Aircraft VS super thread!

[ewilen]

Some more links about the Polish F-14 parts:

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:q2Q0U...l+swidnik&hl=en

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:ECluC...l+swidnik&hl=en

(These are cached versions of MS Word documents)

http://www.mcgillcorp.com/news/news040909.html

http://warsaw.usembassy.gov/poland/pzlswidnik.html#top

To which I say, interesting, but didn't someone post a while back that retirement of ALL F-14's had been moved up by a couple years? I suspect this is of more importance to US-Polish relations than to the survival of the F-14 per se.

[ewilen]

Semi-OT rant:

Too many "Virginia's" lately. Let's see--nuclear powered USS Virginia, leader of the Virginia class. Soon after it's decommissioned--we get the USS Virginia, nuclear-powered leader of the Virginia class.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there's a very powerful and Navy-oriented Senator from Virginia, John Warner.

At least the Navy isn't confusing things the way they did in the 1850's, when they didn't even bother to officially decommission a ship before transferring its name to a successor. (They did this to hide the fact that they were building new ships--they would tell Congress they needed money to "repair" an old ship, when in fact they would just break it up and build a new one in the same Navy yard. The most famous and controversial case being the old frigate Constellation which was "overhauled" to become the new sloop Constellation.)

[Mislovrit]

Add this to the increasing unpopularity of Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz due to the difficulties in Iraq,

With whom he is unpopular with?

and it's hard to see who will ultimately exert leadership.

Bush have already stated he's backing Rumsfield instead of his critics.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

I think its mainly to use the last B/D tomcats to the fullest extent before retirement to be honest. Though they did say prices to produce parts maybe a ton cheaper in poland, so who knows.

BTW HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! May this year bring great advances in fighter technology so we have more fodder to debate about LOL. But yea this thread has gotten large, and I LOVE it!!! Very informative and we cover a TON of planes. And we got off to a good start in 2005!! heck dragon FINALLY showed a smalll glimpse of their 1/72 F-14 diecast...well at least a schematic. But it IS something!!!

More debate fodder.

The J-10. I saw a 2 seat version at a chinese defense page. Looks interesting.

J-10 vs JSF and block 60 falcon.

overall capability debate.

F-14B vs A-7E

Who is the better bomber?

F-14D vs Su-27UB.

Better fighter?(not sure if the old flanker was ever compared to the tomcat in this thread).

And a question about AMARC.......are alll planes their like the A-6 mostly there in case of a emergency reactivation? And how does a emergency reactivation occur?

*edit, more news on tomcat/poland by tomcat traveler over @ARC forums*

Tomcat Traveler

Posted: Jan 1 2005, 12:18 AM

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The mate of mine that sat in on the brief also knows the Program Manager for the Polish parts project on a first-name basis. We stopped by the PM's house earlier today and he gave me a big dump on the program, the Tomcat and the immediate future of the plane. It appears that he has established similar projects such as the one in Poland, with many small US companies that took it in the shorts following 9/11 and kept a few of these companies from going under. It also helped the Tomcat Community with their on-going spare parts problems. I work with another of the Navy’s great war fighters and know from experience that the 275K that he quoted wouldn’t buy much beans (or sausage) even in Poland, but I was wrong and became angry at my leadership when he showed me how significant of a price markup that occurs by the OEM’s on the same part that he is building in Poland that we would have bought in the US. In fact he has teamed three US small companies with the Polish company so that the workload is equally shared and jobs are gained on both sides of the Atlantic. He went on to say that the 275K were just an initial investment and that additional funds were coming. Said something else about setting up an F-14 Project Office in Lublin? I actually asked him is he would be interested in briefing our aircraft PM after the first of the year so that we could take advantage of this good deal too.

For the record, the IRST system, which is unique to the F-14D, links a passive infrared sensor with the D’s APG-71 and Phoenix missile systems. IRST was originally fielded in 1985 for the USAF but was rejected in favor of laser cannons and the USN picked it up for inclusion into the F-14D Super Tomcat program. It was fully operational in time for the first Gulf War in 1991. F-14D’s chalked up to missile kills during the first conflict.

As of 16 December 04, all USN, F-14D aircraft are scheduled to be retired from active service by November 2007. The F-14B’s will retire in late 2005. The F-14A’s were retired in late 2004. Incidentally, some of the airframes that flew in the USN’s last operational F-14A squadron had some of the lowest airframe hours with only 1245 total flight hours. The Tomcat airframe is good for 11000 flight hours.

Happy New Year to all.

PMEmail Poster

Top

David are you 100% sure there were no D tomcats in the gulf war? I remember watching a discovery channel special with a carrier battle group, one of the features was a super tomcat segment in which one of the planes exploded in midair and the crew survived ejection. If I remember correctly the squadron was VF-31 Tomcatters.

Had no idea the IRST could guide the phoenix as well. Thats pretty cool.

Though I do believe it can be done, I kind of doubt the D was used in the gulf. And the show I watched was way back in 97. So I may have not remembered everything correctl;y

Edited January 1, 2005 by Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

[David Hingtgen]

F-14D didn't enter service until July of 1992 according to Joe Baugher's pages. (Whom I trust highly).

VF-31 isn't listed for Desert Shield/Storm. Plenty of pics of crashed VF-31 F-14D's though...

IRST/Phoenix---probably only used to give a direction/distance number to launch the Phoenix in one of its many "seek and destroy" modes. Phoenix doesn't need a lock at all, you can just fire it off in the general direction and it'll use its own radar to look for targets. That's sort of how it's launched even when you do have a lock. Same thing if it's being jammed--it can either just keep going until it's so close to the target it can't be jammed, or it can switch to "home-on-jamming-source" like the AMRAAM can do. The Phoenix can be launched in many different modes, that's why there's 2 crew members in an F-14.

[mikeszekely]

More debate fodder.

The J-10. I saw a 2 seat version at a chinese defense page. Looks interesting.

J-10 vs JSF and block 60 falcon.

Not much to debate there... from what I read, China was trying to develop the Jian-10 by starting with a single F-16 provided by Pakistan, with the goal of being comparable in performance to the Mirage 2000's in Taiwan's air force, so for starters, we're already talking about a plane being built to be on par with the previous generation of fighters instead of more modern ones. Also, China apparently lacks the technology to build the appropriate engines, avionics, and FCS for the J-10, and would have had to get the FCS and avionics from Israel and the engines from Russia... so China went ahead and bought some Su-27's instead. The Su-27 looks to be more capable than the J-10 even with the same engine, so in all likelihood, China will abandon the J-10 entirely.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Well whichever fighter the chinese were working with the iSraeli's with and ended up looking a lot like the LAVI. From what I heard the project was still a go, with a 2 seater showing up just recently. I'm surprised china hasn't ordered the SU-30MKI.

[ewilen]

Add this to the increasing unpopularity of Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz due to the difficulties in Iraq,

With whom he is unpopular with?

Much of the uniformed military, nearly all the Democrats, and many prominent Congressional Republicans. (But he remains popular with jingoistic yahoos.)

and it's hard to see who will ultimately exert leadership.

Bush have already stated he's backing Rumsfield instead of his critics.

That may be with regard to keeping his job (although Bush always says he's supporting people right up to the moment that he discards them); but I was referring to the question of who would have final say on the F/A-22.

[Noyhauser]

Not to wade too deep into the field of politics. One thing you don't see is that Rumsfeld and especially Wolfowitz has angered not so much the democrats, but a wing of the traditional foreign policy establishment of the Republican party... Realists, who dominated policy thinking up until very recently. These individuals guided policy through the Cold War, and see the neo cons as blatant idealists who have guided american foreign policy into areas it should have never gone. These are guys like Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Hass, in and outers like Mearshimer and others. Although they may not have influence in the White house, they have plenty of prestige and influence in Congress.Some are in the White House already (Rice and Cheney) but they have move towards the Neo-conservatism over realist tenets... I think you might not see Rumsfeld walk, but I think some of the neocons may lose their positions.

[Nied]

NIed how do you feel about a dedicated WSo in a 2 seat F-22 with the avionics you mentioned? I think it would be GREAT for a mud hen replacement. Especially if it is just a stretched raptor body WITHOUT delta wing.

Ideally I'd like to see two seat FB-22s flying side by side with intact F-22As. But that's not going to happen. With the kind of bugetary environment we're looking at I'm trying to think of ways to make F/A-22s as cheap as possible, and that means changing it as little as possible. Frankly I may have gone too far with the modifications I suggested, the fuselage stretch might be too much, with the SDB about to come online the Raptors current bay might be suffecient. Hell if things are still too expensive I'd say put non thrust vectoring F135s or F136s in there to lower costs even more (saving 3-D TV for a later spiral of course).

[Noyhauser]

(saving 3-D TV for a later spiral of course).

oooh someone who speaks the lingo... nice to see.

[David Hingtgen]

Seeing as how a heavier, bombed-up non-vectoring FB-22 would be the last thing you'd want to dogfight with, what could be done with the Sidewinder bays?

[Nied]

Seeing as how a heavier, bombed-up non-vectoring FB-22 would be the last thing you'd want to dogfight with, what could be done with the Sidewinder bays?

This isn't supposed to be an FB-22. It's more of an F/A-22B that actually lives up to the /A in it's name (and is cheaper to boot). The fuseleage plug would be the only thing that really adds any weight to the airframe (wieght that is compensated for by the more powerful F135s), the rest is just new avionics.

Here's how I'd build a Strike Raptor on the cheap: Take the baseline raptor and rip out it's current data bus and computer systems and replace them with the more modern and upgradeable ones from the F-35 (the added orders and commonality should reduce the purchase and operating costs for both planes), in addition I'd install the F-35's chin widget (I still for the can't find WTF it's called) on the Raptor so it can self designate (again this would be as similar as possible to the one installed into the F-35 for the reasons I outlined above). I'd also replace the F119s in with F135s (or F136s) from the F-35. This would take away the F-22's thrust vectoring, but it's not as if the raptor sudenly becomes a pig with no TVC, and it can be added back in a later spiral (which I beilive is the plan for the F-35 anyway). Using F135s would lower costs again by making it so that almost the entire inventory of the Air force (and much of the Navy and Marine corps) are using the same engine. All this could be done with very minimal changes to the airframe, and even F/A-22As could be upgraded to this standard pretty easily.

What I'd really like to do is put a fuselage plug in to stretch the plane by about a foot so that the main weapons bays could carry larger weapons like JSOWs or 2,000 lb JDAMs, right now the weapons bay is about half a foot too short to carry these. Now of course this would make the whole shebang much more expensive, and with the SDB coming into service next year it may be redundant (at least for the price) to do. SO the fuselage stratch is optional (though you should be able to stretch the sidewinder bays enough to fit another AIM-9X in there if you stagger them).

[Mislovrit]

Add this to the increasing unpopularity of Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz due to the difficulties in Iraq,

With whom he is unpopular with?

Much of the uniformed military, nearly all the Democrats, and many prominent Congressional Republicans. (But he remains popular with jingoistic yahoos.)

Odd where did you read the he was unpopular with uniformed military? Going by the milblogs it appears he's quite popular with the uniformed grunts if not with the brass.

[David Hingtgen]

F135's? Forget that. Get the F136. F120 development is pretty much dead, but the 136 derived from it is still going strong. 56,000lbs according to Rolls-Royce recently. Just google "56,000" and "F136" and you'll get quite a few hits.

GE has had the more powerful engine for decades. 110 beats 100, 120 beats 119, 136 beats 135. And GE has traditionally had a much larger overspeed/heat margin allowing higher thrust increases. 56K test probably means like 50K "in service". Hmmn, 2 of those in an F/A-22.... (or just one of them in a Super Hornet...) (I'm a big GE fan, in case you hadn't noticed)

Edited January 2, 2005 by David Hingtgen

[mikeszekely]

Well whichever fighter the chinese were working with the iSraeli's with and ended up looking a lot like the LAVI. From what I heard the project was still a go, with a 2 seater showing up just recently. I'm surprised china hasn't ordered the SU-30MKI.

I think we're still talking about the J-10. The Chinese had some deal to get the Lavi's avionics suite for use in the J-10, but they still had to do their own FCS, which they were having trouble with, and they were still trying to build one with a single F-16 engine, although they planned to use the same engines as the Su-27. I guess they just found it easier and more economical to just go with the Su-27 outright. Still, the mainland Chinese government is prideful, if nothing else. I could see them going through with the J-10 project, winding up with a subpar fighter that's a bitch to fly, and still field it because it was homegrown.

[David Hingtgen]

AFAIK, China still has the Su-30MKK on order. The "basic" model is the Su-30MK, with the last letter indicating the country that ordered it. It's MKK instead of MKC due to the Cyrillic spelling or whatever. MKK is quite inferior to the MKI, no vectoring, no canards. But still a two-seat long-range striker. Later variants to come are the MK2 and MK3, anti-shipping and precision bombing versions of the MKK, respectively.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Subpar or not, the wise thing for the Chinese govt is still to produce and field the J-10. Without the J-10 production know-how, they'll never get to the J-12 and future fighters.

They are behind by so many years that they probably won't be able to home produce anything matching the US/Russia/EU for years. But if they stick to purely buying Sukhois they'll never get there.

But yeah, I don't see why they aren't buying MKIs or asking for MKK+++ which equals or exceeds the MKI. Money can't be the problem. With some MKIs, at least they can tear it apart for their own future knowledge.

BTW, most loadouts of Chinese Sukhois seem to have em hanging bunches of unguided ordnance. Pretty expensive fighter for such primitive ordnance. There isn't much info out there anyway. Anyone know more?

Edited January 3, 2005 by Retracting Head Ter Ter

[Nied]

F135's?  Forget that. Get the F136.  F120 development is pretty much dead, but the 136 derived from it is still going strong.  56,000lbs according to Rolls-Royce recently.  Just google "56,000" and "F136" and you'll get quite a few hits. 

GE has had the more powerful engine for decades.  110 beats 100, 120 beats 119, 136 beats 135.  And GE has traditionally had a much larger overspeed/heat margin allowing higher thrust increases.  56K test probably means like 50K "in service".  Hmmn, 2 of those in an F/A-22....  (or just one of them in a Super Hornet...)  (I'm a big GE fan, in case you hadn't noticed)

Well yeah, but the F136 is even further away than the F135. Besides the two engines are supposed to be able to fit seamlessly into the same bay. Frankly I'd love to try and cram two of either JSF engine into the Super Hornet as well (from what I can tell they're only about a foot longer than the F414), 80-100K of thrust ought to make up just about any energy deficiency that plane has.

Edited January 3, 2005 by Nied

[hellohikaru]

I heard the Chinese manufactured J-11 handles quite differently in the air from Sukhoi made Su-27. This is presumebly because of slightly different materials used. Anyone knows ?

As for the J-10...never heard of the use of an F-16 engine...is Kunlun derived from F100 ?

The FC-1 AKA JF-17 OTOH does look slightly like an F-16 and could have benefitted from China having access to Pakistani Vipers. Russian made RD-93 is the likely engine to be chosen.

[ewilen]

Odd where did you read the he was unpopular with uniformed military? Going by the milblogs it appears he's quite popular with the uniformed grunts if not with the brass.

I am referring to the brass.

[mikeszekely]

Subpar or not, the wise thing for the Chinese govt is still to produce and field the J-10. Without the J-10 production know-how, they'll never get to the J-12 and future fighters.

They are behind by so many years that they probably won't be able to home produce anything matching the US/Russia/EU for years. But if they stick to purely buying Sukhois they'll never get there.

But yeah, I don't see why they aren't buying MKIs or asking for MKK+++ which equals or exceeds the MKI. Money can't be the problem. With some MKIs, at least they can tear it apart for their own future knowledge.

BTW, most loadouts of Chinese Sukhois seem to have em hanging bunches of unguided ordnance. Pretty expensive fighter for such primitive ordnance. There isn't much info out there anyway. Anyone know more?

China's problem isn't just that they need to learn how to build better fighters. Industry in general needs to modernize, or they're always going to end up with subpar fighters. Right now, Taiwan is more likely to build a better fighter than China.

[hellohikaru]

Is FCK-1 a very good fighter ? The purchase of M2K-5 and F-16 suggest it may not be as good as the RoCAF had hoped. And it was designed with tons of help from US industry.

As for China, they do recycle their older hardware as they can always find new roles for them. In fact IL-28 were still built in the 80s. Expect unlicensed copies of the J-11 to come up in the future with chinese developed enhancements.

Note that license production has been halted for the J-11.

http://www.sinodefence.com/news/2004/news061104.asp

As for the very basic unguided air to ground stores of chinese Su-27SK/J-11 flankers, that's because priority is given to the counter-air role. China has tons of other types it can use for surface attack like the MKK and JH-7.

[Mislovrit]

Odd where did you read the he was unpopular with uniformed military?  Going by the milblogs it appears he's quite popular with the uniformed grunts if not with the brass.

I am referring to the brass.

No argument about the brass and Rumsfield, but please try to specify the servicemen and women or the brass as their viewpoints can diverge immensely depending on the subject.

[David Hingtgen]

ATF updates:

FB-22, stealth external carriage:

http://www.afa.org/magazine/Jan2005/0105raptor.asp

F/A-22 cut instead of F-35:

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/chan...ws/JSF01045.xml

Yeah, never mind what the USAF asks for, cut what you feel like...

YF-23 opened up undergoing restoration:

http://airpower.callihan.cc/HTML/Spotlight/YF-23-2.htm

[Apollo Leader]

When did the Air Force Museum get the first YF-23?

It's been nearly 12 years since the last time I was there and with all the cool stuff they have got since then (Tacit Blue, YF-22, Bird of Prey, one of the B-2 structural test craft, the YF-23, and soon the X-35), it looks like it's time for another visit.

[ewilen]

Thanks, David. This is a bit puzzling at first:

Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, had indicated that the Air Force was planning to cut its JSF buy because the F-35 was proving to be much more capable than the aircraft it is designed to replace (DAILY, Dec. 15).

But this at least clarifies the rationale: http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/chan...ws/JSF12154.xml

[...]Gen. John Jumper told the Defense Writers Group that "I think that we will see an overall decrease in the Joint Strike Fighter total requirement." The Lockheed Martin F-35 will be more capable than the F-16 and A-10 it is designed to succeed, so a "one-for-one replacement" will not be needed, he said.

Not that Rumsfeld bought it.

[Noyhauser]

ahhh the operation of the pentagon... love it

Jumper "Yes thats right Mr Rumsfeld... these F-35s, they are just so capable... that we need less of them!!! and with the money we save, we can buy more F-22s instead!"

Rumsfeld inner voice :"Uhhuh who does he take me for?"

Rumsfeld outervoice " GREAT. well that means they'll be cheaper and more effective to buy than the F-22! ... great going jumper! you've served your country well... get me the OMB on the phone"

Jumper: "But! but!"

[hellohikaru]

I guess we have yet to see the end of F-22 force size trimming. Who knows he might just canned the whole programme altogether. Then the USAF will have nothing but F-35 derivatives and unmanned platforms.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Hmmm. How confusing!! Looks like the JSF will be the mainline fighter of the USAF in the 21st.

At the same time its like making the LWF replacing the FX back in the 70s/80s.

GUess thats the only thing to do with a tight budget.

[Skull Leader]

Hmmm, this cannot be a good thing. I knew they were cutting some funding to the carrier battlegroups, but I never realized the air force was gonna get ass-raped by being forced to rely on the F-35 Flying shitbox. Our Generals and Admirals serving on these comittees would make FAR more educated decisions if they were the ones having to use the hardware...

JSFs and Super Hornets: Soon to be the only fighter-capable aircraft the United States military fields.....

Edited January 6, 2005 by Skull Leader

[ewilen]

Press coverage indicates the F-35 decision was pushed by the civilian leadership, not by the generals.

Not that I disagree with the decision in this particular case, but if you want to blame someone, please note that the generals and admirals didn't produce the budget squeeze, nor did they call for cutting the F-22 order short.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

this sounds SO much like mcnamara and his wizkids!!!! I was watching a show on history channel the other day and it turns out not only did they think the F-111 was a GREAT dual service plane, they also meddled with the M-16 and such. Military officials with combat experience should be making the decisions not the "pencil pushers".

As for the FB-22, great concept, but ugly as hell.

[Coota0]

Military officials with combat experience should be making the decisions not the "pencil pushers".

Not the way our goverment works, but I guess we could try a miltary dictatorship, see if anyone likes that better.

The civilian leadership is in charge, they decide the budget and the military is forced to work within the constraints provided by the civilian leadership.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

That sucks. But I guess that's just what we gotta deal with,. Coould be worse.

BTW any F-104 fan here? Just heard over at gpxd.n3.net that the 1/18th scale XD F-104 is set for SPRING!! with a better pilot figure than previous releases(being that BBI is steadily getting "up there", it's about time 21st century starts pumping out better product.

And speaking of the F-104 has it ever scored any kills in combat?