Bristol Brabazon?

[Twitch]

No one figured they'd have to keep re-equipping B-52s for decades but they lent themselves to it with so much flex space that allowed for modern gadgets. The same holds true for fighters like the F-4. It was about the first planned to expand fighter with loads of empty space planned in for future systems which it ultimately did use.

BTW the many F-4s are being used as target drones these days. The F-15s are headed that way but in the mean time we're overshadowing it for the F-22 and it's stealthyness and the F-35. If F-15s are able they should re-engineer them like they did B-52s and keep them in service as long as possible.

As it has kept working out with each successive replacement due to cost per unit, we can afford fewer and fewer in any production contract. 222 planes to 135 planes to 21 to, what, one gazillion dollar craft? So the longer we can keep an airframe viable the better off we are.

 

[dhermann1]

Then there's the question of mission. Who's developing an air force out there that we have to be better than? What are the Chinese and Russians coming up with? What's really needed in the area of counter insurgency? Seems like drones and other remotely piloted craft are the wave of the future.

 

[Diamondback]

The Chinese don't have much for new fighters (although their latest is a fairly respectable performer), but some of the Russians' designs (thank God they can't afford to build 'em!) are so good, I'd be uneasy about going up against 'em even in a Raptor. (I refer specifically to the S-37/Su-47 and MiG 1.44 prototypes.)

I've actually been thinking that with fighters, a manned/unmanned mix is the way to go. Say, pair an F-15 or F-22 up with three UCAVS, using the manned fighter as a "director"--we don't want the machines making too many of their own decisions, lest we get something like in the Terminator movies...

COIN isn't the only mission we've got. We're gonna have to face China someday, and I'm not totally convinced that imperialism from Moscow has done its last either.

Twitch, as it happens, I have a design for that "gazillion-dollar bird", too--but it's also designed to be fast enough, stealthy enough, armored and loaded enough that that one's all you need. (Okay, you need two--because the only real threat to one of these aircraft, should a pilot go renegade, is another...)

 

[dhermann1]

DB, I'm having a hard time deciding whether I think you belong at the Pentagon or Hollywood . . .

 

[Twitch]

As unpopular as it is perceived UCAVs are the wave of the future and many countries are deep into them. We are into the 2nd generation at this point.

As far as Russian and Chinese. The Chins have planes from passed-down, reworked blueprints of the old USSR. And the MiG 29 is about the only Russkie craft that is any good.

Both their concepts have been to build relatively simple planes with one mission in mind. They have consistantly produced short range interceptors that were "good enough" ever since the MiG 15.

We have generally had avionics that could see them and shoot them down before they knew we were there. We've gone for "excellent" multi-mission though expensive craft.

What has been most important is training. "Train like you fight, fight like you train." Our guys have been "excellent" to their "good enough."

The USAF has moved from an air and space organization to a space and air defense entity. This is where the Aurora rumor may be more than fantasy but that type of craft is where their thinking has been going for a long time- a vehicle that can get into low space environs and arrive at anyplace on the globe in a short time.

They have been working on many types of beam weapons and most certainly we will see them employed in the coming decade or 15 years.

They may be in some concept ot actual stage of producing an "Enterprise" as the single gazillion dollar ship. What's a "shield" beyond a magnetic field anyhow?