• 0 Posts
  • 76 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle





  • Not an industry that I work in, but I know that older jets are often used for general training purposes.

    For instance, NASA astronauts still train in T-38 Talons, originally built between 1961-1972. The Space Shuttle Trainers were a modified Gulfstream II, introduced in 1967, before they were retired in 2012 with the Shuttle program.

    The first civilian orbital mission, the Inspiration4 crew trained in a MiG-29 which is privately owned by Jared Isaacman, who led the private mission launched by SpaceX back in 2021. The mission was a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, raising over $243 Million in donations. They also performed a number of experiments while in orbit for SpaceX, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine and investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine. Studies specifically intended to see the effects of orbital flight on ordinary citizens that weren’t previously screened and exhaustively trained as professional astronauts.

    Older fighter jets are still good for training things at supersonic speeds, real world G forces, etc. that simulators can’t reproduce perfectly.