Stryderg | 12 Oct 2014 6:34 p.m. PST |
I've read about the aging A-10 airframes and how there's really nothing ready to take its place right now. So what would be the problems that would keep us from ordering and building new ones? Not the political in-fighting problems, the logistical/engeneering/production problems. And I'm just picking on the A10 because it came to mind. Doesn't someone have the plans for a Sopwith Camel, Fletcher class destroyer, model T Ford, etc? |
Extra Crispy | 12 Oct 2014 7:23 p.m. PST |
Nothing money and time won't fix. Just need to re-tool and start change over the line from the Fxx to the A10. But you may need to recreate a lot of tooling etc. |
Ed Mohrmann | 12 Oct 2014 7:37 p.m. PST |
What Mark said plus all the 'little guys,' the vendors who make the myriad small stuff that went into the Warthog. Most of them are probably out of business OR making consumer goods – it would take a lot to get them to retool for a platform w/o guaranteed government support for the costs involved. |
Stryderg | 12 Oct 2014 7:45 p.m. PST |
Ahh, I think that's what I wasn't thinking about…"Where can I get a flux capacitor now that the company that makes them is out of busines" |
doug redshirt | 12 Oct 2014 8:19 p.m. PST |
Why build a plane from the 70s would be my first question. I am sure there are plans out there for something more modern. Plus materials used now are different. Remember it has been over 40 years. Sort of like asking Detroit to build M-48s instead of the current model of the M-1. Why. Actually biplanes made very effective ground attack planes due to slow speed. Germany had a few designs that included armored cockpits. They would be cheaper then rebuilding A-10s and probably last longer in a major war. |
Chortle | 12 Oct 2014 10:37 p.m. PST |
"Why build a plane from the 70s would be my first question." Because it is a tested design which does the job. Some things could be swapped out for new designs, like radar and control panels. |
KatieL | 13 Oct 2014 4:04 a.m. PST |
I would bet by now that the jigs and frames used for assembly are long scrapped -- they're large, unwieldy things that are exactly the sort of stuff people want out of the way of new projects. |
Green Tiger | 13 Oct 2014 4:33 a.m. PST |
Saw a programme on telly last night where a team built a Mark I sptifire pretty much from scratch – took 2 years, as opposed to a matter of hours in 1940… |
etotheipi | 13 Oct 2014 4:49 a.m. PST |
Some things could be swapped out for new designs, like radar and control panels. This is the key. To really do it, you would have to go through a design process and decide what you wanted to keep and what you wanted to replace with new. Ultimately, it would be a similar aircraft, not the same one. Speaking on niggly little details, anyone want to lay odds what portion of the old manufacture process wouldn't conform to EPA regulation nowadays? |
John the OFM | 13 Oct 2014 11:52 a.m. PST |
The production of the Sherman tank was delayed because of the problem of casting turret rings that fit a 75mm gun. So, the Grant/Lee tank was produced instead for a while. It only needed to cast a turret for a 37mm gun. If we ever have to produce Grant tanks, I doubt the lines for casting 37mm turret rings exist any more. |
John the OFM | 13 Oct 2014 11:54 a.m. PST |
We will never see any more A10s produced because all that were contracted for have been made, and the lines have switched to other things. Sure the plans exist, but the molds, etc do not. |
DS6151 | 14 Oct 2014 8:46 p.m. PST |
Why build a plane from the 70s would be my first question. Because it works, and it does what it's supposed to do. Why build a brand new design that does less than the existing one? New and shiny rarely means better, in most everything. To answer the OP, the issue would simply be that we haven't built any in a while, so we would need to do all the set-up again. We could do it. We won't, but we could. |
GreenLeader | 15 Oct 2014 6:59 a.m. PST |
Not sure if it is a relevant factor in this case, but I remember reading that the UK workforce now lacks the skills to build replacement nuclear power stations – despite having built them back in the 1950s or whatever. Stands to reason that certain skill sets die off over time if not used, so perhaps there might be a lack of people to operate the widget machine which is critical or whatever. As I say, probably not relevant in the case of an A10, but could we make (eg) a battleship these days? Or have some of the necessary skills died out? |