Steve Balestrieri

Aerospace & Defense

I Am a Retired US Army Special Forces NCO. The Glock 23 Is an Excellent Pistol and I Am Not a Fan of the .40 S&W Cartridge It Fires.

Glock 23: Same compact frame as a Glock 19, 13+1 rounds, a striker-fired action with few moving parts, and thirty-six years of continuous production...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 13, 2026

F-15J Fighter from Japan Creative Commons Image

Aerospace & Defense

Japan’s Mach 2.5 F-15J Fighter Won’t Ever Fly for the Air Force As It Was Custom Built for Tokyo

Denied the AN/ALQ-135 jammer, Japan fitted its own J/ALQ-8. Denied the AN/ALR-56, it built the J/APR-4. It even developed its own tactical data link...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 12, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Sweden’s Saab JAS-39 Gripen E Costs About $4,700 to $9,900 per Flight Hour Against $38,000 to $42,000 for an F-35A and Up to $68,000 for an F-22 Raptor. It Has No Stealth Airframe, and a Handful of Conscripts With 1 Technician Can Rearm It on a Public Road in Under 20 Minutes.

Saab's JAS 39 Gripen answer to low observability is not shape. It is the Arexis suite — spherical electronic warfare coverage built on gallium...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 12, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

The Eurofighter Typhoon First Flew in 1994 and Can Never Be Made Into the F-22 or F-35. In January 2026 the UK Signed a £453,500,000 Contract for 40 ECRS Mk2 Radars — About £11,300,000 Each — That Track Targets and Jam Enemy Sensors at the Same Time Across a 200-Degree Field of Regard.

The ECRS Mk2 folds radar, electronic warfare and jamming into one gallium-nitride array, which hands the Typhoon a Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses role...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

In 1987 Japan Agreed to Build a Licensed Version of the American F-16 Fighting Falcon Instead of Its Own Fighter. More Than 95 Percent of the Engineering Drawings Were Changed, and the Finished Mitsubishi F-2 Cost About $127,000,000 Each Against $30,000,000 for an F-16.

On March 11, 2011, the tsunami flooded Matsushima Air Base and submerged 18 F-2Bs in salt water. Five were scrapped. Japan repaired the other...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

A US Air Force B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber Fired a Stealth Anti-Ship Missile at the USS Juneau, an Amphibious Ship Commissioned in 1969 and Left in Mothballs for 18 Years. It Still Took 2 Harpoons, a Japanese Torpedo, a Hellfire, and 2 More Missiles to Put Her Under.

LPD-10 was commissioned in 1969, brought Marines home from Vietnam, answered the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, and sailed for Desert Shield. The Navy...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird’s Pratt & Whitney J58 Engines Ran at Full Afterburner for Hours at a Time With Exhaust Temperatures Near 3,400 Degrees. At Mach 3.2 Cruise, Roughly 80 Percent of the Thrust Came From the Inlet, Not the Engine.

The J58 burned JP-7, a blend so hard to ignite that a lit match dropped into it goes out. Starting the engines required a...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

Northrop Spent About $1,200,000,000 of Its Own Money on the F-20 Tigershark and Sold 0 Aircraft. The F-5 It Was Built to Replace Has Been Flying for More Than 60 Years.

The F-5E was never meant to be the best fighter available. It was built to be credible, affordable and easy to keep in the...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

82 Years Ago, Army General George Patton’s Advice on How to Become a ‘Successful Soldier’ Is Still One of the Greatest Military Quotes in Armed Forces History

Before El Guettar he read Rommel's own book, Infantry Attacks. As a young cavalry officer he studied Roman sword technique, concluded the point killed...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 11, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

F-117 Nighthawks Flew 2 Percent of Desert Storm’s Sorties and Hit 40 Percent of the Targets — More Than 1,500 of Them in 43 Nights, Without a Single Loss. 8 Years Later a 1961 Soviet Missile Shot 1 Down.

Colonel Zoltán Dani did not get lucky. He moved his missile battery constantly through the 78-day campaign, used couriers and landlines instead of radios,...

Steve BalestrieriSeptember 10, 2026

19FortyFive

Steve Balestrieri

Aerospace & Defense

I Am a Retired US Army Special Forces NCO. The Glock 23 Is an Excellent Pistol and I Am Not a Fan of the .40 S&W Cartridge It Fires.

Aerospace & Defense

Japan’s Mach 2.5 F-15J Fighter Won’t Ever Fly for the Air Force As It Was Custom Built for Tokyo

Aerospace & Defense

Sweden’s Saab JAS-39 Gripen E Costs About $4,700 to $9,900 per Flight Hour Against $38,000 to $42,000 for an F-35A and Up to $68,000 for an F-22 Raptor. It Has No Stealth Airframe, and a Handful of Conscripts With 1 Technician Can Rearm It on a Public Road in Under 20 Minutes.

Aerospace & Defense

The Eurofighter Typhoon First Flew in 1994 and Can Never Be Made Into the F-22 or F-35. In January 2026 the UK Signed a £453,500,000 Contract for 40 ECRS Mk2 Radars — About £11,300,000 Each — That Track Targets and Jam Enemy Sensors at the Same Time Across a 200-Degree Field of Regard.

Aerospace & Defense

In 1987 Japan Agreed to Build a Licensed Version of the American F-16 Fighting Falcon Instead of Its Own Fighter. More Than 95 Percent of the Engineering Drawings Were Changed, and the Finished Mitsubishi F-2 Cost About $127,000,000 Each Against $30,000,000 for an F-16.

Aerospace & Defense

A US Air Force B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber Fired a Stealth Anti-Ship Missile at the USS Juneau, an Amphibious Ship Commissioned in 1969 and Left in Mothballs for 18 Years. It Still Took 2 Harpoons, a Japanese Torpedo, a Hellfire, and 2 More Missiles to Put Her Under.

Aerospace & Defense

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird’s Pratt & Whitney J58 Engines Ran at Full Afterburner for Hours at a Time With Exhaust Temperatures Near 3,400 Degrees. At Mach 3.2 Cruise, Roughly 80 Percent of the Thrust Came From the Inlet, Not the Engine.

Aerospace & Defense

Northrop Spent About $1,200,000,000 of Its Own Money on the F-20 Tigershark and Sold 0 Aircraft. The F-5 It Was Built to Replace Has Been Flying for More Than 60 Years.

Aerospace & Defense

82 Years Ago, Army General George Patton’s Advice on How to Become a ‘Successful Soldier’ Is Still One of the Greatest Military Quotes in Armed Forces History

Aerospace & Defense

F-117 Nighthawks Flew 2 Percent of Desert Storm’s Sorties and Hit 40 Percent of the Targets — More Than 1,500 of Them in 43 Nights, Without a Single Loss. 8 Years Later a 1961 Soviet Missile Shot 1 Down.

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