OLYMPUS selling off camera division
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combatentropy
Veteran
If you accomplish even an ordinary level of things within a corporation, then you're an extraordinary person. That's what impresses me about people like Kelly Johnson even more.
Blackmagic is admirable for its spec-to-buck ratio.
Case in point
Blackmagic is admirable for its spec-to-buck ratio.
Case in point
[Homer Simpson] Stupid fat finger [Homer Simpson].
P-39 Aircobra was a very innovative mid-engine design - think 911 of the skies - that allowed it to carry an ultra heavy for the era 37mm cannon with its 590g shells. It was given to the Soviets under the Land Lease, who used it fairly successfully against the German bombers (the Soviet ace stats, however, were notoriously padded and thus utterly unreliable).
John Brawley
Well-known member
The F111 operated in Australia from the early 70’s till 2010. Seeing as Australia doesn’t own ballistic missiles and only recently got air to air refuelling, it was the only “bomber” that had the range to deliver 2000lp bombs deep into Indonesia and was considered an important deterrent as Indonesia had no way of doing the same in reverse. They were kept flying long after anywhere else by upgrading their avionics because it was such a unique capability. Even today Australia wrestles with replacing these planes with a new global power coming onto the horizon. Buying a bomber that could fly to China would certainly change the dynamics in the Australia / China relationship. Meanwhile Australia in 1963 (when the F111’s were ordered) went from fearing Indonesia to practically become in best mates....
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/when-our-security-makes-neighbours-feel-vulnerable
JB
- Have photographed many F111’s during my career shooting recruiting TVCs for the ADF and still am in awe of an F111 dump and burn that flew so close that you could feel the heat...
Check out at 27 seconds
https://youtu.be/iMrtUicMYBg
The F111 is a great, capable plane, it's just that it couldn't fulfill it's multi-service role as envisioned, as a fighter, bomber, reconnaissance and carrier based aircraft. Nothing really can, and the F35 is yet another multi-role aircraft that either isn't as good or is too expensive as what it's trying to replace, A10, F16, F18, F15.
No, it was a typo on my part.
P-39, a single mid-fuselage engine interceptor, was engineered by Larry Bell himself and the Bell Aircraft design team led by Robert J Woods.
P-38, a twin-boom long range escort/interceptor/reconnaissance/fighter-bomber was designed at Lockheed by Kelly Johnson and Hal Hibbard and was conceptually based off an already existing Focke Wulf-189 "Uhu" (designed by Kurt Tank).
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John Brawley
Well-known member
Mate it’s the snakes you have to worry about that get into the car with you...
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/07/07/australia-driver-snake-speeding-lon-orig-tp.cnn
JB
Don't forget the cane toads! Alright..I'll stay put.
combatentropy
Veteran
The A-10 came out in the 1970s, and the Air Force still can't come up with a replacement. I just now looked it up, and it too seems to be the work of an excellent designer, Alexander Kartveli. I don't know much about him, but someone loves him enough to have registered alexanderkartveli.com, whose tabs include Design Genius.
Tangentially, another person involved in the A-10's design, Pierre Sprey, has been a critic of the F-35.
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Kartveli was responsible for the original P-47 Thunderbolt (Jug), a heavy WWII fighter-bomber of the US Air Corps. The modern A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog) goes back in concept to the WWII era Henschel-129, a heavily armored ground attack aircraft. Its late war C3 version carried a 75mm anti-tank gun.
A-10 was designed to attack the Warsaw Pact armor and no one knew more about attacking the Soviet tanks than Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Rudel was a (undercover) consultant, although, oddly enough, he mostly flew a single engine Ju-87.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/56/ba/0a56ba4dbc447546223d6ac737a2ce53.jpg
"Stuka Pilot" - https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51nSA7Iwa3L._SY346_.jpg
A-10 was designed to attack the Warsaw Pact armor and no one knew more about attacking the Soviet tanks than Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Rudel was a (undercover) consultant, although, oddly enough, he mostly flew a single engine Ju-87.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/56/ba/0a56ba4dbc447546223d6ac737a2ce53.jpg
"Stuka Pilot" - https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51nSA7Iwa3L._SY346_.jpg
A10 Thunderbolt, derisively nicknamed the warthog, is another great ‘70’s plane unloved by USAF. From the same era as AWACS, F14,15,16,18, B1, it has a titanium tub protecting the pilot, its giant turbofan engines able to absorb some amount of small arms fire, with extended ability to loiter over the battlefield, a plane designed around its 30mm gattling cannon, it is the ultimate tank killer and put to devastating effect in the 1990 Persian Gulf War. It had the highest losses in that war.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
What I read in an f-35 article was that the warthogs were cheap and effective but the military brass wanted something fancier. (And multi-role as has been said - the warthogs were only used for backing up infantry by bombarding ground positions or something, so they would only be one of the plane types the f-35 would replace.) Hence the massively expensive f-35 that breaks all the time. But other countries purchase f-35s too so maybe there's something to them
I also read that the dogfighting era of plane-to-plane combat is essentially over. And that elon musk thinks all fighter jets will be replaced by super-maneuverable drones.
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Drones don't need even to be maneuverable as they can be smaller and much stealthier.
And the A-10 losses in 1991 were partially due to their misuse, i.e., missions considerably beyond the enemy lines. The aircraft is not stealthy and it was exposed to a lot of the Iraqi flak. Literally (Flak is an old German abbreviation for Flieger Abwehr Kanone , directly translated into English as "anti-aircraft artillery")
And F-35 has ability to range much deeper without detection. The Israeli Air Force has 20 of them ... and, without delving into global politics, there's a strong evidence they were recently used en mass.
And the A-10 losses in 1991 were partially due to their misuse, i.e., missions considerably beyond the enemy lines. The aircraft is not stealthy and it was exposed to a lot of the Iraqi flak. Literally (Flak is an old German abbreviation for Flieger Abwehr Kanone , directly translated into English as "anti-aircraft artillery")
And F-35 has ability to range much deeper without detection. The Israeli Air Force has 20 of them ... and, without delving into global politics, there's a strong evidence they were recently used en mass.
There is no question the F35 and F22 are great planes, but the cost. What's needed depends on the adversary. A massive fleet of cheap P51's would just be piles of dead pilots against Mikoyans and Sukhois. In the Gulf War US used stealth radar evading planes, television guided smart bombs, HARM anti-radiation missiles and AWACS to defeat radar and surface to air missile installations and control the battlefield airspace, but in the Iraq war General Tommy Franks did little more than roll a column of tanks up the Tigris and Euphrates to take Bagdad.
Tommy Franks actually repeated Brian Horrocks's pallid temperament of the Operation Market Garden, which made Stormin' Norman pretty effin' mad.
As to F35 and F22, they're probably preventing a huge military confrontation because the opponents dare not to risk their front line aircraft and crews a la the Syrian air force in Operation Mole 19.
For the low impact warfare, there's a new order of F-15 on the way.
As to F35 and F22, they're probably preventing a huge military confrontation because the opponents dare not to risk their front line aircraft and crews a la the Syrian air force in Operation Mole 19.
For the low impact warfare, there's a new order of F-15 on the way.
Not to interrupt this incredibly fun diversion into the military aviation history but ...
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/El... 72 6c 65 73 73 72 75 6d 6f 72 73 2e 63 6f 6d
More info in the article itself and even more on the page.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/El... 72 6c 65 73 73 72 75 6d 6f 72 73 2e 63 6f 6d
More info in the article itself and even more on the page.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
We get it DLD. You were right and the market will shrink.
I still see room for canon sony fuji and panasonic based on their differentiation.
Interesting that Nikon going for "pro-hobby" which is sort of a contradiction in terms. Anyway, I dont see why hobbyists don't want to buy the same cameras that pros do. What does a pro-hobby offering look like. (Maybe spurts of 8K RAW video actually since it's not so useful for pros but you can do something with it. That definitely seems like a hobbyist-friendly feature come to think of it)
I still see room for canon sony fuji and panasonic based on their differentiation.
Interesting that Nikon going for "pro-hobby" which is sort of a contradiction in terms. Anyway, I dont see why hobbyists don't want to buy the same cameras that pros do. What does a pro-hobby offering look like. (Maybe spurts of 8K RAW video actually since it's not so useful for pros but you can do something with it. That definitely seems like a hobbyist-friendly feature come to think of it)