can a catapult take out an f35 with enough tension?
not unless your a predictive mathematician while it is in flight or the bird is stationary
>>30120002
Yes, but hitting it is a whole other story.
>>30120023
what if you use triple integrated banach spaces to fire decommissioned f22s at it.
Just use 45acp
stop shilling your catapults
>>30120002
Sure. Just roll it up to the perimeter fence and lob big-ass rocks at the tie-down area.
>>30120002
of course
>>30120002
Isn't that a trebuchet though? IIRC catapults use elastic energy stored into bundles of ropes and wood
>>30120023
Maybe if it's sitting on the tarmac
>>30122902
It's a catapult son. Google it if you ain't sure. That's what Google is for.
>>30120002
You're playing too much civilization broseph.
If the rock could magically hit it though, it would definitely take it down. The jet would have to fly at a decent speed to not stall so if you mix that speed with the large boulder coming to it it would cause a lot of damage.
Hitting it while stationed at it's landing strip would also fuck it up but whatever.
>>30123319
No faggot
>>30122902
No the trebuchet was the one with the rope and it would use centripetal force to fling shit out
>>30123306
Or was low and slow. Mark you, I'm not saying you could reliably hit them with any /accuracy/ - but a bigass rock travelling at x m/sec IS going to severely annoy anything it hits. And the F-35 will already be going at its stall speed, at minimum, which I can't find online but let's just use the F-16's: roughly 60 m/sec, or over 7 times faster than an average adult male at a sprint. So closing velocity will at least (60 + x) m/sec, assuming the catapult is head-on with the JSF- err, excuse me, I mean "Lightning II".
>>30123319
>>30122902
Sidebar: it doesn't help that "catapult" is an imprecise term, but when you say catapult most people think of an onager, or possibly a mangonel; these are specific types of siege engine under the general catapult umbrella term.
>>30123362
That's not helpful at all.
>Anyway
I can't find launch speeds for them, but we can assume at least 9-10 m/sec - which is to say faster than dude can comfortably sprint.
Cat range is given by the square of v, over g, all by the sine of twice theta, where v is launch speed, g is gravity, and theta's the shooting angle. For maximum range theta should be 45°. The gentler the angle, the shorter the range - but a shorter 'ellipse' means a taller ellipse, to a point. (It's not really an ellipse, because physics, but I'm simplifying.)
So let's assume theta is 45°, because in theory our F-35 could be any height, and who expects a fucking catapult in the mud? Given a 9 m/sec launch speed, r = ( (9 m/sec)^2 / 9.80665 m/sec^2 ) * sin(2 * 45°)
= about 8.25 m
Which isn't really that far, so actual speed is probably way faster, but who cares. I'm not gonna go any farther with numbers, but the point is, you could easily get a bigass rock (or whatever ammo) to a height where an F-35 could conceivably be, thereby degrading its manoeuvre capability to a point where the pilot would have no other options except controlled flight into terrain, if they had any choice at all.
>>30123362
But isn't that using more or less the same mechanism of a trebuchet? Only there is a cup instead of a cloth "sling" for the projectile
>>30120002
Isis NASTY SURPRISE for US Air Force
>>30120002
Why do you americans have to make everything about muh catapults. Everybody knows that a ramp is just as effective!
>>30120002
Yes.
But you have to hit the plane first.
>>30123495
>to a height where an F-35 could conceivably be
Yeah, see that's the thing. Even launched vertically, 10 m/s will only get you up 5 meters - which isn't just "low and slow," that's fucking runway threshold altitude.
According to wikipedia, some onagers could achieve a range of 1300 ft, which translates to a velocity of about 200 ft/s (60 m/s) and a maximum possible altitude of about 180 m - which is significantly better, but still pretty much approach and landing altitude.
So if your catapult has to be on/near the airfield to hit the F-35 anyways, why not just wait until it parks and hit it on the ground?
