Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII

[David Hingtgen]

I dislike F-16 CFT's from nearly every angle.

[electric indigo]

It's like putting biker boots on a fashion model - doesn't work for everybody...

[grigolosi]

They aren't that bad drag wise and they are very easy to remove, plus we rarely ever have problems out of them. I like your model of 3080. That is one of the jets they use for demos. Its paint actually looks good still. For normal local flying they only use a centerline tank and conformals. The 370's are used mainly for real world deployment. With the centerline and conformals the E model holds the same amount of fuel as a normal F-16C with two 370's. We also like them the conformals because it makes getting on top of the F model for inspections/maintenance extremely easy.

Edited September 10, 2015 by grigolosi

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, look who has finally stopped by to congratulate Her Maj on becoming Britains longest reigning monarch...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-34227249

Edited September 11, 2015 by F-ZeroOne

[grigolosi]

Typical they have been pulling this crap again now since 07 or so. I know back in 08-09 the F-22's at Elmendorf AFB started flying with wing tanks for interception duty. Apparently on a scramble to intercept a Russian bomber the F-22's hit bingo before they could intrercept it. A KC-135 from the Alaska ANG had to intercept it since it was the only plane available in flight at the time and within range. I know someone is saying that is BS but this is absolutely true. After that the F-22's on alert had to be equipped with their 600 gal tanks. I saw the jets over flying Eielson on several occasions.

Edited September 12, 2015 by grigolosi

[Shadow]

I remember seeing shots of F-22s with externals next to a Tu-95. Look like F-22s have also just been deployed to Estonia as a reassurance factor to the Baltic states.

Old promo video of the F-16. Interesting how much this fighter has evolved.

[grigolosi]

That jet has evolved so much from the block 5 in the video that the newest blocks are almost a different animal.Those early blocks had the "small tail" stabs. I worked one of the last ones in the inventory with that tail. The A model also had no standby generator on it and the cockpit as you could see had a different configuration. The flight control self test used to take about 3-5 minutes compared to about 1 min now. Actually in another thread someone asked about what the VF-1 was doing in the opening clip for the DYRL video game when its flight controls and engines were moving around at 0:48. More than likely it was a flight control self test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0P5e3Qt2lM

Edited September 12, 2015 by grigolosi

[grigolosi]

Here you go this is the final stage of pulling the GE engine from out of an F-16. This is a block 30 from the Texas ANG. Normally though a tripod jack is installed under the nose to keep the frame from shifting as they talk about in the video.

Edited September 12, 2015 by grigolosi

[spanner]

That jet has evolved so much from the block 5 in the video that the newest blocks are almost a different animal.Those early blocks had the "small tail" stabs. I worked one of the last ones in the inventory with that tail. The A model also had no standby generator on it and the cockpit as you could see had a different configuration. The flight control self test used to take about 3-5 minutes compared to about 1 min now. Actually in another thread someone asked about what the VF-1 was doing in the opening clip for the DYRL video game when its flight controls and engines were moving around at 0:48. More than likely it was a flight control self test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0P5e3Qt2lM

Awesome bit of animation! and if you look at 1:04 you see the rear landing gear swivels rearward before it folds in similar to the 21 & 22. Never seen that before on a VF-1! So it looks like all our Yamato & Arcadia VF-1 are now a little less anime accurate.. or this was done for the game only?

Here you go this is the final stage of pulling the GE engine from out of an F-16. This is a block 30 from the Texas ANG. Normally though a tripod jack is installed under the nose to keep the frame from shifting as they talk about in the video.

Very cool!

Ok so not just on the F-16 as shown here but how intensive is the maintenance on most fighter jets? The ratio of flight hours to maintenance hours for example? and what are the systems that get the most attention?

Edited September 14, 2015 by spanner76

[SchizophrenicMC]

Awesome bit of animation! and if you look at 1:04 you see the rear landing gear swivels rearward before it folds in similar to the 21 & 22. Never seen that before on a VF-1! So it looks like all our Yamato & Arcadia VF-1 are now a little less anime accurate.. or this was done for the game only?

Very cool!

Ok so not just on the F-16 as shown here but how intensive is the maintenance on most fighter jets? The ratio of flight hours to maintenance hours for example? and what are the systems that get the most attention?

The flight system that gets the most attention is the entire F-14 Tomcat.

It's no wonder they axed it.

[spanner]

The flight system that gets the most attention is the entire F-14 Tomcat.

It's no wonder they axed it.

I had read that about the F-14 was extensive.. I wonder if it was due to its deployment environment, being the harsh landings/takeoffs and corrosion?

[grigolosi]

When I was stationed at Edwards I had an assistant crew chief assigned to my jet who was prior Navy. He had been a plane captain on both Tomcats and Hornets. He told me the hydraulic system on the Tomcat was a nightmare. I know most of the F-14's I ever witnessed IFE in, landed for hydraulic failure. man hours was one of the reasons it was finally retired also. On F-16's the system maintenance varies. A lot depends on the aircraft itself too. Believe it or not these frames have personalities of their own. Some tend to break for hydraulics more while others have flight control issues or ECS problems. The engines are pretty damn reliable aside from the occasional popped delta P indicator on the filter bowls. Fuel leaks though tend to crop up across the board on most jets. Most are pretty easy for the fuel shop or the crew chief to fix ( generally just tightening a screw on a panel).

As for the gear swiveling on the VF-1. I bet the artist went back and looked at the design and figured out the way the gear would have to move in order to retract and maintain clearance in the landing gear bay.

[SchizophrenicMC]

I had read that about the F-14 was extensive.. I wonder if it was due to its deployment environment, being the harsh landings/takeoffs and corrosion?

Part of the problem was the maritime environment, part of the problem was the carrier landings, part of the problem was the long patrol rotations that caused it to rack up its allotted flight hours quickly, part of the problem was the exotic materials used in its construction, part of the problem was the massive weight those materials were implemented to keep down, but the biggest part of the problem was the mechanical complexity of the thing. It was an analog plane that the Navy was asking to do digital things. (Before fly by wire had even been invented) Lots of crazy hydraulics, mechanisms, and redundancies.

One problem I remember the F-14 having early on was a specific titanium fluid line, would achieve harmonic oscillation under normal flight conditions and explode, causing a loss of pressure. The solution was to replace it with a stainless steel line. This was just one of many little issues. All told, combined with its penchant for drinking all the fuel ever, the cost of bringing its flight systems up to date, the lower unit cost of its replacement, its lack of versatility, and the declining need for its unmatched capacity as a long-range high-speed interceptor a decade and a half after the Cold War had ended, it was no wonder it would be retired.

I just wish there hadn't been so much posturing about Iran getting spare parts leading to the destruction of all the F-14s. Say what you will about her, she was a pretty bird, and a Tomcat in flight was truly breathtaking. I don't believe Iran could have gotten F-14 parts from America, and I don't think they'd have done them much good if they had. Damn the politicians who voted to destroy this piece of aviation history. Damn them all.

[grigolosi]

Got to see a D model Tomcat perform an air demo at MacDill AFB just before I graduated HS. It was the most impressive flight display I have ever seen, those twin GE 110-400's pushed that frame like it was nothing. The Osprey initially used titanium hydraulic lines also. They are a serious pain in the ass to install since most lines are swedged while temp installed to ensure proper length and fit and titanium is not known for its flexibility. I heard about that one line on the Tomcat. You would think they would have learned from that problem. The one downside to the F-14A was the TF 30 engine. That engine was horrible. Quite a few Tomcat pilots were known to have said that on landing they were almost literally flying the engine since it was prone to compressor stalls. Luckily someone had the vision to mount the GE 110 series engine in it. She was a pretty bird. I always liked the way they looked just sitting on the ramp. I was saddened as anyone to see them get retired but then scrapping them over concerns about spare parts for the Iranian aircraft. How in the hell would anyone smuggle parts out of AMARG is beyond me and then the fact that any request for parts is only going to come from one source now would negate any security risk seeing how the Iranians are the only ones flying them. To me it is as disrespectful as the USN scrapping the USS Enterprise (the WWII Grey Ghost) after WWII.

[SchizophrenicMC]

The most painful thing about the TF30 was the Navy ultimately decided not to move forward with the PW F401, opting instead for the TF30 because it was cheaper. Even though the F401 (in its USAF guise, F100) would power the F-15 and F-16 to great effect for many, many years. I wonder how much money could have been saved by opting for the more powerful, more efficient, more reliable engines the Tomcat's younger cousins flew with.

Really, the whole F-14 program was mismanaged all the way up until about a 5-minute stretch in 1991 when the F-14D was delivered and deployed. And after that 5 minutes was up, it went all FUBAR again until Dick Cheney, in all his wisdom, ordered the whole program literally scrapped. No doubt to give Haliburton more stuff to manufacture now that the competition is out of the way.

[grigolosi]

Don't get me started on ole' Dick with a capital D. I saw first hand the results of Heliburtons actions. Hell I am living with it now. The PW F-100 had its issues also. In the F-16 as the F-100-200 when it was trimmed down to non wartime settings it had a nasty tendency to have AB blow outs on takeoff. On the F-15 I do remember quite a few IFE's at Eglin where one engine was stuck in AB, I never did inquire as to the cause since I was an F-16 Crew Chief and we referred to Eagles as split tail drones. I did several engine trims on them as a young Airman at Eglin ( that was a pain in the ass needless to say). But it was still more reliable than the TF 30 and it didn't compressor stall very easily.

The D model Tomcat should have been put into full production but alas the powers that be decided to screw around and only limit its production and mod the remaining Tomcats.

[Vifam7]

The D model Tomcat should have been put into full production but alas the powers that be decided to screw around and only limit its production and mod the remaining Tomcats.

Didn't the Navy also, sort of, put themselves in the situation by massively frakking up the A-12 program?

[SchizophrenicMC]

Don't get me started on ole' Dick with a capital D. I saw first hand the results of Heliburtons actions. Hell I am living with it now. The PW F-100 had its issues also. In the F-16 as the F-100-200 when it was trimmed down to non wartime settings it had a nasty tendency to have AB blow outs on takeoff. On the F-15 I do remember quite a few IFE's at Eglin where one engine was stuck in AB, I never did inquire as to the cause since I was an F-16 Crew Chief and we referred to Eagles as split tail drones. I did several engine trims on them as a young Airman at Eglin ( that was a pain in the ass needless to say). But it was still more reliable than the TF 30 and it didn't compressor stall very easily.

The D model Tomcat should have been put into full production but alas the powers that be decided to screw around and only limit its production and mod the remaining Tomcats.

AB blowouts are favorable to compressor stall, wouldn't you say? And the engine is still in service. I think they did finally effect a change to the injectors that reduced the tendency for blowout.

Didn't the Navy also, sort of, put themselves in the situation by massively frakking up the A-12 program?

I'd say the Navy massively screws up every aircraft program it takes on.

[grigolosi]

The engine would continue running but the pilots would normally burn off their fuel and land. The engine had to be re-trimmed after it happened. The wierd thing was that it only occurred in the engine whne it was set at peace time ratings. In DS the Blk 25 units over here had the engines set to wartime settings. They never had one blowout. As soon as they got back to their home bases and reset them to peace time settings the engines started blowing out. The 220E program was the fix for the maintenance and high costs issues that they ran into with the F-100-200 in the F-16. The engines were upgraded to F-100-220's through component replacement. After I left Egllin and went to Misawa the only place I ever crewed jets with PW engines again was Edwards. I Ended up being the last USAF crew chief there at teh time qualified to run the 200 engine since we had moved all our other 200 equipped birds other than a foreign B model over to the civilian side. Doing a Back Up Controller check on that engine was irritating. It required a quite a bit of hand movement in the cockpit compared to the SEC check on the 220 and GE 110-100. The afterburner response was also slower when compared to the GE especially.

Edited September 15, 2015 by grigolosi

[electric indigo]

How about an F-35 in IAF dressing:

[Firefox]

How about an F-35 in IAF dressing:

Very nice what if. I think the real F-35I will be grey with lighter grey for the star of David. Just like the RAF, USAF and RAAF. Real world fighters have become so boring.

[F-ZeroOne]

Today marks the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain, held suitably enough on Battle of Britain day. A large flypast of Hurricanes and Spitfires is taking place over London (not quite enough to be the famous "last fifty Spitfires", but close) and a couple of Bristol Blenheims (whose role is oft overlooked) will also take part.

Per ardua ad astra...

Edit: While I think of it, I must have been one of a fairly select few who once saw a F-14 Tomcat perform at Dunkeswell [1] back during one of the D-Day anniversaries.

[1] Yes, the natural response here is "Where?!".

Edited September 15, 2015 by F-ZeroOne

[grigolosi]

Actually with the way the newer RCS reduction paints are. I think they can make the colors needed for the Israeli's AF camo pattern. The current Have Glass being used can be made in different colors to suit the customers needs.

That would be an awesome site to see. That many Hurricanes and Spits flying over once more. One of the things I like about the Brits. They relish their history so much. They are damn proud to express it too.

Edited September 15, 2015 by grigolosi

[electric indigo]

F2xF18xRafale:

[grigolosi]

I like it. But I myself have cared for the JASDF blue camo pattern they put on the F-2. I know it is used as a maritime strike aircraft but it is the only one painted blue. But this is just my personal preference. I do like the design you have made. I have a buddy who started a model combining a 48 scale F-16 and F-18. It was actually a very elegant design. I don't think he ever finished it. He got as far as blending the wings and the fuselage of both.

[raptormesh]

More missiles for the win. 16xAMRAAMs with CFTs and linked to the Raptors. Trying to fight the numbers game by being missile boats for the stealthies?

Boeing doubles F-15C missile load in '2040C' Eagle upgrade

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-doubles-f-15c-missile-load-in-2040c-eagle-u-416766/

[frothymug]

Missile spam incoming

[electric indigo]

What? I can't hear you...

[Thom]

Is this the Itano Circus variant?

[SchizophrenicMC]

More missiles for the win. 16xAMRAAMs with CFTs and linked to the Raptors. Trying to fight the numbers game by being missile boats for the stealthies?

Boeing doubles F-15C missile load in '2040C' Eagle upgrade

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-doubles-f-15c-missile-load-in-2040c-eagle-u-416766/

I imagine the board meeting that led to this went something like this:

"So, does the F-15 need to carry more missiles?"

"Does Ichiro Itano crap in the woods?"

[F-ZeroOne]

Now the irony here is that the whole point of the F-15 was to try and get away from concepts like "The Missileer"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F6D_Missileer

[grigolosi]

Well no worse than the B-1 missile platform. Same concept just the B-1 was a bit larger. I think the missile massacre would look a bit like this:

Edited September 17, 2015 by grigolosi

[electric indigo]

One of the earliest Missile Massacres has to be the Soviets firing a dozen missiles at Gary Powers' U2 and downing one of their MiGs in the process.

[grigolosi]

In Soviet thinking it was...."Eh it was only one MIG and a dozen missiles...but we got that damn capitalist spyplane".

[renegadeleader1]

Looks like some people with big money want to get the Concorde back in the air again.

http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/concorde-will-fly-again-says-group-with-massive-war-ch-1731681175?rev=1442606525838

My question is given the recent technological advancements wouldn't it be possible to make a supersonic passenger liner more efficient and a lot less expensive than the Concorde?