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408 Squadron apparently won't be happy until literally every surface on Earth has a goose sticker on it. They've zapped our civilian aircraft so many times it isn't even funny!
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Mar 4, 2015 05:46
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iyaayas01 posted:lol my unit made it into not one but two different areas Yeah those were at the arrival area of TLS. edit; probably my favourite. 
Ruse fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Mar 4, 2015 |
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Mar 4, 2015 11:43
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Another  GROVER LASER for you guys.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StC9nRB_AVY Video is about a year old, was part of an update saying they've been actively uppscaling the laser power since that 2013 test. Still not very impressive but evidence that there must be a lot of interest in directed energy CIWS as this is the third different test platform we've seen in like 2-3 years, different companies/programs too. Mazz fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 06:55
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Mazz posted:Another The 300fps segment is funny. "Bird. Bird." Kind of disappointed that it didn't freeze frame and pull a Wily E. Coyote moment to label "Rocketus Firedbyus."
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Mar 5, 2015 07:09
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Saw that video of the Harrier crashing over the beach again, and it got me wondering: how long can they (or the F-35B :v ) hover? Seems like it would be pretty thirsty, and they can't have terribly much internal fuel. I feel like the Harrier scene in True Lies was pushing the limits of reality on hover time alone. Similarly, I know the balls-to-the-wall supersonic dash time on fighters is shorter than, say, Top Gun would have you believe. How long/fast can a Mudhen or Tomcat go at top fuel-limited speed? Like, they can go faster in a sprint with nothing on the wings, but I'm wondering about the speed where they run out of gas before parts of the engine start going out the back, and there's still missiles hanging off.
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Mar 5, 2015 08:53
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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In the case of the Harrier I believe I've read somewhere that the time limit on hovering is about a minute or two and it's not because of fuel, it's because of overheating concerns. As far as "gotta go fast" goes, I dunno about US fighters specifically but at least on the older Saab fighters (which have always been pretty short-legged) time on afterburner isn't limited by engine problems, it's limited by the fact that the afterburner is monstrously fuel inefficient and burns all your internal fuel really loving quickly. IIRC the Viggen on full afterburner would theoretically have enough internal fuel for about seven minutes of continuous operation. Similarly, the Draken's practical top speed in a straight line in level flight wasn't really limited by aerodynamics - by the time you had gotten to your operational area, you'd have burned enough fuel that you'd get to a situation where the aircraft would still be accelerating by the time you hit bingo fuel. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 09:40
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TheFluff posted:In the case of the Harrier I believe I've read somewhere that the time limit on hovering is about a minute or two and it's not because of fuel, it's because of overheating concerns. The engine required an injection of distilled water when there wasn't enough forward motion to keep it cool at hover. The 500 pounds of water bought 90 seconds of running the engine under those conditions.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:11
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Wingnut Ninja posted:I've read that the shiny aluminum finish on 50's Air Force jets was also supposed to reduce damage from the flash of a nuclear explosion (reflecting rather than absorbing some of the energy). I don't know how truthful that actually is; it has a strong urban legend flavor to it. In any case, it definitely looked quote:I'm also a big fan of the two-tone paint pattern that's lighter on the bottom, like a fish or something. I know there's an official term for it that I can't remember at the moment, and it seemed to be popular in the 60's and 70's. I would absolutely love to have a plane done up retro-style like this. MrChips posted:408 Squadron apparently won't be happy until literally every surface on Earth has a goose sticker on it. They've zapped our civilian aircraft so many times it isn't even funny!
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Mar 5, 2015 14:03
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Dead Reckoning posted:I don't know why he keeps insisting that they're all from psychological operations missions when a lot of them are blatantly not. http://www.naderlibrary.com/icouldtellyou.toc.htm This seems to be source for the pictures and it seems to have much, much, much less crazy.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:00
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Thomamelas posted:http://www.naderlibrary.com/icouldtellyou.toc.htm Here's the KKK one  http://www.naderlibrary.com/icouldtellyou.4.htm Has the OPSEC wizard been embraced by all? Many secret test squadrons have wizards and dragons like the KKK
Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 22:39
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Dead Reckoning posted:When he lifts up the toilet lid, lo and behold there's a MAINEiac zap stuck to the underside. Please explain this further, I'm unsure what a MAINEiac or the zap of one is?
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Mar 5, 2015 23:16
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chairface posted:Please explain this further, I'm unsure what a MAINEiac or the zap of one is? "Zaps" are stickers with a unit's logo, like the giant collection Ruse posted earlier. Typically members will stick them in restaurants, bars and airfields they visit, and occasionally on the jets of other squadrons. The MAINEiacs are the 101st Air Refueling Wing, Maine Air National Guard. They are known to be prolific spreaders of their zaps. The dude discovered that he was eskimo brothers with someone in his squadron because one of them had already smashed out this particular hooker and left a squadron sticker under the lid of the toilet in the apartment she brings her clients to. Nebakenezzer posted:Here's the KKK one 
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Mar 6, 2015 03:09
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I used to zap the back of the lovely artwork hanging above the hotel bed when I went TDY. Didn't matter if it was on or off base. I also zapped the flying Memphis Belle at an airshow.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:20
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An A-10 ready for some not so close air support.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:53
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For more laser chat: Lockheed Martin Laser Weapon System Stops Truck In Field Test I know it's a demonstration test and all, and it's genuinely cool that a laser can do this, but I still find it amusing that they "stopped" a truck that was stationary and lifted up on jacks.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:29
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Wingnut Ninja posted:For more laser chat: "Let's develop a multi-million dollar laser to stop technicals when putting a few bursts of .50BMG into it is much cheaper and easier."
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Mar 6, 2015 06:34
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BIG HEADLINE posted:"Let's develop a multi-million dollar laser to stop technicals when putting a few bursts of .50BMG into it is much cheaper and easier." You'd think LM would just invest more money in expanding the Hellfire production line, because we're launching those almost literally as quickly as they can come off the production line and at $100K a pop they're not too bad from a money perspective.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:56
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mlmp08 posted:An A-10 ready for some not so close air support. Those Ft Wayne-based birds are as filthy as everybody's vehicles are in Indiana at this time of year from all the road grit and salt and poo poo. Seriously (from the same batch of photos)   Do they need a care package of carwash coupons or something?
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Mar 6, 2015 07:23
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I did kinda chuckle when I saw the F-16 washing area when I was on a base last year. Makes total sense that they'd have such a thing, but it's still funny when you realize the type of mundane support equipment these multi-million dollar aircraft rely on.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:44
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I wonder what that new F-16 smell is like and if that fragrance comes with every wash
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Mar 6, 2015 08:22
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I loving hated washing aircraft, especially for a stupid photo op. Though, now I see that it was a good idea. Because those look like complete rear end.
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Mar 6, 2015 08:41
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So that's the reason why they got rid of the polished aluminium look.
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Mar 6, 2015 08:56
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 Since it was mentioned, considering the short hover time I've always wondered about Harriers stacking up for landing as seen in the picture. It seems to me that there's little room for error and a fairly small window to actually get all the planes on deck. Is it common to land in this fashion? Are pilots that good that they can set their planes down quickly enough so that the short hover time isn't a factor for the Harriers waiting to land? Should there be any problems, is it simply a matter of flying off to let the engines cool down a bit and then try again? Oh and TheFluff, as a fellow Swede I'm loving your posts on the Swedish military during the cold war, keep it up! Would you mind expanding on how the Draken actually was used for interceptions, or what the general tactics would be in the event of a Soviet invasion, seeing as how it had such a short range. Would it be a bit of a gamble as to when and where the fighters were sent up, like would it be sort of a one-shot weapon? And lastly, do you have any recommended reading on the Swedish military during the cold war, preferably regarding strategy and tactics? It being in Swedish obviously wouldn't be a problem.
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Mar 6, 2015 11:01
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Your daily dose of A-10 cancellation anger: http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/03/air-forces-argument-retiring-10-makes-no-sense/106845/ There's so much wrong with this article. I really liked the bit where it linked another article that purports to back it up, but actually the other article is telling people mad about A-10 cancellations to get the gently caress over it.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:14
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bennyfactor posted:Those Ft Wayne-based birds are as filthy as everybody's vehicles are in Indiana at this time of year from all the road grit and salt and poo poo. A-10's look much better dirty.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:23
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Churchill posted:Oh and TheFluff, as a fellow Swede I'm loving your posts on the Swedish military during the cold war, keep it up! Would you mind expanding on how the Draken actually was used for interceptions, or what the general tactics would be in the event of a Soviet invasion, seeing as how it had such a short range. Would it be a bit of a gamble as to when and where the fighters were sent up, like would it be sort of a one-shot weapon? And lastly, do you have any recommended reading on the Swedish military during the cold war, preferably regarding strategy and tactics? It being in Swedish obviously wouldn't be a problem.  The short range of Swedish interceptors wasn't a huge issue because Sweden is so drat narrow, and so is the Baltic sea. You just launch, fly east, intercept some Badger near the coastline and return to base. There were certainly plenty of bases back in those days. You couldn't really fly CAP very well with the Draken, but that's not what it was intended for either. When it was designed the threat envisioned was nuclear bombers on very high altitude at high subsonic speeds - you'd see them on radar in time to get your fighters up to intercept, except in the very southernmost parts of Sweden where the distance to East Germany was so small. When we purchased the Bloodhound AA missiles they were primarily intended for the southern parts exactly for that reason - they figured there might not be time to launch fighters. The Viggen with its turbofan had a lot better fuel economy in subsonic flight, but it also had a different role. The Draken's raison d'être was to get to 13000+ meters of altitude really loving quickly, while the Viggen was designed to sneak around five meters above the surface of the Baltic sea. Some assorted bibliography (some of these are out of print but should be readily available at your local library - through interlibrary loan if nothing else - or via sites like bokborsen.se). You'll notice most of them are fairly recent publications. There was very little contemporary publishing regarding this stuff and the post Cold War historical interest only really got going around 2002-2004. Higher level stuff - Roth, Thomas: Den svenska krigsmakten under kalla kriget. Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibliotek, Stockholm 2014. Haven't actually read this yet but I took a brief look at it in the national military archives library and it seemed pretty good. - Wallerfelt, Bengt: Si vis pacem, para bellum: Svensk säkerhetspolitik och krigsplanering 1945-1975. Probus, Stockholm 1999. An extremely dry book, but it does have a good overview of the higher level strategic thinking during the first half of the Cold War. Wallerfelt has gotten some academic criticism for some of his sweeping statements in this book (he's one of those old school officers who just complains about how we did everything wrong and we should have joined NATO and whatnot) but it's still a good overview. I think there's a new edition of this under way too - it's long been out of print and can be sorta hard to find. - Holmström, Mikael: Den dolda alliansen. Sveriges hemliga NATO-förbindelser. Atlantis, Stockholm 2011. More in the way of political history but it should be required reading for any Cold War nerd. Contains a large number of very interesting anecdotes and personal stories. - Agrell, Wilhelm: Svenska förintelsevapen: utvecklingen av kemiska och nukleära stridsmedel 1928-70. Historiska media, Lund 2002. Exactly what it says on the tin - history of Swedish WMD development. Also required reading. Air force specific - Anderson, Lennart: ÖB:s klubba. Flygvapnets attackeskader under kalla kriget. Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibliotek, Stockholm 2010. - Anderson, Lennart: Fienden i öster: svenskt jaktflyg under kalla kriget. Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibliotek, Stockholm 2012. - Anderson, Lennart: Flygvapnets spaningsflyg. Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibliotek, Stockholm 2013. This trilogy is a really good overview of the air force's three fixed-wing legs, both strategic and tactical. Very strongly recommended. - Pettersson, Tommy: Med invasionen i sikte: flygvapnets krigsplanläggning och luftoperativa doktrin 1958-1966. Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibliotek, Stockholm 2009. I've recommended this before in this thread. Since it was originally an academic paper there's a free PDF version, check my post history in this thread for a link. It lacks the photos and illustrations the book version has though. If you want to read further, anything published as a part of the FOKK project is probably a good read - most of my recommendations are connected to that. I also strongly recommend http://fht.nu which has a large number of very interesting papers and essays available for free in PDF form. If you want to read more about Saab's planes specifically, just start with Sven Stridsberg's books. e: also http://www.flygbas.se/bilder/973.pdf TheFluff fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 15:03
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holocaust bloopers posted:A-10's look much better dirty. I agree, their natural camouflage is soot from burning third world armor.
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Mar 6, 2015 15:10
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Polikarpov posted:I agree, their natural camouflage is soot from burning third world armor. They adapted to their environment, it's proof of evolution!
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Mar 6, 2015 15:17
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Brilliant, thank you very much
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Mar 6, 2015 15:22
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Speaking of natural camouflage, I have ~~OFFICIAL SECERTS~~ regarding how the F-22 LO (stealth) technology works It pretends to be a cloud
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Mar 6, 2015 15:24
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Doesn't it break from rain.
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Mar 6, 2015 15:32
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mlmp08 posted:Your daily dose of A-10 cancellation anger:  You know it's going to be good when the author leads with the premise that the Air Force should make procurement decision based on the Army's preferences.
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Mar 6, 2015 15:33
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Tip of the spear! Don't argue or I will say tip of the spear some more and then something about warfighter.
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Mar 6, 2015 16:32
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Dead Reckoning posted:
I've been meaning to ask (or maybe I already have and forgot): how do helicopter gunships fit into the CAS equation? I guess they've got more difficult basing and logistic requirements due to shorter range, but given that it seems like time-to-target would be comparable to an A-10 with similar payloads and effectiveness for CAS roles. Then again, are helicopters just even more vulnerable to the same things that have effectively pushed the A-10 out of low altitude envelopes or are they better suited to the role? I suppose a Warthog and an Apache are both designed to do similar things but for different situations, but is the answer for the army to just improve their gunship fleet to compliment the A-10 being replaces by F-16/F-35s, or is there a reason why that isn't the answer to everyone's gripes?
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Mar 6, 2015 16:44
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Is there some reason perceived reason that the A-10 would better at CAS then an Apache? It just seems like an attack helicopter is a more natural fit for close in support then the A-10, and the discussions about the A-10 never seem to bring up attack helicopters in general. Edit: That will teach me to leave a quote open.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:08
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Churchill posted:Brilliant, thank you very much Yes, thanks! I can add that while "Svenska förontelsevapen" (I'll leave that spelling there, kind of funny in this context...) is out of print, it exists as an e-book. My local library even had it to my surprise. This might be true of other of these books as well?
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Mar 6, 2015 17:15
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Thomamelas posted:Is there some reason perceived reason that the A-10 would better at CAS then an Apache? It just seems like an attack helicopter is a more natural fit for close in support then the A-10, and the discussions about the A-10 never seem to bring up attack helicopters in general. Smaller payload, shorter range, even slower than an A-10, a very slow plane, can't really hang out at 15000 feet dropping precision bombs. But they certainly do some good work. But remember, the U.S. Army rotary wing forces don't do CAS, they're a maneuver force and so all that stuff that looks like them doing CAS is actually maneuver so screw you, dad! Marine skids do CAS.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:19
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Weren't the AH64s originally designed to all take off and run headlong into a Soviet tank column in a massed attack (independent from other forces on the ground) as soon as they crossed the border? Your explanation would make sense then - they are more like tanks that can also fly.
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Mar 6, 2015 18:19
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Throatwarbler posted:Weren't the AH64s originally designed to all take off and run headlong into a Soviet tank column in a massed attack (independent from other forces on the ground) as soon as they crossed the border? Your explanation would make sense then - they are more like tanks that can also fly. So they're more like A-10s, then
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Mar 6, 2015 18:26
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Throatwarbler posted:Weren't the AH64s originally designed to all take off and run headlong into a Soviet tank column in a massed attack (independent from other forces on the ground) as soon as they crossed the border? Your explanation would make sense then - they are more like tanks that can also fly. No, that'd be stupid.
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Mar 6, 2015 18:57
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