I think tactical planning and skills, use of avionics (=information) eat up any speed advantage an aircraft might have. 20% more speed, which is optimistic for the Rafale I think, are available after lengthy acceleration phase. In the end, it will translate into 20 seconds at best. It is like speeding on the Autobahn, it feels fast, but in the end you save 5 minutes on 100km.

Even 20 seconds is over 5km, and that is not including extended weapons range.

I’d reckon over a 300 mile intercept, the difference will be nearer 100 seconds (giving away a minute or so to account for acceleration differences) and thats near 30 clicks – not to be sniffed at.

First Flight Rafale was 1986.
That is 20 years ago.
Design is I guess late 1970s, like basically Eurofighter and Gripen, too.
The Rafale is first of all a French design. That is, they consequently kept weight down and sacrificed some capabilities, but in the end achieve remarkable results.

That was the demo aircraft, the first series didn’t really start till the 90s, but point taken.

General comment: Stumbled across this:

Chapter Report, 06/18/96, GAO/NSIAD-96-98

Navy
data6 comparing the F/A-18C to the F/A-18E shows the following:
— At sea level, the F/A-18C’s sustained turn rate is 19.2 degrees
per second, while the F/A-18E’s sustained rate is 18 degrees per
second. The instantaneous bleed rate of the F/A-18C is 54 knots
per second, whereas the F/A-18E will lose 65 knots per second in
a turn.
— At 15,000 feet, the F/A-18C’s sustained turn rate is 12.3
degrees per second, while the F/A-18E’s sustained rate is 11.6
degrees per second. The instantaneous bleed rate of the F/A-18C
is 62 knots per second, whereas the F/A-18E will lose 76 knots
per second in a turn.

— At 5,000 feet at maximum thrust, the F/A-18C accelerates from
0.8 Mach to 1.08 Mach7 in 21 seconds, whereas the F/A-18E will
take 52.8 seconds.
— At 20,000 feet at maximum thrust, the F/A-18C accelerates from
0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach in 34.6 seconds, whereas the F/A-18E takes
50.3 seconds.
— At 35,000 feet at maximum thrust, the F/A-18C accelerates from
0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach in 55.80 seconds, whereas the F/A-18E takes
64.85 seconds. The F/A-18C accelerates from 0.8 Mach to 1.6
Mach in 2 minutes
12 seconds, whereas the F/A-18E takes 3 minutes and 4 seconds.

Wait a minute, I remember that the F-18 has quite low approach speeds and a very tough landing gear. So, how can an airframe suit better the needs for a carrier? Or do you try to sell another expensive, heavy, life-time limited swing-winger again? Get over it, they’re dead.

Nah – you don’t need a swing wing to get decent enough performance to do the job.

The Rafale is an example of an ideal carrier aircraft -> all surfaces produce lift when you want to rotate, and again when on approach (ok, the tailplane on the -18 is probably producing some lift on approach, but not as much).

It is interesting to note that the naval proposal emerging from the ATF had swing wings – so some obviously feel it can still be the best compromise for naval aircraft.

I just think that the organsiation called USNavy would fail to define an aircraft that exceeds the SH’s performance considerably without excessively exceeding its price tag.

Amen 😀

The USN must have the worst procurement record of any armed service in the world (any takers for suggestions otherwise?).

I wonder, the Navy had two options and quite a lot of money at hands when defining the F-18. They could have got the F-16 navalized, which is – depending on which accounts you believe – a vastly superior or vastly inferior aircraft.

I think they were wary of the single engine F-16, and I do recall something about rotation issues or something.

I think they shouldn’t have picked either tbh – they were both fundamentally land based aircraft, and it would have been better to make a new machine from scratch.

An F-14 Super Tomcat would be tied to the legacy F-14, too. The unbuilt aircraft always excel in great performance, the actually built aircraft always fall short of it. I guess that each aircraft being realized is fated to be called a “failure” on internet fora. I admit that I cannot free me of responsibility for that. 😀

Which was designed to operate off a carrier from the get-go. You know how aircraft are designed (I’m talking about the conceptual stage of design). The trade-offs made in the fundamentals for the F-14 were very different for the YF-16 or YF-17. After making those decisions, there is very little scope for big changes.

Ultimately, the USN f**ked up as follows:

1. It allows congress to define its choice of airframe, neither of which were suited to naval ops.
2. It then didn’t allow a total redo of the YF-17 wing and tailplane config to suit carrier ops. Enlarging them just didn’t cut it.
3. It screwed up the A-12
4. It then decided to iterate a design, but chose the design not made for carrier work.

Looks like they have some control algorithm issues…

and a bit of aeroelastic divergence in the wings.

Apart from that a pretty successful test flight you may say :diablo:

The aerodynamics had to be compromised for optimal carrier suitability

They did*?

*significant compromises, not small virtually meaningless ones.

Kilcoo,
My moto is “he who has the first shot wins”. How long do you think a WVR fight will last? It not like in the movies. You probably arent gonna find yourself on the deck in a rate war right off the bat. Having the 9X and the JHMCS makes this even less likely.

Yes yes, in 1 v 1 that is fine – but how often do you reckon engagements would be so ‘clean’?

Why does everyone assume that we fly around with inboard pylons all the time?

Aren’t the inboard pylons the wet ones? (as well as centreline?)

That is a constraint on the system you could do without!

Even with inboard pylons the acceleration is fine. Its just the top speed that suffers. Also see above.

Really? I’m somewhat surprised.

Fine = comparable to the competition?

The Rhino routinely goes for 6.5 – 8 hours. Your argument will be only with IFR. True, but not everyone can IFR. We IFR so often that most people think that it is easy. Its not.

😀 Thats longer – not necessarily further.

For what the Navy had to work with, I think that we made out just fine. The Navy doesnt have the budget for a navalized F-22. The F-22 couldnt survive in the environment that we operate in. The amount of $$ and time would have made it another A-12 saga. The Navy needed what the Super Hornet offers now, not ten years from now.

Fair enough.

This is your biggest problem. You can’t see the forest through the trees. You are so worked up that since the wing isn’t perfect that you vilify the whole aircraft. Using your logic I guess Professor Stephen Hawking is crap too.

I see the Rhino for what it is, not what it could have been given X more $$ and Y more years. The plain and simple truth to the matter is that the Rhino does what it was asked to do and more. Is it a 5th Gen fighter. Nope, and it wasnt asked to be. I consider it a 4.5 Gen airplane. A fourth Gen airframe with 5th Gen avionics.

Yeah, I do vilify the whole aircraft – I don’t know jack **** about electronics so just see them as boxes that can be moved from one airframe to the next. Those in the E/F are great, no disputing that, but they aren’t necessarily tied to the E/F airframe are they?

Yes, the E/F does do what is asked of it, but as an aerodynamic platform it still compares poorly to the competition (other 4.5 gen fighters).

The problem lies in the requirements given by the navy (approach speed), and the decision to go with a conventional tailplane (a decision made with the YF-17 – designed for the USAF). For the original hornet, the layout was frozen to save money, then with the S-H, the layout was quasi-frozen to make it look like an incremental upgrade to the original airframe.

Unfortunately, IMO, the navy never learned from the first mistake and made it again.

I’ll bet now if you ask any of the aero guys at Boeing would they like another go at the Hornet/SuperHornet, with freedom to change the wing and tail-plane they would jump at it.

I don’t think so. They may be care free in some areas, but a generally carefree aircraft is hard to achieve.

As far as I am aware the Typhoon and Rafale have carefree handling. I know for sure the F-22 and Gripen does.

I am not sure, but with TVC I assume the MKI has carefree handling (at least with regards low speed high-A end of the envelope).

There is 5 in service aircraft designed in the same timeframe as the Super-Hornet. 4 have carefree handling, the 5th I’m not sure about but would believe it does.

Actually, some basic assumptions of Boyd’s original EM-Theory are compromised by modern technology. In a head-on-head fly-by with subsequent dogfight, the ability to “through the nose around” might be advantageous to achieve an early missile shot.

I think we’ve had this yarn before on here with TVC/HMCS and off-boresight LOAL missiles.

Yes – and it does stand to reason that the less you ask of the missile, the greater the chance of it hitting the target. But, it will leave you vulnerable to a reply.

If those pylons are used for a2g loads, the aircraft is limited to subsonic speeds anyways, like basically all aircraft. Acceleration is just no viable mean of performance assessment here.

Yeap – but when the ordnance is dropped off – those pylons will still make a significant contribution to drag by dint of the fix forced by separation issues. [unless they can physically jettison the pylon*? INO – is that possible?]

Acceleration is not quite the be-all and end all. But ask any pilot if an aircraft can ever accelerate fast enough… 😉

*Opening that idea out – the F-22 can carry external weapons on pylons, can those pylons, as well as the ordnance be dropped off mid-flight for LO reasons? Anyone?

Partly, yes. When Boyd “learned” his business missiles were new. They proved unreliable in the next 10 to 20 years. Since beginning of the 1980s, missiles are completely new sort of beast. When within the inner firing envelope of a missile, no speed advantage or acceleration in the world will save you.

Well, if your gonna outmaneuver a missile [assuming its a 40g missile – if its a box office or whatever – pull to eject :D], your gonna have to out ‘g’ it by pulling through the stops (if thats possible). You aren’t gonna out ‘g’ it in a S-H that has bled down to 300 kts.

😀 Coming from the person who thinks cuba is perfectly justified in torturing its own citizens.:D

So… what does separate a dictator from a leader that manipulates information to allow them to force their own decision through anyway?