Willie Walsh was taking about South Africa on the news today, as well as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong and Singapore as being A380 routes. Although I suspect he was just running through a list of so called ‘A380 compliant’ airports… ?

I guess when they take delivery most B747-400 airports will be A380 compliant. The steps towards compliance are normally not very expansive, primarily focussed on the taxiways. The jet got its 45m-runway clearance, although 60m is surely beneficial.
The A380 gives BA (or any other) room for growth without applying for new slots. I guess they will use smaller aircraft for more frequency for business travelers and shuffle the majority of leisure travellers (who are not so picky in departure/arrival times) on the A380. Look at Singapore with ~70 First/Business (while SA business is actually more like first) and rest economy. On a B787-8 you can have also 70 first/business, and then just have 180 instead of 399 economy seats. On a race-track like London-NYC, I guess they can fill one or two A380 a day and have another two B787 in between.

HAHAHA

Are you now trying to argue the F-18 (any variant) has greater range than the F-14?

What next? The sun is not actually hot? :rolleyes:

No I claim that you either lack the skills or the will to give counter arguments. My data is approved flight manual content. So now, as being close the 40+ year senior engineer in flight performance, how can an aircraft have less fuel and still fly further?
What are your sources for range? If you are so well informed, why don’t post some infos like combat radius in configuration xy?
You are mixing “huge” and “range”. The Navy has actually feeded so much misinformation to the public about the F-14 that people have started to believe it, including the absolute best marketing trick ever, let it fly in a movie and people believe it is actually agile (with limit g-load lower than that of the Phantom).

I’m curious why the USAF doesn’t acquire the Growler? Surely it would come in useful accompanying strike packages and enhancing the efficiency of legacy and even stealth aircraft.:confused:

Reasons:
– they have stealth, at least they think so
– they have B-52 and B-1 for that job
– they issue little ECM pods
– they strike with UAV/Stealth/AGM something
– they will never ever buy a Navy aircraft!

Check the pictures, the cockpit is virtually empty. Still a long way to go. You can see Boeing was advising! 😀
(“It isn’t finished? Roll it out anyways!”)
The cabin pictures are most likely mock-up, haven’t seen a test aircraft have its maiden flight with installed first class.

Agree. The A380 is destined for Heathrow. I think it is also a necessity to compete against other strong major airlines. Big win for Airbus indeed, lets see if it becomes a critical loss for the B747-8. Still so many B747-400 to replace.

The replacement of the B767 with B787 is just logical, and given the long time before first flight and still unknown schedule of the A350, a conservative decision. I still think that the A350 may play a part in future fleet decisions, but until then some water needs to run down the Thames.

APPROACH subsonic levels. Your right, overall Cd will always be 20% or so above subsonic drag coefficient.

For the F-14 we are talking about at least 50%, and that is clean.

There are comments on the ‘net that M2.5 was achieved in the test program, 2.2ish is the service limit.

Did your test pilot comment on the according acceleration times, fuel needed and the tactical sense? Why did the next generation not retain that capability?

Anyway – what on earth am I arguing that little tidbit for – are you seriously trying to say the bug has better energy conservation than a tomcat? :confused:

When the Tomcat is in delta config, it will lose energy quite quickly. The F-18 has lower wing loading.

I wonder why NASA wasted all that time band-aiding the A-D then the E-F versions then.

Maybe because they did it for the F-14 already and felt responsible again.

Why do you assume the modifications would add weight?

They always do. See for example:
F-15
F-16
F-18
Su-27
Please show me one aircraft that increased capability and lost weight?

Yeap – they never replaced the capabilities of the A-6 or A-7… the original hornet was a joke in the role. Now they lose even more range with the F-14 going.

But the Navy was forced to buy it because the F-14 was so horribly expensive and had so many shortcomings.

I think the F-18 program (all variants) is a joke, and the amount of (major) airframe fixes throughout the runs would bear that out. Particularly given that the resulting aircraft:

Too much gold-plating. What for did they need Sparrow on the F-18A?

Doesn’t have much range (when compared to predecessors).
Doesn’t have good energy conservation (when compared to the competition).
Doesn’t have a good speed envelope (when compared to anything).

Congress actually obliged the Navy to buy the LWF winner. They didn’t. Now they have to stick with it. At least they got it right and didn’t spill more money in the F-14.

The source is undergrad lecture notes – written by a man that has been in the business for 40+ years.

The drag coefficient drops back down to approach subsonic levels above Mach 1.2/1.3, so while the assumptions made are not valid from around M0.9 to 1.3, they are plausible after.

No, it never will go down so much. Ask you 40+ year experienced teacher. Or take a look at a real life drag polar for real life aircraft.

With a source that indicates a top speed of Mach 2… whereas its well documented the F-14 is capable of Mach 2.2.

In flight test things are allowed that are not allowed to pilots in service. The latter counts, the previous is the stuff nerds talk about on the internet.

2 different loadout-configurations for sidewinders? [1A and 1B2?]

The wing root pylon has two possible attachment locations for Sidewinder.

No, I included the text in the bracket for a reason – that was part of the quote. Here is the exact quote for clarity:
Tougas, John “Toonces” “F/A-18 vs. F-16”. Flight Journal. Jun 2003. [he’s a navy test pilot so will have flown the F-14]

So, you conclude from the fact that he is Navy test pilot that he must have flown an F-14, further on that while making his sloppy comment including his flight experience on the F-14, and thus making a statement about F-18 versus F-14 without actually saying so? You are kidding me.
Your Flight Journal is obscuring your sense for reality.

Q: Where is the bending moment greatest on a wing (in flight)?
A: The wing root. The minor flexing of the hornets wing has little to do with the g limits of the aircraft.

The overall airframe G-limit will be implemented in the design of each component. Means: you will determine a maximum from a single component that is most critical and then design all other components accordingly if they are also defined by this criteria (maximum G). The upward flexibility of the Hornet has the advantage of changing the lift distribution more inwards, thus reducing bending loads on the root.

Anyways the tomcat is at a double disadvantage, its older than the F-18s, and it uses a moving structure, which is inherently weaker. Indeed, the Tomcat had known structural weaknesses at the wing glove, which Grumman have said would have been addressed in a F-14 “E”.

Which would cost another ton of weight, so finally closing in to 20 tons OEW and going into competition with the MiG-31 for the heaviest fighter on earth. Your upgraded Tomcat, gold-plated with fat radar and a2g avionics, wouldn’t save a single lb of OEW, it just would gain. If then someone asks to increase the max G to an acceptable level (let’s say 7.5 or so), there goes any weight-saving. The F-14 is probably the best you can get if you throw contradicting parameters into a fat bowl and mix them. It still isn’t very good.

You saying that composites have not lowered weight in aircraft?

Every kilo saved on the fuselage reduces the loading on the wing by X amount at X ‘g’…

I say that for highly stressed materials and components (like the wingbox) composites will not save very much if they replace titanium (normally composite replaces either alloys or steel).

An interceptor/bomb truck is what the navy (and to an extent the USAF) needs to face its modern enemies.

So I guess that is the reason they bought an aircraft with limited top speed and high flexibility on external stores.

Someone needs bombs on the ground and its time critical – you need aircraft on station with endurance – the F-14 outlasts the F-18. It showed both legacy & super hornets the way in Afghanistan.

You should ask your 40+ year old teacher about a practical example in flight performance for fighters. He will show you that for either aircraft loiter time won’t differ much. If actually Afghanistan is the mission that really bothers the Navy, I would propose to start production of the A-6 again, which actually weights 7 ton less than the F-14D and still carries more bombs a longer distance. Must have been a moment of flawed concluding when they decided their next conventional bomber should go supersonic. Even the A-7 would perform better than an F-14, and that with fraction of the cost.

I think I have a very different view on what the Navy needs from you – I get the impression you want a dogfighter, an F-16 mk2 of sorts.

First, as I wrote, I give a wet piece of bovine merde on what the Navy flies or not, how often it crashes or not and how much it costs. As I don’t put posters with combat aircraft in my living room I don’t even care for the looks.
What I care for is some kind of sober analysis when it comes to aircraft, and not comparing apples and oranges. If you do so, came along with facts and not the experience of your teacher.

First plane delivered to the Navy.

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2007/q3/070925c1_pr.html

So the wing fences are back!

They obviously fought hard to prevent them on the normal SuperHornet, with some considerable changes in the slat/flaperon schedule. Additionally, the wing folding was changed as the gap there induced a local stall. Would be interesting to know why the wing fence is now back. Maybe the higher weight let less room for changes.