SchorschSince the KS-172S-1 must be an incredibly large missile in order to achieve 400km ranges, surely it must have the ability to be shot down by modern AESA-BVRAAM fighters
First that, and then the AWACS gonna detect it. A target flying several times the speed of sound is easily identifiable, especially as it climbs to 80000ft+
Whatever the range of the missile active seeker is, it needs to rely on dead reckoning for a while. The AWACS would then switch of its radar for a few minutes and change its flight pattern. When the missile arrives at its pre-calculated point and switches on the radar to find the aircraft, it finds empty space.
Passive sensors are even easier to trick, see HARM versus SAM.
Of course, the AWACS is out for a few minutes.
And how does the launching aircraft identify the AWACS in the first place? Unlikely it can look 200km or even 300km into a hostile airspace that doesn’t want to be looked in.
SchorschIt should be noted, that while the MiG-31 can escape at all altitudes due to its higher speed, the MiG-25 is much more speed limited on the deck. At altitude, it will have no problem outpacing an F-4 (or any other NATO fighter), but lower down around sea level, an F-4 should be able to keep pace with the Foxbat.
I doubt this. No dispute that the top speed is higher for the MiG-25/31. But the time and actions needed to get there are not just done in a second. The thrust/weight and thrust/drag ratio of the Phantom is better in most altitudes and Mach numbers, the MiG starts winning from M2 on when Phantom loses thrust by Mach2-optimized intake system.
Therefore, a lightly loaded Phantom has good chances of catching a MiG-25 as long as it does not accelerate beyond Mach 2, which it doesn’t do in a matter of seconds.
And when we talk about maneuvering, we should keep in mind that 100% supersonic optimized wings of the MiG-25 started to buffet even at moderate g-loads. The later slatted F-4E (built same time as MiG-25PD) are much better than their predecessors.
In the end the later F-4E would win against the MiG-25PD most of the time, given that the MiG-25 cannot use its advantages (ground guided high speed intercept) but is rather reduced to its on-board capability.
SchorschYou can go close to the border-line and do nothing, when the interceptor runs out of fuel. How fuel efficient are such high-speed intercepters at low speed and low level compared to a B-52 or Tu-20?! The SAC did play that game for decades as the Russian long-range aviation recce/bomber did it too. :diablo:
For a supersonic interceptor with some endurance at supersonic cruise, good subsonic cruise and capability to have powerful avionics and weapon system, the B-58 would have been the best basis in the early 1950ies. In basic data comparable to the Tu-28/128, just much more advanced in all respects.
By the way: the specific range at MAch 3 of the SR-71 is twice as good as at Mach 0.9. I think one of the few aircraft that has such characteristics (not sure about the MiG-25, but that aircraft basically guzzled the gas at any speed).
Schorsch25
Just hilarious:
“The aircraft displays handling characteristics of an aeroplane at lower altitudes and that of a spacecraft at higher altitude.”
So the MiG-25 can shoot down the space shuttle?
Who remembers the film with Clint Eastwood and the Soviet superfighter? I lost the title.
SchorschThe F-16 has no tunnel. The F-18 also. It is not so important, as Grumman brochures wanted us to believe.
As for T/W ratio, the combat T/W ratio of MiG-23 MLD with 2x R-24 and half fuel is about 1:1.
The F-14A had miserable T/W of 0.82 with half fuel and 4 sparrows.
A very important issue is that F-14A and D, with relatively high by-pass ratio engines, losses thrust with altitude fast, so that at say 6km height, the difference in T/W ratio compared to Mig-23 is even higher.The higher the altitude, the higher the difference.
The thrust drag ratio of the F-14 will be much better still. More thrust impresses the layman, but as I said above there are more important criteria and the MiG-23 looses in most against all F-Teens.
SchorschI contacted some airline industry sources for rough gouges on 767 and A330 fuel burn data. I know there will be differences on the tanker version, but I felt that looking at the commercial airliner version provided a good baseline. These sources said the burn per hour on an average long haul flight for a 767 was about 11,700 lb/hr and for an A330 was about 13,300lb/hr. Here is the data I worked up based upon flying 160 airplanes 1,000 hours a year.
13,300-11,700 = 1,600 lb/hr
1,600 lb/hr x 1,000 hr/yr = 1,600,000 lb/yr
1,600,000 / 6.7 lb/gal = 238,806 gal
238, 806 gal/yr x $4/gal = $955,224
$955,224 x 160 a/c = $152,835,840
Thus, purchasing the smaller, lighter, 767 based platforms generates almost $153 million in fuel savings each year. You get almost one free airplane per year by buying the smaller airplane. This allows an operator to buy more airplanes and cover more missions, which is quite important for the tactical tanking needs of the current and projected USAF (much less demand for high fuel offload, strategic B-52/B-2 tanking in the future than there was during the cold war with 750 B-52’s.)
Granted, the fuel price will fluctuate over time, but here is something that won’t: The EW of the KC767 is shown on wiki as 181,610, and the EW of the KC-45 is shown on wiki as 265,657. Thats 84,000 lbs difference folks. At a time when anyone of us who could identify 5,000 lbs of savings on the 787 could become an instant Vice President at Boeing (same for AI on any of their programs), thats huge.
PS I used wiki because, amazingly enough, that source was used un-impeachably earlier in this thread.
Same bull**** calculation as you don’t factor in the delivered payload. You could start working for Boeing, they obviously need such studies a lot.
The truly impressive number is that an A330 only burns 1600lbs or roughly 14% more fuel though having much better payload-range. That is the reason no airline has ordered the B767 in recent years while the A330 scored more than hundred orders.
SchorschThe problem with using airliner data is that tankers don’t spend much time flying at efficient cruise speeds (M 0.8+) or efficient altitudes (>30K ft). They perform their missions from 15K to 25K feet altitude and 250-350 KIAS.
The “study” Boeing is based on a commercially available performance program (not even specific for the aircraft), basically something anybody could do on one afternoon. Off-design performance at different altitudes and speeds is not modeled that well in those applications.
Anyways, as long as they operate not in the very slow environment the drag is no issue. It is rather the engine that may perform less good, and I think it will behave similar on both aircraft.
Or to make it short: the “study” is total crap and embarrassing for all people connected to it.
SchorschSo from the sounds of things the P-51D, YF-12, FB-111, He-178, and the F-22 are the prominent ground breaking fighters of our time.
P-51D:
Probably one of the best piston powered prop fighters, but I cannot see how it changed the way aircrafts were designed.
YF-12:
As I said, I see some technical innovations that later made it into other aircraft, but the aircraft didn’t set any standards.
F-111:
In my view a “ground-breaking” design, though troubled and delayed.
F-22:
Agree on this.
I would also add the F-16, first fly-by-wire, highly agile, dedicated dogfighter, first truly multi-role, exceptional handling qualities, still the benchmark when it comes to maneuver performance.
SchorschGenerally I would assume that the Phantom would win in majority. Without good guidance from ground the MiG-25 cannot use its weapons system effectively. As soon as it comes to close combat the MiG-25 is a sitting duck, and acceleration-wise it is worse than the Phantom, except the combat takes place at 75000ft.
And let’s not forget that MiG-25 pilots were basically trained to fly straight on a designated target, fire a missile and return to base (last item sounds easy but is tricky in an aircraft with such a pathetic range), surely no Mavericks on the controls.
But as Arthur pointed out, no sane commander would bring his interceptors in range of enemy fighters. The MiG-31 entered service in the mid 80ies.
How would a F-106 perform versus a MiG-21PF?
SchorschTake example of 4 small vessels vice 2 larger vessel or 1 large vessel.
Regarless of its size, each vessel would need a complete set of navigation equipment, radars, EW/ECM/ESM. This implies greater cost. Although, clearly, equipping a single large vessel with just one set would probably involve more sophisticated gear. Nonetheless, you catch my drift: more numerous smaller vessel would probably be more expensive.
The advantage is that if one lucky hit takes out one vessel you have 3 left.
I think what sized the American carriers originally was the pursuit for long range nuclear bombers flying off the carriers.
Later on it was the need for air cover.
I think the USN would have a psychological problem if the size of a carrier actually shrinks.
Generally it makes sense to reduce the aircraft at sea and do duties by long range stealthy bombers, do intelligence duties by satellite and HALE UAVs and do other stuff with CM-equipped subs. There is always the need for a big waving flag on a big expensive ship with some jets just to impress people, but the question is if it needs to weight 100000t.
SchorschAccording to whom? I could be wrong but I don’t believe the USAF has stated that this is a key parameter. What I think they have said is that they need more booms in the air.
As I said the size of the aircraft is debatable. The USAF made a decision, it obviously favored the larger aircraft.
Better efficiency defined as you have above is somewhat analagous to saying big airliner x has lower seat mile costs than small airliner y. This is generally true because the bigger aircraft has more seats to spread the cost around. The argument you are making, it seems to me, is like the A380 argument all over again….a smaller number of bigger airplanes is more efficient than a bigger number of smaller airplanes. The USAF is saying the tanker market has fragmented (to borrow the commercial airline term).
The A330 burns less fuel per seat, overly I would estimate the fuel specific burn advantage of the A330 at 5-6%.
With the A330 on the market the B767 lost orders by a significant amount.
The B787, which is slightly larger than the B767, has again taken away orders from the A330.
The order increase for the A330 in the recent year is mainly due to unavailability of B787/A350 before 2017-2020, and due to the fact that Airbus offers very competitive pricing for A330, also to keep the line busy well into the next decade.
You will not see any any A330 Pax orders after 2010.
SchorschThe problem with the US siding with the UK and actively attacking South America is that it could push them into the hands of the Soviets = disaster. Also, had the Argentine’s put decent troops on the island and fought it they could have done reasonably well with 10,000 of them vs 4000 British.
As soon as a reasonable detachment of British soldiers was on the island the things got easier for the Brits and more difficult for the Argis. No matter how the Argis use their aircraft, they were unable to establish something like a control of the seas. There successes largely based on the facts that British ships were trapped to certain areas. If ship cruised freely – given the lack of reconnaissance assets – it would be very difficult to target ships. And don’t forget that despite the obvious success in targeting ships, the Argis have suffered between 5 to 20% loss rate.
I further think it is unlikely that the Argis could do large scale offensive operations in the difficult terrain, again given the lack of suitable reconnaissance and the quality of the troops. The troops the British landed were first class elite soldiers.
In the end I think even a stalemate would have seen a British success as the Argis would have had more problems landing sufficient supplies and retain good morale within the troops.
The whole Falklands campaign was intended to get through without British military involvement. I think in the minute the British decided to do more than a symbolic retaliation action the case was basically lost for the Argis.
Always sad that so many people needed to give their lives for a war that was strategically as significant as the American landing on Granada.
P.S.: If I write Argis or Brits it is for pure convenience, not offending.
SchorschLeaving a side the politics a moment, can I pick up a couple of things from that article for clarification …
Firstly I didn’t think that either the A330 nor the 767 were capable of refueling all the USAF aircraft…in particular the Osprey. Can someone confirm or correct that view.
Surely a comparison between the aircraft on fuel burn is a bit of a red herring. The larger airbus could work out to be more than $35 Billion more useful over the 40 year period, by way of its cargo/multi mission capability. In other words less C17 flights for example into and out of theatre as the A330 could take cargo during transit as well as refueling duties.
Not as easy to calculate but likewise not as easy to discredit either.
I read both of the “studies” Boeing issued concerning the A330’s increased fuel consumption. To be honest, these studies were one the worst you could imagine, somewhere between undergrad school and layman’s engineering.
The value that really matters it the pounds of fuel burned for pounds of fuel delivered. While some assumptions have to be made, in general the A330 benefits from its overall more efficient design. It has a few percent lower fuel burn, the reason it still scores orders while the B767 didn’t for a couple of years.
If the extra size of the A330 is needed is debatable. The USAF has decided that it fits well. I guess their reasoning is that larger tankers will fly less and still can perform well when congress reduces the number to 150 aircraft. One of the most important characteristics I think is the additional cargo capacity.
Anyways, there can be different views on which size is best. But when it comes to fuel burn, the Boeing studies are total rubbish.
SchorschTo design multi role Mach3 aircraft is by itself extraordinary feat because you have to include many contradicting requirements.
That is where the YF-12 failed.
The MiG-25 never became an operational Mach 3 aircraft. It retains an emergency dash capability, that’s it. that ain’t bad at all, but to call the MiG-25 multi-role is bold at best. Each mission saw a dedicated version. The interceptors were exactly that, and the RBs were no fighters at all.
SchorschAnd how do you explain that ultimate 11G pull outs are possible with MiG-25 ?
I say again: divide ultimate G with coef 1.5 and you will get service permited G. That applies to any a/c.
Non sense.
See the chart.
When it accepts 11g but is only allowed for 4.5, the design engineers are either very dumb or they know that there is more in structural design than a single event (which actually put the aircraft in question out of service).
But you did not pay attention that this diagrams applies for the first version which entered in 1970. It was much upgraded in 1972.
Non sense.
The version described here is the MiG-25RB, which entered service in 1972 according to some sources.
No. It has high aspect ratio with 45 degrees wing sweep also. Compare it with, say, F-16 aspect ratio.
The F-16 still has (even at 3g) an excellent lift over drag of close to 9 (best value at 1g is 12), while the MiG-23 at 45° never exceeds 8.5.
At 45 degrees sweep it has very low induced drag, because of high aspect ratio and relatively ( for VG wing a/c) low wing loading.
At 72 degrees sweep induced drag is high, of course, but it applies to all a/c.
For all settings except swept forward the aerodynamic characteristics are anything but bright. A very compelling example that only 7 years later (1974) aircraft were available that provided similar performance in the relevant regions without the swing wing.
An F-16 has comparable or better characteristics in everything but the high (>1.5) Mach region and the very low speed (<300KCAS) region.
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