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Sjurygg posted:Yeah. The concept is impressive, but there's a lot of what-ifs and can-nots to make it work.   More info: http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2010/09/28/can-the-navy-close-the-flying-boat-gap/ grover fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Dec 6, 2011 |
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Dec 6, 2011 02:22
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sanchez posted:The whole wings of Russia series is great despite the narration, anyone reading this thread should watch them. Caribbean Crisis is a far better name than Cuban missile crisis
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Dec 6, 2011 02:28
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grover posted:Iran is the only nation I'm aware of with an active ekranoplan program. I wonder how good these would be for drug smuggling? Kind of a return to the 1980s go-fast boats but faster and furiouser. Admit it, you can hear the Miami Vice theme coming from this guy's cockpit radio.
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Dec 6, 2011 04:22
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sanchez posted:The whole wings of Russia series is great despite the narration, anyone reading this thread should watch them. The narration is the best part.
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Dec 6, 2011 06:33
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Minto Took posted:The narration is the best part. Is it me or is the Wings of Russia series far more objective than anything American-produced? The series seems perfect capable of admitting when the Russians were behind in certain technologies, or when they stole/bought needed technology, for example.
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Dec 6, 2011 06:53
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SyHopeful posted:Is it me or is the Wings of Russia series far more objective than anything American-produced? The series seems perfect capable of admitting when the Russians were behind in certain technologies, or when they stole/bought needed technology, for example. I think the fact that it happened during soviet times means it's easier for them to admit now. The B29 thing is hilarious.
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Dec 6, 2011 15:00
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sanchez posted:I think the fact that it happened during soviet times means it's easier for them to admit now. The B29 thing is hilarious. I don't know about hilarious, but it's pretty goddamn smart. "Hey! the Americans landed some of the most advanced bombers in the world in our country and abandoned them! "Get to copying that poo poo right down to the screws in the pilot's seat". "Da Comrade!"
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Dec 6, 2011 15:53
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NosmoKing posted:I don't know about hilarious, but it's pretty goddamn smart. Well, abandoned isn't quite the right word. "Made an emergency landing and then we wouldn't let them leave" is more accurate.
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Dec 6, 2011 16:13
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sanchez posted:I think the fact that it happened during soviet times means it's easier for them to admit now. The B29 thing is hilarious. The copying of the camera made me laugh.
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Dec 6, 2011 17:25
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Frozen Horse posted:I wonder how good these would be for drug smuggling? Kind of a return to the 1980s go-fast boats but faster and furiouser. Admit it, you can hear the Miami Vice theme coming from this guy's cockpit radio. Semisubmersibles are probably better. Much more cargo, lower-observable.
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Dec 6, 2011 19:24
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Hey guys let's talk about Russian AAMs http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-BVR-AAM.html#mozTocId276821
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Dec 6, 2011 20:39
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I'll admit to shamelessly marathoning the Wings of Russia series last week. The narration has it's issues, (an entire episode on ground attack aircraft, and you fail to even make mention of the A-10 when talking about the 80s/90s whereupon you mention pretty much every other non-Russian counterpart? Really?) but overall it's not bad. The bits that deal with the experimental aircraft are glorious. Though what really did it for me was the WWI footage, but that's for a different thread. Speaking of A-10s, where I live we usually get them flying over practicing various maneuvers and occasionally lighting off some flares. Usually they're more active during the summer, but I think they just recently got back from overseas. I'll try to snag a few pictures if I have a camera handy next time they're over the valley.
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Dec 7, 2011 07:58
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sanchez posted:I think the fact that it happened during soviet times means it's easier for them to admit now. The B29 thing is hilarious. There's still a lot of pride in the Soviet era for Russians, even post-glasnost. I maintain that the series was far more objective than anything I've seen on Discovery or the Military channel.
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Dec 7, 2011 17:40
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Some video of what happens when munitions don't separate cleanly or do what they're supposed to do after leaving the airplane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RROr86sqiP8&feature=related
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Dec 8, 2011 01:14
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Ruh-oh: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/joint-strike-fighter-13-flaws/quote:The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, meant to replace nearly every tactical warplane in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, was already expected to cost $1 trillion dollars for development, production and maintenance over the next 50 years. Now that cost is expected to grow, owing to 13 different design flaws uncovered in the last two months by a hush-hush panel of five Pentagon experts. It could cost up to a billion dollars to fix the flaws on copies of the jet already in production, to say nothing of those yet to come.  This is gonna get ugly.
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Dec 13, 2011 20:31
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priznat posted:Ruh-oh: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/joint-strike-fighter-13-flaws/ So what ever happened to Republic? Can we get whoever owns them to make a new ground attack and General Dynamics to make a new multirole since they're back in the business of planes? Hell, let's just buy Eurofighters at this rate.
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Dec 13, 2011 20:44
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F-15s and drones it is!
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Dec 13, 2011 20:45
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Buy Boeing stock! (haha)
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Dec 13, 2011 20:47
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Buy a Sopwith with a biodiesel engine! 
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Dec 13, 2011 20:49
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mlmp08 posted:F-15s and drones it is! The newish super eagles with internal stores, with radar masking techniques taken from the f22/f35 is probably a great option. The f15 is a great, proven design and the pilots who fly them always have great things to say about the airframe.
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Dec 13, 2011 21:04
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I really hope the Canadian gov't takes a sober second look at these planes and goes into it with full realization of what a potential albatross it's gonna be, not just for defense spending. It's one thing if the planes are expensive but a quality product, but to have something that's going to be ridiculously expensive and potentially riddled with even more expensive to fix issues, ugh. There's always going to be teething problems but I just hope these potential issues are taken into account. I'm worried the gov't is too ideologically set on buying the planes no matter what.
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Dec 13, 2011 21:12
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priznat posted:Ruh-oh: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/joint-strike-fighter-13-flaws/
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Dec 13, 2011 21:44
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But just think of all the things that billion could have done instead of fixing some lazy shithead's mistakes. OH ITS ONLY A BILLION makes it sound like a pittance, thats enough money to feed clothe and house 25,000 middle class families for a year each! Hahaha jesus christ, $1 Trillion over 50 years is greater than the entire NASA budget! How can you defend this poo poo? EDIT: That is, all the money that has been spent on NASA over its entire history, even adjusting for inflation. thesurlyspringKAA fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Dec 13, 2011 |
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Dec 13, 2011 22:07
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grover posted:The numbers sound big and all, but this is a HUGE program with thousands of planes, and $1B only represents a 0.1% increase. The only real reason for concern would be if the problems are unfixable, but it sounds like they are all being addressed, and some of which at no additional cost to the US government. Problem lies in concurrency of development, testing, and production. One $1B mistake actually has a substantial cost multiplier effect since you have to fix all the mistake jets, and delay the test schedule all while you are producing more mistake jets that will later be fixed. It's why they're going to scrap concurrency which will push out IOC another 2-3 years at minimum and slow bleed out the program. This slippage compounds the issue of force readiness in that the rationale for F-16 and F/A-18A-D SLEP goes away since it was contingent on the idea of extending the life for only a few more years until JSF full rate ramps up in the FY16 time frame. It means they have to buy gap-filler aircraft across the services. Last time this happened in any scale was buying the F-4 all while the F-111 floundered and we all know how that turned out. Also keeping the program alive will put tremendous hurt on the navy both in terms of investment accounts and O&M and it won't be surprising when they drop it in favor of affordable solutions. daskrolator fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Dec 13, 2011 |
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Dec 13, 2011 22:17
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grover posted:The numbers sound big and all, but this is a HUGE program with thousands of planes, and $1B only represents a 0.1% increase. The only real reason for concern would be if the problems are unfixable, but it sounds like they are all being addressed, and some of which at no additional cost to the US government. Careful! A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it's going to add up to real money. Makes you wish for the days when the entire B-36 program was just a "billion dollar blunder." These days, it costs that much when some software engineer at Lockheed leaves out a semicolon or something. And, if you want to say that it's all down to inflation: when the Soviet Union was still a serious threat to the United States, Eisenhower noted that, "we pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat." Now, without a Soviet-level threat, flyaway cost estimates for the F-35 range from $120 to $150 million. Wheat is about six bucks a bushel right now. Feel free to run the numbers yourself.
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Dec 13, 2011 22:32
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Every solution the government chooses should be affordable, or at least cost effective. These "mistakes" cost the tax payer and our nations force readiness much more then the manufacturer. They gently caress up, and just add it to the governments bill. This billion dollar mistake should be on them, not us. To a certain extent I could see some of the errors as intentional "uncle Sam foots the bill, let's bleed them for an extra 1% in whoopsies and that can go to our year end bonuses" sort of deal But, that's a problem with every big budget defense project.
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Dec 13, 2011 22:37
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daskrolator posted:Problem lies in concurrency of development, testing, and production. One $1B mistake actually has a substantial cost multiplier effect since you have to fix all the mistake jets, and delay the test schedule all while you are producing more mistake jets that will later be fixed. Right on with the concurrency bit. Concurrency is fine, provided you do a proper risk/benefit analysis and determine the level of risk that is acceptable. This was never done with the JSF, and because of the powerpoint temptresses of "concurrency" and "jointness" combined with a bunch of idiot policy makers who think they know a lot more than they actually know and don't want anyone telling them otherwise, we find ourselves in our current conundrum. The gap filler/force readiness/lack of a SLEP bit goes to what I perceive as the heart of the biggest problem with the JSF, which is not that the program has had challenging goals to meet (it did and still does), or that issues have cropped up (completely unsurprising given said goals...supersonic, stealthy, AND STOVL? Come on now), but that people, both at LockMart and within the program office, have been completely unrealistic about the challenges those goals face and the issues that they have generated. Instead of taking a hard look at the program 5-6 years ago and going, you know what? It sucks and we don't like it, but IOC is gonna have to slip out because we are definitely going to encounter some issues in test, let's go ahead and roll with a SLEP and/or some new build legacy fighters (back when it would've done the most good and made the most sense) we got the current policy of insisting everything is fine all the way up until an outside organization comes in/something happens hardware wise that forces them to admit that everything isn't fine, throwing the service's plans into disarray and putting them way behind the power curve as far as generating a plan B. (For the record, the services are as much to blame for this as LockMart and the program office.) THAT is the biggest problem I have with the entire JSF program as it has unfolded. The Navy has already made semi-official noises in public about wanting to drop it and go with new build legacy jets (mostly SH's, maybe buy RN Harriers or something or just force the Marines to give up the STOVL dream) and accelerate UCAV development, I can't imagine the conversations that are happening behind closed doors at NAVAIR.
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Dec 14, 2011 10:14
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http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123122483 I don't get it. What is the point of this mission starting from Balad? Aren't there US air assets in Afghanistan?
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Dec 14, 2011 10:46
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So the Navy does aircraft procurement for the USMC?
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Dec 14, 2011 11:30
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Suicide Watch posted:http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123122483 The story is about a mission in 2007; at the time, there weren't near as many assets at Balad/Kandahar as there are today, whereas Iraq was loaded to the gills at the time. Also don't discount the inclination of the AF to fly a mission solely for the PR factor. And FYI Col Williams, Weapons teams load the bombs, but they sure as gently caress don't build them. That would be my guys, and if you refer to them as weapons they're liable to break your legs. Sjurygg posted:So the Navy does aircraft procurement for the USMC? Yes. Technically speaking the USMC and the USN both fall under the Department of the Navy; the USMC does not have a separate service secretary like the AF and Army, both the Navy and the Marines fall under the Secretary of the Navy. The USMC is an extremely lean organization, it's the dirty little secret as to how their vaunted tooth to tail ratio is so great...when you depend on another service for all of your medical, religious, legal, and most of your procurement specialists, as well as providing all of your strategic lift capability, a large portion of your logisticians, and managing the bulk of your procurement programs, of course you are going to have quite a tooth to tail ratio. However, in aviation the services are joined particularly close, as the aviation branches of both services fall under NAVAIR and utilize NATOPS manuals/procedures. USMC Hornet units regularly deploy on big deck carriers and integrate with the Carrier Air Wing. This isn't to say that the Marines don't have a vote, because they obviously do...if they didn't the Navy would've canned the Harrier a long time ago, the F-35B would've never happened, and the Marines would be in the process of trading in their legacy Hornets for Super Bugs. It's just pointing out that officially, all Navy and USMC aircraft procurement flows through NAVAIR and that both services play a role in any decisions. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Dec 14, 2011 |
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Dec 14, 2011 11:46
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can we just buy rafales instead, they're ever so pretty
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Dec 14, 2011 13:36
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So here's a question about the USMC that I'd like a somewhat serious answer to. It's mostly directed at Iyaayas, but of course open to anyone who knows anything about this stuff: Why the gently caress does USMC air need V/STOL capability? Why the gently caress does the Harrier exist in US inventories? I know this goes back to some cold war thinking, but I'll be damned if I can puzzle it out. I'm not questioning the existence of USMC air - I get the whole "marines in the air care fore marines on the ground" dick-waving that goes on and pretty much just chalk it up to history, the culture of the branch, pride, and other less than fully logical stuff. If it wasn't for all that stuff USMC Air would have been folded into the Navy's air assets back when the the Army split the USAAF off into the USAF (or folded into the USAF). But they survived the 40s, so whatever. No, what I specifically don't get is why V/STOL is important. The argument I always hear is some kind of WW2-esque fantasy about marines landing on beaches, holding off a bunch of enemy combatants, and the SeaBees being able to hack a 200 foot swath of jungle out of the way under fire in order to begin combat operations with airplanes that are drat near flying out of the forward trenches. Basically, every marine flier since 1942 has been rubbing his dog raw to the Cactus Air Force and Guadalcanal and wants to go do that again. Here's the thing: airplanes have gotten significantly more complex since 1942. It takes a lot more to keep even a relatively old jet fighter like the Harrier airborne than a bunch of Wildcats and Dauntlessness. Between all the fluids, parts, etc. if you are straight up cut off from supply for extended periods your airplanes aren't going to fly - as it's been explained to me, it's not even an issue of needing to cannibalize damaged airframes for spares a la ye olde Cactus Air Force, but of more mundane poo poo like not getting the bajillion gallons of hydraulic fluid and avgas needed to make them move. Assuming that your supply lines are secure enough to allow you to get that poo poo onto the beach . . . why not just park a carrier 100 miles offshore or something and blow the gently caress out of the enemy with Naval air assets? The real kicker is that somewhere between Guadalcanal and today they invented this nifty thing called the helicopter. Assuming you really did need air assets capable of taking off out of a crudely constructed, tiny clearing in jungle canopy for round-the-clock immediate air to ground fire support why the gently caress would you go with a jet rather than an attack chopper? So, people who know - why the gently caress does the Harrier exist in US stocks? I'll be damned if I have ever been able to figure out what it's niche is, beyond being something that lets Marines fantasize about fighting WW2 again.
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Dec 14, 2011 16:53
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Cyrano4747 posted:So here's a question about the USMC that I'd like a somewhat serious answer to. It's mostly directed at Iyaayas, but of course open to anyone who knows anything about this stuff: LHAs and LHDs. We'll have these ships for quite some time. It would suck if we didn't have any fixed wing air craft that could fly off them. Not that I think that really justifies the whole 35B...
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Dec 14, 2011 17:27
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Tremblay posted:LHAs and LHDs. We'll have these ships for quite some time. It would suck if we didn't have any fixed wing air craft that could fly off them. Not that I think that really justifies the whole 35B... From wikipedia: quote:The role of the amphibious assault ship is fundamentally different from a standard aircraft carrier: its aviation facilities have the primary role of hosting helicopters to support forces ashore rather than to support strike aircraft. However, they are capable of serving in the sea-control role, embarking aircraft like Harrier fighters and ASW helicopters. Most of these ships can also carry or support landing craft, such as air-cushioned landing craft (hovercraft) or LCUs. So. . . why do they need fixed wing assets (edit: on the LHAs)? Why do the marines need their own little baby carriers attached organically to their invasion force. What does having a fistfull of harriers on one of these things do that can't either be done with a bunch of helicopters flying off of them (for the small operations with no real enemy air assets and limited need for strike capabilities that a full carrier doesn't need to be tasked to) or by an actual aircraft carrier (for those operations that actually need serious air support, and in far greater quantities than an LHA or two can provide anyways)? Again, it's the bizarro niche thing - I just can't figure a place where the job couldn't be done better by either rotary winged assets or fixed wing Naval assets. Or hell, fixed wing USMC assets operating off a real air base or a handy CV - I'm not even going to begin to open up the "does USMC Air need to be a thing" can of worms. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Dec 14, 2011 |
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Dec 14, 2011 18:45
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Cyrano4747 posted:So, people who know - why the gently caress does the Harrier exist in US stocks? I'll be damned if I have ever been able to figure out what it's niche is, beyond being something that lets Marines fantasize about fighting WW2 again. That's a good question, especially when the whole VTOL thing is fiendishly complex and dangerous in an airplane. Like the Osprey demonstrated a few times, when you are going from vertical thrust to horizontal thrust, there's a dangerous window where neither system is working. I didn't pick up about the whole "Let's fight WW2 again" thing, though. This is not just a marine thing; the Navy with all it's carrier groups appears to be dreaming of fighting the Japanese Imperial fleet again. priznat posted:I really hope the Canadian gov't takes a sober second look at these planes and goes into it with full realization of what a potential albatross it's gonna be, not just for defense spending. It's one thing if the planes are expensive but a quality product, but to have something that's going to be ridiculously expensive and potentially riddled with even more expensive to fix issues, ugh. Sadly, I think the most important factor here is the amount of slush money going to Canadian businesses, rather then any sort of 'effectiveness' criteria. That and Harper's rule whenever America is concerned is to "Do whatever they want." I'm actually concerned enough about this that I'm going to write a letter to my MP, even though he's a Con and this district might actually be getting some of that slush money. After discussing this with slidebite in the other thread, I think what I really want is some kinda assurance that the government isn't just doing it for the money, that they actually give some sort of drat about the end product. It would be great if the government established some basic criteria for the acceptance of the F-35. Like "If it's not ready by X date, we'll have to pursue other options." I think the unit costs are already making the plane borderline nonviable, anyway. We'll see if that has any impact at the top.
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Dec 14, 2011 19:28
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Nebakenezzer posted:That's a good question, especially when the whole VTOL thing is fiendishly complex and dangerous in an airplane. Like the Osprey demonstrated a few times, when you are going from vertical thrust to horizontal thrust, there's a dangerous window where neither system is working. What? The V-22 can fly indefinitely with the nacelles in any position. It can take as long as the pilot wants to transition from vertical to horizontal flight or vice versa. Obviously the envelope changes as it transitions, but there's no point in the transition "where neither system is working," and none of the crashes have been because of the transition. One flipped over because the control wiring was backwards, two crashed because of hydraulic leaks, one was killed by vortex ring state, and one for reasons the USAF figured probably weren't mechanical in nature. So basically, what are you referring to? Alaan posted:its a death machine that will murder babies. Of course it is. If it weren't the Marines wouldn't want any. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Dec 14, 2011 |
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Dec 14, 2011 19:55
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I think mainly that most people have no loving idea about the Osprey other than the news says its a death machine that will murder babies.
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Dec 14, 2011 20:13
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VTOL jets may not be superb at combat air patrol / interception duty but they're worlds better than helicopters. You can argue that a gator freighter isn't going to be in potentially hostile waters without a real carrier's CAP overhead, but I'm not sure that's true even today when you're talking places like the Straits Of Hormuz. For intercepting smaller naval threats (your Zodiac / PT boat crap that's all over the Gulf, for instance) and for close air support a fixed-wing jet is going to have a much shorter time-to-target (possibly trading off for time over target) than a helicopter. Having any jet at all that can fly off of a gator freighter also keeps naval air capacity and flexibility as high as possible even in the face of future supercarrier force reduction. Whether these are viable and convincing arguments, I'm not sure. You probably also have some spanking off over some sort twisted Falklands replay or an envisioned situation where we're fending off an invasion of Taiwan and China's conventional ICBMs / waves of cruise missiles have removed the big-deck carriers from the scene.
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Dec 14, 2011 21:32
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Cyrano4747 posted:From wikipedia: I think there are times that sending an LHA or LHD with a DDG or two makes a lot more sense than rolling out an entire CSG.
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Dec 14, 2011 21:38
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Tremblay posted:I think there are times that sending an LHA or LHD with a DDG or two makes a lot more sense than rolling out an entire CSG. When would those times be?
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Dec 14, 2011 23:28
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