Aviation Pictures: A-Seven-th Thread--CorsAirin' Through Time and Airspace

[Failure16]

Because I rarely start thread, I took this one by the nose.

Behold, the mighty, LTV A-7 Corsair II...














More great images here:

http://axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?15846

[Failure16]

The start of the aircraft carrying the Corsair name was this stately gem:





Things sure did change, did they not?

More info here

[ANS Kamas P81]

The SLUF is such a cute little aircraft, I love it so.

[mikecj]

I love the Corsair- both models!

[DOC_Agren]

tagging in

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I have to admit, I always feel a bit nervous seeing an aircraft with a big air intake in that position.  Always looks like it's perfectly located for eating ground crew.

[Failure16]

Any intake, really...

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=672495413946583

[ANS Kamas P81]

As I recall, that guy survived.  Others have been not so fortunate.

[chanman]

A-7 Tanking up an F-8:


Navy F-8s typically only flew air-to-air missions with clean wings and fuselage Sidewinders


The USMC supposedly employed them much more in strike missions and I wonder how much influence that had on the A-7


Prototype F-8 in formation with an F7U Cutlass


French navy F-8 in their spiffy blue-grey colours.

[Daryk]

The tanking picture isn't coming through for me for some reason... ???

[DOC_Agren]

The tanking picture isn't coming through for me for some reason... ???

Try Here

and then here are 2 F18 (I think) topping off the tanks from a C130

[Daryk]

The external link worked, thanks! :)

As for the other image, I only see a single vertical stabilizer, but a second COULD be behind it on all three fighter aircraft... ???

[David CGB]

nice

[chanman]

The external link worked, thanks! :)

As for the other image, I only see a single vertical stabilizer, but a second COULD be behind it on all three fighter aircraft... ???

Those are Hornets. The second vertical stabilizer is obscured by the wing from that angle.

Also fixed the A-7 tanking up the F-8 link

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, you can tell they're Bugs from the LEX in front of the wing.

[Daryk]

Working now, thanks Chanman! :)

[Fat Guy]

Russia is covering its Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers at Engles Air Base with car tires to protect them from drone attack.   

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

So how effective is that?

[Daryk]

I'm sure the Ukrainians will let us know soon enough... ;)

[Failure16]

Wouldn't it be ultimately quicker to simply erect a tent over the damn things? Sure, you could kamikaze in on a tent, but I imagine the drones are likely point-engagement vice area-effect systems--and even a circus tent would be cheaper than an out-of-production heavy bomber. Just thinking covering strategic bombers in tires has to be time consuming, fraught with difficulties and potential for error, and just plain onerous for the ground crews that should arguably doing more important things.

But, as Daryk says, we should get some kind of hotwash about their efficacy sooner than later.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Given what I've heard in the last year and a half, Russia's military probably doesn't have any surplus tents they could use for that.

[Failure16]

More tents than manpower, maybe...


And, pictures.



In Soviet Russia, Bear chooses which refueling drogue to tank from!

[glitterboy2098]

Wouldn't it be ultimately quicker to simply erect a tent over the damn things? Sure, you could kamikaze in on a tent, but I imagine the drones are likely point-engagement vice area-effect systems--and even a circus tent would be cheaper than an out-of-production heavy bomber. Just thinking covering strategic bombers in tires has to be time consuming, fraught with difficulties and potential for error, and just plain onerous for the ground crews that should arguably doing more important things.

But, as Daryk says, we should get some kind of hotwash about their efficacy sooner than later.

Tents wouldn't offer much protection. they'd provide visual concealment, but i'm fairly certain that the intent with the tires is armor. the light drones that have been used to strike at the bombers recently carry a payload little more than a couple grenades or a light mortar round. the drones being used have mostly been higher end small quad-copters you can buy on the open market, with some new fittings for carrying and dropping a payload. but their payload mass is pretty small. which means its mostly HE, and impact fused. so a thick layer of dense rubber like tired will help limit the damage the plane takes from the blast.. might even prevent the impact fuses from triggering, since if th bomb is dropped it has to be dropped from a very low altitude to ensure it hits, meaning it won't be moving very fast when it hits. and if the payload is rigged as a kamikazi drone, that layer of tires is going to make it hard to get a good strike on the skin of the aircraft, which is what is going to give you the best chance of destroying it.

that said, i'm sure that ukraine will just find a way to send a heavier weapon that bomber's way instead. they've been fairly creative about that.

[phoenixalpha]

Surely from the placement of those tires and the accuracy of a drone, hitting the tail section or engine of those bombers is well within capabilities. Losing a tail or an engine would be as much of a mission kill as taking it out entirely.

[worktroll]

See also "cope cages" - when there's nothing you can do, do something, even if it means nothing

[Fat Guy]

Unlike tires, at least cope cages aren't flammable.   

[chanman]

Two-seat Northrops. F-5Bs, T-38s, F-5Fs. Interesting that there seems to be some variation in the nose profile. The F-5B dumps the guns and uses some of the space for the forward cockpit, in the way of early two-seat MiG-29UBs.

Canadian CF-116D's



















T-38s - note the oval vs. D-shaped inlets






Other F-5Bs






F-5F Tiger IIs - longer nose with the guns







CF-116A Freedom Fighter gun bays



CF-116A Freedom Fighter aggressors

[I am Belch II]

What could of been with the F-20 Tigershark.

[chanman]

What could of been with the F-20 Tigershark.

At the end of the day, a tarted-up F-5 is still a tarted-up F-5. The F404 has better fuel specific fuel consumption, but that gets eaten up if the extra thrust is taken advantage of.

The F-20 gets a larger horizontal stabilizer, a larger LERX, and a new radar but the rest of the F-5's limitations are present - low fuel capacity/endurance, limited wing clearance for weapons loading, radar limited by the size of the antennae dictated by the nose dimensions, and 1960's aerodynamics. Some of which might have been mitigated by making more substantial changes, like the way the J-7E and later replaced the original MiG-21's delta wing with a cranked delta with better low-speed handling and way more internal-tankage volume.

Northrop's real step forward was the YF-17, and the Tigershark was a poor consolation prize after McDonnell Douglas took over the Hornet project.

The thing that's always puzzled me is the $1.2 billion USD pricetag attached to the project (back when that was actually a lot of money). It sure didn't seem to go into new engineering, so I wonder how much ended up as marketing/sales/lobbying spend and how much was maybe disguised spending from (literal) stealth projects like Tacit Blue, B-2, and YF-23.

[Failure16]

Tents wouldn't offer much protection. they'd provide visual concealment, but i'm fairly certain that the intent with the tires is armor. the light drones that have been used to strike at the bombers recently carry a payload little more than a couple grenades or a light mortar round. the drones being used have mostly been higher end small quad-copters you can buy on the open market, with some new fittings for carrying and dropping a payload. but their payload mass is pretty small. which means its mostly HE, and impact fused. so a thick layer of dense rubber like tired will help limit the damage the plane takes from the blast.. might even prevent the impact fuses from triggering, since if th bomb is dropped it has to be dropped from a very low altitude to ensure it hits, meaning it won't be moving very fast when it hits. and if the payload is rigged as a kamikazi drone, that layer of tires is going to make it hard to get a good strike on the skin of the aircraft, which is what is going to give you the best chance of destroying it.

that said, i'm sure that ukraine will just find a way to send a heavier weapon that bomber's way instead. they've been fairly creative about that.

Three things:

A tent would indeed offer only concealment, which, if the payload is indeed small enough, will prevent a direct and meaningful point-strike providing an infinitely better defense.

Grenades and light mortar rounds--very close to the same thing in their final effects--are not world-destroying weapons like movies would have the public believe. But they are also damaging enough that a covering of rubber measured in inches or millimeters will provide scant protection. If the tires are armor, I'd rather have sandbags. Grenades are generally lethal within five meters or so and the skin of an aircraft isn't much better than the skin of a human when it comes right down to it.

The tires only cover the upper wings and portions of the fuselage. There are plenty of areas that remain uncovered that would still lead to the airframe being damaged enough that it would be non-mission-capable in the event of a successful strike. A strike where the drone bodily impacts the target is probably unlikely to come in at a terminal, vertical dive so recreating a Michelin tire sale on a bomber's wings and central dorsal fuselage does nothing to protect every other aspect of the resulting target profile.

Naw. I still contend that putting the aircraft in revetments with a cover to prevent direct observation would be more efficacious than putting hundreds of tires on part of the plane. Or, you know, investing in some low-tech IADS for your airfields. That might work better, too.