Best dogfight gun?

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 20:46:54 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

Funny, I keep finding quite large ones. Like the Predator, the
Darkstar, the Global Hawk, or one of several Russian designs that are
basically reworked large cruise missiles or former target drones.

Darkstar wasn't that big. I used to see it out on the ramp all the
time. It was definitely is T-37 size class at the most. That's
pretty small.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/darkstar.htm

The Darkstar has a 69 foot wingspan, about twice that of the T-37, and
about 50 percent wider than the F-22. I consider that big. Certainly
big enough to hit with cannon fire.

Maybe you saw a sub-scale prototype?

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Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
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Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

Darkstar wasn't that big. I used to see it out on the ramp all the
time. It was definitely is T-37 size class at the most. That's
pretty small.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/darkstar.htm

The Darkstar has a 69 foot wingspan, about twice that of the T-37, and
about 50 percent wider than the F-22. I consider that big.

Sure, the span is twice that of a T-37. But Darkstar was only 15 feet long,
which is quite short for a plane of its span, and about half the length of a
Tweet. Between those two dimensions, I could certainly understand
describing it as "T-37-class."

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"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
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In article et,
"Thomas Schoene" wrote:

Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

Darkstar wasn't that big. I used to see it out on the ramp all the
time. It was definitely is T-37 size class at the most. That's
pretty small.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/darkstar.htm

The Darkstar has a 69 foot wingspan, about twice that of the T-37, and
about 50 percent wider than the F-22. I consider that big.

Sure, the span is twice that of a T-37. But Darkstar was only 15 feet long,
which is quite short for a plane of its span, and about half the length of a
Tweet. Between those two dimensions, I could certainly understand
describing it as "T-37-class."

But that certainly does *not* make it too small to shoot down with
aerial guns, or everyone would be using T-37s as "gunproof planes."

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 17:02:23 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article et,
"Thomas Schoene" wrote:

Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

Darkstar wasn't that big. I used to see it out on the ramp all the
time. It was definitely is T-37 size class at the most. That's
pretty small.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/darkstar.htm

The Darkstar has a 69 foot wingspan, about twice that of the T-37, and
about 50 percent wider than the F-22. I consider that big.

Sure, the span is twice that of a T-37. But Darkstar was only 15 feet long,
which is quite short for a plane of its span, and about half the length of a
Tweet. Between those two dimensions, I could certainly understand
describing it as "T-37-class."

But that certainly does *not* make it too small to shoot down with
aerial guns, or everyone would be using T-37s as "gunproof planes."

First you have to find it, though. You can't get a guns kill on an
airplane you can't find in the sky. Guns kills are close-up kills.

The T-37 isn't a low-observables airplane and DarkSpot most certainly
was. Actually, it looked like a cross between the B-2 and the U-2;
the project team got tired of hearing it called the UB-2 fairly
quickly. The Tweet shows up on radar just fine; DarkSpot didn't.

You knew, didn't you, that DarkSpot flew out of Dryden? It was housed
in the building I worked in and it spent a fair amount of time out on
the ramp. I saw it fairly often.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 17:02:23 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

But that certainly does *not* make it too small to shoot down with
aerial guns, or everyone would be using T-37s as "gunproof planes."

First you have to find it, though. You can't get a guns kill on an
airplane you can't find in the sky. Guns kills are close-up kills.

Since the whole point of this thread was on missiles versus guns, how in
the heck does that help the "missiles only" camp?

If you can't find the thing with radar or with your eyes, how are you
going to shoot it with a missile?

If it's findable with either, then shooting it with a cannon is just
gunnery practice... and with that nice big wingspan and slow airspeed,
it's going to be easy as hell to shoot.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:06:28 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

First you have to find it, though. You can't get a guns kill on an
airplane you can't find in the sky. Guns kills are close-up kills.

Since the whole point of this thread was on missiles versus guns, how in
the heck does that help the "missiles only" camp?

If you can't find the thing with radar or with your eyes, how are you
going to shoot it with a missile?

That's the point I was making. Little, LO aircraft are maybe not the
best example to use in such a comparison.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 03:22:08 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 20:46:54 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

Funny, I keep finding quite large ones. Like the Predator, the
Darkstar, the Global Hawk, or one of several Russian designs that are
basically reworked large cruise missiles or former target drones.

Darkstar wasn't that big. I used to see it out on the ramp all the
time. It was definitely is T-37 size class at the most. That's
pretty small.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/darkstar.htm

The Darkstar has a 69 foot wingspan, about twice that of the T-37, and
about 50 percent wider than the F-22. I consider that big. Certainly
big enough to hit with cannon fire.

You wouldn't be comparing it to the F-22 if you'd ever seen it.
DarkSpot was really short and thin. Gliders have wing spans bigger
than the F-22, too, but no one really compares them.

Actually, the DarkStar-glider comparison isn't a bad one, now that I
think about it. About the same volume and bulk. Same kind of
materials for the airframe, too.

Of course you can hit it with cannon fire. You can hit a cruise
missile with cannon fire, too. You just have to work at it.

I am reminded of the story about the time an ALCM escaped control at
EDW. It went into some sort of holding pattern and AFFTC whistled up
some armed F-4s from George. They came over and chased it around the
sky, as it flew a predictable path without any sort of evasive
maneuvering, for about a half an hour. They took a fair number of
shots against it and missed it every time. The ALCM finally ran out
of fuel and fell out of the sky.

This may or may not be true, and accuracy was probably sacrificed for
laughs by the third time someone told it, but it was widely accepted
at EDW as being a reasonable representation of the events.

Maybe you saw a sub-scale prototype?

Nope.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 03:22:08 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 20:46:54 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

Funny, I keep finding quite large ones. Like the Predator, the
Darkstar, the Global Hawk, or one of several Russian designs that are
basically reworked large cruise missiles or former target drones.

Darkstar wasn't that big. I used to see it out on the ramp all the
time. It was definitely is T-37 size class at the most. That's
pretty small.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/darkstar.htm

The Darkstar has a 69 foot wingspan, about twice that of the T-37, and
about 50 percent wider than the F-22. I consider that big. Certainly
big enough to hit with cannon fire.

You wouldn't be comparing it to the F-22 if you'd ever seen it.

Actually, I have, and it's still really obviously big enough to shoot
down with a gun.

Of course you can hit it with cannon fire. You can hit a cruise
missile with cannon fire, too. You just have to work at it.

In visual size, the DarkStar (and most of the other "big" UAVs) are
several times the size of a cruise missile, not to mention one-quarter
the speed.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.