Planes
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@Machpants Yeah, yeah. There were a few that had some sort of fan type thing rather than completely vectored. Wasn't the F35 STOVL rather than VTOL?
Yak 38:
"The Yakovlev Yak-38 (Russian: Яковлев Як-38; NATO reporting name: "Forger") was the Soviet Naval Aviation's only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft in addition to being its first operational carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft." -
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@Snowy looks pretty flash though 😁
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@Paekakboyz said in Planes:
@Snowy looks pretty flash though 😁
Definitely fun - as long as you don't have to shoot back (or eject, as you don't have the fuel).
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Thinking about that - it means that you can hide in a forest / jungle clearing and avoid the people shooting at you thing. Nice. Doesn't achieve the purpose of being at war and killing people, but at least you don't die.
A bit like me wanting to fly B52's after all of the engine failures I had over the years. Eight engines is fantastic to keep you aloft if one fails - but you have eight times the chance of having a failure too. Warped logic all around.
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@Machpants said in Planes:
F35 has VTOL, like the harrier can't carry shit whilst doing it
How to make a plane ludicrously expensive for very little benefit.
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This is why you make it expensive!
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@antipodean said in Planes:
@Machpants said in Planes:
F35 has VTOL, like the harrier can't carry shit whilst doing it
How to make a plane ludicrously expensive for very little benefit.
The benefit is you don't need ludicrously expensive catapult carriers to launch them, just a ski jump. VTOL is not used operationally at all, the F35B is to all intents and purposes STOVL as snowy said. Landing is also a lot easier and safer and needs a lot less room, similar to a helicopter. They can also operate from very short strips, tho so can Russian jets simply by using fuck loads of excess thrust. But yes, paying a bit more for your carriers, and having cheaper more effective conventional fighters is the common sense decision. Thus UK and US marines against that.
The use of the vertical component (aside from landing) in operations is basically nil. You'd never slow down and land and try to hide, if you've got the time to do that you've got away anyway. The Viffing that was talked about with the harriers in the Falklands was basically PR bollocks - the harriers were so effective there because there pilots were so much better trained and they had all aspects heatseekers.
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@Machpants like a home printer? low up front cost - big consumable charge
although don't they repurpose ex tank material or something for the ammo? -
@Paekakboyz said in Planes:
@Machpants like a home printer? low up front cost - big consumable charge
although don't they repurpose ex tank material or something for the ammo?Ammo was depleted uranium, same as tank ammo (APFSDS), I'm not sure if that's been phased out though. Still a fuck load cheaper than a modern anti armour missile, even thousands of rounds. But they are cheap as fuck, simple as, they could crank out a dozen or more for the cost of a F22, maybe even an F35. Hard to compare costs across the ages, but they'd be dirt cheap compared to space age fighters.
The real impressive jet is the B52, it's going to do over a century in service
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This is what a Super Hornet looks like when the pilot and weapons officer don't want to take off
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@antipodean said in Planes:
when the pilot and weapons officer don't want to take off
Worked with heaps of them - known as "seagulls".
You had to throw rocks at them to make them fly.
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Here's a short 60 second look at the world's last Avro Vulcan V-Bomber to be airworthy in the world.
It's seen here during a flyover at the Little Gransden Air & Car Show in 2014. The aircraft has now been permanently retired.
One visited NZ from the RAF and undershot the runway at Wellington and had to crash land at Ohakea. Late 50s, early 60s?
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One visited NZ from the RAF and undershot the runway at Wellington and had to crash land at Ohakea. Late 50s, early 60s?
Yep. Was the opening of the airport so they had an airshow (the vulcan certainly did put on a show there's a doco about it). Welly airport was opened in 1959 and I wish they hadn't. It was windshear and turbulence that got them which I'm sure most ferners have experienced. It made for an intersting coulple of years for me though.
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Here's a short 60 second look at the world's last Avro Vulcan V-Bomber to be airworthy in the world.
It's seen here during a flyover at the Little Gransden Air & Car Show in 2014. The aircraft has now been permanently retired.
One visited NZ from the RAF and undershot the runway at Wellington and had to crash land at Ohakea. Late 50s, early 60s?
Same group
