Spur

All your points are valid. I think we agree it was a bad choice, but I still think it was an improvement.

Regarding the seat and cockpit, you can thank Billy Clintons USecDef Deutch. He ordered the aircraft accommodate more of the female population (95% goal). Previously aircraft were designed to fit the 5th to 95th percentile male population. As a result, the T-6 can accommodate 97% of the female population, but far less of the male population.

But as far as weight, the seat has the highest nude body weight design limit of any USAF ejection seat (245# vs 211# for just about all others).

E2CMaster

Funny, the Navy version is 231#, no waiver possible (maybe 235, I forget when the exact number was, I know my orders were changed from VTs to HTs and then back to VTs becuase of it), whereas most other seats are 245 and waiverable higher.

I have a seat waiver stating that I may not get two full swings 0/0 but will get clear. Just might break legs on the PLF.

Now as a couple guys on here who have flown with me can attest to, all 6'5"/275# of me shoehorned into a T-45 is a comical sight, but I make it work.

Spur

Maybe it's all that extra crap you guys gotta wear...

E2CMaster

That's probably it. Not sure if there's a raft in the seat, but we do wear more stuff INCONUS than USAF and Army normally, even while flying identical aircraft (TH-57 vs TH-58, SH-60B vs MH-60, etc). I've never flown a Navy FW aircraft save transport type without a flotation collar and other water survival stuff.

But then again, USAF may fly over water, and the Navy WILL fly overwater.

Hawk 285

I seem to remember adding a couple knots to our approach speed during FCLPs...

E2CMaster

I think the two of us in the -45 with a full bag of gas was probably over max gross.

I think you may have added another click nose up trim on takeoff when I was in the front.

E2CMaster

I'm guessing during CQ something like this went down on the platform:
Stump: 214 is fast as **** but shows on-speed
BMurph: Nah, it's just Master. He weighs more than most two man crews.

tattooguy21

while this aircraft is exceptional at what it does, and is the ONLY other military aircraft that i would ever even consider flying, the problem is that the techno-based war mentality is that you prepare not for the war you fight, but for the war after the war AFTER the war. the US Armed Forces try to keep around a 10 year technology based advantage over enemy states. while the upgrades and sheer awesomeness of the A-10 have kept it practical in service, the fact is, it will not be the best of A/C if WWIII breaks out. the decision is painful, but so are the rest of the failures on our govt's part that have forced the AF into this situation.

Fluglehrer

"You win the war by killing the enemy by the thousands, not one at a time at twenty thousand feet".
-- Attack Pilot Motto

Of course today we win the war by killing the enemy one at a time from twenty thousand feet, usually with a Hellfire missile or the equivalent. But the enemy just reloads. It's easy for the enemy to do when you're only killing them one at a time.

"The moral is to the physical as three to one" - Napoleon Bonaparte

At some point maybe our political leaders will understand war. I don't think we have anyone in the political realm, and very few in the Pentagon, who really understand war. If they did, they would know that you need a bomb truck to haul enough explosives and accurately deliver them. Maybe the F-35 can do that -- I really don't have the foggiest. But even more importantly, you need the will to drop those bombs on an enemy you name and abhor enough to exterminate. You need the will to conquer and subjugate, and then (and only then), reform the enemy into a culture that can play nice with the rest of humanity. Morale, esprit de corps, and a belief that you are doing the right thing are far more important than the technology used to exercise that will. The F-35 may not be all that it was intended to be, but the will of the society and leadership that must ultimately employ it has atrophied significantly.