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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."
So now that I won my own combat jets, anybody got a slightly used aircraft carrier up for sale?
"His name was James Damore."
I remember a story from almost 10 years back that you could buy a Mig-21 for $14k as is or around $100k restored and made legal. The cost wasn't in the aircraft itself, but the maintenance to keep it flying. Still waiting to get my own F-14.
Paying to keep this bad boy in the air won't come cheap. I wonder how trigger-happy the US Airforce might get if they stumbled across an SU-27 over US soil though... does it still have weapon hardpoints on the wings? TFA doesn't really address that, it just says "They don't have any weapons."
I was curious about Concorde replacements a while back and researched some of the Soviet fighters. Unfortunately they tend to have short ranges at top speed. If they could just increase the fuel capacity of a two-seater, they'd have a Concorde substitute. The ticket would probably be a lot more though, since you've got one plane and one passenger.
If you don't have the range for a trans-Atlantic hop, having supersonic capability isn't too useful in the US. You're not allowed to fly supersonic over land here because of the boom.
Maybe it'll sell in some other country where the uber-wealthy have a shorter distance to travel, and no noise restrictions.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
An elegant weapon... For a more civilized age...
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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
...it won't fit through most drive-in's like McDonald's, KFC or Burger King.
YankDownUnder Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire
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.
Okay, now that I got it, where the heck do I store it? Under the carport? Unless the sucker has the best folding wings ever, the HOA fines are gonna be a bitch.
Wired wrote an article last week about fly-in communities.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/spruce_creek_airpark/
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"I'd go for this instead of a business jet. Far more fun and you don't have to worry if the engines fail - you can always use the ejection seat."
Sure, but of course it's your 5 million dollar jet you're ejecting from and not tax-payers, not to mention the bill the US gov't might hit you with for having to clean up the jet scattered over 10 acres.
Of course this is a good deal for drug traffickers. With a 4,000 kg normal payload capacity and cocaine selling for $23,000 per kg you'd make almost 100 million in one trip, and who's going to try stopping a jet traveling Mach 2?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
There's probably a refId for Slashdot somewhere...
When I was younger, I remember touring the Air National guard and asking the tour leader if I could by a fighter jet. He responded that to own a fighter jet, I'd have to find one in the Arizona boneyard and it would cost about 5 million dollars. In the 80's, the F16 cost 5 million each (or so I was told...)
However, even had I the money today, I'm not so sure I would buy one.
My uncle was in the Air Force, and actually flew in an F4 phantom. He had three remarks:
Today, I'm content to fly simulators because I can get a feel for the experience without the attendant risk and cost. Were I flying a 5 million dollar aircraft, I would be very reticent to try the kind of manuevers I do in the simulator, simply because of the risk involved. In the simulator, I can try spins and stalls and rolls that prudence would forbid in the real world.
But it would still be cool to own a fighter jet.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Russian fighter's ejection seats are far more safe than the US ones - you can eject at over Mach 2 and survive!
And Blackbird crews using Western seats have ejected at over Mach 3 and survived...
What really matters for ejection is dynamic pressure, not airspeed: a Blackbird ejection at Mach 3 at 80,000+ feet is equivalent to around 400mph at sea level. I doubt, for example, that a Russian fighter pilot could survive a Mach 2 ejection at sea level if they could actually reach that speed.
I saw that commercial too... ...oh it's Russian?
What's the Russian equivalent of Pepsi?
Actually, the Russian K36 ejection seats are no more (or less) capable than the standard Aces II seat that all US fighters use. They are both very capable seats. The Aces II has a "success" rate of about 90% when operating outside the ejection envelope and about 95% within the envelope. The Russian design has similar statistics. Both are capable of 0-0 ejections, meaning that the pilot can eject from a stopped aircraft as 0 feet altitude and safely land. Most of the times, this feature is used when the aicraft is taking off or landing. There are several instances of both designs where aircraft doing low approaches had to eject with amazing results.
I think the difference in speed you are referring to is that the Russian seat is measured in kilometers and the US seat is in Knots. The Russian design is rated to about 1400kph, while the US design is 600 knots. If you do the simple math, that doesn't make them equal, until you realize that 600 knots is much much faster at altitude (because of air density,) where kilometers is a fixed distance. 600 knots at sea level is about ~1100kph, but at 35,000 feet, it is ~1400kph.
Remember, the limiting factor isn't the seat itself, it's that soft squishy part that the seat is design to hold. Russian or US designs don't differ in that respect.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
you can eject at over Mach 2 and survive!
What's the point of that? TFA says the plane's top speed is only Mach 1.8
That's called a "safety margin".
You know the thing about UDP jokes? I don't care if you get it or not.
I would rather have the Western internals. Soviet fighters from this time period were analog instrumentation packed up the wazoo. You need to be very experienced to fly one of the things. Today you have like a couple of multifunction liquid-crystal displays which do everything. A lot of the countries which have old Soviet planes have bought Russian or Israeli electronic upgrade packages. Kind of surprising they do not have some sort of INS/GPS navigation system however. The Russians have had their Glonass satnav system almost as long as GPS has been available.
"who's going to try stopping a jet traveling Mach 2?"
Hundreds of pilots currently sitting alert would get a huge woody at the chance to put an AMRAAM or two into a MIG.
If it gets in, it still has to escape over water or lightly inhabited areas. It could punch off a simple pod to deliver drugs (the common USAF travel pod is an old napalm cannister with a door in the side and (obviously, because it would scatter valuable golf clubs) no fuses, but the aircraft could still be presumed hostile and shot down. Any nation defending its borders has every right to kill aircraft that refuse to land when so directed.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The problem is for a lot of clueless users, .com is what everything on the Internet ends with. They aren't aware there are other addresses. They are especially unaware of the .gov address, since it is fairly rare. So a lot of government agencies have said "To hell with it," and registered their .com address. The post office was one of the first I can think of. www.usps.gov still works, but just redirects you to www.usps.com which is their site now. They are still a government agency, they just use a .com address.
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
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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.
I don't know if you're being serious or not about the first question, but the answer is no. You'd drive to your hangar or charter company, walk right in, and fly away. These facilities are usually located a good distance away from the commercial terminals. There might be a security gate or something, but that's more to protect the private property than to screen you.
I've been flying in military aircraft for years, and we never deal with that bs. Park and ride, and the only trade-off is hauling your own luggage.
As for the second question: These aircraft never had weapons. They were trainers.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
How does 30 minutes to cross the Atlantic sound?
Impossible. Shortest distance across Atlantic is ~2500km. If you want to cover it in ½ hour then your speed must be ~5000km/h. SR-71 has (had?) top speed of over 3500km/h... and you are suggesting of making plane that goes almost 50% faster?
Thats why I said a semi ballistic glider. It leaves the atmosphere on a trajectory which will cause it to re-enter on the other side of the Atlantic. The space shuttle would cross the Atlantic in less time because it is not landing, but if the emergency landing site in Spain is used that would be about half an hour after launch.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Civilian operated aircraft in the US aren't allowed to have ejection seats. All of the privately owned warbirds have to have their ejection systems removed or rendered inoperable.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.