OEW plus internal fuel:
The F-14D has a fuel fraction of .268 (20000+7350)
The F-18C has a fuel fraction of .299 (11500+4900)
The F-18E has a fuel fraction of .318 (14000+6530)

With external fuel of two drop tanks (biggest available):
The F-14D has a fuel fraction of .312 (20000+7350+1725)
The F-18C has a fuel fraction of .376 (11500+4900+2030)
The F-18E has a fuel fraction of .402 (14000+6530+2900)

Conclusion: Need range, do not take the F-14!

HAHAHA

Are you now trying to argue the F-18 (any variant) has greater range than the F-14?

What next? The sun is not actually hot? :rolleyes:

The ferry-range of a F-14 is ………..?
The ferry-range of the F-18E is ………..?

What are you going to ferry?

A pilot’s fart from 15,000ft? :confused:

Ferry range is useless without ordnance!

No, it never will go down so much. Ask you 40+ year experienced teacher. Or take a look at a real life drag polar for real life aircraft.

APPROACH subsonic levels. Your right, overall Cd will always be 20% or so above subsonic drag coefficient.

In flight test things are allowed that are not allowed to pilots in service. The latter counts, the previous is the stuff nerds talk about on the internet.

There are comments on the ‘net that M2.5 was achieved in the test program, 2.2ish is the service limit.

The wing root pylon has two possible attachment locations for Sidewinder.

OK, the 2nd label threw me.

So, you conclude from the fact that he is Navy test pilot that he must have flown an F-14, further on that while making his sloppy comment including his flight experience on the F-14, and thus making a statement about F-18 versus F-14 without actually saying so? You are kidding me.
Your Flight Journal is obscuring your sense for reality.

You don’t become a test pilot over night, you know that.

He made an informed comment on the F-14s low-speed handling during the article, he was (maybe still is) air wing operations commander on USS Kitty Hawk, which only transferred from Tomcats to SuperBugs during 2004…

Anyway – what on earth am I arguing that little tidbit for – are you seriously trying to say the bug has better energy conservation than a tomcat? :confused:

I wonder why NASA wasted all that time band-aiding the A-D then the E-F versions then.

The overall airframe G-limit will be implemented in the design of each component. Means: you will determine a maximum from a single component that is most critical and then design all other components accordingly if they are also defined by this criteria (maximum G). The upward flexibility of the Hornet has the advantage of changing the lift distribution more inwards, thus reducing bending loads on the root.

Yeap – but an acknowledged weakness in the wing-glove has limited the g rating through one particular area.

Not sure on your second point – is the hornets wing structure fully composite? [getting at fancy lay-ups like the S-37] for twisting the wing away from the natural aero loading.

With the aero centre being ahead of the flexural centre at higher AoA/loadings, I would imagine the spanwise loading distribution would tend to spread towards the wingtips. [Then there is the LERX effect to be accounted for I suppose].

Which would cost another ton of weight, so finally closing in to 20 tons OEW and going into competition with the MiG-31 for the heaviest fighter on earth. Your upgraded Tomcat, gold-plated with fat radar and a2g avionics, wouldn’t save a single lb of OEW, it just would gain. If then someone asks to increase the max G to an acceptable level (let’s say 7.5 or so), there goes any weight-saving. The F-14 is probably the best you can get if you throw contradicting parameters into a fat bowl and mix them. It still isn’t very good.

Why do you assume the modifications would add weight?

With use of FEA, composites within the wing structures, AESA radar, modern avionics it should be quite easy to shave half a tonne off the existing empty weight. [For reference going from APG-63 (V)1 to (V)3 saves around 400 kgs].

Start to factor in the crew displays and associated electronics and you see where I’m coming from.

I say that for highly stressed materials and components (like the wingbox) composites will not save very much if they replace titanium (normally composite replaces either alloys or steel).

Perhaps, perhaps – but every little helps, and carbon fibre has been shown to be lighter than a corresponding titanium part for similar applications.

So I guess that is the reason they bought an aircraft with limited top speed and high flexibility on external stores.

Well, its certainly the reason so many people get into arguments over the F-14/F-18 😀

You should ask your 40+ year old teacher about a practical example in flight performance for fighters. He will show you that for either aircraft loiter time won’t differ much. If actually Afghanistan is the mission that really bothers the Navy, I would propose to start production of the A-6 again, which actually weights 7 ton less than the F-14D and still carries more bombs a longer distance. Must have been a moment of flawed concluding when they decided their next conventional bomber should go supersonic. Even the A-7 would perform better than an F-14, and that with fraction of the cost.

He’s due to retire next year I think (and I wish I was still an undergraduate again! – ahh good times good times 🙂 😮 ).

Yeap – they never replaced the capabilities of the A-6 or A-7… the original hornet was a joke in the role. Now they lose even more range with the F-14 going.

What I care for is some kind of sober analysis when it comes to aircraft, and not comparing apples and oranges. If you do so, came along with facts and not the experience of your teacher.

Oooh, must be nice to never have anyone hand on their knowledge to you. :rolleyes:

I think the F-18 program (all variants) is a joke, and the amount of (major) airframe fixes throughout the runs would bear that out. Particularly given that the resulting aircraft:

Doesn’t have much range (when compared to predecessors).
Doesn’t have good energy conservation (when compared to the competition).
Doesn’t have a good speed envelope (when compared to anything).

Its main plus points are great avionics, great engines and admittedly, high AoA pointability [with most of the regulars in here questioning the validity of a cobra in combat, why should the Hornet be treated any different?]. The avionics and engines are wholly independent of the airframe aerodynamics.

The US Navy could have done alot better.

Stop kidding around and give a useful source. Your calculation is wrong and remains wrong, your whole point remains unproven. I didn’t doubt the F-14 has less drag (clean) than an F-18 (any version) in transonic, but still doubt the useful advantage from that for average mission envelope.
And: You will hardly find someone around here who has more inside in that drag thing than I do.

The source is undergrad lecture notes – written by a man that has been in the business for 40+ years.

The drag coefficient drops back down to approach subsonic levels above Mach 1.2/1.3, so while the assumptions made are not valid from around M0.9 to 1.3, they are plausible after.

I didn’t say that, I proved it.

With a source that indicates a top speed of Mach 2… whereas its well documented the F-14 is capable of Mach 2.2.

Fun fact: I didn’t get them from a very very inside leak but just downloaded them via fileshare. Just see how easy it is to get real flight-test approved and certified information. You even save the obviously wasted buck for the flight journal.

Really?

Swwweeeeetttt – emule, torrents or where? (I’ll be having some of that :D)

I didn’t want to ruin your dreams, but as you ask for it: The Tomcat graph is for 2 Sidewinders only. Anything else leads to tougher restrictions, sending the Tomcat down to about M1.2 (the graph does not mean it reaches that speed, it is just the allowed speed).

2 different loadout-configurations for sidewinders? [1A and 1B2?]

Have we now changed the topic to the F-16? That doesn’t have swing-wings, either, so following your logic is not a useful aircraft.

No, I included the text in the bracket for a reason – that was part of the quote. Here is the exact quote for clarity:

The Hornet gets slower (high-energy bleed rate) quicker than anything I’ve flown, and it gets faster (low acceleration performance) slower than anything I’ve flown

Tougas, John “Toonces” “F/A-18 vs. F-16”. Flight Journal. Jun 2003. [he’s a navy test pilot so will have flown the F-14]

I start to have the feeling that you are one of these aviation fans who like to read shiny magazines but in the end have no clue. The “ridiculously thin wing” still takes more Gs than the F-14’s wing ever will.

You get the wrong feeling then.

Q: Where is the bending moment greatest on a wing (in flight)?

A: The wing root. The minor flexing of the hornets wing has little to do with the g limits of the aircraft.

Anyways the tomcat is at a double disadvantage, its older than the F-18s, and it uses a moving structure, which is inherently weaker. Indeed, the Tomcat had known structural weaknesses at the wing glove, which Grumman have said would have been addressed in a F-14 “E”.

“New materials” is the hope for better weather tomorrow. One G more load on the airframe (which is seriously needed as the Tomcat has the agility of a medium bomber) would eat up all weight savings. The already used titanium those days, and on the Tomcat, they did a lot (note that F-16 for example had no titanium in the beginning).

You saying that composites have not lowered weight in aircraft?

Every kilo saved on the fuselage reduces the loading on the wing by X amount at X ‘g’…

As an aside, apparently the earliest F-16s had more titanium in them than the later models (due to SU export limits).

But it isn’t. The Tomcat is not ready for modern air combat any more, besides that the structure is aging (hello swing wing!). Your actually flawed top-speed figures don’t make up for that. It remains an interceptor, and with rapidly changing enemies, it is wasted hangar space on the carrier.

An interceptor/bomb truck is what the navy (and to an extent the USAF) needs to face its modern enemies.

Someone hi-jacks a plane – you dont need 9 g manouvering to nail it, you need to get to it before someone else does.

Someone needs bombs on the ground and its time critical – you need aircraft on station with endurance – the F-14 outlasts the F-18. It showed both legacy & super hornets the way in Afghanistan.

I think I have a very different view on what the Navy needs from you – I get the impression you want a dogfighter, an F-16 mk2 of sorts.

I think it is not on Wikipedia as Wikipedia has improved quite a bit since I first saw it. Such calculations wouldn’t survive one hour.
I provided the link for convenience. Your forgot about transonic drag rise and some non-linear effects on wing sweep. Your calculation is true until M0.8. Above one could still prove advantages of the swing-wing, but not with your kind of reasoning.
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1082334&postcount=69

ho ho ho.

It was not me that performed the originals – they were done by someone that probably knows more than you and me combined.

Look at your transonic drag rise graph again, what happens around M1.2 (and above)? 😉

3D wing flow is a function of the aerofoil sections through the wing – hence why early swept wing fighters had wing fences (as they had no or linear taper).

In supersonic flow, yes, the lift-dependant drag becomes a less important issue, and is instead replaced with wave drag… (and I’m sure you know the ins and outs of that).

The maximum indicated airspeed of an F-14 is 1440 km/h, or 777kts IAS. At 10000ft that allows a maximum Mach number of 1.42, corresponding of a true airspeed of 905kts TAS.
With any weapons load that will be lower.

You saying that flight journal is wrong then?

Yes, for example. Like I do for you here:

F-14D Mach/Airspeed limitations from flight manual:
[ATTACH]157446[/ATTACH]

F-18E Mach/Airspeed limitations from flight manual:
[ATTACH]157447[/ATTACH]

Thank you for the info. I’ll assume they are actually from the flight manual, and not 2 random graphs 😉

OK, I see the superhornet graph is for a clean airframe, while the F-14 has stores attached – what exactly is the loadout please? 🙂

For the very rare occurance of the F-14 carrying 4 Phoenix under fuselage. You would wonder how much drag that produces in transonic regime. Airpeed limitation for such a configuration is Mach 1.1 for the F-14D, by the way.

Mach 1.1 @ sea level?

The F-18A-F has adaptive wing camber. For most maneuvers within normal maneuvering AOA (which is normally below 15°) it will have lower drag than an F-14.

Not according to the pilots who fly it.

That quote about slower faster and faster slower (than anything else in the sky) was directly taken from a hornet pilot comparing his machine to an F-16 after exchange.

The hornets adaptive wing camber is probably due to the forced flexing of the ridiculously thin wing they are forced to use by dint of its pathetic sweep (i.e. not part of a McDonnell Douglas/Boeing masterplan). 😀

Thrust is less costly these days. So you can install more thrust and save the extreme weight of the swing wing. A swing wing designed for maneuvering (high G) is a classical paradoxon. The F-18E has at all weights at least one G more available by its structure, the F-14D is limited to 6.5G until 50klb, then decreasing to below 5 at 65klb.
The OEW of the F-14D is given with 44klb, so with anything more than minimum fuel and some weapons you run into serious limitations. With max internal fuel the F-14D is limited to 5.5g.

Agreed on engine improvements – its getting better all the time.

I also agree on the swing wing adding a helluva lot of weight to the airframe – although it has not been re-visited with new materials/mechanisms, so it might be unfair to say the system on the F-14 will weigh the same as any modern implementation.

I actually forgot that the F-14 is a pretty crappy aircraft. the flying limitation. Now I know why they needed two pilots and still crashed so often.

For what it’s prime roles are (keep carriers and escorts above water and pound ground positions), the F-14 seems to be better than the S-H.

[Many of the crashes were due to the -14As bad engines – but I’m sure you know that 😉 ]

What specific missile are you talking about then? And please specify of what kind this passive sensor is and how it works. And are there missiles with only this peculiar sensor and no other guidance?

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/aster-30/

It has killed (hit to kill) drones in heavy ECM environments as part of the test program.

netmarine

So, if it can physically hit a (“dead”) drone in ECM, what would it do to a jammer?

According to: http://www.eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk/common/AA/amraam.html the AMRAAM does indeed have HOJ capabilities (which I was not aware of).

The R-33 and R-37 are also alleged to have HOJ built in.

No, the point is that after burn-through you can launch without having to support the missile with command guidance until its seeker can go active. Which means that as long as the post-burn-through target keeps the music on, the missile will home in on it while you do very comfortable notch or Split-S and are running home for tea and medals.

You still need to burn through.

A home-on-jam missile is by definition a passive sensor.

There is no burn through, there is no command guidance.

:confused:

I don’t really see your point, although I admit some people in high places will use their time to ensure a decent retirement (or chairmanship/directorship!)…

I think that it would be pretty obvious. Far too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.

As for your stat, I think the figure is closer to 1/4, and you have to remember that a lot, if not most of the jobs now done by civvy contractors such as VT, Serco and Babcock are those that would have been done by “the ranks” in a former life.

1/3, 1/4 doesn’t really matter – the ratio is scandalously low!

And of course all the civilian contractors charge less than what would have been the case if it had been done in-house*. 😉

* Just going by comparable PFIs and the like y’know 😮