henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (06/01/91)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: igor!rutabaga!wab@uunet.UU.NET (Bill Baker) >think the AF contest for the KC-135 follow-on was between the DC-10 and >the '47 (not sure about this). Anyway, the AF took the DC-10... The specs for the heavy-tanker requirement basically called for a minimum-change conversion of an existing widebody cargo aircraft. The TriStar did not exist in a cargo version and the C-5A was out of production, so it was a straight battle between the DC-10 and the 747. The official story is that the 747 consistently carried heavier loads farther, but tended to need longer runways to do it, and the balance pointed toward the DC-10. Cynical people have observed that Boeing and the 747 were doing a brisk and profitable business, while McDonnell-Douglas in general and the DC-10 in particular were facing a lot of red ink, and this just may have carried some weight. In the end, the KC-10 was the only thing that saved the DC-10 production line from termination during a couple of years when there were no airline orders at all. >... You'd need an airframe capable >of carrying the system and dozens of BVR air-to-air missiles, but a '47 >could probably do it. A squadron of such planes might make a hell of a >backbone for theatre air superiority... Apart from the problems of positive identification and the limited range of most "BVR" missiles, you also have to think about how many fighters it would be worth sacrificing to bring down one of these things, how much of your air superiority gets lost if one aircraft crashes (bearing in mind that a good fraction of the aircraft losses in both the Falklands and the Gulf were non-combat accidents), and what happens if the other side starts building ultra-long-range SAMs to throw at them. Any platform -- be it missile aircraft, ordinary radar aircraft, or aircraft carriers -- that is vitally important and exists in very small numbers represents a tremendous weak point, ripe for exploitation by the laws of chance or a determined opponent. -- "We're thinking about upgrading from | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry