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[Insanegame27]

All great aerial vehicle lovers post your thoughts here.


I am the most frustrated that I have been over a 60 minutes informercial news story regarding the F35. This 5th generation fighter is SEVEN PLUS years behind schedule and costs twice as much as it did to put man on the moon. A quick google search will show you that the most famous thing about the F35 is the list of glitches and bugs and general infamy. The damn thing even FAILED TO START in 60 minutes, so the pilot changed to another one which did start.


"4th generation fighters are cost-effective, but also dead against this plane" Su35E would easily go nose-to-nose against this, not even mentioning the new Russian L-Bang radar which is predicted to be able to detect the F35 nearly 200km away while it is 'stealthed'
"A flying supercomputer" Flying computer, meet EA18G Growler. It fucks computers up and the systems on it are constantly updated.
"There is not a single fighter that the F35 would lose against"
"We have the best pilots" - In context, Australian pilots on exchange in the US training American pilots.


Long story short I believe that Australia picked the wrong buddy for the Air Force. We picked the Americans and their budget over Russian logic. Sure the common language is nice, but common sense would be nicer. It is my honest opinion that the F35 should be scrapped. The plane itself is ugly and relies on outdated stealth methods (which all count for null when weapons deploy. The stealth system literally goes AWOL according to the 60 minutes report). So far the only combat sims have been the equivilent of a high tech single player video game. I want to see a combat sim it where actual trained pilots fly against other actual trained pilots instead of NPCs.
/rant

[mainiac]

A temperamental stealth system can still be extremely potent because it's available when needed.  An improved technology might not be available when needed.  WWI era submarines were unreliable as hell and their stealth was horrible but they were devastatingly effective.  By WWII stealth technology had improved massively but the opportunity wasn't nearly as great.

As I understand it 5th generation stealth fighters are based around the concept of denying enemy air control by penetrating deep into enemy controlled airspace and attacking their airborne radar.  Even if the stealth technology doesn't work very well, the mere threat could be extremely disruptive.

Of course, the whole stealth fighter concept does seem like a solution in search of a problem.

[Amperzand]

I mean, my preference would be to just put more people on the moon with the money, but that aside, I feel like the whole thing's pretty silly. If first-world countries ever end up fighting a direct war with one another, I can't see much of anything lasting long enough to matter.

[Shadowlord]

*opens thread, starts reading*

All great aerial vehicle lovers post your thoughts here.


I am the most frustrated that I have been over a 60 minutes informercial news story regarding the F35. This 5th generation fighter is SEVEN PLUS years

Good day to you, sir.

[Sheb]

If we're discussing airplanes, I'm a big fan of light, monoprops attack aircraft such as the Super Tucano myself. Light, cheap, reliable, can take off from remote airstrips and carry a lot of munitions. The perfect plane for fighting the kind of COIN operations the US airforce is fighting these days.

[Erkki]

If we're discussing airplanes, I'm a big fan of light, monoprops attack aircraft such as the Super Tucano myself. Light, cheap, reliable, can take off from remote airstrips and carry a lot of munitions. The perfect plane for fighting the kind of COIN operations the US airforce is fighting these days.

I'm thinking the same. Using an F-22 to hunt insurgents is... Well you know. Heres another product that could be very useful in anti-guerrilla work, the Air Tractor! That thing is apparently partially armored too: http://www.802u.com/

[mainiac]

If we're discussing airplanes, I'm a big fan of light, monoprops attack aircraft such as the Super Tucano myself. Light, cheap, reliable, can take off from remote airstrips and carry a lot of munitions. The perfect plane for fighting the kind of COIN operations the US airforce is fighting these days.

But you can get a predator drone for half that and it can stay over the target for 14 hours.

[Sheb]

The MQ-9 Reaper got a unit cost of 16$ millions (excluding development). That's more than the Tucano for the same weapon load. But yeah, it's true that UAVs cover a lot of the same missions, which is something I hadn't considered.

[Kot]

Po-2 best military airplane ever.

[Jopax]

Doesn't the predator also require the communications and control infrastructure to go with it? Not sure how big that would be or how expensive, but surely it would add something to the cost of aquiring the thing.

[Sheb]

I think the 16 million$ "unit cost" is for the whole system including the control station.

[Amperzand]

Additionally, pilots are super expensive.

[Jopax]

Well I don't think drone operators are that much cheaper to train up since they're doing mostly the same job, except from the comfort of a base.

[Amperzand]

The important thing about drone operators is that they don't die when the plane does.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Po-2 best military airplane ever.

The joke being that it isn't really a military airplane?

Also the An-2. That thing has no stall speed. Like, none. The procedure for engine cutout emergencies is literally just "Pull the stick toward yourself and coast down onto any available clearing as you normally would." It can fly slower than you can bike and still remain fully controllable. In favorable circumstances, you can coast into a headwind and fly backwards, still under full control.