SchorschCan this guy not be banned? every thread he enters he wrecks with insults and lies!:mad:
Use the ignore-function and enjoy a better life. I still wonder why anybody takes him serious and bothers to answer. Just ignore him, and if you really feel insulted, use the report-function.
SchorschSo basically you are saying with tanker support everything is possible. OK, why not. If you want you can do that with any other plane, but other planes offer the option to rely on less tanker support. Also, do you think the EF can fly 300nm to target and back with some low level flight in A/G configuration?
Depends on the actual load out and so far, none of this is possible anyway. Lets wait and see what the users are willing to pay for.
Yes, when carrying one tank and being topped up 300nm out of the target. The cruise to target is done at most efficient speed, 50nm ahead down to low level and dash with military thrust. After bomb release and climb back and cruise most efficient. When no burner is required the range is quite OK. When burner is used things get tricky. But no matter if Eurofighter or Rafale, when they need agility and speed they have to get rid of the tanks anyways. 300nm away from friendly tankers and on internal fuel only, bingo is quickly reached.
SchorschYou just spelled out the fundimental problem with the Typhoon.
A “swing role tactical fighter” was needed during the Cold War in Western Europe. Initial operations were be defensive air-to-air engagements. After the acquistion of air superiority, the fighters would revert to a strike role.
The Typhoon was meant to carry out the same role as the F-16. In fact, the Typhoon was more of an industrial response to the American F-16 than to any real Soviet threat. Designers desperately sought to make the Eurofighter “superior” to the cheaper American product. They couldn’t offer greater range, or more sophisticated avionics, but “supersonic maneuverability” was a viable selling point in the 1980s – before the Soviet threat melted away.
Your post is not entirely correct. Actually, it doesn’t make much sense to me.
The Typhoon offers more than an F-16, even than the newest models. Essentially more weapon carriage (and all this avonics and performance stuff). The Eurofighter can better be compared to the F-15 in terms of capability.
Did you participate in the project? How do you know that designers were “desperate”? Why doesn’t the Eurofighter have greater range? I think it has? If “supersonic maneuverability” and agility are no longer needed, why does the USAF spend so much money on the F-22? Following your statement all aircraft are wrongly defined today. Maybe the F-35 can be “to your rules”, when it shows crappy flight performance.
SchorschTheres no need for self defence there – the EF aint going far enough in that configuration. 😀
You think very big. With one external tank the EF can take-off and climb. 300nm out of the target it can top-off its fuel and go to its target. Last 60nm low-level dash, drop tank when empty. On the way back the aircraft can top off again if needed. The carriage of so many external loads like the Rafale in the picture restricts performance quite a bit. Although a higher range is possible, the possibility of encountering unfreindly aircraft and the need to “drop ’em all” will call for a refueling aircraft anyways. When loaded with so many big stores, I expect the altitude and speed at cruise power severly restricted.
To put it short: The pure amount of external fuel does not necessarily dictate the actual range. As deep strikers both aircraft lack the necessary low observability features of a JSF or an F-117.
SchorschI think wars like that are the best direct comparison of aircraft types in real combat that one can get. I am dead sure that none of the US tech fanclub would admit that F-14A can be shot down by MiG-23ML or Mirage F1E had such incidents never taken place.
I think that is right, if other factors are not screening the result. In WWII the various tank battles allow a comparison of different tanks: the Germans had very good, though expensive and sometimes unsuited to the battlefield (the American approach), the Soviets had many reasonably capable but mainly very inexpensive (“expendable” is still considered very Russian), the American had somehow flawed designs which ruled by numbers (the … Russian approach? :diablo: ).
Well, in modern air-2-air conflicts the battlefield situations are so unique that the results are not representative for the particular systems, and additionally we often don’t know/ignore some details and facts. Thus the result of such analysis is often flawed, or even worse (with premium members like star49 around) misinterpreted on purpose or due to lack of knowledge.
There are only three things that really matter in aerial combat: pilot’s skills, tactics and numbers. Everything else is rubbish.
I agree and may broaden the list (without priority):
This list is “non-linear” and one factor equal zero makes the overall result zero. Key Forum considerations cover for 90% the first and second point.
SchorschThe F-35 and F-22 will be formidable strike-fighters wiith a weaponsöoad of no more than 2 tons effective. That weaponsload is more than enough to destroy ~ 90 % of all possible targets.
Against high value and well defended targets, even a sophisticated strike-fighter is limited to a a single run only or rises manyfold the risc to be shot-down.
So practical warload seldom exceeds 2 tons in reality.
Even with dumb-bombs it rarly exceeded 3 tons of external loads last century.
Even in air-superiority missions no more than 2 AAMs were fired most of the time. In the crowded skies of a former full scale high intensity “Cold War” warfire, that may have been different, but most of the time a fighter had to disengage due Bingo-fuel, to utilise more than two true firing opportunities, when preoccupied to dogde AAMs from hostile fighters most of the time.
The number of weapon-stations looks more important, than it is in reality.
Someone who does not believe it can looks into the statistics of the last Iraqi Wars. Number of smart weapons dropped compared to the number of missions with that. The number of AAMs fired to the number of missions.
Interestingly the Russians were more aware of these facts and did equip the MiG-21 with 2 SRAAMs (basically one run), the MiG-23 with 2 MRAAMs and 2 SRAAMs (one MRAAM shot with two missiles plus one shot with SRAAM), and the MiG-29 with 6 AAMs. Especially the equipment with 4 semi-active MRAAMs on the F-4 and F-15 was very questionable.
I think the standard Eurofighter display load (4 MRAAM, 2 SRAAM) is close to reality, while I would carry another 2 SRAAMs. The increased number of MRAAMs make sense considering the fact that they are not semi-active any more.
In an air-defence mission the usage of missiles even at long ranges would basically force the attackers to drop all weapons, so inflicting a soft kill on the mission.
SchorschWhat I dont like here is the lack of heavy stations. Only 3 for the EF. That makes use of CFTs much more attractive.
I think to make a truly capable strike fighter it requires some redesign. Although we have some impressive test pictures, not much is known about landing gear capability and other operational considerations. Such things were changed during the F-15’s development.
SchorschGirls,
you are forgetting the world of politics when you argue the PAK-FA as a no show. Not only does Russia have the knowhow to make a F-22-class fighter.
They allso know there are many willing takers in the world market, nations that see an American superiority in arms as a threat.
In a way you can say that George Bush is the PAK-FA’s best marketer.
Do you mean the same nations that buy Su-27 and MiG-29 by the hundreds? Err, how many Su-27 have been sold to countries except China (which are willing to make their own aircraft) in the last ten years? How many F-15/16? When Russia is willing to spend billions to provide Venezuela with 24 5th generation fighters (if they can afford it), yeah, I would say we have another dead end.
SchorschSwerve,
we Europeans have to stick to the crap like A380, which is comparable to a Il-76 mounted on a An-124, with a lifetime 10 times that of an An-124 and a fuel per carried payload of An-124 minus Il-76. Oh, and we sold it 3 times more than the An-124.
The Sukhoi SSJ (by the way with Engine technology, flight control technology and other systems coming from US or Western Europe) is surely hell of an aircraft, so much new technology, one can’t stand it. It is almost as advanced as an A320, which is only 20 years old. Great achievement. And it has so many orders.
SchorschThere is no single technology in the F-22 that the russians do not master, or are able to master when the apropriate funding is allocated.
Same applies for France or Eurofighter-nations, if the funding is available. But it will be expensive. Russia has no experience with Stealth fighters, and the expense of making a “VLO-aircraft” is questionable if the purpose is purely defensive.
My point: The title of the “world’s best fighter” has allways been time limited, the Raptor holds it today, but rest asured it will be contested.
Actually, I would still rate the F-22 in a state of operational evaluation.
The title is also highly academic: Important is to win the war. In 1945 the Me-262 was the “best fighter”, but what was the gain?
The “best fighter” is that, which allows a nation/coallition to win a conflict under minimum expense. Under these conditions the F-22 will have to prove its expense sometime. Maybe successful, maybe not. Nobody knows.
SchorschOne kg of fuel at 40000 feet and best range-speed gives 4 times the range compared to low level conditions. Related to air-pressure the available dry thrust dropped to 25% and the fuel demand the same way.
I think the installed thrust (dry) is more in the vicinity of 40% when flying at M0.9 and above. A/B thrust is about 50-60% of dry uninstalled at these conditions (M.9-1.2, Alt = 36kft). Interested to read your opinion about that.
SchorschYes, but I havent heard anything new related to integration of larger fuel tanks or CFTs. Also, CFTs are not really optimal for fighter ops.
Eurofighter is still primarily a fighter. Low internal fuel (OK, it is not low, it is normal) is mandatory to have low weight in a2a combat. CFT make sense when the Eurofighter emerges into a strike aircraft, which will happen when nations like Germany or Spain need to replace their strike aircraft.
Although the Eurofighter cannot match the Tornado’s low strike ability, it can evolve into a strike aircraft superior to the Tornado. Pretty much like the Strike Eagle.
SchorschI think in the USA there is a tendency (like in many other Western countries) to attack large military procurement programs. Actually, these attacks do have some reason as the military procurement process is quite flawed. The military strategy of claiming its systems as the biggest greatest ever opens a door for scepticism. Finding reasonable technical and/or conceptional criticism is quite difficult.
In Germany the Eurofighter-program was often criticised, but it was always pretty lame. Although there are some quite good reason to criticise this program.
When it comes to aviation, media is not scoring well.
SchorschIt is pretty clear that with AESA radars – with their great range, improvements in resolution, and frequency shuffling that cuts down on their detectability – the hype has reached the point where it is something of a miracle for the next generation of fighters. It almost seems like non-AESA equipped fighters have been written off as obsolete now, well as far as the attitudes around here.
“Around here” is a good indicator that it needn’t to be in real life. Think of the invention of the first BVR-radars. Did that make aircraft without obsolete?
I think better than putting more expensive stuff in expendable fighters, it is better to use various airborne and land-bound sensors and provide information to the expandable fighter. This fighter can later – when considered useful – be replaced by UAVs.
Such a system is like an operational Cobra maneuver, an AWG-9 on a line fighter or post-stall control devices: the additional capability does not justify the additional expense.
I would rather reduce the size and cost of the individual aircraft and do the BVR-stuff via datalink.
SchorschPerhaps this would help
We should keep in mind that all combat experience of stealthy aircraft was collected against 1970s AD tech. So, coupling modern (and powerful) radars with better noise reduction and efficient signal processing, maybe it is possible to at least find a Very Low Observable aircraft. I think actually that these techniques would help against all stealth aircraft. They are, after all, not undetectable. The tactical advantage of being less visible on the battlefield still remains.
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