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The Sukhoi PAK FA seems to be going well.
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Jun 11, 2013 16:44
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They had some structural cracking issues IIRC but just slapped some more strengthening material on it. 1.44/1.42 was probably just a sop to MiG in the end though and why the Su-47 was built I'll never quite understand, so calling Russian efforts towards a new large fighter an unqualified success might not be entirely true. e: come to think of it, there's been some kind of jojo effect going on in USSR/Soviet plane development: MiG-21 hit, MiG-23 miss, MiG-29/Su-27 hit, 90s projects miss, PAK FA... Koesj fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 16:59
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Koesj posted:why the Su-47 was built I'll never quite understand Because it looks ridiculously cool?
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Jun 11, 2013 17:05
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NightGyr posted:Was there any trouble with the F/A-18 or the Super Hornet? As far as I know, they never ran into major snags or cost overruns. The Hornet, the Viper, and the Eagle were relatively drama free, other than the spat between McD and Northrop about selling land based Hornets. There were a few minor teething hiccups, like engine issues (of note, the Viper unfortunately only has one), but nothing on the scope of the F-35 or even the TF30 debacle with the F-14. Speaking of the Viper, it's still in production, with LockMart saying they've got enough orders to keep the lines open through 2017 and more pending. That is a pretty staggering production run for a US fighter jet...4,500 airframes and counting over a 35 year period. Believe that is second in overall numbers only to the mighty Phantom and is the longest as far as years in operation. Also speaking of the Super Bug, I think it's safe to say that between this and the Silent Eagle Boeing is smelling blood in the water.
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Jun 11, 2013 17:06
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There was talk of Canada dropping out of the F-35 program and buying Super Hornets a while back too, I don't know how serious that was and where that went though. I'm not a pilot, but I wouldn't be too keen to fly a single engine fighter over the Arctic.
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Jun 11, 2013 17:15
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Mortabis posted:Because it looks ridiculously cool? It was built for Ace Combat. iyaayas01 posted:The Hornet, the Viper, and the Eagle were relatively drama free, other than the spat between McD and Northrop about selling land based Hornets. There were a few minor teething hiccups, like engine issues (of note, the Viper unfortunately only has one), but nothing on the scope of the F-35 or even the TF30 debacle with the F-14. Speaking of the Viper, it's still in production, with LockMart saying they've got enough orders to keep the lines open through 2017 and more pending. I suppose the Internet these days makes it a lot easier for public opinions/voices to be heard regarding defence programmes, though I don't think anyone gives a poo poo what the public thinks aside from being able to wrangle a subcontract/assembly for a district and saying "Look, we created jobs!".
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Jun 11, 2013 17:42
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FrozenVent posted:There was talk of Canada dropping out of the F-35 program and buying Super Hornets a while back too, I don't know how serious that was and where that went though. I'm not a pilot, but I wouldn't be too keen to fly a single engine fighter over the Arctic. I saw a good proposal that Canada gets a bunch of F/A-18Fs and Gs to replace the current fleet along with a bunch of EA-18G Growlers because that would be something we could provide to NATO taskforces etc since that type of radar suppression aircraft are in pretty high demand. Even the F/A-18Gs could come prewired for conversion to EA-18G at a minimal extra cost. http://casr.ca/mp-northern-growler-daly.htm Probably won't happen though because it's too drat sensible.
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Jun 11, 2013 17:52
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priznat posted:I saw a good proposal that Canada gets a bunch of F/A-18Fs and Gs to replace the current fleet along with a bunch of EA-18G Growlers because that would be something we could provide to NATO taskforces etc since that type of radar suppression aircraft are in pretty high demand. Even the F/A-18Gs could come prewired for conversion to EA-18G at a minimal extra cost. Let's offer to start making chunks of the jet in Canada  Right now they are assembled in...St. Louis?
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Jun 11, 2013 17:55
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movax posted:Let's offer to start making chunks of the jet in Canada Obligatory  
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Jun 11, 2013 18:03
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iyaayas01 posted:The Hornet, the Viper, and the Eagle were relatively drama free, other than the spat between McD and Northrop about selling land based Hornets. There were a few minor teething hiccups, like engine issues (of note, the Viper unfortunately only has one), but nothing on the scope of the F-35 or even the TF30 debacle with the F-14. Speaking of the Viper, it's still in production, with LockMart saying they've got enough orders to keep the lines open through 2017 and more pending. The Hornet, Viper and Eagle are Air Force planes, not Navy. In the Jet Age the Air Force has had a steady stream of successes and not too many flops, at least in the smaller combat airframes. For whatever reason, the Navy has been way worse, and getting tangled with the AF has sometimes helped (FJ, F-4, F-18) and sometimes not (F-111, F-35.) Sure, the carrier platform introduces extra complications but this feels like a procurement and management problem, not an engineering one. I before used the example of the F7U; that plane just outright sucked, but we still built 13 squadrons of the fuckers. I can't think of any USAF equivalent that just straight up couldn't do it's job like that (the F-102 I guess underperformed but I don't see it as that bad.) The F-16 and F-18 are solid enough airframes to function essentially forever as sensor platforms / missile and bomb trucks. Other, cheaper air forces are doing essentially the same thing with poo poo as old as MiG-21s. The F-18 always seems to have that feel of "It's not really what we want, but it's what's there, and it's what we can afford"; it's not the high-performance long-range interceptor the Navy wanted/needed to replace the F-14, and it'll never be a day 0 doorknocker like the F-22. The F-35 isn't either of those either, of course. E: movax posted:I suppose the Internet these days makes it a lot easier for public opinions/voices to be heard regarding defence programmes, though I don't think anyone gives a poo poo what the public thinks aside from being able to wrangle a subcontract/assembly for a district and saying "Look, we created jobs!". The LCS program has a lot of high-ranking people haveing to come public and try to justify it (one recent and pathetic example here, that's one program I don't think would've gotten anywhere near the level of heat in the pre-internet armchair commando era. Whether it'll actually affect the number of hulls built, ehhhh. Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 18:04
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movax posted:Let's offer to start making chunks of the jet in Canada Bombardier Hornets - Bomb-Hos?
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Jun 11, 2013 18:12
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movax posted:I think the F-5/T-38 were pretty painless programs, IIRC. NightGyr posted:Was there any trouble with the F/A-18 or the Super Hornet? As far as I know, they never ran into major snags or cost overruns. evil_bunnY fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 20:19
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Phanatic posted:The air campaign in Europe was certainly not insignificant, but Stalingrad had already been turned by the time the first US bombs fell on Germany. German troops entered Stalingrad in late 1942. British bombers had been bombing German industry/infrastructure since 1939, opening restrictions in 1940. American heavy bombing efforts from England started in mid 1942. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 20:26
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Nebakenezzer posted:The Sukhoi PAK FA seems to be going well. The PAK FA is a much more conservative design, actually more akin to the standard F-35A than it is to the F-22. Imagine an F-35 scaled up and using a good set of current-gen avionics to cut costs/issues and you've got the PAK-FA.
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Jun 11, 2013 20:53
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Warbadger posted:German troops entered Stalingrad in late 1942. British bombers had been bombing German industry/infrastructure since 1939, opening restrictions in 1940. American heavy bombing efforts from England started in mid 1942. The first American bombing raid on Germany was against wilhelmshaven in early 1943.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:03
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Phanatic posted:The first American bombing raid on Germany was against wilhelmshaven in early 1943. Not all German industry was located in Germany. Point being that the UK had been bombing the poo poo out of German targets for years (including major raids over Germany itself) and the US had been hitting German industrial and military targets in occupied Europe for months (though not inside German borders) before Stalingrad saw a single German soldier. Trying to say that the bombing campaign was just a sideshow because *gasp* the bombers of one of several major allied powers hadn't fallen inside the area of the map labelled "Germany" yet is silly. Even more silly when you consider that the guy actually running the German military industry claimed the bombing efforts were pretty drat effective, they were unable to come close to their intended production goals (which even attempted to account for the bombing), and the increase in production of German wartime industry is laughable when you consider that during the 1942-1944 period they transitioned from single shift to triple shift 24/7 operation of defense-oriented factories. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 21:17
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priznat posted:I saw a good proposal that Canada gets a bunch of F/A-18Fs and Gs to replace the current fleet along with a bunch of EA-18G Growlers because that would be something we could provide to NATO taskforces etc since that type of radar suppression aircraft are in pretty high demand. Even the F/A-18Gs could come prewired for conversion to EA-18G at a minimal extra cost. Wow, this is a good idea. The major flaw in it is that it revolves around "buying useful replacement planes for the RCAF" and not "baksheesh for the federal government" so it will never appear on the Fed's radar. Unlike stealth planes? Also: read this and weep.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:22
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Phanatic posted:The first American bombing raid on Germany was against wilhelmshaven in early 1943. True, but the first American bombing missions over occupied Europe were flown in August 1942. As an illustration that the USAAF was already operating in force over Europe at the end of 1942, six of the Memphis Belle's crew's twenty-five missions took place in the winter of 1942. Just because they weren't hitting German soil doesn't mean they weren't attacking the German war effort. Nazi Germany was a parasite that kept itself in large part by stealing the output of the occupied countries, France in particular. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 21:39
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Warbadger posted:The PAK FA is a much more conservative design, actually more akin to the standard F-35A than it is to the F-22. Imagine an F-35 scaled up and using a good set of current-gen avionics to cut costs/issues and you've got the PAK-FA. At least the Russians can make a HMS for the PAK-FA that works
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Jun 12, 2013 00:12
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Xerxes17 posted:At least the Russians can make a HMS for the PAK-FA that works Honestly the Pak-FA has had its share of issues, too. It had serious engine trouble for a 3 year period ending in 2009 and half the systems (including the engines) are slated to be replaced already because they couldn't reach their performance goals with the existing equipment. The big difference is that they didn't have to shoehorn a goddamn VTOL engine into the airframe and (less importantly) they aren't being particularly ambitious with the electronics so while they won't originally fly with a bunch of new capabilities they also will avoid the inevitable teething problems.
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Jun 12, 2013 01:19
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How did the A-10 do in development?
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Jun 12, 2013 01:49
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Scratch Monkey posted:How did the A-10 do in development? I think the only real problem with the A-10 was that the Air Force fighter pilot mafia didn't want to buy it.
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Jun 12, 2013 02:03
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Is the T-80 still the MBT of the Russian military or were they finally able to migrate over to the T90 or something else?
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Jun 12, 2013 02:20
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Oxford Comma posted:Is the T-80 still the MBT of the Russian military or were they finally able to migrate over to the T90 or something else? The T-80 is still the most numerous quality model in Russian service. The Russians have about a thousand T-90s in service and are holding off on further purchases because they want the T-99 project instead. The T-90 is pretty much a stopgap/export tank, which isn't really surprising given that it's a modernized T-72B. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 12, 2013 02:50
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:True, but the first American bombing missions over occupied Europe were flown in August 1942. As an illustration that the USAAF was already operating in force over Europe at the end of 1942, six of the Memphis Belle's crew's twenty-five missions took place in the winter of 1942. The problem was that for the most part they were hitting German soil. Literally. The actual strategic bombing offensive (ie. the one that was more than merely irritating to the Germans on a local level) started in earnest in mid 1943.
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Jun 12, 2013 09:03
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Snowdens Secret posted:The Hornet, Viper and Eagle are Air Force planes, not Navy. In the Jet Age the Air Force has had a steady stream of successes and not too many flops, at least in the smaller combat airframes. For whatever reason, the Navy has been way worse, and getting tangled with the AF has sometimes helped (FJ, F-4, F-18) and sometimes not (F-111, F-35.) Sure, the carrier platform introduces extra complications but this feels like a procurement and management problem, not an engineering one. I before used the example of the F7U; that plane just outright sucked, but we still built 13 squadrons of the fuckers. I can't think of any USAF equivalent that just straight up couldn't do it's job like that (the F-102 I guess underperformed but I don't see it as that bad.) F-4 was a navy plane that was forced on a USAF that didn't want it (until TAC did a demo where they hung a shitload of Mk 82s on a Phantom and then looked at a F-102 and went ".....poo poo.") But your larger point stands, and I missed the original bit focusing in on naval aviation specifically. As for the Super Bug, there's something to be said for getting iron on the ramp (or boat) in quantities to do some good, now, with money left over to spend on other things (like sensor upgrades and munitions and poo poo) as opposed to blowing your entire budget and then some on supposedly world-beating underperforming vaporware. But very valid point about it's short legs...as was pointed out a few pages ago in that excellent piece on maritime combat, those short legs are changing the face of the USN's Carrier Strike Groups, and not in a good way.
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Jun 12, 2013 18:37
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iyaayas01 posted:F-4 was a navy plane that was forced on a USAF that didn't want it (until TAC did a demo where they hung a shitload of Mk 82s on a Phantom and then looked at a F-102 and went ".....poo poo.") But your larger point stands, and I missed the original bit focusing in on naval aviation specifically. I had thought the Super Bug was deliberately designed larger so that I had longer legs than the older F-18s? I assume it can't match what the F-14 had but it was a big improvement over the A/B/C/D models no?
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Jun 12, 2013 19:03
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Zhanism posted:I had thought the Super Bug was deliberately designed larger so that I had longer legs than the older F-18s? I assume it can't match what the F-14 had but it was a big improvement over the A/B/C/D models no? Combat range for both flavors of F-18 is about 400 nm, about 500 for the F-14. I though the legs problem for the fleet was that as refuelers, F-18's have really short legs compared to the S-3 Viking.
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Jun 12, 2013 20:08
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The extra range of the F-14 plus the (highly theoretical) extra range of the Phoenix could be the difference between a (highly theoretical) incoming bomber force getting into cruise missile range or not. Longer legs also means more endurance, which is a factor in maintaining CAP with fewer big decks that can only sortie x planes per day. But the range issue is less of a problem as a fighter and more as a strike aircraft, compared to the A-6 (1000nm strike radius) and A-7 (700nm radius.) That's the difference between putting your CVBG in shore-based cruise missile range and not, and matters a helluva lot in the Pacific. Be aware the Hornet and F-35's range numbers are often quoted with air-air loadouts, not bombs.
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Jun 13, 2013 01:58
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Obviously the USN needs to take a page from the Russians and build missile bays into the next generation of carriers.
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Jun 13, 2013 02:03
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Actually we should bring back diesel carriers and Skyraiders and use them for about 60% of what we've been using carriers for, intimidation and bombing areas with no AA capability.
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Jun 13, 2013 07:22
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Jun 13, 2013 08:08
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LP97S posted:Actually we should bring back diesel carriers and Skyraiders and use them for about 60% of what we've been using carriers for, intimidation and bombing areas with no AA capability. We should bring back aircraft made of spit and bamboo and have italian aristocrats to chuck grenades out of them.
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Jun 13, 2013 08:45
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Vindolanda posted:We should bring back aircraft made of spit and bamboo and have italian aristocrats to chuck grenades out of them. With how expensive fuel is going to get you might be surprised.
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Jun 13, 2013 09:34
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Snowdens Secret posted:But the range issue is less of a problem as a fighter and more as a strike aircraft, compared to the A-6 (1000nm strike radius) and A-7 (700nm radius.) I have always had the biggest hard-on for Intruders. Getting to do work on EA-6B projects right off the bat as an intern while I was in grad school was the coolest thing. Is the historical perspective on those things positive or negative? Also, re: light aircraft, where is USAF going with it's prop-driven light attack aircraft stuff and is it a good idea? I got so pumped when people in the office started talking about Super Tucanos being serious-use aircraft, but it never seemed to go anywhere and I lost visibility when my internship ended. Kennebago fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Jun 13, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 12:47
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What does the super Tucano do that the F35 doesn't?
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Jun 13, 2013 12:51
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Throatwarbler posted:What does the super Tucano do that the F35 doesn't? Get out of LRIP successfully?
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Jun 13, 2013 12:54
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Throatwarbler posted:What does the super Tucano do that the F35 doesn't? Not kill it's pilots?
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Jun 13, 2013 13:01
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Throatwarbler posted:What does the super Tucano do that the F35 doesn't? Cost less is pretty much the big thing. You don't really cross shop the two.
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Jun 13, 2013 13:03
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Throatwarbler posted:What does the super Tucano do that the F35 doesn't? Loiter. For CAS and COIN, the ability to be low and slow, and actually look for targets, is a huge advantage. That's why, every time you hear someone say that the F-35 is going to replace the A-10, I encourage you to LAUGH IN THEIR FACES.
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Jun 13, 2013 13:07
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