Originally posted by SteveDaPirate
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Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View PostDesertswo,
Do you have any insight as to why the USN end up going for the F-14 instead of the F-111b? My understanding is that the F-111b could bring back a full weapons load. I believe both planes actually used the same engines, radar, and missiles. Was the F-111b just too heavy?
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Not to mention when the F-111 rolled off the assembly line it was an absolute parts hog. It took about 100 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight. It would have been difficult to keep the parts level high enough in the fleet to keep the operational rates within tolerance.“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
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Originally posted by Albany Rifles View PostNot to mention when the F-111 rolled off the assembly line it was an absolute parts hog. It took about 100 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight. It would have been difficult to keep the parts level high enough in the fleet to keep the operational rates within tolerance.
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Originally posted by desertswo View PostThe basic entering argument that one must grasp is that it is far easier for the US Air Force to take an aircraft designed for the Navy and convert it to their uses, than for the Navy to take one designed for the Air Force and convert it to theirs. By the time the Bravo variant was suitably "naval-ized" such that it could survive repeated iterations of that controlled crash that is the arrested landing, it was a bit of a pig. No one was happy. Not the Navy and not the manufacturer, so along came Grumman, with their long history of making fine airplanes for the Navy, took the best parts of the F-111B, and gave us the Tomcat."There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge
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Originally posted by Stitch View PostYes, the F-111 was indeed a "pig" when it came to navalizing it; as desertswo succinctly put it, Air Force aircraft don't do the navalizing thing very well, it's usually the other way around (AD-1/A-1, F-4, A-3/B-66, A-7, etc.). There's a reason the Navy never got on-board with a navalized variant of either the F-15 or the F-22. The F-111 eventually turned out to be a decent Air Force/RAAF plane, but that was only after 25 years of fine-tuning and working the bugs out.
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Originally posted by desertswo View PostWhich was yet another reason the Navy didn't want it. The real truth is that they never wanted it. It was crammed down their throats by the various McNamara acolytes in the DoD."Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
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“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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TopHatter,
My optimistic side says that it seems like Assad is doing his best to work his way back into the US's good graces short of giving up power. Surely he isn't stupid enough to invite retaliation by shooting down American warplanes.
My cynical side tends to agree that using stealthy aircraft is prudent, since Assad may not have firm control over his military forces.
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Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View PostMy cynical side tends to agree that using stealthy aircraft is prudent, since Assad may not have firm control over his military forces.
Whether accidentally or "accidentally", an incoming SAM is still an incoming SAM.“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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