Good ties with Russia is in Western EU interest. They realized after after past 15 years of disasters. First toxic mortgages and supply of cheap debt (Read HSBC Auto exit) for US have completely destroyed Western EU banking sector while subsidizing Eastern EU has created large pool unemployment and lack of industries. Russia is only hope of Western EU.

Exactly, like in 1945 Soviet Russia helps in unifying Western Europe even in times of crisis. A strong Russia that regularly hits its neighbors, blocks oil supplies or makes fake attacks on English coastal cities guarantees thousands of jobs in European defense industry.
Thank you, Mr. Putin, and please say also thanks to the guy that you made “president”.

Which stock exchange market had the most severe losses in the last weeks?
I guess it was the Russian!
Oh, and just more bad news for the mighty Soviet empire: oil doesn’t trade for 120 bucks a barrel any more, seems like they have to earn the money by work again.

UKraine will only buy what its Industries can produce part for like MotorSich/Progress/Antonov and they deal with Russian Industries more than there own government.

Then I would propose a fighter version of the dreaded Antonov 70.

There is reason for Russia not selling offensive weapons (like Flanker with long range weapons). To Iran. Venezuela does not count. I doubt Gripen/Lockmart can afford those freebies.

Like the political impact it would have in Russia if they sell weapons to a country like Iran. They only sell as much weapons as a country can have before it may become dangerous.
Hey, they even sold only crappy MiG-21 and MiG-23MS to the enemies of Israel in the late 1960ies, just not to **** Israel off. Or didn’t they have anything better back then?

As most people know Ukraine is considering joining NATO. Whether this will happen or not is a political topic which doesn´t really belong here on this forum. Anyway, where will Ukraine go shopping new fighters? Will they turn to the West or stick with Russian designs? Which fighter would suit the needs of Ukraine?

Ukraine is not exactly considering, it is waiting to get in. But the chances are very slim, I would put them at zero. European NATO nations will only agree if all conflicts with Russia are settled, they don’t want to get involved in such a conflict. Additionally, Ukraine in the NATO would destroy the last ties between Western Europe and Russia.

For the fighters:
– I don’t think they can make their own.
– I don’t think they shop in Russia.
– I don’t think they have much money to spare.

So, either they get used stuff from USA (which is becoming increasingly scarce), or they buy Chinese (which is difficult due to Russian technology content), or they turn to the Europeans & Americans for new stuff.

There we would see the usual suspects with good chances for Gripen and Lockmart. The only issue I’ll see is political pressure from Russia. On the other hand, Russia sells fighter jets to Venezuela, so I guess they will recognize they sit in the glass house.

The SFC numbers I posted were right in line (within a few hundredths) with Schorsch’s… I got mine from the engine section of Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft and GE’s website (for the F118).

lb/sec is indeed the airflow number.

Sorry, I missed that one.
I agree with your conclusion though: Although the dream of a B-52 with modern engines is somehow tempting, I doesn’t really make sense given the low number of flight hours and huge number of spares. Re-engining the C-5 should get higher priority. If they want to invest in the B-52s, I would like to see the stand-off jamming capability being integrated.

I think maybe people are overlooking the B-52’s top speed. It’s a bit higher than your average commercial aircraft at 650 mph (nearly Mach 1). How would the presence of the typical high bypass engine affect that? I think Badger’s point is probably right on. The F118 or F101(I don’t think the latter are still in production- which incidentally could be interesting for the B-1B in the future) are probably the best likely candidates as their bypass ratio is comparitively low as is their diameter.

Erhh, “nearly Mach 1”, how did claim that?

The B-52’s top speed is not nearly Mach 1. Mach Max Operating is given with M.86, the same as an A340. With not supercritical profile and thus a more gentle drag increase over Mach number the B-52 will normally cruise at M.8 or slower, and will be passed by most long range civil aircraft.
It looks like a dash capability of Mach .9 is possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

A high bypass turbofan will yield less excess thrust at Mach numbers beyond M0.8. That is normally no issue as the drag rises so steeply at M.86ish that more thrust will only increase the speed by .01ish Mach.

Hence, an engine switch wouldn’t eat up any performance. Given the engine characteristics it may happen that the aircraft cruises even slower as it has optimum range at lower Mach numbers. But that has no military implication.

Any re-engine program only makes sense if 8 engines are replaced with 4 civilian engines (with the according costs for pylons and systems). Anything else just costs money. Remember that it is no plug and play, you need to replace all the generators, probably rethink fuel supply and other stuff.

If you factor in sfc then not very many engines cut the mustard as far as improvements in range go. The few exceptions would be F118-GE-100, which in 8 engine arrangement gains 16,000 lbs of thrust for a net loss of 1,304 lbs/sec for fuel consumption and at a 3,200 pound weight savings.

If you go with CFM56-2B1 in a six engine arrangement you lost 780 pounds of net weight for a huge 4,000 pounds of thrust lost and a gain of 1,104 lbs/sec in sfc. If you go CFM56-2A2 in a six engine arrangement you gain 120 pounds, 8,000 pounds of thrust, and raise the sfc another 1,302 lbs/sec. The CFM56-7B26 in a six engine arrangement you gain 2,520 pounds, 22,400 pounds of thrust, and raise the sfc another 1,098 lbs/sec. The CFM56-7B26 of the C-40 is a powerful s.o.b. and could be used in a four engine arrangement if you wanted to shed 7,920 pounds of weight while also losing 30,400 pounds of thrust for a modest lowering of the sfc by 468 lbs/sec. Unfortunately you lose too much power when it comes to emergencies and would probably be an unsafe alternative.

If you really wanted a boost in power – which really isn’t the problem mind you – then you use the F117-PW-100 of the C-17A in a four engine arrangement which sheds 320 pounds for a massive gain in thrust of 30,800 pounds. Unfortunately you also gain 1,760 lbs/sec of sfc, which means for the big boost in performance you don’t fly as far.

Perhaps the alternative is something simpler, where you combine two different types of engines. You sling a pair of F117-PW-100 under the inner engine stations and place a pair of F118-GE-100 under each of the outer stations. You’d shave 9,600 lbs of weight for a meager loss of thrust at 7,200 lbs, but then save 886 lbs/sec on sfc.

I am not really sure what numbers you quote here. lbs/sec is no unit for SFC, nor is any number beyond 1.5 realistic for a non-afterburning engine.
I have the TF-33 with .52 kg/(daN*h), the F-108 has .363 kg/(daN*h). That is pretty exactly 30% cut in SFC. Honestly, these values are max power sea level static, probably uninstalled, and will change at cruise Mach numbers (especially does a high bypass engine achieve higher SFCs at higher speeds, whereas a low bypass fan increases less), but we can still expect a ~20% better fuel economy.

Just as comparison: the original J-57 was somewhere at .75 kg/(daN*h). So the TF-33 cut about 30% SFC, and range of the H versus the G jumped about 4000km or 33%.

With current generation engines like the CFM56/F-108, the B-52H can probably be freed of its fuel pods and still achieve better ranges, it will jump (given the fuel fraction) to about 20.000km or more payload at lower ranges, or lower gross weight take-offs with similar payload and less air refueling.

The CFM56-5C of the A340 is rated up to 36klbs of thrust, giving a small increase in thrust. I would prefer a PW2000-based (or F117) engine with a thrust rating in the 40klbs class. The PW2000-based F117 has even better fuel economy than the CFM56-based F108 and the USAF already own over 1000 of that type for their C-17s, not due for retire the next 30 years.

The A-7D was indeed a Navy design and the USAF’s best friend McNamara forced them to adopt it. The A-7D was however not a simple aircraft. It had inertial navigation system and many other features and in the end was something like the F-111 without the transonic low level stuff.

Against the A-10 I’ll clearly doubt the suitability of the A-7D, especially due to lack of survivability. Additionally, the equipment with an INS for example is super fluent for a dedicated day-light striker.

The price of defense stocks have been falling faster than Paris Hilton’s panties.

Along with the whole stock market.
Or do you mean in comparison to the Dow Jones index?

I love how the GOP can only win in an environment of fear and scared little rabbits.

While I guess many Americans currently live in an environment of fear and are scared little rabbits, but not because of big bad daddy Osama but because of the very real threat of economy downturn, mortgage fail and job loss. Quite reasonable fears. Many will give a s##t if the USAF gets 190 or 250 F-22, and if the F-15C is re-equipped with AESA.
I guess Carter didn’t lose the election in 1980 because people were unhappy about the low number of nuclear powered guided missiles cruisers (CGN) in the Navy.