Sorry, but Formin is speculating.

Irkut factory website has the SU-30MK at 9640kg. That’s a factory stated figure. Previously it was actually lower at around 9400m so the increases were made to match the MKK who is stated at 9640 by KnAPPO factory documentation.

I like the pic on the right. Looks like a very sensible layout, one that promises great maneuverability and would not be hard to construct. I do think that the two rudders on the back should be canted a bit to reduce sideways radar reflection.

I would too. The Oniks/Yakhont is the little-brother of Granit, and is definitely a more advanced missile. I suppose the Chinese just want commonality.

It would take a redesign of the Sovremanny to accomodate the Yakhont. The PRC just want expedience, and at the same time, they’re already familiar with the product. They’re a very conservative bunch of chaps, you know. Or they may have a political preference to Raduga, whio is also doing to their Kazoo missiles. As an added note, the PRC is quite happy with their Sovremannies. Chalk one up for a satisfied customer.

The first of the two Project 956EM intended to use this new mod of the Sunburn has already been launched according to Interfax.

The PRC bought like 54 Sunburns that were said to have been warehoused by Raduga. Raduga originally made the misisles for the Russian Navy, who refused to pay for the missiles.

The PRC already has their own Maverick style missile in the form of the C-701.

The other missile in the picture is more likely to be a PL-5.

To steer a beam, you need a contructive and deconstructive interference. As you “phase” the beam from the center to the side, the more the interference you need and therefore the more energy is required. That means less energy becomes available for the beam itself. Simultaneously the greater you bend the beam, the more energy is expended wastefully as heat. That’s why these units can become very hot. As you bend the beam to the side, the beam therefore loses strength and range.

So what you need is some mechanical assistance, pointing it to the side so you don’t have to bend the beam that far.

Re: Radar questions

Originally posted by GDL
[B]I was wondering just how realistic the virtual world fighter radar is to the real thing. All the talk about radars lately has me wondering….

In FALCON 4 the Velocity Search (VS) mode has a max. range setting on the scope of 80nm (148km). Of course this is referring to the late model APG-68 radar fitted to the block 50/52 F-16C.

That 80nm should be the maximum range of any single mode include Range While Search. That’s just how far the APG-68 could go. I thought it fits the pattern for most radars of that size. Note V5 or V9 might have better ranges by about 30% from earlier APG-68s.

Real world figures I have seen for the APG-68 are 80km against a fighter-sized target, and 140km against a bomber-sized target. But there is no mention from that source to the radar mode used.

I notice that real world figures tend to be track while scan, or for the Russians N010 and N001, a generic track mode which does not simultaneously volume search by the way.

Q. Could 140-150km be a realistic VS mode max. range for the APG-68 against a larger target?

I personally think its believable.

Absolute max. range figures for the APG-68 from other sourecs appear to be classified, or the usuall ‘N/A’ is often written.

Now for the APG-73. In the F/A-18E/F CSF (Carrier Strike Fighter) combat sim you can track or ‘bug’ a target in VS mode simply by designating it with the TDC (target designation cursor). When you do this the radar automatically switches to track-while-scan (TWS) mode.

Q. Is this realistic?

I don’t know. Might be.

Also the max. VS range setting in the scope is again only 80nm.

Q. So does this mean anything with a positive closure rate OUTSIDE 80nm will not show up on the scope?

Yes. It’s most probably the radar’s absolute limits. RWS and VS are the two most “liberal” when it comes to distances.

Q. Is there much difference in detection range against relative targets in VS and Range-while-search (RWS) modes? [/B]

I think RWS and VS has about the same ranges. Dunno about elevation and azimuths though.

Originally posted by GarryB
[B]So with aircraft very rarely if ever pulling their maximum g limits I guess that is an irrelevant figure too?

What?

Once again, you make analogies that don’t make sense at all just to complete your trolling arguments.

Running straight at Mach 2 isn’t exactly a life saving procedure from a missile, but turning at 9G does.

The fact that the Mig-29 is capable of exceeding Mach two suggests a few things about its performance over mach 1 where planes… especially interceptors do go. (It also says something about power to weight ratio and acceleration not to mention exhaust velocity and drag).

Means nothing. The JSF does only Mach 1.8 despite having greater TWR than the MiG-29. The F-22 only does mach 2 despite even greater TWR.

Guess who does Mach 2.4?

A Phantom F-4.

TWR? 0.75

Everyone has accidents with aircraft, but under normal circumstances the loss of one engine is only fatal if you only came with one.

What makes you think that a failure in one engine would not necessarily spread to the other?

Of course if it had one engine it would be much cheaper. The two accidents had nothing to do with how many engines the Shuttle has, the first accident was a frozen O ring failed and leaked fuel from the main tank, which was ignited by the main engines operating normally. The second was cladding breaking away and hitting the wing knocking off too many heat resistant tiles in a structurally important place… again nothing to fault the engines for.

Exactly. You don’t seem to realize that even in twin engined fighters, there are way too many shared systems, the most important and hazardous being the fuel systems.

If one engine blows up and blows your tanks up, what makes think you will still survive even if you have the other engine?

Dual engines protect against only a certain range of accidents, those that only cause an engine to shut down,.

If your Nitro kit on your car engine fails to you not drive it till it is fixed? The car doesn’t need the extra power to go get some milk and bread from the shops… and your family wants to sit down to lunch…

Compare it more like the overdrive of your transmission.

If something is wrong with your overdrive, something maybe wrong with your entire transmission.

Don’t give me your totally inappropriate analogies. Nitros are not an integral part of the powertrain. Afterburners are.

If this was a military service, that pilot could be in serious trouble. A problem with the afterburner means a problem in the engine.

You criticise my comparison with a faulty mirror and then compare a fully servicible fighter with one AB system that doesn’t work with brake failure or a sticking accelerator in a car?

Yes, I will criticize your comparison as being totally in appropriate, if not rather tasteless.

Let’s put it in another way.

IRRESPONSIBLE.

If you’re a mechanic in my command I would have you DISCHARGED DISHONORABLY RIGHT IN THE SPOT.

How dare you compare an afterburner failure with a trivial problem as a crack in the glass of a car?

I am sure the pilots in your country are reckless idiots that want to kill people for fun but why do you think Czech pilots are the same… and of course he would have a say but the airshow officials would have the final say I would think… but you know better than them right?

I will call it as it is. That pilot is a RECKLESS IDIOT.

And you’re as irresponsible in defending him.

Of course… the only aircraft that ever leaves the hanger… yawn!!!

Running out of arguments eh?

Maybe you have not considered the entire preference for the F-16 by the USAF comes not just because of cost—it is not exactly a cheap plane—but because it is the most operable. It is the result of practical experience, forged from experience.

Capability without operability is nothing.

In the end, the day will be won by the weapon who is there, the right place, the right time, right when you need it the most.

Or doing the job right the first time might reduce the number of times you have to send pilots into dangerous places.

Doing the job right is irrespective of the plane type. A JDAM can be dropped by an eight engined plane like a B-52, or dropped by a two engined plane like a Strike Eagle, or by a single engined plane like the JSF.

A JSF can take out bunkered defenses as well as an F-117 or an F/A-22.

Experience has shown there is no such thing as a one time job. You may have hit a spot, but your real target may not be there, like Saddam moving from one hideout to another, or the way the Serbs decoy radars, or the way, the same dead tank was hit over and over again.

In war, you don’t expect your job to be reduced. It will only be greater.

To win, you must need a persistant, tenacious and relentless attack. This calls for weapons platforms with persistance and stamina. Once again, its the issue of operability.

Against 3rd world countries with second or third or even fourth rate airforces an F-16 would be fine, but if a real war started I think you’d find it would be the bigger twins most pilots would like to sit in.

In big wars, you will see the big twins die first, ran out of gas, ran out of parts, or can’t run because you can’t fix them in time.

This will leave the little guys to carry on.

WWII was not won with big complicated heavy tanks. It was won with the simple medium tanks who keeps running and running and break down less.

The air was not won by big strategic bombers or two engined zerstorer fighters. It was determined by the actions of single engined fighters.

In the sea, it was not the battleship or the cruiser that was the workhorse. It was the destroyer.

Readiness is important but don’t be rediculous. You make it sound like Twins spend 90% of their time in hangars. I guess the up time for Buffs must be absolutely pathetic…

Of course not. But the readiness of the single engined types were considerable enough that one overriding requirement in the specification of the JSF was a single engine.

The F-117 wasn’t just about stealth. It killed more of the targets it went after than any other aircraft of the ’91 war. In fact a lot of its missions were taking out targets other aircraft were supposed to have hit… and I guess if the F-16 hit everything as you suggest then it is pretty obvious what plane it had to clean up after…

And other than the low RCS, there was nothing in the F-117 that could not have been done by a singled engined fighter. Your argument has nothing to do with operability but accuracy. Perhaps the F–117 has better night sighting equipment than the other jets.

You keep forgeting that the F-16 is the choice for ground attack—no other plane in the US arsenal could carry as many a variety of air to ground/surface weapons as the F-16. Many of the important missions in both Gulf Wars were undertaken by F-16s. Guess who is the primary anti-SAM platform of the US.

Yes, I understand that by having two engines you are doubling the number of moving parts that you would have if you just had one of the same type of engine… but so what? The internal friction of one engine is not related to the internal friction of another. Engine performance does not include tables showing internal friction, simply because it is meaningless.

You keep putting an irrelevant argument.

Can’t you add?

That two wheels make more friction than one? That two engines collectively make more friction than one?

You are trying to disprove things that in essence, are part of our world and the way we are doing things. To save gas we use four cylinder engines, not eight. We turn to two engined jet airliners for economy now, not four engined ones.

What are you trying to prove here? That you are right about one thing, that you don’t have common sense at all?

K. A jet plane with one engine… a WWII BMW engine that puts out 2 tons of thrust with a SFC of 3. Another Jet aircraft with two modern RD-33 Turbofans that puts out 8 tons each and has a SFC of 0.7. I guess the higher internal friction means that the second jet uses more fuel to fly from point A to point B which is 400km apart?

Are you so desperate now to prove your nonsense right by using inappropriate examples again?

Who do you think you’re fooling with your examples.

You’re comparing two engines that are generations and decades apart.

Might as well compare a Ford Flathead V-8 to a Ford Triton V-8.

Get on with it.

Plane with single GE F404 travels from Point A to Point B.

Plane with two GE F404 travels from Point A to Point B.

Who uses more gas, and who uses less?

Hmm?

The internal friction is meaningless with regard to aircraft. It might be important to the efficiency of the engine.

Bull.

It is meaningful in the entire context of the aircraft.

Guess what? The engine is part of the plane, and the way the engine eats gas, affects the economy of the plane in its journey.

HAVING TWO ENGINES JUST MEANS YOU AIRCRAFT WILL BE A LITTLE HEAVIER AND LARGER… THIS IS USUALLY COMPENSATED FOR BY HAVING MORE THRUST AND A LITTLE MORE INTERNAL FUEL.

Nonsense again.

Take the two most equivalent fighters of one generation.

F-16 vs. MiG-29.

F-16A — 7,000kg.

MiG-29A — 10,000kg.

A little heavier? A little larger?

Guess who has a bad reputation of being short legged.

If the plane with five engines has engines that use more than 3 times more fuel than the engines in the 10 engine aircraft it WILL NOT USE MORE FUEL. The Number of engines is irrelevant… it is the SFC of the engines that matters.

If the SFC of the engines are all equal, the 10 engined plane uses more gas. It would take a huge variance in the SFC—one perhaps caused by a major generational gap—to offset that difference.

Don’t deflect the argument with irrelevance.

So an Su-7 has a longer flight range than an Su-27?

See how pathetic your arguments have become? You’re left to comparing aircraft of different generations.

Perhaps nothing to do with the composite materials in the F-16, or the Soviet era avionics boxes… when removed to install the SMT avionics reduced the aircraft weight by 600kgs alone, not to mention differences in the weight of the radars, or the fact that the F-16 is flybywire and doesn’t have 3 sets of redundant mechanical backup linkages, and lets not ignore the armour plating on the sides of the cockpit on the Mig, or perhaps that the Mig has internal fuel tanks, whereas the monocouc (spelling) design of the F-16 means that the outer skin of the aircraft forms the outer wall of the internal fuel tanks. This greatly increases the Fuel tankage area and greatly reduces weight.

That’s nonsense. A Typhoon has fly by wire and composites and yet the aircraft weighs as much as a MiG-29. You are mentioning things whose weight additions are minor.

As a matter of fact, the F-16 is very heavy for a single engined fighter. A MiG-21 weighs between 5,000 to 6,000kg among different variants. An LCA weighs about 5,500kg. A Gripen weighs about 6,600kg. Notice something? The low tech MiG-21 matches their weighs.

The F-16C, which has a heavily reinforced monoque, is about 8,500kg. This plane has a much longer service life in its airframe than the MiG-29, the same frame is so highly beefed, it can carry over 6,500kg of load when the Fulcrum manages only 3,000kg. The later Fulcrum did have the fluid tight skin as well to enable increase of fuel capacity, but we have also seen a slight increase of weight to the higher 10,000kg.

Are you saying that removing inernal moving parts in an aircraft improve the fuel efficiency of the aircraft? Does removing an autogyro really make that much of a difference?

Once again, you pose an irrelevant comparison. Is that how you frame your argument? By distorting the principle and context with silly examples?

Get it in your head. One engine saves more gas than two. Two engines saves more gas then three or four. That’s not a theory, that’s not a fact. That’s a principle everyone already operates on from the military to the airline industry.

Hey, don’t get me wrong… when you spend more on them than you spend on a decent twin you get capability too… but why not just spend that extra money and buy a twin in the first place?

And who told you that a twin gets more capability? There is no inherent capability advantage a twin has over a single.

Is the Phantom more capable than an F-16? Is the MiG-29 more capable than the Mirage 2000? Is the Typhoon more capable than the JSF?

And is that from the loss of one engine or 20 years of technology development. (Don’t pretend the F-16A was better than the F-4).

Oh, you think the F-16A isn’t as capable? In A2A, it runs rings around the Phantom. The difference in field performance is truly generational. Put an upgraded radar on the Phantom and guess what, it ain’t any better, since the Phantom’s radome size is only as big as the F-16’s.

When it comes along it will be new and immature… how many planes and pilots will you lose?

Phooey.

In war, you think twin engined planes will save lives?

If a missile explodes near a plane in a proximity blast, two engines will not save you. Chances are, both engines will be seriously damaged. In war time, against war damage, two engines will not save you short of a miracle.

First of all Mine? I think not.
Second how can avionics be so darn hard when the engines and airframe have been mastered and are cheap and easy? In such a situation twin engine aircraft seem to make more sense than singles.

Wrong again. Its only because one country has heavily invested in one field and neglected another. Engines are not cheap and easy—even in the US, they take for the most part, a decade from design to service.

Perhaps for you and Japan, but to suggest that is the same for everyone and those who don’t agree with you are morons is a little egocentric don’t you think?

I think you’re the moron in the light that the world does not agree with you about something as obvious as economy and operability and with simple concepts like internal mechanical friction.

You actually believed that mechanical friction didn’t even exist.

For what? Just so that you can troll back against anyone who said something against your beloved Russian aircraft :PPP

So when you list those countries are all the ones that can make good jet engines morons?

What is your point of taking my sentences and meaning out of context? Eh? Just to prove the fool you are?

And the Iranian Tomcats are not flying?

From cannibalization, smuggling of components, duplication and a massive case of resourcefullness?

The last gen of the cold war got the CEP down to below 200m. Current work on optical terminal guidance heads reduces that by a factor of 10.

To seriously hurt an airbase you’re going to need ten times more accuracy. No make it 20. PGMs often has less than 10m CEP.

Not only that, you must be willing to expend thousands of missiles. It took PGMs and bombs in the thousands against a third world country alone what makes you think how much can you use against a major regional alliance?

You think these missiles would bust a hardened bunker?

Are you aware that NATO and the US has engineer corps that could repair an airfield in 15 minutes using special repair packages?

The SFC ratings give engine fuel consumption in ideal conditions at ideal revs. It is an indicator only. Putting another engine next to it will have zero influence, whereas air temperature, density, and many other influences will effect fuel conssumption… the fact that the engines are running with bits rubbing together will mean zip.

Listen to this again. Since you obviously have little understanding.

Two engines use more fuel than a single one.

What is hard for you to understand? The fans, the shaft, the gears, all that turns in thousands of RPMs consume their own energy.

In addition, two engines means greater mass to overcome.

Two engines means a larger and heavier airframe to hold them, and therefore even more mass to overcome.

Two engines means more accessories and underpinings like a gearbox, which also means more mass and more mechanical friction to overcome.

With two engines to generate the same power as the larger engine it operates at lower revs… lower revs but putting out the same power… where do you use most fuel… high revs at high speed or low revs at high speed? (I’ll give you a hint… when you click in overdrive to reduce your fuel consumption on long flat roads do your revs go up or down?)

And when you can put aside the principles, four cylinder cars are still tops in any economy list. When engine options are compared, its still the smaller, less cylindered engine that has consistently better economy ratings.

You don’t see the whole picture do you?

A lot of driving occurs in a stop and go setting. In idle, a larger engine which presents greater reciprocating mass and greater frictional areas, or one with more cylinders, use more fuel than engines with less. An engine with more cylinders need to be larger, because small cylinders tend to produce less torque, and therefore requires higher RPM to produce the same amount of torque, and higher RPM means less economy for the reasons that are obviously involving mass and friction.

So now, you have larger engines. But larger engines have more mass to move around. Larger engines need larger cars to hold them, therefore more mass to move around. When you have more mass to move around, you need bigger brakes, bigger wheels, bigger transmissions, bigger of everything and the mass adds up quickly.

But you are suggesting a LOW only airforce… You are asking to get whipped by a quality force.

Quality is dependent on twins? An airforce with lots of F-16s and M2000s are more than adequete to deal with any regional power. Many quality AFs are built on these two planes.

[quote]
The comparison used was based on flight hours. And it wasn’t accident rate, it was pilots killed… the number of times the radar failed or a heavy landing bent something is irrelevant.[quote]

Show me.

That piece of junk?

A helo that has operated for decades now in COIN operations with so many third world countries.

quote:Max Mach numbers are essentially meaningless.

So top speed is nothing to do with performance?

For the same reason why the top speed of a Lamborghini vs, that of a Ferrari is meaningless except for marketing speak.

Nobody goes up to that point, and if you do, there are many other factors such as your drag and aerodynamics.

Have we? The only twin I can think of that crashes with flameouts is the old model Tomcats and the was due to poor design.

What about the SU-27 accident involving an airshow in the Ukraine in the summer of 2002?

You telling me that Russia and the CIS don’t have accidents involving Flankers and Fulcrums, not to mention China and India?

So with good maintainence nothing goes wrong? Why are the Shuttles grounded then… they were very well maintained… There is a difference between a last minute failure with no time to fix and poor maintainence… I’d have thought an expert in aviation like you might have recognised that.

Don’t take the shuttle accident as an example. That was an accident waiting to happen. There had been many reports recommending replacement of these machines which are outdated, obsolete. And even if you had two or three engines—the shuttles and its boosters had multiple engines by the way—it would not have solved one thing because the thing blew up.

Both engines were working fine, it was a fault in one of the afterburners that prevented it from working. It was disabled and he flew. Get off your high horse and harden up a bit. Do you refuse to drive to work in the morning if you find a crack in your rear view mirror?

What? You compare a failure in the afterburner something similar to a crack in the rear view mirror?

That absolutely makes no sense.

If I have a problem in one of my brakes, or with my throttle, I would not go to work in the morning.

You would be considered unsafe on the road.

Maybe for you with lax safety and quality standards, you might still go.

So the cheaper less effective planes have been made in large numbers and sold widely and due to that are often used when they can do the job. The performed the most sorties because nothing better was required… but I think you’ll find it is the twin or more # engine aircraft that do the real job, The F-117s, B-2s, F-15s, F-14s, Intruders, Tornados, Phantoms…

F-16s now do the jobs as Phantoms.

Except for the F-117s and the B-2, all their jobs overlap.

For the fighters and strikers, they can all do each other’s job.

But that is not the point.

The point is WHO is available when the mission is called upon.

Read this again. AVAILABILITY.

While other planes are in their hangers getting fixed, the F-16 was already ready and waiting.

It was there when you need it.

It was ready when you need it.

That’s why there are a lot of fighters out there, but of these fighters, only one was called upon the job more.

That is not the point. The F-16 was given jobs that most of the other aircraft could do. The only reason it was used was because it was cheap and available at the time. If the F-16 didn’t exist the war would still have been won, and the sorties would have been lower but with probably better results at greater financial cost.

That is the point. You reiterated it. But you don’t seem to get the AVAILABILITY is one of the most important things in combat.

You would not have greater results because you would not be able to exploit the opportunity when your plane is not ready.

If the F-117 didn’t exist the F-16 wouldn’t have been the second or the third choice for its missions… most likely the Americans would have asked the Aussies for their F-111s back for a few months…

I don’t think so. The role of the F-117 is probably overrated and is more of a show piece. If you can jam the crap out of your opponents, you could right on top of them with a Cessna Piper and bomb them.

Yes, F-4s vs Mig-21s, Mig-17s, Mig-15s and the only Vietnamese twin of Mig-19s.

Which were J-6s by the way. It was the one who however saw the least combat.

The conditions facing the Vietnamese are the ones that include shortages and limited supplies, and would have a far greater effect on the availability of aircraft for combat missions. The US could spend their way anyway. So in all the Vietnamese aircraft, it was the single seaters that had by far the greatest use.

But if there are single engine fighters on both sides and one side always loses then how can single engine fighters be decisive?

The context is why it is used more.

The Arab forces against the Israeli forces has the Arab forces mostly armed with singles, with the Israelis with a mix of F-15s, F-16s, F-4s, Kfirs, yet the Israelis seem to come out best whether they are fighting in singles or twins whether they are fighting singles or twins. But if singles are so decisive… so pivotal what is there no difference in performance?

For the most part, the Israelis used more single engined types—Mirages, A-4s

The internal friction inside an engine is not effected by anything around it. In otherwords if the internal friction of an engine equals x hen that x will influence its SFC rate… as the fuel burnt overcomes the internal friction to turn the engine when it operates. This figure x does not change if you put another engine next to it. The engine you put there will have its own internal frictionr rating… lets call it y. If they are the same type of engine then x and y will be nearly equal or very very close. Having an engine with an internal friction of x sitting next to an engine with an internal friction of y means F all. They don’t effect each other, they are only related in that they are the same type of engine so they will be fairly similar numbers unless one of the engines has a fault or is old or whatever.

Huh?

Don’t you get it? Two engines will create cumulatively more internal friction than one. That’s obvious. The same way six cylinder engines have more internal friction than four cylinder ones.

What don’t you understand?

A plane with more engines uses up more fuel to go from Point A to B.

THE FUEL CONSUMPTION OF AN ENGINE IS RATED ON ITS FUEL CONSUMPTION. INTERNAL FRICTION IS RELATED TO FUEL CONSUPTION BUT HAVING 10 ENGINES DOESN’T INCREASE THE FUEL CONSUMPTION OF EACH OF THOSE TEN ENGINES BY TEN TIMES.

You are dumb are you?

We are not talking about each engine.

We are talking about the entire plane as a whole.

A plane with 10 engines will use more fuel to travel from Point A to B than a plane with 5 engines.

IN FACT IT DOESN’T EFFECT THEM AT ALL… THEIR SFC REMAINS THE SAME IF THERE IS ONE ENGINE OR 1 MILLION.

Yes, but the fact remains, a plane with two engines will use more fuel to go from Point A to B than a plane with one engine.

Why are they heavier? I pointed out before that if the RD-33s weren’t used then the only other engine available at the time with a comparable thrust was the D-30F6 which weighs 2.5 tons… the RD-33s weigh 1 ton each…

Heavier, yeah?

F-16A — Empty Weight, 7,000kg
MiG-29A — Empty Weight, 10,000kg.

It’s not just the engines, but you need a bigger airframe to support them.

I added 700kg of thrust to compensate for the extra drag. Having two engines does not increase or decrease internal friction… or should I call it Internal fiction?

Are you telling me that the total friction generated by one engine is lessened by 50% everytime it is joined by another engine in the same airframe?

If the total internal friction generated by one engine is A, having two engines means that the total internal friction would be 2*A.

Twice the number of moving parts.

Twice the amount of surfaces in contact with each other.

Twice the amount of revolving mass.

What is it hard for you to understand?

Don’t confuse efficiency with capability. A paper plane would be efficient… not very capable so so cheap you could make billions for a few thousand dollars. Think of the sortie rate!!!!

And how is a single plane less capable?

An F-16 is as capable as the F-4 Phantom was and even more so.

Until an engine comes along that is powerful enough to replace two, I agree that a twin engine design would be more capable. But when that moment does, when such an engine that comes along, a single engined design is much more efficient.

This is the situation what many twin engine jets now face when the JSF comes along.

So it is moving parts that is what makes it complicated?
It is amazing that airframes were building up at the Soviet Factories because airframes were built, engines were ready but the radar and avionics were not ready. Strange considering the engines are the most complicated and expensive parts of an aircraft…

Its because your electronics development is stunted. Badly stunted.

In another country, it can be the other way around. Japan can easily come up with a very good radar first, but it has trouble coughing up the engine. The radar on the F-2 is home grown. The engine is imported.

The engine is still the most complicated thing in the plane, and is the hardest to develop. Its really easier to develop electronics than it is with engines. The list of countries that can design and make chips and circuit boards is a hell of a lot longer than those who can produce a gas turbine.

So if they have corporate profits etc etc and everything else is at least the same and their maintainence is higher why are singles so cheap? Except that they aren’t that cheap.

Are you comparing the present prices of singles today vs the past prices of duals?

If we consider the cost of duals now, they are even more expensive.

Please note the 60 million price for the Block 60 was the price quoted for the UAE which includes an active array. That’s also a contract price that packages the inclusion of creating maintenance and training infrastructure for a customer who has never used the type before.

The USN is paying contract price of 80 million over for a Super Bug despite it already has a maintenance infrastructure and is only using a planar antenna.

Is that because it is a twin or because when it was made the designers didn’t or couldn’t make it maintainence friendly? The Hornet is apparantly a very servicable aircraft… the early models anyway.

The Hornet is certainly more servicable than the Tomcat. The Bug, relative to dual engine types, is quite serviceable.

But the F-16 still remains much more so, and the single engined JSF promises to out do even the F-18. The selection of having one engine on the JSF was deliberate.

Old technology avionics were so reliable I am sure they would be cheap to maintain today, I mean all the parts will still be available won’t they?
Try getting parts for a TV set made in the 70s…

You can also say the same with old F-16As, many of whom are still flying.

Hahahahahahaha… the JSF is an F-14 with the F-14s avionics and weapons, but with stealth, no wing, and no engines… hahahahahaha

Out of argument again?

The JSF is the cumulative statement of the collective experience of the USAF and USN. They have decided that this is the aircraft that will replace the bulk of both airforces—a plane that is single engined by choice and design.

And when they run out of fuel and no tanker can refuel them because all of the major runways are burning they crash into the ground and then you send in your attack.

Oh man, you think it’s easy to attack airfields way behind the rear?

Let’s take the case of NATO. Those tankers could come right off the coast of the US even if the bases on the UK and Spain are attacked. However, given the CEP of a missile from Russia to Spain or the UK, I doubt you could seriously damage UK or Spanish NATO bases.

And then they sent in F-117s to actually hit the targets the F-16s were supposed to hit.

A decision that may not be tactical, but to test a technology, or for propaganda purposes.

Not related to twin or single discussion. All those Vipers destroyed in that big storm they had in America… I guess that means single engine fighters are crap?

It is a fact.

The Accident Happened.

Planes Destroyed or written off.

Huh?

Typhoon happened in China. SU-27s written off. So?

Just because an accident happened, there is no assurance that a twin engined design would have salvaged the situation.

One engine has moving parts and take in fuel and burns it to overcome inertia and friction. The rate at which it burns fuel is its SFC rating. Having two engines or ten engines doesn’t change that SFC rating.

SFC ratings is only about an ENGINE.

It is not about the total fuel economy of the plane that flies with two of them.

Get it?

quote: That is the dumbest argument I ever heard.

What is really pathetic is your basis that a twin engined design only uses as much fuel to travel as a single engined base based on your argument of aerodynamic drag.

Let’s make it simpler for you to understand.

Which uses less fuel, a car powered by a single 2.4 liter four, or a car powered by a 3.0 liter V-8?

quote:Did I ever tell you why airliner engines are so powerful? Because they are big, very big. With big open mouths.

I will resist the temptation…

But Airliner engines are so powerful because they are turbofans with a very high BPR. Ie they push a huge amount of air through them, though not very fast like a turbojet does. Means they are great for subsonic cruising but no good for supersonic flight.

That’s why they have to have a large diameter. High BPRs and high air volume requires it.

Any improvement is limited by engine diameter but improvements in materials and the cooling of parts means that any improvement in performance is doubled for a twin… for a single it is not.

That’s true too, but then again, you already have a higher weight overhead to begin with.

So the real lesson from all this is not buy lots of single engine fighters, but buy lots of eight engine bombers and a few capable twin engine jet fighters to cover them while they do their job.

Those eight engine bombers were free to roam after all those single engined fighters helped managed to clear the arena for them. Few twin engined fighters are never enough in the first place. That’s why the USAF embarked on a high-lo mix. It was a lesson learned from Vietnam and the increasing complexity and cost of fighters.