As regards the fulcrum/flanker, my deep and abiding love :p has always made me feel that all the eurocanards, the sweet looks of the Rafale notwithstanding, have always been a tad bit over priced/hyped. The tiffy more so; the rafale, the least, and the Gripen somewhere in the middle.

For one thing, generation is a hypped commercial term, Rafale is only 6 years older than F-22, you don’t design a generation of modern fighters in 6 years, even Mirage 2000 is younger than the US legacy.

Then performances depends on requierements as defined by predicted roles, you can use F-22 as a mud-mover in ten years and call it strike aircrfaft in 30 years it wont make this true, people are saying that F-35 is an air superiority fighter because it replaces F-16 but F-16 requierements were for Air Superiority not Strike.

So those things are nowhere near as simple as what some like to allege they are.

Dare2, I’m afraid pfcem is correct. There is nothing special with the 185% before failure..

You are talking about requierements as design goals as if it was always the case which is not actually, the 1.5 IS is meet by all manufacturers…

If the requirement for instance is 9g, you design for 50% more (13.5g).

Sorry, this is not the case, the margin is certainly not the same for all and the requierement for 1.5 above 9.0 g never meant that it was or is respected for many reasons.

50% margin is a common factor in aviation.

That’s false actually:

What is a lot more common (and well documented for those willing to search and read) is for manufacturers to reduce this margin in order to save structural weight, in the case of Typhoon, it was non-existant with a (documented) standard of 1.4 vs the international standard of 1.5, where is your 50% margin above 1.5 IS then?.

So don’t go telling us that it is a “common practice” because since the event of FCS and electric FBW it is no longer the case.

The other common and well known fact is that manufacturers have relied on these later technologic advances to reduce their margin and optimise airframes designs in terms of weight vs performances, believing (rightly or not) that carefree handling would help saving airframe lifespan, they stil claim a 9.0 g capability, which counterdict your point as it is valid in the case of Rafale as well.

If they can reduce airframe fatigue with modern FCS laws it applies for all of them, put things back in their contexts.

For Rafale it seemed to have happened at 185%, for other aircrafts it might happened at 160%, 170%, 190% or 220% etc. etc…

Not “most fighters” since some reduces these margins to save weight today.

I’m sure the Mirage III and F-4 have such margins or above because they didn’t really know at the time how their airframes would last and sustain the 7.5 g they were designing them for, now it is the opposite, then again many legacy fighters doesn’t have this margin, and btw it is not 50% above 1.5 but 9.0 g as ultimate load limit.

They know and uses these margins for a given number of hours and structural loads, only “carefree handling” allows for much lower margins and this is where you guys got your infos backward.

I wouldn’t call it a 35% built-in margin, simply cause Dassault had no idea how much better the Rafale would handle the test.

It is a 35% built-in margin.

All they knew was that it probably would manage more than 150%. 185% was simply what the construction could withstand during test.

185% is the result of design points whatever way try to you put it, first it was designed at higher load standards since it was the naval aircraft which was the structural basis, other manufacturers might have done the opposite in the past, not Dassault.

I think it’s funny that this is exactly what the EADS source you provided says.

It is not what it says and what is says is also totaly different from your interpretation of it.

Read again then:

Quote:
About static testing:

The aim of the static tests is to take the structure of an aircraft and its major systems through extreme load conditions.

They are to simulate all the movements and loads such an airframe, including all its composite elements, can encounter during its service life.

They have to progressively demonstrate that the structure can reach the “limit loads”, which are the maximum anticipated loads the aircraft is expected to ever encounter in operations.

Subsequently, the static tests will be pursued to then demonstrate “ultimate loads”, which are 1.5 time the limit loads.

As a final step, the static tests will be continued until rupture of some elements, in order to assess the built-in margins, allowing subsequent performance increases or further developments.

http://www.eads.com/1024/en/investor…tic_tests.html

in order to assess the built-in margins, allowing subsequent performance increases or further developments 185% is 35% above the “ultimate loads”, which are 1.5 in normal standards.

The 1.5 is the minimum requiered international standard before failure and often lowered at design stage, anything above it is designed margin and as opposed to what you say is not an actual “common thing” to do while designing modern jets, in fact the opposite is true.

This clearly indicates that you guys have got your wires all crossed on that one.

Originally Posted by MadRat
arthuro has a point about the weapon systems factoring into the costs. The MICA family is an expensive series of product to maintain compared to Sidewinder and AMRAAM. That would skew the totals somewhat. Just seems to be outrageous compared to the others.

Who said it was expensive to maintain?

It is expensive to acquier because of a much shorter series but no one can tell the operational cost as these details are never made public, we know it is greatly improved (seekers lifespan) compared to the generation of the AIM-120 B and AIM-9 L/Ms though.

Yadayadayada.

+1. He is THE great Yada specialist, granted.:D

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1504515&postcount=157

pfcem = 😀

Cruise will be the subsonic sub-Mach at which your engine SFC will allow for the highest number of Nautical Airmiles per Pounds of Fuel used in this regime.

Supercruise will be the supersonic Mach at which your engine SFC will allow for the highest number of Nautical Airmiles per Pounds of Fuel used in this regime.

supercruise is being ‘able to achieve and maintain speeds in excess of Mach 1.0 for extended periods of time without the use of afterburners’.

M 1.0 is not the supersonic regime of ALL aircrafts up to now.

I know it’s not RAF but we wave it good bye now, so i thaught you’d like one of these…

Finally, SLIVE is a great predicting tool. Just a minor bug in displaying the results.;)

Validated with 60 km ranged MICA and Rafale A datas? :diablo:

http://blog.francetv.fr/capitaine-romain/index.php/2009/11/11/151789-un-pilote-dessai-anglais-a-essaye-le-rafale

Go tell your mind about it.

Thanks for sharing, watched them in a row. A pitty my french is so rusty:(. Anyway nice watch.

Mine is PURFECT. 😎

I understood long ago:

“Dassault did things well, in effect starting with the basis of the Rafale M which will be lightened later on (at design stage) to comply to the requierements of AdlA“.

De-Facto the precise opposite of what Jackoniko was claroning in this very form some time ago which the “bad guy”, “troll”, Gegene, Fonk, lordAssap was obviously vehemently counterdicting with evidences to make his point.

RESULT: A structural load factor 35% higher than the rest of them, 11.0 g and 7.000 service life based on carrier landings, not AdlA conventional use.

Cheers.

Btw it’s not the end of it, evidences will come running at us at a rate no anti-French propaganda will be able to counter. 7/1. 😀