Posted on 11/13/2006 7:37:06 PM PST by pabianice
OK. Call me a skeptic. The aircraft on the starboard side of the flight deck appear to have horizontal stabilizers with anhedral and one vertical stabilizer. The last US carrier fighter to be so configured was the F-4, retired a long time ago. Also, the carrier itself looks like an oil-burner, not a Nimitz.
Opinions?
Maybe they tailed a Chinese carrier by mistake.
Well, the Chinese would have to have a carrier for that to be true. :P
That said, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the Iranians took some old video and claimed that they took it. IIRC, they did something similar relatively recently.
The aircraft opposite the island with its wing spread, (just coming off the arresting gear?) looks very much like an A-6.
You might be right about the other jets, though. They do appear to be F4's, which haven't been carrier-launched since what, the 70's? Didn't the Tomcat replace them?
I wish I knew more about naval aviation.
Also, the F-18 rear stabilizer can look downward canted (Phantom-like) at certain angles.
Apart from that, what's the deal with the pic - are the Iranians claiming to have taken it recently?
I am pretty damn familiar with aircraft shapes, and the pic is just too damn fuzzy. There is clearly an E2 hawkeye that is for sure. We need some digital improvements.
I know there is amateur astronomy software that can use multiple video images to improve clarity.
Well, one thing's for sure, if the picture is so bad that nobody can say for sure what kind of carrier it is, or whose, then it's probably of not much use to the enemy. They could have gotten a better picture from any one of several servers, including probably the US Navy!
Yes, they claim to have taken it this year with a drone
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=23323_Irans_Unmanned_Drone_Also_Travels_in_Time&only
Hell! That's my BATHTUB!
If you look close and the starboard quarter, you can see Matel! My boy has been playing tricks again! Probably posted this on his MySpace site.
I don't know, but when we do war games, we usually do them as a show of force. If Iran didn't see them, then what's the point? We could have done them anywhere. Instead, we chose the Gulf.
Dunno what to make of it.
Our carriers would have detected the aircraft and It would now be at the bottom of the gulf if they actually attempted this.
Great minds think alike. Unless it's a stealth UAV..which I doubt.
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