The Need For Speed

[water_bug_62208]

I'm sure this has already been said by someone on this forum and perhaps I've missed it, but...

Welcome back, DangerGirl!!! Long time, no hear.

And, along with what Mynock was talking about, wonder when the successor to the SR-71 Blackbird is going to show up. Satellites are fine and the U-2 "Dragon Lady" still flies, but nothing met "the need for speed" like the Blackbird!

[kham]

INDEED
Wb DG

Searching for appropriate SR clips, might post tomorrow when have the high speed back, dont want to risk slo conx

[kham]

SR-71 Airshow arrival, 1983

A wee bit dated maybe, but still a good one

And ,for the Friday night lighter side....

Bumpy Landing
Y'know, I think I have never landed that bad in a sim

[LordMuck]

All this ultra-high-tech machinery costs Billions of (YOUR!) hard currency and has in my opinion almost no effect in those modern so-called low-intensity-conflicts. (That's also the same over here, they have recently introduced the Eurofighter and the Tiger Attack-chopper, they were designed to fight the Russians and are barely usable in Afghanistan; in fact a great waste of MY hard earned taxes).

Agreed that it has relatively little use in a situation like Afghanistan. It exists to deter and prevent global wars that dominated the first half of the twentieth century. Since blowing up the world, or at least Europe and Asia, proved to be equally hard on the budget, and since neither conflict was of our making, and since we had to foot the bill in one way or another to help with the cleanup, the USA prefers there be no question about who would prevail in any future conflict. Western Europe remained free and all of Europe is now free because of that. Whether this thinking remains applicable could be debated but it is not something that will change quickly. Twenty years ago the idea of building 500 F-22's regardless of cost wouldn't have been a problem. Now we are building only 189 because questions such as yours are being asked.

With the F-14 the United States spent tens of billions on creating a carrier based super-interceptor that at first couldn't even drop bombs. We spent many billions more on the nuclear powered floating airfields and their escorts that carried them around the world to do our bidding. For that investment the F-14 shot down five aircraft including one helicopter. That was all it was ever required to do and given the alternative I'd say it was an excellent investment.

I beg to differ; what's wrong with Eurofighter? It wasn't designed to 'fight the Soviets' (NOT Russians-there is a huge difference), it was designed to be the the best air-to-air aeroplane European money could buy.
Lessee. It's got supercruise (allegedly). It's got a super clever radar, Mach 2.5+, is cleared for the most lethal BVR/VR weapons the free world can muster,a gun if all else fails, secondary air-to-ground, the agility of a coke-crazed stoat and RCS that doesn't have to painted on every time it leaves the ground; what's not to like? Shame it would cost too much to navalise it.
The military cannot just plan for present wars- Capping misyogynistic, crazy f**kheads a long way from home: They must plan for any and all eventualities, including invading the Faeoroe Islands, blockading Rotterdam, and the cost/benefit of Godzilla continually having a dump in the Greenland- Iceland- UK gap.
Eurofighter wasn't built to just give the Soviets a kicking; it was designed to give any ungodly enemy a savage hiding for at least the next twenty-five years.
It may not be a Raptor (what an aeroplane, you Colonial b*****ds ), but it'll do rightly. What do you suggest, for example, the Luftwaffe might have bought? Can't fly the F-4 phorever, not least due to fatigue life. Ask Canada; their F/A-18's are about to fall outta the sky due to cumulative airframe fatigue.
Put it another way: You may have noticed the Argentinian government doing a bit of sabre- rattling over a potential hydrocarbon find in Her Majesty's Falkland Islands;
So what? 'Crab Air' currently maintain half a scrotum- Er, 1435 Flight- Four aircraft- At RAF Mount Pleasant. No more needed.
Since those four aeroplanes can splash at least half of the entire Fuerza Aerea Argentina with one slurp from a tanker, (on station) I fear that your argument turns out to be... Er, not the case.
Eurofighter was designed to meet any threat its designers could think of for half a human lifetime: This includes the Soviets (killed off by Levis and it's own citizens), the Pan- Asian countries (terrified by trade and the ghost of Harry Truman), and all the crazy, psychotic people on Earth (They're just nuts. We may just have to kill them all and put it down to 'evolution in action', though I wish it were otherwise).
And in the process, defend Europe- Something the USA has been paying a fortune to do for decades, generally without much in the way of thanks; so what's not to like?
PS: That comment about splashing half of the Argentine Air Force; that's not an insult, it is a compliment. Their skill and bravery was more than duly noted by the Fleet Air Arm and RAF pilots who fought them; that they fought that hard for a bunch of mass- murdering twerps makes their efforts more remarkable.

[LordMuck]

PS: The Tomcat was an awesome weapon. I still weep at the notion of the Fleet Air Arm not having a couple of squadrons of those things-
"We'll have our F-14K's in Extra Dark Sea Grey and Gloss White; we're so hard we don't give a monkeys if the enemy see us coming."
What might have been....
(A bit like TSR.2 and with the same retrospective penalty for the guilty: Dennis Healy stripped to his underwear and tied to a splash target chucked off the stern of HMS Queen Elizabeth ).

[kham]

Or welded to the shipside as ablative armour...

EITHER would do....

[schlamm]

*

[LordMuck]

Gotta love the Warthog
Any squaddies you talk to Lurrve that aeroplane (despite the fact that those Dayglo air markers are now called, 'anti- Yank panels').
They would sell every overweight, ugly troll they shag in/around Colchester into the white slave trade for a squadron of those, albeit flown by the Navy .

[schlamm]

*

[Duncan Edwards]

P.S. extra credit for anyone who can identify the missiles carried on the wingtips of the F-16 head on shot!

AIM-120's. They look like "C" models from here.