If you could fly any military aircraft professionally, which would you choose?

Althought the Tomcat and Harrier are kick ass jets, my airship of choice would be the A10 Thunderbolt II....



Yeah, she\'s slow and ugly but she\'s also the United States toughest and most powerful ground strike aircraft. Her primairy mission is close ground support, thus the low speed and altitude, which makes her a prime target for SAMs, Hinds, and Migs. Although a skilled pilot is fully capable of taking them out, it\'s better to just hit objectives and run. While a single lucky SAM missle can take out a F16 or Tomcat, A10\'s have been known to complete missions and fly home with engines and even entire wings blown off. Thankfully, she\'s loaded to the gills with Chaffs and Flares to disrupt radars and missles if she\'s forced to fly into radar range. (Usually the A10 flys under conventional radar so as to avoid detection)

A nightmare to opposing ground forces, the A10 is capable of carrying over 16,000lbs of ordinace varying from Sidewinders to Mavericks to Mk-84 bombs. Her most famous ordinance, however, is the 30 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun nicknamed the Avenger cannon. The most powerful gun ever mounted on a aircraft, the Avenger cannon\'s recoil slows the A10 by roughly 30 mph when fired in short bursts and has been known to stall the plane when flying at low speeds. It only takes a quick burst to render even the most highly armored of tanks to scrap. This is why the Avenger is the A10\'s primary weapon for taking out large amounts of enemy vehicles, and why the A10 is called the "Tank Killer".



It pisses me off that the A10 gets a bad rep from flight sims, since most designers seem content with simply throwing it into a game designed to take advantage of higher speed "Strike Mission" jets. Of course the A10 is going to be the crappiest jet to go dogfighting in.. that\'s the total opposite of what it\'s meant for. That\'s like telling an F16 pilot to provide close air support for friendly forces by taking out noumerous opposing armor columns in hiding as well as taking out an enemy bridge to halt their future advancement. It just can\'t do it. I think we need a new A10 - ONLY - game. A10II Silent Thunder was a good game, but not without it\'s flaws and unfortunately it\'s not being sold anymore.

So what\'s your favorite jet?

i would fly the new Lockheed Martin X-35 - becuase it would my face fly into the back of my head - gotta love the new and upcoming supersoic speed jets








yea it looks sweet - no body could keep up

Fokker Dr-1 Tri-Plane

Beautiful Plane from time when there was still planes with charisma.
"and it would be nice to use it when going shopping.."  

[nO-One]

F-22 Raptor all the way.

A jet pack.

The YF-19 prototype.  Beautiful... simply beautiful.  How great that would be to fly if it actually existed

dang that plane looks like something straight out of a sci fi novel - is that actually in development

if it is i am gonna get rich and buy one for my self - well i would if i could just get rich and if the plane even exists

i think the rich part will be the hardest though

Hell yeah I\'m with you Aaron.

Su-37 SuperFlanker is a carrier borne fighter/bomber which has heavy utilised thrust vectoring maneuvers that can change angle of attack at high speed such as the cobra maneuver.

This feature is useful in dogfighting as you are able to turn more faster than your enemy.

The agile plane is able to turn 180 degrees less than a mile radius at low speeds of a duration of 3 seconds.

The plane has plasma emitting radar that reveal any stealth planes in a range of 200 miles.

It can carry 18 missles maximum but for optimum performance...10 short range AA missiles.It also has 2 backfiring missles for enemy that is targeting it\'s tail.

In other words..this plane is built for dogfighting.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

For fun...
F-16 Fighting Falcon.


The F-16 is a highly manuverable aircraft. it was developed in the 1970\'s as a light weight fighter prototype. It was ready for combat in October of 1980. It was used in many air operations against IRAQ in 1991 in the PERSIAN GULF WAR. The F-16A is powered by one turbofan engine with a thrust of 25,000 Lbs, which enables the aircraft to fly at speeds faster then Mach 2, or 1,524mph. It\'s armament inclused 20-mm multi barrel cannon and air-to-air missiles and medium range air-to-air missiles.

I think the YF-19 (posted by RYU) does exist under development because the americans are competing with another FSW (Foward Swept Wing) fighters of the fifth generation from russia.


         S37 BERKUT AKA GOLDEN EAGLE

(I want to fly this thing)







The fighter is agile at subsonic speed and supersonic far more better than the current su-27 flanker.

FSW technology was abandoned by the US in the 80s from the X29 experiment due to poor performance.The russians had found a way to overcome the low wind drag problems by using composite smooth panels instead of conventional rivets on the wings.

Anyway back to SuperFlanker ...you might want to watch the SUPER AGILITY of the aircraft i posted the last time in action.
Have you ever seen other aircraft doing this crazy manuevers?

       http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/Movies/su37.12.13.14.MPG

SR-71 Blackbird.  Isn\'t it still the fastest plane ever built (that we know of)?  I wonder how it feels travelling over 2000 mph.

Air force one, well it is a USAF registered aircraft an\'it ?

what might happen [/i]
ah yes Mr Bush where do you want to go to today?

what Europe , no Sir thats not the capital of Iraq, and i don\'t even think where welcome there.

hey i am a spy for the Queen, killing bad guys for queen and country and all that , maybe if is do a mission to save the USA, G. W. Bush might let me take AF1 for a spin .

I\'d go stealth

there something about being undetected, that does it for me

[nO-One]

Here are a few pics of my fighter of choice.
The F-22 Raptor
It\'s stealth
Super sonic
highly manuverable
all the weapons are hidden inside the hull
it\'t the 21st century fighter.





Now that\'s a jet