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vulturesrow posted:I'm still trying to figure out what feature of the Ford are supposed to give a 25% increase in sortie generation rate. Anyone? The only thing I can think of is a hidden 5th catapult that shoots planes directly out of the hangar bay.
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Aug 17, 2014 07:38
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Godholio posted:I wish this had happened. I like to imagine a world where this had happened instead of the Super Hornet, and discussions would be nothing but whining about the shortcomings of the Super Tomcat and talking about how awesome the Rhino would have been. "Oh, swing wings are so dated and add so much extra weight." "Super Hornet would be so much easier to maintain since we've already got Hornets on board." Could the Tomcat/Super Tomcat even be configured as a tanker? Not that more F-14's would be anything other than awesome, or that the Rhino doesn't have its own set of flaws, but you're always going to have more flaws to point to in a fully developed aircraft, than you will for a paper-only concept that just highlights the good parts.
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Sep 1, 2014 03:28
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Pentagon to deploy 12 A-10s to Middle East Isn't this just making it harder to retire these totally unnecessary planes? I don't understand why they're sending in such an outdated and obsolete aircraft when the F-22 has already been employed. I mean, I assume the announcement of complete and utter victory after that is just being held up in some sort of administrative delay...
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Sep 29, 2014 01:38
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Fucknag posted:E: Serious question, how hard would it be to make a ground-attack craft using the F-35's airframe? That lift fan cavity could hold one hell of a magazine for an Avenger or similar type cannon. Dammit, watch your mouth, you're going to summon Grover and get 10 pages on why a laser cannon is the ideal CAS weapon.
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Sep 29, 2014 02:03
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Breaky posted:Whats the story with this? Very good guidance system, less than stellar fusing system, and a fair number of ruined pairs of underwear.
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Sep 29, 2014 02:52
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Fast Attack Gavin with GAU Optmized Transmission
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Oct 1, 2014 06:15
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Arrath posted:I'm sure you mean the individual frame members start as big old billets but I'm going to imagine that each Chinook starts as a semi-trailer sized block of aluminum that gets tossed into one honkin huge CNC machine. I was thinking the same thing, that sounds awesome.
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Oct 7, 2014 00:52
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Mortabis posted:Actually a quick bit of research appears to show yes, there is a drop tank, and it's pretty wacky looking "Okay, they've bought all the bullshit about the F-35 we've been able to come up with, and they're coming back for more. Where can we go from here?" "MAKE THEM FLY AROUND WITH GIANT DICKS ON THE WINGS."
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Oct 23, 2014 06:26
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Red Crown posted:I'm helping with a book on the subject, this was from an interview with the involved pilot. See, that's how you know it's bullshit.
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Oct 24, 2014 15:26
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Hubis posted:that's actually the first thing I thought too. I mean that picture is photo-genic as hell, but yeah. Most people wear some kind of snoopy cap or bandana under their helmet; that thing starts to smell revolting after long enough, so you definitely want some kind of lining.
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Nov 3, 2014 05:14
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Nice in-flight engagement.
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Nov 6, 2014 02:27
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Don Gato posted:Plus the Raptor is probably pretty good at it's intended job of shooting other planes down. At the very least it can take off and land on runways it was designed to operate from, unlike the F-35b and F-35c Hey now, the -C just got its first carrier trap. Now, as far as boarding rate goes, we'll have to see. Did they ever come up with a solution to the "tailhook is too short" problem?
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Nov 11, 2014 01:54
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mlmp08 posted:My favorite dumb thinkipieces are the ones that start from insane starting points. Like an F-22 losing a turnfight against a noted turnfighter when starting from neutral positions 1,000 feet apart. Honestly, that's just as silly as assuming you're going to have the ROE to slay everyone with AMRAAMs from a zillion miles away. Like Dead Reckoning said, there are so many variables that it's silly to use any single scenario as the definitive "gotcha".
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Nov 21, 2014 05:20
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Air Force Museum in Dayton. 
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Nov 29, 2014 04:31
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Back Hack posted:If you're going to go down that route you might as well make a modern day version of the greyhound with a 20mm turret controlled from the passenger seat. I assume you're talking about a different platform, but I'm now imagining an AC-2 Greyhound in all of its ridiculous glory. Filling that all-important "organic low-speed CAS" role for the carrier, with all kinds of guns sticking out the side. It'll be a good complement to the AE-2 Lazer Hawkeye, where the radar is replaced with a Grover Laser to zap planes and missiles out of the sky.
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Dec 10, 2014 02:31
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The MH-60R also has a pretty good surface surveillance radar.
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Dec 19, 2014 03:19
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Also, a lot of brand-new systems are going to be lacking some capabilities at IOC compared to mature systems that have been getting tweaks and upgrades for the last decade. You have to baseline the systems somewhere, and balls-rear end CAS probably wasn't high on the list of "things we need from the F-35 ASAP". If they had tried to feature-creep newer pods into the F-35 development you can bet this guy would be shrieking about "further F-35 delays" or something.
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Dec 28, 2014 05:15
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iyaayas01 posted:That said, it's worth mentioning that the program office's IOC report for the F-35 explicitly calls out CAS as being one of the mission sets that the system must be capable of performing prior to declaring IOC. That's true for all three services. So yeah, according to the program office themselves the F-35 is supposed to be able to perform CAS in order to declare IOC. That's not me or Winslow Wheeler or Pierre Sprey or some other crackpot defense thinker saying that, that's the F-35 JPO themselves. Wow, that's... actually pretty sad, then. I would have figured they'd be focusing on the areas where LO makes a big difference, like strike and OCA, but hey, let's just ask for everything at once. F-35B IOC posted:CAS, Offensive and Defensive Counter Air, Air Interdiction, Assault Support Escort, and Armed Reconnaissance  Surprised they don't have cargo transport on there as well. Gotta keep those austere FOBs resupplied!
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Dec 29, 2014 00:08
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On that note, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is now up on Netflix. And my goodness, it's not a very good movie.
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Jan 9, 2015 05:26
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Speaking of acquisitions, and reposting from the GiP Navy thread: V-22 Osprey picked to be the next COD Interesting news. For years now it's basically been a question of whether they would make a new C-2B, or go with Ospreys, so it's nice that they've finally made a decision. They've got fairly similar capabilities, with the Osprey's lesser range probably being the biggest difference. And at least they're going with an existing airframe rather than the C-3 Frankenviking proposal. It should be interesting to see how they integrate it; right now Greyhounds and Hawkeyes all share a type wing and training pipeline, and there's a lot of parts/maintenance commonality. That means that an air wing's Hawkeye squadron can help support Greyhounds on the carrier, though Greyhounds do embark a small maintenance det as well, and spare parts are a lot easier to get. With a V-22, they'll be on their own. The big question in the VRC/VAW community now is whether they'll roll V-22's in with us, or set up a separate COD wing and eventually revert the Hawkeye/Greyound wing back to Hawkeye only.
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Jan 14, 2015 03:23
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Godholio posted:
Well, they shouldn't be changing their callsign after they check in with their controller. On the other hand, they also should be squawking the correct codes, which I know they often don't care about, so I'm not really surprised. "What? You use the 'identify friend or foe' system to identify friendly units? Gosh, maybe we should pay attention to that." On the gripping hand, I've also been burned before by the whole "AWACS has different callsigns for front end and back end" thing.
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Jan 31, 2015 07:52
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Dead Reckoning posted:Navy aren't the only people who change callsigns when they cross the fence, they're just far more likely to do it in peacetime. For example, it was pretty common in Odyssey Dawn for aircraft to use one callsign while talking to normal ATC going to and coming from the operations area, and use a different callsign once they crossed the fence and switched to secure radios. It's to keep adversaries from building an air picture or order of battle by following callsigns. For training they'll usually use their standard squadron ATC callsign while transiting out, and then switch to a tactical callsign based on their role once they're in the working area. So, for instance, you could have two Winders and two Bullets talking to ATC, who become four Shields when they get together for their close escort role. Air Wings use side numbers, which is different from the BuNo. Each squadron on the carrier has its own side number block; one has 100's, one has 200's, and so on. That way if someone refers to aircraft "203" you immediately know which squadron and thus which type of aircraft it is. That's useful for all kinds of things, like setting the arresting gear correctly.
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Jan 31, 2015 18:49
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Dead Reckoning posted:That was the previous king, Hussein. Abdullah was an infantryman. He flew Cobras too (or at least was trained to, according to Wikipedia).
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Feb 7, 2015 21:42
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Haha, I never noticed before that it shows the Tomcat having a 360 degree radar sweep.
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Feb 13, 2015 17:16
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simplefish posted:I thought he radar picture was fed from AWACS, which would have a 360 degree sweep - although I doubt it'd have the F-14 at the centre of the sweep. AWACS (in this case an E-2) would be able to inject datalink tracks that would show up on their system, but it wouldn't give them a 360 sweep. Fighter radars just sweep a cone in front of their nose. There's also a conspicuous lack of any kind of communication with an E-2 or other air control unit, in any of the air combat scenes (not bitter at all). Hunterhr posted:I imagine any sort of realistic radar picture would have people going 'Well that sure is a bunch of things'. And this. A real radar display is a bunch of colored symbols and numbers and poo poo that doesn't mean much if you're not trained on it. Hence why every radar scope on film and TV is a green circular sweep that makes clear, discrete blips appear.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:57
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MrYenko posted:Ahem... From a reverse image lookup: quote:As soon as they reached the assigned area, the fighters set up twenty miles apart for a head-on intercept under ground control. Seven miles from the merge, with closure well over 1,000 knots, Hoser called “Fox One”, a Sparrow missile away, scoring a direct hit. This is either a horribly mangled anecdote, or the guy is an idiot. If you're going up to test one specific system (guns), you don't just decide to go "lol ur dead now" with a completely different system (SAR missiles). That's just a waste of everyone's time. Just as stupid as this: quote:Both Eagles were gunned down and a gun camera film which showed the F-15 locked in the F-14 HUD almost caused Japan to revert its decision to buy the Eagle. Because one single example obviously completely invalidates any other considerations that go into buying a platform. I'm sure if you ran enough sorties under the right circumstances, you could have an F-5 get a gun kill on an F-22. PittTheElder posted:How did the swing-wings on the F-14 work anyway? Were they just left for a flight computer to continuously adjust during manoeuvres? There was an automatic mode, but they could also be controlled manually. I've heard one good story of an F-14 pilot using the manual mode to set his wings to a sweep that would indicate a different airspeed, to throw off his opponent in a dogfight.
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Feb 14, 2015 02:30
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Delivery McGee posted:It's Hoser being an annoying rear end in a top hat in an amusing way, which is kind of fighter pilots' schtick I was just about to mention that as another example (I thought it was F-15s but I also can't be assed to look it up). Congrats, you just shot down some fancy new fighters with your old Dubya-mobile. You also just started World War 3 by using nuclear weapons. We begin bombing in five minutes. It's a funny story, and one I've repeated myself, but it's really stupid in the context of developmental testing.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:45
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Expecting your opponent to behave the way you want them to behave in a non-restricted environment is a great way to lose a fight in any situation, and that's where the value of the stories comes from. I mean, yeah, it's a great parable about hubris and everything. I'm just overthinking it and nitpicking for shits and giggles. Very little training is done in a completely unrestricted environment, because for any specific engagement you can usually find an "I win" button that makes the whole thing pointless. Fucknag posted:I still think the ground speed check story from Sled Driver is the greatest example of one-upsmanship ever. Now see, that was just loving hilarious.
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Feb 14, 2015 05:09
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Blows up what's down, shoots down what's up. And vice versa, if need be.
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Feb 15, 2015 02:00
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Boomerjinks posted:Makes me wonder if a bomber crew has ever opened and closed their bay doors, representing That's probably one of those "well-defined rules" situations that Godholio was talking about.
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Feb 21, 2015 02:26
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Agean90 posted:The majority of US invasion plans are the words "CHAOS REIGNS" repeated on hundreds of sheets of paper. One of the parts that I loved from Command and Control was when it explained how, for the longest time, the SIOP just kind of trailed off a few hours after the Go order. Like, they'd launch all the missiles, drop all the bombs, and then just sit back and go "... yup".
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Feb 21, 2015 16:00
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Nebakenezzer posted:Good thing I don't sweat, so my mag shielding doesn't need rustproofing What's the point of having a wheel up front at all? It doesn't seem like that would make a drat bit of difference compared to just differential steering with the treads. Also, Batch 19 is loving awful beer. Baracula posted:John Wayne airport? Hahaha Beats the poo poo out of LAX.
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Mar 1, 2015 02:06
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Nebakenezzer posted:e: though the front wheel was enough to make small direction corrections without needing the treads. I guess so; maybe it's easier/cheaper to do it that way than a more complex transmission that does fine steering via the treads.
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Mar 1, 2015 04:04
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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  . 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.  Because if you're going to be big, fat, and slow, you might as well paint it like a whale as well.
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Mar 4, 2015 02:07
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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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Party Plane Jones posted:Static testing for radar signatures to copy for decoys probably. This would be my guess. Radar or some other type of engineering analysis. evil_bunnY posted:Anyone who legit knows isn't telling you, and even if you manage to set it off it'll scuttle itself through implosion mistiming if you hosed something along the way. PALs are p serious business. Yeah, modern nukes are supposed to be designed safe enough that the detonator won't work without some very specific codes. You could rig up a nasty dirty bomb using the raw material, but getting the finicky precision detonation elements to actually set off a nuclear reaction should take more than a basic college level engineering knowledge. How well that applies in the real world is something we'll probably get chills reading about 50 years from now, in Command And Control 2: Malia Strikes Back.
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Mar 12, 2015 01:07
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LostCosmonaut posted:I don't think the Soviets did (afaik the set on the XF-108/YF-12 was one of the first American ones). So, I guess I was asking how much range the Soviet equivalent of DEW would have. That's a straight mathematical calculation, since it's generally limited by line-of-sight due to the curvature of the earth. LOS range is 4.12 * (sqrt(radar height) + sqrt(target height)). So if your EW antenna is, say, 10m high, it gives you about 92 km at which you could detect an aircraft flying at 50m. Beyond that it gets a lot more complicated. Normally your EW radars are going to be placed out at the edge of your defended territory, so you should have more warning than that for the actual strategic targets. Your enemy can attack the EW sites themselves, but that obviously tips you off that something is going on. I don't know where the Soviets had their EW sites, but I'd assume they had them set up to provide more than a 5 minute warning against incoming bombers. Then you're getting into command and control communication links, integrated air defense plans, and lots of other factors that make things fuzzy. e: originally had the equation for feet/miles, fixed to use metric units. Wingnut Ninja fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 04:19
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iyaayas01 posted:Whether or not you think the US defense establishment could've developed a viable TERCOM system for a supersonic+ low altitude intercontinental cruise missile in the late '50s/early '60s is a different question. They probably could have, it just would have run on superheated hydrofluoric acid and liquefied kittens or something.
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Mar 18, 2015 05:45
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Cat Mattress posted:I believe in this aircraft about as much as I believe in this one: Any aircraft designed by an artist or "design student" is generally hilarious. https://www.behance.net/gallery/AWWA-Sky-Whale-Concept-Plane/11891085
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Mar 20, 2015 18:34
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PittTheElder posted:They also have this majestic devil, fittingly named Big Tail, parked out on the front lawn. SU-71 Flankbird?
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Apr 4, 2015 03:29
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