Brit_Radar_Dude

As Robin Williams said ( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Williams ) "You have the right to bear arms, you have the right to arm bears, what ever the hell you want to do!"

Sad news. I read Band of Brothers again a couple of months ago. @mikoyan - that radio control tank was perhaps this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

...and completely illegal under both High School and College Rules. Sadly kids games like these get noob refs or sh1t older refs who haven't bothered reading a rule book in 10 years, so they think it is a legal play and let it go. You only ever see Youtube footage of when the refs mess up and let the play stand. You never see posts of the hundreds of times when the refs correctly flag it, since dog bites man isn't news but man bites dog is...

Given back to China because we had a 99 year lease on (most of) Hong Kong and that lease came to an end. It was not deemed practical to give back most of Hong Kong and retain other parts, so all of Hong Kong was given back. Falklands/Malvinas is a rather different issue. It is not about the UK keeping the Falklands in order to have the airbase. The sole purpose of that airbase is to protect the Falklands from future threat. If the inhabitants of the islands ever wished to become part of Argentina, then the reason for the airbase would dissapear. The people want to remain British, they did not wish to become Argentinian citizens back in the 1980's. They did not want to live under the Fascist military junta that was ruling Argentina at that time. I expect being invaded and having Argentinian soldiers sh*tting in their houses will mean they will think the same way for a long time to come. The crazy thing is that apart from the Falklands/Malvinas issue (and of course Diego Maradonna;)), the UK and Argentina have had friendly relations for many years - some of the Argentine navy ships were purchased from the UK. I've been a River Plate fan for over 35 years and one day I will visit Argentina myself. Once England get knocked out of the World Cup, then I always follow Argentina - I love the way they play football. Nothing good came out of the Falklands War for the UK. Some good came out of it for Argentina itself - an end to death squads and a return to democracy. Nowadays an Argentinian citizen with political views (such as a trade unionist) can go for a ride in an Argentinian military helicopter and expect to live through the experience.

Good find, the best laugh I've had for a day or two. Check out the flower warfare one, its a blast too.

Bad Guy: Who are you? How did you get in here? Classic! EDIT In fact so much so, I've bought the box set of Police Squad and Naked Gun movies. http://www.thehut.com/dvd/airplane/top-secret/police-squad/the-naked-gun/9994793.html

A bit late from me too. Happy B'day from a fellow Chelmsfordian. Hope the snow isn't bugging you too much.

My uncle was an officer in the BSAP in Rhodesia. Thank God he got out in 1980 when comrade Mugabe took over.

Vanir's post has touched on the main reaons why. Something else you should consider is that modern long range radars dont usually work as a standalone system. More likely they feed their data, along with other radars, into a central command and control system that builds up what is known as a RAP (Recognised Air Picture). Think of it as a map of the position of everything friendly and not friendly, their height, speed, course, etc. To build a RAP from multiple radars, you need very accurate positions of exactly where those radars are and very accurate plots of the aircraft that those radar can see. The command and control system needs that accuracy so it can figure out whether an aircraft that radar A can see is the same aircraft that radar B can also see. Or maybe they are two seperate aircraft only visible to one radar each? As Vanir's post mentioned - a compass and magnetic north is fine for dealing with short distances. But when you have a system such as NADGE - Nato's air defense command and control system that is building up a huge RAP from dozens of radars stretching right across Europe, then it isn't.

It isn't exactly relevant to your question, but did you know that the Sun is not only a source of IR energy but also other wavelengths? Some mobile ground based military radars take advantage of this. One of the issues you have with setting up mobile ground based radars is telling the radar which way is North with serious accuracy. If you are 1 degree out, then a target that you detect at 200 miles range will actually be 3 or 4 miles away from where you think it is. If you increase the sensitivity of the radar (just after sunrise or just before sunset when the sun is low to the horizon), then it will pick up the Sun as a point source of radar jamming. You then record a few minutes of this data. If you have an accurate (GPS or similar) clock, then you can use this "jamming data" to calculate which direction the Sun appears to be according to the radar. From that plus astronomical tables telling you where the Sun actually should be on this day, this time at this location, then you can calculate an error correction value. The more modern radars have a software package (complete with 10 or 20 years of astronomical tables built in) that can do all this automatically.

As well as AGM-62 (later versions of which did indeed have a TV datalink), the GBU-15 is TV guided. GBU-15 can be locked onto a target and be fire and forget. But there is a live TV picture data link back to the aircraft so it can hand flown all the way to the target if you want. Or you can launch it, hand fly it for a while and then lock/unlock onto whatever target you want. AGM-130 is a version of the GBU-15 but with a rocket motor strapped on for longer range. Same guidance. My understanding is that there were some TV guided versions of the original Paveway I series called HOBOS. But they didn't have a data link, they were "Maverick style" lock on, then fire (actually drop) and forget. A few hundred were used in 'Nam. Apparently they were rather expensive and actually not that great, the technology wasn't developed enough and the laser Paveways were better and cheaper. I don't think any Mavs have ever had a TV datalink back to the aircraft. Once you fire a Mav, you lose the TV picture.

I assumed the lights (everywhere) in Lockon came on when it was "dark enough". Try a little later in the day? Pretty sure that thinggs like the moving cranes work the same way - they start at a certain time in the morning and stop at a certain time in the evening when the crane driver goes home for his dinner...

Shame. I was over there on vacation only a few weeks ago. I went to a big shopping mall in Pontiac for bargains - jeans, T shirts, shoes, watches, etc. Had a great day.

http://www.skyraider.org/skyassn/sartapes/migkill/migkill.htm Seems kinda strange that the Russian painter would paint up a MiG-29 Aggressor as a MiG killer? And a Skyraider MiG killer at that? Maybe a political statement and a subtle dig at the Soviet system? ...and if you were making a 1/72 model of it, a review of some decals for it here.... http://www.hyperscale.com/2008/reviews/decals/authentic7209reviewme_1.htm

Lockon comedy genius. Some all time classic quotes.... "You're just trying to make me shoot my wingman." "If that's a friendly, WTF is this?" "Oh crap! I chose the wrong one" "Everytime I try to manouevre to the right place, you **** off the WRONG WAY!!" "I've probably lost you now. Well....I've lost me! I'm definitely gonna freakin' die." "Eat flares, Bitch!!" "Don't crash! I wanna kill you." ....and I just love the ending! I had a rubbish day today and that had me laughing out loud. Nice to see that others struggle with dogfighting and it isn't just me. Props to you for putting it up on YouTube. Its OK to be serious, but some folks are just a bit too serious and need to lighten up - Lockon is supposed to be fun and its obvious you guys are having a laugh riot!

The Smallwood A-10 book has been discussed on here many times. It is a truly excellent book whether you are an A-10 fan or not. If you like his style, check out his book about F-15E in the Gulf War, its just as good. Smallwood, W. Strike Eagle - Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War. Publisher: Brassey's. ISBN: 0-02-881058-9 You the same MadDogMcQ from back in the day who had a site with some nice v1.02 missions?

Sad to hear about Nimrod MRA4. I worked at RR for a while on the software for its BR710 engines.

Happy Birthday G_A. Good to see that you are still around and still making movies....

What nscode said. If you bomb along the length of the runway then if you are lucky all the bombs hit. But if you are unlucky and a little to one side or the other then they all miss. To be sure of a hit you drop a stick of bombs across the runway with the gap between bombs less than the width of the runway and try to put the middle of the stick on the target. Ideally they should have attacked at more of an angle to be sure. There might have been nearby terrain or defences that affected that decision. Years ago, I posted something about dropping sticks of bombs that is kind of relevant, here it is again. Automatic multiple bomb release or "ripple". Why do ground attack aircraft like the A-10 have an automatic system to drop a ripple of bombs, why not just let the pilot press the weapon release several times? To answer this question, you need to think about a real life target attack. A single dumb bomb dropped from an aircraft does not drop perfectly down onto the target every time. It may drift left or right of the track that the aircraft is flying and miss the target. If the bomb is dropped a little early or a little late then it will miss short or long. The likelyhood of missing short or long is more than missing left/right. Imagine an aircraft flying at 500 kts = 6078ft * 500 = 3039000 ft/hr. Divide by 60*60 gives ft/sec = approx 850. If the pilot initiates bomb release 0.5s early or late he will likely miss by over 400ft. So lets make our bomb "longer" by dropping a ripple of (eg) five bombs. If we know the lethal radius of the bomb blast is eg. 50ft, then if we drop them 100 feet apart, we have now a "longer bomb" with a lethal area of 100ft wide by 500ft long. If we aim to land the middle (3rd) bomb of the stick of 5 on the target, then we have 250ft of leeway short and long and still destroy the target. This deals effectively with the short / long problem, but we still might miss left / right. If we are attacking a small point target like a truck, then nothing we can do, but if our target is of significant dimensions like a bridge or runway, we can increase our hit chances. Suppose our target is a river bridge that is 500 feet long and 50 feet wide. If we attack along the length of the bridge we might be lucky and all 5 bombs hit it, or we might be unlucky and all of them miss left or right, then all that happens is the bridge gets a bit wet! If we attack at 90 degress to the bridge then our bomb to bomb gap is 100 ft and the bridge 50ft wide, 50/50 chance of a hit. If we attack at an angle of 30 degrees, then simple maths tells us that bridge "appears" to be 100ft wide and we are certain one bomb will hit provided we can put the ripple on target regarding short/long. The more bombs in our stick then the better our chances of getting it right as regards short/long.

Happy birthday. You guys have been around as long as I can remember, here's to another seven!

Mbot has given you some great references. But what you should consider is that these lists of equipment are ideals and rarely found in real life. There are always manpower and equipment shortages so that there is never the full unit present. There is always equipment that is under repair somewhere, or (if the shooting has started) equipment that is a smouldering heap somewhere. His point about the way that task forces and combat teams are formed is very pertinent. Tank and Mech units will swap sub-units. Specialist units (air defenders, engineers, etc) will often be parcelled out to give integral support. So in a mission scenario, you could easily justify having most any mix of units you wanted due to any number of factors.

Fitting a catapult should not be a big deal, we Brits did invent the thing after all. Comparisons with the TSR-2 history are perhaps relevant. The Govt at that time cancelled TSR-2 despite the money invested in it, planned to buy a bunch of F-111's instead, then cancelled that too and we ended up buying F-4 Phantoms. If you follow that logic, then the chances of the F-18 purchase going ahead look slim and we'll likely buy something else...

This "what the **** ?? Oh, its a microphone." picture is amusing the world. The music for it has to be "I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky...." :megalol:

Likewise. A fun site - nice find!