U2 Spyplane Crashed

ok, i get what your saying, but the tomkat pilot would still have to see the u-2 in order to illuminate it. So at max ceiling i thnik the u-2 wold be safe.
 
Back In Black said:
ok, i get what your saying, but the tomkat pilot would still have to see the u-2 in order to illuminate it. So at max ceiling i thnik the u-2 wold be safe.
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The F-14 has an extremely powerful radar designed to fire the potent Phoenix Missile which means the Tomcat can shoot down planes 115 miles away.

The Iranians don't have any of those so the only thing they can use the Tomcat for is longrange radar and AWACs sorta.

I have no doubt a F-14 can find and lock on a U-2. Its getting a missile to actually reach it thats the hard part.
 
yes a f 14 could lock onto a U2. Thier radar is poerful enough. theoretically. Now the Iranian ones dont have the latest upgrades ( i think). U2s are notoriously horrible to fly, they arent called the dragon lady for nothing. And yes an F14 could be at altitude and launch a phoenix and take it out. Phoenix is good for 100 miles at mach 4 thats pretty quick. Now when flying u dont fly in a strait line. The shortest distance from one place to the other is a curve not a straight line. Due to the curve in the earth.
 
cidknee said:
yes a f 14 could lock onto a U2. Thier radar is poerful enough. theoretically. Now the Iranian ones dont have the latest upgrades ( i think). U2s are notoriously horrible to fly, they arent called the dragon lady for nothing. And yes an F14 could be at altitude and launch a phoenix and take it out. Phoenix is good for 100 miles at mach 4 thats pretty quick. Now when flying u dont fly in a strait line. The shortest distance from one place to the other is a curve not a straight line. Due to the curve in the earth.
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No Iran does not have the latest radar upgrades for the F14 nor does it have not spare parts for them nor many people who can service the planes.


The only foreign user of the F-14 was Iran. The Shah of Iran ordered 40 "F-14AGRs" in 1974, followed by 40 more in 1975. They were almost stock F-14As with some minor changes, such as a desert survival kit and no door over the retractable flight refueling probe. There was some concern that Iran was biting off more than it could chew with the Tomcat, but the Shah wanted an interceptor that could deal with intrusions by Soviet MiG-25 reconnaissance aircraft over Iran's northern border. The Tomcat and its Phoenix missile seemed to fit the bill.

79 new-build aircraft were delivered before the Shah's downfall in the Iranian Revolution and his death from cancer not long afterward. The 80th Iranian Tomcat was retained stateside by the US Navy. 284 of the 714 Phoenix missiles on order were also delivered. These were simplified versions of the missile, lacking the electronic counter-countermeasures capabilities of their US Navy equivalents.

Iranian F-14s were painted in a neat, thoroughly un-naval desert camouflage scheme featuring a sand-colored base and banding with several shades of brown. They are believed to have seen some action in the Iran-Iraq war, using their powerful AN/AWG-9 radar to act as an air controller for other fighters. However, it was much more difficult to obtain spares for the Tomcats in the face of a somewhat leaky Western arms embargo than for the Iranian F-4 and F-5 fighters, since there were many nations that used these two earlier types. Eventually the lack of spares grounded the Tomcats.

A few Iranian F-14s are believed to have been shot down during the war, with the Iranian F-14s claiming a small number of kills of their own. It is known that the Soviet Union obtained both the F-14 and the Phoenix missile for reverse-engineering from Iran. It is unclear if this was done by the Iranian Islamic Republic's government or by a defecting Iranian pilot. F-14 technology may have influenced development of the Soviet MiG-31 "Foxhound" or "Super Foxbat", and it seems very likely that the Phoenix had a strong influence on the Soviet "AA-9 Amos" AAM, since the two missiles closely resemble each other externally.

This loss was something of a blow to the US, as the US Navy had been careful not to compromise the Tomcat's secrets. On 14 September 1976, a Phoenix-armed F-14A had rolled off the deck of the US Navy carrier JOHN F. KENNEDY in the North Sea, with the crew ejecting safely. Of course a Red Navy cruiser had been shadowing the American carrier group and presumably the Soviet sailors didn't fail to notice the bungle, and so the Navy performed an expensive eight-week deep-water recovery effort to retrieve the fighter. It is unclear if it ever returned to service after recovery, though it seems a bit unlikely.

In any case, the Phoenix was compromised at the same time that the AIM-54C variant was in development. As a result, the missile's development program was modified to ensure that the new variant of the Phoenix could defeat countermeasures developed against older variants
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http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avtomcat.html#m4
 
MarineCorps said:
No Iran does not have the latest radar upgrades for the F14
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True.

MarineCorps said:
nor does it have not spare parts for them
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It's had plenty of time to cannabailise and work out how to make spare parts though. Not like what they're copying is 80s technology.

MarineCorps said:
nor many people who can service the planes.
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Again, doubtful. They've had long enough to experiment with what they've got.

Very doubtful they've got any Phoenix' left though. I mean, after an 8 year war with Iraq, they've probably fired 'em all by now.

It wasn't the most agile missile anyway.
 
I dont think they would even want to shoot them down, even if they could, which I honestly dont think they can.

The prestige would be outweight by far by the downsides.
 
Downside? What downside?

Airspace is sovereign. Hell, if more nations could shoot down satellites they'd be totally within their rights to do so.
 
CruddyLeper said:
Downside? What downside?

Airspace is sovereign. Hell, if more nations could shoot down satellites they'd be totally within their rights to do so.
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While that is true, that would mean I would be within my right to shoot anyone who walked onto my property without my premission. ;) The US while not launching a all out war would probaly luanch a tomahawk or 2 at some military sites.;)
 
Er, no. International treaties etc make it very clear that airspace is the responsibility of country underneath it. Unidentifieds without permission can be downed - rather like the USS Vincennes did with an Iranian airliner.

Otherwise would be totally OK for Iranian airlines to fly wherever they wanted over the US - hardly what they need right now.
 
MarineCorps said:
While that is true, that would mean I would be within my right to shoot anyone who walked onto my property without my premission. ;) The US while not launching a all out war would probaly luanch a tomahawk or 2 at some military sites.;)
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That would be an unprovoked act of war, contrary to UN law.

Any retaliation for such an act would be the responsibility of the US.
 
It may be like that on paper, but in reality I think the US would take this as an oppurtunity to vileify Iran even further.

"They shot down our peaceful aircraft out of pure spite! Theyre afraid we'll find out about their SECRET NUCLEAR PROGRAMME! Didnt I tell you so?!"
 
Gabryel Karolin said:
Downside would be that the US and its allies would get a reason to be even tougher vs. Iran and set in economic sanctions and so on.
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You mean - like the economic sanctions already in place?

I was most amused to see a speech of Bush were he said Iran was welcome to apply to join the WTO.

Iran has been applying since the 1990s. And the only opponent has been - the US.
 
Gabryel Karolin said:
It may be like that on paper, but in reality I think the US would take this as an oppurtunity to vileify Iran even further.

"They shot down our peaceful aircraft out of pure spite! Theyre afraid we'll find out about their SECRET NUCLEAR PROGRAMME! Didnt I tell you so?!"
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I doubt the US would want to go that route. It has no cards to play right now.

It can make a helluva mess of Iranian economy but is not in a position to invade right now.

Not without leaving Iraq to descend ever further into civil war.
 
The U-2s's top speed is around 500 mph, yes only 500. You can be the one to waste your time looking that up if you dont beleive me. A Phoenix missile has a range of 115 miles with a speed of 3,000 mph. IF and thats a very big IF!!!!! The tomkat illuminated the target, the u-2 might as well kiss its arse goodbye, a 3,000 mph hour phoenix with a proximity detonation going at a 500 mph U-2s thats flying in a straight path(why would a plane with its camaras ON THE BOTTOM OF THE PLANE fly any other way) and ide say the Phoenix wins. So yes its possible. My only dought would be if the u-2 was to high up to be illuminated enough for the tomkat to get a full lock, it might be a semi-only, and semi locks eventually degrade to no lock at all.

So pretty much if the U-2s is low enough and the Tomkat mangaes a full lock its got a 99.999(repeating of course) chance of knabbing the kill. If the u-2s is to high,well then im not exactly sure.

edit:just to clear that part up
editedit:Im not sureif you were being sarcastic or not, but Irans nuclear program isnt exactly secret..............
 
oh one final point about the phoenix. It actually goes into a terminal arc to drop onto its targets from above. Most of the time. It has the ability to read how close or far its target is and act accordingly. I seriously doubt that Iran shot it down
 
ok, i couldnt resist, the AIM-30 phoenix(the first version) doesnt go into the ark, the Aim-54 does. The Iranians got there tomkats way back in the day, so they are probably using the old cheap arse AIM-30s.
 
CruddyLeper said:
Er, no. International treaties etc make it very clear that airspace is the responsibility of country underneath it. Unidentifieds without permission can be downed - rather like the USS Vincennes did with an Iranian airliner.

Otherwise would be totally OK for Iranian airlines to fly wherever they wanted over the US - hardly what they need right now.
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I was making the point that you don't just shoot down anything that enters you country without premission. ;) I know that airspace is sovereign ;)
 
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