The F-35 inlet-system does not limit to Mach 1.6.

What kind of intake does the F-35 have?

I could never quite understand why Macrihanish was closed; it always struck me as being the ideal location for a tri-service training base!

Cheers

WF

Well it’s not the easiest place to reach by road. At the time I was there I think the nearest traffic lights were in Ireland. Plus the weather was always a problem, I remember an awful lot of visits being cancelled due to it.
As we used to say “if you look out of window early in the morning and you can see the mountains, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see them, it’s raining.”
Btw, I was always under the impression that it was in the top ten longest runways in the UK, not specifically the longest.

Also, although Robert Hilton correctly states a power output of the Griffon as 2500 hp, this was only correct for certain given marks. Some 60 series engines were quoted as having an output of 2350 hp, while the 58 had a maximum of 2490 hp.

I only quoted the highest rating for the Griffon, like the Merlin it had a fair number of power ratings. I’m also quite wary of stated ratings as they are often influenced by all manner of factors such as altitude and octane rating etc. They were meant to be general, not gospel.

so let me get this straight EADS can throw a hissy fit because it might get a finacial penalty for not holding up its end of the contract, yet everytime the costs rise the customers have to pay? I have mentioned this on here before, why can defence contractors have such massive cost over-runs and governments just seem to pay them?

Cost over-runs are not always due to higher costs of a particular project, it is also a way of hiding funding for some of the more adventurous projects.

Hi All.

I seem to always remember hearing a clicking noise as each prop started to spin on the Darts of Viscounts. Can anyone explain what this noise was, I assume something to do with igniting the fuel.

Also On the Vangaurd start up, why did the pilots seem to allow all four engines to idle then gradually increase the rpm on each engine ready for taxi power

Thanks in advance to any replies

Regards
Nordjet415

Indeed the clicking would be the igniters.
Turboprops have poor acceleration by their very nature. The Dart in particular because all the moving parts are fixed on a common shaft, which means there is a great deal of mass to get moving. If you try and accelerate it too fast you could get overfuelling and a surge. For this reason the RAF don’t test the acceleration time of a turboprop.

An external tank is going to have more wetted area per gallon of fuel carried than an internal tank. That’s probably obvious to most as things like wet wings etc. are taking advantage of space that would be there anyway but empty. With the F-35A/C they get to fill the spot normally occupied by the lift fan with fuel. Leaving that spot empty of fuel would change the wetted area by ZERO.

That was my thinking on the matter. As it is neccessary to carry everything internally to retain a low RCS, then the total surface area would be larger giving a larger drag.

Yes I do.

Yes you do what?
That Concorde could supercruise, or the thrust, weight and size of the a/c?

The question I had posed to the other poster was whether they could provide the figures for how much drag a clean F-35 had vs. another aircraft, or whether they were making a subjective claim based on looking at a picture.
Additionally how much drag the other aircraft had when carrying external stores.

Be that as it may your question was less than correct. Therefore any answer would be irrelevant.