tiddlesWhere were we
Whatever happened to SU-30 versus F-16
tiddlesHmm, just thinking about that I’m wondering why they haven’t stuck conformals on the outside of the two engine nacelles, then with some nice design touches, it might not be necessary to splay the two inner pylons out to ensure weapons seperation.
Although, what is the Super Hornet’s T/W ratio like? Is it not pretty shocking at the moment? You don’t want to add more weight to an already handicapped airframe.
Also, ff it cannot get off the deck with conformal tanks and a decent loadout, it probably won’t get them.
I cant see conformal tanks getting designed for the SH,I believe that CTs were tested out on the classic but the program was dropped ,for what reason I dont know.IMO there is no real substitute for Internal fuel as designed, a couple of drop tanks & airbourne tanking. Having a strike fighter resemble an airbourne fuel tanker [See some Rafale pics.to get an idea] makes no sense to me . Load up with ordinance & refuel while airbourne as per US thinking is the way to go I believe, trying to find more ways to get a bit more range is uaually at the detrement to ordinance load & defeats the purpose of the expensive Strike Fighter [any type]
tiddlesCanberra Times Opinion
Here is an interesting opinion piece from Canberra…
Hi ELP, I have read the article in the CT opinion section & as you would know there have been quite a few like it in OZ newspapers & mags lately. However there are probably more supporters for the SH in the defence establishment than is obvious unless you chase other forums around , I know you may do this a bit as I have seen you on Defence Talk & it is good to see opinions from the US even if I dont always agree with them ,after all both SH & Pig are US aircraft.
Anyhow as an aside to this, a week ago I was at the open day at the Aus. War Memorial where the ADF and associated defence intrests had a fairly sizeable presence including the complete forward section of the F-111 that detaches when it is necessary to eject. Several RAAF aircrew where present & I was one of a group gathered around as they talked to us about ejection procedures & also toss bombing techniques.Unprompted they both mentioned about the purchase of the SH but both said they thought keeping the F111 was a superior option , exact words were “its got the airframe & engines to get through to 2020 ,why get rid of it” they did not go on any further just giving their opinion & I would have liked to ask if this was widespread opinion throughout the RAAF but the opportunity did not arise & I was on a short leash. Even though I am a big believer in the SH purchase I thought you may be interested in the story.
Now a request – Are there any US Forums that an Oz “Armchair Enthusiast “might enjoy mainly to read ,& not post on in my case, that you have links to that you could maybe provide please.
tiddlesArmchair Ride
If Dozer is a Raptor guy then he and I know more about the engagements than most on this board. I would also be willing to bet that he wouldnt talk smack about the bfm capabilities of the Rhino. Just as I dont talk smack about the bfm capabilities of most modern fighters. Looking at his profile I see a total of three posts. Dont blame him for not sticking around here as most on this board are self appointed TACAIR experts.
SES= Self Escort Strike
Later
Hi INO- I dont think that many on this board are really self appointed TACAIR experts at all, but speaking for myself- Armchair Enthusiast, we all have opinions.
tiddlesTanking over Iraq GW2
Right dead on. :rolleyes:
So, just out of curiosity – do you know of any refuelling occuring over afghanistan itself in the first few weeks of combat? or Iraq?
Just a short answer, there was a good ariticle in Aus Airline mag. Jan/Feb 2006 re Operation Falconer . Some DCA sorties by RAAF Hornets over Southern Iraq lasted a long time sometimes 5-6 hours & longer ,tanking was required from coalition tankers 3 or 4 times. An aside to that was a pilot gave the opinion that tanking from the KC-10 was OK but the KC-135 was a “nightmare”, easy to hook onto but hard to stay connected and get gas ,.He referred to the KC-135 basket as the “wrecking ball”.
tiddlesAn Su-27/30 is an offensive weapon. It’s big and can carry the gas an payload to reach distant targets within your perimeter. If Indonesia wanted defensive airplanes, they would have bought shorter range MiGs. Australia has a right to be worried with sparse forces, a huge length of coastline to defend and relatively close proximity of it’s potential adversary. Its a type of threat we don’t face here in CONUS.
.
Hi DJ – I had to look up curmudgeon in the dictionary to find out what what it really was, Bit different to what I thought [A fish]are you really that fearsome.
Firstly, could you name me the -distant targets within our perimiter you had in mind-it is 1500km from the Su27 base in Sulewisi to the Northern tip of the Oz mainland, with currently no other properly developed bases closer.
The Indonesian Archipeligo covers quite a bit more area than even Australia , short legged aircraft are of minor overall use to Indonesia although there are F16s based on Java which the heart of Indonesia.If the dopey US Congress had not stopped the sale of 32- F16s to Indonesia some years ago [There was talk NZ might buy them instead, but they decided to go the other way and scrap their fighter force altogether] they would have not even thought of the Su27/30, Suharto said at the time after they had been knocked back it was no use them trying to buy anything that had to be ratified by the US congress anymore The problem was human rights issues.Congress did not solve the human rights issues & the decision has caused more potential problems than it fixed.
Currently Indonesia has 2-Su27 & 2-Su30,it believed that none of them have any A2G capability at the moment.More are on order but by the time they get them & make them operational we will have the F35. Anyhow as Jase1 said we can always count on our mates from NZ to bale us out if we get into big trouble.;)
tiddlesI’m sure you can tell me aircraft X from country Y can fly 1200 nm and deliver payload z. So can a Rhino, Viper or Mud Hen. Let also not forget that the SH is also a tanker. It can carry approx 30K pounds of fuel (5 Wet) and defend itself at thesame time. Is the tanker mission glorious? No but it is needed in todays TacAir scenarios.
INO
Hi INO – I should have included this on my last post. I know that the SH can be used as a tanker but with 30k lbs. of fuel on board, probably 14k internal & 16k external there is not much room in load capacity for defensive weapons. Have you any info of what ordinance might be carried under these circumstances. Buddy tanking is only used by carrier aircradt as far as I know , I cant see Australia aquiring this fascillity for its land based squadron of 24 planes. However all up we are getting a Super aircraft.
tiddlesHow many tankers do you need for an airstrike X miles away? Australia isn’t buying a “Legion” of Rhino’s. So, why does it need a “legion” of tankers? I’m sure that the Aussies have enough tankers for the missions that they need to do.
INO
Good thinking number 99. Airstrikes even by the larger airforces [US excluded] are usually carried out by a small numbers of aircraft against specific strategic targets using modern precision bombing ordinance. The rule of thumb for tanking long range strike is usually 1 tanker per 4 strike aircraft. At that rate five tankers should be plenty for Australia, unless sortie rates were very intensive. I would have preferred an extra 2 tankers ,but waiting for them until the development of the cargo loading fascillities available already on the A310- MRTT but not [I think] on our five A330-200s .
at least not yet.
tiddlesMoney bags
The $500 million dollar saving is amortised over the three ships, however as my contact in the project office points out, any savings made there will disappear when any attempt is made to increase capability or upgrade systems with new technology.
The F100s lack of growth potential means simply upgrading it to match the same capability (extra helo, additional channel of fire and more VLS cells) as the G&C design will cost more than $500 million.
There is a reason the G&C design remains favourite. Besides, the Government is so awash in cash that they coughed up $6 billion for Super Hornets without blinking. In the great scheme of things, $500 million is nothing.
Unicorn
Thanks for that info, what you have said makes good sense, & also as they say ,Five Hundred million bucks is not what it used to be.
tiddlesAWD
Hi Unicorn -Short comment – Contents in your last post re F100 were hardly a ringing endorsement for that ships chances of getting the contract.
Maybe you know the answer to this question. The F100 is quoted by various sources as being $500 million cheaper than the G&C design . Is this $500 mill per ship or an overall reduction of $500mill for 3 ships , I suspect the latter but am not really sure.
tiddlesWell Done
Hi Mconrads – I keep coming back to this thread for a look regularly, we can often see pics. of the usual suspects, but not the different classes you often portray they are hard to find for mugs like me. Keep up the good work.
tiddlesLong Way away
Australia is much further distant from most of its neighbours than a cursory look at a map might seem. Indonesia is the only country close enough to launch a serious attack on the Australian mainland & even then Darwin is the only populated place [pop.111,000] they can reach .The offshore gasfields could be also a target, not nice but not likely to prevent our ability to fight back. Now to get to the point of the range of planes concerned. Their Su27-30s operate from Hasanuddin Air Base on Sulewesi ,over 1500km from Darwin as the crow flies, Their F16s operate from Iswajudi Air Base on Java over 2000km away.The amount of fuel required to get from Sulewesi & back would dictate light bomb loads , in fact the positioning of Indonesian bases generally shows that they are not interested in posing a threat to Australia or particularly worried by any threat from Australia , they are positioned to face off any threat from the North.All this could change but there are no fields capapable of supporting a Sqdn. of Su27-30 any closer to Australia
If we had to strike Indonesia ,the big question is what would we bomb,to reach Java ,2000 and more KM away would require an F111 & then with a small bomb load . The F111 is as good as finished anyhow. The argument that the F15e is the answer does not hold water either ,it would need as much tanking as a SH to carry a worthwhile bombload to a serious target.
To attack their airfield at Hasanuddin ,both Sh or F15 would require tanking.
Flankers would need to carry that much fuel to reach Darwin that either bomb laden , or fighter support would be that heavy that they would present no problems to Hornets of either breed.For info on Indonesian Air Force try
http://www.scramble.nl/idbase.htm then click on -order of battle
tiddlesHooray
The Australians will be very happy with the Rhino. It is an A/G machine and performs FAC(A) and CAS like a champ. In the A/A arena it holds its own, esp with the 9X, JHMCS, MIDs, ATFLIR etc…
As far as the comment of a baby hornet out running, out flying and running a Rhino out of gas, I must disagree. Down low, a Rhino will run away from a baby hornet every day of the week and twice on Sunday. The only area a Baby hornet will out run a rhino is up high.
Outflying a rhino? They have almost identical flight performance. The Rhino would actually out turn a baby hornet until they baby hornet got the software update. Now they are almost identical. A baby hornet will turn a little crisper say comming out of a roll in for a bombing run. The Rhino tends to J-hook a bit when you roll out. Other than that its a draw.
And as far as running it out of gas? Thats is a very uninformed statement. The whole point of the Rhino was to carry more fuel internally as well as externally. The Rhino has a ton more bring back than a baby hornet. If you put both A/C on the same schedule MAX E/ MAX Range or whatever, there is no way a baby hornet will run a Rhino out of gas.
All in all, the Aussies pilots will love the Rhino. The Rhino has all of the toys and tons of room for future growth. Oh yeah, the AC system works a heck of a lot better than a baby hornet too.
INO
Like me I can see you are a “true believer”,I cant work out how some of the stuff SH critics come up with can be taken seriously. many cant seem to see past kinetic performance. There is so much more to this aircraft than that, by the time its rivals catch up to it we will be getting delivery of the F35 anyhow & they will still be behind . I expect that there will be a BK.3 Rhino in time which will keep it in front of its rivals anyways.
tiddlesOver & Out
[QUOTE=bustermorley;1090813]… but it is the US that has closed the F-22 doors on Australia. The F-111s will be retired around 2010 regardless of whether or not a replacement is available.
If Australia really feels that it needs a replacement aircraft in service by that time then they would need to be ordered immediately. I suspect it would take several years for congress to get around to approving the F-22 for international sale and several more years for them to be ordered, built and delivered.[unquote]
In the time frame you suggest, if the time it takes takes Congress to throw out the Obey Ammendment & then approve an F22 export sale is 2 years or more [I believe it wont happen anyhow] the production line will be closed down for good anyway & it will be too late, trust me ,only the US will be flying the F22, I think you more or less intimated that anyhow.
tiddlesXL Power
Could the F/A-18XL be fitted with TVC? It would give it great manouverability. Also I thought the Hornets tail’s were slightly angled? Still TVC and No tails would make a rather stealthy plane!
I am not sure, but I dont think that GE or PW have a Thrust Vectoring motor developed for use. Maybe it would need a Russian donk. We may have to form a truly international consortium to build this plane . I am sure Australia could supply the paint, I am not sure what else.
As you suggested ,the hornets tails are slightly angled ,the F15 has tails straight up off the fuselage.
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