Stare at the guy for about fifteen seconds (try not to blink for more effect), and then say in a very soft, timid voice, “Yeeeeeeessssssssssssssss.”

It’s beer, but keep it quiet. As soon as the word spreads that belgian beer is served in this thread, we might get all sorts of furriners here!

…and here ist the MiG-31D withe the lovely flippers on it’s wing to keep a bit more directional stability during a zoom climb. Don’t know to what altitude this one could climb, but i guess it’s pretty impressive.

Neither the F-15 ASAT nor the MiG-31D ever left the development stage, and they are certainly not ‘used for ASAT’. There were about eight F-15A’s wired for the ASM-135A (about four each for the 48TFS and 318FIS), which either are now in storage/wfu or meddled through the operational Guards F-15 units but having lost their ASAT wiring during the MSIP program. The one confirmed F-15 ASAT, 77-0084 (this was the trials aircraft which made the one launch), is collecting dust in the desert. I don’t know the status of the one MiG-31D, but i doubt it is any better.

For space-based or ground-launched ASAT systems, the Soviets developed quite a bit but except for one armed Salyut capsule nothing was fielded. Check the link if you’re interested (and Srbin, i guess this is a small part of the answer you were looking for).

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/ASAT/ASAT.htm

The Western European F-16s are all -A models, back from the days when the GE engines weren’t even on offer. And in the early days, these did indeed were pretty troublesome (it got P&W the Pruttel & Wilniet nickname here in the Netherlands, something like ‘Simmer & Don’t-want’ in English) although that has been solved by now. I believe the problem was adapting a twin-engined-aircraft-engine (from the F-15) to a single-engine airframe.

I don’t know what the crash rates of PW F-16s vs. GE F-16s are, it would definately be interesting to compare them. I guess the USAF Lawndart Rain of the last few years should give enough data (although i think it must have been done somewhere already).

The engine which caused the F-111 and F-14 (and don’t forget the early A-7s) so much troubles was the TF-30 though. An absolute disastrous engine, incredibly sensitive regarding it’s intake airflow. Don’t know why it was ever kept in the F-111, at least for the F-14 it was planned right from the start to replace it (which finally happened with the F-14A+/B/D) and the A-7 got the Spey with it’s later models.

This one will probably interest Deino in his quest for projects-that-went-nowhere: the development chart from the Ju-287 all the way to the EF152. This one is from http://www.geocities.com/hjunkers/ju_ju287_a1.htm , if you want to track it further it’s perhaps smart to look for it’s (post-war) designer, which is Brunolff Baade.

Originally posted by RAPPENS
I WAS AGREEING WITH BAHNHAUS YOU LOSERS. NOT THAT COMMIE WASTER ARTHUR.

CHRIST.

Thanks, that’s a relieve. Glad you typed in caps too , made reading it an even more enjoyable experience.

But even though i don’t mind if you think i’m the next messiah, Christ was another one. He had the flotation-sandals.