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Tindjin posted:They thought the same thing after Korea with the F-4 until we started loosing pilots. You field planes designed for air superiority without guns (or some short range offensive capability) and you leave a gaping hole for your enemies to take advantage of it. I'm not saying that it's not important to retain the cannon for the "Oh poo poo" moments, but if you are getting to the point where you are using the cannon, especially in the kind of wars we fight against fourth-rate regional powers, someone hosed it up.
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Mar 12, 2010 16:42
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jandrese posted:You know, as practical and cost effective as the Combat Caravan probably would be, I have to think that at some point the 5 year old mentality that infects the armed forces is going to get the project shitcanned. They should just make a new version of the Spad. Thing's a beast. Here's a picture courtesy of Wiki:  The loiter time might not be that phenomenal, though. I'm sure if you used a more fuel-efficient modern engine you could improve it!
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Mar 12, 2010 16:46
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decahedron posted:I'm not saying that it's not important to retain the cannon for the "Oh poo poo" moments, but if you are getting to the point where you are using the cannon, especially in the kind of wars we fight against fourth-rate regional powers, someone hosed it up. The gently caress-up in Vietnam was: Military doctrine: Radar guided missiles, kill at beyond visual range Political doctrine: Gotta get a visual ID first champ
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Mar 12, 2010 16:47
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decahedron posted:I'm not saying that it's not important to retain the cannon for the "Oh poo poo" moments, but if you are getting to the point where you are using the cannon, especially in the kind of wars we fight against fourth-rate regional powers, someone hosed it up. I largely agree with that. However, with Stealth/low observable tech becoming the new flavor for fighters, is it crazy to think that aircraft won't get within a couple miles of each other?
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Mar 12, 2010 16:47
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The effective range of a 20MM (or 23 or 30 for the russkies) revolver cannon or Gatling is like sub-1000M. In order for combat to take place at that range, both sides are going to have to have incredibly stealthy aircraft, which seems somewhat... unlikely, for the foreseeable future.
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Mar 12, 2010 16:55
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decahedron posted:The effective range of a 20MM (or 23 or 30 for the russkies) revolver cannon or Gatling is like sub-1000M. In order for combat to take place at that range, both sides are going to have to have incredibly stealthy aircraft, which seems somewhat... unlikely, for the foreseeable future.
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Mar 12, 2010 16:57
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So I shut the gently caress up about air combat hypotheticals I am going to post one of my favorite airplanes of all time! BEHOLD THE MAJESTY OF: THE BOULTON-PAUL DEFIANT.  British people are loving phenomenal at coming up with crackhead ideas. Sometimes they are totally ballin (make a plane out of wood, make a plane with thrust vectoring) and sometimes they are not so succesful (like this one). See that little turret in the back? It's a powered turret that has four .303 machine guns. In theory, this allows you to shoot in about a 360 degree arc around the plane, and also allows you to change elevation. Want to pop a Do-17? You can just fly in one of its blind spots below and to the side, and your turret gunner can whip the turret around and take it down! ACES! The turret was designed so you couldn't shoot off the propeller, or the tail and whatnot because when you pointed it in those directions, the electrical firing circuit was not completed. (the radio mast and antenna were located on the underside of the fuselage so you couldn't hit them either) Smart poo poo. So far there aren't really any downsides. It had roughly the speed of contemporary traditional RAF fighters (about 300MPH in level flight, Merlin powered) and although it was a little heavy and unmaneuverable (due to the second crewman and the fuckoff huge powered turret), it had low wing loading and was pretty decent to fly. In the beginning of the war, Defiant squadrons had success against Luftwaffe bombers. One big advantage was that the turret allowed multiple Defiants to shoot at the same enemy from lots of different angles at the same time, making it harder to slip out of the way. (This also led to huge overclaims by Defiant gunners). They also had some initial success shooting down fighters who tried to bounce them from the rear. Japanese ace Saburo Sakai had a similar problem when he mistook a Dauntless for a Wildcat. Now we get to the downsides. First off, the minute that the Defiant got in to a maneuver fight with a 109, it was hosed. It was less maneuverable, and trying to coordinate the shooting of the turret with the plane was very difficult. You remember the low wing loading? Yeah that was because it didn't have any guns that fired forward. The turret wouldn't fire forward unless it was pointed up to avoid shooting off the prop. The pilot didn't even have a gun sight. His job was just to drive the bus so the backseater could get shots off. This made it pretty difficult to coordinate in a dogfight. Also, the backseater didn't have room to wear a traditional parachute so they wore a specialized suit that contained a parachute and didn't work well at all, so a lot of backseaters died when the aircraft was shot down.  Click here for the full 800x563 image. If you are an ME-109 driver and you see this view of a Defiant, you can paint a little Union Jack on the side of your cockpit in advance. Also, holy poo poo look at how ugly it is. BUT: When used as a night fighter with radar it was quite effective at shooting down bombers - who tended to look for threats below and behind. Defiants could attack from nontraditional profiles, which made them really dangerous. This is in part why the Black Widow and Mosquito night-fighters had powered turrets on early variants. The Fleet Air Arm had a similarly retarded airplane called the Blackburn Roc, which was a horribly slow piece of poo poo powered by the Bristol Pegasus (220MPH). All in all, the Defiant was a really ingenious idea that didn't work out all that well in practice. If it had been fitted with even a pair of .303s for the pilot, it might have fared better, since most Defiants were shot down from the front. But it was more expensive to produce than the Hurricane and less effective in a huge furball,and the turret and single engined design made sure that it would remain underpowered compared to Mosquito night-fighter versions.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:24
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slidebite posted:Fair enough, but if they are not detected at, say, 9nm and closing fast you get into that range pretty darn quickly. If things are really that undetectable people will just fly around blundering in to each other like retards though and the quickness of closing the range will make it very difficult to bounce people or get a good pass off. You're talking fighting WWII dogfights at 3x speed.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:25
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decahedron posted:If things are really that undetectable people will just fly around blundering in to each other like retards though and the quickness of closing the range will make it very difficult to bounce people or get a good pass off. You're talking fighting WWII dogfights at 3x speed. 
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Mar 12, 2010 17:43
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Cannons are a perfectly capable weapon. If I was intercepting an enemy target and fired my missiles at range and missed, be it from their stealth signature, maneuver, or counter measures.. as I approached I would want to be able to fire cannons. Alternately, in a drag out dogfight it's a great backup weapon if you are out of missiles, you can shoot down a hell of a lot more planes with a fully loaded cannon than with fully loaded missile payload. Cannons are also more effective against ground targets like trucks, ships, etc. You can't strafe with missiles.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:51
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decahedron posted:If things are really that undetectable people will just fly around blundering in to each other like retards though and the quickness of closing the range will make it very difficult to bounce people or get a good pass off. You're talking fighting WWII dogfights at 3x speed. Pilots don't rely on radar during dogfights, it's visual identification. That's why they have such nice big canopies on fighters. Radar is great when a target is out of visual range, but once in visual range, it's a lot better to look at them than watch your radar screen.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:55
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It ain't WWII. If you're making strafing passes with your F-15, once again, you are doing it wrong. The military has aircraft and helicopters designed specifically for strafing. They use cannons. They're also slow and have good loiter time because that is important for ground attack aircraft. Strike versions of the F-15 and F-16 use guided munitions, not their twirly peashooters. And the cannon is not a perfectly capable weapon. It's a last-resort backup. It's useful as a last resort backup, but people haven't scored cannon kills since loving Vietnam because now ROE isn't designed to close to cannon range. Dogfighting isn't dead, but it isn't something you want to be doing, especially with the US' technical advantages. It is a useful weapon, I don't get why everyone is bitching. But it's like a combat infantryman's sidearm - if you are pulling out the M9 in a firefight, something has gone horribly wrong somewhere. I'm not advocating that the cannon be eliminated, but dogfighting is a lot less relevant in modern combat than it was in the past. decahedron fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 17:59
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Mr.Peabody posted:Pilots don't rely on radar during dogfights, it's visual identification. That's why they have such nice big canopies on fighters. Radar is great when a target is out of visual range, but once in visual range, it's a lot better to look at them than watch your radar screen. Well yes, my point was that with low-observable stealth aircraft people are going to be getting to within visual range before they can plan to engage, and it will probably be a little bit difficult to find people to kill when everyone is super stealthy (which is a future that is decades off, because nobody the US is fighting is going to have stealthy equipment for a while).
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Mar 12, 2010 18:00
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decahedron posted:Well yes, my point was that with low-observable stealth aircraft people are going to be getting to within visual range before they can plan to engage, and it will probably be a little bit difficult to find people to kill when everyone is super stealthy (which is a future that is decades off, because nobody the US is fighting is going to have stealthy equipment for a while). Yeah, basically the idea behind stealth aircraft is an intercept vector into their blind spot, and their first radar warning being your radar system locking them for missile radar guidance, at which point they need to panic and try to figure out where you are in the sky. Once your missile fires, they have a decent idea of the attack vector, can fire off a counter measure, and attempt to maneuver into a counter attack. So the longer you wait to fire missile, the better chance you have to hit.. and the more likely you will need to follow up with a cannon. If you wanted to be all Top Gun, you could try to stealth into cannon range with no radar, but the military would never condone that. EDIT: Watch my previous video about the Russian Sukov T-50. Russia and India already have orders for 200 each, and delivery date is approximately 2015-2017. I'm sure India isn't the only country ready to place an order. Russia is notorious for selling weapons systems to anyone who will buy them. Mr.Peabody fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 18:05
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Russia is notorious about selling not-front-line weapons systems to anyone who will buy them, you mean. edit: I get your point, but the whole scenario here is that BOTH aircraft are very stealthy so they're both effectively radar blind. That makes it very difficult to accomplish really anything at all, as far as I can tell, which is why I talked about a reversion to Great War type engagements but way, way loving fast. It'll be interesting to see what happens when everyone has stealthy poo poo, but I don't think that's going to happen within the F35's lifetime, unless the F35 pulls some sort of B52 poo poo or receives a huge amount of modifications, effectively making it a different aircraft. decahedron fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 18:10
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I get what you're saying, and having both defender and aggressor as stealth air craft will present new challenges. It will really boil down to visual identifications, and you would be surprised at how a pilot can see. Legend has it Chuck Yeager used to spot enemy aircraft during WWII from 50 miles away.
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Mar 12, 2010 18:22
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The  Space Shuttle and its retarded cousin Buran own. Obsolete? Uhh...AMERICAAA  
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Mar 12, 2010 18:23
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Mr.Peabody posted:I get what you're saying, and having both defender and aggressor as stealth air craft will present new challenges. It will really boil down to visual identifications, and you would be surprised at how a pilot can see. Legend has it Chuck Yeager used to spot enemy aircraft during WWII from 50 miles away. I would imagine that the next sexy sexyness is going to be low-visual observable. Plus, UAVs are going to open up a whole new can of worms.
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Mar 12, 2010 18:32
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MATLAB 1988 posted:The It was deemed cheaper to just build Endeavour from spare parts in the end though. Kind of unfortunate, as I really wanted Enterprise to fly. 
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Mar 12, 2010 18:33
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I live at litchfield and cactus which is about a mile from the flight line of Luke AFB and theres nothing more awesome than hearing those F-16's taking off and landing. I got a special treat on my way home yesterday. I got to see 5 of them all in formation flying a pattern around the base. It was awesome. I'm gonna have to go out in the backyard with a good camera and shoot some pics. Their pattern takes them directly over my house at about 1000 feet. drat I wish I got to see those F22's take off and land.
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Mar 12, 2010 18:55
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durabrand107 posted:Burner runs (engine runs where you accelerate up to the fully open augmentor position) were pretty neat too. Nothing like strapping a jet down with it's tail hook and watching as it tries to get loose. Being about 20ft from a jet in full burner (outside) is cool as you really don't hear anything anymore it's just your whole skeleton kinda vibrates. This is rad as gently caress.
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Mar 12, 2010 18:59
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 Small, efficient, maneuverable, multi-functional, reliable. One great plane. Edited for 757 beauty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVUDMkBfds4&feature=related That Works fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 19:06
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azflyboy posted:De Havilland Canada stopped building Twin Otters in 1988, so I doubt the USAF would have been interested in buying aircraft that aren't made anymore. The first all-new-production aircraft flew last month; there are supposedly 10 more already in various stages of production. I wouldn't have suggested something out of production if there weren't good odds of it being back into production soon...Here's to hoping Viking gets their production certificate ASAP. Once they get their production certificate, I'm hoping the put the Beaver and Otter back into production. Especially in the case of the Otter, I think there's a real market for new-production aircraft. I can't think of another single-turbine (yes, I know they were originally piston, but when was the last time you saw one without a nose job?), single-pilot aircraft that can operate on floats and carry 14 passengers. When you look at the operating economics for flightseeing, the Otter bests the Twin Otter hands down. I've noticed that all of our local operators are favoring their Otters over their Beavers, and I'm pretty sure it's because the numbers work out better there, too. In the case of the Mk.3 Beaver, I don't even see it competing. Same engine, half the passengers? No go. Biggest problem for the Beaver? Getting more Wasp Juniors. Oh, how I want those to go back into production too.
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Mar 12, 2010 19:11
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decahedron posted:All in all, the Defiant was a really ingenious idea that didn't work out all that well in practice. How is it a really ingenious idea? Some dude basically said "hey check this out, you know tanks have like turrets on top? Let's do this poo poo on a plane". Nobody else did it because in every other air force there was another dude that took about ten seconds to think about it and said "no, that poo poo's retarded".
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Mar 12, 2010 20:32
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Here's what I mean by burner run. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIGFHiAFMHc The guy in the little yellow reflective belt is probably the crew chief. They are probably standing at the distance that is required because a camera is on, but I've seen guys and have done so myself stand right beside the yellow bottle (fire extinguisher). The thing extended underneath is the arresting hook which is hardly used in the AF but I believe the navy uses them constantly. Sometimes we did these in enclosed buildings with a long metal tube out the back to catch the exhaust. When we shut the jet off we would see who could walk the farthest back into the tube before it got too hot for them. Also if you pee inside that tube it stinks really bad and dries almost immediately on contact with the metal. The base I was on at least, there were only a few guys who could push a jet (with the tow vehicle) into the building with any degree of quickness. I was one of them so I went on like every burner run ever. I sat in the backseat during one (on a D model). Which reminds me if you want to see an ugly rear end airplane look up an F-16D, the C's look great (and I guess A's as well though I don't think we fly that model anymore), but the D's are ugly as hell.
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Mar 12, 2010 21:53
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Autism Sundae posted:How is it a really ingenious idea? Some dude basically said "hey check this out, you know tanks have like turrets on top? Let's do this poo poo on a plane". Nobody else did it because in every other air force there was another dude that took about ten seconds to think about it and said "no, that poo poo's retarded". For example, the original idea behind the B-17 was that it would be used to destroy fleets of enemy ships with high altitude bombing, which proved to be almost impossible due to the relatively small size of ships and the fact that they could maneuver. During the early part of the Pacific campaign (up to 1943), several attempts were made to attack Japanese shipping with B-17's, but the bombing accuracy was so abysmal (around 1%) that the USAAF eventually gave up and switched to skip-bombing with smaller aircraft. Even when B-17's were used against stationary land targets with the Norden bombsight, bombing accuracy from high altitudes was still poor, with the USAAF finding that it took 108 B-17's dropping 648 bombs to ensure that only two bombs hit within a 400x500ft area. Prior to the Battle of Britain, RAF fighter tactics were based on very strict, squadron sized formations that were designed to attack waves of enemy bombers, but gave no consideration to the fact that said bombers might have fighter escorts. As a result, the Luftwaffe (which used much looser, two plane elements) absolutely decimated RAF fighters until the British changed their tactics to closely mirror what the Germans were using. azflyboy fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 22:09
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EDIT isn't quote!
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Mar 12, 2010 22:14
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I think James May's 1:1 Spitfire Airfix model deserves a spot. If any of you haven't seen the episode of James May's Toy Stories, you should.   Also, H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" , after googling the thing, I realized that the Evergreen Aviation and Spacemuseum must be visited before I die.   Click here for the full 1024x929 image. The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built, and has the largest wingspan and height of any aircraft in history. The aircraft made its only flight on November 2, 1947.
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Mar 12, 2010 22:23
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decahedron posted:They should just make a new version of the Spad. Thing's a beast. Here's a picture courtesy of Wiki: Isn't the A-10 basically the Skyraider with a bigger gun and jets? e- also I'm pretty sure only plane outside of the F-35 to be used by all 3 branches with fixed wing aircraft (sorry Army  )e2- here's a Skyraider dropping the 6 millionth ton of poo poo on Vietnam. Literally. 
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Mar 12, 2010 22:38
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Caveat: I got this information from a movie*, so the accuracy may not be perfect. When I was a kid, I never understood what the deal with the Spruce Goose was. All I knew was that it was gigantic, and considered a boondoggle and only ever made a single flight. According to the movie, Howard Hughes designed and built the thing under contract from the military during WWII, but unfortunately was not able to finish it until after the war was finished. It was also made out of wood because Aluminum was needed on the front lines and couldn't be spared. After the war, he gets hauled into Congress on charges of War Profiteering by the Senator from Pan Am and promptly owns the Senator by explaining how he lost a whole bunch of money he personally invested in the deal because the AF basically screwed him. Then he takes the thing out just to show them that yes, it would have worked, and that single flight was basically a giant middle finger to Congress and the Air Force. I don't know how close to reality that is, but it makes the plane a lot more interesting in my mind. [*] The Aviator
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Mar 12, 2010 22:41
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VikingSkull posted:Isn't the A-10 basically the Skyraider with a bigger gun and jets? The F-4 was also used by all three branches, and it's the only aircraft to be flown by both the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds simultaneously.
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Mar 12, 2010 22:49
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Dammit I knew that too 
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Mar 12, 2010 22:53
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slidebite posted:Everytime I see photos of that plane I am absolutely amazed. Fly-by-wire can make the unmanageable manageable indeed. Edit:Durrrrrrrr ignore me.
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Mar 12, 2010 22:54
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jandrese posted:Caveat: I got this information from a movie*, so the accuracy may not be perfect. That's basically correct. The HK-1 was supposed to be finished by 1944, but it wasn't completed until 1947, allegedly because Hughes was insisting on "perfection". Hughes was pretty well known for defrauding the government, (a Hughes payoff to Nixon likely triggered the Watergate break-in, and he basically owned the state of Nevada) and it's likely he assumed the HK-1 contract wouldn't have any serious repercussions.
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Mar 12, 2010 23:17
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azflyboy posted:Hughes was pretty well known for defrauding the government
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Mar 12, 2010 23:50
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Mr.Peabody posted:Pilots don't rely on radar during dogfights, it's visual identification. That's why they have such nice big canopies on fighters. Radar is great when a target is out of visual range, but once in visual range, it's a lot better to look at them than watch your radar screen. Guns are also radar guided. decahedron posted:It ain't WWII. If you're making strafing passes with your F-15, once again, you are doing it wrong. The military has aircraft and helicopters designed specifically for strafing. They use cannons. They're also slow and have good loiter time because that is important for ground attack aircraft. Strike versions of the F-15 and F-16 use guided munitions, not their twirly peashooters. Strafing is most definitely used in-theater. We lost an F-15E in a strafing accident last year. decahedron posted:
The T-50 is not "very stealthy." It's got a lower RCS than a Flanker, for example, but it's not even in the same realm as the F-35, much less the F-22. At a head-on aspect any US fighter will have no problem seeing it at BVR ranges unless Sukhoi significantly alters the design...which they certainly could do. The plane we all saw fly a couple of weeks ago is basically at the 1991-95 YF-22 stage. Godholio fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Mar 13, 2010 |
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Mar 13, 2010 00:11
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 Click here for the full 1024x768 image.  Click here for the full 1024x768 image. My favorite jet, looks wise. Dassault Rafale. But my overall favorite has to be the SU-27.  Click here for the full 962x693 image.
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Mar 13, 2010 00:44
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Honestly, unless it is featured in this game, any jet built should be immediately scraped as a failure. 
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Mar 13, 2010 01:04
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Preoptopus posted:Russian pilot goes a supposed mach 2 with no canopy in movie stunt. Fair enough, but would he have the guts to fly this ancient plane?  ME163B ..So drat sexy, so drat deadly (for the pilots).
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Mar 13, 2010 02:26
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Hermansen posted:The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built, and has the largest wingspan and height of any aircraft in history. The aircraft made its only flight on November 2, 1947. Yea I love that it has a longer wingspan and taller than the AN-225 and the Airbuss A380 (beats the A380 height by 4 inches!) and the whole thing is made outa wood with prop engines.
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Mar 13, 2010 03:44
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