SchorschA380 in LH markings
MiG-29 OVT
Who said that the 380 will have LH-markings?
SchorschThe Buccaneer had inferior avionics compared to the A-6 and less lifting capability, on the other hand it was faster and better in low-level flight. The A-6 would better be titled “B-6”. Main advantage of that design is its sacrifice of supersonic speeds, making the design easier and better suited. The Tornado mostly lacks on his excessive external storages, without (or with limited amount of) it is faster and can ride smoother than the Buccaneer.
Which fighter exactly is slower at those altitudes? A Phantom can go M1.2 in low-level, surely no pleasure. A fighter would always come from above and not pursue the attacker same level. Considering the missions in 1991 Gilf War a Buccaneer with upgraded avionics would have performed similar to the Tornado most of the time.
True, but the Harrier could do things no land based fighter could do. In exercises it has beaten far better material than Argentina managed to throw at it.
What exactly? Land vertically? Of course, that was its rationale. However, the Argis did not exactly throw aircraft against the Harrier, they threw aircraft against the British fleet and did not care about the Harriers.
SchorschOperation Granby and many Red Flags say otherwise
I wanted to be positive. Bucaneer was not proven in combat. The marking during Gulf War doesn’t count in my eyes. But it is as I said a reasonable design a little bit like the A-6 or A-7, which never really amazed the aircraft community.
No arguments there – how much did it cost us in the long run?
A conventional carrier is at minimum 45000 to 55000 tons. Invincible is half the size. Costs rise with weight, its nomrally a pretty linear function.
Very. But think how much less capable Britain’s attack force would have been if Argentina had decided to invade two years later, after we had sold Invincible to Australia and scrapped Hermes? One of the few saving graces of this unfortunate, bloody little struggle was to prove beyond all doubt that the SHAR was far more capable than everyone (except possibly Sharkey Ward) could have imagined, and that ‘Harrier Carriers’ were a lot better than nothing.
The Harrier performed much better than expected. However, it was not designed for that mission. Sometimes aircraft can perform roles they were never intended to, normally due to lack of other capable aircraft. But never can you get rid of the inherent weaknesses.
The lack of any land-based aircraft made the Harriers the best around. The Argie’s were not able to deliver any consistent air power.
SchorschHammer
What can the Gripen do that the current F-16s in inventory can’t? Nothing.Apart from accurately simulating an unstable, agile 4th generation fighter? Apart from exactly simulating a modern Net Centric threat aircraft? Apart from providing rapidly deployable air power requiring minimal support (half a dozen conscript groundcrew), capable of operating from road strips, able to be turned around in half the time that an F-16 takes, and with an hourly operating cost of just £8,000…….
For a country like USA, who afford the luxury of Dissimmilar Air Combat Training, an F-16 is much cheaper. The F-16 is 4th generation unstable aircraft, too, actually Lockheed Martin helped SAAB with the control software. With some additional chip tuning the F-16 can do everything you need. There is a difference between optimising something purely for dogfight or having a multi-role service aircraft. (This can be seen from the fact that some DACT F-16 were scapped after barely half of their life-time due to structural fatigue).
SchorschI suspect if Argentina had the slightest idea GB was prepared to defend the Falklands at all they would have been deterred, but there you are.
Carrier based Buccaneers could have paid for themselves many times over since 1978 in my view in the Falklands, both Gulf Wars, Kosovo… With decent upgrades they could still be considered one of the best strike aircraft around. But then I’m biased (see my forum name and avatar for clues…)
Any reason you can’t mix CTOL and STOVL operations on the same carrier?
You may be biased, but so are many and the Bucaneer has never had the chance to earn a good reputation, although it is a reasonable strike aircraft, especially no dumb general wanted it to be supersonic, “agile” or look like a fighter. the Bucaneer can sometimes perform than a Tornado, which if loaded has a lift/drag like an IKEA cubboard.
However, the decision to go for “flat deck” cruisers were surely of monetary nature.
Argentinia chose like many other “rogue states” a strategy of little expansion, mainly as a phychologic strategy to the inside. The British did not accept the loss of this worthless piece of junk, but the Americans did not support the British. The Americans however had a close look at the situation, any escalation by any side would have triggered a rather political spanking. UK was backed by the rest of Europe.
In my eyes due to the inability of the RN to deploy a really capable attack force and the even bigger inability of Argentinia to defend against this force (which operated 8000 miles of thei coast), the war was more bloody than one would expect. Sad for the loss of life. 🙁
SchorschThere are significant costs and delays associated with integrating air-to-ground weapons with a very unstable canard delta aircraft. I doubt whether local upgrades of the obsolete A/B Gripens would be cost effective or worthwhile.
I generally agree withy ‘swerve’ (that man knows some latin), but it is right that a modification of a control-configured vehicle is tricky. If the Swedish protect their technology, they will not deliver any source codes and any changes in software are nearly impossible (there is a country in Europe, not really inside but on the edge, many people know it, lots of people writing here even live in it, that put its participation in a major defence project on risk if this source code is not available).
Hence the Swedish support is always needed if anything is upgraded. On the other hand: the Mirage 2000 is unstable, too. So what?
SchorschNo, the “mister book” never said “only TTW ratio over one is needed!” Nor did have I ever inturperated it so. Try to understand that. It’s just one factor. And again the “mister book” never said anyhting about ski-jumping in general, nor have I ever inturpered it so. Might try to understand that too…
It talked about modern jets and Kuznetsov, so no need to bring any japanese WWII flyings to here.
And what comes me sticking in one sentence, I haven’t stick just to it to build my obinion…the proplem is that most of you seem to ignore it completely.
And I (beside others) am trying to throw in some bits of aviation engineering and the basics of field performance calculation. No need to be angry.
I think we have now a basic understand, that TWR<1 is possible for taking off from the Kuznetsov. However, that doesn’t justify the statement “TWR smaller than 1 is sufficient to take-off from K.”
It is bound to conditions. As always in aviation.
SchorschI think Slovakia has made a rather bad move upgrading the Fulcrums to some hypothetical NATO standard. With N019E they are still worth a pot of puke, we could have JAS39A/B for bargain.
Especially if considering the cold war atmosphere in the avionic compartment between NATO standards, western avionics (if used) and eastern equipment. “The black boxes don’t talk to each other!”
Many potential customers. The problem is turning posse into esse.
Even latin is in the inventory, I am impressed. 😀
SchorschYou forgot the thing the Argentina’s bombs most where duds. The fusing was not adapted to low delivery techniques used.
I did not forget it, it is just not the topic. The question which was raised here is if the Harriers had a hard time fighting the Argies or if it was a turkey shoot. the truth is somewhere in the middle. But sure is that the SHAR were mostly limited by their short range, long flight towards CAP zone (with the option to land close to it in case of fuel shortage), the limited radar and short range missiles. The quality of the enemy fighters was not a problem, the Mirage was faster but using its supersonic ability meant effectively to lose any chance to get back to base.
In the end the Harriers failed to defend the fleet better due to the inadequacy of the defence concept and the avilable technology (AEW, MRAAM, range). This was corrected by adding AEW-capability and MRAAM-capability to the Invicible class carriers, which still left the fleet with a rather limited self-defence capability. However, against a likewhise constrained contemporary it would be sufficient.
SchorschAside the english grammar, Yeas i do belive that the writters of that book knew what they were talking and if not, i’m sure that they consulted someone who knew. You see publications like the Conways all the world fighting ships are not wriiten by some guys like us in military forums, they don’t twist things to their own opinions :p
I think twisting single pieces of the wording will bring you as far as the people who take whatever religious document (bible, koran, etc) by the word.
Any aircraft can take of from a aircraft carrier without a catapult. It is a question of these factors:
– wing area
– thrust-weight ratio
– minimum unstick speed
– weight
additionally external factors like
– wind over deck
– temperature
– flight deck height over sea level
and “meta-factors” like
– pilot skill
– safety margin
The statement by “Mr. Book” that only ‘TWR>1’-aircraft can do that is safe to say considering the few fighters existing with this TWR. But it doesn’t say that these fighters need to have a TWR>1 when taking off, the TWR beyond unity is achieved at some level of their flight envelope. If this phrase was right, who did the Japanese attack Pearl Habor, as 0% of their aircraft had a TWR>1.
SchorschWould you mind donating it to Australia instead mate? along with some of those Viggens that are now on the way out?
This is very interesting in the light of SAAB making offers to numerous countries at basically what can be described as “Bargin Basement” prices. I take it that the planes are all the A/B models and are of the first block and there fore would need a huge modernisation to bring them into line with the latest C/D models?
Question is if the customers really require C/D-model standard. For countries like Brazil it would still be a rather huge capability step. They would rather make the upgrades themselves with support of partner companies. Time is not of concern as Brazil or South Africa are not really endangered by anybody.
SchorschIf you follow this thread you will notice I was originally estimating a Modena. Pretty close.. I only changed the estimate after hearing the replacement cost of EA-6B canopy being as high as $400.000. There is nothing wrong with expecting the F-22 canopy to be substantially more expensive than one for the Prowler.
Maybe because:
Seventh: Carrier use = x2.
Schorsch[QUOTE=swerve]Gollevainen,
every native speaker of English who’s analysed the Conways quote has told you your interpretation of it is wrong. I don’t have Mr. Martell-Meads formal qualifications in English, having chosen to study other subjects at university, but I got the highest achievable grade in English Language in the last exam I took in it, I’ve written & edited technical manuals (where meanings must be absolutely precise) for a living, and – as I’ve already told you – I agree with him, and the others who’ve told you you’re mistaken.
/QUOTE]
And you are from Reading!
SchorschAccording to “Sea Harrier over the Falklands” by Nigel Ward (801 Sqd Commander, SHAR pilot & first hand witness to events in the Falklands) the SHARs were also forced to fight many of the air to air engagements on minimum fuel load.
You are right, the Harriers worked on their range limit, too. But they could always divert to the British landing strip and make an emergency landing. I am not sure but I think one or two Harriers took this option.
As all the long range British radar systems were located in ships, hence the low level radar coverage was somewhere between poor and non existent. Due to the skillful low flying of the Argy pilots most of ships that were hit had only a bare minimum warning.
Which shows the inadequacy of ground-based radars for this task. However, it prevented the Argies from more desirable attack paths.
Although the Nigel Wards account acknowledges that most of the 32 air to air kills were fairly straight forward rear aspect ambushes, it does give details of two instants of real air combat manoeuvring with Mirages, one described in datafuser post (6) and one more on the 21May (2 SHARS vs 3 Mirages….. 3 Mirage Kills).
No doubt about that. But still that means 3 over 32, so barely 10%. My statement still fits: there was no real challenging air2air combat.
Schorsch – Your suggestion that Argentina had all the disadvantages where as the Brits had all the advantages is nonsense…….the real effectiveness of the Fleet air arm pilots & Sea Harriers is clearly indicated by the simple figures, …..32 air to air kills without a single air to air loss, of which five Mirages were engaged and destroyed during ACM. (source “Splash One” by Ivan Rendall)
The British had to defend sitting ducks. That was the major disadvantage. I do not belittle the achievements of the Royal Navy in this conflict, they are rather big considering the fact that one US CVBG would have done the same job much easier (which shows the capability shortfall of “flat-deck” cruisers).
The problems that occured clearly showed that naval air defence was anything else than tight. Maybe you can look in your book shelf about the oppinions concerning this topic before 1982.
SchorschDefine unsuitable. The Dassault Super Etendards and Mirage Vs were doing what they were designed for weren’t they? And the A-4 was considered to be so effective against fighters it was used as an Aggressor for years. OK, so it wasn’t the most up to date air force in the world but it still posed a considerable threat. As SteveO points out, it wasn’t so much the capabilities of the aircraft involved as the lack of them and the paucity of decent AEW.
Argentina’s air force had no real long-range fighter, all aircraft were operating at their range limit. There were no aircraft to detect and track British ships, the pilots went in without any proper knowledge of the threat. There was no usable ECM available for Argi’s aircraft.
If they had better long-range tactical aircraft like A-6 or Su-24 with up-to-date missiles (or just more Exocet) and avionics, the British would have had much more losses.
Don’t see this as insult against RN capability, just as an assessment of the real capabilities and a “lessons-learned” from that limited conflict. After that conflict all navys reconsidered their air defence.
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