Can the radar on these rather small military jet fighters detect objects up to 500 miles?
Why is the US Navy conducting a missile test blindly and relying almost solely on the F-18 pilot for all the data?
How was the black guy (navigator?) able to walk past the hole and almost all the way to the cockpit only be sucked out at the last minute?
What's the point of having a non-explosive missile? Clearly a plane can survive this missile as we saw in this movie.
Old post, but I found your points interesting. So, for the next one reading this:
1) As I understand the Navy fighters, the last versions of the F-14 had the longest range radar system, the AN/APG-71 as it was originally tasked with intercepting TU-95 Bear bombers.
Wikipedia says this about it:
The system itself is capable of a 460 mile (740 km) range, but the antenna design limits this to only 230 miles (370 km). Use of datalinked data allows two or more F-14D's to operate the system at its maximum range.
The F-18 Hornet shown in the movie would have had an AN/APG-73 radar unit. The only distance figure I found for it said for a large bomber sized target, it had a range of about 150 KM/93 miles.
At any rate, both of these relied on the E-2 Hawkeye to datalink target info from long distances.
Another huge glitch was the missile fired was a short range sidewinder (carried on the wingtip of the Hornet), that would not have the range to hit a target 400+ miles away. Plus it is a heat seeker not radar guided as shown in the movie. But it's a movie.
2) A ground or airborne (E-2/AWACS) radar system would have detected the commercial plane (especially one that size) and nixed the test. But it's a movie.
3) His path to being sucked out was rather drawn out and entertaining. I knew what was going to happen when I saw he made it to the cockpit door. It is a movie after all.
4) Beats me. I recall reading something about kinetic energy missiles some time ago, but I think they were for use against ground targets. All of the air to air ordinance US military aircraft carry utilizes explosive warheads. Maybe an exploding warhead was not in the movie's budget.
I'm an English fan.
Plus it is a heat seeker not radar guided as shown in the movie. But it's a movie.