4mo ago

F/A-XX? More like F-14X

35 comments

While I agree they look cool, they're an engineering nightmare and absolutely require titanium to build and that shit is too expensive for very little benefit.
The point of a variable wing was to increase the effective flight envelope and there's no point now that the same thing can be done with modern avionics and materials.
Sorry.
- Counterpoint: they look fucking dope
  
  Again, completely agree.
  But like the A10, sometimes tech just passes you by.
  And swing wings are like biplanes. Old obsolete tech.
- I hear you
  Pros:
  absolutely requires titanium
  
  Except the US doesn't have a cheap, easily available source of titanium.
  The stuff we used for the SR-71 and F-14 had to be gotten surreptitiously from the Russians.
  That's why the Space Shuttle didn't have the titanium heat shield it was designed with and had to rely on the newly invented, much more delicate, ceramic heat shields. Which, it can be argued, resulted in the all of the deaths of the Challenger crew.
- Pros:
  The plane will be partially made of titanium
  
  Cons:
  It HAS to be made out of prohibitively expensive and difficult to acquire titanium.
Being them back!
Being them all back!
Might complicate reducing radar signature.
Also, it seems like kind of a specialized tool. You want it to have a low stall speed but also high maximum speed. The F-14 was a naval interceptor -- intended to take off from and land on carriers at low speed, buy also dash out quickly enough to intercept incoming strikes against that carrier.
I don't know if there are many situations that have that combination of characteristics.
- Also, it seems like kind of a specialized tool. You want it to have a low stall speed but also high maximum speed. The F-14 was a naval interceptor -- intended to take off from and land on carriers at low speed, buy also dash out quickly enough to intercept incoming strikes against that carrier.
  Completely agree with you, they're awesome and should be used everywhere.
The last F-14s are begging for death in Iran. Don't desecrate their corpses.

35 comments