I think a 50% increase per year in production is a good plan. LRIP 6 is the first Block3i. Block 3F is on schedule to be completed by 2017

50% a year would only increase your 40 jets to 135 in 4 years.

yr1: 40
yr2: 60
yr3: 90
yr4: 135

‘Tis nearer 60% year on year. That is probably not sustainable for (at least) some specialist companies within the supply chain. The kind of qualified people needed to build these types of equipment just don’t grow on trees.

Any thoughts or opinions on the change of EADS to Airbus group?

There was a thread elsewhere that touched on it.

I think my conclusion there was “the devil makes work for idle hands”… i.e. EADS need to gut their marketing department. Too many overheads looking to justify their continued employment.

This is of course why people laugh at forums like this. It is loaded with self proclaimed experts whose analysis inevitably boils down to “is this a plane I like?”

If you can’t be bothered to read what people are talking about you might as well spare us your ignorant comments. It isn’t like you are going to fool anyone into thinking you know what you are talking about when it is 100% clear you don’t.

Great, we have the expert opinion of the same guy who “sniggered” at the thought of the CFTs reducing drag just a day or so ago… :rolleyes: :very_drunk:

The fact is you don’t have a clue how a Super Hornet with CFTs and the enhanced engines would perform but as usual you are just spouting off. Certainly it would be slower than a Super Hornet with the enhanced engines and no CFTs… but it would almost certainly be faster than the current Super Hornet.

1. It is a PR presentation. It is barely worth reading. If someone rolled in here using 1 test point for performance characterisation I’d laugh them back out the front door.
2. Read my original post again. It seems you equate me to thinking negligible drag rise was impossible, whereas I started out saying it highlights how bad the original was.
3. That the subsonic drag is insensitive to the addition of two massive volume (and wetted area) increases along the spine indicates: “The original aerodynamics of the subpar-Hornet are even more crap than I thought.”
4. That the Boeing official(s) chose to highlight this change (or non change) at a point where performance is not critical indicates “The Boeing official is a bullsh!tter of the highest order”.
5. Much more informed and intelligent people than yourself are content to pay me a great deal for consultation on matters relating to aircraft aerodynamics and structures. Whether that means I know what I am talking about is up to them. But they do keep coming back and it does keep me in beer-money.

I guess you better call up the various F-15 and F-16 operators who use CFTs and let them know they have it all screwed up. :very_drunk:

Who ever said the CFT designers screwed up?

If the F-15/F-16 CFTs had no detrimental performance on the aircraft, I’d call up the original designers and tell them that they screwed up.

Of course there are tradeoffs when you add CFTs to a jet, but for the most part they are modest and outside of messageboards range and endurance are almost always more important to operators than shaving a few seconds off of a hypothetical drag race.

Drag races and energy bleed cease to be hypothetical when it comes to getting out of the way of a SAM or AAM. Especially when you cannot quickly regain “clean” performance mid-mission.

Although, I suppose that is the difference in the USN when it chose to go with the SH rather than updated Tomcat.
The F-14 kept the carrier safer from air attack.
The SH made the carrier cheaper to operate.

Pays your money and takes your choices. Personally, if it had come to it, I’d have dropped a deck and used the extra money to get the updated Tomcat. Better to have 10 carriers with more effective air defense and payload-range attackers than 11 with marginal. Although to add to that the end of the cold war no doubt came into the Navy’s decision making. Their thought train no doubt being “Do we need the best possible air defence and heaviest strike when the Backfires are doing no more than gathering rust and all we are doing is dropping bombs on lightly armed mobs?”

eagle and hornet are too last gen
possibly eurofighter and rafale too

but F-35 is current gen but might not have the legs to cover Canada’s huge vastness..

Don’t get caught up on the marketing speak that is “generations”.

It is by-and-by-large a lot of marketing crap*.

Better off paying attention to actual capabilities, operating costs and to expected production runs.

*For instance 1, is the F-22 5th generation because it can super-cruise? If so, what does that make the F-35?
For instance 2, is the F-35 5th generation because its network-centric? If so, what does that make the F-22?

Transonic acceleration is less important than cruise efficiency on a standoff jammer and SEAD aircraft, which is the configuration shown above.

The drag comments are not exclusive to the EW variant.

Tbh, journalist probably made a mistake reporting…

True… but why spoil the fun 😉

On the economics side of things, i would recommend buying a Global Hawk – Lite, and lesser number of F-18E/F’s. The GH Does your long ranged / loiter ISR mission, while the F-18E/F sits on the ground saving operational cost.

Why not do it properly and deploy airships?

Hmmm.

Just thought of the perfect jet for the Canadians. Its:

– 2 engined for safe peacetime flight over the large expanses.
– Will have extremely long range.
– LO for survivability.
– Can supercruise at high altitude (for additional survivability).
– Can go toe-to-toe with any combat aircraft in the sky in WVR.
– Probably won’t cost as much as an F-35 (at least, in terms of purchase cost).

Can you guess what it is yet?