Macross Frontier Mecha/Technology Thread IV *Read 1st Post*

[hobbes221]

Except that Mach 5 is the cruise speed of the VFs.

No, it's not

Fighter Mode

* Maximum speed: standard, in atmosphere at 10000 m: Mach 5.0+, on account of the fuselage heat-resistance boundary.

-from the Macross Compendium

[RedWolf]

I got a question, but its not related with valk.

Which company design and built the Quarter? Is it under LAI?

SMS is owned by Richard Bilrer and Macross Quarter as well. But they got permision to operate it from the Frontier government perhaps also the NUNG also.

After the Macross 13 incident they wont just give a Macross even a mini one just to anybody.

Actually this is the first time we encounter a Macross not built for UN Spacy, now NUNS.

Edited February 23, 2009 by RedWolf

[sketchley]

Not at all-- these data are provided from a more or less objective point of view so there's no reason to suspect inflation or deflation? It's not like we are reading sales brochures after all, all these data are equivalent to the technical manuals for the aircraft (less detailed, to be sure).

Just to clarify - everyone knows that these stats are completely ficticious and made up by one or more individuals, and there objectives and goals with any particular stat can change on a whim, right? Right.

Let the discussion continue.

[sketchley]

No, it's not

-from the Macross Compendium

To clarify (as I had a hand in those translations):

the VF can go much, much faster in an atmosphere, but in doing so, it'll start melting, deforming, and become useless in the process. Given that Guld was able to turn off the limiters in the YF-21, it's utterly plausible that the same could be done with other VFs.

The one exception I have come across in Japanese is the VF-27, which uses a combination of other factors (energy conversion army, etc.) to overcome that "thermal" barrier.

What the Japanese text doesn't state, but does imply, is that the max (limited) speed in an atmosphere decreases the lower a VF flies, or increase the higher it flies.

I think I had another point to add, but I lost track of it hammering the above out. Nevertheless, enjoy the clarification, and remember that actual conditions may influence things (high pressure vs. low pressure air, turbulence, typhoon/cyclone/hurricane, etc.. Hmm... a typhoon would make a cool place to have a dogfight.)

[hobbes221]

To clarify (as I had a hand in those translations):

Thanks for that, I guess I'm from the school where max airspeed is what's useful without breaking the bird, I think IIRC the F-15 tops out at 2.5 because at that point the windscreen starts to melt, or was it the F-111? So to me the max for the VF-25 is around mach 5, going faster is pointless if you can't bring the bird back (or more important, IT can't bring YOU back ). I guess you could tool around at that speed all day in a VF but I can't help but think that the cruise speed would be lower.

On the topic of the -27, is there any reason as to why the -25 would not be able to pull off the same trick and go faster as well? The only things that I could think of off the bat is that maybe the two main engines are used for thrust and the two wing nacelle ones are used just to generate power for the ECA system, or that it takes the full power from all four engines to give enough juice to the ECA to go that fast.

[VF-25 Messiah]

On the topic of the -27, is there any reason as to why the -25 would not be able to pull off the same trick and go faster as well? The only things that I could think of off the bat is that maybe the two main engines are used for thrust and the two wing nacelle ones are used just to generate power for the ECA system, or that it takes the full power from all four engines to give enough juice to the ECA to go that fast.

The pilot would turn into mush. I seem to recall the reason the -27 having this ability to begin with was because its cyborg pilot is able to survive the process. A -25 human pilot wouldn't, so there'd not be much point in including it.

Edited February 23, 2009 by VF-25 Messiah

[sketchley]

(...) On the topic of the -27, is there any reason as to why the -25 would not be able to pull off the same trick and go faster as well? The only things that I could think of off the bat is that maybe the two main engines are used for thrust and the two wing nacelle ones are used just to generate power for the ECA system, or that it takes the full power from all four engines to give enough juice to the ECA to go that fast.

From what I understand of it (if anyone's interested, the article on it can be found in "Great Mechanics.DX6". Translation can be found here: http://www.macrossroleplay.org/forums/index.php?topic=1934.0 ), it's precisely because of the extra two engines (despite them producing slightly less thrust than those in the VF-25) that allows the VF-27 to get up to Mach 9.0 at 10,000 m for brief periods.

From a different perspective: on all VFs up to the VF-27 (inclusive of the VF-25), Energy Conversion Armour and the Pinpoint Barrier System are only useable in GERWALK and battroid modes because the power that the engines are capable of producing is not being used entirely (or mostly, or whatever) for thrust. The VF-27 still has 2,268 Kn of unused thrust (Doing simple math here) if it matches the maximum output of the VF-25's engines.

Theoretically, it may be possible for the VF-25 (and other VFs that produce more thrust than is usable in an atmosphere), but the impression I get is that the systems are not designed to be able to do it (consider it akin to the SDF-1 being unable to fire it's main gun unless if it's in Strong-Attack Mode; post mis-fold to Pluto's orbit).

Why do I have this impression? Because if an unmodified VF-25 was capable of doing it, the text would have said so.

[sketchley]

The pilot would turn into mush. I seem to recall the reason the -27 having this ability to begin with was because its cyborg pilot is able to survive the process. A -25 human pilot wouldn't, so there'd not be much point in including it.

How is travelling at Mach 9 going to turn a pilot into mush? It's the G forces that do it, not the speed itself. The G forces are coming from either acceleration to that speed or from manuevers.

As the stats are refering to speed, and speed alone, the pilot mushing factor isn't applicable.

Food for thought: shouldn't a pilot turn to mush for accelerating from 0 to mach 5 if they are turning into mush when accelerating from mach 5 to mach 9?

[edwin3060]

No, it's not

-from the Macross Compendium

I knew that. I was just waiting for one of you to point out, yourself, one area where the VF-25 was inferior to the VF-19, since :

Fighter Mode

* Cruising speed

o VF-19 Custom (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.5+

o VF-19A (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

o VF-19F (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5+

o VF-19S(standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

-from the Macross Compendium

Edited February 23, 2009 by edwin3060

[Final Vegeta]

I said that? Really? No I didn't. As I understand it, the EX-Gear's control system allows it to read muscle movements (or something of that nature) for more precise control of the EX-Gear.

I said "some kind of". I can't find your original post, but I remember you were unsure of the wording even back then. Possible what is read are neural pulses along the spine more than brain thoughts.

Just to clarify - everyone knows that these stats are completely ficticious and made up by one or more individuals, and there objectives and goals with any particular stat can change on a whim, right? Right.

Moreover, how many people remember that the sentence about the successor was removed from the official site after a while?

What the Japanese text doesn't state, but does imply, is that the max (limited) speed in an atmosphere decreases the lower a VF flies, or increase the higher it flies.

This is obvious: the atmosphere is denser at sea level, increasing drag.

FV

[Final Vegeta]

That's just arguing semantics

Semantics is the science of understanding the meaning in language. Glad I got it on my side.

None of which has anything to do with the g-limits of the VF. Besides, SK has already said that the VF-25 is a VF-1 that transforms like a YF-19. If that isn't using elements from previous designs, I don't know what is.

See? Your poor understanding of semantics make you thought that, when you were talking about "incorporating previous elements", and I was replying to "incorporating previous elements", I was actually talking about the g-limits, and since I am not you are feeling like you have a point on me, which you don't, because you didn't even remember what you were arguing about.

Also, Kawamori was speaking about the design, not the performance. If that was your point, I can concede that having the same mecha designer there are graphical similarities, but it doesn't fit in the general debate. Please be semantically focused next time.

Short answer: When velocity is the same, the Gs you can pull are an objective measure of maneuverability. David made a false analogy which I pointed out if you had taken the time to read my rebuttal.

If two things accelerate differently, how can velocity stay the same? I mean, acceleration is exactly the change in velocity. And this told by one person who professed himself to be quite knowledgeable in physics. Sorry but if you keep speaking nonsense I just won't try to reason with you anymore.

None of which is relevant to the discussion-- you sought to prove that the F-35 was superior in every way to current generation fighters, and I've proved that it's not. It has a higher probability of winning not because it has higher thrust, or can pull greater gs. It wins because of its better radar and stealth.

No pilot can pull greater g's than +9/-3 for substained periods without being knocked back unconscious. Also, no one has ever planned for fighters to win all battles through pulling g's. If achievable, fighting beyond visual range is the best solution. Welcome to the real world, where victory is all.

Similarly, no matter what, provided a similar skills pilot a VF-25 can always outmatch a VF-19. Also the idea that an ISC installed on a VF-19 would allow the pilot to pull more g's than in a VF-25 is only speculation, for what we know the maximum ability for the ISC could be always 27.5g no matter the machine in which it was installed.

And your rate of turn in degrees is related to....? Thats right, your turn radius!

If by "related" you mean there's actually a mathematical formula to obtain one from the other, in fact it's a no.

Turn Radius = Velocity^2 ÷ ( g x TAN ( angle ) )

Turn Rate = g x TAN ( angle ) ÷ Velocity

Well, that's mathematic semantics anyway.

I know that. I've already stated that many many times over. But in the absence of any other data, the g-limits are clearly meant to illustrate the maneuverability of the vfs. Else we wouldn't have a standard of measurement at all.

We do have other data: the model of vernier thrusters. Which matters since when you talk about maneuverability your topic is usually flight controls.

Also, we actually don't have a standard measurement at all, as explained in my previous posts. For example, we are not told how many negative g's a VF-25 can pull.

FV

[edwin3060]

Just to clarify - everyone knows that these stats are completely ficticious and made up by one or more individuals, and there objectives and goals with any particular stat can change on a whim, right? Right.

Let the discussion continue.

Irrelevant, since for the purposes of the discussion the stats must be real, else no discussion can occur at all.

To clarify (as I had a hand in those translations):

the VF can go much, much faster in an atmosphere, but in doing so, it'll start melting, deforming, and become useless in the process. Given that Guld was able to turn off the limiters in the YF-21, it's utterly plausible that the same could be done with other VFs.

The one exception I have come across in Japanese is the VF-27, which uses a combination of other factors (energy conversion army, etc.) to overcome that "thermal" barrier.

That's certainly true for the VF-25, but not for the VF-19/22, where Mach 5 is only the standard cruising speed, implying a much higher max cruisisng speed (even at 10000 m). We have no idea what speed Guld was going at when the YF-21 started to melt.

Hobbes211/VF-25: Speed doesn't do anything-- its the acceleration that kills. So the limiting factor for the VF-25 vs the VF-27 is that the VF-27 can use its pinpoint barrier system to shield it's fuselage from the heat for short periods when going up to Mach 9, but the VF-25 can not. From all the data we have, we still don't know exactly what the limits of the ISC are, since it is established that the 27.5G limit is for the airframe, not the ISC. We probably have an upper limit of 46.5G though, inferring from the VF-27.

[edwin3060]

From what I understand of it (if anyone's interested, the article on it can be found in "Great Mechanics.DX6". Translation can be found here: http://www.macrossroleplay.org/forums/index.php?topic=1934.0 ), it's precisely because of the extra two engines (despite them producing slightly less thrust than those in the VF-25) that allows the VF-27 to get up to Mach 9.0 at 10,000 m for brief periods.

From a different perspective: on all VFs up to the VF-27 (inclusive of the VF-25), Energy Conversion Armour and the Pinpoint Barrier System are only useable in GERWALK and battroid modes because the power that the engines are capable of producing is not being used entirely (or mostly, or whatever) for thrust. The VF-27 still has 2,268 Kn of unused thrust (Doing simple math here) if it matches the maximum output of the VF-25's engines.

Theoretically, it may be possible for the VF-25 (and other VFs that produce more thrust than is usable in an atmosphere), but the impression I get is that the systems are not designed to be able to do it (consider it akin to the SDF-1 being unable to fire it's main gun unless if it's in Strong-Attack Mode; post mis-fold to Pluto's orbit).

Why do I have this impression? Because if an unmodified VF-25 was capable of doing it, the text would have said so.

I think it has more to do with the ECA and pin point barrier than the engines, since I don't think thrust is a factor in top speeds for valks. So maybe the VF-27 is unique in that it can utilise its ECA and pin point barrier in fighter mode. All the more reason to love it!

[edwin3060]

This is obvious: the atmosphere is denser at sea level, increasing drag.

FV

It is much more complicated than that. Because SK has only provided Mach numbers and not true air speed, your indicated Mach number would go up at the same true air speed as your altitude increased, since the speed of sound decreases with decreasing density. Don't forget that the denser atmosphere would increase thrust as well due to the operation of the TRT, which would offset some of the drag.

[edwin3060]

See? Your poor understanding of semantics make you thought that, when you were talking about "incorporating previous elements", and I was replying to "incorporating previous elements", I was actually talking about the g-limits, and since I am not you are feeling like you have a point on me, which you don't, because you didn't even remember what you were arguing about.

Also, Kawamori was speaking about the design, not the performance. If that was your point, I can concede that having the same mecha designer there are graphical similarities, but it doesn't fit in the general debate. Please be semantically focused next time.

I think it's more your poor understanding of semantics this time. Don't blame your failures on me.

If two things accelerate differently, how can velocity stay the same? I mean, acceleration is exactly the change in velocity. And this told by one person who professed himself to be quite knowledgeable in physics. Sorry but if you keep speaking nonsense I just won't try to reason with you anymore.

Because in this case, the acceleration is perpendicular to the direction of travel, thus not affecting the magnitude of velocity, which is the relevant factor in the discussion.

No pilot can pull greater g's than +9/-3 for substained periods without being knocked back unconscious. Also, no one has ever planned for fighters to win all battles through pulling g's. If achievable, fighting beyond visual range is the best solution. Welcome to the real world, where victory is all.

Urmm.. so? I just proved that the F-35 is not superior in every way to current generation fighters. So, for example, in a short term energy fight, the F-16 may well beat the F-35 due to its higher thrust to weight.

Similarly, no matter what, provided a similar skills pilot a VF-25 can always outmatch a VF-19. Also the idea that an ISC installed on a VF-19 would allow the pilot to pull more g's than in a VF-25 is only speculation, for what we know the maximum ability for the ISC could be always 27.5g no matter the machine in which it was installed.

Not at all-- like I said, we don't know the limits of the ISC, since we have established that the 27.5G figure is only for the airframe. Similarly to the F-16/F-35 example, a VF-19 can beat a VF-25 with identical pilots in both due to its superior atmospheric properties.

If by "related" you mean there's actually a mathematical formula to obtain one from the other, in fact it's a no.

Turn Radius = Velocity^2 ÷ ( g x TAN ( angle ) )

Turn Rate = g x TAN ( angle ) ÷ Velocity

Well, that's mathematic semantics anyway.

From your equations,

Turn rate x velocity = g x TAN (angle)

Substituting into the first equation,

Turn radius = velocity^2 ÷ Turn rate x velocity

Therefore, turn radius = velocity / turn rate. QED.

We do have other data: the model of vernier thrusters. Which matters since when you talk about maneuverability your topic is usually flight controls.

Except that model number tells us nothing about thrust.

Also, we actually don't have a standard measurement at all, as explained in my previous posts. For example, we are not told how many negative g's a VF-25 can pull.

FV

Highly unlikely to the point of incredibility that the VF-25 can pull more negative g's than it can pull positive gs

[sketchley]

Irrelevant, since for the purposes of the discussion the stats must be real, else no discussion can occur at all.

huh?

That's certainly true for the VF-25, but not for the VF-19/22, where Mach 5 is only the standard cruising speed, implying a much higher max cruisisng speed (even at 10000 m). We have no idea what speed Guld was going at when the YF-21 started to melt.

Two things:

1) please provide the Japanese source text

2) look closely, as it also says the max "cruising" speed. Thereby imply that a) there was a mistranslation or b) there is a misinterpretation by the reader. One must always keep in mind that no two words in any language have exactly the same meaning.

I think it has more to do with the ECA and pin point barrier than the engines, since I don't think thrust is a factor in top speeds for valks. So maybe the VF-27 is unique in that it can utilise its ECA and pin point barrier in fighter mode. All the more reason to love it!

Hi. I translated the text. I think I know what it means, and I did my best to convey that meaning in English. If you want to dismiss my clarifications in this thread, that's your choice. (See #2 above).

[miles316]

Thanks for that, I guess I'm from the school where max airspeed is what's useful without breaking the bird, I think IIRC the F-15 tops out at 2.5 because at that point the windscreen starts to melt, or was it the F-111? So to me the max for the VF-25 is around mach 5, going faster is pointless if you can't bring the bird back (or more important, IT can't bring YOU back ). I guess you could tool around at that speed all day in a VF but I can't help but think that the cruise speed would be lower.

.

discussion can occur at all.

That's certainly true for the VF-25, but not for the VF-19/22, where Mach 5 is only the standard cruising speed, implying a much higher max cruising speed (even at 10000 m). We have no idea what speed Guld was going at when the YF-21 started to melt.

Many fighters built after the century series had the ability to reach Mach three but only for a very short time which is usually when their engines started to melt was very dangerous and required them to be completely clean no hard points pylons. The reason the cockpit canopy would start to melt was because they are made of Plexiglas a plastic. The pilots usually get few seconds warning because the canopy starts to become opaque giving them time to slow down. Aircraft designed to exceed Mach two for a sustained basis regularly use different material for the canopy like Pyrex which the space shuttle uses for its windows. Their are many transparent materials being developed like synthetic single Chrystal diamonds their is a article on a web sight for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor http://www.iter.org/newsline/issues/67/ITERnewsline.htm which are being developed for ports on the reactor they have a very high melting temperature. Scientist in Germany even developed trans parent aluminum though it is technically aluminum oxide but they managed to make a small sheet permeable to light but that was a few years ago its being developed for armored wind screens of armored vehicles.

Given that the variable fighters can sustained a hypersonic cruse speed which is two Mach numbers higher than the SR-71 who's skin regularly reaches 500 degree Fahrenheit while on missions its made of tougher stuff than titanium. Also you all are forget that prior to the YF-21 Battle with the ghost Isamu and Guld had a running fire fight which probably compromised the YF-21 skin rendering what ever heat managing coating/paint ineffective so using the Guld YF-21 unit as a analog for all variable fighters is Flawed.

[Final Vegeta]

Irrelevant, since for the purposes of the discussion the stats must be real, else no discussion can occur at all.

Never heard about retconning?

That's certainly true for the VF-25, but not for the VF-19/22, where Mach 5 is only the standard cruising speed, implying a much higher max cruisisng speed (even at 10000 m).

Actually, standard is exactly the word used in the VF-25's page:

Maximum speed:

* standard, in atmosphere at 10000 m: Mach 5.0+, on account of the fuselage heat-resistance boundary.

Obviously implying there was a "not standard" speed as well

We have no idea what speed Guld was going at when the YF-21 started to melt.

Nor we know his altitude, making all this striking suggestion moot.

Hobbes211/VF-25: Speed doesn't do anything-- its the acceleration that kills. So the limiting factor for the VF-25 vs the VF-27 is that the VF-27 can use its pinpoint barrier system to shield it's fuselage from the heat for short periods when going up to Mach 9, but the VF-25 can not.

Future reminder: it is not actually stated anywhere it can't. We actually never even saw the VF-27 using that technique in animation.

It is much more complicated than that. Because SK has only provided Mach numbers and not true air speed, your indicated Mach number would go up at the same true air speed as your altitude increased, since the speed of sound decreases with decreasing density.

And then Kawamori listed different Mach speed for different altitude, so that we know the speed of sound in itself is not the decisive factor.

By the way, even when you talked about the F-15/16/22/35 even you always used Mach. Everyone use Mach for aircraft speed. Suddenly we are not fine with Mach anymore?

FV

[Killer Robot]

It is much more complicated than that. Because SK has only provided Mach numbers and not true air speed, your indicated Mach number would go up at the same true air speed as your altitude increased, since the speed of sound decreases with decreasing density. Don't forget that the denser atmosphere would increase thrust as well due to the operation of the TRT, which would offset some of the drag. It's also worth noting that since air density and temperature might vary greatly around other planets(though obviously less so around other Earthlike planets), the considerations get more complicated for an interstellar civilization that likes fighter planes.

That's not really the case. The speed of sound is virtually independent of air density. It is, however, greatly affected by air temperature, which is why it drops markedly going from sea level to the bottom of the stratosphere at about 10km. Above that it begins to increase again, until at 50km it's close to that of sea level. Past there, it changes further, but by then the word "atmosphere" is mostly a formality.

Mach 5 is an important number since that's when the hypersonic range is generally defined as beginning. It's not a simple matter of frictional overheating: the way air flows over an aircraft, affecting many aspects of efficiency and handling, changes sharply in that general speed range. Even aside from heat issues, a VF in atmosphere would handle much differently, and an efficient design might need considerable adjustments to its aerodynamics, decreasing its capability at more common atmospheric speeds. Also, engine design becomes a great issue. Conventional ramjets lose thrust at hypersonic speeds due to the intake design needed at lower speeds forming shock waves at higher speeds that produce significant and eventually overwhelming drag. While a VF's air-ram engines might have different thresholds for this, eventually it would have to close intakes and operate in rocket mode with the associated limited fuel capacity that entails. Engine redesign could push these boundaries further, but how much is technologically feasable, and how important Mach5+ atmospheric combat is to the military of the 2040s and beyond, who knows? Main point is that higher temperature resistance isn't all that's needed to pass that boundary, so it's reasonable that a lot of VFs are in that range.

Though that all aside, I agree how fast a VF can go will depend heavily on its altitude, since the primary limit is atmospheric friction. That's taken into account at some level in having low and high altitude speeds listed, but obviously it's going to be a curve that starts at the low altitude number, goes up to whatever the optimum is, and then drops again as the available air does until the plane is better off switching to space mode.

[Final Vegeta]

Because in this case, the acceleration is perpendicular to the direction of travel, thus not affecting the magnitude of velocity, which is the relevant factor in the discussion.

Acceleration perpendicular to the direction of travel? You mean that a VF can move sideways like a crab? And given a top speed of 5 Mach, only flying forward is involved, while the perpendicular vector is never integrated back from acceleration to velocity and then summed?

And I thought planes made turns and generally lost speed while maneuvering. How naive I was

Urmm.. so? I just proved that the F-35 is not superior in every way to current generation fighters. So, for example, in a short term energy fight, the F-16 may well beat the F-35 due to its higher thrust to weight.

But the F-35 carries weapons internally, thus having less drag, and it's optimized for exceptional subsonic to supersonic acceleration. I hope you realize you can rely only on thrust to weight ratio stat. Plus the electronic hardware of the F-35 is vastly superior, and the F-16 is not even stealth.

Not at all-- like I said, we don't know the limits of the ISC, since we have established that the 27.5G figure is only for the airframe. Similarly to the F-16/F-35 example, a VF-19 can beat a VF-25 with identical pilots in both due to its superior atmospheric properties.

Well, in that example the F-35 actually won

Therefore, turn radius = velocity / turn rate. QED.

Only if I let you know the velocity, which I don't

Except that model number tells us nothing about thrust.

Why should it be important? It's a matter of superiority, not numbers.

Highly unlikely to the point of incredibility that the VF-25 can pull more negative g's than it can pull positive gs

Not more but equal, meaning that the ISC work both ways with the same efficiency.

And then again, I remind you 27.5g is a measure for a 2 minutes substained acceleration, not for an instantaneous acceleration. Long pulses at low intensity are more effective than short pulses at high intensity; for example a thermobaric weapon with a long pressure wave can demolish a building.

FV

[edwin3060]

Two things:

1) please provide the Japanese source text

2) look closely, as it also says the max "cruising" speed. Thereby imply that a) there was a mistranslation or b) there is a misinterpretation by the reader. One must always keep in mind that no two words in any language have exactly the same meaning.

Ok I was talking about the VF-19, where Mach 5.1 was the cruising speed, not the VF-25 where Mach 5 was the max standard speed-- so yea.

[edwin3060]

Many fighters built after the century series had the ability to reach Mach three but only for a very short time which is usually when their engines started to melt was very dangerous and required them to be completely clean no hard points pylons. The reason the cockpit canopy would start to melt was because they are made of Plexiglas a plastic. The pilots usually get few seconds warning because the canopy starts to become opaque giving them time to slow down. Aircraft designed to exceed Mach two for a sustained basis regularly use different material for the canopy like Pyrex which the space shuttle uses for its windows. Their are many transparent materials being developed like synthetic single Chrystal diamonds their is a article on a web sight for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor http://www.iter.org/newsline/issues/67/ITERnewsline.htm which are being developed for ports on the reactor they have a very high melting temperature. Scientist in Germany even developed trans parent aluminum though it is technically aluminum oxide but they managed to make a small sheet permeable to light but that was a few years ago its being developed for armored wind screens of armored vehicles.

Given that the variable fighters can sustained a hypersonic cruse speed which is two Mach numbers higher than the SR-71 who's skin regularly reaches 500 degree Fahrenheit while on missions its made of tougher stuff than titanium. Also you all are forget that prior to the YF-21 Battle with the ghost Isamu and Guld had a running fire fight which probably compromised the YF-21 skin rendering what ever heat managing coating/paint ineffective so using the Guld YF-21 unit as a analog for all variable fighters is Flawed.

Irrelevant. We still have no idea what Guld's speed was.

[sketchley]

Ok I was talking about the VF-19, where Mach 5.1 was the cruising speed, not the VF-25 where Mach 5 was the max standard speed-- so yea.

As was I. Please take more care when reading, thank you.

[edwin3060]

Never heard about retconning?

Yes, and your wish is that SK will retcon the VF-25 into the SuperDuperUltraHeroMecha that you wish it to be?

Actually, standard is exactly the word used in the VF-25's page:

Maximum speed:

* standard, in atmosphere at 10000 m: Mach 5.0+, on account of the fuselage heat-resistance boundary.

Obviously implying there was a "not standard" speed as well

Except that sketchley's translation says that it can't go faster or the fuselage will melt. The VF-19/22 has no such limit

Future reminder: it is not actually stated anywhere it can't. We actually never even saw the VF-27 using that technique in animation.

Arguing hypotheticals again?

By the way, even when you talked about the F-15/16/22/35 even you always used Mach. Everyone use Mach for aircraft speed. Suddenly we are not fine with Mach anymore?

FV

Not replying to your post dude-- replying to someone else.

P.S. Don't get all pissy cuz I just used your math against you. Peace out!

[edwin3060]

As was I. Please take more care when reading, thank you.

Dude-- I quoted the Macross Compendium, which I understand is canon. And it doesn't have "max". If you got problems with the VF-19 stats there, take it up with SK. Otherwise, don't have a hissy fit. Here it is again,

* Cruising speed

o VF-19 Custom (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.5+

o VF-19A (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

o VF-19F (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5+

o VF-19S(standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

--Macross Compendium

[sketchley]

Except that sketchley's translation says that it can't go faster or the fuselage will melt. The VF-19/22 has no such limit

Are you sure? We know that the YF-21 melted at high speed, why shouldn't the same hold true for the (Y)VF-19?

Anyhow, I believe you're doing that thing I already mentioned about misinterpreting things. The VF-25 can go faster, but it'll start melting if it does.

[sketchley]

Dude-- I quoted the Macross Compendium, which I understand is canon. And it doesn't have "max". If you got problems with the VF-19 stats there, take it up with SK. Otherwise, don't have a hissy fit. Here it is again,

* Cruising speed

o VF-19 Custom (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.5+

o VF-19A (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

o VF-19F (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5+

o VF-19S(standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

--Macross Compendium

Woah, dude. I don't want to get out the circle logic chart, so reread the posts above. As for there not having a max:

Max Cruising speed

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/VF-19#Performance

Search for it. It's there.

[edwin3060]

That's not really the case. The speed of sound is virtually independent of air density. It is, however, greatly affected by air temperature, which is why it drops markedly going from sea level to the bottom of the stratosphere at about 10km. Above that it begins to increase again, until at 50km it's close to that of sea level. Past there, it changes further, but by then the word "atmosphere" is mostly a formality.

Mach 5 is an important number since that's when the hypersonic range is generally defined as beginning. It's not a simple matter of frictional overheating: the way air flows over an aircraft, affecting many aspects of efficiency and handling, changes sharply in that general speed range. Even aside from heat issues, a VF in atmosphere would handle much differently, and an efficient design might need considerable adjustments to its aerodynamics, decreasing its capability at more common atmospheric speeds. Also, engine design becomes a great issue. Conventional ramjets lose thrust at hypersonic speeds due to the intake design needed at lower speeds forming shock waves at higher speeds that produce significant and eventually overwhelming drag. While a VF's air-ram engines might have different thresholds for this, eventually it would have to close intakes and operate in rocket mode with the associated limited fuel capacity that entails. Engine redesign could push these boundaries further, but how much is technologically feasable, and how important Mach5+ atmospheric combat is to the military of the 2040s and beyond, who knows? Main point is that higher temperature resistance isn't all that's needed to pass that boundary, so it's reasonable that a lot of VFs are in that range.

Though that all aside, I agree how fast a VF can go will depend heavily on its altitude, since the primary limit is atmospheric friction. That's taken into account at some level in having low and high altitude speeds listed, but obviously it's going to be a curve that starts at the low altitude number, goes up to whatever the optimum is, and then drops again as the available air does until the plane is better off switching to space mode.

Interesting. But isn't the air density related to temperature as well? Anyway, the VF-19 seems to be able to straddle the hypersonic boundary a little because it can go up to Mach 5.5? The custom can anyway, and the others can do Mach 5.1.

Actually, given the way the VFs engines work, might it be possible that it doesn't even have to slow the air down to subsonic speeds? As I understand it, the need for shock waves is to slow the air down to subsonic so that combustion can occur-- but since no combustion is required, we could just maintain supersonic air flow through the engine all the while?

[sketchley]

Acceleration perpendicular to the direction of travel? You mean that a VF can move sideways like a crab? And given a top speed of 5 Mach, only flying forward is involved, while the perpendicular vector is never integrated back from acceleration to velocity and then summed?

And I thought planes made turns and generally lost speed while maneuvering. How naive I was (...)

ROFLMAO.

Thanks for the humour. This discussion was getting waaay too serious.

[edwin3060]

Woah, dude. I don't want to get out the circle logic chart, so reread the posts above. As for there not having a max:

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/VF-19#Performance

Search for it. It's there.

Ok, I think its pretty disingenuous of you to imply that the max cruising speeds stated on that page are relevant to our discussion when they are not, so I'll post them all here:

* Cruising speed

o VF-19 Custom (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.5+

o VF-19A (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

o VF-19F (standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5+

o VF-19S(standard in atmosphere at 10000 m): Mach 5.1+

* Max Cruising speed

o at 30,000+ m: Mach 25+ [(8.5+ km/sec)]

o VF-19A (at 30,000+ m): Mach 21+

-Macross Compendium

As you can see, the Max Cruising Speeds are Mach 21+ or Mach 25+, and only relevant in the really upper atmosphere-- which is not what our discussion is about, which is why I didn't include it. But, in the relevant speed/altitude range, the cruising speed is Mach 5.1+, which implies it could go faster than that, while the max speed for the VF-25 is Mach 5.0+, and the additional words after that imply it cannot go faster.

* Maximum speed:

o standard, in atmosphere at 10000 m: Mach 5.0+, on account of the fuselage heat-resistance boundary.

-Macross Compendium

I've quoted all the relevant parts so we all don't get confused again .

P.S. I think you made a mistake-- the word "Max" does appear with "Cruising speed", but that's for the YF-19/21, not the VF-19/22-- and the discussion is about the VF-19/22.

Edited February 23, 2009 by edwin3060

[edwin3060]

Acceleration perpendicular to the direction of travel? You mean that a VF can move sideways like a crab? And given a top speed of 5 Mach, only flying forward is involved, while the perpendicular vector is never integrated back from acceleration to velocity and then summed?

Ok you need to get your basic physics right. Go look up circular motion and angular momentum.

And I thought planes made turns and generally lost speed while maneuvering. How naive I was

Of course they do. And when that happens, having a pair of canards like some VF-19s is actually beneficial because you lose less energy when turning.

But the F-35 carries weapons internally, thus having less drag, and it's optimized for exceptional subsonic to supersonic acceleration. I hope you realize you can rely only on thrust to weight ratio stat. Plus the electronic hardware of the F-35 is vastly superior, and the F-16 is not even stealth.

Well, in that example the F-35 actually won

... You missed my point.

Only if I let you know the velocity, which I don't

Uh... thats just sad. I just used your equations to disprove you. Turning radius is inversely related to Turn rate, like I showed, regardless of velocity-- velocity is just the constant of proportionality that converts from one to the other.

Not more but equal, meaning that the ISC work both ways with the same efficiency.

Let's look at the sentence shall we?

* Maximum airframe design load: 27.5G at maximum acceleration for 120 seconds (When ISC operates, the cockpit is protected from high G.)

This sentence asserts 2 things 1) The Max airframe design load is 27.5Gs for 120 seconds.

2) When ISC operates, the cockpit is protected from high G.

Nowhere in there does it say that the ISC's protection maxes out at 27.5Gs.

And then again, I remind you 27.5g is a measure for a 2 minutes substained acceleration, not for an instantaneous acceleration.

Irrelevant

Long pulses at low intensity are more effective than short pulses at high intensity; for example a thermobaric weapon with a long pressure wave can demolish a building.

FV

Irrelevant

[edwin3060]

ROFLMAO.

Thanks for the humour. This discussion was getting waaay too serious.

It's humorous only in how badly he misunderstands what he professes to be an expert at .

[edwin3060]

Are you sure? We know that the YF-21 melted at high speed, why shouldn't the same hold true for the (Y)VF-19?

Anyhow, I believe you're doing that thing I already mentioned about misinterpreting things. The VF-25 can go faster, but it'll start melting if it does.

Yes, but (and this is the third time I'm stating this), we have no idea what speed the YF-21 was at when it melted. It could be much, much higher than Mach 5. Or just a little bit higher. Since we see Guld disable the limiters, we can infer that the speed is higher than Mach 5.06. How much higher, we don't know.

What we do know, however, is that the VF-25 will start melting if it goes faster than Mach 5.

Which means that we now have 3 areas where the VF-19/22 series is superior to the VF-25:

1)Atmospheric speed

2)G-limits

3)VF surface material (linked to atmospheric speed)

[Killer Robot]

Interesting. But isn't the air density related to temperature as well? Anyway, the VF-19 seems to be able to straddle the hypersonic boundary a little because it can go up to Mach 5.5? The custom can anyway, and the others can do Mach 5.1.

Actually, given the way the VFs engines work, might it be possible that it doesn't even have to slow the air down to subsonic speeds? As I understand it, the need for shock waves is to slow the air down to subsonic so that combustion can occur-- but since no combustion is required, we could just maintain supersonic air flow through the engine all the while?

Air density changes in relation to temperature, since higher temperature gases will have a lower density at the same pressure. However, since the speed of sound is affected by temperature and not much by density it isn't that important. In any case, atmospheric pressure and density both fall off steadily at increasing altitude, just at not exactly the same rate.

As for the engine design, that's possible. VF engines also seem to have turbine setups that make their internals look a lot more like a modern turbojet than a ramjet or scramjet, so it's possible they have different needs. All the same, the fact that Mach 5 is an area that sees a lot of varied changes in the fluid properties of air is one that might reasonably affect other and highly different aircraft and engine designs.

For things past that, I don't know that it's entirely clear what the distinction is between "cruising" and "maximum" speeds are for a VF. With modern aircraft, cruising is the speed at which the craft is most fuel efficient or at least does not suffer a sharp drop in fuel efficiency(for fighters the general line is without afterburners), and maximum is generally the maximum speed which is safely sustainable, usually at much lower ranges. With VFs having effectively unlimited atmospheric range this is not an issue. One thing I noticed looking through Macross Compendium: no VF appears to have both a cruising and a maximum speed listed. In fact, how speeds are listed seem to be entirely determined by what they appeared in: The VF-1 and VF-4 have a "Max Level Speed", the Macross Plus and 7 fighters have "Cruising speed standard in atmosphere", and the Macross Frontier fighters have "Max speed standard in atmosphere". The sole exception is the VF-11D Custom, which has a listed "Emergency speed" which is not much higher than its standard cruising speed. I think it reasonable to assume that the main speed listed for all fighters is intended to be the same actual factor, with different wordings by series being a matter of stylistic changes in designer notes over the years: namely, what can be safely sustained over an indefinite amount of time, rather than what peak(the emergency speed so far known for only one craft) that can be reached for seconds or minutes over the course of a high speed pursuit or combat. Notably, the relationship between maximum and emergency speed in a given model may not have any fixed proportion: that's going to depend on what part is going to fail first and just how sensitive it is past the safe maximum. One VF might become swiftly unreliable not far past the normal limit, and another might have more headroom. Some might be limited by drag, some by structure, some by stability, As a result, emergency speed isn't something that can be extrapolated from the single existing reference point.

As for the new information on the VF-25 writeup that isn't on older ones, specifically mention of the "fuselage heat-resistance boundary" and the design load being specified as "at maximum acceleration for 120 seconds", I don't think it's possible to say with certainty that one of the two is an important difference/departure from the same statistic in past designs and that the other is entirely irrelevant. That said, if either is a point actually new to the VF-25 writeup, I'd say it's the second, mostly because it's a new number rather than a new explanation of an existing number. Which makes sense, since the VF-25 is the first one with enough raw thrust to commonly sustain those Gs for more than a matter of seconds, it needs to consider more than the instantaneous stresses undergone during atmospheric turns. Problem is, what does that make the instantaneous number, if the 120 seconds part makes it new? And if this is also the instantaneous number, why would there be engines that will destroy the VF simply by being throttled up?

Also as DH said very importantly, design loading on an aircraft has very much to do with warranty and maintenance schedule rather than when an aircraft literally comes apart. This is not even an immediate concern but rather one over the planned design life of the aircraft: how many flight hours do you plan to get out of an individual airframe under those conditions?

Personally, I think the writers are either commonly not stating exactly the same statistic for different craft, especially those appearing in different series and thus written up years apart from each other; or worse are sometimes just throwing numbers and words at the paper. Most charitably, they are meaning to give the same set of statistics for each model but are doing it sloppily and confusingly. Which isn't so bad: they're not doing real engineering work, they're writing about imaginary planes in a world where ten meter humans are physically possible and songs can stop space fleets. I understand this does not make for useful technological discussion, however, so trying to make it make sense is still important.

[Mr March]

"Maximum airframe design load: 27.5G at maximum acceleration for 120 seconds"

Okay I know we talked about this over and over but reading that again got me thinking. The way I'm looking at right now almost makes me think it can take more Gs than that for say it's instantaneous turn rate (David Hingtgen, got me thinking about that, thanks and good points too). Because now that make me think that the whole 27.5 thing is what it can take for 2 minutes strait with the engines wide open. I don't know if I'm making myself clear but what I'm trying to say is that if it were a human it's kinda like saying we can take 8 Gs for XX amount of seconds, we can go higher but just not as long.

What do you guys think? Am I just way off base with this or what?

You're definitely making yourself clear to me. Debates about the nature of the statistics aside, if I were a pilot, I'd much rather fly a variable fighter where I could pull 27.5 g maneuvers for two minutes at a time without feeling a single g of stress than pilot a variable fighter that could handle 60 gs for less than a second or two before the stress sends me into cardiac arrest and pops my eyeballs

Digressing, I can definitely understand fan motives behind this debate between the YF-19/VF-19 Excalibur, the YF-21/VF-22 Sturmvogel II and the newer darling fighter of the Macross franchise, the VF-25 Messiah. Obviously, every fan has their favorite variable fighter and many don't like the idea of their favorites becoming outdated, especially if the older fighters appeal to the fan more on an aesthetic level. Having said that, I think a lot of us are fixating on minutiae in order to justify our preferences. But the variable fighters aren't one-of-a-kind units piloted only by plot-shielded main characters; they are mass produced weapons. All other factors being equal, a force of 100 VF-25 Messiah fighters will be assured victory over a force of 100 VF-19/VF-22 fighters simply due to the reality of the ISC technology and it's effect upon the modern battlefield of the Macross universe. We could argue why all factors can never be equal, but that doesn't leave anything left to debate (other than a clash of opinion). All this doesn't mean the VF-19/VF-22 is outclassed to the point of being completely ineffective against the newer VF-25 Messiah. But think about it on the grander scheme of things; no military commander wants anything but the best when fielding their forces against the enemy. If you want to win, ideally you want all the advantages and none of the disadvantages.

When it comes down to it, we don't have enough information in a comparison between many of the variable fighters to reach any satisfactory conclusion. We have a few statistics like speed and thrust-to-weight ratio, but even those cannot give us a totally accurate picture of performance. Such statistics can only provide a vague guide. While it is true that not everything that's newer is necessarily better in every way, more often than not later variable fighters will be improvements over earlier variable fighters (obviously).

I think the best fans can hope for is trying to determine a sense of "how much improvement" exists between one fighter versus another. After all, I don't see many fans here debating the VF-1 Valkyrie vs. the VF-25 Messiah I think the debate between the YF-19/VF-19 Excalibur, the YF-21/VF-22 Sturmvogel II and the VF-25 Messiah is so intense because some fans don't see a large enough performance gap between the 2040 era fighters and the 2059 era fighters. I suppose that's up to each fan. For my part, I think the VF-25 Messiah is VERY next generation and not just because of it's ISC inertia buffer technology. The fiction and statistics describe the VF-25 Messiah as very advanced on multiple levels including engines, T-W ratio, transformation technology, and so forth. To my eyes, the VF-25 Messiah is to the VF-19/VF-22 as they were to the VF-11 Thunderbolt in their day; truly next generation craft.

Edited February 24, 2009 by Mr March