A-10s overhead

[Bailey Guns]

No such beast, as far as I'm aware.

H.

There was actually a study to see if that would be feasible in the early 70's. The F-15N was the variant. I don't think it wen't anywhere nor do I believe it was ever produced or tested. Could be wrong on that, though.

[HBARleatherneck]

delete

[tactuppernut]

No such beast, as far as I'm aware.

H.

Thought f-15's were Navy birds, shows you what I know.

[Bailey Guns]

we studied armor id for hours and hours and hours. what they couldnt do the same?

They do. Obviously a mistake was made. It's unfortunate and tragic but it happens. There's probably no punishment in the world worse than having to live with a mistake like that.

I don't know the details of the incident but I do know that things look different at 2 or 3 hundred miles per hour and a few thousand feet (or so) of altitude. Not to mention having to manage everything else inside the cockpit.

[Troublco]

The F-16 above with the brightly colored tail was one of my old unit's, along with the CO tail -16s shown later. The tail was done that way for the Tiger Meet of the Americas, a more local variant of the famous Tiger Meet of NATO. I'll see if I can find any more pics of its predecessors, they were full coverage. The first was covered with black tiger stripes (Dragon miniatures did a diecast model of this one), and the second was covered with black/orange/red tiger stripes. The one in the pic was third in the series. We also had one bird that was painted red and silver as a commemorative of the Colorado Air Guard's Minuteman Team, the only ANG flight demo team that ever existed. They stopped flying shortly after the Thunderbirds began. Hm, what interesting timing....

And although there were never any Navy 15's, there were Navy 16's. F-16N's, if memory serves there were around 30-ish of them. They were Block 30 aircraft, right around the same production as the CO F-16's pictured above. The Navy used them as aggressor aircraft for Top Gun and other training. They retired them after a fairly short lifespan due to some structural issues they chose not to address (the Air Force just modded them and kept on going) but I think there's one still sitting at Miramar near where the Top Gun hangar was, out at a street intersection.

Navy got a few "new" F-16's a while back. There were some Block 25's sitting at Davis-Monthan (AKA "the Boneyard") that were supposed to go to Pakistan years ago, whoever the Pres at the time was denied them the export license so they just got parked and stored. They finally just gave them to the Navy, after they sat for about 20 years. Brand new, operationally...

[Ridge]

Well lots of AF planes DO have tailhooks. No idea why. Perhaps if they were needed in a pinch, sorta like the Doolittle Raid...

[Hoosier]

I thought AF birds landing gear wasn't strong enough for Navy needs. Also the Navy requires two engines on everything? Well I guess they're making an exception for the F-35, so maybe that rule has gone out.

I do love the F-16, such a pretty plane. Always reminds me of the P-51, with the bubble canopies and underscoop air intakes.

There's one scene in Terminator: Salvation with some A-10's overhead that's impressive.

H.