Nice. Loved the C-17 tankering..

And ski lifts are for wussies...

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU1YNz4qpug#t=13[/video]

BeachAV8R

Impressive. But I wanted to see the skier get some air. Figure he was doing at least 50mph--probably more. He must have one hell of a grip.

Wow, on the first video. I don't know what they're selling, but I want to buy two.

At 1:30, did that F-15 have his right blinker on?

That's normal.

Older pilots always have that problem with turn signals.

g.

One of the pilots I fly with here, was the KC-135 pilot in the video. He mentioned that they took hours of film on a few missions.

On one, they told him to pull it in tight and with Steve being a KC-135RT (receiver modified capable tanker) he is used to being in close. So inwards he went toward the Lear, before the Lear crew told him to back it off a bit, with some nervousness in their voice.

Great bit of cinematography.

Have you looked at the rest of this guys Videos ? In for a big surprise.

https://vimeo.com/user10651293/videos

Those are awesome. I love that AT-6 and wish someone would make one for DCS:

Yes. This. Now!

I could very well see DCS AT-6 making sense. It's essentially being teed up as the real A-10 successor: long loiter time, able to work well with the troops, trades speed for the ability to be stationed close to the front...and CHEAP! Cheap to buy, cheap to fly, and cheap to maintain. A desktop based systems orientation sim seems like a good way to go. It's so (comparatively) cheap to fly a Single engine TP (versus say, a twin turbine fighter), a dedicated D-level sim wouldn't be that much of a cost saver.

It would also make a lot of sense in Arma, as it's a slower, in-close support type aircraft.

All of which the Super-T has been proven to do better and much (much) sooner. The T-6B has been a turd for a long time and Beech was using it to help develop systems for the T-6C/AT-6, all while the T-6B fell years behind in its delivery schedule when it was desperately needed as a replacement training aircraft. And now that the T-6B is in service, parts availability has been abysmal.

Beech/Raytheon/whoever they are now got very little sympathy from a lot of end operator folks when they lost the contract...made worse when they started wanking about it.



If you're interested, there's a T-6A in A3 now. The guy said he was working on making an AT-6 version. He's got several aircraft released over at the BIS forums (can't remember his name, sorry).

Beech is now part of Textron. The same parent company of Bell and Cessna.

Interesting times ahead with competing aircraft for the CAS role. The AT-6 and Cessna's Scorpion jet.

Yes - politics aside, the AT-6 is a pretty cool platform. As I understand it - it used a lot of off the shelf technology that is similar to the A-10C. It seems like the right type of platform for the type of battles we've been facing for the past two decades (counter insurgency). It's not surprising that Beech's reputation suffered a hit since I think they were right on the margin of bankruptcy for a long time (and they eventually filed for it).

Re: The AT-6 and Scorpion - those do seem like oddly competitive product lines. If I'm to be honest, I'd rather see the AT-6 make it rather than the Scorpion jet. I just like the look and slow and low role of that AT-6..

And yeah..the Super Tucano is a really nice aircraft. You have to love the costs when looking at these COIN aircraft - $10 to $15 million acquisition costs and $500 - $1000 an hour operation costs. I mean..how many of those could you buy, maintain, and fly for the cost of a few F-35s (yeah - I know their roles are very different). The military industrial complex would never have us buy such cheap aircraft...they'd have to gin up a war somewhere in order to justify the "mostest, greatest, fastest, and most expensive..".. Grrr..



BeachAV8R

Some nice Super Tucano footage:



BeachAV8R

That was my point, though. All that cool technology failed to work correctly and to spec. For years. And much (but certainly not all) of the testing to make it work was done at the expense of the training command which desperately needed the airframe to replace the T-34. And it needed it for years before the T-6B actually showed up.

Meanwhile there's been very few growing pains to get the Super T to an operational asset.

Regardless of the platform, they will be limited use in very specific theaters and we'll still have to deal with "regular" costs of getting the F-35 up and running, just like you said. It's a very frustrating process watch, let alone live in. It will be a race to see whether I retire before I'm able to shoot a GPS approach in a H-60. That's just embarrassing.

I agree, but it is the protectionist nature of Congress to keep and coddle every program (defense or otherwise) that their congressional ward is a part of. That's why we are giving away MRAPs to civilian agencies and why we are probably going to leave or destroy a crapload of equipment in Afghanistan when we leave. Gotta keep those production lines running.

What must be particularly frustrating in your particular case example is that civilian GPS has benefited enormously and has been a relatively quick adopter of what was initially fielded as a military navigation system. Spot the irony of a military aircraft diverting to a civilian airfield to shoot an ILS because they don't have their own GPS approaches to their home base.



Anyway - I'm not a big fan of the F-35 and think it will go down in history as the military industrial complexes best scam and biggest national boondoggle ever. The scaremongering of the capabilities of our adversaries (China and Russia) and the guilt trip of sending our men and women into battle with the only the best does neither them or us any favors when we destroy our country (financially) in the process. Good news is - China's fate is tied to ours. In the event of all out war, I'd recommend heading to Walmart or Target because the Chinese can't afford to have those get destroyed..



BeachAV8R

Oh, it gets even worse than that. I can't shoot an ILS, either. TACAN only. Yeah, it's pretty stupid. Same problem applies to the Hornets, as well. I was amazed/relieved to hear that ADS-B is FINALLY funded and there's a plan to put it in, but they're starting with new airframes first. Sigh... I'm sure we won't even be able to capitalize on 80% of what that has to offer.

What do you think the holdup is? Is it a certification issue? A reluctance by the services to adopt the new technology? Or is it a funding issue? With the FAA it is usually a technical issue or that they are nervous until a track record is established. For instance - iPads in airplanes could have happened quite a few years earlier, but there has been a fairly rigorous testing and certification process to use them for Part 121/135 operators. That said, compared to the military, it probably happened pretty quickly.

PS - At least you guys got NVGs first..lol.. Though now the civilian helo EMS guys probably have better ones than you..<g>

It's mostly a funding issue. It has to be made a priority by the community, and then not every priority gets funded each year. Every year, there's a lot of fancy toys everyone wants to continue to buy (some needed, some could wait), so historically it hasn't been a priority. It's now been made a priority, but will take several years to make its way into the software and aircraft.

The other issue is hardware. The computers onboard have to be able to run the software, which is much harder than it sounds because of how it was procured. To fix that issue (which they're starting to work on), you need...guess what? Funding.

Believe it or not, iPads made it in many cockpits pretty quick. One problem now is that it has to run its own DoD approved software using the NGA data which isn't anywhere near as intuitive as something like Foreflight. Why the services just initiate a contract with Foreflight? Who knows.

Ironically (to keep this vaguely on topic), the T-6 doesn't have these issues since it was procured with all of this installed. It even has a pretty sweet TCAS, apparently, which would be much nicer than the old NACWS that was in the T-34s.



I wonder if that's true? I wouldn't be surprised if they are just able to buy them more quickly than the military can.