Need new topic: F/A 22 Raptor

Sounds Great!!!!!

I just got a vid. of the new M60 machine gun..... They put together a belt of ammo, 845 or 875 rounds..... Fire it in 1 minute 48 seconds..... Must be some different ammo.... She chews up the ground at the range something fierce!!!!!!

I'm waiting for my friend to send me the video of it flying up close.

He spent more time talking about poopy suits they were on long missions. They have to piss and shit themselves on long flights.. haha

Yeah I'm told they had to cut back on it's ability to manuever because it could cut so sharp it would have killed the pilot based on G force alone.

With fly-by-wire it's amazing what you can do. On commercial airlines for example the computer can take over whenever you lose a control surface or two (say the tail), and it compensates with all the other controls. The pilot can fly the plane as normal while things like engine speed and the positions of other control surfaces are automatically handled. It's basically the same computer systems that (alongside good engineering) make modern aircraft such shifty buggers - I believe some of them are technically not flyable without their computers.

Still, expensive aircraft for expensive aircraft's sake has always seemed a bit of a folly to me in the CAS role in particular. Fly even the most advanced jet low into the tight valleys and hills of the Korean border region, for example, and a kid with a shoulder mounted SAM can give your million dollar investment a run for its money. I'm of the belief that high-tech, high quality is excellent stuff, but put it into a "real" war and you'd run up the bills fairly quickly.

Then take a look at the rather cheap and simplistic A-10 - brilliant at CAS (though their pilots do have a hellova record with eyesight problems, or at least basic intelligence... "Hmm, those Warriors, flying the union jack and correct signals are quite obviously Iraqi's trying to confuse us..." ).

No Pics?????

PM me your email and I'll send the powerpoint someone combined them all into. 15-20 pictures or so.. I'm betting the video is too large for him to email it to me..

Well....where do you live now then?

Sorry, I'm used to saying "originally" to people, but I'm actually living back in Ireland at the moment after being, well, elsewhere for a while.

THe F22 is stealth like though. SAMs are ineffective because it's hidden from radar (which SAMs rely on). Stingers rely on heat signals I think.

Because of this jet, the US military will need less jets in order to do the same amount of work. Whiile it will cost more per jet (F15s were designed in the 70s), it will be a better bang per buck. Plus, it gives the pilot an even higher survival/shot down ratio.

If these things get shot down constantly, then it 's a bad investment. If they don't get shot down, I'd say it was a good investment. Common sense though.

To bad they could not have a hole and let them fall out. But that bad boy put out a butt load of rounds per min.

Yeah I just sent hardware the powerpoint of the first FA22s being delivered for active duty.

Servers must be slow.

Thanks for the pics. I'll look at them again. Since the Sun is shining on my screen.

You have it on disc?

That A-10 is one bad ass piece of hardware, the 30mm gause gattling gun fires so fast it almost sounds like a solid sound when she's firing for effect, really that plane is a gun with wings and truely one of the most deadly things in the air, if you were unfortunately on the receiving end of it.

I used to live near an Air Force bombing range and was stunned at the firepower of the Warthog, and if you research into the planes service record theres some impressive pictures available of damaged A-10s that actually continued to fly and made it back to base with unbelievable damage, yet still flyable.

Beside the SR-71 Blackbird, the A-10 is one of my favorite planes, went to an air show and got a really close look at one right down the gun barrels, needless to say it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, even knowing the plane was shut down.

The F22A is made at Lockheed which is just down the road from me. about a year or so ago I was at a business standing outside which was located just off Dobbins air force base runway (Lockheed is located at Dobbins air force base ). An F22 flew over my head accompanied by a chase plane. he was in a slight right hand bank and so close I could see the pilot.

I got to see an SR71 blackbird while I was TDY at Beale air force base in California. I was part of a crew on a KC-135 tanker and we were at Beale as part of a refueling task force. We arrived late and all of the normal parking spots were already taken. They parked us on what is called the hammerhead . It's simply at the end of the runway and the part of the taxiway that is between the taxiway and runway.

I was the crew chief on the tanker and was out preflighting my airplane just after dawn. I was standing on the right wing measuring the fuel tank quantity when I looked up and saw the SR-71 taxiing right in front of me and then lined up on the runway. Behind the airplane was a maintenance truck towing a stand and behind that was a motor home with two air conditioning units on top. To my amazement the crew chief got out of the truck and pushed the stand to the side of the cockpit . While he was doing this the pilot got out of the motor home wearing what looked to be a space suit. Needless to say they had my undivided attention. The guy who taxied the aircraft got out and the crew chief helped the space suit wearing pilot into the aircraft and hooked up his equipment.

When the pilot was ready to take off he advance the throttles and the very pit of my stomach rumbled from the noise of the engine. I was excited and hoping to see a spectacular takeoff. My eyes were glued on the SR-71. The aircraft gained speed and about 3/4 down the runway became Airborne. I was quickly convinced that it was going to be just a normal looking takeoff. Couldn't have been any more wrong. The SR-71 pointed its nose straight up and in less than twenty seconds all but disappeared from sight. I mean the airplane didn't even exceed the boundaries of the air force base. If someone had walked up to me after about twenty seconds and asked what I was looking at, I doubt that I could have shown them the little black spec in the sky. That is definitely one assume airplane.

That was back in the seventies when even the U2 was still secret. The SR-71 wasn't even confirmed to exist.

damnit i have some pics at the house that i meant to bring and post for you guys.... sorry

I'll be looking for those photos then.....

I got to see and old F106 take off. It was fast in it's time.

http://www.swans.com/library/art8/mgc069.html

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001837_comments.html

They're over there!!!!!

And you, the idiot, would know how agile it is because?

Sorry, F22/A. Depending on it's configuration the name can change. It's how you can tell what weapons it's carrying.

I know because my friend in the military is being trained to work on them and understand how the fighter works over the F15 and F18s.

Awesome Story, would've loved to have seen that!