David Hingtgen

I would guess the LACK of lobbyists, congress, and other governmental issues. They're left to their own devices to simply build planes. And not multi-multi-multi-role multi-nation ones either. If they need it to do something else, they make a new variant, or start from scratch.

A300 took a long time before it got acceptance. The early years had very few orders (even in Europe, single digits for quite a while), and they literally had to give them for free to Eastern before they got in the US. (Nice little lease deal--if EA didn't like them after a year, they were returned at no cost--if they wanted to keep them, they'd get a massive discount, basically equal to what it would have cost to lease them for that time) Still, it wasn't until the A320 came out that Airbus really did well at all. And of course, the early years were full of "American English" vs "British English" difficulties, mainly regarding tech manuals. In the famous paraphrased words of the head of EA maintenance: "WTF is a 30mm spanner and why would I use a torch in the avionics bay?"

F-16 rules at high speed, F-18 is better at low speed. It's always been that way. 300-500kts: my money's on the Falcon. Below that, Hornet. As I compare to cars often: F-18 has a good 0-60, but the quarter mile sucks. At 200kts, there's simply not that much air moving very fast to create drag--the Hornet will get to that speed pretty quickly on raw power. But above that--drag starts building very quickly, and the Hornet can barely accelerate (relative to other modern jets), while the F-16 just keeps going. The F-16 will hit Mach 1 LONG before the Hornet does. F-16 is the fastest-accelerating jet overall, and in most any circumstance. YF-17 not far behind. Except the YF-23, which blows it away. Though the F120-powered YF-22 would almost certainly beat the F-16 at supersonic speeds.

I just ordered my flight-line seating tickets for the airshow, I will be watching the Super Bug's demo VERY closely. I've decided not to tape it, only take a few pics. You get a better sense of it that way. Staring through a camcorder's eyepiece is the worst way to watch a demo, and it's easy to lose track of the plane. Yes, low-vis greys are VERY effective camo! And I will be watching the acceleration out of low speed moves VERY closely. There's no doubt the Super Bug can move, it's the other things I don't like. PS--Nied--did it do anything resembling a tail-slide?

Well it's not like I get ANY coverage on the Eurofighter here in the US! Reports from biased Scotsmen are better than nothing... PS--Boeing reports (yesterday) the first F-15K is in final assembly.

Yes, that was one of the great embarrassments of the USAFE, brand-new F-15C's losing to Jaguars. I have no idea where the full story is, I don't think it's in one of my books. Basically, the F-15's expected everybody to operate in pairs, like almost everybody did nowadays. However, the Jags were operating in threes, and the third guy got the F-15's every time.

A Harrier's hovering ability is really only for take off and landing. Control/manueverability when hovering is quie slow, and tactically useless. Also, it can't aim its guns downwards like a chopper can. It'd have to point its nose down--at which point it can't hover.

The N-156F (F-5 prototype) exceeded Mach 1 on its first flight. And it didn't even HAVE afterburners. And that was long before the YF-17 existed. Northrop makes sleek planes, it's that simple. Most Northrop jets can supercruise if they're not weighed down with too many weapons and drop tanks. Nobody's surprised the YF-23 was much faster than the YF-22, especially when supercruising. The F-18L is basically an F/A-18 without the carrier-specific equipment. But it's more an F-18 than a YF-17. None were ever actually made.

From what I could see, later US Phantom ops in Vietnam only tied the F-8's ratio, didn't surpass it. If you find a 7-1 or 8-1 ratio, please let me know. Anyways--the YF-17, like most all Northrop jets, rocked for a simple reason: It weighed nothing, was sleek, and had power. It had tremendous acceleration, good speed (it was much faster than a Hornet, 150mph or more), even better high-alpha, better pitch control, and could just generally be "thrown around the sky". It only weighed a little bit more than an F-16, but had 2 engines. The USAF went with the F-16 for the simple reason that they really wanted more F-15's. F-16A and F-15 use the same engine. If you have to buy some cheap planes, might as well buy the one that uses the F-15 engine. That way, the F-15 engine becomes cheaper, and you can buy more F-15's!!! That is THE main reason, AFAIK. Navy will almost always go for a twin-engine plane, and they've never liked chin intakes. However, the YF-17 was not suitable for carrier ops. So Northrop teamed up with MDC to make the F-18. At that point, the idea was to sell Northrop YF-17's as F-18L's to land-based operators, while the US Navy would get the McDonnellDouglas F-18A. Well, it's a long story, but basically MDC (political clout) got to sell carrier-equipped F-18's to everybody, and more or less got to prevent Northrop from selling their own design. Ever wondered why Candian and Australian and Spanish Hornets have nearly full US Navy carrier equipment? That's why. They should have bought the better-performing lighter-weight non-carrier-capable version, but Northrop was basically barred from selling YF-17/F-18L's. So anyways, to make it carrier-capable: 1. They stretched and widened the fuselage, and enlarged the spine. More fuel, but a LOT more drag. Kinda pointless IMHO, as well all know the Hornet has NO range anyways, and too much drag. 2. New gear. Can't get around it, need stronger gear for a carrier. But trying to fit it into a now-modified YF-17 fuselage lead to problems, and you get the very funky, over-engineered monsters the F-18 now has. 3. New h.stabs. Old ones were a bit too wide to make for good parking on the carrier, so they're shorter with greater chord now. Not as good as the originals. 4. Modified ailerons, stiffer wing. The one way the F-18 is better than the YF-17: roll rate. 5. Modified nose (main "uglifier" of the F-18) to accomodate new radar so as to have both air-to-air and air-to-ground modes. YF-17 was a dogfighter, only needed basic air-to-air. Also note that pretty much all non-US Hornets are operated as F's, not F/A's. 6. With all these drag-inducing mods, MDC had to cut the drag from "insane" to "way too high". So they rehaped and filled in the slots in the LEX's. Cut drag, but also cut down high-alpha performance. It's still high, but not as high as it was. The original YF-17 was so sleek, it could afford the high-drag LEX's. 7. I'm sure the flaps were modified, but I don't know specifics.

X-44 is "test of concept", FB-22 would be the real thing. And I'd rather have a 1/32 YF-23, for it looks cooler and actually flew.

Depends on how you define "Orient". Usually means east Asia, but can be central and even western Asia if you want. It really only means "East of Europe". Could include India or Australia if you really want. Thus, Euro-centric, by most definitions.

::gets out F-8 in Vietnam and F-4 in Vietnam books:: (BTW, Osprey has some great books out nowadays) Also gets "the big F-4 book". From what I can see, F-8's score is 19-3. During the same period until the F-8 was taken out of service, so this is the first part of the war), USN F-4's scored 13-5. USN overall is 32-8. USAF F-4's did a bit worse, 59-15. USAF overall was 87-43. That's NOT good. But the F-8 sure was! (note: the above numbers are only for the period that the F-8 was in service--the numbers improved later on, as explained why below) Overall, in Vietnam: F-8's flew less (there were simply fewer of them), shot down 50% more MiG's proportionately, and got shot down themselves less often. Though I will mention that F-8 pilots always had practiced dogfighting, while many F-4 crews were tought only how to intercept with a missile, and had never even gone beyond 3G in the plane, and literally had no idea how to fight close in. The USN had F-8 crews teach their F-4 crews how to dogfight, basically. Then the USN formed Top Gun, and F-4's did even better. Taught all their F-4 crews all the dogfighting stuff they could. USAF thought that their training/tactics couldn't possibly be the problem, and added guns and got the F-4E. SLIGHT improvement, while the newly Top Gun-taught Navy F-4's started rocking. Navy never ever got guns for their F-4's--not gunpods, and not internal. Just got really good at dogfighting with missiles. Even the F-8 used missiles, gun kills were basically non-existant. But when it needed a gun, it had 4! Eventually, after losing to both the USN F-8's and F-4's in mock combat (5-1 against USN F-4,s 10-1 against F-8's I think, I can't find it, and I'm not looking into a 4th or 5th book tonight), and MiG's in real combat, the USAF eventually started flying/fighting like the USN. Combined with the new tactics, and actually having a gun, the USAF started racking up 5 or 6 MiG's for every loss at the end of the war. But all that time, Navy F-4's and F-8's were putting up those kinds of numbers from the beginning. PS--the X-29 IS an F-20 with FSW. (or d*mn close). The first X-29 was actually converted from an F-5A. New cockpit and FBW and an F-18's engine. And the F-20 is basically an F-5 with a new cockpit and an F-18's engine. And check out the tailfins of both, with the distinctive ram-air inlet section at the base. If you really want, you can kit-bash an X-29 from an F-5E kit and an F-18 kit. The basic design of the F-5 is an incredibly good one--became the F-5E, then the F-20, and the P530 which went into the YF-17. Then McDonnellDouglas whapped it with the ulgy stick, doubled the drag, and made the F-18 from it, and basically ruined the design. So much for the F-17's amazing acceleration and low weight and super-amazing high-alpha. PPS--the real F-15ACTIVE is an F-15B, that's why it's a two-seater. It's literally "what NASA had sitting around". It's actually the FIRST F-15B. There's almost nothing in the rear cockpit of an F-15B/D. Makes it easy to model! Don't know where you'd put the gun in a production model, honestly.

The opposite of "Orient" is "Occident". "The West" is the much more common term for "The Occident". And it includes Europe by definition. So the terms are Eurocentric.

But the E's CFT's have all those pylons stuck on. That adds a good chunk of drag. Though I don't think it'd be too noticeable at sub/transonic speeds.

I think I just googled "F119 dimensions". BTW, the "real" thrust for the F119 is believed to be ~39,000lbs. "35,000lb thrust CLASS" is just their nice way of saying the real number is classified. So we'll assume the F120 would be 40,000+, but at high altitudes would be vastly superior to the 119, whatever that may be. I really wonder how the 119 performs at high altitude. I really want its bypass ratio, compression ratio (by stage and overall) and exhaust flow speed and temp. Which are all probably still classified. Sea level static thrust numbers are pretty pointless, since planes are usually going high and moving fast.

Oh, F-4 vs F-8 is easy. F-8. Why? Because they did it all the time in real life, and the F-8 always whipped the F-4. And the USAF F-4's always did much worse against the F-8 than the USN F-4's did, much the the chagrin of the AF. F-8's took on EVERYBODY in mock combat, and beat them all. And still had the best numbers in Vietnam.

That was me. See, the thing is---if you are "turnin and burnin" in air combat, you are NOT stealthy, even if you're a F-23 with the bays closed. Stealth planes are stealthy when they're level. Not inverted, banked, or pitching sharply. And their IR signature in full afterburner is also going to be huge. So, if you had a swing-wing fully aft, nice and "aligned" with the other edges, cruising along at moderate engine power, you'd be stealthy like an F-22. But once you got close and in an actual dogfight, ALL planes will "lose" their stealthiness once they're at "awkward" attitudes, so you might was well start swinging the wings in that situation. But you could do a nice stealth bomb-run, and long-range interception. Only when you were actively moving the wings in intermediate positions would you lose your stealth, and if you're in a situation which requires that (air combat), any other plane would have its RCS go way up just from the moves it would be perfoming. As for the Tornado--well, neither the F-14 or F3 are stealthy at all, so a better swing-wing system is simply better.

Hey, *I* was going to start an "all purpose" aircraft debate thread! Should have done it last night... I'll chime in later.

1. FAE's are generally considered the successor to napalm. Similar, but different. 2. Not very often used, but I like them. Most common version by far is the CBU-72. Most often thing carrying it is the F-15E. 3. Anything big enough makes a mushroom cloud. 4. "Daisy Cutter" specifically means the fuse extenders, most often found on Mk82's. However, the BLU-82 always had "Diasy Cutters" installed (it works much better that way) so people started associating "Daisy Cutter" with that bomb, rather than just the fuse extender. And since we almost never use fuse extenders nowadays, but still use BLU-82's, most any reference to "Daisy Cutter" means the big C-130-dropped bomb. 5. All the "big" bombs are simply really big conventional bombs. If you really wanted to, you could make a 200,000lb bomb and drop it out of C-5. But that's not really THAT much better than a nuke, since that much fire and heat will create significant radiation. It may be fall-out free (or not), but it'll sure irradiate the area a bit. Big Bombs:

I think that Typhoon issue was mentioned early in the F-35 thread. It's kind of like the F-16 nightmare scenario. If the F-16's pitch-control ever failed, it'd rip itself apart in moments. So it was designed to be as utterly fail-proof as possible, and that's never happened. EF-2000 has the same problem (pretty much all unstable planes do), but it apparently isn't nearly as reliable as the F-16's FBW. Anyways--Tornado lacks power. Always has. It simply doesn't have the right engine design for a mid-to-high altitude fight. It's the fastest, most agile fighter/striker there is at low-altitude, skimming the valleys, because that is its primary role. The engines simply do not have any power up high, and it doesn't have much power, period. Also, it does not have an infinitely positionable wing like the F-14. It has 4 positions. Fully swept, fully unswept, and 2 spots inbetween. It only goes to those positions, and will never "stop" at an optimum position. Also, it only selects positions by airspeed, no other factor. F-14 takes into account G-loads and alpha when selecting wing position, and how quickly to swing them. The wings swing, but not nearly as "suitably" as the Tomcat's. I love the Tornado, but it's frankly like a poor F-18 or F-16 in performance. The IDS's have been continually upgraded, and now that they've got new laser designators, ALARM, and the Storm Shadow--they're a heck of a strike aircraft. But the ADV is still the same F3, with Skyflash and lack of power, and not that great of a radar. (For some reason, F3's do not use AMRAAM---there's apparently something about the latest Skyflash missile that they actually prefer to keep using them) And I prefer the ADV over the IDS! Overall, the F3 is really not a fighter, more of an interceptor. Think MiG-25, but slower. Designed for sheer air defense, not air superiority.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=614292004 So, no Jaguars, no Harriers, F-35's that can barely fly, and EF-2000's that are too expensive to even keep. Boy, hope they come up with some Tornado upgrades soon. Sigh---I think the world would be better off if we just made fighters, and strike aircraft. Quit mixing them, it just leads to hideously expensive "decent" aircraft. Successfull small/medium sized multi-role planes, I think, was a one-time thing for the F-16 and F-18. The standards are so high now, no plane can do both to "modern" standards. Unless you're a HUGE plane, like an F-14, F-15, or Flanker.

Raw power generally counteracts energy bleed. The new engines on the later E's make all the difference in the world. (Though it's of course not used for agility, just makes it easier to carry more stuff further). 1/4 more thrust. Jane's models the early E's, which do suffer badly. Much like an F-16C Block 40---all the new gadgets and bombs and weight, but the same engine.

Shaking=worthless. You can shake for 30 mins, and it won't be as good as 30 secs of stirring. And stir EVERYTHING. Even black. (Actually, especially black---it always looks ok, but it actually separates quite quickly and easily, and you won't realize until you're actually painting with it, or even after its dried) For brush-painting acrylic, the brush used is a BIG factor. And I swear synthetic fibers are better for it. Best I've ever found for a larger area is a Floquil Silver Fox 3/8in (or maybe it's the 1/4in--either way, it's got LONG bristles, nearly an inch long). Also, the el-cheapo white plastic Testors are the second-best after that. After all these years, and dozens of brushes, very few things beat them for brush-painting acrylic. Finally---even the ultra-cheap $18 Testors "airbrush-esque" thing at Wal-Mart gives a far superior finish to even my best brush-painting. $18, including air can and bottles and pipettes. At that price, the thing's practically disposable when you want to change colors.

Well, F-14's could have carried 8 with little drag, and probably 10. F-15's can carry 8 with little drag. Anyways---it's pretty simple why the pylons won't fit on the Super Bug---you can't stuff that many pylons under a small wing! It's not an F-15, there's simply not that much room. You can't add 10% to the wingspan, and expect to have enough clearance for 50% more stuff underwing. They're pretending it's a Strike Eagle, trying to fit large quantities of large bombs. And yes, angling and rotating the pylons were the best they came up with. PS--Boeing, not Lockheed. (MDC had been bought out by the time this problem came up, only the very early Super Hornets had MDC markings) They're not just angled out from the centerline, they're off in 2 axes, not just 1. The Inboard and Center pylons are rotated 4 degrees out from the centerline. The Outboard pylons are rotated 4 degrees, AND canted outwards 3.5 degrees---as in, they do not hang off the wing vertically. If you look at them from head-on, the outboard pylons have the bottom noticeably outboard of their top. And this is creating a big problem with the outboards, as the weapons do not simply "drop" off, the have to roll to the sides a bit. The outboard pylon is effectively useless---rarely carries much, and lots of the time I don't even see it attached. Not many weapons like being carried sideways AND rotated, and at the outboard position no less. They should just make it chaff/flare dispenser. Another effect is that the pylons don't really "fit" on the wing anymore. They were designed to be mounted straight, flush with the wing. They changed the MOUNTS, but not the pylon. The rear mount is the same, but the forward mount was off-set. So there's pretty obvious gaps between the wing and pylons now, if you look. Because the bottom of the wing is curved, not straight, and the pylon's curve no longer matches the wing's curve. And you know what angled offset gaps lead to---more drag! As for F-15E--I was talking agility, not speed. F-15's top speed is so utterly inachievable 99% of the time it's just plain pointless. I think F-14's can go faster most of the time, as they can actually go fast under most conditions, and they have a stronger windscreen.

Yes, the infamous 10 AMRAAM's pic. Drag would be beyond insane though, range would be about 10 miles. When Hornets carry dual AMRAAM launchers (1 on each wing), they generally don't carry much else. Drag, drag, drag. Main reason the Super Hornet isn't doing well range-wise---pylon/rail drag, and lots of it.