F22 Raptor!

[Lopaka]

well ... no American servicemen in VietNam came under Vietnamese air attack.

Funny you mention that. Shortly after I arrived in Da Nang air base in 1967 (Yeah, I'm an olde farte) there was an alert that the North was going to try a raid with Soviet "Beagle" bombers. Being a lowly E4, I never heard how that alert came to be, and obviously nothing happened. Had a lot of excited pilots running around though........

 

[H2Andy]

Had a lot of excited pilots running around though........

lol! i bet

 

[ScubaTexan]

I thought the Viet Cong were using Soviet MiGs...

 

[H2Andy]

yea, the North Vietnamese Air Force flew Migs, and for a while, gave the US quite a fight

but eventually, better US tactics, training, and weapons tilted the balance

the Top Gun school was revamped as part of this process and helped train the pilots that would eventually turn the tide, such as Randy Cunningham

(keep in mind your'e talking air-to-air combat, not air-to-ground. no Vietnamese aircraft ever attacked US servicemen on the ground)

 

[Cacia]

well, those new missiles that are shooting down our helo's are really upsetting.

Good points about no fly zones, you are right, I had forgotten about that.

This body bag stuff is hard to take and makes me bitter about everything.

like any dime spent that is not directly supporting the groundpounders.

Anyway, on a light note, I heard a term used the other day for people who only work behind the wire. "They call them *FOBitts*...like Hobbit.

And JB had a guy in his Iraqi plattoon that flew Russian Migs for Sadam for years and he is a carreer military guy...says he just wants to stick around so that maybe he can fly jets again someday.

 

[Wildcard]

Have you not heard the Fobbit song?
Saturday we were at teh yacht club and a Raptor comes in right over us for a landing, everyone ran out to watch. Turns out one of the guys spent several years doing testing on the whole F22 system. It's such a wild plane!

 

[Cacia]

oh, the secret yacht club?

 

[Don Wray]

This might be problematic for the Raptor in the future:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:34:09 -0800, MGEN Hank Stelling USAF Ret wrote: "This is for those of you who will understand how remarkable this really is. Any way you slice it, pretty impressive. Great camera work. This remarkable aircraft and its pilot demonstrate what I thought impossible for a high speed jet fighter. In the SU-30MK, Russian aviation has surpassed that of the US and its NATO allies. This truly impressive fighter can stall from high speed flight to stop in less than a second. It can fall back on its tail, without compressor stall, and go into a flat spin and recover in less than a minute.


http://www.crazyaviation.com/movies/CA_SU-30.wmv

 

[H2Andy]

so?

it will get its *** smoked 50 miles away while it doesn't even know the F22 is there

these Russkies are building the perfect aircraft ... for 1980

 

[Don Wray]

Major General Stelling thinks it poses difficulties not me. He is of the opinion it surpasses our technology. Missiles can be fooled.