SchorschWhat is 4550 $ per head per year to pay from that:
… the personal up to the generals including health-care and pensions. Run all the hardware of the armed forces, pay the fuel, pay the ammunition, pay the repairs, keep the facilities. Deal with the atomar-weapons, pay the development of new items like the JF-17 a.s.o., buy replacements for the army, navy, airforce, strategic forces and all the other things too. The fuel-bill alone will eat-up a lot of money.
And the bill for keeping the head of state in power. The military is the backbone of power in most non-democratic (or superficially democratic) systems. Cutting its share endangers the power of the government. How difficult it is to overcome this problem can be seen in Turkey, which made progress in this issue.
Even in the USA the nuclear program was partly under civil control. How the bill was passed to the tax payer (via military or other bugdets) is beyond my knowledge.
Even Greece cheated on military spending.
SchorschSo you think MiG-23 can’t?
What is the load it can carry? The F-5E had 5 wet stores, could carry quite a high load for its weight.
The F-5 series would have required GCI anyway, given the lack of longer ranged radar.
I think hardly any aircraft available to smaller air forces in the 70s could do ground-independent intercepts. I would be too expensive anyways (constant patrols). The F-5E was really the maximum a country could usefully operate, many went rather for A-4s, some used Mirage III.
Neither USA nor Soviet Union built aircraft for their less spendy allies. The USAF rejected the F-5 in any version, the A-4 was phased out in the beginning of the 70ies.
I don’t think the F-5E can stop MiG-27s or MiG-23BNs in a low altitude attack mode.
I would think most 1960/70s aircraft would have severe problems with that. Guess why Germany operated so many Starfighters.
SchorschI call it BS here. 1st, “western standards” had any meaning only in selected west countries. Socialist block (which btw exceed West in world economical share) had own standards, other 3rd world countries – own. And well, you know, Boing 737 was only certiefied like 15 years ago, and before that it flew 15 years uncertiefied, due to very bad and dungerous flaws…
I read from the few words on the web that even the Russians didn’t really like the idea of living cargo in the Tu-144, either.
Again – BS. Even planned economic still follow common economical rules. And profit/revenue – one of basic rules. If you dont understand how planned economic work – then please keep silence.
The Tu-144 was so far away from economy that it was only logical to scrap it. At least a good technology program for Tupolev. The oil crisis had an effect on the Soviet Union, too. It earned a good portion of its Western currency by oil exports.
“Planned Economy” was exploited 40 years in a part of my home country. People say it worked better in Germany than in Russia. Still, it left a country behind that often more resembled a huge scrapyard.
SchorschThere is more to fuel efficiency than bypass ratio. Show me where you obtained your sfc numbers.
But less than one might think. The F100, especially in its later versions, already was a pretty good engine. For military engines it is more the question of the design point. A normal military engine will have lowest SFC at 80-90% power. SFC rises with Mach number at falls a bit with altitude.
SchorschNobody said F-5’s were MiG-23’s main threat, in fact nobody even said anything remotely to that fact.
Second, Vietnam inherited some F-5A’s, F-5B’s, and just under a dozen converted F-5A’s that were given temporary F-5C designations. The difference from the A- to C- model was an inflight refuelling probe, armor on the underside, a targeting sight for help in aiming freefall bombs, and the ability to drop external fuel tanks. The F-5E missed the Vietnam war, not entering service until it was too late.
edit: In F-5 Tigers Over Vietnam by Anthony J. Tambini, he said that F-5E’s were actually being used in Vietnam, 27 captured, and nine later used for the defense of the capital city of Hanoi because they were the most sophisticated aircraft they could muster.
For a third world cuntry the F-5 offered much more than the MiG-21 or MiG-23 due to its ability to be used in air2ground combat, too.
SchorschWhen compared to a similar fighter in burner.
The optimum range/loiter capability is still around Mach 0,8 related to drag.
After that it did rise and did reach its top in the transonic-range before lowering again. The F-22 is the first fighter to supercruise outside the transsonic range (Mach 0,85-1,3) and to make use from that drop.
But the difference is still the power-setting related to that. Every kN demanded for doing so have to be fed by fuel. Even, when the F119 may have its best sfc near full military, the difference in sfc of a Tf will not eat up the gains from lower powersettings in the subsonic range.
Supercruise hs its own setbacks as you say: the engine will have higher SFC at high subsonic Mach numbers. Carrying around lots of excess thrust is not of advantage in every flight regime for range.
SchorschThird the MiG-23 did fight the F-5E in air combat over the Persian Gulf and even according to western sources it bagged F-5Es, in fact many Iraqi aces did shot down F-5Es flying MiG-23s.
The F-5s were purchased due to simplicity and cost. Actually, had nations like Iraq and Syria purchased F-5E instead of MiG-23MS/MF, I guess they had more success. BVR weapons are a waste of money for third world air forces, just give them something less crappy than an early AA-13 Atoll.
SchorschTo the USSR?
Do we wanna get in bean-counting here?
To the Russkis their certifications might be the decisive issue. That’s why we need to certify each Airbus type with some special Russian rules (if it flies in Russia). Still, here (= the West) western rules apply, which have proven to be the world standard (and accepted as those). Hence: if it wasn’t certified to western standards, I don’t call it certified. That’s it. GarryB and the other whiners will cry out, but I’ll give a $%+# about it.
That was partly due to a lack of serious Aeroflot backing of the aircraft. Tupolev flight crews piloted the two airframes used for the passenger route from Moscow to Alma-Ata, even. Aeroflot’s chief involvement was to sell the tickets and keep the cash generated. Mail flights were begun in 1975 (making it the first SST to earn revenue) as a form of route-proving and because the airworthiness decree had not been handed down by the Council of Ministers until 1977.
“Revenue” is a fun word in a planned economy. The Tu-144 was a huge cash-burn program, exceeded the Concorde by far. The Tu-144 transported the stunning number of 3300 passengers in 55 passenger flights in their entire career. The A380 had more passenger flights, even before certification. The whole program was a disaster and the cash wasn’t so loose in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, so T-100 and Tu-144 went to the scrapyard.
In the end there is a clear line from Tu-22 over Tu-144 to Tu-160, with the T-4 as little (but costly) exercise.
“Complied with the standards” and “the FAA officially accredited the aircraft” are in fact two different concepts.
And, are there any statements from FAA concerning the Tu-144?
SchorschThe F-5 was too limited to fight the MiG-23M since the R-23s and its accelaration was enough to allow the MiG-23M stay away of any close combat action.
Actually, the USAF had to admit that with lots of aircraft in the air the kill-loss ratio of the F-5 against BVR-missile equipped fighters (= F-4, F-15) came close to unity. In one exercise 4 F-15 were virtually shot down by 4 F-5, which were also all shot down. In the 1970s the F-5E offered best bang for buck.
SchorschWhere did I say Western? It did receive a Soviet certificate of airworthiness prior to beginning passenger flights on Nov 1, 1977. That being said, however, I do recall reading somewhere that the jet was the first Soviet airliner to comply with Western airworthiness standards. That I’ll have to dig up.
Because Western certification is what matters. The Tu-144 made less than 100 passenger flight before being withdrawn from service. Most of the time it just flew mail, if it flew at all. The Tu-144 was ages from maturity. If you claim it gained western certification you better dig out your source. Anyways, the only time it flew in the west after 1973 was as NASA testbed in the late 90ies. Most Russian aircraft had no Western type certificate at the end of the 80ies.
SchorschSo the design itself was sound, but the AM-3 engines were the biggest problem?
Something else I’m also wondering about is just what the actual maximum payload for this thing was? I mean it was a big plane, yet you generally see that about 9,000-kg was the most it could haul.
Could it really haul more, but 9,000-kg was the standard loadout?
Payload was no consideration because the payload was thermonuclear. That was so well agreed that nobody even asked for anything else.
The M-4 had other shortcomings, but the engine was the most important. That excluded it from real military use.
SchorschA small comparison of engine basic data. Various sources.
SFC1: SFC at max power, static, sea level (normally lowest SFC of an engine)
SFC2: SFC at Mach 0.8 and 35000ft. Estimation.
[ATTACH]158787[/ATTACH]
The J-57 was more efficient than the jet used in the M-4. Although a difference of 10 or 15% doesn’t look huge, it is the direct savings. Second order effects as increased range with similar weight will result in overally better performance. The early B-52s did not have the transcontinental range, either. The A was more about 10000km, while this went up to 12000km on the D (better engines, more MTOW). The G made a huge jump with even better engines and lower weight and drastically increased fuel capacity (~14000km range I think), and finally the H with TF-33 had in excess of 16000km. A B-52 with light (=nuclear) payload may achieve a fuel fraction of close to 60%.
Explains why even the B-52 could hardly operate without flight refueling.
Schorsch99.999% of these kinds of threads are.
Ha, got ya!
The Modern Military aviation forum contains 14,916 threads as today November 21st 2007 11:24h CET. If we assume at least one thread not pointless we can have maximum pointless percentage of 99.9933% pointless threads. Hence, you are proven wrong!
SchorschSo was the Tu-144 😀
I doubt that the Tupolev was certified by Western certification requirements. Can you show me any prove?
SchorschIt was the engines that were redlined and they were redlined at mach 2.83.
The MiG-25 had problems with lateral stability. Not that it fell apart, but the Mach 3 capability wasn’t safe enough to allow it to line pilots. It remained a back-up emergency capability. One can think whatever one likes to think about it, but fact is that the MiG-25 was not intended as Mach 3 cruise aircraft but as M2-2.5 cruise aircraft with dash capability.
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