The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

Even if the pilot had a gunsight, zeroing the turret to it in flight prolly wouldn't have been very fun.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jan 2nd 2019 at 8:34:38 AM

thats when you use all tracer belts.

News and Guts: Shutdown Stories: Air Traffic Controllers Join TSA Workers In Sickout

tl;dr: ATC is kind of a stressful job when you know you're getting paid for it. The controllers are unhappy with the current arrangement, especially with nonessential staff being able to spend the time away from work with most likely getting back-paid for it anyways.

A-10s Come To The Rescue Of Desperate Troops In Afghanistan In This Awesome Gun Camera Footage.

The vid in question.

Camera quality is kinda low but I do see the target(s) HOG 01 is engaging and how 30mm HEI just ruins the enemy's day.

Man, that is an old vid as in at least decade old. But iconic gun cam footage by this point.

Drone sighting over Heathrow.

So apparently the F-35 is magic and can do whatever you want if you believe hard enough.

I mean that's how it has always been any way, nothing new here.

Eagle: You are exaggerating quite a bit with your pothole.

Immy: You didn't even bother to read the article.

First, the concept of a fighter aiding defense against ballistic missiles is decades old in concept to begin with. They aren't expecting it to do the bulk of the work only be part of the overall scheme which is quite plausible especially given the fact the US proved there was validity in fighters being able to carry a weapon capable of tracking, targeting, and successfully hitting a threat in orbit. The article is not making any wild speculations noting it can do probably do some of the defensive work. It is not suggesting it is a defensive lynchpin. Second, they point out it could quite likely serve as a mobile launcher hunter which again aides missile defense.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jan 17th 2019 at 6:10:03 AM

So basically they want to upgrade whatever ASAT missile the F-15 could lob for use with the 35?

That would be my guess. Either reviving the ASM-135 and upgrading it or far more likely creating a new line of missiles with expanded capabilities possibly by modifying newer missiles like the SM Block IIA. The 135 was decently impressive of early to mid 80's technology and was partly a modification of an existing US missile in service at the time. So taking newer systems like the boosters off of the SM-3 for example and possibly creating a weapon that could fill that role is a possibility.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jan 17th 2019 at 6:39:54 AM

IRBMs and hypersonic gliders, fair enough. Mach 20 ICBMs with MIRV and countermeasures? Might be pushing it there.

Eagle: Not really. We already have systems capable of shooting down individual ICBM warheads moving at orbital velocities and again the US air to orbit weapon hit an object of comparable size to a warhead moving at orbital velocities. I would point out that Mach 20 isn't as impressive as it sounds. Coincidentally the velocity of the ASM-135 is 6.6km/s or about the same speed as Mach 20. Again that was a weapons system built in 1985. We already have surface ships capable of swatting objects in orbit moving at higher velocities than Mach 20. The speedy projectiles with a handful of increasingly degraded efficacy decoys are not as impressive as it used to be. Also if we can give even slower velocity missiles like the Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD an ability to hit warheads or specific spots on a missile target I am not exactly all that impressed with the threat. To top it off the US has pretty much been non-stop improving its assorted intercept systems.

I would also point out the Hypersonic Glide Vehicles are a far greater danger than the older ICBM MIRV warheads because they have a lot more capability in terms of active navigation and possible evasion. It was one of the reasons the US Pershing II's pissed the Russians off so much.

Wasn't it part of the plan all along? It was part of the idea of missile defense long before there were things like AEGIS or PATRIOT or THAAD or C-RAM.

It’s been in the works in one form or another since the 70s.

Gotta get in some of those sweet F-35 burns though, you know.

Tom: Some iteration of the concept has been around for a long time. Orbital intercept tests and experiments have been conducted since the end of the 50's. Bold Orion was a nuclear intercept system carried by aircraft as was a follow on program. Bold Orion was more successful but was only briefly deployed. We abandoned that for orbital space due to a desire to keep orbits neutral. However, systems like Nike retained nuclear capability in atmo. The US would tinker with the idea repeatedly across the decades. Technically the first intercepts of missiles by aircraft were attempted against V-1's in WWII which proved it was a lot harder than it looked and could be very dangerous to the intercepting craft if they succeeded.

I am actually surprised we didn't see more effort in the 90's when we were going nuts with the SDI program. In a way, we have come full circle where the combination of technologies of the larger interceptor missiles is offering feasible aircraft mounted weapons.

Hiding away somewhere is a proposal to possibly turn certain large missiles like the SM-3 into aircraft carried variants with their high-speed boosters that could be used to shoot incoming threats like cruise missiles and aircraft and even possibly fire on hypersonic threats.

Recently DARPA was examining the use of air to orbit launch systems to put small payloads into orbit. So basically we have a few decades of experiments and tests to draw on to quite feasibly design a whole new missile and/or even an aircraft if needed.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jan 17th 2019 at 1:06:34 PM

So, Switzerland now knows the reason for a plane crash that took place on the 4 August 2017, causing 3 fatalities and 1 serious injury: Aside from the usual thing of flying too low in mountainous terrain and a pilot without a license, apparently he had let a 14 year old passenger fly the plane.

I belive something similar happened in Russia a few decades ago?

Wow. That is just a string of bad decisions.

Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed after the Captain let his son take the controls to pretend he was flying, whereupon he exerted enough force on the controls to disconnect the autopilot and send the plane out of control.

(Cross-posted with the Military thread)

Task & Purpose: A C-17 Did A Low Pass Over Nashville And Scared The Absolute Hell Out Of Everyone

And this is why you should involve your PAO in the planning process.

^^...and because apparently the pilots weren't aware of how to fix the steering issue that developed. To me that Aeroflot incident always looked like a design/training error, with the "kid in the cockpit" merely being a triggering event.

Russian Tu-22M3 Bomber Crashes Near The Arctic Days After Two Su-34s Collide Further East.

On the one hand...scratch one Backfire and two Fullbacks. On the other...that actually royally sucks, those crews didn't deserve it.

Ouch. Bad day for Russian military aviation.

Sounds like they're running into similar problems we are. Their aircraft are just as old.

They also have much lower maintenance standards, and since their fleets are smaller the aircraft get flown a lot harder.

The Backfires in particular have been having a lot of maintenance issues lately.

My heart goes out to the crews, that’s some rough luck.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 23rd 2019 at 12:26:08 PM