The "Real Aerospace" Thread

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Nemo
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Nemo »

To be fair, there are plenty of other 2nd and 3rd gen fighters still in service. A-4s, Mirage IIIs, F-5s, hell the J-7 derivative of the MiG 21 just stopped production. All in active service. You wont hear me singing their praises mind you. Actually, scratch that, the Skyhawk deserves a special nod. What was the line, "an engineer knows he has perfected his design not when theres nothing left to add, but when theres nothing left to take away"?

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Charlie
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Charlie »

Some countries just can`t afford anything better. South African Infantry for instance are not given Body Armor, just webbing and a helmet.
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

You also only really NEED something that puts you on equal footing to your most likely opponent, or rather something that puts you and your friends on equal footing with your opponent and their friends. A place like South Africa isn't likely to be drawn into a conflict with the US, so they don't need equipment that matches ours.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

fredgiblet wrote:You also only really NEED something that puts you on equal footing to your most likely opponent, or rather something that puts you and your friends on equal footing with your opponent and their friends. A place like South Africa isn't likely to be drawn into a conflict with the US, so they don't need equipment that matches ours.
Pakistan's most likely opponent is India, which flies the Su-30, MiG-29, and Mirage 2000.

And yes, India also uses MiG-21's (real ones, not Chinese knock-offs) as interceptors, just like Pakistan does. I think it's kind of cool that the design is still viable as an interceptor against bombers. But against any of the above fighters, the F-7 is dog meat.

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Charlie
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Charlie »

fredgiblet wrote:You also only really NEED something that puts you on equal footing to your most likely opponent, or rather something that puts you and your friends on equal footing with your opponent and their friends. A place like South Africa isn't likely to be drawn into a conflict with the US, so they don't need equipment that matches ours.
Quite right, our only current roles would be, much like the US, acting like a policeman. South African has troops in almost all of the conflict zones in Africa. It`s not all bad, our blast protected vehicles are, still after all these years, the best in the world. And our air force has for the most parts Saab JAS 39 Gripens. In the African pond we're the biggest fish.

Not all good though.

South African`s main problem is that there`s no one who is trained for the highest tech weapons. Thusly, our boats Fail.

But if we wanted stuff compared able to the US, we can get it of our Big Bad Buddy China.

If the US wanted to liberate South African it wouldn`t take you long, but our largest trading partner China would likely be unimpressed. They would like to liberate our raw materials first.
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Arioch wrote:Pakistan's most likely opponent is India, which flies the Su-30, MiG-29, and Mirage 2000.

And yes, India also uses MiG-21's (real ones, not Chinese knock-offs) as interceptors, just like Pakistan does. I think it's kind of cool that the design is still viable as an interceptor against bombers. But against any of the above fighters, the F-7 is dog meat.

Vaya con Dios, Ms. Farooq.
Pakistan has F-16s and JF-17s, which puts them on equal footing with the Migs and Mirages, the Flankers are new and Pakistan is doubtless looking for an upgrade to counter them, but that kind of money doesn't get spent quickly.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

fredgiblet wrote:Pakistan has F-16s and JF-17s, which puts them on equal footing with the Migs and Mirages,
That's true, but not much consolation to the pilots flying F-7's. :D

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Grayhome
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Grayhome »

I would be interested in what everyone thinks of the newest line of fighters coming out in America, the F-35.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

If they were only making the Air Force version it would probably be great, if they were only making the Air Force and Navy versions it would probably be fine. Add in the STOVL Marine version and it's a ridiculously expensive turkey.

EDIT: Also the idea of replacing the A-10 with F-35s should get whoever came up with it shot for treason.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Arioch wrote:
fredgiblet wrote:Pakistan has F-16s and JF-17s, which puts them on equal footing with the Migs and Mirages,
That's true, but not much consolation to the pilots flying F-7's. :D
Hopefully the Pakistanis will only send them against the Mig-21s then. ;)

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm more of an Eisenhower "every gun made," kind of person. But the colossal waste of efforts notwithstanding, the F-35 is an amazing piece of machinery. My stars, that diverter-less supersonic inlet is so sexy, I could swoon. I mean, you can put advanced avionics components on any old airframe and call it a fighter, but that is a really integral feature.

Only time will tell if they become so ubiquitous that the STVOL features get significant use in backwater landing strips.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

I think the F-35 will be a capable F-16/F-18 replacement, but I think it was a mistake to cut short the F-22 run in favor of more F-35's. F-35 won't be that much better than what the opposition will have by the time it's operational. The F-22 is the apex predator of air superiority, and it makes me a bit uneasy that we have only 187 with no way to get more.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Well yeah, the A variant will doubtless be fine, the C variant will probably work well as well. But the B variant is sucking money and time away from both of those. Hell if they didn't try for the B variant they may have had enough money to keep making F-22s.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Nemo »

Its the same story as the F-111, people who dont understand air combat are in charge of procurement. It would be cheaper to buy one thing instead of two, because one is less than two. In this case, they tried doing lets see... four? different things with a single airframe if you count being exportable and high tech at the same time as a single item. I tend to shoehorn that one in because it causes compromises between wanting to make it cheap and wanting to gold plate it.

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And Im not convinced the C variant is what the Navy needs. Guided missile tech is becoming more ubiquitous, the new generations of conventional submarines can run quieter than a nuke, and war games have shown the navy is vulnerable. The Army and Marines can use a high/low mix (F-35 isnt low enough) but the Navy needs two distinct functions. Long loiter, dash capable interceptor and a bomb truck capable of ASW, something that can replace the S-3 and A-6. Navy doesn't really need a penetrating strike fighter, that can be handed off to drones or missiles. Or the Chair Force.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

It's not the same, it's FAR worse. Not only have they been down this road before and thus they should know better, they're trying to cram a STOVL plane in as well, which comes with wildly different requirements.

Conventional subs have always been able to run quieter when they're on electric power, that's not really new, they're handicapped by range, nothing else really. I do agree that the Navy needs new ASW since they've killed off the S-3 permanently, but the trend towards consolidation is powerful (see the above mention of A-10s), I think ASW might be a good role for drones though. I disagree that the Navy doesn't need the F-35, the Navy needs to be able to do everything the Air Force can do because sometimes they ARE the Air Force for a while before things get mobilized, as a result they have to able to fill any role, even if only poorly. That being said I expect that deep strike could be better served by drones, though I question what happens when we face off against someone with the ability to jam them (like Iran claims to have done).

I think that adding in the Navy was reasonable since they were both looking for similar things (light, multi-role planes) but the Marines was just dumb. They don't need a stealth plane, they need a CAS plane that can defend itself. Make a new Harrier, don't waste their money on stealth and air superiority.

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Mikk
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Mikk »

My perspective on this might be outdated, but bear with me.

Regarding the harrier-replacement F-35, I'm pretty sure the British navy is glad for it's development, if they can see it as affordable, as opposed to planning for catapult-only operations on next-gen carriers. It's not like the Eurofighter Typhoon is gonna get amphibious. On the other hand, if the F-35 hover variant doesn't cut it, there are european options like the Dassault Rafale that might fill the catapult-launched navy role.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Nemo »

I disagree that the Navy doesn't need the F-35, the Navy needs to be able to do everything the Air Force can do because sometimes they ARE the Air Force for a while before things get mobilized, as a result they have to able to fill any role, even if only poorly.
You can fulfill the role, even if only poorly, with ship launched missiles, missile equipped drones, the theoretical A-6/S-3 replacement, and hypothetically this rail gun theyre spending all this money on for just this purpose. Just because the Navy needs interior power projection doesn't mean it needs a stealthy strike fighter when it can use its other assets to do the same thing. And as long as they dont go overboard on the dog fighting focus like they did with the F-22, this primary fighter/interceptor idea could have limited stealth strike capacity. Just a matter of making sure the interior bays accommodate large enough munitions and a targeting laser, both of which are absent on the F-22. The Raptor's smaller bay size is forgivable, but not giving it any target lasing was foolish. At least in hindsight.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Absalom »

Nemo wrote:
I disagree that the Navy doesn't need the F-35, the Navy needs to be able to do everything the Air Force can do because sometimes they ARE the Air Force for a while before things get mobilized, as a result they have to able to fill any role, even if only poorly.
You can fulfill the role, even if only poorly, with ship launched missiles, missile equipped drones, the theoretical A-6/S-3 replacement, and hypothetically this rail gun theyre spending all this money on for just this purpose. Just because the Navy needs interior power projection doesn't mean it needs a stealthy strike fighter when it can use its other assets to do the same thing. And as long as they dont go overboard on the dog fighting focus like they did with the F-22, this primary fighter/interceptor idea could have limited stealth strike capacity. Just a matter of making sure the interior bays accommodate large enough munitions and a targeting laser, both of which are absent on the F-22. The Raptor's smaller bay size is forgivable, but not giving it any target lasing was foolish. At least in hindsight.
I haven't checked the intended timelines, but my guess is that the rail gun is intended for real deployment partway (or even towards the end, if materials research doesn't go so well) of the F-35's pre-extension lifetime. As for the rest: presumably more expensive, not yet proven, and "didn't that get cancelled?", in that order.

At any rate, the F-35 was supposed to be a commodity fighter, and if they can ever get the thing out that's exactly what it'll be. It'll be a stealth commodity fighter, which is a bit of an oxymoron, but a commodity fighter none the less. In general I don't even object to it, but at the same time as they're developing their fancy new commodity fighter, they really need to be filling specialist roles as well, such as CAP and deep-strike (neither of which would I be especially inclined to use an F-35 in, but perhaps specialist variants of the F-22). I understand that the carrier cargo aircraft are currently nearing end-of-life too, and a higher-capacity carrier tanker would be a boon (and both of those could be variants on the same airframe as a "naval heavy" bomber), and I think that the Navy should have just accepted some A-10 variant or commissioned one with a comparable gun (and that airframe would presumably be useful for some naval combat support tasks), I'd like to see 2-4 smaller carriers for operations in smaller bodies of water, etc. Regardless, the F-35 does make some sense, Washington just needs to remember that it won't be able to fill high-end roles, and thus other aircraft need to be developed too. The B variant I can't really speak on, but apparently software is a big issue, so I suspect that someone has failed to accept that they might need to start with standard programmers and "bring them up to snuff". Also, apparently there have been "magical" cost overrun improvements since Lockheed was told to help pay for the overruns ;) .

As for the F-22, we can always hope that some variant on the FB-22 gets pitched again, and actually gets picked up. On any F-22 a targeting laser shouldn't be a big deal, since after-market augmentations to aircraft are a long-standing US military tradition, the big issue is the bays. Designing a stealth-preserving laser unit won't help if you don't have a way to use it.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by discord »

sort of sad really....military procurement that is.

first off on the F35, i think the marines tried to basically say "FFS give us more A-10's!, but since you won't this is what we need for it to be better, get a clue moron." but this subtle hint somehow got missed.

and ANY plane that is working is better than no plane, as it's been said before quantity is a quality all it's own, example, the F35 is a good plane, really it is, but i would take the 2 JAS 39 Gripen you could get for the same money any day, especially taking maintenance time vs air time into account.....heck taking maintenance into account it's more like FIVE Gripen for every F35, and you would probably get over ten times the air time due to not being hangar queens.

the american military have sadly fallen for the "silver Bullet" scam again and yet again, it is overly costly and seldom comes out well, reminds me of a NATO exercise bombing run against sweden, where swedish gripen welcomed the bombers and RTB'd and returned for another round of shoot the bomber on the return leg for the bombers, chairforce screamed bloody cheating! it is impossible to refuel and reload a fighter in that time frame, especially from a 'wilderness base', it was possible, standard procedure actually....the Gripen is not the best jet around, but it is by far the cheapest of the modern ones(closest competitor is the F16 at only 30% more/flight hour and the gripen compares rather favorably all over against it, except ground bombing load, the F16 can carry a bit more there.)

but yes, the F35B is just effing silly stupid.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

discord wrote: first off on the F35, i think the marines tried to basically say "FFS give us more A-10's!, but since you won't this is what we need for it to be better, get a clue moron." but this subtle hint somehow got missed.
As far as I know, the Marines have never operated any A-10's. They fly F-18's and AV-8B Harriers, and the F-35B seems clearly to be a replacement for the Harrier. Which seems reasonable from a certain point of view, considering that the core Harrier is 44 years old, and that it's currently one of our most vulnerable fixed-wing aircraft.

As tempting as it might be to compare the F-35 to the F-111, I don't think the F-35B questions affect the likelihood that the A and C versions will be competent at their roles. All it does is waste money, and there are worse sins in military procurement (such as delivering systems that don't work).

The nice thing about the A-10 and the B-52 is that while we might wish for new versions, we can live without them for a while, as both will be in service at least until 2040. And we have a lot of spare parts sitting on the tarmac at AMARC.

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