Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII

[Sildani]

Finland chooses the F-35. 
 

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/lockheed-f-35-jet-wins-finnish-fighter-competition-source-2021-12-10/

[kalvasflam]

 

16 hours ago, Sildani said:

Finland chooses the F-35. 
 

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/lockheed-f-35-jet-wins-finnish-fighter-competition-source-2021-12-10/

Ha ha, I misread for a sec,  I thought it said Friends choose the F-35.

[F-ZeroOne]

I wonder if this will influence the Canadian decision at all, as I would imagine at least some of Finlands requirements were pretty similar.

[electric indigo]

😳

https://twitter.com/rayraylayerz/status/1473032575317049344

[hutch]

See the pic but don’t understand the Japanese. What do they purport the photo to be?

 

Nevermind. I looked up the coordinates and found the whole discussion.  Thanks 

Edited December 21, 2021 by hutch

[Knight26]

B-2 in flight captured by google earth, pretty cool.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Knight26

[Thom]

I thought it was a B-2 turning on its cloaking device.

[hutch]

It’s a cool feature of something moving quickly across the field of view of a multi spectral Recce asset like that. Computer registers the overall scene properly to create a true color image but it doesn’t work for the transitory vehicle. Essentially serves as motion detection. 

[Shadow]

Interesting video on the history behind the proposed Super Tomcat 21. 

 

[AN/ALQ128]

[F-ZeroOne]

Boeing made an O-Wing!

[Knight26]

Standard box-wing configuration.

[Dobber]

I’ll just leave this here.

 

[derex3592]

Ok,.....that might just have been the coolest thing I've ever seen.

[Dobber]

“No, no I wouldn’t change a thing”. 

- close up of Burners lighting and the the rumble that follows….

damn 😧

as big a Tomcat fan I am, I don’t think there was ever a meaner looking aircraft than the F-4. 
 

Chris

Edited January 25, 2022 by Dobber

[Knight26]

I can hear all the phantom phans all climaxing at once at that video.

[Shadow]

She floats.

[Thom]

It's going to an expensive proposition to get that up from the sea floor before it is 'salvaged...' 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/navy-salvage-stealth-f35-crashed-carrier-landing-south/story?id=82477793

Edited January 27, 2022 by Thom

[F-ZeroOne]

They can ask us, we've had some recent experience in that regard... 😉

[kalvasflam]

Didn’t China buy the Glomar Explorer at some point?  🤑

Seriously, one has to wonder how easy it is going to be for the US to recover the plane in international waters.  What are the salvage implications.   This is practically in China’s backyard.  What a mess.

it is also interesting that this is the second F-35 in recent months that has been ditched in the seas.  One wonders if there is something wrong with the plane.😝

[Thom]

Sounds like it wasn't ditched intentionally. Had a bad landing and then went over the side. Did marginal damage to the deck and sent several sailors to medical.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Thom

[F-ZeroOne]

One solution thats been proposed is simply to blow it up.

If theres something wrong with the F-35, theres been something wrong with every carrier aircraft ever made. Someone once said that you lose at least one aircraft on every carrier deployment; I don't know if thats entirely true but if this had been a F/A-18 it may well have not made headlines. Granted, its slightly concerning two have been lost off carriers from two different navies in recent months, but it doesn't sound like the incidents have related causes (after all, one was on take-off, not landing). And statistically speaking, a F-35 is more likely to be lost just because theres an increasing number of them in use (and from carriers, which is an inherently risky business to start with).

It could be that its a flaw with the design, but unless the numbers start spiking up way more than would be expected in this type of operation, they probably don't need to be thinking about refurbishing some F2Gs just yet... 😀 

Edited January 28, 2022 by F-ZeroOne

[kalvasflam]

Blowing it up sounds great, but unless you can vaporize them plane, there will always be useful parts to get.  Didn’t the Russians and Chinese scrape up pieces of the F-117 after it was shot down in Serbia?  Thought they bombed that one too.

Edited January 28, 2022 by kalvasflam

[Dobber]

2 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

One solution thats been proposed is simply to blow it up.

If theres something wrong with the F-35, theres been something wrong with every carrier aircraft ever made. Someone once said that you lose at least one aircraft on every carrier deployment; I don't know if thats entirely true but if this had been a F/A-18 it may well have not made headlines. Granted, its slightly concerning two have been lost off carriers from two different navies in recent months, but it doesn't sound like the incidents have related causes (after all, one was on take-off, not landing). And statistically speaking, a F-35 is more likely to be lost just because theres an increasing number of them in use (and from carriers, which is an inherently risky business to start with).

It could be that its a flaw with the design, but unless the numbers start spiking up way more than would be expected in this type of operation, they probably don't need to be thinking about refurbishing some F2Gs just yet... 😀 

Not to mention it’s a single engine. Still surprised the Navy walked back their preference for 2 engine aircraft. They started that back with the Super Crusader/ Phantom II competition. 
 

Chris

[Thom]

4 hours ago, Dobber said:

Not to mention it’s a single engine. Still surprised the Navy walked back their preference for 2 engine aircraft. They started that back with the Super Crusader/ Phantom II competition. 
 

Chris

Wonder if they are reconsidering, seeing how two of the mishaps recently have been with engine trouble on a couple Super Hornets.

Nice having that extra engine when you're over the open ocean.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Thom

[Chronocidal]

16 hours ago, Dobber said:

Not to mention it’s a single engine. Still surprised the Navy walked back their preference for 2 engine aircraft. They started that back with the Super Crusader/ Phantom II competition. 
 

Chris

I don't know if this is the official reason, but from what I've read before, the Navy taking the F-35 at all might be to prevent some of the problems they had when they abandoned the F-111B to go all in on the F-14.

The F-111B wasn't the plane they wanted.. but it was available, and did pass its carrier trials.  Some folks have speculated that if they'd taken on a limited number of them as a stopgap until the issues with the F-14 were resolved, they would have avoided a whole lot of pain.

That's all I really think the F-35C is for the Navy: a placeholder until they can get the plane they actually want.

As far as landing mishaps go on the F-35C though, this one is pretty bizarre to even think of, because of how insanely good the plane's record is.  When the plane was going through carrier trials, they had to make repairs to the deck plating.  The landing guidance was so accurate, the repeated hook strikes in the same exact spot were knocking chunks out of the decking.  

I'd be really interested to find out what the actual cause was.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Chronocidal

[F-ZeroOne]

Just a thought - I wonder if this whole "twin engines on a navy fighter" thing is as big a deal as its made out to be? I know what I'm about to say isn't an exact comparison and I'm very much aware of the various differences, changed values, technical issues etc but during World War II virtually every carrier aircraft was single-engined. As were some of the early carrier jets, but I'm wondering if experiences with those early, much less reliable jets has coloured the thinking a little over the years. Someone did point out once that one argument against two engines is theres then twice as much that could possibly go wrong...

[Thom]

Maybe it's just love? 'Love' being another word for familiar, seeing as we've grown up with the twin-engine legends, the Phantom, the Tomcat and the Hornet. A Navy jet just looks weird with only one tail pipe.

[slide]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

Maybe it's just love? 'Love' being another word for familiar, seeing as we've grown up with the twin-engine legends, the Phantom, the Tomcat and the Hornet. A Navy jet just looks weird with only one tail pipe.

F-8, A-7. A-4, Super Étendard, Harrier... Nothing odd about a single-engine bird on a boat 

Edited January 30, 2022 by slide

[F-ZeroOne]

Part of it may also be the higher cost of aircraft forcing a lack of variety to a degree. The original intent of the LWF competition was that the winner - the F-16 - would also be the Navy choice, so in one possible timeline it might be that we'd find the concept of twin-engine naval fighters odd...

[slide]

 

[Chronocidal]

7 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

Just a thought - I wonder if this whole "twin engines on a navy fighter" thing is as big a deal as its made out to be? I know what I'm about to say isn't an exact comparison and I'm very much aware of the various differences, changed values, technical issues etc but during World War II virtually every carrier aircraft was single-engined. As were some of the early carrier jets, but I'm wondering if experiences with those early, much less reliable jets has coloured the thinking a little over the years. Someone did point out once that one argument against two engines is theres then twice as much that could possibly go wrong...

So as I understand it, it's not so much a direct reliability thing as it is an operational capability and survivability thing. 

If a plane with one engine gets damaged in enemy airspace and loses that engine, the mission is over, and you have lost a plane, and possibly a pilot.

If a plane with two engines gets damaged in enemy airspace and loses one engine, that plane may still be capable of finishing the mission, or at least limping back to base.  The bottom line of getting the plane and pilot back home safely rather than potentially losing both entirely due to a single engine failure is a pretty strong argument for the extra cost in fuel and maintenance.

Modern engines are definitely more reliable than they used to be, but when you're talking about combat aircraft, along with all the risks associated with long flights over nothing but water, and all the extra risks associated with carrier operations, having that redundant engine is not a bad safety net to have.

[pengbuzz]

7 hours ago, Thom said:

Maybe it's just love? 'Love' being another word for familiar, seeing as we've grown up with the twin-engine legends, the Phantom, the Tomcat and the Hornet. A Navy jet just looks weird with only one tail pipe.

Look at it this way: with a twin-engined bird, if you lose an engine, you've still got one left.

A single engine? if that fails... well, hope ya can reach the eject pull!

[F-ZeroOne]

I've heard that argument before, and I can see the validity of it, but... single engined birds still have to transit to other countries from time to time, and do so over long ocean journeys in some cases. I fully realise that the duty cycle of a jet that crosses the sea a few times during its career isn't the same as one that flies off a carrier all the time though. Its also been argued that one issue with the "Well, if you're damaged theory" is that the engines on most twin engine jets are still fairly close together, and you may well lose the second at the same time anyway (particularly with larger SAMs). And if you lose one engine over hostile territory far from the carrier, you still might not make it back, theres probably going to be other issues with your aircraft. Again, I don't have a particular investment in either camp, just thought it was an interesting one to ponder.

I guess it also comes down to cost - yes, you've lost a valuable single engined aircraft, but is that more affordable than up to twice [1] the upkeep costs for the twin engines?

[1] Its almost certainly not as simple as "two engines = x2 £££!". Economy of scale etc...

[Shadow]

In hindsight, you also have to wonder if cancelling the proposed F-22 Sea Raptor was alittle premature. It may have done better in filling that gap left behind by the F-14 retirement while offering a longer range twin-engine platform.