RE: Viggen on carriers? Feasible or not?

When the Brazilians bought Foch, they could have then also bought these beasts to go with it instead of buying A-4’s which don’t get much use.

I agree with Brazil. The A-4 carries a heavier weapons load and has greater range than the Viggen. I don’t know about reliability or operational expenses but, as an attack aircraft.
The A-4 was one of the best ‘light attack’ aircraft of its time.

Adrian

RE: Bekka valley Video live MiG kills

the Video of the Lybian MiG-23 shot down by a US navy F-14

That video was the kill made by the F-14 leader. It was also the third missile that crew fired.
It was a text book encounter of NATO naval fighters versus WP fighters. The WP fighters in a trail formation with the leader at 9,000ft while the wingman was two miles directly behind at 11,000ft. The F-14’s start at 9,000ft about a mile or so (abreast and apart -the leader on the left) then decend until they get down to 3,000ft. At that point the WP fighters could not lock-on to the F-14’s because looking down into sea clutter. At about six miles the F-14 wingman turned right, initiating a defensive split. The Migs could see the F-14 wingman but not the F-14 leader (directly ahead of them) who had fired two missiles at them. So the Migs followed the wingman who proceeded right for a few miles then pulled a hard left turn and fired a Sparrow Missile into the MiG wingman. By this time the F-14 leader had caught up to the MiGs. He fired a Sidewinder from about a mile and a half away and killed the MiG leader.
URL –http://www.flight-level.com/dogfight/dogfight.html

But the whole point is in the videos you can see actual Syrian MiG kills by Israeli F-15s and F-16s, you can not distinguish what fighters are being kill, it is true, but that it is actual footage from the Bekka Valley in 1982.

Not from this version but, the original video was clear enough that those who deal with this could tell. A lot of videos where you can’t see clearly when you extract a series of still photos from the video tape things are a lot clearer.

So when are we going to see the videos of the legendary F-15 kills?

First person to provide such a video to Al Jezzera, CNN, BBC, etc. will be rich! For they will have provided information about something no other news agency has done, show that indeed an F-15 has fallen in aerial combat.
My biggest fear is that the USAF will be forced to retain the F-15 until it is no longer anywhere near being a premiere air to air fighter and will be shot down in numbers.

Adrian

RE: F-22A Pics, News & Speculations Thread

“official” radar range more than 100 miles; they estimate in real world 125 + miles.

The F-22 is able to detect a one meter square target at a distance of 120 miles. The range was purposely reduced to 108 miles by reducing the transimiting power. This will cause any detection of RF energy to appear more as random background noise. At this range it will have a 30cm resolution!

Adrian

RE: F-35 go 5th generation?

F-35 has no capabiliity of supercruise, supermaneuver, why it will being 5th generation?

True but, what would you designate an aircraft that starts operation around 2010?
1) Certainly, after the Rafale, Typhoon, Raptor, Super Hornet become operational….. it would not be a fourth generation aircraft that’s for sure.
2) Another point is there are so many improvements over current aircraft to list it with A-10, F-16, F/A-18 and, Harrier to be listed as a fourth generation aircraft.
3) The general term of ‘generations’ of aircraft tends to designate a time period in which an aircraft started operations.

Considering these points (plus others that could be made) there is no other choice than to designate the F-35 / JSF a fifth generation aircraft.

Adrian

RE: 1985: dofights-Yankee vs Soviets

The 1985 time period would have been one of the worst times for the WP to fight NATO for several reasons. It goes beyond just air to air capability.
1) Sub vs sub combat greatly would favor NATO. All of the Soviet subs were noisey and the Soviets were just learning about it from the walker family. US subs had a passive detection range advantage of 10:1 over WP SSNs.
2) Every CVBG had at least one aegis cruiser.
3) Ground combat would have been harsh on the WP. The US Army had the M-1 Abrams, the UK had the Challenger and West Germany had the Leopard. These three tanks outclassed the T-72 and older Soviet armor. Can you imagine the horror the Soviet Army would feel when they discovered the HEAT rounds nor ungsten-carbide sabots would not penetrate Chohbram armor, as in PGW#1. That DU sabots could penetrate but, only at ranges around 1,700 meters or less. The Soviets also under estimated the effect on a battlefield of the MLRS in countering ‘tube artillery’.
4) NATO had an advantage of an 8:1 ratio in helicopters. The USAF had many A-10’s while the Su-25 existed in smaller numbers.
5) In air superiority, no Su-27’s in the V-VS (just a couple squadrons in the PVO), just a couple squadrons of MiG-29’s. The WP’s air superiority fighters would be the MiG-23 with assist from the MiG-21’s, against over 500 F-15’s, 1,000 F-16’s, 450+ F-14’s, Tornados and, F-4 Phantoms.
6) The WP only had three squadrons of MiG-23’s that had air-refueling ability!
7) In 1984, the first of the budget cuts (that lead to the collasp years later) in the SuAF starting with a reduction of flying hours for combat pilots.
8) If you thought the performance of the Sparrow Missile was poor, it was still far higher than the Alamo AA-10 Missile. The Sidewinder -9P & -9M outclasses any IR missile from the WP at that time.
7) NATO had over two dozen AWACS and the WP had none operational.

The early and mid-1980’s was a period in which the West clearly surpassed the WP in military capability. The WP had a huge number of older generation weapons. This is with 20/20 hindsight, at the time we did not know we had the tactical advantage. All we knew was there was nuclear parity.

Reading articles about the Cope India exercises between the USAF and the IAF provoked the question as to how often the IAF ever carried out such exercises with the Soviet or Russian air forces.

COPE INDIA was a show and tell for the USAF to get money for the F-22 program. Read -“3rd Wing Explains ‘Cope India’ Exercise” Aviation Week & Space Technology 10/04/2004, page 50 David A. Fulghum Elmendorf AFB, Alaska -URL;
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1237790/posts

the Soviet Union gained some ‘real combat experience’ was in Egypt in the early 1970s when some Soviet MiG-21 pilots mixed it with some Israeli planes. I believe some of the Soviets got shot down and it didn’t reflect to well on their reputation either.

See this URL;
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_263.shtml
Three-fourths of the way down the page entittled, “Ambush for Russians”. It occurred on July 30, 1970.

Adrian

RE: BEST WAY TO BUILD A FIGHTER?

Isn’t the French Catia (I believe that is correct?) really one of the best in the business? I believe its used heavily by both Aerospace and Automotive Manufactures…………:confused:

Catia is a commercial software suite developed by Dassault Systemes and marketed world-wide by IBM.

Wikipedia’s brief on it;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CATIA

Adrian

RE: F-35C weapons carriage !!

One of the real advantages of the F-22 and F-35 is their low cost maintenance. The F-22’s maintenance is about 15% less than the F-15C. The RAM of the F-35 will cost about one-tenth to maintain compared to the F-22! Many of the avionics components of the F-35 are designed to last the life of the aircraft without repair or replacement!
The much lower maintenance is one of the most attractive aspects of the F-35, although not discussed very often. -Janes 2004/2005

Adrian