A place for the discussion of all things not closely related to the sport and its competitive side. (Locked down several times a year during the major championships)
Rob wrote:Mach 10 is fine - but it depends on where you want to go, and what you want to do. You do know what the turning circle is at Mach 10, even for a UAV - right?
Nope, for the uninitiated among us, what is the turning circle at Mach 10?
Isn't that over 6000 mph? What goes that fast, except in orbit?
Rob wrote:Mach 10 is fine - but it depends on where you want to go, and what you want to do. You do know what the turning circle is at Mach 10, even for a UAV - right?
Nope, for the uninitiated among us, what is the turning circle at Mach 10?
Isn't that over 6000 mph? What goes that fast, except in orbit?
It depends on the altitude, but Mach 10 is around 7000 mph or a couple miles/second. The turning radius argument is somewhat of a red herring since it would not be necessary to fly at Mach 10 continuously. But a 2G turn would probably take between 750-1000 miles.
Rob wrote:Mach 10 is fine - but it depends on where you want to go, and what you want to do. You do know what the turning circle is at Mach 10, even for a UAV - right?
Nope, for the uninitiated among us, what is the turning circle at Mach 10?
Isn't that over 6000 mph? What goes that fast, except in orbit?
It depends on the altitude, but Mach 10 is around 7000 mph or a couple miles/second. The turning radius argument is somewhat of a red herring since it would not be necessary to fly at Mach 10 continuously. But a 2G turn would probably take between 750-1000 miles.
Dang!!! At 7000 mph, if you missed your exit on I-10 that means you would to return on I-70 or I-90.
Rob wrote:Exactly, so high speed strike is ok (assuming your bombs don't break up at high Mach number, as most of your current LGBs and PGMs would), but it isn't very useful for air combat, especially at the altitudes you would need to fly to achieve Mach 10.
Somehow I just can't see the necessity of dogfights in the future, Star Wars notwithstanding.
As I recall, the designers of the F-4 thought the same thing, so the initial models carried no gun, only missles. Dogfighting was so 'last war'... not something that would be needed in the modern world of the 1960's. But I guess even a clock that don't run is right twice a day, so if we keep making the same prediction, we're bound to be right someday.
We have now touched on the key issue; the emergence of UAVs. I am intimately familiar with the rotary wing defense industry, and the writing is pretty much on the wall that unmanned vehicles are the future for scouting missions, and more, further down the pike. They are changing the discussion on future aircraft, both fixed wing and not.
The issue which should be considered is whether it is necessary to have both the F-22 and the F-35, given the costs of the two programs. The basic question is whether the F-22's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) cannot be modified to assume the Raptor's role.
DoD currently has more programs on the books than it can afford, even at the current spending levels. Something has to give. While overkill is mandatory, how many orders of magnitude of overkill are required?
Spending is a critical element, here. If we overextend ourselves with buying and maintaining ever more expensive hardware, we do so at the cost of maintenance and training of aircrews. Trying to prepare for every possible contingency will surely lead us down an enormous fiscal hole which is totally unwarranted.
It was only a matter of time. I work in US Army aviation and have seen on more than one occasion where one program becomes threatened by the existence of another (real or perceived). It usually gets ugly, with program management offices moving from defending their own program, to casting aspersions on the other one. Even when one eventually wins, it is is not looked upon as favorably as before.
Still, given the realities of government budgets, something has to give. Otherwise we will end up with an aircraft so expensive that the DoD will buy only one and allow the pilots to take turns flying it.
Kevin Richardson wrote:We have now touched on the key issue; the emergence of UAVs.
On my annual excursion to the Nevada Test Site, we pass Indian Wells AFB, which is the home base of the Predator UAV. It's routine to see them making landings, touch-and-gos, and other practice aerial acrobatics. A fascinating tidbit is that the Predators are *piloted* from that location -- even if they are operating overseas, e.g. in the Middle East theatre.
I've heard interesting stories about "flight crews" who leave home and go to work, fly a bunch of missions in the ME (some deadly), and go home after their shifts for dinner with their families! Puts a new spin on the idea of 21st century warfare.
JRM wrote:[ I've heard interesting stories about "flight crews" who leave home and go to work, fly a bunch of missions in the ME (some deadly), and go home after their shifts for dinner with their families! Puts a new spin on the idea of 21st century warfare.
A marked improvement over the days when wives and families accompanied the men to war.
I guess the powers that be want to stay a step or two ahead of potential enemies. Anyway, it sounds like fun to travel at mach 5, and it is only a few tens of millions of bucks... less than the bonus that a manager at a failed investment bank might get !
Meanwhile people have gotten so far removed from the good ole Cold War realities that they don't recognize sonic booms when they happen anymore:
http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/ ... nty/20853/
The Raptor unit production cost is around $140m for the most recent batch. ... The USAF estimates the JSF's unit production cost at roughly $85m. ... The Raptor / JSF choice represents the US military's clearest programmatic contrast between 'Cold War' and 'new war' technology.
jhc68 wrote:I had two favorite planes: the Corsair fighter/bomber and the B-58 Hustler.
I stopped having new favorite planes about the time I lost the ability to identify the exact make, model and year every car I saw.
Hey Joe...one of my favorites too...the Corsair. In fifth grade my friend's Dad flew Corsair's out of El Toro Marine Base. He arranged for all us starry eyed fifth graders to see one in person. We walked up this ladder and looked into the cockpit...wow, all those cool gauges and stuff!
The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show. ... While most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly to repair as they mature, key maintenance trends for the F-22 have been negative in recent years, and on average from October last year to this May, just 55 percent of the deployed F-22 fleet has been available to fulfill missions guarding U.S. airspace, the Defense Department acknowledged this week. The F-22 has never been flown over Iraq or Afghanistan. ... Its troubles have been detailed in dozens of Government Accountability Office reports and Pentagon audits. But Pierre Sprey, a key designer in the 1970s and 1980s of the F-16 and A-10 warplanes, said that from the beginning, the Air Force designed it to be "too big to fail, that is, to be cancellation-proof." ... John Hamre, the Pentagon's comptroller from 1993 to 1997, says the department approved the plane with a budget it knew was too low because projecting the real costs would have been politically unpalatable on Capitol Hill. ...
Got to see an F-22 in action yesterday (well, "action"=air show flite, that is!). What a mind-boggling piece of machinery. Still not worth the money, but high on the all-time toys list.
In a nice little fillip to the whole thing, during the Blue Angels portion of them got a little heavy on the throttle during a dive over the Bay and apparently did a teeny slip through the sound barrier. Rattled the big boat we were on nicely, set people a-shrieking.
"The military promises it's the best fighter jet available, but some critics are saying it's a turkey hatched from a bad idea: a do-it-all plane that might not do anything well-at-all."
