Cleaning out the basement

[hutch--]

The sexiest looking aircraft I have ever seen is a Sukkoi 27 and later, it looks like a flying squirrell but I gather it has some excellent characteristics. fast, long range, high payload capacity, very stable, can correct from a stall in a side shear and apparently the later version use some very advanced plasma based stealth technology. Sad to say I will never get a chance to see one for real here in OZ but where I live in the middle of Sydney, I have seen or mainly heard the FA18s that our air force have. If you can hear them coming and get outside quick enough you see this dot flash across the sky then do a turn out to sea.

Our air force has not only maintained a set of 60s F111s but bought more from the US as they are nearly ideallly suited for defence in OZ which covers very long distances and a massive coastline. Some of the farmers up the north coast of New South Wales often compalin about the airforce playing treetop lopping in F111s as they are designed for low altitude torrain hugging and the pilots often practice up in that area.

We have a special secret weapon here in OZ for potential invasions from the north, the northern part of Australia from the western tip of West OZ to half way down the Queensland coast is this primeavil soup of swamps, 35 foot tides, coastal islands, exotic diseases, poisonous plants and crocodiles that are so friedly they will eat anyone with no predjudice at all. It was well known that the japanese did numerous landing on the north west coast but they had a double disadvantage in that the local aboriginal people hated them from the old pearling days so if the massive temperatures inland did not get them, it was reputed that some of the aboriginal people "ate" them.

Inland northern OZ has temperatures that make Iraq look like an air conditioned sunday school picknick but with the added bonus in the wet season that it all turns to flooding and mud.

This is something like the same situation that the Russian people have used with their Winters against Napoleon and later the Nazis in ww2 but in reverse. You could land the sum total of combined Euro style armies and all of their hardware along the north coast of OZ and after one wet season, you could not find them. On the bright side the crocodile may end up a bit fatter though as they are now a protected species.  :bg

[asmfan]

Steven,
dont you think the country tourism will drop after such sights description of you;))? now i know for sure to where i wont go this summer:) (joke:)

[drhowarddrfine]

Sometimes, when I drive the highway about 100 miles west of me, I pass Air Force base and see the B2 Bombers come in for a landing or a stealth F-117 or two. 

[rags]

Sometimes, when I drive the highway about 100 miles west of me, I pass Air Force base and see the B2 Bombers come in for a landing or a stealth F-117 or two. 

Dr Howard,
  I used to work at that AF Base in the early 80's, but at that time it had a totally different mission. It has changed it mission due to the various START/SALT treaties that have been signed.

asmfan,
  I had the pleasure of watching a MIG-29 do a tail stand at a local air show about 10 years ago. It was truely remarkable to see a modern jet fighter, standing nearly motionless above the runway, on its tail end.

regards,
Rags

[asmfan]

yes, Rags, this motion is called "Cobra" or "Bell" depending on details.

[hutch--]

asmfan,

On the contrary, the top end of OZ is very popular, you just pick the season. West of Ayres Rock is a mountain range called the Olgas where a human being will last less than an hour before dying in the heat. You just don't holiday in the wet season anywhere near the coast.

Now Russians may be classed as approved nutrition for the crocodiles in the area but we try to discourage Americans from making the ultimate sacrifice of themselves as they eat too much fast food full of preservatives which may be detrimental to a protected species.

I remember with some humour in northern Queensland where the crocodile warning are all over the place that a woman at a party decided to do some naked skinny dipping in the middle of the night and ended up as a crocodile's breakfast. These things are skilled predators that have not had to adapt for hundreds of millions of years. They were nealy hunted out until the species was protected and people of my dad's generation have seen 25 to 30 feet long salt water crocs and it will take a while to see them grow to that age again.

As far as defence, OZ is unusual and very different to Euro style warefare, very large land mass, massive coastline and a lot of very hostile torrain make things like tanks useless. Aicraft are useful if they have the range and this is among the reasons why something as old as F111s are still useful, apart from complete refits of their electronics and weapon systems. Fighter style aircrafts are useful in localised city defence but rarely have the range to be useful as offensive weapons in a country this large.

In ww2, the Japanese bombed the PHUK out of Darwin from Timor because there was little that could compete with the Zeros early in the war but after bringing in a squadron of Spitfires, they shot the sh*t out of the zeros and it stopped. My dad remembered watching a dogfight between a zero and a Lockheed Lightning on the north coast of new Guinea and while the zero was more manouverable, when it tried to leave, the Lightning ran it down and shot it down.

[Mincho Georgiev]

Talking about russian weapons again...,The only one that i regard is AK47, i have over 100 X 30 shots  whit it and i can say YEAH, that's the tool, I doubt that M16 will do the same job  :8)

[hutch--]

Here are a couple of Sukhoi 27 and later images I pinched from Venik's site. Its a wild looking gadget. Somewhere along the line I rememered reading that the Russians have very advanced technology in jet engine nozzle design which gets very high thrust out of jet engines.

[asmfan]

Steve,
i was laughing out loud while reading about approved nutritious russians:))) the conclusion is - people, eat healthy food:)
as for air combats - nowaday combat is a distant one cuz all existing weapon(rockets) is aimed to achieve the very distant target avoiding close combats. so you wont ever see the show of close combat as in those old days (and i hope we will never see the such "show" of this kind in future).

[asmfan]

weapon is good only to look at not to use it.
as i saw in someones signature: approximate quote: "the only way to manipulate the reality is to manipulate words"...

[asmfan]

Shaka_zulu,
by the way speaking on russian/soviet electronics in those days, dont you remember who was the first in outer space? it means our electronics were on level to bring the human being to the space:) and now answer: was it (electronics) good or not...

[Mincho Georgiev]

I know... And i admit it...
I just still want know what was really the truth about the accident with Jury Gagarin! There are many interrogatives about it /i'll stop about it because is not really close to the post's subject/.

[hutch--]

This is a sign of age but I remember as a primary school kid watching Sputnik orbit over in the early evening. It looked like a fast moving star travelling west to east. A fascination with the space age is another sign of age and while I saw both the US and the old Soviet do so amazing things, the one that appealed to me was the soft landing on Venus and actually getting photos back before the heat destroyed the lander.

My mum worked for an American company Honeywell and one thing she got for me as a kid was a reassembled photo of the martian surface taken as a 360 degree sweep from the US landing on Mars. This stuff was literally out of this world.

[drhowarddrfine]

Space travel was always a big deal here where I live.  I'm almost a stone's throw from where the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were built at the former McDonnell Aircraft site in St. Louis, MO.  (Turned McDonnell-Douglas, then Boeing).  Needless to say, growing up we got a lot of science talks from those people along with up close views of the real spacecraft and a semi-permanent capsule at the local science center.

[asmfan]

Shka_zulu,
it is a really strange death of Jury... officially it was said that he crashed with the aircraft... but could he? the top-level specialist... may be our children will know all the truth. i hope so.