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Snowdens Secret posted:It sounds like Block 30 RQ-4s are done, but they'll still buy some block 40s. Defensetech was running the U-2 story as well, and something about an RQ-4 crash in Pakistan (can't link, on phone.) They do exactly what the pilot programs them to do when they lose link, with one alleged exception that was somewhat well known a while back.
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Jan 29, 2012 04:34
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I'm doing some research on postwar military aircraft development and there's two 1/1000 reference sheets I've been working on, here's the first: This one's about fighters/interceptors with naval aviation in blue and carrier adapted aircraft in violet. I've spread them out over 5 generations with a rough horizontal chronology and vertical spread by range and task going on. There are some experimental and even untried designs in there, can you guys spot them? Alternate quiz: name all aircraft  Anyone got some tips on how to correct some things, what color the F/A-18 needs for example or whether or not Sweden deserves its own flag. There's also some missing aircraft, most probably in the earlier generations or form smaller countries so which ones did I miss out on? I mostly did this for myself to get a macro view on what the trends were by the way. It was cool to see point defense fighter-interceptors being built across the board in the late fifties (which isn't that much of an obscure fact but it's neat) and everyone save the US having a eurocanard design going on in the eighties.
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Jan 29, 2012 21:21
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Koesj posted:I'm doing some research on postwar military aircraft development and there's two 1/1000 reference sheets I've been working on, here's the first: This is really, really neat. Is there any chance you could knock together a version with the names of the fighters (even if just the numeric designation - F16 instead of "F16 Falcon" if space is an issue) under the silhouettes? Because, seriously, holy poo poo that's great.
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Jan 29, 2012 21:26
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Sure. It would take some time though since the lay-out needs to be tightened. Here's the other one btw.
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Jan 29, 2012 21:48
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Koesj posted:whether or not Sweden deserves its own flag. Yes  I'm serious - looking at how many fighters Saab has produced since 1950 vs. an entire continent's worth of aerospace industry? It's impressive.
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Jan 29, 2012 21:51
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Koesj posted:Sure. It would take some time though since the lay-out needs to be tightened. Here's the other one btw. You should also get bored and do similar things for IFVs, small arms, etc. They're actually really neat resources for visualizing what the gently caress is going on with different generations of equipment.
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Jan 29, 2012 22:00
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I have to say, the PAK FA looks like a goddamn spacefighter, it's certainly the coolest looking silhouette.
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Jan 29, 2012 22:16
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Psion posted:I'm serious - looking at how many fighters Saab has produced since 1950 vs. an entire continent's worth of aerospace industry? It's impressive. You're absolutely right, the EU flag is a holdover from when I had some other projects still in there (SEPECAT, PANAVIA and the G-91) which I later moved around or just took out (because who gives a gently caress about repurposed trainer aircraft). Cyrano4747 posted:You should also get bored and do similar things for IFVs, small arms, etc. Nahh the thing with aircraft is that you can easily get their outlines from sites like these (baller site), make work paths out of them in PS and put all of it together in illustrator. AFVs need more than only outlines to be able to discern them and I'm just not that into small arms. quote:They're actually really neat resources for visualizing what the gently caress is going on with different generations of equipment. Yeah that's exactly what I was aiming for. Just look at all those parallel developments going on between and even inside countries, or the duplication of capabilities over both naval and land-based designs before ca. 1975. Really avoiding finishing up my thesis here to just concentrate on stuff like this for non-sensical reasons
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Jan 29, 2012 22:19
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One general thought that applies to both...you need a shade for aircraft that were originally carrier aircraft and were then adapted for land based use. The first ones that come to mind would be the F-4 and A-7. You should also probably have a different color for both the F-35 and the Rafale since they were intended for both carrier and land based use since the start of their respective projects.Koesj posted:I'm doing some research on postwar military aircraft development and there's two 1/1000 reference sheets I've been working on, here's the first: Suggested tweaks/additions - For the U.S.: the F-102 should be on the interceptor line, F-106 should be added (unless that's it next to the YF-12...?), and the F-15 and F-14 could possibly be moved to the interceptor column...the F-15C was straight air to air and I would argue that the F-15E should be included on the bomber chart, and while the F-14 did gain the ability to drop bombs later in its career, as designed it was a straight up interceptor. Koesj posted:Sure. It would take some time though since the lay-out needs to be tightened. Here's the other one btw. Suggested additions...Su-34 Platypus, F-15E Strike Eagle, I'm not sure if the SEPECAT Jaguar is in there, but it should be, the Mirage 2000N/D (also maybe a Super Etendard), and the Q-5 Fantan. Really cool work, thanks for sharing it.
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Jan 29, 2012 22:49
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iyaayas01 posted:One general thought that applies to both...you need a shade for aircraft that were originally carrier aircraft and were then adapted for land based use. The first ones that come to mind would be the F-4 and A-7. You should also probably have a different color for both the F-35 and the Rafale since they were intended for both carrier and land based use since the start of their respective projects. I'm still tweaking the color codes so nothing is final yet. Already had the 106 in there and kinda not wanted to add the 102 since it wasn't a great design. I agree about the F-14 being an almost pure interceptor at the outset but I'm not sure about the F-15, more air-superiority than interceptor and where to put it in comparison to the eurocanards (multirole) or the Su-27 (used for pretty much anything on a shoe-string Russian budget)? I'm def. adding the Su-34 and F-15E and the Jag is already in. Not sure about the 2000N/D since I've already got the 2k as a multirole fighter on the A-A side of things. Forgot to add the Q-5 somewhere. 
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Jan 29, 2012 23:21
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You should put the Tornado under multirole as the F3 shared duty with the F-4M and took a spot between the Lightning and the Typhoon as a front line fighter.
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Jan 29, 2012 23:38
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Thought of one other addition...if the F3H makes the cut (and I think it should) then I think the F4D should be on there as well, as they had almost identical times in service and were equally useful (as opposed to something like the Gutless Cutlass), plus the F4D held a couple of records for overall speed and time to climb, as well as being the first carrier capable aircraft able to exceed Mach 1 in level flight.co199 posted:You should put the Tornado under multirole as the F3 shared duty with the F-4M and took a spot between the Lightning and the Typhoon as a front line fighter. Or if you wanted to be tricky you could have a Tornado silhouette on both the fighter and attack/bomber layouts, since the case could be made that the ADV was a significantly different design than the IDS/ECR. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Jan 29, 2012 |
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Jan 29, 2012 23:39
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Yeah I was a bit on the fence about adding the Skyray, mostly for lay-out reasons, but since it seems it was an interceptor too I can easily add it in there. I had the idea of having the ADV show on the fighter page with the wings extended and the IDS on the air to ground page fully swept to change things up. Hadn't gotten to it yet. Note how the Tornado is a lot smaller than both the Su-24 and the F-111. It really seems like the Brits got burnt on the TSR2 and lowered their expectations. I didn't really notice those kind of things before starting on this reference sheet. e: I'm still missing the Superbug but there's no decent planview out there which I can easily adapt into an outline (top view w/ a clear canopy, F version most wanted).
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Jan 29, 2012 23:53
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Now you just need to add a column for UAV/UCAVs...
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Jan 30, 2012 00:11
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Nnnnnoooooo  e: Uploaded it as a .pdf Koesj fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 00:13
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Vegetarianism is the future (or in the case of the Reaper, the future has already arrived).
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Jan 30, 2012 00:29
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Pablo Bluth posted:Now you just need to add a column for UAV/UCAVs...  Actual content: slight correction, the "MiG 4.12" should actually be 1.42 or 1.44. And you mentioned the disparity between the U.S. and the other Euro-canards...I'm sure you already know this but just for the sake of discussion the reason for that is like someone mentioned earlier, canards are not particularly conducive to maintaining a low LO signature, so while the U.S. got its LO boner with the ATF project, the rest of Europe looked at the cost and said "no thanks." This makes the Chinese decision to put canards on the J-20 interesting, although it is possible that they have software similar to that on the Eurofighter which is intended to minimize as much as possible the increase in LO signature from the canards. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 00:58
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Shouldn't the Typhoon be with the European aircraft and not the British?
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Jan 30, 2012 01:42
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I know, I know. Taking out the human cargo robs aircraft of all its romanticism. But as least  can afford to make them! We got out of the solo game following the Hawker Siddeley Hawk; the Tornado and Eurofighter ought to be removed from us and put in a Euro-collaboration row.Edit: you've put the Gnat on there, you should probably add the Hawk.
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Jan 30, 2012 01:45
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Flikken posted:Shouldn't the Typhoon be with the European aircraft and not the British? Pablo Bluth posted:I know, I know. Taking out the human cargo robs aircraft of all its romanticism. But as least Koesj posted:the EU flag is a holdover from when I had some other projects still in there (SEPECAT, PANAVIA and the G-91) which I later moved around or just took out (because who gives a gently caress about repurposed trainer aircraft). I'm still a bit torn on adding atrue EU row, might as well toss all European aircraft in. Mind you I reflagged it as Swedish in the .pdf version. Putting in the Hawk would mean having to add a whole load of comparable aircraft. I'd rather take the Gnat out were it not for the excellent job it seemed to have done for the Indians against Pakistan.
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Jan 30, 2012 02:10
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MiG23 should be paired with the 27, since they are mostly the same. Sukhoi's other planes too: SU11, SU24, SU25 China had the J2 (aka MiG15), J5 (aka MiG17), J6 (aka MiG19) Israel is missing. Namely, the Nesher (aka Mirage 5) and Kfir Wild EEPROM fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 03:04
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You should get rid of all the designs that never actually flew. Really if you are going to include the F108 and F-23 you could at least add a row for Canada with the Cf-100 and Arrow.  I'm just bitter from my visit to the Toronto Air and Space museum. They have a full size mockup of the Arrow so naturally the government is evicting them and tearing down the building to build a hockey rink.
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Jan 30, 2012 04:09
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Long-rear end post.jwoven posted:MiG23 should be paired with the 27, since they are mostly the same. Even the -23BN ground attack 'version' had a wholly different nose assembly, engine, subsystems and strengthened areas compared to the air-to-air -23s (this is the one that was exported). After they changed the intakes and shaved off excess weight to simplify the plane, since it had a pretty straightforward attack role (plus adding more armor and strengthening it again), the Soviets themselves introduced it as a new type. Mind you this inside a system that called the Backfire 'Tu-22M' even though it had almost nothing in common with the earlier Blinder. I've got one sheet with fighters and one sheet with ground attack planes and even the Tornado is split up in two versions right now. I'd say the MiG-23/27 difference is big enough to justify two entries within my current split. Otherwise I'll have to rethink the whole thing again. quote:Sukhoi's other planes too: SU11, SU24, SU25 I've got the Su-9 in there of which the Su-11 is a modification within the same timeframe and with the same role, I guess I could name them Su-9/11 (wait that doesn't look right). The other two are in there  quote:China had the J2 (aka MiG15), J5 (aka MiG17), J6 (aka MiG19) I'd venture to say that the earlier Chinese planes were mostly copies of the Soviet models while their big push into independent developments started happening around the Sino-Soviet split. The models transferred from the USSR were already out of date in '61 and the bulk of indigenous work on the J-6 was done to transform it into the Q-5. With the MiG-21 handover in '62 they received design documents and possibly some complete aircraft as a Soviet gesture towards peace after their first clashes and the Chinese did a lot of work to troubleshoot it in quite some ways. Afterwards it was in production until 2008 and is still used by over a dozen countries. quote:Israel is missing. Namely, the Nesher (aka Mirage 5) and Kfir. Good call, I could add the Lavi too as yet another example of an eighties Eurocanard project. Then again, even the Kfir was mostly a modernization project and a way around the French embargos. Plus, if I added these aircraft I should probably throw in the South African Mirage projects too (and another canard project with the Atlas Carver). Not stoked about having to abandon my current lay-out, but, planes like the Japanese F-1 and F-2 and the Korean and Taiwanese F-16 facsimiles are missing too. helno posted:You should get rid of all the designs that never actually flew. Now to both this and what I gather is the gist of jwoven's post I can only say one thing: the point of my current setup is to get more of a general view of aircraft development. I've only added the flags and type names for easy viewing by others. My goal was to be able to discern both parallel projects with comparable outcomes in different countries and major divergences in design philosophies. For example: - Almost every country came up with a stovepive design for their immediate post-war fighter aircraft except for the british who kept going along with updated Meteor and Vampire versions until the Hunter was introduced in the early fifties. - American as well as French early supersonic fighters continuing the lineage of earlier aircraft in name (Super Sabre/Mystère) with both being relatively quickly relegated to a fighter bomber role when new planes came out of the breakneck-speed fifties pipeline. - The MiG-15 to 21 having the same design bureau working on successively more advanced aircraft by slowly reducing wing sweep but retaining similar size and, supposedly, simplicity. - Point defense fighters being a really hot thing in the late fifties/early sixties with every country bringing a short-legged fast-climbing aircraft into service. - Dedicated interceptors dwindling in importance after more and more fighters were able to adapt to this role except for: A. The existence of the Soviet PVO as a dedicated Air Defense branch and B. Naval interceptors (or in the case of the UK, over-water interceptors) remaining relevant. Hell, the Tornado ADV supposedly only got off the ground after the Brits decided that the F-14 was too expensive for their tastes! - Massive duplication going on between land-based and naval designs in both the US and the UK up until the latter gave up their catapult carriers. Even the McNamara trend of multi-service designs (F-4, F-111) hasn't broken this tradition. - The Soviets on the other hand had always planned to just adapt existing planes for naval uses, first with the MiG-23K in their abortive early seventies carrier project and later with the Mig-29K and Su-27K. The latter won out at first but now they'll be changing to the MiG together with the Indian order that came in a couple of years ago, have to have a decent maintenance base. - The first swing-wing plane designed to be a jack of all trades but ending up too heavy (F-111) and living life as a dedicated Strike aircraft. The Su-24 looks like an exact carbon copy (it ain't) and the Brits got burnt on the non variable sweep but still very expensive TSR-2. When the F-111K didn't turn out to be all that they started again with the Anglo-French Variable Geometry, had a falling out with Dassault internally pushing the Mirage G and ended up with the Germans and Italians with the Tornado. These things are all, like, connected man. - In a really roundabout way the A/F X (mislabeled both as the A/F XX and a dedicated naval aircraft by me, oops) was an abortive early nineties attempt to build both an F-111 and eventual F-15E/F-117 replacement and as a follow-on to the A-6 on the Navy side after the A-12 got cancelled and an outgrowth of the Naval ATF program (navalized F-22/F-23). The design team was later folded into the JAST office which became the JSF. - Yes the JSF is basically the new F-111. There's tons more of these kinds of things: Eurocanards for all, Mach 2,5+ interceptors, the return of dedicated attack aircraft, why aren't the Intruder and the Buccanneer the same plane, the Soviets having large-rear end antiship bombers (with even their XB-70 copy having this role), STOVL aircraft - or - where Yakovlev really showed their true colors, the French always going for it alone, Sweden, runoffs between competing designs in the US after McNamara (I need to add the A9). Some of those things you only take into view after having it laid out there, or at least for me it feels that way, and clinging to this arbitrary classification helped me out a ton. Please correct me where I'm wrong. PS: I had the Avro Arrow in there and really want to put it back in, only place is in the UK line-up though haha so the Canuck flag has to go lie down somewhere 
Koesj fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 04:46
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helno posted:Really if you are going to include the F108 and F-23 you could at least add a row for Canada with the Cf-100 and Arrow. Put a Bomarc silhouette in red, white and blue on the Canadian timeline. You know you want to.
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Jan 30, 2012 04:56
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Koesj posted:Some of those things you only take into view after having it laid out there, or at least for me it feels that way, and clinging to this arbitrary classification helped me out a ton. Please correct me where I'm wrong. This (and the entire  above it) are why I think this is such a cool document...it's nice to be able to compare/contrast and see the different lineages of different projects. Your point about A/F-XX/JAST/JSF is a whole 'nother rabbit hole that we could go down...here's some interesting reading on that subject from the JSF program office's website.I agree that it would be nice to have things like the Kfir and Atlas in there (even if they are just modifications of various Mirage designs) but I also am sympathetic to the fact that it would add more complexity to the chart...short of adding in a line for Israel/South Africa/Japan/etc I just don't see any way to add those extra countries/planes in.
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Jan 30, 2012 05:10
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iyaayas01 posted:Actual content: slight correction, the "MiG 4.12" should actually be 1.42 or 1.44 ... Woops I missed out on sperging over this post. The MiG ЛФИ (PRL) 4.12 is the single-engined, MiG-29 replacing offshoot of the MFI project and was started somewhere in '86 I think. I don't really like the S-37 and 1.42/44 projects since the Flanker has proven to have so much growth potential that these planes feel kinda superfluous. Do remember that the original canard fighter projects, the ECF and the Gripen, both started in the late seventies with design work done in the early eighties. No concrete ATF influence back then and depending on US disclosure they probably either didn't know about HAVE BLUE or didn't believe in a working faceted design (the latter being a bit more likely since this was going on in Germany). The ATB (which evolved into the B-2) was most def. off bounds. Koesj fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 05:39
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this makes me all excited, like a little girl. http://vimeo.com/30230876 Check out the German, too, it's also on his page.
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Jan 30, 2012 06:55
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Would it make sense to add lines or shading or something indicating when the countries were in active military conflict, to see inflection points in rate or direction of design?
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Jan 30, 2012 06:58
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Ah, I had no idea that the 4.12 was a thing. Cool. Yeah, I had my timelines a little off with the Euro-canard/ATF comparison. Something interesting is that almost all of the original proposals submitted for the ATF RFI in the early '80s featured canards...interestingly only Northrop and Lockheed had all canard-less designs (McD had a few canard-less designs and Lockheed's featured retractable canards), which is something you might expect given Have Blue and the ATB. That experience probably also explains to some degree their selection as the finalists. I guess what I should have said is that the USAF probably would have gone with a canard-delta design of some sort for the ATF had they not had such a hard-on for LO performance. Cross posting from the movie thread, since it seems to be relevant... WOLVERINES!!!!!! Red Dawn is on right now, and I just want to reiterate that it is the greatest movie in the history of humankind. The NRA "cold dead hands" bumper sticker/dead guy lying on the ground with a 1911 just happened. Waiting for the "from the files obtain form 4-4-7-3" bit. I think we may have discussed it before, but more along the lines of this thread, something they did manage to get pretty correct was all the Soviet equipment. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 07:22
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Man they're gonna rear end up that movie so bad in the remake
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Jan 30, 2012 11:08
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Snowdens Secret posted:Man they're gonna rear end up that movie so bad in the remake Yeah, they'll put Rihanna in it, add robots and call it "Hungry Hungry Hippos"!
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Jan 30, 2012 14:41
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Jan 30, 2012 17:23
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atomicthumbs posted:I'd love to see the look on the test pilot's face when they told him to get into that and what the *ahem* "take off" procedure was going to be. I'm guessing it was either  or  depending on just how crazy a test pilot he was.
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Jan 30, 2012 17:28
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Well, this is cause for much beating of breasts across the internet: "5 A-10 Squadrons to be Cut" http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/01/airforce-5-a10-squadrons-cut-013012/ Air Force Times posted:While the A-10 is very good at providing close-air support, the Air Force needs aircraft that can do more than one mission, Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Jan. 26 in an interview with Military Times reporters and editors. The plan is to replace the A-10 with TFR's favorite whipping boy, the F-35. Partly to save money. The idea of saving money using an F-35 is pretty  to me by this point.Also, here's my favorite internet reaction to this so far: 
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Jan 30, 2012 22:00
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How the gently caress is it supposed to be cost effective to stop using an airframe that they have a ton of experience with and which is basically just maintenance costs at this point and switching to one that is brand new, has had non-stop teething issues, and which might be prone to god knows what exciting new maintenance headaches down the road? Here's hoping they're at least smart enough to mothball the airframes and not do something colossally stupid like sell them or, worse, scrap them.
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Jan 30, 2012 22:22
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Cyrano4747 posted:How the gently caress is it supposed to be cost effective to stop using an airframe that they have a ton of experience with and which is basically just maintenance costs at this point and switching to one that is brand new, has had non-stop teething issues, and which might be prone to god knows what exciting new maintenance headaches down the road? Not to mention it lacks a radar or any real capability for night or poor weather operations. Since the war isn't going to stop at night or when it rains, that means we would have to maintain an all-weather close-air support capability anyhow, and pretty much renders the A-10 redundant. That we can fill the A-10's niche with fewer aircraft, fewer pilots, fewer maintenance, etc, by leveraging off F-35As already required for other mission roles, will actually save money in the long run. grover fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 22:44
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"General, what's the biggest difference about the F-35 program?" "Well, instead of bribing me directly, the money is now held in escrow in various offshore bank accounts, until the waiting period passes and Lockheed Martin simply firehouses cash into my bank account openly with a 'consulting' job after I 'retire'."
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Jan 30, 2012 22:45
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But if we keep the A-10 and don't buy even more F-35s we can't keep making GBS threads money down the throats of Lockheed so it's a logical decision.
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Jan 30, 2012 22:47
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At least one of them is going on to better things: http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/2040-thunderbolt-10-warplane-storm-chaser.html It will replace the National Science Foundation's 35 year old T-28, which has over 900 storm penetrations under its belt. The retrofit will include adding heavy duty de-icers, engine intake shielding, reinforced leading edges, lighting rods all over, and a conducting copper mesh around the canopy. For that one A-10 it will be like it died and went to Valhalla  
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Jan 30, 2012 22:57
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grover posted:Reported for shilling.
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