Non Gun Stuff...

[Badgersmilk]

It was tried twice.  They (Air Force) show videos of it in tech. school (Sheppard AFB).  Main gear went through the airframe, one strut got as far as the compressor section of the engine, nose gear just snapped clean from its mounts.  Still counts as a landing!

Even the navy qualifies a carrier landing as a "controlled crash".

[Timothy]

No Badger, that counts as a crash!

Trapping an arresting wire on a bucking flight deck is light years different than trapping a cable at an AF base....The F-16 was a fine, inexpensive, lightweight fighter.  That's all it was designed to be by General Dynamics Corporation.  It served us well for several decades but the Tomcat was the Navy fighter during the same timeframe.

[blackwolfe]

Thanks for the info Timothy.  I know this guy started out in the Navy.  Was the Tomcat the F-14?  i don't know much about what all the military planes are.  i know my favorite is the A-10? Warthog.  Have seen a few of them at Battle Creek.  I think they have Air National Guard stationed there.  One of them did a fly over a few years ago for the new HS football stadium opener.  Pretty impressive.

[Badgersmilk]

They sat the two 16's down on the carrier in an attempt to do an emergency landing.  The hook on the F-16 would have ripped off if it caught the line, so they snagged them in a big net.  Then dumped at least one of them overboard.  Didnt get to see what happened to the second one.

You should have seen the "after" pictures of the kid putting 3,000psi nitrogen into a tire rated for 300psi.  Split rim wheel seperated and turned him inside out.  We had to look at the picture a while to figure out what parts we were actually seeing!

[Timothy]

Thanks for the info Timothy.  I know this guy started out in the Navy.  Was the Tomcat the F-14?  i don't know much about what all the military planes are.  i know my favorite is the A-10? Warthog.  Have seen a few of them at Battle Creek.  I think they have Air National Guard stationed there.  One of them did a fly over a few years ago for the new HS football stadium opener.  Pretty impressive.

Yes, the F-14 and all of it's variants was the carrier AND land based fighter and the A-6 Intruder was the slower carrier/land based fighter bomber since Vietnam.  The F-14 replaced the F-4 and the F-18 replaced the F-14.  The Tomcat is a monster campared to the relatively small F-16.

The A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog) is a Marine Corp troop support hunter killer of armored vehicles.  It proved itself several times over during the '91 gulf war and nearly got retired.  It's proven itself once again to be a damn fine machine.  The AF might fly them as well.

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

They sat the two 16's down on the carrier in an attempt to do an emergency landing.  The hook on the F-16 would have ripped off if it caught the line, so they snagged them in a big net.  Then dumped at least one of them overboard.  Didnt get to see what happened to the second one.

That makes sense.  The AF jockeys are not generally rated for carrier ops.  In an emergency you can crash just about anywhere, doing it on a 1300 foot carrier deck would pucker anyone up, even if you do it every day...  That said, the plane was built cheap for a reason in the late seventies and eighties.  We were broke after the Carter administration bankrupted the country.  GD came up with a design that did the AF proud for nearly thirty years.  Those planes are flying all over the world even today because we sold them to EVERYBODY!

[blackwolfe]

I always thought the Warthog was a good aircraft.  From what I heard it was pretty tough and durable.  Another term I heard applied to it was that it was lo tech high tech, meaning that it was sophisticated, but not too complicated and that helped to add to the durability.  I remember seeing a pictue of one with one wing and not much left of the other.  I understood that it was able to return to base and make a safe landing.  I could never understand why they always want to retire the thing.  It can get in close and dirty and get the job done.  I also understand that comparativly speeking it was an inexpensive craft.  Have also heard that the Marines love them.

[blackwolfe]

Battle Creek Air National Guard Awrthog
http://www.110fw.ang.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/081005-F-8947E-001.jpg

[Timothy]

The Marines love the Warthog for sure.  It's a ground support aircraft and those guys are Marines that they're trying to support.  Give a Marine anything and he'll make good use of it and find a couple things to make it kill better too!

Not to long ago, I saw a History or Military channel show on the A-10 and I think they mentioned the plane with one wing, shot to hell and still managed to limp home, get repaired and resume the fight!  I sat in an A-10 cockpit several years ago.  It was stripped of it's military avionics but still flyable.  There is a static air show hereabouts at a small local airfield.  No trick flying, just a lot of old military and other fixed wing aircraft.

[tombogan03884]

Yes, the F-14 and all of it's variants was the carrier AND land based fighter and the A-6 Intruder was the slower carrier/land based fighter bomber since Vietnam.  The F-14 replaced the F-4 and the F-18 replaced the F-14.  The Tomcat is a monster campared to the relatively small F-16.

The A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog) is a Marine Corp troop support hunter killer of armored vehicles.  It proved itself several times over during the '91 gulf war and nearly got retired.  It's proven itself once again to be a damn fine machine.  The AF might fly them as well.

A 10 was strictly AF they had it for close air support of the Army (primarily tank busting ). But AF hates low and slow so they have TWICE retired the A 10 maybe they will actually be able to get rid of it some day, but it they don't replace it with some of similar or better capabilities we will be sorry.
It was designed to take massive damage and still get home, they can lose one engine pod and half the tail and still be controllable.