The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

For me, that plane could use a few more engines. It's not dieselpunk enough to be an Antonov, and too dieselpunk to be 21st century.

It's ridiculous. Not only the connection is slow, the whole page is reduced to some pre-PHP skeleton layout.

You know how you sometimes have to see a plane in flight, or rendered in a sim, before you realize how pretty it is? Ladies and Gentlemen, the de Havilland Vampire:

It's Asshole Clenching Time!

I couldn't do a zero vis carrier landing.

Yeah, yikes! The pucker factor will always be high on carrier landings though, wouldn't you agree?

Pilatus PC-24 'super versatile jet' takes to the skies — For it's maiden flight...that happened on the 11th May.

Anyone else notice they were wearing the new fancy helmets instead of the older design?

Speaking of pucker factor:

Pigeon working without catching fire

Almost makes me want a VTOL that is not shite.

edited 30th May '15 9:28:47 PM by Imca

...are those scorch marks on the carrier deck?

Seems like, to me.

Wasn't there an article a while back in the navy thread about how the Marines carriers had to be refitted to use the 35B because the turbines burned through the deck during vertical landings?

So probably yes, those are scorch marks.

edited 31st May '15 3:52:52 AM by 3of4

They were designed for use with Pegasus jetwash. Not for engines that go reheat.

edited 31st May '15 3:54:55 AM by Deadbeatloser22

Tyler Rogoway of Foxtrot Alpha on the KC-46's woes. Why on earth are they completely replacing windows with a 3D vision setup?

Bleeding edge? That is, using new (and not yet mature) technology for the sake of it.

I really don't get the advantage to moving the boomer's station up into the cockpit anyways, aside from giving him a shorter walk to work.

Okay time to play devils advocate.

First, I can see an advantage right away, you can move the point of view to the nozzle, which will make it much easier to control... well the nozzle, in addition, you can have multiple points of view, just by adding extra cameras, and can flush them with augmented reality.

All of this will help to make one of the hardest jobs in the air-force easier, plus there will always be systems where a failure is mission ending, say currently the boom controls.

Now to be EVEN MORE fair, I dont know why they just didn't shove this system into the pod unless there was not enough room, that way you get all the advantages it has to offer, and still have a backup in the event of failure.

...That's usually the point where the editor or whoever did the proofreading needs to be feeling ashamed of themselves.

BBC: Malaysia Airlines 'technically bankrupt'

Tyler Rogoway is just a journalist and an outsider. The KC-45 is better (despite Boeing's many missteps) than what Airbus barfed up and a needed replacement to the two types of tanker we have.

The problem with buying commercial is supporting all the different types of aircraft and the squeamishness of buying used aircraft. There is a reason "classic airframes" are hard to sell: the fear of corrosion and airframe fatigue.

A word of wisdom on mechanical vs electronic: the more moving parts, the more points of failure. Electronics usually fail within 3 months of coming on line, if that don't happen they can last a long time. I bet Rogoway was crying in his Pabst over the loss of film to digital and he has a typewriter in his office and still sends snail mail. The USAF is setting up a system and no one knows flight safety like the USAF.

Legendary Skunk Works Founder Kelly Johnson's Rules Of Management

If you think the USAF is bad, Naval Air System Command is much, much worse. Drama queens who obsess over plans and forms and guidelines, Bratty Teenage Daughter in uniform. Kelly Johnson hated doing business with the Navy. Ben Rich had his heart broken trying to build the Sea Shadow only for the Navy to reject it.

So how long before Boeing starts flogging stuff like the E-767 as a replacement for the USAF's other 707-based aircraft?

Also Airbus' offering seems to have done rather better on the open market than Boeing's.

edited 1st Jun '15 6:08:43 PM by Deadbeatloser22

Boeing did get Japan, Australia and NATO contracts Airbus didn't get. Just Boeing's past leadership was screwing around instead of keeping their eye on making airplanes.

Boeing has offered to replace many 707/Dash-80 based airframes and yet again the DOD is dancing around the issue...

Taira: I will have pity for the contractors when they stop fucking up so badly. First off the Sea Shadow was never meant to be a mainline ship. It was a test bed project. It was testing Naval Surface vessel stealth technology, unique hull designs, and how well various automated systems would help reduce the crew count. In fact it was not actually Navy project but was headed by DARPA as a test bed project. It was never built to be actually used it had a fridge, microwave and only 12 bunks. It was never even commissioned.

They didn't have to supply extensive support and meet fleet requirements as the ship was never actually intended to be part of the fleet. It was a one shot test bed they were paid to build nothing more.

It was a tech demo and there were plans to get similar ships into the fleet, and then INSURV got their hands on it. It needing something called a "paint locker" since no Navy ship since 1776 has ever sailed without a paint locker. INSURV produced reams and reams of reports. Then there was the problem of a ship so secret no sailor outside the program could be allowed to see it or be near it. Proposed systems would have a cruiser sized ship run with the crew of a frigate, that made some officers unhappy "not enough people to boss around" in the words of Ben Rich.

In the end it was too off the wall to ever be turned into a ship of the line. So it was just relegated to a tech demo and then forgotten.

Ben Rich wrote Skunk Works and had a lot to say about the Navy and it's way of screwing with their contractors.

I don't think Rich's word is worth the paper is written on given the huge piles of bullshit the contractors pull all the time. They frankly have no right to complain when they constantly scam, fuck up beyond recognition, and over charge every step if they aren't watched like hawks. See the LCS for the leading example of where they weren't watched closely enough and they failed to something so simple and common as design the ships to resist galvanic corrosion. Something other US ships already incorporate in their designs.

The Sea Shadow was from beginning to finish a test bed demo vehicle only. It was never intended to enter full production ever only to test technology for future use. The bit about the paint locker supposedly killing it is frankly bullshit especially given the ship was not meant to be a main line vessel and unless the designers were complete idiots didn't incorporate a feature used to safely store certain items on the ship in the first place. Again its whole sole purpose was to test technologies as a demo only vessel. The technologies it tested though were planned to possibly be in future ship designs and upgrades. Just like how there are several unique test bed aircraft testing multiple concepts at once. They are never mean to actually be primary production models.

Sorry Taira your contractor apologia doesn't stand up to the light.