build some kind of trust to be able to move forward,” said Searyoh.
“Some people may be living in silos of the past, but in the current engagement we need to tell people that we are there with no hidden agenda, no negative hidden agenda, but for the common good of all of us.
“We say that we are in the information age, and I’ve been saying something: that our response should not be optional, but it must be a must, because if you don’t join now, you are going to be left behind.
“So what do we do? We have to get our house in order.
“Why do I say so? We used to operate like this before the information age; now in the information age, how do we operate?
“So, we have to get our house in order and see whether we are aligning ourselves with way things should work now. So, our challenge is to come up with a strategy, see how best we can reorganize our structures, to be able to deliver communications-information systems support for the Ghana Armed Forces,” he said.
Searyoh related that his organization has already accomplished one part of erecting the necessary foundation by establishing an appropriate policy structure.
“What is required now is the implementing level. Currently we have communications on one side, and computers on one side. The lines are blurred — you cannot operate like that, you’ve got to bring them together,” he said.
Building that merged entity to support deployed forces is what he sees as the primary challenge at present.
“Once you get that done you can talk about equipment, you can talk about resources,” Searyoh said. “I look at the current collaboration between the U.S. and the coalition partners taking a new level.”
“The immediate challenges that we have is the interoperability, which I think is one of the things we are also discussing here, interoperability and integration,” said Lt. Col. Kelvin Silomba, African Union-Zambia, Information Technology expert for the Africa Stand-by Force.
“You know that we’ve got five regions in Africa. All these regions, we need to integrate them and bring them together, so the challenge of interoperability in terms of equipment, you know, different tactical equipment that we use, and also in terms of the language barrier — you know, all these regions in Africa you find that they speak different languages — so to bring them together we need to come up with one standard that will make everybody on board and make everybody able to talk to each other,” he said.
“So we have all these challenges. Other than that also, stemming from the background of these African countries, based on the colonization: some of them were French colonized, some of them were British colonized and so on, so you find that when they come up now we’ve adopted some of the procedures based on our former colonial masters, so that is another challenge that is coming on board.”
The partnership with brother African states, with the U.S. government and its military branches, and with other interested collaborators has had a positive influence, said Silomba.
“Oh, it’s great. From the time that I got engaged with U.S. AFRICOM — I started with Africa Endeavor, before I even came to the AU — it is my experience that it is something very, very good.
“I would encourage — I know that there are some member states — I would encourage that all those member states they come on board, all of these regional organizations, that they come on board and support the AFRICOM lead. It is something that is very, very good.
“As for example, the African Union has a lot of support that’s been coming in, technical as well as in terms of knowledge and equipment. So it’s great; it’s good and it’s great,” said Salimba.
Other participant responses to the conference were positive as well.
“The feedback I’ve gotten from every member is that they now know what the red carpet treatment looks like, because USARAF has gone over and above board to make sure the environment, the atmosphere and the actual engagements … are executed to perfection,” said Ferrell. “It’s been very good from a team-building aspect.
“We’ve had very good discussions from members of the African Union, who gave us a very good understanding of the operations that are taking place in the area of Somalia, the challenges with communications, and laid out the gaps and desires of where they see that the U.S. and other coalition partners can kind of improve the capacity there in that area of responsibility.
“We also talked about the AU, as they are expanding their reach to all of the five regions, of how can they have that interoperability and connectivity to each of the regions,” Ferrell said.
“(It’s been) a wealth of knowledge and experts that are here to share in terms of how we can move forward with building capacities and capabilities. Not only for U.S. interests, but more importantly from my perspective, in building capacities and capabilities for our African partners beginning with the Commission at the African Union itself,” said Kevin Warthon, U.S. State Department, peace and security adviser to the African Union.
“I think that General Ferrell has done an absolutely wonderful thing by inviting key African partners to participate in this event so they can share their personal experience from a national, regional and continental perspective,” he said.
Warthon related from his personal experience a vignette of African trust in Providence that he believed carries a pertinent metaphor and message to everyone attending the conference.
“We are not sure what we are going to do tomorrow, but the one thing that I am sure of is that we are able to do something. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but as long as our focus is on our ability to assist and to help to progress a people, that’s really what counts more than anything else,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the timetable; just focus on your ability to make a difference and that’s what that really is all about.
“I see venues such as this as opportunities to make what seems to be the impossible become possible. … This is what this kind of venue does for our African partners.
“We’re doing a wonderful job at building relationships, because that’s where it begins — we have to build relationships to establish trust. That’s why this is so important: building trust through relationships so that we can move forward in the future,” Warthon said.
Conference members took a cultural tour of Venice and visited a traditional winery in the hills above Vicenza before adjourning.
To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
Official Twitter Feed: www.twitter.com/usarmyafrica
Official YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/usarmyafrica
Must attribute with link to: www.ptpioneer.com
Girl doing stability ball press with dumbbells on a graffiti wall exercising.
PHILIPPINE SEA (Oct. 7, 2020) Fire Controlman 2nd Class Steven Shoemate, from Lansing, Kan., left, fires a .50-caliber machine gun and Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Cameron Howard, from Houston, maintains communication with the bridge during a Small Craft Action Team (SCAT) live-fire exercise aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42). Germantown, part of Expeditionary Strike Group 7, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners, and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Taylor DiMartino)
The Labour Party in Ireland is a social-democratic political party. The Party was founded in 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, James Larkin and William X. O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trade Union Congress. Unlike the other main Irish political parties, Labour does not trace its origins to the original Sinn Féin. In the 2011 general election it gained 37 of the 166 seats in Dáil Éireann, almost double its total of 20 in the 2007 election, making it the second largest political party in the 31st Dáil. The Labour Party has served in government for a total of nineteen years, six times in coalition either with Fine Gael alone or with Fine Gael and other smaller parties, and once with Fianna Fáil, giving it the second-longest time in government of Irish parties, next to Fianna Fáil. As of 9 March 2011 it is the junior partner in a coalition with Fine Gael for the period of the 31st Dáil.
The current party leader is Eamon Gilmore, elected in October 2007 alongside Joan Burton as deputy leader. Gilmore is the current Tánaiste (deputy prime minister).
The Labour Party is a member of the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists, whilst the party's MEPs sit in the European Parliament group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Through these bodies Labour is linked with the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Sweden required a strong air defense, utilizing the newly developed jet propulsion technology. The original concept had been designed around a mostly straight wing, but after Swedish engineers had obtained German research data on swept-wing designs, the prototype was altered to incorporate a 25° sweep. In order to make the wing as thin as possible, Saab elected to locate the retractable undercarriage in the aircraft's fuselage rather than into the wings.
Extensive wind tunnel testing had also influenced aspects of the aircraft's aerodynamics, such as stability and trim across the aircraft's speed range. In order to test the design of the swept wing further and avoid any surprises, it was decided to modify a Saab Safir. It received the designation Saab 201 and a full-scale swept wing for a series of flight tests. The first 'final' sketches of the aircraft, incorporating the new information, were drawn in January 1946.
The originally envisioned powerplant for the new fighter type was the de Havilland Goblin turbojet engine. However, in December 1945, information on the newer and more powerful de Havilland Ghost engine became available. The new engine was deemed to be ideal for Saab's in-development aircraft, as not only did the Ghost engine had provisions for the use of a central circular air intake, the overall diameter of the engine was favorable for the planned fuselage dimensions, too. Thus, following negotiations between de Havilland and Saab, the Ghost engine was selected to power the type and built in license as the RM 2.
By February 1946 the main outline of the proposed aircraft had been clearly defined. In autumn 1946, following the resolution of all major questions of principal and the completion of the project specification, the Swedish Air Force formally ordered the completion of the design and that three prototype aircraft be produced, giving the proposed type the designation J 29. After a thorough test program, production of the type commenced in 1948 and, in May 1951, the first deliveries of operational production aircraft were received by F 13 Norrköping. The J 29 proved to be very successful and several variants and updates of the Tunnan were produced, including a dedicated reconnaissance variant, a two seat trainer and an all-weather fighter with an onboard radar
However, Sweden foresaw that there would soon be a need for a jet fighter that could intercept bombers at high altitude and also successfully engage fighters. During September 1949, the Swedish Air Force, via the Swedish Defence Material Administration, released a requirement for a cutting-edge interceptor aircraft that was envisioned to be capable of attacking hostile bomber aircraft in the transonic speed range. As released, this requirement specified a top speed of Mach speed 1.4 to 1.5. (1956, the specified speed was revised and raised to Mach 1.7-1.8, and eventually led to the Saab 35 Draken). With the barely supersonic Saab 32 Lansen just under development, and intended for different roles than being a nimble day fighter, the company searched for a way to either achieve supersonic flight through modifications of an existing type or at least gather sufficient data and develop and try the new technologies necessary to meet the 1949 requirements.
Since Sweden did not have a truly supersonic aircraft in its inventory (not even an experimental type), Saab decided to convert the Saab 29 into a supersonic testbed, with the outlook to develop an interim day fighter that could replace the various Tunnan fighter versions and support the new Lansen fleet until a fully capable Mach 1.5+ interceptor was ready for service. Even though the type was regarded as a pure experimental aircraft, the designation remained close to the J29 nomenclature in order to secure military funding for the project and to confuse eventual spies. Consequently, the P29 was initially presented as a new J29 version (hence the “G” suffix).
The P29G was based on a heavily modified production J29B airframe, which was built in two versions and only in two specimens. Work on the first airframe started in 1952, just when the first Saab 32 prototype made its maiden flight. The initial challenge consisted of integrating two relatively compact axial flow jet engines with afterburners into the fuselage, since the J29’s original RM2, even in its late afterburner variant, was not able to safely deliver the necessary thrust for the intended supersonic flight program. After long negotiations, Saab was able to procure a small number of Westinghouse J34-WE-42 turbojets from the USA, which delivered as a pair 40% more thrust than the original RM2B. The engines were only delivered under the restriction that they would exclusively be used in connection with the supersonic research program.
Through a thorough re-construction, the Saab team was able to mount the new engines into the lower rear fuselage, and, internally, the air intake duct had to be modified and forked behind the landing gear wells. Due to the significantly widened rear fuselage, the P29G became quickly nicknamed “Kurviga Tunnan” (= “Curvy Barrel”). Even though the widened rear fuselage increased the aircraft’s frontal cross section, the modified shape had the (unintended) effect of area ruling, a welcome side benefit which became apparent during the flight test and which largely promoted the P29G’s gain of top speed.
Another special and unique feature of the P29G was a special wing attachment system. It consisted of two strengthened, open box spars in the fuselage with additional attachment points along the wing roots, which allowed different wings to be switched with relatively little effort. However, due to this modification, the wing tanks (with a total capacity of 900l inside of the J29s standard wings) were lost and only 2.150l in the Saab 29’s standard fuselage tanks could be carried – but this was, for a research aircraft, not regarded as a major weakness, and compensated for the wing attachment system’s additional weight. The original wing-mounted pitots were replaced by a single, massive sensor boom attached to the aircraft’s nose above the air intake, slightly set-off to starboard in order to give the pilot an unobstructed view.
The first P29G's maiden flight, marked “Gul Urban” (Yellow U), took place in July 1955. The aircraft behaved normally, even though the center of gravity had markedly shifted backwards and the overall gain of weight made the aircraft slightly unstable along the longitudinal axis. During the initial, careful attempts to break the sound barrier, it soon became apparent that both the original wings as well as the original air intake shape limited the P29G's potential. In its original form, the P29G could only barely pass Mach 1 in level flight.
As a consequence, the second P29G, which had been under conversion from another J29B airframe since mid-1954, received more thorough modifications. The air intake was lengthened and widened, and in order to make it more effective at supersonic speed it received a sharp lip. Wind tunnel tests with the first machine led to a modified tail, too: the fin was now taller and further swept back, the stabilizer was moved to a higher position, resulting in a cruciform layout. The original single-piece stabilizer was furthermore replaced by a two-piece, all-moving construction with a 45° sweep and a thinner profile. This not only improved the aerodynamics at high speed, it also suppressed the longitudinal instability problem, even though this was never really cured.
Due to the even higher all-up weight of the new aircraft, the landing gear was reinforced and the 2nd P29G received an experimental suspension system on its main legs with higher spring travel, which was designed for operations on semi-prepared airfields. This system had actually been designed for the updated J29 fighters (esp. the A32B attack variant), but it was not introduced into series production or the Saab 29E/F conversion program. Despite these massive changes, the P29G designation was retained, and the second machine, carrying the tactical code “Röd Urban” (Red U), was quickly nicknamed “Karpen” (“Carp”), due to its characteristic new intake shape, the long fin and its stocky shape.
The second P29G was ready for flight tests in August 1956, just in time to support the Saab 35’s ongoing development – the aircraft, which was eventually built to meet (and exceed) the Swedish Air Force’s 1949 supersonic interceptor requirement. The modifications proved to be successful and the P29G was, fitted with a 60° sweep wing and in clean configuration, able to achieve a maximum speed of 1.367 km/h (849 mph) in level flight, a formidable achievement (vs. the 1,060 km/h (660 mph) of the late J29F and the 1200 km/h (745 mph) of the J32B interceptor) for the post WWII design.
Several wing shapes and profiles were tested, including sweep angles from 25° to 63° as well as different shapes and profiles. Even though the machines carried provisions for the J29’s standard armament, the 20 mm cannons were normally not mounted and replaced with sensors and recording equipment. However, both machines were temporarily fitted with one or two guns in order to analyze the effects of firing the weapons at supersonic speed. Underwing ordnance was also almost never carried. In some tests, though, light bombs or unguided missiles were carried and deployed, or podded cine cameras were carried.
While the second P29G was used for high speed trials, the first machine remained in its original guise and took over low speed handling tests. Thanks to the unique wing switch mechanism, the supersonic research program could be held within a very tight schedule and lasted until late 1959. Thereafter, the P29Gs’ potential was of little use anymore, and the engine use agreement with the USA put an end to further use of the two aircraft, so that both P29Gs were retired from service in 1960. The 1st machine, outfitted with standard J29F wings and stripped off of its engines, remained in use as an instructional air at Malmslätt air base 1969, while the second machine was mothballed. However, both airframes were eventually scrapped in 1970.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 11.66 m (38 ft 2 in) fuselage only,
13,97 m (45 ft 9 in) with pitot boom
Wingspan: varied*; 11.0 m (36 ft 1 in) with standard 25° sweep wings,
10.00 m (32 ft 9 ¾ in) with experimental 45° wings
Height: 4.54m (14 ft 10 ½ in)
Wing area: varied*; 24.15 m² (260.0 ft²) with standard 25° sweep wings
22.5 m² (242.2 ft²) with experimental 45° wings
Empty weight: 5,220 kg (11,500 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 8,510 kg (18,744 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Westinghouse J34-WE-42 turbojets, each rated at 3,400 lbf (15 kN) dry thrust
and 4,200 lbf (19 kN) with full afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1.367 km/h (849 mph) were achieved*
Range: 790 km (490 mi)
Service ceiling: up to 17,250 m (56,500 ft)*
Rate of climb: up to 45 m/s (8,850 ft/min)*
*Varying figures due to different tested wing configurations
Armament:
None installed; provisions for 4x 20mm Hispano Mark V autocannon in the lower front fuselage.
Depending on the mounted wing type, various external loads could be carried, including a wide range of light bombs, 75 mm (3 in) air-to-air rockets, 145 mm (5.8 in) anti-armor rockets, 150 mm (6 in) HE (high-explosive) rockets or 180 mm (7.2 in) HE anti-ship rockets. Due to the lack of complex wiring or fuel plumbing, no guided weapons or drop tanks could be mounted, though.
The kit and its assembly:
Sweden is a prolific whiffing territory, and the Saab 29 offers some interesting options. This highly modified Tunnan, which is actually rather a kitbashing than a mere model kit modification, is/was a submission to the “More or less engines” group build at whatifmodelers.com in summer 2019.
I actually had the idea of a two-engine J29 in the back of my mind for a long time, spawned by a resin conversion set for the Hasegawa B-47 Stratojet kit that came with new intakes and exhaust sections for the four engine pods. The single engine pod parts had been spent a long time ago, but the twin engine parts were still waiting for a good use. Could the exhaust fit under/into a Tunnan…?
I even had a Matchbox J29 stashed away for this experiment long ago, as well as some donor parts like the wings, and the GB eventually offered the right motivation to put those things together that no one would expect to work.
So I pulled out all the stuff and started – a rather straightforward affair. Work started with the fuselage, which was, together with the (very nice) cockpit assembled OOB at first, the nose filled with as much lead as possible and with the lower rear section cut away, so the B-47 resin jet nozzles would end up at the same position as the original RM2B exhaust. Due to the pen nib fairing between them, though, the profile of the modified tail became (visually) more massive, and I had to fill some gaps under the tail boom (with styrene sheet and putty). The twin engines also turned out to be wider than expected – I had hoped for straight flanks, but the fuselage shape ended up with considerable bulges behind the landing gear wells. These were created with parts from drop tank halves and blended into the rest of the lower hill with PSR work. In the same wake the area under the fin was sculpted and re-created, too.
At that point it became clear that I had to do more on the fuselage, esp. the front end, in order to keep the aircraft visually balance. A convenient solution became an F-100 air intake, which I grafted onto the nose instead of the original circular and round-lipped orifice – with its sharp lip the Super Sabre piece was even a plausible change! The fuselage shapes and diameters differed considerably, though, more PSR became necessary.
Next came the wings: I had already set apart a pair of trapezoid wings with a 45° sweep angle – these were left over from a PM Model Ta 183 conversion some time ago. With their odd shape and size they were a perfect match for my project, even more so due to the fact that I could keep the original J29 wing attachment points, I just had to shorten and modify the trailing edge area on the fuselage. The result was very conclusive.
With the new nose and the wings in place, the overall proportions became clearer: still tail-heavy, but not unpleasant. At this time I was also certain that I had to modify the tail surfaces. The fin was too small and did not have enough sweep for the overall look, and the stabilizer, with its thick profile, rounded edges and the single, continuous rudder did not look supersonic at all. What followed was a long search in the donor banks for suitable replacements, and I eventually came up with a MiG-15 fin (Hobby Boss) which was later clipped at the top for a less recognizable profile. The stabilizers were more challenging, though. My solution eventually became a pair of modified stabilizers from a Matchbox Buccaneer(!), attached to the MiG-15 fin.
The design problems did not stop here, though: the landing gear caused some more headaches. I wanted to keep the OOB parts, but especially the main legs would leave the aircraft with a very goofy look through a short wheelbase and a rear axis position too much forward. In an attempt to save the situation I attached swing arms to the OOB struts, moving the axis maybe 5mm backwards and widening the track by 2mm at the same time. Not much in total, but it helped (a little, even though the aircraft is still very tail-heavy)
As a final addition – since the original, wing-mounted pitots of the J29 were gone now and would not go well with the wing-switching idea – I gave the P29G a large, nose-mounted pitot and sensor boom, placed on top of the nose. This part come, like the air intake, from an F-100.
Painting and markings:
I tend to be conservative when it comes to liveries for what-if models, and the P29G is no exception. At first, I thought that this build could become an operational supersonic daylight interceptor (the J29G), so that I could give the model full military markings and maybe a camouflage paint scheme. However, this idea would not work: the potential real life window for such an aircraft, based on the Saab 29, would be very narrow. And aircraft development in the late Fifties made quantum leaps within a very short period of time: While the J29A entered service, work on the Mach 2 Saab 35 was already underway – nobody would have accepted (or needed) a Mach 1 fighter, based on late Forties technology, at that time anymore, and there was the all-weather Saab J32B around, too. The update program with new wings and a more powerful afterburner engine was all that could be done to exploit the Tunnan’s potential, resulting in the (real world’s) J29E and F variants.
I eventually decided that the J29G would only be a prototype/research aircraft, consequently called P29G, and through this decision I became more or less settled upon a NMF finish with some colorful markings. Consequently, the model was painted with various shades of metal colors, primarily Polished Aluminum Metallizer from Humbrol, but also with Humbrol 191 and Matt Aluminum Metallizer as well as ModelMaster Steel Metallizer. Around the exhaust section, I also used Revell 91 (Iron) and ModelMaster Exhaust Metallizer. Some single panels and details were painted with Revell 99 (Aluminum), and I also used generic decal material in silver to simulate some smaller access panels. Grey decal sheet was used to simulate covers for the cannon nozzles.
The cockpit interior was painted, according to Saab 29 standard, in a dark greenish-grey (Revell 67), and bluish grey was used inside of the landing gear wells (Revell 57). The pitot boom received black and white stripes.
For markings I let myself get inspired from the real world Saab 29 and 32 prototypes, which were all marked with a colored “U” tactical code on the fin and also on the front fuselage, simply meaning “Utverding” (= “Test”). I found four red decals, and I also gave the aircraft a yellow cheatline, lent from an Airfix F-86D decal sheet. The Swedish roundels come from a generic aftermarket sheet, most stencils were taken from the Revell OOB sheet and a Printscale J29 sheet.
Before the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish from Italeri, some grinded graphite was rubbed onto the rear fuselage, adding a metallic shine and simulating exhaust stains.
A thorough conversion – this has rather evolved into a kitbashing than just a kit conversion: not much from the original Matchbox J29 has been left over. But I like the outcome, even though things developed gradually from the simple idea of changing the number of engines on the Tunnan. One thing led to another. The resulting aircraft looks quite plausible, even though I am not totally happy with the landing gear, which appears to be rather far forward, despite surgical measures to mend the situation. The Ta 183 wings are a very good match, though, and I cannot help but recognize a certain French look, maybe due to the cruciform tail and the oval air intake? The P29G could also, with Argentinian marking, have become a revised version of the FMA Pulqui II?
International Monetary Fund Division Chief Anna Ilyina (L), Deputy Director Fabio Natalucci (C) and Senior Communications Officer Randa Elnagar (R) hold a press conference on the Global Financial Stability Report at the IMF Headquarters during the 2019 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, October 16, 2019 in Washington, DC. IMF Staff Photograph/Stephen Jaffe
Chassis n° 2071GT
Engine n° 2071GT
Bonhams : the Zoute Sale
Estimated : € 1.200.000 - 1.600.000
Zoute Grand Prix 2019
Knokke - Zoute
België - Belgium
October 2019
By the early 1960s, road car production had ceased to be a sideline for Ferrari and was seen as vitally important to the company's future stability. Thus the 250, Ferrari's first volume-produced model, can be seen as critically important, though production of the first of the line - the 250 Europa, built from 1953 to '54 - amounted to fewer than 20. Before the advent of the Europa, Ferrari had built road-going coupés and convertibles in small numbers, usually to special customer order using a sports-racing chassis as the basis. Ghia and Vignale of Turin and Touring of Milan were responsible for bodying many of these but there was no attempt at standardisation for series production and no two cars were alike.
The introduction of the 250 Europa heralded a significant change in Ferrari's preferred coachbuilder; whereas previously Vignale had been the most popular carrozzeria among Maranello's customers, from now on Pinin Farina (later 'Pininfarina') would be Ferrari's number one choice, bodying no fewer than 48 out of the 53 Europa/Europa GTs built. Pinin Farina's experiments eventually crystallised in a new Ferrari 250 GT road car that was first displayed publicly at the Geneva Salon in March 1956. However, the Torinese Carrozzeria was not yet in a position to cope with the increased workload, resulting in production being entrusted to Carrozzeria Boano after Pinin Farina had completed a handful of prototypes.
The 250 GT featured the lighter and more compact Colombo-designed 3.0-litre V12 in place of its predecessor's bulkier Lampredi unit. Power output of the single-overhead-camshaft all-aluminium engine was 220bhp at 7,000rpm. Shorter in the wheelbase (by 200mm) than that of the Europa, the 250 GT chassis followed Ferrari's established practice, being a multi-tubular frame tied together by oval main tubes, though the independent front suspension now employed coil springs instead of the previous transverse leaf type. A four-speed all-synchromesh gearbox transmitted power to the live rear axle, while braking was looked after by hydraulic drums all round.
True series production began with the arrival of Pininfarina's 'notch back' Coupé on the 250 GT chassis, some 353 of which were built between 1958 and 1960 within the sequence '0841' to '2081'. However, the relatively small scale of production meant that cars could still be ordered with subtle variations according to customer choice, as well as enabling a handful of show cars and 'specials' to be constructed on the 250 GT chassis.
A number of prominent European coachbuilders offered a variety of body styles on the 250 GT chassis, with Scaglietti and Pininfarina producing elegant open-top spyder and cabriolet models. Exhibited at the 1957 Geneva Salon, the latter's first 250 GT Cabriolet, which, unusually, featured a Vintage-style cut-down driver's door, was snapped up by Ferrari works driver Peter Collins, who later had the car converted to disc brakes. After a handful of alternative versions had been built, series production began in July 1957, around 40 Series I Pininfarina Cabriolets being completed before the introduction of the Series II in 1959. Effectively an open-top version of the Pininfarina-built 250 GT Coupé, whose chassis and mechanicals it shared, the Cabriolet was built alongside its closed cousin until 1962. Overall design followed that of the Coupé, with short nose and long rear overhang, while a more-vertical windscreen provided greater headroom in the generously sized cockpit. As well as the aforementioned improvements to brakes and transmission, the Series II cars benefited from the latest, 240bhp V12 with outside sparkplugs, coil valve springs, and 12-port cylinder heads. The 250 GT was the most successful Ferrari of its time, production of all types exceeding 900 units, of which 200 were Series II Cabriolets like that offered here.
A number of important developments occurred during 250 GT production: the original 128C 3.0-litre engine being superseded by the twin-distributor 128D, which in turn was supplanted in 1960 by the outside-plug 128F engine which did away with its predecessor's Siamesed inlets in favour of six separate ports. On the chassis side, four-wheel disc brakes arrived late in 1959 and a four-speeds-plus-overdrive gearbox the following year, the former at last providing the 250 GT with stopping power to match its speed. More refined and practical than any previous road-going Ferrari, yet retaining the sporting heritage of its predecessors, the 250 GT is a landmark model of immense historical significance. Despite this, original survivors are relatively few, as many have been modified and converted into replicas of more exotic Ferraris such as the 250 GTO, Testarossa, etc.
According to the accompanying Massini Report, chassis number '2071' is the 66th of the 200 units built, and as a Series II car has the added advantage of disc brakes all round. Originally finished in the handsome combination of Grigio Argento with Nero interior, the Ferrari was sold new in 1960 via Jacques Swaters' Garage Francorchamps, the official Ferrari importer for Belgium, to its first owner, Jean Blaton. A wealthy Belgian industrialist, Ferrari aficionado and gentleman racing driver, who raced under the name 'Beurlys', Jean Blaton had an excellent taste and was a personal friend of Jacques Swaters, from whom he bought numerous Ferraris over the years.
Blaton is best remembered for his daring exploits in the Le Mans 24-Hour Race in which he drove a succession of Ferraris over a 10-year period between 1958 and 1967, finishing on the podium on nearly every outing. On many occasions he drove his own Ferraris, including a 250 GT MM, 250 GT Testarossa, 250 GT LWB Tour de France, 250 GT SWB, 250 GTO, 250 LM, and 330 P3/P4. He secured his best result at Le Mans in 1963 when he finished 2nd overall with co-driver Langlois van Ophen at the wheel of a Ferrari 250 GTO, winning the GT Class for Swaters' racing team, Écurie Francorchamps.
Jean Blaton was also a friend of Enzo Ferrari, who was only too happy to accommodate his highly regarded customer's special requests. In the case of his 250 GT Cabriolet, Blaton specified that the car should have large side vents in the front wings, similar to those of the Series III 410 Superamerica, which were incorporated by Pinin Farina on Mr Ferrari's instruction. These vents not only make the car appear more sporting, they also serve to break up its lengthy flanks to good effect. Blaton's car, with its special features, was prominently displayed in Ferrari's 1960 yearbook.
In 1964, Blaton sold '2071' to Luigi Chinetti, another gentleman racing driver and sole importer of Ferraris into the USA. The car was then sold to a Mr Gilbertson from Vista, California. Following Mr Gilbertson's death, the Ferrari was acquired from his widow in 1978 by Mr Ken Gerber of San Diego, California, who kept it for the next 32 years. A member of the Ferrari Owners' Club, Mr Gerber enjoyed the car throughout the 1980s, attending various events.
During Mr Gerber's ownership (in 1992-1994) a fastidious restoration was carried out, the precision machining work on the engine and mechanical systems being entrusted to recognised specialist Bob Wallace of Phoenix, Arizona. Original parts were retained wherever possible and the few that were not saveable were either replaced with originals or perfect reproductions. The car was refinished in Rosso Rubino and completed in time for the 1994 International Ferrari Concours in Monterey.
Ken Gerber sold the Ferrari in 2010 and the following year the car moved to the UK having been bought by DK Engineering. The car was sold to Belgium in 2012, since when it has belonged to the current lady owner. Carrying the very suitable registration, '250 – GTS', the car has been enjoyed by its owner on numerous occasions and at prestigious events including the Zoute Rally. Now presented in excellent condition after recent cosmetic re-commissioning, it affords the prospect of comfortable open-top cruising in unparalleled style. Possessing links to Belgian and excellent provenance, this unique Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet is worthy of the closest inspection.