In my opinion, the technicality is the insistence that it be done without afterburner. The purpose of not using afterburner is to enable supersonic flight to be sustained, by an aircraft which, because of its fuel capacity & the nature of its engines, can’t sustain it using afterburners: if it can be sustained with afterburner, as in the MiG-25, MiG-31 & SR-71, then the end has been achieved.
The “afterburner/no afterburner” debate seems akin to the Monophysite/ Chalcedonian/Nestorian debates to me, especially when they start obsessing over exactly what speed counts as supersonic, whether it’s permissible to use afterburner to get through the transonic drag peak, & so on. The important things are how far & how fast: how it’s done is secondary.
Note that “supercruise” is an abbreviation of “supersonic cruise”, i.e. cruising at more than the speed of sound.
I simply have to quote this.
Very well said.
If an airframe has enough fuel to sustain a useful amount of time and distance covered at supersonic speed, and it gives an advantage to that airframe, particularly a stand-off interceptor, then it matters not how it accomplishes it.
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