Leave the 'Star Wars' gadgets for Star Wars movies...

Not needed at all right now.

yet losing in a test dogfight against just one F-16, it looks like the F-35 program won't last much longer, either. Worldwide (mostly Israel), the F-15 has won 100 out of 100 fights.

With long-range bombers, the Air Force has done even worse. We still fly B-52s, the same planes that featured in "Dr. Strangelove." B-1s never worked very well, and B-2s cost nearly a billion each. How can you risk flying in hostile air space in something that costs that much? They should keep it locked in an armored hangar and never let it out.

The real advances in fighters and bombers has been in the weaponry. Smarter bombs and missiles that can hit targets more accurately from much farther away make the aircraft much more deadly. And then the revolution in unmanned aircraft, leaving the pilot on the ground, far, far away promises giant leaps in performance capabilities. Piloted fighter aircraft have to limit the G-forces during maneuvers so they don't knock out the pilots. We could in theory build UAVs with maneuvering capabilities that would kill human pilots.

They're thinking more about mission readiness than future military sales for once.

of that aircraft. I think it was still McDonnell Douglas at that time. It's been awhile ago.

Here's two great manufacturers of aircraft that are summarily dismissed from recognition or credit. A BOEING design??? WTF? Same with the C-17 - you NEVER hear McDonnell - Douglas mentioned when you hear about the fabulous "Boeing" C-17. This is another example of how history's rewritten. And no one seems to be bothered by it!

and you're right not much credit given anymore.

I also worked on the F-4, i think it was the F4-J version for the Brits. Workhorse of a plane.

Getting old but I still remember Mr. McDonnell getting on the plantwide audio system and you would hear, "this is old Mac calling the team" and we would get a little peptalk or company announcement. Naturally, there was were always collective groans but in retrospect it was really a nice personal touch for a large corporation. Of course by today's standards we were probably not that big a corporation.

Stealth don't mean shit in a dog fight.

Last edited Fri Sep 2, 2016, 02:11 PM - Edit history (1)

As soon as that occurs, course, speed bearing and range are know, and stealth is compromised. Hard maneuvering compromises stealth. The act of opening missle bays to fire AA, negates stealth.

Combat aircraft close distances so fast, the first shot had better be a kill shot. After that, I'd put my money on the eagle driver.

it will control the fight. Once the Eagle's full is depleted from using it's afterburner it will be dead meat.

If the engagement begins at 60 nm, there are a couple chances to get a kill shot in. But even at visual ranges, it's difficult to score a kill if you can't get a radar lock on the target. Even modern gun sights depend heavily on radar, and the the F-22 has IR mitigations and countermeasures that make IR locks difficult.

Head to head the Raptor is gonna win a big percentage of engagements.

It's their ideal theatre. But the risk of being shot down is probably what prevents a more systematic use.

It would take a well-armed opponent.

Similar capabilities, same electronic upgrades, but with stealth enhancements, including tilted tails.

Upgrading existing air frames could prove structurally problematic for the long term combat survivability of each plane. I don't get it. I'm not sure about this at all. The Silent Eagle could do all of the 2040c's mission, but with a completely new air frame and design. More like a Gen 4.5, rather than the 2040c's Gen 4.1.

Strange compromise.

existing air frames, and that would defeat the intended goal of saving money. How much does a new SE cost compared to a F35?

I recall reading about this, or at least similar plan, about a year or so ago. Basically turning older F15s into high capacity missile trucks that would stand back and fire away while more stealthy planes get in close and relay sensor data back to them. Seems to me that those stealthy planes should probably be small "cheap" stealth drones though. But I dunno, I'm just some idiot on the internet though.

but also available for export, which for some reason, none chose. With added foreign sales, the price could potentially drop. Those other countries all selected the F-35 instead, which boggles my mind. IIRC, the countries that did back out of their F-35 buys, selected F-18 Super Hornets instead. Not sure if those had radar absorbing enhancements or not. I believe not.

Airframe issues were a concern in another article I read about the 2040c upgrade. Please, someone with some smarts, put some effort into getting the package right. What good is an upgraded airplane if its airframe fails? These are combat weapons, not tacos.

Your idiotic idea of putting stealth drones is probably far too inexpensive to justify. I mean, what defense contractor would want to build something that worked effectively, but wasn't expensive? Can't buy yachts unless the plane is crewed by a pilot whose Velcro pencil holder costs $50,000.

Building one F-22A costs 150mil on its own. Not cheap, but comparable to a lot of last-generation fighters.

The ludicrous $300M+ OVERALL unit cost is because we spent a metric shitton of money (though still not as much as the -35) to develop it, so when we add the R&D budget in, the paltry number of birds we actually built end up being farcically expensive because we have to factor in the R&D. But since, unlike the -35, that's finished, it's actually cheaper by $10M a unit to buy new Raptors over Silent Eagles.

the "smallest, oldest and least ready" air fleet in history is still the best funded and has absolutely no competitors anywhere on the planet.

GMAFB.

Expensive - yes

But air superiority is an absolute essential to our nation's defense.

yup

Given the age of these aircraft?

Our society is sick!

Half of our wealth devoted to WAR.

We should dismantle the Air Force, SAC and the Army.

The only services called for in the Constitution in the Navy/ Marine Corps.

That figure does not include any funds spent on college or university. There are only 10 countries in the world with entire budgets larger than that.

We spend approx $13k per student per year. There are 4 countries that spend more per student than we do (Austria, Luxemborg, Norway, and Switzerland).

Our government should be able to educate our people, and fund our military at the same time.

Utter madness.

More billions for schools, I say!

See:
Brewster Buffalo F2A
All US tanks in WWII till the M-26 Pershing

12,000M is 39,370 feet, the usual cruise for a 737...the -15 gets there in 59.38 seconds, at over Mach 1.

They don't build them like they used to, huh?