[Mars]

Well given the cutscenes never did, it seems Elysiums and Isis transports are supposed to be able to fly in air, from the VC tech room entries I would assume most Zod (Vasudan) freighters can fly... I wouldn't try that with a Fenris though, or a Deimos, or a Orion, or a Collie.

[tobiwan81]

While obviously the "F-14 in space" is silly, and I understand the ranges isssue in FS, it does raise an interesting issue.

Missile-fighters.
i.e. fighters more biased towards missile armament. Not necessarily potato-handling craft like the Aries.

Say a single gun, yup, 1 bank 1 gun, 1x1 and then lots of missles, 4 bays maybe.

1 Kayser and a nice collection of missles (20 Trebs, 40 Harpoons, 80 Tornadoes and 10 of those cluster things.) would actually make an excellent interceptor. The 1 gun would help defend against fighters.

Well, whatever I'm just yacking.

[Nuclear1]

so, as soon as you touch the joystick, your ship goes into a spin with infinite Gs and you're splattered all over the cockpit 

In some subtle way this is possibility one of the funniest posts ever.

[aldo_14]

While obviously the "F-14 in space" is silly, and I understand the ranges isssue in FS, it does raise an interesting issue.

Missile-fighters.
i.e. fighters more biased towards missile armament. Not necessarily potato-handling craft like the Aries.

Say a single gun, yup, 1 bank 1 gun, 1x1 and then lots of missles, 4 bays maybe.

1 Kayser and a nice collection of missles (20 Trebs, 40 Harpoons, 80 Tornadoes and 10 of those cluster things.) would actually make an excellent interceptor. The 1 gun would help defend against fighters.

Well, whatever I'm just yacking.

The RAF version of the Eurofighter actually takes that approach, dumping any support for the cannon and relying on the missiles (which are apparently a wee bit better than the USAF equivalent in, i think, range terms).  Except it costs more to remodel the airframe aerodynamics if you remove the actual cannon, so they're keeping the gun itself.... just not paying for the ammo for it.

Yes, that's how cheap the RAF has got - we can't actually afford bullets.

[tobiwan81]

The USAF (USN! What am I smoking!) toyed with this in the late '50s as well.

The Douglas F6D "Missileer" was going to be the new fleet defence fighter. Slow subsonic straight-winged thing that would have carried 6 to 8 long range missiles.
Thankfully they went with the F-4 Phantom II instead but even that lacked a gun in it's first three production versions. (F-4B, F-4C, F-4D).

I just found in the last missions on FS2 that I found myself needing  (even on an Erinyes with 4 Kaysers and 4 Circes) LOTS of missiles to intercept the bombers fast enough.

A medium sized, maybe a little bigger than Perseus, well shielded (armour is not important, brief tangles with bombers gunners only) fastish (75mps?) fighter with ave manouverability (as good as an Apollo) one gun and 4 missile bays.

Fun!

Then again I suppose I need to make a campaign to make new fighters eh?

[Turnsky]

in space, the drone would win, in an atmosphere, the tomcat would win by its ability to actually get off the ground 

[karajorma]

Actually if we're being pedantic the F-14 would win in both cases due the fact that in FS2 the Amazon only exists in computer simulations.

[aldo_14]

Actually if we're being pedantic the F-14 would win in both cases due the fact that in FS2 the Amazon only exists in computer simulations.

(really pedantic)

Neither would win because an F-14 can't beat something that doesn't exist.  Like a fight between a Stegosaurus and George Bushes intellect.

[Unknown Target]

The USAF toyed with this in the late '50s as well.

The Douglas F6D "Missileer" was going to be the new fleet defence fighter. Slow subsonic straight-winged thing that would have carried 6 to 8 long range missiles.
Thankfully they went with the F-4 Phantom II instead but even that lacked a gun in it's first three production versions. (F-4B, F-4C, F-4D).

This is actually an interesting point that was a great point of disagreement in the military aviation community; that since the advent of missiles, close in dogfighting was theoretically impossible, and as such cannons were useless. During the Vietnam war, this proved not to be the case, and the Phantom was subsequently modified to carry a podded cannon.

The need for a cannon in all fighters as a backup weapon has carried through from the Vietnam war all the way to modern times; the F-22, the most advanced fighter in the world, has a single 20 mm cannon installed internally.

A fighter without a gun is like a baseball hitter who can't bunt. You don't need it a lot, but when you do, it's crucial.

[aldo_14]

A fighter without a gun is like a baseball hitter who can't bunt. You don't need it a lot, but when you do, it's crucial.

Y'know, some of us have absolutely no idea what that means.

[Ghostavo]

Y'know, some most of us have absolutely no idea what that means.

Fixed it for you.

[Nuclear1]

Y'know, some of us have absolutely no idea what that means.

You Brits rest of the world and your lack of baseball knowledge.

I think what UT was getting at is that bunting (i.e. very lightly tapping the ball with the bat) can be crucial in determining the outcome of a baseball game. Likewise, guns in a fighter can be crucial in determining whether a fighter survives or not (especially when the little bugger that the fighter is dogfighting won't stay in the HUD long enough for a missile lock).

[aldo_14]

Y'know, some of us have absolutely no idea what that means.

You Brits rest of the world and your lack of baseball knowledge.

I think what UT was getting at is that bunting (i.e. very lightly tapping the ball with the bat) can be crucial in determining the outcome of a baseball game. Likewise, guns in a fighter can be crucial in determining whether a fighter survives or not (especially when the little bugger that the fighter is dogfighting won't stay in the HUD long enough for a missile lock).

Nope, you'll have to explain it better than that.

[FireCrack]

Bunting - rather than sing the bat at the ball and knock it realy far, you just gently tap the ball so it more or less falls to your feet.

[Unknown Target]

Yes...yeesh, at least when you brits or whatever say something, I go and look it up on dictionary.com or what not

And bunting is in a baseball game, when you slightly tap the ball and it falls right in front of you, as opposed to swinging the bat really hard and hitting it out of the park.

Bunting =  Gun (close in)
Hitting = Missile (far away)

[aldo_14]

And that is good why?

[Cobra]

Personally I like the F117 Nighthawk (stealth bomber) and a new russian fighter that has the wings inverted, forgot the name of it.

Su-47. the correct spelling is Zukhov, right?

[Herra Tohtori]

At certain situations it is more feasible than hitting the ball further. Like, say, when you want your man from 1st base to second before you have to go to first base yourself...

Though I only know the rules for Finnish baseball, which is somewhat different from American baseball.

Which doesn't change the fact that all that is completely irrelevant considering the actual subject of this topic...  

So, in order to make an F-14 fighter function in a vacuum, it should be updated with:

-advanced life support systems, including fully pressurized and sealed cockpit section OR a TIE-Fighter style combat suit, whichever floats your boat

-oxidizer for the fuel burned by engines (you'd have to replace at least half of the fuel tanks in the plane with LOX tanks, which is not as simple as it sounds because liquid oxygen is either very very cold or very very high pressurized and in applications like this it is both)

-Very good insulation for fuel tanks to prevent freezing, and most likely you'd need heaters in the tanks as well

-attitude thrusters to be able to control the ship

-advanced radiators or huge heat sinks to absorb the excess heat produced by the engines and other systems in the plane

-updated radar systems adapted to see FS/FS2 ships, should there be something special about them.


That's it, you're set. Now your F-14 can fly in space, at least until it runs out of fuel and oxygen. Different thing is what it would need to do a scratch on Amazon.

The easiest way would be toreplace the original missiles with Harpoon missiles. It wouldn't carry many of them, but it could destroy a drone without problems should it have them. This solution wouldn't have a need of huge-ass reactor to produce energy for some FS/FS2 era weapon.

Anyway. It wouldn't really be F-14 anymore. It's maneuverability would be dependant of the attitude thruster system implemented on it. The main thrusters would generate the same thrust as on earth, if you could provide oxygen onto them... and they would generate quit an acceleration, should the world of FS use real life physics... but it doesn't, so the conversation is actually quite useless anyway.

It would win or lose depending on how good you want to make it.  

And I believe the mentioned Sukhoi fighter with inverted wings is Sukhoi-47 Berkut (Golden Eagle in English).

[aldo_14]

At certain situations it is more feasible than hitting the ball further. Like, say, when you want your man from 1st base to second before you have to go to first base yourself...

Right, let's just quit this because that's all gibberish to me.

[Cobra]

And I believe the mentioned Sukhoi fighter with inverted wings is Sukhoi-47 Berkut (Golden Eagle in English).

Sukhoi, that's it. thanks.