Yeah, the HL 3 budget just gets restocked from other budgets like the Royal Navy's catapult budget and the Russian Navy's maintenance budget.

It was funny once, Tom. But only once. It's not funny any more. Please stop it.

It will be seven THAAD batteries soon. D-2 will go back to Korea permanently next year, leaving Bliss with just three THAAD batteries. The 11th ADA at Fort Bliss has A-4, A-2 and B-2. Guam (Anderson AFB) has E-3 THAAD. The 35th ADA in South Korea will have D-2 next year (A-4 is filling in until the unit rotates back). And now Fort Hood has E-62 and will soon have B-62.

Don't ask why the units are numbered like that, I ain't a General. D-2 was supposed to rotate to the ROK, but since the unit has people going to Army schools, getting out or PCS'ing ^note Permanent Change of Station- D-2 will go back to the States, change out personnel then return to Korea. I hear those poor basterds were setup on a former golf course and the accommodations are sh_t even by Army standards.

edited 31st Oct '17 9:47:40 PM by TairaMai

Inb 4 several bogus stories made an admiral get demoted and several USN crews resigning due to trauma.

Can't watch the video due to crappy government internet, but were either of the planes inverted at the time?

The Pentagon Is Quietly Developing A Next Generation Long Range Air To Air Missile.

Two stage AAM? What are they intending it for? ASAT? The horizon is kinda the hard limit how far AAM's can go and that's about 150 km or so tops at most practical altitudes. The old Phoenix could hit about that far.

This would be an interesting response to Russia's ASAT capable Mi G-31 loadouts.

Maybe stealthy planes like the F-22 and F-35 could call the shots, while missile trucks lob these in from the next time zone.

edited 3rd Nov '17 10:03:01 PM by AFP

China and Russia were rumored to be working on "AWACS-killer" missiles: missiles that are anti-radation or just have absurd ranges to kill AWACS, tankers, support aircraft etc.

And the Phoenix was withdrawn when the F-14 was retired.

There is a difference between a "as the crow flies" trajectory and what missiles actually do which is fire on parabolic trajectories.

Weren't the motors on the Phoenix completely unusable towards the end of the Tomcat's career?

Wouldn't suprise me, most people forget that munitions, and missiles especially have a shelf life.

Rocket fuel decays, Nitrogen Cooling (used in the thermal sensors of IR seekers) boils off, Nuclear Material (for your world enders) undergoes its half-life.

They honestly need maintenance and care just like all other machines.

The Phoenix missiles had issues with their motors to begin with.

Ok did some digging. Back in the mid 80's the Navy did a detailed inspection of missiles and found over 2,000 flaws with missiles delivered by Hughes which could harm reliability of missiles. Experience of actual use of the missile by the US can be described as failures for all known US launches.

edited 4th Nov '17 10:34:24 AM by TuefelHundenIV

It was a derivative of the Falcon, after all.

If the Phoenix missiles didn't have problems, the US Navy would have moved heaven and earth to find a way to hang them off of other airframes after the F14's became life-expired/surplus to requirements. After all they'd made such great play of them being great technology in everyone's favourite US Navy recruiting film, "Hot Shots!", er I mean "Top Gun".

Lol.

Those Missiles were also notorious for their motor issues in general but Hughes constant quality control fuck ups pretty much sealed the fate of that weapon. The missiles of course worked fine in tests but the mass produced variants never had the same quality control. They had some decent tech behind them but without that quality control of mass produced models the weapon was ultimately doomed.

The Chief of Staff of the German Air Force has outlined some requirements for a Tornado replacement.

Apparently, a low observable fifth generation fighter, with the ability to locate and engage targets from a great distance, is desired.

I wonder what currently produced fighter fits those requirements best...

I guess Lockheed stocks are going up in the next months.

Oh great. I see another Lockheed Scandal coming. Mind you, who gives a shit? The last one only killed just over a hundred Luftwaffe pilots after all, nothing too major.

There has been another Unidentified Aircraft spotted in the air over Oregon This time it is reportedly confirmed by pilots and people on the ground. The speculation is that this is some sort of test bed drone or other aircraft undergoing a test flight. Civilian ATC ground installation in the area couldn't really track it by radar suggesting it may have been a stealth aircraft of some sort.

MQ-9 Drone demonstrated a capability to act as a data relay point for remotely deployed Sonar Buoys for sub-marine tracking.

Well, it's not like the F-35 is going to be flown at low altitude in horrible weather for the world's last tactical nuclear airstrike, with all of its FBW systems disabled, piloted by people somehow untouched by the training policy changes brought on to reduce F-104 losses.

The De Haviland Mosquito?

I don't even think it will fly if you kill the FWB.

Most modern airplanes wont....

^ Oh they still fly fine....in whichever way they were headed last when it cuts out. Which usually is flying straight into the ground.