Pioneer makes some very valid points and I agree with all of them. One thing that needs to mentioned is the advantage that a new build AD-1 would have is that with the improved materials available its allready extraordinary strength would be enhanced adding to its survivability in the COIN role. It is also large enough that it would be able to soak up quite a bit more damage, than a Pucara for instance, and still make it back to base. Also the ideas for side mounted weapons is very good, though I think a weapon that can traverse throughout the rear 180 degree quadrant would be more useful, something along the lines of a remotely targeted Emerson TAT for instance. The Skyraider has a very useful layout and it would be possible to make it better yet with the newer sytems that take up much less space.

All of the Global Warming idiots are fools. It has become a religion. Every time I talk with one of them the intellectual dishonesty is simply amazing. Whenever I point out to them that a single volcanic eruption puts more pollutants into the atmosphere than all of mans pollution for all of mans history they say well then we have to prevent whatever we are adding!

Lunatics.

Here are some pictures as she was pulled out of the river.

Let’s see a B-2 drop off a SEAL team off a terrorist country, or sink an enemy sub(much less find it!), or interdict pirates off of Somalia, or rescue its citizens from iminent death in a revolution, or conduct elint recon off an enemy shore, or launch 20 Tomahawks against 20 different targets, or ….I think you may get the idea. And all of this without the risk of a bird knocking it out of the sky.

Cheers
Gary

Yeah? Let’s see it get from San Diego to Afghanistan in less than a day.

Spraying all over the place…..uhhhh sort of. Certainly the M61A1 is designed to spew them out fast and with a fairly large dispersion but it’s primary job is to put rounds into air space that will be very fleetingly filled with an opposing jet. So it is primarily expected to perform like a shotgun. The GAU 8 on the other hand has a much tighter pattern and will deliver all 80 rounds from a 1 second burst onto a single vehicle. I have seen this at Edwards AFB when they used to do live shoots at the airshows and my aformentioned friend also witnessed this ability and used it to good effect calling fire down to within 100 meters of his position on a couple of occasions.
One problem that the fast mover supporters are forgetting is quite simply speed. A fast mover(A-7 for example, Jaguar for another) passes over a target so fast that the pilot has almost no chance to spot the target. With the A-10 and the SU 25 this is not the case. They are able to loiter in a high threat environment looking for the bad guys and deliver ordnance exceptionally fast and accurately. As far as a preferance between the A-10 and the SU-25, I currently lean toward the A-10 simply because I have no real experience of the SU-25 other than what I have read. I know what the A-10 is capable of and have seen its after effects on a couple of occasions and I can state without reservation that I would not want to be on the recieving end of its attack….but then again I would’nt want to be on the recieving end of a strafing attack by a SPAD VII either!

Gary

Gatlings are only interesting for burst longer than 1.33 seconds or so (the light-barrel version a little less). The GSh-30-2 and the GAU-8/A deliver almost exactly the same amount of HE within the first half second. The GAU has somewhat flatter trajectory, but Gatlings tend to shoot all over the place like a drunk hoosier before it’s up to speed.

Yes I know the one lost on Guam was not a bird strike. I am merely pointing out that a bird can knock down a 1.2 BILLION with a B weapon system! That to me is absurd.

Gary

The B-2 wasn’t brought down by a bird…it was a sensor having to do with the aftifical stability system (or something similar..I know I’m not using the correct words here). It was something that had been noticed before and warned about, but hadn’t yet made it into the manuals.

A B-1 was brought down during a low lever run by a large bird in the wing root that caused a fire. The area was later “beefed up”.