Time to Bring the SR-71 out of Mothballs?

[eagl]

Yea.  Those conformals are pretty nice.  They're going to have max gross weight issues when they're full and they take off with a full A/G loadout, but that's their decision to make.  They already voided the warranties on their older vipers by modifying G limiters and cracking the wings, but I guess they have their reasons.  An F-16 without the conformals would have trouble carrying any bombs to... say... Iran...  and making it back.  An F-15E could probably do it but they cost a lot more to buy and operate, plus the F-15E has the radar cross section of a small asteroid so it's tougher to get in unobserved.  If there's one thing a viper always needs, it's more gas.

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by eagl
The USAF is currently fielding 5 different pods...  It's a little embarassing and somewhat of a pain in the prettythang having to know how to use 3-4 types of pods.  However it's let us jump ahead 3 full generations of pods without having to pay out enough money to buy thousands of pods that would have been obsolete already.

There's tons of stories behind the scenes regarding the pods, but unfortunately most of it is either classified or company proprietary so we can't even talk to the company reps about the other company's pods.  All I can say is that the newer pods are really good and someday the footage may end up on CNN so you guys can see it too  The Guard is gonna be PISSED when they notice though...  Haha.

Have you tried/tested/seen the pantera pod?

[eagl]

Pantera is the export version of the sniper, and I just got my academics on the sniper pod last week.  It's really good and I think we'll be very happy with the pods, based on the briefing I saw.  If I recall correctly the design is somewhat modular so there are features we're not buying that export customers may purchase.  I do know that we're expressly forbidden to discuss the pod with the Raytheon reps because the competition isn't really over and there is a lot of proprietary info floating around.  Hell, there hasn't even been a formal flyoff competition as far as I know, so a direct comparision of two pod types by a military member can never be discussed  

We can't even tell the raytheon guys "hey your pod would be better if it did this thing that the sniper pod does" because that would corrupt the whole acquisition process.  We gotta be very careful how we discuss feature requests and image quality.  We're using, borrowing, and buying several types of pods and during a deployment we can expect to use different pods on different missions, so the competition isn't really over as far as I know.

My personal non-official opinion is that I doubt anyone buying a pantera pod will be disapointed.

Those flat windows on the pod... Very expensive.  Check the red sealing tape before and after every flight

[Nilsen]

nice to know that we are not shelling out for junk at those prices

I know that we have bought 8 of them and are modifying them with the kind of link system i mentioned earlyer, and that the rest of our f16's are getting the rest of the modified variants when they go through the M3 fase of the mid-life update. The udate also changes most if the puters and innards that have not been delt with tin the past M updates. In M3 they will also get link16, helmet sights /dispplays and new lcd displays + some more puter power.

[genozaur]

Originally posted by eagl
That ignores the fact that the 3 gorges project could impact the global climate more than any other man made project in history...  The same anti-US people who cry out over American environmental impacts turn right around and support the Chinese in the largest dam project in history.  It doesn't make sense.

Sahara desert may have even bigger impact on the global climate than the Three Gorges Project.
Why don't the United States of America invest into the irrigation of this nice piece of land in order to counterbalance the climatic assault by the Chinese ?