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Here the video I shot last Monday of the Eurocopter X3 during a flight demo at Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia.
Later in the week on July 26, the X3 landed at the Pentagon helipad for a show-and-tell session with DoD officials.
A Eurocopter X3 lands at the Pentagon on July 26, 2012. (EADS Photo)
It’s Friday, so we’re trying something new here on Intercepts: Wind-up toy racing of the aircraft, ships and vehicles we often write about here at Defense News.
Think of it as the Top Gear of defense-oriented wind-up toys.
Our first installment pits the Eurocopter X3 versus two generic tanks. We received the X3 earlier in the week after a flight demonstration of the real X3. Defense News’ Chris Cavas provided the tanks (they’ve apparently been on his desk for an unknown number of years).
In our warm-up runs, which were not filmed, the X3 dominated, but as you can see, it didn’t perform as well head-to-head, winning only one of three heats. The X3 also sustained some damage, specifically the loss of two prop blades.
We hope to continue this feature, but in order to do that we need your help. Have a wind-up of a military aircraft, ship or vehicle? Send it to us at the address below and we’ll feature it on the blog.
After we’re put them through the paces, we’ll donate them to U.S. Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots.
Defense News, Wind-Up Racing
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Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is welcomed to Infotech Enterprises by Mohan Reddy, chairman and managing director, Infotech, Hyderabad, India, on July 24. (DoD photo)
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is in the midst of a 10-day, multi-country tour of the Asia-Pacific, similar to the trip taken by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in June.
DoD has gone to great lengths promoting Carter’s travels, so much so, it has dedicated an entire website to tracking his every movement.
Thanks to that website, we were provided with the above photo, which has prompted me to pass along some advice to the DepSecDef.
I learned an important lesson a few years back: It’s not cool to wear your cell phone in a hip holster.
Dr. Carter, you need to lose the BlackBerry holster; both of them. Yes, Dr. Carter has two mobile phone holsters (See the photo above)
Upon seeing the photo of Carter, I was taken back to Spring 2007 when a former colleague mocked my black Motorola RAZR, tightly secured in a clear, plastic holster.
“You know, they make cell phones that small so you don’t need to wear them on your hip,” she said.
Ouch! Still stings when I think about it.
Dr. Carter, I know you’re affinity for the holster. Heck, I used one for years. But you need to slip those phones into a pocket.
Or how about this. You’re an important guy. Make someone else carry them for you.
A Eurocopter X3 in a Hanger at Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia. (Marcus Weisgerber/Staff)
Eurocopter showed off the X3 hybrid helicopter at a suburban, Washington-area airport on Monday.
The aircraft — which when running sounds more like a turboprop fixed-wing plane than a helicopter — flew an air show routine for reporters, company employees and foreign defense officials from the French and German embassies.
Here are some of the photos I snapped of the X3 at the event. I’ll also be adding some video of the demo down the road.
A view of the Eurocopter X3 cockpit. (Marcus Weisgerber/Staff)
Eurocopter plans to fly the X3 to the Pentagon helipad later this week.
After that, it will fly to Richmond, Va., where it will be partially dismantled and packed inside an Antonov cargo plane for its journey back to France.
A Eurocopter X3 at Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia. (Marcus Weisgerber/Staff)
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta hands over a model of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to U.K. Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond on July 18. (DoD Photo)
On Thursday, the United Kingdom will become the first foreign country to get the keys to a Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
As a precursor to that ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta presented his British counterpart Philip Hammond with an F-35 model ( U.K. roundels and all) during a briefing at the Pentagon this morning.
“Tomorrow, you’ll get the keys to the real Joint Strike Fighter,” Panetta said.” But until then, I wanted you to have this less expensive version.”
Hammond was clearly delighted to receive the new toy.
“I look forward … picking up our first test aircraft tomorrow,” he said. “Not literally picking it up because it’s a single seater, you understand, so I won’t be flying it back.”
The Brits will fly the F-35B short-take-off, vertical-landing version that the U.S. Marine Corps will fly.
LCAC 20, an air-cushioned landing craft operating on deployment aboard the amphibious dock transport USS NEW YORK (LPD 21), has been sporting a neato keeno digital cammie pattern for at least a couple months. We’ve not seen this sort of creativity before – if there are others out there, send us some pics!
The spray shot was taken in the Arabian Sea on 5 July by MC2 Zane Ecklund; the wider view was shot by Ecklund on May 7 in Souda Bay, Crete, Greece.
If you can believe it, Ted — the Seth MacFarlane movie about a potty-mouth teddy bear that comes to life — has a defense industrial base reference.
The film opens with the narrator — Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame — giving the background of John Bennett, a young boy with no friends except his stuffed bear, Teddy.
Bennett wishes that his stuffed animal was real and, to my best recollection, Stewart tells us this:
There is nothing more powerful than a young boy’s wish; except an Apache helicopter. It comes equipped with machine guns and a missile launcher. It’s a machine of death.
Hysterical. Boeing should find a way to work this into its Apache PR material.
