The Air Force's top officer says the service had to put its most recent light attack aircraft program on hold to gather yet more data on how it might use such these planes and how they might operate together with attack helicopters, armed drones, and other platforms. He also implied that there had been a lack of interest from potential foreign partners. Beyond simply ignoring the service's own glaringly obvious need for this capability, these arguments for putting the program on ice are dubious at best and appear to be a pretext for outright canceling the effort, if it isn't effectively dead already.

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein offered his latest take on what has most recently been known as the Light Attack Aircraft (LAA) program in an interview with Defense News on Jan. 26, 2019. The Air Force had announced it was shelving the LAA effort indefinitely earlier in January. It had planned to issue a formal request for proposals in December 2018.

In August 2018, the Air Force had alerted potential vendors of the upcoming competition. At the same time, however, the service bluntly stated that it had determined that the A-29 Super Tucano and AT-6C Wolverine, both single-engine turboprop aircraft, were likely to be the only aircraft that would meet its requirements. Brazil’s Embraer, in cooperation with Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), had supplied an A-29 for two rounds of experiments between 2017 and 2018, while Textron had provided one of its AT-6Cs. Textron's Scorpion light jet and the AT-802L Longsword armed crop duster from Air Tractor and L3 had participated in the first phase of evaluations, as well.

Goldfein told Defense News that the Air Force had decided against issuing the request for proposals in the end because of uncertainty about the upcoming budget proposal for the 2020 Fiscal Year, which is now due out in a matter of days. He said the service had not yet finished crafting its over-arching strategy for employing light attack aircraft, either.

We don't know what the Air Force's final plans for the LAA program might have looked like, but a report that the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, released on Jan. 31, 2019, said the service could have bought a fleet of 359 aircraft, enough for eight operational squadrons and three training units. Purchases would have begun after a contract award sometime in 2019.

It is not clear whether this reflected a maximum purchase order, since, by December 2018, senior Air Force officials were already talking about a potential fleet of less than 100 aircraft. In August 2018, now-retired U.S. Air Force General Ellen Pawlikowski, then head of Air Force Materiel Command, had talked about the service purchasing as few as 20 of the planes. It is also important to remember that DOT&E report covers activities during the 2018 Fiscal Year, which ended on Sept. 30, 2018, meaning the information therein is at least four months old. The Air Force has already confirmed that the details are no longer accurate.

“What is the right mix of fixed wing, rotary wing, manned and unmanned that can do the business of light attack?” Goldfein said in his interview with Defense News about how the service is now looking to move forward with the program. “What is the right mix and how do we bring allies and partners in right now with us – not just periodically parachute in – but how do we expand this experiment to bring them into the tent with us?”

Goldfein's comments are in line with statements that Under Secretary of the Air Force Matt Donovan, the service’s number two civilian, had made to reporters when he announced the indefinite suspension of the LAA program after an Air Force Association event on Jan. 18, 2019. “We're going to broaden the scope a little bit,” he said, without offering any details.

The Air Force's top officer certainly offered more context, but one can only reasonably describe these arguments as nonsensical. The most immediately maddening claim is that the Air Force has been unable to properly craft a light attack strategy, whatever types of aircraft it might include, based on the information it already has or can readily obtain from its sister services.

The seemingly perpetual need to collect more data has been a routine talking point since the Air Force’s most recent light attack experiment, known variously as the Capability Assessment of Non-Developmental Light Attack Platforms or Combat Dragon III, began in 2017. As we at The War Zone have pointed out repeatedly, the idea that this is the case strains credulity.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, it remains important to remember that various branches of the U.S. military have now conducted evaluations involving either the A-29 or the AT-6C, or both aircraft, in the light attack role, on no less than six separate occasions since 2007. In 2008, the staff at the headquarters of Air Combat Command's, the Air Force's main warfighting command, also drafted a specific "enabling concept" regarding the employment of a light attack aircraft, then referred to notionally as OA-X, which could also perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) functions.

Then, between 2008 and 2012, the Air Force managed two separate light attack aircraft efforts, one for itself and one primarily on behalf of foreign partners, known as Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance (LAAR) and Light Air Support (LAS) respectively. The LAAR program, its own saga you can read about in more detail here, imploded in ways that mirror what has happened to the latest LAA effort and ultimately got cut from the budget, ostensibly due to shrinking overall defense spending due to sequestration.

However, the Air Force did pick the A-29 as the winner of the LAS program and subsequently helped deliver those planes to Afghanistan. In 2014, Air Education and Training Command’s (AETC) then reactivated the 81st Fighter Squadron to fly these exact same aircraft to train Afghan pilots.

The 81st has been flying A-29s ever since, developing their own knowledge base about the light attack mission and incorporating lessons learned from their Afghan partners' actual combat experience with the type. Lebanese Air Force pilots are now in the mix, too, after receiving their own Super Tucanos via the U.S. military. “The squadron is the only combat mission ready fighter squadron in AETC,” according to the unit’s official webpage.

Outside of the Air Force, the U.S. military, primarily through U.S. Special Operations Command, has also conducted another serious and thorough evaluation of the Super Tucano, as part of a program known as Imminent Fury, and has pursued other light attack aircraft efforts. This includes the deployment of two OV-10G+ Bronco aircraft to Iraq in 2015 as part of a field test in actual combat known as Combat Dragon II.

Now, Goldfein’s appears to be implying that the Air Force has to take additional time to develop a light attack strategy that better takes into account the possible contributions of larger combat jets, attack helicopters, and armed unmanned aircraft. If this is true, the only sensible question should be, why is this only happening now?

Beyond its obvious fleets of combat jets, the Air Force, as well as other U.S. military services, has been actively operating armed drones for nearly two decades. The idea and practice of pairing fixed-wing attack aircraft with armed helicopters dates back to before the Vietnam War.

More importantly, the Air Force program to acquire a fixed-wing light attack aircraft was always supposed to be an additive capability, not a complete replacement for any one of these other platforms. The primary benefit of acquiring light attack planes has always been to provide an alternative to higher-end combat jets and bombers in low-risk environments, and a very cost-effective one at that in order to ease any concerns about breaking the budget.

This would free up those other aircraft up for missions that actually require their particular attributes. Light attack aircraft also require far less infrastructure to support and can operate with a smaller overall footprint, offering added operational flexibility. Being able to rapidly redeploy to sites closer to the target area would also allow the planes to maintain a more persistent presence over particular portions of the battlefield, flying armed overwatch or ISR missions in addition to close air support sorties.

They can do all of this at a fraction of the average cost per flight hour to operate even the Air Force's most cost-conscious combat jet, the A-10. But none of this obviates the requirement for higher-end aircraft entirely, even in limited conflicts. It certainly doesn’t fully eliminate the separate utility of armed helicopters or unmanned aircraft in those settings.

It's all about force management. Relying heavily on combat jets such as the F-16C/D Viper and F-15E Strike Eagle, and even the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, to perform these low-risk missions created an unsustainable demand for those aircraft. The result has been a visibly negative impact on the readiness of those fleets. Without light attack aircraft as alternatives, these issues will only become pronounced as the Air Force expands its reliance on the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, which is even more costly to operate.

So it's even more glaring that, in his interview with Defense News, Goldfein sought to shift blame onto potential foreign partners for the apparent lack of interest in light attack aircraft and a demand for a broader mix of capabilities. The desire for international participation has also long been another major talking point for the Air Force regarding its most recent light attack effort, even though not one single country has ever confirmed an active interest in joining the program.

“Some countries, it actually would be better to have an unmanned option. Some countries, [it] would be better to have a rotary-wing option,” Goldfein said. “Some countries would do fixed wing, but [only with a] turbojet [engine].”

The reality that certain platforms work better in certain environments is a meaningless truism. It also ignores the fact that many of America's partners and allies, including other first world countries, that would be interested in a fixed-wing turboprop light attack aircraft, such as the A-29 or AT-6C, already operate aircraft in those roles or are pursuing their own efforts.

Just with regards to the A-29, the U.S. military itself has facilitated the delivery of Super Tucanos to Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Nigeria since 2012. It calls into question why the Air Force feels the need to create a new multi-national program when it effectively has one right now. On top of that, numerous other countries have purchased these aircraft directly from Embraer for training and light attack missions, further reducing the pool of countries who might be interested in buying another set of light attack planes, too.

Iraq also received a number of AC-208 Combat Caravan aircraft in the 2000s via the United States and the Pentagon is now helping Afghanistan buy the latest version of this plane, now known as the Eliminator. IOMAX AT-802i armed crop dusters went to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and then Jordan with the help of the U.S. government. Domestic politics in Kenya have held up another American-sponsored deal for the similar AT-802L Longsword.

There have been additional direct sales of American-made types, including IOMAX’s latest offering, the Archangel, to foreign countries. It would take too long to list all of the countries that have used existing U.S. government foreign military assistance constructs to acquire combat jets and attack helicopters of various types.

When it comes to foreign sales of armed unmanned aircraft such as the now-retired MQ-1 Predator, or other larger designs such as the MQ-9 Reaper, the U.S. government is, right or wrong, hamstrung by its adherence to international arms control regimes. This is an entirely separate issue that no expanded Air Force program would ever be able to get around on its own.

All of this notwithstanding, there is simply no reason why the Air Force’s light attack efforts should ever be beholden to foreign demand for this type of aircraft. “LAA will provide an affordable, non-developmental aircraft intended to operate globally in the types of Irregular Warfare environments that have characterized combat operations over the past 25 years,” the service said in its own contracting notice in August 2018.

Foreign involvement, or lack thereof, doesn’t change the Air Force’s own need for this capability or the benefits that light attack planes would offer as part of the existing mix of manned and unmanned aircraft and helicopters the U.S. military already has. Exports to allies won't solve the service's own glaring problem of flying the wings off its tactical jet fleets for missions that a far simpler aircraft could perform more effectively at a fraction of the cost. If going down this road alone is somehow actually a show-stopper, it could easily look to partner up with the Marine Corps, which also has a standing requirement for a light attack aircraft for the same reasons.

But cooperation at home or abroad doesn't seem to be the real issue at play, anyway. By talking about the ability of other platforms to fill the Air Force’s gap in light attack aircraft capability, Goldfein is implicitly setting up the argument that these systems are adequate substitutes.

This is a rhetorical ploy the Air Force has also used, unsuccessfully, in the past to push for the retirement of the A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft. The service does have separate requirements for an actual A-10 replacement, too, but has kept them hidden away in bureaucratic limbo more than two years now, a story we at The War Zone were first to report.

The truth of the matter is that, despite many public pronouncements to the contrary, by every real indication, the Air Force has never been serious about this latest light attack program. Goldfein’s latest statements don't show that anything has changed in that regard and also indicates that the service is beginning to lay out official reasoning, no matter how obviously contrived, for finally canceling the LAA program officially in the near future.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

The good people in a small northern Canadian town are calling attention to their ongoing war with a mysterious and invisible force that's been killing car key fobs and leaving drivers stranded in the parking lot of the town's largest grocery store, the CBC reports.

For weeks now, dozens of shoppers at the Westview Co-Op in Carstairs, Alberta have walked out to their cars, arms full of grocery bags, only to find that their radio-based smart key fobs no longer work. Sometimes the push-button ignition system will fail to recognize the fob and refuse to start; other times, the fob won't even unlock the vehicle. Stranger still, people have also reported car alarms going off in the lot with no apparent cause.

"It's just bizarre. People are actually scared to go to the Co-op now because they don't know if their cars are going to start," an employee of the dollar store across the street, where puzzled drivers have been wandering in to buy a fresh battery for their fobs, told the CBC.

Unfortunately, a fresh battery doesn't solve the problem—and we'll leave you to chastise drivers for not knowing that many of the so-called keyless-entry systems do have physical backups built in. Aside from aliens, the obvious culprit is some sort of electronic interference, somehow localized in this particular Westview parking lot.

Armchair electricians on social media and elsewhere have raised a number of potential causes—automatic door sensors, shopping cart proximity locks, Wi-Fi, and even some security camera systems have all been reported to mess with smart fob operation elsewhere.

But in an update posted to Facebook this week, the store said that it brought in local electricians to shut down all power to the building, which failed to stop the problem. Management has also reached out to Canada's Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development for help solving the problem. And they're not so keen on speculating about aliens, ghosts, Illuminati, or anything on that plane.

"I think it is frustrating," Westview's asset protection manager Stephen Kennedy said, according to the CBC. "To see the level of frustration for our team and our guests is where our concern is. That's why we are taking extra steps to ensure we are driving the solution."

So if the inference signal isn't coming from the co-op building, or Vega, where does that leave us? The source might be one of the small businesses across the street, though none have automatic front doors. But looking at the map, a more likely culprit could be the freight train line running directly behind the parking lot—specifically, the set of radio-controlled switches used to bring three tracks down to one for a nearby road crossing.

Freight trains are a known source of RF interference. The middle and rear locomotives, or distributed power units in railroad parlance, are often radio-controlled; an "end-of-train device" hanging on the back transits important data up front to the engineers via RF; workers on board communicate almost entirely over the radio; and countless sensors on the train and track monitor for serious problems.

Drone and RC aircraft enthusiasts have been warning each other about this for years—losing control of your very expensive model over a moving freight train sounds tricky. Could this be what's been plaguing the good people of Carstairs? It's just as plausible as any explanation that's been raised so far, though it wouldn't explain why the problems only started a few weeks ago. Also, the interference is constant enough that it can't be caused by a passing train.

So what does that leave? Aliens. Hey, we want to believe.

Recaro and Porsche are two names that are deeply ingrained in the history of German car production and motorsports. The two companies have been intertwined, growing together through the 20th century, and beyond. Recaro has supplied seats for Porsche's air-cooled 911s, the 914, 924, 944 and 928, and has recently shared with The Drive a timeline further detailing its relationship with the legendary sports car maker.

The brands' history together goes back almost 70 years. In 1949, Recaro's predecessor, a German engineering firm called Stuttgarter Karosseriewerk Reutter & Co, was tasked with installing seats, interior trim, and electrical systems on the Porsche 356 sports car.

The partnership technically goes back even further, before Porsche was building cars of its own. In 1938, Reutter & Co. helped Ferdinand Porsche design and build the very first Volkswagen Beetle prototypes.

By 1961, the 356 was winding down a pretty good run, and it was time to come up with a successor. Porsche once again enlisted the help of Reutter to create concepts for would become the iconic 911. Two years later, shareholders at Reutter voted to sell the company to Porsche in its entirety. With the firm came its assembly line, manufacturing resources, and about 950 of its employees. This move then allowed the automaker to do most of its 911 production in-house.

After the buyout, there were about 250 Reutter employees that didn't move to Porsche, they instead chose to incorporate a new company focused on automotive seating. As you've probably guessed, the company was called Recaro, a portmanteau of Reutter Carosserie. Since then, Recaro has been one of the top names in aftermarket seating. It's also provided OEM seats for many great Porsches, as well as other sports car manufacturers worldwide.

The two companies have most recently collaborated on the 911 GT3 R, which took the win at last year's 24 Hours of the Nurburgring. Whether it's in road-hugging sports or world-beating racecars, it's clear that these manufacturers from Stuttgart have shaped the landscape of performance driving, and will do so for many years to come.

Women's History Month may be March, but January 2019 proved to be particularly significant for U.S. military female aviators. This week, the U.S. Air Force announced that Captain Zoe “SiS” Kotnik had become the service's first-ever single-ship aerial demonstration pilot. Just days earlier, retired U.S. Navy Captain Rosemary Mariner, who had numerous ground-breaking achievements in her 24-year career, sadly passed on after a battle with ovarian cancer. Now, a group of female naval aviators is preparing to fly a "missing woman" formation for her memorial service tomorrow.

U.S. Air Force General Mike Holmes, head of Air Combat Command, the service's main warfighting command, certified Captain Kotnik as the commander of the F-16 Viper Demonstration Team, or VPT, on Jan. 29, 2019. In that position, She will also be the team's lone F-16 display pilot for 2019, flying at various air shows across the United States and Canada.

Leading the small VPT, which includes eight other personnel to support the performances, is a major honor and accomplishment for any pilot. Kotnik now holds the additional distinction of being the first woman to ever lead any of the Air Force's demonstration teams.

"What I’m looking forward to most is the potential to have an influence on younger generations," Kotnik, who graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2011, said in an official statement. "I know firsthand how impactful airshows can be and what a difference it makes to young people to see just one example of what they too can do and who they can become. I hope to be a source of inspiration and motivation they can draw from to apply in their own lives."

Kotnik had to go through four certifications in total before receiving the final approval from General Holmes to lead the team. This process included a variety of specialized training flights, including sorties in the backseat while another pilot demonstrated the various aerobatic maneuvers, as well as 30 practice performances.

Breaking news!@ACC_Commander , commander of @Air Combat @USAF_ACC, has certified @usairforce Capt. Zoe "SiS" Kotnik as the new #ViperDemoTeam pilot.

She is also the Air Force's first female single-ship tactical demonstration pilot! pic.twitter.com/ol67541aRe

— F-16 Viper Demo Team (@ViperDemoTeam) January 29, 2019

The VPT's routine is very different from the kind of flying Kotnik has been doing for the past eight years, most recently with the 55th Fighter Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, but she already has some experience with aerial performances, having participated in the flyover of the nation's capital for President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017.

She also has deep ties to air shows and aerobatics. Her uncle is noted air show performer Charlie Hillard, the first American to ever win a world aerobatics title. Kotnik says that it was her experiences with him, as well as with her mother who was a private pilot, and at airshows that pushed her to join the Air Force, according to an interview with LiveAirShowTV, which you can watch in full below.

"There's a larger community of female fighter pilots nowadays and it's awesome. It's a community within itself basically," then-U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Kotnik said in an earlier interview in 2017. "It's awesome because you have someone who set the precedent and someone that I can follow in their footsteps and ask questions and learn from them. So, I feel very fortunate that there have been several [female fighter pilots] before me."

In that case, Kotnik was speaking about trailblazing women in the Air Force, and the preceding U.S. Army Air Forces, specifically. This includes Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Love, who were foundational members of the World War II-era Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) andWomen Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), as well as the Air Force's first female fighter pilot, Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt, who is presently the head of the Air Force Recruiting Service.

On Feb. 1, 2019, the AFRS, under Leavitt's command, gathered 80 female pilots together for a day at Edwards Air Force Base in California, one of the Air Force's premier research and development facilities, to share their stories about serving. It seems likely we'll be hearing more about their experiences specifically as we get closer to Women's History Month.

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Every hero has an origin story. We asked over 80 female pilots to share theirs on one historic day at @EdwardsAirForceBase. #HERo #HigherFurtherFaster #SquadGoals #AimHigh #FlyFightWin #USAF #USAFRecruiting #AirForce #AirForceRecruiting

A post shared by U.S. Air Force Recruiting (@usaf_recruiting) on Feb 1, 2019 at 9:41am PST

But January 2019 offered another, more somber opportunity to reflect on the trailblazing careers of female aviators across U.S. military, in general. Retired U.S. Navy Captain Rosemary Mariner, who passed away on Jan. 24, 2019, had been one the first eight female pilots in her service to fly jets, beginning with the A-4C Skyhawk in 1974 and then moving on to the A-7E Corsair II, according to her obituary.

She was eventually sent to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Five (VX-5), the Vampires, at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. In 1982, the Navy assigned Mariner to the aircraft carrier USS Lexington as a surface warfare officer.

"In modern warfare, the emphasis is not on physical strength, but on brain power operating sophisticated weapons systems," she said in an interview with Glamour magazine that year. "A machine gun is a great equalizer."

Then, in 1990, she became the first woman in the U.S. military to command a military aviation squadron when she became the commander of he Flashbacks of Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron Three Four (VAQ-34). This unit, based at the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California, first flew a mix of ERA-3B and EA-7L aircraft, before transitioning to the F/A-18A Hornet. Its primary mission was to simulate various electronic warfare and missile threats against Navy warships during fleet exercises.

Mariner went on to serve on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and her final assignment was at the Chairman of the Joint Chief's Chair in Military Strategy at the National War College in Washington, D.C. She retired in 1997, after which she continued her academic career and remained an advocate for the further integration of women into the U.S. military, working as a policy advisor on those issues for the Navy, as well as news outlets such as ABC News and PBS.

Mariner is set to be laid to rest at New Loyston Cemetery in Maynardville, Tennessee on Feb. 2, 2019. Nine female aviators have since volunteered to fly a "missing woman" formation with one F/A-18E and four F/A-18F Super Hornets from Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, some 400 miles away.

"We're fortunate to be chosen," U.S. Navy Commander Leslie "Meat" Mintz, the executive officer of Strike Fighter Squadron Two One Three (VFA-213), said in an interview with Military.com. "It's certainly the first time I've done this for a female aviator. Everyone is truly humbled to be a part of it."

The other naval aviators taking part in the flight are Commander Stacy Uttecht, head of VFA-32, Lieutenant Commander Paige Blok, also from VFA-32, Lieutenant Commander Danielle Thiriot of VFA-106, Lieutenant Commander, presently assigned to NAS Oceana, Lieutenant. Christy Talisse of VFA-211, Lieutenant Amanda Lee of VFA-81, Lieutenant Kelly Harris, VFA-213, and Lieutenant Emily Rixey of the Strike Fighter Weapons School Atlantic.

"It's truly an honor to do this … for Capt. Mariner," Mintz told Military.com. "I've been in this business for 19 years. I really haven't thought about male versus female gender issues because it's strictly merit-based. 'Can you fly? Can you perform?' [but] really I owe that to her."

We here at The War Zone wish Captain Kotnik the best of luck as head of the VPT and say fair skies and tailwinds to Captain Mariner.

This week, the annual Director of Operational Test and Evaluation's report hit and we got an updated view of how some of the military's highest profile weapons programs are developing. We also talked a bit about the A-12 spy plane's little known potential as a clandestine space launch system. We were also able to offer an update on the Navy's FFG(X) next generation frigate program as well as how the service plans to reorganize some of its assets into an experimental surface combatant squadron. There was also some puzzling words from the USAF's head honcho to dissect and a look into the bowels of a Russian Akula class nuclear fast attack submarine. We even got to take a rare look at some modernized submarine propulsion technology, among other stories.

Still, there were many subjects we didn't get to. But it's not too late.

Welcome to Bunker Talk!

This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn't get to. In other words, literally an off-topic thread.

We can all discuss this Malaysian Hornet pilot's sweet gear:

RMAF Hornet WSO enwrapped in a ton of sweet kit.

In no particular order; a digicam'ed HGU-68 w/ the visor track setup, anti-snag bayonet reciever, and an MBU-12/14. Cobham SEAWARS on the chute riser. MA-2 harness with the CRU-88 O2 regulator, and lastly a LPU-23 life preserver. pic.twitter.com/2EQeYveioH

— Abd Nav (@AbdNav2K1) February 1, 2019

Or what about this nice chart showing the USMC's future rifle squad design:

U.S. Marine Corps. Rifle Squad. Piyade destek silahlar? yok mu bunlar?n yoksa ayr? bir tak?m olarak m? te?kil ediliyor???? pic.twitter.com/Mccd9ZoCpD

— A_Emre_S (@aemres78) January 31, 2019

Then there is this special D-Day anniversary paint job on one of RAF Lakenheath's Mud Hens:

The #LibertyWing has mixed the past with the present with the unveiling of the first of three heritage jets. #P47 #Thunderbolt #Airmen #Heritage#AirForceHistory #F15 #WeAreLiberty https://t.co/HzyNY0h3sa

— RAF Lakenheath (@48FighterWing) January 31, 2019

Wow, I wasn’t expecting that!!! One of 3 heritage schemes commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Stunning. @HQUSAFEPA @48FighterWing #avgeek pic.twitter.com/ihAXboZ60B

— Keith Meachem (@TSO464) January 31, 2019

Also take look at what's hanging out behind this Libyan MiG-23 pilot in Misrata—a KC-130T!:

#Libya- pilot selfie from #Misrata Airbase. Check out the 2 C-130s in the background, one with auxiliary externally mounted fuel tanks. pic.twitter.com/o6pG5jHxnx

— Oded Berkowitz (@Oded121351) January 31, 2019

Here's a nice look through the helmet mounted display on a Turkish T129 attack chopper:

Head-Up-Display-Helmet of Turkish T-129 Atak helicopter????????.

T-129 Atak Helikopterine Ait "AVCI" Kask? Vizöründen Gözüken HUD Görüntüsü.@karahavacilik #karahavac?l?k pic.twitter.com/qosnffpEI8

— Kevin Sky????????????????????? ???????????????????? (@EmirLouise) January 26, 2019

This week also saw the first ground run of the SB>1 Defiant:

First look: Our Sikorsky-Boeing #SB1 Defiant helicopter is advancing through its ground run tests at our Development Flight Center. #FVL @BoeingDefense pic.twitter.com/AqzP47LViF

— Sikorsky (@Sikorsky) January 31, 2019

Or forget all this military crap and just take in this sick Terminator theme cover:

Once again, this is an entirely open exercise, so let's enjoy some pointed debate and have some laughs.

Let's get after it!

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

At the 2018 SEMA show, Chevy teased audiences with a view of its 2019 eCOPO Camaro concept, then published a video of the electric drag racer doing a burnout with no engine noise. Since then, news on the eCOPO has been pretty quiet, but that's because the car has been in the shop at Hancock and Lane Racing, getting prepped for its inaugural dragstrip run. The motorsports team has recently finished its work, and employee Cody Lane has put out some footage of the Camaro flexing its electric muscles.

The eCOPO does all the things you expect a drag monster to do, even pulling a massive wheelie off the starting line, but it does them in a silent, almost zen-like way. In the video, the Camaro flies past the bright orange Chevy truck in the opposing lane, crossing the finish with a quarter-mile time of 10.14 seconds at 130 miles per hour. In the description, Lane notes that the eCOPO was only running at about 80 percent power for the run, and should be able to post mid-nine-second times at full-steam.

Unlike most modern electric vehicles, which use one or more motors directly connected to the wheels, the Camaro's dual motors reside right underneath the hood. They bolt right up to the Turbo 400 automatic transmission sourced from the gas COPO, which in turn transfers power to a good old-fashioned solid rear axle.

Cody Lane tells The Drive through online correspondence that the eCopo runs nine-inch Mickey Thompson drag radials at the rear. He also mentions that the car is able to make three quarter-mile passes before battery drainage cause power to decline. At that point, the Camaro needs about 30 minutes of charge time to get back to full power. In practice, Hancock and Lane gave the car a quick charge between each pass to make sure it was running at a consistent voltage during testing.

The twin electric motors were supplied by BorgWarner. According to Lane, they put out the equivalent of about 780 horsepower, with torque in equal measure. As of this writing, the eCOPO is one-of-a-kind, and General Motors is not planning on selling it. However, the company has hinted at the possibility of producing electric motor swap kits that use all the same mounts as a Chevy small block V-8. If such a kit came to market, it could make electric conversions almost as easy as the tried-and-true LS swap.

Lucia Perez, a professional photographer from Colombia, started documenting her world travels in a 1960 Mercedes-Benz Ponton sedan in December of 2017. Since then, she has driven the classic car across North and South America, through Russia, and into western Europe—many stops on the road trip can be seen on Perez's Instagram page. The long journey unfortunately came to an end in late January, though, when her classic Merc collided with another vehicle along Jerusalem's West Bank in Israel.

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These are photos made by Michal that day in Poland, the interview was done by Antoni. The team from the Magazine ClassicAuto: Piotr, Michal and Antoni and my friend Pawel who is already traveling with his family around the world. @worldbyourhome @lmclassicauto @classics_automotive @legendautoclassic @classicauto @classicaut @autoclassicpoa @magazynclassicauto #landscapes #perfectroads #beautifulroads #drivingscenes #drivingroads #mercedeslovers #mercedesbenzamg #mercedes #mercedesclassic #mercedesclub #mercedesbenzworld #mercedes_benz #mercedesclassiccenter #mercedes180B #nakedplanet #artofvisuals #phenomenalshot #tourtheplanet #passionpassport #beautifuldestinations #theimaged #liveoutdoors #ourplanetdaily #wanderlust #theglobewanderer

A post shared by Lucana & Merce ???????? ???? (@lucanaymerce) on Nov 27, 2018 at 9:29am PST

The Times of Israel has reported on the crash, translating a Hebrew article from the local Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. Perez told the paper: "At the Kfar Adumim junction, I remember that I turned left toward Jerusalem when suddenly a car came toward me. I didn’t see lights or anything signaling its arrival. I was hit hard and from then on I don’t remember anything.”

The Times notes that these West Bank roads are notorious for crashes, due to a lack of lane markings on many streets, and lax law enforcement in the area.

Lucia Perez was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem for the treatment of undisclosed injuries. A Jan. 30 update to her Instagram shows her recovering in the hospital and states, "I am progressing [sic] in my recovery. I feel a bit stronger every day." The Times reports that two occupants of the vehicle that struck the Ponton sustained minor injuries.

The Mercedes, on the other hand, appears to be a total loss. The damage to the vehicle's right side is severe. Both its roof and floor pan are bent completely out of shape, the passenger doors have been ripped from their hinges, and wiring from the engine bay has been pushed clear into the car. The structure surrounding Perez's driver seat luckily stayed mostly intact, showing only a series of dents on its left side.

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This was really hard for me to do ...... But She did protected me from something worse. I am ALIVE and in one piece. Gracias Mi Dios!!, Gracias todos mis ángeles allá arriba ahora y Gracias "Merce" por poner tener un cuerpo tan sólido. #accidente #israel #jerusalem #gracias #merci #god #angels #ponton #solidcar #mercedes

A post shared by Lucana & Merce ???????? ???? (@lucanaymerce) on Jan 31, 2019 at 10:30am PST

The photographer told Yedioth Ahronoth she purchased the Ponton for $1,500 almost 30 years ago. She added, "This car is very dear to my heart, we’ve been through innumerable experiences together."

The Drive has contacted Lucia Perez and will update the story if more details arise about the crash, her condition, and her plans for the future.

Uber and other ride-hailing services have been accused of competing with public transit and thus increasing traffic congestion. But Uber is now trying to integrate its ride-hailing service with public transit by showing multiple trip options on its app. However, the feature is only available in Denver, for now.

Through a partnership with Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD), the Uber app can now show users how to get to their destinations on public transit. As explained in an Uber blog post, a "Transit" option now appears on the app, showing things like real-time departure and arrival times, and walking directions to nearby stations.

That kind of information is already available in many cities through Google Maps, but Uber said users will soon be able to buy digital RTD tickets through its app. That would differentiate Uber from Google, and the added convenience might even encourage more people to use public transit. RTD operates light rail, commuter rail, and bus service in Denver.

This is just the first step, according to Uber. The company said it has an "entire suite of services" beyond the app that it is actively marketing to transit agencies. Uber has undertaken small-scale partnerships with agencies in other cities, but Denver is the first city in which all public transit services are listed on the Uber app alongside ride-hailing. Rival Lyft has also discussed integrating public transit with its app.

Both Uber and Lyft are looking at alternatives to their core ride-hailing businesses, such as bike and scooter-sharing services. The two companies are expected to launch initial public offerings (IPO) this year, meaning they'll need to show the potential for sustained growth to would-be investors. But Uber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing companies are facing increased scrutiny from regulators over issues like traffic congestion and driver pay.

An old-school Porsche 911 Turbo (known also as a 930) has been converted into a limousine and is now for sale in California.

Surfacing in a Craigslist ad in late December or early January, the vehicle in question is a 1989 model from the final year of the 930's 15-year production run. It started out life as a 3.3-liter car with the "speedster" convertible roof option, and according to a Porsche 911 book (via forum post), was one of 600 such cars sold in the United States in 1989.

The car's outward appearance suggests it to be a 930 "Slantnose," a rare variant of the 930 sold by Porsche, which was inspired by the 935 race car. Only 948 were officially built, making them desirable among Porsche collectors. But this isn't an authentic Slantnose according to the ad, which admits the front end to be an aftermarket conversion, though it is allegedly one performed with authentic Porsche parts.

For reasons unknown, the conversion seemingly wasn't completed, and the car is said to be sold without its 3.3-liter, twin-turbo flat six, along with its associated transmission—a four- or five-speed manual depending on trim level.

Of concern to any buyer should be the vehicle's safety. Owing to their length, stretch limousines of any age have questionable chassis rigidity, made worse in this Porsche's case by its lack of a roof which is often integral to a car's torsional strength. Older vehicles or their conversions thereof are especially worrisome, as a worn-out vehicle was the cause of the 2018 limo crash that killed 20.

While it may or may not be safe for transporting bachelor(ette) parties, this stretched 930 may still have a future as a demolition derby entry, or as a race car in a junker series such as the 24 Hours of Lemons. Both would require a ponderous roll cage, but there have been worse vehicles that have competed in each.

So much odd, but awesome tech came out of the Cold War. It seems like every day I find something new that is equally fascinating and alarming about an era when nuclear Armageddon seemed consistently eminent. The nimble little A-4 Skyhawk's clamshell thermal shield is a great example of this.

The 'Scooter's' Thermal Anti-Radiation Heat Shield was fitted around the edges of the rear portion of its notoriously cozy cockpit during nuclear missions. The clamshell design could be pulled down, covering the pilot entirely, but allowing them to still see the instrument panel and access the flight controls. The system would not only keep the pilot from being blinded by the super-bright flash of a nuclear explosion, but it would also give them shielding against the high heat that resulted from it, and to a lesser extent, it would lower the overall amount of other forms of radiation the they would be exposed to.

The shields were deployed operationally aboard aircraft carriers, along with tactical nuclear gravity bombs that the Skyhawks would haul into a combat zone and loft at targets before escaping the area as fast as possible. Lay-down and medium to high altitude dive bombing methods were also available, but less desirable, especially the latter. Here is a U.S. Navy video circa 1959 explain how the subsonic A-4 would use each of these methods to deliver a nuclear weapon:

The need to protect pilots from the bright and hot flashes of nuclear weapons detonations resulted in a variety of solutions throughout the Cold War. These included nuclear thermal curtains installed on aircraft like the B-52s and the Polarized Lead Zirconium Titanate (PLZT, pronounced "plizzit") flash blindness goggles introduced in the early 1980s for FB-111, B-52, KC-135, B-1, and eventually B-52 crews. Today, the B-2 uses a temporarily installed fast-tinting shield system mounted on its instrument panel dash that is based on technology originally developed for the B-1B to protect its crew during nuclear missions. You can read all about these wild contraptions in this past article of ours.

But for the size of the Skyhawk and the era in which it entered into service, the thermal shield was an amazingly simple, easy to use, and highly effective countermeasure.

Other tactical aircraft from the era employed various thermal shielding techniques, with most using more malleable curtain assemblies and less than ergonomic helmet systems, although photos of these configurations are rare. Here's one design tested in an F-106 cockpit:

The need for such a system was fairly pressing in the era when the A-4 entered service. Whenever a U.S. carrier would get into an area where they would be part of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), the shields were at the ready for installation along with nuclear gravity bombs or aircraft were preconfigured and armed at the ready for contingency missions.

By the late 1960s, the A-4 gave up its nuclear role, but would continue to serve the Navy in various roles for decades after. Still, throughout the Cold War, American carriers would house tactical nuclear weapons onboard. Some set sail with over 100 nuclear bombs in their weapons magazines. A number of these weapons were lost at sea during the period. The practice only came to an end in 1992 after President George H.W. Bush commanded the draw-down of all tactical nuclear weapons from the surface warfare community. By 1994, even the ability to fire nuclear weapons would be forfeited by U.S. Navy ships, with the submarine force taking over the role completely.

In 2010, the ability for submarines to fire nuclear-tipped Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles also came to end. All this could change once again as the Navy looks to bring tactical nuclear weapons back to its surface and submarine fleets as part of a new Pentagon strategy to counter threats from Russia and China. It is even possible that the F-35C will gain nuclear capabilities in the coming years. It's unclear how its pilot would be shielded if the type gained a nuclear capability, but it's not like making the jet able to fight in nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare environments isn't already a key component of the program. Relegating delivery to the lay-down method alone and/or using long fusing times is another possibility, giving the aircraft as much time as it needs to safely exit the danger zone.

Regardless, it's clear that Douglas designers were very concerned with the ability for A-4 pilots to execute the nuclear delivery mission in a number of ways and survive to fly again the next day. Looking back, the thermal anti-radiation heat shield appears to have been a fairly clean and ergonomic way of going about for the period.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Brabham Automotive's inaugural model, its BT62 supercar, has slain the unofficial closed-wheel lap record at Australia's Mount Panorama Circuit, known to many as Bathurst.

Mount Panorama Circuit is the site of the 12 Hours of Bathurst endurance race, and hosts the crown jewel race of Australia's premier touring car series, V-8 Supercars. It is loved by fans and drivers alike for its long straights, narrow confines, and extreme elevation changes. Its unofficial closed-wheel lap record of 1:59.29 was set in 2018 by an unrestricted GT car, but as of Saturday, that record has been rewritten by the Brabham BT62.

Brabham's BT62 is a track-oriented supercar, and a symbol for the Brabham family's racing dynasty, which it seeks to rebuild. It has a primarily carbon fiber construction, extreme aerodynamics, and a 5.4-liter, naturally aspirated V-8 that thumps out 700 horsepower. Only 70 cars will be built, and Brabham can make the car road-legal for a fee.

V-8 Supercars race winner Luke Youlden took the BT62 out for a short four-lap stint around Mount Panorama on Saturday and found track conditions favorable for a hot lap. During this drive, he clocked an independently verified 1:58.67, or 0.621 seconds faster than the aforementioned GT car, and almost three seconds quicker than the race lap record.

"I've driven a lot of GT cars round here, but the Brabham BT62 is on another level. It's a racecar and it feels like a racecar," said Youlden. "The car feels planted and gives you great feedback through the steering wheel which gives you the confidence to keep pushing. It's light at only 972 kilograms [dry weight] and it sounds amazing. To be the lap record holder around such an iconic circuit is a dream come true and I’d like to thank all the guys at Brabham Automotive for creating a car that made it possible."

"Today's lap record for the Brabham BT62 demonstrates the performance in the DNA of this car," added chief test driver David Brabham, winner of the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans. "Having been an integral part of the test team, I never doubted the car could do it, and I want to congratulate Luke for taking it there. For us, this is all data-gathering, stress testing and general learning as we continue our journey back to Le Mans."

Indeed, Brabham has aspirations not only to return to international racing, but also to producing road-going sports cars. Its planned 2022 Le Mans entry will be derived from the BT62, and compete in the GTE class. The automaker confirmed to The Drive that this vehicle will too be offered in road-legal form, but as its competitive debut won't be until 2021, expect the road car to be about as far off.

Jerry Seinfeld's lawyers find themselves busy once again as the comedian and card-carrying Porsche-phile is now being sued for selling a $1.5 million classic Porsche that apparently turned out to be a fake.

According to the New York Daily News, the lawsuit was filed in Manhattan Federal Court and alleges that the Auratium Green 1958 Porsche 356 A 1500 GS/GT Carrera Speedster sold for $1,540,000 at a Gooding & Co. auction on March 11, 2016 is "inauthentic."

Sold as part of the "Jerry Seinfeld Collection" in Amelia Island, Florida, the listing advertises the Speedster as "one of approximately 56 GS/GT Carrera Speedsters built with alloy panels" and "believed to be sole example originally finished in Auratium Green." The car's "extremely rare type 692/0 four-cam engine" is also touted along with "award-winning restoration completed by European Collectibles."

The suit specifically calls out fellow car collector and Seinfeld alum Spike Feresten for being at the auction and vouching for Jerry's vehicles. "Jerry has been generous enough to let me drive an awful lot of his collection," Feresten allegedly told the crowd. "And I can tell you: They're real and they’re spectacular."

The phony Porsche was bought by a company called Fica Frio who had a "Porsche expert" examine it in preparation for a resale in March 2017. It was apparently deemed "not authentic." The expert allegedly found issue with the vehicle history file's lack of photographs documenting the restoration work.

According to the lawsuit, Seinfeld left Fica Frio a voicemail apologizing and promising to refund the purchase in full. "[I want to] offer my apology for this nuisance and assure you that you will be completely indemnified in full and not have to keep the car and get all your money back," the sitcom star allegedly said. "I did want to apologize to you personally for that happening."

“[I] would also love to know how your guys figured it out because...my guys did not, I guess, see anything amiss with the car when I bought it," Jerry allegedly added.

The lawsuit goes on to accuse Seinfeld of not following through on his promise to pay Fica Frio back. The company is now seeking the full $1.5 million purchase price on top of additional "costs incurred."

In response, Seinfeld's lawyer Orin Snyder has called the lawsuit "frivolous" and says his client "has been working in good faith to get to the bottom of this matter." Snyder has also called on Fica Frio to provide evidence that backs up their "fake car" claims.

"Nevertheless, Jerry is willing to do what’s right and fair, and we are confident the court will support the need for an outside evaluator to examine the provenance of the car," said Snyder.

Reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Tyler Reddick hopes to make his Cup Series debut in the 2019 Daytona 500 on Feb. 17. He will attempt to qualify a No. 31 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.

Super excited to announce I’ll be entering the 2019 #DAYTONA500 in the No. 31 for @RCRracing! Keep your eyes peeled next week for my partner & paint scheme reveal! ???? here’s a little taste ???? pic.twitter.com/ATMfmTuocd

— Tyler Reddick (@TylerReddick) February 1, 2019

The No. 31 Reddick hopes to drive in the official 2019 Cup Series season-opener doesn’t have a charter, so if more than 40 cars enter the race, Reddick will have to qualify his way into the race, either in front-row qualifying Feb. 10 or in a qualifying race Feb. 14.

Reddick was a driver for JR Motorsports during his Xfinity Series championship season of 2018. He bookended the year with a win at Daytona International Speedway last February and in the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway last November. Those were his only two wins of the season.

Reddick made the move from JR Motorsports to Richard Childress Racing during the 2018-19 offseason. He’ll drive full-time in Richard Childress Racing’s No. 2 Chevrolet Xfinity Series entry this season. When he announced his move to RCR ahead of 2019, he cited an opportunity to compete in the Cup Series as one of his reasons to change teams. JR Motorsports is co-owned by Cup Series stalwart Rick Hendrick, along with retired NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., but does not enter cars in the Cup Series.

"Ultimately, my goal is to race on Sundays [in the Cup Series], and I feel that by joining RCR, I can continue to race up front in the Xfinity Series while also learning from one of the top Cup programs in the garage.”

Austin Dillon and Daniel Hemric will race full-time for Richard Childress Racing in the Cup Series this season. Hemric also was an Xfinity Series championship contender last season. The No. 8 car Hemric will drive in the Cup Series this season used to be the No. 31 but has been renumbered for 2019; therefore, it will use the charter formerly held by RCR’s No. 31 team.

Dutch aviation photographer Roelof-Jan Gort recently posted photos on social media from his visit to RAF Fairford where he got a close-up look at B-1Bs operating from there in support of exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) 2018. Some of the photos show the crew inside a B-1B cockpit as they prepare for a mission. What's unique about the photos is the standard gray cladding that usually encases the interior of the B-1's cockpit aren't there. In their place are red ones the likes of which I have never seen before. The motif definitely gives the 'Bone's' cabin a sci-feel, looking more like a personal transport for a Star Wars villain than something you would find on a monochromatic USAF flight line.

This B-1B clearly received the latest avionics upgrade that gives its crew a partial 'glass' cockpit, better connectivity, and a slew of other enhancements. Could this be some sort of a new standard feature? But why?

Doing it one off seemed somewhat unlikely concerning the strict rules surrounding colored modifications to aircraft in the USAF and just how clean it looks in the photos.

In an attempt to solve the mystery, I reached out to a source with many years of experience in the B-1B community.

The source conveyed to me that it appears as if the crew chief of this B-1B went all out 'decorating' their jet and that minor interior modifications are allowed as long as they don't distract from the mission or functionality of the aircraft. Some unique paint, stickers, slogans, and creative grip tape arrangements can be found on various airframes. Still, this is one heck of an extensive and detailed job and looks as if it came from the factory in the photographs, which is a testament to the those who spent the time creating and installing it.

The 34th Bomb Squadron from Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota—also known by their nickname, the Thunderchiefs—is who this jet belongs to. The unit has one of the richest histories of any squadron in the USAF. Its founding dates back to 1917 and it was directly involved in the Doolittle Raid on Japan in retaliation to the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor. The unit's crest and tail-band are predominately deep red in color, so bringing those tones into the cockpit would definitely be a cool manifestation of the squadron's esprit de corps.

So there you have it, folks. There's a B-1B out there in the wild with a crimson cockpit!

Make sure to read Roelof-Jan Gort's full article on the B-1B's participation in BALTOPS '18 here, there are some fantastic images in there!

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

General Motors will begin handing out the first of 4,250 pink slips to its salaried workers on Monday. Originally reported by The Detroit News, the report comes nine weeks after GM decided to halt production at five North American plants and began negotiations with the United Automobile Workers union.

The layoffs are part of a restructuring effort pushed by GM that is said to eliminate upwards of 15 percent of the company's workforce (14,000 positions) to "accelerate its transformation for the future." Sources say that at least 8,000 salaried and contract positions will be cut in February. In addition, GM will also begin to slash its global executive workforce by 25 percent but has not announced a timeframe in which it will begin white collar layoffs.

Of the 18,000 staff members who were offered a voluntary buyout package, reportedly only 2,300 employees accepted the offer. Another 1,500 contracted employees are said to have not been offered an extension or renewal on their contracts.

In late 2018, GM announced that it would be "unallocating" production from several plants in the United States, including:

• Maryland - Baltimore Operations: Produces electric motors and drivetrains, as well as the Allison 1000 heavy-duty transmission.
• Michigan - Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly: Manufacturing plant for the Cadillac CT6, the Buick LaCrosse, the Chevrolet Volt, and the Chevrolet Impala.
• Michigan - Warren Transmission: Produces 6-speed transmissions for vehicles across GM's brands, as well as drive units for several electrified vehicles.
• Ohio - Lordstown Assembly: Manufacturing plant for the Chevrolet Cruze.

The automaker has also said it would cease production at its Oshawa Car Assembly in Ontario, Canada, which produces the Impala, the Cadillac XTS, and some Chevrolet Silverado models.

February's cuts will help to amass a projected cost savings of $2.5 billion in 2019. Overall, the automaker suggests that the restructuring will save the company in the neighborhood of $6 billion by 2020.

News surfaced only days before GM is to release its fourth-quarter earnings. Scheduled for Wednesday, the automaker gave a positive outlook for its earnings at an investor event earlier this year as it begins its transition to offer additional mobility services and doubles-down on its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Cruise.

GM declined to provide an official statement to The Detroit News on when it would begin announcing employee layoffs, but did state that it would inform employees before the media.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. plans to come out of retirement to drive in at least one NASCAR Xfinity Series race in 2019. He confirmed via Twitter on Friday, when responding to a fan question, that he’d compete in the Xfinity Series round at Darlington Raceway on Aug. 31.

Come to @TooToughToTame this year. I’m running the @XfinityRacing race.

— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) February 1, 2019

The tweet was a response to a fan question after Joe Gibbs Racing revealed one of Martin Truex Jr.’s 2019 Cup Series liveries.

Earnhardt Jr. retired from full-time competition in the Cup Series at the end of the 2017 season, but he continues as a car owner in the Xfinity Series, in addition to his role as broadcaster for NASCAR races on NBC and the NBC Sports Network. He told NBC Sports he was "running it because of the throwback campaign they started there. I want to be part of it. I think it’s important.”

Darlington’s annual NASCAR weekend has had a retro theme the last handful of years for which competing teams dress their cars in old-school schemes and some even wear throwback uniforms. Earnhardt Jr. is a self-proclaimed stock car racing history buff and even hosted a NASCAR show called “Back in the Day” on the now-defunct Speed Channel.

Earnhardt Jr. competed in one Xfinity Series race last season, at Richmond Raceway in Virginia. In a car fielded by his JR Motorsports team, he finished fourth after leading 96 laps, the most of any driver in the race. He is a two-time champion of the Xfinity Series, winning titles in 1998 and 1999, his only two full-time seasons in the series. He continued to race part-time in the Xfinity Series throughout his NASCAR Cup Series career. In all, he has 24 wins in 140 Xfinity Series races.

Self-driving cars could make urban traffic worse, according to a new study published by Transport Policy. The study claims autonomous cars could drive around in circles without passengers onboard to avoid paying fees at street-parking meters or private parking garages.

Adam Millard-Ball, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, used game theory and traffic simulations to reach that conclusion. Even factoring in wear and tear on the vehicles, Millard-Ball estimated that it would cost just $0.50 per mile to keep a car on the move, making that option cheaper than parking most of the time.

"Parking prices are what get people out of their cars and onto public transit, but autonomous vehicles have no need to park at all," Millard-Ball said in a statement. "They can get around paying for parking by cruising. They will have every incentive to create havoc."

Even if they are in the minority, self-driving cars could still "gum things up," Millard-Ball said. A fleet of 2,000 autonomous cars in downtown San Francisco could slow traffic to 2 miles per hour, he said.

Ride-hailing services will likely be the first major use of self-driving cars, and those services are already being blamed for increasing traffic congestion. Two recent studies, one focusing on a group of cities, the other specifically on Boston, found that services like Uber and Lyft can lead to more traffic, in part because they draw commuters away from public transit.

Millard-Ball suggested congestion pricing as a solution to the problem. Congestion pricing levies a fee on vehicles entering a city center. It's already used in London and has been proposed for New York City. Uber and Lyft have expressed support for congestion pricing as an alternative to stricter new regulations on ride-hailing services in the Big Apple.

"The fees could raise money for cities to improve transportation," Ball said. "The idea is to do it now before autonomous vehicles become widespread."

Fewer than 18 months ago, Horace Dediu hosted a small summit during Copenhagen's TechFestival to discuss an idea that he would brand "micromobility." An acolyte of Clayton Christensen and well-known Apple analyst, Dediu had been studying cars and mobility for several years looking for opportunities for "disruption," Christensen's oft-repeated but rarely-understood term for innovations that create new markets and value chains. In his presentation at that first Micromobility Summit, he argued that electric vehicles weighing less than 500 kilograms (about 1,100 pounds) had disruptive potential that he didn't see in electric or autonomous cars.

At almost the exact same time on the other side of the world, a startup called Bird began leaving electric scooters on the streets of Venice, California. Six months later Bird was worth $400 million, 3 months after that it became the fastest startup ever to earn a billion-dollar valuation and by its first birthday the company's shared scooters had served 10 million rides and inspired a rash of competitors. Last week, with micromobility firmly ensconced as the hottest trend in mobility technology, Dediu presided over a coming-out party for the burgeoning sector that drew more than 650 registered attendees.

With an eye toward history, Dediu and his collaborators selected a symbolic location for their first US-based micromobility conference: an Albert Kahn-designed Ford assembly plant built in Richmond, California in 1930, with the profits from the Model T that had just disrupted the mobility technologies of its time. The allusion was not lost on the gathered investors, entrepreneurs, transit planners, urbanists and enthusiasts, who almost universally saw the explosion of electric scooter- and bike-sharing over the previous year as merely the start of a much bigger trend.

Roughly speaking, and with apologies to the outliers, Silicon Valley has launched no fewer than four broad assaults on the century-old primacy of the automobile since the turn of the milennium. Each of these efforts—electric drivetrains, "car sharing," ride-hailing and autonomous vehicles—has been hailed as a long-overdue "disruption" of the privately-owned gas-powered car, only to fall well short of those lofty expectations. The most successful companies in each of these categories may have certainly changed aspects of traditional automobility, like premium market tastes, car rentals and taxis, but with more than 17 million internal combustion car sales in the US last year there are few signs of the promised "disruption"... at least so far.

Over the last year, as autonomous vehicles have become the latest mobility technology trend to start suffering from overheated hype, a fifth front in Silicon Valley's ostensible war on cars has burst into the public consciousness: Dediu's concept of "micromobility." The explosive growth of dockless electric scooter-sharing companies like Bird and Lime in 2018, whose ride counts and private valuations have grown at a rate that eclipses previous tech sector records, has made small, short-range electric vehicles the hot new trend for high-tech investors. This growth is what attracted many of the numerous entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who attended the Micromobility California Conference, bringing a Silicon Valley goldrush vibe to a confab that was otherwise rooted in a surprisingly sober view of the mobility landscape.

Dediu's keynote brought these two strains of the micromobility movement together, demonstrating both a real opportunity to recreate urban landscapes around vehicles more suited to the trips we actually take and an opportunity to attract huge amounts of investment capital for the next wave of high-growth mobility technology startups. In a relentlessly data-driven presentation, Dediu showed that 90% of one-way US car trips are shorter than 20 miles and that the average NY taxi trip is just 2.6 miles, making these journeys far more suited to micromobility devices than the two-ton cars that we use for them. Again and again his charts showed the same rough distribution: a steep curve peaking early and then rapidly fading to a long tail. Even the most committed scooter-hater would have to admit that we could, and should, be using far lighter and more-efficient vehicles for our 90% use cases rather than vehicles purchased with our rare long-distance trips in mind.

The contingent of urbanists, city transit planners and the companies working with them see in Dediu's data an opportunity to reshape American cities around vehicles that are far more suited to them. By replacing cars with smaller, more efficient micromobility devices, these optimists see a chance to reclaim cities developed for cars into cleaner and more human-friendly places, returning streets to their vibrant pre-car status as the "third place" (a social meeting space that is neither the home or the workplace) that is now relegated by cars to places like Starbucks. But for this group, micromobility is just one piece of the puzzle: they believe that, in the words of Alex Roy, "all mobility leads to transit." By integrating scooters and e-bikes into existing transit ecosystems, they can serve as "last mile" solutions that strengthen traditional public transit and essentially become part of a city's broader mobility infrastructure. Building on Roy's idea of "universal basic mobility," these humble devices show profound potential to achieve the now-cliched visions of both "disruption" as well as the democratization of mobility for the millions left behind by car-based mobility.

This sober and focused group of micromobility enthusiasts exists somewhat uneasily alongside the runaway hype and unicorn visions that come along with any Silicon Valley goldrush. For every data-driven urbanist at the Micromobility California Conference there was at least one entrepreneur or investor who seemed to be motivated by the massive financial opportunity, and would spout lines calculated to capitalize on the hype unleashed by micromobility's stunning growth. From companies presenting devices that seemed like absurd approaches to Dediu's opportunity, like a "water bike" that was presented as a way to turn urban waterways into bike lanes, to companies trying to reinvigorate existing technologies with lofty ambitions, like the self-balancing electric unicycle company CEO who called the devices "a first step toward transhumanism," there were nearly as many moments that resembled an episode of "Silicon Valley" satire as there were rational explorations of the very real opportunities for micromobility-based disruption.

This odd mix of the sublime and the absurd made the event something of a Rorschach Test for observers, striking some as the start of a world-changing movement and others as the peak of yet another tech-sector trend that will ultimately collapse under the weight of its pretensions. And to some extent, both views are accurate: yes, all the opportunities to create new industries and value chains while making the urbanizing world a better place are very real, but at the same time the rush of capital flowing into all things micromobility all but ensure an inevitable shakeout. Even the most hype-happy companies had to admit, with varying degrees of candor, that the "year of the scooter" saw growth outstrip the quality of the products in shared scooter fleets and the ability to deliver sustainable unit economics. In the words of one scooter-sector entrepreneur, "profits are like a deferred goal right now" as companies chase the insane growth that keeps venture capitalists shoveling money at their companies. And even the biggest scooter optimists admit that pursuing growth at all costs has brought scooter companies into conflict with some of the cities that they are ostensibly supposed to be saving from the car, and that copying Uber's "ask forgiveness rather than permission" approach has helped fuel a backlash.

With Bird's runaway valuation suddenly hitting a speedbump as investors realize that the pursuit of growth has outrun the quality of its products and its operational fitness, we're seeing a phenomenon that should worry the entire mobility technology sector: the "hype cycle" that every hot startup and sector has gone through is accelerating and becoming shorter. During the upswing, like "the year of the scooter," the compressed growth cycle of companies like Bird makes it all the more attractive, but the speed at which it has hit its operational limits and regulatory walls makes it all the more concerning. Having already seen a boom-bust cycle in China's shared bicycle market, where booming growth led to a staggering crash that has been compared to fruit fly populations, the extreme growth and short hype cycle of scooter sharing raises the possibility that next year's Micromobility California Conference could become more like the slightly hungover autonomous vehicle conferences of 2018.

Still, it's important to come back to the data and remember that all the trappings of a "Silicon Valley" episode at this year's conference are a product not of micromobility itself, but of the trend-chasing venture capital and startup ecosystem that has created booms and busts in countless other technology segments. Indeed, the "year of the scooter" and the gold rush vibe at Dediu's conference is not so much the product of a global trend, but of the car-obsessed US market discovering something that has either been growing for some time in places like Europe or is the status quo in developing markets where cars are still broadly unaffordable. Even in the US, marginalized pro-bicycle activists have been making all the arguments about urbanism and matching modes with real-world use that were made at the conference.

It will be fascinating to see what happens in the micromobility sector between now and next year's conference. Will the broad, data-based opportunity that Dediu and others see continue to grow deployments of scooters and e-bikes, or will the increasingly-compressed venture capital trend cause more operational struggles and cause over-inflated expectations around the micromobility movement to crash? In the aftermath of the "year of scooter" both possibilities seem equally likely.

Due out early next year, Volkswagen's Mk8 Golf GTI will be more of an evolution of the current model rather than a radical revamp if a new report is to be believed. According to Autocar, Volkswagen has abandoned plans to make its premier warm-hatch a hybrid. Instead, it'll be sticking to an improved version of the same general hardware found on the car found in showrooms today.

Specifically, that'll comprise of an updated EA888 2.0-liter turbo engine reportedly pumping out 252 horsepower. A significant jump from the current car's 228 hp. A TCR model making 286 horses—the same output as the Mk7 model with the same name—will reportedly replace the Performance trim. More torque, a zero-to-62 time of under six seconds for the TCR, and a 155-mph top speed are also said to populate the Mk8 GTI's spec sheet. The car will also apparently continue to come with either a six-speed manual or a seven-speed DSG.

The "evolution, not revolution" theme extends to the chassis and handling bits as well. The Mk8 GTI will reportedly sit atop an improved MQB platform and get MacPherson struts up front, multi-link rear suspension, and adaptive dampers. The Mk7's electric steering system is said to have been revised to provide more feedback and feel more direct.

On the more superficial side, VW "insiders" tell Autocar that the company's new hatch will be more aggressively styled than the outgoing car—not a hard task, admittedly—and come exclusively in five-door guise. Much like hatchback Subaru WRX STIs, the three-door VW GTI will soon no longer be a thing.

The non-electrically-assisted, five-door 2020 Volkswagen Golf GTI will likely appear at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. We've reached out to VW for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

If a rumor is to be believed, the upcoming Dodge Charger will receive a Widebody variant similar to the one currently found in the Challenger Hellcat and Hellcat Redeye.

Enthusiast site Mopar Insiders allegedly confirms the rumor, which has supposedly been circling for several years, and adds that an actual Charger Widebody is due in 2020. The report goes on to say that anonymous sources related to the matter also claimed that unlike the two-door Challenger, the Charger will offer the Widebody variant beginning in the Scat Pack trim and not just the supercharged, high-dollar Hellcat model.

The report also debunks the rumor of a 7.0-liter (426 cubic-inch) Hemi V-8 making a comeback in Scat Pack and Hellcat models, claiming that the current 6.4-liter V-8 with 475 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque is simply too good to replace, and it simply wouldn't make sense to offer an optional engine at this point in the model's lifecycle. Furthermore, the report's sources claim that the Charger Widebody will sport 305/35ZR20 Pirelli tires "just like the Challenger widebody models."

Despite the 2019 Chicago Auto Show happening this week and the New York Auto Show coming in April, the report goes on to say that the 2019 Woodward Dream Cruise, where Dodge always has a big presence during Roadkill Nights, will be the venue where it unveils the Charger Widebody. And while this actually makes sense, it should still be treated as merely a rumor.

A Dodge spokesperson declined to comment on this rumor, citing that it does not speculate about future product plans.