Defensive circle

"Mary Shafer" wrote...

It's one thing to be older than dirt, but another entirely
to be older than the Warthog (and the Eagle, Viper, Turkey, Plastic
Bug, C-17, Tornado, Gripen, and Mach-1-plus flight).

Just consider yourself a walking aviation history library! :-)

"John R Weiss" wrote in message
news:6w6fb.25559$%h1.15156@sccrnsc02...
"Mary Shafer" wrote...

It's one thing to be older than dirt, but another entirely
to be older than the Warthog (and the Eagle, Viper, Turkey, Plastic
Bug, C-17, Tornado, Gripen, and Mach-1-plus flight).

Just consider yourself a walking aviation history library! :-)

Now that she's retired , I was hoping I could get her to come over here and
help me with my retirement work.......you know; yard work!!! :-)))
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)

"John R Weiss" wrote:

"Mary Shafer" wrote...

It's one thing to be older than dirt, but another entirely
to be older than the Warthog (and the Eagle, Viper, Turkey, Plastic
Bug, C-17, Tornado, Gripen, and Mach-1-plus flight).

Just consider yourself a walking aviation history library! :-)

And very much appreciated by lurkers like me.

ronh
--
"People do not make decisions on facts, rather,
how they feel about the facts" Robert Consedine

I wish you wouldn't write stuff like this. I remember the A-10 first
flight, which was after I got out of college and was working at
Edwards. It's one thing to be older than dirt, but another entirely
to be older than the Warthog (and the Eagle, Viper, Turkey, Plastic
Bug, C-17, Tornado, Gripen, and Mach-1-plus flight).

Don't complain, Mary. I'm older than the P-6E!

vince norris

In article , Mary Shafer
writes
On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 06:08:05 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:

About the Warthog: The A-10 has been in the inventory for longer than
many or most of the posters on this newsgroup have been alive.

I wish you wouldn't write stuff like this. I remember the A-10 first
flight, which was after I got out of college and was working at
Edwards. It's one thing to be older than dirt, but another entirely
to be older than the Warthog (and the Eagle, Viper, Turkey, Plastic
Bug, C-17, Tornado, Gripen, and Mach-1-plus flight).

Mary

Even worse, I was born the day the last Sunderland was launched, and
I've not had as interesting a professional life (in aviation terms,
anyway). :-(
--
Peter

Ying tong iddle-i po!

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 04:27:15 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


"WaltBJ" wrote in message
. com...
Cub Driver wrote in message
...
I have seen references to the circle's SNIP:
In the Western Desert in WW2 Hans Marseille solved the Lufberry Circle
problem by high angle deflection shooting at minimum range - knocking
down serial kills of Hurricanes and P40s daily. The 'circlers' were
essentially helpless against this tactic when used by an opponent of
superior energy capability.
Walt BJ

Right on!

Lufberry's looked good on paper....that is until the circle was engaged by
fighters with lower wing loadings; and flown by pilots who knew how to bleed
down and arc. Snap shooters like Marseille could play dixie on these
circles...and did just that...against poorly flown Lufberry's. In fact, even
a higher wing loaded fighter could engage through low yo yo's and arcing if
flown by superior pilots. This was the "real" learning period in ACM. It
involved the painful transition from thinking defensive to thinking like a
Hans Marseille......attack! Just like Hartmann, he boresighted for
conversion range using the windshield bow for wingspan instead of using the
sight, then he pulled g for lead; raised the nose in the turn for gravity
drop; centered the ball for trajectory shift, and hosed them at high angle
off before he bled down and out of the cone.
Pilots who were thinking about things like Lufberry's as they entered the
war didn't last very long in combat. Nothing kills a fighter pilot faster
than over thinking the defensive side of the ACM equation.
Dudley Henriques

Great stuff guys. Yet, the primary tactic of the A-10 if attacked by
enemy aircraft remains to "circle the Hogs". As you describe, for the
typically energy superior fighter, the problem is simply one of flying
back and forth across the circle taking high angle shots (or for that
matter, all-aspect IR shots) at the rotating targets.

The theory of the Hogs is that with their tight turn radius they can
snap the nose around and bring the gun to bear on the attacker.
Unfortunately, the attacker simply zooms out of plane, exceeding the
energy ability of the Hog to sustain an extreme nose high position for
more than a few seconds. Throw in lack of a lead computing sight, and
the big gun become little more than a nuisance threat.

snip

Of course, since a year or two after DS the Hogs have had a lead-computing
gunsight (LASTE), and they had AIM-9Ls before DS. And they also had a special
waiver at Red Flag (at least in the '80s) that allowed them to take head-on gun
shots inside the 1,000 foot bubble, implying that their primary defensive move
(along with getting as low as possible) would be to use their turn rate and
radius to face the threat and pop him with either a missile or the gun. And all
those chaff and flares don't hurt either, if defeating a missile becomes
necessary.

Guy