Fantasy Airforce

An aeronautical verious of dream teams. For each of the below categories you have to chose one aicraft.

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Air Superiority Fighter -

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber -

Stategic Bomber -

Transport -

Trainer/light combat -


-- More categories are optional. i.e: tanker, awacs, asw, carrierbourne..etc
But try and keep it to fixed wing (v-22 is for arguments sake fixed wing).

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However the choices made have to take into context cost as well (no B-2s backed up with FB-23s and F-22s).
If you chose 2 fifth generation planes then only 4th generation from then on. Try and be as original as possible. The idea is to bring up interesting but little used planes.

Personally I would probably for for:

Air Superiority Fighter - Saab Grippen

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber - Tornado

Stategic Bomber - Tu-160

Transport - Kawasaki C-X

Jet Trainer/light combat - BAe Hawk


Jensy



[edit on 5/12/07 by jensy]

Air Superiority Fighter - PAK-FA

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber - FB-23

Stategic Bomber - B-70 Valkyrie

Transport - Antonov

Trainer/light combat - F-16XL

Air Superiority Fighter - BAe P.110

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber - BAC TSR 2

Stategic Bomber - Avro 730

Transport - HS 681

Trainer/light combat - BAC/AAC AA-107

[edit on 5-12-2007 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
Stategic Bomber - Avro 730]

That is one amazing looking plane. British verison of the Valkyrie?

Air Superiority Fighter - YF-23

Strike Fighter FB-111A

tactical bomber - B-12

Stategic Bomber - XB-70

Transport - C-17

Trainer/light combat - F-16XL (With the block 60 enhancments)

Im going to add another category: Interceptor and nominate the YF-12

reply to post by SteveR


Actually it looks more like the notational Skunk Works hydrogen powered
CL-400 aka Suntan with canards


en.wikipedia.org...

Air Superiority Fighter - T/Su-50 PAK-FA

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber - Su-34

Stategic Bomber - Tu-160 Blackjack

Transport - Antonov 124

Trainer/light combat - MiG-29UB

Good responses so far. Waynos what a spectacular demonstration of what the RAF could (or rather should) have looked like.
Interesting is that no one has gone for the F-35.........

Well, I am going to limit myself to aircraft which are either in service now or are at least on the design stages with the basics already figured out. And I will also add some unit numbers and further specifications, given that cost is not an issue.

Air Superiority - F-22B Raptor (Block 50) (522 Units)

Strike Fighter/Tactical Bomber - F-15E+ Super Eagle (350 Units)

Strategic Bomber - B-2C Spirit (98 Units)

Transport - C-17B Globemaster III (240 Units)

Jet Trainer/Light Combat - T-50 LIFT Golden Eagle (800 Units)

Fleet Defense Fighter - F-35C Lightning II (625 Units)

Interceptor - More Raptors!!!


Other aircraft types that any competent Air Force would have.


AWACS/AEW - E-10A "Watcher" (Spiral 3) (100 Units)

Tanker - 'KC-145A' "Fuelmaster" ('KC-777') (700 Units)

Close Air Support - A-10C Thunderbolt II (356 Units)

Mutirole Fighter - F-35C Lightning II (1,976 Units)

SEAD/DEAD - F-16EJ/F-16FJ Fighting Falcon (Block 60) (318 Units)

Electronic Attack/Standoff Jammer - EA-18G Growler (Block III) (160 Units)

Main UAV - MQ-9B Reaper (90 Units)

To make this more interesting (harder) there should be more subcategories, multiple aircraft per role, price threshold, only current active (production ready) systems can be used etc…

[edit on 5-12-2007 by WestPoint23]

reply to post by jensy


None of the offered, limited, categories really fit the F-35's purpose. Strike fighter would have, until it was couple with "tactical bomber". That will immediately favor long range heavy payload systems. But I too am surprised at one thing, people picking modern heavy fighters for light trainer aircraft. I'd like to see those accident rates should such an implementation occur in real life.

450 billion budget- 2007 dollars

C-17 ($60 billion-202 million 1998- 250 million today) 240 aircraft- transport

F-22 (120 billion- 177 million today) 715 aircraft- air superiority

B1B (250 billion-283million 1998- 350 million today) 715 aircraft- strike/strategic

F-5E (20 billion-2 million 1972- 9 million today 2200 aircraft) trainer/light attack

Well well, lets see what we have here

Air Superiority Fighter - S-37 Berkut (I know its not technically a fighter blah blah blah, but we can put some missiles on it and call it a day, eh?)

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber - F-117 (often imitated, never duplicated )

Strategic Bomber - B-70 Valkyrie

Transport - IL-76 (can take all roles of transport, tanker, and AWACS )

Trainer/light combat - X-29 FSW (we gotta get the pilots used to the forward swept wings and canards right?)

Some one suggested Interceptor - YF-12 Blackbird

Originally posted by WestPoint23
To make this more interesting (harder) there should be more subcategories, multiple aircraft per role, price threshold, only current active (production ready) systems can be used etc…

Yes I agree with broadening it. However keeping it to one aircraft per role makes it more individual.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
But I too am surprised at one thing, people picking modern heavy fighters for light trainer aircraft. I'd like to see those accident rates should such an implementation occur in real life.

Yes, I was a little shocked at the prospect of someone moving from a single engine prop to an F16XL

Jensy

With a wider selection of roles I would go for:

Air Superiority Fighter - Saab Grippen

Strike Fighter/tactical bomber - Tornado

Stategic Bomber - Tu-160

Transport - Kawasaki C-X

Jet Trainer- BAe Hawk

Tanker - HP Victor K2

Fleet Defence - Rafale

Jensy

For the long range escort fighter I would like to add the YF-108 Rapier to fly herd on my fleet of XB-70's that would of cource be equiped with advanced versions of SENIOR PROM and the Lockheed HGV (A hypersonic air to surface missile)

www.astronautix.com...

[edit on 12/5/07 by FredT]

[edit on 12/5/07 by FredT]

ASF: YF-23 Production Variant 357 Units
Strike: AX-29 Switchblade 80 Units
Strategic Bomber: B-3 21 Units
Transport: C-17 57 Units
Jet Trainer: F-5E 150 Units
Tanker: KC-10 88 Units
Fleet Defense: F-14 (Why kill something that works?) 235 Units
Interceptor: YF-108 Rapier (If it's good for long range escort missions, it's good for intercepting) 180 Units

Shattered OUT...

[edit on 5-12-2007 by ShatteredSkies]

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Strategic Bomber: B-3 21 Units
[edit on 5-12-2007 by ShatteredSkies]

What B3 would that be? It thought that they were planning to go in numerous directions, ie subsonic, super soinic, hypersonic, stealth etc...

Jensy

Sorry typo, it was B-2.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by jensy
Trainer/light combat

Not "light combat" then? If you just meant a trainer, I pick F-20.

reply to post by SteveR


Bah its MY fantasy AF. Im sticking to the F-16XL Block 60 with AESA as my light fighter.

The B-2 is an interesting choice as well. But I stand by my choice of the XB-70 outfitted with both stealthy and hypersonic cruise missiles

[edit on 12/6/07 by FredT]