michelfChrom…
Where did I mention PR? And what relevance is it? I said, read carefully, that the shooting down of an SR would send a message to the West. This is entirely different to PR.
The message sent, as I explained, is that “even the best technology that you can deploy can be defeated.. and here is an example”.
As the West’s adopted philosophy in the Cold War was Quality over quantity then it poses a fundamental challenge to that. Joe Public could give a hoot whether its a A a B or a C that was shot down but you can bet your life that it would have sent the right message to those who were looking at the reality of what had been done.
In addition unless there was a flagrant breach of international airspace then the question of ‘where was the SR shot down’ does become a real concern. The nav system of the SR was orders of magnitude better than its contemporaries and not matched until the full array of GPS satellites were deployed. It was relied upon to give both phyiscal imagery location data as well as all the ELINT data. If the system was not as accurate as had been tested to date then all of this would have been cast into doubt, and all the data collected by that airframe would need to be reconfirmed….this could amount to thousands of items of information requiring double checking, plus all the other airframes would need to be checked out…
So in one incident, which would have had some, but limited public PR effect, a cornerstone of the then current Cold War philosophy would have been challenged and on a practical level a considerable amount of rechecking and double checking would have been needed, with the loss of two aircrew.
For confirmation look at the reaction when Rust flew into Red Square…yes it was embarasing for the Soviet Union, but far more worrying for them was the fact that for all of their efforts and expenditure they had failed in a big way.. it signalled to the West that the system and its underlying operations was a fragile beast, there were gaps and weakness that could be exploited…if a Cessna could get thro’ then there was certainly room for high tech military aircraft. On both sides a reevaluation was needed and took place.
The sinking of a sub is completely and utterly different, in so many ways. Not only in loss of life, but the potential ramifications for the USSR were orders of magnitude different.
The deliberate sinking of a nuclear sub is, as you say a very serious matter, and sure by my logic it would have sent the same message, but what you do not understand is that the shooting down of an SR does not leave an opening for retaliation…see what I said about risk versus benefit.
Sinking a sub does not have the same consequences; the USN could have sent a boomer to the bottom in return.. or more depending on how much of a return message they wanted to send…do you really believe that the Soviets would have risked losing a few of their most threatening assets in this manner, to say nothing of losing access to the world’s oceans by submarine? The closing the UK- Iceland-Greenland gap would have become a reality, rather than just tracking every sub going thro’ and the effects therefore on the potential for the Soviet submarine fleet to deploy in as threatening a manner would have been curtailed.
The return demonstration of the ability to sink boomers almost with impunity is one which the US would have not hesitated to send…..and is that one the Soviets would have wanted to receive? Afterall a Soviet sub being sunk is far easier to hide and deny than shooting down a Bear going to Cuba.
So you might think its BS, but you can bet the farm that others were doing their utmost to look very closely at how feasible this was and how to carry it out..to send that message. They understood that the immediate issue is not necessarily the important one, perhaps its a tactic you can use.
michelfBd..
Absolutely spot on about the Blackbird and -70 being the only genuine M3 cruising aircraft. No question there.
Also correct about the total time above M3.. .
I am not sure about the ‘being careful’ about AV/1; from memory I recall the issue was the structural stability of the wing panels…and lack of dihedral, hence its limits.
AV/2 differed in this respect and was therefore cleared to beyond M2.5+ regime. it was earmarked for the continuation work, not AV/1. However after the accident there was no choice.
The issue however is the reality of the claims…on paper and by extrapolation is one thing, demonstrated is another.
michelfSean,
The F-12 needed initial guidance from the ground based systems.. it was not designed to carry out cap missions…
So as I said the basic mission was guided by ground based systems. Sure once it was airborne the intercept could be carried out autonomously, but it would not have been airborne unless a ground based system had detected a target. In that regard the MiG and F-12 are similar.
I would also argue that the supersonic cruise capability of the 25 qualifies it for long range high speed intercepts.
Agree we should discuss the Concorde/Tu144 seperately…
Chrom,
Please read the words very carefully. At no point did I mention it would be ‘fun’ to shoot down an SR. I suggested however that the benefits of actually shooting one down in terms of challenging the military philosophy of the West came down in favour of doing so (if guaranteed) and weathering the political fallout.
It would at a single stroke bring into doubt all of the SR’s data take (even if the astro navigation system was probalby the more accurate system ever devised) until it could be confirmed that the positioning was confirmed, it would also as I mentionned showed that even with the overall technology used the Soviets had the demonstrated ability to counter that technology. If you take that into the overall context of the West’s basic Cold War philosophy: Quality will defeat quantity; then its very foundations would be challenged. Do you not think that the opportunity to make that challenge would not have been taken? It is not ‘fun’ its a genuine opportunity for the Soviets to play another facet of the political game to their advantage, who would not?
However to fail to down one even after repeated attempts would send the opposite message….
Garry B.
Please read what is written, not your blinkered vision. I made the point, in clear English, that the fact that no SR had been shot down by an 25 ‘suggested’ that it was not possible. It was not a statement of certainty or inability, it was a suggestion that regardless of your attitude, the MiG-25 was not able to successfully intercept the SR in operational use….I am certain that if the F-15 and F-14 could do so in the right conditions; then the MiG 25 could in the right conditions…however once those optimum conditions are removed the game changes entirely. It is therefore easily justifiable to question the MiG 25’s ability.
Sadly for you you manage to take that as a assertion that because it didn’t it couldn’t, its a shame that the clarity of the English language escapes your attention.
bdn 12..
The relevance of the Mach is questionable….I think that the XB-70 demonstrated something like 17mins of M3 flight over its career.
And as I stated in my response it was also clear that there was capability beyond that demonstrated. However as it was NOT explored it will remain a ‘potential’ advantage, not a demonstrated one.
So we have a potential performance (and range) being used to bash a routinely demonstrated performance to say which is better….:(
michelfAlmost sounds like you are attempting to be unbiased… til:
The fact that no Mig-31 was shot down suggests that no USAF plane is able to do it… including the F-22 afterall “The political fall out would have been dwarfed by the ‘value’ militarily of this success.”
Oh dear,
It would be interesting to hear when a MiG-31 had encountered, say an F-22or even F-15 during a full operational mission…..I presume you know of such incidents.
But an SR heading towards the USSR over the Baltic or over the Pacific was carrying out its full operational mission, as were the interceptors scrambled towards it. It was not a ‘practice scramble’…it was for real, with live weapons on the MiGs and sensors running on the SR. This was a reasonably frequent occurance and hence the validity of my thesis stands.
If we were to take your line of reasoning the MiG-25 was unable to down a B-52, because it never did….which we know is untrue and so on and so forth….even better no 31 ever shot down a B-1…
In addition aside from a distinct lack of opportunity the 31, being a derivative of the now known 25 never represented anything like the ‘target’ the SR represented. There was however a very serious desire to down a 25 over the Middle East as at the time it would have sent the right political and military message; which is why the IDF obtained the F-15….
michelfMy reply from last night seems to have gone missing…
Never mind..
Sean,
Agreed the Foxbat and F-12 were ‘aimed’ at differing targets, but within the scope of types to compare its the only one that makes any sense. Both designed to intercept airborne targets, with a quick (ish) reaction time and over long distances. Both relied on ground based long range radar systems providing them with overall mission guidance, albeit with differing command and control philisophies, neither one designed for CAP work or mobile (as in moving with a land operation) use…
To me that has some validity, certainly more than comparing a Foxbat with an SR….which is only relevant if one tries to extrapolate if the Foxbat could intercept an SR succesfully.
The XB-70 did have a supersonic cruise capability…with AV/2 demonstrating a max of 32 mins at M2.8 and above (7 mins above M2.9) if memory serves. However this is still short of the 2h+ endurance of Concorde…OK the XB -70 never got that far down its development cycle so more was no doubt possible.
The Tu144 needed that next generartion of engine to begin to match the pre existing Concorde performance, by then it was too late, both in technical terms and economic terms. To me that represents a level of ‘failure’.
Kilcoo,
The history of the US SST is pretty well documented and the decision to go for a M3/ 300 pax aircraft is explicit. The US knew that both Concorde and the TU144 enjoyed a time advantage (at the time of the decision) that the US would not be able to overcome. They knew that with the anticipated in service date of 1972 for both they would be a least three years late (1975) and hence miss the boat. Thus they went for a larger and faster airframe, hoping to gain the lion’s share of the ‘next generation’ orders. They were hoping that Concorde would break the ground for SST operations and finances and that all the airlines that operated it would be looking for a big brother a few years later.
The B model Concorde, with the first airframe being #17 (they built all 16 A models) was going to be the target. Although it offered no additional pax capacity over the A or speed advantage, the removal of the need for a reheated take off was aimed at increasing the environmentlal acceptability and range of the airframe. The paper studies for a follow on were merely beginning when it became clear that the SST was not the future. The 2707 would have taken many of the orders for that airframe and curtailed the B model’s life.
Its an interesting view on the effect of the exhaust plume of the RCS….as we know it does affect the RCS, otherwise why would the pole models use a physical representation of the plume.
However there is sufficient evidence to point to the inability of contemporary FC radars to accurately track the SR to enable a successful intercept. We know that the existing Soviet SAM systems could phyiscally guide a missile to the heights at which the SR operated, what is less clear is why they were unable to calculate the intercept geometry to have a missile within range of the aircraft. Again I refer to the tests carried by the US on the SR, whereby their own systems ‘appeared’ to be unable to acquire an SR ‘cold’ and provide good enough information to have a successful intercept. I would argue that the contemporary Soviet radars were not a quantum level better than the US ones and so whilst they may have offered a better performance they would also have struggled with the same issue. The speed of the Sr and its height were certainly issue the Soviet radars struggled to overcome, but I think the RCS issue is also a very important factor.
We know that radar could track the SR from great distances, both civil and military, what we are less certain of is that ability when not ‘warned’ of the appearance of the SR. Again there seems to be a doubt that the Giant Reach missions launched from the US to overfly the Middle East were tracked accurately. There were no pickets observing the take offs as far as we know and no information was passed ‘down line’ to warn the targets. Certainly the civil ATCOs were not informed. The tracking of the 1974 flight to Farnborough was well known and well informed in advance. Similarly the departure and arrival of SR operations from Mildenhall were all ‘informed’.. hence the radar was already looking for that target.
It could therefore be that the SR’s RCS was sufficiently reduced (including the plume) to such a level that whilst tracking was possible it was perhaps not possible from far enough away to enable a manned intercept to occur, nor accurate enough for a missile launch solution to be generated by a SAM. That ‘designed’ in reduction is therefore a ‘Stealth’ solution, even if by later generations (F-117/B2-2) of pure stealth design; its reduction was only a 10x factor rather than the 100x or 1000x factor that was really necessary to massively reduce the chances of detection.
Perhaps analogous to the lights on the front of a train coming towards you.. you can see them, you know there is a train coming but you cannot gauge distance solely from the light. Therefore trying to hit it or avoid it is going to rely on other factors. If you were standing on the level crossing, and taked with hitting the engine with a stone and reliant solely on visual stimuli to judge when to launch the chances of you hitting it are very very slim…by the time the single source information is giving you enough distance information the train is on you and past, your chance missed….but you have known it was there for a long time….even ‘locked-on’ in many respects.
Going back to John Boyds’ decision making loop, the machines and human operators knew it was there, knew it was locked on, but the time lag between generating a ‘valid’ solution and launching etc was still such that a successful intercept was impropable.. not impossible, but improbable; even for a machine.
michelfIts a shame that the usual camps are already being set up and defended dogmatically….
The only valid basis for this comparison is to look a little more closely at both programmes.
The Foxbat was primarily an interceptor, although it spawned other variants , whilst the A-12 was a dedicated recon bird….which spawned other versions, either actual or planned.
If we look a the 25 interceptor versus the YF-12 say….one can argue that overall the 25 was the more verstaile, robust and ‘valuable’ airfrmae to have, whilst the YF-12, inspite of its potential performance and avionics advantages was far more limited in what it could achieve against aerial targets. So even if the YF-12 had been deployed it would not have had the robustness of the Mig 25 platform… which could be seen as a disadvantage.
In recon terms there is less doubt. Both the A-12 and the SR-71 were better recon platforms than the Foxbat. Not because the Foxbat was poor, it was probably better than other platforms, but merely because it was nowhere near as optimised for that particular role. Look at this clearly, the A-12 was designed partly around the largest and most sensitive optical sensor that the US was able to design and manufacture. It was able to achieve higher resolution images for longer and over a larger swathe of land than the comtemporary USSR cameras. Certainly the US has not fielded a more quality purely opticla system since then in atmospheric vehicles. The USSR/ Russians may well have, but at the time the A-12 was without peer. In addition its speed and height made interception by contemporay aircraft and missiles unlikely.
The SR lost that camera, replacing it with more electronic systems. Certainly the diversity of sensors capable of being carried on a single mission gave the SR the capability to collect a vast amount of information. I am not certain the recon versions of the Foxbat were able to carry such a diverse range of sensors at one time.
But saying that the A-12/SR is a better recon platform is not a ‘win’.. it was designed to do that better than anything else….the MiG was designed primarily as an interceptor…so comparing the two in their primary functions is incorrect.
In other roles, such as the drone carrying M/D-21 or the proposed B-12 bomber and SEAD versions of the Foxbat its all a bit moot… the B-12 was never built so all we have to rely on is Lockheed analysis… the drone programme was cancelled as a result fo fatalities, hence it can be considered a failure…and the SEAD versions of the Foxbat have no direct counterpart, so no comparison is possible.
In terms of observation of A-12/ SR-71 operations over Vietnam…all missions originated from Kadena, none from Thailand. You may have seen images of #978 at Udorn in May 1972, it landed there after losing both Ac generators whilst over Hanoi….
The record here is clear and equally clear is the observation of all SR/A-12 launches by ship based observers off the coast. They (USSR/ China) knew of every launch. What they were unable to know at the time was the destination. They also had no way of knowing if or where the SR tanked. The entire evolution of launching to tanking to mission departure was carried out in radio silence. One of the modifications on the KC-135Q aircraft, aside from the JP-7 fuel system, was the installation of a hard wired interphone via the boom, allowing the tanker to talk to the reciever without using the radio. The proceedure was therefore to carry out a silent join up and tanking.
That being said there is little doubt that the Vietnamese were warned of launches and therefore the potential for an SR overflight. They knew which areas were likely to be the aim of these missions and also knew that high risk areas were going to be avoided. Remember also that these missions were out and back, with a tank on the otherside before heading for home…here again there was an element of predicatability in where and when the thing was going to fly over. Having that information makes finding, tracking and locking onto an SR a viable task.
Remove that information and it becomes far more diffcult. Remember the runs made against the F-14A (or was it the F-15? ) on the West coast…perhaps it is only an urban myth, but from memory the first few runs were made with the ‘targets’ knowing and approx. time and direction.. which enabled the intercept to be carried out and the claim of ‘we can shoot down a Blackbird’ to be made. The next run was made without giving this information…the first the target knew was the triple boom…..too late to do anything about it.. and yet these guys knew that they were the target that day…
The same applies to the MiG intercepts….they were flying against a predicted and predictable target. The missions over the Baltic were so easy to track and follow and get interceptors in place. The fact that no SR was ever shot down does however sugest that the chances of doing so were limited if they really existed at all… this is afterall the same Soviet Union that shot down KAL007…I am sure that if the chances of bagging an SR were high they would have taken it.. and claimed overflight. The political fall out would have been dwarfed by the ‘value’ militarily of this success. It would have sent the most powerful message the USSR could ever send… “our power WILL beat your technology”…and the entire NATO philiosophy of countering numbers with technology would have been undermined…do you honestly think that the opportunity to send that message would not have been taken if it really existed. The overall strategic importance cannot be underestimated.
I recall the visit of the SR to the Fanrborough Airshow in 1974…it was a record breaking flight and well known in advance.. again the civilian radars were on the look out for it and who knows, the SR may have had an RCS augmentor on it as well….just to keep every one happy… if you look at the underside of an SR there are a number of retractable antennae…
The same source does not recall tracking the Giant Reach (over the Middle East) missions launch from Griffiths (NY state) and Seymour Johnson (North Carolina) AFBs in 1973…
The MiG 25 was a remarkably good design, it surprised the US massively when they had the opportunity to examine Belenko’s aircraft. It showed efficient and intelligent solutions to problems the US had simply used the ‘bulldozer’ of technology to resolve…the US would never have been as precise and selective about their use of titanium and the exposed dome headed rivets… the simplest solution was titanium all round with flush headed rivets ro expensive welding…..nor would they have considered the us of vacuum tube technology to produce such a high powered radar…presenting these as ‘crude’ solutions was a smoke screen to hide the fact that the USSR had achieved a very high performance airframe using well established methods, they had not needed to reinvent the wheel to get there and in many respects the MiG 25 represented a ‘better’ solution that the US was able to envisage. Certainly the USSR had demonstrated that they were able to achive 85% capability with 50% effort…an not inconsiderable achievement and one that was not lost on the US experts….
In terms of long term supersonic cruising Concorde still shows the way home… in both time spent supersonic without refuelling and hence range as well as ‘economy’ of means (!) , dry thrust; M2.02 sustained speed. Pretty impressive to be sure. But again its primary goal was to achieve that, had it not it would have been even more limited, much as the Tu 144 was limited.
In all of this saying one is better than the other is very diffcult. Unless one can establish a braod similarity of purpose and time span then every comparison has to be so caveated as to render it meaningless.
michelfAny talk of a response to the A-12 also implies a response to the proposed B-12 version…which was put forward pretty much at the same time…so both are correct….
The fact that the A-12 had a better optical recon capability should not be a surprise to anyone…the Optical Bar camera in the Q bay was specifically designed to be the prime recon sensor. Naturally the SR was unable to carry the same camera…the WSO was there instead, so a different camera was required in one of the chine bays, which was not unable to generate the same resolution….
michelfAbove battlefield stealth?
Been there, done that….
It doens’t matter exactly what role its attributed, targetting etc.. it would be relatively easy to expand/focus the role depending on what was deemed most desirable…..
The fact is does not seem to have been pursued further (or at least it is not widely known) indicated that the stand-off assets are currently meeting the demnad.
michelfTom,
Brilliant pic… very very evocative.. and takes me back a decade or so; standing by the pumps at Booker on an autumn afternoon, having just had a great flight with Jon in the Stampe..and then Tony B giving us what remains to my mind the best ever Spitfire display; an almost balletic evolution thro the sky..totally at odds with the ‘Duxford’ style display, far closer to Tony’s CAP flying…..and helping bring her back in knowing damn well that I’d be cleaning the oil streak from under the fuselage later.
Cheers.
michelfYup…
michelfIf it was as difficult to eject from the meat box as has been suggested, perhaps MB have failed to notice these difficulties….afterall their test aircraft is still a twin seater Meatbox….;)
And they are not very secretive about it…..
michelfSimple…
C-130 had limited wing tip clearance to the island, so limited the conditions in which landings could be attempted. Ladnings had to be very acurately carried out. Not a problem in the good weather the tests were carried out in but possibly not possible in more challenging conditions.
Secondly if one went down on deck and carrier ops needed to continue it was either off load and send home empty…or push off the side…There was no where to place it and maintain a cat free and land-on capability.
Neither of these fulfil the basic requirement of being able to get ‘stuff’ or people onto the carrier or off again with no abnormal restrictions..
michelfI read other accounts.
Real improvement would only be achieved with a dedicated engine, which would have needed a greater scale development.The F-14’s cost was challenged from the day it took off. That is was a maintenance intensive aircraft (to be honest, no aircraft of that time and definitely not the Phantom, either, was maintenance friendly) was discovered later. Aircraft price is somehow linear with weight. And in terms of weight, the Tomcat always dominated everything in the air! :diablo:
Too true. It cost was even challenged before it flew, but that’s another story (BTW the F-15s cost was also a major issue…so it must be both time period and weight……;)
In terms of the Spey engineed Phantoms I think you will find that the RN and RAF stories are somewhat different. The RN, for whom the F-4 was a enhancement of the capabilities offered by the Sea Vixen, found the performance to be very good as acceleration and endurance were enhance. Top speed was less of an issue as compared to approach performance etc etc.
The RAF, whose Lightning set the performance benckmark were less impressed. Sure endurance and weapons carriage were enhanced but in terms of raw performance the F-4 left a lot to be desired in terms of speed and acceleration etc etc…
Those RAF pilots who flew both Spey versions in RAF (F-4K and FGR2) service and who then flew the ‘normal’ ex USN version in service are pretty much in accord. The Spey offered better acceleration and some increase in endurance (made irrelevant by increased tanker use as a basic requirement) but its lower high speed performance was particularly noticeable when on QRA duties. On balance they were of the opinion that the RAF’s needs would have been better served (in financial and performance terms) by the ‘normal’ F-4 and the ex-RN aircrew were of the opinion that the most desirable trait of the F-4 was its better performance near the carrier rather, which would have been present with the normal F-4 as well. This would have given the RN the F-4 earlier in time terms at a better price (even if assembled by HS or BAC) and have given the carriers a longer life…as the air group would have been larger and hence more capable.
It relevance to the F-14? The Phantom was not necesarily improved during its life. Certain versions were better than others, at different times and in different parts ot the envelope. As I said before the F-14 envelope was just beginning to be opened, whils thte F-4s was already max’ed out.
The F-14’s envelope was never fully opened for political and financial reasons, whilst the F-18s has been expanded far beyond what the original airframe concept, design and capability deserves. Like Frank Sinatra, its talent has been stretched so thin that it is now transparent.
michelfThere was no problem to equip the Phantom with later models of engines, like the Brits did with the Spey engine. That cost some top speed, but the aircraft gains in fuel economy and acceleration.
Also known as the most expensive, most powerful, noisiest and lowest performance of the variants….by those who flew it and the subsequent non Spey engineed versions purchased by the RAF.
It was, in short, a poor relation in overall performance terms. Whilst it represented a quantum leap in many aspects for the contemporary RAF it did not represent a viable or desirable F-4 variant, it was a dead end development.
Where you are missing the point entirely is that the contemporary F-14 and F-4 versions represented two different points on the designs life span. The F-4 reaching the logical end of its potential development envelope and upgrades generating fewer and fewer returns in respect to capability improvements (at the time) whilst the F-14 represented the beginning of that potential growth. The perspective, at the time was that the F-14 was to receive a definitive engine and the initial B model was supposed to be it, not the ‘warmed’ over B that was eventually procured.
The D version was a step in the correct direction, but just as the C/D model of the F-15 have long since remained in capability ‘statis’ as the E and subsequent version shave expanded the F-15s life span the D’s development cycle stopped as it became clear that the E or Tomcat 21 were going to be passed over in favour of the F-18E model.
Whilst the performance of the airframe is one aspect of the procurement decision the real driver is financial and political.
The F-14’s greatest service weakness was its maintenance burden…and McAir focussed massively on that, and with good reason.. if you can offer a plane that is 80% as good and costs 80% as much but offers 50% more airframes in the air then the numbers will over come any performance deficiency…those simple numbers make a 1V 1 performance comparison somewhat aesoteric. McAir placed all its chips in the we can get more airframes in the air than the other guy…they knew it was what the Navy was looking for.. more than anything else.
In the end the irony is that neither McAir or Grumman survived in the end.
michelfOh dear MiG,
Two posts where you do not bring an single point that has not been covered before.
All of you facts and figures are irrelevant as they are ‘cherry picked’ to highlight aspects that you wish to use.
As soon as the big picture is revealed these are also revealed as irrelevant.
Statements about how the A-12 was not high tech in materials reveals your lack of knowledge and understanding…….
We know already the YF-12 was not good as a MiG killer….it wasn’t designed for it.. Lockheed knew it wasn’t good for it…they proposed a different airframe for that mission.
If they had believed it could be transformed from one to another they wouldhave done the work. They didn’t, so does that tell you anything?
Or are so so blinded by the fact that whilst the funding was approved the programme was still cancelled because in reality it was a plane with no viable mission…..
Every one, except you perhaps has a clear view of the sequence of events and the cuases of both the F-X programme and the end of the AMI programme. This overall view shows clearly how one mission was enitrely halted and the airframe proposed for that role not procured.
It also shows without a shadow of a doubt an dentirely separate programme for the F-X spec….with no cross overs…. Lockheed did not propose the YF-12 for that mission, big triple sonics, yes, lighter more agile post 67s yes, but never the YF-12. With that in mind, please cna you then tellus how one programme affects the other? It does not.
The USSR had an ercon and interceptor programme, it was required , it had a valid mission and was procured….no ifs of buts….no question.
Does that mean it was better, no, it means it was procured. Does it mean the YF-12 was fundmentally flawed. No it means it was a tightly focused design, with massive basic choices made to achieve its high speed and range and stability…which made it unsuited for other roles…
A bit like the C-5 really..basic choices made to allow it to achieve its aims. Yet if asked to adapt to other roles not a good solution…
Your arguements are not founded on understanding of the subject matter, they are combled together from isolated facts and figures, regurgitated when you feel it might help make a point but failing to see that they are thin disguises for a vacuous position.
This thread was a good idea in order to share our views on Boyd’s ideas.. but has degenerated into a diatribe of the MiG 25 V Blackbird again…such a shame…..:(
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