Birds of a slightly different kind

The U.S. Navy has announced that he U.S. Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 101 received the Navy's first F-35C Lightning II carrier variant aircraft from Lockheed Martin today at the squadron's home at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

The Navy says the F-35C is a fifth generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment.

The F-35C will enhance the flexibility, power projection, and strike capabilities of carrier air wings and joint task forces and will complement the capabilities of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which currently serves as the Navy's premier strike fighter.

By 2025, the Navy's aircraft carrier-based air wings will consist of a mix of F-35C, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers electronic attack aircraft, E-2D Hawkeye battle management and control aircraft, Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) air vehicles, MH-60R/S helicopters and Carrier Onboard Delivery logistics aircraft.

Meanwhile according to those keeping track, empirical data from the Defense Department's CFO shows that F-35 unit costs are going up, not coming down. This is contrary to what Secretary Hagel and his F-35 program manager, Lt. Gen. Bogdan, are saying. Moreover, the current unit cost is immense at $219 million for each generic F-35. And, those costs are most likely to go up, not down, as the USMC Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL) and Navy carrier-capable variants come on line. 

Extended out to 2037, current F-35 program costs work out to a staggering $1.4 million dollars per hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  That's not flight hours, mind you -- that's clock hours.

To suggest that the F-35 is controversial would be a breathtaking understatement.  No less an authority than Frank Kendall, DoD's own Undersecretary for Acquisition, has called DoD's approach "acquisition malpractice."

For perspective, the cost to buy one F-35 -- that's buy, not fly -- will cost as much as the annual salary of 2,800 elementary school teachers.  Or 39,800 college Pell Grants.  Or a year of VA medical healthcare for 23,000 military veterans.  Or the purchase and protection of 48,600 acres (which equals about 76 square miles) of bird and wildlife habitat if that's what floats your boat.  (For purposes of comparison, the entire City of San Diego -- from San Ysidro in the south, to Rancho Bernardo in the north -- occupies about 325 square miles of land.)

Of course, that $219 million estimated unit cost doesn't include associated costs to modify aircraft carriers, enlarge and air condition hangars, beef up runways, specially outfit flight crews -- the price list goes on and on and on.  And on.

Nor has the DoD identified any adversary worthy of taking on the F-35 fighter.  But hey, this is what our "austerity" Congress has chosen to spend our collective weal on.  And who are we to question the powers that be?
 

Unwanted intrusions?

Here's a thought.  If you discover a possible breeding pair of birds, and if you think those birds have not been known to breed in this area previsouly, then monitoring the site "regularly" just when the birds are trying to 'hook up' as it were, may not be what's best for the birds.

On the other hand, I guess it's good for a birder who cares mainly about bragging rights?

In the alternative, how about just letting the birds be, and then discretely go back in a month or so to see if anything has come of the observed amorous behavior?

APB on Missing Exotic Stork

Emergency re-posting from SDBirds ...

The San Diego Safari Park (AKA the San Diego Wild Animal Park) is missing a fully flighted juvenile female Painted Stork from the San Diego Safari Park.

She is a young, zoo hatched, and hand raised, and was carried off by the wind Monday during her free-flight training demonstration. She reportedly hit a high thermal and might be anywhere in the North San Diego County area.

Someone has posted photos of a Painted Stork without comment over at SDBirds (membership required) at <http://tinyurl.com/lt4t4ho>.  However, it's not clear if these pics are of the actual missing bird since it looks pretty full-grown.

Anyone with information should call the Safari Park's Ranger Base at
760-738-5010 and give them as much information as possible.  The Rangers will pass the information to the stork's keepers and trainers.

This bird needs help, and the trainers are very worried!

Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust

UPDATE:

In a new NY Times report (login required, we learn that federal policy is actually worsening the depletion of American acquifers.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program, first authorized in the 1996 farm bill, was supposed to help farmers buy more efficient irrigation equipment — sprinklers and pipelines — to save water.   But the new irrigation systems have not helped conserve water supplies.  Instead, farmers are using the subsidies to irrigate more land and plant thirstier crops.

Two Western Democrats — Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, and Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico — have introduced legislation that would ensure that water saved by taxpayer-financed irrigation systems would stay in underground water tables or streams and not be used by farmers to expand their growing operations.  Success seems unlikely in the Republican-led House, however.

As a point of reference, the United States Geological Survey says that while the population has nearly doubled over the last 50 years, water consumption has tripled. And farm irrigation accounts for 80 percent of the water use nationwide, according to the Agriculture Department. 

***

The NY Times reports (login required) that while many Americans are distracted by shiny, new record stock market levels, the nation's historic 'bread basket' is rapidly withering away.
 
The High Plains Aquifer System (HPAS) is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it covers an area of approximately 174,000 square miles in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.
 
The Ogallala Formation of the HPAS underlies about 80 percent of the High Plains and is the principal geologic unit forming the High Plains Aquifer. About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which yields about 30 percent of all ground water used for irrigation in the United States. The aquifer system also supplies drinking water to 82 percent of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area.
 
While farmers and others have been removing water from the HPAS at a breakneck pace for most of a century, present-day recharge of the aquifer with fresh water occurs at an exceedingly slow rate, suggesting that much of the water in its pore spaces is paleowater, dating back to the most recent ice age … and probably even earlier.
 
Read the rest of the Times story if you've got the stomach. But third-generation Kansas farmer, Ashley Yost, sums it up pretty neatly: “We’re on the last kick. The bulk water is gone.”
 
So what's that got to do with birds, you ask?  

Birds traveling the Great Plains Flyway rely on oases and wetlands fed by the HPAS. When this water is finally too deep to feed these surface resources, birds trying to navigate the area may be faced with hundreds or even thousands of miles of dry, barren desert. 

Also, when the nation is in economic free-fall after we can no longer feed ourselves, it may cut in to one's ability somewhat to spend time chasing rare birds and such?