Skull Leader
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Posts posted by Skull Leader
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The perfect edition isn't so perfect. In fact, the other version has better subtitles. The only thing that is better on the Perfect edition is the video quality.
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Oh I remember that canarded F-14 now, IIRC the canards also created unfavorable vortex flow into the engine intakes, and pilots complained about visibility problems with them. The canards would have been most useful on landing, but becuase of their placement they also interfered with seeign the carrier deck, oops.
Yeah, about the only time they proved useful was during spin-recovery testing. While F-14As had a serious issue departing controlled flight when the pilot flew the aircraft outside the engine's parameters (the airframe could handle more extremes than the TF-30s could... which is why the Super Tomcats got better engines), it was decided that there were enough other things that could be done that made the canards pretty much pointless.
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There WAS a NASA F-14A out at Dryden that DID have experimental deployable canards, but they were found to be pretty much useless. They were located on the nose just forward of the canopy (kind of under the windscreen). It was F-14A BuNo 157991. One of the original test airframes that was modified as a single-seat aircraft. It had the early glove-sealing plates, tall glove strakes, and a spin-chute dispenser on the beavertail. They had this airframe from 1979 to 1985.
They had a second tomcat out at Dryden in 1986 for a series of wing-sweep tests, using a different jet. The only modifications they made were to put some specialized plates on the wings that would make it easier to monitor airflow over the wings. This was F-14A BuNo 158613. Note the early, short gunport on the nose. This jet also had the interim beavertail with no dialectric panels..
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I'm talking about AC-130s in 2005 and 2006 using the old 40mms.
The ones mounted now, so far as I know, are newer builds. I could be mistaken though.
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Knight's post should cover most of it. It's worth noting on the standard cargo variants, that beyond a few minor things, all the variants pretty much look alike. Antennas will change from variant to variant, as will the engines in some cases. Except for A models, which had 3 bladed props, most variants have 4 bladed props. The new J models have 6 bladed props.
Once you get into the different prefixes, you encounter all KINDS of changes depending on the type. For example. the MC-130 special ops series (nicknamed "Combat Talons I & II depending on the variant) have unique noses molded to the aircraft. EC-130s (having various nicknames depending on the type) carry a great many different antennas on them. The british aren't the only one that use the C-130 for weather tracking. the USAF has a squadron of WC-130s for the same purpose. "Fat Albert" is used by the USMC, not the Coast Guard, but you are right that it's part of the Blue Angels team. It's actually a KC-130H (or is it still an E model? can't remember) which serves as both a refueller for the team in transit as well as a travelling workshop.
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yeah, I think a better move might've been to install one on one of the arms. A bit closer to the centerline.
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Yes, they have two tailhooks (a bit of over-engineering and a poor move I think). They're stored within the wells of the landing gear mainmounts and are only extended when needed.
(edit:) my belief in the "poor move" part is pretty self evident. If he catches a crosswind on that last second in the groove, he may only catch one hook. Care to imagine what a 160knt aircraft will do in a forced power slide? *I* sure as hell wouldn't want to ride it out. With the engine nacelles/arresting gears being so far away from the centerline, it wouldn't be pretty
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I've heard the same as Knight, David. I know the ILRP had serious issues, but in recent years has been pretty much hailed as the best variant out there.
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Brokeback-tech... I like that...
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Interesting stuff... hmmm, almost makes me wonder if they could've mounted a pair of GAU-8 on it. If it's good enough for a Hog, it might be good enough for a -130. I suppose though that the 25mm is probably sufficient to kill most armored vehicles. I wonder what is the upper limitation on the type of cannon that can be loaded.Â
Too bad, you couldn't load up a AC-130 with all the guns and a MOAB to boot.
Heh heh heh heh. But I know it would be kind of a waste.
I would imagine a pair of GAU-8 tank-busters would probably have seriously adverse effects on the flight performance of a side-firing gunship. Just a guess though. If it were a forward firing weapons system it might be different... but the primary benefit of having a side-firing weapons platform, is that they ALWAYS have the enemy in their gunsight.
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Well, obviously it's far more accurate now (with upgrades in computer technology) than it was in Vietnam. That said, sighting-in the guns was the initial priority after takeoff. Once and if the guns were properly sighted in, they could generally put a 105 shell within about a 10-15 foot area, pretty much wasting anything within that radius. Adding the 105 was a resounding success. It's my understanding that the 40mms that went on the gunships in vietnam weren't as easy to sight in, and differed from gun to gun on how well they did (the rule was, if your gunship got a good pair of 40mms, you did everything you could to keep those guns in top shape. And if you only had one good 40mm, that gun got top priority. The autocannons were never as precise... they still got the job done well though.
Nowadays they could target a quarter laying in the middle of a field and proably put the 105 shell directly on it. Computer target-aquisition-gear/fire control systems have become so advanced...
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For gunships, I like the idea of having a couple of gatling guns, a howizter, may be an intermediate solution would be a high speed grenade launcher of some type. Missiles and rockets aren't the type of armament for the AC-130 types. But gunships typically operate in a lower threat environment, where there might be MANPADS, but not lots of SAMs and radar guided AAA.
Gunships already have an "intermediate" weapon. the 40mm Bofors cannon. In fact, the U boats are the only Spectres operating with 3 weapons systems right now:
1 25mm "Equalizer" 5-barrel cannon
1 40mm Bofors light cannon
1 105mm Howitzer artillery cannon
The H models USED to have this:
2 20mm Vulcan cannons
1 40mm Bofors light cannon
1 105mm Howitzer artiller cannon
Since about the mid/late 1990s, the Hotels did away with the 20mm vulcan cannons though, it was decided that with the advancements in AAA and MANPAD technology, the gunships had to get dangerously close for the 20mms to be of any real effect (within around 9,000-10,000 feet, the gun's MAXMIMUM range is around 12,000 ft). The Equalizer autocannon on the U-boats has a longer effective range (around 15,000 ft), hence the reason it still has them.
For a little more AC-130 gunship weapons history:
When the first AC-130As went to Southeast Asia in the late '60s, they were mounted with 4 20mm Vulcan Cannons and 4 7.62 miniguns. "Project Surprise Package" and the "Pave Pronto" program removed a pair of the miniguns and a pair of the vulcans in favor of a pair of the 40mm Bofors cannons. This was the heaviest any service AC-130A would be armed (around 1980, the miniguns were removed, for the same reasons the 20mms would LATER be removed).
When the AC-130E models came to Asia, they were armed the same as the "Pave Pronto" AC-130As. When the "Pave Aegis" program came along, they removed one of the 40s and bolted a 105mm howitzer to the deck.
..... instant tank killer. It could also work over a hardened building pretty good.
The 105s and 40mm were later put on trainable mounts, giving them added flexibility. When the AC-130Es rotated through the upgrade program to AC-130H standards, they all received the 105mm gun. AC-130H models of arounf 1971 or 1972 were probably the most heavily armed gunships ever (a pair of 20mm Vulcans, a pair of 7.62 miniguns, a 40mm, and a 105mm), although the gunships of today are FAR more accurate, needing much less ammo to get the job done. They're also currently packing a serious amount of highly-classified ECM gear that renders them pretty invisible after the sun goes down.(although it's seriously "uglied up" the gunship's appearance...)
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Just my point. C-130Js have quieter, cooler running engines with a higher top speed and more loiter time. The Gunship conversion program could easily work one over into a wicked killing machine. Add on the Heat-sink/IR Baffles that ACs use on their engines, and I'm betting an AC-130J would be pretty hard to track.
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Wow... Macross done "Le Mis" style. Coming from a classically trained musician who has been in a pit orchestra for Le Mes, I can honestly say I'm impressed with the work put into this
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Further to that, more Zentraedi/Meltrandi fleets had to have been encountered in the years after space war I. By the time of the Mac7 episode "fleet of the strongest women", they aren't really surprised once they realize they're fighting another Meltrandi fleet and seem to have a set plan ready to go (IE the "Minmay attack". They just take the attitude of "oh, it's another fleet.."
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As a huge MOSPEADA fan I definitely got my fingers crossed that this doesn't suck and can somehow lead to more MOSPEADA products being released. As I've stated before, the character design (which, while completely standard is not bad) will mean much less than the story. As much is "out there" still isn't enough to condemn or praise this... especially since no one knows what the story will be. I think we can gather no mechs piloted by musical instrument though so we're off to a fair enough start... I also don't see any involvement of a card game so my fears of Robo'mon are diminished.
I guess I really should look at this from the standpoint of a MOSPEADA fan, they've not had it quite as good as Macross fans have (whereas most diehard macross fans look to disown Harmony Gold as having ever had anything even remotely close to do with anything Macross-related, MOSPEADA fans kind a see it as a back door to maybe spark things back up in Japan)... kinda ironic, eh?
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Bad character artwork, production delay after production delay, still nothing ORIGINAL (they're still using Mospeada stuff), poor animation (examples have already been seen), pick your poison. You're basing your comments on what you've seen in this thread without realizing that there is more out there (and it eats as much ass as what we've seen here).
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The concept is nowhere NEAR being retired... the AC-130H and U gunships are still in heavy use in the gulf right now.
I'll wager the next variant is simply based off a C-130J (a -30 stretch variant would be cool). The Osprey has next to no interior by comparison which in turn, means less ammo, fewer weapon systems, and less loiter time. The diversity of the weapon systems on an AC-130U allow it to assault a wide variety of targets very efficiently. What's more, they can hang around the target area pretty much all night long (only leaving to refuel a couple of times) Just about the only limiting factor on fixed-wing gunship ops is night-time. Unless they have to (and it's happened often enough), the SOS wing MUCH prefers to operate at night, and they do so with deadly efficiency.
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Oh I'm definitely aware. I tend to think the Iranian kills are lesser than what is stated in books, but much higher than the naysayers say(there are those that try best to diminish whatever success the cat did in that war and downplay it in favor of hyping the eagle or falcon).
Yeah, like most other "rumors" in life, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
Not to mention they try to downplay any success by aircrews who were prerevolution IIAF and acknowledge the kills as SAM kills rather than cat.Of course
God doesn't fly at the side of Infidels by their beliefs.(didn't seem like the US or IRanian govt. was very forthcoming at all)Well, both sides have pretty much begun staring one another down. One side saw Cooper as "consorting with the enemy", while the other side saw him as "spying for the enemy"... pretty much wound up as a mexican standoff for him, hence no backup.
I am beginning to think that a lot of his info may be correct. From what I understand most of it was cross referenced between the sources he could get.Most of it probably is, in terms of the Tomcats themselves, battles they took part in, etc... it's really only the number of kills I question.
Another thing that has been a constant source of debate in regards to Ali-Cats is whether or not they still have any phoenix missiles. Pretty much the entire world believes they don't, while Tom swears up and down on his dead grandmother's grave that they do. I'm not so sure what to believe. I think it's entirely possible that they have some still, but probably not in any great numbers... unless they've found a way to reverse-engineer them.
And...I think its quite sad how everyone just says the tomcat just had 5 a2a kills....knowing truthfully that the numbers are much higher than that and it wasn't the giant stalling mess a lot of naysayers tried to make it out to be.It's made all the sadder by the simple fact that we'll NEVER know a true, accurate total of it's air to air record. It's difficult to discuss this with most true aviation enthusiasts because they laugh at Cooper and Bishop's book. I won't except their book as divine-wrote, but it's better than nothing and currently all we have to go on. I figure between that book and my contact within the intelligence community of the air force, I can draw my own conclusions and be happy with that
And for those who just might want to know.... as of THIS writing, it is exactly 5 months, 11 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes, and 10 seconds until the Tomcats are officially retired from USN service. (chew on that for a bit....)
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Damn, I wish I had the chance to pilot an F-14, but it's such a shame that it was retired from service last month, so I'll never be able to fly it if I were to join the navy and or the air force anytime soon, or at the very least, sit in the cockpit of one to get a feeling of what it's like to be an F-14 and have a picture of me in it. I wish that the USAF and NAVY had extended it's service for another 20 years but it's too late. The only way I'm going to get to pilot an F-14 is if win the lottery and buy one from a museum or join the IIAF. Man the F-14 is such a sleek, an able fighter and my two favorite paint jobs on the vertical rudders were the skull and crossbones of course, and the one with Felix the cat on it. I had a picture of that of me standing beside it when I attended the 1997 air show at Andrews AFB when I was 9 years old. BTW,those are still F-14A's that the IIAF still uses right?
The Tomcat hasn't been retired yet. VF-31 "Tomcatters" still have a stateside readiness deployment this summer. They won't be retired until september. Yeah, the Iranian "Ali-Cats" are F-14As. You can do what I did and volunteer to be a "plane captain" at a museum that has a Tomcat... if they have an open cockpit you can sit inside it whenever you want (I captain for the Tomcat at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, I sit in it every time I'm there). Sure the plane will probably never fly again (ours could if it needed to, we still have both engines and a pair of spares, the plane is completely intact also), but how many people can say they take care of their own 1/1 scale Tomcat?
kalvasflam,
Most of the original Iranian F-14 pilots were instructed in flight use and ACM by Americans based off of American tactics since at least half of their fighter technology is of American origin. Unless I'm mistaken they have their own (if out of date) E-3 Sentry aircraft. Those that have gone on to train today's generation of Iranian Tomcat pilots have that experience as well as a wealth of combat experience from their war with Iraq. They whittled down far more of the Iraqi airforce than we did (Iraq couldn't financially AFFORD to fly most of their airforce by the first gulf war). Their training definately isn't on par with what we have, but they have forward air control units of their own, and the AWG-9 radar system used by those Tomcats is still quite effective. I would say of the nations the US considers "enemies", they offer a considerable airborne threat. Certainly not one to be underestimated.
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Boys I have quite possibly found thee BEST Tomcat site on the web aside from MATS.
tomcat-sunset.org
Its got MANY pilots that flew the thing, including some from the first squad...VF-1 Wolfpack! So many topic threads in its forum! Tom Cooper posts there as well. And I did say Dave Venlet there as well(one of the black ace crews who shot down SU-22s in 81)
You can find paraphanelia including newspaper scans from its introduction in the early 70s, accounts of flying it, analytical descriptions from both F-14 and non F-14 pilots concerning its ACM and DACM capabilities, accounts from IRIAF pilots and how the current IRIAF is now with their tomcats, and such.
So far from what I read Iran has a couple tomcat aces with the leading ace scoring between 10-15 kills....( think its listed as 12.....)
But tom Cooper did a bunch of research....so I do trust his work. VERY interesting stuff. Its also very interesting to hear what all the pilots had to say.
I'm a member there as well (as well as a paying member of the Tomcat and Tailhook associations). Since I plan to be there in September for the ceremony I've tried to stay on top of things there.
While Tom Cooper offers up information that no one else has, be careful with it. He's going by what the government of Iran has TOLD him (and what few pilots he was able to interview have heard). He has next to no official paper evidence to back up any of his claims. Some of it may be true, other parts of it may not. There is an infamous "3-way" Phoenix missile kill he speaks of where an Iranian Tomcat managed to splash 3 MiGs with one AIM-54. The circumstances and possibilities are a near mathmatical impossibility (I'd give it about a 2% chance). He claims that almost their entire run of tomcats (minus those that Iraq managed to shoot down and a few accidents) are still completely functional. I take issue with this because just after the new year, I was made privy to the unclassified parts of an intelligence threat-assesment briefing held at McConnell AFB where basically the US reviews pretty much anything and everything it has to fear around the world. In that briefing, it was said that the US has eyes watching approximately 20 functioning Tomcats left in Iran. The rest are either mothballed or have been parted out. At any rate, they don't have the means to fly more than 20 or so without some parts-swapping between airframes.
His book on Iranian Tomcats is awesome, it's just about the only resource available for Ali-Cats, but beware his facts and figures, because he's the only one spouting them and they don't match up at all with what pretty much every other government sees.
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Ace Combat Zero
in Anime or Science Fiction
Posted
There was a similar site up a while back that had the whole AC5 sountrack where I was able to get the whole thing. I no longer recall the site or if it still exists though