Posted on 05/16/2006 2:41:32 PM PDT by LSUfan
Actually when landing and lauching aircraft from a carrier, almost 100 additional feet is "a lot".
The Phoenix System has been gone a long time. I'm not sure how effective it would have been against some of today's fighter-attack aircraft as it was designed to take-on (Backfire) bombers & the cruise missiles they carried. Perhaps Pukin can amplify, agree/disagree.
I don't know whether the British CVF's will have catapaults or not since the design is in flux. If they do, they won't be steam-driven as you have noted. They'll probably be electro-magnetic instead.
Once again, Harriers are not operating from the JFK.
Redesignated the Su-33. See discussion, photos here:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/su-30.htm
Notice that the discussion of the Su-30 MKI operated by India shows that a navalized, carrier version of the Su-30 specifically for India has been discussed.
Note that the normal operating radius of this family of aircraft is of the order of 1800 miles.
The wait for a better airplane with similar range and weapons reach, a true successor to the F-14D, had better not be too long. The AA-9 "Amos"/R-33/R-33E/R-37 "AWACS-killer" AAM carried by the Su-27 family and the MiG-31 has a range of 100 miles, almost as long as the AIM-54 Phoenix.
We are again getting into a situation like that the carrier admirals faced in 1942, in which they were outranged and outgunned by the Japanese carrier groups, which had the A6M Zero against our F4F's and F3A Brewster Buffaloes. At least we aren't outnumbered, too.
The F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" is a worthy successor to the Brewster Buffalo, which helped win the Battle of Midway by tying up the Zero squadrons for oh, ten minutes or so with a brisk target practice and easy kills on their way to the Midway raid.
Not in this case. The launch and recovery areas are nearly identical between both classes of boats.
Normal range, not radius, is 1.8K. Radius would be 1/2 that.
Perhaps Hunter was mistaken by using host in the past tense instead of could host. I have not researched the history of the JFK to see if VTOL aircraft ever landed or took off from the ship.
A Navy pilot enlightened me on what it is like to make a night landing on a carrier.
Put a postage stamp in the middle of a room, turn off the lights except for a night light in another room, run as fast as you can with your tongue sticking out, jump towards the stamp and try to lick it.
The comparable figure of radius for the Super Hornet is about 800 miles, compared to 630 miles radius for the F/A-18A-D -- and the gold standard of comparison is the F-14D's CAP radius of 1240 miles (footnote: when armed with AIM-7's vice -54's). The F-14A's is about 1000 miles.
Bottom line, Chinese PLAAF Su-30MKK's now enjoy an advantage over fleet CAP's in both radius and reach.
Bottom line, we're asking Naval and Marine aviators to stand up to people driving better airplanes armed with rangier missiles. The AIM-120 AMRAAM has a range of about 50 miles; its MRAAM competitors carried by the Su-27 "Flanker" family, the R-27/AA-10 "Alamo" and the R-77/AA-12 "Adder" (sometimes called the "AMRAAMski"), have ranges from 42 out to 78 miles depending on the variant, and they're backed up by the aforementioned LRAAM.
Are you sure? Considering the area of the flight deck of a US carrier is well over twice of the Russian. Or is that only because of our multiple launch points?
I wonder just how accurate the range figures are for US-made A2A missiles. The data never seems to update as new revisions come online. Frankly I think it's like the top speed figures on many US aircraft -- they just give you a nominal figure.
No, the issue was your earlier claim:
"We are flying Harriers off the JFK now. Probably part of a Marine Aircraft Wing."
Which is incorrect. Whether or not Harriers could be successfully operated from a CV or CVN was answered in '76-'77 when VMA-231 deployed aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of CVW-19 for a Med cruise.
I was refering to Hunter's statement that the JFK hosted VTOL aircraft. If that is incorrect, so be it. The point is that NATO can use the JFK platform with its existing VTOL aircraft. That is the issue.
Yes. The embarked airwings on those boats are about half the size, ~ forty aircraft, as opposed to the 80 on a Nimitz class boat.
Not flaming or anything just curious you do know where the AMERICA is parked now don't you? It sure ain't at Philly. The Kitty Hawk is the oldest KH Class between KH, CONSTELLATION, and AMERICA the JFK the newest and her own class. ENTERPRISE is between the Connie and AMERICA in age. Someone screwed up on the early 90's rotations and AMERICA missed her SLEP.
None of the rumors about her were true. Not the converted nuke, not the thin hull, none of it. She was built as solid as the Kitty Hawk itself. Heck even the ENTERPRISE took a much rougher beating {Major Fire} than the AMERICA or KENNEDY. The JFK is another matter and could have possibly been a nuke on paper and changed as she was the only Kennedy class carrier.
I can give you more info on the AMERICA in private if you want. I can say this much the Navy was bent on sinking her as quickly as possible and no reasonable or logical answers were ever given as to why either. Plenty of persons tried to obtain them too.
Only reason Argentina would need exploding bombs would be
for Malvinas redux, and I don't believe they are ready
to "Falk" with those islands again..
Yeah, a couple hundred miles off the east coast, a few thousand feet down.
The Kitty Hawk is the oldest KH Class between KH, CONSTELLATION, and AMERICA the JFK the newest and her own class.
True, but the Kitty Hawk went through a full three year SLEP overhaul while the Kennedy did not. She's been used and abused for the last 10 years or more. Maintenance funding has been hard to come by because she's always supposed to have been decommissioned in a year or so. If as an earlier post reported, the Kennedy is too decrepit to support fixed wing aircraft then there is no reason to keep her around, and nobody else in their right mind who would want her.
I can give you more info on the AMERICA in private if you want.
That's OK. I'm ex Navy myself.
It's a shame those those two ships could have seen service into early 2010's if kept up right. If she's that bad she needs to go then. Nobody needs decapitated by a steam leak or worse. I'm real surprised Teddy hasn't called for museum hold though. I'm gonna look around and see if they sank the ORISKANY this morning.
ORISKANY's sank .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.