YamaOne reason why new-build light fighters haven’t sold so well is the post-Cold war drawdown which left lots of surplus fighters like F-16 and MiG-29 available for export markets at reasonable prices. We’ll see how things develope now when that supply has dried down.
YamaThere’s no evidence of a Pierre Sprey ideal plane ever working effectively in modern combat.
In fairness to Sprey, there were instances in both real combat and exercises where small, agile and relatively inexpensive fighters performed very well: MiG-17 in Vietnam, Gnat in Indo-Pakistani wars and so on. Technology of the 60s/70s was too limited to combine all ideal fighter parametres in one airframe.
Problem with Sprey, Boyd and other “reformers” was that they only saw fighter combat as an abstraction: they reasoned that the combat would lead to certain situation where certain characteristics would be decisive for the outcome. Thus if those characteristics were maximized, they would have a superior fighter plane (or attack plane or whatever). But this completely ignored real world which is more complicated and less predictable. Anoher issue was their complete lack of vision. They were only fighting past wars. Most notably they believed that all-weather capability (in both fighter and attack duties) was pointless as it required expensive and heavy set of radars and other avionics. After all, US won the WW2 without all-weather attack aircraft. If .50cal and bubble canopy were good enough in WW2, it would be good enough for WW3! Surely the enemy would not be so unsportsmanlike that they attacked in bad weather, like they did in Ardennes…oh but American won that anyway, so it’s a proof that such capabilities are totally superfluous.
YamaBut I swear he has a secret crush on the Mig 21. The Mig 21 is so his style
His opinion is probably that MiG-21F was fine, but then Soviets ruined it by adding radar and avionics and whatever useless crap on it… :rolleyes:
For example, lets look at the fighters Finnish Air Force operated during the ’70s, exact timeframe Sprey was doing his analysis:
Gnat: Sprey dream fighter, very small, no radar, no missiles, cheap, great climbing and turning performance.
MiG-21F: great performance and maneuverability though not as good as Gnat. Also larger, more expensive.
MiG-21bis: worse maneuverability than older version, more expensive, worse cockpit visibility, radar gives up position.
Draken: poorest dogfighter, largest of the bunch, lots of unreliable avionics, relies on unreliable missiles, more expensive and harder to maintain than the others.
…but what were the Air Force’s preferences? Well, exact opposite of the above. Draken was rated the best, whilst FAF got rid of Gnat as soon as possible. MiG-21F’s were put to recon duties as soon as bis was available.
I mean, I would understand Sprey’s criticism if it was just the USAF (and USN) being enamoured by big, expensive and cumbersome high-tech fighters and wasting their resources on technological pipe dreams while rest of the world was smarter about it, but when every air force on the planet does the exact opposite what you preach, maybe one should take a hint??
YamaWere the Draken and MiG given ground-attack roles in Finnish air force – it wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t. Warload would have been a lot greater on the Draken anyway.
No. Little if any thought was given to ground attack role during Cold War. I doubt it was ever practiced beyond basic gun strafing. When you’re limited to 60 fighters+50 combat-capable trainers, and neighbours have hundreds to thousands of fighters, it was seen that the fighter force would be hard pressed to perform interception duties and have no time for attack missions. Handful of MiGs were modified for recon role though.
Danish F-35 (lol) was only Draken variant used for ground attack. A curious modification which I would be happy to know more about.
Sprey likes to hear the sound of his own voice, too bad what he is saying is never accurate.
Although he makes many correct observations in the study, there sure is lots of nonsense too. Like his claim about how trivial jamming the missiles and radars is. Or how modern US fighters have worse gun lethality than F-86, due to “poor ballistics of the 20mm round”. What? Seriously?
YamaSprey doesn’t seem to know much about Draken, though. He presents it as some sort of dogfight machine, when in reality it was relatively sluggish interceptor. For example he seems unaware of Draken’s aoa-limitations.
I have seen both Draken and MiG-21bis perform in same airshow and Draken’s rolling and turning was much slower than MiGs. Comparison to MiG-21F, which was genuinely agile fighter would have been even more lopsided.
Despite this, Finns always thought Draken as better fighter than either of the MiG models, because it had superior radar and weapons system.
YamaI think Marcellogo is talking about the SVP-24 attack system, and how super accurate it is allegedly supposed to be. He also seems to be unaware that such nav-attack systems have been deployed on other country’s aircraft since the 1960s – the so-called Continuously Computed Impact Point (CCIP) and Continuously Computed Release Point (CCRP) which are to be found on such aircraft as the F-16 and A-10. Such bombing systems improve dumb-bomb accuracy for the USAF – but not to the point were the USAF (and the Russian AF) can avoid using guided munitions for complete pin-point accuracy: JDAM, KAB-500S etc, they still have to be used.
Point of the SVP-24 is not that attack/navigation systems are something new, but that it uses GLONASS to achieve better position fixes than could be achieved by inertial navigation which indeed have been used by both US and Soviets since the ’60s.
Obviously any hype of SVP-24 achieving JDAM-like accuracy is nevertheless nonsense.
Yamait would also be nice to hear what Finland thought of MiG-21 vs Draken, as they operated both for a long time.
No DACT information of any kind has been released for public. In fact in the ’70s such thing would have been strictly forbidden, it was even forbidden to operate the planes from the same base. MiG and Draken communities were (officially) completely separate. Probably it was relaxed later…
Gnats did mingle with both MiGs and Drakens and cleaned their clocks.
However it is known that FAF considered Draken as its prime fighter, the radar and whole avionics set was just much more capable (IIRC MiG’s radar didn’t even have automated search mode).
About prices: Danish Air Force had a flyoff in 1968 and Finns received price information. Converted to Finnish Marks: Draken 6.1 million, F-5 6.2 million, Mirage 7.1 million. Couple of years later Finns did their own evaluation where Soviets offered MiG-21M. MiG was over two million Marks cheaper than the Draken but Air Force wanted a Western plane, especially as Soviet maintenance support in those early years had been pretty bad.
As said MiG-21MF/bis were not available before ’70s. I don’t know when both gun and missile-armed MiG-21’s (PFMA, M) were released for export, probably around 1968?
YamaF-8 already had head-on capabilities with AIM-9C. It was just as formidable as Su-15 with R-98/AA-3. Not much for dogfights, but perfect for air policing duties. F-8 was actually okay in dogfights, it just wasn’t as good as an F-4 where you had two sets of eyes through a nice canopy. Most of your options had mediocre visibility for pilots.
AA-3 was like 3 times bigger than AIM-9C. Even figuring out that some of the weight was bulky Soviet electronics, the missiles aren’t really in same class. Those early radar-guided missiles did not have much, if any kind of head-on capability. The effective range was just too short and operating the radar and targeting the missile too cumbersome, particularly for single-seat.
Other downside for Crusader was obsolete cannon. But sure, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work just fine as land-based interceptor and I was going to suggest it myself. Though in all honesty, when we hit ~1965 and forth, better fighters will be available.
YamaI was under the impression their Eurofighters are REALLY bare bones.
They paid more from them to get them with less capability. They have no BVR missiles for example.
Austria does have, by European standards, fairly extensive helicopter fleet, it’s true.
A better example of ‘unexpected powerhouse’ would be Finnish Air Force, which has not been not cut at all from Cold War strength.
YamaEr, even the Super Etendard Modernisé, the last version, has a nice straight fat fuselage… never seen or read anything speaking about area rule applied to it
It is area ruled, just not as aggressively as say Mirage 2000:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]258199[/ATTACH]
Contrast this to first generation Etendard prototype which had rounded cigar-shaped fuselage like Mystere and Ouragan:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]258200[/ATTACH]
YamaI would go with the Mirage III/2000. Very clean and simple. I’ve always thought the Mirage F.1 was the best overall average fighter design that wasn’t a stovepipe. Question is who borrowed who’s design France (Mirage III/V) or the U.S. (F-102/106)?
F-102 lineage is older by few years, dating back to XF-92 in late ’40s. However delta wing itself was based on Lippisch’s research which independently influenced both XF-92 and its contemporaries Gloster Javelin and Fairey Delta. So I don’t think it can be said French were borrowing US delta wing designs. French likely did benefit from US research on area rule, which was used in both Mirage and Etendard designs. Though, even area rule research was pioneered by Germans.
Anyway 60 years from breaking the world long distance speed record in Jan 1958 (speed over 1,000km) to dropping its last bomb over Iraq in 2017. And still going in Argentine service. A classic.
And the original Étendard was heavily based on even older Mystere IV (resemblance is very notable with first prototypes which did not yet have area ruled fuselage). Amazing how much mileage (kilometreage?) they squeezed out from the design.
Pity that Avon-engined Étendard never sold, performance would have been much better.
YamaObjectively it has to be Mirage 2000. But I have always had a soft spot for Etendard IV.
YamaIssue is the NH is much bigger than the legacy Lynx . Tolerances in the hangar on ships that used to operate the lynx are subsequently much less than it used to be, which is a concern when the NH is parked in those hangar in rough seas. The Norwegian are requesting the supplier to certify those tolerances.
Am not sure how valid a demand that is, might be depending on the contract I guess. But obviously the earlier delays make relationship to supplier quiet tense.
Errr…so they didn’t, like, take measurements beforehand? :confused:
YamaSchedule delays were embarrassing, Finnish Army had to send some old Mi-8’s to Russia for refurbishment so the Army would have at least some flyable helicopters while listening to manufacturers latest list of excuses why the wunderchopper wasn’t going to make it. FOC variant should become operational this year, only 10 years behind schedule.
Manufacturer paid compensation but has taken it all back in form of spares which cost an arm & leg, CPFH is whopping 7000 euros (!!) higher than F/A-18.
Reportedly, when the copter works, it works well and cold of winter has not caused any troubles. Seems the chief problem is NHIndustries which probably should have seen some sort of all-inclusive management purge ca. 2005.
Oh well, could be worse. Could be Cyclone. :dev2:
YamaI very much doubt Pantsir could shoot down LORA. Engagement time is very short and would require near optimal conditions. I can well believe they shot down something, more likely a cruise missile or maybe a drone.
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