The "Pictures of the World's Coolest Aircraft" Thread - Page 5

Carver · April 1, 2003, 19:34

And, of course, the MiG-23 which was used very effectively by the Cuban and Angolan Air Forces against South Africa; also used very well by Iraq against Iran.

Carver · April 1, 2003, 19:37

And the South African built Rooivalk, a very capable helicopter with laser guided munitions etc. At US$10-11 million I say it's a steal.

Carver · April 1, 2003, 19:41

The Chengdu J-7MF isn't exactly state of the art but it's quite an impressive display of Chinese engineering. The cranked delta wing and leading edge control surfaces give the plane 45% better agility than the MiG-21. These planes are now being aquired by Pakistan as the F-7PG:

Carver · April 1, 2003, 20:24

The AlphaJet advanced trainer/close support jet is probably the best in its class; it can carry almost any air to ground munition including laser and TV guided. This is a line up of Nigerian Alphas:

Lonestar · April 1, 2003, 20:24

Feh. Knock off of a Mig 21....

Drake Tungsten · April 1, 2003, 20:48

Wow. Non-Western aircraft sure do suck...

Kramerman · April 1, 2003, 21:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Wow. Non-Western aircraft sure do suck...

EDIT: naw, some of those Russian planes are really cool.. but thats about it.

Kramerman · April 1, 2003, 21:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Carver
The J-10 and the Sukhoi Su-35 (below) are certainly the most cost effective warplanes available at ~$20 million and $35 million respectively:

piffft...

The F-16 Fighting Falcon (

)costs a mere $14.6 million each, and its a good bet it is a superior plane...

ravagon · April 1, 2003, 21:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Carver
The Chengdu J-7MF isn't exactly state of the art but it's quite an impressive display of Chinese engineering. The cranked delta wing and leading edge control surfaces give the plane 45% better agility than the MiG-21.

The J-7 ??!!

And 45% more agility than a MiG-21 is tantamount to a dead cat having being 45% more agile than another dead cat.

Carver · April 1, 2003, 21:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Kramerman

piffft...

The F-16 Fighting Falcon (

)costs a mere $14.6 million each, and its a good bet it is a superior plane...

Maybe that was the original price when the F-16 was first coming out in the late 70s early 80s, but these days a new F-16 runs about $30 million.

GePap · April 1, 2003, 22:50

an Su-27 is a high peformance air superiority fighter of the F-15 type; If the Su-27 is much more powerful and dangerous than the F-16, the certainly the Su-35 is a better machine as well.

Joseph · April 2, 2003, 00:05

F-16 and Su- 27 have not met yet. F-15 vs Mig-29 is zero lost for the F-15 and 2, 3 or 4, for the Mig-29.

Ted Striker · April 2, 2003, 00:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Carver
The MiG 1.42, which will not be built due to its cost:

Whoah! That looks like Firefox!!!

http://www.clinteastwood.net/welcome2.html

Ted Striker · April 2, 2003, 00:12

.

Kramerman · April 2, 2003, 00:27

Quote:

Maybe that was the original price when the F-16 was first coming out in the late 70s early 80s, but these days a new F-16 runs about $30 million.

My original information came out of a recent magazine, but I found this info on the net

Quote:

Unit cost: F-16A/B , $14.6 million (fiscal 98 constant dollars); F-16C/D,$18.8 million (fiscal 98 constant dollars)

F-16 Fact Sheet

Az · April 2, 2003, 00:55

I think the best combo is Russian Jets with Western armaments.

Agathon · April 2, 2003, 01:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Ted Striker

Whoah! That looks like Firefox!!!

http://www.clinteastwood.net/welcome2.html

No Firefox looks like the XB-70 (see first pic in thread).

Straybow · April 2, 2003, 12:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Agathon
It's a bit mean to pit the Spit against the Mustang since it is effectively next generation technology.

Yeah, but even for it's day the Spitfire wasn't first rate. It was a little slow. It didn't have fuel injection, standard for others of the day. It couldn't pull neg gees, not more than half a gee from level flight to a moderate dive. Had to roll a point first, which gave the Gerries another edge.

Not that the American planes from the late 30s were any better. P-38 was no good until the supercharged version (effectively, next generation engine). Zero and Me109 were the best of that generation.

Ahh, the P-38. Gotta love its unique beauty.

Straybow · April 2, 2003, 12:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Carver
… Chengdu J-7 …

C'mon, if we're gonna rebuild an aged airframe, do it right. Drop an F-16 engine into an F-5 airframe and you get an incredibly inexpensive F-20. But GE had better connections to sell the export version of the F-16, so nobody wanted to buy the Tigershark.

Kontiki · April 2, 2003, 13:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Joseph
F-16 and Su- 27 have not met yet. F-15 vs Mig-29 is zero lost for the F-15 and 2, 3 or 4, for the Mig-29.

It's just about impossible to make comparisons like that, because no comparably equiped, trained and funded airforces have squared off with some of the newest equipment. I don't think it's going out on a limb at all to say that if the Iraqis (for example) were equipped with F-16s or F-15s and the Americans with Mig-29s or Su-27s, and keeping the discrepancy of training, maintenance, upgrade packages, etc,, you'd see a few more downed F-16s and F-15s.

GePap · April 2, 2003, 14:11

Is the F-16 equal to the F-15? No. The F-16 is a lighter, more manueverable but less powerful craft than the huge and very expensive and powerful F-15. Well, the Su-27 is much like the F-15 in size, power, and payload.
As Konti said: if the US does so well against soviet craft is because they are not only usually faicing pilots with less training, without the benefit of long range AWACS and usually with inferior avionics. That is the key difference here: the soviets made great airframes, but had lesser electronics and support. Put modern avionics in a soviet airframe, and you have great fighters.

Zylka · April 2, 2003, 16:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Serb

F*cking hilarious beast

Those emoticons sure helped in dissuading my interest in them though, you uneducated moron

Thorgal · April 2, 2003, 17:13

Some usefull relations:
Mig-29 == F-16 or F-18
Su-27 == F-15

Carver · April 2, 2003, 19:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Kramerman

My original information came out of a recent magazine, but I found this info on the net

Actually, it looks like $30 million would be for a lightly equiped F-16. The March 2002 issue of Air Forces Monthly describes the following deals:

A UAE puchase of 80 F-16C/D Block 60 planes at $6.4 billion ($80 million each) for aircraft and spares, but not weapons.

An Islraeli purchase of 50 F-16D Block 50/60 planes at $2.5 billion ($50 million) each.

An Egyptian order for 24 slightly older F-16C/D Block 40 jets at $1 billion ($41 million each).

And Bahrain has opted to purchase 10 new F-16C/D for $300 million.

IIRC some European countries were permitted to buy US warplanes at highly subsidized prices a few years ago. Otherwise 30 beans seems to be the minimum for a new build plane.

Lonestar · April 2, 2003, 20:06

Carver; we also sold the "code" for the 'puter with it.

Kramerman · April 2, 2003, 21:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Carver

Actually, it looks like $30 million would be for a lightly equiped F-16. The March 2002 issue of Air Forces Monthly describes the following deals:

A UAE puchase of 80 F-16C/D Block 60 planes at $6.4 billion ($80 million each) for aircraft and spares, but not weapons.

An Islraeli purchase of 50 F-16D Block 50/60 planes at $2.5 billion ($50 million) each.

An Egyptian order for 24 slightly older F-16C/D Block 40 jets at $1 billion ($41 million each).

And Bahrain has opted to purchase 10 new F-16C/D for $300 million.

IIRC some European countries were permitted to buy US warplanes at highly subsidized prices a few years ago. Otherwise 30 beans seems to be the minimum for a new build plane.

hmm... perhaps that is the export cost to other nations. I have two sources that say $14.8 million, but that seems like a huge difference between domestic and export prices. Perhaps 14.8 is for the bare minimum, stripped down airframe, before all the state-of-the art avionics are added in. i dunno, just trying to find the source of the discrepencies in our data

Alinestra Covelia · April 3, 2003, 01:35

This beats the X-Wing hands down for Space Superiority Starfighter category. Pity it was mothballed after Zaarin's treachery.

(Warning - extremely esoteric video game reference!)

Koyaanisqatsi · April 3, 2003, 01:46

Isn't it customary to put the warning first?...

Kramerman · April 3, 2003, 01:54

Quote:

(Warning - extremely esoteric video game reference!)

*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

I have the whole x-wing et al VG series... i havent played them in forever tho. I mainly keep them as a fond source of memories, adn as collectibles.

Tattila the Hun · April 3, 2003, 04:57

Wow, high tech!

Here's another one: