Slashdot Mirror
Own Your Own Fighter Jet
gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."
does it still have weapon hardpoints on the wings? TFA doesn't really address that, it just says "They don't have any weapons."
These are Su-27UBs, also known as the Flanker-C. They were not fitted with weapons and were used as trainers, and were also used in the Soviet version of the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
As a former USAF avionics specialist, these things are a maintenance bear (npi). the maintenance ratio is measured in 10s of hours per flight hours. However, removing combat related systems will lighten the load and reduce certain maintenance cost.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Bull, but nice try at humor. If they were to put surplus F4s on the market, there would also be a glut of spare parts. The F4 is one of the most plentiful in the boneyard.
He said F-14, not F-4. The Tomcat, not the Phantom. The only F-14s still in operation are located in Iran, and they were the sole purchasers of F-14 spare parts after the aircraft was retired in the US. This is why the production and sale of F-14 parts was halted back in 2007.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I remember a story from almost 10 years back that you could buy a Mig-21 for $14k
Here are some fighter jet stories from 2006: Buying A Fighter Jet? and another from Wired: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time [2005]
Not only that, but the US has even been pissy about salvage efforts. Technically, "Property of US Government" is a label that is legally binding unless they sell it to you. People interested in old warbirds for example will go out and drag up wrecked World War II fighters to restore. Some out of jungles, some out of the ocean - wherever they can find them, but they're pretty much all just junk heaps that will need a fortune sank into them to make them flyable again. IIRC, while the Navy and Marine Corps is somewhat lenient on the issue (there was no Air Force around back them), the Army has still been known to confiscate the 70 year old junk heaps claiming that they're still US Army Property.
If they're being that picky with piston engine prop-powered planes, they're definately not going to let you privately own a US military fighter jet.
In reality though, when you compare fuel burn and such, aside from pure coolness factor, it's not remotely economical for a private citizen to own a fighter jet for personal recreational flying. Besides, once you actually get into flying, most pilots find it more satisfying to fly much slower (since I, and most other private pilots I know, fly more for fun and scenery than to actually travel anywhere). A Kitfox for example is pretty close to my dream plane. High wing, small, good fuel economy, stalls at about 35MPH, and top speed is between 95-120 MPH depending on what engine it's using :).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
This was one of my reasons for leaving the USAF and going to Lam Research. Under G.H.W. Bush, we had a single "cann bird". Under Clinton, funds were drying up, parts were coming slow, and we went to 2 cann birds. Then 3 cann birds. Then, I was being told to sign off red x's that I didn't want to sign off.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
There's nothing stopping you from owning and flying surplus military aircraft- even fighters. There are tons of them out there, especially cold war trainers from both sides (think t-38). There are even a few people out there flying their own p-51's, although each time one crashes the number goes down permanently. There are private businesses that will even fly you around in one.
Here's one:
http://millionairesconcierge.com/fighterjets.htm
Here's an extensive list of businesses:
http://www.thirtythousandfeet.com/rentride.htm
---
Yes, you are correct that you would be limited to mach .9 just like our own military. The air force stopped flying supersonic over the mainland shortly after this fiasco:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests
The primary reason these surplus jets would be unrealistic to own is the maintenance involved. You could do it yourself, if you knew every aircraft-specific system well enough to sign off on your own repairs. You'd spend a few weeks doing maintenance for every flight hour. Finding parts would be a nightmare. The engine alone would keep you on the ground for seemingly minor issues. Or you could hire a crew to do your maintenance, and put your life in their hands. The going rate for a freelance certified NDI tech with his own equipment is about $200-400/hr. Maintenance costs many, many times the original price of any fighter aircraft.
I work in air combat combat command aircraft maintenance, fwiw.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
yep, the F-16 and later have used fly by wire (basically the same as your desktop flight sim joystick) for controls, rather then the hydraulics used in something like the F-4.
btw, the claim about anything after WW2 being unstable by design is not really true. Even the F-16 was supposedly designed for being stable rather then unstable. Its the most recent generation (rafael, eurofighter, gripen, F-22, possibly mig-29 and su-27) that have that feature. And those make use of fly by wire for stability if ever the pilot lets go of the stick (early accidents related to gripen was related to control computers and pilot getting into something of a race condition when trying to recover from stall like conditions, iirc).
From what i have read, the F-16, for example, is so stable that if the nose is pointing towards the horizon, and the pilot where to eject, the plane would continue on until it ran out of fuel.
You fundamentally misunderstand this.
The plane is made unstable by design. This is basically to inbuild a level of 'agility', I guess you can compare this to a car that gets a very short wheelbase or similar things that can be done to alter physics. The aircraft is then made stable by the flight control systems. Computers that continually make adjustments to keep the aircraft stable - something that can't be done by hand. The fact that a pilot ejects out is meaningless. So long as the flight conputer is working/active, the aircraft would fly on until it runs out of fuel, or until it veers out of control naturally
The fly by wire is an added area that is simply made to improve the pilot to system interface. You have no choice on this, as the computer has to have priority over control.
We`re all equal