Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

:lol: Please do!
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by SykomantiS »

Here you go :lol:
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by doo_much »

Like a 'Bosbok' but with better range...

It's a bit expensive at $10m though.
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by WiK1d »

Ah yes. Sunnyside. I'm sure I've seen another one somewhere else.
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

:lol:
I like how they have got Hawker jets in the background on that poster.

Those are subsonic planes we bought from the RAF and use for training. You couldn't defend SA from a flock of seagulls in one of those...

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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by Hman »

Probably standing in hangers waiting for service parts which the AF can't afford.
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by Anakha56 »

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ ... 0-20110930
SAAF: Ageing aircraft in use until 2020
2011-09-30 20:03

Pretoria - South Africa's ageing fleet of C130B Hercules aircraft will be used by the SA Air Force until at least 2020, the chief of the air force Lieutenant General Carlo Gagiano said on Friday.

Upgrades were being carried out in conjunction with Denel Aviation and were expected to cost about R200m.

The cost of replacing the 48-year old aircraft with the new C130J would be in the region of US$140m (about R1.11bn) each.

Brigadier General Piet van Zyl said the SAAF fleet of C130s was bought between 1962 and 1963.

He said that a specialised air-worthiness unit had been set up to continually monitor the aircraft.
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by Anakha56 »

http://www.dailytech.com/South+Koreans+ ... e23095.htm
South Koreans Hope to Field KF-X Stealth Fighter by 2020
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - October 24, 2011 1:10 PM

ighter will fall between F-16 and F-15 in performance

For two decades, the U.S. has been at the forefront of stealth fighter technology. The first operational stealth fighter to come from the U.S. was the F-117 Nighthawk, which has been retired. Today, the U.S. Air Force is using the F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor fighters both use second-generation stealth technology.

In Asia, the Chinese are well underway on new stealth fighters, and now the South Koreans are jumping into the mix.

The Korean fighter is called the KF-X and it is a twin-engine fighter that aims to fall between the speed and range of a Lockheed Martin F-16 and Boeing F-15. The Koreans plan to develop the KF-X over the next nine years with a projected budget of $5 billion. That seems like a laughably low budget considering the latest generation U.S. stealth aircraft cost many times that amount to develop.

The goal for mass production is currently set at 2020 for the Korean fighter. South Korea also plans to use new weapons on the KF-X including new variants of the AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. Other weapons will include guided bombs and anti-ship missiles.

It's worth noting that Flight Global says the KF-X was previously seen with canard wings, but the version shown at the Seoul Air Show has no canards. South Korean officials are already in talks with Turkey and Indonesia has joined the program.
Pics if you follow the link...
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

Weapon hardpoints on the wing :?:

Yeah, really stealthy!
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by doo_much »

On a budget of $5 billion? That's how stealthy you're gonna get. ;)
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

If I were them I'd spend the 5 billion on a fleet of F-35's
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by Anakha56 »

Speaking of F-35's...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/201 ... orld-.html
Lockheed’s F-35 Costs Rose 64% Over Decade in ‘Rich Man’s World’
By Gopal Ratnam and Tony Capaccio - Nov 3, 2011

Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) won the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when U.S. B-52 bombers were pummeling the Taliban and Pentagon spending was unleashed.

Ten years and $66 billion later, the aircraft is still in development, five years behind schedule and 64 percent over cost estimates. The Obama administration may cancel some models and also cut the Pentagon’s orders.

The plane, envisioned as the affordable stealth fighter for the U.S. and allies, has turned into a budget target.

...
Follow the link for further reading...
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

Still speaking of F-35's
www.bbc.co.uk wrote:US Lockheed Martin F-35 chosen as Japan fighter jet

Japan has chosen the US-made F-35 stealth fighter jet to replace its aging F-4s as the mainstay of its air defence fleet.

Tokyo announced it would buy a total of 42 of the Joint Strike Fighters from defence giant Lockheed Martin, in a deal worth some $8bn (£5bn).

The jet was chosen over the Eurofighter Typhoon and Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet.

The announcement comes amid regional uncertainty following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

There is also growing concern in Japan about China's increasing military might. In recent months, Japan has said it is bolstering its coastal defences after warning of an increase in Chinese naval activity in the region.

Japanese Defence Minister Yasuo Ichikawa said the security environment in which the fighters would operate was undergoing a transformation, but that the F-35 had "capabilities that can firmly respond to the changes".

Japanese involvement
The decision had been widely expected, given the close ties between Tokyo and Washington.

The US is Japan's main security ally and the two countries regularly conduct joint military drills in the region.

The move will be a major boost to Lockheed Martin, whose F-35 programme has been criticised in the US for its high cost and production delays. Analysts say it is likely to trigger more orders, including from South Korea, which is also seeking to replace its fighter fleet.

The exact details of the contract, including numbers and timings, are yet to be determined, but in a boost to the domestic economy, officials in Tokyo said Japanese firms would be involved in production of the jets.

The decision will, however, be a disappointment for European manufacturers behind the Eurofighter Typhoon, including British defence company BAE Systems, and to US-based Boeing, producer of the Super Hornet.

The Asia-Pacific region has been rattled by the news of long-time North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's death, amid concerns about what direction the isolated state could take under its new leader, Kim Jong-un.
Sad that they have decided not to carry on funding Mitsubishi's attempt at a 5th gen fighter, but old Kim Jong's death seems to have lit a small fire under them.
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by doo_much »

What fighters are the Americans using currently?
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

Airforce uses FA/18's, F-16's, F-15's and F-22's
Navy uses FA/18's
Marines use FA/18's and Harriers

All 3 will have F-35's in active service soon.
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by doo_much »

Thanks. I'd have thought they wouldn't sell their latest and greatest to other countries - but I guess that's capitilism?
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

They don't sell the latest greatest.
The F-22 is the world-beating air superiority fighter right now.
The F-35 is a cheaper, watered down version - less manoeuvrable, less stealthy and less pricey.

The US have been pretty adamant they will not sell the Raptor to anyone. Not that anyone else can afford it at 300 million a plane
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by KALSTER »

They can't even afford it themselves. AFAIK they will not be continuing with the production of F-22's, but will continue with adaptations of the F-35 for various functions. I don't think they sell the top F-35 packages to international buyers, do they?
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

They strip a massive amount of stuff out when selling it...

They were supposed to have 180 Raptors, now they will be lucky to end up with half that amount.
It's done what it was supposed to do tho - scare the Russians and Chinese into building their own. Which will in turn scare the US into building a 6th gen fighter at some point, which will scare the Russians and Chinese into.... etc etc
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by doo_much »

jamin_za wrote:They don't sell the latest greatest.
The F-22 is the world-beating air superiority fighter right now.
The F-35 is a cheaper, watered down version - less manoeuvrable, less stealthy and less pricey.

The US have been pretty adamant they will not sell the Raptor to anyone. Not that anyone else can afford it at 300 million a plane
Now that makes more sense. But why aren't the Marines and Navy 'upgrading' to the F22 as well?
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

doo_much wrote:why aren't the Marines and Navy 'upgrading' to the F22 as well?
Aside from the exorbitant price tag and massive operating costs :?:

The marines don't need air-superiority fighters, they need multi-role planes that can provide air-to-ground fire support for troops, bomb static targets and maybe take out the odd heli or plane that wanders in after the Navy and Airforce have established air dominance, the F-35 is far better at multu-role than the F-22

The Navy needs planes that can launch from carriers. With the SVTOL and VTOL abilities of the F-35 it's better suited for this than even the current F/A-18's or the Raptors. The only problem with the F-35 is that it's a single engine fighter. The Navy has rejected planes on this basis before, not sure how they gave the F-35 the green-light, but still...
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by hamin_aus »

gizmodo.com wrote:This Is Lockheed Martin’s New Amazing Fighter—But Do We Really Need It?

Last December, Lockheed Martin assembled the last F-22 Raptor ever. It's the USAF's one and only fifth generation fighter*. It has never seen combat. It spent part of its life grounded. Now they want to sell you a new one.

The only problem is that, as amazing as it looks and as amazing its technologies would be, the United States military doesn't really need it.
Lockheed Martin's sixth generation proposal appeared on their 2012 calendar, as reported by The Dew Line. It's not a rendering of a prototype, but a declaration of objectives according to the USAF's specifications. A wet dream for their fighter program, which will be the heir of the Raptor in 2030. Pure airplane porn.

The USAF and Lockheed Martin's objectives are:

Greatly increased speed, longer range, extended loiter times, multi-spectral stealth, ubiquitous situation awareness, and self-healing structures and systems are some of the possible technologies we envision for the next generation of fighter aircraft.

So they want what the Raptor does but a bit better, yet there's still no other fighter that can compete with their current wonderjet and there will be no fighters capable of competing with it for decades to come—not to mention that we will not need traditional jets at all by 2030.

No rivals

The reality is that the Russians and the Chinese will not have a fighter capable of competing with the F-22 or the F-35 Lightning II in two decades.

We saw some awesome Russian renderings but, as good as the Sukhoi PAK-FA may be, their industry is still far away from the level of sophistication of the F-22.

The Chinese are even further behind. Despite their mighty industrial and economic power, I doubt they would be able to go from their current advanced fighter—the Chengdu J-20—into something like the F-22. The J-20 is still held by tape and glue.

The level of electronic integration and the complexity of the subsystems required to emulate something like the F-22 is still out of reach for the Chinese or the Russians. Most likely, it will remain like that for many years to come. And by then, the whole paradigm of air warfare would have changed completely.

Drones invading the skies

That's in fact the main question here, not the money or the enemy: do we really need an airplane like this anymore? The shift is already happening everywhere. Fighters are the last step.

Unmanned Fighters would be safe for pilots, they would be harder to detect, they would have a lower cost because they wouldn't require expensive life support, human-friendly specs and cabin instruments. More importantly, they would be able to do crazy maneuvers that a human wouldn't be able to survive. The maneuvering alone is a good enough argument to ditch the traditional fighter jet model.

I know it's not romantic—hey, I always dreamed to be a fighter pilot myself—but the fact is that the future of fighter jets is remote control. There will be pilots, but they would not need big birds like the F-X. They will be flying from a bunker in their pyjamas. And if they want to go all Maverick and Ice Man, they can always go to the locker room and wave their dicks around. Even the United States Air Force is talking about this. The fighter UAVs, not the willy waving. They want the the planes to have dual UAV/human pilot capabilities, but that would be a total waste.

At the end of the day, a swarm of low cost fighters and bombers would always be more effective than a couple hundred super-expensivo jets. It's a pretty simple equation.

More insane spending

The F-22 Raptor program—the USAF's fifth generation fighter and arguably the most advanced combat jet in the world—had a final price tag of $66.7 billion dollars. 196 F-22s were made over 14 years of production. You can count that the new sixth generation jet fighter would cost as much as the F-22. Actually, it would probably be a lot more, judging by Lockheed Martin's own words:

Next generation fighter capabilities will be driven by game changing technological breakthroughs in the areas of propulsion, materials, power generation, sensors, and weapons that are yet to be fully imagined. This will require another significant investment in research and development from a standpoint of both time and money.

Needless to say, we don't need to sink more money into something that would be dead on arrival. Instead, they can keep manufacturing and improving the Raptor—just like the aerospace industry kept doing with the F-15, F-16 and F-18—until they fully develop the lower cost fighter drones. That sounds a lot more reasonable.

So no, we don't need a Raptor II. It would only be another prohibitively expensive beautiful failure with no rivals to fight against. And that's the last thing the United States needs right now.

* The multi-role fighter F-35, although it counts with some test planes and one active jet dedicated for training, is still far from being active.

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Meh.
Call me when they prototype this:

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Post by hyDr0 »

J2theT wrote:Image

=

Gorgeous F-14 Tomcat

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Lockhead SR-71 BlackBird, Not Bad but Ugly

Could not have said it better myself, the F-14 Tomcat Is without a doubt one of the sexiest planes ever to grace the sky with its curveh body!

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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by GreyWolf »

Yes yes, remote control blah blah blah... what about signal jamming?
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Re: Worlds most kick-@$$ aircraft!

Post by doo_much »

Interesting question that. What about ECM? :shock:
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