Sky News take on the AI vs Pilot.

That’s what he claims, but if you try to check with actual witnesses, you’ll find they’re all either dead or have been institutionalized. Convenient, don’t you think?

You are Jivebunny’s alter-ego, and I claim my £5.
Re the F-22, unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of internal politics involved with that aircraft, and there were never the numbers built that should have been. I’ve read some online articles about it, I’ll see if I can track something down. I think it does have some claim to the thread title, though.
Found this, one example of the malignant narcissist running Americaputting his own obsession first…
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29698/upgrades-needed-for-sustained-f-22-ops-during-a-crisis-in-europe-axed-for-border-wall

I know it’s not a fighter or a jet, but just read At The Edge Of Space, about the X-15, and as much as I’d love to fly in an F4 or F14 or F22 (and SR-71 even more), I think a full-bore X-15 altitude flight must be about as nuts as sub-orbital flying gets.

Much more interesting book to read than I expected – d’you know that only 12 men ever flew X-15? We know only 12 men walked on the moon – one bloke done both. What a life that was! 🙂

Re F111 doing mach 3, Jeff Guinn over on aircrew interview says it can.

Re F111 doing mach 3, Jeff Guinn over on aircrew interview says it can.

My understanding is that a lot of the fast jets are limited by thermal considerations rather than thrust/drag, notably the F15. At those speeds, the engines apparently function as ramjets, so if you keep pumping in fuel, they’ll just keep producing more and more thrust. Problem is, they can’t take the thermal stress. It would be like screwing on a gigantic turbo to a little hatchback engine and turning up the boost to 100 psi. In theory you could probably produce 1000 hp, but the engine will detonate long before that. So, the “it can do mach 3” claims sound to me like some guy down the pub claiming his Sierra Cosworth could do 200 mph if he wired the wastegate shut.

go to 60,000ft point the nose down full throttle then yes it’s probably a mach 3 jet…. advisable probably not. Sustained in level flight nope. It’s a bit like describing the Hawker Hunter as supersonic… yes it could go supersonic with gravity assistance but it’s not a supersonic jet.

go to 60,000ft point the nose down full throttle then yes it’s probably a mach 3 jet

Once the wings are torn off it would probably go even faster… briefly