And there are more B-1B active than B-2A. :rolleyes: There are going to be fewer F-22A than F-15C. The good stuff is expensive.
Well, thats my point. The wings on an F-105 are great for high speed at low altitude, but they aren’t good for getting off of a runway, which you know.
I didn’t say that. But it is the biggest reason.
I can’t find figures specific to the M either, but the MLD carries less fuel than the M, and according to wikipedia, the MiG-23MLD has a ferry range of 2820 Km, while the F-104G has a ferry range of 1630 Km. The F-104G has fewer pylons and fins than the F-104S, so it should be cleaner. In any case, it would be silly to quibble about the difference between the M and the MLD when the differences between the F-104 and the MiG-23 are so much bigger. I just picked the MiG-23M because it was manufactured at the same time as the F-104S, which isn’t really relevant.
Part of the goal of MiG-23 was to make a fighter that had the long range of the F-4 Phantom. The F-104 was a point defense fighter.You are not understanding my post. Going slower than Mach 0.75 in a normal jet with a low aspect ratio wing won’t improve range, but it will if the jet has a high aspect ratio wing.
There is another effect of cruise with a straight, unswept wing which is probably even more significant: a wing with a high aspect ratio has less induced drag. A wing produces a tip vortex that disrupts the air flow at the end of the wing. “the further away from the lifting part of the wing the disruption occurs, the better. When the tip vortices are closer, as they are in a low aspect ratio wing, they are proportionally bigger with respect to the lifting area of the wing.” (Grumman F-14 Tomcat, by James Perry Stevenson) The same aerodynamic advantages that improve field performance also improve cruise performance. Gliders have high aspect ratio wings for the same reason. More lift with less drag gets you more range. Another reason that you want to cruise slower with a high aspect ratio wing is that it has more drag at higher speeds than a low aspect ratio wing has.“If we examined two wings of equal area, each creating equal lift, we would find that the higher aspect ratio wing has a lower AOA, and consequently less induced drag. The direct result of this is that the high aspect ratio wing needs less thrust to maintain both its lift, and the energy level of its aircraft. The reduction in drag also means that less thrust is needed to acheive the same performance than a low aspect ratio wing, and by the same token, less fuel.” (The great book of modern warplanes, edited by Mike Spik, c 2003)
Besides improved landing speed and field performance, the unswept wing provides increased range, increased loiter time, and it also improves low speed manuverability. An F-14 can out turn just about any jet fighter at low speed. The corner velocity of an F-14 is only 300 knots. Also: “The straight wing effect lets the F-14 turn more dramatically without losing energy.” (Stevenson)
“The high aspect ratio wing is most advantageous at high lift, and the maximum L/D ratio is reached at increasingly high lift as the aspect ratio increases. High sustained and transient turn rates are best achieved by high aspect ratio wings. Sustained turn rate is in effect thrust-limited g, and is the product of thrust/weight (T/W) ratio and the L/D ratio. All else being equal, the higher L/D ratio of the high aspect ratio wing gives a higher level of sustained manuverability down to lower speeds than a fixed wing. It also permits transient turning out to the very edge of lift with a smaller loss of energy, than a low aspect ratio wing.” (Spik, 2003)
What Schorsch says is in many ways true, many VG wing aircraft started life as direct jet lift ones.
The early MiG-23 had direct lift jet engines, the Su-24 too, the Mirage G can trace its origins to the Mirage Balzac.
VG wings have also another problem, they do move the center of lift with respect the gravity center this creates stability problems and makes the aircraft too stable and not so maneouvrable increasing trim lift drag ratio.
In the F-14 they fixed this a bit with the wing gloves and in the MiG-23 with wing notches and wing dogteeth
With exception of the MiG-23 and F-14 all the swing wing aircraft have max overloads of 6gs or 7.5Gs at the most.
Both the F-14 and MiG-23 suffered structural problems at the wing pivot section.
Despite the F-14 was always advertized as a 9g aircraft it was always a 6.5g aircraft.
In reality VG wings are only useful for bombers and attack aircraft that need STOL capability and high speed at low altitude or high altitude in example the Su-24 and the Tu-160 blackjack
Sign In
