lukosWell, that is a better response than one posted briefly earlier (but presumably deleted) in which the writer declared that the two-month delay entitled him to dismiss the transcript.
It is worth bearing in mind the fact that the Preliminary Report almost certainly reflects the state of the investigation weeks before its publication. It had to be written, approved, circulated to a total of six countries, modified in the light of the comments received, and perhaps recirculated to all parties for their final approval. Just think of the number of departmental meetings that would have been involved.
Normally a preliminary report would have been published within a month of the loss of the aircraft, but in this case two months was perhaps not unreasonable given the minimal access to the crash site, and the delays in flight recorders being handed over.
If it’s independent why does it need to be approved by various countries?
lukosYou are just explaining my point – were is the argument? Early generation anti-aircraft missiles just weren’t up to the task of intercepting an aircraft flying at mach 3+ the technology wasn’t there, especially with the proximity fuses. As there were virtually no such mach 3 aircraft in service throughout the cold war period it was hardly seen as a big problem?
Actually you claimed it was successfully counted for 30 years.
More a case that it wasn’t really fully tested against anything that entered service in the USSR post-1970s. Even a pre-1970s SA-5 would stand a good chance in a tail aspect intercept and the 500lb warhead would allow successful kills even with fairly large miss distances.
There were fewer SR-71s and they flew fewer missions and less risky missions. In all probability this played the biggest part in reducing 2% to 0%. It’s not really an issue of missile performance not being there, its a55 just wasn’t put on the line as much. Everything is probability based. More risk increases the probability. Did it ever fly deep into Soviet territory? How many times? Was it ever fully tested to an extent where you could say the missile technology wasn’t there? The F-111F was never shot down in Desert Storm, does that mean the missile technology wasn’t there? It suffered only 6 losses in Vietnam and flew far more sorties in Vietnam than the SR-71 flew in its entire service life. Between Vietnam and the Gulf War alone it flew 9,000 sorties, the SR-71 flew only 3,551 mission sorties. So we’re looking at a low sortie aircraft on less risky missions.
Only 2% of all S-75 missiles fired against American aerial targets in the Vietnam war succeeded in downing their targets.
And yet ground fire still accounted for 3 times as many F-4 losses as enemy fighters, 477 in total.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?180731-Modern-fighter-combat-records
AIM-4s were a short range AAM and only made 5 kills out of 54 firings and that doesn’t include the ones that died on the rails because the seeker head cooked. This is the problem with saying that speed and altitude allowed the SR-71 to survive. Out of the 200 missiles fired against it, statistically only 4 would have hit even if it was a subsonic fighter at a 3rd of the altitude according to your statistic.
lukosfacts show you are wrong
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?126574-GAO-summary-of-Desert-Storm
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?117432-historical-kill-percentages-of-SAMs
The survivability isn’t anything to do with manoeuvrability, I was just pointing out that you threw that in as a misnomer. It’s because they have advanced detection and much more time to plan routes around the threat, jam the threat and even attack the threat pre-emptively. At low altitude against IR missiles, there is no detection, no advanced warning and no time to react. Jamming is also redundant. You can also get hit by AAA fire. So the reduced losses at altitude have absolutely nothing to with manoeuvrability and everything to with SA, SEAD and EW. Stealth will also play a part.
Overall, post WWII, ground fire has proved more lethal to enemies than fighter jets.
lukosMy professional involvement with the MH17 incident is now minimal, and I am not part of the ongoing investigation. You would have to address that question to the Dutch Safety Board.
I ask the question because it’s somewhat odd that it’s taken 2 months to surface.
lukosmost maneuvering things still has good survivability against missiles at alt
No they don’t because most ‘manoeuvring things’ don’t manoeuvre very well at altitude and the degradation in manoeuvrability is worse than for missiles because of the degradation in air-breathing engine performance. We’ve already covered this. A U-2 has huge wings by your reckoning and should therefore easily out-manoeuvre a missile but it didn’t. The SA-2 failed against the SR-71 because it was a head-on intercept and early fuses had trouble going off at the right time. Put a ’70s or ’80s late-model S-200 or S-300 up against it and it’ll comfortably take it down, head-on or tail aspect. The SR-71 survived because mission planning had it only skirting the Soviet border in its later life and in other arenas it was up against older first gen SAMs.
lukosThe Rus ATC clearly saw the plane falling apparts:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]231615[/ATTACH]
Source:
http://www.safetyboard.nl@Mercurius: Thx for the clarification. Much needed.
When did this conversation actually come to light? Just recently?
lukosSry but this view is invalided by the fact that Gary Power was shot down years before by the very same type of missile at the very same alt. The capacity to shot down an aircraft at that height was there. Mach3 + alt + degraded radar tracking countered it successfully for 30 years.
So on the basis that a missile worked once you’re putting the only reason for that down to speed. Some AIM-7Ds worked despite the fusing problems, that doesn’t change the fact that early proximity fuses were temperamental. Would intercepting an F-15 at Mach 2.5 and 60,000+ft really be that technically different? SR-71 flights only skirted the borders for a good reason. The speed might have enhanced survivability against very early fuses but later on, after missiles started intercepting missiles, I doubt it had any affect.
You’re also comparing it to missiles made in the late ’50s. Most things had good survivability against these missiles because they were crap. If you’re claiming that the SR-71 still had invulnerability 30 years after ISD that’s just plain false. It was a combination of mission planning and not being using in the hottest areas that prevented it being hit.
lukoswait wasnt they have higher thrust as well ?
I guess if you put same higher thrust thrust rocket fuel in them as a shorter range SAM (as opposed to a longer burning fuel) then they would be similar. However, mass tends to go up with cross-sectional area and length, whereas thrust only tends to go up with the former.
lukosJust watched the video (good video, very informative:)). There was no evidence mentioned to say that the Sr-71 was in any danger of being hit by the S-75 – it missed after all. No evidence either that there any fault with the missile’s proximity fuse. when there is a closing speed of over Mach 6 between the missile and SR-71 you can expect the proximity fuse to have a hard time estimating the exact millisecond to detonate.
Oh it wasn’t necessarily a fault with the fuse as such. ’60s (’50s even) missiles just had that problem of the proximity fuse not being very good at knowing when to go off. As I said, the AIM-7s also had this issue. The missile was said to pass right by the canopy. Now replace this with a slightly more modern missile and it hits head on. There’s really no problem hitting aircraft at this speed and altitude at all. The USAF knew this and that’s why they only skirted Soviet borders.
lukosi think that probably due to the fact the long range missile often have big wing = more lift but also more drag , also long range missiles tend to use engine or sustain motor rather than a fast burn motor thus acceleration is lower
Exactly and they’re heavier too, F=ma.
lukosi dont get it if the longer range missiles are not less maneuver than short , medium range missiles then what exactly the point of making medium range missiles ?
It’s about acceleration and Rmin. The longer the range, generally the slower the acceleration (so less manoeuvrability at close range) and often longer range missiles can’t be rail-launched, so the reaction time is relatively long, making them less suitable for closer range engagements. Weight difference and DI is also a factor wrt carriage range and quantity.
and they can retain their speed much longer after launch too
Yep.
lukosThe almost brand new MIG 25 the russian pilot flew into Japan was not as fast as a B-70. There was a placard on the panel that said—“never exceed mach 2.8”. Even at that speed it burned out its engines, and they had to be changed.
From what I have read, the SR-71 had missiles fired at it over 2000 times and was never hit. It would seem that the same would have gone for the B-70. The real shame that the B-70 was never built is the fact that tens of thousands of hours of flying at mach 3 was never flown. IMO MacNamara set high speed aviation back 15 or 20 years when he had the program cancelled.
I haven’t got one hour and 14 minutes to watch the video at this time. What is it you want to say?
I’ve given you an exact time in the video. Basically the SA-2 passed right by the cockpit and exploded behind the aircraft. Only a dodgy proximity fuse (a known issue on early missiles experienced by AIM-7s too) saved it. Most of the time mission planning kept it out of range as it only skirted borders but make no mistake, SAMs were capable of hitting it.
lukosThe SA-2 had hundreds of opportunities to shoot down SR-71s over Vietnam – they never did. There is no evidence to prove that the S-75, S-200 or MiG-25 had the ability to shoot down targets flying at Mach 3+ and 80,000 feet altitude, although an S-200 with a nuclear warhead might be in with a chance.
See my video above.
lukosno, at service sealing its barely controlled flight
I frown upon both sealing and whaling.
lukosMost SAMs run out of fuel long before reaching their highest altitude. Think of a bullet. How much fuel does it have on board?
What’s the maximum range of a bullet and what’s the maximum range of a SAM and you don’t need TVC to hit an aircraft at 70,000ft.
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