Warbirds Thread

[Aldarion]

Any modern jet fighter can operate (more or less) from roads.
If said road is certified to that weight - hint, many good quality roads are, but cheap roads/roads without maintenance are not.
They can land (if said road has enough free space on the sides) and take off.
But the necessary support units are not present, so is little more than a PR stunt.
And very few countries have mobile support units for that.
But doing one or two flights from a piece of autobahn? Is (relatively) easy. Operate a combat unit in wartime? Not the same, by a wide margin.

And that is what matters with Gripen: it has been designed for road basing. There is a difference between "taking off from a road" and "operating from a road base".

Of course, that will hardly help if the Communist government cuts off your parts supplies because you are fighting their brethren or something...

 

[Marduk]

Indeed,i would have notching against F18,but F15 we plan to buy? they need airfields,and during war would be hangar queens.

F-15's have enough range to fight from the other end of our country. Still, they are being just "considered" now, sticker shock may stop them, considering the cheaping out on further F-16's.

 

[paulobrito]

And that is what matters with Gripen: it has been designed for road basing. There is a difference between "taking off from a road" and "operating from a road base".

Of course, that will hardly help if the Communist government cuts off your parts supplies because you are fighting their brethren or something...

The principal problem is not the plane - is the support units - refuel, rearm, maintenance, etc - that need to be made mobile/capable of operating in remote areas and relocating fast. With these, almost any modern fighter can do it, without them, no one can.

 

[ATP]

They would be used for sorties constantly taking out adversarial aircraft

If,no when USA Democrats sell /gave us to Moscov again,we would have no airfields from which they could operate.
@Marduk - bases on next borders would be targeted by Moscov allies from Berlin.

Becouse when war happen,it would be joined attack by Moscov and Berlin with USA Democrats blessing.

 

[Zachowon]

Do you think Poland will be invaded by Gwrmany again?

 

[Aldarion]

The principal problem is not the plane - is the support units - refuel, rearm, maintenance, etc - that need to be made mobile/capable of operating in remote areas and relocating fast. With these, almost any modern fighter can do it, without them, no one can.

That is what I meant, actually: both Gripen and its support elements were designed to operate from road bases. And plane matters as well: more support plane requires, more stuff you have to haul along with it, and that automatically makes it less mobile.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Any modern jet fighter can operate (more or less) from roads.
If said road is certified to that weight - hint, many good quality roads are, but cheap roads/roads without maintenance are not.

FOD can be an issue, although the "lack of FOD resistance" of American planes is highly exaggerated -- it's not that they actually *need to* desperately vacuum clean every last pebble from the runway, it's that this is an institutional culture thing where they're erring on the side of being more cautious when they can. Keep in mind that FOD isn't just an engine thing either; runway debris cutting a tire is literally what killed Concorde, and 'military grade' doesn't magically make tires puncture-proof.

The difference is that Soviet planes assume runways will regularly be filthy and minimally maintained and build their aircraft with things like FOD screens and auxiliary intakes so that they can minimize engine downtime from FOD damage from debris ingestion being a regular occurrence. Keep in mind that these features are heavy, expensive, and reduce intake airflow, and thus impose a significant performance penalty. That's why the US doesn't have them 'just in case'.

 

[paulobrito]

That 'just' needs/forces to have people thoroughly clean the piece of the road used by said airplanes.
The associated problem is that it adds time between ops.
And if you have trees real near - well, good look with that.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

That is what I meant, actually: both Gripen and its support elements were designed to operate from road bases. And plane matters as well: more support plane requires, more stuff you have to haul along with it, and that automatically makes it less mobile.

This is true, but it is also true that Bas 90 facilities are quite a bit more than "road bases" in the pop culture sense. They are actual dispersal airfields built in relatively remote and hidden locations, with their actual runways and flight lines intentionally spread out across a larger than normal area and nearby highways specially reinforced for dual purpose use as backup runways.

You can land a Gripen on any old bit of straight highway, but you can do that with F-35 as well. But actually carrying out military operations at a reasonable tempo requires substantial support facilities, and *not* all of those can be made portable. The Bas 90 bases are actual airbases that provide that.

 

[ATP]

Do you think Poland will be invaded by Gwrmany again?

Of course.
Why they lie so much about polish death camps? only logical explanation is that they want genocide us again,and made world not intervene - becouse they would kill bad poles who did Holocaust.

And,we were their economical colony till 2015.They want us as serfs again.
Of course,they planned to use Moscov for invasion,but since it failed,now they must fight us.
Unless they win election and made Tusk rule again.He is their agent.

 

[paulobrito]

 

[Husky_Khan]

Do you think Poland will be invaded by Gwrmany again?

Possibly by German Rock Music.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Somehow, I found this in my YouTube feed...

... a bunch of meme videos in which someone used an AI version of that one missile video to roast other aircraft. This one being with our favorite flying pigs.

 

[Husky_Khan]

B-21 Raider First Flight.





But how does it perform in combat?



Whelp... looks like another billion dollar NATO Wunderwaffe. Send to Ukraine.

 

[Zachowon]

I doubt this was truly it's forst flight

 

[Husky_Khan]

I doubt this was truly it's forst flight

FIRST FLIGHT.

*blackbags your head*

 

[Husky_Khan]

Boeing Model 853-21 Quiet Bird, a 1960's attempt at creating a stealth aircraft for the US Military. Some of the investment into this project apparently ended up aiding with the development of the AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile first produced in 1980 also by Boeing.

 

[Bacle]

So I guess some Soviet knock-off B-29's are still puttering around as AWACS for the CCP.

 

[Husky_Khan]

So I guess some Soviet knock-off B-29's are still puttering around as AWACS for the CCP.

Looks ugly. They should manufacture B-29 replicas for the historical aviation market. And B-29 AWACs for Developing Countries. Just imagine the number of vacuum tubes they could cram into that UFO saucer.

 

[Bacle]

Looks ugly. They should manufacture B-29 replicas for the historical aviation market. And B-29 AWACs for Developing Countries. Just imagine the number of vacuum tubes they could cram into that UFO saucer.

It looks like they slapped the engines from a Bear onto the thing, and then stuck raydomes all over the fuselage.