Dead Drop: May 22

SAD SALUTE:  Governments around the world are looking for ways to honor medical personnel, first responders and all those who are putting their lives on the line to get the rest of us through the pandemic. One popular method has been to conduct flyovers of military aircraft to demonstrate respect for those on the front lines of the fight against coronavirus. One such attempt turned tragic recently when an aircraft from the Canadian Snowbirds flight demonstration team crashed into a residential neighborhood in Kamloops, British Columbia. The Snowbirds, similar to the US Blue Angels and Thunderbirds, had been sending aerial messages of support. Captain Jennifer Casey, the team’s public affairs officer was killed in the incident and the pilot of the aircraft received serious, but not life-threatening, injuries. The Canadians had dubbed their flyovers “Operation Inspiration.” The cause of the crash is under investigation. Similar missions in the US have thankfully been accident free – but not incident free. It was revealed recently that while flying over Detroit on May 12, six F/A-18 Hornets of the Blue Angels came uncomfortably close to a remotely piloted camera drone.

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET: At a White House event last week, while signing the 2020 Armed Forces Day proclamation, President Trump seized on the opportunity to tout the high-tech equipment the US military is developing. “We are building, right now, incredible military equipment at a level that nobody has ever seen before. We have no choice. We have to do it — with the adversaries we have out there. We have a — I call it the ‘super-duper missile.’ And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now,” Trump said. That comment got reporters wanting to know more. But White House spokespeople pointed to the Pentagon – and the Pentagon spokesman pointed back. Eventually, Pentagon press secretary Jonathan Hoffman confirmed that DOD “is working on developing a range of hypersonic missiles to counter our adversaries.”  The Associated Press published an “explainer” on hyper-sonic missiles on Wednesday. The Pentagon would say no more – but we hope they are working on a better name for the weapon than “super-duper.” Russian media watcher Julia Davis says that Kremlin-controlled state media have translated the name for the President’s new favorite missile as the “super-pooper” and have compared his comments to that of a “schoolboy raving about computer games.”