MigBuster

Photos of a North Korean Mig-29 operating from a highway shows the Fulcrum with a brand new color scheme. A series of images released by North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) show Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un attending Korean People’s Army Air Force’s latest highway drills. Among the aircraft involved in the drills there is also a Mig-29. Interestingly, the Fulcrum sports a new color scheme: whereas the bottom of the fuselage has kept the light blue color, the top has been painted with a two-tone gray color scheme. http://theaviationist.com/2014/10/20/north-korea-new-mig29-camo/#disqus_thread

Hi James - glad to see you getting things sorted!

The A-10E stealth hawg is interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGt8jjViRJg

Quit moaning and get to work soldier!

Very nice

The end of the new Wild West isn't long in coming Internet trolls could face up to two years in jail under new laws, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29678989

Wicked http://www.sonicbomb.com/iv1.php?vid=chinookwater&h=420&w=560&id=276&ttitle=CH-47%20water%20landing

Website has Dec 2014

If it works I normally get a large formation.

http://tomsflightart.jimdo.com/falcon-downloads/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29672262 Last survivor of the Battle of Jutland gets restoration funding.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29672506 A unmanned US plane on a top-secret, two-year mission to space has returned to Earth and landed in California. The aircraft, resembling a miniature space shuttle and known as the Orbital Test Vehicle or X-37B, spent 674 days in orbit around the planet. Pictures released by the 30th Space Wing show it touching down at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Friday morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REPkOUGxV-U

Yes - its out on the 22nd here - the trailers been out a while - so will see it over the next few weeks - should be good. Strangely will be the second War film (kinda) in a few weeks at the flicks - saw 71 - set in 1971 Belfast - this week (v good also)

Bulgaran Migs Oct 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI4k8-8zrnI

Assuming they were not destroyed on the ground the only use would be to sell for parts or as a manned cruise missile.

maybe.... http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/7/5591894/new-battlestar-galactica-movie-will-be-a-reboot

Been discussed many times http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20308

F-16 Standard loading these days is AIM-120s on the wingtips - reduces wing flutter better in flight apparently. FA-18s are not rated to carry AIM-120 on wingtips AFAIK Assuming they took out the captured IS airbases then basic precaution would be required against Syrian / Iranian aircraft/UAVs maybe.

Tell me about it - I still recognise all the music.

I backed a Kickstarter and it actually came through. A remastered version of an Amiga WW 1 game called "Wings" http://wings.cinemaware.com/

Trashy news story of the week maybe - but also the dream: Red Arrows 'should replace their ageing British-made Hawk jets with second hand American planes' The Hawk T1 jet used by the Red Arrows due to be replaced in 2018 Senior RAF officer has suggested they should be replaced with F-16s Lt Commander Tim Flatman says there's a possibility of buying older aircraft But critics say the display team should be using British-built jets Ministry of Defence say no decision has been taken on the replacement planes http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2789791/red-arrows-replace-ageing-british-hawk-jets-second-hand-american-planes.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 Personally buying old airframes to do non stop aerobatics doesn't seem a great idea - you could argue on the non existent support structure perhaps - but they managed to fit in the RC-135s Cant find an F-16 but here are some candidates:

American Warplane’s Forgotten Nazi Past The A-10 has been the favorite plane of American grunts for decades. But it was one of America’s most fearsome enemies who helped inspire the design of the so-called “Warthog.” The U.S. Air Force’s A-10 is an ugly, low-flying, slow-moving beast of an aircraft known affectionately by the troops as the Warthog. But even as the flying tank gets ready to shred ISIS terrorists to pieces over Iraq and Syria with its massive 30mm cannon-- firing depleted uranium shells the size of a Coke bottle--it hides a dark secret: an unrepentant Nazi fighter pilot helped to develop the ungainly warplane. Engineer Pierre Sprey, a former Pentagon procurement official who helped design the A-10, confirmed to The Daily Beast that none other than legendary Luftwaffe Colonel Hans-Ulrich Rudel was consulted to develop the Warthog. “While we were readying the airplane and gun for full scale production, the 30mm gun program manager, Col. Robert Dilger, invited Rudel to lead a symposium in DC attended by several hundred engineers, analysts, tacticians and intel types on all aspects of CAS [close air support] operations in combat,” Sprey told the Daily Beast. “For lots of them it was eye-opening. I translated for Rudel who spoke very little English.” Rudel was the Nazi-era Wehrmacht’s (which included the Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe) most highly decorated officer and the only man to have been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. During his wartime career, Rudel flew over 2,530 combat sorties over the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union and amassed a combat record of over 2,000 targets destroyed--800 vehicles, 519 tanks, 150 artillery pieces, 70 landing craft, nine aircraft, four armored trains, several bridges, a destroyer, two cruisers, and the Soviet battleship Marat. “Rudel was certainly the expert on killing Soviet tanks, 519 of them. But he was also brilliant on tactics—both ground and air—training, C3 [Command, Control & Communication], reconnaissance and squadron leadership,” Sprey said. “During our concept design phase, I required every member of the team to read Stuka Pilot, Rudel's superbly detailed recounting of his combat experiences, in order to understand the most crucial combat effectiveness characteristics of a CAS fighter.” Indeed, many of the characteristics of the Warthog, which is a darling of ground troops fighting in close proximity to enemy forces, were directly influenced by Rudel’s experience flying the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive-bomber and the ground-attack version of the Focke-Wulf 190D-9 fighter against the Soviet Red Army. “The book most certainly influenced me, particularly regarding how critical it was to incorporate in any effective CAS design such things as cockpit armor, fire suppression, need for ultra-tight turn radius maneuvering performance, ability to fly under 500ft weather, getting 3-5 sorties per day per plane, large caliber cannon, ability to move a squadron overnight, and ability to operate sustainably from unprepared fields--grass, dirt, mud, gravel, etc,” Sprey said in an email. However, as good a fighter pilot as Rudel was, it is an undeniable fact the he was an unrepentant Nazi and devotee of Adolf Hitler. After, the war Rudel—who became a relatively successful businessman--continued to advocate for the Third Reich and its genocidal, racist policies. One example of that: Rudel was a prominent member of the neo-Nazi German Reich Party from 1953 onward. Others within the U.S. Air Force dismiss Rudel’s impact on the A-10 design. “Frankly, I’m not sure why he would be consulted, Rudel was a statistical outlier in life-expectancy for ground-attack pilots in the Luftwaffe,” one Air Force official told The Daily Beast. Further, the Air Force official poured some cold water on the legacy of the Warthog—despite its popularity with the ground troops. “There is so much myth and half-truth wrapped around the A-10,” the official said. It’s a common sentiment in some corners of the Air Force, which has been looking to jettison the A-10 for decades. The Air Force wants to replace the Warthog because the jet would be hopelessly vulnerable against a modern enemy like China or Russia even if the aircraft can handle itself against relatively primitive enemies in Iraq or Syria. Instead of the slow-moving, low-flying A-10, the Air Force would prefer to use the stealthy $400 billion F-35 stealth fighter for future wars. Thus far, Congress has prevented the service from putting the Warthog out to pasture. The Air Force has some valid reasons for its view. One example cited by the Air Force official was the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria. The official pointed out that low and slow flying ground attack planes directly supporting the ground infantry were easy prey to even 1970s-era Russian-built surface-to-air missiles. “One inconvenient aspect of the A-10 is how its proponents often overlook the impact of the Yom Kippur War on the idea of CAS in a near-peer environment,” the Air Force official said—near-peer being a military jargon for well-equipped and trained forces like those of Russia or China. Israel’s losses during the Yom Kippur led the U.S. government to begin a frantic effort to replace the planes that were mercilessly shot out of the sky. Instead of using slow, low flying planes to support ground troops Israel began deploying the supersonic Mach 2-capable F-4 Phantom II for that role. “Yom Kippur lead to Operation Nickel Grass in which the U.S. replaced nearly half of Israel’s ‘low and slow’ CAS capability destroyed by SA-6 [surface-air-missiles], which didn’t change the fact that the IDF [israel Defense Force] had already switched to ‘fast-CAS’ with the F-4 in response.” Even to this day, Israel uses fast sophisticated supersonic fighters like the F-15 and F-16 to support its ground forces—just like the majority of the U.S. Air Force’s missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the service often uses everything including B-1 and B-52 bombers to F-15E Strike Eagle fighters to support ground forces, the official said. The Air Force, the official said, does not “hate” the Warthog as many critics have charged. The service is “being prudently skeptical about the resiliency of an aircraft merely designed to suffer ZSU-23 [radar-guided anti-aircraft guns] and SA-7 [shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile] threats,” the Air Force official said. Simply put, the Air Force does not believe that an aircraft like the A-10, which was designed to survive in an era before long-range, high performance guided missiles were commonplace, can survive during future conflicts. The Air Force official reiterated that modern enemy missiles are far more deadly than the weapons the A-10 was designed to face. “SA-6s are the least of our concerns for CAS in the modern age of surface-to-air missile system proliferation,” the official said. Proponents of the Warthog, however, argue that the ageing plane has no equal in supporting troops on the ground. “You've got a purpose-built airplane with the survivability, firepower and loiter time to cripple ISIS mobility,” said one veteran former U.S. Army Apache gunship aviator. Yes, the plane is vulnerable to ground fire. But it’s also super tough. “There's the survivability to take into account, too, which negates a lot of that vulnerability.” by Dave Mjumdar http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/12/american-warplane-s-forgotten-nazi-past.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29

New images released by the Islamic State show the recent shootdown of an Iraqi helicopter with a shoulder-fired missile, raising fresh concerns about the proliferation of such weaponry in the region and the limitations of American airpower. The still images released by the Islamic State show the firing of a Chinese-made MANPADS system at a helicopter said to be over the city of Baiji in northern Iraq. The missile tracks upwards before hitting its target, what appears to be an Mi-35M gunship, causing the aircraft to catch fire before crashing. Advanced systems like MANPADS, or man-portable air defense systems, present a particularly challenging threat for Iraqi forces. The U.S.-led bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria has been focused on conventional elements of the Islamic State’s military equipment, including tanks and artillery. MANPADS are highly portable and difficult to target. “You’re not going to see a MANPADS until they fire,” said David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “It’s a very complex operation to suppress enemy air defenses, and I don’t know if the Iraqi army has the capability yet to conduct an integrated and combined fight of the likes it takes to defeat these kinds of capabilities.” MANPADS are ideal weapons systems for “asymmetric” warfare, Maxwell said. Fighters can blend into populated areas and employ the systems only when they see targets of opportunity — like low-flying Iraqi helicopters. As the Islamic State has marched across parts of Iraq and Syria, its fighters have overrun military facilities, collecting advanced weapons systems in the process. Arms researchers say they are seeing a greater array of MANPADS than they did before. Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher with the arms research project Small Arms Survey, said the images released from the shootdown of the Iraqi helicopter in Baiji marked the first documented time the Islamic State is believed to have used the Chinese-made, heat-seeking FN-6 MANPADS in Iraq. The FN-6 can hit targets flying at more than 11,000 feet. Other MANPADS, however, can reach much higher. The Russian-made SA-24, for instance, which has also been documented in the region, can hit targets flying at up to 20,000 feet. Schroeder said he’s concerned about the Islamic State obtaining SA-24s. Late last month, the Iraqi Defense Ministry uploaded a video to YouTube showing Iraqi security forces receiving what appears to be a shipment of the advanced systems. “I’m concerned that with the security situation as it on the ground that ISIS could seize the facilities that are storing those systems,” he said, using one of the acronyms for the Islamic State. While difficult to identify the specific aircraft downed in Iraq recently, photographs of the wreckage show weapon systems consisted with the standard armament of the MI-35M, according to a report from IHS Janes. The Iraqi Defense Ministry confirmed that an Mi-35 was shot down near Baiji on Oct 3., as was a scout helicopter on Oct 8 in the same area. The Mi-35 is billed to have advanced countermeasures to mitigate heat-seeking missiles. Those countermeasures, however, wouldn’t have been sufficient to protect the downed aircraft if the pilots didn’t take precautions. “[The Iraqis] were probably flying the same route every day,” said a Marine pilot with experience flying over contested air space. The Islamic State fighters, he speculated, “figured it out and just waited for them, missiles and cameras in hand.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/10/10/islamic-states-shootdown-of-an-iraqi-helicopter-amplifies-fears-of-shoulder-fired-missiles/