X3 Skier
En-Route
Light Attack Test Program, One fatality
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...aircraft-crashes-on-bomb-range-killing-pilot/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...aircraft-crashes-on-bomb-range-killing-pilot/
Fighter? Where's the fighter? I see a ground attack airplane for a low-threat environment.The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
Fighter? Where's the fighter? I see a ground attack airplane for a low-threat environment.
Nauga,
plinking
The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
This light attack concept only works once all the high threat ADA / fighters have been eliminated such as in Iraq. You send something like this in during the initial stages of combat, with a formidable foe and they’ll be dead meat. High end fighter / attack will always be needed.
They looked into this back in the 80s when Central America was misbehaving. Piper came out with the Enforcer, which looks like a P51 except it's a turbo prop, PT6 I think. Never could acquire a market for it and the program died.
The PA-48 used a Lycoming YT55-L-9. It was developed from the Cavalier Mustang, which was a civil version of the P-51. More info on Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-48_Enforcer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalier_Mustang
They looked into this back in the 80s when Central America was misbehaving. Piper came out with the Enforcer, which looks like a P51 except it's a turbo prop, PT6 I think. Never could acquire a market for it and the program died.
A-10 = fast jet?
The 70’s and 80’s airframes can fly forever if you want to spend the maintenance money. It’s common knowledge that Congress and Contractors would rather build new stuff like the abominable F-35 set of airplanes.
Since I got into the aircraft Deveolpment business back in the 60’s, I’ve watched a terrible death spiral of new airframes. The stupid A***** in Fort Fumble and Congressional Staffs think they can save money by making multi mission/service planes which cause the services to add requirements to cover every mission thus raising the cost and resulting in “universal use” overpriced underperforming single airframes. In the end, it would be just as cheap to build “horses for courses” and have a flexible and responsive fighter and attack fleet.
Cheers
The evolution of the fighter plane is interesting. It seems as if high end jet fighters are the nukes of yesteryear.
Actually I had fight off those toads in the F-15 and F-22 programs. The “not a pound for air to ground” mantra in the F-15 program was the slogan but the real story was with minor structural requirements “adjustments” in the F15A/B, the ability to deliver the F-15E version was pretty simple and without a lot of penalties to the F-15C/D or E. It’s just not as good as a F-15E mission type designed from the start. Such a design would have have better capability but the F-15E is a pretty good air to ground weapon system.
Same story on the F-22. With some minor sizing changes in the YF-22 and YF-23 program, the weapons bay accommodations worked both for AAMRAM and bombs. Again minor mods results in a dual, if not optimum, role.
The real problem IMNSHO, is this fascination with “commonality” and the degrading of the industry because of few if any new starts and the one size fits all roles and “it will be cheaper” superstition with the resulting ballooning of requirements and inevitable cost growth. Designing a plane for say, Air Superiority and adapting it for mud churning is easier than trying to optimize everything from the start. Better to design a primary role and adapt as practical to other roles.
Take the TFX/F-111 as another multi role fiasco where I was a lowly engine engineer. The USN version never really worked and was canceled. The USAF Version, originally designed as a low level penetrating nuke carrier AND Air superiority fighter to replace the F-105 Thud and F-4 Rhino, not to mention the USN F-8 and A-7, finally found its home as a USAF bomb truck and later EW platform.
Cheers
PS, John Boyd was a great thinker but Pierre Sprey was a jerk. If I heard that the blitz fighter was the answer to the ATF (F-22) requirements one more time back in the day........
The $5BN Misunderstanding? You can have my copyThere is some book my old SSO was telling me I should read, specifically about the A-12 program. I forget the name now, ill have to re-engage.
I always wonder if those "acquisitions professional" courses are to actually address the problem, or further feed the self licking ice cream cone.
Can't say what they were teaching in the '80s (I didn't even know they were around then) but by the mid 90's they were preaching lessons learned from the A-12.If there’re still teaching the stuff that I was subject to at General Officers Short Course at the Defense Acquisition University, there is no hope. I filed most of what they peddled back then (mid 80’s) in the burn bag...