Nied

Neat. A proto-VF-0.

Any word on who designed it? It doesn't apear in the DW so I assumed it wasn't Kawamori. Also what are those three box like structures aft of the triger assembly?

Even though it has not officially been labeled as such, I've always felt that the Spiritia Dreaming design would make for a good VA-14. It looks more like a heavy attack aircraft, with it's chest mounted heavy beam guns and it's SR-71 like fuselage, than a fighter. THe M3 design on the other hand looks alot more like a real fighter, it's buble canopy should give it very good visibility (possibly the best of any VF), and the arrow head nose would help with it's high alpha performance. In my own mind the Varauta colony had both VF-14s (M3 design) and VA-14s (Spititia Dreaming design) in it's inventory, and the Varauta empire used features from both craft when developing the Fz-109, and Az-130.

That's interesting. Like everyone else I wonder what exactly those "handicaps" were and how much they affected the Eagle's performance. I do think that we in the US have gotten a little to comfortable with the idea of our all powerful ability to project air superiority. I think it's mostly becuase of how lucky we have been in the last couple major conflicts, we just haven't faced any real resistance in the air. Think about it. In the first Gulf War the Iraqi Air Force had already been mauled during the Iran-Iraq war, that combined with Husein's foolish decision to put his aircraft in hardened shelters rather than use them led to an easy victory for coalition forces. In Kosovo the Serbs barely had an air force left after the fracturing of Yugoslavia. Their most advanced aircraft were 12 Mig-29s, two were very easily shot down by NATO forces (it may be that those two were all the Serbs could fly). In Afganistan the Taliban had no air arm. In the second Gulf War, the Iraqi air arm consisted of maybe a handful of Mig-25s and a smattering of Mirage F-1s that weren't destroyed or taken by Iran, and most of those were buried in the sand in the hopes that a guerilla war would drive US forces out. Compare that with what we could face in future conflicts: North Korea has a large but crude air force, consisting mostly of Mig-21s and Mig-23s but also a handful of Mig-29s. Kim Jong Il personally wrote an analysis of the Gulf War that condemned Saddam Hussein for not using his air force. As such, one could expect a vigorous fight from the KPAAF. Iran has an interesting mix of US and Russian designs. By most accounts they still have at least one squadron of F-14s in flying condition, and though they have long exhausted their supply of Phoenix missiles, they are attempting to integrate Russian R-77 "Amramski" missiles (more ominously there are reports of the Iranians trying to re-engine their F-14s with AL-31s the same engine that powers the Su-27). They also have quite a few Mig-29s that "defected" from Iraq. The Iranian Air Force did quite well during the Iran-Iraq war; I don't see why they wouldn’t again if faced by another enemy. China's air force is very similar to India's. Quite a few older designs mixed with a smaller force of advanced designs (in this case Su-30MKKs nearly identical to India’s Su-30MKIs). They also have several advanced designs about to enter service (the FC-1 and the J-10) both of which promise F-16/F/A-18 level performance. And finally Saudi Arabia is teetering on the brink of a revolution that would almost assuredly put them on far less friendly terms with the US. Any new government would inherit one of the best air forces oil-money can buy, which in this case consists of F-15s Tornados, and F-5s, not to mention their considerable C&C assets. Even superior tactics can't make up for that. Korea would be easiest but it certainly wouldn't be the cake walk we've seen over the past few decades.

My bad. This site shows that the CTOL and STOVL have Flanker like wingtip launchers shile the CV version has the rails further inboard.

I beilieve that the CV version carries them on Flanker style launchers near the wingtips, while the AF and STOVL versions carry them on F-16/F/A-18/F-5 style launchers on the wingtips.

The vortices never really get a chance to form, they just slip down the trailing edge of the wing until they hit the fuselage. Anyway. Mentioned where? If it's on the internet I'd just dismiss it out of hand (just like the inherently stable thing). If it's in some actual publications, that would give me pause (though even the Air and Space Museum in DC claims FSW is inherently unstable on the placard for the X-29)

Well you want to keep protrusions to a minimum to preserve stealth, so just their existance would add somewhat to an aircraft's RCS. On the other hand as long as they are properly integrated with the airframe (ie making sure the leading edges line up, and the angles of the canards were right) it wouldn't add an undue amount to the RCS of a design (one of Lockheed's original JSF desings had canards).

I never understood what about FSW is fundamentally unstealthy. It seems that lining up forward swept angles is just as easy as lining up aftward swept angles.

Well if you want to get technical about it he did study aerospace engineering in college so in a sense he's both. THough IIRC he did drop out befre getting his degree.

Well technically speaking, the afterburner is just a second stage combustion chamber that opens out to the back of the plane. Essentially fuel is dumped into the exhaust where it ignites and gives you the extra thrust. Technicaly speaking you could start dumping fuel into the exhaust before the engine is fully spooled and still get the boost from the afterburner but you wouldn't get full power since your only boosting half thrust. Of course with most new FADEC engines spool time isn't as much of an issue anymore.

While TAW was a great sim it wasn't always entirely acurate. Right now the F(/A)-22 doesn't have an IRST (though Lockheed aparently has a stealthy emplacement designed for it when/if the Air Force decides to install one), and though it's stealth would be greatly reduced at such short ranges it wouldn't be useless. It's exhausts are still desinged to deaden it's IR signature, and it's paint is designed to emit IR radiation at a frequency that dispates rapidly in an atmosphere. That and it's still marginally effective radar stealth would make maintaining a lock tough for the Flanker. I do think you're right about the Raptors energy advantage, 80,000 lbs of combined thrust is certainly handy in a dogfight.

Well the X-31 vs Super Flanker is easy. SU-37 all the way, it has guns F(/A)-22 vs Su-37, that one's harder. The Flanker probably has a maneuverability advantage over the Raptor, and the Raptors sensors adavantage is dulled at close range (and the Flanker's IRST comes into play). On the other hand teh Raptor would still have a stealth advantage, even at that range, making it harder to draw a bead on. I think it would come down to individual pilots more than anything else.

Oops. forgot to save that as a JPEG.

I never claimed that the YF-23 wasn't faster, just that it's kind of silly to call Lockheed for their claims of superior maneuverability while ignoring the fact that the claims of superior speed came from Northrop. Not really, the fact that the notch continues into the tail booms makes it look larger but there really isn't much difference in the stabs other than the notch and the leading edge angle.

Blaine you beat me to it. I would just add that there is no requirement that a documentary show both sides of an argument (though it does make it more powerful if it does), and cetainly no requirement that it not have an agenda. The Thin Blue Line is widely considered to be one of the best documentary films ever made, and it got a man out of prison!

THe X-44 is a modified F-22 designed to test the concept controling an aircraft using only thrust vectoring (it will have no other moveable controlls). The FB-22 is a tailess F-22 derivative but it will maintain it's directional stability with B-2 style "dragerons" (though thrust vectoring may have a role to play similar to Boeings X-45 UCAV).

What's different about the underside? The internal structure actually didn't take mutch of a hit (the new gear didn't change mutch over the old gear in terms of space and atach points). The gear barely retracts into the wings at all, and it looks like one hydralic line is all that go re-routed (most of the lines for electrical and such enter at the leading edge or the trailing one). And other than sweep what's new about the stabs? The verticals are just smaller versions of the prototype's and the horzontals have a notch cut out of them for antenea. And a new fuselage may be no big deal aerodynamically, but it's a huge deal structuraly and operationally. New fuselage means new design which means greater chance that something could go wrong compared to a reletively mature design that needs some tweaking. P.S. You left out how it was Northrup who made the claim that the YF-23 was faster, which most of the press picked up without challenge (just like Lockheed's claims of superior maneuverability).

Technically speaking the F-22's mods were simply moving parts around a little (the canopy was moved forward and the intakes were moved back but the design of the two didn't change) THe F-23 on the other hand would have had a new nose (putting in a Radar wouldn't have worked without a re-design), a new forward fuselage (you can't just cut a hole in the bottom of the plane to make it work you have to make room for everything) and new engine naceles (replacing the big honkin ones that were going to house thrust reversers), when you consider that you'd have to re-design the mid fuselage to accomodate the changes to the rest of the airframe, you've got a whole new fuselage.

So minor changes in wing sweep and a few other details on the F-22 vs a new fuselage for the F-23. I still don't see how changing the entire fuselage is less drastic than changes to the wing sweep and intake position.

Well the YF-22 was generally considered to be more mature than the -23. The F-22 had performed most of the maneuvers that the YF-23 had only claimed. It also fired weponry and had a working cockpit based on what was to go into the final production model (the YF-23's was mostly came from a F/A-18). Northrop's final F-23 was much more different from the prototype compared to Lockheed's final F-22 design (and Lockheed's wasn't exactly a carbon copy of the YF-22). I think the biggest factor though was maintainability. From what I can tell the F-23 was fixing to be a major hangar queen, while the F-22 was designed almost from the ground up to be an easy to maintain aircraft. I can never stress enough how important this is, because an aircraft stuck in a hangar is useless no matter how high performance it is.

Actually that's one of the first things I looked at, the frontal area of the Super Hornet isn't that much biger than the Legacy's, despite the fact that it's much larger otherwise. In fact the only truely draggy bit on the front section is the "Rhino horn" IFF antena. Hell even the fact that the number of bolts and rivets has been cut down should improve matters imensly. The numbers I've got are 30,500 lbs (Rhino) vs 29,616 (Legacy) empty, the rest seem to match up with yours. Those come from my copy of International Air power Review.

I may have already said this but I'd be happy to help you in any way that I can (textures, or compatability testing etc.). Otherwise I gotta say that I can't wait to see the finished product.

Legacy can't supercruise, neither can the Rhino. The official top speed for the legacy is Mach 1.8, same for the Rhino (or any other aircraft that can go faster than Mach 1.8, the military won't admit to having a fighter capable of going faster than that). And David can comment on his aerospace credentials better than I can. Actually on the subject of drag, with the exception of the offset pylons, the Super Hornet is signifigantly cleaner than the legacy Hornet. Far fewer protrusions from the hull compared to the legacy model, and much better fit on most panels (though I imagine that's for RCS reasons).

A, B, C, and D yes.