totoroEven though USAF is much better of with f22 than other branches of the military, superhornet seems quite capable of going against best of what potential enemies might offer in the next ten years. At worst, statistics would, in my opinion, break down to 2 enemy planes downed for each superhornet. In ten years time there should be enough f35s on carriers to make a difference and raise the aforementioned statistic to 4 to 1, again, worst case scenario. Only potential threats to that would be russian and chinese next gen aircraft, which are both likely to take more than 10 years to get into service. So…superiority is still there, if perhaps not as great as before.
I see 220-250 raptors in the end, though at a cost of couple of hundred less f35s for usaf. With other cuts, i see total US f35 numbers peaking at 1800 units, unless there is some new cold war threat.
totoroWith these 4 crashes, total is now 91 rotary wing and 13 fixed wing aircraft. Most of them were due to malfunctions and/or pilot error and a few were fratricides. Still, at least 30 were confirmed by US as being due to hostile fire.
Still much much better average than vietnam. (over 8500 aircraft) Then again, that was a much different kind of operation, and capability gap was much narrower.
totoroAccording to USAF almanac 2006 (2007 should come out shortly) figures are as follows:
active duty:
A-10: 129
AO-10: 75
F-15: 583
F-16: 733
F-22: 47 (a bit outdated, theres more 80 of them now)
F-117: 55
air national guard:
A-10: 76
AO-10: 26
F-15: 139
F-16: 523
air force reserve:
A-10: 44
AO-10: 7
F-16: 69
USAF almanac doesmt list USN and USMC planes but some other (potentially less reliable) sources do.
USN:
F18 A/B: 58
F18 C/D: 461
F18 E/F: 271 (this may be a bit outdated. current figure may be around 300, for less A/B models)
USMC:
F-18 A/B: 83
F-18 C/D: 181
harrier II: 146
totoroHm, would US retaliate with nuclear weapons?
Option A (nuclear) – millions of US citizens dead for hundreds of millions of chinese dead.
Option B (continue convential war without sats) – couple of hundreds/thousands US soldiers (not civilians!) dead for several thousands or tens of thousands of chinese dead, mostly soldiers.
Which would you choose if you were the president of US?
Furthermore, satellites are indentified and tracked. IF china decided to try to take out some satellites, it would leave out ones used for early warning of ICBM launches, precisely as a show of keeping the conflict conventional.
totorogps sats are at an altitude of 20 000 km, not 36 000, someone must’ve mixed up their metric and imperial units. But that doesn’t really matter. Be it 20 or 36 000 km, difference is actually negligable, as both the air resistance and gravity force is just too small to make a serious impact, the latter being true not so much cause of weightlessness but cause of speed and direction of the missile – using the same principle satellites use to stay in orbit even though they do weigh quite a bit. Only thing it’d mean is a tiny bit more fuel needed for the asat missile.
totoroI’ve got a general in air refuelling question. Does a plane, when it gets refuelled, fill out all its tanks, including for example conformal ones on f16s and f15s and perhaps even external drop tanks? Or is it limited to original internal fuel tank volume?
totoroWell, good news for china if its true, i guess. Now they only need to figure out how to launch those ballistic missiles from non-fixed launch installations (some huge trucks?) as in a total war against potent enemies fixed targets would get obliterated in the opening hours.
totoroSome new data concerning 350 (new to me) has been published on press centre section of aribus site. It was always said how 350 series is too large, and i, too, used to believe it basically leaves the 330 series without a true replacement. But…
-800 will achieve the stated 270 pax in following configuration of 3 classes: 16/44/206.
-900 will achieve its 314 pax with following class breakdown: 18/50/246.
Now, what is interesting to me is this:
a330-200 is 59 m long (1,5 meters shorter than -800), with a cabin of 45 meters. In 3 classes, it holds 253 pax in following arrangement: 12/36/205.
When we take 350-800 and, out of average of 22.9 economy class rows, assume there is 20 full rows to be downsized from 9 abreast to 8 abreast, we get a figure 250 pax total but more importantly, 186 seats in economy class. Of course, there will probably be a margin of error of several seats but this is good enough for comparison.
With 186 economy seats, that is clearly less than 332’s 205. Then again, looking at class arrangement and 1.5 longer plane, it is clear 350’s pax numbers include something like a row more of first class and row more for business class, perhaps even more.
Basically, smallest 350 is gonna be in a very similar pax class as 330-200, when configured for 8 abreast. If it used the same number of first and business class seats as 330s, it would have around 266 seats or around 13 more than 330-200 and around 30 less than 330-300.
I guess i didn’t say much here…but it was just me thinking aloud how airbus has, in fact, covered the whole range from over 330-200 capacity to just over 340-500’s capacity. No, it doesn’t really compare to 787 series, as that is even a bit shorter than 330-200, but in terms of old airbus to new airbus generation comparison – it covered all the bases.
If we must compare A to B, time will tell if it will be easier for boeing to prouduce theoretical 787-11 than it will be for airbus to produce a theoretical 350-700.
totorodidn’t know we were talking about take offs. Doesn’t matter though. lets say that by some chance air temp at some particular airfield at 14000 is 40 deg below zero celsius. (below 40 something fahrenheit) air density would be around 0.9 kg/m3.
Now if we take some arfield at 0 feet at 50 degrees celsius (around 120 F), air density would be around 1.1 kg/m3. Still higher.
In conclusion, it would be almost impossible to have weather conditions that would make a high and cold take off better than low and hot. If by some miracle temperatures do drop to more-than-arctic values that’d provide you with nice air density, i doubt one could even start the plane in the first place.
totoroAir density IS all that matters. However, since air density depends on temperature and pressure, then those two certainly are quite important.
Low and high are relative terms, but lets say we’re talking about 10 000 feet and 30 000 feet. Difference in air density for those two is so huge that no local temperature difference can influence it. With certainty, air density will always be much lower at ‘high and cold’ than at ‘low and hot’, as the possible high and low values of hot-cold are much closer together than possible altitude values.
totoroI actually believe airships could have a very specialized market – in less developed countries, where planes would be too expensive for population of certain income and where are no spread out highway networks or high speed railway networks. Central asia and africa come to mind, perhaps even some of eastern europe and latin america or central china.
Something like 200 seats, cruise speed of 180 km/h, with specialized airports/landing sites. Especially in areas without passport control or inter-country trips, airships could compete with aviation at ranges of up to 800-1000 km.
Benefits for passengers- faster loading/unloading (construction and lots of space would allow for lots of doors and wide aisles), airports closer to cities (less noise and less area for airports needed)
Sure, you would still take almost 5 hours to fly 800 kms, compared to 2 hours in prop plane and an hour or so in jet plane, but A) seats could be vastly cheaper (this is a must, if this condition is not met, at least 50% cheaper seat than cheapest airplane fare, then whole ideas is a no go) B) additional time could be saved because of optimised infrastructure for getting the aircraft to/from gate and getting PAX on/of aircraft.
Problems at this point are, i believe, technical, not even technological. It all depends on just how big/small this niche market is and would it be worthwhile to invest money into development of such airships and the infrastructure for them. I believe, once that development is done with, cost of such airship and cost of such airport would be far lower than for conventional planes/airports.
totoroThat is weird, how can a 64 m long plane seat 314 and 63 m one seat 280? It would mean that airbus’s 314 figure included fewer 1st class seats and more economy seats. Once again, without precise 3 class cabin layout including seat pitch info – we have nothing.
Weight and number of passengers are a non issue here. Yes, you can cram only so many people before you overload a plane but you will much, much sooner hit the barrier of not having enough space to fit those people inside the plane.
If 64 m is indeed length of 900, i would think 800 is around 58 meters and 1000 is around 69 meters.
totoroThank you for your info. I coulnd’t find boeing’s airport compatibility brochure but i did find the pdf in press centre section of airbus’s site.
I know you can’t really cram in 10 abreast on 350, i was asking for floor space figure to get the cabin length, since we have the width figure.
Also, it looks to me airbus and boeing are using same seat pitch, 32 inch. At least airbus uses it on their website for all the older models. So, if the pitch is the same, and if airbus has constant width of cabin throughout its whole length like they said (unlike 787’s last few rows which are bit narrower) just how does -800 have 10 seats less than -9?
It has either A) shorter cabin, B) different ratio of various class seats C) more galley/toilet room at the expense of seats or D) slightly bigger seat pitch than airbus (and boeing’s) usual standard of 32 inch for economy class.
Since i don’t believe -800 is lighter than -9, option A seems unlikely. D seems equally unlikely as it has served them well before and they would have certainly bragged about the bigger than ‘usual’ seat pitch. My gut feeling tells me it’s B, but we need precise 3 class layouts to be sure, plus info on length of the plane wouldn’t hurt either.
totoroCould you then please provide me with links to offical airbus/boeing pages containing information on any or all of the following:
1. how long will 350 – 800, 900 and 100 be?
2. how many seats of various classes will airbus a350 800, 900 and 1000 have? Also, same information for 787 8 and 9?
3. What the planned empty weight of a350 800, 900 and 1000? Also, same information for 787 8 and 9?
Only when we have that information can we begin to compare two planes.
Problem that i have with seat numbers that both boeing and airbus have given for their models is that they just don’t add up.
Lets take a340-500, its 68 m long, it holds 313 people in 3 classes.
340-300 is 63.6 m long and has 295 people in 3 classes.
Assuming boeing would use same ratio of 3 classes, and assuming there’s max of 8 seats abreast, 787-9 should come close to 295 people in 3 classes. Yet, boeing’s own promo materials quote only 250 people in 3 classes (290 in 2 classes). To me, that is a clear sign that boeing used either different ratios of classes, with more first class seats, and/or that it used less rows of seats.
Now, airbus. Only length figure i see quoted around (but nowhere officially!) is 64 meters. Lets go with that. How on earth can 900 have 314 seats in 3 classes? That is as much as a340-500, one of longest planes in existance. Since there’s no room to use more rows per given length, only answers i see is that airbus used 9 abreast for economy class.
But, if we use a340-300, 295 seats, plus 30 more rows of extra seat, it amounts to 325 seats, not 314. Are ratios of diff class seats different? Or is -900 closer to 62.5 in length? Still, even if it is, how do we explain smaller number of seats in 787-9 of comparable length? But why on earth would boeing use low end figures???
In the end, without floor space figures or at least accurate cabin length figures, it is impossible to compare the planes. I hope airbus will publish some additonal figures by the beginning of the next year. 🙁
totoroJust why can’t people agree on one set of seat figures and go with that? Is that randy claims true (since he is more or less an official boeing PR person) or is what boeing official 787 product page claims true?
Because we now have 240 vs 250 for -8 and 280 vs 290 for -9. So just which of those is true boeing official stance on optimal seat number for their planes?
I would assume that when airbus says their plane is 0.2% lighter per seat than competitor, they would use 240 seat claim for 787-8, rather than 250 one as its natural that bigger plane can carry more people with less weight per seat. I am right to assume they compared -8 with 800, right? Or were they comparing -9 with 900, since 900 is their first model?
So many things we don’t know…
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