SchorschWhy are some folks here reacting with such dismissive attitudes at the thought of the Soviets at least taking a close look at Iranian F-14s? I have no idea if they did or not, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me. America would have done the same thing (indeed, we have done so on several occasions). Why do some of you think it’s such an outrageous idea?
I don’t think it is an outrageous idea. Actually the Russian had an easier task in obtaining basic informations about American aircraft, on the other hand users of Russian ACs were more prone to defections of pilots. The performance data is helpful but will not decide anything. With some knowledge of aircraft and engine performance, the Russians knew quite well where American fighters stood. With introduction of the F-14 electronics became more and more important, whose performance was better guarded and less easy to identify. The F-14 never exactly stunned the world by shear flight performance, but by integration of a powerful weapon platform into a quite maneuverable (1975 standards) carrier-capable aircraft.
SchorschHats down, I`ve seen more than forty manuals of soviet swing-wing Mig-23, but never came across that one you got…..you must have a good friend in the Moscow Kremlin.:D
To get a US manual you have to pay for it, then you get also the “classified” performance appendix of the aircraft. Although the performance appendix doesn`t offer the same level of information as the russian “Practical aerodynamics of…”. To my knowledge, it is far less.
You are absolutely right. The “Practical Aerodynamics of …” are very detailed, especially in lift and drag characteristics, and also have considerable information about the inlet. They still lack detailed information about the installed thrust, so that performance calculation remains guesswork to some extend.
The American manuals, of which I bought some as copy (only aircraft manuals for out-of-service aircraft are distributed outside US), have full performance appendix (not all, but I only purchased those that have). The information in their is less helpful for a more scientific evalualtion. The hundreds of charts containing fuel flow, acceleration, tuen performance and range are the result of performance evaluation using the basic aerodynamic data (and flight tests to confirm).
(all aero-data I have, I downloaded for free from public sources, including MiG-23 and -29 aero manuals).
What engine is described there and for instance what engine thrust gain is achieved due to the ram-effect at altitude e.g. 5km and speed 1.0Mach??? thanks.
The described engine is the TF-30P-412A. I attached a graph showing afterburner thrust over Mach number for three altitudes, reference is the thrust at altitude1, static. Please note that it is installed thrust, so inlet characteristics are included (it differs significantly from stated uninstalled thrust, especially in dry thrust). The manual gives the thrust in kg (the Russians fortunately use SI-units). SFC is also given both wet and dry, with both times very seriously looking numbers.
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SchorschTO 1F-14A-1, Flight Manual, F-14A
There are two parts, unclassified and classified. The unclassified part has general information about how the airplane’s systems work and contains the emergency procedures checklists. The classified part has all the performance and weapons information.
I have the complete F-18A/C manual, but it does not contain any aerodynamics figure, just hundreds of tables with performance data. I can’t see any point in publishing aerodynamic derivatives in a flight manual. It is stuff a pilot or a maintenance guy doesn’t need.
SchorschThe classified addendum contains such information. Have you seen the classified addendum to a -1?
What exactly is a “-1”?
SchorschSuch information is commonly found in the pilot’s flight manual. It isn’t hard to conclude that Iran would provide a copy of the -1 to the Soviets.
Haven’t seen any information on aircraft drag or the installed engine thrust scheduled over MAch number, although I possess several manuals of US build aircraft with full performance manual, including newer ones.
SchorschI think most Mirage exports were to countries where Draken wasn’t on offer, because of Swedish export restrictions, but there were a few where it could have been sold, e.g. Australia. The biggest lost opportunity was the big German purchase of F-104s. Imagine the Luftwaffe replacing its Drakens with Viggens, instead of buying F-104s then F-4s . . . . .
The Olympus engine was considered for the Viggen, but dropped. A pity.
Great topic (Reading once again). Just for the last part of your post (I hope to answer to the original question later if I can justify it): Draken and Viggen would have been viable solutions for the Luftwaffe, but focus was on delivery of nuclear weapons and the Starfighter was OK for that. Still, both aircraft would have performed equally well in the arsenal.
SchorschWhat about Concorde? used the Afterburners to break Mach 1 then ran dry to Mach 2 + a bit.
Sentence correct instead of last digit: It didn’t reach Mach2 dry (it hardly reached it with A/B), but the Concorde was as far as I know able to supercruise.
If you take away the necessity to break the barrier on dry thrust, but just require an aircraft to maintain a supersonic speed level with dry thrust, some aircraft become supercruisy (in some altitudes, conditions, normally clean).
SchorschJust to add my two pence. Non questioned, that MiG-17F with a good pilot was able to engage the above mentioned fighters at low level. The Super Etendard had even higher performances and the pilots of that honed their skills against NATO-fighters of different performances. A F-16-diver with limitided knowledge about French Super Etendard fliers suffered more than once a nasty surprise from that.
And we should add for clearity that MiG-17 has scored (in Vietnam) normally in cleary favorable situations, often with tactical surprise against fighterbombers on the edge of their range.
If a Harrier would engage a target on the Argentinian coast and be surprised by Etendards, clearly bad clouds are rising for the Harriers.
SchorschLike most contemporary transonic fighters the SuperEtendard was able to exceed sonic barrier, but not in level flight under own power.
As a fighter against 1970s high performance fighters (Phantom, MiG-21/23, Mirage), I would rate it inferior at all altitudes and speeds except for the low speed regime. But like the A-4 it may be a tricky opponent for dogfighting in low speed/low level environment. Remember: The Navy used A-4 as aggressor aircraft.
But at such engagements the success depends largely on pilot skills, and the Navy aggressors had reportedly some of the best. Average line pilots in a SuperEtendard will I guess not even dare to enter an air engagement.
SchorschThe key feature of “Supercruise” is NOT maintaining, or even reaching supersonic speeds in level flight without using an afterburner.
The key part is CRUISE… as in “engine at cruise setting, NOT full non-afterburning setting.
Cruise setting is normally less than 80% of max non-AB thrust, and that is where you need to look to see if an aircraft can “Supercruise”!
I like to disagree. “Cruise” can be translated into “maintained”, it is no dash. Different to commercial engines military engines can be operated at maximum dry thrust for prolonged times. And that is just where SC ends for some designs: they achieve SC with a special engine setting unsuitable for operational use.
I would bet some Euros that most designs with TW-ratio close to unity (combat weight, static thrust) can supercruise under some boundary conditions, especially special engine setting. Another factor may be the level of static stability.
SchorschHow would an inlet ramp help at low supersonic speeds?
Even the F16 uses what is basically a pitot intake.
The Lightning can supercruise (Mn 1.1 without reheat) and that is a fairly old design.
The inlet can cause some loss even at Mach1 when it is not designed for low supersonic speeds. Most 1960s designs are more optimised for higher Mach numbers as the region 0.9-1.2 is not very desirable.
I don’t believe that engineers for this design had supercruise in mind.
“Supercruise” is only really supercruise, when this ability stretches into a useful flight envelope. That is the weak-point on most supercruise-claims.
The ability to supercruise clean is a quite superfluent except maybe for a recon-aircraft.
SchorschThe U.S. has more troops in Afghanistan than all the others combined. Apart from the U.S forces the only ones that seem to be involved in combat are the Brits, Dutch and Canadians. What do the others do? Will the others like the Germans engage once the A400 is in service?
If you don’t have a clue on politics, why don’t you take your ass out of such discussions? Read the newspaper (have that in Canada?) and check out what’s written there.
If they would shot in the North and smoke pot in the south, who would be the ******?
And actually: possible it has a reason that things are quite in Northern A., because we haven’t bombed them yet into the hands of the enemy.
SchorschThe twin-engine Flipper?
I doubt it.
Ass too fat.
Not good for area ruling.
Actually, I see first class area ruling. And I think it is possible that it went supersonic without afterburner. Some indications that might help to find that out:
– TW-ratio (static)
– bypass ratio
– inlet ramp construction
– drag
The difficulty of finding it out grows downwards, but I guess if the first is close to unity and bypass is zero, we could have a winner. Make the aircraft clean, have a cold day and tell the pilot to be triggerhappy with the throttle and it might suffice.
Supercruise is no Wunder. But I think (though I can’t prove it), that transonic drag has been reduced since first generation Mach 2 jets.
SchorschHope it makes them happy!
For that money you’d get one hell of a yacht.Btw, Cunard’s QM2 costed about as much as those two glitzy A380. Coming at a 150.000 tonnes against 550t for one A380CJ.
But it still can’t fly …
SchorschCarryall
Or more sticking to the facts:
CarryMost
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