Did/ does mig-31 cruise over mach 1 without ab? if so, at which speed? There are some figures out on the web for its range at 2.35 mach, and they’re way too big for an afterburner cruise.

Neither of both does. It would be difficult given the pretty low thrust/weight ratio and the – in case of the MiG-31 – wrong engines for that purpose. The MiG-25 don’t get far either way, subsonic dry or supersonic with afterburner. The MiG-31 has lots of endurance in subsonic, but needs reheat to go over and stay beyond sound barrier, and its specific range will dramatically decrease by that, like any other aircraft that uses turbo-fan engines of that era.

Pointless blah blah without any attempt to look into real life data.

How about looking into fuel fractions and trying to back-up your claim with more than just some Google snapshots?

Don’t mix purpose designed fighter-bombers with real fighters. Try to stay serious.

I think SOC’s definition of supercruise is technically merited. It helps to distinguish between different capabilities. Mig-31/25 have great supersonic persistence – but they don’t “supercruise”. Aircraft that can sustain supersonic speeds, but can’t punch through the sound barrier in dry thrust are not “supercruisers” – as part of their supersonic profile is dependent on the afterburner. Whether it is more efficient to use the burner or not is irrelavent – it still entails a rather large IR signature increase – which becomes especially relevant in the BVR game. It also highlights the aircraft’s transonic kinermatics and aerodyanmics.

Where I do believe the jargon/semantics gets painfull – is where LM says SC is only Mach 1.5 +; even if this demonstrates a more significant dry thrust supersonic capability.

If it uses its afterburner for acceleration from M.95 to M1.3ish is only relevant in the eyes of a bean counter. I fail to see the big disadvantage by that.
And actually, if it doesn’t use afterburners, it can also just kill a few thousand feet of altitude when going over the wall.

One of my favorite fantasies comes to life!
I wonder how the general airframe stacks up to the current “state of the art”?

Perhaps change some materials, but I’d guess the plane (with new engines and avionics) might be competitive today.
I’d guess with new avionics…you’d need more of them but they’d take less room & power.
Any guesses?

At the danger of sounding negative, but no.
There is a lot more that is needed to cruise supersonically without reheat than just a bit more installed thrust. First of all, it requires low supersonic drag peak, the whole aircraft needs to be carefully area ruled (for various Mach numbers). The aircraft needs to be instable in subsonic, otherwise the trim drag penalty in supersonic becomes too large.
Up to now, only two [operational] designs plus the Concorde have proven this ability.

Give it a blend of avionics from the F-35 and B-1B and tweak the airframe a bit and I think you’d have a heck of a platform. They ran it at low level from Carswell to Edwards, so that’s certainly doable, and it’s high altitude performance with the new engines would be pretty remarkable.

It looses in pretty much any aspect versus the B-1B, except maybe in high altitude top speed. While the B-58 can do 400nm supersonic (=M1.8), which isn’t that glorious nowadays. The B-58 was remarkable for its day.

Using afterburner to get through the sound barrier is not supercruising. That’s just supersonic cruise.

Lockheed’s own SR-71 needed afterburner for pretty much anything except taxi in & out of the runway. Still it burned less fuel (per mile) during afterburner flight than it did when flying supersonic at dry thrust. so, this academical concept of “supercruise” is total crap. There is no law in physics that says anything about afterburner or not. “Supercruise” itself is nothing more than a fancy sounding name for something, so Lockmarts definition can comfortably flushed down the toilet.

Yet again people dopt a innovative company, that have allways delivered in the past. I dont think this will be a technical issue, but a financial.

The swedish AF has gone through degrading in many years and i dont think this will be financed by sweden.
The modell in drawings has been around for quite some time, and is not from scratch. Stealth is not as unknown as y think for swedes. They produced the “visby class” naval wessel and “filur UAV” etc. Neuron is on its way.

Engine will not be a problem?! thats probably already been calculated for.(probably 80-11kN will do, if volvo is in on it, its F414(G?))..

It is always a financial issue, as when you have sufficient finance you can go basically anywhere. It wouldn’t be a problem to find partners for cooperation in Europe, if money is present.

“Model drawings”, yes, that shows that someone went at least into conceptual design. But sketching a fighter is not the difficult thing, the details are.
Understanding the concept of stealth is nice, but pushing the RCS of an aircraft sufficiently down versus a variety of sensors to have a true tactical advantage at hand is a totally different kettle of fish. Dassault and Eurofighter didn’t consider it feasible (in budget), Suchoi dumbed it also for the nearer future. The Chinese so far not even tried it.

So, sober out, people.

Which is the only point against fighters like Su-27, that don’t carry drop tanks. Because from take-off to the moment Su-27 will close to the target, the performance will be better than F-15 with drop tanks. And i don’t know how you end up with your conclusion that F-15 without drop tanks will be superior to Su-27? Maybe the sole reason is your obsession with semi-recessed missiles?

Which ain’t an obsession really but rather result of analysis of some of your precious Russian sources (MiG-23, MiG-29), which show quite clearly the superiority of such design, especially in transonic performance. Additionally you should take a look at flight manuals and related drag indices for external loads.
No guessing but real numbers.
Note: while dropping a drop tank before combat makes sense, the Su-27 cannot drop its eight pylons needed for all the missiles.

And if i modify your statement a little: all fighters before Su-27 was not capable of operating at max range without drop tanks, and all modern stealth fighters are design to operate without ones.

And what is the exact benefit of that?
Show-off capability to impress the laymen?
The [supersonic, a2a] aircraft must be clean when it enters the fight, not when it leaves the runway. When it enters the fight, it must also be
– smallest possible
– having optimum structural reserves
– lightest possible
– lowest drag

So there is a petition from all designers of supersonic fighers that F-15 is superior?

There is the indication – proven by just looking at photographs – that all (including those of the Su-35) chose to have drop tanks and to use them regularly, while none uses clean-all-the-way fighters. Except they are looking at stealth, while the F-22 still retains wet pylons, which are designed to be used and dropped. So no pure ferry flight option.

Oh I see what you are saying – you refering to the twin arrangement of EJ200s vs a single F135. There won’t be that much noticable difference pound for pound if they have the same SFCs. Yet its very likely that the F135 is superior by some margin in the subsonic SFC realm. The large single engine configuration also allows for more internal fuel to be stored in an equally efficient manner.

The reference SFC of either engine only gives a weak indication of the true SFC at altitude and Mach number. Besides the usual change of SFC, we also have to factor losses due to installation.
Finally, the more power installed, the less desirable will be the partial power performance. That is, if the engine only runs at 60% available power, the real SFC will be higher.

As both engines are low bypass turbofans, will have comparable pressure ratios and comparable installation (S-duct!), the actual SFC is not guessable from reference values.

Maximum power (= afterburner) SFC is something totally different.

While, its likely you could design a stealthy fighter with smaller twin turbo fans. That doesn’t mean its ideal or even equal. As the F-35 is still likely to have far better range. Because the P&W F-135 has a similar fuel burn rate to one EJ-200 or F414. Let alone two……….

Pretty much non-sense.
Accepted the F-135 incorporates technology better than EJ200, and is optimized more for cruise (rather than the severely supersonic EJ200), it will not represent a step change in fuel economy. SFC is somehow limited, you can get closer to ideal values, but there is a hard-stop somewhere. Then you can only increase bypass ratio (which has its drawbacks).
The improvements of 2000s engines (F-135, EJ200) over 1980s engines (F100) are far less than 1980s over 1960s.

I wouldn’t be confident about that at all. I think this represents a massive engineering challenge for SAAB – as alot of the difficult stuff won’t be able to be transfered from the Gripen.

I doubt they would recieve much US support if it becomes a threat to F-35. How much support would they recieve from the European companies who produce EF and Rafale?

Without such support – I can see the engineering challenges of building a VLO/LO jet in the class of F-35 being a bit overwhelming for SAAB. I can’t see a western engine sufficient for the jet other than the F119/135/136. EJ200/F414 will likely be underpowered – especially if they want current levels of fighter performance. Will P&W/GE be allowed to sell such engines in a non F-22/F-35?

Can SAAB do their own FCS – especially when the jet is aiming to be VLO/LO? Will LM/BAE be allowed to help?

Can they integrate sufficiently low emission electronics/radar? Their data link is fantastic – but I doubt it’s sufficient for a true VLO jet.

There are so many concerns that it would take a few pages to put them all down – I struggle to see them producing a jet any cheaper than JSF with US/European support. Without it I don’t see it being realistically possible at all.

At least a few people (actually, one) here that look behind the news …

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It looks like everyone can build its own stealthy aircraft nowadays. Just a quick presentation, some 3D-drawings and many words like “low risk”, “exportability” and “broadband stealth”. While the USA is spending billions on F-22 and F-35, and still got issues, the Swedes will do it “low risk”.

Does anyone else except me smell frozen Bovine Merde?

Although engine selection is an issue, there are a few more. Actually, there are only issues, basically all elements of “5th generation” are to some extent undiscovered terrain for SAAB.

So, we are talking about several billion USD price tag. Something like this is not announced by the defense minister on a Monday morning.

What possibly is true, Sweden will fund additional 10 aircraft of an improved Gripen variant (improved over the C/D-model), hence giving a kick-off for the Gripen NG. Calling that 5th generation is a tough call.