Military Plane discussion thread - Let’s talk Fighter/Attacker planes.

  • 🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
844233


I love the Foxhound. It isn't that great, but there's something about its ugly aesthetic that does it for me.

On the other hand, I very much dislike the A10 and the fanboyism associated with it.
 
1434584663047.jpg

English Electric Lightning. The first aircraft to break the sound barrier going straight up.

Lightning fact: its only recorded air-to-air kill was an RAF Harrier over West Germany. The pilot had ejected but the plane didn't crash, and in fact continued on autopilot, heading towards the border with the DDR. So a Lightning shot it down to prevent an international incident (not to mention the Soviets getting their hands on a Harrier that they would clearly learn a great deal from, given what a useless, dangerous shitshow the Yak-38 was).

Bonus Lightning fact: there were plans for a "Sea Lightning" carrier-based version. I hope the Fleet Air Arm would have had plenty of spare G-suit trousers, because landing something with the Lightning's glide characteristics on an aircraft carrier is probably one of the most frightening things it's possible to do in an aircraft (apart from flying with South African Airways).

Extra bonus Lightning fact: Jeremy Clarkson bought one and parked it on his front lawn.

xm172-sparkbridge-0805.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here's a Polish mock up that I'm pretty sure was designed by Cobra Commander on a bar napkin

844327


The PZL-230 Skorpion, an attempt at making a light weight, fast, short range CAS fighter by giving the offspring of an F-16 and an SR-71 a bad case of dwarfism

844328
 
The Lightning there demonstrating the aforementioned glide characteristics. The Lightning had glide characteristics in the same way that zero is technically a number.

The pilot survived that crash btw.
 
Spunt said:
The Lightning there demonstrating the aforementioned glide characteristics. The Lightning had glide characteristics in the same way that zero is technically a number.

The pilot survived that crash btw.
Click to expand...

I remember seeing that picture with the caption He'd have been better off trying to get the tractor on glide slope somewhere
 
Regarding the thread poll, I like the F-4 naval variants in flight sim. Right now, I am several months into a 1965 Rolling Thunder campaign with F-4B. Cockpit visibility is ok, instrument panel layout is sensible, flight characteristics are more than sufficient for ground pounding flights, and it can carry lots of munitions so always have spare munitions afterwards to hit secondary targets. In the early years of Rolling Thunder, there's no SAMs so after hitting primary target, it's fun to dick around at leisure over coastal North Vietnam, dumping excess bombloads on nice fat harborside oil depots and cargo ships at Tonkin or Haiphong. For tangling with MiGs on CAP flights, it's not so easy to reorient and quickly set up for second pass if the first one is a bust, but it can shoot Sparrows and Sidewinders for days so that presents a very nice margin of error.
 
Maltninja said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=slYAVymZ99M
Click to expand...
Most comments I see of an F-117 on YouTube mock the plane for “stealth” and getting shot down by Slavs and the power of Hardbass or whatever.
Anonymous For This said:
View attachment 844233

I love the Foxhound. It isn't that great, but there's something about its ugly aesthetic that does it for me.

On the other hand, I very much dislike the A10 and the fanboyism associated with it.
Click to expand...
I remember someone defected from the USSR with this plane and escaped to Japan.
 
Cedric_Eff said:
Most comments I see of an F-117 on YouTube mock the plane for “stealth” and getting shot down by Slavs and the power of Hardbass or whatever.
Click to expand...

The stealth wasn't the issue, it was the mission planners

That F-117 flew that exact same route for strikes for 3 weeks straight. All the SAM crew had to do to shoot it down was adjust bandwidth super low, and just hold scan over one specific area and shoot at the first thing that flew over it at a speed greater than that of a large bird. They had tried it a week earlier and missed because the launch command was given too late. The USAF misread the situation and just thought that it meant the stealth worked extra good and just told the fighter wing they didn't have to worry about it or fly evasively.

All in all it was the most Air Force fucking thing thats ever happened
 
TiggerNits said:
The stealth wasn't the issue, it was the mission planners

That F-117 flew that exact same route for strikes for 3 weeks straight. All the SAM crew had to do to shoot it down was adjust bandwidth super low, and just hold scan over one specific area and shoot at the first thing that flew over it at a speed greater than that of a large bird. They had tried it a week earlier and missed because the launch command was given too late. The USAF misread the situation and just thought that it meant the stealth worked extra good and just told the fighter wing they didn't have to worry about it or fly evasively.

All in all it was the most Air Force fucking thing thats ever happened
Click to expand...
I know that, but the YouTube comments on a F-117 video about bombing Baghdad during Desert Storm literally had people saying Slav power and Cheeki Breeki, and even Stealth Jet cannot handle the power of the hardbass.
 
Is this an autist thread or is this what 'Nam veterans talk about when they're not sharing stories about their LBFM conquests.? I only ask because whenever I see plane talk it triggers a memory of this autist I went to high school with who would only talk about airplanes.
 
オウム said:
Is this an autist thread or is this what 'Nam veterans talk about when they're not sharing stories about their LBFM conquests.? I only ask because whenever I see plane talk it triggers a memory of this autist I went to high school with who would only talk about airplanes.
Click to expand...

It’s all the brain damage we got as kids building model cars, planes, ships and tanks in our unventilated rooms with Testors glue.
 
Allow me to explain why chaff and flares will inevitably become obsolete. When missiles were first developed the software installed was 80s to 90s tier AI and they were made to attack the large hot exhaust of an aircraft since it was easy to program. As a result flares were made to fool the missile and they are currently quite effective. And currently defensive pilot tactics are 70% reliant on the fact the missiles launched will be defeated by flares. But right now AI imaging technology has improved to the point where you can use facial recognition on instagram. This technology can be easily transferred into the software of a missile. And from an intuitive perspective, if you see an aircraft dispensing flares and you have no problem with differentiating the magnesium fireball and the aircraft then neither will an advanced missile.

And as a matter of fact such a missile exists, it is called the AIM-9X
 
RedRightHand said:
en.wikipedia.org

Horten Ho 229 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Any fixed wing aircraft is something I love, sleek designs and aesthetics are what I'm all about. Nazi Germany designed the Horten Ho in the last days of World War 2. It was a wonderwaffe that consumed fuel like crazy and was really never mass produced or practical for mass production, but it is impressive for the time it was made.
I love B2's as well ofc.
en.wikipedia.org

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
This thing has a terrible safety record but again, I have a thing for sleek looking aircraft that are gimmicky. This is expensive, dangerous (for the pilot, basically any fuckups are heavily punished, and performing a successful autorotation on a v22 is extremely difficult allegedly), and cool. I also like Apaches and Chinooks.
Click to expand...

The V22 had been pretty reliable as of the past 5 years or so. She had all kinds of teething issues, seeing her get dropped by some branches.

In Afghanistan, at least for our year push out there, the Osprey was by far the most reliable for us, we had numerous other platforms go down to environmental and occasional enemy action. But the v22s kept on trucking with low downtime. Granted, as a platform, it is also 20 to 30 years newer compared to the other helicopters we were using.
 
Spunt said:
The Lightning had glide characteristics in the same way that zero is technically a number.
Click to expand...
This would be better worded as.
"The Lightning had a number of glide characteristics in the way that zero is a number."
As you have it I was confused. I read is like you were saying zero isn't a full fledged number compared to other numbers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom