Let´s consider the history of A380 EIS date.

EIS was October 2007, as promised since… when?

This was after year´s delay. The EIS before that was November 2006.

EIS before this was May 2006 till… when?

And there was March 2006 EIS date some time.

Thus, the date for EIS has been delayed by at least 19 months.

As for A380 first flight, that was supposed to be in March 2005, so just about one month delay.

Regarding 787, the first flight date was August 2007, and May 2009 represents a delay of 21 months. Already more than the whole A380 delay.

A380 is, as of now, recovering. Airbus has kept their promise about 12 frames (when did they give it?). As for B787, what could prove their recovery before 787 flies? Seeing how it was weeks before first flight in August 2007?

I am not sure what you are trying to prove?
That A380 production and ramp-up is less a disaster than the current B787 outlook?
I can see that Airbus was able to do a somehow reliable forecast about 1 to 1.5 years ahead, or around the date or originally planned delivery (second half 2006).

Anyways, Things for the A380 are somehow different. The huge delays some customer face in the A380 program are not because of the late initial delivery, but because of ramp-up issues. So the 20th aircraft comes with more delays than the first, which only had one year.

Same, but not necessarily similar, things will happen with the B787.
The first deliveries can be expected in spring/summer 2010, or two years late.
The 30th or 100th B787 will have more than 2 years dely, the average delay will peak at approximately 30 month. The question is when Boeing catches its original delivery schedule. Current outlook will not see that day before the 2017.
So, Boeing is indeed in a worse situation than Airbus. While “worse” does not mean, that Airbus did it well with the A380. Let’s say it this way: If A380 was 100% of badness, B787 will be 120% bad. That is primarily due to Boeing’s ambitious delivery schedule (promised too many aircraft too early).

The delay in first flight is of course very embarrassing compared to the A380, which is somehow equally ambitious, if not even more (different opinions accepted). Especially does the fact, that Boeing is continuously unable to predict the readiness of their prototype (at least in a 6month time frame), produce serious doubts if the senior management of the B787 is generally able to design aircraft. It looks like the entire planning was done by accounting, marketing and sales department. Nobody asked the engineers.

The lesson (as of January 2009): Boeing plans based on assumption of eternal sunshine, but weather became as it uses to be in Seattle (called the rainy city, which is somehow wrong, Hamburg is worse weather-wise).

Why couldn’t an aircraft be designed with the capability to have fuel tanks added to the structure rather than hung on pylons?
For example, on the Russian MiG29 a box could be positioned between the 2 engine nacelles containing fuel freeing up pylons.
Unfortunately I can’t immediately think of any western aircraft that could use this idea.

You design an aircraft for a specific mission or set of missions with a specific performance target. A balanced design later has exactly the fuel it needs to have. But as the standard missions sometimes do not reflect the changed environment fuel is added.
Anyways, adding external conformal tanks afterwards will have a significant performance penalty. Less in subsonic operations, but in supersonic operations.

If a design should not use drop tanks, you need to design for volume from the beginning, with all resulting disadvantages (primarily weight, but also size).
As I said, F-15A and Su-27P have basically similar performance envelopes, range, speed and maneuver. One weights 13.5t empty with 56.5sqm wing area, the other 17t with 62sqm wing area.
With two drop tanks an F-15A has exactly the same range or radius, with 3 drop tanks (all 600gal, yielding ~1850kg of fuel) it actually has more.

I quite agree, in practically all cases where the F-15 has seen any significant amount of A2A action it was really no contest. In almost all cases the F-15 was pitted against forces that were either:

• Badly trained.
• Had obsolete aircraft.
• Had inadequate situational awareness due to inferiority in or total absence of C4ISR/AWACS/EW… etc.
• Were inferior in numbers.

Usually they suffered form any number of combinations of the above. From what I have heard from the handful of guys I have met who served in the Former Yugoslav air defence forces, the MiG-29s sorties were regarded as suicide missions and a waste of perfectly good aircraft from the moment the pilots received the orders by all except a few unfortunates who were blinded by fanaticism. Basically the F-15 has not seen a major test against a worthy adversary.

1982?
1991 and 1999 are indeed less useful.

There was an article in one of the broad sheets the other day that Qantas is very disillusioned with Boeing ..The Qantas/Jetstar order of 100 plus 787’s could be in jeopardy

Nothing a juicy compensation couldn’t fix.

When I read correctly, the MiG-29 burns 1.95 kg/km with external tank and 1.74 kg/km without (at 11km and M0.8).
Using the formula:
Fuel Flow [kg/hr] = Weight [kg] * invLoD[-] * SFC [kg/(hr*kg)]
Fuel Flow = kg/km * V_True
V_True = 0.8 * 300m/s = 864 km/hr
we can take a look at the actual LoD disadvantage.
We pick SFC as .92 (which is quite accurate and will actually be better with external fuel tanks).
I hope I interpreted the Russian table correctly.

Average weight is given with 12800kg without and 13700kg with. Note that higher altitudes have lower average weight as they use more fuel in climb.

Baseline LoD is then:
FF = 1.74 * 864 = 1503 kg/hr
invLoD = 1503/(.92*12800) = .128
LoD = 1/invLoD = 7.83

LoD with external fuel tank:
FF = 1.95*865 = 1687kg/hr
invLoD = 1687/(.92*13700) = .134
LoD = 7.47

Disadvantage: (7.83-7.47)/7.83 = 4.6%

Which shows once again that for purely subsonic operations it makes sense to use external tanks, so that for similar combat performance (tanks dropped) the it results in reduced aircraft’s size, weight, and consequently spot factor and cost.

PS: if the tank is dropped in the example of the MiG-29 and the values are average for a standard flight profile, we easily arrive at the ballpark “10%” additional zero lift drag for a single drop tank. When going supersonic, things may look the same, or totally different, hard to tell, depends on individual aircraft, tank and type of installation.

In the early ’80s I actually asked an A-6E pilot what weapon he would use on a ship, and he said that he would dump a load of 500 lb bombs on it. He remarked that the Kirov was a Navy Cross waiting to happen.

The A-6 could carry Standard ARM missiles. I think it would not be difficult to knock out a ship’s radar or missile control with a Standard ARM, if not a Shrike, and bomb it at leisure.

One A-6E could carry 2 ARMs and additionally 12 550lbs Snake-Eyes.
Have a flight of 12 (half carrier squadron), add one or two EA-6A for broadband ECM, maybe some ECM pods to the strikers. Attack with ARMs first, use multiple directions for the attackers and decoy aircraft.
12 500lbs bombs rained down over ship not necessarily puts it on the ground, but surely will make it inoperational.
Some losses must be accepted though.

Losses become unacceptably high when several ships support each other (CVBG), or the aircrafts attack in small numbers, and has no ECM.

Generally, the flow between Flanker/Fulcrum engine nacelles is highly disturbed and turbolent, therefore putting a missile “in the middle” shouldn`t trouble you in term of increased drag. The problem is safe missile separation and launch from the carrier during maneuvers (possitive/negative g-loads, various speeds, angle of banks). This is something I`ve always wondered about those semirecessed attachment solutions. Are not there any launch limitation at all? For example the Phoenix and Sparrow on the F-14.
The soviet document evaluating F-14A Tomcat includes a diagram showing drag increments of four Aim-7 Sparrow missiles attached semirecessed to fuselage hardpoints. To me it is a bit disappointing. You can judge and compare it to similar diagrams of missile attached to pylons for Mig-21,23,29.

The zero lift drag is about .021-.023, according to configuration.
The additobal drag of four Sparrow missiles is 2E-4, that is 0.0002, or a mere 1% increase in zero-lift drag.
At transonic peak drag the additional effect is similarly at about 1-2%. That is not much.

Concerning fuel tanks: they are efficient if they are dropped in case of combat. If I plan to carry them all the way and have them attached in combat, it is indeed inefficient. Normally it is affordable to drop the tanks in combat, and thus reduce the airframe size and achieve a performance level with less installed thrust, wing area. Example is the F-15C/Su-27.

True, some people never learn. So, with 1500l tank attached the fuel consumption is even less. 😀 What kind of calculation method is this anyway? This happens when people quote ball-park figures from lamer books. I marked red what you need to learn. For fuel density, use value 0.755kg/dm3.

It is not about the actual fuel consumption what defines the advantage, it is overall mission performance and aircraft size. Normal values for kerosene density are .78 to .82, I guess especially the Russians should be more used to the more dense ones, as it is cold in Siberia.

Anyways, have a more detailed look at additional drag due to stores and you’ll learn a lot. It is not easy though. As long as the aircraft stays subsonic (cruise) the disadvantage is limited. It is also smart to add huge tanks, as drag increases with squaroroot of size.
At transonic speeds the penalty becomes huge.

As you are fluent in Russian, you shouldn’t waste too much times on the more or less guessed values from the F-14 description and look at the MiG-23 manual. It shows that the centerline tank causes less drag than two R-23 missiles under the wing root (both cause appr. 10% additional drag, while the MiG-23 is considerably smaller than the F-14, so the drag penalty “feels” larger). That compares to 1% additional drag for 4 Sparrow missiles. Even if we factor in the size difference, we must conclude, that the missiles hurt at least as bad as the tanks, and in consequence I fail to see any advantages from using internal fuel only.

Example F-4C: one semi-recessed Sparrow has a drag index of 1.3.
A wing-pylon mounted Sparrow has a drag index of 2.6, or 100% more.
Now, not that much people may argue. Not so, as additionally the wing pylons have a drag index of 2.4.
So, two wing installed Sparrow have a total drag index of 10 (2*2.6+2*2.4), and weight 1100lbs in total.
Two fuselage installed Sparrows have a drag index of 2.6 and a weight of 800lbs (basically the missiles itself).
So the disadvantage of pyloned to semi-recessed is:
+300% in drag
+ 40% in weight
That is what I call a difference.

Note: the 600gal centerline tank of the F-4C has a similar drag index (with pylon about 10% more) as the two wing pylon mounted Sparrows, confirming the values of the MiG-23.

True. The tunnel on the Flanker is pretty narrow compared to the Tomcat.

And putting a pyloned missile in the middle will give you a nice drag spike in transonic. The solution of the F-14 is very clever. With the AIM-54 it doesn’t really work, but that is a huge missile. With AIM-7 the added drag should be minimal.

But this lack of payload integration is also visible on other Russian aircraft, namely MiG-25 and Suchoi 15. Maybe the reason is a lack of coordination or that no-one knew how the missile would look in 10 years.
Compare that to F-4 Phantom, F-106, YF-12, F-15 or even F-18.

Missiles do not add too much frontal area, but especially when going supersonic they add a considerable number of bricks to the sound barrier.