Y-20 BaconIt does remind you of a shark, not too shabby at all! More grown-up than the previous splinter scheme (which was alright, but somehow a bit too colourful), without being boring.
its a bit weird.. I think the russian splinter scheme is quite nice.. certainly fit well with the su-35s.
but some how didnt seem to mesh with the pak-fa’s image well. perhaps its too glossy or didn’t show off the nice sides of the pak-fa.
I think this new scheme is uber. it shows the faceted nature of the pak-fa very well and it looks very clean, sleek, minimal. its something apple would make.
i dare say this scheme makes the pak-fa look as good as the light grey yf-23 and x-32 and better than the f-22.
Y-20 Baconi think the second fighter should be one that’s cheaper to run, use existing technology, and should be exportable.
i liked UCAVs but not sure if its exportable to Russia’s traditional clientele (can they actually operate it?).
Russia also needs something to export that’s not the pak-fa because it’ll pakky is expensive, and perhaps too sensitive, for exports.
it should be what the F-35 was intended to be (but not what it is now).
single engined, perhaps using the same one as pak-fa.
would be nice to see a planform similar to draken.. wide inlets that are also part of the lerx. add the levcons on there too. delta wing for more fuel and range in a smaller airframe. one large bay with two smaller “pods” under the lerx/wing like on pak-fa.
Y-20 Baconwhat what in the
Y-20 Baconneither of those aircraft had safety records any better than the F-104’s…
.
see post 1 of this thread.
Y-20 BaconOn paper the F-104 was superior to the Mirage III in all respects. Better climb rate, high wing loading for low-level strike, better radar, better specific fuel consumption…
In practice, I’m not sure it panned out (despite Sens & AlfaKilo’s protests!):
[INDENT]1) The Mirage IIIE seems about equal as all-weather strike platform, despite the delta wing:
– It was effective in the nuclear role, according to this story of a mission flown in typical European winter conditions: 1,000ft cloud ceiling, 2-3nm visibility, cruise in at 400-450 KTS at 500-1,000ft, accelerate to 550 KTS at 300ft, wait for navigation system countdown, pull-up for toss-bombing maneuver, pickle bomb in the clouds… a while later the (practice) nuclear bomb comes floating down under the cloud layer and detonates nicely in front of the crowd of expecting politicians.– The Mirage IIIE was also a stable gun platform., as indicated by this story of numerous multiple direct hits during gun passes on vehicles
– RAAF pilots have commented on the Mirage’s particularly clean stores separation – better than some purpose designed strike aircraft.
[/INDENT][INDENT]2)The F-104 was a highly complex platform – IMHO too much “missile” and not enough “aircraft”.
– It depended on many features to keep it flyable, and a lot of things good go wrong: yaw damper, boundary layer control, leading edge slats & trailing edge flaps, stick shaker & stick pusher… Any of these failure points could kill a pilot on take-off/landing, or force him to eject. It happened all too often… at least 8 deaths just for the stick pusher, for example. Not to mention that the engine was unreliable and spins unrecoverable! One test pilot’s verdict:
– When things did go wrong, as they often did, the poorly integrated ejection seat would either shoot the pilot straight into the ground, or (after some fixes) shoot him upward at an angle such that he was sure to break his neck. This totally unnecessary problem took years (and lives) to fix.[/INDENT]
[INDENT]3) The Mirage III had a few things going for it as a fighter/interceptor:
– All aspect missiles. Sure the Matra R530 is much maligned, but it was a decade ahead in some important technological & reliability respects (solid state seeker, electric controls, 3-5µm IR seeker – partial thanks due to the Brits for sharing some of their work on Red Top), at least compared to the AIM-7E (1950s vacuum tube technology, hydraulic controls) and AIM-9B (1.8-2.7µm band IR seeker with its tendency to home in on the sun or the ground). In firing tests in 1962/63 the R530 had a 90% success rate, and the Israelis had a 50% kill rate in combat (1 for 2). Compare that to the Israeli’s 0% success rate with the AIM-7E prior to 1978 (0 for 12) and the US’s 10% kill rate in Vietnam…
– In the interceptor role, the Mirage’s rocket booster more than made up for the lack of engine thrust vs. the F-104
– Although the F-104 could break off at will against all opponents in fighter-vs-fighter combat, its poor maneuverability and smoky engine made it hard for it to jump opponents for a kill (especially a gun kill).
[/INDENT]Now not to be too one-sided, the one clear advantage the F-104 definitely had was its lo-lo-lo fuel consumption (20% lower). In a nuclear strike scenario this would translate into a range of 600-700nm (tanks retained/dropped) for the F-104 vs. only 500-550nm for the Mirage IIIE (based on their flight manual fuel flows). However this was only valid at low-level. At high altitude, the Mirage III would typically be able to cruise ~5,000ft higher, and could thus fly as far (and 25-40kts faster). The Mirage also may have guzzled less gas at high mach… at Mach 2, the Mirage’s fuel flow was 27,000pph vs. 36,000pph for the F-104A (possibly something to do with engine/air intake optimization).
nice thought out post, can you do one for the other alternatives the Luftwaffe considered (Lightning, F-5). Also since nuclear was a requirement, why not the F-101?
looking at older posts in this forum in regards to the F-104, its combat history was so-so, and its performance better suited dry air, but not so much Europe’s wet, foggy climate, especially when it comes to landing which it wasn’t known to be friendly. There seems to be a dispute over radar performance for its period.
Y-20 Bacontopspeed, the Russian AF has yet to produce a smaller light weight future fighter aircraft.
perhaps you should use your talents and put something together and post it in the RuAF thread
Y-20 BaconWhy is it when a simple question is asked people go off at a tangent and ask… why didn’t you include this? why didn’t you include that.. blah blah blah…
Its like watching a group of 10yrs on here!
The question refers to 4 lightweight/ cheap aircraft of the SAME ERA which survived into the 90s.
F-16XL??? What the hell does that got to do with 1960s era aircraft?
Some of you would make good politicians and used car salesmen
indeed, everyone and their mom wants to bring in other aircraft. might as well make a new thread.
Y-20 BaconIf that was true Brazil would still not take it since its very low ToT.
you’re lucky PLA-MKII is not here, other wise he’d give you a lecture on all the high tech stuff in the JF-17
Y-20 BaconI imagine it was a political decision, rather than one of practicality.
yes, very good discussion going on here.
so it would seem that in the end the decision to go for the F-104 relied heavily over political and strategical concerns over tactical capabilities
Y-20 BaconFourth generation fighters have outgrown all save for the largest economies.
Su-27 = Soviets & Warsaw Pact, China, India, many exports
MiG-29 = Soviets & Warsaw Pact, many exports
F-15 = U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Korea, Singapore
F-16 = dozens of countries
F/A-18 = U.S., Spain, Finland, Switzerland, Australia
Tornado = U.K., Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia
Typhoon = U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia
Gripen = Sweden, several exports
AMX = Brazil, Italy
Mirage 2K = France, many exports
Rafale = FranceFrance is being crushed by the cost of Rafale production. They desperately needed exports. India might just be the life support they need in the short term, but Brazil would be delaying the inevitable. These countries demanding transfer of technology are only fooling themselves into thinking they can self sustain.
Brazil could more realistically partner with a France or Russia, but they will never self sustain. Realistically they could self sustain a light fighter like the FA-50 or F-CK-1, but it would take another decade to reach that point. I’m not aware of the Koreans offering ToT on FA-50, nor the Taiwanese offering to sell off the F-CK-1 production tools. Why should they expect Sweden, France, Russia, or the U.S. to do it? And for what, 3-6 dozen orders? Very out of touch.
the Pakistanis could offer the JF-17 with the tooling..
you wonder why many small air forces prefer to cling on to 3rd gen jets or go large instead of going for the jf-17
Y-20 BaconThats Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. The shot is looking south up the Elizibeth River. This was a couple days ago, Ike pulled out of here yesterday.
you like living in Virginia Beach?
too many eastern europeans now.
Y-20 BaconHow do you expect anyone to answer a question like that?
And where is the F-104?
why surely its possible.
some aircraft had an advantage in some areas than others
say f-5 in low altitude vs mirage at higher.
f-104 was significantly pricier than those 4
Y-20 BaconYes blitzo, let’s try to take from exactly your last point of view: when the first news leaked about nEUROn and Taranis (projects a lil more complex then the Chinese HALE depicted in the footage), I just thought: OK let’s wait until these demostrators will fly, for the moment they are paper aircraft.
I did not have any flame on the forums about the effectiveness of these demonstrators.
That was exactly the status we are experiencing currently with the Chinese HALE. And skeptisism is a good attitude, exactly in the same manner when such above western concepts were originally presented or leaked.
When a few years later nEUROn and Taranis eventually flew, I did not had any hard on. I just thought that those projects became more mature, and could eventually lead to some solid A/C eventually deployead in service.
Trying to equalize the status of that particular UAV to the J-20 is not a solid argument: one type actually flew and has solid funding and strategic needs which back it up, about the other one we have just the short footage released.
With a clumsy truck tugging the thing.
Pretending to say: China does not need the years of studies and testing the West (whatever the “West” could mean) uses for its new A/C concepts is pretentious. Also, I have seen a lot of mature project never arriving the milestone of the first flight.
Pretending to mock somebody who won’t buy the project on the ground of the evidence supplied until now, it’s laughable. Even more laughable if there are implications such as the ones you and other posted about my supposed “anti” attitude towards the Chinese aerospace industry.
Again, please come back whan you have evidence that that thing could fly. Then, as an aerospace enthusiast, I will not be disappointed at all. But for now I just have to point out some intersting things of the footage released – like the truck involved and no sign of live from any engine installed on the aircarft.
my tasty friend,
indeed there are may chinabots with over optimistic views of prc developments that are heavy on assumptions. in this form and others you’ve seen assumptions on how great their missile system is on a technical aspect based on Turkey’s selection while no media has stated such things and have all pointed to business aspects. or the selection of a chinese tank by peru.. you should see how they went nuts over how great they thought their tank was, when in the end peru went against it and bought russian.
that said you also have the opposite, people quickly dismissing anything and everything China. like their ability to get a 5th gen fighter flying in a short time. that said, given their existing capabilities and those pictures, I think its highly likely the ucav has an engine.
Y-20 BaconWhat is wrong with the Yak 130, even the Manufacturer is advertising the Yak130 can do strike and A2A besides its primary role. So your view is that Russia will offer MiG 35/29 versus J-31. I have no doubt that a decade from now the J-31 will be ready for production even though some people still dont believe China can ever design an airplane. Even though I am not a big fan of China and its whatever I dont live in denial.
do you think the L-139 in non trainer form has sold well?
or the non-trainer Hawk?
Y-20 BaconI think the question is; would they be replaced at all? [at least, by a dedicated aircraft.]
There is absolutely no doubt the Russians will look at the fiasco that has become the USAF’s hi/lo mix and think “hmmm, maybe we’ll just use the one aircraft to cover all roles”.
Points to consider:
– They don’t need STOVL.
– Their previous generation mix were twin-engined (Su-27/MiG-29), so acquisition and operating savings going from hi to lo aren’t as marked as say, F-15 to F-16.
– They have a PAK-DA program to undertake, so don’t need the resource contention.
– Putin will do whatever he wants to do; the military-industrial complex would not have the same lobbying effect on him as they do on the US state governors/congress/senate/white house.
– Russian doctrine continues to place very strong emphasis on kinematic performance; so what would any complement to the PAK-FA be? a mini-FA with smaller everything, including bays? Would it then have the necessary combat persistence to be effective?
yeah but the Russians have stated they want a successor to the mig-31 too. so that would make it a hi-hi mix if they make it.
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