/asg/ Airship General

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>>34645477
C'mon, /k/, this should be right up your alley. You don't belong here if the idea of the Bismarck being spotted off of Iceland by one of the Macon's successors and her P-40's doesn't get your dick hard more or less instantly.

i suspect maybe the germans would have made new zepplins to counter and help sups spot convoys and shit....ww2 airship v airship battles...but it was not to be...feels bad man.

>>34645701
>LZ-130 descendants flying from France carrying Me-109's to scout targets for the Kriegsmarine never happened

feels bad, man.

better yet, imagine the sort of range that a CHAIN HOME-style system carried aloft on an Akron-sized ship could have had. It would have been an AWACS for the dieselpunk era.

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Soon?

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>No rigid airships carrying F4F wildcats islandhopping across the Pacific during WWII

I wish we lived in a different timeline.

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>>34645477
>/asg/ Airship General
>general
>OP really expects this to be some daily thing instead of a one-off thread that'll 404 long before any bump/image limits

>>34645477
actually why dont we have large airships for occupation work? Since they are permissive environments, where we need persistent aerial coverage, you could replace a several FOBs and firebases with a single long deployment airship. It would also remove the terrorists favorite weapon the IED from importance. Would have saved lives, money, and probably been more effective than using the chairforce for CAS of FOB in the middle of nowhere.

>>34647916
So less vehicles would need replacing, less ammo expended, less supplies & buildimg material needed.Not good for the MIC.

>>34647916
also have it hover really high and drop cluster bombs and missiles and shit on brown people

>>34647916
military designation LFT large floating target

>>34647916
oh yeah and we can also put a giant Zardoz mask on the front and use it to deliver supplies to -insurgents- our valuable moderate rebel friends

>>34645817
was about to post this.

AIRSHIP READY
BOMBARDIERS TO YOUR STATIONS

>>34648509
Its not like the insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq, syria, Libya, Somali, Nigeria, etc. have anything capable of reaching a target at 10k ft without first being BTFO by the many many weapons we can have on the airship. Again this airship would only be for permissive airspaces, ie ones where we are occupying territory, not the front lines.

>>34647953
>>34648403
absolutely, it would reduce all the costs associated with war on our side, and dramatically increase them for the enemy, because they are now literally under aerial surveillance 100% of the time.

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the true airships have a lot of problems with their maneuvering but there exist these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_airship (pic related)

apparently the american army has/had some interest in airships, google lemv (the pic is also related to lemv) and jlens (those look not very decent too, except they have a big bulge), and israelian army as well, see http://www.uasvision.com/2012/05/10/israel-defence-force-airship-crashes-near-gaza/

>>34649068
THICC

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>>34645477
I imagine they'd have a bunch of duties
One could serve as a sort of long-range recon vessel that could field the big cumbersome radar arrays used on ships instead of the paired down devices used on planes. From their higher vantage point, they could serve as a sort of sensor radius amplifier, forming absolutely YUGE radar nets for ships and planes alike

Then you get your carriers like the OG Macon, with P-51s and other long-range interceptors instead of bi-planes. Their relatively small fighter wing (maybe 4-5 aircraft) would be mitigated somewhat by the superior speed of the carrier (55kn for Macon, 32.5 Enterprise) and low cost of the airship relative to a contemporary ACC.
Aircraft from these carriers could carry out recon missions, act as first response interceptors of incoming enemy forces, or as a form of aerial hotbunking for bomber escorts

Really, the window of effectiveness for these things was WWII, before guided munitions and such

>>34649068
it looks like a giant ass

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>>34647916
>>34648544

>>34649463
i am.............impressed at your dedication

>>34649463
why does the burger airship give them russian weapons

>>34649207
macon and akron were way too unreliable, that's why they both crashed in the early-mid 30ss

>>34649502
because we have the capacity to produce them... also because they were probably captured in the region and recirculated. Ala the Jackal tapes from farcry 2 where he discusses the role of naval groups in arms trafficking or whatever. FIctional or not, These are probably old guns, sold, resold, bought, etc.

>>34649502
The caveat of this thread is 'what if the glaring design flaws were fixed or something'

If the Macon and Akron could be made reasonably functional, then these are the potential uses for airships in WWII

>>34645477
There would be survivors, and I would want one desperately

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>>34647916

>>34645477
quick the us air force has given you a military contractor 500 million to weaponize a good year blimp for supporting spec ops troops, air interdiction and CAS...what do you use?

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>>34651496
as i have said earlier google jlens

it possibly even can carry hellfires (well if cessna caravan can why not a blimp)

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>>34647916
>actually why dont we have large airships for occupation work?

Like some kind of Persistent Threat Detection System?

>>34649463
Guns good penis bad!

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>>34651496
OP here

Dust off the old Airship Industries plans for the Skyship 5000/YEZ-2A and adapt it as a loitering air support platform, most likely optionally-manned.

Since the USAF is the one giving me the money, scrap the massive in-envelope radar system, since tracking sea-skimming ASM's, and replace it with a ground-tracking radar a-la J-STARS and likely a similar optical system like GORGON STARE. Since you'd still have a ton of payload left, use what you have leftover for a few dozen Hellfires or SDB's and countermeasures to ward off MANPADs.

Now, base a couple of these monsters on 24/7 coverage rotations over urban trouble spots and now you have something with a payload close to an A-10's with endurance that makes a Global Hawk look like a Mig 25, while allowing you to merge the duties of a J-STARS and an AC-130. basically, an optical/radar intel satellite that can also shoot back, while always being there if guys on the ground need a hellfire on the bad guys immediately.

>>34654064
>since tracking sea-skimming ASM's
meant to say:
since tracking sea-skimming ASM's isn't my problem

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>>34650783
ZR-1 and ZR-2's losses were both 100% due to design flaws, as they were structural copies of downed German "height climbers" from late in the first world war that were more or less the LTA equivalents of U-2's or Global Hawks, with extremely light superstructures designed first and foremost around weight reduction to allow them to fly above England's air defenses to bomb London.

The German Navy was well aware of the delicate structures of these ships and only flew them under very specific weather conditions because there was a real risk of structural failure in bad weather or under intense maneuvering.

The allies didn't know this when the US chose to build a carbon copy of L49 as the USS Shenandoah and as the UK decided to go one step further by nearly doubling the volume while retaining the same lightweight structure when they built the R38 (op's image).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Shenandoah broke into three pieces in a squall over Ohio, and the R38 snapped in two during high-speed yaw tests, killing damn near everyone aboard.

Meanwhile, when the Germans built Zeppelins post-WWI, they created ships like the LZ-126/ZR-3/USS Los Angeles and the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, both of which were built like brick shithouses and flew for decades surviving every bit of bad weather that they encountered before both were scrapped as WWII ramped up.

>>34651496
Adapt the Cyclocrane into a CAS platform, and because it's alien doppler-shifted full-throttle drone is just about the only thing that could beat a diving Stuka and the A-10's BRRRRTTTTT in the psychological warfare game.

https://youtu.be/CiU71GFs4Fs
https://youtu.be/cWLhH3wsxUo

>>34649068
I'll admit, I got excited for a sec

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>>34654170
What's your point?

The whole thread is based on a hypothetical assertion that airships were made structurally viable for reasons, any reasons, the reasons don't matter.

>Imagine a world where the R38 and the Shenandoah weren't structurally deficient from their height climber lightened structures
^ from the OP
The point of this thread is that airships work, they just do, so what roles would they have in WWII?

Pointing out why they don't work IRL is not only pointless, but incredibly stupid. We know they don't, we're talking hypothetically here.
It's like someone saying "What if jetpacks were feasible/practical?" and you say "Well, they're not."
No shit, asshole.

>>34656497
OP here, that was me, didn't mean for it to be taken that way.

I was kind of backing up my point that while the height climbers were POS's if you wanted to do anything but skirt flak over London, the later designs weren't tarnished in the same way.

The Akron/Macon were near-flawless designs apart from the well-documented weaknesses around the rear fins, and the only issues that they had in service up to and including their losses had more to do with US inexperience operating big rigids in general, much less what were easily the two biggest and most technologically advanced rigids in the world at the time.

Even then, the Akron and Macon showed incredible promise as maritime reconnaissance assets, combining the endurance of a blimp with the speed of a fixed wing asset, and as such were able to scout incredible amounts of ocean in very little time.

I absolutely believe that had the US Navy been more willing to roll with the punches when the Akron/Macon had teething problems, they would have evolved into incredible assets in WWII.

The mere notion of something like a Macon successor carrying a CHAIN HOME array and serving as a flying war room coordinating air ops over Midway or Coral Sea like a dieselpunk AWACS should be enough to give anyone here on /k/ an erection.

>>34654064
why arint we funding this...

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>>34656582
>The mere notion of something like a Macon successor carrying a CHAIN HOME array and serving as a flying war room coordinating air ops over Midway or Coral Sea like a dieselpunk AWACS should be enough to give anyone here on /k/ an erection.

That actually happened, abit too late for WW2. 1940's radar was too large and too finicky to work on an airship, but in 1952 the USN introduced the N-class blimps as Airborne Early Warning aircraft. Non-rigid airships were an important component of the USN arsenal all the way up to the early 1960s, when they were finally replaced by long range jet aircraft.

The USN operated dozens of non-rigid airships during WW2 as well, utilizing them heavily for maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare. Everyone is way too focused on rigid airships as the end all be all, when the only reason you want a rigid structure is to get streamlining for more speed. That's not why you use lighter than air, you want endurance, which is why rigid airships fell out of use during the 1930s.

Rigid airships make my peepee hard

>>34656789
This picture always gives me the feels because it's one of the last images of the USS Los Angeles out of her hangar and she was easily the best candidate there ever was for a Zeppelin that could have been preserved instead of scrapped.

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>>34656970
The Los Angeles was also easily the prettiest Zeppelin ever built. Her lines were Beechcraft Staggerwing-level perfect.

>>34649463
Great, it's going to be another couple months before the image of Sean Connery in bright red gimp suit will leave my mind.

>>34657077
Fuck, I love airships so much. Why must they be borderline defunct? Rigid airship cruise line WHEN?

>>34645477
>tfw just drove past the wreck site of the Shenandoah a few hours ago
>my great grandfather helped clean up the site and saved some of the skin of the airship as a souvenir

>>34658907
if I ever find myself Jeff Bezos/Paul Allen/Larry Ellison-tier rich, building myself a full replica of either the USS Los Angeles or a modified/improved USS Macon (stiffer fins, more comfortable accommodations, able to recover larger/heavier aircraft) and use it as my personal sky yacht.

>>34658942
>Not offering rides or renting staterooms like the world's best airbnb
We have to share airships with the world anon. The rebirth is nye

>>34659043
Oh yeah, having it do passenger cruises when I'm not using it would be a "must".

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>>34659094
This book series fucking ruined me

>>34659211
fuck yeah I remember that
my only complaint with the books are the prevalence ornithopters when propeller driven internal combustion engines already exist
also shitty guns for some reason

>>34656836
>1940's radar was too large and too finicky to work on an airship

they used radars even on three seat biplanes

>The Swordfish II carried ASV Mk.II radar...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish

>>34659267
I don't mind ornithopters for the novelty, though some of the designs were weird as hell. Don't remember much about the guns, haven't read anything from that series since about 12. The technical detail I appreciate most are the airships themselves. Most fantasy/steam/dieselpunk airships have horrendous envelope to gondola ratios. The airships here, though possessing in-envelope structure as Hindenburg (and others) did, are fairly believable. Also I remember the sky operating being top tier.

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>>34659299
>3 foot wide anti-submarine radar that can only effective out to 3 miles or less
>42 foot wide air to air radar with a range of 250 miles
>thinking these things are in any way shape or form comparable

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I'm erect

>>34661698
it's just an example (btw that radar found bismarck), there existed radars that could be installed on an airship and could detect planes in like 15 miles or so, night fighters commonly had a radar that detected enemy planes n maybe 2.5 miles and finally ww2 it was when proto-awacs appeared with 100 miles range:

> The most ambitious, long-term effort of the Rad Lab was Project Cadillac, the first airborne early-warning radar system. Led by Jerome Wiesner, about 20 percent of Rad Lab staff would ultimately be involved. Designated AN/APS-20, this 20 cm (1.5 GHz), 1 MW radar weighed 2,300 pounds including an 8-foot radome enclosing a spinning parabolic antenna. Carried by a TBF Avenger carrier-based aircraft, it could detect large aircraft at ranges up to 100 miles. The airborne radar system included a television camera to pick up the PPI display, and a VHF link transmitted the image back to the Combat Information Center on the host carrier. The system was first flown in August 1944 and went into service the following March. This was the foundation of the post-war Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) concept.

so, you see, radar could be used on ww2 airships

>>34645477
I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen the use of small to medium-sized unmanned airships in a COIN role. I know we had a stationary one over one of the camps in 04 but it seems like they had way more potential.
They'd be cheaper and have far greater endurance than Predators etc which would allow us to have eyes in the sky near constantly.
>Provide overwatch for patrols
>Impede the ability of insurgents to place IEDs / prepare ambushes
>Potentially ID IEDs with hyperspectral imaging some time in the near future https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-20-20-22344&id=241484
>Constrain or track the movement of suspected high value targets.
I'd imagine the smaller ones would float just out of rifle range and be made as cheaply as possible so we don't care too much if they're taken out.
The medium-sized ones I'm envisioning would go up a bit higher, carry some flares and active defenses to protect their more sophisticated sensor suite, and maybe carry a few hellfires to drop on command.

Should even be possible to flatten the shape out and throw solar panels on top to further extend loiter time.

>>34662188
it's hugging a bomber, not an airship

>>34662481
Even more surprising is the fact that the London Met hasn't bought a bunch yet.

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One of the most obscure types of dirigible are the motor balloons made by Zodiac in France.

Some of them actually saw service in WW2. For the French this Zodiac MBZ-3 actually made a lot of sense. They had a large front that needed to be covered by observers but had a lack of manpower. An observation balloon that could move itself around the front would allow the limited number of observers to be where they were needed on the front quickly. This machine also used a semi-standard rubber gas envelope, and could be converted to a normal observation basket in 15mins.

About 50-60 of these had been handed over from the manufacturer to the balloon core before the surrender, although its likely the number to actually see combat use is much lower. One of these balloons spotted the German buildup at Sedan the night before the attack. This intelligence was reported but ignored since it was 'too incredible to be real'. The next day that Zodiac pilot was burning his machine and running for his life.

There is photographic proof that the Germans did at least evaluation flights with the Zodiac. Some Russian sources also say that this was used by the Germans in antipartisan duties in the Baltic and Crimean, but I haven't seen credible proof of this.

Interesting side fact; the Zodiac type boat so common today was invented by this company just before ww2

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>>34662584

And here is a better view of the lower cab. This wing is positioned right where the center of gravity is, meaning that deflecting it up or down causes the mbz to move vertically straight - no change in pitch occurs

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>this .webm wasn't posted yet
weak

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>>34662599

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>>34662602
it wasn't meant to be

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AIRBORNE SHIPPING: THE NEW KING OF COMMERCE. ACROSS ALL 23 AMERICAN NATIONS, OLD-FASHIONED TRAINS, SHIPS AND TRUCKS ARE NO MATCH FOR THE MODERN ZEPPELIN.

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Little known incident just before WW2 was the Graf Zeppelins spy flight over England.

It took off from Germany headed north to the Shetlands under the pretense of a routine test flight. The engines were shut off when it was near the northern English coast supposedly due to icing problems or some bullshit like that. They allowed the Zeppelin to drift with the wind, putting it over England itself and giving the Germans a good look at the radar and air base installations on the ground.

This also marked the first time the Germans encountered the spitfire, as a flight of them was sent up to escort them out of English airspace.

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>>34662764
BUT WITH MODERN AIR SHIPPING COMES MODERN AIR PIRATES. THE SCOURGE OF THE SKY.

why was there never a second part? I loved that game

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>you will never dogfight airships

why live?

>>34662602
Now imagine the improved successors that they had on the drawing boards doing this in 1940 with a half-dozen P-40's or something similar.

Better yet, imagine them carrying ASW aircraft or torpedo bombers and serving as flying convoy escorts, possessing ASW/advanced scouting abilities so good that even the Scharnhorst and the Gneisneau couldn't get within gun range of a target lest they risk repeating the aerial version of the Ark Royal Vs the Bismarck.

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>>34661698
the ZPG-3W was a pornographically powerful piece of AEW&C hardware, one that was arguably retired only because they were just that ahead of their time.

Imagine if the USN had kept on developing them and today, no CBG went to sea without its assigned airship, 50' wide AESA and all, to provide 24/7 radar capabilities rivaling those of the Sea-Based X-Band Radar system everywhere the carrier group went.

Especially given the resurgent threat of sea-skimming missiles, I'm shocked that nobody has thought to dust off the plans for the Skyship 5000 (pic related was her control car layout, she would have been as big if nut bigger than the biggest Nan ships) to do just this very thing.

>>34662870
>There is an alternate universe where the Nazis won WWII and proceeded to build a BOAC-like service connecting the far-flung corners of the reich with fast luxury service on LZ-129. -130, -131, and their sister ships, now as legendary as the great liners of the Cunard and White Star Lines.

>>34645857
>not knowing what "general" means
lurk moar, newfriend

>>34649502
>why does the burger airship give them russian weapons
So that if they're captured we can say "nuh uh wasn't us".

>>34663085
i wish only for death....no age of airships 2.0

>>34662922
>tfw will never be a member of a zepplin combat boarding party

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>>34665685
>you will never hijack a bomber mid flight
>tfw crimson skies was baneposting 15 years before it was in

>>34662667
Fuck me anon. I'm feeling some serious nostalgia now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i23KRvtWLx8


Now I got to find my CD case and joystick...

Thanks

>>34662584
>Some Russian sources also say that this was used by the Germans in antipartisan duties in the Baltic and Crimean

>german wannabe fighterpilots taking potshots at peasants fucking around behind your lines with a rifle

Sign me up

>>34667031
I just started replaying it a week ago.

It's so poorly optimized, speeds up and slows down randomly

10/10

>>34647916
Mostly because it's hard to say we're not the bad guys when you have a massive zeppelin battleship parked over an occupied city literally blocking out the sun as you periodically bombard uppity locals.

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>>34665714
>>34662667
>>34667031
>>34667524
here is how it all spiralled out of control for me

->Flight simulator 98->
->Falcon 4.0->
->Crimson Skies->
->Il-2 Sturmovik->
->IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles - Gold Pack->
->IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946->
->Falcon BMS->
->DCS->
->IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad->

kids...don't do Microsoft Flight Simulators

>>34667835
For me:
Model airplanes/Starfox 64
FS2004 for years and years
CFS 2/3
FSX (2006-current)
First IRL left seat time
Il-2 1946
X-Plane/DCS/KSP
Developing for KSP
First taildragger hour
Developing for FSX
Opening this thread
Someone needs to make a planefag edit of the stages of furry chart
>Captcha helicopters

The only reason we use helium in airships is for safety of the crew. Surely, with the potential for unmanned lighter than air vehicles, they could go back to using hydrogen (which is both far cheaper and lighter than helium, and can be generated in situ) which would drive down costs of persistent surveillance.

>>34670928
You could probably geht away with using hydrogen for manner stuff too, could make it safe by having a thinner layer of helium at higher pressure around it

>>34672752
Problem is, it's not just a matter of actual risk; it's a matter of perceived risk. Nobody's ever going to board anything that they could pejoratively refer to as the Neue Hindenburg.

>>34673089
hindenburg is a very tame air accident by the modern standards

>>34673094
Statistically yes. Culturally no.

>>34673119
it had a major impact 80 years ago but it was 80 years ago...

>>34673154
It was 80 years ago and people still talk about it, still know about it. It was hydrogen's Chernobyl/TMI - there will *always* be people who are opposed to it no matter the improvements in safety technology.

You're looking at this rationally, logically. People, by and large, are emotionally-driven idiots.

>>34667938
>>34667835
>no Aces High
It's not flying if you don't take off from a field and spend 20 minutes en route.

>tfw will never fly escort for a 180-ship bomber stream in a P-47D-40 again
I'll never forget the pants-shitting horror of seeing 27 Me-262s entering con range directly towards us and being told by my flight lead that mission control is ordering us to turn and intercept.

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>>34647916
They were considering it for Afghanistan, but Northrop took too long - with the withdrawal when it was they sold it back to the guys who first did the build and design for a pittance and let them carry on doing it at a civilian pace.

When the kinks are all worked out the'll start doing bigger ones, maybe militaries will look at them again.

I think a drone mothership would be cool, but I don't know how practical it would be.

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>>34649231
Amusingly, that vessel is named after the HAV director's wife.

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>>34662602
Damn.

Wonder if you could do this with drones or something, seeing as they don't need to go fast
and it removes the human risk.
Call it a drone stratocarrier or something cool like that.

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mainstream media flying stuff recognition chart

>>34660092
>>34659267
>>34659211
Fuck, this series was my childhood. I must have read and re-read it at least three times, wanting to be Matt Cruse. Also Kate was a top tier waifu.

>>34675396
>Kate best waifu
Damn straight.
God, it's been years. Part of me really wants to reread that shit, but I'm terrified it won't be as good as I remember

>>34676827
It scares me too, but I'm about to start flight school and I think I'm gonna bring them along to remind me what kicked off my love of flying. Honestly the most memorably adventure story of my childhood. I could probably tell someone the whole story if they asked me about it out of the blue.

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>>34677579
>about to start flight school
Good on you anon, it's worth it.
Get your initial training in taildraggers if possible. It's a useful skill to have and broadens your horizons substantially with respect to what aircraft are immediately available to you to rent or buy, as well as opening up a few career opportunities. By starting in taildraggers, you get your sport/private with your taildragger endorsement for the price of the sport/private alone, and all or most of your hours are taildragger hours (some work requires a few hundred of these). With respect to practicality in the short term, many are cheaper to rent (Champs/citabrias often rent <100 an hour). One thing to note with tailwheel: The first few takeoffs and landings will have you wondering how the hell anybody does this, but by the third of each you'll be doing fine. Muscle memory is a hell of a thing.

Don't let weather charts, e6bs, and flight planning spook you when you get to them. Sometimes the volume of information to be considered can be somewhat overwhelming, but you will learn to streamline the process, and before you know it you'll opt for an E6B over a phone calculator when it comes to Distance/Rate/Time problems, unit conversions, and density/pressure altitude. When you start wondering if you'll "really use any of this" the answer is it depends. You need to know it because you need to know when you need to know it. Some things can be surprisingly crucial: the temperature outside, for instance, or the direction the wind flows over the mountains beneath you, and what clouds form on the lee side. Pay attention and get gud, and remember why you're there: Flying is, in the opinions of many, something approximating nirvana. In the very least it's fun as fuck, and the sense of liberation gained from going and getting a burger somewhere needlessly far away or difficult to access is unbelievably cathartic. Good luck, and watch this for hype:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4JdQi60an0

>>34678021
Thanks anon, that made me feel good all over.

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>>34678505
Also, when it comes to checkrides, the biggest thing you have to fear is your own nervousness. In most cases the actual exam is somewhat easier than what you've been trained for. My examiner allowed me a lot of aides my instructors refused, such as taking the airplane while plotting diversions etc. Nonetheless I was petrified leading up to it, enough that I forgot to bring the fee the first time. I was basically on an adrenaline drip for a full day ahead, but once I was airborne I calmed down. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had imagined. So save yourself the trouble and don't 2spoop yourself like my faggot ass

>>34645477
When ships became outdated for overseas travel, they became luxury cruises, specifically taking their time to get anywhere.

Why oh why do I live in a timeline where Airships didn't do the same.

>>34674158
Does she have a giant ass?

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>>34680994
This is the worst timeline.

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>>34681655
Possibly. It's probably what the CEO thinks about when he sees it from the front

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>>34680994
>>34658907
>>34658942
Come on anons, we can make this real. Somebody has to.

>>34647916
Cause MANPADS

>>34681940
Do the sand people even have MANPADs capable of targeting high-altitude aircraft?

>>34682080
Most sandpeople don't have manpads at all. That's why Iraq's and Syria's air force have suffered only very moderate losses considering they're flying airframes that are half a century old.

But an airship is a big target, and I think they can't fly to high. Could probably hit it with artillery.

>>34682157
I think they can fly at least comparably high to a helicopter, if not higher - though of course they are bigger and slower

>>34684073
they are much larger than a heli so they are easy to hit even with convential artillery without timed fuses (i have seen an article recently with pics how they tried that stuff vs a c-130 but c-130 still is a mch harder target)

artillery can shoot it 4+ km in the air

i dunno why those sandpeople don't design their own timed fuses. they are out of luck that flak is barely used nowadays in favor of sams so they have almost no aa as a result, flak would be much more accessible to them

>>34684142
Because third world goat herders who believe that genies are a bigger part of accuracy than sights and who biggest development armswise was learning to buy from the Russians, aren't the cleverest of people.

>>34678021
I'm also taking the plunge (and then some, my goal is to go from zero to CPL+CFI/II within a year so I can start time building for my ATP).

Right now I'm learning on a 172S, how long does it typically take to get your tailwheel endorsement on its own? I feel like I'll need it for banner/glider to my gigs.

>>34678835
I'm actually not as worried about my checkrides, as they sound pretty laid back , at least the evaluators my program seems to get, and I'm used to that sort of stuff from my paramedic/sailing days.

>>34684357
>banner/glider gigs
Exactly, especially since you can take glider gigs without actually being commercial. To my knowledge that is the only thing you can make money at on a private. I was offered a towing position a year ago, all I needed was my 150 hours to be in taildraggers. Wound up being a linefag instead, so I set up to get that taildragger experience. Ended up only taking me 7-8 hours, but apparently the usual margin is 10-15. I'd bet anyone properly invested could do it in as little as 5 though. I don't remember if there's a legal minimum, but if there was I came in over it. It's not difficult or expensive as that airplane shit goes; the biggest reason I suggest it is for all your hours to be taildragger hours, which are more valuable. Similarly, it's better for as many of your hours to be complex airplane hours as possible. Tailwheel airplanes represent some of the cheapest rentals though, so it's an easy thing to have a lot of, besides they're fun as fuck, and I swear my landings are better that way than I ever got them on trikes

>>34685314
I always figured there was a reason why tailwheels were the design settled on by all early aircraft designers, they just seem like such a natural solution.

Tricycle gear was basically adopted postwar as a marketing ploy, and to make ground handling a little easier, no? The only aircraft that it seems to be necessary on are jets, where the whole "melting holes in the runway while you light it on fire" thing is a real possibility.

But yeah, that's why I'm on the higher-performance 172 to start, because I'll be transitioning my training to a complex aircraft (a Piper with retracting gear and a variable prop) as soon as I complete my IFR and they want me comfortable with a more powerful/"faster" aircraft off the bat.

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I'll just post supply zeppelin's schematics from Wolfenstein 2009.
According to the posters seen in game, these were crewed by volunteers and the vessel seen in the game bears the symbol of the III/JG 54 on its back wall.

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>>34649463
Magnificent.

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>>34685731
I can't say for certain why, but I'd wager it had to do with prop clearance and structural simplicity. Very little weight sits on a tailwheel compared to a nose strut, and, while most are controllable in some way now, tailwheels CAN get away with being freely castering or autolock with simple detent mechanisms. Prop clearance also mattered a lot more when fields were rougher and grass was a common landing surface; taildraggers still dominate in Alaska for this reason.

Ground handling trikes is only easier in new airplanes, but otherwise it is still harder to fuck up in general. Tailwheel airplanes can always be manuevered in much tighter spaces on the ground though, and respond much better to control with or without differential braking. Most trikes I've flown have had very sluggish, uncooperative nosewheels and been prone to shimmy on landing. I prefer tailwheel between them, especially with a shallow deck angle as seen on the champion. Besides, champ a CUTE

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>>34686726
Yeah, ground handling is my weakest area, the 172 wants to nose towards damn near every dip and camber on the (fairly rough) paved taxiways at the strip my club is at, and I end up steering the thing like a drunken Shriner in the memorial day parade.

My reasonably attainable planefu is pic related (I WILL own her some day, esp since I'll already be complex endorsed), so for me, getting that tailwheel is a matter of "when", not "if".

>>34686859
Good taste.

My planefu, less accessible but not impossible.
I wonder how much traffic a /sky/ would get. Such a board might actually replace /k/ as my home.

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>>34687123
Fuck, forgot picture of planefu

>>34687129
I have touched a dc9 inappropriately when it was on display at an airfield nearby. They are pretty.

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>>34687129
30s/40s designs were truly aesthetic perfection.

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>>34687834
>Pre-war De Havilland

Muh dick.

The comet is quite possibly the most beautiful aircraft ever built.

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First thought when I started reading this thread
Chapter Title
Episode 1: Lords of the Air, More or Less

>>34687834
Macchi M.C. 72 was the shit.

>>34690039
oh member that from reading it in highschool
it could have been good, if the author kept it all original instead of memeing stuff from other works into it, specifically treating the elevator lift thing from the zeppelin as a startrek transporter what with saying 'energizing' every time its used

>>34690102
Oh yeah it was...

>>34691148
I think he was doing that as a in joke...

...Strange new worlds/islands... new civilizations... to boldly go where no Englishman has before....

>>34684073
Airships can definitely fly higher than helos can. Remember that Airships as serious weapons died right before pressurization even became a thing in military aircraft.

The only blimps built past the advent of pressurization were the Nan ships, which all were unpressurized solely because they flew radar picket duty in friendly airspace and didn't need to worry about SAMs.