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I'm still waiting for our giant aircraft carriers made out of sawdust and ice.
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Mar 11, 2010 16:56
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Mythbusters did it but found frozen newspaper to be harder than frozen sawdust. Either way, it melted in like a half hour.   (only pics i could find, mythbusters do not deserve me getting the episode, and screen caping it) Content: from the pics that look like 'shops thread, Russian pilot goes a supposed mach 2 with no canopy in movie stunt. 
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Mar 11, 2010 17:20
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Advent Horizon posted:I saw one crash while standing next to a kid whose dad was on board. That was not a good day. I went to click your profile looking for Alaska before I noticed it in your title. Was it the one that lost its engines due to birds?
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Mar 11, 2010 17:31
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TimingBelt posted:I hate simulated air battles more than anything. Like Armchair quarterbacking with fighter planes. It proves NOTHING. I think the dynamics of modern air combat, much like any other form of warfare, I suppose, are much less sexy and exciting than the general public's perception. It's not a great screenplay where the USAF has the biggest radar in the sky and can see and throw BVR missiles at everyone else long before everyone else even knew what the gently caress. All these planes doing loop de loops and shooting at each other with cannons is just World War 1 stuff at this point. Braveheart wouldn't be a very interesting movie either if half the armies realistically died of dysentery and diarrhea before getting to the battlefield. Throatwarbler fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 11, 2010 18:03
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Yeah at this point if there's a significant air to air engagement and you get within cannon range, someone done hosed up.
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Mar 11, 2010 18:13
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Ola posted:I went to click your profile looking for Alaska before I noticed it in your title. Was it the one that lost its engines due to birds? That would be the one. We were sitting at the bus stop before school. The smoke cloud drifted over my Jr. High and made that day's Friday Run suck. I'll never forget that smell. On a different note, my dad used to do remote site camps, and he once talked my mother into coming along. They were flying in a Caribou from Southwest Alaska when they encountered bad clouds and icing conditions. They sat in the back watching the wings build ice and the engines suck ice when the co-pilot came back. He told them the controls were covered in ice and they were aimed straight at Mt. Iliamna. He told them that he and the pilot were doing everything they could, but that they should be ready. Then he went back to the cockpit. My parents sat for a while in the back and took in what he said. My mother wasn't taking it horribly well, from what I understand. A little while later, the co-pilot came back again. He said that he and the pilot had managed to stand on the controls hard enough that they'd pulled to the side of Iliamna, but that the plane had built so much ice it was in a slow descent and probably wouldn't make it across Cook Inlet (a 20 mile wide body of water). He said he did have some good news, and that was that even if one of the engines suck enough ice to die that they should be able to restart it since the plane had a backup electrical system. As they slowly descended over Cook Inlet, the plane got low enough and warm enough that some of the ice melted. They wouldn't crash into the ocean! They just didn't have enough fuel to make it to Anchorage. So they diverted to Homer. A close friend of theirs, whom they met for the first time later but he remembered the incident, happened to be sitting on the runway waiting to take off. He said when their Caribou landed he thought it exploded. All the ice came off in one huge smashing cloud. They pulled up to the fuel pump, shut down, and the pilot got out to fill 'er up. It turned out they'd pulled up to a closed pump, so they'd need to taxi over across the airport to the FBO. The pilot got back in the plane and...nothing. The entire electrical system had shorted out. My mother never went on another bush trip again.
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Mar 11, 2010 18:25
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Thats so baddass.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:00
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azflyboy posted:I remember reading that the Nighthawk was retired simply because the aircraft were getting old (and therefore more costly to keep flying) and the USAF wanted more F-22's, so they canned the F-117. That could be true, too. I'm of the opinion that it was dropped because the Serbs were very public with how it was downed, it wasn't a lucky shot. wiki: quote:According to NATO Commander Wesley Clark and other NATO generals, Yugoslav air defenses detected F-117s by operating their radars on unusually long wavelengths, making the aircraft visible to radar for brief periods. So yeah, maintenance was a bear, the technology was getting old, but it would have been useful to keep at least some around to bolster the shaky F-22 program that got cut. It was still a perfectly valid airframe for low intensity invasions we are so fond of. It kinda leads me to believe that it was retired early at least in part to its "stealth" being compromised, even though it was more our planning than anything that resulted in that loss.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:10
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That's the same reason Francis Gary Powers got shot down - we flew the same routes every time. I know the military is conservative, but not changing that stupid idea in 50 years is a bit much.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:18
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I'm sure with aircraft like that we don't really inform too many people of the flight paths, so they don't get a chance to test strategy or whatever. It probably narrows down the air corridors they can use.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:20
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Advent Horizon posted:I saw one crash while standing next to a kid whose dad was on board. That was not a good day. You were at Elmendorf? Yeah, there have been 2 Class-A mishaps resulting the loss of an aircraft. Yukla 27 ingested a flock of canadian geese and lost two engines immediately after leaving the ground, too late to abort. They tried to go around for an immediate emergency landing, but only made it about 2 miles before going down into a wooded area. 24 on board. The other loss was not long after. A NATO E-3 drove off the end of the runway after the pilot decided to abort after hitting v1...there were birds in the area and Yukla was still fresh in everyone's mind. The airframe buckled after it plowed off the runway an into a body of water...the most serious injury was a broken leg, in the area of the cabin where the frame bent to the side. The recent Nellis incident was probably Class-A (I can't imagine it being cheaper) but there were no major injuries and the aircraft is being repaired.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:22
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Godholio posted:You were at Elmendorf? Yeah, there have been 2 Class-A mishaps resulting the loss of an aircraft. Yukla 27 ingested a flock of canadian geese and lost two engines immediately after leaving the ground, too late to abort. They tried to go around for an immediate emergency landing, but only made it about 2 miles before going down into a wooded area. 24 on board. I wasn't at Elmendorf, I grew up in Eagle River. It's a small town/sorta suburb just north of Elmendorf AFB/Ford Richardson. I was in 7th grade at the time. I can't find too many pictures online, but I distinctly remember the shape of the wreckage field. I've camped less than a mile from there several times. It shook up a lot of people in the area.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:30
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Advent Horizon posted:I wasn't at Elmendorf, I grew up in Eagle River. It's a small town/sorta suburb just north of Elmendorf AFB/Ford Richardson. I was in 7th grade at the time. I bet. It's a big plane, and 24 people on a military aircraft is a lot. The E-3 was and still an aircraft with one of the best safety records in the world. There's something like 65 or 70 of them in the world, and two have been lost...neither through the fault of the aircraft. There was just no way for Yukla to recover, and the NATO crash was what I would call pilot error. Aside from Yukla there's never been a fatality in the aircraft. I've never found pictures of the wreckage, just the scorched area where 80k lbs of fuel turned everything to ash. Pretty sobering, especially the color version. VikingSkull posted:That could be true, too. I'm of the opinion that it was dropped because the Serbs were very public with how it was downed, it wasn't a lucky shot. Most missiles can't be targeted using LPRF radar. They might be able to see there's something there, but it's not NEARLY accurate enough to guide a missile into the kill radius. The SA-3 does have a very effective optical guidance, and the USAF was flying the same route at the same time every loving day. Godholio fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 00:42
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Godholio posted:I've never found pictures of the wreckage, just the scorched area where 80k lbs of fuel turned everything to ash. That was the wreckage. The only things easily identifiable were an engine or two and landing gear.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:57
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VikingSkull posted:
I'm not sure how useful the F-117 would have been for the "dirty little wars" that have cropped up since the 1990's, especially the war on terror. The Nighthawk was designed to penetrate heavily defended airspace, drop two guided bombs on something important, and then get away undetected, which isn't terribly relevant right now. Cruise missiles have improved since Desert Storm to the point where they're great at precision strikes, and if it's absolutely necessary to use a manned aircraft to drop something, a B-2 can carry more weapons over a longer range, and is likely harder to see on radar than it's older brother. Most of the post Gulf War conflicts have seen bombers being used primarily for ground support, with B-52's and B-2's alike orbiting until needed, dropping a couple of guided weapons on something, and going back to orbiting, which the F-117 simply couldn't do.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:57
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Yeah, the F-117 was cool in the 90s for showing up out of nowhere and dropping a bunker buster on your commo node, HQ, radome, power plant, etc. But it's just not a great air support platform and we have better ways to nail such high priority targets now. It's also just not that stealthy. Edit for photos: The F-5 is the most gorgeous jet fighter ever. Look how small and awesome it is next to this  Having oodles of money and owning a private T-38 (trainer version of F-5) would be the best thing ever. I am envious of the Nasa pilots who fly these things over the city all the time down here. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 01:31
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All I see is a Nissan GTR sitting next to a Miata
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Mar 12, 2010 02:40
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Preoptopus posted:All I see is a Nissan GTR sitting next to a Miata Hahaha, I very nearly compared this to a Miata next to a Murcialago, but I think Miata next to GTR is better.
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Mar 12, 2010 02:43
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decahedron posted:Yeah at this point if there's a significant air to air engagement and you get within cannon range, someone done hosed up. 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.
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Mar 12, 2010 03:49
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azflyboy posted:I'm not sure how useful the F-117 would have been for the "dirty little wars" that have cropped up since the 1990's, especially the war on terror. The Air Force considers a B-52, B-2 or B-1 orbiting for hours at a time in a combat zone to be too expensive and too risky. That's why they're entertaining the idea of small counter-insrugency aircraft once again, such as a weaponised version of the T-6 Texan II trainer, or the hilariously named Cessna Combat Caravan, amongst others. After all, you don't really need a $150 million stealth fighter aircraft or a billion-dollar bomber to operate in an environment with virtually no air- or ground-based threats, apart from MANPADs and small arms fire.
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Mar 12, 2010 04:23
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MrChips posted:The Air Force considers a B-52, B-2 or B-1 orbiting for hours at a time in a combat zone to be too expensive and too risky. That's why they're entertaining the idea of small counter-insrugency aircraft once again, such as a weaponised version of the T-6 Texan II trainer, or the hilariously named Cessna Combat Caravan, amongst others. After all, you don't really need a $150 million stealth fighter aircraft or a billion-dollar bomber to operate in an environment with virtually no air- or ground-based threats, apart from MANPADs and small arms fire. If they're thinking about using Caravans, what about the Twin Otter? Seems like that might be a better idea. If an engine goes out you've got a spare, and you can haul more weaponry around (or more fuel for more loiter time).
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Mar 12, 2010 05:24
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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.
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Mar 12, 2010 05:38
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My dad got to hang out with the SU-27s that are in IL right now. http://www.philhigh.com/Aviation/SU-27-Flanker/11472451_CdXDf#807856217_8YfAN-L-LB Unfortunately he hasn't uploaded it anywhere else.
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Mar 12, 2010 05:50
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I was a crew chief on F-16s. http://www.f-16.net/aircraft-database/F-16/airframe-profile/1603/ . That was my actual plane I was assigned to, it crashed around 8 months after I was out of service, I guess the pilot died in the crash, he was only 26. I'm not really sure that there is a whole lot interest in f16s, as they aren't usually looked at as cool like the f15 or the f22. I think they were generally supposed to be semi-disposable cheap planes, although we had a few with over 5500 airframe hours on them if I remember correctly. As far as maintenance goes I've put in lots of hours of actual true maintenance on this airframe as I was assigned to it after the flying day on the repair shift. Known in the military as swing shift. I've also worked on a A-10s. Plenty of stories of these airplanes, stuff like seeing a dude pull the canopy eject handle instead of the alt gear handle and blowing the canopy off a jet on tripod jacks. It was a pretty bad deal as the canopy hit the screen above the jet and came down scraping all the antennas off the tail. The coolest part I guess was when I got to fly in the back seat of a block 25 D model, pretty much hard to explain that kind of thing in words. I guess like a rollercoaster times about 50,000. We did max climb on take off and then he rolled it over, and as the canopy on a 16 is just a bubble it kinda felt like you were hanging by a shoulder harness 15,000 ft above the ground. I got to handle the throttle and stick for a little while and there's nothing quite like it. The stick is very odd feeling because it's fly by wire so it takes only light pressure and this gastank strapped to an engine darts around. 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. The only planes I really don't like are F-4s as one of my first days out of tech school on the flight line, the germans were flying with us and they were in prelaunch checks while I was trying to do an inspection and the exhaust from those things is pretty much black and nasty, it also tastes pretty bad. It was also pointed directly at my spot and I was brand new and didn't think I was allowed to leave the flight line, heh. So I spent 9 hrs in the summer heat in Phoenix AZ getting poo poo on by german f-4 exhaust. Oh I was at Luke, AFB if it matters. I've also been out for about 4 years and am not currently in aircraft maintenance, so details could be kind of sketchy. quick edit: the guy posting a comment on that page is not me, but he was my supervisor. All the work he claims to have done was actually done by me, but such is the way supervisors are I guess.
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Mar 12, 2010 06:12
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durabrand107 posted:Come now, the F-16 is plenty  I even like it more than the F-15. Simple and Lightweight. Awesome post by the way.
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Mar 12, 2010 06:19
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TimingBelt posted:Come now, the F-16 is plenty Haha here's a video for you then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_2V3HHqqBg&feature=related The music is bad but the fighter squadron in the video was the one my AMU (aircraft maintenance unit) was attached too. I probably had man hours on every plane in that video, especially 219. Yea the mascot is a cartoon dog and yes we had to do this little jab jab jab motion after we marshaled them out. I guess the 309th AMU were the wild ducks and they had donald duck as mascot so it coulda been worse.
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Mar 12, 2010 06:31
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I always liked the F-16, looks best with perfect proportions. These days I automatically think of the video where they suck in a bird at takeoff and become the worlds most expensive lawn dart.
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Mar 12, 2010 06:43
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Advent Horizon posted:If they're thinking about using Caravans, what about the Twin Otter? Seems like that might be a better idea. If an engine goes out you've got a spare, and you can haul more weaponry around (or more fuel for more loiter time). 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. Since the aircraft is so popular ,a company called Viking Air bought the manufacturing rights in 2004, and starts delivery of new aircraft later this year. Given how versatile the Twin Otter is, I wouldn't be surprised if the US military ends up buying a few for various purposes.
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Mar 12, 2010 07:09
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No Thud yet? Shame. Click here for the full 800x528 image. Sure, it was a maintenance nightmare, sucked down enough fuel to singlehandedly cause Peak Oil, had a turning radius measured in miles, and around half of them ended up scattered over North Vietnam. It's amazing they only lost half the total production, because Thuds were used for Wild Weasel. Mission profile: fly ahead of the bombers, goad the SAMs into shooting at you, then either fire a radar-homing missile and hope it got there before they got a shot off, or intentionally let them shoot then dodge the SAM and dive-bomb the launcher, located by seeing the missile take off. That would've been simply insane rather than flat-out suicidal, if not for the MiGs and AA guns also out for their asses.  
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Mar 12, 2010 07:29
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Republic_F-105B_with_avionics_layout_060831-F-1234S-046.jpg "Dammit all, where IS that frickin USB cable?"
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Mar 12, 2010 07:35
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Delivery McGee posted:No Thud yet? Shame. I find it hilarious that the Thunderbirds flew these for a short time. I bet that woulda been one hell of an airshow. I saw one on static display once, and it truly is a huge aircraft.
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Mar 12, 2010 07:44
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durabrand107 posted:I was a crew chief on F-16s. I've always had a thing for the F-16, it's hard to say why. Something about the whole thing being perfect 45 and 90 degree angles when viewed from above, I think. It just LOOKS the way a fighter should: small, sleek and bristling with various armaments. The shape of the vertical stabilizer, the ventral fins, the bubble canopy, all of it appealed to me when I was about 7, and it's held a soft spot in my heart ever since.
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Mar 12, 2010 07:53
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Fucknag posted:I've always had a thing for the F-16, it's hard to say why. Something about the whole thing being perfect 45 and 90 degree angles when viewed from above, I think. It just LOOKS the way a fighter should: small, sleek and bristling with various armaments. The shape of the vertical stabilizer, the ventral fins, the bubble canopy, all of it appealed to me when I was about 7, and it's held a soft spot in my heart ever since. For some reason I always thought of a shark when I looked at it. V-fins are great until you bang your head on them putting in a fuel drain house or taking them off for engine removal. There's either 117 or 170 some screws and then the two well-torqued bolts. What's cool is getting down to the last few and you have broken nutplates and they just spin and spin and you cram a flathead in there to try apply enough pressure to hold the nutplate still but it doesn't want to hold still and you throw things at your toolbox like your TOs and Quality Assurance comes up and writes you up for not having the TO open to the right page. But they only give you a warning cause you're one of the "good old boys" from hicksville, usa. Of course then you make E-4 and you're put in charge of the engine removal and you tell your little E-2 and E-3 buddies to go "prep that jet for engine removal, that means panel removal, I'll be over there when I'm done doing.....stuff." But I'm just being salty, I actually thought the plane looked pretty sharp. I also used a fair bit of JP8+100 keeping it looking that way.
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Mar 12, 2010 08:08
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-Spiffy- posted:I always liked the F-16, looks best with perfect proportions. If you're thinking of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z00gU-OQdQI That's a Canadian CT-155 Hawk trainer. And considering the various lawn darts of history, this one was a bargain.  The student in front was fine but unfortunately the instructor suffered a spinal injury or something that ended his flying career.Here's some intense F-16 action from Desert Storm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uh4yMAx2UA While attacking a refinery in Baghdad, they get attacked by SA-2 and SA-3s - which are basically Mach 3 telephone poles with 200 or 400 pounds of high explosive on the tip. Full story is here: http://www.lucky-devils.net/afm.html
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Mar 12, 2010 10:20
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Godholio posted:You were at Elmendorf? Yeah, there have been 2 Class-A mishaps resulting the loss of an aircraft. Yukla 27 ingested a flock of canadian geese and lost two engines immediately after leaving the ground, too late to abort. They tried to go around for an immediate emergency landing, but only made it about 2 miles before going down into a wooded area. 24 on board. The other loss was not long after. A NATO E-3 drove off the end of the runway after the pilot decided to abort after hitting v1...there were birds in the area and Yukla was still fresh in everyone's mind. The airframe buckled after it plowed off the runway an into a body of water...the most serious injury was a broken leg, in the area of the cabin where the frame bent to the side. I was stationed at Bragg when this happened... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqPDe-nZK6w Right in the middle of a public LAPES demo. Horrific event.
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Mar 12, 2010 12:58
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mlmp08 posted:Yeah, the F-117 was cool in the 90s for showing up out of nowhere and dropping a bunker buster on your commo node, HQ, radome, power plant, etc. But it's just not a great air support platform and we have better ways to nail such high priority targets now. Can the F-5 do this?  quote:
with video: http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/12/f-15-lands-miraculously-with-wing.html It lost an entire wing and STILL flew back home without spiraling into the ground uncontrollably. Awesome.
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Mar 12, 2010 13:37
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I was stationed at Bragg when this happened... Oh god, this makes me sick to my stomach. I worked with C130's in the AF and have been in a few "assault landings" exactly like that. My rear end in a top hat puckered every time the pilot made the steep plunge and it felt like we were going to crash each time.
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Mar 12, 2010 14:08
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DerDestroyer posted:What can they do with flattened lumps of scrap from the F-117 anyway? Isn't the F-117 retired now? The F-117 was an absolute miracle, it's considered the best secret ever kept by Washington. The US Department of Defense spent 20 years developing the stealth material without a single leak. Being able to examine the surface alone in a lab is a HUGE advantage in solving the technology. The next step is figuring out how to manufacture it in mass production, but rest assured that the Russians didn't need 20 years to duplicate the invention once they had this sample. Mr.Peabody fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 15:06
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azflyboy posted:I remember reading that the Nighthawk was retired simply because the aircraft were getting old (and therefore more costly to keep flying) and the USAF wanted more F-22's, so they canned the F-117. The F-117 was retired because the B-2 was a more capable bomber, and it's poor maneuverability limited it to nighttime missions. The F-22 was the scheduled replacement, which is a way more capable fighter, but its costs has canned it as well. The F-35 will eventually be the fighter of choice for all forces once it is sent into mass production, so the DOD can save money. Also, Here's a video of the Russian T-50 stealth fighter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22fN4fVoFdY
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Mar 12, 2010 15:16
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Some Guy From NY posted:Can the F-5 do this?
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Mar 12, 2010 15:24
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