arquebusswerve- you gave me a pretty good rebuttal about early european 4th gen fighter development, but this time you are way off.
UAVs are not like guided missiles. They are meant to work multiple times, not once. UAVs have operators, who need training. Much of this can be done with simulators, but they still do live training.
Note that some missiles are used for training. As with UAVs, most training of operators is done on simulators, but occasional live firings take place, especially for those which have a man in the loop.
Yes Im aware of all that, I know testing and live training is done with missiles, but it is done A LOT less than normal manned aircraft training.
Tomahawk missiles are not non-recoverable UAVs. They are missiles. Tomahawk flies one-way, has a built-in warhead (nuclear in the first model), & was designed with no man in the loop, no feedback to a controller. A missile.
Is that your only definition for what a missile is? That it flys one way? The tomahawk is a high endurance aircraft powered by a turbofan engine. It could be designed to drop its munitions on its target and fly back to be recovered, but it would be much easier to build a UAV specifically designed to land on a runway rather than try and recover a spent tomahawk
What are these full sized munitions carrying runway landable UAVs? Which of them would you use against a functioning air defence system, with C&C, radars, SAMs, & fighters all operating? Do you think a Reaper (which can only carry bombs up to 500lb) would survive in such an environment, flying at 250 knots & unable to evade? It would have been easy meat 70 years ago. The Tomahawks were used to degrade air defences, to ease the task of strike aircraft.
Are you serious? you seriously think the Reaper is the best/only option for such a role? You might want to look up some of these:
Dassault nEUROn
Dassault LOGIDUC
BAe Corax
Lockheed Martin Sentinel
EADS Barracuda
BAe Taranis
Boeing Phantom Ray
Boeing X-45
Lockheed Martin Polecat
Northrop Grumman Pegasus
arquebuswilhelm- Im very aware the M2K is ~different~ to the Mirage III, I never meant the planes were exactly the same. And yes I’ll take fault for using the term “upgraded Mirage III” to describe the M2K, I didnt think people would take that literally.
arquebusAs far as I know, UAVs are only tested in remote bases, the AI is not good enough for them to work autonomously amongst manned aircraft in busy airfields. UAVs are like guided missiles, they are supposed to work when required. You dont hear about missiles being sent on a training mission, right? They are just supposed to work by design.
I thought it was a waste to see tomahawk missiles (which are not missiles but non-recoverable UAVs) used on missions in Libya when full sized munitions carrying runway landable UAVs could have been used
arquebusif you read what’s been said: the M2k and le MIII have only one thing in common: they’re single engine delta fighters.
But that’s where the similarity ends. The balance, controls, electronics and, basically, everything else is different
Ive said many times already that FBW made a drastic change to what the M2K is capable of over the Mirage III, the change is like night to day, no comparison. The engines only reinforced the drastic change in handling afforded by centering the CoL over the CoG. But airframe-wise it was still similar to the Mirage III.
arquebusouch!!! almost fell from my seat reading you…
you REALLY shouldn’t talk about things you obviously don’t now much (not to say nothing) about.
you’ve been corrected on that claim already…
how have I been corrected on that claim? the only thing people have said is that Im wrong with no facts to back it up. Actually people have been contridicting themselves saying that the Rafale has a far more advanced airframe than the M2K but saying the Gripen and M2K are exactly equal
arquebusWhat lead you to believe that?
Id agree with Hotdog, the M2K has very large wing area for a very light wing loading. At high altitude Im sure the M2K would have better turn radius. That large wing area also influences turning response, were talking one large turning surface that is balanced exactly over its CoL thanks to FBW control. Compare that to an all moving canard that is bearing lift on its own and which is in opposition to the minimal turning moment of the wing because the CoG is centered between the CoL of the carnard and wing. The canard also has to make severe pitch changes to create lift in sharp turns which causes drag. The only FBW canard jet that was done right was HIMAT. All-moving canards at first may seem like a good idea, but its really not and almost no new fighters are pursuing the concept.
I’m not sure how the Gripen is more modern in its airframe. while Mirage 2000 is a late 70’s design, the Gripen is an early 80’s design that did not fly until the late 80s but the design work was done in 82-3.
The Gripen, Rafale, Eurofighter are all 4th gen fighters using advanced airframe construction as that of the F-16. The M2K was just an updated Mirage 3/5. The fact that it wasnt till the early 80s that they even started studying the design layouts of the Gripen shows how long it took to learn and implement these new structural design techniques.
arquebusIt would be less capable for sure, but how do you know it would cost a lot less? A lot of the costs associated with Rafale new builds would also be associated with M2K new builds.
I think the reason that the M2K cost so much in the past is that they were gouging arab AFs with the only decent alternative to embargo-happy USA. As Ive said before, the M2K should not cost more than the F-16, in fact it should cost a lot less as its more of a 3rd gen airframe, nothing like that of the F-16 but more similar to the Mirage 3/5. It should be pointed out the reason the Mirage 3/5 series sold so well is that they were cheap mach 2 fighters, around $5 million back in the 80s. 3rd world AFs dont need fancy computers for processing sensor data, they rely on ground control. So if the French want to hold out for 3rd world AFs to knuckle under and pay $70 million per Rafale, good luck with that.
arquebusif we’re to look at pure speed and acceleration performance, one may say that, if you put eagle’s engines into the f-4s airframe, you’d end up with just as good performanceif not better (almost 50% more thrust for a slightly smaller engine)
Brits tried that idea by putting Spey Turbofans in their F-4s, it didnt work. Incidently I think the Isrealis put F-100 cores in their F-4s
arquebuswould it still be a good engine for future projects beyond M2K?
beyond the M2K? that leads to another question, does an (average) AF really need a jet beyond the M2K, more specifically, wouldnt France do better by marketing a cheap M2K than a prohibitively expensive Rafale which in my opinion, does not offer hardly anything more than the M2K
arquebusAre you saying that the Su-33, a carrier aircraft, design lies within a 1950’s strike aircraft?
whoops, I dont know how I got the su-22 confused with the su-33
please disregard
arquebusThe Su-33, derived from the Su-27, weighs in at just over 10% heavier, and has additional equipment such as refueling probe and extra control surfaces.
The origin of the Su-33 goes all the way back to the su-7. This aircraft has sensible wing loading for its weight and size which is why it has been able to accept a succession of weight adding modifications over the years. This is not the case with the F-8 which although was a good fighter, was limited in its role by its high wing loading.
arquebusThat’s not really the case, now is it? The turbofan is far more efficient than the turbojet and that pays dividends over the life of the project.
Are you talking fuel burn? Thats hardly a deciding factor in operating and procurement costs.
Dassault designed the M2K around french support and its high labor costs.
What exactly are you saying here? Are you saying the M2K requires higher maintenance or higher skilled labor? The M2K utilizes some composite construction in its tail surfaces, but other than that I think its mostly 3rd gen metal skin construction just like the Mirage 3/5 series.
The current Rafale trends is to separate the two.
what are you referring to?
The Novi Avon project is the closest we ever came to a single M88-engine fighter and that was for a relatively small customer base. The M88 is not what makes the idea untenable.
then what did make it untenable? A small light weight 4th gen fighter should have had good export prospects going by your premise, yet the project was canceled.
And the M88 is less work to maintain. A similar size turbojet is not going to offer simplicity over the M88 when you consider how the current version has majorly shrunk in its number of parts and increased inversely in its service intervals.
This is an arguable point. Its true that flight hours have been greatly increased in turbofans as well as part count greatly decreasing. But I would have to say that the cost of manufacture is still high which is why Turbojets are still used mostly in 3rd world AFs.
The F8E(FN) Crusader as used by the French also had to be fitted with blown flaps.;):D
The F-8 required a lot more than blown flaps, the entire wing had to hinge and be rotated at an angle of 30 deg or so, so that the plane could make a carrier approach that would give the pilot forward visibility. Id have to say that high wing loading is what killed the F-8 for use as a USN fighter and for any export success.
arquebussame here.
perfect for aeronavale and finally get rid of those Etendards
A fighter with high enough wing loading that it has to rely on blown flaps to take off for use on a carrier? Dont think that is the best option. I think the Etendard is better in the role of light strike fighter also.
arquebusImagine if those F1’s were using M88’s rather than 9K’s. You would probably enjoy better performance using a lot less fuel to get to that same launch point. A middleweight fighter from the French would probably sell unlike the export results of Gripen or JF-17. Rafale is a bit too much airplane for 90% of the market. But an F1 was largely affordable to half the market out there.
M88 in an F1 would increase the overall cost of the aircraft, increase maintenance cost, lower hours of running time on the engine which is the advantage of a turbojet. If you are going to spend that much on the engine, why not just get a Mirage2000? I think the French overpriced the M2K and so knocked themselves out of the market, as an M2K shouldnt cost more than a F-16.
arquebusAnyone have credible comparisons between the Mirage 50 performance compared to the Mirage F1? That would be helpful in determining if the Atar 9K was the reason for the F1’s edge over the III, or if it was truly the conventional wing design.
The reason for the Mirage 3/5/50’s poor maneuvering performance is entirely due to it being a non-FBW tailess deltawing. The CoG is well ahead of the CoL of the wing, so pulling hard on the elevators does nothing but create a large amount of drag in a turn causing enormous loss of speed. Putting FBW on the M2K entirely alleviates this and it becomes very agile along with the high lift of the large wing area. The F1 has a relatively small wing and heavy wing loading that along with its large tail surface gives it very good sustained rate of turn, more comparable to something like the F-16 with its high wing loading and sustained turning characteristics. Although the F1 does not have a 1 to 1 thrust to weight ratio, it has a very impressive rate of climb for turbojet fighter, for example it could intercept a target 200 miles away at 30k feet in 5 minutes starting from the time it released its brakes on the runway. Overall the F1 is one of the closest 3rd gen turbojet powered non-FBW to could get to compare in the same performance class as 4th gen FBW fighters like the F-16, which is why it is still in front line service with the French AF.
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