Aircraft Vs Thread 5

[David Hingtgen]

Yeah, but the canopy should fit pretty darn perfectly from the get-go----they're swapped between Hornets on the carriers all the time, and they don't spend days checking the compatability---they all fit between all the planes.

[VF-19]

Yeah, but the canopy should fit pretty darn perfectly from the get-go----they're swapped between Hornets on the carriers all the time, and they don't spend days checking the compatability---they all fit between all the planes.

Then perhaps we're seeing multiple hornets being built, as we don't know the interval between shots.

I'd also like to point out that once the hornet's built, all hornets will be able to swap canopies. As they're being built, there's the possibility that there might be some slight misalignment that may occur (but shouldn't), so better to catch that on the production floor, than someplace else.

[electric indigo]

Cause we all know what happens when you don't double-check the canopy assembly.

[buddhafabio]

Then perhaps we're seeing multiple hornets being built, as we don't know the interval between shots.

I'd also like to point out that once the hornet's built, all hornets will be able to swap canopies. As they're being built, there's the possibility that there might be some slight misalignment that may occur (but shouldn't), so better to catch that on the production floor, than someplace else.

i think it is all at the same bird, i have toured the f-18 line years ago while they were building the c model. i email the link to my pop. and his reply was

At 2:52 mark there is a white cart by the nose and a guy with a red shirt on in the nose hooking it up that is me i am the only one who has been using that machine.

[Nied]

Then perhaps we're seeing multiple hornets being built, as we don't know the interval between shots.

I'd also like to point out that once the hornet's built, all hornets will be able to swap canopies. As they're being built, there's the possibility that there might be some slight misalignment that may occur (but shouldn't), so better to catch that on the production floor, than someplace else.

Or the converse is true and we're seeing multiple canopies being tested to make sure they'll fit on an aircraft even if they aren't destined for that particular one.

[VF-19]

Or the converse is true and we're seeing multiple canopies being tested to make sure they'll fit on an aircraft even if they aren't destined for that particular one.

I've got a better idea. Let's ask somebody on the assembly line for the final answer! No sense loosing sleep over it!

[David Hingtgen]

Not fake:

[eugimon]

lol, reminds me of fleet week in SF.

[miles316]

Not fake:

If that was not a accident (not the pilots fault) some one is going to lose their wings.

[David Hingtgen]

They had permission, it was a scheduled fly-by for a sports event.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

At that distance, whats the blast from the wind feel like? Enough to topple glasses on the balconies?

[Xeros]

I read that the people of the building were surprised

"I'm sure that the pilot greeted me" someone said xD

[Knight26]

The canopy thing is for test fitting mutliple units to make sure that htey all fit. Remember there are tolerances in every design, I've worked on system where a pair of interconnecting components were at the limits of their tolerances, one on the large end, the other on the small and they would not fit, but move them to another unit and they fit together fine, so that is what they are testing.

[buddhafabio]

http://englishrussia.com/?p=2370

pics from a mig plant

Edited July 14, 2009 by buddhafabio

[VF-19]

Yikes. It reminds me of the Tomcat picture.

Now, why can't our local F-18 drivers do that in Ottawa (permission be damned!)?!

[Knight26]

Interesting pictures from the mig factory, especially the number of MiG-29K's being built. Those must be the ones that the India's are buying for their carrier.

Something else too, apparently the Pak-Fa will make an appearance at MAKS-2009, too bad they don't allow cameras there, expect for offiicial photos.

Edited July 14, 2009 by Knight26

[miles316]

Interesting pictures from the mig factory, especially the number of MiG-29K's being built. Those must be the ones that the India's are buying for their carrier.

Something else too, apparently the Pak-Fa will make an appearance at MAKS-2009, too bad they don't allow cameras there, expect for offiicial photos.

When does MAKS-2009 start?

[electric indigo]

August 19th.

I hope the PAK FA does not turn out to be a carbon copy of the Raptor.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

August 19th.

I hope the PAK FA does not turn out to be a carbon copy of the Raptor.

Or some Silent Eagle version of the Su-27/35!

A carbon copy of the YF-23 would be nice though.

Lets just hope it bloody shows up.

[Omegablue]

Hitler's Stealth Fighter. As part of the program, Northrop Grumman built a full scale replica of the Horten IX (Ho 229/Go 229) and conducted RCS tests on it. The results are on Wikipedia if anyone is interested.

I enjoyed reading through this. Makes you wonder what the weapons would've been today, if the Nazi had the resources to continue with the war.

Then again wasn't the F-117 a late seventies concept, first flown in the early eighties, and only revealed in 1990? Who knows what's up there right now.

On another note, what has happened to the SU-47 and the replacement to the Mig-29?

Edited July 15, 2009 by Omegablue

[Shadow]

I enjoyed reading through this. Makes you wonder what the weapons would've been today, if the Nazi had the resources to continue with the war.

Then again wasn't the F-117 a late seventies concept, first flown in the early eighties, and only revealed in 1990? Who knows what's up there right now.

On another note, what has happened to the SU-47 and the replacement to the Mig-29?

The Su-47 was built more or less as a test bed for future platforms. From what I've heard, its not going into any kind of mass production.

If you mean the MiG-35 as the 29s replacement, that's being built for the export market only.

[David Hingtgen]

Who knew the Draken could do a quasi-cobra?

[the white drew carey]

Who knew the Draken could do a quasi-cobra?

Hopefully the pilot knew, or else he was as surprised as the rest of us.

[miles316]

Can they replicate the Cobra on the Darken at will.

[Ghost Train]

Well, it's official, no more near-term procurement for the F-22: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32028667/ns/us_news-military/ . Lockheed still benefits from a spending increase in the F-35 program.

[eugimon]

aw, that's too bad, I think it's a rather short sighted decision.

[Evil Porkchop]

Yeah, a sad day for F-22 supporters. Sadly I don't think procuring more F-35 will make up the difference, and as much I don't like to admit I can understand both sides of the arguement.

[Ghost Train]

Yeah, a sad day for F-22 supporters. Sadly I don't think procuring more F-35 will make up the difference, and as much I don't like to admit I can understand both sides of the arguement.

I have had to follow this story for a final project I'm doing for my finance class, so I can summarize what I've read thus far (note, these aren't necessarily my opinions ):

Pro's of more procurement:

-100+ of the best damm aircraft ever made.

-Continued unmatched air superiority over the next few decades.

-More manufacturing jobs in communities that support Raptor production

Con's:

-F-35 is cheaper (duh)

-The marginal benefit of additional raptors do not help the existing missions in Afghanistan and any exit activities for Iraq

-The government is not awash in cash right now, and is looking to cut stuff... and since the F-35 is cheaper, there you go

The other interesting stuff I've gathered is that Japan has expressed a strong interest in the F-22, and that it might be possible to get around the export ban by selling the raptor with some critical components removed... though this is really a long shot. Israel, Australia, and some other countries have also expressed interest in the aircraft as previously stated by other posts.

[Noyhauser]

Its not dead yet as the house did vote for additional planes, so the committees will have to reconcile the different proposals before it reaches the president. Nevertheless, the senate's decision is probably is the death of the program. Unless there is something I'm not seeing here, its also likely the end of any hopes for the export of the F-22. Eurofighters for Nihon anyone?

I don't know how many of you saw it, but last week saw some fairly pointed criticism of the F-22 which hadn't been seen before. There were several veterans groups that supported terminating the program, and SECDEF Gates made a fairly impassioned statement as well. However, this article from the Washington Post last week wreaked some pretty hefty damage to the F-22. It wasn't just the per-unit cost of the airframe that was a problem, but its maintenance cost, which had increased by 30% since its introduction. Here's a snippet;

Skin problems -- often requiring re-gluing small surfaces that can take more than a day to dry -- helped force more frequent and time-consuming repairs, according to the confidential data drawn from tests conducted by the Pentagon's independent Office of Operational Test and Evaluation between 2004 and 2008.

Over the four-year period, the F-22's average maintenance time per hour of flight grew from 20 hours to 34, with skin repairs accounting for more than half of that time -- and more than half the hourly flying costs -- last year, according to the test and evaluation office.

The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22's predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818

The article goes on to list a litany of problems including canopy d lamination and discoloration, structural problems and lowered reliability rates, which will continue to afflict the program for some time. The article didn't make the proponents case easier, and probably helped sway a few individuals on the senate floor to vote the other way.

Edited July 21, 2009 by Noyhauser

[David Hingtgen]

And they already posted the response claiming the Post's numbers are BS last week:

http://www.f-16.net/news_article3622.html

[Noyhauser]

Yeah I saw the Air Force Association statement, but its also an industry supported advocacy group. Obviously the Washington post article has its own biases, but I took the AFA with a grain of salt, especially when some of its responses seemed to be the ones LM was giving. Look at this response to what was the article's main assertion:

Assertion: The F-22 is vulnerable to rain and other elements due to its stealthy skin.

Facts: The F-22 is an all-weather fighter and rain is not an issue. The F-22 is currently based and operating in the harshest climates in the world ranging from the desert in Nevada and California, to extreme cold in Alaska, and rain/humidity in Florida, Okinawa and Guam. In all of these environments the F-22 has performed extremely well.

Thats not really an effective rebuttal. For this and alot of the other assertions, it claims the fighter meets the Airforce's standards. Well, many of those were altered in response to the program's problems.

Which one is correct? I can't really tell, partly because the GAO hasn't gone back yet to look at the issue, but you know they will. Nevertheless the article almost certainly pulled support away in the senate, especially after the President stated he was going to veto the increase if it passed.

Edited July 21, 2009 by Noyhauser

[David Hingtgen]

I don't believe either, really. In short, IMHO:

The F-22 is everything it's supposed to be, and all around truly kicks ass. Expensive? Yes, but you get what you pay for, and its costs are now fixed. If you buy one now, you know exactly what you're getting and know exactly how much it'll cost.

F-35? Doesn't seem to be nearly as good as it was supposed to be, and is costing a whole lost more that it was supposed to. And the price will only go up. Buy one now, and you can only HOPE it can do what you need it to, and you HOPE you will be able to afford the final price. And you're still paying almost as much as if you'd just bought a Raptor. (and a whole lot more than if you'd bought a late-model anything else) Stealth? Its internal carriage is piddly, so you're going to have to have external weaps most of the time anyways. So why pay for something you'll rarely be able to use? Buy 2 Block 60 Vipers instead.

"F-35 will be weaponless and stealthy for first-day ops, then unstealthy when the skies are safe". Yeah? How do you plan on making the skies safe? Better have a bunch of F-22s to clear out the Super Flankers and J-10s. Then you could just send in masses of cheap F-16s...

That brings up a point---SEAD. There's a huge need to take out the SAM sites early on in a war, but we really don't have any steathy SEAD platforms AFAIK---the HARM is too big to be carried internally. We need a smaller HARM that an F-22/35 can carry internally, to approach SAM sites undetected.

[Shadow]

I can understand both arguments but I wish they would have agreed to procure the minimum 240 F-22s planned instead of just dropping the bomb on it. The long term effects of this could turn out bad if the F-35 doesn't perform up to expectations I think.

[David Hingtgen]

I bet China can build a LOT of J-10s in the next 20 years, to sell to many countries... (the J-10 looks better every time there's an update---I don't know if it'll eat F-35s for breakfast yet, but it's developing into a serious threat)

[eugimon]

I bet China can build a LOT of J-10s in the next 20 years, to sell to many countries... (the J-10 looks better every time there's an update---I don't know if it'll eat F-35s for breakfast yet, but it's developing into a serious threat)

Yeah, this and that russia is dumping it's renewed oil and gas money into it's weapons programs makes me wonder what the pentagon is thinking. Russia and China may not go to war with us, but what about their customers?

And considering the US still refuses to spend any real money on getting us off of importing oil, we'll be in the region of petrol-dictators for decades to come and the conflicts are only going to get worse as peak oil sets in.

Typical short term thinking.

If we really wanted to cut costs we'd keep the f-22 and scrap the f-35 and just build tons of cheap f-16s and f-15s.