SchorschAnd explain me y does the US of A spends so much in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when citizens in its own boarders hit by natural disasters like Katrina badly need releif?
Ask the Americans. They can elect their government every 4 years. Maybe they take this into account next time. However, I just wanted to be a little bit ironic. 😮 . Didn’t work out too well, did it?
Actually the Catarina Relief was especially hampered by bad organisation and the lack of preparation for such a likely case. The ironic thing: the money was redistributed to counter-terrorism. You see the fear of a car-bomb killing five is higher than the fear of a natural disaster killing 500. People are so strange, everywehere!
SchorschWing Tip Fences are helpful, if your wing already has sufficient span but you want to reduce wing tip vortice (= induced drag). It is efficient and winglets have itself some disadvantages. I think on short range aircraft they can be useful for carefully chosen distances.
However, the winglet/fence has not only justification due to efficiency, some people consider them modern and they add some marketing area to your aircraft.
The 2 to 3% less fuel consumption doesn’t matter too much, espeically not on short legs, were this advantage is burned away in 4 minutes more idling due to delays at the runway.
SchorschYes if the US(+allies) went after Iran it would be one sided, but it would be like Iraq or the Afganistan. If you do not know your opponents capabilities, then you cannot micro manage a campaign. The Iranian pilots fly far greater hours and have learnt to maximise the capabilities of what they have. They will hjave plenty of warning of any US led attack as due to the size of the country assets would have to be built up. Any B52s from Diego Garcia would be vulnerable if the Iranians have tankers. Build up in Iraq? Could the Iranians launch a pre-emptive strike at low level? Imagine what would happen if an E3 over the Gulf saw 40 Fighters on an intercept course and another 60 inbound to Iraq. How many QRA or patrolling fighters could the other side scramble. Alot of people seem to think that we will always have the initiative to strike when and where we wish. This is a dangerous mindset. Yes a pre-emptive strike may cost the Iranians heavily but if they got say 20 aircraft on the ground as a result it would be a victory. The US and other western power have got into a zero loss mentality. Their airforces have been reduced to a level where attrition by even a small amount will have an impact. The Iranians know this. Yes the US and its allies would win but at a far greater cost than recent operations. I think this possibility will prevent any action being taken.
Let’s talk a second about your “pre-emptive” strike.
First most important thing to know for a pre-emptive strike is that the other will strike you. OK, the will be some rumors and because US/alliance normally don’t live in total secrecy the presence of a force will be known.
Then you need to know the airport. A little bit more tricky but still possible with local intelligence sources.
Then you need to know exactly the local defences assets, the number and possible position of parked aircraft, the used buildings. If you see that “on site”, you would ask your pilots to overfly the target, pick a target and attack it, actually increasing the time spent over the airport enourmusly and reducing its effectiveness.
Finally and most important you need to get there with these 40 fighters. Let’s see, they can possibly attack with F-4, F-14 and Su-24. Totalling about 60 fighters. F-14s are not designed for a/g and taking the “considerable” upgrades, no sane leader would sent his most valuable assets into enemy air space.
Leaving F-4 and Su-24. the F-4 has barely enough fuel to get somewhere and fly back, especially with a/g load. The Su-24 is better of, but there are only a few. You have no idea about any SAMs on the way or close to the airport, your intelligence doesn’t deliver those informations.
After all, this would be possible but it would totally rely on luck. You have no intelligence, need to strike visibly identified targets and spend some time over the airport. You are further extremly vunerable to enemy fighters as no real fighter escort is possible. Your movements before the strike will not go undetected, because you have to fly aircraft to airports close to the border. You are yourself vunerable to a counter-strike.
These are my own opinion and I do not class myself an expert but complacency in the west and Governments willingness to return to gunboat diplomacy are going to lead to an unhappy situation and Iran may just be it. Only a fool goes into a house full of gunmen without knowing how many, where they are and what they are armed with!!!
I think the west have proved very diplomatic in this thing. How should he behave instead? Kindly ask the Iran to stop – or at least slow down – its nuclear weapons program. Of course only if the Iran feels OK with that. Maybe offer some billions to compensate Iranian welfare programs for the money spent on Uranium enrichment instead of welfare.
SchorschShe said the F-117 is considered first generation stealth, the B-2 was second generation, and the F-22 is third generation. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter “will be considered the fourth generation,” she noted.
On the F-117, radar-absorbent material had to be fitted to the aircraft with virtually artistic skill, and any intrusion into a panel to repair a part caused huge downtimes as the material had to be painstakingly reapplied. On the B-2, things improved with the addition of more access hatches and panels, but the coatings and tape that sealed seams still posed a headache of reapplication after every mission.
It should be noted that the mission requirement is different. I think we can safely say that Raptor needs not to be as stealthy as an F-117 or B-2. The stealth was incorporated to track and fire first, not to slip through enemy defense without being detected. In a combat environment with excessive EM transmissions, ECM, hundreds of radars, the F-22 will surely be a much safer place than most conventional aircraft.
When operating at M1.5@60.000ft the stealthy characteristic will help to prevent any robust lock-on of a surface-to-air resource. The effective range of most SAM systems drops to a quite low figure if the target operates at those altitudes and speeds.
the motto is
– fly faster
– fly higher
– fly longer
– be less visible
it is not
– fly fastest
– fly highest
– fly longest
– be least detectable
SchorschIs that just dirt on the wing over the missing No1 engine or soot/fire damage?
I think it is dirt and I think that after impact the left wing touched the ground. It looks a little bit like it dug into the dirt.
SchorschSorry, the GPS just slipped in, I was a bit carried away.. 😉 Yes, it is nonsense..
The FBW thing ain’t that new at all, look at B-2A which uses FBL system to reduce electromagentic emissions. One question is whether the system can detect FBW, another one is at what range.
But as I said, nothing confirmed.
The question is: If I receive something, does it have to be a stealthy aircraft’s FBW? In a normal battlespace is a quite a lot EM transmission. It is a long way to develop anything from this.
I am pretty sure that there are ways to detect stealthy aircraft, but implementing these is tricky, expensive and will not result in a robust solution.
SchorschWell just beacuse there are pics of planes with the missile body in evidence doesn’t actually tell us anything about the state of the rocket motors or the missile electronics. Maybe since the Iranians are in such a trigger happy and sharing mood at the moment they’ll bless us with a Pheonix live fire ex 🙂
Daniel
And then Mr. Kim Il Sung give us a nuclear test!
SchorschAttention, these are not just claims of some mythological what-if technology.. Tamara and Vera are no way ‘radars’, they are passive detectors of electromagnetical emissions. Using three separate devices connected together via LAN you can precisely locate any emitting aircraft using hyperbolic triangulation method. Tamara and Vera don’t make any difference between stealth and non-stealth aircraft and are an effective method to locate incoming B-2A, F-117A or F-22A by detecting their GPS, TACAN, radio altimeter or communication signals. There are rumors about Vera being able to ‘smell’ even FBW at certain distance, but I won’t be going that far as to confirm that..
Tamara and Vera are being produced by Czech TESLA Pardubice and their anti-stealth detection performance has been evaluated by NATO members as ‘remarkable’. Funny thing is that at the times of Tamara’s development (80s) stealth technology was not officially revealed at all so the system did not originally serve this purpose. The latest version Vera-E is already designed with stealth detecting capability as the main role in mind.
A problem surely not unnoticed by stealth designers. To have effective stealth you need to stop all transmissions. As they don’t have to fly low, they don’t need radio altimeter. TACAN will be reduced to VOR information if used at all (GPS+INS is better anyways). Since when have GPS receivers any transmissions?
Radio communication and IFF are forbidden, too, but of limited urgency for a F-117. Right is that the best way to detect a stealthy aircraft is to collect spurious information from various radars or have a system which detects changes in EM environment. Both pretty challenging in a wartime environment (with hundreds of radars and jammers screaming), but still possible. The “stealth killers” are normally over-advertised make-shift solutions that are easy to avoid if a level of awareness is kept.
SchorschThe thing that surprises me is that it crashed and there were no deaths.
The fuselage is intact, what indicates that vertical accelerations have not been to bad. No post-crash fire, emergency slides deployed. It looks like most of the passengers came out on their own.
SchorschThe sheer versatility of that loadout is astounding, but its radius of action in that configuration will probably suck 😉 No external tanks.
And you won’t catch a fully loaded A380 as your maximum speeds drops to M0.75 without A/B and something like M0.95 with A/B. Maybe supersonic possible for high altitudes, but you won’t reach 35.000ft without A/B.
Schorschneither can the opposite be proved.. i.e that they didn’t upgrade or modernize parts.
However the fact remains is that Iran did fly a large number of F-14s simultaneously during a parade not too long ago. There are recent pictures of it flying carrying AIM-54s, something many claimed no longer exists.. and there are pictures of MiG-29s and Su-24s in service.
True.
I think intelligence service like CIA has possibilities (sattelites) to assess the level of activity on Iranian airfields. They probably will not publish the results. The published photos are indications and – if we speak of the same phote with Tomcat carrying AIM-54 – it is very poor evidence. The fly-by of several F-14s instead is clear prove that they still fly, however gives little clue about their ready state.
I think people who can judge best about the TOMCAT-issue are former US Navy people who had to do with the Tomcat. Maybe there is somebody around?
Schorschactually, the acquisition of MiG-29s, Su-24s and Mirage F-1s are significant, as well as the industry being able to modernize and reproduce certain parts of existing aircrafts. It is better off now than it was in the 80s.
Cannot be proved.
Average supply of flight hours is not known either. Nobody can tell if the fleet of aircraft represents a small but capable force or represents just the barely flying remains of the IrAF. Please note that all American aircraft provided to Iran have experienced a 8 year war and the revolution, means that serious
shortcomings in maintenance and flight limitations are likely.
The modernization cannot keep pace with attrition if proper training is maintained.
SchorschBasic problem was to shield the crew from radiation and prevent catastrophic radiation in case of an accident. Another problem was the transfer of power from the reactor to the engines. Conventional way would have been
reactor -> turbine -> generator -> electric motor
Very heavy and you need back-up systems.
Second option was to directly heat the air and use the nuclear heat instead of a combustion chamber.
The problems were considered to be unsolvable with existing technology and/or the solutions would prove inadequat. After all, cheaper, more realiable and less dangerous ways of delivering the bomb came out.
SchorschI doubt there is a way to conclude this argument. Lets just wait and see, I doubt it will be long before either of us is proved wrong.
yours till the petro dollar dies,
PLA-MKII
There will be no war. Iranian Air Force will be everybody’s darling for some years to come, because they have the TOMCAT. Real understanding of air war and tactics remain limited with clear evidence that most people don’t want to know. Comparing top speeds and optimistic missile performance is considered “expert knowledge”. I don’t mind. After all, it is just a hobby.
SchorschBut I really hope that they will be able to maintain a dollar-independant euro-based oil stock-exchange, that is what world really needs today.
I especially identify the need for a progressive government less fixed on the bomb and more on the wealth of the country. That doesn’t necessarily needs to be US-happy and doesn’t need to dumb all nuclear facilities. Nobody questions the right of Iran to use nuclear energy.
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