Here’s something that we can really use! I already emailed my co-bloggers to try and convince them to go in on this with me. We can pay for it out of the IPO proceeds or maybe by charging rent on the parts of the solar system that Jay and Lex conquer. I volunteer to fly it, though perhaps we should first arrange for some lessons.
(Via commenter David Dylan)
Lessons, then life insurance.
If we’re going to have our own airforce, I say go with exclusively unmanned vehicles.
(If we are going to conquer the solar system, we’ll need trans-atmospheric weapon platforms. I suggest the inertia-less space dreadnoughts employed by the the heros of Doc Smith’s Lensman series. Of course, once we start operating them, we will come to the attention of Gharlane of Eddore, who is charged with stamping out all that is good in this space-time continuum. But Jay and I will come up with something.)
Heh. My respect for you plummets.
It IS a fine representative of the most shot down fighter plane series of the post WWII era.
I suggest getting one of them Stealth Cessna’s the german guy flew onto Red Square, just pre-post Soviet Dis-Union.
More useful. Cheaper. Less dangerous to yourself.
We should be able to wreak considerable havoc with an “air force” of these, at no risk to ourselves (unfortunately, so could anybody else). Eventually, of course, I’ll have asteroids poised to be nudged into Earth-intersecting orbits if the terrestrials get uppity …
ANSWERS
Cessna
Top speed: ~Mach 0.18
Rate of climb: ~800 ft/min
MiG-21
Top speed: ~Mach 2
Rate of climb: ~30,000 ft/min
Insurance: Who cares?