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So, the 787-9 flew yesterday. Apologies for the lack of pictures- nowhere I can legally share them from supports bbcode. http://www.airlinereporter.com/2013/09/boeing-787-9-dreamliner-takes-first-flight/
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Sep 18, 2013 17:11
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Yay it didn't crash!
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Sep 18, 2013 19:47
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Heard the most wonderful sound today walking to class.  (lovely cropped photo) Shiny silver B-17 with a red tail. Spotted in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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Sep 18, 2013 22:23
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:Heard the most wonderful sound today walking to class. Out of Willow Run? poo poo man we should have hung out before I moved away. 
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Sep 18, 2013 23:23
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:Heard the most wonderful sound today walking to class. Yankee Lady flies out of Ypsilanti (and matches that description).
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Sep 18, 2013 23:24
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It's absolutely the Lady if it's flying around Ypsi. Hopefully YAM can get their act together regarding the remains of the old bomber plant so we can have both the statics and the flyers in the same place. I miss the old hangars where you could show up and see the flyers just chilling out in the sun and walk around them.
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Sep 19, 2013 01:20
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rocket_350 posted:Yes. I've seen it out flying a few times. There are some photos of the restoration here:
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Sep 19, 2013 01:38
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I hate the fact that just about everything at New England Air Museum is not flyable. And also that NEAM is a 2 hour drive away and i don't have a car.
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Sep 19, 2013 01:41
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Boomer The Cannon posted:I love that museum. Is the They've been saying 2015 or 2016. They've been working on it since before I first started going to the museum in the mid eighties so what's another few years. It's a very ambitious project, I think they may have actually had new wing spars made. They have the fuselage, wing centre section and landing gear restored. I think they're working on engines and the outer wings now.
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Sep 19, 2013 03:45
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I think this sort of belongs here. Eagle + GoPro (or something like it). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QrhdfLCO8
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Sep 19, 2013 05:04
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Awesome video. Here's another good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mozO3F8yNeE
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Sep 19, 2013 05:13
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A USAF stunt in the Gulf of Mexico. They used a B-1B to kill a simulated enemy warship. They already proved this is possible with Handley-Pages in '21, didn't they? You could attach a dynamo to Billy Mitchel's corpse and generate endless free electricity with the spinning he must be doing in his grave. The modern USAF really needs to play at a higher difficulty level.  supposedly not a photoshop. 
Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 19, 2013 08:18
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quote:Laser-guided smart bomb crushes tinnie Truly the Australianest of headlines 
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Sep 19, 2013 11:18
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Either the bomb was full of concrete, or the next person to run a bottom trawl through that area is going to be in for an exciting afternoon.
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Sep 19, 2013 11:21
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IPCRESS posted:Either the bomb was full of concrete, or the next person to run a bottom trawl through that area is going to be in for an exciting afternoon. Blue bomb = inert warhead.
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Sep 19, 2013 11:44
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MrYenko posted:Blue bomb = inert warhead. Seems like they could save some money by just loading up a bunch of blue bombs when B-1's go pirate hunting.
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Sep 19, 2013 13:32
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dayman posted:Seems like they could save some money by just loading up a bunch of blue bombs when B-1's go pirate hunting. When dealing with B1's, it's pretty safe to say that the ordinance being delivered is orders of magnitude cheaper than the flight itself. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if one of those has already burned the cost of the bomb in fuel by the time it's taxied to the runway.
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Sep 19, 2013 14:17
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Blistex posted:When dealing with B1's, it's pretty safe to say that the ordinance being delivered is orders of magnitude cheaper than the flight itself. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if one of those has already burned the cost of the bomb in fuel by the time it's taxied to the runway. Aren't those JDAM kits really expensive?
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Sep 19, 2013 14:19
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About $25k, 1/2 to 1/3 of an hour's worth of B-1 flight time.
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Sep 19, 2013 14:37
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hobbesmaster posted:Aren't those JDAM kits really expensive? No, JDAM is cheap as poo poo which is why as soon as it came out just about everything became a precision munition. dayman posted:Seems like they could save some money by just loading up a bunch of blue bombs when B-1's go pirate hunting. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/07/world/us-wields-defter-weapon-against-iraq-concrete-bomb.html
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Sep 19, 2013 14:52
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Phanatic posted:http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/07/world/us-wields-defter-weapon-against-iraq-concrete-bomb.html Literally kinetic warfare.
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Sep 19, 2013 15:04
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So in Swizerland we currently are using two type of aircrafts : the F/A-18 and F-5  In the recent month our governement decided that it was time to change the F-5 and after long period of discussions we are very close to selecting the Gripen as our new plane. Something I'd like you guys that know stuff shed some light on is, couldn't the F/A-18 do everything we need to? Since Switzerland is neutral we never go to war and basically all their are used for is to protect our aerial space. I don't know stuff but for me the F/A-18 should be way sufficient for this? I guess we are just looking to waste large sum of money for not a lot of return... Guess the Gripen is pretty at least  
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Sep 19, 2013 15:43
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Gripen is probably cheaper, thats why you had the F-5.
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Sep 19, 2013 15:57
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Operating exclusively in Switzerland partially negates the F-18's biggest drawback: short legs. It's probably isn't competitively priced versus the Gripen, though.
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Sep 19, 2013 16:28
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Le0 posted:Something I'd like you guys that know stuff shed some light on is, couldn't the F/A-18 do everything we need to? Since Switzerland is neutral we never go to war and basically all their are used for is to protect our aerial space. I don't know stuff but for me the F/A-18 should be way sufficient for this? I'd say so. Airframes wear out eventually, and need replacement. While I don't know when the Swiss bought F-18s, other countries that also bought them (like Canada and Spain) are looking for new aircraft. The Gripen is a good airplane for the Swiss, IMO. It does everything you need from a modern warplane, is apparently quite tough and reliable, and can operate off of improvised runways. (The latter being a concern in the highly unlikely scenario that Italy goes fascist again and tries to reunite the Italian-speaking peoples.)
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Sep 19, 2013 16:49
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Those are old C/D model Hornets, not the modern Super Hornet. The SH would be a good fit, but yeah probably too expensive. There are a lot more F-5s than F-18s, so you're talking about replacing almost half your fighters. They also might not want such a large aircraft...the SH is an extra 50% longer and about 75% wider (wingspan) than a Grippen. Ramp space might be a concern.
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Sep 19, 2013 17:01
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F-5's are used for the Swiss demonstration team. Super Hornets might be too big for that.
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Sep 19, 2013 17:06
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hobbesmaster posted:Aren't those JDAM kits really expensive? Like mentioned JDAMs are pretty cheap, but dayman was actually talking about keeping the JDAM kit and using inert bombs instead of functional ones with HE in them. The savings there are probably in the hundreds to low thousands of dollars, as dumb free-fallers are a dime a dozen. As for the talk about Swiss fighter replacements. They should just get a single F-35 and use it as a target drone for their F-5's.
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Sep 19, 2013 17:26
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Godholio posted:Ramp space might be a concern. I've read that this is a massive pro for the Gripen. The hangars hidden in the mountains and the small airfields won't need any large and expensive modifications when using Gripen whereas all competitors would need it.
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Sep 19, 2013 19:17
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The Swiss Hornets entered service in 1996, so they're not all that old...certainly not like our Hornets in Canada, which are literally some of the first off the production line in 1982. Also, the story of how the Swiss ended up buying the Hornet is kind of 
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Sep 19, 2013 20:02
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I ended up at the Wikipedia page for the F-5, after seeing just now in this thread that the Swiss are still using it, and stumbled across this: The Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstrator was a modified F-5E that was designed to see if looking like a kitchen utensil would make it possible to reduce the noise created by sonic booms.
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Sep 19, 2013 20:29
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ehnus posted:I ended up at the Wikipedia page for the F-5, after seeing just now in this thread that the Swiss are still using it, and stumbled across this: The Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstrator was an experiment to see if the other fighters would laugh at it. They did.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:23
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ehnus posted:I ended up at the Wikipedia page for the F-5, after seeing just now in this thread that the Swiss are still using it, and stumbled across this: DERPA
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Sep 19, 2013 22:17
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ehnus posted:I ended up at the Wikipedia page for the F-5, after seeing just now in this thread that the Swiss are still using it, and stumbled across this: Looks like an awesome seaplane
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Sep 20, 2013 01:46
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Don't the Swiss Hornets have a FCS that allows up to 9g vs. the 7.5 for all other Hornets/Super Hornets? I'm sure I've read that in several places but I don't know if it's true. F-5s are boss. One of my crazy billionaire fantasies is to own one. 
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Sep 20, 2013 01:48
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Aargh posted:Looks like an awesome seaplane 
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Sep 20, 2013 01:54
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grover posted:Yeah, it does! Shame supersonic aircraft don't work well as seaplanes That's not a supersonic aircraft, though. Premptive 
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Sep 20, 2013 02:13
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The Swiss are surrounded by first-world nations (and Italy) that are armed with Eurofighters and Dassault's. They're landlocked, have an airspace that can be patrolled with a C172 in an afternoon, and a total of 7 military and 18 civilian airports. 1. Is "highway operation" really necessary? 2. Would they be better served with something that's 99% air superiority rather than bomb taxi? (they still have relatively young F-18s to do that) 3. Would going the Eurofighter route be better since there is closer access to the parts and service infrastructure as opposed to something on the other side of Europe? 4. Are they out of Nazi gold yet? Do they really have to think of cost being the first priority? If they are set on fighters, why not a Silent Eagle to give them some 4.5(ish) generation fighters with limited stealth capabilities and excellent intercept capabilities. (they have a small country, so faster intercepts would be a plus) Essentially, what is the most likely thing they are going to use these fighters for? I don't know of them ever dropping a bomb in anger, and they only had limited engagements during WWII with a few skirmishes with German and US strays. Honestly, to me it would seem that the size of their nation would dictate that a top-notch SAM network would be a better deterrent than fighters. Someone care to school me on why this is all wrong and why the F-111 is the best option?
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Sep 20, 2013 03:24
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Captain Postal posted:A USAF stunt in the Gulf of Mexico. They used a B-1B to kill a simulated enemy warship. Ha, I worked on this software 
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Sep 20, 2013 03:32
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Previa_fun posted:Don't the Swiss Hornets have a FCS that allows up to 9g vs. the 7.5 for all other Hornets/Super Hornets? I'm sure I've read that in several places but I don't know if it's true. I'd step it up a notch and get a F-20.
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Sep 20, 2013 04:05
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