Category: Aircraft

Ukraine is increasingly looking to replace its jets as Russia continues to dominate the skies in the two countries’ 18-month-long war.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has intensely lobbied Western militaries for fourth-generation aircraft like the F-16 that the latter have begun to shed.

After 18 months of war, Ukraine’s air force is badly in need of replacement aircraft as losses mount and Russia’s air force increasingly controls the skies above Ukraine.

Pros of F-16 fighter jets

Introduced in 1978, the F-16 has a great service record and variants have been regularly upgraded with better avionics, radar and weapons.

The jet is capable of performing many functions including ground attacks, electronic warfare, close air support, and air dominance.

It has been proven time and again to be a very capable fighter jet: Highly manoeuvrable, it can operate in all weathers, day or night.

The F-16’s adaptability means it can quickly be tasked with a variety of different missions, effortlessly able to carry out a new given role. It is this flexibility that has made it a mainstay of so many of the world’s air forces.

Cons of F-16s

While there are many pros to the F-16, there are also significant drawbacks.

Advanced Russian aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-35 have better radar and longer-range missiles. They would, in theory, be able to detect an F-16 and destroy it before the pilot even realised the Russian jet was there.

Like all complex aircraft, the F-16 requires regular maintenance and cannot operate from improvised runways such as roads, something that Ukraine’s air force is finding increasingly useful for its surviving aircraft as Russia targets Ukrainian airfields, leaving many out of action.

Few Ukrainian pilots are fluent enough in English to successfully pass the intense training programme needed to effectively fly the F-16.

In addition, ground crews often make the difference between success and failure as well-trained crews can refuel and rearm an aircraft more quickly than their adversaries, allowing the aircraft to get back into the fight.

This is a key discipline that makes a significant difference in conflict, but the crews themselves would need to train and rehearse on a variety of unfamiliar Western systems, which would take months, possibly years, to master.

Hide-and-seek

Russia has used its large supply of long-range missiles to good effect, striking multiple airfields far behind the front lines in an effort to destroy the Ukrainian air force jets kept there.

Pilot: “It’s deliberate, measured, hefty, impactful calculated and sound. There’s nothing flimsy or fragile about the way it is constructed or about the way that it flies.”

Although the continued existence of the A-10 is assured well into the next decade, the debate about what, if anything, might be able to replace it is quite likely to continue.

Here’s What You Need To Remember: In its early years, the Tomcat itself faced problems. The engines were temperamental, and the fighter was both heavy and costly. Design decisions, including swept-wings, made the Tomcat a complex beast to manage.

What if the F-14 Tomcat had never happened? The iconic fighter served the U.S. Navy for more than thirty years before finally (and some say prematurely) being retired in 2006. Over time, the F-14 shifted from its initial long-range fleet air-defense role to a ground-attack mission. But what if the problems that plagued the program in the 1960s and 1970s had proved insoluble? How would the Navy have filled the gap?

The Problem:

The F-14 grew out of the F-111 project, pushed by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as a fighter that could serve in both the Navy and the Air Force. USN and USAF’s needs differed, however; the Navy wanted for a long-range carrier-based interceptor came from concern over Soviet air-launched cruise missiles. Soviet bombers could strike American carrier battle groups from a great distance, without entering the envelope either of ship-based SAMs or short-range fighters. This disrupted the layered missile, interceptor, and gun systems that the Navy had developed for air defense since World War II.

Unfortunately, the F-111 did not work out; too many capabilities were pushed into the frame, resulting in a fighter too large for the Navy’s needs, and not particularly well-suited to the air-superiority mission. By the mid-1960s the Navy began work on an alternative project, which eventually became the F-14. The Tomcat contributed to solving the Soviet bomber problem by combining long-range and high speed with the Phoenix missile, which could kill targets at extreme BVR.

But in its early years, the Tomcat itself faced problems. The engines were temperamental, and the fighter was both heavy and costly. Design decisions, including swept-wings, made the Tomcat a complex beast to manage. Congress complained, comparing the performance of the Tomcat unfavorably with the Air Force’s new heavy fighter, the F-15 Eagle. With the general post-Vietnam drawdown in full swing, the Tomcat’s journey to operability was touch and go; a decision at several points could have ended the project.

Substitutes:

What would have taken the Tomcat’s place? The F-14 began to enter service in 1974; the F/A-18 would not reach the Navy until 1983. This would leave a nine-year gap, not to mention the substantial capabilities gaps between the two aircraft. How would the Navy have filled it?

One alternative would simply have been to retain the F-4 in its interceptor and air superiority roles. The Phantom was more than adequate for such missions, although it lacked the range and BVR capability of the Tomcat. Indeed, the F-4 remained in Navy service until the F/A-18 came online, in large part because of the need to populate the decks of USS Midway and USS Coral Sea. But of course, the F-4 was not the Tomcat, and the balance of capabilities would have tilted in the direction of the big Soviet bomber formations, especially after the deployment of the Tu-22M “Backfire.”

Another alternative would have involved developing a naval version of the F-15 Eagle. Much thought was given to this in the early 1970s, with various concepts hitting the drawing board. After considerable modification to operate off carriers and carry the long-range Phoenix missile, the “Sea Eagle” might have made an adequate fighter, although probably not the equal of the Tomcat. And the Navy has consistently resisted efforts to force it to buy the same aircraft as the Air Force.

Bigger Changes:

In the early 1970s, as today, the Navy debated the future of the big carrier. Much like today, some argued that the ships were simply to expensive, wrapping up too much value into one vulnerable platform. After the order of the USS Carl Vinson in 1974, the future of the big carrier was an open question. Had the Tomcat not offered a resolution to at least one of those threats (long-range Soviet bombers) alternative arguments might have carried the day.

One option popular in the early 1970s, as the Essex class carriers were approaching the end of their useful service lives, was the “Sea Control Ship.” Light carriers dedicated to the anti-submarine mission, these fourteen-thousand-ton ships would have carried VSTOL fighters (such as the Harrier) and helicopters. Far cheaper than the big carriers, they offered a means of defending the trans-Atlantic corridor from Soviet submarines at a reasonable cost and were probably too small to attract the attention of the Soviet bomber formations.

Another option involved retooling the surface fleet to take on some of the roles played by carriers. The nuclear strike cruiser project offered a large surface combatant bristling with missiles and carrying an early version of the Aegis combat system. This ship would have combined strike and air defense capabilities at lower cost than a carrier battle group and would have been supported by additional Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers.

Parting Thoughts:

The Navy eventually worked out the problems with the F-14, and the Tomcat became a superlative air defense fighter. Eventually, it even gained a ground-attack mission. The temperamental nature of the design, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the success of the Super Hornet made the Tomcat superfluous by the 2000s, however, and the Navy now lacks a long-range interceptor. The main threats to carrier battle groups no longer come from flights of bombers, but rather from ballistic missiles, and no fighter has yet demonstrated much promise at the ABM mission. Nevertheless, the Tomcat contributed a core defensive capability during one of the critical periods of the development of the supercarrier.

Here at Flyingbynumbers, “What happens when a plane gets hit by lightning?” alongside, “Is lightning dangerous for aircraft?” Are two of our most user requested questions…

And for a good reason. We appreciate when you’re happily cruising along watching an inflight movie, the last thing you want is to see a bolt of lightning hit your aeroplane. But, take some comfort, this dazzling spectacle is not as dangerous as you might think. And, in fact, planes getting hit by lightning happens far more often than you’d imagine.

We will have a closer look at what happens when a plane is hit by lightning, the frequency of these electrifying events, and whether this could bring down an aircraft.

By the end of this article, nervous fliers should come away with a newfound understanding, and — hopefully — reassurance!

Commercial aircraft fly through — but more typically, around — stormy weather on virtually every flight. With this in mind, lightning strikes are actually fairly common occurrences. However, thanks to modern engineering, the passengers and crew inside the plane are typically unaffected.

For all but the most severe of lightning strikes, most passengers won’t even notice if their aircraft is struck.

When lightning hits an aircraft, it usually attaches to a pointy part of the plane — regularly an extremity like the nose, or a wing tip. The electrical charge then travels along the aeroplane’s skin before exiting another extremity, such as the tail and antenna located on the rear fuselage area.

Some passengers and crew inside the plane nearby the entry and exit points may notice the effects of a lightning strike — typically hearing a loud bang, and potentially even feeling the static electricity. Yet, these passengers certainly won’t get shocked!

What about newer, carbon fibre aircraft?

When thinking about the Faraday Cage effect, we typically default to metal cages. However, this effect works with any material that can conduct electricity.

So, even newer aircraft with composite fuselages, like the Boeing 787, still function effectively as Faraday cages. While it’s true that composite materials aren’t as naturally conductive as the aluminium used in traditional aeroplane construction, engineers have developed ways to ensure these aircraft still offer the same level of protection against lightning strikes.

One common method is to embed a conductive layer, often a mesh made of conductive fibres, within the composite material during the construction process. This conductive layer enables the electrical charge from a lightning strike to spread across the aircraft’s surface, preventing the charge from penetrating the interior, just as it would in a traditionally constructed aircraft.

The aircraft’s sensitive electronic systems are also protected from potential interference caused by the lightning strike, and “high risk” areas such as the nose cone and fuel tanks receive additional protection measures.

All aircraft, regardless of the materials used in their construction, must meet strict safety standards that include the ability to withstand lightning strikes. These requirements ensure that all planes function as effective Faraday cages, safeguarding passengers and sensitive onboard equipment from the potentially damaging effects of lightning strikes.

Can Lightning Bring Down a Plane?

The last major crash attributed to a lightning strike was way back in 1963 involving a now defunct airline, Pan Am, and a now retired plane, the B707. The subsequent investigation found that the lightning strike ignited fuel vapour in the aircraft’s fuel tanks, causing Pan Am’s first fatal accident with a jet aircraft.

Since then, planes have been designed with lightning in mind, and major improvements in aviation technology have made these incidents extremely rare. In fact, lightning hasn’t been the primary cause of a plane crash in the U.S. for over 60 years.

The accident heralded in a whole raft of additional safety measures, and the construction techniques of modern aircraft fuel tanks are now incomparable.

The long and short of it is, modern aircraft are built to withstand lightning strikes.

And, on the subject of fuel vapours, modern commercial aircraft even have inbuilt nitrogen generation systems. These fill any space in the fuel tanks with inert nitrogen gas, reducing any fuel vapour.

The F-14 Tomcat was designed to defend the U.S. Navy’s fleets from practically every airborne threat. While it packed long-range AIM-54 Phoenix missiles for defense against bombers carrying standoff missiles, it was no slouch in a dogfight either, although early versions were held back by its TF30 engines in that arena.

But for a brief period in the 1990s, the F-14 was used as a strike aircraft. The Navy’s retirement of the A-6 Intruders left a small capability gap until the new F/A-18E/F Super Hornets entered service, and the F-14 could carry more bombs than the new F/A-18A/C Hornet.

Operations in former Yugoslavia and the Gulf showed the need for a heavy strike aircraft in the Navy’s arsenal. But how effective could the F-14 be in that role? While Israel used F-15B and Ds for ground strikes in relatively unmodified configurations, the U.S. Air Force spent a lot of effort developing a dedicated strike version of the F-15, the F-15E Strike Eagle. For the F-14, some small subsystems were installed, and the aircraft was sent on its way. Could it compete?

While the F-14 was only used operationally in the strike role by America in the 1990s, the aircraft was designed for it to a limited degree. Grumman showed the prototype carrying bombs, and flight tests were carried out with a rack of 14 Mark 82 bombs.

The F-14D, built with digital computers, expanded on this functionality: integrating more weapons onto the F-14. The F-14D was granted clearance by the Navy to drop bombs in 1992. However, it was the F-14B that would serve as the primary F-14 for ground attack.

The gap between the retirement of the A-6 Intruder in 1997 and the fielding of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in the 2000s let the Tomcat step up to the plate as a ground attacker. Anticipating the shortfall in capability, a Navy paper in December 1994 urged the acquisition of targeting pods so that Tomcat could fulfill this role.

B-2’s aren’t just expensive to build—they cost a fortune to operate.

Key Point: The Air Force does not have enough B-2’s. But there could be a more cost-efficient alternative.

Since its inception in 1947, the U.S. Air Force has been deeply invested in operating long-range strategic bomber for nuclear deterrence. However, by the 1960s it grew clear that high-flying B-52 bombers had poor odds of surviving the Soviet Union’s growing network of high-speed interceptors and surface-to-air missiles. The Air Force instead invested in supersonic FB-111 and B-1 bombers designed to penetrate hostile airspace at low altitude, where radar detection was more difficult. But Pentagon strategists knew the Soviets were developing doppler radars and airborne radars to cover that blindspot.

By then, U.S. aviation engineers were aware that radar-absorbent materials and non-reflective surfaces could reduce a plane’s radar detection range drastically, features implemented to modest results in Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. Lockheed’s Have Blue prototypes led to the first operational stealth aircraft, the F-117 Nighthawk strike plane.

The Pentagon wanted its next stealth plane, the Advanced Technology Bomber, to address the strategic nuclear strike role. By then Northrop had tested at Area 51 in Nevada a bizarre-looking stealth demonstrator called ‘Tacit Blue’ (also known as the “Whale” or “alien school bus”). Earlier in the late 1940s, the firm had developed a gigantic 52-meter wingspan flying-wing jet bomber called the YB-49. When Lockheed and Northrop went head-to-head in the ATB competition in 1981, Northrop’s larger, tailless fly-wing concept won out.

The “grey” project’s existence was announced to the public, but further details remained highly classified, with the Pentagon procuring parts from mystified subcontractors using dummy companies. Nonetheless, two B-2 engineers were arrested for industrial espionage in 1984 and 2005. Over the next eight years, the bomber was expensively redesigned for low-altitude penetration, leading development costs to overrun to $42 billion, generating political controversy.

The Spirit was finally unveiled in 1988 and made its first flight the following year. But even before it began production in 1993, the Cold War abruptly ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, largely taking the rationale for a nuclear-armed super bomber with it.

The Air Force still wanted B-2s, but the expensive program was on the chopping block with other premium weapons like the Sea Wolf-class submarine. The Pentagon hastily placed new emphasis on developing the B-2’s non-nuclear capabilities—after all, a stealth bomber could theoretically reduce the number of escort aircraft required in the opening days of a conflict. (In practice, Spirits have often been accompanied by EA-6B Prowler aircraft to provide jamming and anti-radar support—just in case.)

The Spirit procurement was first reduced to seventy-five, then cut to twenty by the Bush administration in 1992. An additional B-2 prototype was converted to operational status under Clinton, for a total of twenty-one. This caused the B-2’s half-billion dollar unit price to surge to $737 million—or $929 million counting spare parts, upgrades and technical support. With development factored in, the Spirits come out to $2.1 billion—by far the most expensive airplane ever built.

All but one test aircraft serves today with the 509th Bomb Wing based in Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, a unit descend from the group which dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. The Spirits are flown by an elite corps of around eighty pilots who often fly globe-spanning missions directly from Whiteman, though B-2s have also been forward based at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Guam and England.

Each Spirit is named after a U.S. state, starting with the Spirit of Missouri. The exception is Spirit of Kitty Hawk, said to be possessed because it once mysteriously started its engines in the hangar while unmanned. In 2008, Spirit of Kansas crashed shortly after takeoff in Guam due to an air-moisture sensor miscalibrated by a storm led to a malfunction of the fly-by-wire system. Thankfully, the crew successfully ejected from the most monetarily expensive airplane crash in history.

Like today’s F-35, early production B-2s were not really delivered ‘feature complete,’ lacking full payload, weapons, navigation and defensive systems. Over time, Northrop Grumman phased in two improved models, introducing a Terrain Following System, GPS navigation, satellite communications via laptop (instead of very terse high-frequency radio messages) and most importantly, integration of smart bombs and cruise missiles. Today, the Air Force continues to invest billions updating the B-2’s radar-absorbent materials, fiber-optic wiring, computer processors and datalinks.

The B-2 received “Initial Operating Capability” in 1997 and saw their combat employment in March 24, 1999 by kicking off the NATO bombing campaign pressuring Yugoslavia to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians. B-2s based in Missouri flew fifty 30-hour sorties across the Atlantic, successfully penetrating the Yugoslav air defense network to drop roughly a third of the ordinance released in the first two months of the campaign.

The B-2 was the first plane to use of the GPS-guided JDAM bombs marking a turning point in aerial warfare towards the widespread use of cheaper precision-guided weapons. However, the war also illustrated that greater precision didn’t help if intel failed to distinguish targets correctly. A Spirit dropped five JDAMS on the Chinese embassy, wrongly identified as a weapons depot by the CIA, killing three and causing serious diplomatic fallout.

Two years later, the Spirits were back in action, flying six 70-hour missions involving layovers in Diego Garcia (where a replacement crew was mustered) to blast Taliban targets in Afghanistan—the longest combat sorties in history. Two years later, the B-2 was finally declared ‘fully operationally capable,’ with just six Spirits striking ninety-two targets in the opening days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq

B-2s kicked off another U.S. war in 2011, the intervention against Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, destroying most of the Libyan Air Force on the ground at Ghardabiya Air Base using JDAMs. The Spirit’s most prominent recent mission was a strike killing eight-five ISIS militants camped out in the Libyan desert on January 19, 2017—detailed in this excellent article by William Langwiesche, who points out that the billion-dollar-bombers were dispatched to wipe out bedraggled insurgents lacking anti-aircraft weapons.

The Air Force’s twenty Spirits remain an intimidating “silver bullet” first strike weapon that can drop heavy conventional or nuclear payloads onto even well-defended command bunkers, air defense radars or strategic weapon sites with little advance warning.

But the B-2’s weren’t just expensive to build—they cost a fortune to operate, with every flight hour costing a staggering $163,000 dollars per flight hour and sixty man-hours of maintenance. (It used to be closer to 120!) Simply maintaining each B-2 costs $41 million per year, and that with mission-capable rates hovering around 50 percent or lower.

Furthermore, each Spirit requires a special extra-wide $5-million air-conditioned hangar to maintain its radar absorbent coating. And every seven years, the Spirits receive a $60 million overhaul, in which the RAM is carefully blasted off the skin with crystallized wheat starch and the surfaces meticulously inspected for tiny dents and scratches.

Many defense writers have lamented the small number of B-2s procured. However, the B-2 cut was a ‘bet’ on a lack of great-power confrontation the Pentagon is probably thankful for today, sparing the Air Force from spending the last twenty-five years paying for dozens of additional stealth bombers specialized in high-intensity warfare while the United States was engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of course, China and Russia have recently emerged as formidable potential near-pear adversaries, giving the B-2’s long-range strategic strike mission greater relevance. However, the Pentagon is procuring a stealthier, and (ostensibly) more cost-efficient B-21 Raider to meet that contingency. After all, the B-2’s stealth capabilities are no longer cutting-edge, with newer F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters boasting between one-tenth and one-hundredth the B-2’s .1 to .05 meter squared radar cross-section.

The B-21 very much resembles a Spirit 2.0, and will incorporate more cost-efficient radar-absorbent materials baked into the skin of the airframe and networked computers for sensor fusion with friendly forces, allowing it to double as surveillance platform.

As the B-2’s capabilities would be fully subsumed by the B-21’s, the Air Force plans to retire the Spirit around the year 2036 as the Raiders phase in. Of course, the B-2 story suggests that the biggest question may be whether the B-21 can stay on budget, and just how many Washington will be willing to pay for when the bill comes due.

The world of World War Two aviation enthusiasts is both united, and divided. United in the sense that all value and appreciate both the men and the machines that flew during the war. Divided over which plane was the “best”.

Those who treasure bombers have their own opinion, and I’ll bet there are no small number of people that are really into transport planes of all sorts – I actually think the German Junkers Ju-52 transport is a very cool looking plane, and of course, we know the war might have lasted much longer without the famed American Douglas DC-3.

Bombers and transports are great, and there are great stories attached to both the planes and the exceedingly brave men who flew them.

However, just as in boxing where the heavyweights (at least used to) gain the most attention, it is the fighter planes of the war that generate the most excitement. Ask an Englishman what the best plane of the war was, and you’ll get an unequivocal answer: the Spitfire. Ask many Americans, and many will say confidently: the North American P-51 Mustang.

In Britain, there were other illustrious warbirds: the Hurricane and the Mosquito come to mind. But aside from the different marks (production models) of the Spitfire, that’s pretty much it (though I like the looks of the Typhoon). The United States built a plethora of fighters throughout the war. Just off the top of my head, I counted eleven.

The P-51 and the Grumman F6F Hellcat (a truly under-appreciated airplane), both scored more victories that my personal favorite, but for the most part they were confined to a truly fighter role. My plane was a fighter-bomber, and it had the absolutely coolest nickname of any plane during the war: “The Whistling Death”. Of course, I’m talking about the Vought F4U Corsair.

Nicknames are always better when given to you by your enemy out of respect, and the Japanese respected the heck out of the Corsair. Throughout the war, the Corsair had an 11:1 kill ratio over the Japanese. Seeing that gull-winged silhouette coming at you, or gliding onto your six must have made much Japanese blood run cold.

Growing up, I and all my friends were fascinated by WWII. Some of our parents and older relatives had fought in the war. My uncle fought at Bastogne. We were could not get enough of it.

My friends built P-51 Mustang models. I built P-47 Thunderbolts just to be different. Then, when I was thirteen, my WWII flying fantasies almost got real. Instead of black and white movies where the pilots were always mouthing something corny after they shot someone down (“Here’s one from Uncle Sam, Fritz!”), we got color, and good explosions.

On TV. And the plane – we hadn’t really known much about it before. All we knew from the Pacific Theater was about the P-40 Warhawk used by the Flying Tigers in China, and the Grumman F4F Wildcat (which frankly, is a boring airplane).

Now there was this absolutely cool gull-winged predator flying every week on our TV screens in the NBC show “Baa Baa Black Sheep”. To this day, when friends ask what I would do if I won the Powerball, “Buy a Corsair” is always at the top – even if it’s a replica.

The show was loosely (very loosely) based on the accounts of legendary ace Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, who had been a Flying Tiger and formed his own fighter squadron (VMF-214) at Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands chain in 1943. Though the TV show portrayed the pilots of the Black Sheep squadron as drunken misfits with no respect for the chain of command (ala M*A*S*H), this for the most part was not the case.

Many of the pilots were “orphans”, meaning they had yet to be assigned or re-assigned to squadrons when Boyington recruited them. They were a mixed bunch: some had flown in China, some were aces, some had no experience in combat whatever.

“Poor little lambs that had lost their way”, was the lyric from the popular “Whiffenpoof Song” of Yale. That, and “orphans” and you get “Black Sheep”. The squadron produced nine aces and shot down over two hundred of the enemy. But that is just a small part of the total of the Corsair. The Corsair claimed over 2,000 air victories during the war.

The original Corsair had a speed of just under 400 mph (the plane entered service in July 1942). By wars’ end, the F4U-4 was flying at nearly 450 mph with a 2350 horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine. All but one variant carried six .50 caliber machine guns, which could absolutely tear apart anything the Japanese put in the sky.

All variants could carry a 2,000 lb bomb-load. The operational ceiling of the plane varied from the first variant to the last, but all flew in the upper thirty-thousand foot range. Speaking of range, each of the Corsair models had an over 1,000 mile range. This plane was a monster.

Though its main opponent, the famed “Zero”, could out-turn it (and most other planes of the era) at low altitude, the Corsair was much faster, and could both out-climb and out-dive the Japanese plane. It also had the ability to withstand much damage, and the Zero unequivocally did not.

The famous gull-wing came about because the Corsair was originally designed for aircraft carrier duty (though oddly enough, most of the Corsair sorties flown during the war were not flown off a carrier deck).

This required a folding wing for storage, but because of the heavy design of the plane and the specifications needed for its landing gear, (which needed to be high because of the size of the planes propeller), a gull-winged design was finally arrived at. This allowed the struts of the landing gear to be much shorter than they would normally have been.

The Corsair was not an easy plane to fly off and onto a carrier deck. Firstly, because of its power and weight, all of its flaps had to be deployed fully as it approached, making the plane a bit unwieldy. Second, the tips of the wings and the elevated nose (the plane was a tail-dragger) limited visibility at landing and take off.

The British (who were among many nations to receive Corsairs during and after the war) solved this problem by making a unique left-handed approach to the carrier deck, which was picked up by the Marines and US Navy. Once a pilot got used to the planes’ unique characteristics, the Corsair was a dream to fly…and land, on sea or otherwise.

The Corsair, like the Mustang, saw limited action in Korea (before the advent of the jet age), and was sold to less developed nations around the world to augment their air forces. Israel had a number of Corsairs that flew in its war of independence in 1948. Over 12,000 were built until production ended in 1952.

Fortunately, there are still a number of original Corsairs flying around the world, thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts whose love of the plane means we are still able to hear the “Whistling Death” in action!

The MiG-31 was built to be a home-defense interceptor, and was neither exported nor used in combat.

In the last decade of the Cold War, the MiG-31, codenamed Foxhound by NATO, enjoyed a certain mystique in the West. The same grainy photos aerial photos of the high speed fighter would show up in aviation publications, along with ominous speculation over its capabilities. But unlike its peers—the MiG-29 and Su-27—the Foxhound never fully emerged from obscurity after the Cold War.

The reason is simple—the MiG-31 was built to be a home-defense interceptor, and was neither exported nor used in combat. But Moscow maintains hundreds of the fighters in its inventory as parts of its multi-layered air defense network, and will continue to do so for years to come.

The Foxhound emerged as an attempt to improve on a somewhat disappointing predecessor, the MiG-25 Foxbat. The twin-engine Foxbat remains the fastest flying operational fighter, able to attain speeds over Mach 3 and fly up to 70 thousand feet in order to counter the U.S. XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber, which did not end up entering production. The Foxbat enjoyed an inflated reputation in Western aviation circles until Soviet defector Victor Belenko flew one over to Japan in 1976, allowing the Pentagon to discover what the Soviets had long been aware of—for all of its speed, the Foxbat was a bit of a dog when it came to maneuverability and could not maintain supersonic speeds at low altitude. Furthermore, it could attain Mach 3 speeds only by burning its engines out beyond their heat tolerance.

After the defection, the MiG-25 began to be sold for export, while the Soviet Union focused on building a better high-speed interceptor out of the Foxbat airframe. Moscow was no longer just concerned solely by high-altitude high-speed bombers, but also low-altitude cruise missiles zipping through gaps in its radar defenses. New design elements included a back seat Weapon Systems Officer to operate a powerful new radar, improved long range air-to-air missiles, and better engines.

This much evolved super Foxbat, designated the MiG-31, was distinguished by the addition of a backseat Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) to operate its large Zaslon S-800 Passive Electronically Scanned Array (PESA) radar. The heavy radar had a maximum range of 125 miles and featured “look down, shoot down” capability to detect and target low-flying aircraft, which was not widespread at the time. An infrared-red search and track system (IRST) further complimented it sensor suit.

The centerpiece of the Foxhound’s armament was its new R-33 long-range missiles, codenamed the AA-9 Amos by NATO. The R-33 are considered the Soviet equivalent to the AIM-54 Phoenix missiles used by U.S. Navy F-14s—the large radar-guided missiles were mounted under the MiG-31’s belly for engaging opposing bombers at long ranges of up to 75 miles. The Foxhound’s radar enabled it to launch at up to four aircraft simultaneously. Four to six additional medium- or short-range air-to-air missiles could be mounted under the wings. Unlike the Foxbat, the Foxhound was also armed with a 23-millimeter cannon.

The MiG-31 retains the Foxbat’s high-altitude performance, though it is a bit slower at Mach 2.83—still faster than any operation Western fighters today. More importantly, it can fly up to Mach 1.23 at low altitude—which the MiG-25 cannot. This makes it ideal for hunting ground-skimming cruise missiles and fighter bombers.

Nonetheless, the Foxhound is not highly maneuverable, and cannot safely pull more than 5Gs while flying supersonic. The MiG-31 would not fare well in air-to-air engagements against contemporary fighters such as the F-15—but that’s simply not what it was designed to do. The Foxhound is intended to close on intruders at high speeds, fire off its missiles and disengage.

Bane of the Blackbird

Production of the Foxhound began in 1979 and it entered service in 1981. Inspired by vague but glowing intelligence reports on its capabilities, the Foxhound acquired a sinister reputation in NATO intelligence reports. Reflecting this exaggerated reputation, the 1982 film Firefox, starring Clint Eastwood, imagined the MiG-31 as capable of flying at Mach 5, benefiting from stealth technology, and of being operated by thought alone!

In the real world, the MiG-31 does appear to have been used to chase after the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which could sustain speeds of Mach 3.3 or higher on its reconnaissance missions.  The account of one Soviet pilot suggests that a Foxhound was able to “lock on” to a Blackbird with its missiles. Another report claims that six MiG-31 were able to box-in a Blackbird in a separate incident. However, the Blackbird was never employed to actually overfly Soviet airspace, contrary to what some sources imply. The Blackbirds instead flew alongside it—which would explain why MiG-31 pilots never had reason to fire their R-33 missiles at the speedy spy planes.

Moscow refined its Foxhounds over time, starting with producing 101 of the air-refueling capable MiG-31DZ variant starting in 1989. Following the 1985 revelation that Soviet aeronautical designer Adolf Tolkachev had exposed the secrets of the Foxhound’s radar to the CIA, 69 MiG-31Bs and BSs were later developed with new radars and various hardware upgrades. Two MiG-31Ds were also developed to fire specialized anti-satellite missiles.

A MiG-31E export version was also conceived, but never saw foreign sales—the Foxhound was just too specialized and expensive to appeal to foreign buyers. The only Foxhounds serving outside of Russia are thirty to fifty inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union by the Kazakh Air Force.

In 2015, there were rumors that Syria had purchased MiG-31s from Moscow. These did not prove to be true, probably to the good fortune of the Syrian government, which would have found little use for a high-performance air-to-air platform in its brutal civil war. Syria’s fleet of MiG-25 interceptors have already proven very poorly adapted to the conflict, reduced to firing air-to-air missiles at targets on the ground with predictable results.

Foxhounds of the Future

According to one count, there are 252 MiG-31s in the inventory of the Russian Air Force. Moscow began modernizing its Foxhound fleet to the MiG-31BM and BSM variant starting in 2010, and plans to have 100 upgraded by 2020. The BM includes modernized cockpit displays, a hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS), and a new Zaslon-M radar with maximum detection range increased to 200 miles. It also is upgraded to employ the latest generation of long-range air-to-air missiles, including the R-33S, the R-77—the Russian equivalent to the U.S.  AIM-120—and the super-long range R-37—intended to be a tanker- and AWACs-killer. The new Foxhounds are also capable of mounting up to 18 thousand pounds of air-to-ground smart bombs and anti-radar missiles in case Moscow needs some additional strike planes. Finally, the BMs have new data-links integrating the MiG-31’s sensors with ground-based radars and friendly fighter planes, allowing the Foxhound to coordinate the entire air defense system. A flight of four of the upgraded Foxhounds could patrol a swath of airspace over 400 miles across.

At 35 years old, the MiG-31 is expected to serve on until 2030. Moscow claims that another dedicated “Mach 4” interceptor, the MiG-41 or PAK-DP, will be developed to succeed the Foxhound in the air defense role. This is curious, as the Kremlin has only financed the production of 10 advanced PAK-FA stealth fighters so far, giving reason to wonder if it can afford to deploy a far more specialized platform as well. Already, the project’s reported start date varies wildly in reports from 2013 to 2017 to 2019! Like other optimistic claims made by the Russian defense sector, it would be wiser to take a wait-and-see approach rather than accept such claims at face value.

The MiG-31 is emblematic of an older design paradigm envisioning super-fast interceptors traversing vast distances to knock out encroaching bombers and missiles before they can do any damage. While the rest of the world has largely moved on to multi-role fighters that are e

Over a decade before Spock introduced legions of Star Trek fans to Planet Vulcan and its cerebral, philosophical humanoid beings, Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) had its own Vulcan, namely the Avro Vulcan. The RAF’s iteration of the Vulcan wasn’t tasked with dropping leaflets exhorting recipients to “Live Long and Prosper.” It was designed with a rather more grim mission in mind: that of waging nuclear war against the Soviet Union in a doomsday scenario.

Avro Vulcan: Origins and Specifications

The Avro Vulcan made her maiden flight on Aug. 30, 1952 and officially entered into RAF service in September 1956. The Vulcan was a jet-powered delta-wing strategic bomber, the second of the RAF’s so-called “V bombers” – the first being the Vickers Valiant and the third being the Handley Page Victor. These warbirds provided part of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent force for 15 years, until the Royal Navy’s Polaris-class submarines assumed that morbid mantle in 1969.

As noted by the BAE Systems heritage page, “The design was considered the most technically advanced of the submissions in response to Air Ministry Specification B.35/46, although it was thought by some as the riskiest option.”

Indeed, the Air Ministry was so impressed that in 1958 they publicly proclaimed that, “At its operational height the Vulcan can outfly and outmanoeuvre any fighter in squadron service today.” However, as the RAF Museum website points out, Soviet missile defenses had become so effective by 1966 that the Vulcans switched from high- to low-level penetration missions. They were completely withdrawn from the nuclear deterrent mission in 1970, switching over to a conventional bomber role in support of NATO forces in Europe.

The B.2 variant is the only version of the Vulcan to actually see combat. The plane had a fuselage length of 99 feet 11 inches, a wingspan of 111 feet, and a height of 27 feet 2 inches, with an empty weight of 83,573 pounds and a maximum takeoff weight of 250,000 pounds. Its maximum airspeed was 645 mph, with a cruising speed of 620 mph, or Mach-0.84. Its payload was initially either the Blue Danube or Red Beard nuclear gravity bomb, and this was later converted to a capacity for 21 1,000-pound conventional bombs. The plane carried no defensive armament.

VICTORIOUS VULCAN: COMBAT-TESTED

Needless to say, thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the cataclysmic nuclear WWIII showdown never happened, But the Vulcan did see combat. The plane made a significant contribution to Great Britain’s victory over Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War (or as the Argentines prefer to call it, La Guerra de las Malvinas). The specific phase of the Falklands campaign was named Operation Black Buck, and for 19 years the mission held the record for longest combat bombing raid in military history, at 6,600 nautical miles and 16 hours’ flight time for the round trip. (The record was finally broken by the B-2 Spirit “Stealth Bomber” during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001.)

Operation Black Buck took place in seven phases. The objective was to attack Port Stanley Airport and hit its runway, operational facilities, and radar sites. The first phase took place on April 30, 1982, when two Vulcans – supported by 22 Victors serving a midair refueling role – departed from RAF Ascension Island. One of the V bombers had to return to base due to a cabin pressurization failure, leaving then-Flight Lt. Withers and his four-man crew on an inadvertent single-ship mission.

After a harrowing trip through an electrical storm, the plane arrived over the target, releasing its 21 bombs, 16 of which detonated. Only one of the bombs made a direct hit on the airstrip, but that lone hit had a meaningful impact. In Withers’ own words:

“We managed to put a bomb on the runway, which meant the Argentines could not use that runway for their aircraft to land and refuel if they wanted to attack our ships…It certainly was very strange to be going in on the first attack very sorta cold-bloodedly…Ours was the first attack of the conflict.” After egressing and reaching the final rendezvous point before returning home, Withers described the sight of that last Vulcan refueler as “the most beautiful sight in the world.”

THE 007 CONNECTION

The Vulcan also had her fictitious cinematic moment in the sun, thanks to The World’s Most Famous Secret Agent: in 1965’s Thunderball, the fourth film in the James Bond series, the primary villain, Emilio – SPECTRE’s Number Two man after Ernst Stavro Blofeld – orchestrates the hijacking of a Vulcan for its nuclear payload.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

The Vulcan was retired in 1984. Out of 134 production models assembled, 19 survivors remain, spread out among museums in the U.S, Canada, and the UK. Stateside, you can see them at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska; the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California; and the Barksdale Global Power Museum at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana.

An ancient Greek tale says that Icarus drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after he ignored his father’s advice to fly low to avoid the sun’s warmth during their attempted escape from the isle of Crete. He chose instead to soar upward on his manmade wings, where the sun melted the wax binding his feathers to his body and sent him plunging to his death. But it wasn’t so much heat, as hubris, that doomed him.

Adventurers have been trying to cheat the heavens ever since. And, as was the case with Icarus, aviation’s weak link is often the human at the helm.

Metal and carbon-fiber warplanes have been outflying their flesh-and-blood pilots for decades. I first got wind of this more than 30 years ago as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where I covered the Fort Worth-built F-16 like white on rice. It seemed that the then-new hot fighter could fly so fast and turn so sharp that it could keep enough blood from a pilot’s brain to render him (they were all hims back then) unconscious in a matter of seconds.

Such human frailties have led to an alphabet soup of trouble, and how to avoid it: That G-induced loss of consciousness (GLOC) has led to the development of GCAS (ground collision avoidance systems). And there’s the latest cockpit option (with the worst acronym, which sounds a lot like the cute coveralls toddlers wear): the On-Board Oxygen Generating System, or OBOGS.

“Flying headlong into the ground is the single biggest killer of fighter pilots in the Air Force,” Air Force Magazine reported two years ago. “The phenomenon known as Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) is responsible for 75 percent of F-16 pilot fatalities and is often due to disorientation or loss of consciousness while maneuvering at low altitude.”

Of course, it’s part of the military’s DNA to, ahem, push the envelope. For pilots, that can mean flying longer missions from more austere bases—even if the cost isn’t worth it, and the need to do it is vanishingly tiny. But it’s that quest that has brought us OBOGS and its dangerous complications.

The systems, developed in the 1980s and now common on military aircraft, suck in thin air from the engine intakes. Then they purify, cool and concentrate it into a 95 percent oxygen gas to keep pilots alive and alert. The system replaces traditional liquid oxygen systems, which limited a pilot’s flight time, especially a problem in planes that can be refueled in midair. Such liquid systems also can’t always be resupplied at the primitive forward air bases the military says it may need to fly from in the next war, but hardly ever does.

Pilots of at least six different kinds of OBOGS-outfitted military aircraft have had trouble breathing in recent years. They range from hot planes like the Air Force’s F-35As, F-22s and A-10s, and the Navy and Marines’ F-18s, to the more modest Navy T-45 Goshawk and Air Force T-6 Texan trainers.

These so-called “physiological events” generally involve pilot impairment triggered by a lack of oxygen—hypoxia—that can quickly turn deadly because of the resulting dizziness, disorientation, decompression, numbness and pain. Most frustrating for all involved, the services have been unable to pinpoint the root of the problems. So they have been forced to rely on tweaking the systems, modifying their software, beefing up training, and crossing their fingers.

Both Air Force and Navy pilots have refused to fly airplanes they deemed to be outfitted with faulty OBOGS. Military officers—trained from Day One to follow orders—don’t take such steps lightly. What’s amazing about it is that military leaders, who are forever insisting the safety of their troops is one of their most sacred responsibilities, are having to be pushed to take action by their subordinates who fear for their lives.

Air Force Capt. Jeffrey Haney was killed in 2010 when his F-22 flew into the ground after he lost oxygen. While the Air Force grounded the fleet following the crash, it sent its prized fighter back into the skies after it concluded Haney was to blame for his own death (although it grounded them again a month later for the same issue). A pair of F-22 Air National Guard pilots made headlines in 2012 when they told CBS’s 60 Minutes that they were too scared to fly because of what they felt was its sketchy oxygen supply (the case also highlighted the skimpy protection afforded such life-or-death whistleblowers).

Pilots flying the Air Force’s newest fighter, the F-35, have had 29 hypoxia-like cases. After a spate of five incidents at an Arizona base last spring, the service ordered an 11-day grounding. The Air Force said that the light warning of an OBOGS problem inside the F-35’s cockpit had been too sensitive and illuminating too often, making pilots anxious. Since a lack of oxygen shares symptoms with anxiety, it is especially difficult to tell them apart with a malfunctioning warning light. F-35 pilots had also been spending too much time sitting still on the tarmac during the summer with their engines running, spewing carbon monoxide that might pollute the breathing system, the service said.

The Air Force also grounded 28 A-10 attack planes for a week last November after three pilots had trouble breathing, two while using OBOGS. The other A-10 was using an older liquid-oxygen system, which the service is replacing with OBOGS. “The OBOGS mitigates the constraints of liquid oxygen by utilizing engine bleed air as the source of breathing oxygen and eliminates the maintenance costs and sortie delays the liquid oxygen system incurs,” the service says.

The Air Force isn’t the only service gasping for air. Breathing problems aboard the Navy’s main fighter, the F-18, spiked from 57 in 2012 to 125 in 2016. The breathing gear on the Navy’s F-18s and T-45s “is inadequate to consistently provide high quality breathing air,” the Navy itself concluded last June. “The net result is contaminants can enter aircrew breathing air provided by OBOGS and potentially induce hypoxia.” The Navy flubbed its probe into a series of F-18 oxygen-related crashes that killed four pilots, a Navy-commissioned NASA report, ordered by Congress, concluded in September.

Last spring, the Navy was forced to ground its T-45 trainers after more than 100 instructor pilots refused to fly them because of concerns about their oxygen supply. “The pilots don’t feel safe flying this aircraft,” one instructor pilot told Fox News at the time.

The most recent OBOGS snafu involves the Air Force’s propeller-driven T-6 Texan trainer. The service grounded the plane for most of February after its pilots experienced a rash of breathing problems. But the service concluded they did not suffer from “classic hypoxia” but rather “unexplained physiological events” that could have been caused by too much oxygen, contaminated oxygen, or something else entirely.

“After listening to pilots, maintainers, engineers and flight surgeons, it became apparent the T-6 fleet was exhibiting symptoms indicative of a compromise of the integrity of the OBOGS, leading to degradations in performance, which then likely led to the pilots’ physiological events,”  the Air Force said Feb. 27.

“We have zeroed in on a handful of components that are degrading or failing to perform and needed to be replaced or repaired more often than the Air Force anticipated when they bought the aircraft,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Doherty  said when he lifted the grounding order.

As congressional heat—not unlike that of the sun—has increased, the Air Force responded in January like the military often does: by appointing an Air Force blue ribbon panel—the aptly-named Unexplained Physiologic Events Integration Team—to try to figure out what is going on. The Navy created its own Physiological Episode Action Team last April. (In typical Pentagon fashion, each service came up with a unique label—“Physiologic Event” and “Physiological Episode”—for their common problem.)

“There is no single root cause tied to a manufacturing or design defect that would explain multiple physiologic event incidents across airframes or within a specific airframe,” Lieut. Gen. Mark Nowland, an Air Force deputy chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical aviation subcommittee Feb. 6. “Some events are due to issues outside the aircraft or equipment, and some physiologic events remain unexplained and cannot be replicated.”

Congress wasn’t buying it. “I could not be more disappointed by your presentation,” Rep. Michael Turner, the Ohio Republican who chairs the panel, told Nowland. “There is something wrong with the systems that these pilots are relying on for their lives.”

Turner derided the service’s emphasis on more training. “Should we start doing hearing training, where we ask you to come before us and then let’s have you hold your breath for a minute in the first hearing, and then in the second hearing we’ll have you hold your breath for two minutes?” Turner asked. “It makes no sense.”

The Navy didn’t escape criticism. “Although the Navy has put significant effort into investigating the physiologic episodes, the bulk of their efforts to date have been directed to the aircraft rather than human physiology,” NASA engineer Clinton Cragg told the subcommittee. OBOGS require “uniform operating conditions” that a supersonic and highly-maneuverable jet “rarely provides,” he added. The service has focused too much on looking for a mechanical fix for a human problem.

“There has been a breakdown of trust in leadership within the pilot community,” NASA saidin its September report directed by Cragg. “This has been precipitated by the failure to find a definitive cause for the [Physiological Episodes], the implementation of ‘fixes’ that do not appear to work…and the belief that Navy leadership is not doing enough to resolve the issue.”

None of this is to argue against cutting-edge military technology. But it should serve as a wakeup call that some nascent technologies aren’t ready for prime time, and shouldn’t be used to turn the U.S. military’s highly-trained pilots (it costs $11 million to train a fighter-jet jockey) into guinea pigs.

You’d be forgiven for thinking OBOGS are ideal if you only relied on the folks who build them. The systems generate “an unlimited supply of pilot breathing gas” and permit “the aircraft to be forward deployed during combat/other missions,” Honeywell, a leading maker, raves. Not only that: its design means “the pilot is not susceptible to smoke and fumes from the cockpit” and produces life-giving air that is “free from contamination.”

The available evidence suggests otherwise. Of course, when pulling Gs at 30,000 feet, the line between breathing and hubris can get pretty thin.