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

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The local division of the Confederate Air Force was practicing flyovers today ahead of the Memorial Day holiday on Monday. I saw several flights of vintage warbirds over the course of the day, but my phone is so slow to swap to video/camera mode that I couldn't get any footage.

The first flight was a tight formation of about six or seven AT-6 Texans arrayed in echelon on either side of a B-25, with a lone Texan hanging back in a chase position, presumably to get good film footage and photos of the formation. They were at a lower altitude, maybe 1000 meters at a guess, and not appearing to move that fast, maybe 300 kph?

A minute later, there was a "vic" of three identical fighters with another Texan chase plane trailing behind. Same altitude and roughly same heading as the earlier flight, but moving much faster and further away from me, so I saw them in side profile and couldn't positively identify them from that angle. Definitely looked like liquid cooled engines, since the nose profile was so sleek. My brief look at the profile view made me think of a Spitfire, but I don't think any collector or group in the area has any Spitfire in flying condition, much less three Spitfires. I talked to someone who said that the local division of the CAF has Mustangs, so it was probably P-51 Mustangs. The CAF guys also have Corsairs and other radial engine fighters, but it definitely looked like a liquid cooled engine to me.

Later in the day, there was another flight of maybe 5-6 Texans practicing a kind of loose finger-four formation. I was distracted by something else at the time so I didn't get a good luck at them, but it was probably Texans, because any time the local CAF guys have more than 5 of the same plane in the air, it's probably Texans.

Except for the B-25, I couldn't see what kind of paint jobs any of the warbirds had, as the sun was positioned in such a way that all the planes looked black to me. The B-25 looked like it had red and yellow stripes on the twin tail, and I think the fuselage was bare aluminum rather than painted in any camo.

Maybe all prop planes sound the same from far away, but I almost missed seeing some of those flyovers since they all sounded the same as any civilian plane from a distance, just with more engines in the sky at one time.
 
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Avro Canada Arrow, the most technologically impressive fighter jet of the 1950’s. It had a early form of Fly-By-Wire and Missiles were stored in the fuselage like the F-35.
 
I will insist until my dying day that the USAF should have selected the YF-23 instead of the F-22. From a few different sources that I've seen researching the subject, many of those involved during the testing of the two planes felt the YF-23 was the superior bird and that the F-22 was chosen for largely political reasons, not because it was the better aircraft. Hopefully when the USAF and USN pick their next air superiority fighters, they actually pick the best one. Not to say that the F-22 is a bad fighter, because it's not. It's a good aircraft.
 

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The F-22 won because Lockheed could actually produce them. The political reasons everyone bemoans were mostly due to the fact that Northrop didn't have anything close to the needed factory output to fill the order. On the plus side though, Northrop then helped Lockheed reengineer the YF-22 in to the F-22A we have now and you can see it in a lot of places on the F-22A from the nosecone to the reworked cockpit and the nozzles on the engines. While the F-22 won, it took a lot of the 23's DNA in to the production run and while the YF-22 was inferior to the 23 in a number of ways, those shortcomings were mostly shored up pretty well when it got the rework to be an actual production aircraft.

Still, the 23 is way fucking sexier
 
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Does anybody know where I can find more long-form discussions like this?


I like Military Aviation History’s channel, but his videos are often on the short side, and I really enjoyed this style of longer, more in-depth discussions.

The linked video is well worth a watch. There were a couple a neat highlights I’d never come across before:
  • The A6M was actually a less capable dogfighter than its immediate predecesor, but more than made up for that in range and speed.
  • The focus on shedding weight to augment operational range was so extreme that lead designer Horikoshi made one of his engineers redesign a small part to use a different manufacturing technique just so they could save a few grams.
  • The US Navy’s emphasis on aerial gunnery training gave it much needed flexibility in facing the Zero. US pilots were better trained to lead targets which opened up angles of attack.
  • Solar interference (and poor shielding initially) made the weaker Japanese radios nearly useless in the South Pacific, to the point where aircrews often ripped out the equipment entirely. This is compared to German sets which were of similar power but functioned much more effectively in Europe due to solar cycles not having as much of an impact on that part of the globe at the time.
  • The lack of functioning radios meant that a large percentage of CAP and strike missions were coordinated with hand signals or other modes of communication, which makes the Zero’s superiority in 1942 and relative staying power even beyond that all the more impressive.
 
Tour of Italy said:
Does anybody know where I can find more long-form discussions like this?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ApOfbxpL4Dg
I like Military Aviation History’s channel, but his videos are often on the short side, and I really enjoyed this style of longer, more in-depth discussions.

The linked video is well worth a watch. There were a couple a neat highlights I’d never come across before:
  • The A6M was actually a less capable dogfighter than its immediate predecesor, but more than made up for that in range and speed.
  • The focus on shedding weight to augment operational range was so extreme that lead designer Horikoshi made one of his engineers redesign a small part to use a different manufacturing technique just so they could save a few grams.
  • The US Navy’s emphasis on aerial gunnery training gave it much needed flexibility in facing the Zero. US pilots were better trained to lead targets which opened up angles of attack.
  • Solar interference (and poor shielding initially) made the weaker Japanese radios nearly useless in the South Pacific, to the point where aircrews often ripped out the equipment entirely. This is compared to German sets which were of similar power but functioned much more effectively in Europe due to solar cycles not having as much of an impact on that part of the globe at the time.
  • The lack of functioning radios meant that a large percentage of CAP and strike missions were coordinated with hand signals or other modes of communication, which makes the Zero’s superiority in 1942 and relative staying power even beyond that all the more impressive.
Click to expand...
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles is a good YouTube channel for technical information about aircraft. He puts in a lot of research in his videos but beware, they can get VERY technical and complex.


Edit:
Here's another good channel: Military Aviation History

 
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Mister Qwerty said:
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles is a good YouTube channel for technical information about aircraft. He puts in a lot of research in his videos but beware, they can get VERY technical and complex.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3d6shqkB8lIhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=hSdYtF2uR3U
Edit:
Here's another good channel: Military Aviation History

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NSrszi6ivyM
Click to expand...

Fighter Pilot Podcast and CW Lemoine also have good stuff. I know a few guys that have been guests on both
 
MrJokerRager said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sHMhClzfoi8
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yNvTC3Hxc1g
https://youtube.com/watch?v=805M1svwp_8
https://youtube.com/watch?v=an-UgwM1V8g
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KlYE-Ic0SAA
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XId5bL4Qtys
Click to expand...
The C-17’s predecessor the McDonell Douglas YC-15 was designed with short take off and landing in mind.
The Dude said:
I will insist until my dying day that the USAF should have selected the YF-23 instead of the F-22. From a few different sources that I've seen researching the subject, many of those involved during the testing of the two planes felt the YF-23 was the superior bird and that the F-22 was chosen for largely political reasons, not because it was the better aircraft. Hopefully when the USAF and USN pick their next air superiority fighters, they actually pick the best one. Not to say that the F-22 is a bad fighter, because it's not. It's a good aircraft.
Click to expand...
Another thing to note about the YF-23, the lack of thrust vectoring.
 
If you've ever wondered what an old-school Ferrari would look like if it could fly, meet the Reggiane Re.2005, the last in a long line of superb Italian propeller-driven fighters:

Reggiane_Re.2005_Sagittario.jpg


On the whole, Italian designs were comparable to the British minus the latter's well-established aircraft industry - highly agile, well-protected, decent armament. The Regia Aeronautica benefited from German engineering like the Daimler-Benz 605 series engines which were a considerable improvement over Italian-made engines and enabled many designs who had fell short of expectations to reach their performance goals with ease.
 
Since you guys are mitary aircraft buffs, is anyone else a fan of the band Dos Gringos? The two guys who make up the core of the band are both Viper jocks (F16 pilots) who met IIRC during fighter training. While at the O Club one night, listening to some of the older jocks singing some fighter pilot songs, they realized that the "newest" fighter pilot songs had been written during the Vietnam War and that there weren't any songs for their generation of pilots. So they decided that since they both played guitar that they would fix that problem and started making songs that their generation could relate to better (like plane envy, how boring dropping smart munitions can be, your wife/girlfriend spending all your money while you're away on deployment, and finding your wife/girlfriend's vibrator and feeling inadequate). They're a hilarious group with songs full of fighter jargon (especially their early stuff), and they're still both active fighter pilots.
 
Say as you may, thrust vectoring is a crucial air combat tool. It really does change the way air battles are fought.
 
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