Yeah the guy said 2.5g is the max g that can be put on the aircraft (at supersonic speeds i assume) which isnt much at all – i realize its no fighter and don’t know what the official G limit is (5-6g maybe at a guess) but he claimed it had to slow down outa supersonic to just gently turn! Ok so the discussion was on FARK, so lol yeah it might not be accurate but the guy saying it certainly thought it true. Edit: I can’t find any info regarding it on the net so maybe its a myth? E: Just read it has a 2g limit dunno if true.

Edit#2: Anti flash paint on the 160, how come? i realise its a nuke thing but i’m curious as no-one else seems to fly planes with antiflash paint,im getting that info off wiki though but it sure does look like the old v-bomber anti flash paint so i believe it could be true.

It also says (wiki does) that there were plans for a TU160p/TU161 that was to be a very long range escort fighter/interceptor – that sounds utterly cool even if a tad impractical, does anyone have more info on this proposed monster? I read the Blackjack has got a kitchen/galley too? thats pretty cool, has it got like a kettle and toaster and stuff or more basic?

2.5g is the normal g limit for all large aircraft. B-2, B-52 and B-1B have the same and no pilot would ever dare to go beyond 1.5g in normal operation.

Allowing a large aircraft to fly low with high airspeeds and acceptable fatigue of aircraft and crew is a demanding task. Size increases the difficulties considerably.
B-1B and Tu-160 are the only aircraft of that class able to go in low and relatively fast, the B-58 was tested but apparently not found particularly useful. The individual characteristics of the designs are not public domain knowledge and we might only speculate about it, but it is safe to say that the B-1B was obviously more optimized for that role and has an easier start due to lower weight.

Can the Tu-160 actually fly low level. I dont mean 500ft low level, which most radar defence networks would pick up, but 100ft and less than?

Because as someone mentioned earlier, the B1 has special canards at the front for low level aid, and was designed as a penertrator. The TU-160 does not and pilots have mentioned about the Tu-160 not being the most comfatable ride. Low level, combined with that massive wing/fuselage area surely must make the plane pretty awful low level. If it can
would it have a limited flight speed, or be able for a supersonic dash?

500ft is still quite low when flying Mach 0.8. A Tornado (considered the best low level aircraft) can go down to 200ft, but it is considerably smaller. 100ft is only possible over flat terrain under favorable circumstances. Normally a crew would plan their ingress in a way that their low level capability suffices. The rest is job of ECM in combination with low RCS.

The canards of the B-1B are to increase ride quality and control authority, as the elevators are not fast enough to cancel high frequency content. The Tu-160 will have similar problems, but maybe crew comfort was not of concern. When you lower the speed requirement from M.9 to .8 and allow 500ft instead of 250ft you make design solutions possible that were insufficient before. Hence, the details are of concern here. Nobody will have that of the Tu-160.

Well how longs that last Blackjack taken to build, 10 years? i see where your coming from but if France needed a stratigic bomber i’m sure it would turn out alot more advanced and better then a Blackjack and it wouldnt take 10 years to complete either i doubt. I’ve no doubt Russia does have some great scientists and engineers etc but that dosnt stop the fact that theres other countries more advanced then they are. Thats nice that italy build that little Yak jet, is it going to change the face of aviation as we know it though, no it isnt, its just a little jet. As for the MKI – i thought there stuffed full of foreign electronics/avionics?

I guess the need for strategic bombers ceased to exist, or let’s say the funding to build a bomber with the necessary level of survivability somehow disappeared. Even in Russia.

How it is going to be a waste of time if it has cruise missiles with 3000km of range, the Tu-160 does not need over the target it is not a B-29 droping a nuke, it is a rocket launcher aerial platform

For that you need no Tu-160 at all. But a cruise missile can be intercepted, too (it is actually fairly easy). And to launch from 3000km, you need to know your target in advance, and you need to know where it is in 4 hours when the missile strikes.
Reminds of the projects to change a B747 into a cruise missile platform. I guess they had reasons not to do it.

The KC-767 is a smaller, lighter aircraft than the KC-30. That does mean that there are some taxyways that it can use that a KC-30 can’t (though that’s more often down to wingtip clearance from obstructions than surface strength) and there are hangars that it can get into that the KC-30 can’t.

But people assume that the KC-767 can use a larger number of airfields, assuming that it can use smaller fields with shorter runways. This is a fiction that is repeated again and again. And it’s wrong.

The KC-767 can’t use shorter runways. Because of braking requirements, the KC-767 actually requires a greater balanced field length than the KC-30. The KC-30 can operate from shorter runways than the 767, in other words. When the RAF was first looking at new tankers as part of the FSTA process, it quickly became apparent that there were very few RAF and regular tanker FOB/FOL airfields that a fully-fuelled 767 tanker could safely operate from – including some of the vital expeditionary bases in the Middle East.

The KC-767 offers two things to the US. It will provide/safeguard more US jobs. It will have a lower up-front unit purchase price.

But overall, the KC-767’s through life costs are likely to be higher, and mission costs certainly are – the A330 can offload more fuel, further from base, and it can do so for a lower cost per pound of fuel transferred.

But the benefit to US industry is an important and valid concern, and there would be nothing wrong with selecting the aircraft on that basis.

Generally agree. I just would consider that the higher fuel capacity of the A330 may be wasted when there are not enough customers in the air. The KC-767 can refuel more than a dozen fighter jets in a 5 hour mission, when the KC-30 can do 25% more.

The question is: Was the AD-system able to defend against the intruder, in this case the F-117?
The answer is: not in a strategic sense, because the success was based on reasons that were quite unlikely to happen again.

Taking a singular event as bottom line for argumenting is flawed logic. Then we can start and take the F-15’s kill ratio as ultimate prove of the supreme quality of American hardware when we all know that other factors are of key importance.

I’m afraid im responsible for the famer with the gun thing in this thread,and yeah i was joking, anyone who rememebers the incident is probably smiling now reading this.

Mig23 you state the Russian equipment is good because it shot down one single 117? what about the other fifty or so 117’s that clocked up thousands of hours releasing thousands of munitions whilst roaming with impunity over hostile territory?
I can understand how it would make some proud but but but one shoot down does not make up for the fact the 117 was 99.9% of the time pretty much invunerable. If its been said once its been said a thousand times, sighs.

Edit: also the fencer wasnt too hard to catch because from what i remember the pilots skillfully at flew extreme low altitude,reportedly even avoiding detection by AWACS (though if they were flying out of northern of Iraq then thats understandable i guess) unfortuantly for Saddam they flew straight over the border and into Iran never to be used again by Iraq, lol.

I suggest strongly to refrain from argumenting with MiG23MLD about claimed kills and such stuff, except you like to have an endless but utterly pointless argument on an (exactly: this) internet forum. Many people have more rewarding activities in their spare time.

Iraq AF: Mirage F1 more of a threat to US forces than any of their other Soviet aircraft bar probably the MiG-25. More useful for anti shipping than any other Soviet type. only the Su-25 was better in other specific roles.

Iran AF: Prefers their Iraqi F1s over their Mig-29s. Prefers their F-4s and F=14s as well, new aircraft they are building are based on old western types, not Russian or Chinese aircraft they use. The only non-western aircraft they actually like is the Su-24.

One should be very careful what kind of aircraft they got. The Iraqi Mirage F.1 were specially equipped and were actually quite useful machines. The Soviet types were standard units and – as flex297 pointed out – probably more suited to Soviet style air defense.

As we have concluded in many other threads, Soviet types (at least most of the time) were often cheaper, simpler and tougher. Their operating costs hang however on the access to spares and the type of system (a Western style army will find an old Suchoi or MiG very expensive to maintain). On the other hand, Soviet systems sometimes lacked the flexibility of Western systems, in later years the avionics suite of Soviet systems was often inferior to Western types. This is, however, often due to the Soviets not exporting their latest hardware and being a bit clandestine with their technology (wise move actually, given that basically all Soviet types were evaluated by the West but none (except the F-5A) made it into the Soviet Union).

In the end, for each case specific reasons can be found. Iraq operated mainly MiG-21 and -23 configured for air-to-air role, along with some rather unsophisticated fighter bombers. Their training and tactics were inferior to that of the Iranians, and a MiG-21 (later models) or MiG-23M can hardly stand against well led Phantoms. Of course, the Mirage F.1 with specialized avionics did a much better job in many situations. Very important was that France not only delivered the aircraft, but also tactical advice.

Another thing: for long term peace duty most pre 1990 Soviet types (excluding later MiG-29 and Su-27 derivatives, but including all early MiG-29) are not really suited. Life time is short, engine life is short. The low purchase price then does not compensate for higher life time costs. In the Luftwaffe the MiG-29 proved to be quite a maintenance nightmare, especially the engines. That the MiG beats the Tornado and the 20 year old F-4F on maintenance cost is an achievement of its own. 😀