F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

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Jericho941
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by Jericho941 »

Well, fast for the 1970s. I used to wonder just how much weight and money we could save by reprogramming an X-Box 360 and shoving it in the nose of an F-15. :lol:
Greg
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by Greg »

Jericho941 wrote:Well, fast for the 1970s. I used to wonder just how much weight and money we could save by reprogramming an X-Box 360 and shoving it in the nose of an F-15. :lol:
Raspberry Pi 2. :lol:
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MiddleAgedKen
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by MiddleAgedKen »

toad wrote:What is interesting is that it took the Japanese quite a bit of time to figure out that Hellcat was not a Wildcat. The looks were similar but the wingspan was larger and bit different in shape. Also by the time the Japanese figured it out they had lost too many experienced pilots.
I like to grief a good friend and fellow Mustangs & Messerschmitts player with this bit of doggerel:

"Oscar, Oscar burning bright
You ran into a Hellcat flight" :mrgreen:
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randy
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by randy »

toad wrote:What is interesting is that it took the Japanese quite a bit of time to figure out that Hellcat was not a Wildcat. The looks were similar but the wingspan was larger and bit different in shape.
Surprise is an event in the enemy commander's mind
-Jerry Pournelle in several of his Falkenberg's Legion series

Paraphrasing:
Most military surprises occur when the victim sees what they expect to see, despite having clear data to the contrary available
-David Weber from the Honorverse

I'm Victory Disease played a part in this as well
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
MarkD
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by MarkD »

Jericho941 wrote:Well, fast for the 1970s. I used to wonder just how much weight and money we could save by reprogramming an X-Box 360 and shoving it in the nose of an F-15. :lol:
Well, 1980s in my case, but yeah.

I saw a comparison of old supercomputers with current tech, the Cray supercomputer (which was THE hot-shit computer when I was in college) was about as fast as an iPhone 4, and the IBM 3090 (big mainframe of the 1990s) is about as fast as the Nintendo 64, all measured in MFLOPS (million floating-point operations per second).

I'll see if I can find the chart and post it.
toad
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by toad »

I read that they are doing upgrades on the F-15. It will be able to carry more fire and forget long range missiles and it is getting computing and software upgrades. I've got this vision of the pilot sitting with an X-Box controller in his lap and a feed to his helmet visors HUD.

I've been doing some reading on the F4U Corsair. The later models used in the Korean war for ground attack were some kind of nasty. A service ceiling of 45,00 feet, 4 20mm or 6 .50 caliber guns. speed somewhere over 450 mph in level flight. One Marine pilot got jumped by some Mig 15's he shot one down before he was swarmed by the rest. He survived.
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Netpackrat
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Re: F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

Post by Netpackrat »

toad wrote:I've been doing some reading on the F4U Corsair. The later models used in the Korean war for ground attack were some kind of nasty. A service ceiling of 45,00 feet, 4 20mm or 6 .50 caliber guns. speed somewhere over 450 mph in level flight. One Marine pilot got jumped by some Mig 15's he shot one down before he was swarmed by the rest. He survived.
I met a guy once who was crew on the carrier that Corsair flew from. He remembered that day pretty well, although when I talked to him was long enough ago, that I don't remember much of what he had to say about it. IIRC, there was also a Mustang pilot with a Mig kill.
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