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orange lime posted: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... I have to disagree. The technology is just not there yet to support split-second decision making and the amount of raw information that would have to be transmitted effectively to the pilot. It works great for the current UAS missions: loiter, look for something interesting, follow it, if it looks interesting enough kill it. But it won't work for aerial combat, and it still isn't as reliable as having a manned aircraft overhead in some situations. And what happens when Country X figures out how to jam your datalink? Congrats, you just LOST the entire war.
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Mar 19, 2010 23:40
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The Third Man posted:In the related videos... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu21rM9ahkY&NR=1 poo poo like that is just cool 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. 
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Mar 19, 2010 23:45
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jandrese posted:The F22 has 3 major problems: 1. They're still working out a lot of bugs, but F-15 maintenance costs have risen a lot since the 70s. There's no such thing as cheap maintenance anymore...it doesn't help AT ALL that the F-22 line was shut down at less than 200 airframes. This will be the single biggest reason for high costs. 2. What jobs are you talking about? I don't know of any drones capable of penetrating deep into a double-digit SAM ring and kick open the door, or wipe out hordes of MiGs with minimal losses. 3. I totally disagree. We simply cannot rely on Vietnam-era fighters forever. Sure the F-22 was designed to counter advanced Soviet fighters and SAMs...well those programs are coming to fruition. The SA-10 and 20 will eat 4th generation fighters alive. And they're up for sale. Su-30s are among the most advanced fighters on the planet...some of them are on par or better than most currently-operational Western designs. The MiG-35 is no slouch. When the T-50 design is finished, it'll likely be an impressive fighter. The F-10 and F-11 are modern designs that are going to be produced in serious numbers to saturate the skies even with an abysmal mission ready rate. Russia, China, France, Israel, and India all have very capable aerospace industries and all of them are willing to sell their talents and products. We may not be in a cold war, but we are most definitely in an arms race. And the problem with a high-tech arms race is that if you let the other guy catch up you are completely hosed. Without the F-22 we wouldn't have the F-35 (which is shaping up to actually be the disaster that people think the F-22 was), and we wouldn't have technology that's likely bleeding into other platforms as well (ie, future upgrades to legacy aircraft and missiles). Yeah, I'm an F-22 fanboy. But I've controlled air-to-air intercepts and large-force exercises with every manned fighter the US flies, and I've seen firsthand that it deserves the accolades pilots heap on it. Godholio fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Mar 20, 2010 |
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Mar 19, 2010 23:55
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ursa_minor posted:Beech Staggerwing. I've been lucky enough to spend quite a long time in one of these. Unless I'm very mistaken, I've been lucky enough to ride in that very Staggerwing. It was owned by a guy named Addison Pemberton, who did the second restoration on it. One of the benefits of working at an airfield was getting friendly with these guys and getting rides. Once, he was up flying, a friend of his was flying his Navy Stearman, and another friend was flying a Staudacher (or was it a Pitts?). Someone called us up to ask if there was an airshow going on. "Well, yes and no." Also, there's nothing like watching an AN-2 take off into a headwind. They just kinda lift straight off the ground, like someone's flying a kite.
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Mar 20, 2010 01:48
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And now for something a bit less exciting... basic trainers. I work as a flight instructor, so these are where I get to spend my day, assuming the weather cooperates. The oldest aircraft I fly are Piper Warriors (the oldest in the fleet was delivered in 2005).  Click here for the full 1024x694 image.  Click here for the full 1280x972 image. First designed in 1960, the basic design of the Warrior has changed little in the intervening 50 years, and the design is now aging badly, despite getting a glass cockpit in 2005. The biggest problems with the Warrior are mostly ergonomic. For some reason, Piper only puts a door on the right side of the aircraft, and the seats become distinctly uncomfortable after fairly short flights. The ventilation does an amazing job of freezing ankles (that's where the vents are) without actually cooling the cabin down, and the heater is equally worthless when it gets cold outside. Adding to the fun, Piper stuck the fuel selector where there's no chance the flight instructor could reach it (it's in the lower left of the cockpit photo), and they also put the transponder and carb heat controls in locations where they're really awkward for the student to reach. Because the glass cockpit system was basically thrown into the airplane, it's not very user-friendly and still requires two separate GPS units (the two small screens in the center of the panel) to work. The standby instruments are also placed in a horrible location, making them incredibly awkward to use if the glass system actually fails. That said, the Warrior is still great for student pilots due to it's landing behavior. The landing gear appears to be indestructible, and even with the "interesting" landings students tend to make, it's hard to get more than a single bounce out of the gear before the airplane decides to stay on the ground. Even if a student lands nosewheel first (which occasionally happens), the nosegear assembly is bolted to the engine mounts and takes an astonishing amount of abuse without getting damages. The other airplane I fly is the Cessna 172, which is slowly replacing the Warrior fleet where I work. First built in 1955 and still in production, the Cessna 172 is the most produced aircraft in history, and has aged much better than it's Piper competition.  Click here for the full 1200x687 image.  Click here for the full 1196x811 image. Thanks to fuel injection, the 172 delivers 20 more horsepower than the Warrior (180 vs 160), which results in a higher climb rate while only burning slightly more fuel than the Warrior. Cessna chose to use the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit system, which delivers a truly staggering amount of information and navigation capability with a very common-sense interface and controls. If the screen on either side fails, the pilot can simply push a button to tell the remaining screen to display a mix of flight instruments, navigation and engine instrument information, which is a great "peace of mind" feature. Aside from the G1000, Cessna also stuck a very nice interior in the 172, with very comfortable leather seats, large, tinted plexiglass sun visors, and even an ipod jack. Cessna also decided to add shoulder and head level vents to the cockpit (which do a great job of cooling the cabin), and having doors on both sides of the cockpit is amazingly useful. Cessna also added airbags to the 172, and they're attached to the lap belts, inflating up at the occupants to prevent them from smashing their heads on the glareshield or yoke. Unfortunately, the newer 172's seem to have a bit of a "glass jaw" in the nosewheel design. Whereas Piper bolts the Warrior's noswheel to the engine mounts, Cessna bolts theirs to the firewall, which is only .16 inches thick. If a student lands a 172 nosewheel-first fairly hard, there's a good chance the impact will result in a wrinkled firewall and/or floorboards, which results in about $50,000 in repairs (on a $300k airplane), the flight instructor getting a 709 ride from the FAA (a checkride to make sure you're competent to be an instructor), as well as a butt chewing from various supervisors. The spring-steel design of the main gear also results in a tendency for the aircraft to impersonate a deranged kangaroo on really hard landings, but even with those foibles, the 172 still makes a great trainer, albiet one that requires the instructor to watch students a bit closer on landings.
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Mar 20, 2010 05:04
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sigtrap posted:Unless I'm very mistaken, I've been lucky enough to ride in that very Staggerwing. It was owned by a guy named Addison Pemberton, who did the second restoration on it. One of the benefits of working at an airfield was getting friendly with these guys and getting rides. I'm not sure if I've been in this particular airplane or not. To be honest, I'm just that slackjawed but quiet kid that you see being pulled around by a pilot dad - cargo shorts, camera, and a signed 'RARE BEAR' shirt or something. As a result, some piloty Mom or Dad will see me and offer me a ride. I've been stuffed into Stearmans, Meyer OTWs, Stardusters - once even a de Havilland Tigermoth. Every highwing Cessna you can imagine - from 120s to 208Bs, and a few warbirds too, B-17, B-24, and a B-25s. My dad used to be part of the pit crew for a racing Mong (single seat racing biplane) out at the Reno Air Races - so my and my sister were rung through the ringer of complimentary flights, almost like how a mom-type would give some nice kids some sweets, we'd get rides. Now I'm this big hairy man and my little sister is still cute, so she got a ride in this Lockheed.  Luckily we are really tight with the owners, so if I even so much as asked, I'm sure I could get a ride. Here's some pictures she took:    I think she was 12 at the time.
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Mar 20, 2010 05:39
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Ola posted:I failed this challenge. As did I, many times over. That's cool as poo poo.
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Mar 20, 2010 07:29
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ursa_minor posted:I'm not sure if I've been in this particular airplane or not. To be honest, I'm just that slackjawed but quiet kid that you see being pulled around by a pilot dad - cargo shorts, camera, and a signed 'RARE BEAR' shirt or something. As a result, some piloty Mom or Dad will see me and offer me a ride. I've been stuffed into Stearmans, Meyer OTWs, Stardusters - once even a de Havilland Tigermoth. Every highwing Cessna you can imagine - from 120s to 208Bs, and a few warbirds too, B-17, B-24, and a B-25s. What a beautiful plane. I am so very jealous. The only interesting thing I've gotten to fly in was a 1942 Taylorcraft.  Much like this little gem here. It's fun flying in a completely analog plane with no radio and a fuel gage that consists of a wire in front of the front windscreen floating on a cork in the gas tank. Pretty interesting way to estimate how much fuel you have left.
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Mar 20, 2010 08:40
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Angelfire? Really?
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Mar 20, 2010 16:06
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Well, it's that or geocities, man.
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Mar 20, 2010 17:32
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I was hanging out in Tuscon a couple years back.  The prop planes are P51s
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Mar 20, 2010 20:50
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Was that at an airshow? I'm pretty sure I saw that same P-51 with some Eagle back in 2003 at Stewart. e- nope, different Mustang looks like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2FML_ZO2DI Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Mar 20, 2010 |
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Mar 20, 2010 21:22
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VikingSkull posted:Was that at an airshow? I'm pretty sure I saw that same P-51 with some Eagle back in 2003 at Stewart.
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Mar 20, 2010 21:30
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P-Funk posted:I think they were practicing for heritage flights at the Air Force base. There were also some brand new F-22s flying around which was awesome. Yeah, again, Davis-Monthan is pretty rad for this kind of stuff. I took a long lunch down at the driving range this past Friday and, in the course of a little more than an hour, I saw: - a CH-53 doing aerial refueling practice with a tanked-up C-130 at ~1000 ft - an A-1 Skyraider flying close formation with an A-10. Close like "A-1 pilot could've reached out and retracted the A-10's flaps" close. Also, A-1s are surprisingly huge. - Either an F-16 or F-18 doing a series of Immelmans (Immelmen?) and loops directly over the tower. I was concentrating on fixing my loving slice, but whatever aircraft it was, it was loud and loving proud.
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Mar 21, 2010 07:39
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Sterndotstern posted:Yeah, again, Davis-Monthan is pretty rad for this kind of stuff. I took a long lunch down at the driving range this past Friday and, in the course of a little more than an hour, I saw: That's because there was an airshow at Davis-Monthan this weekend. (I live nowhere near Tuscon, but all this sounded like airshow stuff, so I Googled it.)
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Mar 21, 2010 13:13
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Re: A-10 lifetime, iirc there is a fair quantity of A-10's still in storage in the big 'boneyard' next to Davis-Monthan. (I took the AMARC bus tour out of the Pima air museum, and I saw them) They are kept in such condition that they can be ready for flight in a couple of days - if Congress approves the money. So, if too many get shot up or start hitting airframe limits, we'll probably still see some flying for a while.
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Mar 21, 2010 22:51
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Schindler's Fist posted:Re: A-10 lifetime, iirc there is a fair quantity of A-10's still in storage in the big 'boneyard' next to Davis-Monthan. (I took the AMARC bus tour out of the Pima air museum, and I saw them) They are kept in such condition that they can be ready for flight in a couple of days - if Congress approves the money. The airframes at AMARC are the least-airworthy of the fleet, that's why they're there. These are the jets that have hit or are already close to the hours limit, have structural damage, etc. Pulling anything out of AMARC for service would require the most dire of circumstances.
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Mar 21, 2010 23:20
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Schindler's Fist posted:Re: A-10 lifetime, iirc there is a fair quantity of A-10's still in storage in the big 'boneyard' next to Davis-Monthan. (I took the AMARC bus tour out of the Pima air museum, and I saw them) They are kept in such condition that they can be ready for flight in a couple of days - if Congress approves the money. Godholio posted:The airframes at AMARC are the least-airworthy of the fleet, that's why they're there. These are the jets that have hit or are already close to the hours limit, have structural damage, etc. Pulling anything out of AMARC for service would require the most dire of circumstances. For anyone not familiar with AMARC here's a satalite shot of the "bone yard". It's unreal. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...067549&t=h&z=14 Zoom in and take a look around.
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Mar 21, 2010 23:41
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Maker Of Shoes posted:For anyone not familiar with AMARC here's a satalite shot of the "bone yard". It's unreal. There are also several F-16's sitting out there that were supposed to be sold to Iran before the Shah was overthrown. Apparently the aircraft are technically the property of the Iranian government and so can't be sold off or scrapped, but because of the arms embargo they can't be delivered, so they've been sitting in shrink-wrap for the last 30 years or so.
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Mar 22, 2010 06:30
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azflyboy posted:There are also several F-16's sitting out there that were supposed to be sold to Iran before the Shah was overthrown. If they're being that anal about the legality of it all, I would think that they'd find some kind of abandoned-property law to allow them to be reclaimed.
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Mar 22, 2010 07:06
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orange lime posted:If they're being that anal about the legality of it all, I would think that they'd find some kind of abandoned-property law to allow them to be reclaimed. Or they're justifying the exorbitant government budget for shrink wrap.
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Mar 22, 2010 07:20
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Maker Of Shoes posted:For anyone not familiar with AMARC here's a satalite shot of the "bone yard". It's unreal. NICE. I found myself playing "identify the aircraft."  Up top are some old Orions, and the green airplanes are two A-10s. On the bottom are F14s and some little aircraft I can't identify. Also, I have no idea what those giant-winged planes are in the center of the picture. Just beneath the airplanes with big wings are some stout looking Jets that are a mystery to me. I want to say F15s, but the wings look kinda swept. Vigilante bombers, maybe?  Left: Shooting Stars? Seriously? They still are hanging on to those? Delta Dart, some Phantoms, some really old looking thing, like a British Canberra. Top are some twin engined cargo planes.  A-10s on the scrapheap. More of those Vigilante bombers (?) above. And some helicopter airframes, looks like Sea Kings and Labradors. (Erm, that might be the Canadian name. Like Chinooks with twin rotors, but smaller and older.  Wow, even some B-1s. Maybe they are B-1As? And some B-52s as well. Right: C-130s, F111s, Phantoms. (There are a lot of F111s and Phantoms.)  Lots of B-52s slowly being broken down. To the right are Starlifters.  Aardvarks and Hawkeyes and Tomcats, oh my! YOu can barely make it out, but the little fighters on the top left are Skyhawks, I think. They are so much more tiny then the F-14s...  Gubbermint business jets, and down near the bottom, some old Neptunes?
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Mar 22, 2010 09:33
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Nebakenezzer posted:On the bottom are F14s and some little aircraft I can't identify.
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Mar 22, 2010 09:42
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Nebakenezzer posted:
These are driving me nuts. I want to say B-57, but the wing shape and nose shape are wrong. edit: RB/WB-57F, the high altitude recon/weather version. Only 21 built. 
oxbrain fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Mar 22, 2010 |
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Mar 22, 2010 10:20
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oxbrain posted:These are driving me nuts. I want to say B-57, but the wing shape and nose shape are wrong. dammit, you figured it out before I could quote you. Most definitely R/WB-57 with the high altitude wing. It's even done service in Afghanistan, as  weather recon This pic has both the original Canberra and the WB-57: The original one has the squared off wedge-shaped wings and skinny turbojets. Nebakenezzer posted:I want to say F15s, but the wings look kinda swept. Vigilante bombers, maybe? The square intakes (and wing sweep) are dead giveaways for the F-15, but it seems to have its tailplane removed. Vigilantes are huge, even bigger than F-14s.
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Mar 22, 2010 10:50
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Seeing the James May in space video reminded me of the sheer AI awesomeness that is the U2 chase cars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWytQpH-wlk I never realised that they switched to GTOs. Those old mustangs were cool!
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Mar 22, 2010 11:19
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Nebakenezzer posted:Wow, even some B-1s. Maybe they are B-1As? I'm digging the vietnam era camo on some of those old girls.
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Mar 22, 2010 15:02
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Half the B-1B fleet has been retired, so they're definitely Bs. Most of those planes are probably nothing more than shells, they're routinely cannibalized for parts.
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Mar 22, 2010 16:06
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I'd give anything to just walk that yard for a few days with a camera. So much history.
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Mar 22, 2010 16:17
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Nebakenezzer posted:
Have some of those B-52s had their noses removed? Or are they something else?
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Mar 22, 2010 17:04
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2ndclasscitizen posted:Have some of those B-52s had their noses removed? Or are they something else? Removed. Everything in that yard is slowly getting cannibalized and hacked apart.
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Mar 22, 2010 17:23
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That, and the B52's with the wings cut off and laid next to them were required to be guillotined apart with a giant... guillotine on a crane. If I'm recalling, this was so the US could take photos of them this way and hand the pictures over to the Russians as part of the strategic arms reduction act.
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Mar 22, 2010 20:58
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Munnin The Crab posted:That, and the B52's with the wings cut off and laid next to them were required to be guillotined apart with a giant... guillotine on a crane. If I'm recalling, this was so the US could take photos of them this way and hand the pictures over to the Russians as part of the strategic arms reduction act. I think it was actually so the Russians could take pictures directly from their own satellites... I was reading about bombers last night in a uniquely spergy way and from what I recall being told on-site at my last visit years ago and what I just read, the nuclear-capable bomber fleet had to be reduced on both sides as a condition of one treaty or another, so we had to take a few hundred B-52G and H out back and guillotine them into an unsalvageable condition. e: god I'm sorry I ended up just writing most of your post over again with different words, that was inappropriate. I swear, though, it was for the Russians to take the pictures!
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Mar 22, 2010 21:03
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Nebakenezzer posted:
B-1B's I think. Didn't the B-1A have a more pronounced dorsal spine? It makes sense that they're being scrapped. They weren't that all that great for what they were designed for, and we wasted quite a lot of money building them. The B-52 holds more bombs and the B-2 is better at penetration.
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Mar 22, 2010 21:19
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Both are ugly though and the Airforce needs at least one sexy intercontinental bomber. It's in the Constitution.
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Mar 22, 2010 21:57
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Ola posted:The square intakes (and wing sweep) are dead giveaways for the F-15, but it seems to have its tailplane removed. Vigilantes are huge, even bigger than F-14s. I looked up F-15s on Wikipedia after, and they do have a sweep in their outer wings which I forgot about. Then I looked up the Vigilante, and it looks rather different then the image I was thinking about  Shows what I know. Did the navy ever have a nuclear bomber that had a twin tail like the F-15, and could do something like mach 3?
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Mar 22, 2010 22:57
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VikingSkull posted:Both are ugly though and the Airforce needs at least one sexy intercontinental bomber. It's in the Constitution. Bombers are so 20th century.  Re-start project Thor.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
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Mar 22, 2010 23:23
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Nebakenezzer posted:Did the navy ever have a nuclear bomber that had a twin tail like the F-15, and could do something like mach 3? Definitely never had anything that went mach 3 -- there are only two air-breathing aircraft that ever did that, the XB-70 and the SR-71, and both were designed as pretty much the opposite of what you need for carrier operations. The MiG-25 could theoretically reach Mach 3.2 as well, and it had a twin tail and I guess could carry a nuke, but it was a suicide mission because doing so would destroy the engines. [e] I'm not counting things like that experimental scramjet thing because it was basically just a missile.
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Mar 22, 2010 23:25
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oxbrain posted:Bombers are so 20th century. I think a random NPC in Mass Effect 2 put it best: "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest motherfucker in space!"
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Mar 22, 2010 23:30
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Granted, the XB-70 was a nuclear bomber (or at least, was supposed to be), went Mach 3, and had a vaugely F-15ish twin vertical - certainly not a Navy plane, but maybe that's where the confusion comes from? The XB-70 at Wright-Patt is really something to behold, and it's hard to conceive of it's shear size without seeing it in person. A much more impressive aircraft, IMO, than the A-12/SR-71. I recommend the museum there heartily, the XB-70 alone is worth the trip but they have tons of other great stuff too.  Click here for the full 1348x1092 image.
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Mar 22, 2010 23:36
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