HGW XX/7
http://gfycat.com/UnrulyLivelyCattle
V
Reports in several magazines state that a Martin Maryland has been found "somewhere" in the Sahara desert.
And also Foxtrot Alpha has an article on the US Military VIP Helicopter Units based around Washington.
edited 16th May '15 6:03:34 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Achae: Is that a training craft being shot down?
Who watches the watchmen?
HGW XX/7
A drone, yeah. An F-105 shooting down a QF-80.
Schild und Schwert der Partei
This Was On My Local News A Few Days Ago.
US Army Raven Drone crashes into civilian's back yard. Fort Carson's official statement is it lost comms with its operator.
And here Colorado Springs used to ONLY have to worry about the artillery range catching fire...(which it still always does)
edited 16th May '15 7:01:02 AM by MajorTom
Re: the Helicopters at DC: I was about to say there is a similar squadron at Yokota Air Base, but they got a mention in there too. I think they do largely the same thing, but their customer base is a bit different, being located in Japan. Traffic in Tokyo being what it is, their options for moving VI Ps and military personnel on important missions from one base to another quickly basically boil down to flying via helo or taking a train.
An idle thought: If for some reason one of the 1st Helicopter Squadron Hueys had to pick up the President instead of a Marine Corps chopper, then the President would likely end up taking Air Force One so he could switch aircraft and board Air Force One.
edited 16th May '15 9:33:01 AM by AFP
rollin' on dubs
And sadly, how f*cked things are in the Metro DC area.
And so it came to pass the the USAF wanted to get rid of the UH-1's that the Global Strike Command uses in the Missile fields and their VIP Hueys.
And along can "Citizens Against Government Waste", a "grassroots" group that some suspect was fronting companies like BAE and Eurocopter who smelled that yummy greestuff. They also made a format protest somehow saing that using aircaft the miltiary paid for was "too expensive". Really, they jsut wanted to sell shiny new choppers at the expense of the taxpayer.
The AF Times sez that the Blackhawk plan is a go, as of Feb this year. We'll see.
edited 16th May '15 6:45:14 PM by TairaMai
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
Busy weekend here that produced some pictures and videos you lot may be interested in. Went out to Westover AFB for an airshow on Saturday and toured the Cape Cod coast guard station today.
The airshow was awesome; Blue Angels, Snowbirds, F-22, CF-18, and a bunch of old war birds including a pair of P-51s (which unfortunately were never in the air at the same time) and Hap Arnold's personal B-24. Somewhat surprisingly I think the most impressive (or at least memorable) probably ended up being the CF-18 who's pilot really pushed it on his high speed passes; probably no more than few knots under Mach 1 (He was about a plane's length past us at ~100 feet up before we heard anything and I think I saw a shock cone form for a split second).
edited 17th May '15 2:35:06 PM by Jaustin89*
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I like the bit where they compared buying Blackhawks to replace Hueys was like buying a Humvee to replace a mail truck.
Well, no, it's more like buying a Humvee to replace a Jeep, which is exactly what the Army and Air Force previously did with all of their jeeps, as a matter of fact. In this case, it's like buying a used Humvee to replace a Jeep to save money.
edited 17th May '15 6:06:40 PM by AFP
Dont aircraft kinda have a limited service life too last I checked?
No mater how well you maintain them, the airframe is going to eventually just fall apart.
How many flight hours must those Huey have logged by now?
I'm guessing that the furore is over the fact that they're not going to have a massively expensive bidding process to get the most modern and most expensive kit with the most contractor favours involved.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Imca; Yep. You can extend that life in some cases by replacing parts of the craft and/or engines.
Who watches the watchmen?
rollin' on dubs
T-hound is right, but there is a limit. The airframe can only take so much until it's best to turn it into razorblades and beer cans. Micro-fractures, corrosion, and general wear and tear take their toll. In many cases, attempts at remanufacturing aircraft find a lot of airframes have to be rejected. It's not a reset to zero, just buying some time.
Even replacing engines has limits, the airframe can only take engines at a certain power rating.
That's why I find attempts at "Just put F-22 systems into F-15's" (it was in a book on future weapon systems) or Air Power Austrlia's "Put F-22 engines into the F-111" are just silly. A new radar can be fitted, but engines are a crapshoot unless they are rated for the airframe.
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
V
Several articles from Jane's':
Armed with an M61A1 Vulcan 20 mm gatling gun, the Oto Melara Gunship system is designed to fit entirely onto a single 463L NATO standard 88'x108' pallet. Gunship is designed to be a roll-on/roll-off system, with no modification needed to the aircraft. Indeed, company officials said that the system could be rolled-on or rolled-off an aircraft in 15 minutes or less.
Besides the roll-on/roll-off capability, company officials cited one of the system's key operational advantages as its servo-operated gunmount, which provides a much greater degree of trainability and arc of fire than typical fixed-mounts on gunships.
The system has been designed by Oto Melara for an Italian special forces requirement. The company began developing Gunship after receiving EUR2 million (USD2.26 million) in research and development funding from the Italian Ministry of Defence (Mo D) in September 2013. In total Italy has a requirement for six Gunship systems, with the company stating it expects a production order in 2016. Deliveries would then begin by the end of 2016 or by the start of 2017. The cost of a single Gunship system is understood to be several million euros.
The gunship system's M61A1 fires through the paratroop side-door of the transport aircraft, and retracts fully inside the aircraft when not in ready-to-fire mode.
Gunship has been designed for use on any military transport aircraft capable of carrying a 463L standard pallet. That said, its design has been guided by the Italian special forces requirement for it to be installed on the Alenia Aermacchi C-27J aircraft, which has its paratroop door at the left-hand rear of the aircraft.
Accordingly the entire system, including 750 rounds of 20 mm linked ammunition and the gunner, weighs 1,550 kg - the maximum safe load for the rear pallet stowage position on the C-27J. To achieve this low level of weight, the system makes extensive use of carbon fibre construction, with the M61A1's mounting system, the workstation, and even the gunner's chair being made of carbon fibre to save weight.
Contained within the pallet system are the M61A1 Vulcan, its mounting system and servos, a modified Selex ES Janus electro-optical infrared turret, gunner workstation, magazine, GPS and INS reference systems, and the system's electronics and power systems.
Gunship has its own batteries, capable of operating the system autonomously for 30 minutes; but it can also be plugged into an aircraft's auxiliary power supply allowing indefinite operational time. The M61A1 has been limited to a fixed fire rate of 4,000 rounds per minute for the Gunship system.
Oto Melara revealed that the first prototype was delivered to the Italian Air Force in October 2014, who certified it for flight on the C-27J and began airborne firing trials on 3 March. These took place at the Capo Frasca range in Sardinia and included one dry and 11 hot runs. In total 550 rounds were fired through the Gunship system at altitudes of 1,500-3,700 ft and a slant range of just over one mile.
Oto Melara is now fine-tuning the system and expects it to have a Circular Error Probability lower than 4 m at 5,000 ft of altitude/2,000 m slant range. At the higher altitude of 10,000 ft this would increase to 10-12 m, according to the company.
A further, final, batch of firing trials are planned when the Capo Frasca range reopens in October, after which the system should be fully qualified.
Oto Melara officials revealed that it was in talks with several Middle Eastern clients about the system and that firing trials in at least one Middle Eastern customer were also planned. While currently armed with an M61 Vulcan, the company said that the system had potential for the armament to be increased to a 25 mm gatling-style cannon.
As well, it noted that a separate Italian company was developing a second palletised command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4ISR) system that would add datalink capabilities to the Gunship system and function and allow a transport aircraft to function as both a gunship and an airborne command post for ground operations.
That's a lot of bang for your bucks. The last paragraph also sounds interesting.
- Sniper advanced targeting pods are being sold to Romania and Thailand
- Lockheed Martin is in talks with Dassault over integration of Sniper onto the Rafale fighter
Ship design company BMT Group and missile house MBDA had stands in the UKTI booth. MBDA is working with Mitsubishi Electric to discuss the feasibility of using Japanese technology on the Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, which could also see service on Japanese F-35As. According to UKTI's Tim Johnson, the feasibility study is due to report at the end of summer 2015.
Meanwhile, BMT head of Business Development Toby Middleton was keen to promote the company's Caimen-90 Fast Landing Craft as a possible landing platform for Japan's newly formed amphibious assault force. Each of the tri-bow monohull vessels can carry a main battle tank (MBT) to shore at 22 kt and offload its payload using a folding bow ramp.
Two Caimen-90 Fast could fit within the same space as a single landing craft air cushion hovercraft, which can only carry a single MBT but travels much faster. Middleton was keen to stress that BMT is a designer so any Japanese platforms could be built domestically.
Yes, Meteor on the JASDF's F-35As — with AESA seekers developed from Japanese technology — is a possibility.
edited 18th May '15 10:24:38 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
So, if I am reading it right.
...
I cant make sense of it.
edited 18th May '15 10:39:22 AM by Imca
It's a palletized Vulcan that lets any transport perform Puff the Dragon drive bys.
Ahhhhhh, okay.
I gotta question the use of that, since it seems like if it is activly transporting you dont want to go low and slow.
But if it is not activly transporting, a dedicated gunship would be hella more effective.
Palletized gunship would be hella cheaper though. It sounds like a single notch above kludgewerk gunships.
I'd bet the palletized thing would be horridly inaccurate owing to its "informal" mounting.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Pretty much. It is step above punching holes in the side of a plane but not by much. Even if it is has stabilization on the pallet the pallet mounting itself is not. It is pretty much the same thing as a piece of cargo and presents a unique issue. The weapon can only fire through open hatches ie the rear of the majority of cargo planes.
Who watches the watchmen?
"Hey Ivan! Did that plane just shit bullets at us?"
It's designed to be stuck out of paratroop doors.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Regarding pressurized cargo bays: It probably depends on the plane. Not all aircraft (civilian or military) have pressurized interiors, but some do.
Regarding best looking fighter plane: The Curtiss Warhawk. Every other fighter made is competing for second place.