It’s my understanding that the passive ALAMO variants are intended to smack fighters not AWACS anyway. And a long-range missile like the KS-172S-1 will approach the AWACS from above at the end of its ballistic midcourse flightpath, giving it a much better sniff of the emitting AWACS antenna.

That’s pretty standard treatment by the government towards an aerospace contractor, it isn’t anything aimed specifically at India. But I do agree, it doesn’t help matters.

Russia’s Novator KS-172S-1 long-range AAM is advertised as an anti-AWACS weapon. It has a 400km maximum range with strap-on booster (300 without) and is designed to strike ISR and support aircraft at extreme range, probably to keep the launching aircraft away from the CAPs in the area. With a passive seeker this could be a very significant threat if it’s ever actually fielded operationally.

After that no manned overflights allowed any longer.

That’s what I said.

About your Schwarzkopf claim, please give the page.

That I’ll have to dig up.

The first flight of the T-4 was August 22, 1972 and it showed a strikingly strong resemblence to the XB-70.

So? It wasn’t an intercontinental bomber anyway.

Don’t know about that. Even though the expletives-on-screen weren’t all that explicit, I actually think the more violent scenes worked very well. The magic trick (where the pencil disappears), or the bit where Batman interrogates Eric Roberts (a brilliant bit of casting IMHO, and the best role of that guy if it weren’t for the video from The Killers) aren’t explicitly violent, but definately intense. I don’t mind an overdose of gore, guts and blood, but I don’t think it really fits here.

What got my attention were the deliberate cutaways by the camera when something overly violent was supposed to happen. They didn’t have to make it that obvious!

The one, who dropped aircraft well above Mach 2 was right as the history did prove.

Given thatno supersonic intercontinental bomber threat from the USSR ever materialized (not for lack of trying), in hindsight yes, not proceeding with the F-12B was not a huge error in judgement. But only in hindsight.

The A-11 program from the 50s was seen as replacement of the U-2. Which one is still flying? :rolleyes:

Irrelevant. The A-12 was designed to overfly the USSR, but manned overflights of the USSR were obliterated shortly after FGP got his U-2 explosively deconstructed. The SR-71A had a long and productive career for the USAF regardless. The fact that the U-2 is still around has nothing to do with the capability or usefulness of the Blackbird family, it was a budgetary matter. Schwarzkoph was even clamoring for Blackbird imagery during DESERT STORM, suggesting that it was able to provide something that the U-2 could not…

To design multi role Mach3 aircraft is by itself extraordinary feat because you have to include many contradicting requirements.
That is where the YF-12 failed.

Wrong. The YF-12/F-12B was only held out of production because of Robert McNamara. It was a superior interceptor to the MiG-25P thanks to a far superior avionics and weapons fit. The recon variants of the family, the A-12 and SR-71, did just fine as well. So how the YF-12 failed as a multirole aircraft when it was designed for one specific role and one only is beyond me.

When you have AWACS, EC-135 and 100:1 numerical superiority it is not matter what a/c you have.

Iran had AWACS and EC-135s in the 1980s? Because it wasn’t the USA that I was referring to…