Right, hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of AiZ on Happy New Year. Today we have the Man the Myth a Legend, Alex Hollins from Sandbox News and Airpower YouTube, the YouTube show Airpower, and of course Jason Lyons, former Marine, former CIA officer Andy Milburn is I think traveling. He went to the Motherland this during the holidays. And Mick Molroy is just you know, doing Mick Molroy stuff. I don't want to we can't talk about it. He made
a sign in DA's. So the big news today that happened New Year's Day was the I guess terror attack in New Orleans. Fifteen dead, at least thirty injured. Army veteran I'm gonna fuck up this name, shamsu Din Jabbar initially thought to have like people working with him and stuff like that, but that was eventually ruled out. I is inspired converted to Islam last year, and before the attack he posted a message on Facebook, I guess announcing he was gonna I didn't see the message or anything
like that, you know. So it was pretty hectic yesterday in terms of like when the news is breaking and stuff like that, you know, just theories.
Fine, everywhere.
Initially they were like, oh, it's a guy from not a US citizen. It turns out it was a US citizen and all intensive purposes, it seemed like the guy was like a normal dude up until about a year ago. So what are you guys looking at in terms of that. I just wanted to get people up to speed him. No, I know, people are you know following this.
I gotta be honest.
I think that this is a big indicator and maybe an important lesson that we in the United States have not been doing a good job of learning. And that's that radicalization can affect anybody. Narrative management and information operations, especially the type that are aimed at radicalizing people, aren't aimed only at stupid people, you know, to some extent, information operations are the same as marketing. And there's a
reason why advertising is a multi billion dollar industry. It's because it works, and information operations work in a lot of.
The same ways.
And this is a strong indicator of that. This guy was in the US Army for over a decade. You know, he deployed to Afghanistan. We're not talking about your traditional the person that you would think a group would go after to radicalize, right, But we know he was going through some difficult financial times. We know he went through a very difficult divorce. We all go through really tough times.
We all end up at sort of our lowest points at various times throughout our life, and at those times we're most vulnerable to these sorts of efforts, Even if someone's not aiming them directly at us, it's easier than ever to find yourself in that pipeline through different kinds
of content. So I suppose for me, you know, with a background in studying perception, warfare and information operations, the big takeaway for me here is that radicalization is not something that only affects, you know, groups that are traditionally you know, it's not something that only affects low IQ people. It's not something that only affects people who are really gullible.
It can affect anyone. And if you are in a position to be affected by this sort of content, it's really really difficult to intervene, right, because you need to identify what's going on and you need to gain the trust of that person who A big part of radicalization
is isolation. You know, the content aims to isolate you and then point you at you know, a common enemy, right, And I guess just the biggest takeaway for me is that if an army veteran with ten years in the uniform, if you know, a guy who has a lot of things going for him but is going through a tough time, can in the span of a year, uh find himself
in this position. I think that that should be a reminder to all of us that none of us are above information operations and we need to be thinking about and thoughtful about the content that we consume.
I agree, I agree, and I think on a to add to that, on a personal level, people knew him, people know him, so someone may have seen I'm not gonna say someone definitely did, but someone may have seen a change in him. You know, I think I saw I read this morning that people had said that his religious viewed had views, had taken a huge turn and
he was becoming more and more extreme. So we in this country like to talk about the twenty two a day, which we should talk about, you know, the veteran suicide, things like that, but that also goes towards radicalization too. Someone may not be talking about ending their own life, but they may be talking about. You know, they see something like this occur on TV and make a comment like, well that's what they get or in favor of that person.
Those are things to take notice of. You don't necessarily have to go running to the police, but those are things that you need to take notice of so that you can interview however that is. I just watched the documentary on PBS. I believe it is about the shooter up in Maine. I believe it was that he was former National Guard guy or was a National Guard guy and he killed I think it was eight people, some of which were deaf from the deaf community, and the
things leading up to that. Everybody people his unit called the Sheriff's apartment on this guy during an active duty deployment because up to West Point, because he had gotten into a fight, he was saying all these weird things. But everybody from his son all the way up through
his chain of commands saw it. Nobody did anything about it. So, along with being aware of information operations, people who we're not targeted but are close to those people should be aware of the signs, you know, and be ready to intervene.
That's such a good point that I really do see a direct correlation between veteran suicide and veteran radicalization, because I think that they're probably there are two different symptoms of the same problem, right, veterans who find themselves in a position that feels untenable and they want to take action. Because one thing that I think service members, by enlarge having common is a bias toward action, right, and that affects suicide rates the same way that it can affect.
Attacks like this domestic terrorism.
Right, you find yourself sort of at your lowest moment, and you want to do something that can fix it, and for some that's violence toward themselves, for others that's violence towards others. But I think you raise such a good point that these are sort of offshoots of that same mental health issue that we're not doing a great job of engaging with.
No absolutely, And ye I don't know if you're gonna talk about I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Alex, but even those whose lives look like their picture perfect, you know, I'm sure we're gonna touch on the Las Vegas incident with the cyber truck. You know, this guy nineteen years SF was a master's shard and I believe, you know, we don't know what his personal life was like, whether there was any kind of strife. I believe he
was married. I think his wife. They said his wife had not heard from several days or whatever, but something was going on there. So us in social media land, we're like, you know, oh, man, this guy's you know, he's got it all mash start in SF blah blah, all this other stuff, but we don't know what's to exactly. He's the guy we look up to. And this goes
through I'm saying guys, but gals as well. You know, we look up to these people because much like social media is, what you know does is we see the good. You know, people are never almost never going to post the bad, so they're always posting the good. Hey, you know, just paid, you know, just bought my third house, whatever it is. But we don't see what's below the surface, whereas there are other people who do, whether it's a spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, a child, even people I used to
do security for. I set up a security plan for my a church I used to go to, and one of the things when we talked to the congregation, we said was. It's usually going to be the person you see every Sunday who has that one bad Saturday that decides to do something the next day. So that's when you take notice of those things. You know, hey Jim, how are you today? And he's not talking, or you heard he's got he's having a divorce and he comes in.
We had a gentleman who he ended up being removed, but he would come into the church and with his wife and children, and then all of a sudden he was coming into the church and sitting completely separate from them and come to find out as a domestic abuse thing. So you just don't know, you know, And that's the kind of things that people need to be looking at before we get to the point that we did you know yesterday.
So yeah, these special forces guys are and you guys know better than anyone guys, girls, jumans, there are people just like us who have the same sorts of vulnerabilities that we do.
Despite their rommens, amount.
Of training and the incredible things that they've done, there's still people at the end of the day.
And you know, the toughest.
People you know, have usually overcome some pretty difficult things. That's what made them the toughest people, you know, and those things can pile up on you, and they can sneak back up on you. I think everybody here can probably attest to when you go through something really difficult in life, when you lose people, you can be fine for ten years and then I can come back, you know, at the worst time, while other things are sort of piling up on you, and you know, there doesn't necessarily
have to be a catalyst. There doesn't have to be a divorce or a you know, or you know, your wife leaving you or something there. Sometimes these things can just add up in such a way that you feel overwhelmed. And if there isn't an effective way for you to channel that energy, you're going to find one. And the ones that you find, especially online, and you know, in this digital environment, more often than not.
Aren't necessarily good ways to channel that energy. You know.
Radicalization is a science. Doctor Ajitman wrote a book called Narrative Warfare for a think thing called Narrative Strategies. She was working with so Calm a few years ago. It's how we met and in her book she talks about the radicalization process and how you won't you wouldn't think of groups like ISIS or al Qaida as people who use psychology degrees to achieve their objectives.
But they do the very same way any other group might.
And there really is a pretty tried and true process that you can put people through in order to them. That's not to say it will work on everybody all the time, but if you put it out there often enough, at high enough volume, you're going to catch people.
In that net.
You know. Yeah, and these people, you know, I think the average not the average person. But most people when they think of radicalization, they think of some guy sitting or get sitting somewhere waiting for you know, or they have a spreadsheet of people that they're gonna cold call to, you know, to radicalize. No, most of the time their people come to them. They start searching the dark web. They go to forums and asking, hey, how does someone
hook up with X? And then that's when you know, keyword searches pop up, somebody will refer them and then boom, hey I heard you might be looking for a friend. Of course, they're not going to come right out and be like, hey, I heard you're looking for ISIS. It's I heard you, you know, brother, I understand what you're going through, sister. My boyfriend cheated on me or or you know, I heard you came out and your community didn't accept you, blah blah, and then and these things
almost never happen overnight. Most of the time, it's what was it a year for this guy? Most of these things happened, just like most intelligence operations happen over a period of weeks, months, and years, you know. So, yeah, we don't know with the Las Vegas guy, but obviously something happened there.
You nail it because it starts with something that we all do a dozen times a day, which is like seeing a meme that makes you feel heard, that engages with your sense of identity and the community that you come by that meme from, whether it's a subreddit, whether it's a discord server, you know, whether it's an email chain for some older folks, the community that that meme arrives to your doorstep on and you feel heard, and you feel as though your grievances are being acknowledged, you're
getting respect, or at least your grievances are. It makes you engage with that community that much more. And that's and those incremental movements.
It's the same way.
You know, like in true crime they talk about how serial killers give themselves allowances. You know, like if if you wanted to start, you know, eating people, Well, you're not gonna start by eating people, right, You're gonna start by following that woman on the bus, right, And then you tell yourself it's not that big a deal, you know, I left when it was over.
But then the next time you don't, right, and then.
You get progressively further along until you're willing to do things that otherwise might seem a lot of character.
And this process works the same way.
You know, Sorry, g we kind of no, no, no, that was incredible.
Yeah, I mean.
The thing about like, I don't know, the thing that really stuck out to me yesterday was when this happened, you know, you know, early in the morning. It's just a mildness that goes on in Twitter, like as you're reading, because like you want you want information right away right like anybody else. And it's just it's just people can't just relax and like get facts first before, whether whether reporting about them or speculating about them, and like even
speculating about them, like if you're gonna speculate. Say you're this is speculation, right, Like I'm right, yeah, And it's just I was like scratching my head, be like it's like we're being attacked by one hundred cells from ISIS yesterday all over the country.
It's never going to stop.
Like this is like a coordinated attack that they've been planning for years. And meanwhile, I mean, and at the same time, the FBI needs to do a better job in terms of messaging and stuff like that because they're fucking horrible. Like let's let's go like the press conferences yesterday were a joke, so they I mean, they add to it a little bit, but again, like you put it into that Twitter social media world and it just spins out of control kind of yeah.
Yeah, not that parallels in severity, but we saw the same thing with the drones over New Jersey. You know, we had really poor communication on a government agencies, so people just filled in the gaps with whatever seems sexiest to them.
And the social media.
Economy, the digital economy is attention based, not credibility based. So the more engaging your take, the further the reach is going to be. And usually the more divorced from reality your take is the more engaging it is. So, you know, Winston Churchill said that you know a lot, I'll get around the world twice before the truth gets its pians on. It is you know a lot, I'll get around the world three dozen times now before the
truth will get its pants on. And then people don't want the truth because the truth a lot of times doesn't align with like, you know, a logical narrative. And we want logical narratives, you know, culturally, it's how we tell stories. But real life a lot of times doesn't sort of like engaging. That seems sort of cause and effect chain, you know what I mean. And so what people will see something that seems as though narratively it's not necessarily logical, well, lots of people are seeing drones.
Narratively, they must all.
Be controlled by the same one person or one body. And if people are seeing drones, well then maybe they're not drones at all. It must be this thing that's even more you know, crazy, where in reality, a lot of what people saw we're just hobby drones or even law enforcement drones. A lot of them were just airplanes and helicopters. But that narrative is not as engaging, and so because of that, people not only will ignore it,
they'll attack it, you know. And you'll see the same when we're talking about, you know, a terror attack in New Orleans, we're gonna see people who prefer the much more sexy conspiracy narrative over the possibility that there was a really troubled guy who you know, decided to do something crazy, very likely was inspired by others who.
Did things that were crazy.
But the conspiracy may not extend much further than a half a dozen people, you know. But that's that's not the story that people on Twitter want.
You know, Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already to support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that started just five dollars a month, and when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes add free. That's the big bonus for that.
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And one of the Sorry d one of the uh foolish. But at the same time, smart thing that people do, trolls on the internet do is interject. They inject their narrative that has nothing to do with it. Like I was just watching a story on the news and they had a Republican pundit and a Democratic pundit and they were talking about this and one of them we started talking about illegal immigration, and the host is like, well, we need to stop right there. You realize that this
guy both of them are US citizens. Yeah, but yeah, but nothing has one has nothing to do with the other. But people will inject that stuff because it rolls up the base and it keeps them narrative that they want going going. And again that's not what you know, we're trying to talk about here, but it's still it's one of the reasons why.
The influencers, that's what lawmakers increasingly are. They want to get as many clicks and chairs and likes, you know, they want to raise money for the next election.
They're not that worried about conveying reality.
You know, it's not necessarily there's there's little incentive for a politician to air on the side of reality.
Yeah, you know, which is kind.
Of wild to me because right like their job first and foremost is like public safety or should be anyway, and like they should kind of be the people that are the sobering kind of adults in the room. Yeah, they're not. And it's like, you know, pretty disheartening in terms of like being an American.
Yeah, not to bring it back to the New Jersey drones again, but it comes to mind because you see these lawmakers saying, well, they're not appearing on radar, they must be advanced technology. This guy doesn't know that how radar works. The radar systems that we use, by and large wouldn't detect low flying blod copters. That's not advanced technology. That's how radar works.
But they don't know how radar works.
So they're gonna go make a statement, and every conspiracy theorist on Reddit is going to, you know, err on the side of this mayor who now thinks he's an expert in the electromagnetic spectrum instead of like people who actually know how radar works.
You know, it's a I don't know.
I would say that we're in the most complicated information space age, you know, the era of the most complicated information space and human history. You know, we have no trouble looking back on the printing press and acknowledging how culturally changing the printing press was. The Internet is that,
you know, X times exponentce. You know, it's it's given everyone a voice and increasingly, you know, with social media and stuff, it's not even you don't even need to have a built in audience to reach a lot of people with your message. It just needs to be engaging enough, and that can work for better or worse, you know, absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
A little bit about the Vegas guy, Matt Livelsburg. I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. He worked both bombers worked at the same base or bases, or maybe two of them. They're trying to connect that on social media and like it is an interesting coincidence or circumstance, like I mean, but the fact is Shamoud Like.
I'm sorry, I read his rate name wrong.
Shot, sham sham Budd did retire like ten years ago, right, and this guy was still so if they did work together in the same base, which means like there's probably thousands of ten or tens of thousands of people on the same base.
Rights, that's a pretty big installation.
So like what are the chances like ten years ago, Like, let's get together and do this on January first in twenty twenty five, right, Like, so let's again everybody who's on Twitter, Like, where's a conspiracy? There's got to be a conspiracy because I've seen so many people and they get to go back to that, We're like, they're here, They're here.
I saw that, Like so.
From like from like agency former agency people where it's like, shouldn't you know.
A little bit better?
Like I know you're trying to be like a Twitter person and like an influencer now, but maybe pumped the brakes a little bit.
More.
Is those people who know the game and are using it effectively. Yeah, that's even more dangerous than the people who are stumbling upon playing the game by just being idiots on the internet. Most dangerous ones are the ones who know exactly what they're doing and they're not worried about second or third order effects. They're worried about their mortgage and I respect that. I mean, I I pay my bills through views and very much the same way.
You know, So I understand the balance that you need to sort of maintain where you're trying to get people to click on your content and you're competing against sensationalism and hyperbole. So I understand, you know, the trap that you can fall into. But if you know the game, if you've worked in countering the game, and then you're using it to your own you know, for your own financial gain.
I don't know. That's uh, I don't like it.
It's crazy, it is it really is. I sent you something this morning, yeah about and you know me, I don't, I don't. I don't like the name and stuff. But this influencer former Special Operations Forces, I will just say that posted something basically we told you and named all
these different guests that they'd had. We told you fifty to sixty thousand Americans are going to die starting now, which and that's the thing that annoys me is they're taking what could be a bit of truth that could happen but over one hundred and two hundred year span, who knows, you know, or could happen in this year, We don't know, and they and they couple it with lies like saying this is congressionally funded, you know, these
attacks and things that kind of stuff. Like what if I was ever right in front of these people, the only thing I would say is show me the proof. I want to show the things that you're claiming. I want you to show me right here and right now that you approve that these things, not because your guest told you, Because most of these guests have said what that.
Yeah, don't tell me a guy, I said a guy.
Exactly, I have it on good authority, or I'm in touch with you know, like I'm gonna say it. That guy who posted the videos about the drones and Jersey and was saying I think they're you know, sniffing for nuclear material and a friend of mine had his hand on a rogue nuke and all this other stuff is the same guy who finally admitted in his third video he's going to be running for office in twenty twenty
six and then then the troop will come out. Well, if it's so important, buddy, why are you not telling us now right?
If you really need to know, did you think a loose nuke would be like a kind of a big deal.
Yeah?
Right, And it's happened before the president, we could look to for how they would handle it, and it wouldn't be by flying a bunch of drunes that exactly, you know, like but again, you're but again, we're speaking to that and the gaps and the official narrative creates opportunity for people like that to inject their own truth. And again, because we want a logical narrative, we want a hero's journey story like we see at the movies.
We will prefer that one because it fills in all the all the gaps very well.
Whereas the true story you know, at the Las vegashooter a few years ago who shot a lot of people, I forgot out of which casino. But you know, we still don't know his motive, and honestly, we may never because.
His motive may have been stupid. Yeah, it might have just been a dumb thing.
But we we have a lot of trouble grasping that idea, even though we do dumb things all the time. Right, you know, I do something stupid every day, and I like to consider myself a fairly bright guy. Now, imagine someone with mental health issues who's been, you know, down on their luck, who's you know, at the worst point in their life, you know, and maybe has a predisposition for violence or something along those lines. You don't need to necessarily have a logical reason for the things that
you do. Humans are big brain monkeys, you know. We've got a lot of hubris. We think we're special, don't were animals, you know, And yeah, I think you hit the nail right on the.
Head, honestly, this and this.
You know, not to go straight back to aviation because it's my area of expertise, but we saw the same sorts of things play out over this past week with China unveiling new stealth aircraft, where what we know about
these aircraft is very minimal. You know, China hasn't made any official statements about them, but you will find large creators in every platform claiming that it's hypersonic, claiming that it's capable of lower Earth orbit, you know, like stuff that is downright science fiction, especially for a nation you know that up until twenty seventeen was three and a half decades behind the United States and stealth arguably there's
still a decade a decade and a half. But now we're going to pretend that they've got suborbital fighter jets because people like that sexy narrative, you know, and in the absence of real information, we're just gonna make up whatever. We'll drive them most clicks, you know. And it's frustrating. It's frustrating in my position, because I really do.
I try hard to pace my car.
A lot of my content is just looking at what people were saying online and going okay, well that's that's not true. Let's add some context, let's add some nuance to this conversation, you know. But that is not the way to get rich, which is why you know, I drive a used car and rend but like, but I am enthused by the fact that like I do have a pretty sizable audience for someone who is a professional party pooper at this point.
And you know, you guys too.
You guys are another great example of what you bring nuance and context to these conversations that people have without any expertise.
You know, people talk about the intelligence.
Community and the special operations world, you know, with all they've ever learned about it was stuff they read on Reddit, you know, and you guys bring actual context to it, and you have in depth conversations, and that just doesn't pay as well.
Is saying it's lizard people.
Yeah.
And me and Jack Murphy you know, host the Teamhouse podcast.
We talk about it all the time.
Man, if we were like if we went and they'd started doing UFO stuff and like sensational stuff, we would be you know, mansions and riding on jet skis and stuff like that, it'd be fucking nice, like and I wouldn't.
Be fighting and scrambling for another one thousand subscribers.
You know every quarter or whatever, have a.
Million, because they'd be like, oh well, especially if you start with credibility like you guys have and Tomorrow you know, came out and was like, well, you know it's the fluoride in the water to turn the frogs gate.
Blow up.
It would blow up, you know, because of your credibility, and you know, and it's a it's a dangerous environment because you know, everybody does have bills to pay, you know.
And it becomes a bit of a video game too.
I think for some people where you know, you've got a million followers, you want two million. You know, you don't want to see those numbers decline, right, it's you derive self worth from them.
Yeah, I mean I work in other with other podcasts, and these two people that I work with, they have a sizeable Instagram followings, and yeah, like you said, it's like it's they're so precious with it and they have to grow and they have to continue, you know. And I'm the same way with the team ass right, Like I want to fucking blow it up. I see other podcasts like they fucking suck. I wonder we should be better. We're better, you know, And that's that's just a fact. That's not an opinion.
It's a fact. Uh, a big thing of you guys. So I agree, you know.
And it's like sometimes it can get you frustrating, but then it's good to like take a minute and be like, Yo, we're making podcasts about information and stuff that we like and we're interested in and interviewing great people, and we're getting paid for it.
It might not be fucking.
Tens of millions of dollars, but it's still pretty sick, you know, it's still pretty awesome, and we're doing it the right way, you know what I mean, like with some ethics.
Ye, honestly, that's how you know I've got I have a much bigger following than I ever imagined I could get for being an airplane nerd. You know what I mean, Like I am living my dream. You know, So when I talk about like you always want to grow, I don't know if I would want a million followers anything.
You know, it's stressful having a few hundred thousand people paying attention to what you say.
But I can also appreciate the romance of it. You know, we were talking before we came online about noblelitas and like Nobel disease, like this idea that people who received the Nobel Prize are told over and over again how smart and great they are. That you know, as they get later on in life, they start to believe some pretty wild stuff. And I mean I fall.
Victim to it. I try my best not to.
But with this New Jersey drone thing, I found a NASA program that, or at least it looked to be a NASA program, that established a drone test in corridor between Delaware and New Jersey. And I reported on that saying this very well could be you know what these drone sightings are. And then NASA called me and we're like, you're wrong, dude, Like we're not flying any drones. This program isn't managed by US. It's US Transcom. Now you
need to talk to them. And I had to go back on you know, the next day and post another video because that video got a couple of million views, made NASA pretty upset, you know.
And I but Alex at the same time, it's not like you didn't say anything or doubled down.
You came back, and the point exactly.
Most people are not doing.
That, and you've got to come back and say I was wrong. Yeah, and you're right, a lot of people aren't. And I guess maybe those are the two things that I try my best to keep in my work, and I think more journalists would do well to do the same as the first admit that you're wrong, and the second is admit when you don't know enough about something to talk about it. You know, like, you know, do your homework, try to be well read on as much
as you can. But if you don't know enough about you know, what's going on right now in Gaza, it's okay, I don't know enough, you know. And I think that that's something that the Internet has kind of made everybody not.
As good at.
Yeah, you know, I agree, all right.
So the Chinese j thirty six I guess they're calling it or we're calling it that. Uh, you have a video coming out when this comes out, it'll probably be right around what's coming out. It's coming out Friday right now?
Should Friday afternoon for like two thirty three thirty time frames?
Okay, yeah, so this is working out perfectly. What do you got on that?
Because that was the talk of the town, and I'm sure a bunch of like everyone at Lockheed and stuff will probably like, yeah, yeah, I just kick up this NGAD program again, you know what I mean?
That's honestly why that was the first thing I thought. So maybe the a bit of context that's worth noting for anyone who isn't aware. The United States started working on a sixth generation fighter. Sixth generation being sort of a stand in term because we don't know what capabilities actually defined six generation. It's just sort of marketing terms
at this point. But the US started development on such an aircraft back in twenty fourteen with a program a study commissioned with RAN called the Dominance Initiative, and that transitioned into the Next Generation air Dominance Program. The US started testing prototypes back in twenty twenty. We know they set some sort of performance records. We don't know what, but we do know that there are three flying prototypes associated with this program and the Air Force was supposed
to deliver a production contract for it this year. But you know, Northorp Drumman went about eighty billion dollars over on the sentence a ICBM program already, and they haven't built the first missile yet, So the Air Force doesn't have any money to fund this MNGAD effort anymore. They commissioned another study over the past three months with third party outsiders and a few industry insiders to see if the NNGAD program is developing in the way it should,
and they determined that it is worth the money. They just don't have the money, so they kicked this can to the Trump administration. They're going to have to make a decision as to whether or not they're going to basically increase the Air Force's budget to fund this F twenty two replacement fighter, an air superiority fighter. So now fast forward to just this past couple of weeks. On the one hundred and thirty first anniversary of Chairman Mao's birthday,
two stealth aircraft were photographed over China. One was over Chegdu, which is where Changdu air Aircraft or excuse me, chang Dou Aerospace Corporation is based out of them, and then the other one was out of Shenyang Aircraft Corporations headquarters.
So this is sort.
Of the Chinese equivalent of Lockheed Martin and Northrope Rummin.
These are not two aircraft from the same corporation.
They're two aircraft from effectively rival corporations, but based on their shape and size, they don't appear to be competitors for the same contract. They appear to be designed for very different things. The Shenyang aircraft is much smaller, It may be unmanned, It might be very equivalent of a CCA drone like the ones the US is developing right now. But then there's that J thirty six, that much larger
aircraft with a delta wing shape. It really does look a lot like renders we've seen for American six generation fighters like MGAD or the Davies programs called FAXX, very similar concepts.
They have a lot in common. But the thing.
Is about this J thirty six is that what we don't know about it is significantly larger than what we do know we know that it's got a delta wing design, which suggests they're looking for larger payloads and much longer ranges. If you're familiar with the F sixteen XL, it was an aircraft that was tested back in the eighties. It was effectively an F sixteen A with a cranked errow wing, sort of like a delta wing, but with two different
sweep angles. And by adding all that extra wing area, they were able to take the same F sixteen with the same engine and carry twice the payload about forty four percent further.
And I think that that.
Speaks to exactly what this J thirty six is meant to do. It's center fuselage looks a lot like the J twenties. It's nose stealth attributes look a lot like the J twenties.
It's stealthy intakes on.
The bottom side look a bit like the J thirty five's, which are very Lockheed Martin reminiscent. For good reason, a man named Subin a Chinese national name. Subin is serving a prison sentence for stealing the F twenty two and F thirty five blueprints for China. But this aircraft effectively looks like a J twenty XL. It is a platform that's designed to fly at high altitudes, lightly high supersonic speeds, and over long ranges. And to that point, it has
three engines, which is really really unusual. There's inlets for two of the engines, the outermost engines, on the underside of the aircraft, and then there's a third inlet inlet for that center engine on the top. Now there's people online claiming that that's a scramjet.
It's not.
There's no evidence to substantiate the idea that that third engine would be a scramjet. And to be honest, China technology is lagging so far behind the US. Is that they just need three engines, three turbofan engines on that platform to move all that aircraft and its payload. Would be my assessment. It looks like it's powered by WS ten C turbofan engines right now, which are engines designed
for fourth generation fighters. These are the sorts of engines that would power you know, the American equivalent of an F sixteen, you know, a non stealth aircraft. They're still working on developing engines for fifth generation platforms, like they're JAY twenty and J thirty five. So this new aircraft is being powered by engines you know, from the seventies and eighties era. Technology wise, you know, it's it's not, i guess, anywhere near as scary as a lot of
content creators are making it out to be. But it's certainly got a ton of potential. You know, that delta wing design, that lack of standing vertical tail surfaces means that it's very likely extremely difficult to detect using both high frequency targeting radar arrays but also using low frequency early warning radar arrays. The lack of standing tales also makes it much more difficult to detect and target from the side, whereas today's stealth fighters. That's more of a vulnerability.
So while I'm not worre, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the J thirty six right now. It is worth noting that what we're seeing are the early test flights of a platform. You know, So it's a half decade to.
The J twenty took.
Six years to go from test flights to service. The J thirty five now is probably going to take fourteen years to.
Go from test flights to service.
So this aircraft's got a lot of maturation to go. And that's actually why I'm.
Worried, because it's a great design to.
Start from, to continue to mature the system into something that could reasonably oppose a real threat to American air operations in the Pacific and to operations in places like bomb further away than China could ever strike before. And to that point, there are people who are calling this J thirty six a regional bomber program rather than a fighter.
I think that that's a reasonable assessment to make, but I think people are making the mistake of assuming there's still a very fine and clear line between fighters and bombers, and that just isn't the case anymore. You know, we're seeing with the B twenty one Raider, there's really strong evidence to suggest that the B twenty one, America's new stealth bomber will be able to carry air to air
weapons to defend itself. Now to mention the feasibility that it could carry systems like DARPA's Long Shot, which is effectively a cruise missile that carries am rams, so we can self escort things like that. So the line between an aircraft meant to engage other aircraft and an aircraft meant to engage ground targets is about as murky as they can get at this point, and it's only going to get murkier. So is it a fighter or a bomber?
I would argue, it doesn't matter. Can engage ground targets and air targets all the same, and this platform likely will too, you.
Know, so popping back to and ged really quick until and unless that program is heated back up, do you think that what we have in the stockpiles are capable if something were to kick off right now?
That is like that's the billion dollar question, right, So the US is actively investing about twelve billion dollars into upgrading our F.
Twenty two Raptor fleet.
Right, the Raptor is still the most capable air superiority fighter in the sky. But the Raptors started flying before the iPhone was invented. You know, this is a pretty dated platform in this twenty first century, you know, rapidly
changing digital battle space. Right, so the Raptor is getting it looks like a heads up a helmet helmet Q targeting, which is a capability it has really lacked for a long time, and it's likely getting infra red search and tract targeting capabilities, and that IRST as well as the F thirty five's distributed aperture system which can also infrared target, are really effective for countering stealth platforms. But the most important question we should be asking is how is this aircraft.
This J thirty six is going to be integrated into China's air warfare strategy right, and chances are pretty solid.
Like NGAD, it's going to be a bit removed from the fight.
It's going to serve as sort of a battle manager for AI enabled drones. Is what I would consider to be the most likely use case, and as such, it'll be a tough target to hit. It doesn't need to be the tealthiest aircraft in the world to be a tough target to hit, especially if it's pretty far removed and it's protected by CCA type drones.
You know. So does the US have the technology to counter it?
I would say absolutely, But circumstance depending right, It depends on the environment you're in, the systems you have available, the circumstances of the engagement. There's a lot of variables to consider. And I was at NORAD in northcom about a month ago asking about these things and drone incursions and stuff like that. And one thing that the command element at the Space Force in particular really wanted to hit home for me was that China is not the Taliban.
You know, people like to dismiss technology as made in China, especially because of their long history of intellectual property theft and sort of advancement through espionage, but they are a very well funded adversary with a big and growing academic pipeline for you know, aerospace defense technology. We can't dismiss the threat that China post is out of hand because
it's China. We have to acknowledge the fact that China is becoming much more capable than they ever have been in the past, and they don't need to be better than the United States at any one thing to pose a huge threat in the Pacific. You know, if the American defense apparatus is a suit of armor, you don't need to build the suit of armor that's just as good. You just need to build an arrow that can penetrate
that suit of armor. Right, So what we need to be worried about isn't is china suit of armor as good as ours. We need to be worried about, Well, could this aircraft be one of those arrows, and.
I do think that it has the potential to be.
And because of that, you know, and I'm often called the shill for the military industrial complex because I do believe in winning the next conflict by deterring it.
But I would like to see NNGA defunded.
And I think that seeing how serious China is about airspace dominance, it should be a clear decision. It should be Obviously, we need to maintain this advantage because if you find yourself trailing, it becomes much more expensive and potentially deadly to try to close that gap.
You know, got.
Especially China's airborne early world and control apparatus is also rapidly maturing, and I would argue that that's the piece that they're missing when it comes to fielding these new aircraft. Last year or the year prior, F thirty five's and J twenties had a short interaction, a short encounter, and that was the one takeaway American pilots took from it, was that the Chinese J twenties are getting better at
coordinating with airborne early warning and control. Those are the things people don't think about that America is so good at because America, you know, operated stealth aircraft. Well, no one else in the world did for more than three decades.
You know, the US has a commanding lead.
In establishing doctrine and procedure for these stealth aircraft operations. But again, we can't dismiss China because they are working hard to close these gaps and they don't have to worry about public buy in like we do in American politics. So if jijimping thinks it's a good idea, that's it. You know, they get the money they need, so I hope that the air force gets.
The money they need.
Yeah, and their money goes a longer way, right, like they're purchasing power.
They purchasing power parity.
And it's worth noting that, you know, people say the US spends more than the next ten countries combined on defense. That is objectively false. Those are self reported figures. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that a nation that is not particularly honest about anything also isn't honest about their publicly disclosed defense spending. So independent analysis suggests China spending seven hundred billion plus on defense each year, and their dollars
go further. You know, a colonel in the Chinese Army makes less than a Marine Corps lance corporal with a wife in.
Camp La June.
So if you think of that, if you think of it that way, they have the means to produce a great deal of military capability. There are still elements of the Chinese military with horse drawn carriages, but those don't necessarily matter if we're talking specifically about a naval and airpower engagement over the Pacific. You know, again, they just got to build the right arrows.
Yeah, the Chinese equivalent to the B twenty one raider, the sweat wing bomb. Yeah, what's going on with that?
Do they have? They have, They've tested, but they haven't deployed.
So they some people claim that they have tested the Age twenty. There were some rumors it was going to be unveiled last year, but current US and TEL assessment suggest it'll probably be in the twenty thirties before it's actually unveiled. But it is I would argue, probably more akin to the B two than the B twenty one in terms of stealth and onboard avionics.
But again, that doesn't mean that by the.
Time it enters service it won't have advanced you know, to a large extent. But I think it is worth noting that China has had access to American stealth materials through a variety of sources.
Including drones that have been downed.
In different places, the F one seventeen that went down in Serbia. They've got a lot to pull from to a US American stealth practices and material sciences which are really really important, and that's all going to inform the Age twenty. Radar absorbent materials are sort of under discussed because there's not a lot of publicly available information, but that's sort of the skin on a stealth aircraft and
the radar absorbent materials. The RAM on the B two is supposed to be rated to absorb upwards of eighty percent of inbound electromagnetic energy, which is radar waves.
That's huge.
So you know, the shape of the aircraft is what really makes the biggest difference in terms of stealth, and from there you're kind of making iterative improvements. But the material, the material science of your composite skin is the next most important variable.
The United States does have a big lead.
In this realm, but that lead is waning, you know, and if China has access to you know, materials from the F one seventeen and then materials maybe from like the RQ one seventy, which is a much more recent isr platform a stealth platform, and they can see how those materials have changed.
It can point them in a lot of the right directions.
Or that at stealth Blackhawk from the Bladen.
Raid, perfect example, a perfect you know, although it looks like a stealth black Hawk was probably coded in the same half glass radar absorbent material used on some F sixteens, some wild weasels. So I would argue the counter to that is ceramic based RAM. There was a breakthrough a few years ago at a US university in the South. I can't remember the school. Cheryl Zoo is the researcher
heading the program. But ceramic based RAM would be a revolution in stealth unlike anything we've seen since the seventies. Probably it can withstand significantly higher temperatures. The thing that stops the F twenty two, for instance, from being faster is that the RAM we have today is polymer based.
It's plastic, and plastic burns and high heat and friction, and that's why you've probably seen pictures of like the F twenty two with like blisters on its nose and like it's you know, it's skin kind of peeling off. That's because that aircraft was sprinting, you know, for long enough to burn off the skin. Ceramic won't burn off like that, So not only can you sustain much higher speeds, but you don't need to scrape all that toxic stuff
off your aircraft. They have to wear mop gear to do it, and then recoat it and then recure it for three days in an oven, effectively before the aircraft can get back out into operation. With ceramic ram it would last significantly longer. It would also make it cheaper to just coat everything in radar absorbent materials, which wouldn't make every F sixteen stealth or whatever, but would reduce their radar return, you know, buy you a little bit
more time. So that is something that the US certainly has in the pipeline. Cheryl's who's got a defense contract. Whether or not it'll manifest with six Gen fighters, you know, is anybody's guess.
But it's worth noting that the US.
Has been making moves to maintain its competitive advantage in this realm. They just have not been consolidated and funded into that singular.
NGAD program quite yet.
And I do think that that's I think that there's a solid chance that Trump administration recognizes the value in NNGAD, even if Elon Musk is dumb enough to think that quad copters can replace true fighters.
You know, but.
For anyone out there who thinks that they can, quad copters, by their varying nature, are limited to low altitudes and short ranges. So you're never going to have a quad copter swarm flying at sixty thousand feet to engage enemy fighters.
That's I mean, Listen, there's a good chance e Law muscles on Kedemy when he when he put that out.
There, so different, I.
Mean, but it sounds great because because it also made him think that, like the problem with targeting stealth aircraft is line of sight. When he's you know, he was like, all you need is like a low light camera and AI bro. If you have line a site with that, still a fighter, you are already screwed.
Yeah, you know, Like.
If you're an air defense system, the aar g M e er Our new harm Our new radar hunting missile has got like an eighty nautical mile range publicly disclosed. Yeah, you are already blown up before you have line of sight, you know, But like.
I don't know.
The dude knows rockets.
I'm a big fan of starship, but he does not know tactical aviation.
Yeah. Well, I know we're running at a time, but the next time we have you on, which will be soon, I definitely want to discuss the newest Chinese aircraft carrier and your thoughts on that.
I would look.
Honestly, any people are watching this might not know, but talking about airplanes with Jason Lyons has been one of my favorite things to do without it being a podcast. So yeah, anytime you want me, whether it cameras rolling or not, you know.
Awesome guys.
Don't forget to check out Alex Hollings like you need this plug anyway, Sandbox News Airpower series on the Sandbox YouTube channel of course, his uh journalistic work to Sandbox news dot what's the website sandbox.
Sandbox dot us, sandbox with two x's dot us or sandboxnews dot com.
That's easier to remember.
Okay, the link will be in the description. You could check out Alex. I'm gonna put all of his links down there. You can find them. He's probably one of the best aviation YouTubers out there. I would say at least thank you. Yes, all the stuff I say, I pair it like the ship I was saying last week. It was just the same and Fromlex's videos, you know what I mean. Like, I'm like, yeah, the J thirty six engines are a piece of shit, Like they're not up to date.
And I got that from you, Like I'm not. Yeah, what do I If.
You ever want to do a deep dive into turbo fans, I am happy to, but it might put the audience to sleep excited.
It'd be good.
It'd be like the ASMR, you know, like after like two you gotta start going to sleep talk.
I'll talk about it.
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Thanks