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Buhbuhj posted:There's a surprising lack of A-10s so far. I would have expected at least 3 pages worth by now but I think it got maybe 2 mentions so far. Here is a mention. I "shot" one of those down at CAX once. As a door gunner on a Ch-53E of all things. I still don't really believe it, though. Those armored suckers come back from actual combat with huge chunks of the bird missing, so I think the judges gave my little .50 cal a bit of extra credit when it came to scoring hits. Not that I don't brag about it, though. Especially when Warthog drivers are nearby.  All that being said, those planes rock. I've heard a few (long-shot) internet rumors about the Corps picking up A-10s after the Air Force is through with them. Probably won't happen though, the F-35 is supposed to fill in the CAS role.
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Mar 19, 2010 03:39
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Weinertron posted:I don't understand why we can't just build more A-10s. They are tough, cheap, perfect at their role. tooling required for special parts, a factory to build them in
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Mar 19, 2010 03:53
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FullMetalJacket posted:tooling required for special parts, a factory to build them in Yeah, all that poo poo is gone, and Fairchild folded years ago (and somehow wasn't bought by Boeing). Plus costs have gone up since the mid 70s. A new A-10 would probably run $50 million or more, plus start-up costs. Flint Ironstag posted:Here is a mention. I "shot" one of those down at CAX once. As a door gunner on a Ch-53E of all things. I still don't really believe it, though. This wasn't at a Red Flag like 2 years ago, was it? This happened at a flag I went to as well...I thought it was a Pave Hawk or maybe a Blackhawk shooting at a Tornado, but over a year and a half I went to about 6 Red Flags so I might be mixing up airframes. Edit: A 45 year old A-10 is not a good plane to try to land on a boat. Godholio fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 04:54
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I find it interesting that, for certain roles like CAS, strategic bombing, and STOL cargo, bushplanes; the aircraft haven't progressed since the 50's. It seems that with the advent of the A-10, the B-52, and the C-130 we reached the Aristotelian form of each of these aircraft. Are there any other aircraft roles that have reached their ultimate form? No one else in the world can field an F-22, so America has air superiority sewn up for the next decade or two. Now that I think about it, I can't see any military aircraft designs that really need revision in the next 25 years. Are there any great problems in aeronautics that still need solving? Or are we done with airplanes?
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Mar 19, 2010 05:11
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I think the issue is that it's gotten exponentially more expensive to develop new military aircraft. In WWII there were at any given time probably a dozen or more new planes in some stage of R&D in the US, right? These days, it takes billions and billions of dollars just to start the research programs. That's actually why I think it'd be reasonable to resurrect the A-10; we start from scratch when it comes to tooling up to build a new airplane anyway (new factory, new parts, etc) but at least we'd be able to skip a huge part of the R&D; if we can't get actual manufacturing specs, it'd still have to be cheaper to reverse-engineer from a couple or three existing A-10s. Of course, there's no way it'd be left like that. There'd be demands for new, cutting-edge avionics and radar and weapons systems and what not and it'd turn into a new plane being developed anyway, because there's too much politics and money at play. Still. It seems to me we need to have some kind of broad reform of how we develop new military aircraft in the modern era, or we are increasingly going to move towards one-size-fits-all aircraft that do no particular job particularly well, but are none the less so insanely expensive on a per-plane basis that we'll have either a tiny overall fleet (is that the right word?), or spend ourselves into oblivion.
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Mar 19, 2010 05:25
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This wasn't at a Red Flag like 2 years ago, was it? This happened at a flag I went to as well...I thought it was a Pave Hawk or maybe a Blackhawk shooting at a Tornado, but over a year and a half I went to about 6 Red Flags so I might be mixing up airframes. [/quote] Naw, was a bit before that. I'm a little older than the average goon.
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Mar 19, 2010 05:36
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There was talk earlier in this thread now the military has gotten far too cozy with the aerospace contractors, and it has created and environment where any new aircraft is almost guaranteed to run horrendously over budget and years behind schedule, and then not deliver on half of its promises. There's also just the factor that aircraft have gotten so complex that it's pushing the limits on what humans can reasonably manage. You see this with commercial aircraft too, like the notoriously late 787. Back in WWII the planes were really just not that complicated, they couldn't be, people were designing them with pencils on drafting boards. A single person could become an expert on pretty much the entire airplane if they tried. With a modern aircraft you can't do that, there is just too much for a single person to comprehend, and computer aided tools only help so much.
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Mar 19, 2010 05:37
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Plus there are only two real options when it comes to American aerospace companies. Not many more in Europe, either. Edit: For military aircraft, at least.
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Mar 19, 2010 05:50
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Sterndotstern posted:
A lot of recent developments in aviation are aimed at improving existing aircraft to keep them flying rather than spending tens of billions on a new design that's going to go massively over budget and behind schedule. As an example, look at the C-130J and A-400 programs. By modernizing a 50 year old aircraft, Lockheed was able to gain significant improvements in speed, fuel economy and takeoff/landing performance, all while developing the aircraft roughly within time and budget constraints. The A-400 (a completely new design) is currently four years behind schedule, something like 25% over budget (Airbus is expected to lose around $10 billion on the whole program), and Airbus is threatening to cancel the program if they don't get thrown more money. As a result of the delays, several A-400 customers have cancelled their orders and bought C-130J's and C-17's instead. The USAF is also following a similar "if it ain't broke, just update it" strategy. Both the C-5 and KC-135 fleets have had substantial amounts of money thrown at them to upgrade things like engines and avionics and replace aging structural components to increase the performance of the aircraft and get more value out of the initial investments. Ironically, the B-52 seems to be doing slightly better than the aircraft that was supposed to replace it. In 2003, the USAF decided to retire about 30 B-1's (reducing the fleet to 67) meaning there were more B-52's flying than the aircraft that was supposed to replace it. Despite being well over 40 at this point, the B-52 fleet still manages to have a far higher availability rate than either the B-1 or B-2 that were intended to replace it. Currently, the B-52 is supposed to be in service until at least 2040 (making the youngest flying aircraft about 80 years old), with the B-1 fleet being retired at about the same time.
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Mar 19, 2010 06:02
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Sterndotstern posted:
this is a rather arrogant statment. this newer, better, faster mentality is what gives us such headaches as the f22. azflyboy posted:
i'd hate to be the structures tech who has to sign off an 80 year old airframe. FullMetalJacket fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 06:22
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Sterndotstern posted:I find it interesting that, for certain roles like CAS, strategic bombing, and STOL cargo, bushplanes; the aircraft haven't progressed since the 50's. It seems that with the advent of the A-10, the B-52, and the C-130 we reached the Aristotelian form of each of these aircraft. Airplanes are one of those weird technologies that have aged pretty well. Things like the C-130 and the B52 are still in use, since having a flying platform that can do multiroles is useful, even today. It's similar to why some cars use *really* old drive trains; they still do the job that they were designed for, because the job hasn't changed. The 4L jeep engine is in modern technolody terms some sort of eldrich artifact, but Jeep fans would still buy 'em today if they could. Guns are like this too. If you think of when the colt 45 was made, it's stunning to realize it's a pre-WW1 weapon. A lot of other guns still in use today, even by the military, have similar old vintages. About the only other bits of technology that have that kind of longevity are post WW2 metal lathes, (which apparently haven't changed since the 50s) and pedal powered sowing machines. (Not in the first world, but in places with spotty connections to the electrical grind Singer's god knows how old design is still being manufactured.) As for the future of aircraft, well, go back to WW2 again. Jets were a complete gamechanger; brilliant WW2 designs couldn't cope with the Jet world. So all the designs had to be re-thought. If another major air war happened, then this would probably happen again. Though I honestly don't know what you mean by "are we done with airplanes."
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Mar 19, 2010 06:40
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Nebakenezzer posted:Though I honestly don't know what you mean by "are we done with airplanes." I think we're getting very near the end of piloted attack/fighter aircraft. When you can put up a drone with the same armament, a lighter, cheaper and stealthier airframe, much better maneuverability because you don't have to worry about crushing soft human tissues, and the ability to fly it from halfway around the world so that your trained operators aren't ever lost...
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Mar 19, 2010 07:40
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The other factor in why these old designs are still around is simple. If your old design works well it will probably costs billions of dollars to improve on it even marginally. So why even bother to make something new. It's a case of its kind of broke but it will cost $20 billion to make it slightly less broke so why fix it.
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Mar 19, 2010 14:28
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FullMetalJacket posted:this is a rather arrogant statment. this newer, better, faster mentality is what gives us such headaches as the f22. Air superiority is about arrogance, mate, or rather air supremacy, which is what is effectively guaranteed by the tactical and strategic advantages of 5th gen fighters. The F-22 enables pilots to spend a long time at very high rates of speed while being very hard to spot or engage. Pilots that are the most experienced, well trained and deadly in the world. Once engaged, the avionics and weaponry suite is far and away the most advanced in the world. If that isn't air superiority sewn up, I don't know what is. I'm not even a fanboy, but poo poo man, don't underestimate the power of being a full generation beyond anything else in the sky. Fun fact to those who think WW2 aircraft were cheap: the USA spent more on the development of the B-29 than it did on developing the atomic bomb. WW2-era design was also a hugely expensive, difficult process due to the tools of the time (or lack thereof), and when developing for a new role (intercontinental bomber) the process is rendered doubly difficult by lack of experience. Nebakenezzer posted:Though I honestly don't know what you mean by "are we done with airplanes." To take your example, the yardstick of personal defense weapons, the Colt .45 or M1911, hasn't been updated for nearly a century. Sure, some of the components have been upgraded, but the overall layout and design approach perfection (even when converted to M9s for NATO-compliance). There is no next generation pistol that confers any significant tactical or strategic advantage over 100-year-old technology. Only minor upgrades and improvements are possible. In that way, you could say we're done with pistols, we've finished them, they're complete and correct. The question is this: aside from some roles (like air superiority, which must continue to evolve), are we effectively finished with the design of manned military aircraft? Sterndotstern fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 18:14
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The F22 has 3 major problems: 1. It's a maintenance headache. That's never good for a planes long term prospects. See: the F-14 2. It's incredibly expensive, but then this was expected. The fact that we don't export it however only makes this problem that much worse. Having a lot of its jobs taken over by inexpensive (relatively speaking) drones is the real kick to the nuts. 3. It's designed to fight a war we are unlikely to find ourselves in for the foreseeable future. This is the killer. It's not like Al-Qaeda or Hamas are flying 4th generation fighters that we need to counter. Even China and Russia, cool as our relations may be at the moment, aren't going to start up a full on ground/air war with the US. We don't even have the cold war arms race excuse that gave us the F-15. The F22 is an incredible fighter, but in a lot of ways it seems like a cold war relic. Like the war ended, but the people who were making the profit off of it didn't want to stop. At some point we're going to have to really start to think about shrinking some of these defense contractors back to more affordable sizes, even though it's going to be politically difficult as they start firing people in various senator's districts.
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Mar 19, 2010 18:26
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We're not done with planes until I finally get my goddamned supersonic flights from NYC to LA. HURRY UP ALREADY!
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Mar 19, 2010 18:34
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They tried that once, it didn't work because nobody likes Sonic Booms and expensive airline tickets. Besides, NY to LA is what? 6 hours? 8-9 if you include the time in the Airport. Going supersonic would shave off maybe 2 hours but cost you several hundred extra in fuel. IMHO, the Concorde was a failure in the end because regular Joes couldn't afford to fly on it, and the ticket prices were high enough that most businesses would only let executives fly on it. That's the majority of people who fly. Given the maintenance costs associated with it and the fact that it could only fly over the ocean it's no wonder that nobody is rushing to repeat the experiment.
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Mar 19, 2010 19:01
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jandrese posted:IMHO, the Concorde was a failure in the end because regular Joes couldn't afford to fly on it, and the ticket prices were high enough that most businesses would only let executives fly on it. That's the majority of people who fly. Given the maintenance costs associated with it and the fact that it could only fly over the ocean it's no wonder that nobody is rushing to repeat the experiment.
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Mar 19, 2010 19:08
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That would suggest a high profit margin on the tickets. If that's the case, why stop flying them? "Yeah, we had to shut down this division, it was just too profitable."
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Mar 19, 2010 19:10
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jandrese posted:That would suggest a high profit margin on the tickets. If that's the case, why stop flying them?
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Mar 19, 2010 19:14
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InitialDave posted:Namby-pamby safety bullshit after one went down thanks to runway FOD. That was just a convenient excuse that let them mothball it and save face. For most of its existence, the Concorde was an unprofitable prestige stunt. It was too small, too limited in the routes it could fly, and swilled too much fuel to be a mainstream airliner.
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Mar 19, 2010 19:20
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eggyolk posted:We're not done with planes until I finally get my goddamned supersonic flights from NYC to LA. HURRY UP ALREADY! That capability was commercially available in 1976 and reitred in 2003. 
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Mar 19, 2010 19:22
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I don't care if it leaves streaks of space radiation leaking holes in the upper atmosphere that roast us all, I want supersonic booms going around me while I sip cocktails and hit on stewardesses and deafen innocent farmers thousands of feet below.
eggyolk fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 19:32
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Nothus posted:That was just a convenient excuse that let them mothball it and save face. For most of its existence, the Concorde was an unprofitable prestige stunt. It was too small, too limited in the routes it could fly, and swilled too much fuel to be a mainstream airliner. Weren't they nearly always filled to capacity, though, even at $10,000 a ticket or whatever it was?
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Mar 19, 2010 19:33
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eggyolk posted:I don't care if it leaves streaks of space radiation leaking holes in the upper atmosphere that roast us all, I want supersonic booms going around me while I sip cocktails and hit on stewardesses and deafen innocent farmers thousands of feet below. They made that one already, but it was a missile, not an airliner:  More: http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html
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Mar 19, 2010 19:46
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Ola posted:That capability was commercially available in 1976 and reitred in 2003. Concorde is a good AI plane topic because it's a aeronautical example of something we've seen in cars before. On the one hand, Concorde was brilliantly engineered, and achingly beautiful to go along with its astonishing performance. On the other, it was a really stupid economic idea that was a commercial failure. Oh, and it's really tiny on the inside  I mean, goddamn, I'm looking at the interior shots on Wikipedia and it looks about the same size on the inside as a CRJ commuter jet: Like a Lancia Stratos, it's impossible to operate without mantouching   This toilet is definitely CRJ sized. It's the smallest possible space that you could have for a toilet. 
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Mar 19, 2010 19:57
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Even if it didn't have a toilet I'd still fly in it just to say I'd poo poo in my pants while going supersonic.
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Mar 19, 2010 20:04
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eggyolk posted:Even if it didn't have a toilet I'd still fly in it just to say I'd poo poo in my pants while going supersonic. I think I'd prefer to say that I DIDN'T poo poo my pants going faster than sound.
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Mar 19, 2010 20:20
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It begs asking, would you even hear the sound of the poo poo hitting your pants?
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Mar 19, 2010 20:23
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But the people who flew on it were either ridiculously skinny (supermodels) or ridiculously short (British heavy metal artists) so it seemed spacious.
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Mar 19, 2010 20:23
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eggyolk posted:It begs asking, would you even hear the sound of the poo poo hitting your pants? Have you ever flown in a plane? Your drink doesn't suddenly hit the rear bulkhead when you set it down. Everything in the plane is traveling at the same speed. If you poo poo your pants in the Concorde it would be just like the last time you did it at your computer desk.
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Mar 19, 2010 20:25
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orange lime posted:Weren't they nearly always filled to capacity, though, even at $10,000 a ticket or whatever it was? Airliners depend on economies of scale, something the Concorde never had. It really was a beautiful aircraft, though. But I think I prefer being able to afford air-travel even if it means being stuffed into coach with the rest of the plebs.
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Mar 19, 2010 20:26
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jandrese posted:IMHO, the Concorde was a failure in the end because regular Joes couldn't afford to fly on it, and the ticket prices were high enough that most businesses would only let executives fly on it. What actually killed the Concorde was 9/11 and the resulting economic downturn. After Air France 4590 crashed in July of 2000, the entire Concorde fleet was grounded for some costly upgrades to the fuel tanks to prevent another tire blowout from rupturing a tank. In addition to those repairs, the Concorde fleet was simply getting old, and the surviving aircraft were getting close to needing some incredibly costly updates to their avionics and systems within the next few years to keep the aircraft airworthy and compliant with new rules and regulations. Aside from the upgrade costs, the basic maintenance on the fleet was also getting more expensive, since making spare parts for a fleet of 14 aircraft worldwide is going to be more costly than spares for a design with several hundred aircraft in service. Despite those costs, the Concorde was still considered viable, until 9/11 happened. When the World Trade Center towers fell, the people killed included many of the executives who either routinely flew on Concordes or had the power to authorize others to do so. The loss of a core customer base and the resulting downturn in the airline industry made it impossible for the aircraft to turn a profit in the face of increasing operating costs and looming upgrade costs, so Air France and British Airways made the logical choice to retire the Concorde fleet. In an odd twist of fate, the first BA Concorde to fly after the accident did so on 9/11/2001, making a quick "out and back" flight from Heathrow with BA employees on board. EDIT: Since I've got nothing better to do, here's a comparison between the 767 and Concorde to show just how expensive they were to operate. For reference, the Paris-New York route (the longest Concorde route in normal service) is just shy of 3,200 nautical miles. A 767-200 carries just under 24,000 gallons of fuel, allowing it to carry (for a 3-class setup) 181 passengers just short of 6,400 nautical miles. That works out to about 48 miles/gallon per passenger, and on a New York to Paris or London flight, that number would likely be higher as a result of the aircraft not carrying full fuel. A Concorde carried about 26,400 gallons of fuel, which allowed it to carry 92 or 100 passengers (depending on the airline) a maximum of only 3,900 nautical miles. This works out to about 14.8 mpg/passenger (with 100 seats) or 13.5 with 92 seats. Even without taking other operating costs into effect, it's pretty obvious why the Concorde wasn't able to survive the post 9/11 recession. azflyboy fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 20:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYQS3qAIjAo I just got something in my eye, just a piece of..d-dust or something...*sulk* edit: Concorde, Red Arrows and QE2 in one frame, this is  for Brits.
Ola fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 20:41
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ab0z posted:Have you ever flown in a plane? Your drink doesn't suddenly hit the rear bulkhead when you set it down. Everything in the plane is traveling at the same speed. If you poo poo your pants in the Concorde it would be just like the last time you did it at your computer desk. Cynicism like this is the reason the Concorde isn't still around today.
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Mar 19, 2010 20:54
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I challenge you not to replay this at least once: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annkM6z1-FE
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Mar 19, 2010 21:14
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InitialDave posted:I challenge you not to replay this at least once: I failed this challenge.
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Mar 19, 2010 21:37
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InitialDave posted:I challenge you not to replay this at least once: In the related videos... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu21rM9ahkY&NR=1
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Mar 19, 2010 21:44
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The Third Man posted:In the related videos... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu21rM9ahkY&NR=1 Thats in the UK right? Funny if that was in the US. Edit: Why on earth have we not made this thread before? EDIT: nevermind read the description. go 
Preoptopus fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 19, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 22:17
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InitialDave posted:I challenge you not to replay this at least once:
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