Shoot, yeah I didnt take R³ into account.
Better get working on that space elevator then, or maybe a lot of BIG space mirrors. Pulse detonation nukes? I never really cared for dinosaurs anyways.
What I find interesting is that they were able to slow down Dimorphous by 32 mins, Dimorphous is 160-170m, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs is estimated on the large side to be upto 15000m. That means you would need around 100 (being generous) DART sized impactors to slow the Chicxulub asteroi...
Jump to postThe Chinese have apparently built 150 J-20's already. They may have 150 built (I cant imagine how they are keeping photos of them off the internet), but I really dont think they are fully baked yet. The F-35 has been physically complete for 15 years, but software has been a thorn to this day. Still...
Jump to postBig money without a true peer opponent. The F-22 (ATF) was initially planned to counter the soviets, the YF-22 and YF-23 flyoff concluded 4 months before the fall of the Soviet Union. As it became clear that Russia didnt have the economy to be a super power, there was little need for as many of thos...
Jump to postCanada's fighter competition would fit well in the Indian procurement history. This is sadly the norm when it comes to military procurement in Canada. Look into the CH-124 Seaking replacement, the process started in 1983 and finally replaced in 2018. If a significant military purchase isnt complete...
Jump to postMakes me wonder about the fighter prototype the USAF has apparently flown. If they made a F-35 relative with all the VTOL requirements removed minimizing complexity while leveraging the technology developed for the F-35... it would likely have moved fairly quickly (as it seems to have). It feels lik...
Jump to postStealth/LO is increasingly a requirement for any contested airspace. My argument would be something like Yemen, where a combination of legacy SAMs and UAVs have persisted for years in a congested battlespace. That is if you are waging a limited engagement and not trying to absolutely bring your opp...
Jump to postI guess the main question is how far you could stretch the stealth coating maintenance without making an incredibly costly nightmare by the time you actually need it? So far as I know the stealth coating is exceptionally finicky. Specialised sealants for access hatches, washing routines to keep it ...
Jump to postIf they could get the SH block III WITH the F414 EPE (which for some reason the Navy refuses to adopt) then the F-18E/F is a viable option. Otherwise the F-35 is the only aircraft that makes sense. So, the F-35 is the only choice as the upgraded F414 which should have been introduced 10 years ago w...
Jump to postQuestion about the concept of an attack T-7: What can it do that a drone cannot do with more safety and *much* less cost? Drop a bomb? Drones do that better. Take a picture. Drones do that better. Make a gun run. Yep, that's true. Get to the fight quicker. Depends on how you think about it. One dro...
Jump to postThough many are saying things like "terrible fire", "total loss" etc. I am not seeing that. I see the mast has gone over and undoubtedly there is significant damage but I am not seeing anything that indicates a loss of the ship. We'll have to wait to see the actual damage (thoug...
Jump to postThere will come a time though when Canada will have to retire the classic Hornet and not retiring the aircraft but upgrading will end up, given its age, being very close to the same cost as acquiring new. The delay in purchasing a replacements for the CF-18 was never about money, it was about order...
Jump to postThanks for the detailed response. If the RCAF had access to all the data necessary, it should be a pretty straightforward process choosing their aircraft. Let's see how all the different interests (political, commercial, etc.) come together. That is the issue here. The RCAF has had access to all th...
Jump to postHow about someone with connections to Airbus get the government a good deal on some A220? I wonder if someone who owes the government a ton of money could pull us a few strings... or else.
Jump to postAircraft are becoming less about the air frame and more about the avionics, so you can significantly upgrade older aircraft if you dont need to change its role. That is a big issue that is slowly going away, the idea that every generation needs to be a huge advancement over the previous. If you look...
Jump to postAs usual with these claims there is plenty of detail missing so it is hard to know what type of WVR sets they were conducting, whether starting neutral or offensive or defensive, and how the aircraft were configured. It is certainly plausible though that seasoned Eurofighter pilots will have had su...
Jump to postHaven’t been able to find a definitive answer, but what exactly is the task and purpose of a refueling drone? Is it for other drones or for refueling manned aircraft? Seems a bit on the small side to refuel aircraft such as the F-35 and F/A-18 It is not a big tanker, it is more of a replacement for...
Jump to postI doubt they would go with the F/A designation. The Hornet started as the A-18, F-18, and TF-18, the F/A was a way to make the Hornet look like more compared to the F-14. The Strike Eagle is not the F/A-15E and the Lightning II is not the F/A-35A. Its pretty much a given these days that all fighters...
Jump to postRight - I mean look at Boeing and the KC-46 as a perfect example. It's a "shell" of a plane they've been building for decades, with a fuel boom stuck on the back. Super simple right? They even have extensive experience with refueling systems too. Hah NOT so much. IIRC the biggest issue wi...
Jump to postHow quickly did they go from contract award to first flight for the T-X? (Is the two current flying frames pre-contract award or post?) Because the T-X really isnt any new technology. These days it isnt the airframe that takes time to work out the bugs, its all the features. The T-X airframe is not...
Jump to postIn other news: SpaceX apparently didn't get messages from ESA, which forced ESA to adjust the orbit of its Aeolus weather satellite in order not to bump into a swarm of Elon's pizza boxes. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/04/spacex_we_didnt_get_esa_satellite_collision_messages/ Its only news b...
Jump to postopen it up to the internet for suggestions. It will end up being named the 'TrainerMcTrainerface'
Jump to postWouldnt a larger wing allow better low speed performance. Seeing how the F-35A is replacing the A-10... a lower airspeed version would be useful in the CAS role.
Jump to postlol derp, yeah that article is about as clear as mud. After reading around I could only find 1 place that gave a number for the F-35A, and that was 8000 hours. Several articles have stated that the airframe hours has been extended adding 6 years to the fleets expected life. From what I have been rea...
Jump to posthttps://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... 70-423536/
$388M is providing some more years (what, 5 more?) of the current operational capacity. How does it compare to the total life cycle cost of the F35, on a yearly basis? Not sure it's such a waste. F/A-18A/B without airframe life extension, 6000 hours, 8000 with life extension upgrades. F-35A anticip...
Jump to postFurthermore, as we'll probably buy the F35, most bugs should have been fixed by then, combined with a lower unit cost. A real win - win here (plus a Boeing loss... :biggrin: ). Still a waste of money. Liberals say we cant afford the F-35 but we can afford to buy disposable F/A-18s? How many F-35 ca...
Jump to postTo the topic: I can very well live with Germany being out of nuclear sharing. And consequently Tr4 Eurofighters. While I don't think a F35 would in any way be a bad proposition, I wouldn't consider it necessary at this point in time and the next 20 years to counter any credible threat. Maybe in 15 ...
Jump to postI find the attitude of the most militarily powerful countries rather strange, though. They want to have WMD's but don't want any other country without them to acquire them. Every time another country gets nukes, you increase the chances of a nut job getting control and actually using them. The majo...
Jump to postDutchy wrote:Interesting, but not good for competition.
What is the 'bar' that goes across all 3 boosters just above the grid fins.The right hand one has a vertices part running down the length of the booster the other 2 seem to have smaller versions.It this fuelling or relief valves? Cross feed from the outer boosters? All 3 cores burn the fuel in the ...
Jump to postHighly likely they (Trudeau government) will eventually have to admit Harper's Conservatives made the right choice and stick with the F-35 - but will wait after the 2019 election to make the announcement. That is exactly what they are doing. Multiple government and industry sources say what the pub...
Jump to postSigh, anything to avoid admitting that Harper was right in the first place. Throw time and money down the drain.
Jump to postI read an article in june regarding airbus replacing the typhoon. It brought up requirements such as stealth and other upgrades. The article also mentioned other countries flying the f18 (Canada not mentioned) were also in need of a new fighter. Recently during the cseries airbus deal there was wor...
Jump to postA little better stealth is not sufficient for a fighter fleet that will have to stay relevant for the next 40 years. The only countries that are buying 4th gen fighters now are the ones not allowed to buy F-35, or cant afford it. Canada can afford the F-35. This is all Liberal bullsh!t screwing over...
Jump to postSeoul is well within strike range of 15.000 - 20.000 artillery pieces, there are 20m people in the Seoul metropolitan area. Do those people matter? Never said there wouldnt be casualties, nor anything about those people mattering or not. What happens when the threats of artillery changes to nuke st...
Jump to postFirst would be a cruise missile strike, followed shortly after by a B-2 strike. F-22s and EA-18G would rip up any radar dumb enough to turn on, about the same time everything else starts ripping up anything that moves within artillery range of South Korea. After the initial strike taking out N Korea...
Jump to postIt wouldnt be unreasonable to have an airline that is on shakey financial ground order a few planes that will most likely be the next AF1, with a model that is on its way out, then go out of business leaving 2 airframes sitting there... just ripe for the picking by some politician trying to be frugal.
Jump to postPayload or not, they won't launch until they have a high confidence of success. Welp, Nov 2017. Keeping ambitions, or at least expectations low for this launch, first launch might not even reach orbit, but they are probably talking about the second stage as the scrubbed the attempted landing of tha...
Jump to postIn Canada pilots can occasionally take CF-18 'home' (ie a near by airport that can support a fighter). They have to keep flight hours up, so why not. There is one pilot who came home every Victoria day weekend and buzzed the river everyone rafts on. They get stick time, practice flying into civilian...
Jump to postAmazing what happens with a little competition. Not really - the $422m quoted cost is for a class of launcher that SpaceX have yet to fly, so any comparisons are void. Also, some customers value consistency over price, they can afford to not be price sensitive - when a military satellite is valued ...
Jump to postWhat is different between bases? maintenance crews. somewhere, someone is doing something wrong.
Jump to postWHAT NO STEALTH BAGGAGE POD!!!!!111!!!one1! What is the point of the F-35 if it has to strap a non stealth baggage pod to its wings? Cancel the POS before its too late and buy CF-105 Arrows, still the best fighters ever, it can out maneuver everything in the sky!</sarcasm> (Sorry, this is the crap y...
Jump to postNice to see a country taking defence seriously. I hope it will be 88 F-35s and P-8 + KC-46s + C27. 88 F-35s? Even half of that number - 40 will be a big challenge for Canada's defense budget. :rotfl: The Super Hornet order is looking more solid now.. A bigger focus on drones is also more likely... ...
Jump to postWe can see that clearly with the SH and even more so with the F-35, which is approaching cost parity with the SH but with significantly greater capability. Liberal budget calls for upto $19B CAD for 88 fighters... that is $155M USD per fighter. I know there are more costs for a new fleet of fighter...
Jump to postAs a basic qualifier, however, I'm an engineer in aerospace industry with professional familiarity of some small parts of what is going on - to be honest some of the simpler things. Not saying you are making those statements up, but im sure you know there are thousands of people who claim to be man...
Jump to postMeaning no disrespect Oroka, but you're doing a lot of hand-waving real technical, practical, and economic matters aside. Until someone posts some serious credentials, everything posted here is arm chair rocket man territory. My IRL job has me finding solutions to tasks that people straight up say ...
Jump to postthe MSL cost less than half as much as each Viking lander, for example, but has far more capabilities. I would hope so 40 years later. My watch is more powerful than my whole desktop PC 10 years ago at probably 1/4 the price. A manned Mars program might be conducted for less than $200 billion That ...
Jump to postNah, its just Trumps buddies out sight seeing, they were invited.
Jump to post