SchorschThat was more related with the early missil guidance systems (and the quantity of missiles controled ) than with the ground help
Whatever the reason was, a single pilot was unable to
– control his radar screen for new targets
– monitor and track these targets
– identify them
– fire a weapon (no matter if missile or gun)
and besides this fly the aircraft and control the systems.
At least this didn’t work out in high workload conditions (night, bad weather).
Besides this all, the pilot in his cramped cockpit misses the bigger picture. That is even true in today’s “sensor fusion” dreamland.
Today autonomous find/track/identify/attack is only possible as many things are automated and the presentation of the radar returns is much more intuitive. Radar was normally used to pick up the target the ground station had identified and then make the final steps of the intercept procedure.
SchorschI do not think only the Russians in the 1960s all the designs were underpower for today`s standards, the Mirage III is an example and the F-4 was no better, it needed even 2 engines.
Late 1960s fighters like the MiG-23 or AJ-37 were heavier and had more powerful engines but the R-11 and R-13 were basicly as powerful as any contemporary design of the same weight and power
It was not the power of the engines, but the specific thrust (thrust divided by engine weight) and the specific fuel consumption that made early MiGs to true gas guzzlers. Also reliability and response were not that great.
Note that both MiG-21 and MiG-23 got new or strongly modified engines later in their careers, while the last Phantom was still delivered with the same engine it had when it first flew.
The problem with the MiG is its very poor range. No variant ever had enough of it. A belly intake also means debris getting sucked in. Which means it needs well maintained runways and that limits it to being an excellent point interceptor with limited multirole capability.
Something bigger would be nice. How about the Su-11 with MiG-23 intakes, double delta wings and canards?
“Multirole” is something I wouldn’t integrate into a 1960s fighter, at least nothing that goes beyond dropping dumb bombs and firing simple rockets. Anything else requires dedicated avionics, which are heavy and expensive. We must not forget the limited technology of that days. When today any business jet has a triple inertial reference unit and GPS, an inertial navigation unit was pure luxury in those days (the French had no ending pain to get one for their nuclear bombers).
A 1960s fighter would be a daylight & acceptable weather fighter.
The simplest defensive electronics like radar warning receiver items already add considerable weight (and cost).
SchorschGCI intercept was used because no aircraft can carry the radars a GCI officer has access to at any one time. They took the time to create a ground based air defence network made up of multiple radars of all different frequency ranges, some of which are mobile and while not moved continuously are certainly moved occasionally making plotting their precise position difficult till they turn on.
They allow Russian interceptors to approach their targets from the optimum direction and fire their weapons potentially without giving the target any warning at all.
With early radar technology it always needed two seats to have some sort of autonomy. I think some Russian night fighters had two seats but were not truly famous. Maybe someone has examples, wasn’t the Yak-28 a night fighter?
GCI is the most efficient and most reliable way of taking down intruders, much better than putting all the radar technology into the fighter. It lacks the capability to send the aircraft beyond the reach of the friendly network.
SchorschThe problem with the MiG is its very poor range. No variant ever had enough of it. A belly intake also means debris getting sucked in. Which means it needs well maintained runways and that limits it to being an excellent point interceptor with limited multirole capability.
Something bigger would be nice. How about the Su-11 with MiG-23 intakes, double delta wings and canards?
Don’t mix engine and airframe. The MiG-21 was a well thought design (for the mission), but the Russians lacked comparable engine technology.
Most fighters of that time were close to “perfect”, otherwise they wouldn’t had been produced. I would – with hindsight – sacrifice less weight for speed and more for high angle of attack controllability.
I think for the mission of the light fighter The F-5A (probably with a dedicated engine) and the Mirage III were good solutions. BVR capability was only achievable with a second guy. The electronics didn’t allow a single seat BVR fighter.
In those days visibility was key to win an engagement, so keep the aircraft small and make the pilot able to look outside (one key shortcoming of all these Mach 2 optimized airframes, including the MiG-21).
SchorschMy copy of US Navy F-14 Tomcat Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom says 470 mph. I wondered about it too.
Most kits have wings that move. The most accurate kit, from Hasegawa, does not. I think the reason is that when the wings are forward, balloons on top of the fuselage expand to fill the gap at the trailing root. The kit has different balloon parts for each position. Other kits with swing wings can’t correctly show the wings in the 20 degree sweep position. The gap won’t go away.
So the model is accurate not only in resembling the F-14’s dimensions, but also in modeling its enormous acquisition and operating costs.
SchorschSure it was 470mph and not 470 KTAS?
I could think that the wing sweep is not limited due to aiming precision but for center of gravity reasons. But that is pure speculation.
Back then when little Schorsch built models (short time after the ancient Greeks) the wings could be moved. 😮
German Engineering maybe.
SchorschI know that it was not designed in the least for air to air combat
but was wondering whether it could be used for that …esp. against low tech adversaries like F-5E /mirage 5 etc by third world operators
assuming its armed with R-60 and /or other IR weapons
I guess as provisional fighter it is far better than no fighter. It is like a MiG-23 minus radar (and thus radar guided missiles) and the Mach1.8+ capability. Something like a further downgraded MiG-23MS.
SchorschHowever modeling is something that is used in every DOD program , when they model something during testing they constantly compare their results to the model and refine the model accordingly and also validate it . Same thing as commercial Boeing or airbus modeling and DIGITAL TESTING that takes place before actual testing .
While Airbus and Boeing regularly hit the mark (B787: ~6%, A380: 1.2%, B747-8: 1.3%) with low error. The B787 must be considered a high deviation. Let’s see if the F-35 turns out to be equally well predicted.
SchorschNot true. The Bear at one time was fitted with pods for carrying conventional bombs. Up to three pods could be carried that allowed something like 45 x 250kg bombs to be carried. Can’t remember the timeframe but remember that the anticipated target was to be runways with all the bombs dropped at an angle to the main runway to ensure some of the bombs hit the right place.
Also regarding the Tu-16 the original purpose of the large bomb bay was for the early large nuclear bombs. If WWIII had kicked off at the right time they would likely have delivered such bombs to China and Europe even if they couldn’t make the two way trip to the US.
Yes, I figured that out after I looked a bit deeper into the Tu-16. In the 1950s it was probably the most capable in terms of numbers and capability. The Soviets could also retaliate against Western Europe if necessary.
It looks like this model also was a conventional striker, but not really intended for carpet bombing. But I guess that carpet bombing never really was a cornerstone of Soviet strategy, neither in an all out war nor in a limited war, which they learned to fight in Afghanistan.
How would the Molot be modified if the Soviets decided to keep updating it? When was the D-30 turbofan available? These may give this bomber the range it was designed for.
Anyone have pics of Molot carrying external stores? They never seem to carry anything on their wings.
the engine was probably the biggest shortcoming of the M-4, but it appears to me that other things were not really as desirable as they should be. Normally the Soviets kept things running quite a while, but in this case they obviously did not want to invest in their only real long range bomber. I guess the reasons are two-fold:
First the M-4 seems to have technical shortcomings that go beyond the simple performance figures you can read on the web, probably structural issues.
Second, the chance of a Russians subsonic bomber to enter USA airspace when flying shortest route is pretty small. It has to pass lots of land mass and the probability of detection against is high. The American bombers always had an easier job with longer coast line, more possible attack routes and more difficult terrain (for the defender).
In the end missiles were a far more effective deterrent and for conventional warfare against US Navy and Western Europe the M-4 could not compete with the Tu-16 or the later Tu-22.
SchorschYou can have PREDICTED NUMBERS for FULL CONFIG aircraft at this stage made by computer modeling , however REAL no.s will come when the FIRST FULLY REPRESENTATIVE version (the one that just started assembly IIRC) is weighed . That is usually what happens in most weapons programs that i have come across .
I am not accusing LM of delivering overly optimistic figures … OK, actually I do. But I would also assume some weight gain due to USAF gold plating (while there isn’t really any additional gold you can put on the JSF).
Anyways, the current F-35A is as representative of the main serial version as was the first F-16A Block 0 for the average F-16.
SchorschIndisputably official numbers on the key parameters, but “solid numbers” are per definition the weight of the first delivered operational aircraft. Nobody knows currently where that stands. All the test aircraft LM currently produces are far away from the figures projected for the final aircraft.
SchorschYou guys seem to be having a hard time getting my point, next time I think I’ll come back with illustrations 🙂
So, you think you have seen a “vid” and know you know that Lockheed Martin has build a totally crappy aircraft? Sorry, I think you are overrating your judgment a bit.
SchorschCan the F-35A take off with a useful load and that full amount of fuel, or does it have to refuel after takeoff to do so?
The question is: what is the field performance under these conditions?
When you see an F-16C with 2 huge tanks, 2 AMRAAM and 2 IR-AAM, one ECM pod and not to forget 2x 2000lbs bombs as payload, you actually wonder how this little wing can lift it.
SchorschSupersonic performance has nothing to do with the engine and everything to do with the airframe, the F135 engine + lift fan is what I’m talking about, adding weight to create thrust which can only be used for lift, whersas a F135 changed from a 0.2 bypass to a 1.2 bypass using a pegasus style main fan would generate roughly 51000lbs of dry thrust (given the current estimates and released info on the F135 of roughly 28000lbs) with some simple lightweight ducting it could also be used to provide thrust in level flight while maintaining low RCS (actually easier with a low RCS airframe due to the layout) and you can still use the same 3 bearing pivoting tail and afterburners (afterburning 3 nozzle pegasus varients have existed for more than 20 years) giving 56000lbs or so (again using released data from PW on the F135), and the weight penalty for the ststem would probably be much lower than the lift fan, gearbox, ductwork and doors of the current F-35B system.
Get it now?
No.
The concept of having dedicated lift engines has advantages. The high dry thrust cannot be used for anything useful. To produce these amounts of thrust the whole intake system needs to be adapted. In typical cruise the engine typically operates at RPM short above idle which does not make it more efficient (engines work best at 70-90% maximum thrust).
The Harrier is not the end of all wisdom. Limited specs resulting in an useful solution. The Germans tried different designs and had mixed success.
Besides, the F-35B is supposed to be stealthy, which would be quite a challenge with a 1m fan.
2004 figures –
Quoted MTOW = 27216 kg
Empty = 12020 kg (also as 13170 kg)
Internal Fuel = 8165 kg
Payload/[pilot/consumables, etc = 7031 kg (also given as 7250 kg)
Weight increases are if I remember correctly one of the biggest challenge to make the F-35 (especially B) alive, and I look forward for the first solid numbers. Those for the F-22 were never published. That aircraft is given with ~15 tons in public sources, but closer to 20t OEW following some sources.
SchorschMaybe they announce that Russia has ordered the JSF.
That would indeed be a surprise.
Or the famous MiG-28 has its first … nah … second public appearance. 😮
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