The drawing of Victorious demonstrates one of the reasons i like that vessel so much. After her reconstruction she was a very modern and cleaning looking design and that comes out in the above image when compared to the likes of the Oriskany and Midway.
Victorious has very clean lines. A beautiful ship, but a bit too marginal for my liking. For me, Clemenceau and Oriskany come closest to the “ideal” 1960s medium carrier (Oriskany would have needed a steel deck, though).
Here’s an updated drawing. This time I’ve added Hermes, though IMHO it’s even more marginal than Victorious and shouldn’t really belong in this list. Compared to Victorious, Hermes has a few key shortcomings:
– Slower: 28kts vs. 31kts, with a realistic speed of 23.5kts during catapult launches (http://books.google.com/b…=hermes+carrier+catapult)
– Smaller, leading to less deck parking
– Only one “long” catapult
– Tons of equipment taken out to keep its top weight down (including almost all AA armament)
I’ve also added the deck safety line for Clemenceau.
Here’s a side by side comparison of the 5 bombers that I’ve prepared. As you can see, the Tu-22 and B-58 are not at all in the same category as the TSR2, F-111, A-5 and Mirage IV… đŽ
I put the Mirage IV in the same class as small-medium bombers such as the TSR.2, F-111, B-58, Tu-22M, etc. How does the IV compare to those? Can it compete with them in range? speed? payload?
The Mirage IV is more of a small tactical bomber, in the same league as the US Navy’s A-5B Vigilante. It’s not in the same category as medium tactical bombers such as the F-111, TSR.2 and FB-111, or medium strategic bombers such as the B-58 and Tu-22. Dassault had a design in the cards for a true medium tactical bomber (the Mirage IVB), but it would have required foreign engines and would have been too expensive.
The Mirage IVA, equipped with standard fighter engines, was a fall-back option. But Dassault certainly did a good job, given the engine and tech limitations in the late 1950s. The Mirage IVA was not only a beautiful design – it also scores well in every respect: top speed, thrust/weight ratio, fuel fraction, service ceiling (due to low wing loading & good thrust/weight)… It was also a sound design, with fewer teething problems than every other supersonic bomber (the A-5, F-111, TSR-2, B-58, and Tu-22 all had numerous problems).
Courtesy of Kovy (?).
I’ll translate.
Like many other aircraft makers, Dassault has selected a delta-canard configuration for its latest design. âAs we were working with the other Europeans, we started to diverge significantly on the designâ explains Bruno Revellin-Falcoz [Director of Dassaultâs Technical Department]. âUltimately, we made some radically different choices. They wanted fuselage-mounted canards while we preferred to locate the canards almost above the wing-root. The key advantage of this configuration was that it would channel the air flow over the wing apex, which is where lift-generating vortices are formed. The Eurofighter Typhoon uses its canards as simple control surfaces. Although this creates a significant lever effect, it loses the positive impact on lift and therefore aerodynamic efficiency. Thatâs why we are certain that the Rafale can handle much better than the Typhoon at high angles of attack, such as during the crucial phases of dogfighting and low-speed flight. While they were groping around in the dark, we benefited from the know-how accumulated through the Mirage III Milan, Mirage III NG and Mirage 4000 programmes.
Sign In
