Pour one out for Mr. Reilly

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Unless you are under a rock, you have no doubt heard of the passing of Irish-born Kiwi actor Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill.

While everyone else is talking Jurassic Park, we, of course, remember Mr. Neill as the fictional though composite Australian commando Sergeant Dan Costello in Attack Force Z (his first movie) and as the very real Sidney George Reilly in the BBC’s Reilly, Ace of Spies, before moving on to Capt. Vasily Borodin in The Hunt for Red October.

Even as a lad, the extensive use on-screen of a suppressed M3 Grease Gun was nothing short of magic, while Reilly was even more Bond than Bond.

While Mr. Neill never served in the military, his pop was a Sandhurst-minted career officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers (Princess Victoria’s) for over 20 years, including WWII, and the actor was born near and grew up in the regimental depot in Gough Barracks, Armagh.

In 2013, he purchased a Bannockburn vineyard and renamed it ‘‘The Fusilier” in honor of his father and the regiment itself, which had been amalgamated out of existence in 1968.

So, be it a New Zealand pinot or a nice Irish whisky, raise one to Sam, lads.

Here’s hoping he found his “round American woman, rabbits, pickup truck, and recreational vehicle.”

Clouds on Cape Cod: The (Four of the) Five Sisters Cup Finish

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The 400-mile run from the Hudson through the Cape Cod Precautionary Area to Boston by four of the Gorch Fock-class training barques over the weekend was won by Gorch Fock II, which also won the original OpSail76 Five Sisters Race and is the current holder of the Tiffany Trophy.

Ironically, the ship’s skipper, Capt. Elmar Bornkessel is a USN vet, sort of, having previously served as an exchange officer aboard USS Lake Erie (CG 70) from 2004 to 2006.

German Navy ship Gorch Fock transits Boston Harbor during the Sail250 Boston Parade of Sail, July 11, 2026. Sail250 Boston is a global gathering of tall ships and military vessels in Boston’s historic waterfront to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the United States. This milestone maritime festival includes more than 50 ships from around the world. From the first Continental Navy to today’s global force, the Navy’s story is America’s story — one of courage, innovation, and an unbreakable commitment to winning and preserving independence. Sail250 Boston honors the maritime heritage that helped build the nation and the Navy’s enduring role in protecting freedom, preserving prosperity, and defending America’s independence. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Coronado)

The Five Sisters’ Cup is awarded to the ship that has the fastest time from New York to Boston as part of Sail250 celebrations July 9-10, 2026. German Navy training vessel Gorch Fock won the cup in 1976 and again in 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Rajesh Harrilal)

The USCGC Eagle (ex-SSS Horst Wessel) came in second while NRP Sagres (ex-SSS Albert Leo Schlageter) and NS Bricul Mircea brought up the rear.

Marine Traffic showed the quartet running– canvas only on the final 57-mile leg- between 6.5 and 8 knots, which isn’t surprising as they were tacking upwind (south-westerly, Force 4–5 on the Beaufort scale) while off the Cape.

All in all, the event produced some epic images.

A mix of USCG and Romanian Navy photos:

Seaman Matheus Kirchner, a deck member assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (WIX 327), climbs down from the shrouds to the main deck while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, July 8, 2026. Eagle is participating in the Five Sisters Race from New York to Boston as part of Sail250. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Trader, left, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jacob Haslem, boatswain’s mates assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (WIX 327), replace the flying jib staysail aboard Eagle while underway, July 8, 2026. Eagle carries spare sails for each sail aboard to support continued operations. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

The USCGC Stone served as escort for the Sisters

Among the souvenirs and tokens exchanged, the skippers of the three allied square riggers all recived a painting of Eagle via the USCG’s Art Program

Of course, the “one owner” German-manned ship is much newer (1958) than the other three circa 1930s ships, built to an improved design, and has a Constant Speed Propeller on her auxiliary diesel which can be feathered rather than freewheeling like her older sisters, but it was a close-run event and a perfect day for sailing.

And waiting for them in Boston was the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship and only frigate, USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides.”

All in all, Sail250 was just all-around outstanding.

George M. Neal, Arriving

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The U.S. Navy christened the future Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS George M. Neal (DDG 131) during a ceremony at Ingalls in Pascagoula on Saturday, after launching back in April.

She is the first warship named for Ohio-born Aviation Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class George M. Neal, who was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism during a search-and-rescue mission over North Korea.

While serving in a detachment of Helicopter Utility Squadron One (HU-1) deployed aboard the Australian carrier HMAS Sydney in 1951, Neal volunteered for a perilous mission deep in enemy territory to rescue a downed aviator. After their helicopter crashed under heavy enemy fire, he aided his fellow crew members in evading capture for nine days, enduring subsequent imprisonment as a POW before his release.

Her sponsor was AMM3 Neal’s daughter, Kelley Neal Gray, who saw the ship for the first time this weekend. The elder Neal passed in 2016 at age 86 and is interred at Arlington (Section 76, Grave 1082), as he should be.

The fourth Flight III Burke and, amazingly, the 62nd hull of her class (36 of them delivered by Ingalls already), Neal is expected to be commissioned in 2027 after fitting out, trials, and delivery.

Ingalls has delivered two FIIIs already: USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125) and Ted Stevens (DDG 128).

Flight IIIs currently under construction in Pascagoula include Jeremiah Denton (DDG 129), George M. Neal (DDG 131), Sam Nunn (DDG 133), Thad Cochran (DDG 135), and John F. Lehman (DDG 137). Ships in pre-planning include Telesforo Trinidad (DDG 139), Ernest E. Evans (DDG 141), Charles French (DDG 142), Richard J. Danzig (DDG 143), Intrepid (DDG 145), Robert Kerrey (DDG 146), and Ray Mabus (DDG 147).

By the way, looking at the list above, I would like to stress again that destroyers should only be named after naval heroes, not politicians or previous ships not named after heroes.

Flight III Burkes were ordered to fill the AAW Commander gap in carrier strike groups with the block retirement of the Tico-class CGs. As such, they will be the most advanced air defense escorts in the world and the first to field the new AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) and the Aegis Baseline 10 Combat System.

Azov Tsushima

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The Battle of the Sea of Azov 2026 by Ivan Aivazovsky

According to the ISW, Ukrainian forces have struck no less than 90 Russian commercial shipping vessels (mostly coastal tankers but also a smattering of tugs, cargo ships, ferries, and floating dredgers) in the shallow Sea of Azov at the top of the Black Sea during the week between July 6th to 13th as part of their intensified campaign to isolate occupied Crimea.

Ninety.

As detailed by Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) Commander Major Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, the forces involved included the 9th Kairos Battalion of “Magyar’s Birds” of the 414th Separate Unmanned Strike Aviation System Brigade, along with elements of the 412th “Nemesis,” 413th “RAID,” and 427th “Rarog” USAS Brigades.

The release from USF included a 4-minute-long sizzle reel (below), with the Ukrainians seen specifically targeting the wheelhouses of the Russian vessels, going for mobility/mission kills, rather than aiming to sink the ships outright. That makes a UAV with a small 10-pound warhead super effective. This speaks to preserving the important ecological diversity of the region and its local fisheries, which include significant sturgeon (caviar) farming operations.

Some 35 vessels were hit in the first 96 hours of the offensive alone.

Update from Sal, make that 136 strikes through the 15th:

 

It is brutal and systematic, with seemingly zero air defense provided.

Meanwhile, Russia’s efforts to field AAA in any sort are probably exemplified by this recent clip of a new soldier with a mobile air defense team being introduced to a ground-mounted Yak B .51 caliber 4-barreled rotary machine gun (normally mounted on the Mi-24 Hind gunship). It is a gas-operated gun that fires at 4,000 rounds per minute and normally has a 10-ton gunship to absorb the recoil…

Four Sisters Race

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As touched on previously, four of the greater Gorch Fock-class training barques (USCGC Eagle, FGS Gorch Fock II, NRP Sagres, and NMS Mircea) met up in Norfolk earlier this summer as part of Sail250 and carried on to New York.

Now, headed to Boston for the final leg of the tour, they are racing under canvas, with no “iron topsails” (auxiliary engines) involved, a rematch of sorts to the famous 1976 Five Sisters Cup run by the class for OpSail76.

As noted by the USCG: “Yesterday, their commanding officers, sail masters, and cadets gathered for a commemorative breakfast. Today, friendship gives way to friendly competition. Fair winds and following seas to every crew.”

Sal has the full details.

Could Nimitz Become AVTN-68?

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Everyone’s favorite Disco vintage super carrier and almost-Kidō Butai vanquisher just transited to her new home at Norfolk after being the center of the Sail4th naval parade/International Naval Review 250/FLEETEX 250 in New York.

Note: she still has an MQ-25 Stingray CBARS demonstrator on her deck.

She pulled “back” into her new home at Norfolk yesterday, passing her docked sisters USS Eisenhower (CVN 69) and Truman (CVN 75). It is appropriate, as Norfolk was her original home from 1975 to 1987 before her West Coast days at Bremerton/Everett (1987-2001, 2012-2026) and San Diego (2001-2012).

USS Nimitz (CVN 68) arrives at Naval Station Norfolk (NSN), Virginia, July 9, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Frankie M. Guage)

The 51-year-old carrier departed Navy Base Kitsap (Bremerton) on 7 March and has spent the past four months in a series of goodwill port calls and exercises throughout the Americas for Operation South Seas, a fitting send-off for what is likely her final cruise under her own power.

But not so fast.

Captain Joseph Furco, Nimitz’s commanding officer, recently told a press conference that the old girl may have some life left in her, specifically as a training carrier.

But not just for Carrier Quals, but actually taking out crews of flattops that are long sidelined in construction or refit, to give them some underway time. Remind them what it is to be a CVN on the ocean.

“All of those [Kennedy] sailors have not had the opportunity to go to sea,” Capt Furco noted. “I can take this ship to sea with 1,000 sailors from Kennedy, or [carrier USS John] Stennis [(CVN 74)] or [carrier USS Harry S] Truman [(CVN 75)] with their extensive [scheduled maintenance] yard periods and give sailors a taste of what their job is like outside the academic setting.”

Those sailors would normally discuss their roles, such as controlling aircraft on a flight deck, in simulations, but with Nimitz the Navy “could get them out here controlling aircraft. You can get them down on the reactor and turn the dials and run the steam through the pipes”. Nimitz could help certify crews, platforms, and pilots, he said.

Designed in the 1960s and commissioned in 1975, Nimitz is slated to be inactivated in FY 2027, beginning the process of dismantling the ship, according to the Navy Shipbuilding Plan released in May.

Her fuel rod matrix, revitalized in her 37-month (1998-2001) Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH), is on its last legs, and her AW4 reactors were only designed to be refueled once. A 142-page RAND report on the subject says the fuel is exhausted after 23 years, and it’s been 25 since CVN-68 completed her RCOH.

Still, Furco would be the person most qualified on the planet to know if his reactors are only filled with radioactive memories or there are still a couple of electrons in there with a “I didn’t hear no bell” attitude about them, so if he thinks 68 can still clock in for training missions, he is probably correct.

With that in mind, and acknowledging she can’t undertake another serious deployment into harm’s way, perhaps it is time to re-rate her as an AVT, akin to USS Forrestal’s 1992-93 retirement stint as AVT-59 and Lexington’s 1978-1991 run as AVT-16.

A Training Squadron 9 (VT-9) T-2C Buckeye aircraft takes to the air after performing a touch-and-go landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal October 10, 1991. PH1 Scott M. Allen 330-CFD-DN-ST-92-02118

T-2C Buckeye aboard USS Lexington (AVT-16) April 1989. U.S. Navy photograph 330-CFD-DN-ST-89-08969. Photographer Jim Bryant. Via NARA. National Archives Identifier: 6445247

Plus, such a move would allow a dedicated platform for T-45 Carrier Qualifications (CQ) for the next year or two, provided Nimitz could keep it up, freeing other CVNs from having to perform the task.

Her sister, Eisenhower, which just came out of overhaul, recently conducted 428 traps and 143 touch-and-go landings, qualifying 24 aviators over three days underway.

A U.S. Navy T-45C Goshawk jet trainer aircraft takes off from the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), June 27, 2026. Eisenhower is underway in the Atlantic Ocean conducting carrier qualifications for student naval aviators assigned to Naval Air Training Command.(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Miguel Santiago)

U.S. Navy Lt. Miguel Smith launches a T-45C Goshawk jet trainer aircraft off of the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), June 27, 2026. Eisenhower is underway in the Atlantic Ocean conducting carrier qualifications for student naval aviators assigned to Naval Air Training Command. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Miguel Santiago)

Further, it could help wring out the T-45’s remaining underway CQ potential, as the type is set to retire in the 2030-2035 time frame.

The two remaining contenders to replace the T-45, the SNC Freedom Jet and a Leonardo-Textron-Beechcraft M-346N, will not be carrier-capable, as the Navy’s new Undergraduate Jet Training System will eschew the traditional cats-and-traps evolutions for simulator work, because what can go wrong?

The SNC Freedom Jet and a Leonardo-Textron-Beechcraft M-346N. While the SNC trainer is a clean-sheet design, the M-346N is a navalized, American-built variant of the Italian Leonardo M-346 Master/Yak-130.

What’s a little tinnitus among friends?

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Or, “Pardon, I didn’t catch that…” for the rest of your life.

Official period caption: “American howitzers shell German forces retreating near Carentan, France. 11 July 1944.”

Note the shoulder patch has been obscured by the censors. Photographer: Franklin. U.S. Signal Corps Archive SC 191933

The above was taken among the attached artillery train of the U.S. 4th “Ivy” Division, either of the 29th, 42nd, or 44th Field Artillery Battalions, all of which fielded 105mm M1 howitzers at the time.

The Ivy Division first came ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day, and the above image was snapped as it was inching its way towards Paris, which it would help liberate in August. They went on to keep fighting across Northern France and into Germany, slugging through the Hürtgen Forest and clocking in during the Battle of the Bulge.

Recognized as a Liberator unit, they marched into the Dachau subcamp near Haunstetten in late April 1945 and were the most welcome thing anyone could set their eyes on.

Logging 299 days of combat, Ivy accumulated 22,660 casualties, 155 percent of the division’s authorized strength.

One of its members was 25-year-old budding author Jerome David “J. D.” Salinger, who finished the war as a staff sergeant in the MI section of the 4th’s 12th Infantry Regiment. Fluent in French and German, he interrogated captured Wehrmacht and SS officers, including those taken around Dachau.

Salinger later remarked postwar, “You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live.”

SSG Salinger, 4th Infantry Division, ETO

SOCOM’s Black Arrow in the Quiver

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From yesterday’s DOD/DOW contract announcements, emphasis mine:

Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, is being awarded a $27,202,497 fixed-price incentive (firm-target) contract modification (H9240826CE001P0001), for the procurement of All Up Rounds for the AGM-190A Small Cruise Missile program, in support of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). Fiscal 2025 procurement funds in the amount of $548,665; and fiscal 2026 procurement funds in the amount of $23,653,832, will be obligated at time of award. The total award amount is $24,202,497. The work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, and is expected to be completed by Feb. 26, 2029. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. USSOCOM, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity.

Meet the AGM-190A Small Cruise Missile

In the interest of “quantity has a quality all its own,” the AGM-190 Black Arrow SCM is almost as basic as it gets.

It weighs right at or under 200 pounds.

The above means the warhead is probably around 50 pounds, but you have to add all the kinetic energy behind it as a bonus factor. That’s more than enough to flatten a medium-sized building, sink or at least disable a patrol boat, obliterate a small bunker, destroy a SAM or radar installation in the open, get a ground kill on any size aircraft not in a hardened shelter, end any armored vehicle, et al.

It has a published 400nm range when air-launched at altitude (which means it probably goes further) using Pratt & Whitney’s proven 150-pound-thrust TJ150-7 one-stage turbojet, which is used in several target decoys (the MALD) and UAVs. 

It can be used as either pylon ordnance dropped from things such as an MQ-9 Reaper UAV, used in a roll-on/roll-off palletized Dragon Cart-style system from the back of a C/KC/AC/MC-130, and so on. It can reportedly also be launched from HIMARS, though with a shorter range.

While the actual cost-per-unit is not advertised, it is believed the Black Arrow runs somewhere in the $150-$300K (still pennies on the dollar compared to a $3M TLAM or $1M JASSM), a figure that can be whittled down through large buys.

It is known the Pentagon wants somewhere around 10,000 of these little gems, with 3,000 to start, but if you even try to apply those quantities to the $27 million award, you are looking at more like $2,500-$9,000 a pop, which is too insane to be true especally when you see P&W selling commercial TJ-150 powerpacks for $79,999 apiece, so this week’s buy is probably for a lot fewer missiles. Like for maybe the first block of 100 or 200.

AFSOC debuted the Black Arrow as Havoc Spear quietly last month during SOF Week, describing it as “a low-cost, mission adaptable, modular-design cruise missile that can be rapidly produced.”

Could prove very interesting.

A model AGM-190A small cruise missile stands on display inside Air Force Special Operations Command headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida, May 14, 2026.(U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Brandon DeBlanc)

Hunter’s Fountain

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Some 85 years ago this week, the 10,000-ton Dutch Java-Pacific Lijn/VNS passenger steamer SS Jaegersfontaine pulled out of San Francisco on 10 July and, steaming West across a wide and nervous ocean, arrived a little over 8,000 miles away at Rangoon in British Burma on the 28th, making it in a handy 18-knot average.

Built in 1934 at Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Mij NV, Amsterdam, Jagersfontein means “Hunter’s fountain.” She was a lucky ship, but it was a quirky kind of luck.

Among the accumulated cargo and passengers aboard Jagersfontein on her July 1941 trip to Rangoon were 300 young American men, most slim with sharp eyes and short hair, all civilian employees of the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, or CAMCO. Among them were 99 pilots and 201 assorted ground crewmen and support personnel. Nine of the latter were Chinese-American mechanics specifically recruited from New York and San Francisco’s Chinatowns and rushed through a quick school at Allison Engine Works in Indianapolis on one particular powerplant: Allison’s liquid-cooled V-1710-33 twelve-cylinder V-type 1,040 hp piston engine.

You know, the one in the P-40B Warhawk/Tomahawk IIA

Soon after making Burma, Claire Chennault’s 1st American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers, was becoming the stuff of legend.

Claire Chennault Flying Tiger P-40 Artist Darrell Lum USAF DF-SC-84-04112

However, as it is with every irregular group on the fringes of institutionalized military logic, they soon were disbanded and absorbed by the regulars, and on 4 July 1942 the crumbs that were left became the USAAF’s 14th Air Force’s brand new 23rd Fighter Group, which, all these years later, is still around as part of the now USAF.

Based at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, they have flown the A-10 Warthog since 1992, and recently painted one of their birds in the livery of White 48, the Panda Squadron P-40B flown by Army Air Corps Brig. Gen. David Lee “Tex” Hill, an original Flying Tiger (originally a Naval Aviator) who rolled over to the 23rd as a major in 1942 and would finish WWII with 18.25 confirmed victories, 12.25 of those carried over from the AVG.

The A-10C includes the iconic shark teeth nose art and a literal flying tiger over olive drab, a big departure from the rest of the 23rd’s gray-on-gray Compass Ghost schemes.

A heritage A-10C Thunderbolt II is positioned on the flight line at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., April 28, 2026. The aircraft now displays the distinctive Flying Tigers-inspired paint scheme applied by airmen assigned to the 23rd Maintenance Squadron. (Air Force Senior Airman Savannah Carpenter)

A heritage A-10C Thunderbolt II is positioned on the flight line at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., April 28, 2026. The aircraft now displays the distinctive Flying Tigers-inspired paint scheme applied by airmen assigned to the 23rd Maintenance Squadron. (Air Force Senior Airman Savannah Carpenter)

Ever heard a for real strafing run from a P-40?

In related news, the Soaring by the Sea Foundation jumped through a year’s worth of FAA and ATF hoops required to re-install six working M2 .50 cal machine guns into a restored Curtiss P-40N Warhawk in Flying Tigers’ Adam & Eve Squadron livery and, well, did the thing with live ammo, expending approximately 7,000 rounds across ground testing and two days of airborne firing while under the control of Lt. Col. Ray “Hollywood” Fowler, an F-16 pilot with combat tours in the sandbox.

You better believe there is video.

NASA’s (Private) F-5 Tiger Team

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In a follow-up to the 250th Color Birds of NASA post on Monday, we would be remiss not to bring up the fact that the agency has a four-plane aerial demonstration team made up of privately owned (not a misprint) F-5 Tigers.

Do what?

Current NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, 45, is a tech billionaire entrepreneur, alum of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical, a noted private pilot with 7,000 hours in over a dozen types, a commercial astronaut (via SpaceX’s Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, which he funded), and co-founder of “red air” defense contractor Draken International (which owns 130 jets including A-4Ks, Mirage F1s, and MiG-21s).

He’s also donated over $35 million to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville and the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola to support youth programs.

Talk about a flight nerd!

Isaacman personally owns at least three 1970s vintage F-5s, which he recently had painted in a red-white-and-blue Freedom 250th anniversary NASA livery (with the classic NASA “worm”) and has been using them for incentive flights for agency employees as well as some remarkable flyovers that will live on in aviation art for sure. While the titles haven’t been transferred, they are under “NASA control.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is seen flying his personal F-5 aircraft, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If you look close, he is wearing a helmet with an Imperial “cog” in TIE fighter style. Photo Credit: (NASA/John Kraus)

One of NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s personal F-5 aircraft is seen during an employee incentive flying event, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Rachel Kraft, Artemis communications lead at NASA Headquarters, was flying in the back seat. Photo Credit: (NASA/John Kraus)

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman flies in his personal F-5 aircraft, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Isaacman was joined by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in the back seat for a flight around Launch Complex 39B, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and surrounding areas at Kennedy. Photo Credit: (NASA/John Kraus)

Isaacman’s personal F-5E (FAA N591EM) is a former USAF aircraft (77-1777) registered to his investment company, JDI Holdings LLC of Easton, Pennsylvania, while two of the other NASA Tigers, N592EM (78-0803) and N593EM (79-1918), are two-seater F-5Fs also owned by JDI.

All three had been sent to the Royal Jordanian Air Force soon after construction, then were among 21 RJAF F-5E/F aircraft brought to the U.S. in 2017 by Reno-based Tactical Air Support Inc, which already had five ex-Canadian CF-5Ds at the time and has acquired more of the type since. A private red air contractor founded in 2005, TacAir uses the F-5s (and other types) to support U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force adversary contracts.

A fourth privately owned F-5 has recently joined the NASA squad in the same livery but is not a JDI-registered airframe.

The FAA currently has 37 privately-owned Tigers (two F-5As, four F-5Bs, 23 F-5Es, seven F-5Fs, and one NF-5B) active with TacAir (TASLO)/United States Aviation Museum owning 23 of those. Comanche (Maverick) Air in Houston, the second largest operator, owns four F-5Es.

The type usually runs around $1M a pop on the commercial market, making them one of the most obtainable “fast movers.” Further, the Navy still operates the type as a MiG-28-style aggressor (supported by TacAir) while some 500 T-38Cs still fly with the USAF, as we have covered recently. 

The NASA F-5 team, flying out of Andrews, made the news in their recent overflight of the National Mall on the 4th for the Freedom 250 events, although the FAA had originally frowned on the plan due to safety concerns.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman leads a flyover featuring his personally owned F-5 Tiger over the Great American State Fair, Saturday, July 4, 2026, on the National Mall in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman leads a flyover featuring his personally owned F-5 Tiger during the Great American State Fair, Saturday, July 4, 2026, on the National Mall in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)

It wasn’t their first air expo, as they flew in Sun n’ Fun in Florida in April.

NASA Freedom 250 at Sun n Fun 26 over Lakeland, Florida (NASA/John Kraus)

NASA Freedom 250 at Sun n Fun 26 over Lakeland, Florida (NASA/John Kraus)

They also plan to attend four more events.

  • July 23–24: EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
  • August 23: Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C.
  • October 3–4: Pacific Air Show in Huntington Beach, California.
  • October 31–November 1: Commemorative Air Force Wings Over Houston Air Show
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