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[quote user="MichaelSol"][quote user="wholelephant"] At least this is an antidote to the curse of modernism. Sometimes the older, less fashionable ways are better. [/quote]There are many analogies. After 50 years, the B-52 remains the preferred heavy bomber primarily because of cost effectiveness and the fact that, ultimately, after four or five successors, it still does the best job, and has functionally returned to being the backbone of the heavy bomber fleet. Fortunately, they kept enough around to make "going back" feasible.The A-10 is a more modern example. It wasn't sexy, it wasn't fast, and the services didn't want it. During the first week of the Gulf War, 100% of the battlefield requests for air support were for "air support"; during the second week, as commanders began to see A-10's in action and it's superiority over far more "modern" and "advanced" aircraft, 90% of the requests became for "A-10 support". They had to see it work first, but then it's ability to do the job was paramount, even as the executive class wanted to buy something else and had been engaged on an active program to scrap the planes because they were "too old". Once again, a fortuitous set of circumstances permitted the services to "go back" to using that tough little plane as the primary front line support aircraft. [/quote]They laughed when Paul MacCready built the Gossamer Condor with old-fashioned wire bracing rather tham "modern" cantilever construction.Outside wire bracing is much lighter than internal cantilever construction and thus the Gossamer Condor could fly much slower with much less power.Guess who laughed last.
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