Tag Archives: ITAR

Next up due to Ukraine: Body Armor Shortages

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Bad news folks, especially if you wavered for the past couple of years over grabbing some body armor for defensive uses– the war in Ukraine may make that hard.

With armor manufacturers already feeling the double whammy over the past two years of the tough labor market due to the COVID crisis and more expensive/harder-to-find material problems due to the “supply chain crisis,” Ukraine could be a third hurdle to jump.

Already, there have been reports of Americans buying up armor in quantity (as in thousands of sets at a time) to send overseas (ITAR? what do you mean ITAR?) to aid the Ukrainians.

More on this from Copper Jacket TV, who says exporters are also now crowding into the market.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the Ukrainians need it– they probably need everything– and I am not begrudging them armor. Just saying that if you or your department is looking to get some, you may want to go ahead and grab it while you can get it because there is likely to be a shortage lasting a few quarters on the horizon as inventory vanishes.

Looking for your own private air force?

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Newview Hardware Solutions Ltd

Psst….want 20 of these?

Provided you have the cash to spare, you can get one heck of a deal on a whole squadron of preowned jet trainers, as-is, where-is.

“Awesome deal. Package of 20 upgraded Fougas with 830,000 parts. Owner wants them sold this week. Only $200K for everything!” reads the post at Raptor Aviation of Port St. Lucie, Florida.

The “Fougas” in question are some circa 1957 vintage French-made Fouga CM.170 Magisters that have been in Israeli Defense Force service until being recently withdrawn. But don’t worry, they were last updated in the 1980s under the Tzukit (Zukit) program which saw them get an overhaul, new engines and a new cockpit.

If you have seen the recent Siege of Jadotville movie on Netflix, the creepy little jet that strafed the Irish UN troops (and got stitched up in return by an Irish-manned watercooled Vickers) was a Fouga. See below at about the 1:10 mark.

While officially training aircraft, the Israelis used their Fougas during the 1967 Six Day War in combat armed with small bombs and machine guns where they apparently gave some Jordanian armored columns some heartburn.

Now for the bad stuff:

These planes are at the end of their useful lives, with documentation provided by Raptor showing some have as many as 20,000 landings on their airframe and few have more than a few dozen hours left before they are completely unflyable.

BUT, for a small investment as far as these things go, you can get a nice little air fleet that still has at least one short campaign left in it.