The Soviets are invading!

[Naki]

What a fearsome machine Ian - imagine if they made a AC-5 Galaxy!

[hugh]

The first or second shot would have got my vote in the "mean machines" thread a couple months back.
That is one inconsiderate-looking aircraft

[ShadowMystDK]

Some more of the lovely AlphaSim Gripen - with some new skins downloaded for it

[hasegawa]

Is this an aircraft... no... it this a boat... no it is an Ekranoplan (экранопла́н, эффект экрана effekt ekrana )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekranoplan









Meanwhile freeware from Alphasim...

[Charl]

Cool little aircraft, that Gripen.
In stark contrast to the Ekranoplan, which had NATO strategists in a tizzy for a while.
They had visions of giant armadas of troop carriers skating over the oceans to swallow up everything in their path.
Did you know there is a local version?

[hasegawa]

Charl... the local version is a wonderful idea... hopefully meanwhile not so loud...
But in ernest, I think, that the concept is not dead. In the simulation it is a not always easy thing, tho "fly" it. It seems not very manuverable. I found out, that to "fly" a 180-degree-turn is really work.

[hasegawa]

Found at ULWF - Kipelovo VVS with

www.avsim.ru

Sorry, membership nessesary.


7851_Kipelovo.Poleti[1].zip







It is not easy, to stay with a Bear landing...

At this Version of Kipelovo You can also see some Il 76, An 72, An 26, An 12, Tu 134, Be 12 Amphibians and sometimes Tu 22M-3 Bomber and Tu22M-4 Tanker...

If interest is there, I can give you a hint, how to enter avsim.ru

[Ian Warren]

That is one Aircraft that really intrigues me .... The BEAR!

[Charl]

QUOTE (hasegawa @ Apr 20 2008, 09:51 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If interest is there, I can give you a hint, how to enter avsim.ru

Plenty interest, my Russian wasn't up to it last time I looked...

[hasegawa]

O.k. I hope tomorrow I can do it with a separate Thread with pictures, how to enter avsim.ru...

And here you can find meanwhile the Tu 126, the first soviet "AWACS", based on the Tu 114 Airliner. After the time with the Aeroflot was over for the Tu 114, the aircraft are refurbished and became the rotating Antenna you know from the E-2 and E-3 and the "electronic Suite" for an AWACS... the Tu 126 was born.

http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=58381

[ShadowMystDK]

Hasegawa, where'd ya get the Su-27 Flanker? I love that plane and have wanted a decent representation for so long!

[Ian Warren]

The Last of the GUN SLINGERS The Vought F8 Crusader at http://www.simviation.com/fsxmilitary22.htm

Thanx for find there Hayden its Brilliant This 1000 mph machine was one mean dogfighter!

Superb VC , clean this was the last western type to be built with four 20mm Mk12 Colt Cannons

Its life span dated from 1955 first flight - to 1998 in front-line service with the French Navy .

It first climb to fame was during the Vietnam War , Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1967 flying off the USS Ticonderoga

Most notable feature was a variable incident wing which tilted to help on landing with the AOA



Other claim to fame was the ejection footage used to show trainee's the How to do it from the FDR CV42

Bit low here

still good , but slapped on the hand getting a trap on number one wire

Braked , clean up and to tie point

[Charl]

On SKY TV's "Dogfights" they had some of these flying rings around MiG 21's.
Seems like such a heavyweight, but in reality a real dogfighter, with real guns.
If the Amerisanitised version on the TV was anything to go by, also some seriously aggressive fighter jocks in the driver's seat.
Nice series Ian, clean shots...
interesting too, trawling Simviation - they have some good material for this thread, alright.

[hasegawa]

Sorry Charl The F-8E Crusader can not outlfy a MiG 21 of the second production Batch like the MiG 21PFM, PFMA and the modified MiG 21M/and the MiG 21bis. Only the very first variant the MiG 21F/FL was not so good. It was a very unstable gun-platform and the first variant of the "Atoll"-Missile was junk. ThThe F-8E was a bit more manoverable, Yes, bat vertical they can´t come up against a good flown MiG 21. The most vietnamese Pilots have only a rudimentary and very basic training. This was the point, how they are outflown some times in 1968. All in all the Kill-Ratio was better, as from Mr. Fuller, the writer of the "Official history" of air war in Vietnam was expected.

Some a little bit different stuff for interested people ist

http://www.amazon.com/Air-War-Over-North-V...6631&sr=8-1

In my eyes the true story and not that, what the Americans called for. Yes the oher side has sometimes also a problem with Propaganda, but this is written by an hungarian expert and he spoke with the vietnamese Aces... and give a detailed account for the vietnamese Airforce... and this is the different story and not so "glorious" as the from the Americans told story...
And you must see one point. At every single Flight the Vietnamese are heaviliy outnumbered by the americans. On every single sortie. And of course, 2/3 of the fighter-force, in the best times around 100 aircraft avialable, are over the years to the end MiG 17 and some MiG 19/Shenjang F-6 (a chinese-build Copy of the MiG 19S)

The used Su-27B on my pictures is Alphasim. But it in my eyes a not so good representation of this aircraft, because the instrumentaition is very rudimtary.

[Charl]

Aah the art and war, of propaganda!
All we can be sure of, is that what we hear and are told is not always the whole story.
So we need to explore as many sources as we can...
Here's what one reviewer had to say about the book you link to:
This book is, to put it bluntly, a fraud. The "author" says in the forward that the information in the book comes from research and personal interviews conducted in Vietnam and from internal Vietnamese Air Force documents. In fact, the book is nothing more than a considerably abridged, very slightly edited and annotated TRANSLATION of the official "History of the People's Air Force of Vietnam" (LICH SU KHONG QUAN NHAN DAN VIET NAM) published in Vietnam in 1993 and freely available to the public there. I have checked Toperczer's book against the "History of the People's Air Force" and found that virtually every paragraph, every sentence, every word of Toperczer's book is lifted directly from the "History of the People's Air Force." He did not even bother to change the order of the book, so I could do my checking directly page by page from one book to the other. I have been able to identify only one very short paragraph in Toperczer's entire book which is original. Otherwise, the only thing that Toperczer has added to the Vietnamese history are the photographs and, in one or two places, the names of pilots (most of the pilots names are given in the Vietnamese book). Neither the "author" nor the publisher cite the Vietnamese History as a reference. They claim copyright for the book, which in my admittedly non-professional legal opinion is a blatant violation of the copyright agreement reached between the U.S. and Vietnam in 1997 and which took force in 1998. Not that I feel any particular sympathy for the Vietnamese Air Force, which apparently holds the copyright rights, in this matter - I just don't like people claiming credit for work that is not theirs.

[Ian Warren]

F8's against Mig21s , F105's against Mig19s , F100's against Mig17 .. Mig17's against F4's , Mig19s against A4's and Mig21 s just lookin for anything that flew into thr area -
Hasegawa , you have to love the mix and match !
Charl you said it "Aah the art and war, of propaganda!"
I agree with both off you knowledged people ... its what you read and see from what side or how you interpret , combat reports .. that so damm enjoyable to get from both sides .

..........................................Back to the Vietnam War we have seen the twoseater , and its navy counterpart

.......... Incoming from the South Vietnam,s airforce The Douglas AD1-H Skyraider , 2,700 hp , 320 knots

ok big engine ... the carrying capacity just .... fuselage to wingtip ! just chocker both sides!

Ideal ground attack , the first COIN , many designed after following this aircrafts capablity,s

ground hugging ... in the weeds

phew ...... hes not targeting Me

WHOOPS .. should'nda said that RUUUUNNNN ...outta here

[Charl]

Nice action pics, Ian.
The Skyraider is such an anachronism...think of the other aircraft of its time...fast sexy jets of the 60's and 70's, then you realise this is an aircraft that first flew in the Second World War!
And was so good at being a rocket truck, nothng could touch it until someone invented the A-10 Warthog.
Amazing aircraft.

Here's another: the Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark ("Hokum" if you still stick to NATO tags)
A nice model and soundtrack popped up on flightsim recently.



Amazingly aerobatic and manoeuvrable, there is only a handful in service.
Although designed in the Cold War, and first flown in the 80's it only gained acceptance in the mid-90's in Russia.
It has a number of party tricks: co-axial rotors give very high top speed, no tail rotor so less vulnerable to shootdown, and only one crew member.
Perhaps that is why it hasn't found a market - in every other respect it is extremely clever, but in a counter-insurgency war typical of this era, it takes more than one pair of eyes and hands to deal with the combat situation.
But it may still find a role in future, it is a consumate attack helicopter killer (it carries A-A missiles plus a 30mm cannon and would mince an Apache), and can do bombs, rockets and laser-guided explosive bits, very nimbly.



Even the Israelis couldn't get over how clever it was, and went into partnership with Kamov in the Turkish attack helo bid. (Taken by the Mangusta in what was clearly a political deal).
This one will still look fresh 25 years from now.

[Fauville]

Big brother to the Mirage III, the Mirage IV

Mainstay of the Armee de l'air's Force du Frappe (Nuclear deterrent) first flew in 1959

Capable of mach 2.2, service ceiling 65,615 ft

Just released on Avsim (80 MB main file plus 2nd texture download) by Roland Laborie, Benoit Dube and team
full on VC, JATO equipped model

[h290master]

The Convair F-106 Delta Dart was the primary all-weather interceptor aircraft for the United States Air Force from the 1960s through the 1980s. Designed as the so-called "Ultimate Interceptor," it has proven to be the last dedicated interceptor in USAF service to date. It was gradually retired during the 1980s, although the QF-106 drone conversions of the aircraft were used until 1998.

The F-106 emerged from the USAF's 1954 interceptor program of the early 1950s as an advanced derivative of the F-102 Delta Dagger known as the F-102B, for which the United States Air Force placed an order for in November 1955. The aircraft featured so many modifications and design changes it became a new design in its own right, redesignated F-106 on 17 June 1956

The F-15A started replacing the F-106 in 1981, with the "Sixes" typically passed on to Air National Guard units. The F-106 remained in service in various USAF and ANG units until 1988

In December 1959, Major Joseph W. Rogers set a world speed record of 1,525.96 mph (2455.79 km/h) in a Delta Dart at 40,500 feet (12,300 m)

[Ian Warren]

HEYDEN ... DELTAS going wild ! the word " last dedicated interceptor"... It would be a good competition ! a F106 versa MIRAGE .. ok Mirage will kill a 106 .. or

this may be worth testing ..... Bags not to be the Mirage Pilot ... Ya got to be Joking .... YIP