RIPTIDE

No. In Gulf War 1 for example there was approximately 250,000 explosive devices shot/dropped at/on Iraq and Kuwait from Aircraft or Cruise Missiles. And that was by no means a major conflict in the grand scheme of things. Are you suggesting replacing all those bombs with cruise missiles? What about the enormous stockpiles required for a Major v Major conflict? At ~1,000,000 a Missile that would be 250 billion, before a foot set on the desert. :D. Nope... Iron bombs + Aircraft will be the heavy lifters for the foreseeable future in Conventional elements of the Major-Major conflicts to come. And a major chunk of the Major-Minor conflicts, where it's still affordable to fire advance weapons to minimize risk and bad news for the CNN/Fox viewing masses.

A few things... Intermediate range cruise missiles are not a new thing. What made them conform to the Intermediate Treaty was the fact that they were exclusively air launched. For example the Kh-55/555/101. Over 5k of course they are considered Long Range missiles. What can cause a bit of agitation however is longer range missiles being tested or used ALSO as an Intermediate Missile. Bombers will not be obsolete. Have you considered the cost of making these missiles? I'm going to guess that missile cost follows some sort of exponential type rule in proportion to range and payload. Instead of making very expensive longer range missiles, make cheaper Intermediate range missiles and hang them inside bomber bays. Cheaper and still effective. :)

As missiles advance they'll be looking more at the optical side of things to pick out a preferred part of the airframe to intersect with, anyway.

Human psychology. They fixate. ;)

Some of the comments on the first Utube video seem to suggest that this might be fake... from an older military exercise?

Because MANPADS are limited in what they can currently do. Their kinetics are such that they are limited to a few thousand feet and do find it difficult to reach out and touch a fast strike aircraft.

Had a look in with Maverick. Enjoyed the demo. S!

Yeah there's a bunch of bulbs there now aswell making noise.... frightened the crap out of me initially.

They do sometimes yes. Airborne rescue, carriers also have huge capacity for mobile power supply and water purification.

I wrote an email to those b*stards asking about that missile and they wouldn't answer me. I would have thought they'd answer after the 456'd email... but they didn't. :D

The 104th is up, hosting 1.2.7 Public Beta.

The thermal issues maybe are discounted. I guess they already are in current missile heads? You won't need the same tolerances in something that will live for no more than 60 seconds once activated.. knowing that if it is still operated beyond 5 mins it would incinerate.

:cry_2::cry_2: My life has been all a lie. :D

Russian Air Force Photos and Video This is why the aliens won't talk to us....

If anyone remmebers I wrote TMC JSC an email years ago on this subject. They never replied. lol

The driver, though. He'll have problems with visibility reversing in that area.

You have no idea about what you're talking about. Because he (helicopter) is not making the circuit. You do realise that this happens all the time around the world on these types of cables that have large birds in the locale? And little furry animals. Here's a furry one welded also to the top line. :) :lol::lol:

Yeah. That's the easy bit. The hard bit is of course when the seagull's wings come sufficiently close to or touch the other cable. That's when the circuit is made either through direct contact or an arc. Fried seagul. You can see that he is stuck by the wing. PS: Voltage does not pass through... what harms you is the Current. ;)

When I have HDR off, it still gets washed out for me... and the MFD in the flanker aswell gets washed out.

:D Mate, the thing was welded to the power cable. It was fluttering from the down wash of the helicopter you realise?. It was long dead. He pulled it off the line and chucked it into a bucket. :megalol:

Seagul Rescued? It's fried carcass was pulled off it. :D

I'm busy imagining 'Randy' and 'Elijah' down in Air Force Public Relations penning this story. " We need something good Randy... what will we say" " We'll say we scared them real good, cos we need to get leverage on the public and Congress since TIME magazine referred to the F-35 as the 'Most expensive weapon ever built' " :P

Not really. Think about it. Having 2x fighters protect 1 drone... is better than 2x fighters protecting an expensive, manned, surveillance aircraft. :thumbup: Sometimes people forget that just because it's a drone doesn't make it completely unworthy of protection.

As I said somewhere else.... 'and then this one time at band camp'

Ah ok. Maybe there was a key binding knocked out for Mode 2/BVR. Glad you got that sorted. Yeah that sounds like one of them C++ crashed. I get the odd one aswell.