Bager1968A plane brought back to base ( floating as here or not ),
by simple logic is not “broken”.
I’m certain that you know that a modern jet fighter is but
a particularly unflyable brick* when “broken”.
To be precise, if the CDVE ( electrical controls ) had gone,
the choice is almost between ditchin’n crashing!
In this instance, we already got the following :
out to mission/turnaround/Flyback ( with refueling attempt )/
reached the carrier/ditched.
It seems to indicate a problem with fuel or ammo if you
understand that those components are volatile and highly
dangerous to the ship if touchdown goes wrong.
If getting rid of them had worked, the plane could have
set back down. Planes have “dry-landed” before, ya know.
There are a lot of other things which can “break” in a modern aircraft without causing an immediate crash.
A fault in the electrical generation system can cause the system to shut down… leaving only the emergency generator… which can then fail some time later.
One engine can fail early on, with the other failing later in the flight (see the USMC F/A-18 that crashed in Miramar, Ca a couple of years ago).
Even the most complex modern fighter is hardly an “everything works or it crashes instantly” piece of equipment.
Heck, even that flight-control system relies on multiple sub-systems… losing one of them degrades functionality, but the aircraft can continue to fly unless more sub-systems fail.
Not grounding the Rafale fleet simply indicates that the French Navy believes it already knows what caused the crash, and doesn’t think that it is an immediate danger to the other aircraft.
Bager1968No, its not the engine at all!
As you point out, the size of the F135 is hardly different from the F-14 engine (the TF30-414 in the F-14A actually had a diameter of 50.9″ over the afterburner, and the F110-400 in the F-14B/D had a diameter of 52″ at the afterburner).
The weight I found for F135 is also less than the weight of TF30-414 or F110-400 as well.
So the issue is actually the engine shipping container, apparently. This container weighs more than the engine itself… 9,400 lb combined weight, less 3,750 lb for the engine, means the container alone weighs 5,650 lb!
Apparently the standard F135 shipping container won’t quite fit in a C-2 using standard tie-down methods & equipment. And the combined weight is too heavy for transfer via line during UNREP.
Hint to USN: buy different shipping containers, as was mentioned in the article. The TF30/F110 containers weren’t that heavy, nor added that much bulk.
BTB… in my time aboard CV-61 USS Ranger in the late 1980s, we NEVER brought engines aboard via C-2… we didn’t need to, they were always run across from a supply ship during UNREP. We also had a whole lot stashed all over the ship when we left port… something I have not seen in recent photos of deployed CVNs.
Perhaps the USN has also bought into the “reduced supply overhead via ‘just in time’ logistics planning” concept, and isn’t planning on buying enough F135s to let the carriers have a lot of spares aboard.
The comments in the article seem to back this up.
Bager1968Why would the Indian Navy operate two different types from two different Carriers???? Especially, when one of the types is vastly inferior??? :rolleyes:
Because while both IAC-1/Viky and IAC-2 will have arresting gear, the launch modes are very different.
Mig-29K cannot be launched from a catapult… it needs a “ski jump” to launch with a functional payload.
The new fighter (Boeing has just offered the F/A-18E/F to the Indian Navy*) will be catapult-launched… and even EMALS/EMCAT catapults are hard to mount in a “ski jump” (but not impossible). While Boeing has claimed that SH can launch via “ski jump”, it will suffer a significant payload reduction, which would greatly reduce its superiority over Mig-29K.
Bager1968There’s room in that B-24 Mini for a pilot… ever consider a flying version?
Bager1968I see recently that the T-45 finished production in November
of 2009 with a total of 221 delivered plus 3 as test aircraft.Can anyone point me out to further information on this?
The Boeing website doesn’t have any updates which is strange,
in fact much of their website seems outdated or am I just
expecting too much?
USN press release:
http://www.navair.navy.mil/newsreleases/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.view&id=4214
Bager1968OH-56
???:confused:
Probably a typo for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_OH-58_Kiowa
It couldn’t be a typo for AH-56, as all 4 survivors are displayed at US Army forts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AH-56_Cheyenne
Bager1968What JDK said, definitely.
Well, that does help answer my question… there were RAF close-range anti-radar strikes similar in concept (although different in application) to the US ones.
Bager1968Most of the specific restrictions placed on German weapons/aircraft production came from orders and rulings of the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control, not the ToV… and were both made and put into effect in 1920 or 1921.
That is the reason for the “6 months” clause… to give the MIACC time to develop permanent rules.
The term Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control was used in a series of various peace treaties concluded after the First World War (1914–1918) between different countries. Each of these treaties was concluded between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (consisting of the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan) on the one hand, and one of the Central Powers like Germany, Turkey or Bulgaria. See, e.g., Treaty of Versailles.
One of the terms of such treaties required conversion of all of the Central Powers’ military and armaments related production and related facilities into purely commercial use. The decision and the modus operandi to ensure this rested with a Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control. The Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control was also entrusted with a number of other responsibilities, including:
1. to fix the number of customs officials, local urban and rural police, forest guards and other like officials under the control of the Government of the central power concerned.
2. to receive from the central power concerned information relating to the location of the stocks and depots of munitions, the armament of the fortified works, fortresses and forts, the situation of the works or factories for the production of arms, munitions and war material and their operations.
See the Treaty of Versailles, SECTION IV INTER-ALLIED COMMISSIONS OF CONTROL. (articles 203 to 210)
Bager1968That makes sense… higher risk from the far better German AA facilities and units for a known lower benefit would make the case for relying on other means to defeat the German radar stations.
Bager1968Air Force: Evidence points to F-22 pilot’s death – KansasCity.com
Air Force: Evidence points to F-22 pilot’s death
By RACHEL D’ORO Associated PressEvidence found at the remote, rugged Alaska site where an F-22 Raptor crashed indicates the pilot died, an Air Force official said Friday evening.
Part of the fighter jet’s ejection seat was found at the site, which means Capt. Jeffrey Haney of Clarklake, Mich., was not ejected and could not have survived the Tuesday night crash, Col. Jack McMullen said.
“If the pilot was able to eject, the seat would go with him,” McMullen said. Also, an emergency locator transmitter would have been activated if the pilot had ejected and it was not.
Also found were pieces of the flight suit Haney had been wearing.No body or remains have been found at the site, which McMullen described as a wet area. He said the impact of the crash caused a large crater that swallowed up much of the jet. Recovery efforts are expected to last several weeks, given the challenges of removing the wreckage. McMullen said the effort involves about 130 personnel in temperatures that plunge to 20 below at night.
Bager1968I’ve recently been puzzled and somewhat amazed by some revelations of research I been doing. Please let me explain.
But I digress – where did our perceptions of all of this being ‘highy secret’ come from? Certainly according to contemporary magazines of the day much about the aircraft were not secret. Could it be articles writers in the 1970s and 80s wanted to appear ‘in the know’ and so embellished the pieces and it ended up with us all being brainwashing with the old ‘be told something enough times and you end up believing it’?
Has anyone else come across this? I’m interested in your thoughts.
I believe it comes from sloppy sensationalist writers… both in magazines and in books.
An example… the recent furor about “Hitler’s stealth fighter, hidden away since the end of the war” and “Secret Nazi stealth flying wing discovered”.
In the 1970s, in my high school library, was a book with (among other things) drawings, photographs, and details (including design performance specs) of the Horton aircraft… and the book even told exactly where the example in US hands was stored.
Nothing “hidden”, “secret”, or “lost” about it… except in the minds of current headline-mongering nitwits.
Since, as the Bible reminds us, “there is nothing new under the sun”, it is not surprising that lazy and self-promoting writers and journos would have been doing the same “hype & shout” sensation-mongering decades ago.
And BTB… the designation is SA-2, not SAM-2.
Bager1968I am aware of early countermeasures.
What I was asking about was the start of deliberate efforts by British (and other non-US) air forces to destroy enemy radar installations at close range (as opposed to high-altitude bombing or sabotage).
Were any Mossies (or other aircraft) equipped with radar detection equipment and sent out to “follow the beams back” and attack the radar with weapons as opposed to jamming or spoofing set-ups?
Bager1968She’ll have Harrier jets on board which will take off shortly after she leaves the Tyne – how close to the shore can the Harrier jets take off?[/B]
Ummm… they can take off while she is tied up to the pier, if the decision is made to do so.
Bager1968Japanese law prohibits export of military equipment manufactured in Japan.
Bager1968At the time the replacement for MR2 was under consideration, the US alternative was the P-7… a proposed new-build and improved variant of the P-3 Orion. This was canceled in 1990.
As earlier mentioned, the decision for MR4 was made in 1996.
In 2000 came Orion 21, a proposed new-build and improved variant as a P-3 Orion replacement; lost to Boeing P-8 Poseidon in 2004.
Now, B737 MPAs were around as far back as 1983, with Indonesia buying 3 737-2X9 aircraft, but even when upgraded in the late 1980s, these were hardly what the UK was looking for.
Any B737-based solution for 1990-1996 would be a new program, with all the expected added costs… and be a “foreign” solution as well.
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