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Silent slip into history: The F117

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#5
Hmmm the A10 is getting old. I would design a replacement for it. Basically it would be a lighter, heavilier armoured more loitertime craft and oh yes better upgrade possibillities.

Oh and celldar as its called cant dectect the exact location of stealth craft just around where they are but more conventional radars which are fairly advanced can dectect the f117 all the same and guide missles to it. Celldar is only usefull vs advanced stealth craft.
 
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#6
Tomcat, if I remember correctly, they brought down that 117 by dumbfiring an SAM in its general direction, then locked onto it (with the missile in flight) when it opened up its bomb bay doors.

As for visibility under normal conditions, you're going to have to provide a source.

Regarding the A-10: you just presented a list of "needs" which are mutually exclusive. Anyway, the upgrades fix two of the main gripes: that it was underpowered and that it was a pain to integrate with newer computerized ordnance. Regarding armor, it's already ridiculously robust, and the pilot sits in a freaking titanium bathtub; as for fuel, that's what drop tanks are for. And it already has multi-hour flight endurance. You can only carry so much fuel before either compromising survivability or maneuverability.
 
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#7
Hardly mutually exclusive. The A10 uses old materials new composites can do the trick.

Ive heared and read that the F117 was shot down with the tamara system which basically is an advanced radar and surely advanced enough to dectect the F117. The only reason why they retire the F117 now and not earlier is because now the successor is about to get into service. Not because it already has been well aged for several years.
 
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#8
Tomcat_ha said:
Hardly mutually exclusive. The A10 uses old materials new composites can do the trick.

Ive heared and read that the F117 was shot down with the tamara system which basically is an advanced radar and surely advanced enough to dectect the F117. The only reason why they retire the F117 now and not earlier is because now the successor is about to get into service. Not because it already has been well aged for several years.
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Again: sources. "Heard and read" doesn't mean much, in a world where people still believe that teflon-coated bullets pierce armor better.

"New composites"? To replace steel and titanium? Hardly. Especially if you want to increase armor. They could probably save some weight by getting rid of the multiply-redundant hydraulics systems, but that would also cut into survivability.
 
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#10
Tomcat_ha said:
Hardly mutually exclusive. The A10 uses old materials new composites can do the trick.
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Someone hit the buzzer. Composites are great, but the A10's a plane that WILL take hits from ground fire. It's not a matter of if or when, it's a matter of how many. Composites work great; they're light and strong. They're also a royal ***** to to repair work on. Try patching 'em and retaining structrual integrity. You wanna replace a whole wing skin because of a few lucky .30" or .50" holes in the wing? Or just rivet (possibly weld) a patch in place for the time being? Composites are great for building things, but because of how they're made, when they break, they're trash. They're also extremely expensive, even compared to stuff like titanium.

IMO, at this point in time, there is no airplane in the world that is better in the close support role than the A10. The only thing "better" for close support would be a helicopter, but they're limited in range, and when you need that support FAST, you don't want to wait on a helo doing 200 knots.

On the original topic, sort of; I always thought the F117's designation was bizarre, since F is for an air-superiority fighter. Technically it should have been an A117, or maybe (stretching a bit) a B117. The F117, AFAIK, had no air-to-air capability. It was built to deliver precision bombs on targets.
 
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#11
The only problem with the A-10s is simply how old they are. Many have so many flight hours and have been in service so long that they have cracks in the structural integrity. Metal gives eventually, and that's what is happening with the A-10s.

As for its combat ability, I think it's safe to say that it's hardly surpassed. The plane can take a brutal beating. It can dish out a brutal beating. It's cheap. It's easy to maintain. And... dun dun dun, it's battle proven.

Honestly, the last thing the US Military needs right now is another multi-billion dollar contract to design a new plane. The original price quoted on the JSF was something like 35 million, and now it's like double that. Why? Because Lockeed Martin won the contract and they know they can name whatever price they ****ing want.
 
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#13
Su-25T is very close, it's not deployed in large numbers like A-10 though.

The only problem with the A-10s is simply how old they are. Many have so many flight hours and have been in service so long that they have cracks in the structural integrity. Metal gives eventually, and that's what is happening with the A-10s.
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They are undergoing a modernisation right now. They'll be upgraded to A-10C.
 
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#14
The F117 is like owning the bleeding edge of technology computer for gaming, in 1991. The bottom line is given time all its innovations are goign to be overcome and there is only so much modernization that can be done. You got 20+ years out of the F-14 and at the end it was even functioning as a bomber. That was a great airframe that was taken to its limit.

Nobody is going to say the 117 is a great airframe. It is/was a one trick pony that was great only so long as it stayed well ahead of the technology deployed to detect it. Nobody has any interest in flying a detectable 117.

THe A-10 rocks. It is one of the best function designed aircraft ever deployed. My degree isin Aerospace Engineering so I know a thing or two about aircraft. At the same time airplanes are not steam locomotives. Iron and steel have an essentially infinite fatigue life when used withing defined strain parameters. Aluminum does not. Eventually it will fail and the best you can do is design as much life (at the risk of overdesigning and making it too heavy to perform) into the thing as possible. At some point the refit will have to be the complete replacement of every structural member.

Composites would make minimal difference in the A-10. As already pointed out, things that shatter on impact are no good canididates for survivability. The F-16 is infinitely more manueverable and faster than the A-10. That said the F-16 wasn't designed to abosrb 20mm ground fire on a routine basis and get home. If an F-16 starts taking serious (to an A-10) fire it is going down along with all its pretty composites and fly by wire controls.

The A-10 already carries more payload than anything in its size catagory and has a loiter time in excess of just about any other aircraft. It is survivable, well armed and manueverable within its operating enviorment. If the AirForce were to put out a contract for a replacement it should start with the requirement of "Build this (insert A-10)". Aside from updated countermeasures I really can't think of much that should be replaced. Nobody ever says that the White Shark needs modernization to function in today's oceans and I really think we are at that point with the A-10.

Sadly it will need to be replaced eventually as the cost to keep them airborne qill become uneconomical and their readiness will plummet. There is also no Fairchild Republic out there cranking out replacements (I work around the corner from where they were made and all you can get there now are books from Borders and sub standard lumber from Home Depot). Of course the A-10 is not the sexy airplane loved by the airforce so the odds of such a bird getting reborn are minimal. Instead they will hijack the F-16 into the role, which it will not perform nearly as well in.
 
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#15
F-117 was a mistake developed from mistake. "Stealth" tech was never a secret to the soviets, as it was studied by them also. They also realised that any stealth can be cracked with appropriate radar tech. It's amazing how this aircraft ever made it to the assembly line. A-10 is better than this turkey, hands down.

But I still prefer Su-17 and Su-25 over hog any day. ;)
 
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#17
Rss said:
F-117 was a mistake developed from mistake. "Stealth" tech was never a secret to the soviets, as it was studied by them also. They also realised that any stealth can be cracked with appropriate radar tech. It's amazing how this aircraft ever made it to the assembly line.
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Obviously a complete mistake. Just ask any of the Soviet observers who were in Iraq during the first Gulf War. They were there to aprraise the field performance of the numerous Soviet Systems deployed in Iraq in their first major engagement with western forces in a generation. The most notable system they were there to observe was the radar and SAM system which utterly failed in the first hour of the war. The F117 was one of the first forces to dismantle the Iraqi radar and SAM network and openned the gates for the rest of the coalition's airforces.

THe F117 was a great aircraft for its limited time and role, it will never be a long lived classic like the F-14, F-15, A10 or F-4. It handily defeated the available radar systems of the day when nothing else could.

Where the ideas of faceting came from are irrelavent. People today discount how radical the idea was. At the time all bets were that the "Stealth Fighter" or F-19 as it was often speculated to be was a blended wing/lifting body with no angular surfaces and only rounded edges. The reason the F117 was hidden from view far longer than the B2 was the F117 depended far more on its basic geomettry to function than its construction materials (which a photo would not reveal). The F117 was revealed and people did an immediate double take as nobody had seriously proposed it would resemble what it really did.

If the Soviets were so good at it they should have done so themselves. That the continental USA did not have as elaborate a SAM network is meaningless as any European conflict would have almost certainly been preceeded by stealth aircraft strikes from either side focused on radar and command and control assets.
 
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#18
You never read what I wrote, did you? By long shot, stealth tech is waste of resources. Soviets realised this and basically dumped the concept of geometry/material-based "stealth" (They didn't dump concept of stealth totally, though). That's why they never bothered building any prototypes. Waste. Of. Resources.

Ok, so F-117 flied past seriously obsolete 60s-70s watered down soviet-built radar sets. OH HO HO HO! Now that's a bomb! Nighthawk must be some kind of USAF Bird of Prey with cloaking device! Come on. Old US systems would be just as blind to Tu-160.

Oh and by the way... Remember the Kosovo War incident? ;)
 
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#19
It was flying through newer systems without trouble, too. :p

I definitely wouldn't call stealth tech a waste of resources. The F117 was an effective aircraft for a reasonable amount of time (service life of combat aircraft designs is getting MUCH longer than it used to be.), and at the very least was a learning experience in fly-by-wire and several stealth technologies.
 
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#20
The stealth was developed with help from overlooked research by an obscure Russian scientist. USA did the majority of the work that russians could not because our computer systems, and Techs were, and are much better. :p

Gee one F-177 was shot down out of thousands of combat sorties flown. :rolleyes: Not one Russian aircraft can say that.

All of our aircraft and pilots are superior overall. Look at the Korean War, the MIG was faster, had a higher rate of climb, had cannons instead of .50 cal. MG's, and were flow by some of the best pilots the Soviets could muster. Kill ratios over Korea soared to 12-1 in favor of the Americans. :p
 
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