Cao Ni Ma posted:

Whooops time to spend another trillion dollar developing a jet that can actually evade chinese radars I guess

Endman posted:

Why did the logic change from building planes that are too fast/high to shoot down to building flying bricks with 'lol u can't see me xD' paint on them?

Riot Bimbo posted:

we spent 20 years salivating over the b2 and the f117 and everyone went fully braindead in the process

Endman posted:

Why did the logic change from building planes that are too fast/high to shoot down to building flying bricks with 'lol u can't see me xD' paint on them?

Endman posted:

Why did the logic change from building planes that are too fast/high to shoot down to building flying bricks with 'lol u can't see me xD' paint on them?

The Oldest Man posted:

That said though the "too high" paradigm pretty much ended when U2s started getting shot down. The "too fast" paradigm ended when satellite recon became a thing.

gradenko_2000 posted:

stealth became a thing because you can always make a missile that can fly higher, and fly faster, than any plane

at some point you have to do something to make the plane too difficult to shoot at, at least for long enough that you can close in and shoot something yourself

gradenko_2000 posted:

stealth became a thing because you can always make a missile that can fly higher, and fly faster, than any plane

at some point you have to do something to make the plane too difficult to shoot at, at least for long enough that you can close in and shoot something yourself

Real hurthling! posted:

the fighterjet of the future is a truck full of missile

quote:

Through the later part of the 1950s and into the 1960s, military air planners increasingly believed that future air combat would be carried out almost entirely by long-range missile fire. This changed the basic requirements for a fighter design considerably. The pilots would be expected to fight primarily through their radar and fire control systems, hopefully never even seeing their opponent. Because of this, the emphasis was on "head down" combat and an all-round view was considered unimportant. Radar systems were so complex that a pilot could not be expected to operate both the aircraft and the radar, so a second crewman, the "radar intercept officer", or "RIO", became a common fixture.[1]

In the case of the Navy, the primary threat to their air operations would be high-speed aircraft attacking their aircraft carriers, potentially with long-range anti-ship missiles that were assumed to have nuclear warheads.[1] Even if detected at long distances, these aircraft would be traveling so fast that the carrier-borne interceptors simply would not have enough time to launch and attack them before they had closed with the carriers. For instance, given a 100-mile (160 km) range on the shipboard radars, an aircraft traveling at Mach 2, about 1,400 mph (2,300 km/h), would close from initial detection to a five-mile (8 km) firing range in just over four minutes. In this time, an interceptor would have to launch, climb to altitude, maneuver into position, and fire.

One solution to this problem was to keep the interceptors in the air at all times. But given the short loiter times of high-performance aircraft like the F-4 Phantom, this would require huge fleets of fighters in order to keep a top cover in place while others were refueling. An aircraft with dramatically improved loiter times would be needed to make this approach practical. Another solution would be to increase the detection range, allowing more time for an interception. However, the detection range is largely a function of the radar horizon as seen from the radar mast, and there was little that could be done to extend this much beyond 100 miles (160 km). The solution here was to mount the search radar on aircraft, pushing the range out hundreds of miles from the ships.

In 1957, the Navy began the formal process of ordering what they referred to as a "fleet defense fighter".[2] They envisioned a large aircraft with loiter times on the order of six hours, supported by a dedicated radar aircraft providing early warning. In order to get the loiter times they wanted, the aircraft had to carry a large fuel load and was thus very large. The complex radar required dedicated operators, which resulted in a three-man crew. Additionally, they specified a side-by-side layout so both the pilot and co-pilot could concentrate on a single centered radar display, avoiding duplication of equipment and helping reduce communications errors that could occur if they were looking at different screens. Since dogfighting was out of the question, the aircraft was strictly subsonic and did not require all-round visibility, suggesting a cockpit layout similar to the Grumman A-6 Intruder.[3]

...

Finally, in July 1960,[7] Douglas Aircraft won the contract for the aircraft itself,[8] being selected over designs from North American Aviation and McDonnell Aircraft.[2] They proposed using the relatively new turbofan engine design to improve fuel economy, and thus loiter time. Pratt & Whitney was selected to start development of the TF30 to fill this role. Other than that, the F6D design was typical of subsonic designs of years earlier, like their Douglas F3D Skyknight.[9] It featured a large cockpit area well forward on the aircraft, above the large radar and avionics section in a somewhat bulbous arrangement with windows on the front area only. The two engines were mounted on the side of the aircraft under the straight wings, and the rest of the fuselage and tail section were very simple.[2]
Cancellation

In order for the F6D "system" to work, a large number of technologies had to work at the same time. Among these were the new engines, radar, missiles, and the supporting early warning aircraft. Development of the F6D itself was highly likely to be successful and low cost, but the system as a whole was very risky and expensive.

Throughout the program, others in the Navy questioned the entire concept. They argued that, once the Missileer had fired its missiles, it would be completely unable to defend itself, and would have to return to the carrier as quickly as possible to re-arm. During that time, its slow speed and lack of dogfighting ability would make it an easy target for any escorting forces in the strike package. These arguments eventually won out, and, when combined with a desire to cut military spending in pursuit of a balanced budget, led to the cancellation of the F6D in December 1961.[2]

The Oldest Man posted:

Yeah I'm sure LockMart wouldn't like, have designed the stealth fighter to emit while it's flying just to pick up some additional data points on the seat-belt tension level in flight that they could use... to... cut their own costs...

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1504371964277841920?s=20&t=pygUWfww0sy8KJOSLyHEhg

Stairmaster posted:

wouldnt the af notice its plane is emitting radiowaves

also usually they put poo poo on stealth planes to amplify its radar cross section during these peacetime flights so adversary nations can't tell how well their sensors would work in an actual war.

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Oldest Man posted:

Yeah I'm sure LockMart wouldn't like, have designed the stealth fighter to emit while it's flying just to pick up some additional data points on the seat-belt tension level in flight that they could use... to... cut their own costs...

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1504371964277841920?s=20&t=pygUWfww0sy8KJOSLyHEhg

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Oldest Man posted:

. The "too fast" paradigm ended when satellite recon became a thing.

OhFunny posted:

The most eye opening part comes at 52min where he says the Air Force's E-3 fleet really struggles to maintain operations because of how much maintenance they require (these planes are 35 years ago.)

He said, "We have four of them in AFPAC and often times all four of them are not able to fly due to maintenance issues."

Endman posted:

Pfft the Navy are idiot fools; simply replace the pilot with an expendable ape so you won't mind losing the plane

Otherwise known as a marine

Lostconfused posted:

So you're saying there might be a chance they'll forget to take it off and a few pilots might not realize why their stealth plane is lighting up on the radar?

gradenko_2000 posted:

the B-52 is just 737MAX-brain taken to the extreme

Goast posted:

how many did vietnam shoot down again

surprising what a solid aaa network will do against foreign aerial threats

quote:

B-52 Stratofortress—31 total (17 in combat, two more being scrapped after sustaining battle damage, and 12 crashed in flight accidents)[11]

First losses were operational (non-combat) mid-air collision 2 B-52F 57-0047 and 57-0179 (441st Bomb Squadron, 320th Bomb Wing), 18 June 1965, South China Sea during air refueling orbit, 8 of 12 crewmen killed
Final loss: B-52D 55-0056 (307th Bomb Wing Provisional) to SAM 4 January 1973, crew rescued from Gulf of Tonkin

indigi posted:

1) is chaff real or is that just something from video games
2) is it effective
3) why don’t they just make chaff into tiny autonomous drones that home in on a missile and blow it up

gradenko_2000 posted:

1. yes
2. some of the time. usually the problem is if you're shot more often than you have chaff available, or if you're shot without you knowing to need to deploy chaff
3. lol

Stairmaster posted:

the navy doesnt have majors

indigi posted:

1) is chaff real or is that just something from video games
2) is it effective
3) why don’t they just make chaff into tiny autonomous drones that home in on a missile and blow it up

Robo Reagan posted:

why dont they just use the cyber to hack the missile and send it back at whoever launched it. i mean if we arent doing that why the hell are we telling everyone to learn to code