This Date in Aviation History: September 5 - September 7

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 09/07/2018 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, planelopnik history, Planelopnik

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from September 5 through September 7.

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(US Air Force)

September 7, 1997 – The first flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. With the arrival of the warplane in WWI, the concept of seizing the high ground in battle evolved from stationing your army on a hill above the enemy to seizing control of the airspace over the battlefield. As fighter aircraft evolved, the concept of the dedicated air superiority fighter evolved along with them, one that would clear the air of enemy aircraft while specialized ground attack aircraft could operate at lower levels. As aircraft further evolved and developed new capabilities, it became possible to combine !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and ground attack in a single aircraft.

The two YF-22 prototypes (US Air Force)

In the 1980s, the US Air Force began the process of finding a new air superiority fighter to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one that would also be as flexible in both the fighter and ground attack role as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .   As part of that effort, and to counter ever more advanced aircraft being produced by America’s adversaries, the Air Force began development of what it called the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1981. The new fighter would also make use of the latest advances in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! technology. By 1984, the Air Force had settled on the requirements for the new aircraft which called for a fighter with a 50,000 poound maximum takeoff weight, a radius of 800 miles, and the ability for supercruise, meaning the fighter would be able to maintain supersonic speeds without the use of gas-guzzling afterburners. Two aircraft were selected for a competition for what would result a very lucrative contract: the Lockheed Martin YF-22, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Though the YF-23 proved to be stealthier and faster, the YF-22's !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines made it more maneuverable. Though both aircraft were seen as very capable platforms, the Air Force selected the YF-22, and it entered production in 1996 as the F-22 Raptor.

The YF-22 flies in formation with its Northrop YF-23 competitor. After a fly-off, the Air Force selected the YF-22. (US Air Force)

The Air Force !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Raptor as a “combination of stealth, supercruise, maneuverability, and integrated avionics, coupled with improved supportability, represent[ing] an exponential leap in warfighting capabilities. The Raptor performs both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions allowing full realization of operational concepts vital to the 21st century Air Force....The F-22 cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft.” The Raptor’s stealthy design allows it to target and destroy opponents before being detected by the enemy, and its advanced avionics allow it not only to protect itself but to protect other assets as well, a critical capability for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of the future. During the development of the aircraft, designers toyed with different names and designations for the F-22. At one time, in a nod to its capability for ground attack, it was designated F/A-22, but upon introduction the designation was changed back to F-22. Lockheed had originally chosen “Lightning II” after the iconic WWII fighter, and it was also briefly called the “SuperStar” and “Rapier.” But, perhaps in a reference to the Eagle it was meant to replace, the Air Force eventually settled on another bird of prey, the Raptor.

An F-22A Raptor 27th Fighter Squadron “Fighting Eagles” fires an AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile from its internal weapons bay. (US Air Force)

The F-22 is powered by a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! afterburning turbofans, and has an estimated top speed of Mach 2.5. It is armed with one 20mm !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! rotary cannon, and can carry air-to-missiles for air defense and/or air-to-ground missiles for ground attack, while four underwing pylons can be fitted with either drop tanks or ordnance. Due in part to its high cost, and the continued development of what some consider to be the more advanced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , production of the Raptor was controversially halted in 2011 after the completion of just under 200 operational aircraft. That was down from the Air Force’s first request for 648 Raptors, a number which was then cut to 440. However, the protracted and troublesome development of the F-35 has led to a high demand for the Raptor to respond to a burgeoning number of missions around the world, leading to discussions about restarting the F-22 production line. However, such a restart remains highly unlikely. Though the tooling and assembly structures were preserved when the production line was shut down 2012, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of restarting the supply train and production line is estimated to be upwards of $50 billion to procure 194 more Raptors. At least for now, the Air Force will have to make due with the Raptors they have, and hope that the F-35 can take on the air superiority role effectively.

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(US Army)

September 7, 1965 – The first flight of the Bell AH-1 Cobra. By the Vietnam War, the US Army had become very much a helicopter-borne force, using the theories of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to carry troops into battle. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , better known as the Huey, became their modern Army mule. This all-purpose utility helicopter, which first flew in 1956, came to symbolize the war in Vietnam, as it appeared on the nightly news airlifting troops to the battlefield and evacuating casualties back to medical aid stations. While the Huey proved to be invaluable in these roles, it was also relatively slow, lightly armed, and susceptible to ground fire. The Army responded by turning some of the Hueys into makeshift gunships, but they soon realized the need for a new, dedicated attack helicopter to protect the transport helicopters and support ground troops in combat, particularly when they were under fire and vulnerable in hot landing zones.

The Bell 209, the prototype for the AH-1. The prototype originally had retractable landing skids which were later replaced with fixed skids. (US Army)

Bell Helicopter had been working on the first dedicated helicopter gunship as early as the 1950s, and they presented the Army with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1963, which was essentially the first modern attack helicopter. The Army was impressed, but the Sioux Scout had shortcomings that concerned Army brass. A year later, the Army launched the Advanced Aerial Fire Support System (AAFSS) competition and settled on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which, after 10 years of costly development, had turned out to be too complex and was ultimately canceled. However, Bell, which had not been asked to take part in the competition, had been continuously developing their own light attack helicopter, using the engine, transmission and rotor system that had been proven reliable in the UH-1 Iroquois.

The new helicopter, designated the Bell 209, was designed to carry 7.62mm miniguns or a grenade launcher in a chin-mounted turret, as well as rockets or missiles on small wings affixed to the fuselage. A crew of two sat in a tandem configuration with gunner in the front and pilot in the rear that made for a very narrow profile when seen head-on, making it more difficult to hit from the ground as as the helicopter bore down on its target. In 1967, the Army adopted the 209, now with a traditional fixed landing skid rather than the original retractable gear, as the AH-1 Cobra. Cobras were in the air over Vietnam by the summer of 1967, and saw action during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of 1968 and throughout the rest of the war. In addition to their combat support roles, Cobras teamed with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! light observation helicopters to form hunter-killer teams and provided support during the rescue of downed pilots.

It is difficult to overstate the effectiveness of the Cobra as a dedicated attack helicopter, and it has proven so useful that its basic design was modified into more powerful versions with the addition of a second engine. The resulting !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , as well as the latest version, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , form the backbone of the US Marine Corps attack helicopter fleet and will continue to do so for quite some time. Older AH-1 Cobras also remain in service with export countries, and two Firewatch Cobras !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the US Forest Service by using infrared sensors and cameras to support firefighters on the ground.

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Short Takeoff

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(Author unknown)

September 5, 1936 – Beryl Markham completes the first solo westward crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by a woman pilot. Born in England, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! became one of the first African bush pilots, flying as a game spotter for hunters on safari. Her transatlantic crossing began on September 4 and was planned from Dublin to New York City; however, poor weather forced her down in New Brunswick, Canada. Still, she completed the crossing, which is more difficult than going eastward since the pilot has to fly against the prevailing winds. Markham’s memoir West with the Night chronicles this flight, as well as other flying adventures she undertook. Markham died in 1986 at age 83.

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(Imperial War Museum)

September 5, 1982 – The death of Douglas Bader, a WWII RAF fighter ace credited with 22 confirmed kills, four shared victories and 11 damaged enemy aircraft. In 1931, Bader lost both legs, one above and one below the knee, in an aerobatic crash, but after his recovery he rejoined the RAF following the start of WWII. Bader scored victories in the skies over !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and later took part in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In August of 1941, Bader bailed out of his stricken fighter over France and was captured. However, despite his disability, he made so many escape attempts that his jailers threatened to confiscate his prosthetic legs. He was then held at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , where he remained imprisoned until the end of the war. Following the war, Bader continued flying until poor health forced him to quit in 1979. For his war service, Bader was awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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CIA; Author unknown

September 6, 1976 – Russian fighter pilot Viktor Belenko defects to the West and flies his MiG-25 Foxbat to Japan. Around 1970, Western spy satellites took their first images of a very large Soviet aircraft which analysts believed to be a new, highly maneuverable fighter. With spotty reports of an incredibly fast aircraft sighted near Israel, the US ramped up development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in response to the perceived threat. But the Soviet fighter remained shrouded in mystery until !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! landed his factory-fresh MiG-25, complete with the flight manual, at Hakodate, Japan, and asked for asylum. The Japanese invited US technicians to inspect the fighter, NATO codename Foxbat, and the aircraft was completely disassembled. Fears over the aircraft were somewhat allayed when it was discovered that, while the Foxbat could approach speeds of Mach 3, it had a very short range, and was nowhere near as maneuverable as surmised, as it was intended as an interceptor rather than a fighter. The Foxbat was also very heavy, using mostly a nickel steel alloy rather than titanium. The MiG-25 was eventually returned to the Soviets in 30 crates, and the aircraft was subsequently reassembled and was placed on display at the Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod.

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(Author unknown)

September 7, 1955 – The first flight of the Sukhoi Su-7, a swept-wing, supersonic, low-level tactical fighter given the NATO designation Fitter . The Suu-7 was the first Soviet fighter to employ an all-moving tailplane ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) and a movable cone in the air intake, known as a translating centerbody, to adjust airflow into the engine at supersonic speed. Its wing was dramatically swept at 60-degrees and, when fitted with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! afterburning turbofan, the Fitter was capable of reaching speeds up to Mach 2. Though unsuccessful as a dogfighter, the Su-7B variant proved very successful as a tactical ground attack aircraft and became the primary Soviet ground attack aircraft of the 1960s. Nearly 1,900 were produced from 1957-1972, and the type was retired in 1990.

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(US Army)

September 7, 1942 – The first flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator, a heavy strategic bomber developed as a fallback design should the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! prove unsuccessful. Following the successful launch of the Superfortress, production of the Dominator was halted after only 118 were built, and those saw only limited action in the war after arriving in the Pacific Theater in the summer of 1945. The B-32 holds the dubious distinction of being the last Allied aircraft shot down by the Japanese when a Dominator on a reconnaissance mission over Tokyo was fired on by Japanese fighters four days after Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender. The attack killed photographer’s assistant Sergeant Anthony Marchione, the last American airman to die in WWII.

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(Author unknown)

September 7, 1940 – The first flight of the Blohm & Voss BV 222, a large, six-engine flying boat developed before WWII as a commercial transport and later pressed into military service to transport troops and supplies. Known as the Wiking ( Viking ), the BV 222 saw action in Europe and the Mediterranean. A total of 13 were built, and a number of them were destroyed by Allied fighters both in the air and on the ground, though BV 222 was reported to have shot down a US Navy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Three BV 222s came into Allied hands, but were soon scrapped or destroyed. The last BV 222 is reportedly resting underwater near Norway, and plans are underway to raise and restore it.

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September 7, 1906 – The first flight of the Santos-Dumont 14- bis . Designed by Brazilian aviation pioneer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the 14- bis (for testing, the aircraft was attached to Santos-Dumont’s non-rigid airship !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and bis means addition ) was designed around the box kite principle, and had a forward box canard for control. The dihedral design of the wings provided lateral stability, and it was powered by an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fuel-injected engine. Piloting the 14- bis , Santos-Dumont made the first powered flight anywhere outside of the US, as well as the first publicly witnessed powered flight, leading some to contend that the 14- bis is the first true airplane, since the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! used a launch rail rather than taking off under the plane’s own power. For this reason, Brazilians hail Santos-Dumont as the “Father of Aviation.”

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 12:52

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I’m so used to seeing Whiskey Cobras that to see an early model seems unsettling and bizarre somehow.

As regards Chennault, it is difficult to overstate (according to Tuchmann, anyway) how much Joe Stilwell hated his guts. From Joe’s perspective, he was too busy socializing with Madame Chiang to get his head out of his posterior and back to reality - writing big checks on air power that ground force would have to cash, etc.

The fears over the MiG25 were largely grounded in the knowledge that if it was going that fast, it couldn’t possibly be using much aluminum. New, heretofore-unknown mastery of titanium alloys and much greater expenditure than we thought? Soviets: “Nah, bro. Galvanized steel. Pass the Stoli.” Sometimes the Sovs really were building a Typhoon , other times... not.

If I’m not mistaken, Bader was legitimately a nutbar who had childhood problems and had started on a career of torturing animals or something before he found the RAF. A testament to channeling psychopaths constructively, perhaps - considering his single-minded dedication to flight thereafter.

user314 > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 12:58

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The AH-1 Z, what happens when Bell engineers grew up on Blue Thunder and Airwolf .

One of the interesting things they found inspecting Victor’s MiG-25 was that parts that needed extra strength but that wouldn’t create drag were riveted rather than welded. Another discovery was that it could  hit Mach 3.2, but the engines were scrap afterwards. 

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/07/2018 at 12:59

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Great comments, thanks. I need to read that Tuchman book. I’ve read most everything else she wrote. And even if Bader was a nutcase, he was still a bad ass.

ttyymmnn > user314 09/07/2018 at 13:01

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The Z looks like something out of a science fiction movie. You would just feel like a badass flying that thing around. Kind of makes you wonder if the AH-64 was ever really necessary.

user314 > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 13:10

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Eh, had the money been there for the Sea Apache , there wouldn’t have been a need for the Zulu. As it is, the Viper benefited from a lot of tech developed for and lessons learned from the ‘Pache, and aside from Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, there’s been only lukewarm interest in the platform. 

ttyymmnn > user314 09/07/2018 at 13:14

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Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

LOL. That’s a new one for me

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user314 > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 13:18

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MARINES: “My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment, Sir”

ttyymmnn > user314 09/07/2018 at 13:21

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That’s one I have heard of, though slightly different. MARINE: [M] Assholes Riding in Navy Equipment. Can’t remember what the M stood for.

facw > user314 09/07/2018 at 13:38

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Yeah, even the money thing is a bit weird given that the Brits did adapt the design for naval use. I wonder less about whether the Apache was necessary, and more about whether the Marines should just have bought Apaches with the British modifications. I suspect part of the trick was that they were originally planning to upgrade existing Super Cobras rather than buy brand new aircraft.

facw > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 13:48

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Air Force originally wanted closer to 400 

I seem to remember this being more like 1000, though the Wikipedia article says 750 (I don’t have time to dig around right now). Either way, the Air Force was looking to replace all their F-15A/B/C/D s, and that was a lot more than 400.

It’s also one of the great bits of folly in the cancelling of F-22 production. They kept cutting the production numbers, but doing so caused the per-plane costs to jump, because R&D costs were fixed, economies of scale were lessened, and of course because Lockheed was going to get theirs regardless (I really doubt F-22 production would have been stopped if Boeing had won the JSF competition). So then people looked at the high program cost per plane (instead of the flyaway cost), and decided we needed to cut production numbers again, creating a vicious cycle. Had production numbers stayed up we could have had a much lower cost per plane.

That said, it’s not clear that we really needed to replace every F-15, having a high-low mix is probably reasonable. Still the ~200 we have is clearly not enough for the way the Air Force wants to use them.

ttyymmnn > facw 09/07/2018 at 14:10

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And what is the Air Force doing now?

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22372/exclusive-unmasking-the-f-15x-boeings-f-15c-d-eagle-replacement-fighter

ttyymmnn > facw 09/07/2018 at 14:12

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In August 1991, the YF-22 was declared the winner. The F-22 passed milestone II in 1991. The System Operational Requirements documentwas validated by the Air Force and the Department of Defense (DoD) during the 1991 Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) Milestone II review. At that time, the Air Force planned to acquire 648 F-22 operational aircraft at a cost of $86.6 billion. After the Bottom Up Review, completed by DoD in September 1993, the planned quantity of F-22s was reduced to 442 at an estimated cost of $71.6 billion.

Global Security.org

facw > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 14:30

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Honestly the F-15X seems like mostly a politically motivated handout to Boeing so that they don’t have to shut down F-15 production causing layoffs. I would not be at all shocked if it dies now that Boeing has won the Navy drone tanker contest. The Air Force previously seemed happy enough to continue flying the F-15C indefinitely, or even to kill the F-15 entirely and assume that the F-16 can do a perfectly fine job of lugging around AMRAAMs.

Spaceball-Two > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 14:35

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I always wondered if the crash at RAF Boscombe in 1994 was an early testing production of the F-22 / F-23 . People always relate it to Aurora but it seems sliding off the runway and witnesses claiming it had a tilt forward canopy would point to testing model.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 14:36

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Douglas Bader...man, that's impressive.

MarquetteLa > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 14:44

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Wow, weird to think the F-22 is old enough to drink now. I grew up in the 90 s with my grandfather working for Lockheed Martin at the time. A retired Navy commander & former navigator , he instilled in me a love of flight and aviation at a young age (my damned color deficiency prevented a career as a pilot). He gave me a small desk model of t he F-22 in  ‘ 96 or ‘ 97 , which I absolutely treasured. Wish I knew what happened to it. It’s a damn shame the F-35 program turned out the way it did while simultaneously screwing with the F-22's role. I seriously doubt any fighter will ever come close to the F-22 in my heart.

ttyymmnn > MarquetteLa 09/07/2018 at 15:17

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I went to an airshow in Fort Worth last year and had an absolutely fascinating conversation with an F-35 pilot. We talked at length about his aircraft, its capabilities, world history, military history. He was a very cerebral, quiet man who seemed to enjoy our conversation. I suppose it was different from most questions he got that day about how fast his plane goes and how many bombs it can carry.

Parked next to him was an F-22. I tried to talk to him, but he was quick with a flip answer, cocky, your basic fighter jock. You couldn’t have found two more different individuals, though I’m sure they are both fine pilots.

The road to the F-35 has indeed been rocky and, as the F-22 driver agreed, we need more of them. But we can’t rely on the F-35 alone because it is not an air superiority fighter. In many ways, it’s a battlefield manager with bombs. You need the Raptor to protect the Lightning II. It’s a shame to think that maybe just 100 more Raptors would have made such a significant difference.

I fell in love with aviation at a young age, and I remember looking at my warplane history books in 1984 and marveling that the F-15 had already been flying since 1972. The 70s seemed so far removed from the 80s. Now, the Air Force is investigating an F-15X Super Eagle to make up the gap left by a dearth of Raptors. I find it interesting that in the age of the stealth fighter and the stealth bomber, the aircraft that will be fighting the next war will be the B-52 and the F-15. Maybe the Navy should have built that Super Tomcat after all.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 09/07/2018 at 15:18

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Certified bad ass. Though Ramblin Rover said he was probably a bit of a “nut bar” to use his term.

ttyymmnn > Spaceball-Two 09/07/2018 at 15:20

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I don’t know much of anything about that, though it strikes a bell. I’ll have to read into that.

ttyymmnn > facw 09/07/2018 at 15:21

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I was thinking about this. You may be right, but wouldn’t an F-15X be somewhat analogous to the high-end Su-35s the Russkies are flying these days? Not every problem has to be solved with stealth.

Spaceball-Two > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 15:53

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It’s a good one. It happened at night and the pilot over shot or slid in we condi tions and it ended up being fatal. Next thing you know there’s a C5 that just shows up and whisks the aircraft away. Some accounts state they didn’t bother properly removing the wings, they just cut them off and hit the road back the states.

facw > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 15:54

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I mean it sounds like it would be pretty analogous to an upgraded F-15C with conformal tanks. They’ve been showing off the missile capacity, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason that couldn’t be done on a normal Eagle either. To me the only questions are:

Is it more efficient to build all new planes vs. whatever life-extension and upgrades cost for the existing planes (we are doing these now, so we should have pretty good idea)

For the “low” part of the mix, do we even need the performance of the F-15 at all? Do we need a dedicated air superiority fighter if we are not expecting it to face off against high-end enemy fighters (which would be handled by F-22s)? If all we need is a cheapish AMRAAM delivery platform could that role be filled by the F-16, or even something cheaper like the Gri pen or FA-50, or even a non-fighter equipped to sling missiles ? The F-15 would have a more powerful radar, but it seems in most of the scenarios being considered we’d expect the 4th gen fighters to be getting their targets from forward F-22s or F-35s, or other connected radars. The F-15 would be a better dogfighter, but with apologies to the lessons of Vietnam, we’ve made improvements to missiles over the past 50 years that I’m not sure how much that matters, especially for a second tier aircraft). The F-15 is also faster, but again I’m not sure how much that matters for modern air combat.

In any event, I don’t have the answers, but as I said, my intuition is that the F-15X about job losses if the F-15 (and/or Super Hornet) production shuts down than about military necessity. I will say that it looks like a considerably better deal than the Silent Eagle, which seemed like a bunch of  expensive changes to let a 4th-gen fighter cosplay a 5th-gen one.    

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 16:10

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Well, you wouldn’t think so from knowing me, of course, but we pretty much all are.

MarquetteLa > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 16:11

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I spent 14 years in the Shreveport, LA area with Barksdale AFB right smack in the middle of it. My parents’ house is five miles out from the base, directly on the landing path for the 2d and 307th Bomb Wings. It’s incredible how effective those B-52s are 50 years after their inception, and how effective they will continue to be in another 50 years. 

ttyymmnn > MarquetteLa 09/07/2018 at 16:17

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My BIL was in the Air Force, and based at Barksdale . He worked on missile guidance systems. I once asked him, based on his job and the presence of Buffs, if there were any nukes at Barksdale. “I can neither confirm nor deny,” he said. In all my time, I have never seen a B-52 in the air. I’d love to see it some time.

ttyymmnn > facw 09/07/2018 at 16:21

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I would think that building new planes would be better, and the F-15 line is still rolling. There’s still an awful amount of life left in that nearly 50-year-old design. At this point, I think it comes down to a force size calculation. We can build 300 more upgraded, modernized F-15s, but we can’t have any more F-22s. I also don’t see Super Hornet construction going anywhere. Even with the F-35C, the Navy is all in on the Hornet. 

MarquetteLa > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 16:38

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There have been nukes are Barksdale in the past , that’s for sure! I would not be surprised in the least if some were stored on-site. If it came down to it, Barksdale would probably be on the list of targets in a nuclear weapons exchange.

It was pretty awesome living on the Barksdale flight path. Wit h t hose B-52s coming in low & slow with flaps and landing gear down, it was really easy to crane your neck and get a good look at all its intricacies. And god, the noise! Just deafening thunder rolling through. You get used to just pausing your conversation with someone outside when one co mes by and resuming after it passes .

And it wasn’t just B-52s! There were A-10s that routinely flew by our house, too. I don’t think I realized how lucky I was as a young fan of aviation to see all of these airframes in the skies so often .   Sadly it seems that the Warthogs have been re-located elsewhere, with the last three being flown out in 2013 , almost exactly a year before I left the area myself.

ttyymmnn > Spaceball-Two 09/07/2018 at 16:51

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I’ve read a couple of accounts of the event, and all speak of a plane with inward-canted tail fins. The only thing I can think of that matches that description is the Have Blue, but that flew 20 years before Boscombe Down.It also had only a single pilot.

The only other plane I can think of with such am inward canted tail is the SR-71, and an SR—minus its wings—could fit in the hold of a C-5 based on my Internet sleuthing.  Somebody out there knows!

facw > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 16:59

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The Super Hornet is definitely at risk. The Navy is all-in on it, but the Navy is also already basically all Super Hornets, they don’t need many more. In 2014, it looks like they had fewer than 100 orders outstanding (apparently they can make 3-4 a month, though I believe Boeing decreased production so they wouldn’t burn through those as fast). They’ve gotten more orders since the F-35 is late, but that’s not going to keep the line open much longer.

The F-15 has been able to keep going due to international orders, but the Super Hornet hasn’t done well there. Australia but a couple dozen, but doesn’t seem likely to buy more. There’s some hope Canada will buy them, but that wouldn’t be a huge order (and it seems that Boeing’s fight over the C-Series jetliner may have cost them that contract). They are in some other competitions, but everything I’ve read says that the F/A-18 isn’t competitive, it’s not advanced enough to compete with the F-35, and isn’t cheap enough to be a bargain choice compared to other 4.5th-gen fighters.

Seems like the only way that line can stay open is if Boeing can convince the Navy that it’s time to start sending older, more heavily used Super Hornets to the Boneyard, and buy new ones to replace them (which would have the side benefit of keeping the line open, even at reduced capacity should it be needed in the future). The problem with this is that the Navy is all Super Hornet now, as the phase in the F-35, they are going to need to mothball some Super Hornets anyway, because they only have so much deck and hangar space. With the Navy buying 260 F-35Cs and the Marines buying 80 more for CATOBAR operation, that’s a lot of Super Hornets that will need to be retired, even if the Navy moves to have 11 or 12 carries instead of the current 10 (I guess technically the Ford is in commission now for #11, but it doesn’t seem close to being ready for a full air wing).

ttyymmnn > facw 09/07/2018 at 17:07

1

Sounds like some good analysis. Thanks.

Spaceball-Two > ttyymmnn 09/07/2018 at 17:21

1

It’s a weird one for sure. Goes back to the donut on a rope and those guys who saw “Aurora” being escorted by F111's from an oil rig.