crobatoThe thing is, putting radars on the superstructure has its disadvantages, mainly height. The difference of putting it on high and low makes quite a bit of difference on the peer down radar horizon and in further reducing scatter.
The reason as I understand it why the phase arrays are placed on the superstructure is because they’re large and heavy to be put on a mast. A high and heavy superstructure results in an increase of the ship’s center of gravity, which means more steps have to be taken to counter the ship’s roll, especially on heavy seas, and this means you also deepen the ship’s draught, increasing the water plane area. That in turn requires a stronger keel. Over time you probably might expect structural problems or structural failures to come sooner. A deeper draught also makes the ship less littoral friendly and puts a limit on the ports you can visit.
So you can get the same problems supporting them on top of the mast. We have seen radars on top of masts before, but they have been small, and at the same time, the masts don’t seem they’re able to support much weight.
To put a large phase array on top of the mast isn’t just putting a mere radar up there. A few things have to happen. The first is that we have to make the large phase array light enough, and the second, to make the mast strong enough, while keeping the mast light and preserving the ship’s center of gravity. For example, the Russians to develop the Fregat light enough to be put on top of a mast is quite a feat, as normally, large rotating phase arrays with a single linear shifter like this are truck mounted. Phase arrays are not like fish bone or parabolics when it comes to weight.
It is even more astounding to put an AESA on top of the mast due to the transformer and cooling requirements of such.
I don’t expect to see wide multiband AESAs for a while compared to TWT using PESA because the choice of semiconductor compound also puts a limit to the band used. For example, Gallium compounds, like Gallium Arsenide or Gallium Nitride, is for X band only. If you want K band, you need Indium Phosphate or Silicon Germanium. If you want S to C band, you need Silicon Carbide. Hence, its better to use multiple arrays, where the MMICs of each is based of a certain compound.
crobatoLockheed martin says it has retained the same agility, you forget that the F-16 has tailplanes, which create a lever arm force, your example only would be logic in a Mirage III without tail, but the F-16 has tail and like an AIM-132 missile which has no wings, the tailplanes stabilize and control the AoA in a turn.
Another feature is that probable the CFT fitted to the F-16E do help it in keeping the vortices generated by the wing LEX without bursting.
Having the same wing does not mean the aircraft will lose agility, higher thrust keep the aircraft with the same TWR and the tailplanes deflextion do for the lack of lift, besides tailplanes in the F-16 are downwashed by the wings, reducing the need for deflextion.
So Lockheed Martin is positively 100% right if they say the F-16E is as agile as earlier versions due to a more powerful engine
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. The F-16A also has the same tail planes. Lever action isn’t that quite great actually, you get better lever action on planes like the MiG-21, F-22 and Su-27 because the tail planes further backward of the engine.
CFT also adds quite a bit of drag.
On a canard, the canards pull the nose up, and that action is actually both faster and requires less deflection than the lever movement of the tail planes. For a similar reason its why front wheel drive cars excel in slalom events. For canard deltas you got both the canard pulling up and the aileron functions pushing down. That’s quite a bit of control authority you got there.
There is a reason why the Japanese F-2 had its wing area increased and its LERX redesigned, once the basic F-16 design got past the 9000 kg empty mark.
All this does not change the fact that the plane is less responsive than its previous version at lower speeds due to the greater weight upon the wings and has a higher speed stall point.
crobatoLift generated by the wing is directly proportional to the angle of attack. A “heavy” F-16E would only have to increase AOA slightly to create enough lift to achieve the same turn rate as a “lightweight” F-16A. A potential issue is that induced drag increases as AOA increases, but the increase in induced drag is more than offset by the F-16E’s greater thrust. (This is why the old delta wing fighters like F-106 and Mirage III had fantastic turn rates for the first 120-150 degrees, something like 35 degrees/second. They generated tremendous lift at high AOA to whip the nose around, but didn’t have enough thrust to make up for the drag that caused a severe loss of airspeed.)
That’s a substantial increase in weight against the same wings. For the same amount of AoA, the F-16A will increase its turn rate.
When planes are trying to achieve the best turn rates, wings are usually set at the highest possible point in the AoA (22 to 25 degrees), and once you go beyond that, you start losing lift and increase drag tremendously. So there is a maximum point reached where you can’t solve that by increasing AoA. At some point, increase in AoA results in vortices degenerating into turbulence.
crobatoCongrats! Is this your first?
crobatowhat do you guys think of De Zeven Provincien?
My thoughts on the previous post.
crobatoFrom the technological point of view I say we’re past the necessity to bunch up everything in one place. Distribution and duplication of all critical systems and components should be the way to go. Look at MEKO-D.
From what see about cleaning things up, it helps reduce RCS. All those equipment scattered here and there add to the signature.
On the other hand, bunching things up tends to increase cross interference between one equipment to the other, and a minimal distance has to be maintained between all systems.
@ Wanhsan: Right. Doesn’t make it any better.
The San Antonios have two of these masts, which is to be preferred. Hope they also duplicated computing, energy, etc.
From what I understand the Europeans are using a two mast approach, as you can see with the Daring, Horizon, Sachsen, Provincien, etc,. One mast contains the fire control radars, and the other mast contains the volume air search radars.
Putting the fire control or target tracking radars on top of the mast as opposed to the superstructure enables the radars to peer down a much larger radar horizon, detecting sea skimmers sooner and reduces the scatter effect when radars are closer to the surface.
At the same time, they got a much larger and much more powerful volume search radar (e.g. like SMART-L) that is placed on the second mast compared the fairly tiny SPS-67? (Burke) or -55?(Tico) surface search radars that is placed on the front mast of these ships.
Personally I would prefer a dual radar setup: low resolution, high volume search PRF radar running on a longer frequency mated to a self tracking fire control or target tracking radar with high resolution high frequency, narrow beam and running on CW. This is what the Europeans are going for and the Russians are going for as well. As compared to one giant radar setup where both volume search and tracking has to be done by a single PRF radar, and the illuminators are slaved to this radar.
Raytheon’s SPY-2 is now going for a dual set up as well, though they plan on putting two arrays on the same face. One array should be optimized for volume search and the second array for high resolution tracking, fire control and even illumination.
crobatoThat is not accurate. to keep something on the air you need basicaly speed and acceleration (kinetic energy), a rocket generates enough speed and acceleration due to its thrust to lift off even having no wings same is a Harrier which basicly uses no wings to take off only its engine thrust.
A cannon ball also has no wings and despite this you can keep it in the air just by hurdling it into the air by the raw power of the cannon fire mechanism.you can throw a stone and it will continue flying as long as it has kinetic energy.
That is the reason lockheed martin says the F-16E has kept the same agility of the early F-16s, it has enough thrust to keep the aircraft in the air and the same TWR even with a heavier take off weight.
That is simply not correct Rice. Turn rate is actually a vector produced by the forward motion (engine thrust) and the vertical motion (wing lift). In the case of the F-16E vs. F-16A, while the F-16E has greater thrust, the higher wing loading of the F-16E because of its greater weight, it produces less net lift (lift – weight) per square area. So its ability to go around a circle faster is mitigated by the fact it has to go around a larger turning circle.
Plus in terms of handling, having higher wing loading means the wings are less responsive to control inputs and authority. And as I mention, when you turn tighter, you lose lift faster, creating a higher stall speed. You cannot use thrust to turn around a small turn fast, or you will produce excess G forces, either black out, or force structural failure on their aircraft.
crobatohttp://www.sinodefence.com/weapons/missile/pl12.asp
“The PL-12 has possibly adopted the AMR-1 active radar seeker developed by CAAAM in the late 1990s. Unconfirmed reports suggested the AMR-1 development was assisted by Russian Agat Bureau, the designer of the R-77’s seeker. There is also report suggesting that the PL-12 contains some elements of the Israeli Derby MRAAM technology. The PL-12 is powered by a Chinese-designed motor giving a maximum range of 70km and speed of Mach 4. The missile was claimed to be more manoeuvrable than the Russian R-77, and approach the U.S. AIM-120A in general performance.”
There’s a BIG difference between the A, and the C7(or D for that matter). There’s no mention of how the missile performs in heavy ECM, what the reliability is, etc…
The designer of the missile acknowledges the PL-12 exceeds the early AIM-120A/B in performance, and approaches the -C. But Taiwan reports and AFA chart suggests the PL-12 barely exceeds the -C. ROCAF now appears to consider their AIM-120C5 inferior to the PL-12, although they might be saying that to acquire the C-7. The PL-12 mod as it is called is barely just below the C7 in range, and the export version of that, the SD-10A is already advertised in Zhuhai air show. The PLA always tests their equipment and does their exercise under extreme ECM conditions, they always point this attribute on their reports.
The PL-12 has a very interesting tail rudder design, that compared to the tail fins of the AMRAAM, has lower wing span and more acute sweep for lesser drag. The sawtooth on the inner edge means it can use minimal deflection to produce the same amount of control authority, producing less drag on turns. The AIM-9X has wise up to this design and is using it in the front canards, but the PL-12 is the first BVRAAM to use it on the rear. Plus its about 40kg more in weight for more propellant.
crobatoThe Thales all-in-one mast is a foolish concept. A disaster for survivability.
Why? I like to know your technological view point.
crobatoI’d be willing to bet that the latest versions of the AIM-120 are more than a match to anything the J-10 has(or will have in the near future), not to mention the ASRAAM and Python V.
Actually the PL-12 has seriously closed the gap if the AFA video is correct, and the PL-12 mod is almost right there with the C7. Also there are new SRAAMs in development.
crobatoF-16A is 7.4 tons. F-16E is 9.3tons. So 1.9tons at most but F-16E has 4 tons more thrust.
And yet the lift area of the two remain practically the same. How does that make the F-16E more maneuverable? Increased wing loading tends to produce a larger turn radius. You may have to turn faster around a larger circle using more power. The other disadvantages are higher stall speed. When you keep turning tighter and tighter, your speed falls down, and then at some point, you drop like a rock. Having a higher wing loading means you reach that point earlier and a higher speed.
Having a high wing loading also means a number of critical non-combat disadvantages. You got higher take off and landing speeds. That in addition to a higher stalling speed increases the chance of accidents.
crobatoI highly doubt 6 to 8 missiles are going to effect Flanker performance. Most of them are located in belly. J-10 has ETs, elevated cockpit, candards.
Flanker has very sleek profile
Every missile and pylon adds to drag. Its plain physics. Each represents a corresponding increase in surface area, plus fins and pylons all. Not to mention weight.
The J-10 does not have an elevated cockpit. More or less, its canopy design happens to be similar to the Su-27’s. The Su-27’s downward nose doesn’t contribute to decreased drag either. You really need that nose pointing straight.
crobatoThe later types suffered from many of the same weaknesses as there Japanese counter parts…………
No they didn’t. The German fighters were as tough as nails and had high diving speeds. They’re much closer to the American fighters in style.
The Luftwaffe was over stretched, tired, harassed, facing overwhelming numbers in both fronts, and was seriously attritioned out of the sky.
In WWII, the real big fighters, the twin engined ones, ended up mostly as night fighters because of the ability to hold radar equipment.
crobatoHaving short wing spans and a slender fuselage also makes it prone to inertia coupling
[B]Inertia coupling is a potentially lethal phenomenon of high-speed flight in which the inertia of the heavier fuselage overpowers the aerodynamic stabilizing forces of the wing and empennage. The problem became apparent as single-engine jet fighter aircraft were developed with narrow wing spans that had relatively low roll inertia, relative to the pitch and yaw inertia dominated by the long slender high-density fuselage.[1]
This phenomenon works only if the fuselage is long. This applies more to the J-8II or long fighters like the Voodoo or Thunderchief. The MiG-23 also suffers from this regard, to some degree, the MiG-21. This does not apply if the fuselage is short and light, and when there is enough vertical stabilizing surfaces, e.g. larger tail, rear ventral fins. Note these measures being applied on many aircraft including three of the above.
Now let us say the roll rate of the J-10 effectively is better and they have achieved high inertia capability, the Su-27 only needs to get into vertical maneuvring and shake off the J-10, basicly since it is underpowered it won`t make better loops, it won`t be as fast entering a loop.
It will lose energy faster. so saying the Su-27 will be beaten is a mistatement,
A pilot knows in combat that climbing is important to shake off an enemy basicly the same situation a Zero and a Hellcat would encounter.
The Latest MiG-29s are difficult to evaluate against a J-10 since they have been re-engined and have higher TWR. so what holds true for the Su-27s, in many ways might be true for the MiG-29s but the Fulcrum is even more agile than the Flanker
Actually the Su-27 tends to lose energy faster, LERXes and all, and having a lot more surface area and deflecting surfaces than the J-10. The fact that the J-10 is observed to able to demonstrate strong quick maneuvers with minimal deflection of the control surfaces means that less deflection leads to lesser energy loss in those maneuvers. It also means the J-10 has a lot of reserve and is pulling back in those show maneuvers and that the pilot seriously understands well the concept of energy maneuvering.
crobatoSo, why could similar tactics could be used today…………between the Flanker and the J-10??? Sounds like some want it both ways. Regradless, the Flanker is going to carry a larger Radar and many more Missiles. Likely destroying the J-10 at BVR.
Having more missiles means the Flanker will be flying slower and produce an even larger RCS than it already has. The J-10 has smaller RCS.
Because you will be flying slower the Flanker will end up with a lower PK % out of its missile.
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