Gunning the Lightning

[spazsinbad]

I thought 'jessmo112' was kidding with this 2nd opening sentence: "...But I thought the GUN didn't work?!..." Lots of info on this forum about the problems with the F-35A internal gun NOT seen in the F-35B/C external gun pod but I guess 'jessmo112' does not read this forum but comes here to post crap from other forums/sites which gets tiresome indeed.

[jessmo112]

I thought 'jessmo112' was kidding with this 2nd opening sentence: "...But I thought the GUN didn't work?!..." Lots of info on this forum about the problems with the F-35A internal gun NOT seen in the F-35B/C external gun pod but I guess 'jessmo112' does not read this forum but comes here to post crap from other forums/sites which gets tiresome indeed.

I know the gun works I was being sarcastic...
I suppose any news from a site thats not a favorite is trash. But I can see that we are grumpy today. Stand down nothing to see here. Back to your 1st brandy of the night, or 2nd third or..

[spazsinbad]

Not even funny nor sarcastic: "...I suppose any news from a site that's not a favorite is trash...." NOT a matter of 'favourite' but QUALITY. Trash is TRASH and the sites you often reference are filled with it as others have noted also. QUALITY makes its own favourites. As you may have seen a <sarc on> or similar along with a smilie maybe denotes the 'unserious tone' of the post/comment. We have talked about the difficulty of identifying SARCASM via web text only.

I have not had drink for nigh on 36 years [half my lifetime] however I do get low blood sugar before breakfast dunnunder.

[jessmo112]

So lets try some solutions minded thinking here.

1. Would you like to post a list of sites that are up to your approval and that are not? The American news sites, cnn. Fox, news are not good enough? Warzone is not good enough. Aviation week isnt good enough? Please good sir
Tell us as the pseudo moderator what sites are to your liking.

2. With no solution and constant complaints you could be mistaken as inebriated. You come across as Xenophobic, old and cantankerous. Heaven forbid I should misread you. So please tell me how I can elevate my posts above whats clearly part of the news and discussion designed around the above mentioned subject!

3. If you don't care for me or others not being here Then please just say so. And we can ignore each other.
But dont try and make it seem like whats odviously news is a bad post, when your just weary of outsiders.
Me posting the just the facts does not in anyway bring the quality down, Picking fights brings the quality down.
So please one more time. Lets make a list of sites that you approve of and make a decision here and now to get along, or not.

[spazsinbad]

Again not even funny. I and others here are asking you to lift your game - read/quote/post from quality websites. That is up to you. IF you have the knowledge then you SHOULD be able to identify a quality article from what will be obvious TRASH. I don't have any favourites as such but hope to post info that I judge is quality with perhaps some errors, which I'll attempt to point out. Why waste our time with obvious trash info from trash websites unless <sarc on> <sarc off>?

You perhaps are not old enough to remember that in the dim past F-16.net F-35 sub-forum had a distinctly bad rep. Whether that was justified or not my hope is that we all make a QUALITY sub-forum about the F-35 and I think with some exceptions (including me sometimes with some unrecognised humourous posts) we all go about making it THE SITE for info about the F-35, with many internal links to previous info posted to help others, including me, keep up to date with it all.

[jessmo112]

Again not even funny. I and others here are asking you to lift your game - read/quote/post from quality websites. That is up to you. IF you have the knowledge then you SHOULD be able to identify a quality article from what will be obvious TRASH. I don't have any favourites as such but hope to post info that I judge is quality with perhaps some errors, which I'll attempt to point out. Why waste our time with obvious trash info from trash websites unless <sarc on> <sarc off>?

You perhaps are not old enough to remember that in the dim past F-16.net F-35 sub-forum had a distinctly bad rep. Whether that was justified or not my hope is that we all make a QUALITY sub-forum about the F-35 and I think with some exceptions (including me sometimes with some unrecognised humourous posts) we all go about making it THE SITE for info about the F-35, with many internal links to previous info posted to help others, including me, keep up to date with it all.

Once again you have me wrong.. Im not young.
Im actually middle aged, 2nd career, going on 2nd marriage, ive been around. Me posting an article about how the F-35B fired its weapon, in a thread about " you guessed it" the F-35 firing its weapon does not in anyway shape or form, bring down the quality of this forum.
In your zeal to be the F-16.net version of the Saudi religious police, (F-16.net hai'a) You single handedly are bringing down the quality of forum.
And to be honest. Im a *****ing grown man, and im starting to tire of you complaining about what news sites are approved insulting people for not wading through
Tons of material to find an answer ect.. ect.
You have a thread here called Uk has muddled over F-35C
That has moved away from the topic years ago, but if someone else digs up an old thread, or asks a relevant question you all over them.
I like you spaz, I really do. But you come at guys hard, and this blog could use fresh life. If you haven't noticed significant time goes by before a fresh post.
Please be discerning enough to encourage outsiders, but still old and mean enough to throw our real trash.
My post was not a **** post neither is the site.
Excuse my manners, please enjoy your Christmas.


viewtopic.php?f=58&t=15969

[socalhornetpilot]

For all youst real fighter pilots out there (maybe some simmer, not sure):

I understand that gun opportunities are fleeting... but when you take a gunshot... are you typically unloaded or lightly loaded? Or does it all just depend? Or is it just as likely that you are pulling max G (5g / 7g / 9g) at whatever part of the envelope in which you find yourself?

The reason I ask is... with CLmax for the F-35 occurring way up at 35º alpha... would that high nose attitude be an advantage, a hindrance, or "just depends" when trying to gun an opponent in a hard turn? If the gun solution requires such a nose high position that the bandit is below your canopy rail, even with the Sauron helmet... that would seem problematic?

Don't think your question was answered very well so I'll try and boil down why and how we train to employing the gun in BFM.

Generally speaking, all US fighter aircraft (F-15/-16/-18A-F/-22) all train to employ the AIM-120/-9X/Gun during BFM, whether that is perch BFM (offensive or defensive) or high aspect. The point of BFM is sight picture development and recognizing opportunities to employ a weapon to achieve a first shot, deny a first shot, or maintain or deny a positional advantage. I will stay somewhat vague here for reasons but generally speaking, BFM is not representative of how real life combat WVR air to air engagements will occur. Today, one can expect that if you survived to the merge, or had an unobserved entry to an advantageous merge because weapons effectiveness or ROE dictated you could not kill the adversary at range, then the the first valid employment post merge will likely result in the first kill, or even more like a mutual kill considering advancements in threat capabilities.

With this, BFM is still valuable because it will allow for you to take advantage of that fleeting first shot opportunity, but weapons do not have a 1.0Pk, so you have to be capable of continuing to maneuver your jet to gain and maintain the positional advantage. Assuming that fuel and overall threat environment allows, balancing that with your mission objective and a million other things, you could find yourself in a fully developed fight. This is where that sight picture development for where "launch acceptability regions" (LARs) that you develop in BFM comes to play.

The gun, in a fully developed fight is as useful and effective weapons as any other weapon if you know how and when to employ it. It can be used in a high aspect fight or if you have a positional advantage. However, employing the gun required the pilot to commit some form of a BFM error, which needs to be balanced with his overall position in the fight. Additionally, your question about heavily loaded or light loaded or high G over low G doesn't factor into if you will use the gun. It is all about angles and energy. GENERALLY speaking, most fights become low G fights after about the 2nd merge, missile defenses and max performance pulls for shots dictate as such.

For the F/A-18, the gun is canted at 2° up, which means in an "in-plane" or 2 circle fight, the amount of lead required to employ the gun is less than say an F-16s with is 0° gun can't. This however becomes detrimental when level with an adversary on the deck in weave or 1C fight where you now need to lower the nose considerably to employ it which means you now need to honor the deck. As with anything, there are trade-offs. The biggest thing to remember about the gun is if you are in the positional advantage, "snapshot" employments will present themselves frequently, you just have to ensure you recognize them early and plan them out so that you don't sacrifice your position for it.

Being able to "throw the nose around" is great, but it's more useful for gaining a high off-boresight shot rather than a gun employment. Believe it or not, nothing about the F-35s EM diagram or maneuvering capabilities are really that impressive to a Hornet pilot, I can do it all. Plus I have a gun that works that's not in a pod and I have -9x's that I don't have to worry about carrying because of RCS concerns. And believe me, that's important because I KNOW everyone sees me so I need every advantage I can get until we get to the merge. Then I'll eat you F-15s/-16s/-35s and yes even the occasional Raptor (that blows his load too soon at the first merge) alive.

[spazsinbad]

Above is an excellent example of an 'on topic' post. Let us have more of them and I'll aim to keep 'on topic' myself. IIRC