TooCool_12fThis is getting ridiculous…. (well, in fact, was from the beginning)
That “DSI argument”… LOL
is it clear enough?
I was absent for a couple of days and when coming back I saw someone talking about something revolutionary, a “DSI” which made his favourite aircraft like a wonderweapon of some sort…
Was wondering what that acronym stood for and it took me a little time just to realise that that “revolution” is just a differently shaped air intake… (at first I thought some joker put the same acronym for something really “interesting” for air combat)
JF17 going against an F-22? Using its radar, it will maybe see it for a glance when the raptor will open its weapon bays for a moment, launching his missiles at the JF17…. which will then, maybe, see some trails coming his way and then….
well, if the pilot’s lucky, he’ll get a deep breath of fresh air… otherwise, turn into confettis…
TooCool_12fSo the Typhoon was ordered by 4 nations with such a defective EW suite at its exhorbitant cost? I find it hard to believe.
ok, just for a second: the logic behind “it was ordered by xxx nations” is a non argument
I’m not speaking of the Typhoon itself, which just happens to be in your sentence… The same applies to any aircraft from any nation.
But to stay with the Typhoon example (as it shows clearly where your argument lacks substance):
when 4 nations decided to make an aircraft, they invested a certain amount of money in it. While it barely was in development stage (1989) some hippies didn’t find nothing more interesting than to go dancing on some wall back there in germany…. and as it was an old wall, it collapsed… (no, I’m not totally serious, relax, but you know what I’m talking about… I hope 😉 )
As a result, the whole purpose of making fast, with huge amounts of money, the best possible aircraft more or less disappeared, at least in the eyes of our “wise” political deciders, which resulted in one particular consequence: the cashflow for weapons development stopped almost overnight.
The problem being, that slowed down the development of, among others, the Typhoon, and for every step further, it was always after long talks, delays, and so on, due to the fact that as “partners” every nation wanted to pay only their part, and certainly not more, of only the functionalities they considered important in the use they’d have for the aircraft…
So, to take a quote from “The Right Stuff” (the movie):
“- Who gets the money, gets the technology, who gets the technology, stays on top… no bucks, no Buck Rogers”
and that’s what happened to the Typhoon: an aircraft with a great potential which was mostly due to the enormous financing potential (four nations could provide huge fundings, if they considered it necessary), ended up delayed more and more, even lagging behind its closes equivalent (Rafale) for one main reason: lack of cohesion and political will among the “partners” which resulted in a lack of fundings.
Now, since they still developed it and paid for it (not enough and not fast enough either, but still…), the 4 nations HAD to order it as it would be a political suicide for any government to buy anything else instead of the Typhoon for its intended roles (investments spent, jobs at stake, and so on)… It had little to do with the “perfection or close to”…. of its systems. At least until today…
TooCool_12feven that is quite a small part of the equation, as the shape and wing aerodynamics aren’t taken into account when talking about wing area only…
TooCool_12fi assume the focus in some of the Canadian press on the French product (rather than the other fighters out there) is to do with their love for the “mother” country?
Ottawa isn’t in quebec (french speaking part)
I’d rather believe that the rafale appeared as a plausible “non-US” candidate – possibly so because of its result in India, if anything, just to put the US under some (not too strong anyway) pressure…
as for:
Even small countries like Sweden and/or Switzerland have relied in the past on ground based radar, Sweden making in the end the choice to develop a AEW&C platform (a very daring move for such a small country).
Sweden is not exactly “small”… and the northern parts aren’t well covered with radars (last summer, while flying at FL105, I asked the controller whether I should switch to finnish control, as it seems to me that I’m about to cross ethe border, and his answer was “possible, I can’t say as I don’t have radar coverage that far north”
Their vulnerability, IMHO, is in two parts:
– wide areas in the northern part which aren’t well covered (little to no habitants there)
– a very flat terrain, making it difficult for ground based radars to see far away to the east (earth curvature comes into play)
Having an AWACS gives them an excellent detection range even very low and all over their territory and beyond (eastwards)
TooCool_12f“underpowered” is somewhat misleading:
the Apache lacks power to do it so tightly at that altitude (since its power and the lift the rotor provides are reduced just as for any other helicopter, or aircraft for that matter), and it’s up to the pilot to know his machine and do things properly
TooCool_12fRafale in the Arctic circle? Please… I already have my doubts the F-35 is going to be ready for it.
the problem is not the readiness of the aircraft, but the readiness of the canadian government to buy a non US material for such a task. Somehow, I have a feeling that if they dump the F-35, they’d go for the SH, regardless of the offer Dassault could put on the table… not unlike Japan where the winner was knows before the “competition” started
TooCool_12f@ obligatory
saab sells the gripen, not surprising they claim it’s the best… 😉
as for the carnegie document, it’s nicely written, but is something like 2 years old and written from a US-centered perspective…
For example, about the:
“According to SAAB & Dogfight, the Indian evaluation, Gripen is the most agile WVR fighter world wide, and could easily be touted as a 10G fighter.
The Gripen test pilot Fredrik Müchler tells me that the Gripen NG can easily be touted a 10G fighter, “
The rafale performs 10G turns on airshow displays routinely. No need for Dassault to say “it could be touted”… they show it does it.
The Typhoon, probably can pull some stuff like that as well… after all, they all have great T/W and T/D ratios, and the “9G limitation” in light loads (typical for A2A configurations) is mostly a software one, just to try to keep the pilot “awaken” during the fight 😉
TooCool_12f@ Aurel
it’s not what “I” claim, it’s what’s being done and gives satifactory results.
TooCool_12fone thing I find surprising is that tendency to consider “useless” anything that “we” don’t have.
The french are the only ones to have a missile that acts as an IRST complement to its weapons system, and we see quite often people from other parts of the world claiming “it’s useless”… If it was, why would the french spend millions on developing such a system? It’s not like they are new to fighter business and have no clue what it is all about… What’s more, Does anyone here consider France as such a rich country that they can just throw away money as they have too much on their hands anyway?
For now, they use it as such, and seem quite happy with it (even if, as always, everybody would like a bit more, a bit better, and so on), so maybe there is an interesting use for it…
TooCool_12fthe boom has been proposed to the US, so I guess it’s more a question whether the customer asks for it or not…
it he does, he gets it
TooCool_12f@ Per-Olof
talking about “financial aid”
Maurer going for the least performer which should have been eliminated and forgotten back in 2009, as it did not meet any of the requirements, even in its 2015 projected form, one may easily wonder (be assured?) that he got some financial aid from SAAB, no?
after all, it is AFTER the protests from the swiss military and AFTER the leaked report that he stated he wasn’t aware of the content of that report (strange way to make a decision as not to be aware of a report on which his decision is supposed to be based) and that he also announced that additional evaluation will take place to validate the gripen choice (his own announcement) obviously admitting that he made his choice without any “new evaluation” on he could base his opinion.
TooCool_12fIf Brazilian Air Force has really decided that it needs 156 MRCAs for its own F-X requirement, then I think it may not be a good news for Rafale ~ It is hard to believe that the new Brazilian government, who puts emphasis on limiting and reducing national defense budget, will allow the Brazilian Air Force to spend the amount of money (which may be no less than 50 billion USDs in total) for procuring and operating 156 Rafale in the next 30-plus years……
thing is, as brasil wants a total ToT, which they won’t ever get from the US, and the ability to build and, eventually, export the product, any fighter with significant US content inside is if not automatically eliminated, but at least very handicapped in their contest… and the Gripen, and even more the F/A-18 are part of that group… one may even wonder how come they are still in the contest since almost all their US content( and particularily the critical one, like the engine, which they both share) depends on US senate’s good will for exports
TooCool_12fFirstly, if you don’t mind and just so that I know who I am speaking with, are you an engineer who has worked on or at least formally studied turbofan engines?
Secondly, how are you so sure about the diameter/performance/techincal details of the WS-13? Are you privy to any official info that I am not? Because as far as I know, details of the WS-13 are at this point urban legends. We are not even certain it will power the JF-17.
Engineer not, but turbofan engines were part of my studies
in any case, I can only talk about data I’m given. I haven’t access to classified data on the WS-13 but considering what we’ve been given (wiki, for what it’s worth) one can draw some logical conclusions.
Now, if wiki is wrong, the conclusions may be wrong as well… it all depends what’s not right and to what degree… it can be better than stated, or worse..
another source of information was an interview by a snecma engineer who explained that, even more than 20 years after having started copying them, the chinese copies of CFM-56 had much lesser mtbf than the french-built ones because of the lack of technology for hot parts (it is all about specific materials chemical treatments that you can’t just guess by looking at a finished part). For having worked in a company who did it for both Snecma and General Electric parts for Air France’s maintainance, I can tell you it’s not something that you can just improvise with, so what he said sounded quite right and that would also support the fact that even today, a high performance engine like a fighter one may be lacking in that specific domain
TooCool_12fJF-17s engine seems on topic to me 😀
as for
Having a wider diameter or not that is an engineering question I will not pretend to have the answer of.
I gave you the answer, the wider it is, the higher air throughput capability is has. The whole purpose of an engine is to provide thrust; not to be nice looking or anything like that. The more thrust you get, the better. and if you can do so while occupying a smaller volume, even better (usually allows either for more space in the fuselage for other useful stuff, like fuel for example or allows you to make a more slender fuselage, having less drag) while also reducing the fuel consumption (as you need a similar proportion of fuel per volume of air, the less air you use for a given thrust, the less fuel you burn as well)
One could imagine an A-10 with two RR Trent 1000 engines on top of it (would be a mess to center, but it’s another issue 😀 ) and, if we only look at performance numbers, you’d get the most formidable ground attack aircraft, capable of crazy evolutions (for example, come in low and pull up, fully laden, accelerating to max speed in vertical climb, with something like 70t of static thrust.
However, from aerodynamical and operational PoV, it would be “slightly unpractical”.
One has to understand that the knowledge doesn’t come instantly. it takes time to learn, and the chinese, while progressing fast (they also can use a good part of developments others havbe done in the past to go faster than when that knowledge had to be acquired for the first time), they still have a long way to go to catch up with western powers who went through all that long ago.
TooCool_12fF414 is rated 22,000 lb, doesn’t seem to be more powerful than AVIC’s WS-13. :rolleyes:
from your link:
“Performance
Maximum thrust: 51.2 kilonewtons (11,500 lbf) dry; 86.37 kilonewtons (19,420 lbf) with afterburner”
19something to 22 is about 15% difference
In any case, for you and PLA-MKII
it’s not bashing chinese technology to notice that announced achievment is not exactly revolutionary.
The engine can reach high thrust by either moving lots of air, or by heating it to very high temperatures (increasing the pressure and, therefore, accelerating the exhaust) To do the first, you need a wide engine, and is relatively easy to do. to do the second, you need to master the specific metallurgy domains which will allow you to make parts able to sustain these high temperatures.
In the case of WS-13, it has a 25% larger fan than a Sencma M53 (meaning it sucks a lot more air) and yet, it manages to provide 8.6T of thrust, which is the same as the initial version of the M53
obviously, if it moves more air for the same result, the pressure inside (and, therefore, the temperatures of hot parts it uses) are significantly lower -> which is a clear indication that the manufacturer still lags behind in technology that would allow him to build a better performing engine.
And the fact of making the J-20, as such, means only one thing: they have enough money to do so.
What counts for the F-22 (and the J-20) is what’s inside, not the general shape.
– What’s its real radar signature? nobody outside chinese test people knows
– What are its electronics really capable of? nobody outside chinese test people knows it either
In the end, for all we know, they had the money to make an “F-22-looking aircraft” but how it will perform in real world, only time will tell
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