gosquidgo

Did you hear the chick at the end of the video? "Was that supposed to happen? Was that the Tora Tora?" Wow, kids these days. Glad the pilot got out ok.

I hope that this isn't a repost. Some of the low passes are pretty good. The pilot in the Jaguar almost took the guys head off on the runway.

Oh, the irony. LOL

When did that happen? That bird is one from my wife's old Wing. (552nd)

Strike Fighters is a fine game but Fighters Anthology is by far the most fun flight sim that I've ever played. Remember Air Base Assault and the City Dogfight Maps? It would be nice if we were just able to get an updated version of that exact game, don't change anything but give it modern graphics. What a hoot that was.

There's one on Ebay right now for $49,000 buy it now. LOL MIG-21

Wow, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were there and picked her autograph? Robert Plant FTW. Just giving you a hard time, BTW.

That's a 105mm APERS round, more commonly known as the "Beehive" round. There's also a flechette round as well, shoots big metal toothpicks. You wouldn't want to get hit with either one of them.

I believe that the NC-4 was manufactured by Curtiss. Lindbergh was the first to do it solo.

Oh and another thing, I had read somewhere that the MIG-23's wing box wasn't stressed for high-g manuevers. The aircraft was designed originally as an interceptor and was never intended to dogfight. The capture of the Mig by the Israelis confirmed this. The aircraft captured was a MLD model so more than likely the wing box wasn't strengthened in the later models either. The aircraft's strengths were it's high acceleration and decent (for the time) radar compared to other fighters of its era such as the early F-4s. I would find it unlikely that it could even hang with an F-4E in turning capability at speed.

The Russian tactic of radar first and IR second is that the radar missle most likely won't hit the target, but it will cause the target to concentrate on evading the missle instead of engaging the Russian aircraft and then the IR missile can be shot at close range hopefully before the aircraft can reaquire and engage the Russian aircraft.

The F-4 was most likely downed by a SAM, in 1972, the US sent many replacement F-4E's to Isreal to replace losses from SAMs.

Although I don't think we'll ever see a B-1R, why wouldn't the AMRAAM's be carried internally on the rotary launchers? Besides I think it would be far more likely that we would spend the money on F-22's than more B-1's.

I read Crimson Sky- The Air Battle for Korea at the local base library, very interesting. It dealt with many other types of aircraft besides Sabres and also had some figures contradicting the very high kill ratios that we claimed. The true Sabre kill ratio may have been as little as 2 or 3:1. Check it out.

Looks like an old Ryan Firebee drone. They were used as missle targets and it looks like they may have missed that one.

Yup, but if you just briefly glance at it, then it almost looks just like the front of a Vought F7U Cutlass too.

Correct. Most two-seaters displace fuel but usually still end up weighing slightly more than their single-seat counterparts. Back to the original topic, yes, the later model aircraft are more capable than their predecessors, otherwise they would probably never have developed them. Additionally, later models incorporate much more a2g capability as we don't have the budget to buy single-purpose aircraft for the most part. If we are considering dogfight capability only in the very close-in past the merge type situation, often the early models do very well. There is more to turning capability than tw ratio as low wing loading is critical to good turning performance. As newer models come online, they tend to gain weight and have higher wing loading. Bigger engines can be added to get the tw ratio back up but that's only half the battle. To put it in very simplistic terms, you need low wing loading first to be able to turn quickly, however, turning bleeds off ALOT of energy so you will need a high tw to maintain your energy. On another interesting note, a Superbug instructor pilot that I talked to recently verified the same thing about the dogfight capabilities of the C vs. E model. The C would be slightly better in a knife fight if it came to that but the E is a much more capable aircraft and should be able to get the first shot off due to its lower RCS before the C pilot would be able to track him. Either way you look at it, this is an interesting and informative thread. BTW, I base this only on discussions with people that I know who have flown these types and from various books and articles that I've read. I don't claim to be an expert on anything, in fact, but I have deduced that the claims of the various pilots do make sense.

A friend of mine who was a whizzo in the F15E (and F4E and F4G) said that the only advantage the E had over the A and C was having two sets of eyes in the plane. He told me that close-in the A was the most agile and the C and E only got heavier. Even though you put bigger engines in a plane, that is only part of the equation as wing loading gets higher as well. Even if they can maintain the same tw ratio, you still can't turn as well due to the higher wing loading and you will have to pull a higher aoa to get the same turn radius which in turn increases drag and further erodes the effect of the bigger engines put in the airframe to maintain the tw ratio in the first place. The same thing goes for the F16's as well. The A models are reputed to be the best dogfighters as the later models gained weight with no additional wing area to compensate. The original YF16 with its small size, excellent tw ratio and very low wing loading would fly circles around a current production F16.

What is the difference between wingman skill and experience? Is one A2A and the other A2G? Just curious if anyone knows, I searched and came up with nothing.

Ok, but what does that mean as far as mission effectiveness in game? In other words, how do you choose the best wingmen for any particular mission or maybe it doesn't even really matter?

I had read somewhere that the longerons were built by a subcontractor and that the thickness was much less in some places than specified. Boeing may be liable if they let these pieces get past QC and into the airframes. More than likely they are going after a manufacturers defect or negligence.

We need a model of it for SF, two weeks should be sufficient.

only $350k, that's not a bad deal.

Chuck Norris secretly sleeps with all the women in the world once a month and they bleed for a week afterward. In fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone else has ever gotten. When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever. Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one. For some, the left testicle is larger than the right one. For Chuck Norris, each testicle is larger than the other one. Before e-mail was invented, Chuck Norris would attatch messages to kittens and roundhouse kick them to their destination.

My personal favorite is the F-5/F-20 series. Not sure what you mean about the Hornet though, the F15/16 pilots that I've talked to don't think that they're a slouch in a dogfight, especially if they catch you with your speed down. Bleed off energy and the Hornet WILL get you, it excels at lower speed fights. On another note, it's too bad that there is not more written about the YF-17, it was possibly the first aircraft capable of performing the cobra manuever. There was quite a bit of politics involved against aquiring the -17 as well as the -16's percieved advantage of using the same engine as the F15. With a little more development, it would have been interesting to see the -17 mature along the same lines as the -16.