eaglePhifty phaboulos years oph Phantom phlying – and counting. Phantoms phorever, phuck yeah! 😀
Come to think of it, that means this fighter covers almost half the aviation timeframe. Or more if you count development.
And from certain angels, esp. from below, it actually looks very sleek …and modern. More so than some of its replacements imho.
eagleNow back to my original questions.
I see that Austria are going ahead with their upgrade for the 105Oe’s, this should be interesting
Nope, they’re going to replace them. Read a few posts above. 😉
eagleDoesn’t look like a HMS in either picture to me…..:rolleyes:
Both Eagle drivers have them. Compare their helmets to the one of the backseater in the D.
The F-15 is equipped with HMS and AIM-9X for quite some time now.
eagleI remember an article in afm or somewhere where they said the trainee goes supersonic once in the T-38 – to give him a feeling for supersonic flight or something like that. Surely a capability thats absolutely needed. 😀
Re Austria: Appearently, the plans to upgrade the Saabs have been abandoned afterall. If I were in charge in New Zealand, I’d call Vienna 😉
eagleThe request is for new production jets with first delivery 2013. Including training. To replace parts of the F-5 fleet with an option for additional jets.
Yeah, the request is for new aircraft. But then Austria also once requested 24 new T2 Typhoons. 😉
I definately wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Switzerland buying used jets. Esp. if the referendum to axe the program gets much support.
eagleBy shaping the inlet ducts I mean flowing the fusilage around the front nozzles, just as the F-35 continues the fusilage directly back instead of it following the contour of the inlet duct, the rear single nozzle would be the same Yak nozzle the F-35 has borrowed,
I see. But then the problem with the air intake remains. I dont think a supersonic jet is possible without intake. I’m no expert, but I think air needs to be slowed down to subsonic speed so the engine cannot face the air directly.
and as for having the cross section of a barn, you have a 2 stage lift fan which has a 50 inch diameter being powered by the engine which has I believe a 47 inch diameter, why not just move to a 5 stage, 50 inch LP compressor (up from 3) making the extra bypass air available in level flight by either ducting it directly aft to it’s own exhaust nozzles or feeding it back into the main.
The lift fan adds those 47 inches to the engine which gives you a way bigger bypass ratio than possible with a single engine.
Oh, and I’m talking about a roughly 1:1 bypass ratio which is not rare in Fighters (as I mentioned before), 747 engines have bybass ratios of up to 10:1 which is a bit beyond what I’m talking about
The ones you mentioned aren’t exactly the benchmark for fighters. And I dont know the bpr of the Harrier or the F-35 with engaged fan. But its probably more than 1:1.
eagleHere’s another source (in German):
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schweiz/keine_offerte_von_boeing_fuer_tiger-nachfolge_1.723070.html
Not very surprising. The SH didn’t have a chance imho.
As you all may know much will depend on the transfer of technology. This is what the Swiss will try to bargain for – to get the best possible transfer of technology. According to somebody I know here, and who may be asked when it comes to the evaluation of the whole package, current runner seems to be Gripen.
But I haven’t been told which Gripen we are talking about here as far as the Swiss are concerned? C/D? Or deeply modernized NG (or whatever the official marking is)?
Maybe Eagle could bring some more info on this:confused:
I don’t know, but as the evaluation is this year, there is no Gripen NG to evaluate 😉
Much depends on available funds. If there is enough money, the NG may well be an option. But with the currently planned budget (around 2 billion CHF afaik), used A/B Gripens will be the only way to get the desired numbers. The other way is a split buy where the first two billion will get ~15-20 aircraft, the rest later. Requirement is for 30+ jets to have a fleet of ~70 jets. In theory at least.
eagleThere are rumours about Austria getting used MB-339s from Italy…
But I think those were just rumours because the Saab 105 upgrade program is progressing.
How’s Germanys MAKO Trainer coming???
Dead.
eagleThe engine only dictates top speed in so far as thrust available and speed of the air as it exits the nozzles, and as for a harrier with a pointy nose going supersonic, probably not, but a harrier with a pointy nose, inlet ducts shaped so that the forward nozzles don’t interfere with the flow of air over the fusilage, a single rear nozzle and an aft fusilage shaped to allow supersonic flight quite easily could, hell Sea harrier could do Mach 0.97 and it isn’t exactly sleek and the SEPECAT Jaguar could do Mach 1.6 with a bypass ratio of pretty much 1:1 (adour bypass is about 0.8:1) and the Tornado is even faster (RB199 bypass is about 0.77).
And how are you going to shape almost non-existing inlet ducts? How are you going to install a single rear nozzle? Thats an entirely new aircraft and the end result is about the X-32. Which failed.
Look at the F-35. What it does in STOVL mode is increasing the bypass ratio by engaging the fan. This allows for a fighter typical bypass ratio in normal flight. So while it has to carry around that ballast for the rest of the flight, it doesnt have the cross section of a barn and bypass ratio of a 747. In other words, its a fighter.
Oh, and as for the X-32, have you looked at that engine, from what I can tell it doesn’t use bypass air for lift, it merely ducts it’s dry thrust downward to a single pair of ducts aft of the engine itself by closing flaps on the main rearward nozzle, that and the roll posts was it, no enlarged low pressure compressor, so it doesn’t really come into this conversation.
Thats true, but the difference beetween that and the Harrier is it saves some nozzles but its the same principle.
The thing about direct lift VTOL jets is they need the engine mounted forward of the center of gravity. Very impractical as the engine is quite heavy.
eagleActually, they started with a B. 🙂
Perhaps it would be better to say that it is possible to recycle large parts of the structure of a C/D into an NG.
Thats how Saab describes it, that piece of news can probably be found somewhere in this thread. It’s basically a new aircraft with most of the structure recycled from an old Gripen.
eagleClearly, such a new A-10 could be produced at a very reasonable price! Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many countries interested in a new CAS A-10. Especially, countries that are likely to fight counter-insurgency or large forces of enemy armor. Indian could build major parts of the airframe and assemble the final product. With the US providing the design and major components like the engines and gun!
I doubt it would ever happen………Yet, I think most would agree it has merit………..:rolleyes:
Back when the A-10 was offered for export, how many countries chose it?
The A-10 is only a viable solution for countries with more than one jet in the inventory. That rules out many. Air Forces big enough always seemed to prefer more Mach 2 fighters. With the trend going towards less types, I dont think that will change.
eagleThe engine does dictate top speed. Or do you think a Harrier with a pointy nose will go supersonic.
As it seems, the F-35 solution is best for supersonic fighters. Direct lift didn’t work as well when an actual plane (the X-32) tested it.
eagleOne advantage of the carrier version of the F/A-18 is that the airframe has a far long service life! I read once it is around 8,000 hours. It was part of the sales pitch that McDD used to get orders. Part of the reason Northrop sued McDD, but lost.
Adrian
F-16 is also supposed to last for 8000 hours…
Carrier capable doesn’t necessarily translate into longer service life. The structure is strengthened to absorb the heavy landings/take-offs and not general flying. Does make sense because the limiting factor on naval jets is the number of landings and not flying hours. Unless its a training squadron or something like that of course. 🙂
The figure is a nonsense giving the problem with the central box section.
Swiss and I believe Finnish Hornets too have some structural parts replaced with stronger titanium parts. So hopefully, those wont be affected by that problem.
eagleSupersonic performance has nothing to do with the engine and everything to do with the airframe, the F135 engine + lift fan is what I’m talking about, adding weight to create thrust which can only be used for lift, whersas a F135 changed from a 0.2 bypass to a 1.2 bypass using a pegasus style main fan would generate roughly 51000lbs of dry thrust (given the current estimates and released info on the F135 of roughly 28000lbs) with some simple lightweight ducting it could also be used to provide thrust in level flight while maintaining low RCS (actually easier with a low RCS airframe due to the layout) and you can still use the same 3 bearing pivoting tail and afterburners (afterburning 3 nozzle pegasus varients have existed for more than 20 years) giving 56000lbs or so (again using released data from PW on the F135), and the weight penalty for the ststem would probably be much lower than the lift fan, gearbox, ductwork and doors of the current F-35B system.
Get it now?
Supersonic performance has lots to do with the engine. Look at the Harrier. Its engine needs a huge (for fighter standards) bypass ratio to produce lots of thrust at the front of the engine. And theres basically no intake duct at all. Not good for supersonic flight.
The F-32 “solved” the problem with that ugly intake at the front which allowed to mount the engine as far ahead as needed. And still it could barely take off without any weapons load and stuff like intake lip, gear and weapon bay doors. 😉
edit: Top speed of the F-32 would have been interesting. I bet its much lower than for the F-35 thanks to the engine, intake and thick wings which hold all the fuel.
eagleMore HQ pics here:
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showphoto.php/photo/31374
Agree, its a nice looking bird and its also my new wallpaper. 🙂
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