If you are counting clones, AN-2 has to be the winner, first flight ?1946 ? and still in Chinese production.

Matt

Considering just how hard it is to manufacture and machine Ti, I sincerly doubt it. IIRC, it wasn’t until the immediate post war period that a economically viable means of refining it was created, and longer still before the kinks were worked out of the machining process.

Matt

But, to add a little bit of spice, I once saw a Discovery program which stated “The Raptor carries powerful electrical detection systems, that can scan the airspace upto 1180 km around it…..” :eek::eek::eek:

Is that practical, possible? Or is it Discovery Discovering a dead end? 😀

1180 cubic km??? Not up to working the geometry problem this time of night, but perhaps? :confused:

Matt

Viking, Blackbird.

2. Doesn’t the prescence of tankers, even within a few hundred miles, let the enemy know something is up?

Most of the time, the enemy knows “something” is up anyway, one of the F-22’s mandates was to hit them when they WERE looking 😉

Alternatly, if you want to be REALLY sneaky, turn the KC-45 into a chartered A-330 with approved flightplans.

Matt

Hear, Hear!!!!

There is a great need for a ELINT/AWACS/COD/ASW/Tanker/bomb truck type. Unfortunatly, this is the USN we’re talking about, they couldn’t build a new COD without a full in-flight galley and crapper (got to beat the the Fullback, eh??)

Though I think they do need a different fighter, SH has too many comprimises.
In hindsight, I think the SH $$$ would have been better spent getting the JSF sooner and the CSA back on track.

Matt

[QUOTE=Arkali106;1252510]The big bay in the old pictures almost looks like it could have an accordion type door, with small folding sections which all squeeze up to the sides. A benefit would be that when the bay is open there aren’t large “barn doors” swung down and affecting side RCS. The drawback would be complexity, and inability to hang rail launching weapons from open doors (R-73, in the JSF AMRAAM style).
QUOTE]

Less side RCS, but a notable increase in fore/aft RCS. I think they are, in fact 6 seperate bays. Not ideal, in my mind, but I suspect the large number of small doors has a smaller effect on RCS than the big US style doors. It does limit the overall size of the weapons that can be deployed, however.

Matt

Geez, your knowledge is really wide Matt, “the latest variant” of S-75M4 (SA-2) was introduced almost 35 years ago, long before Sr-71 retired.

Eh, my mistake. I assumed (yeah, I know) that “latest” meant it wasn’t older then I am 😮 😮

Matt

BTW- Who’s Rich Johnson??? 😉