The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

The Marines already have modular missile pylons for their KC-130s, and the Air Force similarly uses a modular set of shuttlecock refueling rigs for their KC-135s. The idea is that you buy a handful of the modular systems, and you can rotate them between a larger number of cargo aircraft. So maybe this C-130 is a gunship today, maybe it's hauling cargo or getting an engine rebuilt tomorrow. In the meantime, just load the pallet into another available bird and you've got no negative mission impact.

Meanwhile, if the weapon itself craps the bed, you can pull that and get it repaired or replaced while the bird goes on to do other things instead of losing the whole airframe to one issue.

Isn't that just a pipe that bolts onto the end of the boom though?

edited 18th May '15 4:48:16 PM by Deadbeatloser22

Not all cargo craft have a paratrooper door though. Sure some do but as a cheap gunship option for cargo craft it has some limits.

Also didn't the MC-27J Praetorian pretty much cover this niche with a quick install and removable 30mm and Hellfire missile mountings?

edited 18th May '15 4:57:25 PM by TuefelHundenIV

And then they got rid of all the C-27s because reasons.

The Air Force hates any aircraft that has to support those icky, icky grunts on the ground...

^ No wonder nobody likes them anymore. Especially Congresscritters.

For the KC-135s, there are actually two shuttlecock refueling options. There is the dong extension that goes over the end of the boom, as well as a pair of pods that hang off the wingtips. Only certain 135s can take the wing pods.

Twenty KC-135 have MRPS.

Unless it's a DC-3. Those things are basically immortal.

Or, for that matter, any aircraft used prolifically by bush pilots - the Beaver comes to mind!

Are DC-3s really that long-lived on their own, or is it just the fact that over 10,000 DC-3s and C-47s were built (not counting foreign licensed versions) meaning that there are plentiful spares to be found?

Same thing with their turboprop Spiritual Successor the Herkybird.

We'll have space battleships and mobile suits and be traveling the stars and the Herkybird will still be flying.

No, apparently the Hercs are starting to reach the end of their airframe life.

Sounds like we need more Herks!

But seriously, last I checked, they were still building those things. The J model is schweet with its six-blade scimitar props.

...and someone's brought the RAF's old Tristars.

Ah post-war aviation, where no idea was too silly to be built. Oddly enough, the USSR never grew out of the "glass nose" World War Two era designs. If not for the minor design flaws, that East German contraption would have flow well into The '80s. Seems the engines became the power plants for East German mine sweepers.

The Badger and Beagle bombers were just fancy dressed up designs from the Great Patriotic War. China still flies a variant of the Badger, but they wisely dropped the glass nose.

@Sabre's Edge:

Now I'm imagining its engines making the noise of a vacuum cleaner.

You're thinking of trains.

The Daily Telegraph can't tell its Spitfires from its Hurricanes.

To be fair, most newspapers can't tell planes apart to save their lives (they're likely to half-ass it and just write "Cessna" as a shorthand for all GA aircraft in much the same way that every gun in existence is an "AK-47", for example). But as much as I like the fellow, I didn't expect Jeremy Clarkson of all people to spot the error - I would've thought it'd be James May or something.

At least the bombs are mounted on wing hardpoints...

But really, this sounds more like a Desperation Attack tactic than anything.