Message posted by Fuel Fraction on May 04, 2002 at 17:44:39 PST:
Dear Magoo, You are showing that you are once again off the tracks.... So, i said MACH 7 instead of MACH 4 for the missiles of the YF-12...? I don't know where you took your data on the F-12 "would have been based up North" (to counter bombers coming from over the Pole), but what i know is what Kelly Johnson wrote on the subject: that the IF there was a USAF plan for another version for deployment, i have not heard of it, and, sincerely, i think if it is the way you say, it wouldn't make sense. ANY good planner would prepare for protecting NOT JUST the North, but all the coastline too...! So, "no need for such interceptors..."? I don't think so.... Fuel Fraction. Fuel Fraction.
If you go to my initial posting, you will see that i NEVER mentionned about those F-16, F15 and F-14s...
YOU were the one who brought them in the conversation.
I was ONLY refering to the fact i believe there are NO Mach 3 classified black project fighters in service in the US right now.
BIG DEAL...!
That still makes a velocity of MACH 4, and NO Boeing 767 airliner can escape that...!!
IF the US had had YF-12 still in service, in flight on 24 alert patrol at the time last September, they WOULD have been able to stop at least ONE of the Boeings !
But only in the conditions i described (and at hight cost of course to have YF-12s in flight 365 days a year at all time).
That's why i said no (modern) Mach 3 classified fighter aircraft today flies, because, at todays cost for aircraft procurement, with new,more expensive technology and avionics, they could barely have produced a handfull, and could never have put enough of them in service to cover all continental USA.
(Thus, rendering their hypotetical mission useless).
(that, and the fact you need all the logistical/medical pre-flight preparations i mentionned earlier (Wolfbane's entry about the new pressure suit have still to be verified, so, for now, i still believe there is no operational Mach 3 fighter).
F-12s would be based on the East coast, West coast, and Central USA, to cover the whole continental USA.
If you remember, the Cubans have bases where the Tu-95 bombers would go, and they would follow ALL along the coast on the way there.
Furthermore, there have been at least one Cuban air force fighter which landed on a US base in the past (no, that one was not a defection).
It was a Mig-17 :) , and it landed right next to Air Force One.... :)
(ahem...).
If an F-16 can't overtake a B 767...
and if an F-106 or an F-104 can't overtake also a little Mig-17... there is a "problem" somewhere, don" you think ? :)
In Reply to: Ok... posted by Magoo on May 03, 2002 at 4:14:49 PST:
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