SchorschI agree , the best strategy for NK is to wait and let it cook its on goose !! The poverty , bad economic climate and lack of international assistance and support for the Communist government would eventually (10,12,15 years maybe even less) lead to the end of the regime .
On another road , NK claims that the New satelite is well in orbit and is broadcasting Harmonious tunes patronizing the Communist government , Any one know the frequency 😉 ??
It is supposed to be 470 Mhz.
The North Korean problem is no security threat to the USA or Europe. It is a moderate security threat to Japan, but even here the ability of NK to mount a cumbersome nuclear weapon on its missile is minimal, especially given the ability of Japan to destroy any attempts beforehand.
The threat to South Korea remains unchanged, and this threat shrinks with each year North Korea is unable to equip its conventional forces with new equipment. The threats towards SK become increasingly hilarious, given that they possibly don’t have a single operational fighter jet, possibly no working AD-system and army units relying on numbers (numbers of tanks and infantry don’t work at the 38th parallel). This is the primary reason NK is pursuing nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
The danger is a break-up of NK with a resulting vacuum and development of a failed state, destabilizing the entire region. A collapse of the regime (following the death of its current leader) with resulting local governments using the military resources to exert power would likely result in massive loss of population, basically an implosion. Neither SK nor China have a real interest of an open border towards NK.
SchorschNorth Korea’s missile is big f##k you gesture towards the rest of the world, especially to USA, Japan and South Korea, by the way the feeder of the North Korean public.
But, it is no security issue.
Why not?
If the USA is wise, they don’t give it too much press.
They could wipe out the entire North Koean missile infrastructure within 24hrs, assuming usage of conventional weapons only.
SchorschSchorsch
I’m a little confused. Why wasn’t the F14A a true fighter? Surely fleet air defence is a fighter role, why is why it had a powerful radar in the front end with the Pheonix (AIM 54 or am I wrong?). The Cold War threat was largely from long range Soviet bombers with long range cruise missiles, so it was developed to counter that. Isn’t the whole point to engage the enemy at the greatest range you can?
But it did OK in dogfights with Libyan aircraft….
As for the A7, I guess in an emergency it could be used for a limited air defence role (limited by lack of a air to air radar etc), it could carry Sidewinders although I guess that was for self defence. However, this is what the publication said:
The Light Attack sqaudrons are in many ways the bread-and-butter of the Carrier Air Wing, called upon to perform a wide variety of tasks. These range from assisting Intruders on interdiction tasks to close air support and defence suppresion. The Corsair and the Hornet are both agile enough to augment Tomcats in the fighter role.
Of course the Hornet was designed with fighter roles in mind, so it had a decent radar with air to air modes, as well as agility and a a prefix starting with F.
The majority of fighter duties in the 1980ies still were daylight and short to medium range. Evidence: all conflicts.
The F-14A was oversized for that purpose. The movie Top Gun is of course crap in many respects, but the scenario that the US Navy gets into limited conflicts with smaller air forces was not that unrealistic.
To make it short: for the purpose of daylight air superiority the USN had no suitable airframe. The F-14A did the job, but was not optimal.
The often cited AIM-54 was rarely carried on CAP missions and rules of engagement would normally disallow its usage. In reality the F-14A was always limited to semi-active AIM-7F and IR-guided AIM-9. With AWACS support its superior radar was of limited value.
The A-7D surely is a stop-gap fighter option. If we think of the 1982’s Falklands we could think of the A-7D doing very valuable work in denying low-level attackers certain routes. While actually, the A-4 was even better suited for that job. While we need to remember that the capability of a single USN carrier (even if equipped with F-4S) would have denied the entire airspace to* the Argentines.
————————————-
* grammar question: is it “to deny something to someone” or “deny someone something” or what?
SchorschThe whole GTF test campaign plus the press releases (which are quite frequent, you read something related in every other Flight International issue) surely have the purpose to generate publicity.
The business case for an A320NG with large winglets, GTF-engines and some other mods is often discounted but still kept alive (and the business case is not that terribly shiny). I am not sure about the strategy Airbus is following. It would be a reasonable move in order to pull Boeing in a position to launch a B737 replacement, which has two advantages:
– Boeing would not simultaneously launch a B777 replacement, which helps Airbus’ A350-900 and -1000
– being second on the market will be of advantage in case of the single aisle
Boeing could do the same with the B737NG (B737(NG^2)), but it already exploited the wing tip to full extend and also would have serious troubles putting the GTF under the wing. Additionally, the B737 trails the A320 in applied technologies and a third renovation of a 1960ies aircraft on such a high profile market doesn’t satisfy the customers (see B747-8).
SchorschSo it’s possible pilot error then!!!
What could cause a tail-scrap?
– wrong pitch input
– incorrectly derated thrust
– wrong take-off config
– wrong weight&balance
– wrong take-off direction (tail-wind)
Except for the last one all falls within (essential) crew duty, the weight & balance issue might also be attributable to poor input from the ground crew or improper loading.
SchorschI’ve found a few copies of an old publication from 1990 called Firepower. Although some may view the loss of the F14 Tomcat, A6 Intruder and S3 Viking as a disaster, I think I’m correct in saying a CVW now has more capable fighters (yes I know F/A18 Hornet always had an air/air role and even the A7 could do a limited air/to air role – not suprising it was agile as it was developed from the Crusader) than it did twenty to twenty five years ago.
With the classic fit of F-14A and A-7D the carriers didn’t possess a real fighter. The F-14A wasn’t bad but not the right aircraft for the job, but the compromise between fleet defense and fighter duties (better suited for the fighter-job than an F-111B). The carriers rarely operated in the operational radius of small daylight fighters, so an acceptable issue.
The F-18 therefore represents a huge improvement. The A-7 is no useful fighter. Although the airframe might have some potential, weapons, sensors, engine and crew and unlikely to fit the job.
SchorschYou know, if all the experts who are ‘actually involved in investigating‘ this accident had just come on this forum first they would’ve had it all wrapped up in a jiffy!!! :rolleyes:
-Dazza
I am sufficiently experienced to publically make educated guesses.
SchorschOn the flip side, you could argue that the aircraft meets all airworthiness criteria required for it’s type certificate, and that these accidents are a flight crew training issue – however generalised that viewpoint may be, but then again, only stirring the pot… :diablo:
Meeting certification criteria does not necessarily mean latest safety standards. Think of the rudder control mechanism of the A300-600 or the take-Off configuration warning of the MD-8x series. I guess there are other systems which are subject to improvement after certification is issued, and these improvements prevent incidents.
The certification authority neither have time nor resource to check every tiny aspect of an aircraft. They rather have to rely on the manufacturer. The system works quite OK, but “being certified” should never the justification for keeping a system in service which has demonstrated shortcomings.
Let’s leave it there, shall we?
Agreed!
SchorschOh please get a grip,all aircraft have fault’s as do cars and every thing else man made,a fact of life accident’s happen even if things are or are not your fault!!!!
But if – as one member has shown – one aircraft (call it the MD-11) has a one magnitude higher probability for a hull loss than an aircraft comparable in many respects (B767), then I would say it makes sense to withdraw this aircraft from passenger service.
Actually not solely due to the tendency to have messy landings, but because it tends to roll over and catch fire when messing up the landing, which it does quite frequently.
SchorschI understand your point entirely but I’d still rather see an aircraft deemed to be somewhat more likely to have an accident grounded completely rather than demoted to cargo operations.
Paul
Then I have bad news for you: you are basically dead or crippled.
Everything around you (cars, home electronics, food) has more safety issues than any MD-11, especially as YOU are allowed to mishandle it (which is not the case with any MD-11, as long as you are not the pilot). So, be afraid and panic as much as possible, because with your unrealistic attitude towards safety you have a lot of things to worry about.
SchorschTell that to the families of those on the ground who may be killed in such an incident. Having an aircraft that has known flaws in the air makes no sense whatsoever on any level. :rolleyes:
Paul
P.S. I’m not saying the MD-11 does have flaws, even though it would appear it actually does. I’m merely responding to your views.
The flaws we see result in a messed landing, most likely causing ordinary scrap, less likely causing burned scrap, even less likely causing burned scrap with dead bodies inside.
Of course, there is the remote chance of an aircraft hitting something of value, i. e. humans, but if we multiply the number of aircraft flying with the accident rate of other aircraft (not MD-11), the chance of being killed by a falling A320 or B737 is 10 times than that of a rogue MD-11 (compare 6000 aircraft in service times 4 cycles a day with 200 aircraft in service times 2 cycles a day: 24000:400 = 60:1).
So we have to leave the feet on the ground: this aircraft is less safe than other, but it is not totally dangerous. Taking it out of passenger service is the easiest (and least costly) way of reducing the possibly death toll.
Please imagine the blame Boeing/FAA/Airline would get if such an aircraft with passengers inside would crash at landing with 3 similar accidents (and a ****load of incidents) occurred before. Actually, from a legal point of view, I would get rid of those aircrafts from my passenger operation asap.
SchorschFirst time I’ve ever heard that. It may be true. I confess I don’t know.
Having said that, does it matter? How long does it take to descend from 100 feet to the rwy on a standard approach? (Ans/not long) If the airplane is “unbalanced,” ie., severely out of trim because the pilot has been fighting the LSAS all the way down the glideslope, does it magically make everything all better if it disengages at 100 feet? When I was learning to fly, they always trained me that it was generally very easy to make a nice landing after a good approach, but very difficult to salvage a good landing from a bad approach.
History: My first experience with LSAS was shooting a landing in a simulator while a senior line check pilot at a major fiddled around. This was about 1999, and he was a friend of mine. He was fooling around with what has now become RNAV RNP approaches and just wanted someone to sit in the other seat. I ended up trying to hand fly the landing. I flew the simulator the way I have flown every other simulator or plane I had ever flown. I ended up in the PIO. We tried it again after some coaching. He told me after I made a pitch change to “wait. Don’t make any other pitch changes. The stabilizer is still moving.” I said, “the stabilizer is still moving?” Thats when he told me about the LSAS, and thats when I started paying attention to how many landing incidents there were. I talked to other, very senior pilots, and found very few who liked the airplane. I had one guy tell me the B-52 had better handling characteristics. Another told me that it was the worst handling airplane he had ever flown.
Thanks for your insightful posts.
I agree with your points, having heard similar stories from other sources.
However, I wouldn’t recommend grounding the aircraft, I would rather recommend to put it out of passenger service as soon as possible.
Flying boxes is a different kettle of fish, if something goes wrong, only the people who messed it up have to pay for it. And normally the pilots flying those aircraft are aware of the dangers and act accordingly, and if not, crash accordingly. Applied Darwin’s law.
SchorschYes there was, the Czar bomba was 100MT capable, yet detonated at 50MT due to a lead tamper instead of a U238 tamper. So you might want to get your facts straight.
The Tsar bomb weighted 35t and was a pure show-off. Luckily the didn’t add the U238, because it would have considerably increased the global radiation level (50MT from U238 produce nuclear waste at an amount of more than 3000 Little Boys, at least the dirt is linear to the yield). So it was relatively clean as 95% of the yield came from fusion and the majority of the crap went straight into the upper atmosphere.
However, for all practical purposes weapons were rarely larger than 15-100kt except for some strategical weapons. If the Russians deployed larger warheads on the AshM it proves their own mistrust about the effectiveness.
If I am able to build a sea skimmer that detonates at sea level height 200m ahead of the ship, that’s gonna be a sure kill.
SchorschAs stated before, even if the student knew what he was talking about, you are trying to directly scale off yield and, once again, nuclear detonations do not do that. By this, keeping it at its very simplest level, I mean that doubling the yield of the weapon does NOT equate to a doubling of blast effect/radius. Look at Schorsh’s formula and you will see how it works.
I know it is difficult for you Brits, but my name is spelled with double “sch”.
Anyways, a very good resource to get knowledge about nuclear weapons is:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/
Especially (concerning blast effects):
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html
There you find formulas and some damage assessments.
Very good read is also (about targeting issues):
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html
SchorschA Granit’s 500kt warhead will cause massive destruction
http://www.magnetbox.org/archive/aol/nuclear.html
Site that 10kt (50 TIMES less) than a Granit, vaporizes .5 miles.
Go figure. The Nimitz would be reduces to nothing – for the most part. I’m not suggesting it would disappear though 😛
The numbers on that site are crap.
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