BEWARE of SNARK INFESTED WATERS
Posted on 08/27/2009 7:17:59 AM PDT by markomalley
The Air Force spent years fighting to keep building the $350 million F-22 fighter, an airplane crammed with so much gee-whiz technology there's a law barring it from being sold to any other nation. But since no other nation is building such a plane to challenge it, the F-22 has become a costly investment with an uncertain payoff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates just killed it. That sent an unmistakable message to the two new top Air Force officials Gates recently appointed, and now the service is seeking 100 slower, lower-flying and far cheaper airplanes — most likely prop-driven — that it can use to kill insurgents today and use to train local pilots — such as Afghans or Iraqis — tomorrow.
The list of requirements for what the Air Force is calling its Light Attack Armed Reconnaissance plane is fairly basic, and harkens back to the Vietnam-era A-1 Skyraider. It must be capable of flying 900-mile missions at up to 200 miles per hour (compared with up to 1500 mph for the F-22), including at night and poor weather. It will carry guns and rockets, along with a pair of 500-pound bombs, according to an Air Force solicitation issued last month. It will have to fly to and from dirt airfields where the only ground support is fuel. The its two pilots will have warning systems for enemy radars and missiles, an armored cockpit and self-sealing fuel tanks — and ejection seats if those protections fail. It should convert from an attack plane to a trainer by simply removing those weapons.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
The air defense environment is only going to get nastier in the future ... whatever we send into it, manned or not, must be designed with that in mind.
Cheers!
I was always told by AGE people that the -60 ground power unit has one of the exact same engines that are in the A-37. Was never able to verify that.
There’s a good chance that he didn’t see you either.
People over-estimate the ability to pick out a man-sized target from an aircraft moving that fast, even at that altitude.
Generally, if he can see you, you can see him.
And the A-10 is a bigger target.
Probably why the A-10 doesn’t fly in ADA-rich environments.
“they are IR MANPAD magnets and have lousy climb to altitude performance.”
Yes, but, to my knowledge, we’ve only lost 5 in battle to date (four in Desert Storm and one in Iraqi Freedom). That’s pretty amazing when you consider that they built more than 750 of them.
Actually the 355th FW at Davis Monthan is the largest contingent of active A-10's. So at least the airplanes are in the right climate to last a long time...
It takes an enormous amount of time to put together an operating, efficient factory. Even more if you are talking about a military airplane that has to conform to Federal Acquisition Rules and a mountain of other regulations.
Then you have to staff it with people who know the design intimately, or else the build will be one long cascade of errors.
Even if the drawings and scanned CAD models of the equipment exists, that's just square one. Then you have to implement and execute. It would be a long time to bring the Warthog back on line.
It could be done. But not easily. That's what's criminal about the loss of manufacturing capability in the U.S.
I stood outside the crumbling brick archways at Republic Field in Farmingdale in 1992 and I felt like Heston looking at the Statue of Liberty on the beach. It nauseated me. Still does.
What was built by Americans is being torn down by the hate filled anti-Americans. It goes on as long as we let it.
So I guess we are not allowed to field weapons that are superior to what our enemies have. Level playing field and all, I guess. How breathtakingly stupid.
Like conventional ground warfare, so it is with air combat - nobody is going to stand against the US in the open. That's called securing the high ground.
>And i must stress cheap. You have to be willing to risk them to enemy fire and you wont risk a billion dollar robot. A five or ten million dollar robot with a couple of JDAMs and a 20mm cannon you will risk and the SAM he uses to shoot it down costs as much as the drone itself.
You’re probably off by several orders of magnitude.
A simple drone for army use could probably be produced (not developed) for $20k/unit.
The big problem that we have is shifting requirements and its related cousin “feature creep”. We had the capability to produce UAVs in the 70’s, cost effectively, it was the political end of things (resulting in feature creep and shifting requirements) that kept things expensive.
How’s you get this highly classified image of the USAF soon to be air superiority fighter?
Those Chariots are the ones with 2 wheels, a driver and an archer/spearman pulled by one or 2 horses.
PAK FA, J-XX do not count because China and Rusia are our very best friends now. Right?
Sorry, the all weather mod is not available at this time - check back after the deficit goes back down into the billions, and after the hyperinflation ends...
Not an argument - question is: When is the next time an enemy will shoot a SAM at us.
You can't prepare for the next war by preparing for WWI.
I vote for wood...
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