Facts…pesky things eh…:D

If my memory serves well, there was a great defencr of democracy, stalin was his name (no, I’m not serious, relax guys 😀 ) that said one thing that is very true:

“facts are stubborn…” 😀

rafale basher at his best… 😀

anyway…

two things:

– when you read a quote from some british politician (don’t ask me who, it was months ago and can’t even remember exactly where I read it) that “we (the british) can’t pull out after all the money we’ve put in” you can’t just say they stay because they believe in it. they stay as they are afraid to come out and say in public “we pulled out and that couple of billion are lost”, even if that means loosing maybe more or ordering an aircraft that may not be what they need (they already swiched for another version, for example)…

– talking about “modernization need for eurocanards”, by the time the f-35 becomes anything but a future possibility, they’ll have been upgraded a couple of times, and, as LO aircraft will become more frequent in the air the defence systems will also evolve, making shape stealth less effective (tyhere are already known ways aroun dit, and you can be sure all nations are working on them) and the only answer to that will be electronics.

So, how this or that aircrfaft will fare against each other in 10 or 15 years, is everyone’s guess, but nobody can pretend to know the answer

you could argue its mostly an Asian country. most if its landmass is in Asia.. most of the ethnic Russians have some kind of Mongol or Tatar heritage in their blood. more importantly, most of the cool aviation plants are in the Asian side :diablo:

to be complete, it’s a euroasian country, yet, as I said, it is the easternmost european country (starting at the polish border and going all the way to kamchatka peninsula)

anyway, the whole point of MMRCA is somewhat besides these considerations 😉

UAVs don’t have to be slow. A Predator is very slow, but Taranis & Neuron will have a high subsonic speed (as does Barracuda), & there’s nothing to stop supersonic UAVs being built.

Speed is a function of the design decisions made, & the intended role, not a feature of UAVs as such.

I talk about the systems in use today. of course, it is possible to make supersonic UAVs, but it hasn’t been done yet. And a subsonic recce flying thingy is usually quite easy to intercept for any half modern air force, that’s the whole point: with a pair of eyes or two inside, and a significant supersonic capability, it is possible that incoming interceptors may be spotted (either visually, or through RWR alert, radar contact… and required action performed to evade interception. With an UAV, most of the times the operator will be looking through cameras down at what he has to record, until there’s no more image… too late 😀

didn’t they say they’d modernise the old F-15?

The F-104 should never have entered service, it was designed in the early 50s in response to the F-86 being inferior to the mig-15 in the Korean war. Im sure the tiny wing/large engine concept seemed like a great idea at the time, but as it turned out speed, engine power and missiles did not make dogfighting obsolete and the vietnam war proved that the concept did not work as F-4s, F-104s and F-105s were all humbled by the more maneuverable mig-15, mig-17 and mig-19. The F-104 was extremely aggressively marketed (forced down the throat of allies) so that superior options like the F-8 and Grumman Tiger did not sell like they should have.

The Draken was very far ahead of its time with AoA capability unlike any other non-FBW fighter of its time. The Viggen followed the layout of high thrust to weight ratio coupled with large wing area which in the 60s gave it capability similar to that of 4th gen fighters like the F-16. It was slightly stiff, but had acceptable turning rate. Close in the Draken would have the edge.

er, just a small reminder of one or two things:

* the Mig-15 had the advantage on four points over the sabre:

– it could climb a little better
– it could turn slightly tighter, especially at slow speeds
– it could reach a higher ceiling
– it had more punch with its canons… when they hit

but, the sabre had other advantages:

– it was faster, especially in a dive, being able to get out of a fight when necessary, while the mig driver once in had less choice, unless it could manage to climb out of reach (difficult if someone is not far away behind and firing)
– it had hydraucally operated controls, which, especially with ailerons, helped the pilot reverse direction much faster than the mig in which the pilot had to do it by the force of his arms. and the higher the speed the more difficult it was for the mig milot to change direction
– it had better visibility (the pilot sitting higher under an unobstructed canopy), allowing for a better SA and, therefore, easier management of the fight
– its high rate of fire gave the pilot much more chances to hit the target. With the speeds involved and the small size of the fighters, it was not uncommon to pass through the stream of migs shells unscathed (what’s more, the ballistics between the 23mm and the 37mm canon were not the same, so most of the shells would not follow the same pattern as each other.

The result of all that was that, for sabre pilots, keeping the speed high and going for scissors manouvers could keeps them out of harms way quite easily, for as long as they don’t get suprised by the mig.

Now, why the f-104? Kelly Johnson (Lockheed chief designer) went on a tour un korea, to visit the fighter squadrons and asked the pilots what they wanted most: and the answer was: the wanted a fighter that would outaccelerate, outrun and outclimb anything else. that’s why the F-104 was developed. the pilots didn’t ask for turning capabilities, but for raw speed and power, as that would allow them to dictate the fight (start and leave the fight at will), and in that regard, it did quite well.

as for f-4 and f-105 in vietnam, the number of air kills doesn’t sound that much in vietnam’s favor, but two things:

– the f-4 was made for BVR fight, using missiles only, and the RoE dictated to identify the target visually… so, regardless of missile performance (which wasn’t exactly stellar, that is certain), they often had to come in close before starting the fight, close where they may have had a good us eof a gun. The F-105 wasn’t a fighter, but a bomber in the first place. made for nuclear delivery (basicaly, you go one way, drop your bomb and then, try to get back home if there’s any home left), and yet, they scored kills ( 25 official kills, most of these with its gun… not bad for an aircraft that wasn’t supposed to fight other aircraft)