Consistent CAP over a fleet from a land base

"Douglas Eagleson" wrote ...
Thats for a reasonable repy.

My idea was for a rebuilt A-10, meaning the design goes back to the
manufacturer. All the real professionals here need to complain of the
lack of adequate fighter design, in my opinion.

The F14 was in essence designed to fill much of the requirement you're
postulating, adding the capacity for quick high speed reaction, close combat
handling capacity, a mix of short and long range missiles, plus rapid climb
to station, all qualities unable to be met by even a totally redesigned A10.
The trade off? A much shorter time on station, but then in a combat
environment against enemy strike a/c, any a/c's weapons load would be
quickly exhausted, so loiter time was not the highest priority. On the
drawing boards since the mid60s, the F14 has come and gone, the mission for
which it was designed and expensively developed gone with it.



Supersonic critical airspeed appears a worrysome thing when in fact it
is a simple airframe stress.

Jeez, how can you be that unaware of the realities of basic aerodynamics.
Would you care to predict the Mach number at which Cessna 172s begin to shed
important components? I'm not quite sure if we could bolt a surplus J79 to
a 172, but just for illustration sake the results would be informative for
you. It would take a hell of a lot of airframe stiffening (measured in the
many, many pounds category) to move an A10 to higher (but still subsonic)
Mach ranges, and once there the a/c would be essentially uncontrollable, a
doomed lawn dart.


Nothing drastic happens. An A-10 is a
slow speed design and the basic idea was to do a cheap re-engine to get
an plane suitable for a fighter pilot.


I'm not sure that their are many available choices less suitable than an
A10.

TMO

Ed Rasimus wrote:
"KDR" wrote:
In case of defensive missions, what was the Torrejon F-4C's 'typical'
mission radius? Did it normally involve air-to-air refueling?

During the late '70s while I was there, Spain was not yet a member of
NATO. (I participated in the integration and early work up exercises a
few years later when I was at USAFE Hq and Spain came aboard.)

There were no active missions from home base. We were always deployed
down the Med at forward operating locations in Italy and Turkey. We
trained for nuke strike, ground attack, air defense and
deployment--basically those were the days of fully qualified in
anything the aircraft was capable of doing.

When we exercised with Spanish air defense forces, which is apparently
the closest mission to respond to your question, we would configure
with three tanks, AIM-9s and AIM-7E. In that configuration on CAP, we
could maintain station for slightly over two hours. If you translate
that into distance, you could get one hour out at approx 500 kts
ground speed, ten minutes of engagement time at altitude and one hour
back: that defines a 500 nautical mile combat radius. That could be
increased if you jettisoned tanks as they went dry to reduce drag.

We were collocated in those days with the 98th Strat Wing, so we had
tankers available at all times if the mission would require.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

An ex-ROKAF pilot who flew F-4D says 500NM is too far even with three
tanks. He commented the 10-minute engagement should be done only using
mil power to get back to base. Was there any massive difference in
endurance between C and D models?

"TOliver" wrote:

:While many of us may view the F/A18 series as less than perfect, I doubt
:that any with any experience in a fleet environment would choose any
ossible upgrade or refinement of an A10 as any more than an unrealistic (if
:not ridiculous) proposal. Sadly, all those surplus S3 Vikings gone to the
:graveyard would have been many times more effective in such a role than all
:the A10 airframes in the world (and many times more effective would not be
:effective enough to be suitable).

I'll just note that a Super Bug configured with tanks and for an
air-to-air mission has a pretty good 'hang time'. Not the most
comfortable aircraft for a long duration mission, but then folks have
done 8+ hour missions in the C/D Hornet going into Afghanistan
(tanking 3 times along the way).

--
"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night
to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
-- George Orwell

"Douglas Eagleson" wrote:

:A fighter specially designed for fleet defense was my comment.

We had that in the F-14. We accelerated their retirement to save
money and by more Super Bugs.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Douglas Eagleson" wrote:

:No the concept of hounding the honest commenter is your problem. Not
:mine.

The concept of pointing out the ignorance of the commenter is mine.

:All the airframe needs to perform over mach 1 is a little control work.

Hogwash. All the airframe needs to perform over Mach 1 is a total
redesign so as to prevent little details like the wings and empennage
departing the airframe, terminating in uncontrolled intersection with
terrain.

:So the guy that was the original poster heard me say. I like the idea
f making the A-10 a coverage defensive fighter.

And once you do the redesign and rebuilt to get it over Mach 1 without
losing pieces, now you need to beef it up so that it can take cats and
traps without leaving the frame strewn across the deck.

Then you get to figure out how to get fuel and weapons into your
entirely new airplane.

:And you get to listen again.
:
:A radar emitting fighter is a sitting duck one, so they are there to
:shoot first.

A non-radar emitting fighter can't shoot until it's practically up
your ass.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Douglas Eagleson" wrote:

:My idea was for a rebuilt A-10, meaning the design goes back to the
:manufacturer. All the real professionals here need to complain of the
:lack of adequate fighter design, in my opinion.

Except:

1) That's not a problem, and

2) Your suggestion is worse than useless at correcting that problem if
it should happen to exist.

:Supersonic critical airspeed appears a worrysome thing when in fact it
:is a simple airframe stress. Nothing drastic happens. An A-10 is a
:slow speed design and the basic idea was to do a cheap re-engine to get
:an plane suitable for a fighter pilot.

Yes, but the actual idea is to get a deathtrap that disintegrates the
first time you:

1) Launch from a carrier,

2) Hit the throttle and get close to Mach 1, or

3) Recover on a carrier.

Not to mention that it won't do the mission.

Other than those small details, it's a PERFECT plan.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

In article .com,
on 6 Feb 2006 08:36:24 -0800,
Douglas Eagleson attempted to say .....

Why the BS return comments. You make irrelavent replies to the
original.

Why not consider some folks around here have some experience with the subject ?

Again I ask,
So, what is it, 13 or 14 ?


--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

In article .net,
on Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:00:02 GMT,
Richard Lamb attempted to say .....

Douglas Eagleson wrote:
Why the BS return comments. You make irrelavent replies to the
original.


Where do all these loons come from?

His mommy let him get a yahoo account and now the boy thinks he is a military
planner

--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

In article .com,
on 6 Feb 2006 08:34:22 -0800,
Douglas Eagleson attempted to say .....

No the concept of hounding the honest commenter is your problem. Not
mine.

All the airframe needs to perform over mach 1 is a little control work.

Why not regale us with the changes you would make to achieve Mach 1+ ?


So the guy that was the original poster heard me say. I like the idea
of making the
A-10 a coverage defensive fighter.

You might like it, that doesn;t make it a good idea.


And you get to listen again.

A radar emitting fighter is a sitting duck one, so they are there to
shoot first.

You never heard of E2C I take it ?

--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

In article .com,
on 6 Feb 2006 08:29:33 -0800,
Douglas Eagleson attempted to say .....


TOliver wrote:
"Douglas Eagleson" wrote ...

You need to learn how to read common vernacular. I do not write in
predicate.


I suspect that most of us familar with the common vernacular, speaking and
writing in same on a regular basis, would take your second sentence above as
more than adequate evidence that you're as confused concerning English as
you seem to be about Fleet Air Defense.

TMO

A fighter specially designed for fleet defense was my comment.

You mean the F-14 then ....?

--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.