SchorschP.S.This will not make you feel better about wing fences, however the most “fenced” wing among early soviet designs was the Mig-17 wing. Three full-chord wing fences on each wing and still the aircraft was achieving subsonic L/D ratio of 14.6 and frontal RCS of 0.7 square meters. I doubt that Hornet, Super Hornet or future Hyper Hornet will ever reach those figures. 😎
A haven’t seen a supersonic fighter achieving anything in excess of L/D=12, with exception of clean swing wing aircraft. Your example therefore is not valid.
The RCS of the MiG-17 is not the glorious achievement of wing fences but due to the simple fact that it is a small (and normally clean) aircraft. An F-86 achieves comparable lift/drag ratios and – oops – doesn’t have wing fences.
Wings like that of the MiG-17 have issues to wing flexing. The outer ailerons require wing fences to prevent tip stall and loss of control. A wing fence might increase handling qualities and ease the job of the pilot. In the end, the wing of the MiG-17 with a constant profile and outside mounted ailerons is a bit under sophisticated for modern standards (which doesn’t mean it was crap when it was produced).
The Russians even used wing fences on the Tu-95.
I think he was just venting his frustration on Boeing’s inability to solve relatively simple problems with spanwise airflow on swept wings
Which the Russian genius would solve in a matter of minutes, if given a pencil, a sheet of paper and a candle to have some light. :rolleyes:
By the way: the F-18E did not flip over at straight and level flight. I think the flight envelope of the MiG-17 would have been no problem.
SchorschFor a potential customer like Norway, who has to expect a potential conflict with Russia, the hardware must be “best possible”. The numbers are limited, and in case of a conflict the support by allies might be limited.
An F-35A – though slower – will be a tougher opponent than any Gripen variant. Especially considering that Norway would face the Suchoi 34 and 35, by members of this forum hailed as the aircraft itself. Given the nature of Norway’s geography, a potential aircraft needs lots of range and must be able for defensive/offensive operations.
The Gripen is in my opinion the better buy for customers with limited conflict potential like Brazil, Denmark and Eastern European countries. Those countries normally don’t have such strategic conflicts (even for countries bordering to Russia any conflict seem very unrealistic as Russia has no interest in seizing territory it owned back then).
SchorschGround breaking means just that. It did things no other had done before.
“Ground breaking” means setting a standard eveybody aims at. Your YF-12 did not set a standard, nobody designed aircrafts that way.
1st to incorporate RCS reduction into it’s structure. Tell me nobody is doing that today.
With the slight delay of 30 years. The generation of aircraft in 1970ies had no RCS reduction.
1st significant use of titanium in airframe. Again, titanium use has gone up since those days (though even today not as high by % as the Blackbird)
For completely different reasons. If titanium was used, then to have highly stressable materials. The Blackbird used it for heat resistance. Again, no aircraft was built to endure heat for prolonged times after the Blackbird.
1st with Mach 3 cruise.
And the last. New standard?
1st with look-down, shoot-down radar. Nobody doing that today. (That’s sarcasm BTW.)
The B-58 carried the first integrated weapons computer. Revolution? Not really, it was large enough to accommodate that hardware and its mission justified the expense. The F-16 has a more powerful computer, but it is 20 years younger.
An F-4C has more “ground breaking” built in:
– high performance
– still useful range
– high flexibility
– a2g and a2a, and both quite good
– useful agility for early 1960ies
Since the 1970ies all successful fighters aimed at the characteristics of the Phantom, while exactly zero tried to match the ill-fated YF-12.
All people in the world stupid but sferrin?
With his infinite wisdom 300 YF-12A would have protected the USA against the 120 subsonic Tu-95.
SchorschSo no other aircraft since the YF-12 ever employed a pulse-doppler look down/shoot down weapon system then?
Before the YF-12 the technology was simply to large, and besides that, other aircraft could perform below 30000ft (which the YF-12 was unable to) and see invading bombers on eye-level (the YF-12 was surely not considered to be of any use against low flying targets).
Reasoning the pulse doppler radar with the YF-12 is like reasoning the jet engine with the Gloster Meteor.
SchorschYeah, that would explain the Mig-25, Mig-31, and so on. Fast interceptors are a waste.
They were, the Russians took a time to realize. The MiG-31 is not that fast anymore, still above average, but its domain is subsonic flight and supersonic dash.
Far more capable weapon system than any other aircraft of the day.
Rubbish. Take most roles in the USAF and replace the existent aircraft with the A-12/SR-71/YF-12, and you have a crappy weapon system:
– it was incapable of a being a fighter
– it was incapable of being a strategic bomber
– it was incapable of being a tactical bomber
– also useless as tactical reconnaissance asset
They only possibilities where strategic reconnaissance and interception. Given the pathetic Russian bomber threat the interception was done sufficiently by F-106. And the strategic reconnaissance, guess what, they used the SR-71 for it.
The F-106 by the way would outrun a Blackbird with ease in most altitudes.
Yep, ground breaking in almost every sense of the meaning.
A bit like a talking toaster: it’s surely innovative, and advanced, but nobody truly needs it.
Why the Mustang, sure it had superior range, manouverablilty, and the laminar flow wing but those could hardly be considered ground breaking, especially compared to the YF-12, F-22 etc.
The YF-12 may look hot and is fast (under certain conditions, below 55000ft it is much slower than any Phantom), still it did not cause any changes in fighter design. The MiG-25 didn’t either.
SchorschIf not flying at 80kft and M3, the A-12/SR-71/YF-12 is a sitting duck.
SchorschWing fences are especially useful when the wing experiences “wing rock”, sudden stall at one wing. Very common problem at first highly swept wings, aggravated by thin profiles and wing flex. Additionally, the wing profiles had a very small stall margin.
Today twisting of the wing profile is sufficient to get along without wing fences and notches. The F-18 and F-15 show that the margin is sometimes low.
Some early Soviet designs featured very large and clumsy wing fences.
SchorschDid the “moderation” switch off tags completely in all threads? Since a couple of hours I cannot add tags any more, even not if they technically make sense (I concede I misused the functions a few times).
SchorschNot really when you consider that the only reason that they got those two hits was because the destroyer was inexplicably asleep in the middle of a declared fleet air raid alert and that the Atlantic Conveyor had no means of decoying the inbound.
If Shiney Sheff had acted on the HANDBRAKE call from HMS Glasgow in timely fashion and Glamorgan not decided to cut into the well-defined shore-based Exocet battery engagement zone no warship would have taken a scratch from Exocet in the conflict.
IMO a weapons system that was defeated as easily as AM39, save for situations of the target vessel being defenceless, is hardly a testimonial to its performance.
On the other hand, the case that everything works well is the least probable in war. Guess what had happened if The Argis had considered their bomb fuses? Many more ships damaged or even sunk.
Or think what had happened if an opponent had not 5 but 50 of those missiles and the aircraft to deploy them at once? The Falklands campaign was a clear warning to all surface fleets that those little crappy missiles can really be a show stopper.
SchorschMe not.
SchorschAccording the datas I’ve collect before (some of them can be wathed here: http://www.geae.com/engines/military/comparison_turbofan.html)
Engine Type／Weight／Max. Thrust／Max. SFC／TWR／Overall Pressure Ratio
F100-PW-100／3,149 Ib／22,600 Ib／2.10／7.18:1／24.5:1
F100-PW-200／3,190 Ib／22,600 Ib／2.10／7.08:1／24.5:1
F100-PW-220／3,265 Ib／23,770 Ib／2.10／7.28:1／25.0:1
F100-PW-220E／3,245 Ib／23,770 Ib／2.10／7.28:1／25.0:1
F100-PW-229／3,795 Ib／29,100 Ib／1.94／7.67:1／32.4:1
F100-PW-232／4,065 Ib／32,500 Ib／1.91／8.00:1／35.0:1F110-GE-100／3,920 Ib／28,000 Ib／2.06／7.14:1／30.4:1
F110-GE-129／3,950 Ib／29,000 Ib／1.90／7.34:1／30.7:1
F110-GE-132／4,050 Ib／32,500 Ib／2.09／8.02:1／33.3:1
F110-GE-400／4,400 Ib／27,000 Ib／2.00／6.14:1／29.9:1F404-GE-400／2,195 Ib／16,000 Ib／1.85／7.29:1／26.0:1
F404-GE-402／2,282 Ib／17,700 Ib／1.74／7.76:1／26.0:1
F404-GE-102／2,282 Ib／17,700 Ib／1.74／7.76:1／26.0:1
F404-RM-12／2,325 Ib／18,100 Ib／1.78／7.78:1／27.0:1
F404-GE-F2J3／2,335 Ib／18,300 Ib／1.80／7.84:1／27.0:1
F404-GE-IN20／2,355 Ib／18,800 Ib／1.80／7.98:1／28.0:1
F414-GE-400／2,445 Ib／22,000 Ib／????／9.00:1／30.0:1
You are quoting SFC figures for maximum reheat thrust at sea level conditions and static conditions. They are useless.
The given SFC values show very nicely that lower bypass ration reduces Maximum Thrust SFC.
Collecting data is great, but a little bit understanding is needed.
SchorschGripen NG shall have the internal fuel load that is almost equal to F-16, while its engine’s (F414 series) SFC is around 10-15% lower than the engines that F-16A/B/C/D use, which shall make Gripen NG have a very impressive combat radius and ferry range.
Why exactly do you think the F414 should be so much better than the F100 or F110? Both engines got continuous upgrades and have (esp in case of the F100) a larger bypass ratio.
SchorschI think there is no fighter that represented a step change. While there are many designs that were able to outclass its predecessor by a margin, they always had downsides.
The biggest performance gap is probably between
1945 Mustang to
1950 Sabre to
1955 Starfighter.
[or corresponding developments in other nations]
The late war German designs had the general ability to outperform its opponents, but the Allied had comparable designs in the pipeline.
SchorschIs the Tu-22M3 required to turn into a flying saucer to impress here?
Because to me, a supersonic bomber that can fly very fast or very low, armed with 500KM range nuclear weapons is pretty damn deadly, especially if it can remain on station for a long time till it’s replaced by another, etc.
But basing it within the striking range of its opponent is dead stupid. The Soviets didn’t lack medium range bombers in 1962, still they decided to use MRBMs as threat.
It only makes sens if you have the assets available to protect the bases, which is hardly achievable in the backyard of the USAF&USN.
SchorschIn hope for an educated discussion about Russian military hardwares and the complete unemotional assessment of their capabilities in face of newest American defense assets, I placed a “star49” tag to this thread. Let’s see if the thread justifies it. 😀
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