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This is technically the first combat kill by the F-22.
by ipnon 4y ago
This is technically the first combat kill by the F-22.
- ceejayoz 4y agoI wonder if the pilot gets to paint a balloon silhouette on his plane.
- themodelplumber 4y agoTo say nothing of the nicknames and jokes they'll hear for the rest of their life....
- DonHopkins 4y ago"Balloon Boy No Hoax" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVbV_Sis99o&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVbV_Sis99o&t=1s
- minikomi 4y agoDefinitely had a different theme in mind for this event https://youtu.be/qvfWRGzvP50 https://youtu.be/qvfWRGzvP50
- ttul 4y agoI don’t think F-22 pilots get to paint their aircraft. It would destroy the stealth coatings, which are so specialized they are measured to the milligram when removed (to ensure an adversary hasn’t taken some for analysis).
- jki275 4y agoWhere do stories like this come from? Simple logic would tell you there is no possible way to weigh an aircraft coating to a milligram and verify that it matches a somehow measured precise amount applied to the aircraft. The concept is ridiculous.
- ttul 4y agoI’m embarrassed to say I got this “fact” from a HN comment.
- mlyle 4y agoWeighing the scrap (as one of many controls) to make sure it isn't tampered with during downstream disposal is pretty likely, even if comparing against the original coating weight isn't too practical.
- serf 4y agoit is in-fact common in the plating industry to predict/assess coating thickness via weight of product before & after the process; if you know the density/weight of the coating material then strong predictions can be made about the coating thickness given the known uniformity of the plating/anodize process. Whether or not that's done as a forensic measure after the fact, I don't know. It doesn't seem all that out of the possibilities of reality; but I don't know how they would know whether or not the cause was espionage or a particularly hard-headed birdstrike.
- jki275 4y agoI can definitely see how that could make sense as a QA measure in manufacturing, where you can really control the process and everything that happens to it. But fly the plane once, and you're not going to be able to make any realistic predictions on what the weight of the coating might be after it's been at Mach 2.0 at 50k feet (or what ever the numbers are, I have no idea) for who knows how long. Simply too many variables.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Aeolun 4y agoPaint it on the inside
- DonHopkins 4y agoI wonder if the pilot won a stuffed animal? Edit: ceejayoz: JINX!
- jjtheblunt 4y agoHow can you know that?
- themodelplumber 4y agoYou "can't" know, due to the nature of the secret warfare kill here or there, but generally: Acknowledged and unacknowledged kills are counted separately, and it's OK to call it the first kill in the sense of acknowledged kills. (That's my understanding anyway)
- ceejayoz 4y agoBarring some kind of secret engagement that never made the news (which is unlikely, given the F-22's role), it's true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_shootdowns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_shootdowns
- lettergram 4y ago[flagged]
- NegativeLatency 4y agoWouldn’t you expect video to surface of f-22s in action?
- lettergram 4y agoF-22s we’re designed to guide weapons to targets. Ukraine launches a few rockets and a stealth f-22 off the coast can guide it in. Something like this seems plausible here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62500560 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62500560 There are some alternative theories (small drones painting targets), but imo it’s just as plausible a stealth plane 50 miles away gave a missile some coordinates
- ceejayoz 4y agoYou don’t need an F-22’s guidance to hit a stationary ground target available on Google Maps.
- hackernewds 4y agoWhat do you mean by "guide it in"? Resisting a crass joke here as well
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Ukraine launches a few rockets and a stealth f-22 off the coast can guide it in. The only “rockets” Ukraine has that would reach that range are Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles which has active radar homing for hitting ships, and backup inertial/GPS guidance (which is all that is needed for stationary land targets), and converted Soviet-era drones with (apparently) GPS/inertial guidance it has used for long-range strikes into Russia (specifically, at strategic bomber bases being used for attacks against Ukraine.) For the F-22 to guide a missile in, it would have to have semi-active radar or laser homing (I believe the F-22 can, with the right equipment, designated for either), but the Neptune doesn’t, and we have no indication that their drone conversions do, either. So, the alternatives for a Ukrainian rocket attack is a weapon we don’t know they have with an assist from fighters that haven’t been reported in the region and that would be the exact kind of escalation the US government is trying to avoid, or weapons we do know they have, which need no US assist. Which seems likelier?
- idontwantthis 4y agoI can imagine the pilot making “pew pew, ack ack ack!” Noises as he pretends to dog fight something in the world’s top dog fighter for the first time.
- megous 4y agoShooting at an unarmed, passively floating baloon can hardly be called a "combat" :)
- hooande 4y agofour more kills and the pilot becomes an ace?
- thelittleone 4y agoNew KPI finally shows data in AF dashboard. Efficiency (cost per kill) = number of kills / cost of program.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoWish it was a drone that shot it down. Then it would be the first unmanned aircraft dog fight.
- notimetorelax 4y agoIt wouldn’t be the first. Drone on drone fights happened in Ukraine.
- blamazon 4y agoHere's one: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/this-drone-versus-drone-kill-in-ukraine-could-be-an-air-combat-first https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/this-drone-versus-dron...
- a3w 4y agoFirst one above 10.000 meters, then? Fight, with no fighting back, though? Also, as to no fighting back: destruction between different states, since blowing up your own balloon, rocket or satellites for testing purpose has (probably/surely) happened before.