F/A-37 Talon

www.globalsecurity.org...

I have seen some of these pictures on ATS before and people said they were from the film 'Stealth', which I believe.

But why have Global Security made a picture gallery of a fictional plane?

According to the back story, the F/A-37 "Talon" is a Mach 3.5, super cruise stealth fighter/bomber/interceptor with a 4000nm range. Top speed is somewhere in the Mach 4+ range. The movie is premised on an artificial-intelligence program designed to fly jet aircraft and reduce human casualties.

www.globalsecurity.org...

I have found a page where they explain that this plane is from a film.

They seem to give a bit of the story from the film but why is it on GS?


[edit on 20/7/04 by Hyperen]

I'm not an expert, but after reading the book "Skunkworks" (highly recommended), it seems that the main charicteristic of a stealth plane is that it is stealthy.
seriously though, thats why planes such as the f117a have a SUB mach top speed (a sonic boom that can be heard for miles isnt very stealthy). the only plane (that i know of) that can do around mach 4 is the SR71 blackbird spyplane (made by the same folks at lockheed), and its pressure wave (sonic boom) is so strong that they cant fly anywhere near any sort of civilisation when at normal plane altitude, or they'll break windows, scare children etc. and the engines required to make an aircraft go at these speeds were the most powerful engines developed for a plane of its time and still among the most powerful, and they are HUGE!
also, looking at the F117a, we note its angular appearance. once a pilot took off in an f117a and lit up the radars like a flare at night. all were lost as to the cause, they found it: one single screw wasnt 100% tight, and therefore not flush with the surface. it has to be sharp angles, or it reflects radar in all directions. so a standard 'bubble' cockpit, is highly unlikely on any sort of stealth plane (unless they've found some kind of new system) because the glass has to be flat and coated in absorbant treatments, or the pilot's head will show up on radar, even if the rest of the plane doesnt!

Originally posted by Johann
its pressure wave (sonic boom) is so strong that they cant fly anywhere near any sort of civilisation when at normal plane altitude, or they'll break windows, scare children etc.

lol - Sounds fun

My question wasn't really about whether this would be viable but why it was on the GS site, since that is meant to be a serious war site, not a film site.

[edit on 20/7/04 by Hyperen]

yeah, i get it hyperen,

GS is a real world military reference site, not some page that covers hollywood movies... but the page you're talking about with a description of the fictional plane should say why GS is covering it. Perhaps it's loosely based on an aircraft that covered elsewhere on their site... or maybe they're just analyzing it from a 'what if?' standpoint?

good find, i'd email them and find out...

-raven

According to the back story, the F/A-37 "Talon" is a Mach 3.5, super cruise stealth fighter/bomber/interceptor with a 4000nm range. Top speed is somewhere in the Mach 4+ range. The movie is premised on an artificial-intelligence program designed to fly jet aircraft and reduce human casualties. Not surprisingly, one of the AI robo-pilots runs amok. When one of the planes begins attacking friendly forces, Navy pilots are called in to save the planet from artificial intelligence.

Linky

I think I don't like this movie already.

The pictures have been so widely circulated around the Internet that they probably decided that adding a section for it would aid in debunking. GS is one of the first places I look for info on military hardware and seems well indexed by Google.

Originally posted by Spectre
The pictures have been so widely circulated around the Internet that they probably decided that adding a section for it would aid in debunking. GS is one of the first places I look for info on military hardware and seems well indexed by Google.

Good Idea Spectre. Never thought of that. Although, I think it would be better not put in with the 'real planes'. Maybe they could have put it on the main page.

GS seems to have pretty the same content as FAS. Are the two sites 'linked' somehow?

[edit on 20/7/04 by Hyperen]

Originally posted by Johann
thats why planes such as the f117a have a SUB mach top speed (a sonic boom that can be heard for miles isnt very stealthy).

with certain aerodynamics the sonic boom can be reduced to a pop

www.popsci.com...

This might have something to do with them making page about "movie plane".
Switchblade


And about connection between Globalsecurity and FAS. I think that at one point other's pages were pretty much mirror from other but at least now Globalsecurity seems to be updated more and have more data.

Also content of this site was earlier under FAS domain:
nuclearweaponarchive.org...

The jet looks cool but the plot of the movie sound very stupid.

Originally posted by Murcielago
The jet looks cool but the plot of the movie sound very stupid.

Typical Hollywood for you then

Thanks for the info and the sites, E_T.

[edit on 20/7/04 by Hyperen]

Yeah the movie sounds like I, Robot hopped up on steroids but the specs of the plane that are given in the movie look kool and this jet looks to bulk and think I just don't think it looks like an jet that could do mach 4+ but most people going to see the movie don't care about the aerodynamics of it just want to see stuff go boom Also I don't think the glass has to be flat for the airplane to be stealthy cuz the raptor doesn't use a flat glass it just has an all glass cockpit.

This has now been added to the bottom

We would like to build a collection of other fake airplanes that have appeared in movies or on TV. If you can help us build this collection, please contact us with the information.

Guess that clears things up then. If they want to do that then great but I just wish they would move it out of the section with the 'real' planes into a section for movie/TV planes.

it's possible that it's a 'stealthy' plane like the F-22, instead of a 'stealth' plane like the F-117. ie, reduced detectability, not 0 detectability.

kinda cool lookin plane, whether it's real or not

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Also I don't think the glass has to be flat for the airplane to be stealthy cuz the raptor doesn't use a flat glass it just has an all glass cockpit.

It doesn't have to.
B-2 has round cockpit glass.

Originally posted by E_T
It doesn't have to.
B-2 has round cockpit glass.

That is because they found that you get less of a return with a curved surface than with a straight one. You have better control of how you want to redirect the radar return with the curved glass (which has also been treated).

If you need to do further research on that just look into the Tacit Blue progam.


[edit on 21/7/04 by COOL HAND]

umm am i the only one that notices that the glas is actually curved not straight

i'm abit surprised that some ppl will actually think that F/A37 talons like those in the movie stealth really exist.

here goes:
some of u ask why is it on global sercurity? the reason might be that certain designs of the plane contain various info of certain designs on some other planes. from various sources, the F/A37 is like a combination of many designs of modern fighter jets placed in one. if u are the head of national sercurity, won't it be unwise to leave even a "movie object" of this calibre unattended?

some might say that F/A37 really exist. currently the US is in production of F/A22. one F/A22 already cost them US$300 billon, how much would u think the F/A37 really cost deciding on the factors that the F/A37 has everything that the F/A22, B-2A spirit, and some other many more charactoristics of warplanes has. if u considered everything, it might cost US$300 zillion to build it *cough* it already land US in a dire state building the F/A22 Raptors, do u really think US is gonna invest US$300 zillion on ONE air superiority hypersonic aircraft?

u may say i'm dump or criticise what i might say but this is what i thought of the F/A37 Talon(thought i actually kinda like the aircraft)