The logistic problems of flying a solar aircraft around the world is immense. Sure you could ride a bike coast to coast several times and beat the Solar Impulses time in distance, but that’s nowhere near going around the world. I don’t even know how you’d do it on a bicycle.

Actually they’re trapezoids. Their northern borders are about 20 miles shorter than their southern borders. That’s because meridians converge as you proceed toward the poles.

I have to recant on the RWR gear on the USAF aggressor F-5Es. Just talked to a buddy, a former aggressor pilot at Clark AB in the 80s and he told me their jets didn’t have it. I was familiar with some F-5Es export versions associated with my job at JUSMAG and those did have RWR. However he did tell me he heard about…

The original USAF Ravens. Circa 1968 in Laos and Thailand during the Vietnam war. Raven FACs!

Cant say for sure, but this may have something to do with it considering the squadron flew P-47s during WWII:

5 F-14s here: 32.15065500413684,-110.83383415952109 as you found;

“most powerful tropical cyclone ever measured”

Jeez another unwarranted slam on the F-4. Ask any fighter pilot in 1970 to choose a platform in 1970 to fly mig cap, with occasional CAS and some interdiction, he would have chosen the F-4. It was the state of the art at the time. Comparing an F-4 to F-15 is like comparing a P-47 to and F-86. Different eras! So…

“pilots in air-to-air combat always pop off two of the same type of missile “

“ The F-4 was a dud in that environment.”

All F-4s had swing wings:

Ya it’s armored, but not like a ‘tank’-otherwise it couldn’t get off the ground. Soviets lost 74 of em in Afghanistan albeit 20 or so were man-pad hits. Aircraft by their nature have plenty of softspots in the air frame that if hit with enough lead can easily bring them down. That includes the Hind and A-10s.

The Syrian rebels being attacked should draw a page from the Viet Cong and the NVA and start acquiring more 12.5, 14.7 and 23mm optically aimed AAA. Flares, jamming pods etc mean shit to these simple guns. I agree with Tyler that one will eventually be shot down, especially if they acquire some of these guns and learn…

Hm, I always thought that ‘up’ meant “north” as in “upper NY” as opposed to ‘down’ which was ‘down in Florida’.

Your post provides excellent references to what actually happened. A lot of the posters insinuate they are knowledgeable of F-4E capabilities and limits. Most are BS. i.e an F-4E can fly fine on one engine in military power (no AB required) as long as it’s light enough and drops below 20,000 ft or so. Literally…

“Defogging (see other reply!) is done by blown air, exactly the same as any airliner.”

More like an OV-10 with an aux jet engine used by the Germans for target towing:

During my 20 years active duty in TAC in the 7os and 80s, we thought FRED stood for ‘fukin ridiculous engineering design’ . I guess things can can be interpreted differently though the years.

Prior to the HARMs, Wild Weasels (and some naval aircraft) also carried AGM 78 standard ARM which from the seeker/guidance head back was almost identical to the Navy’s standard SM-1 and SM-2 without the boosters. It had more range, bigger warhead, and more accuracy than the AGM-45 but was also more expensive.

My google maps of Wittman Field dated 1 June 2015 shows barely any airplanes. And most high resolution images of city areas in Google maps are taken by aircraft with gimbled cameras not from satellite imagery.