Biggest mistakes in aviation history? Which projects should have been built?

[Pioneer]

Have we mentioned the Grumman A-6F Intruder?

This would have offered a capability the USN still lacks to this day (even after the A-12 Avenger II cancellation decision)

The F/A-18E/F still lacks the A-6F's range and offensive payload capability


Regards
Pioneer

Reading over this subject of the A-6F, I guess another advantage of this Intruder evaluation, is the Aim-120 capability that was to be incorporated....Interesting that it would have given the A-6F some degree of 'self-escort' capability in hostile aerospace....

Regards
Pioneer

The A-6F was horribly misconceived and out of time.
The A-6F would have been and would now be a death trap for its crew, unable to survive against even moderate threats it would have to face in its role.
Extra range/ payload capabilities don’t help you if you are already dead.

In all due respect kaiserd, was it "out of time"?
Given that it was designed for Cold War conventional warfare, like most U.S. combat aircraft, in reality they've conducted very little operations against a peer-type adversary you seem to be suggesting. If I remember correctly, the last time the A-6 faced a semi competently equipped adversary, would have been during the Gulf War in 1991 and over Bosnia in 1994. Granted during the Gulf War three A-6 were shot down by SAMs and AAA, but one has to appriciate that USN and USMC A-6s flew more than 4,700 combat sorties, providing close air support, destroying enemy air defences, attacking Iraqi naval units, and hitting strategic targets. They were also the U.S. Navy's primary strike platform for delivering LGB's.
I can't help think and reflect how the A-6F's would have benefitted U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, with their better range. loitering time on station when compared to the USN and USMC's F/A-18's......If anything, I think the A-6F would have mitigated much need for airborne refuelling support.

If anything, the A-6F would have provided a strike/SEAD/Anti-shipping role until the advent of the F-35.....oh hang on the JSF was something like a decade and a half late in entering in some kind of description of service.....


Regards
Pioneer

 

[kaiserd]

Have we mentioned the Grumman A-6F Intruder?

This would have offered a capability the USN still lacks to this day (even after the A-12 Avenger II cancellation decision)

The F/A-18E/F still lacks the A-6F's range and offensive payload capability


Regards
Pioneer

Reading over this subject of the A-6F, I guess another advantage of this Intruder evaluation, is the Aim-120 capability that was to be incorporated....Interesting that it would have given the A-6F some degree of 'self-escort' capability in hostile aerospace....

Regards
Pioneer

The A-6F was horribly misconceived and out of time.
The A-6F would have been and would now be a death trap for its crew, unable to survive against even moderate threats it would have to face in its role.
Extra range/ payload capabilities don’t help you if you are already dead.

In all due respect kaiserd, was it "out of time"?
Given that it was designed for Cold War conventional warfare, like most U.S. combat aircraft, in reality they've conducted very little operations against a peer-type adversary you seem to be suggesting. If I remember correctly, the last time the A-6 faced a semi competently equipped adversary, would have been during the Gulf War in 1991 and over Bosnia in 1994. Granted during the Gulf War three A-6 were shot down by SAMs and AAA, but one has to appriciate that USN and USMC A-6s flew more than 4,700 combat sorties, providing close air support, destroying enemy air defences, attacking Iraqi naval units, and hitting strategic targets. They were also the U.S. Navy's primary strike platform for delivering LGB's.
I can't help think and reflect how the A-6F's would have benefitted U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, with their better range. loitering time on station when compared to the USN and USMC's F/A-18's......If anything, I think the A-6F would have mitigated much need for airborne refuelling support.

If anything, the A-6F would have provided a strike/SEAD/Anti-shipping role until the advent of the F-35.....oh hang on the JSF was something like a decade and a half late in entering in some kind of description of service.....


Regards
Pioneer

I did specify “against even moderate threats”. A lot of stuff will be more acceptable or even attractive if you only plan to fight opponents who won’t have a remotely credible ability to even try to shoot you down (or are only interested in fighting at the very start of the 90’s).

The early retirement of the A-6E fleet with the “Bombcat” and the original Hornet (plus ship launched Tomahawks) taking on its role also suggest that the US Navy took a dim view of survivability of the A-6 at that time. As did the actual cancellation of A-6F when that was undertaken.

In a world of increasingly sophisticated threats (Su-27/ MIG-29 generation of fighters with look-down radars, more advanced SAMs etc.) a warmed up A-6 wasn’t ever going to hack it medium to long term.

And the actual longer term replacements (Super Hornets and F-35Cs) were and are much more survivable and capable due to fundamentally much more advanced airframes and systems.

I’m a fan of the A-6 but much of your reasoning appears to be absolute nostalgic nonsense.

 

[Pioneer]

Have we mentioned the Grumman A-6F Intruder?

This would have offered a capability the USN still lacks to this day (even after the A-12 Avenger II cancellation decision)

The F/A-18E/F still lacks the A-6F's range and offensive payload capability


Regards
Pioneer

Reading over this subject of the A-6F, I guess another advantage of this Intruder evaluation, is the Aim-120 capability that was to be incorporated....Interesting that it would have given the A-6F some degree of 'self-escort' capability in hostile aerospace....

Regards
Pioneer

The A-6F was horribly misconceived and out of time.
The A-6F would have been and would now be a death trap for its crew, unable to survive against even moderate threats it would have to face in its role.
Extra range/ payload capabilities don’t help you if you are already dead.

In all due respect kaiserd, was it "out of time"?
Given that it was designed for Cold War conventional warfare, like most U.S. combat aircraft, in reality they've conducted very little operations against a peer-type adversary you seem to be suggesting. If I remember correctly, the last time the A-6 faced a semi competently equipped adversary, would have been during the Gulf War in 1991 and over Bosnia in 1994. Granted during the Gulf War three A-6 were shot down by SAMs and AAA, but one has to appriciate that USN and USMC A-6s flew more than 4,700 combat sorties, providing close air support, destroying enemy air defences, attacking Iraqi naval units, and hitting strategic targets. They were also the U.S. Navy's primary strike platform for delivering LGB's.
I can't help think and reflect how the A-6F's would have benefitted U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, with their better range. loitering time on station when compared to the USN and USMC's F/A-18's......If anything, I think the A-6F would have mitigated much need for airborne refuelling support.

If anything, the A-6F would have provided a strike/SEAD/Anti-shipping role until the advent of the F-35.....oh hang on the JSF was something like a decade and a half late in entering in some kind of description of service.....


Regards
Pioneer

I’m a fan of the A-6 but much of your reasoning appears to be absolute nostalgic nonsense.

Fair enough.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Deleted member 2278]

Horses for courses, surely? An Intruder is never going to survive in proximity to a Su-27 or S-400 or blah blah blah. The solution is simple. Don't put it there! It's not survivable in the harshest of threat environments (what is?) so it's necessarily useless? I reject that notion utterly.

An Intruder attacking an enemy SAG/ASW TG with 4 Harpoons at stand-off range sounds pretty useful to me. Not scary enough? Well, it has 23 friends doing likewise, yes with Prowlers and Hornets along too. It would be a rare day for one element of a CVW to work in isolation. The A-6F's prodigious warload and loiter time would have been quite useful over Afghanistan et al. I dread to think how many SDBs it could haul if it had lasted long enough in service. ASh, CAS, fast FAC, ISR and buddy tanking. With crews requiring only nominal retraining from their previous mount. Damn this A-6F sounds like a steal!

The USN cancelled the A-6F because oooh shiny A-12 (doh!) and post-Cold War drawdown, not because the A-6 lacked utility going forward. Subsonic ≠ useless. Tomahawk is subsonic. MQ-1/-9 and RQ-4 are all subsonic. BACN is subsonic. A-10..... All pretty useful in their way and the A-6F could have potentially performed well in all of their domains.

No, the Mighty Drumstick would never have been able to go downtown over Moscow but that was never what it was intended for. Then my reasoning is probably nostalgic nonsense.

 

[acegeek9992]

USSR should have mated the MiG-27 gun with the Su-25.

IIRC, the Russkies did give that a shot on a few SU-25TMs, but they soon swapped out the GSh-6-30 for the GSh-30-2 of the original Frogfoots.

 

[Pioneer]

I've just been re-reading and trying to find more details on the Yakovlev Yak-39 V/STOL fighter-bomber, itself an outgrowth of the Yak-38 Forger.
Unfortunatly, the Yak-39 has been successful in keeping under the radar.
Just like the Hawker-Siddeley Kestrel, which was developed progressively through operational experiance into the Harrier GR.1, GR.3, GR.5/AV-8B and GR.9/AV-8B Plus variants. I can't help think that the Soviet's might have potentially done similar and developed the mediocre performing Yak-38 and delivered an incremental approach leading to the Yak-39, before going to the more risker Yak-141.
This could have also possibly retained the viability of the Kiev-class heavy aviation cruisers in Russian service, post-Soviet Union.....

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Hood]

There is not much on the Yak-39.
More powerful engines, more wing area, more fuel and a multi-mode radar part of the PrNK-39 suite. Would have carried a wider range of weapons - presumably better AAMs than AA-2s.
Not much to go on but I guess would be a big-wing Yak-38 with a longer nose? Perhaps not unlike how the Harrier II evolved.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

The British fleet carriers could not sustain their maximum speed with catapults in operation. I think maximum speed with both catapults was as low as 25 knots in some hot environments. Add to that the lower power of even the BS-5A catapult on the Phantom commission of the Ark Royal and you have a significant difference. This catapult could only provide a launch speed of 95 knots for a 60,000 pound aircraft (fully loaded Phantom) compared to 115 knots from the C-11 catapults fitted to a SCB-27 Essex class (Oriskany’s C-11-1s were even better). This is where you start to get a 25 knot WOD difference. And the reason why the Royal Navy was specifying aircraft with much lower stall speeds than the Royal Navy which culminated in the Spey Phantom. Even the BS-6 planned for CVA-01 would only slightly improve on the C-11 catapult’s performance and the lower speeds would be continued thanks to cost cutting. While the US Navy was moving

It is certainly true that USN catapults were more powerful than their UK equivalents, largely by virtue of operating under higher pressure steam conditions, and this clearly caused much of the RN's difficulty. However, speed drain is a problem caused by any catapult that draws its steam from the ships boilers, unless the Essex class had an additional steam plant dedicated to producing steam for the catapults (which to my knowledge they did not?) they would have had the same problem, what was their sustained speed when operating two catapults simultaneously, especially deep and dirty in the tropics which appears to be your reference for 25knots for the RN carriers? 29 knots for 15 minutes for Ark Royal seems fairly reasonable and I do not see why the Essex class (with comparable top speeds as already stated) would have managed any better unless there is a source that states that they did?

I don't think there is any confusion, the USN appears to have decided that whilst it was technically feasible (with some fudging) to operate Phantoms from the Essex class it was not wholly viable (for a whole range of reasons) and that is why it was not done. Multiple authors (including Friedman- 'Carrier Air Power' 1981) have stated that the Phantom could not be operated from the Essex class and submissions to Congressional hearings in late 60s and early 70s stated the same thing. Indeed I understand that McNamara actually told the House Armed Services Committee in 1964 that the F8 would be retained for the Essex class as that group of ships had only a marginal capability for the safe operation of the F4. Of course the RN pursued the solution of modifying the aircraft, the double extending nose-gear shown in Tailspin Turtles excellent picture, the exhaust pipes on the Speys were angled downwards and Spey itself offered more take-off power.

Just saw this.

Anyway, for any of the modern US carriers, charging the steam bottle for the catapult isn't a drain on the engine speed up through the high 20 knot range. It could be if you doing over 30 knots, but below that it isn't a problem. Each cat is normally drawing steam from one boiler plant (engine room) and a cross connect is possible if needed. The charge drawn varies with what's being launched too.

I could see this possibly being an issue on an Essex class that originally had hydraulic catapults where the boilers weren't sized for the extra load, but even there the cat charge is really momentary. For anything newer, Forrestall on, there was more than enough steam to run the cats and the engines without issue.

 

[Pioneer]

I think the USSR should have produced a real successor to the MiG-21, like the Project "33". A single engine agile fighter, based on a single RD-33 engine. Nothing too complicated, it was designed for wartime production. I think it could have been the natural heir to the MiG-21 in a great number of air forces.

Revisiting this topic, after posting my thought on the Yak-39....

I couldn't agree more overscan

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Kiltonge]

In a world of increasingly sophisticated threats (Su-27/ MIG-29 generation of fighters with look-down radars, more advanced SAMs etc.) a warmed up A-6 wasn’t ever going to hack it medium to long term.

And the actual longer term replacements (Super Hornets and F-35Cs) were and are much more survivable and capable due to fundamentally much more advanced airframes and systems.

I'll grant the F-35 in terms of LO, but how is the Super Hornet more survivable against such threats? Loaded with ordnance its penetration speed is about the same as an A-6, and it won't be dogfighting.

The whole Hornet family is perhaps an inversion of this topic: an aircraft that should never have been built. It was less capable than what the Navy wanted in the VFAX, and in many regards was inferior to what it replaced despite being more expensive.

 

[kaiserd]

In a world of increasingly sophisticated threats (Su-27/ MIG-29 generation of fighters with look-down radars, more advanced SAMs etc.) a warmed up A-6 wasn’t ever going to hack it medium to long term.

And the actual longer term replacements (Super Hornets and F-35Cs) were and are much more survivable and capable due to fundamentally much more advanced airframes and systems.

I'll grant the F-35 in terms of LO, but how is the Super Hornet more survivable against such threats? Loaded with ordnance its penetration speed is about the same as an A-6, and it won't be dogfighting.

The whole Hornet family is perhaps an inversion of this topic: an aircraft that should never have been built. It was less capable than what the Navy wanted in the VFAX, and in many regards was inferior to what it replaced despite being more expensive.

With respect both the Hornet and Super Hornet were both significantly more capable and survivable than the aircraft they replaced.

There is potentially a wider discussion to be had on costs/ benefits re: range of carrier air wings etc. But none of the points in that discussion have theoretical still in service A-6s not being significantly more vulnerable and less survivable in the last approx. 30 years than the aircraft that actually served/ are serving instead.