Posted on 02/02/2009 9:24:22 AM PST by Fennie
The Raptor is the world's most sophisticated defense weapon in the air - and it's ours. It was conceived in the mid-eighties to replace our aging fleet of F-15s, the entire fleet of which, you may recall, was grounded over safety concerns for two months in late 2007.
Nothing in the world can match the Raptor - although Russia and China are trying hard to catch up. To give you just a bit of an idea of this plane's capabilities, in testing "a Raptor dropped a 1,000-pound JDAM (guided bomb) from 50,000 feet (passenger jets generally fly at around 35,000 feet) while cruising at Mach 1.5 (around 1,000 miles per hour), striking a moving target 24 miles away." That's roughly the distance between the Washington, DC, beltway and the Baltimore beltway.
(Excerpt) Read more at iranpressnews.com ...
“That’s roughly the distance between the Washington, DC, beltway and the Baltimore beltway.”
Yes, the entire US is all about the metro DC area. We’re just flyover country.
P.S. Who cares what dropped such a bomb. The article suggests only the raptor could do such a thing when it is the bomb, and the bomb alone, that does the magic of using GPS to hit a target. You could drop such a bomb from a Cessna for all that matters.
I was reading in Janes Defesen review that the number is higher for the F-14.. but oh well moot point
“India came to the US this summer for Red Flag.
Not so good for India.”
Now that is good to hear!
I retired out of the USAF for over a year now.. I don’t get to hear the Red Flag stories like I use too
To give you just a bit of an idea of this plane's capabilities, in testing "a Raptor dropped a 1,000-pound JDAM (guided bomb) from 50,000 feet (passenger jets generally fly at around 35,000 feet) while cruising at Mach 1.5 (around 1,000 miles per hour), striking a moving target 24 miles away." That's roughly the distance between the Washington, DC, beltway and the Baltimore beltway.
The original purpose of the B-1 Lancer begun in 1967, was to provide a source of government support for the R&D necessary to develop America's Supersonic Transport(SST), the Boeing 2707, which was a spitting image of the Lancer.
Many people don't recall that the competition for the SST between US, European consortium and the USSR was a big political football back in the day. President Nixon was all for the SST but ultimately it was seen for the wasteful boondoggle it was, Congress denied funding, and the US SST was never built.
The Russians built the TU-144, which fell apart in flight, and the EU built the Concorde, which was a commercial failure.
One of those rare moments in history when Congress made the right decision.
It'll never fly, Orville.
Pres.Obama is going to make a huge mistake defense-wise and it will cost us dearly.Then he will try to blame the prior Administration.
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