A TR3B topic on Military.com?

a reply to: StratosFear

Not currently they aren't. They can't get the cooling down to an acceptable level. They ran into major problems with that, so it's still in the lab phase. The F-35 has had huge cooling issues from day one.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Imagine an area of operation with all targets and threats known, potential threats determined, Intel is immediately available, every radar, cell phone, internet connect and giga-pet accounted for and monitored and you use a couple of different aircraft and space assets as the antenna array to develop a virtual map of the battlefield. Coordinates for GPS and other "smart" weapons pre programed in during flight so that the bomb truck aircraft doesn't need to do anything but fly nearby and release the weapons into the AO.

I got the reference you made. But the F-22,F-35, ?/?-?? and B-? combo are going to make those guys look like an Elementary school game of dodge ball or a round of Rock `em Sock `em robot boxing. And that doesn't include what you saw hot rodding over the city of angels!

Cant wait for the next life were there isn't a need for such devastating weapons as beautiful as they may be.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Exactly right but that is beyond the talking phase, Arnold AFB has some very interesting projects going down right now. So much more than shooting frozen chickens and geese at F-22, F-35 and ?-?? canopies. A new material for the solid state is needed but unknown if its been discovered/produced yet.

ETA: no flight testing is done from Arnold, its strictly a laboratory environment. Runway is useless for anything bigger than an executive jet, no hangars and the aircraft shelter is used to unload people who think themselves to good to get rained on.

a reply to: StratosFear

Oh, I knew the labs were working on it, but that's as far as they've been able to take it so far. They can't scale it down small enough for the F-35 bays and be able to cool it yet. Maybe in 5-10 years we'll see Lightnings with freaking lasers though.

a reply to: Zaphod58

A lot of action today for this thread! Great. There might be some confusion, are we talking about a laser weapon system or laser based countermeasure? I think we will see something like this sooner than later on F-35s and other aircraft too. This would be employed in the lift fan area of the Lightening. As for offensive laser weapons, yes we've got some time to wait on those. Problems that have already been cited above.

There was another thread where we started talking about these IR countermeasure and they have really come a long way. I personally see it becoming an invaluable defensive provision for WVR combat that the DoD will jump all over and it is, technically, a laser....


www.defensenews.com...

a reply to: aholic

NG has a really NICE laser countermeasure that will be going on LRIP 9, I believe it was. But yeah, I was talking about the laser that was supposed to go into the lift fan bay.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Technically they already have lasers, just not the powerful offensive/defensive ones we are talking about. You do that confusion thing on purpose sometimes. Don't stop, its critical thought provoking.

On Topic: Has anyone ever wondered about the designation TR3B?
T=Trainer or Tactical
R=Recon
3=?
B= a sub-model version

If we could assume that TR3B = a large silent triangle shaped craft, then the standard MDS (mission-design-series) designation doesn't make any sense. Hell the first time I saw TR3B as a designation I assumed it was a NASA U2 variant.

a reply to: StratosFear

A lot of people like to say that since there was, at one point, a TR-1, which was redesignated from the U-2R IIRC, and was later redesignated the U-2S, then there HAS to be a TR-3, despite there being no TR-2.

There never was a TR-3B, and if you want to watch people's heads explode in sheer rage/frustration/insanity, just mention it to them and run.

Well Zaph BLACK TRIANGLES sounds nutswe have to call them SOMETHING. They are THERE,what ever they are.

a reply to: cavtrooper7

That doesn't mean that we have to make things up about them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I always thought the "TR" was misinterpreted from the word "tier" as in part of a series.

a reply to: Zaphod58

OR all are free to discuss the facts either but BLACK TRIANGLE COULD be (TR)inangle type 3 couldn't it, on somebody's OFFICIAL compartmentalized internal document?

a reply to: Zaphod58

That doesn't mean that we have to make things up about them.

Calling the Black Triangles the TR-B3 is no different than NATO calling the Tupolev Tu-160 the "Blackjack".

Its merely a reporting name!

a reply to: ForeverMan

That kind of makes sense. I mean, a name is just a name. What's behind the name is what is truly important. NATO had all kinds of interesting designations during the Cold War. A "Whiskey Class" submarine for example.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

much to the dismay of the soviet union they made no Vodka Class.

a reply to: ForeverMan

Sort of along the lines of my thoughts. The only other names Ive heard associated with the crafts are Phantasm(more than one person and outside of ATS, unless that guy is really A-O) Tier3 and A.S.T.R.A.

Someone here ought to coin a term for them for discussion purposes that's seen one or perhaps the local aircraft forum moderator would like the honors?

a reply to: StratosFear

I vote for phantasm. It sounds cooler than TR3B. Plus it may allude to more than just the aircraft.

a reply to: StratosFear

Astra is a different project.

a reply to: ForeverMan

Except I'm not talking about just the name, I'm talking about the fact that they're supposed to be super secret squirrel projects, and yet people think they know every single detail about them, a lot of which is totally made up.

a reply to: Zaphod58

True. There's absolutely no way the supposed details of the "TR3-B" would still be plastered all over the 'net if they were remotely true.

"They" seem to have amazing powers of nuking what they don't want out there offline.