The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

Yeah, sounds more like an ammo problem than a plane problem. Especially since the gun is a fairly well-proven design that's in use in several other planes.

Reminds me of the story of the F-11

^^ Is the GAU-12 in use in other aircraft? The only one I know of besides the F-35 is the AC-130.

Harriers carry it iirc

GAU-12 is used by the Harrier, the AC-130, and an Anti-Air variant of the USMC LAV-25 called the "LAV-AD" which paired it with 8 Stinger tubes. I don't know how often the 25mm gun gets used against anything that flies, but I bet it works fine against anything on the ground that isn't a tank.

The F-35 uses the GAU-22, which is basically just a GAU-12 with 4 barrels instead of 5 to save weight.

South Korea rolled out its first prototype of the new KF-21 Boramae fighter. Once they start mass production, it is supposed to replace the aging F-4 Phantoms and F-5 Tigers.

Neato. I was kinda hoping that South Korea would take a crack at domestic engine production, like Japan is doing with the Mitsubishi X-2. But I guess that the single-crystal casting of nickel superalloys is still quite the technological bottleneck, even in 2021.

From Meet South Korea's New KF-21 "Hawk" Indigenous Fighter (Warzone, The Drive):

Couple of random finds:

• Early, Vietnam War-era IRST display for jet fighters.◊ Infrared imaging wasn't really a thing yet for most parts, but you had a pip to tell you where in the jet's field of view the infrared radiation was coming from.

• And the world's first four-engined plane, the 1913 Sikorsky Russky Vityaz. Just an absolute beauty.

TIL that the KC-330 Cygnus, the ROKAF's name for the Airbus A330 MRTT tanker, came from a character in MapleStory. Apparently, the ROKAF held a naming contest for their new tanker, and one airman submitted the name Cygnus, after the video game character. The higher-ups thought the name came from the constellation, and they (unintentionally) named the jet after a video game character.

Edited by minseok42 on Apr 13th 2021 at 3:19:56 AM

Question for a(n alternate) historical fiction, about early US naval aviation.

The Context:

The main character is an officer of US Navy who graduates from the US Naval Academy in 1906 and becomes an officer in 1908. Despite his stellar grade in the Annapolis (3rd out of 209) and decent track record as a passed midshipman during the voyage of Great White Fleet, his very first post as a commissioned officer was in a submarine and he would be stuck in the First Submarine Flotilla until 1910.

He absolutely hated his time in submarines and kept applying for surface ship duties, only to be rejected. Then when he hears Glen Curtiss opening aviation school and later looking for prospective students among officers, he desperately send Curtiss (ass-kissing) letters praising his aircrafts and their potential to US Navy. He actually had a minor fear of heights, but he wanted any opportunity to get out of submarine duty (without causing troubles).

This ultimately results in him - along with Theodore Ellyson (MC's upperclassman and a friend) - becoming one of the very first US naval aviators, but then his wife gives birth to their first child, making him leave the career of naval aviator before it even properly...takes off.

The question is, in 1910 would the position of the very first US naval aviator have been highly coveted and thus competitive, or would it have been one of those uncharted territories that people were hesitant to venture into?

Edited by dRoy on Apr 16th 2021 at 10:22:49 PM

Ingenuity made its third flight on Mars. The helicopter flew at an altitude 5 meters from the surface and for a distance of 100m.

More the latter. Organizations/Bureaucracies, especially of the military kind, tend to be very conservative and wouldn't have looked kindly on aviation. They would've viewed it as a fad at best. An affront at worst. This was the age of the dreadnaughts and battleships, where countries put great pride and financial resources into their surface navies. Look at Billy Mitchell who was court-martialed 2 decades later for having the audacity to demonstrate that surface ships were vulnerable to air attack.

Billy Mitchell was court-martialed because he was insubordinate to the point of accusing senior military leaders of incompetence bordering on treason. Mitchell just had no concept of not being extra dramatic and it eventually bit him in the butt. If they had wanted to court martial him for the naval bombing tests, they wouldn't have let the tests go on for two years and then wait another two years to court martial him (his remarks were in reference to the loss of USS Shenandoah, a Navy airship that went down in a storm in 1925.)

Taiwan will be upgrading its legacy F-16 fleet with automatic ground collision avoidance systems and AGM-88 HARM capability, in response to a fatal crash last November.

The French Marshal Ferdinand Foch even said that "Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value." in 1911. Ironically, the French Navy later named an aircraft carrier after him.

Mind, Foch's observation was entirely correct in 1911. The technology and doctrine were very underdeveloped at the time. He would have been just as correct speaking about tanks, if they existed at all yet. Keep in mind that the state of the art in aviation looked like this at the time.

By 1918, aircraft carriers would be carrying out combat operations. The next ten years were gonna be wild for aerospace engineering.

Edited by AFP on Apr 28th 2021 at 2:16:12 AM

In the space of 50 years (1918-1968) humans went from wooden framed aircraft to attempting to land on the Moon.

Wild doesn't even begin to describe aviation of the 20th century.

Oh wow, I actually got an answer to my question, thanks!

While I'm on that topic, naval aviation provided an excellent solution to the problems of that story. You see, I needed the MC to do something exciting in during WWI. Sadly, while it would be inaccurate to say that U.S. Navy didn't do anything important during that period, they weren't involved in large-scale naval battles, aside from maybe Battle of Durazzo.

Then I was looking up some info on aircraft carriers, through Wiki Walk I went through naval aviation -> aviation -> aviation in WWI - and what's this, there was actually a US naval officer who flew with Royal Flying Corps AND became the very first naval ace pilot?

Fucking. EUREKA.

Since I will have him become the captain of an aircraft carrier some points during the Interwar Years, it should also help him with that aspect of his naval career. Awwrite.

The USN's own naval aviation program only really hit its stride in the postwar years under Admiral William Moffett (aka the other "Bill").

At a glance, it doesn't sound like Ingalls saw any carrier operations, if that matters to you.

You're correct and he didn't. As far as I know, U.S. Navy didn't commission any purpose built aircraft carrier until the mid 20s.

Buuuut, it's not like the RFC saw much naval aerial combat, so I think it doesn't matter too much.

I just need the MC to have some cool things to do as a naval officer during WWI.

Speaking of WWI ace pilots, I suddenly wondered: what if Manfred von Richthofen actually survived WWI?

I wasn't the only one to ponder that question and there were many answers.

Then one Quora user actually wrote a goddamn short alternate history fic as an answer. THAT was some mindblowingly cool stuff that I wish was a full fledged book.

Not that it is completely accurate, of course.

Edited by dRoy on Apr 29th 2021 at 9:29:21 PM

Hey, I know we don't talk about the F-35 enough, but Ars Technica reports that Congress is questioning the long-term affordability of the program and may refuse to support any more funds to upgrade or purchase excess craft. Meanwhile, upgrades are being made to the F-16 and a "clean-sheet" procurement is being considered for a new low-cost fighter, a role that was supposed to be filled by the F-35.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 29th 2021 at 9:23:29 AM

I don't like the F-35. While it's got some great features, it's overly expensive for what it brings to the table. You're better off investing in something cheaper like the Gripen, Rafale, Typhoon or Super Hornet. Not to mention that I think we're seeing the dawn of the end of manned military aircraft, drones are going to becoming more prominent as the technology advances and improves and delivers better cost per value than manned fighters.

Neat find of the day: a detailed handbook for the P-3B Airborne Laboratory that NASA flew for its decade-long cryosphere research program, Operation IceBridge. The video goes into further details on the research instruments involved: