On 12/3/03 4:46 AM, in article
, "s.p.i."
wrote:

Andrew Toppan wrote in message
. ..
On 26 Nov 2003 20:20:54 -0800, (s.p.i.) wrote:

One small quibble, the C-135 never was a civil platform.

But it's darn close to the C-137/E-3/E-6/E-8/707, which certainly is...
And with the spelling errors fixed...
The basic 707 was the progeny of the Dash-80 as well. I will give you
that. However the differences between the 707 and C-135 are so
significant you can't really consider them the same airplane.
That's a trivial quibble so don't get locked up on it Andrew.
What's getting missed here is the fact that the 707 and C-135 are much
closer to the B-17 in terms of toughness than the 767 is (and the G-V
and EMB-145 for that matter). Putting the newer civil designs as faux
warbirds in Harm's Way is a recipe for disaster down the road. They
are simply not your Granddaddy's civil designs.
Now that the MANPAD threat is really real, things may well change
since it now makes commercial sense to make large civil transports at
least somewhat survivable to battle damage. Good thing that was a
Jurrasic 'bus that took the hit. Confronted with a big piece of wing
missing, I very much doubt the notoriously enigmatic flight logic in the
newer ones would have performed very well with a quarter of the wing
gone.

1. The 767 may be a bit more fragile (because it is more efficiently
designed) than the 707, and certainly more rugged than the EMB-145, but I
believe it is more survivable against MANPADS threats than either because it
has pod mounted engines on the wings that burn much cooler than the
(original) 707 engines. Plus, having only 2 engines (vice 4) is good (less
SA-7 targets out there to hit). If the EMB-145 takes a missile in the
vicinity of the engines, you likely lose the tail and the jet.

2. Despite my personal lack of faith in Airbus and their automation--which
I've never flown... Just heard about through others, I believe that
fly-by-wire jets handle damage better than their direct hydraulic
counterparts. For instance damaged Hornets fly very well. They don't know
that the pieces are missing. They just try to make the airplane do what the
pilots want.

3. I'd think the major reason NOT to pick the EMB-145 (aside from the fact
that it's NOT a U.S. airplane) would be that it's so payload limited.

--Woody