SchorschAgain, may someone tell me what a DSI is?
3-digit abbreviations not easy to identify with Google.
SchorschThe lightning was too heavy for such task, you are comparing for the same role planes with 5-6 tons with a 12 tons one …
The lightning was overcomplicated and in general a failure as design, a 12 tons monster with such small radar room and fuel/range problems with a limited task.
That’s pretty much a fact. The Lightning has its edge, but it is payed by mediocre performance in other areas. For the job of a supersonic point defence interceptor with 1950’s tech it was quite good, probably the best.
The performance of the US and SU aircraft was rising too quickly from the 50’s, the UK industry just wanted to match that performance, leading to overcomplicated designs which were not effective, meanwhile the french industry went to more practical ones, which at least could fit partialy their needs.
In the late 1950ies the Soviet started to field the “extremely advanced” :rolleyes: Suchoi 9, which didn’t really outperform the Lightning and was similarly worse in range and avionics (plus its crappy safety record). The Soviets fielded a better aircraft with the Suchoi 15 (fielded from late 60ies).
The UK industry lost it north, and went “desperated” with their “requirements” for medium sized airframes, so they were looking for help to germany and other countries, always trying their idea, they went to the Tornado, an outdated design based in old concepts…meanwhile dassault was just designing something based on the Mirage III with FBW and unstable concepts.
You are missing the mark.
The Tornado was neither outdated nor was it old concept. It was exactly what was needed to toss the bomb on the Russkis in a high threat environment. The Mirage 2000N was a nice spin-off design from the fighter Mirage, but it couldn’t do the job the Tornado did. The Tornado outperforms the Suchoi 24.
Perhaps the decisive nail that sealed the UK industry coffin was the RAF’s adquisition of the F-4, but that was more like an effect of the stubborn of their designers, or maybe the RAF requirements…or “requirements”
The “nail” was the lack of a continuing investment in a design bureau, like the French, the Russians or the Swedish did.
The British should have built a small supersonic fighter around the Avon engine in the late 50ies and a successor around the Spey in the late 60ies. Purchasing the Phantom was a reasonable move, the British industry couldn’t supply a competitive aircraft in time and budget (while the TSR.2 would have made an interesting long range interceptor).
One should admit that Tornado and Eurofighter wouldn’t have materialized if the British haven’t been engaged. I would call both design 50+% British, 50-% German/Italian/[Spanish].
SchorschWhat makes J-10’s aerodynamics 4.5? Canards? Hardly enough, dont you think? 🙂
I think 4.5th generation aerodynamics are highly pitch-unstable (in subsonic) aircrafts which are also 100% control configured vehicles (means: also yaw and roll are integrated). They are “care free”.
The F-16 is only “relaxed stability” and only partly CCV (you can stall & spin an F-16). Same applies for the Suchoi 27 or J-11, both only relaxed stability in pitch and lots of natural stability in roll and yaw. The MiG-29A isn’t even relaxed stability.
4.5th generation like Eurofighter is a step forward. But actually I have doubts that a J-10 can compete with the Eurofighter in those terms, I expect the J-10 to be rather non-risk approach. We will hardly learn.
Only a highly pitch unstable aircraft can achieve the supersonic turn rates the Eurofighter can achieve and has a chance on becoming supercruisy.
SchorschSchorsch
If it is a long range fire and firget type missile this is not so. Anti ship missiles from shipborne helicopters are something else for a task group to worry about and complicate the picture considerably.
Yes, but someone must find the target. Either a friendly ship (which is not that bright as it means to be pretty close) or a friendly air asset (an MPA like P-3 Orion f. e.). Especially in blue water operations such assets are often not available (range, time on station), especially not for small navies.
So, just firing missiles in direction of an assumed enemy is pretty wasteful.
If the position of the target ship is known the helicopter is deadly as it can position a missile 100nm from the position of its mother ship within one hour (assuming a realistic 100 kts cruise speed).
SchorschHe rates the performance of the aircraft by its performance on an airshow. He haven’t compared transonic acceleration, supersonic sustained turn rates or handling qualities in touchy situations.
Further on, he doesn’t know about the weapons system, about man machine interface or how ECM-resistent the radar works.
The Suchoi 27 the Chinese use is the legacy version, basically late 80ies stuff.
As for AWACS support, it is present with 4 A-50 equipped with KJ-2000 radars and it seems the Chinese have bought a special version of the Ka-31, although very much different from the Indian navy version. Apparently with a new radar.
If proper tactics are used, the PLAAF can beat Taiwanese opponents in conventional air war. Unless the US makes it into a full scale world-for-world battle, the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party does have a chance.
I guess this statement is true but doesn’t really depent on the performance of the J-10. That the Chinese have the ablitly to gain air dominance or the Taiwan straits is pretty much granted, given the numbers. If it suffices for an invasion is a different question.
SchorschI think it’s more about the DSI than a stealth-mod of the JH-7.
What is DSI again …
Divertless Supersonic Inlet?
Die Schnelle Inge?
SchorschWas the Lightning too specialised for the export market?
From Wiki, ‘The Lightning was designed as a point defence interceptor – essentially a guided missile-armed, air superiority fighter optimised to defend mainland Britain against bomber attacks. In order to reduce cross sectional area of the fuselage and improve performance, the fuel capacity was highly restricted. It was armed with two 30 mm ADEN cannons and two air-to-air missiles, at first the de Havilland Firestreak and later the Hawker Siddeley Red Top.’
Let’s put it this way: if no-one buys it, it is probably not really considered useful. Or all export customers are stupid and only Britain knew what you really need. Actually, the good climb rate and altitude were never truly needed, The minute you save when climbing out will not decide between win or loss. The Soviets never had aircraft that demanded the performance of the Lightning (which no-one could know at that time though).
And back to the P.1121, which I’ve thought of as one of the great missed opportunities ever since I heard of it.
Put a good engine into a reasonable airframe and you’ve got it (in the 50ies). Less sophistication makes the aircraft better.
Absolutely, if it had been given a sensible engine (3 were proposed, Conway, Gryon and Olympus), such as Olympus it could have easily sat between the Mirage 3/5/50 and taken orders from both. The only area it may have been lacking given the poor scope of British radar and missile technology is armament.
Not that either French or Russians had any better. The Russians didn’t put a supersonic all-weather capable aircraft in service before mid 60ies.
Comparing with the Americans is not good: they were trailing the British in many areas (engines most notably), but they needed 6-8 years to catch up (1952-54), and another 10 years to be gone (1962-4).
SchorschTo put it crudely Successful Designs are a compromise of technical superiority and affordability the better the mix the more successful, Lightning wasn’t really built as a compromise.
Well put.
The other designs were largely restricted by the need to cope with one engine and to use the largest engine available at that time (J79, Atar, R-11). The J79 was the most powerful and potentially most developed, but the Avon wasn’t that bad, having more power than either the French or the Russian engine.
Mirage III and MiG-21 turned to deltas and build a successful aircraft more or less by chance.
SchorschKnow I have the answer …
It must be the weather.
A general under his umbrella in the London rain cannot think of daylight acceptable weather fighter.
USAF generals had Washington summers and Nevada test range. They needed wars from time to time to recognize that sunshine is everywhere, but clouds tend to be over target areas.
SchorschNo, I didn’t forget it. Perhaps I should have been clearer: what I meant by this –
“Hawker P.1121? … should have been a far more versatile (& exportable) aircraft than the Lightning.”
was that I thought the P.1121 was (at least, conceptually) preferable to the Lightning, implying that it should have been built instead.Yes, I agree that the Lightning was misconceived, however impressive its performance. Like the TSR.2, in fact.
I also agree with this. A fighter with a single afterburning Avon (Draken! But that wasn’t suitable for carriers) could have been the ideal type for both the RAF & RN. But I confined myself to actual projects, rather than adding new ones.
However, I realise that I skipped the SR.177. I was rather put off by the hybrid rocket/turbojet propulsion, but perhaps it could have become such a fighter. It was on the verge of production, & the Germans were very interested. An all-jet (with a single Avon) version was on the drawing board, & could have replaced the mixed-propulsion version.
So – what about this? No Lighting, but build the SR.177 for both the RAF & RN. This solves the carrier fighter problem (the SR.177 could eventually replace the Sea Vixen, with a new-technology, lighter, radar), allows the RAF to buy more fighters (cheaper than Lightning), & has tremendous export success, starting with the Marineflieger. Potential 1960s customers include the Luftwaffe (very likely, if already bought by the Marineflieger), Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway (sorry, no F-104G), Australia, Israel, South Afriica (pre-embargo) & India. Dassault picks up the pieces. 😀
Proceed with the Hawker P.1121 as the high-end (2-seat, 2-engine, big radar) fighter, or save the development money & avoid risk & buy F-4?
One of my problems here is that some of my favourite aircraft get written out of history. 🙁
What makes designs successful?
Successful design combine the best available technology of the day into an aircraft. That is the technical side. The other side is the “requirement side”, that is successful designs follow successful specifications. F-104, Mirage III and MiG-21 were all basically built to similar specifications as the Lightning: high altitude, high speed interception using cannon and primitive missiles, small or no radar at all, no consideration for radius or take-off performance. So why was the Lightning such a “loser” (330 built) and the other such successes (Mirage III: 1400 built, F-104: 2500; MiG-21: 10000), although the British industry was better than the French or Russian at that time?
[Note: this is an open question].
And: we can be happy that the RAF didn’t pursue the SR.177.
The time the aircraft would have been available, it had been outdated with margin.
SchorschComments, suggestions, additions & deletions, please.
I would say the V-Bombers were the biggest issue as these were large aircraft, and were all rushed through testing and production, with low production numbers and many modifications. A single type would have sufficed (if Vulcan or Victor is rather academic, I guess the Vulcan is better suitable for the low level attacker). The saved money should have been invested in more numbers and especially a decent tanker, the KC-135. Any range or endurance problems of the Vulcan would have been canceled by this.
Further on, the TSR.2 was an expensive gamble, but probably no-one knew at that time. The often hailed TSR.2 would have been outdated quickly, so canceling it was not the worst move.
In the end a country with limited budget like Britain needed to focus on fields, what they finally did.
Your forgot one aircraft: the Lightning.
I know it is lèse-majesty in these forums to say something negative about the Lighting, but I am safe south of the channel!
[Do I get banned now?]
So, the Lightning was a misconception. All supersonic fighter/interceptor aircraft of the mid to late 1950ies enjoyed reasonable success on the export market (F-104, MiG-21, Mirage III, oh dear, even the mediocre Su-7), just the Lightning ended up as a British-only solution (please don’t bother me with Saudi Arabia). The engine (Avon) was definitely better than the Atar or the R-11.
I think the most reasonable choice would have been to develop a small daylight fighter as addition to the heavy two-seat Phantoms, something like a supersonic Hunter (as competition to the rather primitive but successful Mirage). The Brits had engines and resources to do it, exportability was definitely given.
Putting the Spey into the Phantom was – from the industrial point of view – a reasonable idea, besides the fact that the Spey Phantom was better in most regards.
And should Jaguar, or an equivalent, have been developed?
Jaguar was a good aircraft, small, affordable and most of the time with similar performance of other larger aircraft. Search long and you’ll not find a similar aircraft in USAF’s inventory. The Soviets had the MiG-23BN, which was larger and less capable.
SchorschDon’t expect the F-35 to be anything more than a more stealthy Super Hornet with limited interal weapons carriage and another step in electronics integration and capability.
Now, what else do you actually wanted?
No-one wanted fancy flight performance.
If the F-35 in the end costs as much as a Eurocanard, the whole gamble was successful.
SchorschInteresting question. I’d say technically, yes, but financially – probably not.
One should always see that France
– had to start from zero after WW2
– was financially similarly constrained (including colonies)
– did also develop nuclear bombs and stuff in parallel.
But why did France come out so much better, at least when you call independent better?
I guess the British government (or industry) failed in installing an effective organization that kept and maintained the knowledge and was adequately funded by the government. Just look what France built as aircraft in the 50ies (nothing truly advanced), in the 60ies (starting to become better), in the 70ies (establishing position) and finally now.
SchorschWell, BAe made good profits by having a 49% stake in many companies and programmes.
This way, they managed to become the largest defence contractor in Europe.
Why should they change that strategy ?
As I said, BAe is a successful company, but doesn’t really have this “national pride & prestige” thing on their list. EADS has to have it as it is partly state-owned. If it wasn’t, no one knows, maybe A320 get assembled in Hungary and EADS sells Eurocopter to become stake-holder in Chinese housing company.
The design and production is not exactly a business that appeals to modern management. It is risky, the market is anything but free and it has large upfront costs. On the other hand, if everything works it can be quite profitable, and you’ll have no competitors.
What needs to be understood: the design and assembly of airframes is nothing too fancy these days. It is the integration of systems into this airframe that make the difference, that is why Boeing likes to call itself “System Integrator” these days instead of airframer, which sounds so much IAM blue collar and riveting hammer.
The issue is that history has shown that you hardly get a real aviation “cluster”, but you easily lose it. I’ll bet a coin with Queen E’s face on it that if the last aircraft production ends in UK, it will never get one again.
To be honest, I favor the Continental European approach, where political considerations somehow restrict the independence of the aviation companie[s], but on the other hand provide some limited support (which somehow manages to comply with trade laws).
SchorschAs well as fixed wing aircraft, naval helicopters can carry anti ship missiles, and have been able to for many years. These include smaller missiles like Sea Skua as well as larger ones like Sea Eagle (carried by Indian Navy Sea Kings) or Exocet (carried by the Super Frelon amongst others). Helicopters armed like this could be carrier based, or they might be carried by smaller ships. This adds the option of over the horizon anti ship attacks to Navies without carriers.
For example, Argentina has fitted Exocet to a number of SH3 (I think) helicopters to carry Exocet, meaning they have regained much of the capability lost when their carrier was scrapped. The fact that long range anti ship weapons can be helicopter launched adds to the complexity of a modern naval scenario.
While helicopter based missiles are surely not really the weapon of choice when the big boys play. The helicopter always needs to find its target, which is he needs a direct quasi-visual line. If he gets on a ship with air defense systems (more than a Sea Sparrow), he gets in trouble.
But there is no doubt that a helicopter can greatly enhance the capability of a frigate, especially in limited warfare. Missiles like the Sea Skua are useful against smaller craft like patrol boats or small “merchant” vessels (these nasty things pirates like to use).
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