VISUAL AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION

In article ,
mumbled

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
ink.net...
In article et,
mumbled
----------
In article . net,
Tankfixer
wrote:

If it were classified secret FAS would have been closed for publishing
it to the web.

Actually, that's not true.

Are you saying one can post current classified publications on the net
and not get in trouble ?

I can see you are trying to twist things into the other person showing some
kind of weakness. Now, put your EID kit away and go play somewhere else or
dummy up a bit more. Classifications change faster than the wind direction.


Sure daryl, twist it anyway you like.

While you are at it tell us again about the FB-4 nuclear bombers of the
1960's.


--
Usenetsaurus n. an early pedantic internet mammal, who survived on a
diet of static text and
cascading "threads."

In a follow-up, FAS noted that there are errors in the guide concerning the
dimensions of US aircraft. Not only was the recognition guide needlessly
restricted, but that restriction may have prevented it from being accurate.

D

These were not only errors, I think. It seems they have a lot of
problem with telling the difference between some members of Fittter
family - ancient Su-7B and swing-wing Su-17/Su-20/Su-22 (I saw a photo
of the latter together with photos of the former). Also Sea King
drawings went twicence with the actual Sea King, but repeated for
French Super Frelon heavy helicopter. No wonder - it's just a U.S.
Army manual...

Best regards,
Jacek

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
nk.net...
In article ,
mumbled

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
news
In article ,
mumbled

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
ink.net...
In article . net,
mumbled
----------
In article
. net,
Tankfixer
wrote:

In a follow-up, FAS noted that there are errors in the guide
concerning the
dimensions of US aircraft. Not only was the recognition
guide
needlessly
restricted, but that restriction may have prevented it from
being
accurate.


Needlessly restricted ?
That's odd as it can be ordered by any unit with a
publications
account
with USAPA

It was at least classified FOUO, possibly secret. You can look
up
the
post
at www.fas.org and see their Secrecy and Government Bulletin.

It is FOUO.
If it were classified secret FAS would have been closed for
publishing
it to the web.

You can't request classified publications from USAPA.
While FAS does at time do a pretty good job they are prone to hype
things.

The original debate was about AC Recognition. Now, you don't know a
damned
thing about that so you try to move it away into your area of
expertise;
trolling on a non related subject.

Actually he mistakenly tried to claim the publication is classified.
I pointed out it can be ordered by any unit with an account with
USAPA.


You are a odd one to throw rocks concerning aircraft recognition,
since
you clam to have seen P-38 over Colorado in squadron strength in the
mid
1950's
A neat trick since they left squadron service in the late 40's.




The fact is, you would be the first to bag a F-4 mistaking it for a
Mig-21
while the AF, Navy, Marine and Army Flyers will be the last to make
that
mistake. But those mistakes were made regardless. So you think
it's
easy?
Don't volunteer for AC Spotter for our side. You will do us better
to
go
over to the other side and help them.

P-38...

Tell us again daryl...

And you have yet to show me wrong. Now, I suggest you provide the proof
that
I was incorrect once and for all. But that would curtail your EID
attacks,
now wouldn't it, Achmed.

Any number of people pointed out actual USAF documents that showed the
P38 left unit service in the late 1940's.

And you know that there were no P-38s left in ANY Air Guard Unit anywhere in
1953? I was told during Tech School that there were NO C-124 Globemasters
left in the Active Duty AF and to just learn enough to pass the test. The
instructors said they just didn't get the time to get it out of the
coriculum. Guess what, a few years later, I was at Elmendorf AFB, AK up to
my asses with two of them. And the Actives kept a whole lot better records
and new AC than the Air Guards did back then. But don't let a little
paperwork get in your way of a good lie.


If you are too dense to admit the facts it's not my fault.

And you visited each and every Air Guard Unit in 1953 to verify this fact?
Hell, kid you weren't even a gleem in your daddy's eye yet.



Simple fact is if there were any in squadron service in the mid-50's you
could easily provide the unti they were assigned to.

LOL, you sure believe in everything you read on the internet. Of course,
only those items that bolster your fairytale.




I don't need to prove they were not there, you need to prove the USAF or
any of it's entities were still operating any by that time.

Actually, yes you do. Us old hands know that the Guards got the junk back
then. Yes, the handmedowns. So prove it otherwise, But remember, I worked
on much of the Guards Junk on TDYs in the 70s that you will claim they never
had. But don't let that fact get in the way of a good lie.

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
news
In article ,
mumbled

"Tankfixer" wrote in message
ink.net...
In article et,
mumbled
----------
In article . net,
Tankfixer
wrote:

If it were classified secret FAS would have been closed for
publishing
it to the web.

Actually, that's not true.

Are you saying one can post current classified publications on the net
and not get in trouble ?

I can see you are trying to twist things into the other person showing
some
kind of weakness. Now, put your EID kit away and go play somewhere else
or
dummy up a bit more. Classifications change faster than the wind
direction.


Sure daryl, twist it anyway you like.

While you are at it tell us again about the FB-4 nuclear bombers of the
1960's.

LOL, you have already been blown out of the water on that one. Guess you
are just recycling your old lies. Ask Ed if he ever was on a Nuke loaded
Phantom. He's already stated he has. But, again, don't let facts get in
the way of you recycling your lies. You and Leturd must go drinking
together soon.

"Flashnews" wrote in message
news
Again guys it all depends on where you are looking from

The twin tails - F-14 / F-15C / F-15E / MiG-29 / Su-27 / Su-30 all have
some view that will confuse and bother you trying to sort them out of a
many-vs-many, each looks like the other from some view, perhaps the
Su-30 is the most recognizable especially if it has canards

The F-4 and F-14 at ranges over 1.5 miles seemed to have had lots of
mis-que's, smoke or not

The MiG-21 and F-5 are essentially the smallest fighters short of a few
who have seen or flown against the Gnat
but they too can be deceiving in planform - but just for a second. From
head - on they are simply "dots" and it takes a lot of practice to
actually see one after he has turned in on you - and that's all training
of course.

I do believe the majority of US losses in Vietnam were suffered without
the crew knowing they were being shot at, and that means we were
surprised a whole bunch and likewise the majority of people downed were
not turning and burning in a dogfight they were lay a chaff corridor,
smoking along on an ingress route or running home - but taken from the N
Vietnamese AF, they were still kills

Tinkerbell flies a desk and has never been involved in any of this.
Besides, you are correct. The one that gets you is the one you don't see.
That's been the lament of flyers and more since the Plane was introduced
into warfare.





"Tankfixer" wrote in message
nk.net...
In article .com,
mumbled
The F-14, F-15 MiG-29 and Su-27 series all look a LOT alike in motion
to most people. MiG-21 and the F-4 look virtually identical in
flight.

The Mig21 and the F4 look almost identical in flight ?
I'm sure that is a suprise to any number of USAF and USN fighter
pilots.


OPEN THIS FILE AT HOME, NOT AT WORK!!!

Why not at work ?


MIKE

from Secrecy News www.fas.org

VISUAL AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION (FOUO)
You do know what FOUO means ?


See "Visual Aircraft
Recognition," U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-01.80, January 2006 (413

I guess I should put my 1983 copy up for historical purposes


--
--
Usenetsaurus n. an early pedantic internet mammal, who survived on a
diet of static text and
cascading "threads."

----------
In article . net, Tankfixer
wrote:

If it were classified secret FAS would have been closed for publishing
it to the web.

Actually, that's not true.

Are you saying one can post current classified publications on the net
and not get in trouble ?

Yes.

Look up the example of the classified history of the CIA's involvement in
the Iranian coup in the 1950s. Short story: the classified document was
leaked and put on the web. The government did nothing.

It is actually not illegal to publish classified information (with some very
specific exceptions). Newspapers do it all the time. If you want other
examples, next time you go to a big bookstore, look for books by Bill Gertz.
Gertz (a reporter for the conservative newspaper The Washington Times) has
published classified documents in the back of several of his books. He has
never been charged with anything.

If you're interested in learning about the subject, go to the FAS website
and read multiple issues of Secrecy and Government Bulletin. You'll get a
sense of the limitations concerning the press and classified information.



D

In article t,
mumbled
----------
In article . net, Tankfixer
wrote:

If it were classified secret FAS would have been closed for publishing
it to the web.

Actually, that's not true.

Are you saying one can post current classified publications on the net
and not get in trouble ?

Yes.

Look up the example of the classified history of the CIA's involvement in
the Iranian coup in the 1950s. Short story: the classified document was
leaked and put on the web. The government did nothing.

Depends who leaks it I supose.. ;')


It is actually not illegal to publish classified information (with some very
specific exceptions). Newspapers do it all the time. If you want other
examples, next time you go to a big bookstore, look for books by Bill Gertz.
Gertz (a reporter for the conservative newspaper The Washington Times) has
published classified documents in the back of several of his books. He has
never been charged with anything.




If you're interested in learning about the subject, go to the FAS website
and read multiple issues of Secrecy and Government Bulletin. You'll get a
sense of the limitations concerning the press and classified information.

I may give them a look.


--
Usenetsaurus n. an early pedantic internet mammal, who survived on a
diet of static text and
cascading "threads."

You guys are discussing one of the hottest subjects that totally
captivated the whole fighter community from the 1950's to the end of the
Cold War - the identification, analysis, and comparisons of enemy
(Russian and Chinese) fighters with our own - and in most cases the
original investigations were a disaster until Boyd / Christie / Hillikar
/ Richioni, and others I am ashamed to have forgotten now pulled
together the concept of Energy Maneuverability that started to review
the defining characteristics of fighters (actually all aircraft) and in
snap shots of time, configuration, power, speed, altitude, and AOA they
could let you know fairly well how the aircraft was performing against
your at the same conditions. Now the whole effort was wasn't always
concise it took a whole lot of effort and actually until our pilots
starting flying the enemy jets on a regular basis did we really learn
what they did and how they performed. It may have been the greatest time
in fighter history because it evolved with the spirit and skills of many
people tempered all the time with real combat experience and subsequent
exploitation.

The Foreign Technology Division (FTD) tried very hard to get to the
performance specifics of enemy fighters by modeling performance and it
took an incredible effort because there were not the computers of today.
Now almost all computer games have exact aero and performance data on
the whole spectrum of western and eastern fighters so you can play with
them on your laptop or Playstation.

Some stories of course - the USAF flew the MiG-21 in early experiemnets
and together with the restrictive Russian flight handbook considered it
a piece of cake against the F-4 - then the Navy took a lok and Tom
Cassidy the salty CEO today of the Predator company who always was a
handful and SOB to boot took the MiG and started flying circles around
the F-4 simply because he was flying it by the seat of his pants through
touchy areas that had Russian designers worried (certain fuel state
changed the CG radically and made it quite unpredictable for a bit) and
ruled out for Russian pilots - that is they could not fly slower then
400 kph except to land. Cassiday took it to zero and flopped it around
like an acrobatic toy, drilling the F-4's who were trying to flight the
slow fight with a heavy wing loaded beast that would not do it. As time
went on people recognized that the F-4 could beat the MiG-21 with power
using the vertical and slice turning (cross-controlling using the
adverse yaw and dihedral effects) to get your nose around. But US
pilots flying the MiG's also assumed US properties like better missiles
and better avionics so the MiG was at its best flown by our folks.

Now going back to FTD and their many evolutions of bad assessments - the
MiG-23 Flogger and Su-17 Fitter (swing wing) family of aircraft had more
powerful engines but also many new restrictions - but in the pure state
the resultant energy envelopes could be stagering so they were briefed
that way yet in reality when the Isreali's (who were the first) started
engaging them they performed worse then the MiG-21 although they could
carry more and go faster longer. Many times the pure analytical
assessment was way off - in fact it was not until the MiG-29 came around
that anyone believed the geeks at FTD and in the MiG-29 they
characteristically under-estimated it. In short - it was our great
relationships with the Israeli and Pakistani Air Forces that perhaps
provided the US the greatest amount of real combat data in how to beat
the Russian fighters and their weapons and very little of what was
learned was ever predicted correctly - so take that for what it is worth
thinking about the future now. Our experience against North Vietnam
with the beginning or Topgun and the USAF Aggressor Program was a
turning point for all of this, a point in time so profound that it
shaped ouir military capability. Only in the Iraq war since 2001 when
the Army and USAF parted ways has the overcoat of air power been
stripped from our troops - and if there is a thombstone for this decade
of war to underscore our failure it will be in the Army's refusal to
understand the vertical dimension and the Air Forces's half hearted
effort to try to jerk them back to reality - the services all grabbed
for their budgetary pots and gave up trying to sorth things out. Today
it is a compl;etely different war and you see outposts and convoys
standing alone with virtually little air cover and even less air
presence because attack helicopters are too vulnerable, UAV's are too
difficult and too few, AC-130's are grounded, and tactical fighters with
pods and bombs make too big a splash for the restrictive ROE's and we
keep loosing people to complex ambushes with no capacity to go after the
attackers let along try to stop them before. The Army dumped all this
and billions on the IED Task force that only grew in organizational size
(4 star level no less JIEDDO) and not in the generation of solutions to
IED's and ambushes and after five years have nothing to show for it
except the continuing casualties - now the Congress will gut them but if
it remains an Army war and not a SOF or Marine joint war nothting will
change. The SOF and Marines have figured out the third dimension but
they also need the right air vehicles for COIN.



wrote in message
ups.com...
A little aware of capabilities of both types, I don't think mistaking
Fishbed with Fitter would have "no impact" on the troops. Fighter
capabilities of Su-17 are poor, but MiG-21 cannot haul heavy air-to-
ground ordnance (like H-29 missile) or a nuclear bomb, though I don't
remember if the latter capability was well-advertised in the Warsaw
Pact forces...

Best regards,
Jacek

On the other hand, mistaking one type of hostile
aircraft (a Su-17 Fitter) for another type of hostile aircraft (a
MiG-21 Fishbed) would generally have "no impact" -- except "if
friendly countries were flying some aircraft types that are normally
considered hostile."

Of all the Russian fighters you can see by "who's left" and "who's being
built & refurbished" to get a feel as to which ones really made it with
pilots and maintainers. The MiG-21 / F-7 Fishbed / Mongol Series are
still in limited production in China and still have a few modernization
programs going on the two most noted perhaps are the Russian MiG-2000
and Romanian-Israeli upgrade Program. The Chinese have many new variants
of the F-7 and all of them now have modern avionics and can carry all
kinds of Western and Eastern weapons - but in essence they are all still
MiG-21's, handle the same way and are all range limited on a modern
scale.

Of all the attack birds the Su-22 Fitter H/G da da seems to have become
the THUD of the east and is still liked by pilots in former Communist
countries such as Poland that actually upgraded them. It had lots of
power, carries a lot, stable as hell in bombing, adapts to all kinds of
junk, handles well and maintains good. Not a digital cockpit but it was
one of the best before the MiG-29 came out.

The Floggers / Fencers / Fitters and what have you have all been
replaced by the Sukhoi Su-27 family and for a while the MiG-29 had
trouble but now it is steaming ahead.

I would not rely on army manuals for anything aviation wise - there is
such a volume of open source material available in books stores and on
the web you can find just about anything you need, anything dated before
2000 isn't worth the paper its on - my opinion





wrote in message
ups.com...
In a follow-up, FAS noted that there are errors in the guide
concerning the
dimensions of US aircraft. Not only was the recognition guide
needlessly
restricted, but that restriction may have prevented it from being
accurate.

D

These were not only errors, I think. It seems they have a lot of
problem with telling the difference between some members of Fittter
family - ancient Su-7B and swing-wing Su-17/Su-20/Su-22 (I saw a photo
of the latter together with photos of the former). Also Sea King
drawings went twicence with the actual Sea King, but repeated for
French Super Frelon heavy helicopter. No wonder - it's just a U.S.
Army manual...

Best regards,
Jacek

----------
In article . net, Tankfixer
wrote:

Look up the example of the classified history of the CIA's involvement in
the Iranian coup in the 1950s. Short story: the classified document was
leaked and put on the web. The government did nothing.

Depends who leaks it I supose.. ;')

Not really. Publishing classified material is not illegal in the United
States, with a finite exception--the names of covert intelligence officers
currently based overseas. This is based upon long precedent and the belief
in the United States that a functioning democracy requires a free press that
can publish information that the government does not want released.

It's a little more complicated for leaking classified information to the
press. In general, that's not actually illegal--99.999% of people who do it
get an administrative punishment (i.e. they get fired, fined, or lose their
security clearance). They don't go to jail. Only one person has gone to
jail for this, Samuel Loring Morrison, back in the 1980s. There is
currently a case before the courts where the government is trying to convict
two people for accepting classified information and making if public.
Whether they will be convicted of that is an open question.

Put it this way:

Person A, a govt. employee, gives classified information to a foreign govt.
He goes to jail for espionage.

Person B, a govt. employee, gives classified information to a newspaper and
gets caught. He gets fired or given an administrative punishment. It is
highly unlikely that he will go to jail. (And it is worth remembering that
top level officials leak classified information all the time. People in the
White House leak information to newspapers to make the White House look
better. That's how the game is played in Washington.)

The newspaper publishes classified information. Nothing happens to them.


If you're interested in learning about the subject, go to the FAS website
and read multiple issues of Secrecy and Government Bulletin. You'll get a
sense of the limitations concerning the press and classified information.

I may give them a look.

Read up on the AIPAC case.



D