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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 3, 2015 9:33:33 GMT -6
I believe that you did post that article. The TF-30 engines were not the engines the F-14 was designed to have, the F-100s of the F-15 were supposed to be the engines but at the point in the PERT chart where the engines had to be available, they were not. So they took the engines out of the now defunct F-111 for the Navy, and reengineered them with new cans for the burners and problems started as soon as they became operational. We lost at least one going around to land at Miramar, engines failed and down it went near Mission Trails Park, up on the mesa next to the base. I agree that it was a maintenance nightmare, structurally it was like a tank but the skin leaked. Hard to believe, well the last procedure we performed before selling a weapons replaceable assemble to QA and then sending it to the bird, was to perform a water intrusion procedure using Dupont 3145 sealer. If you had to remove the top or any thing else, you had to seal the box. Another crazy item was switching unit for signal crossing the wing area. It was a unit with a series of ridges with box relays installed and wired to the 128 pin plugs on the end. They were almost unique to each bird. To test, you had to look up the tail number of the aircraft and then certain tests would fail. If the proper ones failed, it was considered successfully tested. If it did fail, we had to determine the failed box relay and send it to the wiring shop for repair. Unbelievable, and I don't know how the sailors could cope with that situation.
www.firstmicroprocessor.com/ - This is an interesting, short piece about the CADC in the F-14. I worked on this unit and make $10,000 dollars on it. I developed a way for the sailors to adjust the pitot and static sensors while on the test station, something they could never do before. It was approved almost immediately by engineering and I went to Miramar to teach the kids how to do it. This allowed them bring up 10 F-14's that were down for these sensors that were sent back to Hazeltine. I could not understand why Grumman couldn't figure this solution out, the two pots for adjusting the curve were on the side of the units.
Anyway, enough of the war stories. I agree about the advent of DEAD versus SEAD. It would be better to just fly the missions to destroy the SAM's but the stores requirement is just that much added to the carriers and not usable possibly by any other mission. I believe that with stealth, we can just perform a modest amount of SEAD and probably be successful with our operations especially now with drones and smart bombs. With Tomahawks and their replacement, I am not certain DEAD is that important.
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Post by steel selachian on Apr 3, 2015 21:23:36 GMT -6
My thinking on DEAD versus SEAD is DEAD seems to rely more on knowing where the SAM/radar sites are in advance, whereas SEAD is better suited for mobile or other "pop-up" threats. If you can't kill the sites, you can at least jam them or use the threat of a HARM launch to scare the operators into shutting down. Over Iraq and Yugoslavia the SEAD crews would often issue bogus "Magnum" (ARM launch) brevity codes over the radio to spook the SAM operators. The Serbs managed to keep a lot of their SAMs after Allied Force because they were crafty, but on the flip side they were unable to accomplish much (aside from knocking down one F-16 and one F-117, the latter of which put too much stock in stealth as a defense).
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 4, 2015 7:27:31 GMT -6
Electronic warfare is a cat and mouse game. It relies on electronic intelligence gathering, analysis and assessment. The first task always is to accurately appraise the opponents air defenses and how its going to affect your operations. The E-3 and E-2 AWACS aircraft both use some sort of passive detection system to gather EM signals, analyze them and store them on a tape, disk or whatever. You use satellite, drone and aircraft reconnaissance information to identify sites of the IADS. You must have a clear, concise but accurate picture of the enemies air defenses. After that, you can make a decision as to the amount of suppression, kind of suppression and the duration of the suppression campaign. Deception,disruption and destruction are all used in such an air operation. This is not either/or. DEAD and SEAD are simply variations of the same mission; on a typical mission, you might use disruption and deception to gain a path through enemy air defenses, and on the same mission you might use destruction by using JDAMS to destroy a search set tied to a missile defense system or use a HARM missile to destroy the tracking radar. The established goal in current anti-IADS, is to carry disruptive and deceptive equipment on board fighters, with a minimum of destructive weapons due to load capacities. The attempt is to minimize the need for specialized aircraft in the air wings both for USAF and USN along with the Marines is goal currently being reviewed and hopefully fully achieved.
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Post by steel selachian on Apr 5, 2015 22:00:32 GMT -6
Back to fifth-gen aircraft - looks like the Russians might be having some issues with the T-50: medium.com/war-is-boring/russia-s-stealth-fighter-is-in-serious-trouble-24ac3ef85227Methinks it's probably a combination of the economic crunch plus realizing that government press releases saying the new bourgeois-slaughtering, borscht-making wonder weapon will be rolling out like loaves of bread in jig time aren't very realistic when dealing with a complex weapons system.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 6, 2015 7:25:33 GMT -6
Back to fifth-gen aircraft - looks like the Russians might be having some issues with the T-50: medium.com/war-is-boring/russia-s-stealth-fighter-is-in-serious-trouble-24ac3ef85227Methinks it's probably a combination of the economic crunch plus realizing that government press releases saying the new bourgeois-slaughtering, borscht-making wonder weapon will be rolling out like loaves of bread in jig time aren't very realistic when dealing with a complex weapons system. Somehow, all this doesn't surprise me. I can only think of the MIG-31 Foxbat, and how everyone thought it was the great fighter until we got a hold of one, then discovered it was a dog. The Russian rhetoric is just so much horse manure, as usual.
It is my opinion, that one of key issues is the loss of so many states from within the old Soviet Union, like Ukraine, the Baltic states, Belarus and others. These had factories but more importantly, engineers with the skills needed. Possibly this is a major reason plus the economics. The people of Russia would like more consumer goods and less military. In the post-Cold War era, small wars and protection of sea lanes through narrow passages and littoral zones for global commerce will be far more important than action in the heartland. The rimland and Indian Ocean will be the key areas, along with the South China Sea. The Soviets understood this and that's why they invaded Afghanistan to gain access to the Indian Ocean, its also why they have cultivated a relationship with the Indian's who are Mahanian's, a new crop like the Chinese. However, Mahan and his ideas are not relevant anymore; neither is Haushofer. The Russians have lost any real access to the Black Sea, despite their new relationship with the Crimea. They are boxed in, as they have always been. A new stealth fighter isn't going to change this new geopolitical situation. They, specifically Putin will have to adjust to the new realities..... as will Europe and the US. Stealth fighters are nice, but I can't really see a whole lot of usage for such expensive toys. As one Russian Defense analyst put it; "There is no mission and no adversary for such plane," Russian defense analyst Konovalov says. "It would be more expedient to fit modern avionics to older generation jets". I actually tend to believe he his correct.
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Post by steel selachian on Apr 9, 2015 17:10:16 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 10, 2015 7:28:44 GMT -6
How about that, you can read War and Peace, email your girl and blow up the enemy. Talk about multitasking. I wonder if you can download books from Amazon?
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Post by steel selachian on Apr 10, 2015 22:45:44 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 11, 2015 9:33:19 GMT -6
My comments are for the first two articles, I need to study the third more closely.
First, he is an Air Force officer, do your job and keep your thoughts to yourself. If you have objections, put it in writing and give it to your bosses, then SHUT UP, IDIOT. Such comments can be construed as aiding and abetting the enemy. If you can't shut up, retire then make your comments but beware, as a general officer you are still in the USAF. All general officers are still considered part of the service and can be recalled at any time.
Second, no it isn't the best CAS aircraft, but we can't afford single purpose birds, ships or any other weapon in our arsenal, we need to field and deploy multipurpose weapons systems and do our best to adapt them. Get over it. Modern 21st century wars are different.
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Post by steel selachian on May 24, 2015 18:49:16 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 24, 2015 19:17:04 GMT -6
Much ado about nothing, that equipment isn't something the Iranian's and Chinese don't already have the plans for, trust me. I think it is better that the pilot might have been able to bring the plane home in one fairly intact piece. You cannot expect to export technology and not have things like this happen. You just have to stay a jump ahead all the time. At least it isn't an H bomb lost for half a century in Georgia and only recently found. Ich!
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 8, 2015 7:38:18 GMT -6
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Post by steel selachian on Jun 29, 2015 18:49:58 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 30, 2015 8:46:52 GMT -6
It would seem that this test pilot doesn't like bomb trucks. His comment" “The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” should be defined in a little bit more detailed terms. Correct me if I am in error, but this comment is based on ONE test in January, 2015. Are there other tests, please tell me there are. We can't judge this fighter's performance without a battery of tests in different flight regimes. What he is describing is a poor energy-maneuverability in this aircraft and a slow pitch rate(the rate, in degrees per seconds, of the movement up or down of the nose once the control stick is actuated). Is this a function of a slow flight control system, it is fly by wire and computer controlled, or is it a function of lack of energy to move the nose. This could be a function of control surface area.
Anyway, hopefully, the USAF and other services will continue to conduct flight tests to isolate the problems and this will allow the engineers data to correct the issues.
Here is a different viewpoint that seems to explain all this better about the F-35 - Read the section on Housekeeping, it says it all about metrics. There are three other posts in this blog, and they are about "Sustained G" spec change. It is important to understand because this is not an F-16 nor was it intended to be, despite the media reports.
elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-backgrounder-on-energy-maneuverability.html
elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-f-35-and-infamous-sustained-g-spec.html elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-f-35-and-infamous-sustained-g-spec.html elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-f-35-and-infamous-sustained-g-spec_26.html
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 30, 2015 13:43:58 GMT -6
Here is an article that seems to provide better information on that January test at Edwards AFB. aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-flies-against-f-16-basic-fighter-maneuversHere is that quote I like: So, it was not a realistic air combat simulation, it was a specific set of tests designed to find out where the flight controls need to be tweaked to provide better maneuverability and control. You don't conduct air combat maneuvering tests in this manner. You use aggressor squadrons to establish situations that are not preplanned, they simulate real air combat conditions. Funny how that article didn't mention that little bit of information. You don't go to Edwards AFB for air combat tests, you do those at Eglin, Point Magu or Nellis. These bases are configured with monitors in the field for these kind of tests. While these were air combat maneuvering tests, they were configured to test the F-35's limits AoA and spin, simply put, spin and stall tests. The pilots of the F-35 were testing specific parameters with established flight criteria. In other words, you will be at this altitude, flying at this speed with this load configuration and the F-16 will attack from this angle and speed, you will react in this manner. These are very precise instructions, not the kind issued at Red Flag or Top gun. Keep in mind always, the primary mission of the bird is strike....its a bomb truck, not a dogfighter. It was designed to use supercruise and stealth to reach heavily defended targets and scamper home; something the F-16 cannot do that well due to poor stealth characteristics and modest bomb loads.
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