What’s the difference between duraluminum and aluminum alloy?

Duraluminun is one of the many aluminun alloys, it has its particular chemical formula

Its rather the different requirements.
And I’m pretty sure the MiG-25 and the F-15 have quite different airfoils.

If fhe MiG-25 needed a good twr, it would have it.

F-16?
The F-15 wouldnt have been built with steel because that would result in a bad air superiority fighter.

So what, the Harrier has a sustained Mach ~0.9 speed and thats enough to kill an F-15. And saying the missiles of the MiG-31 are better than the F-15 is a broad statement.

The MiG-21F was made mostly of aluminum alloy, with some steel, magnesium, and glass fiber parts; in the other hand the more modern MiG-23 was built of duraluminum, steel and titanium

See that by 1967 the MiG-23 was still using some parts made of steel. Nevertheless 80 percent of the airframe structure of the F-16 is of conventional aluminum alloy, and about 60 percent of the structural parts are made from sheet metal. An attempt was made to minimize the amount of exotic material used in the construction of the F-16 in the interest of saving cost. About 8 percent is steel, composites are 3 percent and titanium is 1.5 percent.

Titanium was the main reason why was very difficult to make the SR-71/YF-12

Disregard the time an airframe was built, without considering the materials an aircraft is made of it is impossible to understand why the early jet fighters with low thrust yield engines could not achieve high thrust to weight ratios

In the MiG-21`s case the engine was not as powerful as that on the F-16 and in the MiG-23 its VG wing penalized the whole design with an amount of weight that reduced the high thrust yield of the R-29/R-35 jet engines

What did you learn from that pictures above. Nothing a fear. Despite a similar layout those do show two very different aircraft. There is no shortage of infos about both to work it out.
One is an air-superiority fighter and the other is a high-speed interceptor.
When the MiG-25 is unable to fullfill the role of the F-15, the F-15 can be used in the interceptor role too.
The limitations of the MiG-25/31 are aware to the Russians. They never did use it in the air-superiority role for obvious reasons. So non is surprised about the lack of success with the MiG-25, when it was used in the wrong role/mission.

Sens

The early MiG-29 used a similar configuration to the F-15 and MiG-25, and this was because the F-15 and MiG-25 are not as different as you think, both fighters are basicly the same aerodynamic configuration, and both designs have been tailored to execute different missions due to difference in technology, while the MiG-25 is a Mid 1960s aircraft the F-15 is an early 1970s aircraft the difference in technology made them different in capabilities.

the MiG-25 is built mostly of steel, the F-15 uses mainly titanium and aluminun, Since the MiG-25 has a heavier airframe it has a worst thrust to weight ratio even when both aircraft have engines with the same yield.

The F-15 has small blunt LERXes and a little bit more fuselage blending

The MiG-25 has a less detection range radar however it has a great point it can sustain Mach 2.3 for around 25 minutes.

Boyd theories would not have been put in to practice if the F-15 would had been built mainly of steel.

however the MiG-31 has better missiles than the F-15 and has a sustained Mach 2.3 capability, that is enough to say the MiG-31 can kill F-15s

MiG,

Yes the YF-12 was not a MiG killer…it wasn’t agile enough to do so….it was no designed to do so. S

It was not able to fulfill the requirements of the F-X programme….we knew that already, so did Lockheed as they DID NOT submit it to do so.. they designed something else, even in 1962…when the YF-12 was already flying.

We are finally getting down to the real cause of this damn arguement….

The YF-12 was submitted as the aircraft for the AMI spec.. the one for which the F-108 was proposed.

The FX spec was written conconcurrently to the AMI as hte fighter aircraft in the Interceptor/ fighter mix.

So… when the first FX designs were deem unsuitable in the light of experience and Boyd’s vocal attacks the FX spec was altered to respond. (Note Lockheed did not submit a variant of the A-12 family for this.. does it give you a clue?)

When it became clear that the AMI mission was not longer credible (as there were no Advanced bombers to counter) the AMI spec was redundant.

Now this is the key bit….

The AMI spec and the FX spec were very very different at the time the YF-12 was flying. The was no way an airframe suitable for the AMI mission would be able to fulfill the FX mission.. for one thing the FX spec called for a single crew fighter, plus a bubble canopy etc etc…none of these are compatible with the AMI spec….

So we have two different beasts doing two different jobs.

One has a future demand, one doesn’t. Which one gets canceled? The one that has no mission.

The Mig 25 interceptor was produced not because it was great, but because there existed a very high speed intercept mission…. at every border of the Soviet Union.

The Blackbirds were deployed to the West, to the East, they could have deployed to the South.

In order to counter that ‘threat’ even if just an intell plane a large number of relatively short range 25s were required.

In addition the recon version was a great asset to the Soviet and Client airforce, it was their best ‘collector’.

So it had a future, it had a mission to fulfil.

The YF-12 did not.. no Mach 3 threat, the existing airframes (F106) had more than enough performance to deal with the threat…so why spend the money on something that was not required.

But in no way can the FX be viewed as the main reason for its cancellation. Yes the money saved permitted other programmes to go ahead, but to say that the YF-12 was unable to be adapted is to avoid the fact that it was itself an adaptation of the A-12….

So you are, as ever missing, the overall picture…the fighter version of the A-12 was not procured, nor was the bomber version… nor was the M-21 drone carrier version…oh the Strategic recon version was purchased tho and used for the next 30 years quite happily.

So surprise surprise a dedicated recon bird was not really suited to do anything else.

So can we stop pretending the MiG 25 was the best thing since sliced bread because it was used operationally and that the YF-12 was a POS because it wasn’t and have a conversation about aviation, not about irrelevant facts and figures regurgitated ad nauseam?

Michelef

Undoutedly you like it or not the MiG-25 has been one of the best fighter-Interceptor aircraft ever built, it proved to be a better interceptor than the YF-12.

However we have to understand the limits of aircraft technology also influenced the aerospace trend in the aerospace technology seen in the 1960s.

Modern aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon or the F-22 use large amonts of carbon fiber materials, the early MiG-25 used steel, while The F-15 fuselage is a conventional semimonocoque design. By weight, half of the latest F-15 structure is built from aluminum alloys and one third from titanium, in the other hand the Mig-25 designers instead chose welded steel for most of the primary structure with special alloys of steel and titanium for the hottest areas like the nose and wing leading edges. All told, about 80% of the plane’s structure was composed of tempered steel, 11% of aluminum, and 8% of titanium. The MiG-25 also required the development of advanced welding techniques to avoid cracking in the heat-resistant alloys. Over 75% of the airframe assembly required some form of welding while conventional riveting accounted for less than a quarter.

sources
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2697091_ITM
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/performance/q0239.shtml

The MiG-25 is quit heavy while the Eurofighter is very light with respect the MiG-25.

the use of modern composites, aluminum or even titanium helped to reduce weight, for example by 1981, the British Aerospace-McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier flew with over 25 percent of its structure made of composite materials. Modern military aircraft, such as the F-22, use composites for at least a third of their structures, and some experts have predicted that future military aircraft will be more than two-thirds composite materials.

source
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

This has to in part be consider to understand Boyd`s theories without the technology applied to the F-15 and F-16, Boyd`s E-M theory would not have great success since the YF-12 as the MiG-25 did not use the then latest technologies to reduce weight and increase the thrust to weight ratio .

The MiG-25 was in part not agile due to the materials used to make it, the Russians learned the lessons and the 9-12 MiG-29 was mostly built of aluminum, with some use of composite materials.

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avmig29.html

MiG,

Continuing in the vein you are will do everything to confirm your lack of knowledge and understanding of this subject.

The point you are making, that the MiG 25 is a better fighter than the YF-12 is totally irrelevant. Yes it probably was, but its is not relevant to the YF-12 programme.

If we do some time line research we will learn that the YF-12 programme started in 1961/2 with a mock up review in May 1963. This lead to the first flight of a YF-12 in August of that year. Note that by then the A-12 was beginning to reach its full performance envelope and the SR-71 programme was already underway.

By early 1965 the YF-12 was reaching M3.2 and beginning weapons trials.
These were continued thro 1965 into 1966.

The entire YF-12 programme was formally canceled in Jan 1968, with a formal instruction in Feb 1968 to destroy all the tooling, jigs and drawings for the entire Blackbird line (A-12/ M-21/ YF-12B and SR-71).

Lets look at the known MiG 25 timeline shall we?
The first recorded instance is in 1961, leading to the flight of a prototype aircraft in March 1964 (very impressive, but it was the recon version that flew first..). The interceptor variant flew in September 1964.

The record breaking flights staged during 1965 ,66, and 1967 certainly raised the profile of this aircraft’s performance. But it was in 1969 that production of the service standard aircraft commenced. The recon variant was introduced immediately, whilst the interceptor variant was introduced in 1972…three years later and some 5 years after the cancellation of the YF-12B programme.

It was only in 1976 that the real capabilities of the airframe were defined after examination of the Belenko interceptor.

Lets look at the FX programme shall we as well…..which emerged from a mass of options in the early 1960s. By 1965 it was clear that the emerging proposals would be unable to fight the then current war in Vietnam….as the fast, big and heavy fighters being used there were being defeated by the likes of the MiG 17…..this began a realignment of the spec, reinforced by the the records being broken by the Ye 155/166 and 266 airframes. By 1967 it became clear that the FX was going to be pitted against this new generation of airframes as well.

The McD proposal for the FX was declared the winner in 1969 and first flew in 1972, the B version entered service in 1974 and the first combat ready A models entered service in 1976.

If we look at the overlap there are a few years of overlap between the three programmes. However the important part of the overalp is missing entirely.

By the time the MiG 25 programme started the A-12 airframe was already ready, the RB-12 programme running and well as the YF-12 programme. Clearly its is challenging to design an airframe to combat an aircraft that does not yet exist, but allowances could have been made for this.

By the time the initial prototypes (recon) of the MiG 25 flew th YF-12B was already in weapons testing phase. Whilst the record flights of the Ye 166 in the period 1965 to 1967 certainly raised its profile there is little doubt that the Blackbird team did not regard these as a threat to the performance of its airframe.

It is interesting to note that the FX programme in this period was undergoing a massive realignment, taking notice of the inability of its current crop of fighter aircraft to deal with the existing threat.

So one could in theory understand that the emerging threat, when applied to the YF-12 programme could cause production funds to be vetoed.

But what about out friends the F-102 and F-106…lets look at some time lines there shall we?

Opps; the first flight of the F-106 (nee F-102B0 was in 1956… but problems revealled during testing delayed its service introduction until 1959.

It served all through the 1960s with gradual upgrades and modifications, regardless of the ‘threat’ posed by the new generation of Soviet aircraft, entering a ‘major’ upgrade program in 1972, some 8 years after the first flight of the MiG 25 and some three years after the awarding of a new generation of US fighters. Indeed it served until 1981 as a front line USAF interceptor…it left US manned service in 1988.

So here we have a potted history of the aircraft that the YF-12 was designed to replace with a fleet of 350 airframes (compared to the 93 F-12s planned). It managed to maintain its front line status for the entire period we are talking about, regardless of the potential threat from the MiG-25… it soldiered thro the FX development cycle and beyond the introduction of both the F-15 and F-16 fighters.

So what does that tell us of the cancellation of the YF-12 being related to the F-15. It tells us clearly that the role of the F-106, for which the YF-12 was the designated replacement; was not threatened in the mid 60s by the FX programme.

If for some reason it had been deemed necessary (and likely) for ADC fighters to tangle with MiGs do we not think that the F-106s would have been amongst the first to be replaced by the F-15? Say in 1976? The fact they were not and it took until 1981 for sufficient F-15s to be avaliable to fulfil this role (in addition to its pure fighter role) is an indication that whilst it was a possibility that the ADC fighters would go to ACM with MiGs it was improbable…it would have required all of the ‘fighters’ to have been defeated (in one fashion or another) for this to occur.

It remained throughout its life a dedicated interceptor, a single role aircraft. for the same airframe to survive the era of the F-4 without it’s exisitance being challenged in the name of flexibility or communality is remarkable…or it was right for its role and that the additional expense was unjustified.

So if we ‘reasonably’ eliminate the lack of suitability for its intended role of the YF-12; as evaluated by the life and performance of its intended replacee, we must therefore look to other reasons for its cancellation.

I think that far more telling and revealling is the short-time between the formal cancellation of the YF-12 programme and the order to destroy ALL of the Blackbird infrastrucutre. This suggest that political rather than military reasons underly the cancellation. This is further supported by the length of service of the remaining SR airframes…

So MiG, get your head out of the details, look to the context in its entirety and then evalutate what you are proposing. Its too easy to dismantle your opinions and thoughts.

Michelf

I do understand the difference in concept between the F-15 and the YF-12, in fact the MiG-25 concept is between both aircraft, the MiG-25 is an F-15 configuration with the role of the YF-12.

What i am arguing is the technical merits of the YF-12 did not allow it to survive defence cuts, that the aircraft was not capable of adapting it self as the MiG-25 did even despite no Mach 3 bombers were ever developed.

The F-X used Boyd`s theories, when the F-15 was designed they knew what they were doing, for example the F-15 has a difference in its favour in Sustained turn rate with the MiG-23 of 2 deg/s to 6 deg/sec depending in the altitute in speed range of Mach 0.9, it can do vertical turns with more energy to shake off a MiG-23 easily, in loops the F-15 will tire a MiG-23.

The MiG-23 with its wings set at the swept angle of 45 deg, had inferior acceleration characteristics and was less maneuvrable close to the maximum operationally permitted overload G limits than the F-15.

This allowed that to an F -15 in the progress of an air combat to gradually accumulate superior kinetic energy in speed and height.

The required entry speed into the vertical maneuver was also somewhat higher in the MiG-23 than in F -15. the maximum altitude to enter into the Nesterov’s loop for the MiG-23 was 4000 m, and for F-15 was 7000 m, in this case at the upper point of vertical maneuvres the MiG-23 had lower speed than the F-15.

This is what Boyd wanted, an aircraft that could shake off pursuers thanks to excess energy, the MiG-25 was not exactly a dogfighter and in the Bekka Valley the Syrians knew it, the MiG-25 was an affordable interceptor but did not use Boyd`s theories.

Boyd used computers to do part of his assessments of aerial combat between fighters, the MiG-25 was designed like the F-4, the Su-15 too, the MiG-23 was designed more with the intention of dogfight but only in the late versions, this was in part becasue the Soviets as the americans got infatuated with beyond Visual range air to air missiles.

However all the third generation aircraft were designed with those parameters, the SAAB AJ-37 and Mirage F1 were not different to the MiG-23 in design philosophy.

Boyd gave an excellent theoretical work in order to create the fourth generation, however was the advances in aerospace technology that allowed the fourth generation to appear, new materials, fly by wire, static unstability, more powerful engines and static unstability allowed the creation of fighters like the F-16

If you are going to dogfight you need bubble canopies, better turn rates, more excess power to defeat inertia, drag and gravity, all of these will allow a fighter to shake off enemies.

The only thing i am doing is saying the YF-12 was not capable of becoming a Mig-25 killer as the F-X demanded and that is because real only remarkable fighters like the F-4 and F-86 were deployed in both services (USAF and US navy) thanks to their adaptability and good technical qualities, however the YF-12 was a third generation fighter even with Mach 3 and what the F-X was about was a fourth generation mach 3 fighter, since the YF-12 was not so remarkable it could not survive defence cuts despite it was not very different from the MiG-25 concept

you do realize you’re not using Boyd’s theory correctly! 😮 As I indicated before, turning flight relations have been known long long ago. I don’t know why you keep harping on that and didn’t even notice Schorsch’s graphs (i think it was him) are versus ALTITUDE! Dynamic manuevers require energy, that’s been known since Newton’s day. What’s new here is that atmospheric conditions (altitude in an averaged form) implies thrust relations as do compressibility. Instead of going into details, the EM theory (as do all energy theory) is very elegant and short and quickly tells you that the vertical plane manuver is not the “business as usual” type of manuever, especially for a supersonic aircraft. In that respect, the SR-71 did utilize energy manuever and TECHNICALLY that’s to use it to climb to the operational altitude. Without using it, it either fails most of the time or cost exordinary amount of fuel. SOC will tell you how an SR usually climbs to altitude…in fact, IIRC, it’s in the SR’s flight manual! Boyd as an officer also have the duty to influence DOD thinking…and that’s the politics side of his theory. One do need to separate the two because when it comes to politics, technical theories is his strength not organizational theories. No one can prove that more manueverable fighter is better when more manueverable missiles can be argued to be even better….those are all just THEORIES. It can’t be PROVED in clean cut analytical nor numerical form. Can you prove it? What happend in history with hindsight is not proof at all since it’s just one path…in no way is it the most optimal path.

Man Schorsch`s graphs are basic graphs, any aircraft is designed for some duty and specifictions; by the 1950s, the aeronautical science was well developed to know what is needed to design a fast and agile aircraft.

Boyd theories deal more in the way aircraft are flown after the study of dogfights, of course tactics were known since WWI, however Boyd implemented a mix of Physics with tactics.

Boelke organized the German aerial combat resources into Jagdstaffeln (“hunting squadrons”) commonly known as Jastas. Jastas were not attached to any ground units but traveled as needed. They did not patrol but were mobilized in response to sightings of enemy aircraft, which they then hunted down. The Jastas defined their mission as “aggressive aerial warfare.”

The pilots of the Jastas were trained to follow the Dicta Boelke, a series of aerial combat techniques Boelke had developed that covered both attack procedures and tactics. The Dicta included rules such as securing the advantage before attacking, firing only at short range, keeping the sun behind you, flying to meet an opponent in a dive, and always keeping a line of retreat. The Dicta also covered the basics of formation flying–between four and six airplanes was the desired number for an attack, and a plane was never to be stranded alone during a fight.

However Boyd stablish a relation of Physics and tactics using the basic principles of dynamics, this generated the idea that a light, small, with good visibility and high TWR fighter was going to be the best aircraft.

Previous to that the basic trend was fast aircraft with guided missiles.

Source http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/WWI_Combat/AP4.htm

http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/coram/boyd_at_tech.pdf

Boyd`s theories basicly relate to the fact excess energy will always tip the balance in favour of the fighter with best TWR and lift

Quote MiG-23

“If you are going to war you have to consider that your weapons should be flexible, and the most flexible weapons usually are the best”

This is exactly what Boyd was arguing. Boyd knew that war made it irrelevant as to the initial purpose of a design, he knew that flexibility was key.

But how you get from there to a debate as to whether or not the MiG 25 was better than the YF-12 based on its potential superiority in ACM is a mystery.

Yes, war may have forced the F-12 into ACM with the MiG-25 and after an exchange of missiles they may have mixed it up…and the MiG 25 may have proved superior.

But that was not the reason the YF-12 production order was veto’d by McNamara. He believed in interservice communality. He believed in ecomonies of scale in the industrial sector and he believed in the numbers.

He did not care if the a/c was multirole or not, but he failed to see why the USAF and the USN could not use the same fighter and light attack aricraft; hence his insistance on the F-4 and A-7 purchase by the USAF.

He failed to see why a ‘Tactical Fighter’ aricraft could not become a ‘Fleet Defence Fighter’…afterall they were both fighters… right? His belief was not of flexibility but in communality.
Had he beleived in flexibility the F-111 would not have had two dedicated version from the outset, the F-111 A would have been multi role…..as the F-4was…a fighter, a bomber, a recon platform…all achieved by external configuration changes…

He already had the perfect (at the time) model in hand, yet failed to apply its fundamental principles to his favour a/c…this reveals his belief in communality was not a belief in flexibility.

Hence canceling the YF-12 was not one of belief in flexibilty but one based on other reasons…(indeed as it was highly shared with the Sr which the USAF was already procuring and had developed the overall cost was minimal cmpared to a new programme entirely).

No, the reason the F-12 was not procured in production quantities was the realisation that the threat was not sufficient to warrant the response. As the investment in the programme was minimal (compared to the production cost) the cancellation was possible…no sacred cows there…Lockheed was not going to bitch and moan too much, it had SRs to produce already. Sure it would mean they needed a new programme but they had invested little of their resources into the progamme, the CIA havng funded the entire development of the A-12 and the USAF having funded the design and construction of the YF-12…

But trying to say its focus on a single mission was the reason for its cancellation is incorrect. The U-2 is a single mission a/c….yet it still serves. The C-5 is a single mission aircraft, as is the VC-25…yet they are all in service… But they have an on-going mission, an on -going reason to be in service…remove that and they are gone. None of that means they are not good, merely not needed.

let us see one important aspect, both the MiG-25 as the YF-12 were developed to intercept Mach 3 bombers, both were intended to be produced in the same roles and combat niches:

MiG-25R:SR-71, MiG-25P:YF-12 see that basicly both nations did not deploy Mach 3 bombers, then why the Russian put into service the MiG-25P and the americans did not put in to service the YF-12?

The reason is both nations were looking for the same types of aircraft however the MiG-25 was smaller, cheaper, simplier, less sophisticated in few words the MiG-25 was a more adaptable machine in terms of economic terms, initially the F-15 was to be a Mach 3 fighter but the americans knew speed up to a degree is compromised by agility simple physics faster you go harder to turn it becomes.

In terms of technology Boyd`s theories could had not been put into practice in the 1950s in terms of jet technology, without the revolution in technology of the late 1960s Boyd`s work would had been a theoretical work rather than a practical one

Quote from MiG-23 MLD-

“use his mathematical formulas and you will see the YF-12 was not the best aircraft to fight the MiG-25 and that is the reason Boyd demanded an agile fighter every thing is basicly acceleration related to force either in angular velocity or vertical turning”

This demonstrates MiG why people think you are hijacking the thread…

Let me explain.

1) Boyd’s theories served a purpose, they were not an end in themselves. He was convinced that the trend towards more complex, higher tech, faster, heavier etc fighter aircraft was not the way forward. But he knew that the only way to provide a ‘quantifiable’ way demonstrating the qualities he had found were needed.

Your purpose it to create a hypothetical scenario where two disparate airframe would meet in a combat situation. This scenario ignores the prevalent doctrine on both sides and applies retrospective experience to the scenario.

What is sad is that despite this the answer you come up with is correct. The YF-12 was not as agile as the MiG-25, but that fact was a) not known at the time of the cancellation, b) air to air combat with other fighters or interceptors was not considered a primary consideration in the original spec that lead to the F-108, the YF-12 being an opportunistic stand in…. c) the doctirne that lead to the spec was based on missile technology, not a turning ACM style of combat.

2) You are trying to use a detailed approach to prove a hypothesis. However the inital hypothesis is unsound. The two aircraft are different, one designed as a strategic opticla recon platform and modified to other roles, the other designed as an interceptor of that platform and modfied to other roles.
With that in mind and hopefully you understand the vastly different design drivers of the two roles it is inevitalbe that the purpose deigned airframe will have the upper hand on the modified one.

Was the SR-71 or A-12 a better recon platform than the Mig 25R…you bet. It was faster, had a longer range in the cruise, had a greater recon payload and variety of sensors and provided a more stable platform with better results as a ‘take’. Does that mean the Foxbat was not good. Of course not. It gave a very impressive platform an additional role and life and provided an additional capability, but it wasn’t as good as a purpose designed one.
The comparison that springs to mind is ‘is this orange painted apple as good as the real orange? Not its not , but its a better apple.’

3) Your approach to the arguement is ‘dogmatic’. There is not pragmatic view, only dogma. This is exactly the underlying problem that Boyd sought to debunk with his E-M thoery. He felt, thorugh his experience, that moving away from the agile, simple fighter was motivated not by experience and demands, but by dogma and ambition, not war fighting necessities. Your approach is to show that becuase the numbers, selectively used, can support your arguement that you are right. It allows no room for the why, no room for the unknowns, no room for the intelligence.

It is this rigidity, this focused vision that Boyd fought in the later half of his career. Trying to demonstrate that the pragmatic approach has to be taken into consideration. The best example is his advice to the Officers analysing the result of the weapons testing on the Bradlet fighting vehicle. It passed all of the specified tests, it was ‘great’… and yet when he reviewed the tests in detail he swa the tests (and hence the numerical evidence used to support procurement of the Bradley) were designed specifically to underline its strengths and to ‘conceal, by omission any of its weaknesses. The prime example of this was the of AP shells against the hull. No AE…no penetration followed by fire. This simple test demonstrated that whillst the hull could resist the initial impact, it was unable to survive a fire….effetively meaning it was disabled by the inital AP round, which by merely considering the results of the AP round test would not have been seen.

You are doing the same, using numbers to shore up an arguement that if one is to look beyond its shown to be irrelevant.

So use your knowledge and interest in the subject to see beyond the facts and figures and equations and understand why they might be relevant and important.

Having an agile MiG 25 is great, but its no use if its still on the ground becuase your EW system has not given you enough time to launch or returning to ground having been hit by a long range AIM 47 during its climb out….

Michelef

I think you are not seeing my whole point of view.

The F-15 is not a result of boyd`s theories, the F-15 is the result of the technology achieved by the late 1960s why? well first are materials, aircraft technology has been using different materials, new higher yield engines and better aerodynamic configurations in order to improve new fighters and in that respect the F-15 is a result of that

Any aircraft has a manual any aircraft manual has graphs and this basicly are based in simple math and plotting of aerodynamic and performance results as such engineers knew since the very early begining of aviation powerful engines were needed to achieve agile fighters

What Boyd did through math is basicly stablish a general stament and premise to base the fundamental principles for agility, this was done in order to redirect the USAF form the trend of sluggish, fast, missile carriers combat aircraft aircraft like the F-4, F-105, F-102 and F-111 that despite excellent electronics were not dogfighters to the one of dogfighters like the F-15 and F-16