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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 1, 2015 19:43:01 GMT -6
Dennis, on your question regarding the MiGs I assume they weren't detected because our aircraft did not yet have look-down radars. As far as the stealthy aircraft - you have to remember that these aren't a MiG-21 or J-7 that you can just change the fluids every 100,000 hours and keep going. A lot of these Third World air forces have major issues even keeping 70s-vintage designs like the MiG-29 operational. Something with stealth coatings, AESA, fly-by-wire controls, etc. is going to be a very expensive initial purchase that will end up as a hangar queen unless the ground crews keep up with the chores. On your answer to the question, you are correct. In order to see a target moving in clutter, you have to use frequency domain. You measure the Doppler shift of the return pulse compared to the pulse sent out. If the frequency goes up, the object is closing, if the frequency goes down, the object is moving away. That's simplified but that gives you the idea. This type of airborne fire control radar is pulse Doppler and the F-4J had that in the AWG-10A. The F-4E had the function in the APQ-120. Airborne Early Warning and other aircraft also adopted it. With this type of radar, you can now look down, shoot down. The MIG's now could not stay low and escape detection. By 1972, both of those systems were operational. The Navy issued a requirement for this kind of radar in 1966.
The problems of maintenance of sophisticated aircraft is a major problem and you are correct, not all nations can afford or have the necessary skills in their military systems.
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Post by kyle on Jan 2, 2015 12:29:12 GMT -6
Because stealthy aircraft are up there and flying around we know about them. I have to wonder what capabilities the US or other western countries may have against such aircraft? If a B2 or F-35 aircraft wanted to bomb Pearl Harbor (just to pick a place) - would they detect them coming in with enough time to do something about it? Of course the ability of a radar or other method of detection would be (rightly) classified. Many things in warfare evolve with a series of one- upmanship. Tank, anti tank gun, sloped armor, better ammo, thicker sloped armor, heat rounds, etc. Wonder who's ahead in the stealth world - aircraft or detection? The Russians and Chinese both appear to have stealthy fighter/fighter bomber aircraft. The T-50 PAK FA and the 31 respectively. How long until someone like Syria gets a stealthy aircraft or two to play with? Oh, that's right - the cold war is over. Reading the news I sometimes forget. Geostrategy dictates requirements and that generates specifications. Some nations like Syria really don't have a need for such sophisticated weaponry, so they don't produce it. They don't have much an aircraft manufacturing base anyways. That's how I view it. I was thinking along the lines of someone that does have stealth aircraft may allow some to be 'field tested' in Syria. That's what the cold war comment was referring to. If I were 'country X' with a nice, new stealthy aircraft I would be most curious how it would work in the real world vs something other than my own detection technology. There is way too much involved to loan a few out though - the logistics would be problematical at best, let alone who's going to do the piloting. Then there are political ramifications.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 2, 2015 14:20:14 GMT -6
Geostrategy dictates requirements and that generates specifications. Some nations like Syria really don't have a need for such sophisticated weaponry, so they don't produce it. They don't have much an aircraft manufacturing base anyways. That's how I view it. I was thinking along the lines of someone that does have stealth aircraft may allow some to be 'field tested' in Syria. That's what the cold war comment was referring to. If I were 'country X' with a nice, new stealthy aircraft I would be most curious how it would work in the real world vs something other than my own detection technology. There is way too much involved to loan a few out though - the logistics would be problematical at best, let alone who's going to do the piloting. Then there are political ramifications. That isn't as good an idea as you might think. Aircraft have a tendency to crash for no apparent reason and now the secrets of the plane might be in unfriendly hands. Even if you are just flying it, using on missions, the other side can now gather intel on the planes capabilities and begin to devise a defense for it. It might also reveal its real weaknesses, not always available by reading the blueprints although modern sims can really do a good job. That's the real fear, loss of any real secrets.
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Post by steel selachian on Jan 2, 2015 19:46:16 GMT -6
There's also the issue of your "allies" getting access to the plane's secrets and then passing them on, intentionally or unintentionally. During the Cold War the Soviets almost always gave their client states downgraded export versions of even their basic designs like the MiG-21 and Su-25. They would substitute less capable versions of the radar and electronics fit as well as dial back the weapons options. That was one of the issues we had with judging the Iraqi military's Soviet equipment - it lacked a lot of the features the Russians would have had on their own aircraft and vehicles.
Not to mention that the most radical element of these designs - stealth - is going to be completely untested in that theater unless the country in question is attacked by a first-world air force. Most of these tinpot dictatorships in question are more concerned with dropping unguided bombs and rockets on guys with AKs; my bet is Assad would much rather have more Su-25s than a couple of PAK FAs. Also, the question is - who's going to fly it? Will you send your own pilots? Or will you have to train the locals on it? And in the case of Syria, what are the odds the Israelis might get trigger-happy? I'm sure the Russians do not have fond memories about losing a couple of MiG-21s and pilots over Egypt and getting humiliated by the IAF in the process.
If you want to test these birds out, do what the Russians have always done - go play games with NORAD or NATO. I'd be expecting to see these aircraft making appearances over the Barents, Bering, and Baltic to see what they can get away with.
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Post by sirchaos on Jan 3, 2015 9:03:23 GMT -6
Rather than "field-testing" a new stealth aircraft someplace abroad, wouldn´t it be a lot safer and easier in every respect to, ahem, "acquire" examples of foreign radar and other equipment, setting it up in some nice remote region of your own country and testing your stealth aircraft there? Those would be much more controlled circumstances, with less potential of any weaknesses leaking to other militaries.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 3, 2015 10:19:46 GMT -6
Rather than "field-testing" a new stealth aircraft someplace abroad, wouldn´t it be a lot safer and easier in every respect to, ahem, "acquire" examples of foreign radar and other equipment, setting it up in some nice remote region of your own country and testing your stealth aircraft there? Those would be much more controlled circumstances, with less potential of any weaknesses leaking to other militaries. Yes and that's what the Lipetsk Air Base is specifically used for, the testing of aircraft. We have Edwards AFB. However, its far more effective to just "test" US air defenses by flying through ADIZs like the Alaskan Air Defense Zone. As I have pointed out, they have been doing that for a very long time. They did it when I was in NORAD almost a 46 years ago. There are flight test areas like Yuma for the Marines, Nellis for the USAF and Fallon NAS, Nevada. ACM is conducted at Nellis and Fallon. Yuma does the same thing for the Marines. There are test facilities in the east also. Europe and NATO have test facilities for training and testing of new technologies and doctrine.
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Post by steel selachian on Feb 3, 2015 18:40:57 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 4, 2015 9:14:37 GMT -6
Great article, thanks. Some comments. I visited Laughlin AFB near San Antonio in the late 1950's. Our car had a problem and an USAF officer noticed the government sticker so he got us a place to stay at the BOQ,took us to the O club and then in the evening, he let us watch a U2 taking off. During that time period, that was the U-2 base for flights to Turkey then over Russia. Luke AFB is in Phoenix, you can see it off the side of the road I-8. It was my division CPBO, basically the headquarters for the 26th Air Division.
His comment about accelerating straight up is interesting, because I never believed that it would do that for long, you can't avoid physics. I have Sierra Hotel on my Kindle, and have read it. Good book.
As to the information on ACM, here are some ideas to remember: OODA by John Boyd, energy-maneuverability, and translating potential energy - the energy of position i. e. altitude into kinetic energy - the energy of movement. The basic principles were discoverer by Boelke in WW1 and used in WWII by the heavier US fighters in both the Pacific and Europe. They were used by the heavier Sabre's against the MIG-15's in Korea and by the F-4's in Vietnam against the MIG-17's and 21's.
I am going to read the article in full, many more times but right now our kitchen is being remodeled and its getting complicated over the next few days. Be patient, I am enjoying the article.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 4, 2015 13:39:40 GMT -6
In the article he talks about helmet mounted sights, something required nowadays. I worked and tested the first Navy helmet mounted sight slaved to the sidewinder extended acquisition mode. It allowed the pilot to look up, to the left or right and the AIM-9 would lockon and fire. The sight was called VTAS. Here is a link - www.hartov.dk/yahoo/vtas.htm
We calibrated the receivers which were mounted in the upper left and Right in the cockpit using a polished piece of granite that had to be perfectly level.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 11, 2015 18:49:02 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 4, 2015 8:46:36 GMT -6
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Post by RNRobert on Mar 4, 2015 13:26:37 GMT -6
I remember that movie (read the book, too). The questions raised in the article remind me of Star Trek: TNG- "You will become one with the Borg."
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Post by steel selachian on Apr 1, 2015 22:10:37 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 2, 2015 14:31:08 GMT -6
Good subject. On that article is an inset for the F-14 about it being a turkey..... Oh! boy, are they correct. Read it, its interesting. I have to finish reading both articles, time permitting. Granddaughter is on spring break, which means busy, busy, busy.
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Post by steel selachian on Apr 2, 2015 17:34:24 GMT -6
Good subject. On that article is an inset for the F-14 about it being a turkey..... Oh! boy, are they correct. Read it, its interesting. I have to finish reading both articles, time permitting. Granddaughter is on spring break, which means busy, busy, busy. I believe I posted the F-14 "Turkey" article in here a while back, specifically because I figured it would bring back memories for you. Not necessarily fun memories The note about several occasions where the CVW's entire F-14 complement (presumably two full squadrons) was down for repairs was pretty damning. It might have performed much better than the Super Hornet as a pure fighter, but that doesn't matter much when the thing is sitting in the hangar requiring major repairs. There's a comment farther down though where a former F-14D RIO remarks that their birds were a lot more reliable, between the newer equipment (AN/APG-71 radars and F110 engines) and the airframes all being either new or recently overhauled. The other thing that got me was the discussion of SEAD versus DEAD, which is fairly important as the USAF is divesting its own SEAD capability. Another interesting one that gets around to talking about the Tomcat, the Super Hornet, the F-35, and Forward Air Control missions: foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/confessions-of-a-us-navy-blue-angel-1689568343
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