They have an SR-71 in a hangar at the Pima county air and space museum, it’s so damn big. I was also struck by how huge the F-14 was compared to modern fighters. If you ever find yourself out in the desert for some reason, highly recommend spending a day there.
One of my favorite blackbird stories involved a little single prop Cessna asking a ground tower for an air speed altitude and speed check to make sure his instruments were accurate. Tower says something like 150 knots and 5k feet. This hot shot f-18 pilot decides to fuck with the Cessna and requests one from the tower too. Tower radios back 500knots/30,000ft. A blackbird pilot hears what’s happening and asks for one too. Tower comes back with 2000knots/80,000feet.
F14s we’re huge even for the era, aside from the F111 (which was almost made into a carrier version instead of making the Tom).
I believe the F-14 was as big as a WW2 B-17. Always struck me as a standout fact. B-17s were too big for WW2 carriers, yet modern Nimetz carriers could hold a whole air wing of Cats. Edit: looked into it. B-17s were a bit bigger in both length and wingspan.
B-25s were medium bombers, and that split tail looks more like what was affixed to the Liberator anyway
This is the internet and I apologize for nothing. It never crossed my mind he was comparing a tomcat to a fortress, my mind just assumed it was a Mitchell which would have been more comparable.
the protocol for an SR-71 being fired at by a SAM was to just accelerate and outrun the missile. they were incredible
Good news is we doubled down on the sun as Zummwalt ! the Arleigh Burke is a fine class of destroyer IMO
1) I maintain that the entire LCS program exists just to keep shipyards open during the post-Soviet collapse "we're friends with Russia and China and everyone is going to be happy forever but I'll be fucked if we cut the military budget" and the subsequent post-9/11 "everyone is infantry! Air Force? Infantry! Navy? INFANTRY!" eras and now suddenly everyone's like "oh shit China's navy got fuckin' big, we need real ships" 2) They also suffer from the same F-35 and Bradley IFV problem of "hey how if we make this one thing do everything? Oh, it's shit now? Damn" 3) The Zumwalt should have been classed as a cruiser. There's no way something that fucking big can be classed as a destroyer 4) Going forward, I think ships are going to get a lot smaller. Targeting and missiles are getting too good and so having one cruiser is too easy to hit and frigates are going to make a big comeback. 5) Burke's are fine for now but even with upgrades, it's a 40-year old platform.
The Europeans are building a lot of air defense and missile focused frigates/destroyers I believe so are the Japanese and Koreans. I’m kind of surprised we haven’t fully pivoted yet
We haven't built a cruiser in 30 years, all the Tic's are at least that old. The problem with frigates is that they have fairly short legs and aren't really suited for long haul ocean voyages, especially in the Pacific, and have relatively small throw weights (Russia's new frigates/corvettes only have 6-8 non-air-defence VLS cells; any US-built frigate would probably be better off because we can use the same VLS cell for anti-air and anti-surface, but an Arleigh Burke by comparison has 96 total cells and some of those can quad-back missiles.) And, really, any REASONABLE navy would have classed the LCS's as frigates or corvettes, but because we don't DO frigates or corvettes, we had to call them something different. One of the plans going forward is to shove a VLS onto one of the classes of LCS and predesignate them as frigates.
If anyone sees a f-35 zooming around please alert the authorities. The pilot was found about 10 miles from me.
Heard it went down in Lake Moultrie near Bonneau Beach. How do they not have some kinda tracking on this thing.
They fly over both my house and cabin almost daily, kinda hoping I can get an expensive lawn ornament
What a shit show- hey I ejected from an f35 but it just kept going and idk where it is sorry lol Also lost a Hornet in this area a week or two ago Get your shit together
That area is about 80 miles from where they found the pilot. Wild it travelled that far. Ghost ride your whip.
Wait til you hear about Helios Airways Flt 522, or Payne Stewart's plane. Planes can fly a long time without pilots
there's a pretty well known case where a plane was in an unrecoverable spin that landed itself after the pilot ejected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber
The most confusing aspect for me is most military pilots don’t eject from an aircraft capable of continue flying for another 30 mins. The ejection process is an incredibly violent procedure and in some cases can end a pilots career (back injuries). Additionally most pilots will wait until the last possible moment to ensure the aircraft doesn’t go down in a populated area. This seems contrary to most documented ejections I have seen or read about.
I’ve seen some modeling on the new T-X trainer to make sure that the shock wave from the shaped charge that rips the canopy off doesn’t cause head injury to the pilots. Violent to say the least, and that’s before your seat even leaves the cockpit.
Built in Texas more than likely as well. Also i read a few comments that the B model has an automatic ejection process for when instability occurs in a situation where the pilot may not have the time to initiate the ejection process, usually this would happen in a hover or VTOL. There is some concern the pilot may have created a situation where the automatic ejection process triggered and the pilot began a process known as "Yeeted outta the plane".
Shittiness of the F35 aside, isn't that just how things are done now? I thought they cut back on a lot of infrastructure and are farming it out. Whether that is good or not is a totally different question.