It looks like what it is an example of too many people being involved in the design process. They built a machine that looks like it should have turbofans and they put turboprops on it. Couldn’t agree on what it was supposed to be. If it is intended as a C-130 replacement I doubt it will get in and out of some of the places the Herc has used, not with a useful load anyway.

Well, to me the A400M looks just the opposite. :p The turboprops are a great choice – I really don’t see any advantages to turbofans. The undercarriage is miles better than the C-130’s, and if it looks rotund and slightly awkward it’s because the fuselage has to be big enough to carry a real payload and the controls powerful enough to keep it flying with an offset center of gravity (for paradropping). Those features have a cost in terms of weight, but they’re worth it.

By your argument, the C-17 also looks designed by committee. Trying to pair a STOL landing capability with turbofans! 😮

It does still not explain why the french feel the need to boast about being able to fly 1 hour (or 200km at average speed) a day with their new toy

Re-read the French MoD’s press release. It doesn’t boast – just factually reports that the Tigre fleet has surpassed 1,000hrs in Afghanistan.

Eurocopter then added a press release of their own calling this a success and boasting of a 90% availability rate in a “tough environment”. Obviously a dig at the Germans who can’t seem to get their house in order and are (wrongly?) blaming Eurocopter for their issues with the UHT Tiger.

Bottom line: I don’t think anyone is claiming that 1hr per day is a remarkable figure, just that it shows that the Tigre is mission ready and performing in line with other French helicopter types in Kabul such as the Gazelles, Cougars and Caracals, which are all averaging about 1hr day too. (Keep in mind that all these helicopters spend a lot of time on alert, which uses up manpower too)

I’ve flown both.

What do you want to know?

Fantastic. How did they compare in ACM for starters? F-4E with slats vs. F-104 with very high wingload. My hunch is the F-4E should out-turn the F-104. In the vertical they’d be fairly similar? (Similar T/W)

Which model of F-104 did you fly by the way? F-104C or G? Any big difference in how they flew?

Lastly, for interception, which one was better in terms of raw performance? (Time to climb, supersonic acceleration etc). I won’t ask about avionics & weapons systems, because they’re hardly comparable.

MadRat, that seems way too complicated. But it’s true that the Mirage F1-M53 should have been bought. It was a great performer:

– Engine: 300kg lighter engine, -55% specific fuel consumption at maximum thrust
– Climb: +11,800ft/min climb rate at Mach 0.9 & sea level, +23,500ft/min climb rate at Mach 2 & 34,000ft. +4,000ft service ceiling. Time-to-climb: 5min20s to Mach 1.8/40,000ft instead of 8min…
– Maneuverability: +0.7g sustained turn at Mach 0.95
– Combat radius: +120km hi-lo-hi (+40km lo-lo-lo) with 4x 454kg bombs & 2 drop tanks, +460km ferry radius
Source: DASSAULT Mirage F1 by René Francillon / Aerofax Minigraph #17

Hard to beat the F-4 – combat proven, effective as both an escort fighter & interceptor, served many countries. Not to mention carrier & air-to-ground capable!

That said, the under-rated Mirage F1 is a worthy runner-up from 1975-1990:
1. Great all-round fighter/interceptor/ground-attack aircraft, very competitive with its 2 main rivals, the F-4 & Mig-23. Also, not many laymen know this, but the Mirage F1 was superior to newer F-16s/Mig-29s until the early 1990s, since these were day fighters with no BVR capability! :p

2. The Mirage F1 saw widespread service – 3 NATO nations, 8 emerging countries, including some interesting players such as Greece, South Africa, Iraq, Libya. Proved to be a very affordable fighter/interceptor.

3. Good combat record, with victories against F-14s, F-4s, F-5s, F-100s, Mig-21s! :diablo: Plus Su-22s after the end of the Cold War. And let’s not forget that it would have scored against the Mig-23 too, were it not for the embargo which limited South Africa to Magic 1 missiles instead of newer Magic IIs and Super 530Fs.

3. The Mirage F1 “flew like a Mirage III but handled like a Sabre”. 😉 Pilots loved it – it was the best all-round performer of the pre-fly-by-wire fighters.

Jordanian Mirage F1 – what a beauty!

French Mirage F1C

This very, very interesting graphic from Richard Beedall’s Navy Matters summarizes the results of the F35 versions: effective performances against requirements:

You can notice that the F35C and A exceded the requirement for range, the F35C scoring 732 naval miles combat radius against a 600 nm requirement.
The F35A scored 605, and the F35B failed to meet the requirement of 450, scoring 442.

However, the logistical footprint of the F35C resulted only slightly higher than those of the F35B UK: again, if the analysis was carried out considering US Air Wing number for the C and UK air wing numbers for the B, we have a confirmation of my assumption that the F35B has a far larger unitary logistic footprint than the F35C.

Last noticeable thing, the failure of the F35B to meet all the STOVL requirements. This should have been fixed, at least partially, from 2004 to today. Save for the Bring-Back weight, and in fact the Royal Navy is planning short rolling landings for its F35B and NOT vertical landings: in order to do the vertical landing, the F35B would have to drop unsed bombs in the sea.
A No-No for a laser guided bomb costing half a million dollars.

That’s old performance data from 2004. Here’s an overlay of 2008 data (sorry it’s not more readable, but you get the gist of it: for each pair of bars, top one is 2004, bottom one is 2008).

Basically, the F-35’s weight issues were taken care of. Notice how the F-35B’s STOVL performance has improved, although bring back is still only a measly ~5,000lbs.

Also notice how the F-35C’s performance has deteriorated in almost all respects: range, sortie generation, logistics footprint. Range won’t be much more than for the F-35A, which is not good because as everyone said, that indicates high drag.

I assume there are plans to equip the RAF/RN’s F-35B STOVL fleet with buddy re-fuelling stores?

If not I feel this would be an absolutely huge mistake and make the air group significantly less flexible and frankly safe then it could be.

There are no bolters, no fouled decks, and much lower visibility limits on a STOVL carrier, so buddy refueling isn’t as critical safety-wise compared to on a CTOL carrier.

As Grim said, it’s a “nice to have”, because it gives you some tactical flexibility for long range missions, which would be very useful in high intensity ops against a well defended opponent.