poisonpill posted:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the runway of Idaho. I watched Blue-screens glitter in the dark near the Seventh Refuel Waypoint. All those moments will be lost in time, like paint...in...rain. Time to die.

Effective-Disorder posted:

What makes a bomber nuclear capable? Is it just a PAL interface, and then the "fin" is an antenna for receiving EAMs or something? Or is it just treaty compliance to make it visible? The weapons guy next to the B1-B I talked to at the NY air show said the B-1A had a bunch of hard points for external stores, which I guess means ALCMs, but did that go away strictly because of START or something?

Effective-Disorder posted:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-risk-of-nuclear-attack-rises/

"And the U.S. responded with more aggressive exercises of its own. One year after Crimea four B-52s flew up over the North Pole and North Sea on an exercise called polar growl the B-52s were unarmed but that little fin on the side of the fuselage identified them as capable of carrying nuclear weapons."

What makes a bomber nuclear capable? Is it just a PAL interface, and then the "fin" is an antenna for receiving EAMs or something? Or is it just treaty compliance to make it visible? The weapons guy next to the B1-B I talked to at the NY air show said the B-1A had a bunch of hard points for external stores, which I guess means ALCMs, but did that go away strictly because of START or something?

BIG HEADLINE posted:

The B-1B still has the attachment points for external stores. They would have been used had the B-1R variant gone forward.

And it's not just a PAL interface - there are declassified pictures of *a* B61 arming interface here: http://www.glennsmuseum.com/controller/controller.html

White Phosphorus posted:

I found the randomest thing.

il76 tailgun strafing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPJpuMK3NKM

quote:

Sources told Aviation Week that a F-35A that caught fire at Mountain Home Air Force Base last week was most likely caused by strong tailwinds as the F135 engine was starting.

Excess fuel might have been left in the exhaust duct after an aborted start and it may have cause the fire after a restart.

Aviation Week also found out that the mishap aircraft is not affected by the recent cooling line problem.

quote:

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday hinted that he's about to go past a point of no return in terms of the Philippines' relationship with the United States, revealing that he had sought help from Russia about the matter.

"I'm about to cross the Rubicon between me and the United States. At least for the next six years. I would need your help," he said, referring to his meeting earlier this month with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Mevdevev at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit.

The Philippines and the US are treaty allies, having signed a mutual defense treaty in 1951 and a visiting forces agreement in 1998. The US is also the Philippines' biggest foreign investor and the country's second biggest export market next to Japan.

But the relationship has been frayed under Duterte, who has bristled at criticism about the rising death toll of his administration's drug war from the US and other institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to rid Mindanao of American troops supposedly to pursue peace talks, while declaring earlier this month that he wanted to stop joint patrols with the US in the South China Sea amid a maritime dispute with Beijing.

Duterte, meanwhile, has expressed openness to welcome more investments from China and Russia. He has also raised the possibility of buying arms from the two nations.

When asked to clarify his statement, Duterte noted that United States needed to get the Congress' approval before its President can declare war to help an ally.

"There is a RP-US Pact that was in the ‘50s. It says that an attack on the Philippines would be an attack of the United States," Duterte said.

"But in the United States Constitution, it says that before a President can declare war, with anybody in defense of an ally, he has to Congress for permission to go to war. That’s the problem. So if Congress will not give him that authority, what will happen to us?"

In the same press conference, Duterte said he didn't have any plans to junk alliances.

"I am not really going to break ties but we are opening alliances with China," he said.

B4Ctom1 posted:

TIL our planes weren't always using aluminum drop tanks, many were made out of paper and resin.

Cat Mattress posted:

http://alert5.com/2016/09/26/initial-investigation-reveals-fire-in-f-35a-tailpipe-at-mountain-home-afb/


Point #3 is a "duh" moment; the airplanes that had bits of coolant floating around where they shouldn't had been grounded (or were still on the assembly line) so obviously it wasn't one of them that caught fire.

I'm not sure I get point #1. The wind was stronger than the engine's exhaust? What?

holocaust bloopers posted:

Wind was blowing directly up the tailpipe during engine start. Not a time when compromised airflow would be welcome.

holocaust bloopers posted:

What the F-35 has as guidance, I don't know.

Antti posted:

The Lego Intrepid is on display at the actual Intrepid, I took a poorly lit photo of it a couple of weeks ago.



I have more photos but I haven't had time to sort through and upload them. It's a great museum if you're a thread regular, just make sure to get a ticket in advance to skip the queue if you want to turn up right when it opens.

VikingSkull posted:

gravity

Phi230 posted:

IJA tanks being as they were, they didn't need 75mm. .30 cal was known to decrew IJA tanks. Pretty sure kinetic energy alone from a 75mm would gently caress up the average IJA tank.

waitwhatno posted:

Fun fact: During the cold war, west Berlin used to have the biggest lead-acid battery plant for energy storage in the world. It was something like 10k car batteries wired together ghetto style and designed to stabilize their tiny electric grid from communists electron agitators.

Platystemon posted:

That’s got to be a pretty laid‐back gig.

Concordat posted:

Energy Generation Megathread

PittTheElder posted:

Link please.

Effective-Disorder posted:

As far as hard points, the wiring and structure ought to be there assuming they didn't care about weight? But, as for pylons, I only saw the one with a Sniper XR mounted on that particular aircraft I was looking at. Nomenclature error on my part, I guess. I'm just trying to picture a B-1 with a bunch of pylons and cruise missiles, if not AIM-120s. It looks kind of beautifully awkward and horrifying in my mind. Like, "let's go supersonic at tree-top level with all of this crap on our wings, plus 8 in at least one bay, and if we don't have a fuel tank in the forward bay we might squeeze a few more in there too".

wkarma posted:

PIctures of the B-1 with external hardpoints mounted are rare, but they do exist.

wkarma posted:

quote:

APC’s advance. All the commanders in “peace driving mode” with their heads above the edge of the hatches. The APC’s drive up in a column, stops 50 meters in front of [a defending tank]. Infantry dismounts. Pure madness!

DeesGrandpa posted:

I swear there was some insane book with a B52 or 747 or something as a nutso AMRAAM carrier and I really just want that to be a reality

holocaust bloopers posted:

I'm fully torqued

wkarma posted:

And what could have been with the B-1R:

DeesGrandpa posted:

I swear there was some insane book with a B52 or 747 or something as a nutso AMRAAM carrier and I really just want that to be a reality

Agean90 posted:

is that an actual airforce design

because a bomber that literally shits missiles is pretty close to peak cold war imo