Comment by anishvarghese
17 hours ago
This targeted shielding is a classic aerospace mass tradeoff much like armoring a fighter pilot instead of the entire plane.
17 hours ago
This targeted shielding is a classic aerospace mass tradeoff much like armoring a fighter pilot instead of the entire plane.
I get your point, but fighter pilots don't wear armor. There is no reasonable amount of it that can protect against cannons and missiles, and the added weight and bulk of even a bulletproof vest would make high-G-force maneuvers impractical for the pilot.
Both A-10 & SU-25 have an armored bathtub made form titanium to shield the cockpit (somewhat) from ground fire, aimed mainly against heavy machine gun and auto canon fire + splinters. Sure, those are ground attack aircraft, not fighter aircraft but IMHO good enough.
Also IIRC some WW2 fighter planes had at lest armored glass front panel, to provide some protection from tail gunners when attacking bombers.