No idea. I've heard nothing on from the grapevine.
But I doubt it could be any lower.
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F-14 Questions Answered - Ask Away
- Thread starter Astro14
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No idea. I've heard nothing on from the grapevine.
But I doubt it could be any lower.
Ok I am not a good candidate for a sharpshooter...but where do you see any trail of water.....?
Btw are those 2 white dots in front of E2 in a sea 2 waves...or 2 "spare parts" from a broken wire/catapult?
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From 13:53:06 to 13:53:09 what appears to be a light veil of water off the left gear.
On further scrutiny you will notice when the Hawkeye sinks off the deck the left wing is lower.
The pilots were awarded the Armed Forces Air Medal.
I'm no sniper candidate. Just ask my optician.
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That was certainly worthy of an air medal!
I've never seen anything like that outside of a movie. Unbelievable. I believe the water trail. That thing disappeared entirely, even with a high camera angle.
E2C height is listed at 18 feet. Average carrier deck height is listed at about 60. Plane is obviously some distance from the very edge of the deck for an amount of time, and camera angle is high. For it to disappear entirely from a level camera angle on the deck, plane one inch in front of the carrier, it would be about 40 feet above the level of a flat sea.
Raise the camera angle, move the plane forward, and add waves, and the distance between plane and water gets ridiculous.
That plane got really close to the water if it didn't touch it altogether. If they didn't have their wipers on before, I bet they did after.
Couldn't be any lower indeed!
Stupendous piloting.
Also have to give serious credit to the guy in the yellow shirt. Was his back to the cables when he did those miraculous jumps? Hard to tell.
E2C height is listed at 18 feet. Average carrier deck height is listed at about 60. Plane is obviously some distance from the very edge of the deck for an amount of time, and camera angle is high. For it to disappear entirely from a level camera angle on the deck, plane one inch in front of the carrier, it would be about 40 feet above the level of a flat sea.
Raise the camera angle, move the plane forward, and add waves, and the distance between plane and water gets ridiculous.
That plane got really close to the water if it didn't touch it altogether. If they didn't have their wipers on before, I bet they did after.
Couldn't be any lower indeed!
Stupendous piloting.
Also have to give serious credit to the guy in the yellow shirt. Was his back to the cables when he did those miraculous jumps? Hard to tell.
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Astro, what is the difference between Air Force refueling and Navy refueling? Is it preference from the branch of the service or is there some benefit of one over the other? Does it have to do with the size of aircraft and typical fuel load? The AF way seems complicated but they are pushing a lot of fuel from a large plane. Just something to occupy the brain.
I think it goes back to the air force's order of 707s..... The 707 was well-suited to the larger loads for bigger aircraft, and they can't operate from carriers. A big part of the air force's choice had to do with the nuclear mission of the strategic air command, and those refuelers were part of that fleet.
The Navy uses the net method (I think) because aircraft which fly from carriers as refuelers can all carry that thing. The fuel loads needed are much smaller.
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USAF uses a boom system. USN uses a drogue system.
Air Force Tankers, with their booms, were designed and built in the early 1950s to get strategic bombers to their distant targets. the KC-97 was the first, the KC-135 next, and KC-10 after that. Since the tankers were already built and flying, subsequent USAF fighters were simply built with the boom receptacle. Early 1950s USAF fighters, like the F-100 still had probes for the drogue system.
But the Boom requires a big tanker, like the KC-135 (707).
The Navy needs to be able to tank "organically" - that is, using airplanes launched from a carrier. So, A-3, A-6, A-7, S-3, and now, F/A-18 have all been equipped with the "buddy store" D-705 pod that has a self-contained drogue.
Tanking during a night (or even day) recovery is an essential safety element. Airplanes run low on gas because they miss the first or second landing attempt and they need to get refueled to stay in the air. This is essential for "Blue water operations", i.e. operations with no divert. The fuel at max landing weight in a combat-loaded F/A-18C model is often 3,000# or so. That's three landing attempts and then flame-out. About 25-30 minutes of total fuel. So, one look at the deck, perhaps two in the day time, and it's off to the tanker, circling overhead and watching the low state aircraft.
Being the tanker pilot in the "hawk', or watching the low state aircraft, requires aggressive maneuvering so that if that aircraft bolters (misses the wires on a landing attempt) the tanker is about 1/2 mile ahead and on the right side of the low state aircraft, making for an easy rendezvous in an orbiting left hand turn overhead the ship.
So, can't fit a boom on a carrier, but need to be able to tank from the carrier = probe and drogue.
When we operate jointly, the USAF fits a drogue on the end of the boom of the KC-135 to tank Navy airplanes. Some KC-135s (and some civilian contract tankers) have wing refueling pods, which are basically the D-705 pod mounted on a wing hard point, enabling the tanker to refuel both drogue and boom airplanes. The KC-10 had a built in drogue, which allowed it to launch with the ability to swing both ways in the air.
The boom is large, heavy, and complex. It's not just the USN that uses the drogue system. Every NATO Ally nation uses the drogue. Look at the British V-series bombers, big bombers with a probe on them. Current NATO fighters, bombers, transport and patrol aircraft, like the Nimrod all use the drogue. Even the brand new A-400M military transport from Airbus has, yep, a probe on the front.
Makes it easy for the USN to work in an Allied environment. We can tank (and I have) off British or French tankers without worrying, "is this a drogue? or a boom?".
https://www.cobham.com/mission-syst...ng-pods/31-300-buddy-store-datasheet/docview/
Hawker Siddeley Nimrod - Wikipedia
Airbus A400M Atlas - Wikipedia
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Thank you for finding that!
Not about the F-14, but any comments?
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Sweet! Can't wait to see it!
Watch to the very end and you just might see a Tomcat! ...
Wondering what it is. All American ones have been rendered inoperable. I know there are some at museums, but they've been gutted and most of the parts shredded to keep them from possibly being acquired by Iran.
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Maybe old extra footage from the original filming of Top Gun?
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Luckily he wasn't in the Air Force.
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Looks like new footage. At least he's wearing his visor and mask. That always seemed really odd about the original Top Gun in that they had their visors up and their face masks off. I thought it was just to show the actors' faces compared to the faceless enemy that always kept them down. Still - this is showing some sort of clear visor. I hear they were all heavily tinted because a pilot would be blinded by the sun.
Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by IndyFan
Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by IndyFan
Watch to the very end and you just might see a Tomcat! ...
Wondering what it is. All American ones have been rendered inoperable. I know there are some at museums, but they've been gutted and most of the parts shredded to keep them from possibly being acquired by Iran.
Maybe old extra footage from the original filming of Top Gun?
Either a flashback or it's an Iranian plane?
They made the parts to get them airborne. haha
Originally Posted by IndyFan
Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by IndyFan
Watch to the very end and you just might see a Tomcat! ...
Wondering what it is. All American ones have been rendered inoperable. I know there are some at museums, but they've been gutted and most of the parts shredded to keep them from possibly being acquired by Iran.
Maybe old extra footage from the original filming of Top Gun?
Either a flashback or it's an Iranian plane?
They made the parts to get them airborne. haha
