The Team House - New Orleans & Vegas Attacks: What We Know so Far | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Today we're joined by Sandboxx News editor and Youtuber Alex Hollings, we talked about the terror attack in NOLA and the Tesla  car bomb in front of Trump International in Vegas. We also get to the bottom of what the Chinese 6th gen fighter is all about.Find Alex Hollings here: ⬇️https://www.sandboxx.us/author/alexhollings/https://x.com/alexhollings52?lang=enhttps://www.youtube.com/@UCNPMEL4N_kfEC-w2A6CuPGg https://www.tiktok.com/@alexhollings52?lang=enSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Andy Milburn here: ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operationshttps://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialhttps://open.substack.com/pub/amilburn/p/journal-of-a-plague-year?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=emo6q&utm_medium=iosFind Mick Mulroy here: ⬇️https://fogbow.com/https://www.loboinstitute.org/https://x.com/MickMulroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthorhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_apphttps://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.socialBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes On. Happy New Year. Today, we have the man, the myth to legend, Alex Hollings, from Sandbox News and Airpower YouTube, the YouTube show Airpower. And, of course, Jason Lyons, former Marine, former CIA officer. Andy Milburn is, I think, traveling. He went to the motherland during the holidays. And Mick Mulroy is just, you know, doing Mick Mulroy stuff. We can't talk about it. He made a sign NDAs. So the big news today that happened, New Year's Day, was the, I guess, terror attack in New Orleans, 15 dead, at least 30 injured, Army veteran, I'm going to fuck up this name. Shamsuddinjabar initially thought to have, like, people working with him and stuff like that, but that was eventually ruled out.

Isis inspired, converted to Islam last year. year. And before the attack, he posted a message on Facebook, I guess announcing he was going to, I didn't see the message or anything like that. You know, so it was pretty hectic yesterday in terms of like when the news is breaking and stuff like that. You know, just theories flying everywhere. Initially, they were like, oh, it's a guy from not a U.S. citizen.

It turns out it was a U.S. citizen. And all intensive purposes, it seemed like the guy was. like a normal dude up until about a year ago. So what are you guys looking at in terms of that? I just wanted to get people up to speed even though I know people are, you know, following this. I got to be honest. I think that this is a big indicator and maybe an important lesson that we in the United States have not been doing a good job of learning. And that's that radicalization can affect anybody.

narrative management and information operations, especially the type that are aimed at radicalizing people, aren't aimed only at stupid people. To some extent, information operations are the same as marketing, and there's a reason why advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry. It's because it works. And information operations work in a lot of the same ways. And this is a strong indicator of that.

This guy was in the U.S. Army for over a decade. You know, he deployed to Afghanistan. We're not talking about your traditional, the person that you would think a group would go after to radicalize, right? But we know he was going through some difficult financial times. We know he went through a very difficult divorce. We all go through really tough times. We all end up at sort of our lowest points at various times throughout our life.

And at those times, we're most vulnerable to these sorts of efforts. Even if someone's not aiming them directly at us, It's easier than ever to find yourself in that pipeline through different kinds of content. So I suppose for me, you know, with a background in studying perception warfare and information operations, the big takeaway for me here is that radicalization is not something that only affects, you know, groups that are traditionally, you know, it's not something that only affects low IQ people. It's not something that only affects people who are really gullible. It can affect anyone.

And if you are in a position to be affected by this sort of content, it's really, really difficult to intervene, right? Because you need to identify what's going on and you need to gain the trust of that person who, a big part of radicalization is isolation. You know, the content aims to isolate you and then point you at, you know, a common enemy, right? And I guess just the biggest takeaway for me is that if an Army veteran with 10 years in uniform, if, you know, a guy who has a lot of things going for him, but is going through a tough time, can in the span of a year find himself in this position, I think that that should be a reminder to all of us, that none of us are above information operations. And we need to be thinking about and thoughtful about the content that we consume. I agree. I agree. And I think to add to that on a on a on a personal level, people knew him. People know him. So someone may have seen, I'm not going to say someone definitely did, but someone may have seen a change in him. You know, I think I saw I read this morning that people had said that his religious viewed had, views had taken a huge turn and he was becoming more and more extreme. So we in this country like to talk about the 22, a day, which we should talk about, you know, the veteran suicide, things like that. But that also goes

towards radicalization, too. Someone may not be talking about ending their own life, but they may be talking about, you know, they see something like this occur on TV and make a comment like, well, that's what they get or in favor of that person. Those are things to take notice of. You don't necessarily have to go running to the police, but those are things that you need to take notice of so that you can interview however that is. I just watched. the documentary on PBS, I believe it is, about the shooter up in Maine, I believe it was, that he was former National Guard guy or was a National Guard guy, and he killed, I think it was eight people, some of which were deaf, from the deaf community. And the things leading up to that,

everybody, people, his unit called the Sheriff's Department on this guy during a active duty deployment because up to West Point because he had gotten into a fight. He was saying all these weird things, but everybody from his son all the way up through his chain of command saw it. Nobody did anything about it. So along with being aware of information operations, people who are not targeted but are close to those people should be aware of the signs, you know, and be ready to intervene. That's such a good point that I really do see a direct correlation between veterans suicide and veteran radicalization because I think that there are two different symptoms of the same problem, right?

Veterans who find themselves in a position that feels untenable and they want to take action because one thing that I think service members by and large have in common is a bias toward action, right? And that affects suicide rates the same way that it can affect attacks like this domestic terrorism, right? You find yourself sort of at your lowest moment and you want to do something that can fix it. And for some that's violence towards themselves. For others, it's violence towards others.

But I think you raised such a good point that these are sort of offshoot of that same mental health issue that we're not doing a great job of engaging with. No, absolutely. And I don't know if you're going to talk about it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Alex. But even those who's lost. lives look like they're picture perfect. You know, I'm sure we're going to touch on the Las Vegas incident with the cyber truck. You know, this guy, 19 years, SF was a master's hard.

And I believe, you know, we don't know what his personal life was like, whether there was any kind of strife. I believe he was married. I think his wife, they said his wife had not heard from several days or whatever. But something was going on there. So us in social media land, we're like. Like, you know, oh man, this guy's, you know, he's got it all. Match Sergeant, S.F, blah, blah, all this other stuff. But we don't know what they look up to.

Exactly. He's the guy we look up to. And this goes through, I'm saying guys, but gals as well. You know, we look up to these people because much like social media is, you know, does, is we see the good. You know, people are almost never going to post the bad. So they're always posting the good. Hey, you know, just paid, you know, just bought my third house, whatever it is. but we don't see what's below the surface, whereas there are other people who do, whether it's a spouse, boyfriend, a girlfriend, a child, even people, I used to do security for, I set up a security plan for my, one of a church I used to go to. And one of the things when we talked to the congregation, we said was it's usually going to be the person you see every Sunday who has that one bad Saturday that decides to do something the next day.

So that's when you take notice of those things. You know, hey, Jim, how are you today? And he's not talking. Or you heard he's having a divorce and he comes in. We had a gentleman who he ended up being removed. But he would come into the church and with his wife and children. And then all of a sudden, he was coming into the church and sitting completely separate from them and come to find out as a domestic abuse thing. So you just don't know, you know.

And that's the kind of things that people need to be looking at before we get to the point that we're. we did, you know, yesterday. So. Yeah. These special forces guys are, and you guys know better than anyone, guys, girls, humans, there are people just like us who have the same sorts of vulnerabilities that we do. Despite their immense amount of training and the incredible things that they've done, there's still people at the end of the day. And, you know, the toughest people you know have usually overcome some pretty difficult

things. That's what made them. The toughest people you know. and those things can pile up on you and they can sneak back up on you. I think everybody here can probably attest to when you go through something really difficult in life, when you lose people,

you can be fine for 10 years and then it can come back, you know, at the worst time while other things are sort of piling up on you. And, you know, there doesn't necessarily have to be a catalyst. There doesn't have to be a divorce or, you know, or, you know, your wife leaving you or something. They're, sometimes these things can just add

in such a way that you feel overwhelmed. And if there isn't an effective way for you to channel that energy, you're going to find one. And the ones that you find, especially online, in this digital environment, more often than not, aren't necessarily good ways to channel that energy. Radicalization is a science. Dr. Ajit Mon wrote a book called Narrative Warfare

for a think tank called Narrative Strategies. She was working with Socom a few years. years ago. It's how we met. And in her book, she talks about the radicalization process and how you wouldn't think of groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda as people who use psychology degrees to achieve their objectives, but they do the very same way any other group might. And there really is a pretty tried and trude process that you can put people through in order to radicalize them. That's not to say it'll work on everybody all the time. But if you put it out there often enough at high enough volume. You're going to catch people in that net.

You know? Yeah. And these people, you know, I think the average, not the average person, but most people, when they think of radicalization, they think of some guy sitting or getting somewhere waiting for, you know, or they have a spreadsheet of people that they're going to cold call to, you know, to radicalize. No, most of the time, their people come to them. They start searching the dark web they go to forums and asking hey how does someone hook up with x and then that's when you know keyword searches pop up or somebody will refer them and then boom hey i heard you might be looking for a friend of course they're not going to come right out and be like hey i heard you're

looking for isis it's yeah i heard you you know brother i understand what you're going through sister my my boyfriend cheated on me or or you know i heard you came out and your your community didn't accept you, blah, blah, and then, and these things almost never happen overnight. Most of the time, it's, what was it, a year for this guy? Most of these things happen, just like most intelligence operations, happen over a period of weeks, months, and years, you know, so, yeah, we don't know with the Las Vegas guy, but obviously something happened there. You nailed it, because it starts with something that we all do a dozen times a day,

which is like seeing a meme that makes you feel heard, that engages with your sense of identity and the community that you come by that meme from, whether it's a subreddit, whether it's a Discord server, you know, whether it's an email chain for some older folks, the community that that meme arrives to your doorstep on

and you feel heard and you feel as though your grievances are being acknowledged. You're getting respect, or at least your grievances are. It makes you engage with that community that much more. And those incremental movements. It's the same way, you know, like in true crime, they talk about how serial killers give themselves allowances. You know, like if you wanted to start, you know, eating people, well, you're not going to start by eating people, right?

You're going to start by following that woman on the bus, right? And then you tell yourself, it's not that big a deal, you know, I left when it was over. But then the next time you don't, right? And then you get progressively further along until you're willing to do things that otherwise might seem out of character. And this process works the same way, you know. Sorry, Dee, we kind of. No, no, no, that was incredible. Yeah, I mean, the thing about, like, I don't know,

the thing that really stuck out to me yesterday was when this happened, you know, early in the morning, it's just the wildness that goes on in Twitter, like, as you're reading. Because, like, you want information right away, right? Like anybody else? And it's just, it's just people can't just, relax and like get facts first before whether whether reporting about them or speculating about them and like even

speculating about them like if you're going to speculate say you're this is speculation right like I'm presented at such right yeah and it's just I was like scratching my head be like it's like we're being attacked by a hundred cells from ISIS yesterday all over the country it's never going to stop like this is like a coordinated attack that they've been planning for years And meanwhile, I mean, at the same time, the FBI needs to do a better job in terms of messaging and stuff like that because they're fucking horrible. Like the press conferences yesterday were a joke. So, I mean, they add to it a little bit.

But again, like you put it into that Twitter social media world and it just spins out of control kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not parallels in severity, but we saw the same thing with the drones over New Jersey. You know, we had really poor communication on a government agency. So people just filled in the gaps with whatever seems sexiest to them. And the social media economy, the digital economy, is attention-based, not credibility-based.

So the more engaging your take, the further the reach is going to be. And usually the more divorce from reality your take is, the more engaging it is. So, you know, Winston Churchill said that, you know, a lie, I'll get around the world twice before the truth gets its pants on. It is, you know, a lot I'll get around the world three dozen times now before the truth they'll get its pants on. And then people don't want the truth because the truth, a lot of times doesn't align with like a, you know,

a logical narrative. And we want logical narratives, you know, culturally it's how we tell stories. But real life, a lot of times doesn't sort of like engage in that same sort of cause and effect chain. You know what I mean? And so what people will see something that seems as though narratively, it's not necessarily logical.

Well, if lots of people are seeing drones, narratively, they must all be controlled by the same one person or one body. And if people are seeing drones, well, then maybe they're not drones at all. It must be this thing that's even more, you know, crazy. Where in reality, a lot of what people saw were just hobby drones or even law enforcement drones. A lot of them were just airplanes and helicopters. But that narrative is not as engaging.

And so because of that, people not only will ignore it, they'll attack it, you know, and you'll see the same, when we're talking about, you know, a terror attack in New Orleans, we're going to see people who prefer the much more sexy conspiracy narrative over the possibility that there was a really troubled guy who, you know, decided to do something crazy. Very likely was inspired by others who did things that were crazy. But the conspiracy may not extend much further than a half a dozen people, you know. But that's not the story that people on Twitter want. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already.

To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. but this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Teamhouse channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go in and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house.

And one of the, sorry, Dee. One of the foolish but at the same time smart thing that people do, trolls on the internet do is they inject their narrative that is nothing to do with it. like I was just watching a story on the news and they had a Republican pundit and a Democratic pundit. And they were talking about this. And one of them started talking about illegal immigration. And the host is like, well, we need to stop right there. You realize that this guy, both of them are U.S. citizens. Yeah, but, yeah, but nothing. One has nothing to do with the other. But people will inject that stuff because it riles up the base and it keeps them narrative that they want going going. And again, that's not what, you know, we're trying to talk about here.

But it's still, it's one of the reasons why. These white-haired influencers. That's what lawmakers increasingly are. They want to get as many clicks and shares and likes. You know, they want to raise money for the next election. They're not that worried about conveying reality, you know. it's not necessarily the there's there's little incentive for a politician to err on the side of reality yeah you know which is kind of wild to me because right like their job first and foremost is like

public safety or should be anyway and like they should kind of be the people that are the sobering kind of adults in the room yeah they're not and it's like you know pretty disheartening in terms of like being an American yeah yeah Yeah, not to bring it back to the New Jersey drones again, but it comes to mind because you see these lawmakers saying, well, they're not appearing on radar. They must be advanced technology. This guy doesn't know how radar works. The radar systems that we use, by and large, wouldn't detect low-flying quadcopters. That's not advanced technology.

That's how radar works. But they don't know how radar works. So they're going to go make a statement in every conspiracy theorist on Reddit is going to err on the side of this mayor who now thinks he's an expert in the electrical. magnetic spectrum, instead of like people who actually know how radar works. You know, it's a, I don't know, I would say that we're in the most complicated information space age, you know, the era of the most complicated information space in human history. You know, we have no trouble looking back on the printing press and acknowledging how culturally changing the printing press was. the internet is that, you know, X times exponents, you know, it's, it's given everyone a voice and increasingly, you know, with social media and stuff, it's not even, you don't even need

to have a built-in audience to reach a lot of people with your message. It just needs to be engaging enough, and that can work for better or worse, you know? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, a little bit about the Vegas guy. Matt Littlesberg, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. he worked both bombers worked at the same base or bases or maybe two of them they're trying to connect that on social media and like it is an interesting coincidence or you know circumstance like I mean but the fact is um

shamud like I'm sorry I read his name wrong shop shambo did retire like 10 years ago right And this guy was still, so if they did work together and the same base, which means like there's probably thousands of 10 or tens of thousands of people on the same base. Right. Yeah. That's a pretty big installation. So like what are the chances like 10 years ago? Like let's get together and do this on January 1st in 2025, right? Like so let's again, everybody who's on Twitter like where's a conspiracy?

There's got to be a conspiracy because I've seen so many people and they get to go back to that. were like they're here they're here I saw that like so from like agency former agency people where it's like shouldn't you know a little bit better

like I know you're trying to be like a Twitter person and like a influencer now but maybe pumped the brakes a little bit absolutely it almost spurs me more is those people who know the game and are using it effectively yeah that's even more dangerous

than the people who are stumbling upon playing the game by just being idiots on the internet Most dangerous ones are the ones who know exactly what they're doing and they're not worried about second and third order effects. They're worried about their mortgage. And I respect that. I mean, I pay my bills through views in very much the same way. You know, so I understand the balance that you need to sort of maintain where you're trying to get people to click on your content and you're competing against sensationalism and hyperbole.

So I understand, you know, the trap that you can fall into. if you know the game, if you've worked and countering the game and then you're using it to your own, you know, for your own financial gain, I don't know, that's, I don't like it. It's crazy. It is. It really is. I sent you something this morning, Dee, about, and you know me. I don't like to name names and stuff, but this influencer, former Special Operations Forces, I will just say that, posted something saying basically, we told you. and named all these different guests that they'd had.

We told you 50 to 60,000 Americans are going to die starting now, which, and that's the thing that annoys me is they're taking what could be a bit of truth. That could happen, but over 100, 200 years span, who knows, you know, or it could happen in this year. We don't know. And they couple it with lies, like saying this is congressionally funded, you know, these attacks and things. that kind of stuff like if i was ever right in front of these people the only thing i would say

is show me the proof i want to so the things that you're claiming i want you to show me right here and right now that you have proof that these things not because your guest told you because yeah most of these guests have said what's that yeah don't tell me a guy said a guy yes exactly i have it on good authority or i'm in touch with you know like i'm going to say it that guy who posted the videos about the um drones in jersey and uh was saying uh i I think they're, you know, sniffing for nuclear material. And a friend of mine had his hand on a rogue nuke and all this other stuff is the same guy who finally admitted in this third video. He's going to be running for office in 2026.

And then then the truth will come out. Well, if it's so important, buddy, why are you not telling us now? Right. If we really need to know. Because you think a loose nuke would be like a kind of a big fucking deal. Yeah. Right. And it's happened before.

The precedent we could look to for how they would handle it. and it wouldn't be by flying a bunch of drones. Exactly. You know, like, but again, but again, we're speaking to that and the gaps in the official narrative creates opportunity for people like that to inject their own truth. And again, because we want a logical narrative. We want a hero's journey story like we see at the movies.

We will prefer that one because it fills in all the gaps very well. Whereas the true story, you know what, the Las Vegas shooter, a few years ago who shot a lot of people. I forgot out of which casino. But, you know, we still don't know his motive. And honestly, we may never because his motive may have been stupid. Yeah. It might have just been a dumb thing.

But we have a lot of trouble grasping that idea. Even though we do dumb things all the time, right? You know, I do something stupid every day, and I like to consider myself a fairly bright guy. Now imagine someone with mental health issues who's been. you know, down on their luck, who's, you know, at the worst point in their life, you know, and maybe has a predisposition for violence or something along those lines. You don't need to necessarily have a logical reason for the things that you do. Humans are big brain monkeys.

You know, we've got a lot of hubris. We think we're special. Don't worry animals, you know. And, yeah, I think you hit the nail right on the head. Honestly, this, and this, you know, not to go straight back to aviation, because it's my area. of expertise, but we saw the same sorts of things play out over this past week with China unveiling new stealth aircraft, where what we know about these aircraft is very minimal. You know, China hasn't made any official statements about them, but you will find large

creators in every platform claiming that it's hypersonic, claiming that it's capable of low Earth orbit, you know, like stuff that is downright science fiction, especially for a nation, you know, that up until 2017 was three and a half decades behind the United States in stealth. Arguably, there's still a decade,

a decade and a half. But now we're going to pretend that they've got suborbital fighter jets because people like that sexy narrative. You know, and in the absence of real information,

we're just going to make up whatever will drive the most clicks. It's frustrating. It's frustrating in my position because I really do, I try hard to base my, a lot of my content is just looking at what people are saying online and going,

okay, well, that's not true. Let's add some context. Let's add some nuance to this conversation, you know, but that is not the way to get rich, which is why, you know, I drive a used car in rent-hacks. But like, but I am enthused by the fact that, like, I do have a pretty sizable audience for someone who is a professional party pooper at this point. And, you know, you guys, too, you guys are another great example. of like you bring nuance and context to these conversations that people have without any expertise. You know, people talk about the intelligence community and the special operations world, you know, with all they've ever learned about it was stuff they read on Reddit, you know,

and you guys bring actual context to it and you have in-depth conversations. And that just doesn't pay as well as saying it's lizard people. Yeah, me and Jack Murphy, you know, host the Team House podcast. We talk about it all the time, man. we were like, if we went and they'd started doing UFO stuff and like sensational stuff, we would be, you know, mansions and riding on jet skis and stuff like that. It'd be fucking nice. And I wouldn't be fighting and scrambling for another 1,000 subscribers, you know, every quarter or whatever.

Yeah. Of a million because they'd be like, oh, well, especially if you start with credibility, like you guys have. And tomorrow, you know, came out and was like, well, you know, it's the fluoride in the water or turn the frogs gay. blow up, it would blow up, you know, because of your credibility. And, you know, and it's a, it's a dangerous environment because, you know, everybody does have bills to pay, you know. And it becomes a bit of a video game, too, I think, for some people where, you know, you've got a million followers, you want two million, you know. Yeah. You don't want to see those numbers decline, right? It's, you derive self-worth from them. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I work with other podcasts and these two people that I,

I work with, they have sizable Instagram followings. And, yeah, like you said, it's like, it's, they're so precious with it. And they have to grow and they have to continue, you know, and I'm the same way with the team house, right? Like, I want to fucking blow it up. I see other podcasts. I'm like, they fucking suck. I want it.

We should be better. We're better, you know? And that's, that's just a fact. It's not an opinion. It's a fact. I agree. I have a big fan of you guys. So I agree.

You know, and it's like, sometimes it can be frustrating. but then it's good to like take a minute and be like, yo, we're making podcasts about information and stuff that we like and we're interested in and interviewing great people and we're getting paid for it. It might not be fucking tens of millions of dollars, but it's still pretty sick. You know, it's still pretty awesome. And we're doing it the right way. You know what I mean?

Like with some ethics. Yeah. Honestly, that's how I, you know, I've got, I have a much bigger following that I ever imagined I could get for being an airplane nerd. You know what I mean? I mean, like, I am living my dream, you know. So when I talk about, like, you always want to grow, I don't know if I would want a million followers, anything, you know.

It's stressful having a few hundred thousand people paying attention to what you say. But I can also appreciate the romance of it, you know. We were talking before we came online about Nobelitis and, like, Nobel disease, like this idea that people who received the Nobel Prize are told over and over again how smart and great they are, that, you know, as they get later on in life, they start to believe some pretty wild stuff. And I mean, I fall victim to it. I try my best not to. But with this New Jersey drone thing, I found a NASA program that, or at least it looked to be a NASA program,

that established a drone testing corridor between Delaware and New Jersey. And I reported on that saying, this very well could be, you know, what these drone sightings are. And then NASA called me and we're like, you're wrong, dude. like we're not flying any drones uh this program isn't managed by us it's us transcom now uh you need to talk to them and i had to go back on you know the next day and post another video because that video got a couple million views right made nassa pretty upset you know and i but alice at the same time it's not like you didn't say anything or doubled down you came back yeah that's the point exactly most people are not doing that you've got to come back and say i was wrong yeah and you're right

A lot of people aren't. And I guess maybe those are the two things that I try my best to keep in my work. And I think more journalists would do well to do the same. Is the first admit that you're wrong. And the second is admit when you don't know enough about something to talk about it. You know, like, you know, do your homework. Try to be well read on as much as you can. But if you don't know enough about, you know, what's going on right now in Gaza, it's okay.

I don't know enough, you know. and I think that that's something that the internet has kind of made everybody not as good at. Yeah, you know, agree. All right, so the Chinese J36, I guess they're calling it or we're calling it that. You have a video coming out. When this comes out, it'll probably be right around what's coming out. It's coming out Friday, right? Yeah, it should drop Friday afternoon for like 23, 3.30 time frame.

Okay, yeah, so this is working out perfectly. What do you got on that? Because that was the talk of the town. and I'm sure a bunch of like everyone at Lockheed and stuff were probably like, yeah. Let's kick up this NGAD program again. You know what I mean? That's honestly why I would.

That was the first thing I thought. So maybe a bit of context that's worth noting for anyone who isn't aware. The United States started working on a sixth generation fighter. Sixth generation being sort of a stand in term because we don't know what capabilities actually define sixth generation. It's just sort of marketing terms at this point. But the U.S. started development on such an aircraft back in 2014 with a program. A study commissioned with RAN called the Dominance Initiative, and that transitioned into the next generation air dominance program.

The U.S. started testing prototypes back in 2020. We know they set some sort of performance records. We don't know what, but we do know that there are three flying prototypes associated with this program, and the Air Force was supposed to deliver a production contract for it this year. But, you know, Northrop Grumman went about $80 billion over on the Sentinel ICBM program already, and they haven't built the first missile yet. So the Air Force doesn't have any money to fund this NGAD effort anymore. They commissioned another study over the past three months with third party outsiders and a few industry insiders to see if the NGAD program is developing in the way it should, and they determine that it is worth the money. They just don't have the money.

So they kick this can to the Trump administration. They're going to have to make a decision as to whether or not they're going to basically increase the Air Forces budget to fund this F-22 replacement fighter, an air superiority fighter. So now fast forward to just this past couple of weeks. On the 131st anniversary of Chairman Mao's birthday, two stealth aircraft were photographed over China. One was over Chengdu, which is where Changdu aircraft, or excuse me, Changdu Airs Airs, or excuse me, Chengdu Aerospace Corporation is based out of, and then the other one was out of Shenyang Aircraft Corporation's headquarters. So this is sort of the Chinese equivalent of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. These are not two aircraft from the same corporation. They're two aircraft

from effectively rival corporations. But based on their shape and size, they don't appear to be competitors for the same contract. They appear to be designed for very different things. The Shenyang aircraft is much smaller. It may be unmanned. It might be their equivalent of a CCA drone, like the ones the U.S. is developing right now. But then there's that J36, that much larger aircraft with a delta wing shape. It really does look a lot like renders we've seen for American six-generation fighters like NGAD or the Navy's programs called FAAXX. Very similar concepts. They have a lot in common. But the thing is about this J-36 is that what we don't know about it is significantly larger than what we do know. We know that it's got a delta wing design,

which suggests they're looking for larger payloads and much longer ranges. If you're familiar with the F-16XL, it was an aircraft that was tested back in the 80s. It was effectively an F-16A with a cranked arrow wing, sort of like a delta wing, but with two different sweep angles. And by adding all that extra wing area, they were able to take the same F-16 with the same engine and carry twice the payload about 44% further. And I think that that speaks to exactly what this J-36 is meant to do. It's center fuselage looks a lot like the J-20s. It's nose stealth attributes look a lot like the J-20s.

It's stealthy intakes on the bottom side look a bit like the J-35s, which are very Lockheed Martin reminiscent for good reason. A man named Subin, a Chinese national name Subin, is serving a prison sentence for stealing the F-22. and F-35 blueprints for China. But this aircraft effectively looks like a J20 XL. It is a platform that's designed to fly at high altitudes, likely high supersonic speeds and over long ranges.

And to that point, it has three engines, which is really, really unusual. There's inlets for two of the engines, the outermost engines on the underside of the aircraft. And then there's a third inlet for that center engine on the top. Now, there's people online claiming that that's a scramjet. It's not. There's no evidence to substantiate the idea that that third engine would be a scramjet.

And to be honest, China's turbofan technology is lagging so far behind the U.S.s that they just need three engines, three turbofan engines on that platform to move all that aircraft in its payload, would be my assessment. It looks like it's powered by WS10C turbofan engines right now, which are engines designed for fourth generation. fighters. These are the sorts of engines that would power, you know, the American equivalent of an F-16, you know, a non-stealth aircraft. They're still working on developing engines for fifth generation platforms, like they're J-20 and J-35. So this new aircraft is being powered by engines, you know, from the 70s and 80s era technology-wise, you know. It's not, I guess, anywhere near as scary as a lot of content creators are making it out to be. But it's certainly got a ton of potential.

You know, that delta wing design, that lack of standing vertical tail surfaces means that it's very likely, extremely difficult to detect using both high-frequency targeting radar arrays, but also using low-frequency early warning radar arrays. The lack of standing tails also makes it much more difficult to detect and target from the side, whereas today's stealth fighters, that's more of a vulnerability. So while I'm not going to lose any sleep over the J36 right now, it is worth noting that what we're seeing are the early test flights of a platform. So it's a half decade. The J20 took six years to go from test flights to service. The J35 now is probably going to take 14 years to go from test flights to service. So this aircraft's got a lot of maturation to go, and that's actually why I'm worried.

Because it's a great design to start from to continue to mature the system into something that could reasonably pose a real threat to American Air operations in the Pacific and to operations in places like Guam, further away than China could ever strike before. And to that point, there are people who are calling this J36 a regional bomber program rather than a fighter. I think that that's a reasonable assessment to make. but I think people are making the mistake of assuming there's still a very fine and clear line between fighters and bombers. And that just isn't the case anymore. You know, we're seeing with the B-21 Raider, there's really strong evidence to suggest that the B-21 America's new stealth bomber will be able to carry air-to-air weapons to defend itself. Not to mention the feasibility that it could carry systems like DARPA's long shot, which is effectively a cruise missile that carries Amrams. so we can self-esport, things like that.

So the line between an aircraft meant to engage other aircraft and an aircraft meant to engage ground targets is about as murky as they can get at this point, and it's only going to get murkier. So is it a fighter or a bomber? I would argue it doesn't matter. Fighters can engage ground targets and air targets all the same, and this platform likely will too, you know?

So hopping back to NGED really quick, until and unless that program is heated back up, do you think that what we have in the stockpiles are capable if something were to kick off right now? That is like, that's the billion dollar question, right? So the U.S. is actively investing about $12 billion into upgrading our F-22 Raptor fleet, right? The Raptor is still the most capable air superiority fighter in the sky, But the Raptor started flying before the iPhone was invented.

You know, this is a pretty dated platform in this 21st century, you know, rapidly changing digital battle space, right? So the Raptor is getting, it looks like a heads-up, helmet, helmet queue targeting, which is a capability. It has really lacked for a long time. And it's likely getting infrared search and track targeting capabilities. And that IRST, as well as the F-35's distributed aperture system, which can also infrared target are really effective for countering stealth platforms. But the most important question we should be asking is how is this aircraft, this J36, going to be integrated into China's air warfare strategy, right?

And chances are pretty solid, like NGAD. It's going to be a bit removed from the fight. It's going to serve as sort of a battle manager for AI-enabled drones, is what I would consider to be the most likely use case. And as such, it'll be a tough target to hit. It doesn't need to be the healthiest aircraft in the world to be a tough target to hit, especially if it's pretty far removed and it's protected by CCA-type drones, you know. So does the U.S. have the technology to counter it?

I would say absolutely, but circumstance-depending, right? It depends on the environment you're in, the systems you have available, the circumstances of the engagement. There's a lot of variables to consider. And I was at NORAD and Northcom about a month ago asking about these things and drone incursions and stuff like that. And one thing that the command element at the Space Force in particular really wanted to hit home for me was that China is not the Taliban. You know, people like to dismiss technology as made in China, especially because of their long history of intellectual property theft and sort of advancement through espionage. But they are a very well-funded adversary.

with a big and growing academic pipeline for aerospace defense technology, we can't dismiss the threat that China poses out of hand because it's China. We have to acknowledge the fact that China is becoming much more capable than they ever have been in the past. And they don't need to be better than the United States at any one thing to pose a huge threat in the Pacific. You know, if the American defense apparatus is a suit of armor, you don't need to build the suit of armor that's just as good. You just need to build an arrow that can penetrate that suit of armor, right? So what we need to be worried about isn't, as China's suit of armor as good as ours. We need to be worried about, well, could this aircraft be one of those arrows?

And I do think that it has the potential to be. And because of that, you know, and I'm often called the shill for the military industrial complex, because I do believe in winning the next conflict by deterring it. But I would like to see NGA defunded. And I think that seeing how serious China is about airspace dominance, it should be a clear decision. It should be, obviously, we need to maintain this advantage because if you find yourself trailing,

it becomes much more expensive and potentially deadly to try to close that gap, you know? especially China's airborne early warning and control apparatus is also rapidly maturing and I would argue that that's the piece that they're missing when it comes to fielding these new aircraft

last year or the year prior F-35s and J-20s had a short interaction, a short encounter and that was the one takeaway American pilots took from it was that the Chinese J-20s are getting better at coordinating with airborne an early warning and control. Those are the things people don't think about that America's so good at because America, you know, operated stealth aircraft, well, no one else in the world did for more than three decades.

You know, the U.S. has a commanding lead in establishing doctrine and procedure for these stealth aircraft operations. But again, we can't dismiss China because they are working hard to close these gaps. And they don't have to worry about public buy-in like we do in American politics. So if Xi Jinping thinks it's a good idea, that's it. You know, they get the money they need. So I hope that the Air Force gets the money they need. Yeah. And their money goes a longer way, right?

Like their purchasing power. The purchasing power parity. And it's worth noting that, you know, people say the U.S. spends more than the next 10 countries combined on defense. That is objectively false. Those are self-reported figures. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that a nation that is not particularly honest about anything also isn't honest about their publicly disclosed defense spending. So independent analysis

suggests China spending $700 billion plus on defense each year. And their dollars go further. You know, a colonel in the Chinese Army makes less than a Marine Corps Lance Corporal with a wife in Camp Lejeune. So if you think of it that way, they have the means to produce a great deal of military capability. There are still elements of the Chinese military with horse-drawn carriages, but those don't necessarily matter if we're talking specifically about a naval and air power engagement over the Pacific, you know, again, they just got to build the right arrows. Yeah. The Chinese equivalent to the B-21 Raider, the swept wing bomb, yeah.

What's going on with that? Do they have, they, they, they've tested, but they haven't deployed. So they, some people claim that they have tested the H-20. There were some rumors it was going to be on very. last year. Current U.S. Intel assessment suggests it'll probably be in the 2030s before it's actually unveiled. But it is, I would argue, probably more akin to the B2 than the B-21 in terms of stealth and onboard avionics. But again, that doesn't mean that by the time it enters service, it won't have advanced, you know, to a large extent. But I think it is worth noting that China

has had access to American stealth materials through a variety of sources. including drones that have been downed in different places, the F-117 that went down in Serbia. They've got a lot to pull from to assess American stealth practices and material sciences, which are really, really important. And that's all going to inform the H-20. Radar-absorbit materials are sort of under-discussed because there's not a lot of publicly available information. But that's sort of the skin on a stealth aircraft. And the radar absorbent materials, the RAM on the B2,

is supposed to be rated to absorb upwards of 80% of inbound electromagnetic energy, which is radar waves. That's huge. So, you know, the shape of the aircraft is what really makes the biggest difference in terms of stealth. And from there, you're kind of making iterative improvements. But the material, the material science of your composite skin is the next most important variable. The United States does have a big lead in this realm. but that lead is waning, you know, and if China has access to, you know, materials from the F-117 and then

materials maybe from like the RQ-170, which is a much more recent ISR platform, a stealth platform, and they can see how those materials have changed. It can point them in a lot of the right directions. Or that at Stealth Blackhawk from the Bin Laden raid. Perfect example, a perfect example, you know, although it looks like the Stealth Black Hawk was probably coated in the same half-glass radar-absorbit material used on some F-16s, some wild weasels. So, I would argue the counter to that is ceramic-based RAM. There was a breakthrough a few years ago at a U.S. University in the South. I can't remember the school Cheryl Zhu is the researcher heading the program, but ceramic-based RAM would be a revolution in stealth, unlike anything

we've seen since the 70s probably. It can withstand significantly higher temperatures. The thing that stops the F-22, for instance, for being faster is that the RAM we have today is polymer-based. It's plastic. And plastic burns in high heat and friction. And that's why you've probably seen pictures of like the F-22 with like blisters on its nose and like its skin kind of peeling off.

That's because that aircraft was sprinting, you know, for long enough to burn off the skin. Ceramic won't burn off like that. So not only can you sustain much higher speeds, but you don't need to scrape all that toxic stuff off your aircraft. They have to wear mop gear to do it, and then recode it and then recur it for three days in an oven effectively before the aircraft can get back out into operation. With ceramic ram, it would last significantly longer. It would also make it cheaper to just coat everything in radar absorbent materials, which wouldn't make every F-16 stealth or whatever, but would reduce their radar return. you know, buy you a little bit more time. So that is something that the U.S. certainly has in the pipeline.

Cheryl's who's got a defense contract, whether or not it will manifest with six-gen fighters, you know, is anybody's guess. But it's worth noting that the U.S. has been making moves to maintain its competitive advantage in this realm. They just have not been consolidated and funded into that singular NGAD program quite yet. And I do think that that's, I think that there's a solid chance to the Trump administration recognizes the value in NGAD, even if Elon Musk is dumb enough to think that quadcopters can replace crude fighters. You know, and for anyone out there who thinks that they can,

quadcopters by their very nature are limited to low altitudes in short ranges. So you're never going to have a quadcopter swarm flying at 60,000 feet to engage enemy fighters. I mean, listen, there's a good chance Elon Musk was on Kedami when he put that out there. But it sounds great. Because it also made him think that

the problem with targeting stealth aircraft is line of sight. He was like, all you need is like a low light camera and AI. Bro, if you have line of sight with that stealth fighter, you are already screwed. Yeah. You know, like if you're an air defense system, the AAR, GM, ER, our new harm, our new radar hunting missiles got like an 80 nautical mile range publicly disclosed.

Yeah. You are already blown up before you have line of sight, you know, but like, I don't know. The dude knows rockets. I'm a big fan of starship, but he does not know tactical aviation. Yeah. Well, I know we're running at a time, but the next time we have you on. which will be soon. I definitely want to discuss the newest Chinese aircraft carrier

and your thoughts on that. I would love. Honestly, people are watching this might not know, but talking about airplanes with Jason Lyons has been one of my favorite things to do without it being a podcast. So yeah,

anytime you want me, whether cameras are rolling or not, you know? Awesome. Guys, don't forget to check out Alex Hollings. Like, you need this plug anyway. Sandbox News,

Air Power series on the sandbox YouTube. channel of course his uh journalistic work to sandbox news dot what's the website sandbox sandbox dot us sandbox with two xs dot us or sandbox news dot com that's easier to remember okay the link will be in the description you can check out Alex I'm going to put all of his links down there you can find them he's probably one of the best aviation YouTubersers out there I would say at least yeah yes all the stuff I say I parent like the shit I was saying last week It was just same. And I even got it wrong.

From Alex's videos, you know what I mean? Like I'm like, yeah, the J-36 engines are a piece of shit. Like they're not up to date. And I got that from you. Like, I'm not, yeah, what do I? If you ever want to do a deep dive into turbo fans, I am happy to, but it might put the audience to sleep. But I'll be excited.

It'd be good. It'd be like ASMR, you know, like after like hour two, you got to start going to sleep. I'll talk about it. Yeah. Guys, don't forget to like and subscribe. if you're listening to us on audio rated five stars subscribe there so you can never miss a download uh jason lyons all his links are in the description milk milroyd description everything andy millburn all everything you need to know about this show is in the description

stop asking me it's always in the description just a little deductive reasoning goes a long way um best way and this is the most important one the best way to support the best way to support The show is patreon.com slash the team house. You get this show ad free and you get the team house ad free. So it's two podcasts for the price of one. And yeah, thanks guys. Thanks a lot. Happy New Year to everybody too.

Thanks. Thanks.