Squadron Leader Steven 'Rooster' Bradley stands in front of the F-15C Eagle that he is now flying as part of his three year attachment to the United States Air Force 65 Aggressor Squadron. Red Flag 09-03 is a multinational exercise conducted by PACAF from Nellis Air Force Base from 21 Feb to14 Mar 2009. RAAF aircraft and personnel deployed from RAAF Base Amberley and RAAF Base Richmond to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to participate in the US led exercise. Participating in Red Flag 09-03 are aircraft and personnel from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Australian Squadrons have participated in the Red Flag exercise series since 1980. Red Flag provides the highest level of combat training in the most realistic War scenarios available to be simulated. No.6 Squadron from Amberley is leading the push with 6 F-111 jet aircraft conducting high level coalition training at the purpose designed Red Flag facilities. Two C-130 Hercules from No.37 squadron at Richmond transported equipment and personnel to the United States and are also participating in the exercise. Red Flag provides a level of operational simulation not available in Australia or the surrounding regions. Regular participation is a major contribution to AustraliaÕs higher standard of air combat capability. The opportunity to participate in Red Flag allows Air Force personnel to hone their skills to the highest level, together with our closest ally, at one of the worldÕs best air combat training facilities.

US Air Force sad over PS3 ‘Other OS’ feature removal

Dale North

Published: May 12, 2010 03:40 pm

This article is over 14 years old and may contain outdated information

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If you’ve been following what the United States Air Force does with our money, you’d know that they originally bought about 300 PS3s in 2008. They liked them so much that they bought 2,200 more last year. The USAF made some supercomputer with the systems, grouping these 2,200 systems with the 336 ones they already had from 2008 to make one massive research machine. And gaming rig?

You surely heard that Sony’s firmware update will toss out the Other OS install option of the PS3. What does that mean for the USAF’s rig? Well, they don’t have to update the software, as they’re not really gaming on the PlayStation Netowrk on these. What sucks is that if one of their PS3s dies, they’ll have to buy a new one, and that new one will have the firmware update.

“We will have to continue to use the systems we already have in hand,” the USAF research lab told Ars Technica, and “this will make it difficult to replace systems that break or fail. The refurbished PS3s also have the problem that when they come back from Sony, they have the firmware (gameOS) and it will not allow Other OS, which seems wrong. We are aware of class-action lawsuits against Sony for taking away this option on systems that use to have it.”

So why use game systems when there’s this risk? For you, dear taxpayer: “The HPC environment is rapidly changing; leveraging technology that is subsidized by large consumer markets will always have large cost advantages. This gives us the experience (lesson learned) to develop HPC with low-cost hardware, benefitting the tax payer, Air Force, Air Force Research Lab while utilizing limited DoD budgets.”

Air Force may suffer collateral damage from PS3 firmware update [Ars]

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Dale North