eagleI wonder why the outer pylon has a tank attachment point on a dry station.
eagleAlso has a shot at winning T-X (which would go up dramatically if they did a version with F125s)
:confused:
They use F124 engines which is basically the same, the F125 is an F124 engine with afterburner.
Or are you implying M-346 needs afterburning engines to win T-X? That would require a rear fuselage redesign. Might ask the Chinese about that :dev2:
eagle[Edit: I actually looked up the specs on the buddy store used by the Super Hornet, so corrections follow]
The F/A-18E/F carries its buddy store pod on the centerline, and 4 480-gallon external tanks on the wings.
The F-35C has two plumbed wing hardpoints. I will assume that the F-35C will carry the same Cobham buddy store that the F/A-18E/F does, along with a 480-gallon tank on the other side.
The buddy store has an internal fuel capacity of 300 gallons. I had originally expressed concern about load asymmetry if carrying only one external tank. The buddy pack weighs 800lbs empty, plus 2025 lbs of fuel, while a 480-gallon tank weighs about 3300 lbs full. So that should not be an issue.
F-35C internal fuel 19,145 lbs plus 5265 lbs external (1×300 gal plus 1×480 gal) == 24,410 lbs total fuel carried.
F/A-18E internal fuel 14,400 lbs plus 14,985 lbs external (1 x 300 plus 4x480gal) == 29,385 lbs total fuel carried.
So basically the F-35C as a tanker has about 5/6 the capacity of an F/A-18E. I see no reason it can’t be done, it’s mostly a matter of funding and certification.
The F-35 was originally supposed to use the same 480gal tanks the SH uses. But there were issues with store separations so they redesigned the tank, different shape reduced capacity to 426gal.
So that would reduce F-35C total fuel carried by around 108gal or 720lbs.
However, the tanks were later dropped from SDD testing, I don’t know if that’s still current and/or if it will be tested at a later stage. But as of now, there are no external tanks for F-35.
Apparently, the Israeli wanted to develop their own 600gal tank for the F-35, that would be interesting.
Also, does anyone know if the centerline station and internal stations are plumbed? That would allow a massive increase in total fuel load, probably close to MTOW of 70,000lbs or around 35,000lbs of fuel.
eagleFor the “5 squadron item”, see the first paragraph here: http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Pages/HomePage.aspx
For the squadron numbers, see these lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_Air_Force_aircraft_squadrons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Squadrons_of_the_Air_National_GuardI forgot the two A-10 USAFR squadrons:
# 442d Fighter Wing, (A-10) Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri
# 476th Fighter Group, (A-10/OA-10) Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.Therefore there are 7 A-10, 1 OA-10, and 1 combined A-10/OA-10 squadron, of which 5 A-10 squadrons are to be retired or reclassified. .
There are 334 active A-10, wiki says 335, so I assume one has been lost recently.
The same link also lists 16 active squadrons, not counting Nellis based squadrons. That seems reasonable and equals to about 20 jets per squadron.
According to f-16.net, the following squadrons will lose the A-10, one actice duty, 3 national guard and one reserve:
81FS, Spangdahlem, Germany
107th FS, Selfridge ANGB, MI
184th FS, Ft Smith, AR
163d FS, Ft Wayne, IN
47th FS Barksdale AFB, LA
That would mean 11 squadrons remain.
eagleWhich part? The part where Dassault are reported to have said (if I understand the French correctly) that they never had the opportunity to show how 18 Rafale would be just as effective as 22 Gripen?
Which would be a poor argument. Surely someone at Dassault could have had the idea to propose an 18 jet fleet before Gripen was selected.
IMHO, the same happened to Dassault as to Saab in Austria. So confident about winning, they priced themselves out of the market.
@ merlin2: Maybe you can speak French to anyone in Zurich, but don’t expect an answer. 😀
eagleThis was true in the past, as the Marines did not operate their Hornets from carriers as frequently. However since the mid 2000s USMC Hornet squadrons have been a regular part of CVWs, so that is probably no longer the case.
The fact is that even the USMC’s Hornets are basically worn out, so much so that the Harriers the US is buying from the UK will be used to replace USMC Hornet squadrons.
In general, the UK could not draw from US Hornet stocks to operate from a CV. Many of the USN and USMC legacy Hornets have plenty of flying hours left in them, but have exceeded their lifetime arrested landings (which is a completely separate metric). This is why you saw a number of Hornet squadrons transition from late-block C-model Hornets, to older F/A-18A+ models that had more landings remaining. The C-models were then used for land-based training or mothballed to be used for parts.
Apart from the A+ to C swap with land based units, didn’t they also trade jets between USMC and USN squadrons? I seem to remember an article about that. Reason was the same, while the Marines had more hours on their jets, they had more traps left. The opposite for the USN jets: running out of traps, but with some hours left.
Anyway, I think you would have a very hard time finding one squadron of American legacy Hornets with a decent amount of hours and carrier landings left.
eagleMismanagement of F-35 program results in budget cuts
January 29, 2012 (by Eric L. Palmer) – Where are the large orders that are to produce “economies of scale” and “affordability” for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)? Apparently in someone’s imagination from 2001.
eagleNo. The gun right now is guided by radar, but it’s no where near in capability to CIWS like Phalanx for example. And Phalanx weight little more than 6 tons.
And the question is what will come close enough. On paper the effective range is 2km.
Is that range for a forward or rearward firing GSh-23?
In a tail chase, at low level, 2km is probably more than the range of your typical short range AAM. Might even be problematic for medium range missiles.
The gun at least denies the enemy fighter to go for guns and forces him to fire missiles from highter altitude i.e. against ground clutter.
eagleIts not an arresting wire issue as other aircraft work fine with them as they are, its a design flaw with the F-35C. The wires when tensioned between the spools sit on top of a set single leaf springs parrallel to the flight line to raise the wire slightly above the deck to give the hook a better chance of catching and not gouging the hook into the flight deck.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words:
eagleOk, here goes: thrust-specific fuel consumption is defined as fuel mass consumed per unit of thrust force generated and hour, absolute fuel consumption is just the total fuel mass burned per hour. So for the F404 in full afterburner, 1.74 lb/(lbf·h) means 1.74 pounds of fuel are used for each pound of thrust generated over a period of one hour. Since the units of fuel mass and thrust force are the same they cancel and the figure is directly comparable to the kg/(kgf·h) number for the AI-222 where the same applies, so your comparison becomes 0.63 versus 1.74.
The T-50 is unlikely to use afterburners a lot on a training flight so 0.81 would be the better comparison.
Still a sizeable difference, might have something do to with bypass ratios.
I wonder though what Minimum specific fuel consumption means. Maybe it’s the number where the engine is most efficient which probably isn’t at full thrust.
eagleI think there is only one supersonic flight during USAF pilot training, and that is just a short dash. So from a training perspective, real supersonic capability probably isn’t important. Even more so since M346 can easily break the soundbarrier in a dive which would give the student the same experience.
On the other hand, there currently are no plans for twin stick F-35s so the future F-22/F-35 and maybe A-10 fleet is single seat only. That surely favours the most capable trainer t.e. T-50. Those F-16Ds won’t be around forever.
As far as I know, T-38 is used to maintain proficiency for F-22 pilots too, and maybe others. Surely, when their ride is grounded, Raptor pilots prefer to have a supersonic backup. :diablo:
eagleYeah, I’m wondering about that as well. AFAIK the Swiss Hornets have some internal structural components manufactured from titanium which were aluminium alloy before, to meet service life requirements with Swiss-mandated 9g manoeuvring specifications. Nothing whatsoever to do with armour though.
That is correct.
Some fuselage bulkheads are titanium to reach 30 years of service life with a 9g flight envelope, however, Swiss AF also limits itself to 7.5gs usually.
Armour wouldn’t make sense as Swiss Hornets are A/A only.
eagleNo, eagle is Swiss
eagle1 is French
Indeed so…
Though I don’t know about eagle1, I just like the video 😀
eagleImpressive considering the F-15 had its maiden flight almost 40 years ago…
So what happens to the 100 or so Saudi F-15C/D?
eagleI do not think the empty slots on the CFTs can be used as the BRU-61 (the SDB launcher) is too wide and would cause an obstruction.
I looked over all the loadouts on http://www.f-15e.info/joomla/en/weapons/loadout-configurations and could not find any that had anything on the upper CFT slots when the lower ones had large munitions.
btw, the F-35 can carry up to 32 SDBs which is 4 more than the F-15E (as the F-15E can also carry 8xSDBs on the the wing STA2/8) 🙂
The upper row on the CFTs are not able to use GPS guided munitions as the racks there don’t support it.
http://www.f-15e.info/joomla/en/weapons/weapons-stores/120-bomb-release-units
So 28 is the theoretical maximum.
Unless the racks have finally been updated.
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