RockySmall mass flow jets (as typical in military fighter engines) are not great at low speeds.
In order to do the vertical bit effectively, you’d need high BPR turbofans.
Making those stealthy is extremely hard.
Its all been done with the F-35B. The PW F135 is a higher bypass version of the F119, which also drives a lift fan.
RockyThe F-16 can detect an F-15 before it can launch its Sparrow. It will know when being shot at. Just make an Immelmann and fly straight in different direction for 30 seconds and the missile will miss due to lack of range.
Your F-16 just killed his energy state dodging the Sparrow. He is now at a disadvantage for a dogfight, assuming another Sparrow doesn’t kill him, or force him to deplete more energy.
One problem F-15 pilots encountered on excercises was that after they launched a simulated Sparrow at an F-16, the F-16 pilot would close and launch an AIM-9L just before he died. Both planes were shot down.
RockyIn confined battle grounds like Central Europe or in the ME the opportunity for real BVR shots was and is still limited. See the IFF problems related to that.
Even with AWACS support fraciticide is still possible. (Iraq)
Yes, IFF and fratricide is a big problem with BVR missiles. It limited the F-4 in Vietnam. But as you wrote, AWACS helps, IFF transponders help, and work has been done on radars that can identify the target, but I don’t know if the F-15 has that capability. Tactics, like utilizing preplanned kill boxes, can be used, and there are team tactics where one fighter flies ahead and identifies the target so another can shoot from a greater distance (although it seems to me that the spotter is going to get shot down a lot).
When it comes to overall performances, a dedicated superiority fighter like the F-15 has a technical advantage by that as a stand-alone system. But since the 90s the F-16/AIM-120 it is no longer so, at least, when both can depend on AWACS support.
The AIM-120 was a huge improvement for the F-16, but the radar on the F-15 is still going to give it the first shot advantage.
F-16C – very very good
F-15C – best in the world (until the F-22A)
Su-27 – maybe was better than either at one point
RockySo what would of happened if Grumman was told to adapt the F-15’s wing to the F-14 fleet; could it still remain carrier capable?
That won’t be possible in the first place…
There was a paper version of the F-14 with fixed wings. It could have been done, but obviously the VG version is better.
The problem is that the aircraft would lose lift, which is something the VG gives. In a way, VG did serve its purpose back then. Back then, aircraft thrust to weight ratios are not very high, and the VG helped in taking off. But when more powerful engines become available, that also made VG a moot point.
Lift is the issue, but its the landing that is the big problem. You want the lowest possible landing speed when landing on a carrier. All the thrust in the world won’t help you there.
To assist in the take off of a “fixed” wing F-14, you would need more powerful engines.
The catapults ought to do the job.
RockyF-111A was a bomber after it was a fighter. The F-14A inherited its fighter role.
The F-111A was never a fighter. You could put a gun in the bomb bay, (with emphasis on BOMB BAY) and the Air Force did put AIM-9L on it later in its career, but that was only to hit aircraft dumb enough to put themselves in front of the F-111. The F-111 could only fly in a straight line, and the pilots were ordered not to try to manuver for a launch position. The two man crew sat side by side, which is another bomber feature. The unbuilt F-111B was an intercepter that was a disaster as a fighter. Acceleration was terrible, and it was too heavy. All it could do was fly farther and faster. It was an Air Force bomber forced into a fighter role, and it failed.
RockyWhat was the top speed of the F-15A again?
Mach 1.8 with eight missiles.
The F-16 offers not just some more degrees turn-rate, it offers full 9g-capability, a superior man-machine interface, much better control systems and superior performance in the area of M0.8 to M1.2. It is also the smaller, less visible aircraft, can generate more sorties and an air force can afford more aircraft for similar expenditures (see Israel). If two air forces with x amount of money engage each other, one with F-15 and the other with F-16, the latter will most likely win.
Not likely. A lot of F-16s are going to get shot down by SARH missiles before they have a chance to engage. The F-16 has an advantage close in, but not a really big advantage. F-15 turning performance is a close second to the F-16. In the early days, if the weather is really bad, an F-15 in the muck could hurl Sparrows at the F-16 and the F-16 won’t even have a target to shoot back at. And if you don’t find me persuasive, I have been told by an F-16C pilot that the F-15 is the better fighter.
RockyNormally with new technology you start with bombers and only after some introduction move said tech to air superiority, then at the end of its useful life in air superiority you move it to ground attack. The vg wing moved to bombers only midway into the technology.
The F-111A is a light bomber, and it was the first VG aircraft.
RockyDifferent mission, different aircraft. The F-18 can do things the F-15 can’t. That the F-15 is the better high&fast fighter is undoubted, but as multi-mission strike fighter the F-18 is better, at least when you compare F-15C versus F-18C.
Why compare them as strike aircraft???. The F-15C design philosophy was “Not a pound for air to ground.” The F-15E v F-18E is the only sensible comparison, and the F-15E is much better.
I read that the F-16A actually had more range than the F-15A, but nobody was allowed to say. It was always agreed to never say anything bad against the F-15, so no smart congressman might ask why the airforce need such aircraft anyways. The F-16 was actually better in nearly all respects, except maybe for top speed and the maximum weapons load, but homing in 4 SARH-Sparrows against an armada of MiG-23 and MiG-21 remains doubtful at best. The Soviets got it right when they carried only two SARH-missiles per aircraft, good in average for one BVR-kill. The rest is normally dead weight.
The F-15A was too short ranged, so the F-15C carried more fuel. The F-15 can also out-climb the F-16, but most of all, the F-15 can carry a much more powerful radar, which is very important. The F-15 now carries SIX AIM-120. The F-16 is very manuverable, but the F-15 is the superior fighter.
RockyVG
“Back in the 1960s there was a need to vary the airplane’s geometry,” says Captain Don Gaddis of Naval Air Systems Command, a former Tomcat pilot and current program manager for its replacement, Northrop Grumman’s F/A-18 Hornet. On the F/A-18, “we’ve learned how to optimize the wing design so that the aircraft can carry out its functions” without changing geometry.
The F-4 “carried out its functions without changing geometry.” Thats not saying much.
By the 1980s, however, no one was designing variable-sweep aircraft
NATF
and no new work on this technology has been incorporated into any new production military aircraft in at least the last 15 years
Other than the stealthy, sometimes STOVL F-35, we have not designed any new bomber or strike aircraft in twenty years. STOVL aircraft are not going to be VG, and stealth and VG may be a difficult combination. Even the F-18E is a yet another rehash of a 1970’s YF-17.
The technology of variable-sweep wings lasted little more than 20 years before being phased out, although hundreds of the aircraft continued to fly for years more.
And they still are in great numbers. B-1B, Tu-160, F-14A, MiG-27, Tornado
Ultimately, aircraft designers decided that the flexibility of the variable-sweep wing was not worth the compromises it demanded.
Variable sweep is a perfectly good solution for certain missions. But today it seems nations are designing (or redesigning old) air superiority fighters and hanging bombs on them.
RockyTruly? Each carrier only had limited number of Phoenix available. To have 24hr screen, you cannot have much more than 4 Tomcat in the air at station, another 4 on their way to or from station. At least 2 or 4 on short alert. So if each Tomcat carries 4 AIM-54 and needs to sink at least 2 before landing, they carrier force would run out of Phoenix within a week (4 Tomcats at station, 2hr each, makes 24/2*4=48 sorties a day, or 96 AIM-54 sinking each day).
Maybe under wartime conditions they can come home with 4.
It can bring back four in peacetime.
RockyWhen the F-18 was introduced, the AIM-120 was around the corner and the AIM-7 had matured.
The AIM-120 was 15 years away! The AIM-7F is a big improvement over the -7E, but its no Phoenix.
The F-14 had a limited bring-back capability for the AIM-54. So most of the time it was operated with AIM-7 as main BVR weapon at all.
In almost every picture of the F-14 that I have, the F-14 has Phoenix pylons mounted. The F-14 can bring back four Phoenix plus four other missiles. Its not six Phoenix, but its a lot. The AIM-7 was not the main BVR weapon until the Phoenix was retired. The F-14D would even lug a Phoenix under one wing on bombing missions over Iraq.
The AIM-54 is to be used in head-on encounters to make best use of the AWG-9. Here the speed is no issue at all… When a bomber has to go into the direction of the intended target, the interceptor has the advantage to face it head on, where speed is no issue.
I wouldn’t want to count on the target always being head on. Its also always better to shoot down the target sooner, and farther out, so more speed means you have more chance of hitting the target before he has a chance to launch his missiles.
By that and the the end of the Cold War there was no longer any need to keep the expensive F-14 for that role.
There will be a need for the F-14 until the last Backfire is melted down. Even after that, the F-14 has better range and payload than any flavor of F-18, and it is a better fleet defence intercepter.
For the same money you can operate double the number of SHs compared to F-14D and still have a higher hitting power from a single SH compared to a F-14D.
The AIM-120 is sophisticated, but it does not have the range and hitting power of an AIM-54. And the argument that you can operate more of a cheaper fighter only works for the Air Force. A carrier can only fit so many planes, so they better be the best you can get.
RockyYOT
I always thought they were known as YOT…
GIB in know, but YOT??
RockyOverall, either the numbers I gave above are completely incorrect (which is doubtful, I checked various sources), or the F-14 can do miracle beyond the understanding of normal physics.
I am sure that the parameters were selected to make those statistics the most favorable to the F-14, but they support the general position that the F-14 is a better fighter. I am sure that the improved acceleration is due to the lower drag when the wings are fully swept, because the TF-30 engines are nothing to brag about beyond improved fuel consumption. The better climb and turning ability is due to a much lower effective wing loading. That tunnel between the engines makes a big difference. A jet like an F-105 or MiG-23 isn’t going to get much lift from the fuselage, but the F-14 pancake fuselage isn’t just bigger, its flatter, and acts much more like an airfoil. Wing area figures that just include the wings really don’t mean anything. High lift devices on the wings make a difference too.
All those figures are for an F-14A. The F-14D should be much better.
RockyHow does the T/W ratio of the F-14D compare with an F-18C or F-18E?
RockyI note you didn’t dispute the figures above, so I guess we have now concluded that the F-14 is an average fighter and does not really present a big advance compared to latest F-4 models.
“F-14/F-4 Comparison
The F-14 has these percentage improvements over the F-4.
-40% better turn radius
-27% better maneuvering climb
-21% better sustained G
-21% better acceleration
-20% better rate of climb
-21% better roll performance
-80% more combat radius on internal fuel
-50% more loiter time with 6 Phoenix missiles
(Compared to Sparrow-equipped F-4)
-100% more loiter time with 4 Sparrow missiles
-More than twice the radar range
-More than 2 1/2 times the missile range”
Grumman F-14 Tomcat, by James Perry Stevenson, c 1975 by Aero Publishers, Inc., Fallbrook, California, p. 62.
“I flew a number of mock combats in the F-14 against other airplanes, including the F-4, and also flew the F-4 against the F-14. In these competitions, to see that big airplane turn round corners is unbelievable…
“In dogfighting, I have yet to see another airplane that can turn inside the F-14 – except, maybe, the Harrier.”
-Commander Joe Brantus USN (date unknown, but in mid ’70s)
“We think we have the best fighter in the world, but we don’t get slow with the gents in F-14s”.
-An F-15 pilot
“In February 1973 the F-14’s dogfighting ability was tested against a slatted F-4J Phantom. Starting at various speeds and heights, and alternating the position of advantage, eight engagements were flown. In every one, the F-14 out-scissored its opponent within seconds.”
Modern Fighting Aircraft F-14 Tomcat, Mike Spick, C 1985 by Salamander Books Ltd., New York, New York, p. 55.
Sign In
