The off topic plane section...

[boxmonkeyracing]

Originally Posted by wild_weasel

I don't want to be doing Mach 3 and be close enough to terra firma to use TF.

My point was: you have to slow down to drop stuff, way down, and THAT'S where a big fat missile twice as fast as you has its shot. If your boiling air at Mach 3 (and it does BOIL the air as it comes out of the nozzle by the way)...SAMs are just big fireworks, especially with ECM and a little maneuvering.

I LOVE the SR-71 and I think it would easily survive today, they even had plans to put missiles and stuff on those things, but there's a reason why they didn't. Metallurgy, guidance, and aerodynamics are only so flexible at those speeds.

Point taken on the altitude issue. Going fast enough to make MANPADS useless and being low enough to make SAMs useless has its merits. The B-1 was really supposed to do that type mission. And F-16 guys practice something similar even though they won't actually do it in combat. F-15Es could, they are great at interdiction, but nowadays, why risk the lives of pilots and crew and a multi-million or billion dollar aircraft to do what a cruise missile already does and was, from inception, designed for?

I hate UAVs as much as the next guy, and i want to fly low and fast and blow stuff up like the next guy, but I'm also an engineer. Hence, I look at things from the perspective of form follows function. The XB-70 was kind of the next iteration of the idea of the B-58 Hustler (which had a fatal pitch mode by the way, killed several pilots. I think it was due to Mach tuck but I can't remember). Making FAST bombers is a really tough thing to design for. Fast bombers are getting left in the dust for stealth bombers, "who needs speed when you can't be seen?" sort of thinking. I think they still have a place, and I hope haul-ass bomb haulers stay, but its a tough spec to design to.

I can't go into a lot of details but B-1's still do TF. It's designed to save the plane if something with TF goes wrong. and with the Avionics that planes have now adays they know when they are being targeted and can tell you where it's coming from long before they ever launch which gives pilots the ability to either jam, convince the missle it's somewhere else, or book it out of there. to say everything is going to stealth. . .yea and no. if you can see a B-2 you can shoot it down. sorry stealth is good but not the best. Speed with stealth is even better. The B-1b has a smaller radar cross section do to some stealth features installed after learning from the B-1A program. Your comment about fast bombers getting left in the dust is totally inaccurate. right now the B-1b is the bomber of choice in both wars due to payload, speed, and time on station. and the B-3 is suppose to be faster then the B-2 and carry more all while being a complete stealth plane. BUT, that's only if UCAVs don't take over before the next bomber is built. I hate the fact that UAVs and UCAVs are taking over but it's the way of the future. they can handle more G's then a human and loss of life isn't as high of a risk.


SR-71 wad designed with Stealth but it's heat plum really does away with that. lol.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by boxmonkeyracing

I can't go into a lot of details but B-1's still do TF. It's designed to save the plane if something with TF goes wrong. and with the Avionics that planes have now adays they know when they are being targeted and can tell you where it's coming from long before they ever launch which gives pilots the ability to either jam, convince the missle it's somewhere else, or book it out of there. to say everything is going to stealth. . .yea and no. if you can see a B-2 you can shoot it down. sorry stealth is good but not the best. Speed with stealth is even better. The B-1b has a smaller radar cross section do to some stealth features installed after learning from the B-1A program. Your comment about fast bombers getting left in the dust is totally inaccurate. right now the B-1b is the bomber of choice in both wars due to payload, speed, and time on station. and the B-3 is suppose to be faster then the B-2 and carry more all while being a complete stealth plane. BUT, that's only if UCAVs don't take over before the next bomber is built. I hate the fact that UAVs and UCAVs are taking over but it's the way of the future. they can handle more G's then a human and loss of life isn't as high of a risk.


SR-71 wad designed with Stealth but it's heat plum really does away with that. lol.

Agreed. Stealth is good so long as it works. You still need to avoid radar and visual detection. The idea of having a superfast bomber is so that it can actually reach the target and unload its bombs. The argument that they are vunarable while unloading their weapons is valid, but stealth aircraft are vunerable then too. As far as droping bombs at high speed, I have no idea whats being done, but I'm sure it isn't being ignored.

There is one problem with a fast stealthy aircraft that you touched on, heat. But if the system that fires a missile can't detect you on radar and you can fly as fast as the missile, what does it matter?

[wild_weasel]

Avionics are fantastic today. Detection is great and have improved dramatically since the days of Wild Weasels in Vietnam who knew they were being targeted...but not from where. IR targeting systems are still a big worry though.

Stealth is not the end-all-be-all I agree. As you said, the B-3 is putting the two together, going Mach two and being shady about it in the process. Its a medium sized bomber if I remember right, so they payload wont be on the order of B-52s, but thats ok. And thats out in the 2035-2040 timeframe I think so I'm sure that thing will get faster and stealthier too.

I wouldn't say my fast-bombers-left-behind comment was TOTALLY inaccurate. Fast bombers got left in the dust while we invested in stealth technology. Now that computers and experience are to the point where aerodynamics can actually be integrated and not merely gotten-around, building things to go fast is once again an option. We could have done it with the B-2, we had the skills, but the flying wing just had a bunch of natural X-section savings associated with it...that and Northrop loves it.

I wish the B-1s were used more. They are fantastic airplanes. The Air Force (from a financial point of view) has not been into them unfortunately, especially in the past, even though its proven itself time and again. B-52s still do most a ton of work these days too, even doing some CAS because of their loiter time and better function flying over Afghanistan than my beloved A-10s. The engines on those have trouble sometimes with the altitudes coupled with tight spaces in the mountains, they need more Ps!! (specific excess power)

The SR-71 really was the first "stealth" aircraft. You sure as hell are right on that. A lot of its cross-section savings were due to trial and error and experience on the part of the Skunk Works guys which I think is a real testament to their skills. Real understanding of how to trick radar didn't come until Denys Overholser got a hold of a Pyotr Ufimtsev paper on obscure e-mag calculations.

We agree on pretty much everything Box. I think the crux of my posts revolve around the fact that speed causes design problems (its the engineer in me talking). I think on that we can agree. Hope to see you on active duty someday by the way.

[wild_weasel]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

There is one problem with a fast stealthy aircraft that you touched on, heat. But if the system that fires a missile can't detect you on radar and you can fly as fast as the missile, what does it matter?

It doesn't matter for the aircraft much. It matters for the ordnance. No one wants bombs cooking off in the bomb bay or shortly after they get kicked out the doors. There are obvious ways to keep that from happening, but even "just" at Mach 2 heat is a real issue. Another issue with dropping stuff at that speed is what the bomb/missile/rocket/cruise missile does when its control surfaces suddenly have a freestream thats supersonic flowing over them, you don't want things going BACK towards the airplane.

Stealth stuff is very vulnerable when the bomb bays are open. The F-22 doors are wicked quick and kick stuff out pretty fast and close up the doors. If your the radar op you could blink and miss the blip on the screen. Stealth or otherwise, exposing the innards of the airplane = bad. The ridiculous work that goes into shielding turbofan blades from radar AND trying to make an effective intake it really really impressive.

[boxmonkeyracing]

Originally Posted by wild_weasel

Avionics are fantastic today. Detection is great and have improved dramatically since the days of Wild Weasels in Vietnam who knew they were being targeted...but not from where. IR targeting systems are still a big worry though.

Stealth is not the end-all-be-all I agree. As you said, the B-3 is putting the two together, going Mach two and being shady about it in the process. Its a medium sized bomber if I remember right, so they payload wont be on the order of B-52s, but thats ok. And thats out in the 2035-2040 timeframe I think so I'm sure that thing will get faster and stealthier too.

I wouldn't say my fast-bombers-left-behind comment was TOTALLY inaccurate. Fast bombers got left in the dust while we invested in stealth technology. Now that computers and experience are to the point where aerodynamics can actually be integrated and not merely gotten-around, building things to go fast is once again an option. We could have done it with the B-2, we had the skills, but the flying wing just had a bunch of natural X-section savings associated with it...that and Northrop loves it.

I wish the B-1s were used more. They are fantastic airplanes. The Air Force (from a financial point of view) has not been into them unfortunately, especially in the past, even though its proven itself time and again. B-52s still do most a ton of work these days too, even doing some CAS because of their loiter time and better function flying over Afghanistan than my beloved A-10s. The engines on those have trouble sometimes with the altitudes coupled with tight spaces in the mountains, they need more Ps!! (specific excess power)

The SR-71 really was the first "stealth" aircraft. You sure as hell are right on that. A lot of its cross-section savings were due to trial and error and experience on the part of the Skunk Works guys which I think is a real testament to their skills. Real understanding of how to trick radar didn't come until Denys Overholser got a hold of a Pyotr Ufimtsev paper on obscure e-mag calculations.

We agree on pretty much everything Box. I think the crux of my posts revolve around the fact that speed causes design problems (its the engineer in me talking). I think on that we can agree. Hope to see you on active duty someday by the way.

I love debating things like this. thanks for the debate. Are you considering enlisting or becoming an officer?

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by wild_weasel

The SR-71 really was the first "stealth" aircraft. You sure as hell are right on that. A lot of its cross-section savings were due to trial and error and experience on the part of the Skunk Works guys which I think is a real testament to their skills. Real understanding of how to trick radar didn't come until Denys Overholser got a hold of a Pyotr Ufimtsev paper on obscure e-mag calculations.

They figured out that having a vertical tail the size of a barn door makes for an awfully big target. Plus the thing has minimal frontal cross section and the fan blades for the engine are masked pretty good. So yeah, I imagine that its pretty stealthly. There is also something special about the paint, but I don't know if it was radar absorbant or if it was to help disapate heat. Could be both too I guess. But it sounds like alot of the stuff that made it stealth was not so much specific design choices as things that were chosen for speed then tweaked to make it stealthier. But the team at Skunk Works are pretty much the best engineers in aerospace. I wonder what they are working on now?

Ah, the hopeless diamond solution. I would have loved to be there when they tried to make that thing into an airplane. Hopeless Diamond->Have Blue->F-117 Nighhawk. Wonder who was the first to propose that plane didn't need to be aerodynamic or stable to fly?

[wild_weasel]

Originally Posted by boxmonkeyracing

I love debating things like this. thanks for the debate. Are you considering enlisting or becoming an officer?

I'm in AFROTC, so I'm gonna be a 2Lt. in under a year now (I want to start getting PAID). I got my pilot slot; just have to finish up my aerospace engineering degree and graduate. Then I'm off to do my dream job.

Originally Posted by DGthe3

They figured out that having a vertical tail the size of a barn door makes for an awfully big target. Plus the thing has minimal frontal cross section and the fan blades for the engine are masked pretty good. So yeah, I imagine that its pretty stealthly. There is also something special about the paint, but I don't know if it was radar absorbant or if it was to help disapate heat. Could be both too I guess. But it sounds like alot of the stuff that made it stealth was not so much specific design choices as things that were chosen for speed then tweaked to make it stealthier. But the team at Skunk Works are pretty much the best engineers in aerospace. I wonder what they are working on now?

Ah, the hopeless diamond solution. I would have loved to be there when they tried to make that thing into an airplane. Hopeless Diamond->Have Blue->F-117 Nighhawk. Wonder who was the first to propose that plane didn't need to be aerodynamic or stable to fly?

Yeah, the vertical tail thing was pretty much specifically to lower the X-S. Those engine blades are masked pretty good because of the ramjet shock cones (which move forward and back to get minimum pressure losses across the shockwave in front of them), another speed design component that turned out well on the radar screen too.

Back when it was the A-12 there were no chines along the fuselage, they put them on for shock and heat reasons (I'm pretty sure). Not sure if it ended up reflecting radar away or not.

RAM paint was first used on it too, but I think just on leading edges. They debated whether to paint the thing at all due to weight. It could have been a naked titanium bird flyin' around, but they ended up painting it.

During the F-117 project the stealth guys and the aerodynamics guys had a lot of differences. Had it not been for fly-by-wire that they tweaked from the F-16 that thing would never have gotten airborne. Oh, and by the way, it took the Skunk Works less money to develop the F-117 than it took Ford to develop the Taurus. Suck it Ford.

[boxmonkeyracing]

Originally Posted by wild_weasel

I'm in AFROTC, so I'm gonna be a 2Lt. in under a year now (I want to start getting PAID). I got my pilot slot; just have to finish up my aerospace engineering degree and graduate. Then I'm off to do my dream job.

Cool. just don't become one of those pilots that doesn't listen to maintenance. lol. if you do we might have a fight on our hands. . .out of uniform of course.

[The_Stache]

Originally Posted by CamaroSpike23

the circumference of the earth might be 24k miles, but when you are 35 miles up, the distance you are traveling is greater than what it is on the surface

hrmm... sorry to bring this back up ..BUT... my math kicks in...


ok lets add that 35 mile factor...

first off .. circumference = PI*diameter
SO thus 24,901.55 miles=PI*diameter
and thus 24,901.55 miles/PI = diameter

finally 7926.409 miles = earths diameter...

Now lets add 70 miles (35*2 because its 35 miles added to each radius)
7926.409 + 70 = 7996.409 miles

And reverse...

circumference = PI * 7996.409
circumference = 25,121.459 miles

And again devide by MPH to get total hours to circumvent the entire earth..

25121.459 / 6089.6 = 4.12 hours (4 hours 7ish mins)

STILL way to fast to actually happen unless its in space with a relative 0 friction.

BACK ON TOPIC.

You guys know WAY more about planes than I do, but this so far is a GREAT read. My original plan out of high school was to design and code aviation software, unfortunately money wasn't there for the education(got into Embry Riddle but couldn't afford it) and I'm basically an electrical engineer by day and programmer in training by night.

[wild_weasel]

Originally Posted by aston70

Is that for real?

It is for REAL. If you read the book by Ben Rich (successor to Kelley Johnson) about his time at the Skunk Works, he was the main guy managing the F-117, and those are words from his mouth.

Originally Posted by boxmonkeyracing

Cool. just don't become one of those pilots that doesn't listen to maintenance. lol. if you do we might have a fight on our hands. . .out of uniform of course.

Frankly, a lot of the pilots I have met are just pricks, plain and simple. That fact alone makes me not want to fly fighters. I actually do not like Air Force pilots much, even though I want to be one.

If maintenance says the aircraft is down, well, that's that. It sucks, but what am I gonna go do? Get pissed at the guys who were up all night doing their job? No. My philosophy is to respect the people who make your job possible. Anything else is being stupid, and far from any sort of leadership.

I knew a Lt. from the Army who was a Blackhawk crew chief (160th SOAR, Ft. Campbell, KY)...I learned a lot from that guy.

About the coolest guys I have met are the chopper pilots and A-10 guys (minus one who was a real dick). Hence, my aspiration to be one of those guys. On my dream sheet (pending making it through IFS, UPT and all that...) it's going to be something like: U-28A, A-10C, and HH-60G/CV-22/new CSARX helo, whatever it ends up being.

[wild_weasel]

Originally Posted by diarmadhi

25121.459 / 6089.6 = 4.12 hours (4 hours 7ish mins)

Your math is good. Great explanation, but its not the time to circle that we are calling into question. It's the 6089.656 mile/hour (Mach 8) number. The SR-71 was fast, but not that fast. Let's say it can get pretty close to Mach 4...then its like 8 hours to circle the earth if we just double the time for half the speed according to the math where you already took into account altitude.

I'm at ERAU by the way...Prescott campus (the one I'm sure you applied to since you are in PHX). You aren't missing much here, lol.

[The_Stache]

Originally Posted by wild_weasel

Your math is good. Great explanation, but its not the time to circle that we are calling into question. It's the 6089.656 mile/hour (Mach 8) number. The SR-71 was fast, but not that fast. Let's say it can get pretty close to Mach 4...then its like 8 hours to circle the earth if we just double the time for half the speed according to the math where you already took into account altitude.

I'm at ERAU by the way...Prescott campus (the one I'm sure you applied to since you are in PHX). You aren't missing much here, lol.

Yea I was just using that as a reference for speed (later argument was going to be a comparison to actual flight times).

ERAU Prescott campus was the one. This was WAY back in '99 and funnily enough it was aeronautical engineering I was going to major in. Now almost 10 years later I have a decent career (27 yo with 9 years in IT engineering) and I'm doing night school, grad this fall with an AAS in Microsoft Certified Applications Development, then on to BS in Software Technology Applications from ASU.

[wild_weasel]

Originally Posted by diarmadhi

ERAU Prescott campus was the one. This was WAY back in '99 and funnily enough it was aeronautical engineering I was going to major in. Now almost 10 years later I have a decent career (27 yo with 9 years in IT engineering) and I'm doing night school, grad this fall with an AAS in Microsoft Certified Applications Development, then on to BS in Software Technology Applications from ASU.

If you aren't doing ROTC or AE, I think ERAU is a rip off. My friend spent about $70,000 and a year and a half before he got his private pilot's license here (he is an "aeronautical science" major, a fancy name for getting pilot ratings at exorbitant prices). I got my private in a year exactly from the day of my flight physical, for $2500 out of pocket (Civil Air Patrol covered the other half, yes, I'm one of those toolbags who was in CAP). Plus, like you, I'm getting a real degree that is useful.

ASU is a solid school. With in state tuition, why would you go anywhere else? It's great. Plus, ASU has some of the hottest girls I have ever seen.

[wild_weasel]

Time to start some crap for the hell of it...


P-38 > P-51