RE: Best Cold War Dog Fighter

How can one have a discussion about the best fighter of the Cold War without discussing the F-15? No other aircraft has a kill ratio anywhere near the F-15’s.
People discuss the Su-27’s maneuverability which is impressive at slow speeds. The F-15 can match the Su-27’s maneuverability near transonic to past supersonic air speeds, that is not seen at airshows. The F-15 had avionics the far exceeded the big Sukhoi.
Part of designing a first rate fighter is to design a first rate training program, to this the Su-27 has failed. The Soviet AF started cutting pilot’s flying time back in 1984/85, in an effort to cut cost which led to the collapse of the USSR. So the talk that Russian pilots being so much better than any other nation that uses Soviet aircraft, is just that -talk! The F-15 pilot training program for the entire life of the F-15 has been first rate. As for the fight in the phone booth, the Israeli F-15’s are equipped with HMDS and HOBS combination.
The F-15’s have faced the MiG-29 and their great features for WVR combat and the F-15 has consistently prevailed!

Adrian

RE: The MiG-25 Unsurpassed interceptor

Regardless of the reliabilities of the MiG-25, now other aircraft to could fly from Langley, Virginia, USA in-flight refuel (both ways) over the Mediterranean Sea, make a recon run over the Suez Canal, over Israel and the Golan Heights and back to Langley in a little under twelve hours. This was done daily to provide President Nixon the intelligence he needed during the last week of the War of Yum Kippur.

As for the Phoenix Missile being ineffective against the MiG-25 -baloney! The Iranian AF shot down many Iraqi MiG-25’s and a Tu-22B Blinder supersonic from a distance of seventy miles.

The air battle over Iraq was controlled by airforce E3 Sentry, the E2C operated over the coalition fleet, they were in no position to vector any F14 onto Iraqi fighters.

Initially the USAF controlled all aircraft but, after the screw up with the E-3 trying to get some F-15’s to deal with the MiG-25PD which went on to shoot down an F/A-18C. The E-2C had to just sit back and watch. After that first night, the E-2C had final responsibility over all Navy aircraft!
The two MiG-21s shot down later that first day by F/A-18Cs, those two MiGs were being chased by a couple of F-14s, so they were chased into the fight! The remainder of that conflict the F-14 protected the multi-national fleet in the Gulf.

The US Navy pilots were not the only top cover or offensive counter air pilots who complained about the USAF trying to give the F-15Cs first shot at the Iraqi fighters.

there were over 20 Israeli overflights.
They later downed a few Syrian MiG-25s but only at lower altitudes.

The lack of look down shoot down capability is what is displayed here. As a reconn aircraft the MiG-25 was great but, as a fighter it was only so-so. I find it interesting, of the thirteen F-14s kill claims by the Iraq AF during the Iran/Iraq War, none of the kills were made by MiG-25s.

Adrian

RE: Reload this Page Powerful Storms/Typhoons & Military ships, Submarines

One occasionaly reads about drowning of a ferry or a “Passenger-Ship” due to a storm or typhoon, however such news tend to be very rare for military ships.

Is there a special reason for that. The military ships tend to be big and heavy, but is this the sole reason for their being relatively safe, or a safety-factor against storms is incorporated in their designs.

There have been warships lost in hurricanes. Off Okinawa on December 18th 1944, the USN’s 3rd fleet planes off the carriers and shakes the hangars. Eight carriers and one cruiser are disabled and 3 destroyers sink. Eight hundred people are injured or dead while one hundred and eighty-six airplanes are lost. These range from carrier aircraft to scout aircraft of cruisers and, battleships.
URL –http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq102-1.htm

One more question, in the event of a storm, will a submarine be more a safe than a surface vessel.

Heavens yes. At a depth of a couple hundred feet surface water movement energy is not enough to move the WW2 diesel subs. Unfortunately, for those old diesel subs would have to cut its energy expenditure so the hurricane would completely pass over when they had to surface.

Mostly you hear of ferrys (ferries?) having problems, due mostly to seakeeping being pushed to the end of the design line by capacity,speed, and economy. -Matt

True, economics is the reason ferries tend to have a lot more problems than warships. In the civilian sector money controls all things.

I Googled “warships sink due to weather” and got bunches of hits.

Adrian

RE: The next big move in naval aviation?

Have big carriers had their day? Is there any move coming over the horizon which spells revolution for the projection of airpower?

I don’t feel the large deck carriers have passed their prime, yet. All it will take is another ‘tin horn dictator’ to stur the world up like the invasion of Kuwait and suddenly, the appreciation of the large deck carrier will again appear. So far all the brush fire conflicts have not challenged sea power, once one does one real liability of the smaller carrier will show… the lack of ability to sustain damage and continue flight operations.

Since 1900 the world has gone around twenty years maximum without a significant conflict. Whereas human nature has not changed, I don’t see small ‘brush-fire’ type conflicts as being the normal.

Currently, I don’t see anything on the R&D horizon that could provide the weapons that would enable some other type ship to replace the function of the large deck carrier. Some UCAV’s could perform some light bombing missions but, I don’t know of anything that could replace the ordnance a dozen carrier fighters, such as the F/A-18, MiG-29K, or Rafale could deliver…. repeatedly.
Even if some other weapon system could deliver the required ordnance, taking the air superiority role is another mission that will remain for the carrier to support surface fleet forces.

RE: Unlikeliest shootdowns?

At 35,000ft the missile impacted at about 6:30pm GMT, but the location was about 47.2 N 141.5 E on 1st September.

The first of September is still summer. Sakhalin is in the next time zone east of Japan and Korea, so the time was around 04:30AM and sunrise at thirty-five thousand feet is earlier than at sea level. The interceptor pilot could see well enough that as the Su-15 accerated to launch a missile at KAL-007, the KAL pilot had just requested and recieve permission from ATC to changed altitude from 34,000 feet to 37,000 feet, the Su-15 passed under the KAL-007, circled around, located “007” at its new altitude without help of GCI. So while the Su-15 was still in the front hemisphere and below of “007” he had to have some so visual cues that helped him get back in “007’s” six! The change in altitude was seen by the interceptor pilots as a form of evasion.

Even if the PVO thought the target was the KC-135, verifying the SALT 2 Treaty, did those PVO officers really think that was a good idea? What good is it to have a treaty of such importance, that serious efforts be made to verify the adhearance to the treaty. Let the diplomats and politician handle this problem, as the US does when the USSR violated US airspace on the same type of missions. In looking up some information on the topic, I discovered that 150 people of the PVO were fired after the incident. They should have been! Two interceptors sent up and GCI could not direct them to intercept the airliner. KAL passed near a SAM site but, they could not get ready to fire on the target before it was out of range. That is when the second set of interceptors to finish off the target.

F-15 pilots should be able to distinguish between Blackhawks

Incorrect, the F-15C’s had been cleared by AWACS for the BVR shot they made. A few months earlier, two F-14’s had been cleared to fire on an aircraft that was in the No Fly Zone, when the lead pilot decided to get a visual ID. The F-14’s used their TCS and identified the aircraft as being a chartered private jet carrying some UN officials that was ninety minutes off its flight plan.

Adrian

RE: Unlikeliest shootdowns?

A few other things concerning airliners or transport type aircraft shot down, I have been able to find websites for 102 airliners shot down, most by interceptors. The first was on June 14, 1940. This does not count the airliners that have crashed due to hijackings, intelligence transport aircraft shot down by enemy forces, nor does it count the approximately twenty-two airliner/transport aircraft shot down by MANPADS!!
The PVO has shot down two KAL airliners (Flt #007 and #902) because of navigational errors by the aircrew.

Adrian

RE: Unlikeliest shootdowns?

Korean Flight 007 747 getting mistaken for an RC-135 and then getting wacked by a Soviet Flagon.
Personally,I never bought that story seeing as the RCS of a 747 vs. an 707(RC-135) must be at least double and since the Soviets in that area knew whazt an RC-135 looked like on radar since they were so common,its kinda hard they could have mistaken a larger plane for one.

Shape-wise there isn’t too much difference between an RC-135 and a 747 at least, so a visual mis-ID (during darkness!) is very well possible IMO.

The RCS of one transport versus another does not really appear to a radar operator. I never bought it either. The factors just don’t add up…. the northern latitudes the planes were at, that time in the early morning, and at the altitude the KAL-747 was flying means there was first light!
The B-747 is more than 200,000 pounds heavier than the RC-135 (or base B-707), it has two decks in the forward part of the fuselage -the hump…. the B-747 has quite a different sillouette. Interceptor pilot ‘should’ know what different aircraft look like.

There was also a story about another Korean Air Lines plane (i think a 707 this time) being forced down onto the ice,interestingly,i did some more reasearch on this on and it turns out 2 people were killed from the 2 AA-8 Aphids fired at the jet.

Yes, that was KAL-902 using the polar route it was flying from Paris, France to Anchorage, Alaska, USA, to Seoul, Korea. Due to a navigational error KAL-902 headed for the Kola Penninsula and was intercepted by Su-15’s. The KAL pilot did not want to follow the directions of the interceptor pilots because Korea has no diplomatic recognition with the USSR!

Korean Air Flight 902 URL;
http://www.search.com/reference/Korean_Air_Flight_902
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19780420-1

Adrian

RE: F-22 internal fuel

When I first heard about Col Everest Riccioni, the F-15A was just entering service. I just considered him blasting the F-15A and all that was wrong with it, as a difference of opinion. The F-15 went on to prove him and companions completely wrong. When I heard him make the statement the an F-5 with HMDS is competitive with the F-22A in aerial combat…. I lost respect for his opinion completely.

Adrian