[color=red]Thread sanitized as far as I can tell, apologies if I missed something in all of that nonsense. All of you, keep it civil and stick to the facts. Childish name-calling and whatnot is unacceptable and persistent offenders will be dealt with accordingly.[/color]

5. The two wing-mounted hose/drogue stations will be great for the USN/USMC… much better than the current “adapter on the boom” single-point refueling they get from the KC-135.

While some KC-135s do fly with the drogue mounted on the end of the boom, a bunch of them have been fitted to carry the MPARS pods under the outer wings giving them the ability to carry two drogues and not have to change the boom.

Q. In the late 1950s-early 1960s, the USAF fitted some of its fighters with removable refueling probes… will they possibly develop something similar again… maybe like the old “probe on a drop tank” system? It could be done fairly easily, and would greatly speed up refueling of USAF strike packages as a whole.

Dunno if it’d speed anything up; the flying boom can transfer fuel at a much faster rate than the drogue system, being conceived originally for refuelling SAC bombers.

I understand the B-2 uses differential thrust too when in ‘combat mode’ too, how does that work exactly as i see no moving parts on the B-2s exhaust?

Differential thrust is like this: you are getting more thrust from (in the B-2s case) the left engines and less thrust from the right engines. You’re using different thrust settings to help maneuver the aircraft, basically. No moving parts are required with the exception of the throttle 😀

Would it be based at Lakenheath, rather than Fairford? I thought Fairford sometimes houses the billion dollar B-2, so it must be safe enough for the F-22.

Fairford is where they put the B-2 hangars for whatever reason. The F-22 will, in theory, replace the F-15C squadron at Lakenheath.

When it was revealed it was described as being based on the Kh-55.

My point is simply that “based on” does not automatically imply that they can take the new components and fit them to any Kh-55 missile body.

The Kh-65 wasn’t designed as a seperate weapon but as a modification of an existing weapon. I would expect it was designed to require as few modifications as possible.

All the sources that mention it that I have ever read describe it as a conventional weapon with land attack and anti ship capabilities. They also describe it as a modification of the kh-55.

Again, modification and modular capability are not the same thing. The fact of the matter is that we just don’t know, really.

You don’t know the Russians as well as you think you do.
They still have SA-1s for use as drone targets. Even without implimenting the Kh-65 modification they can certainly be fitted with an inert warhead and “pretend” to be cruise missiles… very convincing cruise missiles in fact for the air defence people to practise upon.

By tossed I meant removed from service. I do know what they do with formerly operational hardware, there’s even talk right now of converting some of the oldest 5V55 rounds from the S-300P series into targets.

Really, you should try typing on a laptop with a 1 year old scrambling all over the place once, it’s an interesting experience 😀

I would suspect that a modern digital avionics suite would be capable of multi role use and that it would be a case of wiring to hardpoints that may or may not limit weapon options. The fact that the Bear and the Blackjack and the Backfire are getting a range of TV, laser, satellite, and IR guided munitions added to their armament options suggests that unification of systems might allow unification of weapons options too. Remember without inflight refuelling although the Backfire has a good flight range the Bear and Blackjack have much greater range and with larger noses likely radar antennas of larger apature too.

They’re getting conventional munitions capability (BEAR H and BLACKJACK, that is) to broaden their capabilities beyond the nuclear role, in much the same manner as the USAF did to the B-1B and B-2A. It’s really a good idea, especially in the case of the BLACKJACK, as you can probably fit a very good sized payload in the two internal bays.

How do you mean “superceded”?

Superceded in development and media focus, not operational service (yet).

Is it ruled out, that the second B-2 did run into the take-off wake of the first f.e.?

That shouldn’t be an issue. It’d make MITO impossible, which is not a good thing for strategic assets!

That’s actually morbidly amusing…I wonder if this is the most expensive crash in aviation history? Has any other aircraft come remotely close to the B-2s price tag?

How do Russian flat-screen HDTVs compare to Japanese-made systems from Sony? I’m asking, I really have no idea.