Still waiting for the pics of the Indonesian Sverdlov

You ever get some?

Here are some links with photos:
http://yogifajri.blogspot.com/2011/02/kri-irian-untold-stories.html
Although the aerial pic of a cruiser firing is actually one of CA-45 USS Wichita!

http://navywallpaper.blogspot.com/2011/09/kri-irian-indonesia.html
And the color shot is of the preserved one in Russia, not the scrapped KRI Irian.

Thats a flight crew winning a bet…..has to be!. Someones shot their mouth off that they can set it down and lift off the dinky little strip down the road and they’ve been called on it. This crew will be looking to collect, if they survive the disciplinary!.

Interesting fantasy… but the aircraft was finishing a flight from “the near east” with 23 pax and 19 crew (yes, 19)… most to cater to the pax, which is strongly rumored to have included Marine General James N. Mattis, Commander of CentCom.

Not exactly the time to pull a “dare stunt”.

Also, the crew was taken to MacDill, and a different crew flew the C-17 out.

BAe has a load of four engined aircraft available for sale or lease, good field performance, can carry more than a C-295, used but a decent number of flight hours left, going cheap. – & the RAF’s already getting some.

:diablo:

How much to fit the MRA4 stuff we have in storage?

Already being converted to bomber config in the US.

OK, fire-bomber… and we’re looking to get a bunch of them (at least 15 between Neptune Aviation [11] and Minden Air [4]).
BAe-146 jet-powered Large Air Tanker

And then Canada’s Tronos is doing even more of these conversions. http://www.tronosjet.com/forest-fire

I see a bad moon arisin’.
I see trouble on the way.

:diablo:

The tail wheel was a big part of its success, allowing it to operate from unimproved runways, getting the cargo door closer to the ground for easier loading/unloading without equipment, and so on.

Don’t forget to photoshop the single 30mm Aden cannon in each side to 3 x .50 browning MGs.

Blackburn Buccaneer w/TF41 for the USN. (pre-Intruder)

However, this is utterly impossible unless you shuffle things around in time.

Buccaneer S.1: design chosen July 1955; first flight (8,000 lb.s.t. Gyron Jr. engines) 30 April 1958; production deliveries August 1961; operational service July 1962.

Buccaneer S.2: ordered January 1962; first flight (11,380 lb.s.t. Spey engines) 17 may 1963, operational service October 1965.

A2F Intruder: design chosen January 1958; first flight 19 April 1960 (8,500 lb.s.t. J52-6A, quickly replaced by 9,300 lb.s.t. J52-8A); redesignated A-6 18 September 1962; production deliveries February 1963; operational service late 1963; first combat mission over Vietnam 1 July 1965.

So for the USN to select Buccaneer over the A-6 they would have had to select the Bucc with the anemic and dangerous Gyron Jr engines, as the Spey version wasn’t even ordered until the production of the A-6A was underway… and the A-6 entered combat before the Spey-engined Buccs entered operational service!

Then you have to wait another 3 years before you can get TF41s… since the first flight of a TF41 (14,500 lb.s.t.) was in the 3rd A-7D on 26 September 1968 (the first two A-7Ds flew with TF30 engines starting 6 April 1968, having been ordered by the USAF in November 1965). Remember, the A-7A/B/C models all used Pratt & Whitney TF30 engines, not Allison/Rolls-Royce TF41s.

The RN would have had to specify the Spey for Bucc at least in 1960… and preferably in 1959… for the USN to see its way clear to buying Bucc over Intruder.

I suppose it is possible for the USN to buy Bucc fitted with the 9,300 lb.s.t. J52-8A, but that is a smaller engine than the Spey, so the “A-6A Buccaneers” would be stuck with the J52 permanently (possibly receiving the 11,200 lb.s.t. J52-408 from 1968 on).

It is unlikely for TF30 to be specified instead of Gyron Jr. or J52… Buccaneer could take it, and it would be more powerful (and more fuel efficient) than either… but it was not available at the time (development started in 1959, but military certification was not completed until July 1965, just in time for the first flight of the A-7 prototype 27 September 1965).

Only later new-build purchases could be made with a Allison-built version of the Spey (pre-TF41). This would be the counterpart of the A-6E (design initiated July 1966, first flight 27 January 1970). TF30 is a possible option instead for this model.

I can see a 2-seat ECM version of the Buccaneer as a counterpart of the EA-6A (ordered March 1962, first flight 26 April 1963), but I’m not sure the Bucc could be widened for a 4-seat version (EA-6B).

What always impressed me with the Jaguar was the manner its self defense missiles were attached, OVER the wing. The same with the A-7, right beneath the canopy, very strange and rare configurations.

The A-7 inherited that from its design “parent”… the F-8 Crusader.