The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

@the F-16XL - it lost to the F-15E because the Mud Hen has two engines. At the time the USAF felt that a ground attack aircraft needed two engines. The cost of the XL's production was just another factor that cut it out of the competition.

• Army Pilot shortage: The pilot shortage: The Army's struggle to fix its aviation problems

• Air Force Stemmed Its Pilot Crisis, Chief Says

Edited by TairaMai on Aug 11th 2019 at 3:08:55 PM

Every combat aircraft should have two engines. It gives redundancy in the case of failure or battle damage, extends the versatility, range, speed and capabilities of a plane and it just looks better.

It's one of my biggest beefs with the F-35 program that's unrelated to it failing its performance goals time and time again. Single engine is just too much liability for a plane expected to fight the enemy.

Single engine plane replacing single engine planes.

Given how many successful single-engine fighter patterns there are this seems demonstrably untrue.

Single engines are less complex, easier to repair, smaller, and cheaper, plus in MY oppinion your wrong, and they are the ones that look better.

Both designs have merit, or else one would have replaced the other long ago.... its not like multiple engine airplanes as a concept are more then 100 years old, and have fought in two world wars or any thing.

One of the primary reasons to use multiple engines is to give a craft more power for speed, lift, and greater carriage in general.

That said, even twin-engine attack aircraft pale in comparison to the carriage capacity and range of four- or eight-engine bombers. Clearly each of these aircraft fills a valuable niche. Although in the case of the original F-16 proposal, the biggest consideration was most likely cost, because the F-15 was a highly capable aircraft which mostly existed to set money on fire.

At least after the Firefox turned out to not be the Wonderplane that everyone thought it was going to be rather than just a rather pedestrian interceptor.

I don't know if I would call it a pedestrian interceptor

Try and make the Foxbat perform a basic turn at speed. I'll wait.

Meanwhile the F-15 has literally turned 3 rings around it in the same time and splashed the Mig-25 several times over.

Straight line speed is all the Mig-25 has.

The Firefox was the name for the then secret Mi G-31 before we named it the Foxhound.

Given the Mi G-31 operates at the edge of space, can out accelerate a Blackbird, and has a true top speed past Mach 3 I don't know if I'd call it a pedestrian interceptor.

Mind you it can only reach that top speed once and it has a turning radius the size of the Ural mountain range but it's still a very impressive aircraft especially considering the modern ASAT and long range cruise missile armament it's gotten in recent years.

Worth noting that the MiG-25 gave the Iraqi Air Force its handful of F-14 kills in the Iran-Iraq War. A MiG-25PD was also the only Iraqi fighter to shoot down a Coalition aircraft in the Gulf War. The MiG-25R recce variant had an unusually advanced autopilot for its time, which allowed it to fly a photo-taking mission pretty much by itself, only requiring pilot input on take-off and landing. The Indians used one to photograph a solar eclipse from the stratosphere in 1995.

Yeah, it's not a craft for all occasions, with some glaring flaws and the intelligence community overhyping it for a while. But it did its job and it did it well.

I don't think the Mi G-25 or Mi G-31 would be very good at intercepting pedestrians at all. For that, the F-16 is actually a far better choice.

You're right, it's better suited to intercepting equestrians.

Nah, the Foxhound moves like a slug in mud compared to Rainbow Dash.

Intercepting equestrians, you say? Now you reminded me of Ace Combat: The Equestrian War.

On a different note, how often is the term "attack bomber" used for fixed-wing attack aircraft like the A-10 Thunderbolt II or the F-117 Nighthawk (which really ought to be renamed to "A-117" already)?

That term isn’t in general use. “Attack aircraft” would be the usual term.

Using F instead of A for certain attack aircraft is something that does happen occasionally. The F-111 comes to mind. Usually it’s because of a holdover from the conceptual phase, or for arcane doctrinal reasons like with the F-117. The categories aren’t as fixed as you might think, like everything else with the military. The F-117 is retired now, anyways.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 13th 2019 at 10:23:21 AM

The problem with using "attack aircraft" is that by the very definition of its component words (in context for "attack"), it encompasses attack helicopters as well.

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 13th 2019 at 8:45:25 PM

A helicopter would be called a helicopter. When you say attack aircraft it’s pretty much understood you’re referring to a plane. If you’re getting technical strike fighter can be used, but there won’t be much confusion when using the term attack aircraft. That’s the common use term.

Like I mentioned above, nomenclature is rarely an exact thing. There’s a lot of flexibility and overlap, not to mention outright mislabeling that somehow sticks.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 13th 2019 at 11:11:38 AM

Evidence is growing that last week's missile blow up is in fact Burevestnik.

Given they've done a brief evacuation of a nearby town, this all but confirms that Skyfall was involved.

Seems like they’re not having much luck with that thing.

There is a good reason the US shelved both the missile and the bomber concepts using that technology concept. There is only so much crazy even the Cold War tolerated before someone went "Woah hold up Satan!".

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 14th 2019 at 7:14:00 AM

Project Pluto was the US attempt at this. A fun fact about Project Pluto - the Coors Porcelain Company was contracted to build the elements. Yes, Coors as in the beer.

But as Tuffle said, sanity broke out on Pluto as it was too silly for the Cold War.