Bytemarks

Admiral’s Barge

Burt — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:44:09 +0000

That image to the right is not the Admiral’s Barge. It’s the Sea-Based X-band Radar or SBX. But had it not been for Rear Admiral Dixon Smith and his “Barge”, I would have been able to get this close up view. The SBX is one of those vessels you see out of the corner of your eye as you drive on H-1 past Pearl Harbor. It’s distinctive appearance cannot escape the golf ball comparisons. You’d have to have a pretty big club to whack that puppy, but I digress. Seeing the SBX does make you think: 1. What is it? and 2. How does it float? The simple answer to 1. is it’s a big floating radar. The SBX, part of the DOD’s Missile Defense Agency , has a mission is to patrol the Pacific and monitor rouge countries like North Korea. I started to see SBX float into Pearl Harbor a couple years ago ever since North Korea got more active with their ballistic missile tests with claims of having the capabilities to send one all the way to Hawaii. Which brings me to question number 2. The radar system is build on a Russian designed platform originally used for oil rigs. In this photo you can see the huge floats that the main structure stands on. The SBX supports a crew of about 80 personnel. That flat platform you see extending from the main deck is the helicopter landing area. I wondered how people access this vessel once out at sea and that platform was pointed out to me.

Now getting back to the Admiral’s Barge, I (and a few other guests) got invited by Navy Region Hawaii Public Affairs to join Rear Adm. Dixon Smith and his wife Kiki on an afternoon cruise around Pearl Harbor and Ford Island. Besides my wife and I, guests includes Henry Kapono and his wife, Mark Platte (Hawaii News Now) and his wife and Agnes Tauyan (Navy Region Hawaii, Public Affairs) and her husband. The main destination was the Arizona Memorial which I had visited once before decades ago. It was quite a humbling experience to stand in the Memorial atop the sunken USS Arizona where more than a thousand men gave their lives. We cruised up along side the USS Missouri and docked a the Arizona Memorial to spend a few moments to honor those fallen soldiers. The time there was special since the last tour group had already exited leaving the entire Memorial to the 10 of us. The cruise continued around Ford Island, along the NOAA docking, then past Hospital Way on the Hickam AFB side of Pearl Harbor and finally back to Merry Point in the Southeast Loch. I overheard in conversation, it looks like the NOAA offices, currently spread around O`ahu will consolidate on Ford Island sometime in the near future. Sounds like a good thing since their big ships are located there. The bustle of maritime activity in Pearl Harbor never ceases to amaze.

Mission: C-17

Burt — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:02:24 +0000

This has been the month of RIMPAC 2010 and the PACOM and PACAF offices are working overtime to expose the media to all the varied activities taking place around Hawaii. This past Friday, several of us joined the crew of the C-17 on a practice mission over Hawaii Island. We met at the Hickam Gate at 4:45am and the flight left at 6:30am early Friday morning from Hickam Air Force Base. According to Lt. Col Andrew Lashikar, Commander of the 535th Airlift Squadron, there are a total of nine C-17’s assigned to Hickam Air Force base. Lashikar said, “Participating in RIMPAC gives us a great opportunity to conduct joint exercises with our fellow branch services.” The mission over Hawaii Island was for two C-17s to drop off a simulated cargo load of about 12,000 pounds each. The transport planes flew to the military training area Pohakuloa, on the saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. The C-17 went from an altitude of 5000 ft. to 500 feet to facilitate the drop. Two 6000 pound palettes were then jettisoned from the rear of the plane and parachuted to Marines below from Kaneohe Bay, 2nd Battalion. I shot a batch of photos and posted this video of the palettes as they flew out the back of the plane. Lashikar told me that the exercise over Pohakuloa is very much like a mission to Afghanistan. The hilly, rocky terrain is very similar to what you might find in the mountainous areas of Afghanistan. But in addition, Hawaii’s environment is also similar to recent C-17 relief efforts to Haiti and American Samoa. The C-17, which is not armed, participates in both support mission in battle zones as well as humanitarian efforts in the Pacific region.

After a brief touchdown in Kona, the second part of the exercise involved an intercept by a squadron of four F-16s from Hickam. The planes could practice escorting a distressed or hostile aircraft with flanking maneuvers and close proximity flying. It was quite the sight to see these fighters flying along side our plane. The photo to the right is out the rear door of the C-17. The challenge for the F-16 was to match the speed of our plane. Quite slow compared to what the F-16 can muster. Several members of our flight got the chance to venture to the edge of the rear of the plane tethered to a cord. To me it was a thin veil of safety as the thought of how futile it might be if you were dangling outside the plane flapping in the wind attached to that tether. Thankfully that scenario only existed in my mind. We safety returned to Hickam, personally much richer for the experience and appreciation of the C-17s support capabilities.

Team GUSS

Burt — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:59:38 +0000

Along side the MAARS was another interesting robotic vehicle called GUSS, the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate. The team shown included (from left to right) Jesse Hurdus, Torc; Alfred Wicks, Virginia Tech; and Capt. Tim Bove, Marine Corp. Warfighting Laboratory. On first appearances, GUSS looks like a Polaris jeep equipped with antennae and sensors. The units are here for the Marines who are prepared to put GUSS through its paces as part of this month’s RIMPAC exercise. GUSS is primarily a support vehicle and is meant to carry gear or wounded personnel as a way to reduce the load from the ground troops. It can travel unmanned along rural unpaved roads, pre-programmed to follow a specified route, at about the pace of a foot soldier. Talking to the team, it was clear GUSS was not meant to be all things to all people. It is not an all terrain vehicle, it does not work well in heavy foliage and its not sophisticated like a Mars Rover (and it costs a lot less.) It is based on a modular design and the building blocks use off the shelf technologies which enabled rapid prototyping. The team then focuses on the integration challenges. The development cycle was less than a year and manufacturing of the units took about 6 months. All four of the development models are here for the exercises.

I found it interesting how these entities, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Marine Corp Warfighting Laboratory, Virginia Tech and Torc worked together to produce GUSS. Funding came through the Department of Defense (Dahlgren) to the Warfighting Lab which then developed the specification for the autonomous vehicle. Virginia Tech is leveraged for their programming and mechanical engineering expertise. Finally Torc is hired to build the units. Seems like a viable partnership between DOD, University and a commercial company. Keep in mind Torc is not a vendor providing this directly to the military. GUSS is still in prototype. If the military decides to deploy these units, they will then go out to bid for production. Any limitations in GUSS’ performance will be identified in these RIMPAC exercises and the team will qualify what needs to be done next.

MAARS & GUSS

Burt — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:06:52 +0000

In addition to the “big iron” being used in RIMPAC exercises, there are examples of “little iron” robots being field tested to protect and support the ground forces. I got a chance to see a couple of them this past weekend. Shown in the photo is the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS) unit manufactured by Qinetiq. This system packs a M240B medium machine gun along with a spotting scope, an infrared scope and viewing cameras for a 360 degree field of view. The model I saw demonstrated did not have a gun mounted to it. The unit also has rubberized tractor treads making it suitable for rocky terrain. Field engineer Rich Leemon did tell me that it wasn’t all-terrain. The MAARS robot is best suited for unpaved rural roads. MAARS is operated by remote control from a suitcase system or from a wearable controller, as modeled here by Jasmine Guevara, PACOM public affairs. The Bellows Marine Corp Training Area where the exercise took place was made up to appear like an Afghani village. You can see the flag on the building and the men in the foreground behind MAARS are role players brought in from San Francisco. Evaluators of the MAARS looked for system vulnerabilities and operational effectiveness by Marines controlling the units in a free play exercise. The MAARS units run about $350K each and are still in the evaluation stage. In this video Rich Leemon explains the general operations of the MAARS as he guides it back onto the truck. Next up is GUSS.

F-22 Raptor

Burt — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:24:15 +0000

Friday’s F-22 Arrival Ceremony was quite the event. In addition to the social media contingent, which included Marc Orbito, Ricky Li, David Lau, Gabriel Yanagihara, Lee J Hopkinson, Greg Yamane, Brian Dote, Ian Kitajima and me, there where a few hundred guests of the Air Force and joint services. Hula performance was done by Robert Cazimero’s dancers which was followed with speeches by dignitaries including Gov. Linda Lingle and Sen. Daniel Inouye. Finally, Kahu Kordell Kekoa did a traditional Hawaiian blessing of the planes. These are just 2 of the F-22’s that will call Hawaii home. By early next year that number will grow to 20. Each will be part of the Hawaii Air National Guard and operated under a joint agreement with the active duty U.S. Air Force.

The social media team did a great job capturing the event and you can view photos by Jasmine Deborah, Gabriel Yanagihara, Brian Dote, Lee Hopkinson and Marc Orbito. Ian Kitajima shot several live videos and posted then to his Dual Use site. Greg Yamane posted this video of the F-22 taxiing to the ceremony. Ricki Li took it a notch up with this video production. Here is a set of photos and a rather sedate video I shot of the F-22. Of course the best was this video courtesy of KHON2News

RIMPAC 2010

Burt — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:30:12 +0000

The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) is just one of 32 vessels in Hawaii for the Rim of the Pacific exercises held every two years. My run on Sunday morning takes me along Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial. I shot this photo from the Visitor Center area. It is pretty amazing how many ships are in the Pearl Harbor lochs. I’ve never seen air craft carriers double parked before.

At the press conference on Monday, June 28, 2010, Vice Admiral Richard Hunt talked about how the first RIMPAC in 1971 was focused on “blue water” exercises. In 2010, the focus is on the littoral. (Wikipedia: The littoral zone refers to that part of a sea, lake or river that is close to the shore.) In this case the waters off the islands. I suspect Bellows will be a site of some of the littoral exercise during these coming weeks. The Navy has newly designed vessels specifically for littoral operations. The USS Freedom is one such vessel participating in RIMPAC 2010. Another is the RSS Supreme from Singapore. The RSS Supreme is part of the Formidable class stealth frigate. If you look at the surface of this vessel you can see the patchwork of radar absorbing panels. It almost looks like it is padded. The RSS Supreme was parked right next to the DDG Atago from Japan.

The Japanese brought two ships, the DDG 177 Atago and the DD 108 Akebono. These two ships were double parked right next to each other. I would have loved to be on the ship when they did that maneuver. The DDG Atago is based on the Arleigh-Burke (Aegis) destroyer design but manufactured by Mitsubishi of Japan. I find it interesting that the show Ryomaden, currently airing on KIKU-TV is a story about Ryoma Sakamoto told by Iwasaki Yataro, founder of Mitsubishi. The show goes into good detail about Yataro’s humble beginnings as a bird cage peddler and his ambitions as a businessman. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew someday his company would be furnishing the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) with high tech destroyers based on a US design. I am sure it would have blown his mind. The tour of the DDG Atago was relatively quick but we did get to visit the bridge, deck and officers dining room. I did notice one thing, that ship was the cleanest ship I have every been on. Everything sparkled, even the propeller on the life boat. Today the DDG Atago participated in a anti-piracy inspection drill. If you are interested in more photos of the DDG Atago you can view this set.

PaCES

Burt — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:15:25 +0000

Maybe I would have been a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon if summer sessions like this were available back in my day. Pacific Center for Environmental Studies (PaCES) is a six-week intensive course for high school juniors and seniors held at Windward Community College. This past Tuesday, I had a chance to spend an hour observing the class as they processed DNA samples. David Krupp and Rob Hutchison conduct the program that included field trips to Coconut Island, collecting water samples around coral reefs and studying genomics. The program is concludes with a symposium where students present their research findings. David and Rob explain that the course is not about lectures and book readings. It’s about problem solving and creative thinking. The exercise I saw had the students taking their DNA samples, sourced originally from water around healthy coral and stressed coral, and extracting key segments. The DNA was mixed with a marker solution to be then placed in a gel electrophoresis device. The photo above shows the DNA separated out in the gel, based on the relative weigh density of the DNA. Pretty cool stuff. The program consists of about 20-25 students along with mentors from previous years. Both David and Rob will be joining us on the radio (KIPO 89.3FM) this coming Wed. July 7th at which time we’ll get to talk to them in more detail about the program, what students learn from it and how in some cases is pivotal in setting a future course for these students. Hope you will join us in the conversation.

Burger Genius

Burt — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:55:41 +0000

What better way to spend an afternoon than with friends sampling all manner of burgers. @Turkeyboy808 (aka Jason Kim) Chief Proprietor of Burgers on the Edge has this contest going to pick the best custom burger. Jason and his team ran this contest last year and based on its success are making it an annual event. They culled through several hundred submissions and ended up with these 7 burgers, 3 in the beef category, 2 in turkey and 2 in veggie. The number of burgers bought by June 30th will determine which custom burger will get added onto the menu. There will be one burger winner for each category. According to Jason, he updates that Burger track on the home page every day, manually. Our little tasting party consisted of @Neenz, @Nctrnlbst, @tweetpea @noe808 and @RodneyLee. We ordered each of the entries (Mr. Smarty Pants, Save the Chickens, Plan B, Garden Isle, Da Local Kine, Kung POW and Southern Belle) and sampled the creations. Here are my rankings on a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is the best.

Mr. Smarty Pants: 4 – Pepper Jack cheese and fried egg worked well with the turkey burger.
Save the Chickens: 2 – Cream of mushroom didn’t quite do it for me. Sorry @ryankanno
Plan B: 4 – The tonkatsu sauce and onions worked on this veggie burger. Nice job @starletshay
Garden Isle: 2 – Too subtle for my tastes, it needed something.
Da Local Kine: 3 – Kinda liked the spam and pineapple combo but novelty did not last.
Kung POW: 1 – Wrong! Hoisin should not be used on a beef burger.
Southern Belle: 5 – My favorite, the Ranch worked with sharp cheddar and fried tomato.

Now get out there and tell me what your favorite is.

Lihue Airport Full-Body Scanner

Burt — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:29:01 +0000

On my return trip from Lihue, Kauai to Honolulu, I was treated to the new TSA full-body scanner. I am not a frequent traveler by any means so I was surprised to find out I was one of the first (within the first week) to experience this new security technology. The new scanner is manufactured by California-based Rapiscan Systems and uses low-level x-rays to view objects beneath the clothing of the subjects. I’ve seen recent news stories about the Lihue scanner on KITV and the Garden Island. According to TSA, the scanner cost about $170K and plans are in place to deploy about 100 scanners in 32 airports across the country. Lihue Airport was one of the first installations in the country not because of the threat level but because of the relative ease of implementation. Lihue Airport has only one security checkpoint.

As I approached the scanner the thought did run through my mind to opt out but I did not want to risk the alternative full-body pat down. Curiously as I exited the scanner, the TSA agent gave me a pat down anyway. Not a full-body version but just down the legs. The news articles I read referred to walled off areas where the naked scans were viewed but at the Lihue Airport I could clearly see the women behind the viewing monitor adjacent to the scanner. She looked at me, then looked back at the monitor. Another TSA agent was standing next to her and could view the images quite easily. I will admit that I did not make a visual confirmation of images since it was out of my line of sight. But I did not see any other walled off area for viewing.

The TSA claims that passenger privacy is maintained and scanned images are not stored, copied or transferred. They also claim that the amount of x-ray used is about 10,000 times less than that of a cell phone. The amount of time I spent going through the scanner seemed longer than the traditional metal detector. I am curious to see if checkpoint lines at the Honolulu International Airport will be longer as a result. The new scanners will be installed there at the end of this year.

Crazy Ceramics

Burt — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:51:49 +0000

If you go to enough raku events, like this annual Raku Ho`olaulea, you begin to appreciate the incredible diversity in ceramic firing techniques. I haven’t even started to scratch the surface of the art of raku firing but I wanted to share this one with you. Philip Markwart, shown in photo, is a long time ceramicist who specializes in Japanese sake cups and related implements. He is also a fan of the old style wood kiln called anagama. This is usually a large kiln built to have a tunnel effect where wood is stoked in one end and as the heat travels through the chamber the ceramics gets fired. These wood kilns take a long time to heat up and require stoking for several days to reach the proper temperature. Normally these kilns are build into the land and not easily transportable. The beauty of Raku Ho`olaulea is that you get to bear witness to human ingenuity. Phil built this portable wood fire kiln, which he calls Henagama or Strange Kiln, out of ironically enough a propane tank. The irony is that most modern day raku firings are done with propane gas. In this design Phil stokes the kiln with wood from the shoot. The wood burns inside the chamber and as you can see, the flame is released out the top. The ceramic pieces are in the chamber and gets fired in the process. Amazingly, there is no glaze on any of the pieces so any resulting finish is from the wood ash fusing to the ceramic surface. Phil got some beautiful pieces as a result of the firing. Keep in mind this is a long process which as started at 7:30pm Friday and finished at 7:30am the next morning. There is quite a bit of ingenuity built into this kiln. But a key element not shown in this photo is the fan system that blows air into the bottom of the kiln chamber. When you think of it, this is quite a technological marvel built from a recycled propane tank. If you are interested in more photos from this year’s Raku Ho`olaulea you can find them posted here. I should also mention that guest artist Eduardo shared a process involving Stannous Chloride which transformed a metallic finish to a rainbow of colors. All in all, for the geek who enjoys novel kiln designs, chemistry, artistry and best of all FIRE, Raku Ho`olaulea is an event to experience.