Karl Spackler

I'm batman...

I doubt I can go out in the street and find anyone who knows who Butch O'Hare was, or Hap Arnold, or or Pappy Boyington, or a thousand others.

Mike Mangold (Red Bull) died flying an L-39 today at Apple Valley Airport (KAPV). I never met him personally but I would taxi past his hangarwhen I was flying out of Midfield Aviation and see his airplanes. He served his country as an F-4 Rhino driver and inspired thousands during his 25 year aerobatic and air racing career. CAVU Mike.

Stuff I've plunked down good money for recently: Toto, CHVRCHES, the new David Gilmour, Animals As Leaders, Periphery,

Haven't been anywhere near any other aircraft either time I flew. I didn't see the 2S6 that got me the last time I'll tell you that much.

You mean 2.0?

ARCO I think? It's a Trijicon/Aimpoint 2X looking deal with a green point holo Dr Optic type sight on top. I do recall snapping into the scope view and still being able to peek off to the left, making a BAC picture either by leaning with the TrackIR or by keying Q. Don't remember exactly. I'm also so busy trying to snake a pilot slot. I thought it was pretty cool.

It's a lot nicer to look at I'll tell ya.

Depending on the optic. There is one on thre that does use Bindon Aiming Concept. Just found it the other day. Pretty neat.

Dammit Higgins.

A little scratched up but I got it back in one piece. Not bad for my first mission in who knows how long.

Response posted in-line.

Whole lotta reasons that have nothing to do with how good the A-10 is at it's job and nothing to do with how much the F-25 seems like it would suck at the job of CAS. Not replacing the A-10 means new airplanes aren't getting built. The F/A-22 stopped production after 123 airframes. That production line could never be restarted for myriad economic reasons (sold off tooling, chemical processes too expensive to restart in situ, key people moved on, etc.). New aircraft building keeps the capability to build new aircraft, especially tac air. If we were to keep updating and SLEP (Service Life Extension Program) keeping old airplanes running, eventually the capability goes away. DoD isn't ready for, and the technology isn't ready yet, for fully autonomous tac air support aircraft (UAVs). Once the tech is there (datalink especially, control systems, too), manned combat aircraft will go away. The F-35 is the one last catch-all manned aircraft to bridge the technology gap between manned-mixed manned/unmanned-completely unmanned phases for everyone that's signed on. The A-10 is no longer a cheap airplane. $8M per aircraft in the late 70's/early 80's isn't the end of it. The remaining inventory of aircraft have been paid for many times over in maintenance and upgrades over the last 30 years. All aircraft go away eventually. The emotional attachment to the Warthog is obviously understandable. The troops know what it can for for them. The enemy knows what it can do to them. The pilots love the airplane and they love the mission. But, these airplanes take a beating. You can only keep them going so long before it becomes economically unfeasible, aka not worth it. What saddens me is that the guy on the ground is conceptually going back to Vietnam-era CAS patchwork of different less-than-perfect solutions. We always design the next tool for the last war. They've analyzed the last twelve years and determined how much of what capabilities have actually been used. The zeitgeist is that net-centricity and situational awareness matters more than sheer payload and durability. CAS in Afghan is done from very high altitudes in an essentially SAM/AAA sanitized environment. The only ones down low are the Hogs using the gun. The helicopters are pretty much the only ones in any real danger. They've de-prioritized anti-tank warfare.... Which might be a mistake. The Russians are selling T-72's like Cinnabons in the Middle East and no one thinks this is going to not end up in a fight between us and them. That hopefully avoidable scenario would indeed breathe new life into the A-10. Imagine A-10's killing T-72ss, but in Syria, not the Fulda Gap, as was expected so many years ago.

https://youtu.be/_L_TjXXx7eQ

So basically you can depart the aircraft anytime you want, and its FBW is so good and the control surfaces are so big and the engines are impervious to compressor stall so that you can pretty much recover at any attitude with burner and neutral stick/rudder. Well played Sukhoi, well played indeed.

2:58 on the YouTube video; holy $*#$&*#$!!

Beautiful.

I kinda want to fly the B-29/Il-4

I hope we can see past the canopy scratches in the new version.

Trev likes this.

I've been dying for CV flight ops since Jane's F/A-18 Super Hornet.

This board and Safari do not get along well.