TooCool_12fModifications on the Gripen could be not as extensive as one might imagine. She’s already built for more harsh landings. The tail hook would have to be strengthened for regular use. And the rest depends on the desired bring-back weight. Also no new nose landing gear would be required for CTOL carrier ops when the bridle launch method is utilized.
On the Carrier side – thinking about Cavour and such – the arrestor wire system would not have to be as extensive as on a CVN, as the Gripen is much lighter, and arrested landings would always happen at roughly the same weight.
obviously some don’t realize the difference between carrier landing (meaning, more or less, controlled crash, where the plane is stopped by its tail hook every time in about 100m) and ground landing where the plane can come a bit heavily on its gears, but still stops with its breaks…
If the airframe hasn’t been built to be stopped repeatedly by the hook, you have to reinforce the entire airframe, not just the tail hook.. or after a few carrier landings, you’ll get your hook (with maybe a part of the aircraft still attached to it) in one piece on the carrier, but the rest of the airframe will end up in the water
TooCool_12frelax, when I started typing it wasn’t there yet
TooCool_12fer, not to be unhelpful but, the carreir operators that use different harrier variants, how would they operate the sea gripen?
the decks of their carriers aren’t made for cable arrested landings AFAIK… to buy the sea gripen, they’d need to extensively modify their carriers, which would add quite a big additional cost to the plane’s purchase..
Seems to me that, if the F-35B was cancelled, they’d either look for an extended harrier (and derivative) service or stop their carrier operations (UK excepted since they’re still officially building their new carriers if I’m not mistaken, carriers that could be built to accomodate cable arrested aircraft)
TooCool_12fso? those are the same nice drawings from the first post of this topic…
TooCool_12fThe thing is you never read up, it kind of annoying..
The original requirements for the gripen is very similiar to a navy fighter and not as much to a terrestrial one. Its allready there!?…so its 400-500kg of structural changes, defined at high level in posts in this thread.
READ UP or STOP ARGUEING without the information at hand.
yeah sure.. whatever… :rolleyes:
TooCool_12fdoesn’t anyone find that that boasting sounds so “very french”? 😀
TooCool_12fanother reason is that governments also tend to change their minds q bit too much.. add this, remove that, improve this…
rafale is a perfect example of that. While it was following more or less on schedule, the cold war ended.. and french government shifted financing elsewhere… then asked for this or that modernization, etc.. in the end, it entered service almost 20 years after the prototype’s first flight and the development budget went through the roof… today it costs a lot (even if it’s good, it has a pretty high price by anyone’s standards), and while its evolutions keep it at a very advanced level, it should have been cheaper and much earlier in service
TooCool_12fAre you Scooter?
Also:
Swedish defense plans include a concept known as “BAS 90”, which envisions dispersal of aircraft in groups of four to six to “road bases” defined around specially reinforced lengths of highway with associated dispersal areas. This scheme dictates the Gripen’s short-field capabilities. The Gripen can take off and land in less than 600 meters (2,000 feet).
http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avgrpn.html
http://www.vectorsite.net/avgripen.html
er.. why everybody and his brother wants me to be somebody else? 😀
I’ve used the nick TooCool_12f for over 10 years now, why change? Jacko thought I was a combination of half dozen identities (obvously somebody who had some problems staying unbanned on this board :p ), now you ask me whether I’m somebody named “scooter”… no idea who he is/was
as for the “short field capabilities”, several do so; the rafale, in air force version (so, not even strenghtened for carrier operations) lands in 450m and takes off in between 400 and 600 depending on its load, that while being way heavier than the gripen and, if you ask some around here, it’s “underpowered”.
For the “sea gripen”, the thing is: it will have to stand being arrested in less than 100m by its hook… on every single carrier landing it does. if it wasn’t made for that from the beginning, be ready for a serious modifications program of the entire airframe
What we have as initial proposal, is just a PR publication, sort of a teaser that promises things that are even more unlikely to happen than rafale beating the raptor with a score of 5/1.
Anyway, if some day SAAB goes beyond a couple of screenshots and tries to make the sea gripen, we’ll see waht happens… until then, well… it’s only PR thay have to offer… nothing else
TooCool_12fI hope so, but still, it’s nothing extraordinary since other fighters in its weight class could do so almost for the last 30 years (in the case of the F-16)
TooCool_12fWhen risc and money are no longer main issues many things are possible temporary. For sure is. The market for a Sea Gripen is limited and the resulting product will be expensive and less capable.
By the way it was done before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-17
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/A-18_Hornet
If you read the link you provided about the F-18 you’d see:
“Since the LWF did not share the design requirements of the VFAX, the Navy asked McDonnell Douglas and Northrop to design a new aircraft around the configuration and design principles of the YF-17. The new aircraft, designated the F-18, shared not a single essential dimension or primary structure with the YF-17.”
basically, the only thing they kept from the initial aircraft (YF-17) was general configuration and design principles.. there’s not one common part between the YF-17 and the F-18 A (not to speak of further evolutions), so the “navalization of terrestrial aircraft doesn’t really fit to taht casen but rather “developing a completely new naval variant around the generally similar idea”, which is not what SAAB talks about
TooCool_12fwell, we’ll see :rolleyes:
TooCool_12fimagine an aircraft like the F-15 with two F135s… you could almost suppress the afterburner… too much power anyway…
as for initial question: the F-35 could be interesting to maintain superiority for some time if it did all it was supposed to do in the first place at a reasonable price.
the way it turns out, it will be extremely expensive for the job to do, and overkill for many things (shooting talibans is not necessarily out of reach of other, simpler platforms… or example)
However, if the purpose of the JSF has shifted from “cheaper alternative to the F-22 for a hi/lo air force composition”, into something like “US domination of western aircraft building”, then it is still, more or less, doing fine.
Any airforce that buys the F-35 will have to maintain it in a US built facility, will need the US for any adaptation, evolution, possibly even the US approval to go anywhere with it… and it’s supposed to stay there for next several decades. What will be left of military aircraft building competence after that? not much…
So, I’d say, from strictly operational POV, the F-35 is probably way too costly, complicated and we have yet to see how it performs IRL, but from strategic POV, it may be a dream come true for those willing to establish a US monopoly in the fighter building business or over foreign policies of many countries around the world… Military is supposed to give you sovereignity, and the F-35 puts that in the hands of US deciders… basically
TooCool_12fthat’s what he said: “the other way around” 😀
TooCool_12fRe-read what I posted, the current Gripen is rated for a much higher sink rate than other land-based fighters, and Saab IS planning to further strengthen the airframe, landing gear, and hook to allow for full carrier sink rates, impact forces, catapult or ramp take-offs, and arrested landings (the current hook is for the “field arresting gear” which allows it to stop in less than 800 meters on roads).
so, with hook arresting, it stops in 800m?
rafale stops in 450m according to this link and not using its hook:
me thinks that, if gripen stops in 800m it would be without the hook, but still, needing that long to stop such a light aircraft it’s way too long… unless your road is covered in snow and ice, you should be able to break and stop much faster
even the mirage 2000 lands in less; 640m according to this site:
http://aviation-militaire.kazeo.com/?page=article&ida=1747034
the f-16 lands in 762m with maximum landing weight
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=133240504818
of course, the two latter are closer to the 800m claim you make, and on runways only, but still, it shows that 800m isn’t something so spectacular for a modern jet fighter, far from that
TooCool_12fThank god Dassault never thought the way you do here because it would never have developed the original Etandart… Good for them. 😉
Regards,
Hammer
seems I don’t speak english around here… or people just don’t take time to read what I say… :confused:
I never said it’s impossible to make “a carrier aircraft for the first time”
I said that making a carrier aircraft which is first such aircraft for the company and adapted from a terrestrial version and best performer and cheap and almost identical to the terrestrial version all at the same time is nonsense…
Nobody ever succeeded in doing so, even nations that had much bigger experience and budgets to do so, never
Etendard was a nice aircraft, but as Dassault made it, the US carriers were receiving stuff besides which the etendard looked as a little toy (Phantoms II, Crusaders, A-6s… Last thing, the Etendard has been built from the beginning with possible navalization in mind, which helped bringing it to the carriers. In the end, it was the first dassault carrier aircraft, but it wasn’t a world beater as what gripen PR pretend to build..
So, one last time: you can make a first carrier aircraft, but you won’t make it at the same time cheap, easy, best aircraft, etc…
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