Skull Leader Posted October 12, 2005 Posted October 12, 2005 My whole issue with that was that they tried to pass off the A-4 (whatever variant they used) as "... smaller, faster, and more maneuverable"... not to be biased, but when was the last time a Skyhawk outran a Tomcat? Smaller and more able to turn on a dime, sure, but in a straight out run I'm pretty sure the Tomcat would ride down that skyhawk every time.
Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0 Posted October 12, 2005 Author Posted October 12, 2005 I definitley agree man, a cat would smoke the scooter possibly even in military power~! I still think it is not as bad as a hollywood f up as IRon Eagle II's "MIG-29's" Still nice to see the rhino get some movie time though!
ghostryder Posted October 12, 2005 Posted October 12, 2005 Yeah, wouldn't this have been a better choice for the Mig-29 or "Mig-28"? Don't know if these were around during movie production... F-18 agressor On that note, a MiG-28 335971[/snapback]
Skull Leader Posted October 12, 2005 Posted October 12, 2005 I definitley agree man, a cat would smoke the scooter possibly even in military power~!I still think it is not as bad as a hollywood f up as IRon Eagle II's "MIG-29's" Still nice to see the rhino get some movie time though! 335969[/snapback] The Israeili airforce got good publicity from both of the first two movies for the flying scenes (for those that don't know, It was all Israeli aircraft in the first two iron eagle movies... the US didn't approve of a script containing a teenager beating national security like that, and wouldn't back it)
ghostryder Posted October 12, 2005 Posted October 12, 2005 Well, that explains the Kfirs in the first movie. I definitley agree man, a cat would smoke the scooter possibly even in military power~!I still think it is not as bad as a hollywood f up as IRon Eagle II's "MIG-29's" Still nice to see the rhino get some movie time though! 335969[/snapback] The Israeili airforce got good publicity from both of the first two movies for the flying scenes (for those that don't know, It was all Israeli aircraft in the first two iron eagle movies... the US didn't approve of a script containing a teenager beating national security like that, and wouldn't back it) 336061[/snapback]
F-ZeroOne Posted October 12, 2005 Posted October 12, 2005 Funnily enough, the US - I think the Navy - used Kfirs for aggressor-style training for a while. I think the US desigination was "F-21"!
Skull Leader Posted October 12, 2005 Posted October 12, 2005 They were flown by the marines I think, actually... but yeah the official designation for US Kfirs was the F-21
Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0 Posted October 12, 2005 Author Posted October 12, 2005 What do you guys think of the F-21 as a ACM fighter? Its got more speed than the scooter, but I imagine it bleeds speed fast. I wonder if the canards work wonders. I definitely love the F-4s in Iron Eagle II. Did you guys know there was an iron eagle IV with Doug masters returning? Not sure if it was the same actor but basically they get him to train a bunch of kids in props but at the end he duels in an F-16.
David Hingtgen Posted October 13, 2005 Posted October 13, 2005 The F-21 was acquired purely to have something that could simulate Mirages as an aggressor. No US plane could be flown at all like a French delta, and (amazingly) France didn't want to sell us Mirages. Since France sold Mirages of all types to every other country, we had a great need to see exactly how they fly and how to fight them since they would be about the most likely plane to be encountered after the MiG-21. So we acquired Kfirs from Israel (which are basically Knock-off Mirage III's re-engined with J79's). The canards are fixed, so they mainly just "unload" the wing rather than control pitch.
ghostryder Posted October 13, 2005 Posted October 13, 2005 Speaking of aggressors, does anyone know if or how top gun instructor vs. student kill ratios changed when the Navy got hold of F-16Ns to supplement their tigers and skyhawks? How about legacy hornet aggressors?
ALLAN Posted October 13, 2005 Posted October 13, 2005 Anyone else seen this Chinese J10 art?? Kinda of a shocking pipe dream.
Knight26 Posted October 13, 2005 Posted October 13, 2005 Man that is some really bad artwork, especially the closest one to the camera.
David Hingtgen Posted October 13, 2005 Posted October 13, 2005 (edited) Navy/Marine agressors have the motto "Fight to teach, not fight to kill". In other words: If you have a stripped-down ultra-high-performance F-16, and your only job is to fight F-15's and you spend all your time training for that, you will probably beat them easily. If you show up, beat every pilot in the squadron in 5 mins, what will the F-15 pilots have learned? Not much. The goal is usually more along the lines of "Fly like a MiG-29 using Soviet tactics and formations, so the F-15 pilots can see what it'd be like to encounter that formation in real life, and how Soviet-style tactics develop into typical scenarios". Aggressor squadrons are not "send up the best possible pilot in the best possible plane and see how many "normal" squadron pilots he can beat". They try to simulate other planes, tactics, and formations. Some countries use 3-hi 1-low formations, some use finger-four, some use line abreast, some like groups of 2 or 5. Getting experience in dealing with that is more important than raw "F-15 vs MiG-29 turn rate at Mach .7" Detection, identification, response, etc---those are what really differentiate different countries' tactics. PS---the USAF however did tend to have more "aggressive" aggressor squadrons, that simply roamed about beating up on other squadrons. That's why they're gone now----burned a lot of fuel without really teaching anything. Edited October 13, 2005 by David Hingtgen
Nied Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 Man that is some really bad artwork, especially the closest one to the camera. 336383[/snapback] Indeed. Why does it have a TAC badge on the tail?
Skull Leader Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 What do you guys think of the F-21 as a ACM fighter? Its got more speed than the scooter, but I imagine it bleeds speed fast. I wonder if the canards work wonders.I definitely love the F-4s in Iron Eagle II. Did you guys know there was an iron eagle IV with Doug masters returning? Not sure if it was the same actor but basically they get him to train a bunch of kids in props but at the end he duels in an F-16. 336163[/snapback] I never watched the movie, but I saw it on the shelf once.. I had to laugh, because unless I'm mistaken, Doug Masters DIED at the beginning of the second movie (maybe he was just shot down, I don't recall... but I remember his wingmate, Cooper being pretty broken up about the matter)
ghostryder Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 (edited) After watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel last night, I started thinking - the US seems to have at least explored combining the benefits of thrust vectoring and canards on the X-31. I even remember a few years back seeing a NASA experimental F-15 with canards and 2-D vectoring. While most european nations have gone the route of canards (Rafael, Typhoon, Gripen) and the Russians have combine canards and vectoring on the Su-37, you never see canards on production US jets. I've always thought the the low wing loading and drag of a delta wings with the benefits of canards was a great combo, but this never gets past the drawing board or X-phase in the US. Remember, before the monstrosity we know as the Super Hornet, the Hornet 2000 program including at least 1 delta/canard design. Anyone who can shed light on this? It's been years since Iv'e gotten into this stuff, so forgive me if this question reeks of newbie. Edited October 14, 2005 by ghostryder
reddsun1 Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 Didn't a slightly modified ver. of that NASA design wind up in an anime? Wasn't it in the Patlabor movies, along with futuristic looking F-16's? Wasn't that plane used as a testbed for the high-output engines that eventually developed into those found in the Raptor?
Apollo Leader Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 After watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel last night, I started thinking - the US seems to have at least explored combining the benefits of thrust vectoring and canards on the X-31. I even remember a few years back seeing a NASA experimental F-15 with canards and 2-D vectoring. While most european nations have gone the route of canards (Rafael, Typhoon, Gripen) and the Russians have combine canards and vectoring on the Su-37, you never see canards on production US jets. I've always thought the the low wing loading and drag of a delta wings with the benefits of canards was a great combo, but this never gets past the drawing board or X-phase in the US. Remember, before the monstrosity we know as the Super Hornet, the Hornet 2000 program including at least 1 delta/canard design.Anyone who can shed light on this? It's been years since Iv'e gotten into this stuff, so forgive me if this question reeks of newbie. 336637[/snapback] Probably stealth. The main areas of concentration for RCS reduction on most stealthy aircraft is the front and sides (though subsonic aircraft can have more done for the rear). Whether it be the F-117, B-2, the F/A-22 (NONE of the ATF contenders used or proposed canards), the A-12 Avenger II, most of the JSF proposals and the F-35 itself, etc., all of these aircraft try to keep a simple head-on profile that's not going to return the radar signals back to its transmitter. If you start putting some sort of canards on the airframe at some odd angles (like on the Typhoon) or even like what was on Lockheed's and McDonnell Douglas' JSF proposals, it becomes an extra set of edges for radar to bounce off of thus making a bigger target of the front of the aircraft. Also, it was Lockheed's own legendary Ben Rich that pointed at that birds don't have canards and I think he said something along the lines of until he saw a bird with canards, Lockheed was going to stick with the traditional tail configuration.
David Hingtgen Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 (edited) I think Knight26 agrees with me that canards have almost no detriments and should be on almost every plane from now on. They're not on US planes simply because US designers don't like them for reasons unknown. "Because birds don't" isn't any excuse---birds also don't have thrust-vectoring nor ailerons, flaps, elevators, or anything else required to make a plane move. Anyways---the Typhoon is quite stealthy from head-on, possibly equaling the F-22. While the F-22 is stealthy from all angles, and stealthier overall, the EF-2000 was designed to be very stealthy from head-on, and achieves it despite the canards. Gripen is also "decently" stealthy up front I think. Will have to look up Rafale and check Gripen again. It's fairly simple---you can either have 2 h.stabs at the back or 2 canards up front---you're going to get a similar radar return. (Placing the stabs in line with the wings to hide them from head on is aerodynamically very bad) And lift up front is better than adding weight/drag/downforce at the back, aerodynamically. One of the biggest improvements for canards on the F-15 was supersonic agility---it's directly related to the reason the F-14 has glove vanes----as you go faster, stabilizer effectiveness decreases due to lift moving rearwards---the glove vanes added lift up front to help pitch at supersonic speeds---exactly like a canard would. Grumman just didn't call them "retractable canards" because US designers don't use canards... Edited October 14, 2005 by David Hingtgen
Knight26 Posted October 14, 2005 Posted October 14, 2005 Actually the anti-canard lobby is not from the designers. If you look a large number of the ATF and JSF concepts had canards, it was the generals and admirals who didn't like them. Engineers and designers know the benefits of using things like canards, FSWs, TVEs, etc... So you will see them on test aircraft because those are concepts and tech demonstrators, because generals and admirals don't care about them. However you want to introduce a non-standard aircraft design into the main arsenal and they will fight it because they do not like change. The V-22 faced similar prejudices until the designers said it was just like a CH-53 turned sideways, and since the generals and admirals already knew and trusted the CH-53 series they okayed V-22. Now fast forward a few years when a US designed aircraft finally goes up against a eurocanard or warsaw-pact canard. After it gets its tail handed to it in combat and the canard and or FSW gets proven to the flag officers you will see some designs for them be approved. Unfortunately right now the flag level officers are jumping behind the UCAVs, and once those get slapped down by a human piloted aircraft we will see the paradigm shift back once again.
David Hingtgen Posted October 15, 2005 Posted October 15, 2005 Whoops, I forgot it was the generals etc who were anti-canard, I know that came up before, probably in this very thread 500 posts ago...
Skull Leader Posted October 15, 2005 Posted October 15, 2005 Whoops, I forgot it was the generals etc who were anti-canard, I know that came up before, probably in this very thread 500 posts ago... 336760[/snapback] You're SO fired, David! Did you ever decide on one of those 1/72 Diecast Tomcat models we discussed a short while back?
David Hingtgen Posted October 15, 2005 Posted October 15, 2005 Nope. Dragon has a VX-9 F-14D coming up, going to see how that is. There is always the hope they may add a pitot to the nose some day, they did modify the F-15's to fix some errors. Been looking at their WWII planes, it's amazing how well they got subtle Bf109 differences correct, yet totally messed up the Fw190's basic design features, much less the specific variants.
Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0 Posted October 24, 2005 Author Posted October 24, 2005 Skull leader, Doug Masters is shot down in Iron Eagle II, they say something about a body never being found, and it is assumed that he is dead. However in Iron eagl IV or V, I think IV, he returns and it turns out he was in a gulag the whole time after being shot down, and pissed at Chappy for not getting him out, apparently Chappy tried to but the govt insisted he was dead. Something like that. Either way IV or V whichever, sucked. Dragon does have a limited edition cyber hobby VX-4 playboy bunny F-14A coming out. Yes an A! Well at least by its engines. Also I remember eons back someone brought up the Canadian Avro Arrow. Great plane, as it turns out, its cancellation brought up many conspiracy theories since it was all of a sudden. Last night on the superpower aircraft documentary on the history channel, they went over the introduction of the arrow, and its cancellation and simultaneous layoff of the 15,000 arrow employees who were working on the project and its manufacturing and production lines. They later brought up the MIG-25. Now it SEEMED like the reasons to cancel were political....talking about how the minister at the time wanted money to pay off the canadian farmers so he canceled the project to use the money. BUT The real reason was revealed in this documentary...apparently this has been kept secret for quite a number of years. It turns out the real reason the Arrow was canceled, was because a KGB agent had infilitrated one of the Avro plants, and had direct access to all of the technical details and all else related to the Arrow. Coincidentally some of the technology later appeared on the MIG-25(the US released this when Belenko defected his foxbat to japan and inspected it). Remember at the time, the Arrow was a very powerful plane, and the US had expressed interest into buying it. Interesting no? Anyone else hear of it? I was shocked when I heard it last night. Mighty fine fighter! I wonder had the KGB not been stopped early on, what kind of MIG would emerge from the stolen details of the arrow. And I also wonder how awesome it would have been if the arrow entered service.
Skull Leader Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 Thanks for the update, Shin... it saves me the pain of having to watch the movies to figure out what happened. As similar as the 25 was to the Arrow (from the sound of things), I'm guessing more info probably wouldn't have changed the design TOO much, I can't figure on it being much different from the MiG-25 we know now. Damn those things have big engines... and they're as loud as the day is long from what I hear.
Knight26 Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 Hey all I took some nice pics at Edwards, but not enough really, I was too busy talkign with the folks I will be working with. A nice surprise they had the F-15ACTIVE flying for the show, but it didn't do much. I would ahve loved to have seen her go head to head against the F-22. I will post the pics when I get home.
Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0 Posted October 24, 2005 Author Posted October 24, 2005 whoa it STILL flies? That is awesome! I wonder if NASA still utilizes it for testing. Had no idea it was still flying! Iron Eagle II is worth watching simply because we see the F-4 in prominence and some IAF F-16 fights ain't bad either. I would have said better for the 1st one had the barrel roll not been the MOST REPTITIVE manuever in the movie lol. Plotwise I think it was horrible but as a movie I saw during childhood I still like it for nostalgia's sake.
David Hingtgen Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 That's news to me too. Is it still in full ACTIVE config or does it have the standard F100's? Pics please! Especially the belly---it's rarely photographed but I know it's not like normal F-15's there.
Apollo Leader Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 I think Knight26 agrees with me that canards have almost no detriments and should be on almost every plane from now on. They're not on US planes simply because US designers don't like them for reasons unknown. "Because birds don't" isn't any excuse---birds also don't have thrust-vectoring nor ailerons, flaps, elevators, or anything else required to make a plane move. Anyways---the Typhoon is quite stealthy from head-on, possibly equaling the F-22. While the F-22 is stealthy from all angles, and stealthier overall, the EF-2000 was designed to be very stealthy from head-on, and achieves it despite the canards. Gripen is also "decently" stealthy up front I think. Will have to look up Rafale and check Gripen again. It's fairly simple---you can either have 2 h.stabs at the back or 2 canards up front---you're going to get a similar radar return. (Placing the stabs in line with the wings to hide them from head on is aerodynamically very bad) And lift up front is better than adding weight/drag/downforce at the back, aerodynamically. One of the biggest improvements for canards on the F-15 was supersonic agility---it's directly related to the reason the F-14 has glove vanes----as you go faster, stabilizer effectiveness decreases due to lift moving rearwards---the glove vanes added lift up front to help pitch at supersonic speeds---exactly like a canard would. Grumman just didn't call them "retractable canards" because US designers don't use canards... Meant to reply sooner, but better late then never. I'm sorry I don't have the exact quote (or parphrase) of Ben Rich's that Bill Sweetman's used in a few of his books, but all the controls that you mentioned including thrust vectoring follows rougly how a bird works... wings up front with the steering surfaces (including thrust vectoring engines) in the rear. And I'm going to hold firm that the main reason canards have not appeared on modern day US fighter designs is because their positioning and structual attachment would seriously hinder a stealth aircraft's RCS reduction. Some of the European fighters like the Typhoon, Rafale, Gripen, etc. have canards that are not in the same plane and (in the Typhoon's case) are angled out of the horizontal, this is going to set up a lot more complications in seriously reducing the overall RCS of the aircraft. To call any of the above mentioned fighters "stealthy" with all the slab sides, single vertical tales, bomb/missiles, antennae, etc. is a joke. Besides the internal weapons carriage and their surfaces designed to deflected radar signals away from the trnsmitter/reciever, the majority of these first few generations of stealth aircraft also work by keeping down the number of extra edges and surfaces, especially the front. Of course, as better means via computer come about for creating low RCS aircraft, canards will probably sprout up in more designs. Lockheed's early incarnation of their JSF and McDonnell Douglas' JSF incarnation both had canards so it might become a better possibility. The unmanned X-36, which looked like a scaled down JSF, had canards.
Apollo Leader Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 (edited) Actually the anti-canard lobby is not from the designers. If you look a large number of the ATF and JSF concepts had canards, it was the generals and admirals who didn't like them. Engineers and designers know the benefits of using things like canards, FSWs, TVEs, etc... So you will see them on test aircraft because those are concepts and tech demonstrators, because generals and admirals don't care about them. However you want to introduce a non-standard aircraft design into the main arsenal and they will fight it because they do not like change. The V-22 faced similar prejudices until the designers said it was just like a CH-53 turned sideways, and since the generals and admirals already knew and trusted the CH-53 series they okayed V-22.Now fast forward a few years when a US designed aircraft finally goes up against a eurocanard or warsaw-pact canard. After it gets its tail handed to it in combat and the canard and or FSW gets proven to the flag officers you will see some designs for them be approved. Unfortunately right now the flag level officers are jumping behind the UCAVs, and once those get slapped down by a human piloted aircraft we will see the paradigm shift back once again. 336740[/snapback] N-O-N-E of the serious ATF entries in 1986 had canards: Lockheed's original design (looked like a crossbreed between the F-117 and F-22) amd their final YF-22 amd F/A-22, Northrop's YF-23 (looked pretty much the same it's whole life), General Dynamics (looked kind of like a twin engine F-16XL - GD's inability to get a twin tail configuration to work forced them to go with a single tail, bumping them to third place), Boeing (looked like a cross breed between their X-32 and the YF-23), and McDonnell Douglas (their design looked like a cross breed of their F-15 along with a mix of faceting and seemless surfaces... weight was a big reason they finished 5th). As for this "anti canard mafia", I've heard of the "fighter mafia", but that one is news to me... Edited October 24, 2005 by Apollo Leader
Noyhauser Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 Skull leader,  Doug Masters is shot down in Iron Eagle II, they say something about a body never being found, and it is assumed that he is dead. However in Iron eagl IV or V, I think IV, he returns and it turns out he was in a gulag the whole time after being shot down, and pissed at Chappy for not getting him out, apparently Chappy tried to but the govt insisted he was dead. Something like that. Either way IV or V whichever, sucked. Dragon does have a limited edition cyber hobby VX-4 playboy bunny F-14A coming out. Yes an A! Well at least by its engines. Also I remember eons back someone brought up the Canadian Avro Arrow. Great plane, as it turns out, its cancellation brought up many conspiracy theories since it was all of a sudden. Last night on the superpower aircraft documentary on the history channel, they went over the introduction of the arrow, and its cancellation and simultaneous layoff of the 15,000 arrow employees who were working on the project and its manufacturing and production lines. They later brought up the MIG-25. Now it SEEMED like the reasons to cancel were political....talking about how the minister at the time wanted money to pay off the canadian farmers so he canceled the project to use the money. BUT The real reason was revealed in this documentary...apparently this has been kept secret for quite a number of years. It turns out the real reason the Arrow was canceled, was because a KGB agent had infilitrated one of the Avro plants, and had direct access to all of the technical details and all else related to the Arrow. Coincidentally some of the technology later appeared on the MIG-25(the US released this when Belenko defected his foxbat to japan and inspected it). Remember at the time, the Arrow was a very powerful plane, and the US had expressed interest into buying it. Interesting no? Anyone else hear of it? I was shocked when I heard it last night. Mighty fine fighter! I wonder had the KGB not been stopped early on, what kind of MIG would emerge from the stolen details of the arrow. And I also wonder how awesome it would have been if the arrow entered service. 339316[/snapback] I'm sorry shin, but that is wrong. I wrote this last year on a thread, but I'll reproduce this here. Most people Aren't going to like to hear this, but the decision to build the Arrow was about the biggest error ever in Canadian Procurement, and deserved the end it got. It's current reputation has been the result of mythologizing by the Canadian press and honestly it doesn't deserve any of the hype it gets. #1 The Avro Arrow was not the most advanced fighter of its day, sure it was fast, and had a lot of gadgets, but in the end it was a useless useless program. When the project was concieved in the early 1950s, it was during the height of the Red bomber scare, where there fear was that Russia would send thousands of bombers over the north pole to nuke north america. Well by the late 1950s the Americans through the CIA, U2 flights and the first Corona satellites, figured out that the soviets had a mere pittance of bombers that was first imagined, and none had the range to reach north america's cities. Also the rise of the MRBM and the ICBM loomed a lot larger. So really the need for the Arrow had evaporated #2 The Arrow was not exceptional fighter. In actuallity it fell victim to the same interceptor blinders that US fighters had in the pre-vietnam era, only the Arrow was just that much worse off. Since the Arrow was to take on soviet bombers, it had to be fast, carry a lot of missiles and a radar large enough to guide them - ie be interceptors. As a result it suffered the same flaws that the F-4 would experience over vietnam. It was big, fast, and very unmanuverable. It had absolutely no cockpit vision, and relied upon radar and untested missiles as weapons. It had no cannons or machinegun. It was to carry a missile called the Sparrow II which was a new version of the Sparrow that was a radar guided fire and forget missile. However it was canceled by the USAF because it was deemed unfeasable. So it would have to carry the notoriously bad Sparrow I missile. The Arrow's radar was untested as well. In a theoretical situation, had the Arrow ever got into a dog fight over vietnam, it would have been eaten alive by nimble Mig-17s and 21s. They would have a field day against the ungainy fighter that relied on poor missiles. The thing was fast as hell, and may have been even faster than anything in the world at the time in 1960 with the Orienda Iroqois engine, however it had abysmal range, less than 600KM... it was a poor fighter. #3 The worst part of the project.- Cost. The thing was a money pit, and was about to get a lot worse. the cancelation of the Sparrow II would require a complete redesign of the radar and missile system. The Radar system showed constant faults. The development costs for the Iroqois engine were pilling up. In many cases Canada did not have the industrial base to build its systems required and had to design them from scratch. Nobody was willing to buy it outside of canada, because it was so expensive and had little utility. Essentially, the arrow project would have cost around 1 to 3% of the entire Canadian Gross domestic product, more than what we spend on the military today. Sure the fighter may have been the most advanced of its time, but pour enough money into something and you can have the best of anything. Had the arrow been continued people would be crying about its expenses, possibly one of the greatest boondoggles of canadian history, not its cancellation. Prime Minister Diefenbaker rightly culled the project, and bought cheaper less capable fighters instead. It is kinda sad about what happened to the Canadian Aircraft industry afterwards, however in all honesty, the Arrow was an incredible disaster. Had it gone through, the Government would have been in such debt, and have an incredibly useless fighter for its troubles. So much the better.
David Hingtgen Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 (edited) Back to Edwards AFB show... Went looking for pics, and as always FenceCheck is THE place for airshow pics. Start here: http://www.fencecheck.com/forums/index.php...c,1613.120.html Including a perfect belly shot of the F-15ACTIVE. And it still has the ACTIVE nozzles installed, I'm quite surprised at that. PS---please don't post any of their pics here--like most aviation photography websites, they really don't like their pics showing up at any other forum. Edited October 24, 2005 by David Hingtgen
Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0 Posted October 25, 2005 Author Posted October 25, 2005 That's cool, Knights got pics to show later on anyways. Noyhauser, thanks for clearing things up. I was beginning to question history channel's documentary(not to mention I always question TV info regardless). I borrowed one of the warbird tech F/A-18 books from the library, interesting facts on the super hornet. I have read so much on the subject and do agree the navy needs the thing, and the tomcat, no matter how much I love the thing, needed a replacement either way. Which brings me to the next subject, how early could we see a super hornet replacement? I say 2020 or a few years before that. Maybe afterwards. The military is increasing UCAV activity and defense manufacturers are hyping it like the next big thing. Me however, I feel that even if a UAV or UCAV can move faster than the human mind(according to a recent Boeing ad), I still do not think it can replace fighters altogethere, and therefore I do believe the fighter that does end up replacing the super hornet and perhaps the F-22, will still be manned. Since inevitably the super hornet will get replaced by something in the next 2-3 decades, what do you think it will have? I think it will have the reliability of the super hornet, more technological advances, more digital processors, a FBW system, bomb truck capability of the A-6, Air superiority capabilities of the F-14, stealthiness of the F-22, and cost saving procedures made in manufacturing that were utilized for the super hornet. Its a long while away but it will be interesting to see what future aircraft will rearm the various VFA squadrons. And I recently saw some F-117 kits...WHOA..I had no idea it was that big~! I kept thinking it was similar in size to the F-16, but boy was I wrong~!! And anyone here news on the YF-23 RFB? Was it mere vaporware or is northrop grumman still actually refurbishing it?
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