Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

kbd512 · 2018-05-07 12:32:20

Rob,

This is a more appropriate place for a continuation of the divergent topic brought up in the Mars GPS topic.

Collaborative Development Hurdles

There's a recurring theme when it comes to the collaborative design, development, and implementation of advanced aerospace hardware between the US and its allies. This problem occurs for items as simple as infantry rifles, tanks, artillery, and is particularly manifest in items as complicated as stealth tactical fighters and bombers. When we try to get our allies onboard to purchase the very best weapons or other aerospace technology that science can devise and money can buy, our allies invariably balk at the asking price or fight over the implementation details to the point where they refuse to move forward with the project in the interest of actually obtaining a weapon system that could reasonably be expected to do whatever prompted the project to begin with.

Quantity vs Quality

The US military has long accepted that we will always fight at a numerical disadvantage, so we strive to field the best technology and training we can afford. We may not always get the best, but we certainly do try. The US win wars (in the tangible military sense, not the intangible political nonsense that political partisans use to club each other over the head with) by inflicting casualties, not taking them in the name of saving a few bucks.

Distribution of Super Weapons to America's Allies

As it pertains to advanced military aircraft, I've no clue why it is that the US refuses to sell F-22's to our allies. I trust and believe other Americans also trust the UK, Canada, and Australia with any weapon system we have in the inventory. Since we've already given your countries nuclear weapons, I can't think of any logical reasons why you couldn't be trusted with the best delivery platforms we can provide. It makes no sense and therefore must be political in nature.

I can tell you with certainty that if you think the purchase price of the F-35 is too high, you'll be even more disappointed with the purchase price of the F-22. More importantly, the maintenance costs of the F-22 exceed those of any other tactical fighter in existence. I promise you that the signature reduction technologies incorporated into the F-35 are the most technologically advanced you'll find in any operational stealth aircraft. That should not be taken to mean it has the lowest signature of any stealth aircraft. If you're willing to pay any price for the lowest signature, then lower signatures can be had.

The F-22 is now legacy technology and USAF is not keeping their F-22's modernized on account of the obscene maintenance costs and limited utility of the platform. The same issue of utility is applicable to our obsolescent F-15C interceptors, which will never again see front line service. There's a point at which limited military utility in an actual shooting war kills quaint but unrealistic ideas. Pure air-to-air combat is exceptionally rare these days. It may happen over a period of days at the outset of a shooting war between peer or near-peer level adversaries and then never happen again for the remainder of the war as one side rapidly overpowers the air defenses of the other. The last war with more than a handful of air-to-air engagements was Viet Nam. These days, one aircraft fires upon another through chance engagement. The pilot who was shot down likely never knew their opponent existed until after being shot down.

Combat Reality for Tactical Fighters in Close Air Support Roles

Any aircraft that takes a bullet from an infantry rifle, much less anything more powerful, through the face of the fan will utterly destroy the engine, full stop. That picture they like to show of the A-10 that survived a missile hit to the engine impacted behind the fan, destroyed part of the engine cowling (which is not armored at all, as Oldfart1939 erroneously suggested; the nacelle is a simple aluminum honeycomb for strength and low weight, visible in the photos of the damaged A-10), and failed to penetrate the body of the engine housing in an area that matters. No turbine blades in existence can withstand Mach 2+ impacts from a chunk of metal. Short of lethal direct hits, most anti-aircraft missiles warheads shower the target aircraft with shrapnel and the velocity of the target aircraft can also add to the total kinetic energy imparted to the target. The newer microwave radar-directed AAA systems like the ones Oerlikon sells do the exact same thing.

All aircraft that have the capability to fly high and fast should do so to maximize survivability. The issue in question is the engagement window. There are modern AAA systems that can lob shells into the stratosphere, but the engagement windows are so narrow, in terms of time, that achieving a hit comes down to how much metal you can put in front of the target and how fast the entire kill chain can be brought to bear against the target. Modern anti-aircraft missiles have solid rocket motors that fire for a matter of seconds before they expend their fuel. Afterwards, they coast to the target at high speed. At the target, the missile's unpowered flight and incredible speed can become disadvantages if the target is highly maneuverable since that low-lift supersonic glider bleeds energy like mad with every maneuver it makes. This is also why anti-aircraft missiles don't follow targets through multiple defensive maneuvers. The weapon either passes within lethal range of the target and the warhead detonates or it's hundreds of meters to kilometers away from the targeted aircraft in seconds.

Talking Points on Air Warfare

If the target is fast and maneuverable enough, it can simply outrun the weapon using a combination of maneuver and acceleration to fly away from the weapon in a direction that bleeds too much energy for the weapon to continue pursuit. This was the general idea behind super cruise and stealth. By the time the aircraft is detected, tracked, locked, and missile(s) or cannon shells fired to intercept, the aircraft has already delivered its weapons and the engagement window is closed. Any aircraft that flies close enough to a sensor will eventually be detected and intercepted, stealth or no stealth. However, you can still use speed and stealth to make the engagement (time) window so brief as to be unusable, even for completely automated air defense systems. If the tactics those technologies enable didn't actually work in practice, then why would the Russians and Chinese spend so much time and money trying to replicate the technology? The answer to that question should be fairly obvious.

Internet Experts

Forward:

The hay that internet experts make over the specifications of this aircraft's turn rate or radar cross-section or that missile's speed / range / whatever utterly fail to take into account how real air combat works. They've either never been in a military unit involved in air warfare or they're grossly ignorant of how it actually works. I'd wager that most have never designed or flown an airplane. Either way, I’ve read more false ideas about how this works than something approximating how I’ve actually seen it work in a shooting war.

Blatant Stupidity:

My favorite false "internet expert" analogy is this current F-16 vs F-35 nonsense promoted by Pierre Sprey and others. Mr. Sprey has never designed, built, or flown any combat aircraft, although he did provide ideas that were input into the F-16 and A-10 designs. He was a numbers wonk at the Pentagon in the 1960's. The funny thing is, when the F-16 was conceptualized, they purposefully did not include all the crap that their fighter is loaded up with today because they were not trying to create a multi-role tactical fighter. F-16 was to be a low cost short range VFR-only interceptor with no radar. The "fighter mafia" clique to which Mr. Sprey belonged in those days wanted a cannon and a pair of AIM-9's and that was it. The human eyeball was to be the search and track tool. That concept lasted about five minutes before the Air Force decided there was a bunch of other stuff they just had to have.

Reality:

No F-16 in the world goes into combat without 2 bombs or 2 air-to-ground missiles, 2 air-to-air missiles, and 2 to 3 external fuel tanks. The JDAM's or AGM-65's are needed to attack targets to support ground maneuver warfare, the AIM-9 or AIM-120 missiles are required for self defense, and the drop tanks are required to give the aircraft sufficient range to be useful. When the F-16 is so-equipped, its acceleration, maneuverability, and overall combat capabilities are simply comparable to that of a combat loaded F-35A, except it suffers a substantial drag penalty and has no low observability features incorporated so it will be shot down by IADS, as Turkish F-16's have been when flying against Russian S-300 and S-400 systems. For the F-16 to accelerate and turn better than the F-35, all external stores except for four air-to-air missiles have to be removed. At that point, it's range is laughable, especially if it uses afterburner at all, and it's limited to strafing attacks against ground targets.

Combat Radius:

The conformal fuel tanks, or CFT's, dramatically reduce the drag associated with external fuel tanks. The current CFT's have roughly 12% of the drag of the ventral external fuel tank alone and increase internal fuel capacity from 7K lbs to 10K lbs. The performance achievable with the tanks installed is virtually identical to a clean airframe, assuming it wasn't also loaded up with more external stores, as it always will be in combat. Drag is your mortal enemy when fulfilling any sort of endurance or hard maneuvering requirements since drag bleeds speed like mad. F-35A carries 18K lbs of internal fuel and still out-ranges fighters like the F-16, F/A-18, Typhoon, or Rafale when they're only equipped with CFT's. The Israelis plan to add CFT's to their F-35's. Only twin engined fighters like the F-15, F-22, and Su-35 have greater combat radius through carriage of substantially more internal fuel and the difference is marginal, meaning less than 100 nautical miles. Add CFT's to the F-35 and you're outranging virtually every tactical fighter in existence. Yes, it really is that good.

Maneuverability:

In certain clean or nearly clean configurations which are never used in combat anywhere in the world, the F-15, F-16, or European fighters could out-turn and/or out-accelerate the F-35. Drag is an absolute mother and all fighters loaded with lots of external stores incur an incredible drag penalty that greatly affects range, speed, and the ability to recover airspeed after a maneuver is performed. The combat loaded F-35A's kinematics are very similar to a clean F-16. The F-35B is slightly worse and the F-35C is the worst of the three variants in those terms, but still better than any F/A-18 variant in a combat configuration. The F-35C carries the most fuel of the three variants to increase its range and those big wings and tail feathers increase drag. After week 1 of the war is over, you can turn it into a F/A-18 to deliver serious tonnage like any other tactical fighter and it still retains all other advantages over existing jets.

Added Capabilities:

The F-35 also can use maneuvers to change direction that are tantamount to suicide in other aircraft like the F-16 and F/A-18. Stalling the F-35 and entering into a flat spin is simply a way to change direction in a dogfight because the jet can immediately recover. You'd better be really high in other aircraft to have any hope of recovery or be ready to eject. In all cases, complete control is immediately available post-stall and while in a spin. Any aircraft that decides to go vertical with the F-35 had better have as much or more power behind it or it'll lose every time.

The "Dogfight Test":

The much maligned "dogfight test" was a F-35A with software restrictions placed upon its maneuverability and the F-16 was simply used as an aiming target for the F-35 to follow through a series of maneuvers. It wasn't a "test" of anything but respecting the limits of the software. The "limits" were later removed and all F-16 drivers who flew the F-35 all said it performed better than the F-16 with an equivalent load out.

Carrying Capacity:

The F-35A can carry a maximum of 18K lbs of stores if you want to load it up, just like the A-10 (if you include the gun's ammo), F/A-18E/F, and Su35. Eurofighter Typhoon can carry 19.5K lbs or stores and Rafale can carry 20.9K lbs of stores. That equates to one or two more JDAM's in the real world. Once you load up any of those fighters like an A-10, they perform like A-10's, kinematically speaking. That means they don't accelerate well, turn, or otherwise perform nearly as well as they did clean.

Final Reality Check:

This means a combat loaded F-35 will out-accelerate (unless the F-16 only has a pair of air-to-air weapons and nothing else), out-turn (in any configuration but the one previously mentioned), and out-AoA limit (nose pointing ability is not even close here, at more than quadruple the F-16's or Typhoon's limit and still greater than the Rafale's limit) a combat loaded enemy fighter. This is not particularly surprising, as twin tail fighters typically have substantially greater control authority at high AoA.

Actual Air Warfare

1. Anything approximating an integrated air defense system (IADS) had missiles fired at it to destroy the radars and communications equipment. Everything from cruise missiles to anti-radiation missiles to infrared missiles was employed to complete this task. This is always the first priority because these systems are so lethal and so cheap in comparison to adequately trained and equipped air forces capable of engaging in air-to-air combat. This would be where our squadron's aircraft came into play.

There is no choice on the part of the defenders to reveal their locations. If they don't turn their equipment on, reconnaissance assets will still identify their locations and they'll be bombed. If they decide to use their equipment, the best they can hope for is to shoot down incoming missiles before those missiles destroy their equipment. Either way, it's a losing proposition because there are never enough of these systems to counter the number of missiles and bombs available to employ against them. The IR guided weapons are the only problematic systems to contend with.

Failure rates with radar guided anti-aircraft missiles are still pretty high, which is why standard practice for everyone is to fire two or more such missiles at incoming threats. From a cost perspective, it's easy to understand why there are never enough missiles available for defense when weapons that can destroy IADS are a fraction of the price of the anti-aircraft missiles. Greater emphasis on use of less costly and more difficult to counter IR guided anti-aircraft weapons could change this dynamic, though.

2. Anything with wings on it will be shot down or bombed, preferably bombed. After the destruction of IADS, that's the next job any competent commander will prioritize. As such, the majority of encounters with enemy air forces are deliberate acts intended to annihilate those forces. We started with tactical fighters, but destroyed absolutely everything capable of flying. By that, I mean we would bomb or shoot down a Cessna if we knew it existed and could locate it. Everything approximating a runway was also heavily bombed at this point since no IADS were left, thus no credible threat to high level precision and carpet bombing using ordnance trucks like the B-1's and B-52's.

3. Although lethal if employed properly, AAA and MANPADS are generally ineffective against tactical fighter aircraft because most of these systems lack the range and speed required to hit tactical fighters. That's another way of saying the engagement window is nonexistent if the target aircraft is fast enough. Introduction of weapons like AIM-9X to cavalry units would greatly increase the threat to tactical fighters and pose an unacceptable risk to slower purpose built attack aircraft. These were the only persistent threats encountered. Anything more lethal was destroyed within the first few weeks.

Future Air Warfare

1. Low cost persistent threats to IADS from cruise missiles like Tacit Rainbow would drive home the last nail in the coffin of traditional IADS of the S-300/S-400/S-500 varieties. HARM (AGM-88) and PARM (AGM-136) were meant to be complementary technologies, but PARM was beyond existing technology at the time it was developed and HARM is so advanced now that PARM doesn't provide much additional capability.

Future IADS should focus on development of multi-spectral electro-optical systems that don't provide emissions for missiles to home in on, nor permit more powerful airborne systems to locally jam, thus disrupting the kill chain.

As rail guns and lasers mature, these systems will become far more effective than traditional missile based defense systems in terms of cost and results. The duration of the engagement window becomes less important when countering incoming threats using hypervelocity projectiles and lasers that cost far less to use and require less time to employ than the threat weapon systems they're intended to defeat.

2. It's hard to estimate how much of an impact drones will have in future wars, but it will be substantial to say the least. If a human life does not need to be hazarded to obtain battlefield intelligence, then a proliferation of otherwise suicidal attacks becomes possible and there will never again be a front line to work with. The air forces of the future won't need to recruit, train, and equip substantial numbers expensive pilots to be highly effective in combat. Certain types of attacks that are only possible with computers and drones will become common and we're already seeing that in Syria where Russian air defense systems have been damaged and persistently hazarded by dirt cheap and crude drone aircraft using swarming tactics.

3. Swarms of low cost drones could severely damage or destroy traditional fighter and attack aircraft by being ingested into their engines. It's just a matter of positioning the swarm into the flight path of the target aircraft. The entire swarm might cost as much as a single MANPADS, but most of the drones would come back after use so the added benefit of reusability means a single expensive missile doesn't need to be carried or procured and maintained. No expensive and dangerous rocket motors or explosives need to be maintained, either, and a simple solar panel can recharge the batteries of the drones. If an iPad can coordinate the movement of a thousand miniature drones that fit in the palm of your hand with a range of a few kilometers, then low level attacks against infantry and cavalry units so equipped becomes a suicidal proposition. This effectively negates the utility of traditional attack aircraft like the A-10 or Su-25 and gunships like the AH-64 and Mi-24.

louis · 2018-05-07 14:01:19

It seems to me that the US and its allies are being rather slow in developing drone armies...they could not only swarm into aircraft engines, they could swarm into tank barrels, disrupt tank tracks, ship's gun barrels, enter a ship's funnels and attack the engines, they could bite invading soldiers, drones could project demoralising or disorienting images on the ground, they could interfere with soldiers' vision and so on...drones disguised as insects will be able to listen into and watch the enemy at close range. Meanwhile the robot beasts being developed by Boston Dynamics and others would launch devastating ground attacks.

Drone armies are going to be such a game changer.

Last edited by louis (2018-05-07 14:17:30)

GW Johnson · 2018-05-07 16:19:09

Louis:

I'm not at all convinced the drone technology is advanced enough yet to implement what you suggest. But when it is, you are absolutely right about it being a total game-changer.

GW

kbd512 · 2018-05-07 16:49:12

GW,

Ask Russia how many missiles they can afford to fire from their S-300 and S-400 IADS against garage built drones that cost all of $20 per copy?

The game is already changing and there's no stopping it now.

RobertDyck · 2018-05-07 20:35:33

kbd512 wrote:

Rob,
This is a more appropriate place for a continuation of the divergent topic brought up in the Mars GPS topic.

I asked a blunt question. Others claimed A-10 is a better aircraft for the role it was built. That's a complicated question, in many ways it is. But since others bring up points on one side of the argument, I brought up the other side. I asked "what about missiles?" That's the "Achilles Heel" of A-10. During Iraq wars (plural) they found fixed ground launch anti-aircraft installations, vehicle launched missiles, and shoulder launched missiles were all effective. The US military switched to using F-16 instead of A-10 for tank hunting and close air support. F-16 is not armoured like A-10, but it flies high and fast.

kbd512 wrote:

There's a recurring theme when it comes to the collaborative design, development, and implementation of advanced aerospace hardware between the US and its allies. This problem occurs for items as simple as infantry rifles, tanks, artillery, and is particularly manifest in items as complicated as stealth tactical fighters and bombers. When we try to get our allies onboard to purchase the very best weapons or other aerospace technology that science can devise and money can buy, our allies invariably balk at the asking price or fight over the implementation details to the point where they refuse to move forward with the project in the interest of actually obtaining a weapon system that could reasonably be expected to do whatever prompted the project to begin with.

Bull. Never forget the Avro Arrow. This was an aircraft vastly superior to any combat aircraft of its day. The US hated it because it could fly higher and faster than any other combat aircraft. Specifically, Arrow could shoot down a U-2 spy plane. Canada intended to export Avro Arrow to NATO allies, including the US. At a time when the fasted US fighter aircraft could fly mach 1.6, Arrow could had a top speed in flat level flight of mach 2.5, and could supercruise at mach 1.5. The only American aircraft that can supercruise is F-22, and that's a 21st century aircraft. Avro Arrow was developed in the 1950s; development began with Canadian air force requirements in 1953, the mark 1 flew in 1958, the mach 2 only required 8 more hours of work to complete assembly when it was scrapped in 1959. It was the first combat aircraft to use fly-by-wire. The first US fighter aircraft to do so was F-16, built in the 1970s. You could argue that the system for F-16 was more advanced, but that doesn't change the fact Arrow had it first. The Avro aircraft company was working on a fire-and-forget targeting system for AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. And Arrow had a self-contained radar system at a time when all US fighter aircraft relied on radio communication to computer systems on the ground. That meant when US fighter aircraft were out of radio range of a fighter base, their radar didn't work. Avro Arrow was designed to work in Canada's north, far beyond short-range communication of any base.

One excuse was Russia could steal technology from the Avro Arrow, develop an aircraft that could shoot-down U-2. But it turned out Russia didn't need anything from Canada, they developed it all on their own. Pressuring Canada to cancel Arrow simply deprived NATO of the world's most advanced fighter jet for it's time.

Canada still doesn't have a fighter jet capable of doing what Arrow could do. A few years ago an aircraft manufacturer made a serious bid to the Canadian government to build the next replacement for current fighter aircraft. Their bid was to update the Avro Arrow. Someone produced a slick YouTube video demonstrating what it could do. If Russia sent a Tupolev Tu-160 bomber into Canadian air space, it could easly fly faster than an F-35. CF-18 Hornet aircraft (FA-18C Hornet with Canadian paint job and metric dashboard) couldn't catch it either. But Arrow was designed for that role, it could easily catch it. Avro Arrow would require some modern composite materials and modern electronics, but is still the best design for Canada. But the Stephen Harper government wouldn't to for it. The current government hasn't decided what they'll do.

One reason I complain "The US won't export F-22 even to Canada", is that the US and Canada supposedly have unified air defence. It's called NORAD. That means air defence technology that's even withheld from NATO should be available to Canada. And the only American fighter jet that could do what Avro Arrow could do is F-22. However, the down side is Canada couldn't afford F-22 anyway.

The only way Canada could have afforded Avro Arrow is if large numbers were sold to NATO allies. The US pressured NATO allies to not buy it. But France placed an order for Iroquois engine, to be installed into Mirage fighters to upgrade them. That engine was the most powerful fighter engine for its day. The engine was cancelled with Avro Arrow.

Here's the video.

One guy's idea of a modern Arrow

Interview with a retired Canadian general about Arrow revival (September 10, 2012)

Terraformer · 2018-05-08 07:50:57

louis,

Drone armies will be... just... great. What could possibly... go wrong?

If war becomes even more one sided, with the hegemons losing only treasure but no blood, and the smallfolk bearing the full human cost... eventually someone is going to start targeting the legs of modern civilisation itself. Attacks against chip fabs. Blowing up oil terminals to deprive their murderers the money they need for the drone armies. Terrorism against soft civilian targets to make those who attack them bleed and hurt.

louis · 2018-05-08 10:11:17

I didn't say I thought it would offer a bright promise, but it will certainly be a game changer. I can see lots of problems with drone wars. One of the key problems is that, as with cyber conflict, it kind of blurs the distinction between peace and war...when does drone intelligence become an act of war rather than a spy mission? Is it the nature of the incursion (not necessarily any different from the incursions of a spy) or the level of damage inflicted?

I am not convinced oil terminals will be of any great importance within 20 years but, we shall see.

Terraformer wrote:

louis,
Drone armies will be... just... great. What could possibly... go wrong?
If war becomes even more one sided, with the hegemons losing only treasure but no blood, and the smallfolk bearing the full human cost... eventually someone is going to start targeting the legs of modern civilisation itself. Attacks against chip fabs. Blowing up oil terminals to deprive their murderers the money they need for the drone armies. Terrorism against soft civilian targets to make those who attack them bleed and hurt.

kbd512 · 2018-05-08 15:50:47

Rob,

I'm not going to touch the subject of the Avro Arrow since that seems to be a sore point for Canadians. That happened more than half a century ago and I think it's time to let it go. The project was cancelled decades before I was born, so I don't know what happened or why it happened. At the end of the day, the Avro Arrow was a F-106 on steroids. It's not a modern design and won't be the basis of any new designs going forward. Some of the tech involved in the avionics and weapons systems was simply ahead of its time, but it's here now.

Onwards...

The fact of the matter is that the A-10 is highly vulnerable to air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. It's an entirely valid point. It can only operate in the most permissive of environments where we have complete control of the skies. It's days as a frontline attack aircraft are long over. For now, it's a low cost alternative to tactical fighters like the F-16 and F-35 to provide CAS to USSOCOM in their fight against the terrorists. As low cost AAA systems and MANPADS proliferate, even terrorist organizations now have access to such weapons. It's readily apparent that the Syrians don't need DARPA to produce swarming drones to attack Russian IADS and tactical fighters on the ground. They've inflicted millions of dollars of damage using a few thousand dollars worth of commercial RC toys. That's asymmetric warfare at its finest.

For permissive environments, turboprop aircraft with the same speed, better combat radius and loiter time, and lower operating cost in comparison to the A-10C are readily available in the form of the AT-6C, A-29, or C-130. An entire squadron of AT-6C's that carry the exact same avionics as the A-10C, better target acquisition systems, better defensive systems, and the same munitions (APKWS, AGM-114, JDAM) apart from the A-10's 30mm cannon can be fielded for the exact same operating costs as a single A-10C. The 30mm cannon is meaningless for strafing enemy soldiers. The .50 caliber machine guns that the AT-6/A-29 carry can fire projectiles that go through both sides of a solider wearing NIJ Level IV plate armor. There's no requirement for anything more powerful when that's what the best equipped soldiers can possibly wear in the field and still move and fight.

Enemy vehicles don't have to be outright destroyed to be useless for fighting. A tank with no communications or optics is a mobile pillbox if those devices were damaged or destroyed by heavy machine gun fire or fragmentation weapons. A WP rocket atop the engine compartment will outright destroy any vehicle, irrespective of armor protection levels, for far less money than an ATGM. A busted wheel or track is still a mobility kill.

The C-130 can carry at least double the combat load of the A-10 and that equates to enough AGM-114's or SDB's to destroy an entire company of tanks if two or three bombs or missiles are expended per tank protected by an APS to achieve a kill. If 2 engines are good, then 4 engines are better for survivability. Rather than stressing the airframe trying and failing to evade the ever-present AAA and MANPADS, the same laser pods that the AH-64's can carry could also fry the optics that many AAA systems and all MANPADS use.

The C-130's tail can be reworked to use C-2A style vertical stabilizers for improved engine-out stability and to contend with battle damage. The C-130's wings and tail could be further structurally reinforced to withstand higher loading, if required. Such wing box reinforcement work is already being done on the new J model.

If we refrain from fighting with third world countries over this / that / the other, then my argument about using turboprop aircraft is moot. In that case, we'd want highly capable multi-role stealth tactical fighters to deter peer or near-peer adversaries. The only reason to field and operate turboprop aircraft is to reduce operational costs associated with modern jet aircraft when those aircraft aren't required to get the job done.

GW Johnson · 2018-05-09 13:23:50

Well, AC-130's were well-proven in Vietnam. Lots of gatling guns out the sides (pilot points wingtip at target and pulls collective trigger). I think they were 20 mm. This was an outgrowth of similar guns mounted in DC-3's and called "Puff the Magic Dragon". The AC-130, however, also carried a 105 mm howitzer in its tail, pointed out the same side as the gatling guns. Bitch of a yaw disturbance when fired, though.

The problem with the C-130 is old-age airframes. They're worn out. On of the problems turning old airframes into close air support birds is structural failure. USAF tried that in Vietnam with some WW-2-vintage B-26's (the smaller B-26, not the bigger Martin bird), with the gunship-modified-and-extra-underwing-bombs form called the B-26K. It tended to fold its wings up like a Navy deck fighter on takeoff. There was no hinge line, though.

Similar-age C-130's have lost wings like that in water-bomber service in recent years. One just crashed for undetermined reasons with 9 Puerto Rican Guard aboard; it was headed for retirement at Davis-Monthan AFB, but never made it there. Crashed in Georgia, if memory serves.

Despite total replacements of wings and tails, this same old-age problem concerns me greatly with the B-52's. The very last one of those was built in May 1961. These airplanes are as old as the grandfathers of the pilots who fly them. Sooner or later, it's going to catch up with the USAF. All aluminum alloys are sooner-or-later lousy in fatigue.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-05-09 13:27:55)

RobertDyck · 2018-05-09 16:07:47

kbd512,

Part of my point is the United States repeatedly demonstrates arrogance. Not so much in your statement, the government does. Ability of F-22 to supercruise at mach 1.5 is something taken from Avro Arrow. That's one reason I brought it up. Requirements in 1953 for Avro Arrow were to supercruise at mach 1.5 at 50,000 and top speed of mach 2. Mark 2 as built (sort-of, see above) could supercruise at mach 1.5, and top speed in flat level flight at 50,000 feet with afterburner was mach 2.5. Requires said ±3G acceleration, but as built it could pull 3Gs negative or 9Gs positive. Note that's the same acceleration as modern fighters. I could go on, but denying Canada access to F-22 when key aspects of technology were taken from a Canadian fighter?

And you brought up nuclear weapons. The Manhattan Project was a joint venture of 3 equal allies: United States, UK, and Canada. Canada has the world's largest deposit of uranium, but more importantly, Canada had already developed technology to manufacture bomb-grade plutonium. Canada could be accused of the world's first case of nuclear proliferation in the sense that Canada taught the US how to make bomb-grade plutonium. And Canada built a nuclear research facility during WW2 as part of the Manhattan Project. Since Canada was part of the team that developed the first nuclear bomb, Canada has had the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons since then. And after the war, Canada's facility provided to the UK the plutonium for them to make their first nuclear bomb. That facility was converted to medical isotopes, but does anyone really believe Canada can't simply make nuclear bombs there? Canada never built a complete bomb, but could. Well, there was a rumour...

After Avro Arrow was cancelled, NASA was given first pick of the engineers. Gemini was designed entirely by a team of engineers from Avro. Lead engineer who designed the Arrow airframe lead the team for Gemini. That way American engineers could focus on Apollo. If NASA didn't have those Canadian engineers, they would have had to take a team of engineers off Apollo, slowing development. And it was a Canadian engineer who proposed the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous architecture, and that same engineer got the job to design the landing legs for the LM. Several Canadian engineers worked on Apollo.

It isn't Canada's place to obey what some hegemony dictates. We need something that fulfills Canada's defence requirements. Bottom line is F-35 does not fulfill that. The first video shows an animated fictional incursion of a single Tu-160 bomber into Canadian airspace. Neither F-35 nor CF-18 fighters could catch it, but Arrow could. The only American fighter that could catch it is F-22, and American won't sell it to Canada. Then there's dogfighting with speculative opponents. Some have argued for the Eurofighter Typhoon. Like Arrow it's a delta wing. It has missiles half embedded within the airframe, reducing drag and radar reflection. One requirement of Arrow as supercruise at mach 1.5, the only aircraft today that can do that are F-22, Typhoon, and the Russian PAK-FA (production version of T-50). F-22 isn't available, and obviously Canada isn't going to buy a Russian fighter (not that Russia would sell it anyway). Typhoon is built by NATO allies UK, German, Spain, so provided interoperability. But it's expensive, second only to F-22. And the Canadian government wants significant manufacturing and maintenance work done in Canada, to support the Canadian economy. The French company Dessault wants to sell their Rafale fighter, next in performance after Typhoon. Rafale can supercruise at mach 1.02, but not 1.5. They offered to build to manufacture several parts in Canada to land the contract. But at the cost of a modern 5th generation fighter, why not an all-Canadian design? Why not update Arrow?

The second video above is from the manufacturer who pitched the idea. Obviously they want to land the contract. I find it interesting they call it "Mark 3", because while Arrow was under development Mark 1 was a test only version using the same engine as a previous fighter, capable of supercruise at mach 1.02. Mark 1 did undergo test flights in 1958, note Rafale above. Mark 2 was supposed to be the production version, with the new engine. But there was a study of something called "Mark 3". This would have an even more powerful engine, much of the body replaced with stainless steel or titanium, changed inlets that look exactly the same as the video, and a top speed of mach 3.0. Mark 2 had a top speed with afterburners of mach 2.5. Mark 3 was just a study, but similarity to the 2010/2012 proposal are intriguing. Hmm...

::Edit:: The video claims...

mach 3.5 variable intakes
5th Generation AESA radar
OWIP/IRST
clear canopy
30mm Gatling
4 BVRAMM MBDA Meteors
flare dispensers
6 "all aspects" Python 5
3D thrust vectoring exhaust
refuelling probe
IR targeting pod
external fuel tanks
4 JDAMS

Obviously not all at once. But the most interesting thing is "mach 3.5"

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-05-09 16:29:06)

elderflower · 2018-05-10 04:11:11

The Arrow was strangled to support US aerospace companies hegemony. Ditto TSR2.
Gripen E is a fourth option for Canada. The operating and purchase costs are considerably lower than Rafale or Typhoon. It can also supercruise and the short, rough strip capability is considerably better.

kbd512 · 2018-05-10 04:38:10

Rob,

Nuke This, Nuke That:

The Canadians didn't teach anyone how to make Plutonium, although they did play a crucial role in development of the first Uranium bomb. The Plutonium for the first bombs came from America and that material was the product of research and development efforts that occurred within the United States, not Canada. In 1946, the Canadian who helped construct Trinity, Louis Slotin, killed himself and severely injured his colleagues because he failed to follow test protocol. Before Slotin, an American also killed himself with the same core he was fiddling with.

Lest we forget, the only reason there was a Manhattan Project for Canadians to take part in was funding from the US government. The fact that we hire people and pay them for their services does not mean we owe an entire foreign country anything whatsoever. Interestingly, Canada has never built any nuclear weapons. If it's as easy as you think it is, then somewhere along the line someone in the government would've built a few, if only to demonstrate the capability to do so.

The Avro Arrow:

I attempted to avoid this Avro Arrow discussion because it clearly upsets you, despite the fact that you were either a small child or weren't even born when it was cancelled. Since you decided to press this issue further, I'm going to respond. You may know all the numbers by heart, but you lack the context for what those numbers mean in the real world.

Super Cruise

The concept of super cruise was not "taken" from the Avro Arrow. The first jet to fly supersonic in level flight without using afterburner was French. The first fighter to fly supersonic in level flight without using afterburner was British, and that would be the English Electric Lightning. So we either "took" super cruise from the French or the British. Did the Canadians "take" super cruise from the French or the British? Is it possible that all aerospace engineers and pilots are speed freaks?

Maneuverability Limits

The Avro Arrow was never designed to pull 9g's and any assertion that it was is false. It was a short-range high-speed interceptor intended to fire a volley of medium range radar guided missiles at supersonic Soviet bombers coming over the pole. That was it. It was Canada's version of the MiG-25. In contrast to the MiG-25's design compromises, the Arrow had less range and was built with airframe materials unable to contend with aerodynamic heating generated by Mach 3 flight. The use of high temperature alloys in the leading edges of the empennage does nothing for the rest of the structure. Speaking of things not designed for Mach 3 flight, the MiG-25's engines were also trashed at that speed due to engine overspeed issues.

There is no such thing as an agile Mach 3+ aircraft. There's this little thing called wave drag that explains why that is so. Feel free to ask GW how this works, as I know he can explain it better than I can. There's a world of difference in the drag imposed upon the body and control fins of a missile and a fighter jet with a wing area large enough to produce enough lift, with acceptable drag, to be capable of Mach 3 flight. All aircraft have speed and load limits which determine how much stress can be placed on the airframe. Please talk to a flight instructor to learn about how this works. I'm not telling you these things to be argumentative. It’s just facts.

There are so many compromises that have to be made for the sake of pure speed that the US military has stopped doing that these days. Slower tactical fighters that have multi-spectral stealth, turn on a dime, have high AoA limits, carry lots of fuel, and just enough internal weapons to attack a few targets is the name of the game. If you absolutely have to dogfight, then you want to be a small and nimble target that can recover energy quickly and fire IR guided missiles at pursuers while you're running away. Dogfighting is just a test of pilot skill and much like knife fighting, everyone gets cut.

Fuel Consumption

The Arrow's useful load was 19,565lbs, but I'll be generous and grant you an extra 1,000lbs of internal fuel that there's no space for on account of the slightly lighter Orenda Iroquois engines. That's 20,565lbs of fuel to play with.

Orenda Iroquois Engines
dry thrust: 19,350lbf per engine
specific fuel consumption (dry thrust): .85lbs/lbf/hr
thrust with afterburner: 25,600lbf per engine
specific fuel consumption with afterburner: 1.9lbs/lbf/hr

Let's do some basic math to determine just how quickly we’d consume every pound of JP8 that the Arrow could carry.

75% cruise setting
29,025 * .85 = 24,671lbs/hr or 411lbs/min
50 minutes

Full Dry Thrust:
38,700 * .85 = 32,785lbs/hr or 546lbs/min
38 minutes

Now let's go "full afterburner" to get that one and only Mach 3 flight out of that aluminum airframe before we turn it into silly putty.

Full Wet Thrust:
51,200 * 1.9 = 97,280lbs/hr or 1,621lbs/min.
13 minutes

Assuming you started off flying at Mach 3, which you could never do, you’d cover less than 500 miles. Mach 3, sure, no problem. Let’s cut that 1,300km range another 500km. Who needs more range when you can have speed?

As you go up in altitude, you have less fuel consumption and less thrust, but Arrow would have about an hour’s worth of flight time with no reserve. Arrow may be really fast, but it also has a nearly identical combat radius as the far less expensive F-104 Starfighter that Canada did purchase.

Let’s compare the range of the F-35 and the Arrow.

F-35: 2,200km range with 18,000lbs of internal fuel
Arrow: 1,300km range with 20,500lbs of internal fuel

That might have something to do with the fact that the F-35 is 20,000lbs lighter than the Arrow and has an engine that generates 78% of the thrust of the Arrow's pair of engines that never flew.

We seem to be missing something here. That Arrow is supposed to be an interceptor, but it has no weapons because I sacrificed their weight for fuel to show you how absurd this Mach 3 flight business truly is.

Now let’s review the fuel consumption of an aircraft that was purpose built for Mach 3 flight.

SR-71's consumed 36,000lbs to 44,000lbs of JP7 per hour. As compared to the Arrow, the Blackbird held 12,219 gallons of fuel, which equates to nearly 80,000lbs of fuel and they were refueled anywhere between 3 and 5 times per sortie. The J-58's fuel consumption in afterburner was very similar to the fuel consumption of the Orenda Iroquois in afterburner, except that the J-58 produced more thrust. Well, less actually because the higher you go the less air there is and thrust therefore goes down as altitude increases. Anyway, the point is that it consumed at least twice as much fuel to sustain Mach 3 flight as the Arrow had onboard to begin with.

Speed vs Stealth as a Design Attribute

Unless you're running away from missiles that nobody would get a chance to fire at you because they couldn't find you in the F-35 to begin with, then Mach 3 flight doesn't mean much to me. Your IR signature will be so great that satellites will be able to track the Arrow from space. It's useless capability. The least interesting thing about this fictional concept for an updated Avro Arrow is Mach 3.5 flight. It might be good for blowing through tons of fuel in minutes, but that's about it.

Delta Wings and Lifting Bodies

The reason we don't use delta wings anymore is related to energy loss from drag during maneuvering. The second you start hauling the nose around in one of those delta wing birds, you'll discover how quickly they bleed speed. That'd be why the F-22, YF-23, and F-35 are lifting bodies. The Indians who flew Flankers with thrust vectoring did remarkably poorly at Red Flag against our F-22’s, but the Sukhois sure look great on paper. The body and wings of those huge Russian jets create such a stupendous amount of drag during maneuvering, especially when using thrust vectoring, that they literally start falling tail first out of the sky. It's all but useless capability on the F-22 as well.

Stealth Technology

The F-22 was primarily a stealth fighter and the US certainly didn't obtain stealth technology from the Canadians. We had stealth aircraft before anyone in Canada knew such a thing existed. Apart from that, the F-22 is just an upgraded F-15. The F-15 is also capable super cruise with 50% internal fuel, but it's still a waste of fuel. That's what the Air Force wanted and that's why the YF-23 was not selected for procurement. It had too many "features", much like the Arrow, that were not usable in the real world and there was no thought ever given to use aboard an aircraft carrier, although the Navy eventually opted out of the program as costs mounted and the requirement for a supersonic interceptor waned as missile capabilities improved.

Internet Videos vs Reality

A redesigned Arrow had better have a far more sophisticated defensive suite than chaff and flare dispensers aboard if the designers intend for it to go head to head with a stealth aircraft and have any expectation of survival. Russia and China are building stealth aircraft for one and only one reason. They work. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. If stealth didn’t work, they wouldn’t pursue it.

A 30mm Gatling gun? Really? Did a 10 year old make the videos you cited? I’ve read enough for one day. I’m done responding to claims made in internet videos.

RobertDyck · 2018-05-10 13:04:53

kbd512 wrote:

The Canadians didn't teach anyone how to make Plutonium, although they did play a crucial role in development of the first Uranium bomb. The Plutonium for the first bombs came from America and that material was the product of research and development efforts that occurred within the United States, not Canada.

That's just ignorance. Before WW2, Canada studied nuclear technology. Canada had optimized production of highly pure plutonium, bomb grade. American scientists and engineers had read about it in science papers, but didn't have any hands-on experience and no knowledge of how to optimize the process so it's actually practical. Canada did. Yes, Canada did teach Americans how to make bomb-grade plutonium.

And don't forget, the first test bomb at Trinity and "Fat Man" dropped on Nagasaki were both made of plutonium. "Little Boy" dropped on Heroshima was made of uranium. If you want to brag "America is Great", then rest assured that America invented the process to enrich uranium. But my point is Canadians are not stupid, we don't just produce oil and lumber, Canadians are brilliant. And yes, Canada did teach the US how to make bomb grade plutonium. America built an industrial facility to make it in large quantities, not just the research facility that Canada built, but America built it according to the process that Canada taught them. That American facility produced the plutonium for both Trinity and Fat Man.

kbd512 wrote:

Lest we forget, the only reason there was a Manhattan Project for Canadians to take part in was funding from the US government. The fact that we hire people and pay them for their services does not mean we owe an entire foreign country anything whatsoever.

I just said, the Manhattan Project was *NOT* an American project. It was 3 equal allies: US, UK, Canada. Canadians participating were not paid by the US, they were paid by Canada. To put a fine point on this, Canadians working in Los Alamos were paid by Canada, because they were part of Canadian participation. And the facility built in Canada was not paid by the US either. I'm aware that documentaries on American TV depict this as an all-American project, when they do mention non-American scientists they make it sound as if they were hired by the US. You realize that's propaganda.

kbd512 wrote:

Interestingly, Canada has never built any nuclear weapons. If it's as easy as you think it is, then somewhere along the line someone in the government would've built a few, if only to demonstrate the capability to do so.

I see you didn't catch the "rumour". Yes, I have heard a story that a group of employees at the Chalk River facility in Canada built a nuclear bomb. They wanted to show the government that they had the skill, they could do it. When finished, they showed it to a Canadian politician. The politicians response was something like "Aaaaaaaa! <scream like a little girl> Get rid of it! Get rid of it! Get rid of it!" The bomb was not detonated, it was carefully dismantled. The nuclear material was converted into fuel rods for a Canadian nuclear reactor, the only way that plutonium can be disposed of. Non-nuclear material was destroyed and recycled. All record of it was wiped. The official government line is "It never happened." I met a couple Canadian nuclear reactor workers. One looked at me, opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head. He refused to respond. An nuclear physicist working on the new nuclear reactor at Chalk River just carefully changed the subject, refused to answer. A military man stared at me intently in the eyes and said "It never happened!" So do you still believe the official line? Do you still believe it never happened?

kbd512 wrote:

The concept of super cruise was not "taken" from the Avro Arrow.

Really. I also heard Americans claim "no one even conceived of supercruise at that time". But Canada did. That's how it could cover vast distances over Canadian wilderness, and intercept a Soviet Tu-95 Bomber. By the way, that was its mission. I could intercept supersonic bombers, but it was really developed to intercept the Bear, which had a top speed of just under the speed of sound.

kbd512 wrote:

Maneuverability Limits

Yes, Arrow as a special purpose all-weather interceptor. It wasn't an air superiority fighter, or multi-role fighter like today's planes. Yes, it could pull 9Gs. I realize you don't believe that, but it could. However, it had to slow to subsonic to do so. I don't claim it's as manoeuvrable as an F-22, or even an F-15 Eagle. It was a high speed interceptor, designed to catch a high speed bomber and fire a medium range missile at it.

kbd512 wrote:

A 30mm Gatling gun? Really? Did a 10 year old make the videos you cited? I’ve read enough for one day. I’m done responding to claims made in internet videos.

Yea, well. The video is attributed to the aircraft manufacturer who bid this to the Canadian government. Don't know how made the video. Don't know why they would put a 30mm Gatling gun on an interceptor. A-10 used that with depleted uranium rounds to destroy tanks. Arrow is an interceptor, so BVR missiles are its main weapon. I read articles that the US air force seriously looked at replacing the cannon on F-35A fighters with a solid state laser, 100kW. The space where a lift fan would go for the 'B' variant would house a generator to produce power for the laser, driven by the drive shaft from the main jet engine that would normally power the lift fan. Great idea, if you can build a solid state laser to do that. The military does have chemical lasers that can provide that much power, but they're limited by "ammunition", the chemicals. And what about aiming? Have they developed a laser pointing device that can hit an incoming enemy missile? Or fighter, or anti-ship missile, or even a SCUD? If Canada pays for a new fighter, they certainly won't have money for a new weapon.

kbd512 · 2018-05-10 20:44:43

RobertDyck wrote:

That's just ignorance. Before WW2, Canada studied nuclear technology. Canada had optimized production of highly pure plutonium, bomb grade. American scientists and engineers had read about it in science papers, but didn't have any hands-on experience and no knowledge of how to optimize the process so it's actually practical. Canada did. Yes, Canada did teach Americans how to make bomb-grade plutonium.

Seaborg's team separated the first quantity of Plutonium that could be weighed using available scales at U of C's Met Lab. The bismuth-phosphate batch process later devised by Thompson was then industrialized by DuPont at the Hanford facility to produce the Plutonium used in the first nuclear weapons.

The aforementioned bismuth-phosphate process was not the continuous separation solvent process that British scientists in Canada devised in conjunction with Canadian and international scientists while working at the Montreal labs. According to Canadian historians, the two teams never exchanged ideas or work products with each other because of the US Army's desire for compartmentalization of the entire project. In retrospect, that was probably a bad idea that delayed the overall project.

The continuous separation process was later utilized AFTER the war to produce a continuous stream of separated Plutonium for nuclear weapons. I thank your fellow Canadians for their research efforts, but they had nothing to do with the Plutonium that was used in first nuclear weapons. In point of fact, the only Plutonium the Montreal labs ever had in their possession during the war was 20 milligrams of Pu239 that came from irradiated sources sent to them from American nuclear piles. Canada had their own usable quantities of Pu239 in 1948.

RobertDyck wrote:

And don't forget, the first test bomb at Trinity and "Fat Man" dropped on Nagasaki were both made of plutonium. "Little Boy" dropped on Heroshima was made of uranium. If you want to brag "America is Great", then rest assured that America invented the process to enrich uranium. But my point is Canadians are not stupid, we don't just produce oil and lumber, Canadians are brilliant. And yes, Canada did teach the US how to make bomb grade plutonium. America built an industrial facility to make it in large quantities, not just the research facility that Canada built, but America built it according to the process that Canada taught them. That American facility produced the plutonium for both Trinity and Fat Man.

I'm not here to brag about anything. You made up an entire alternative reality in your head about what I think about you and other Canadians that has nothing to do with what I actually think. I never claimed or so much as thought that Canadians are stupid and never have. Where do you get this crap from? I know damn good and well that Canada has smart people there and any claim to the contrary, which I have never made, is the sole responsibility of the people making the claims.

I've debunked your factually incorrect claim regarding where the Plutonium came from, what separation process was used, and who invented it. I do give credit where credit is due to your fellow Canadian, Slotin, for the fabrication of the first nuclear weapons. We never had a guy like that and relied on our neighbors to the north for his expertise in that field of engineering. Unfortunately, like so many other bomb makers, his own work was the end of him.

RobertDyck wrote:

I just said, the Manhattan Project was *NOT* an American project. It was 3 equal allies: US, UK, Canada. Canadians participating were not paid by the US, they were paid by Canada. To put a fine point on this, Canadians working in Los Alamos were paid by Canada, because they were part of Canadian participation. And the facility built in Canada was not paid by the US either. I'm aware that documentaries on American TV depict this as an all-American project, when they do mention non-American scientists they make it sound as if they were hired by the US. You realize that's propaganda.

You say a lot of things. That doesn't make them factual.

One of those "three equal allies" was supplying the overwhelming majority of the funding and manpower to research, design, test, and build everything required to produce nuclear weapons. I guess somehow the fact that there were scores of foreign scientists involved in the project, like Germans for example, just slipped my brainwashed braggadocious American mind. In point of fact, we did hire non-American scientists, we funded their work, and we paid their salaries. That's not any sort of propaganda. That's just a fact.

RobertDyck wrote:

I see you didn't catch the "rumour". Yes, I have heard a story that a group of employees at the Chalk River facility in Canada built a nuclear bomb. They wanted to show the government that they had the skill, they could do it. When finished, they showed it to a Canadian politician. The politicians response was something like "Aaaaaaaa! <scream like a little girl> Get rid of it! Get rid of it! Get rid of it!" The bomb was not detonated, it was carefully dismantled. The nuclear material was converted into fuel rods for a Canadian nuclear reactor, the only way that plutonium can be disposed of. Non-nuclear material was destroyed and recycled. All record of it was wiped. The official government line is "It never happened." I met a couple Canadian nuclear reactor workers. One looked at me, opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head. He refused to respond. An nuclear physicist working on the new nuclear reactor at Chalk River just carefully changed the subject, refused to answer. A military man stared at me intently in the eyes and said "It never happened!" So do you still believe the official line? Do you still believe it never happened?

I'd be shocked if someone didn't try it at some point. Whether those efforts were successful or not is entirely speculative since the device, if actually built, was never tested.

RobertDyck wrote:

Really. I also heard Americans claim "no one even conceived of supercruise at that time". But Canada did. That's how it could cover vast distances over Canadian wilderness, and intercept a Soviet Tu-95 Bomber. By the way, that was its mission. I could intercept supersonic bombers, but it was really developed to intercept the Bear, which had a top speed of just under the speed of sound.

You heard other people who are ignorant of history make the same kinds of claims you've just made.

What's your point?

RobertDyck wrote:

Yes, Arrow as a special purpose all-weather interceptor. It wasn't an air superiority fighter, or multi-role fighter like today's planes. Yes, it could pull 9Gs. I realize you don't believe that, but it could. However, it had to slow to subsonic to do so. I don't claim it's as manoeuvrable as an F-22, or even an F-15 Eagle. It was a high speed interceptor, designed to catch a high speed bomber and fire a medium range missile at it.

Can you cite a source for your claim?

I can't find any evidence that the Arrow was ever capable of such a thing, but that doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist. I'll take back what I said about this if you can provide a source.

RobertDyck wrote:

Yea, well. The video is attributed to the aircraft manufacturer who bid this to the Canadian government. Don't know how made the video. Don't know why they would put a 30mm Gatling gun on an interceptor. A-10 used that with depleted uranium rounds to destroy tanks. Arrow is an interceptor, so BVR missiles are its main weapon. I read articles that the US air force seriously looked at replacing the cannon on F-35A fighters with a solid state laser, 100kW. The space where a lift fan would go for the 'B' variant would house a generator to produce power for the laser, driven by the drive shaft from the main jet engine that would normally power the lift fan. Great idea, if you can build a solid state laser to do that. The military does have chemical lasers that can provide that much power, but they're limited by "ammunition", the chemicals. And what about aiming? Have they developed a laser pointing device that can hit an incoming enemy missile? Or fighter, or anti-ship missile, or even a SCUD? If Canada pays for a new fighter, they certainly won't have money for a new weapon.

Lockheed Martin created a special type of optics assembly they call "adaptive optics". It's a precisely deformable lens that causes the beam to achieve maximum coherency at a point in space coinciding with the target. The first prototype was tested aboard a 747 against an AIM-9 air-to-air missile. It fried the missile. A lower power laser was used to paint the target to "aim" the primary beam. Lockheed Martin was also recently awarded a $26M USAF contract to develop and deliver a 100kW defensive laser weapon system prototype for the F-35. The basic components of the technology have been demonstrated in flight aboard a small private jet.

If Canada pays for the F-35's they previously agreed to purchase, they can probably obtain both the jets and the laser weapons in what we call a "sweetheart deal" where the US subsidizes the cost of the hardware. I can't seem to find any other operational tactical fighters with multi-spectral stealth, sensor fusion, integrated electronic warfare systems, data sharing, the latest and greatest missiles and bombs, and a defensive laser system upgrade in the next five years or less.

If Canadians really are concerned about Tu-160's coming over the pole, then the F-35 would make an excellent long range tactical fighter with the carrying capacity to deliver long-range high-speed air-to-air missiles from external pylons. Since the point seems lost on you, if someone sends strategic bombers to strike your cities, then you don't have to chase them down because they're coming to you. The single engine / multi-engine argument is a poor argument for not having the best technology available to contend with the threat.

If all you're looking for is a twin engined missile carrier with lots of gadgets and goodies, then Boeing will hook you guys up with your own version of the Super Hornet with CFT's. The CFT's alone are said to extend the combat radius of the Super Bug to 800 miles. That's 130 miles over the top of what a F-35A can manage using internal fuel. I think the Super Bug can carry 12 AIM-120's and 2 AIM-9's. That's a pretty potent load out. Boeing has also floated a F-15E configuration with 16 AIM-120's. That has to be enough to take care of at least a squadron of Tu-160's.

If you put CFT's on the F-35A like the Israelis plan on doing, I'd wager you'd still get more range from the more advanced fighter. The new sensors and defensive systems are either the same or better than the ones on the F-35's and the cost per flight hour is much more manageable for a country with a smaller defense budget. Lately, Lockheed Martin has been touting this "beast mode" concept for the F-35 that permits carrying 12 AIM-120's and 2 AIM-9's.

That's enough "if's" for one day. Cheers.

RobertDyck · 2018-05-13 11:52:11

Wow. How very detailed. I find it unlikely they didn't use the knowledge from Canada. However, it was all before any of us were born.

You asked for a source. Having trouble, many websites no longer available. However, I did find this... Avro Arrow Flight Analysis Cases

But there's another correction I have to make. The Jean Chrétien / Paul Martin government (October 1993 - January 2006) never did say they would purchase F-35s. They entered into an agreement to develop technology, and manufacture components for it. Canada contributed some money to get that. The idea was to keep Canadian technology current, and profits from sale of manufactured components would earn more money than they spent, so it would be profitable. When the Stephen Harper government was elected, Lockheed-Martin convinced them that the previous government had committed to purchase it. At least that's according to Stephen Harper, then Prime Minister. Can you believe a politician? Then the Harper government talked about purchasing them, but never signed a contract. The current administration is dithering. They purchased some used Hornets from Australia as a stop-gap, but really don't know what they'll do.

GW Johnson · 2018-05-13 15:22:04

There's absolutely nothing wrong with an old-technology airplane if you do 2 things: (1) use a very experienced pilot, and (2) judiciously update its weapons and its radar detection capability. Then fight your battles at low altitude.

Odd how "before any of us were born" doesn't apply to some of us (like me). When I was single-digit ages, my heroes were the men who flew the rocket planes. Not the X-15, that came later! The X-1, the X-2, and the D-552. Most of the Air Force, and almost all of the Navy, air fleets were still piston prop until I was a late teenager.

About 1978-ish there was a "Red Flag" exercise at Nellis AFB in Nevada to test out the usefulness of the then-brand new F-15 against the simulated Russian squadron of extremely-experienced pilots flying F-5's, as very close to Mig-21's. The F-5's had missile weapons, but no detection capability if painted by someone else's radar. The F-15 had both, and simulated combat results were much in favor of the F-15, flown by the typically very young USAF line pilots.

The pilots flying the F-5's got tired of this and got creative. They got radar warning receivers from Radio Shack, "hot-rodded" them for aircraft 400 cycle power and combat radar frequencies, added a roll of duct tape, and put these hidden in flight suit lower leg pockets. Once in the planes, the receiver went on the glare shield with duct tape.

From that point, in simulated combat the odds went lopsidely (over 15:1) against the F-15's in favor of the F-5's as simulated Migs. This went on for several weeks until the brass hats finally found out what was going on. It almost threw the F-15 deployment into chaos. All it took was a then-under-$100 radar warning receiver from Radio Shack, plus gobs of flying experience, to defeat the very best and latest technology the USAF had. (And stealth was getting its start back then, too, but that's another story.)

Since that day, I have maintained that a refurbished 1948-vintage F-86 (any A, B, C, or E model, D was different) equipped with a cheap radar warning receiver, Sidewinders and AMRAAM's, and flown by a very experienced pilot near the surface, could hold its own against anything flown by humans today as a top fighter.

And I would NOT be wrong in that assertion.

That is just the fundamental nature of eyeball-range air-to-air combat, and it has not changed since 1950 in Korea. Your airplane need only reach the vicinity of Mach 1 to succeed. The F-86 (and the Mig-15) was the first that could actually do that.

Of those two fighters, the F-86 was better because it was controllable in a supersonic dive, while the Mig went out of control above Mach 0.94. The secret to that, and classified top secret it was back then, was the all-flying horizontal tail developed to make the X-1 controllable breaking the sound barrier for the 1947 flight.

The Mig had a fixed horizontal stabilizer and conventional elevator, which shock-induced flow separation simply wipes completely out. That lack nearly killed Chuck Yeager over Okinawa in 1953, flight-testing a Mig flown to Japan by a defector.

This trust in high tech is entirely misplaced. Its price tag merely feeds the corporate welfare cheat. For a top fighter, you need a Mach 1 airplane with radar warning, and both gun and missile weapons. All else, including supersonic dash speed, is nothing but gravy.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-05-13 15:34:25)

kbd512 · 2018-05-13 17:50:07

Rob,

I find it odd that you don't believe in NIH syndrome. It afflicts the US military worse than any other military in the world.

We do use weapons from other countries when it's blatantly obvious that nothing we've come up with is in any way comparable, but always insist upon domestic manufacture. Off the top of my head, we rely upon some European avionics (can't remember which country right now, but the systems are in nearly every operational US tactical fighter), Belgian small arms (FNH MAG, FNH SCAR 16/17, M2 .50 caliber machine guns, and now the M4 and M16 carbines; nearly every major small arms system in the inventory apart from sniping weapons), Austrian Glock pistols, German SIG Sauer pistols and HK 416 automatic rifles, Italian M1014 shotguns, French mortars, Swedish Carl Gustaf and Israeli IWI rocket launchers, Rheinmetall cannons, BAE tracked combat vehicles (M2 Bradley, AMPV Bradley replacement, and a host of others), Canadian wheeled Stryker family of combat vehicles, and Israeli combat vehicle active protection systems to name a few high dollar figure contract examples.

There's a protection racket that exists for aircraft (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman), trucks (GM, Oshkosh), and engines (GE / Honeywell / Pratt & Whitney for turbine engines and Detroit Diesel / Ford / GM / Chrysler for reciprocating engines) industries, along with high-tech electronics items. I can't think of any US aircraft or vehicle that uses a foreign made engine, for example, although there are a handful of foreign designs made domestically under license. That means nearly all airframes, engines, and electronics technologies are designed and built in the US with domestic components and labor. Some ancillary electronics systems previously used Chinese / Japanese / Korean electronics components, but that practice has been largely discontinued due to quality control issues. For small arms, mortars, rocket launchers, cannons, and vehicles, the US military has been far more willing to select overseas manufacturers.

Regarding the nuclear weapons, the only reason Hanford ever went critical was because of the DuPont company's engineers. The scientists at Met Lab were very resentful of the fact that General Groves gave DuPont sole control and responsibility over the engineering aspects of Hanford's design, especially the design of the core, but DuPont's insistence on very conservative engineering is what produced a working reactor with which to irradiate Uranium to produce Plutonium. DuPont ensured that all plant design details were approved by Met Lab and they deferred to the scientists in the nuclear design aspects of the plant's design.

Further, DuPont was very studious in their protection of both the workers and the environment, to the point of being accused of delaying the project by the scientists at Met Lab. They stipulated in their contract that they be relieved of their responsibilities within 6 months after the war ended, and that they receive $1 dollar of profit per year for their efforts. Americans are capitalists to our core and it's mandatory that you be paid for your work. DuPont was accused of war profiteering after WWI because of their munitions work for the US military and their executives did not want their company name to be associated with providing munitions to the US military. The entire project was only 11% over budget and 2 weeks over schedule in comparison to DuPont's cost and time estimates. When DuPont was finally relieved, that's when QA (before it was called that), worker protection, and environmental protection rapidly went downhill under the control of the US government and other contractors.

It's hard for me to imagine that there was a time when our military industrial complex contractors were simply willing to do what their country asked of them to bring our people home alive, but wanted no further involvement with the military or making things that kill people when the war was over. I'm reminded of Darth Vader's admonishment, "Don't be too proud of this little technological terror that you've created..."

In point of fact, the US never did use the continuous separation processes (TRIGLY and BUTEX) devised by British and Canadian scientists. Shortly after the war, REDOX and then PUREX (this method was responsible for the overwhelming majority of Plutonium production) became the standard methods for separating Plutonium used by the US. France used their own version of PUREX and so did North Korea. TRIGLY was the very complicated continuous solvent-precipitation process I previously referred to and wasn't used for very long. PUREX is more like a type of process than a specific set of methods and equipment, but the result is the same and this is the only process used these days. PUREX is responsible for most of the radioactive contamination / pollution at Hanford because they were dumping the solutions into the water supply. That was dumb, but this was the 1950's and hardly anyone knew squat about radiation health effects. The scientists knew better, but were more interested in their experiments than they were in anything or anyone else.

RobertDyck · 2018-05-13 22:46:29

GW Johnson wrote:

Odd how "before any of us were born" doesn't apply to some of us (like me). When I was single-digit ages, my heroes were the men who flew the rocket planes. Not the X-15, that came later! The X-1, the X-2, and the D-552. Most of the Air Force, and almost all of the Navy, air fleets were still piston prop until I was a late teenager.

Aww! You make me feel young. My bald spot is growing. When my sister referred to my thinning spot as bald, I started using Life brand Minoxidil. It's commonly sold by a different company under the brand name "Rogaine". So far my "bald" spot has grown. The instructions said I could lose hair for the first 4 months, then expect hair regrowth. I'm entering my 3rd month. The "bald" spot never was completely bald, there always was hair, and that hair is short but still there. I'm hoping it will start growing real soon now. So you call me young? Awww. Please tell that to the young women of child bearing age. I have never been married, still don't have any children. Emphasis on "still". I did live common law with a woman for a year: July 1989 - July 1990. And was engaged the last half of that year. But she had a problem with commitment. And she had a tubal ligation after she gave birth to one child by a previous marriage, so could have another. I"m getting older and getting desperate to get my life started. How to I get a fertile woman to accept me as I am now? How do I get my life started?

kbd512 · 2018-05-14 04:32:28

Rob,

I'm not sure how germane your sex life is to collaborative aerospace technology development, although every thread started here seems to drift. Apparently this thread will not be an exception. Maybe you could start a new thread for that topic.

GW,

The most experienced F-86 pilot in existence may as well be flying around in his own coffin against stealth fighters and integrated air defense systems. The range on all jet aircraft is fair to terrible at low altitude, never mind being used as target practice for AAA and heat seekers. That'd be why fighter pilots don't fly around at treetop level these days if there's any other option available. Admittedly, sometimes there's not. The technology that existed when you were young is in no way comparable to the technology that exists today. For that matter, the technology that existed when I was a kid is not comparable to today's technology. The pilot who finds their opponent first and takes the first shot wins most of the time, no matter the experience level of the opposing pilot or how fancy his jet is or isn't.

RobertDyck · 2018-05-14 08:16:20

Kbd512: you belittled my country's contribution so

Fighter aircraft Canada is considering: Eurofighter Typhoon, Dessault Rafale, Saab FAS-39 Gripen, SuperHornet, and updated Avro Arrow. The previous administration wanted F-35, for the current one it isn't an option, for political reasons. All options have major drawbacks.

GW Johnson · 2018-05-14 10:20:50

Well, what I was talking about was hiding behind the terrain topography at very low altitudes. Won't work in absolutely flat locales, but it worked in Nevada to kill the radar return from a non-stealth airplane. It's hard for the enemy to kill you without also descending, so that pretty much kills any range advantages.

The F-5 drivers at Nellis would loiter behind a ridge till the F-15's went by, and pop up right behind them because they knew the -15's were coming (why the Radio Shack gear was so effective and so critical). You must have topography to utilize like that, but that sort of ambush is still not something a low-time line pilot would be proficient at. That's why I said "very experienced". It makes a huge difference.

As for shoulder-fired missiles and antiaircraft fire, if the low-tech aircraft can reach Mach 1 at surface level, this pretty much rules out effective human aiming of any system, and the short timelines from horizon really stress IR seeker lock times. Plus, you can't really see the hot tailpipe until he's almost overhead. Canopy glint locks went out with the old 1-2 micron band seekers of the 1960's and 1970's.

Shoulder-fired missiles are inherently small, or they wouldn't be shoulder-fired. No room for a radar, these are almost invariably IR guided (I do know of two shoulder-fired laser beam-riders, though). These are really good at hitting stuff within a mile or two, flying at or under 300 knots. They are not so very good at hitting things within those couple of miles flying 600 knots. There are some truck and ship-mounted IR guided threats (and one laser beam rider) large enough to take on Mach 1 targets at more than a couple of miles, those are significant threats.

The laser beam-riders are inherently human-guided. The short timelines of Mach 1 on the deck tend to render them a lot less effective than against a slower target. An airliner on climbout at 200-300 knots 3 or even 4 miles up is vulnerable. The Mach 1 fighter, even close in, is not vulnerable so much, especially if he is jinking more-or-less randomly.

As for radar-guided things like the 23 mm quad that the Russians sold everybody, it's really hard to get an aimpoint and enough of a stream of shells toward the target to hit it, on short timelines. That's why Mach 1 at 50-100 feet AGL is so effective. The timeline is too short, just like it is with human-aimed systems.

This really doesn't work so well at sea. You can hide a small object like a missile in the scatter off of waves at 50 feet, but not so much a big object like an airplane. Radar horizon from a destroyer for a low altitude threat like that is about 12 miles or thereabouts.

For a well-subsonic threat like an Exocet, you have time to identify, slew a mount, and either get a missile seeker on track or else fire enough rounds to hit the target. That timeline is about 70 to 80 seconds.

If the threat is substantially-supersonic like a Sunburn or a Krypton, the time from detection to impact is much shorter at around 20 seconds. Those get through. For a Mach 1 threat, it's sort of up in the air.

Our low-tech plane could carry flares and chaff, but I don't recommend IR jammers anymore, not even on helicopters. Those would defeat the old spin-scan AM-processing seekers. They would put a dither into con-scan FM processing systems, but they just draw in the modern staring array threats, making them more effective than otherwise.

GW

kbd512 · 2018-05-14 15:44:11

Rob,

You're still making false claims about things that didn't actually happen. I never did belittle Canada's contribution to the war efforts. Your mind is still constructing alternative realities that have no basis in anything I've stated.

You made statements about the nuclear weapons development program that a variety of documents from US, British, and Canadian sources refute. I'm sure you found those same documents after you made your claims. After the Cold War ended, a wealth of information about the various nuclear weapons programs became available to the public. Prior to that, there was still some publicly available information about the Manhattan Project after WWII ended. It's freely available for anyone who wants to spend a little time reading.

GW,

As you noted, hiding in terrain only works when there's terrain to hide in and your opponent's radar system isn't very sophisticated. Those Eagle pilots were using radars that are nothing like the electronically steered arrays we have today. Modern AESA systems like those found on the F-35 are so radically different from what was available in 1978 as to be entirely new technology. The mere fact that the genesis of current technology may pre-date the Eagle says nothing about what the actual capability of modern systems are in comparison to what was available way back when. It's apples and bananas.

Red Flag is taking brand new F-35 pilots who have fewer than 500 hours of total career flight time and they're pitting them against the most experienced pilots and best weapon systems Western militaries presently field and in 90% or more of the scenarios tested those young and inexperienced pilots live to fly another mission. Prior to that, Red Air and Red IADS were killing 50% or more of the Blue aircraft PER MISSION and few to none of the targets were bombed so those threats persisted. The Blue pilots were thoroughly demoralized as a result, but it did make them try new things just to see if something would work. Unfortunately, there was only so much they could do with what they had to work with. Without EW support, they'd never live to see the end of a SEAD mission. The F-35 is its own EW and AWACS support.

If it were up to me, I'd make the F-22's Red Air and then I'd put a gauntlet of the absolute best networked IADS that western countries have in their inventories to force our young F-35 pilots to push their capabilities to the absolute limit. They need to "discover" that they can't turn like a F-22 or Su-57, so they can't get into a turning engagement with one and expect to survive. They must be forced to use the strengths of their platform. The more realistic our training regimen becomes, the more likely our pilots are to win in combat against peer level adversaries.

You can only become a seasoned veteran who can take nearly any aircraft with reasonable capabilities and accomplish missions if you live long enough to gain the experience required to do the sneaky stuff required to fight and live to fight another day. You put the seasoned veterans in the legacy aircraft because they have the skill and guile to fight anyone, anytime, anywhere and then you put the young guys and gals in the most technologically advanced fighters you can afford to field so they live long enough to become seasoned vets.

Your commentary on AAA and MANPADS just made the case as to why our A-10's can no longer fight and live in any environments but the most benign environments imaginable. If our enemies put fighter weapons like AIM-9X, and they do, on a truck and our A-10's came rolling in, that'd be the last CAS mission they'd fly. Russian and Chinese IR guided missiles are every bit as lethal as our IR guided missiles, but with greater range and higher speed. Flying against that at treetop level is suicidal. As always, speed and distance are your friends.

The modern AAA systems like Oerlikon Contrave's (now a subsidiary of Rheinmetall Defense) 35mm Skyshield / Skyguard is capable of killing mortar shells, artillery shells, cruise missiles, and aircraft. The Russians and Chinese also field the same types of systems. The Chinese system is actually a copy of the Skyshield / Skyguard system. These systems don't simply fire cannon shells that detonate on impact or at a certain elevation. They're command detonated to produce a wall of metal pellets for the target to fly through. It's just like shrapnel from larger shells or fragments from missile warheads and every bit as lethal if it hits an engine. The gun's range is limited to 4km or thereabouts, but it automatically searches, interrogates (IFF), tracks, locks, and fires. It can also be paired with MANPADS to cue targets and even launch MANPADS itself. Aircraft can be tracked out to 55km, so it's looking for targets well before they're within weapon system range. A laser system is also in development for killing smaller targets like missiles and drones.

I wouldn't take these sorts of threats lightly and can guarantee that pilots who want to live won't, either. We'll always need tactical fighters, we're going to need sophisticated combat drones in the future, and we also need more sophisticated attack aircraft specifically intended to kill vehicles and troops protected by modern air defense systems.

GW Johnson · 2018-05-15 09:41:54

Actually, I think we're in agreement about experienced pilots in legacy aircraft and young pilots in state-of-the-art aircraft. I've been out of the business for enough decades to not be "up" on all the very latest goodies.

But I watched this develop from guns-only to guns+missiles, and saw the Vietnam-era mistake of missiles-only. Accordingly, I trust new technologies less than most younger folks. The trend has always been that actual effectiveness falls far short of the hype. That's not to say I don't recommend new technologies, because I do. That's what I did for a living in defense work: developing new technologies into workable items. Mostly in propulsion, but I did a stint on countermeasures, too.

We have a young population of pilots primarily because of poor management decisions. The turnover rate is high and few stay in for long careers, because the pay and benefits are just not there (actually a problem for the entire military). That is what drives the extreme push for the latest and greatest technologies, at huge expense: just to make up for the inexperience.

This problem has been recognized since the first world war. They talk about having the technology and the experience, but that's not what they really do. Look at the actions, not the words.

GW

kbd512 · 2018-05-15 11:57:14

GW,

In Viet Nam, AIM-9's were as likely to track heat from the Sun, clouds, or ground as enemy aircraft. That is no longer the case.

The AIM-9X won't follow heat from anything but the aircraft it's chasing. If you have another enemy aircraft of the same type fly through it's seeker's path, it won't even follow the other aircraft in most cases. It doesn't matter whether or not the missile is fired from any particular aspect, either. It literally forms a unique 3D heat signature of the aircraft it's tracking and if it's within range, there's an excellent chance it will fly into the target aircraft and explode, causing catastrophic damage in the process. It's the air warfare embodiment of that old "bullet with your name on it" concept.

Similarly, AIM-120D is greatly improved over previous generations of the technology and everything about it is "better". It has significantly more range, significantly improved maneuverability, improved onboard seeker detection range, mid-course guidance correction using two-way data links and GPS, rejection of ECM, and home-on-jam. The longer range radar guided missiles are admittedly easier to decoy, but there's still an excellent chance that it kills the target.

Basically, modern missile guidance systems have been refined to the point where there's not a lot that can be done to prevent them from guiding all the way to the target. It's not impossible, but considerably more difficult than it was in past decades.

I wouldn't remove cannons from tactical fighters just yet, but 100kW lasers will cause considerably more precise damage by putting holes in vulnerable components like the canopy, avionics, radar / EO / IRST sensors, or they can detonate explosives in missiles or bombs and ignite rocket motors in missiles. Perhaps more importantly, these weapons can fry the seekers of incoming missiles. Since the weapon works at the speed of light, target movement is irrelevant at the close ranges involved. Detonating warheads in ordnance aboard enemy aircraft will be a decidedly lethal way to deal with those aircraft that doesn't require expensive and heavy expendable ordnance.

I don't believe that technology development merely substitutes for experience. Most of the tech in modern fighters has been designed in such a way that the pilot can concentrate on flying the aircraft instead of fiddling with the engines and sensor systems. Any pilot with an aircraft that does not do those things necessarily spends more time on those tasks than flying the aircraft and attacking targets.

GW Johnson · 2018-05-15 13:02:19

All I can say is don't believe all the hype you hear from the manufacturers. It's as untrue as the 12-foot-tall-enemy stories they tell to sell this stuff. The trend since the very beginning of guided missiles has been that the hype is way-overblown, reality far more circumspect.

AIM-9X has a staring array imaging seeker with a much wider gimbal aspect than any in the past, close to 90 degrees, I heard. I don't know if it receives in more than one color, but if it does, that is far more immune to flares. Not some other things I have built myself, but flares.

If it actually images shapes, that may be an improvement over the old blink-and-coast method of waiting for the flare to drop out of the view. I dunno, maybe it's a significant improvement, maybe not. We'll see. The problem is recognizing the shape as aspect angles shift. And they always do.

The 90 degree off axis gimbal capability is the biggest improvement I am aware of, and that was catch-up to the Russians in the 1980's.

As for Vietnam-era AIM-9's, those were early 1-2 band seekers. You don't generally lock on the sun or canopies or clouds using 3-5 band, which most modern seekers use, ever since a few test versions of the SA-13 in the late 1970's pioneered it. Two-color is better, but 7-14 band only works at night. That's why most are 3-5 band, with 1-2 as the second color, but not the primary track information. They look at relative in-band power between the two colors to distinguish hotter flares from cooler tailpipes, and take some action not to track the flare by mistake.

AIM-120 began life as a "launch-and-leave" system, not a true "fire-and-forget" like all IR systems. The old Sparrows and Shrikes required the bigger, more powerful aircraft radar to paint the target until the missile was within a couple of miles or so. Then it could see the target and go autonomous. You had to fly at the target until then. AIM-120's big breakthrough was a 10-ish mile autonomous range in a 7 inch diameter, smaller than the 9-inch Sparrow/Shrike.

For a long range launch, the aircraft still has to paint the target for a while, but gets to turn away sooner for better survivability, and to do something else sooner. You can now steer the beam somewhat so that you don';t have to fly straight at the target anymore, and that's an improvement as well. The longer they make the go-autonomous range, the better this gets. But these are incremental changes, not fundamental game-changers, as the hype would have you believe.

GW

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2018-05-07 12:32:20

Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#2 2018-05-07 14:01:19

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#3 2018-05-07 16:19:09

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#4 2018-05-07 16:49:12

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#5 2018-05-07 20:35:33

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#6 2018-05-08 07:50:57

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#7 2018-05-08 10:11:17

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#8 2018-05-08 15:50:47

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#9 2018-05-09 13:23:50

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#10 2018-05-09 16:07:47

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#11 2018-05-10 04:11:11

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#12 2018-05-10 04:38:10

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#13 2018-05-10 13:04:53

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#14 2018-05-10 20:44:43

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#15 2018-05-13 11:52:11

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#16 2018-05-13 15:22:04

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#17 2018-05-13 17:50:07

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#18 2018-05-13 22:46:29

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#19 2018-05-14 04:32:28

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#20 2018-05-14 08:16:20

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#21 2018-05-14 10:20:50

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#22 2018-05-14 15:44:11

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#23 2018-05-15 09:41:54

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#24 2018-05-15 11:57:14

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

#25 2018-05-15 13:02:19

Re: Persistent Issues with Collaborative Aerospace Tech Development

Board footer