That's cool. I've been there a couple of times and didn't realize they had a static display. I'd have never guessed they would have one with the Pima Air & Space Museum right next door.

Yeah. I always thought that was bizarre considering the large numbers of A-6s, A-7s, and F-4s still there. The last time I looked there were only two F-14s. I'm guessing they're holding them for museums since they were parked on the same row as an F-8, F-100, and F-101. What's funny is that there are more B-57s at D-M…

They killed every single C-141 in about 3 years from the day they arrived. They've been busy.

I think we all know what they're saving the last twelve "H" models for....

True. But they pull stuff out every now and then. They just pulled a B-52 out just last week. A few planes get converted to drones. Of course, there are times when they sell aircraft from D-M to other nations. Who wouldn't want a second hand F-16???

I'm awaiting the story about what it's like to go deaf in a Tu-95.

You are correct, sir!

You have any clue to what it might be? If the pic is a modified Rat 55, it's also lost it's black fairing on the top between the wings and cockpit.

Maybe it's Boeing's 737-200 Avionics Flying Laboratory. I think they developed it for the JSF program, but I guess it could be used for other purposes. It had a large, extended radome on the front, but nothing on the rear.

This is why Davis-Monthan is so awesome. It's like a toy store for the military. There's all kinds of interesting stuff laying around that can be brought back into service. Can you imagine the back-and-forth that took place to determine what aircraft they would use for the radar aircraft testbed?

Where are the statistics that matter? Like how many bad guys the aircraft has sent to hell or it's combat loss rate per 100,000 hours. Aren't these the metrics that actually matter for a combat aircraft? I don't care about anything else except for effectiveness. The Air Force might as well be judging aircraft by how…

If you look at how horrible a job the US Army did with the USAAF in North Africa during WWII you might no longer have this opinion. Basically, the Army wanted an "aerial umbrella" over the ground forces at all times. The generals in charge of US ground forces used air power like some sort of aerial artillery. They…

Yes. They had a smokeless combuster. Here's a technical report prepared in 1979 with all the details:

Phantmz. From what I understand, GE offered the smokeless J79 on the F-4C/F-110, but the USAF turned it down. It was not until Vietnam that the Air Force realized that all that smoke was putting the Phantom at a disadvantage in visual ACM, especially against the nearly invisible MiG-17 and MiG-21. Do you know if the…

No. GE offered a "smokeless" version of the J79 when the Air Force ordered the F-4, but the Air Force passed because of a very minor price increase and they did not see the necessity. @_@

Just think about this: the Air Force passed up a chance to get smokeless versions of the J79 for the Phantom because they cost a couple of thousand dollars extra.

That's true.

M1A1D - yeah, I guess you'd be more partial to thicker armor...LOL. Those Soviet and Indian antiship missiles are bad news, but I don't think many boats smaller than a carrier could survive a direct hit from one. However, an LCS and most other Navy ships should be able to handle some guy in a dinghy with a few cherry…

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sounds like a good idea. It's kind of like the naval version of the concept of "Every Marine is a Rifleman." And much like the non-0311 Marines, these ships will be able to fight if called upon, but will not be as proficient as the real riflemen/shooters. This works in both low-intensity environments where there is…