The Airplane Thread

[Llarry]

A U.S. Air Force contractor operates Boeing 737s and Beechcraft B200s to shuttle employees between Las Vegas, Nevada, and remote sensitive facilities in Nevada such as the facility at Groom Lake known as "Area 51" and the Tonopah test range, etc. This arrangement has gone on for many years and has its own terminal in Las Vegas. The aircraft crews require special security clearances. The program is nicknamed Janet Airlines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet (airline)

The Air Force-owned aircraft are assigned civil registration numbers and operate with minimal markings. Here's a Janet B737-600.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

I spotted two KC-130's yesterday, each with two F-35's refueling, while having lunch at Ragged Point (on CA highway 1).

Later, 3 F-35's made some low-lever passed up the coast while occasionally lighting off the afterburners. There was a lot of neck swiveling on the restaurant patio.

Your photo is of a Navy KC-130T that flies from NAS Patuxent River MD to support test activities. I suspect what you saw was a Marine KC-130J and Marine F-35Bs flying off the coast from the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar down by San Diego.

[Llarry]

The plan to provide Ukraine with F-16s is coming together. The Dutch have just transferred a number of F-16s to a newly-established European F-16 Training Centre in Romania. The outlook is for 61 F-16s to be ultimately provided to Ukraine by the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Belgium may participate as well. The aircraft will be F-16AM single-seaters and F-16BM twin-seaters.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Llarry

The (EFTC & Ukrainian) aircraft will be F-16AM single-seaters and F-16BM twin-seaters.

The NATO countries originally got relatively early-production F-16As and F-16Bs. Beginning in the 1990s, 325 of these aircraft were extensively updated with improved cockpits, avionics, etc., and are essentially equivalent to much later F-16Cs and F-16Ds. For air-to-air missions, they originally used only AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-homing missiles. They now have the capability to fire the AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided missile as well.

I suspect that the EFTC F-16s will ultimately be transferred to the Ukrainian Air Force. For now, the Dutch retain ownership of the aircraft and are merely loaning them to the training effort in Romania.

[Llarry]

As with everything in life, a fighter pilot develops skills in delivering ordnance with practice practice practice.

Many years ago the services realized that using full-size 500- to 2,000-pound bombs for training was a bit expensive and developed much smaller practice bombs that duplicated the trajectory of the full-size versions. But putting a small practice bomb on a bomb rack limits the number that can be carried on a training mission.

Enter the SUU-20, which is a smallish pod accommodating four 2.75-inch folding fin aerial rockets and six 25-pound practice bombs. With the aid of the SUU-20, a crew can make multiple attacks on a single sortie. Great idea!

Here are a couple of photos of an SUU-20 pod: One right side up and one upside down showing the practice bombs.

[Llarry]

Here's an interesting photo: A B-52H in the landing pattern. What a beast!

[vreihen16]

I didn't get any pictures of it, but we were treated to quite the military airshow each mid-morning last week. The Air Force (and Navy) send, um, educational aircraft identification flyovers over West Point when the cadets are on the parade ground in the week leading up to an Army football game against those other academies. Last week's flyovers included a B2.....

[M-technik-3]

So B21 Raider made it's offical first flight today.


I'm sure there were numerous people taking indepth photos for countries not friendly with us.

[Lady Jane]

Lockheed S-3 Viking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_S-3_Viking

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by M-technik-3

So B21 Raider made it's offical first flight today.


I'm sure there were numerous people taking indepth photos for countries not friendly with us.

Let's think this through, shall we?

The B-21's stated price is $750M per unit.

That's..... probably wildly under the actual per-unit cost. The Government can do all sorts of creative financial things regarding aircraft acquisition. For example, you can put all of the associated infrastructure (e.g. crew training, simulators, special maintenance tools, additional parts & tooling, required for service/repair, etc.) under a separate contract— that way it doesn't show up in the "per unit" price. Another trick is to have the government "provide" additional equipment that's going to be installed on the aircraft— it's called GFE (government furnished equipment). You can take very, very expensive things (such as avionics or offensive/defensive electronics suites, etc), buy them under separate contracts and "provide" them to the manufacturer to be installed in your $750M airframe— that way the expensive guts of the airplane don't count towards the "per unit" cost.

My point is that each aircraft is probably at least double that price.

And what happens then? You get fewer and fewer of them authorized by Congress at whopping per-unit prices. The fewer aircraft there are, the higher the individual operating costs become as there are fewer airframes to divide the fixed costs (aircrew, training, infrastructure, RTU, etc.) by. Do the F-22 or B-2 debacles ring any bells?

So, for discussion's sake— let's say that the real-world price is closer to $1.5B per copy (for comparison, the B-2 was always rumored to be around $1B per aircraft in aviation circles when I was flying for the AF, so that's probably pretty close).

Fine. Whatever. It's only taxpayer money.

The question becomes: "What do you use it for?" EVERY. SINGLE. TIME one goes airborne, you're taking the risk of it crashing and burning-- and at >$1B per copy, you simply can't afford to lose even one.

We used to joke that on the B-2 if you pulled the ejection handles, you'd get a screen that lit up and said "Nope, try harder".

Anyhow, back to its mission: Honestly, the only thing it's good for is a nuclear strike. Which, being realistic— missiles are more "bang for the buck" as it were— easier to maintain & launch and they carry multiple warheads (MIRV's) that as they're delivered sub-orbitally can cover a greater amount of targets per delivery vehicle.

And submarines? It's tough for the enemy to get a first strike in on them— the whole point for the 'Boomers are to submerge and disappear until getting notification to launch (through ELF, TACAMO et. al.). They're expensive, but with a higher survivability factor. (And expensive is relative-- a 'Boomer is about $15B per unit-- or around ten B-21's.)

There's the argument that a human-based bomber has the capability of being launched and recalled, and that's fair.... sort of. Does anyone remember "Fail Safe"? Mistakes (human and electronic) happen, and with how fast a nuclear war can occur nowadays (first strike from a submarine off the coast is only a couple of minutes, which makes having the ability to recall your bombers sort of moot.) this is probably not as important than it might have been in the past. Additionally, there are a LOT of pieces that have to work perfectly to get your bombs on target— the crew has to get to the jet, the jet has to get airborne before the (assumed) incoming strike, the tanker crews and aircraft have to get off while avoiding an incoming strike, they have to be able to rendezvous, the B-21 has to penetrate some of the best-defended real estate on the planet (SAM's, AA, IADS, fighters, etc.)— that's a LOT of things that have to go exactly right to get the mission done as opposed to turning a couple of keys and calling it a day.

That leaves discussing a conventional bombing role for the B-21. But again, you have to consider that every single time you use it, you have a significant possibility that the plane will get shot down or crash due to pilot error or mechanical failure. So— you go out and bomb an airfield, a pickup truck, a power plant, a TV station, a SAM site, etc.— how many of those targets are worth $1.5B on their own? In other words— you succeed in blowing up the Bad Guy's truck/tank/power plant/SAM site, but he shoots your ONE POINT FIVE BILLION DOLLAR ASSET down.... well, who really won that particular engagement?

How many conventional targets are worth more than your "billion with a B" aircraft (i.e. what can you POSSIBLY hit with a conventional bomb that’s worth $1.5B)? And let's be honest— if the military has a new toy, they'll want to use it. Wars, combat missions and air strikes are what make for promotions.

And that assumes that the B-21 will even be certified for conventional weapon delivery. Fun fact: In the first Gulf War, the ONLY USAF aircraft weapons system that didn't get to take a turn on the dance floor was the B-1 because it was a "nuke only" bird— it literally couldn't/didn't carry conventional weapons. (We eventually learned our lesson about having aircraft that we couldn't use except for the end of the world and designed conventional delivery systems for it in time for Gulf War, Part Deux).

Also— you only have the limited amount of room in the B-21's bomb bay (i.e. room for a nuke, but probably not many iron bombs). You can't hang ALCM's or rotary launchers off of hard points on the wing (think: B-52) because as soon as you do that, all of the magic stealth tech gets thrown in the trash, thereby eliminating the entire point of your very, very expensive aircraft.

Finally— if you decide to use the B-21 on "one-off" Strike/Special Ops missions and it gets shot down over enemy territory- you've basically given our adversaries a free look at our technology. Francis Gary Powers in the U2 is a good example here. So, the cost of using it probably outweighs the gains you might get from using it-- especially as there are other capable weapon systems out there that can do the job just about as well.

In summation— What are we going to use this magic pinnacle of technology for? Show me a single role where its mission can't be done cheaper and as well (or almost as well)— other than (arguably) a nuclear one? How do you justify the very limited "bang for the buck" of this weapons system? Especially since the (wildly expensive) B-2 is still fully operational in the nuclear role.

Nobody..... NOBODY should ever, ever, ever take the manufacturer's claims with more than a very large grain of salt; they'll sell you unicorns and moonbeams all day long to get the government to sign on the dotted line. Look at pretty much every weapons system out there- does it even do half of what it was advertised to be able to do? And was it delivered without massive cost overruns? And delivered without needing endless (expensive) block upgrades? Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Mr. F-35.

I'm retired military and even though I'm "rah-rah" about the AF and its toys— on this one I'm having a hard time swallowing the cost and the fact that it's really an "application in search of a mission."

CAN you build it? Sure. SHOULD you build it? I'm not so convinced on that point.

In President Eisenhower's retirement speech, he warned of the danger of the growing power (intentional or not) of the military-industrial complex and how every dollar put toward military equipment was a dollar taken away from taking care of the citizenship, the country's needs, infrastructure, etc.

He was more right that he could have possibly known.

R.

[RobotDoctor]

I loved this livery and wish UA would go back to the Tulip.

[M-technik-3]

It also only carries half the payload that a B2 carries and I imagine the radar absorbent material can be damaged in rain like the B2 requiring extensive work on return to base.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

Let's think this through, shall we?
R.

You sounded like my Dad.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by RobotDoctor

I loved this livery and wish UA would go back to the Tulip.

You and me both.

We call the current logo the "Continental Cage".

R.

[evil-G-nius]

What is this weirdo!? Saw it at the airshow this weekend

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by evil-G-nius

What is this weirdo!? Saw it at the airshow this weekend

Cessna O-2 Skymaster.

They used them a lot in Viet Nam for psyops and as a platform for FAC's (Forward Air Controllers).

Basically, a Cessna Super Skymaster with a whole bunch of radio's jammed in the back and hard points on the wing- usually loaded with white phosphorous (Willie Pete) and rockets for marking airstrike targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_O-2_Skymaster

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

Cessna O-2 Skymaster.

They used them a lot in Viet Nam for psyops and as a platform for FAC's (Forward Air Controllers).

Basically, a Cessna Super Skymaster with a whole bunch of radio's jammed in the back and hard points on the wing- usually loaded with white phosphorous (Willie Pete) and rockets for marking airstrike targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_O-2_Skymaster

We used to call them mixmasters...

[vreihen16]

In case all y'all don't remember me posting this before, I had a close-up underside view of a Cessna Skymaster from the cockpit of a solar-powered race car that I was testing on a closed runway as the pilot tried to land on top of me! He apparently missed the NOTAMs for months about the runway being closed for construction, flew over the big flashing X, orange snow fences, and several pieces of excavation equipment parked on the runway before trying to touch down on my roll cage.....

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

Cessna O-2 Skymaster.

They used them a lot in Viet Nam for psyops and as a platform for FAC's (Forward Air Controllers).

Featured in the movie Bat*21 based on a true story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat*21

[Llarry]

The single-engine turboprop Pilatus PC-12NGX (1st photo), previously discussed in this thread, has been an outstanding sales success for Swiss company Pilatus for years.

Now it seems that the American Beechcraft company, manufacturers of the popular King Air series of turboprop twins, will have a close competitor to the PC-12. The single-engine turboprop Denali (2nd photo) is scheduled to go on sale in 2025. The specs are very similar to the Pilatus: Max 285 knot cruise speed (versus PC-12 290), max range with 4 passengers 1600 nautical miles (versus PC-12 1800) and an estimated list price of USD 6.5 million (versus PC-12 just over 6 million).

[evil-G-nius]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

Cessna O-2 Skymaster.

They used them a lot in Viet Nam for psyops and as a platform for FAC's (Forward Air Controllers).

Basically, a Cessna Super Skymaster with a whole bunch of radio's jammed in the back and hard points on the wing- usually loaded with white phosphorous (Willie Pete) and rockets for marking airstrike targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_O-2_Skymaster

Interesting! I had never seen one of those before...its crazy looking. Thanks for the info

[evil-G-nius]

A little F22 action