FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1979
1979 - 0026.PDF
24 PLIGHT International, 6 January 1979 reluctance to shortlist the type. The performance gains could be dramatic, however, lifting the aircraft into the F-15 class. Aerospace sailors FOR NAVIES whose budgets or flat-tops will not stretch to the Hornet but who need a fighter to chase off or swat unfriendly maritime-reconnaissance aircraft, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier and Dassault-Breguet Super Etendard are the leading candidates. V/Stol seems the obvious way ahead, suggesting that there is virtually no export market for the French aircraft. Only the US, French and Soviet navies now operate large fixed-wing carriers. The smaller Majestic or Colossus- class vessels operated by nations such as India, Brazil and Australia were all designed back in the days when the propeller-driven F-4U Corsair was regarded as a "hot" carrier-based fighter. A-4 Skyhawk or Sea Hawk fighter- bombers are probably the highest-performance non-V/Stol aircraft which can be operated from such small flight decks. The Yakovlev Forger might be offered for export at a price well below that of Sea Harrier. But the per formance would be correspondingly low, the penalty of adopting pure Vtol. Fighters for the first division IN THIS category the classical airqraft must be the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom. All those customers just cannot be wrong. Although the type does have its limita tions—it is hardly the most forgiving of aircraft when heavily loaded at low altitude—it remains a good all- rounder. A 5,000+ production run has kept the price down, and the Phantom should continue to attract orders as long as the line stays open. The newly announced F-4T may keep things moving in this respect. Flogger is the nearest Soviet equivalent, though in this case "low price" takes on a new meaning. India was offered the type at a unit cost of £1-6 million, according to one report. On the Western' market that wouldn't even buy an F-5E. Unless potential customers are on good terms with Moscow the best they are likely to be offered is the Flogger E. This is a significant step down from the "cook ing" MiG-23S. The radar is not much better than that of the F-5E, while the hot-end machinery is the 22,5001b- thrust Tumansky R-27 turbofan rather than the 25,3501b Increasing thrust/weight ratio and decreasing wing loading improves manoeuvrability, making the F-15 the current leader in the air- combat stakes Combat wing loading (lb/in2) 120 30 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 Tornado F2 MiG-25» Su-15. «R°4S r.. Forger •M4 • y Sea ' Mirage F.1C««MiG-23S Harrier Suoer »F-5E #F'4E »^8 ^uPer •MiG-21MF F-16 Etendard I.O-TW • • #JA37 Viggen # .F-15 Aippt •Shenyang F-6 F-18L Ajeei • •Kfird Mirage 50* «Mirage2000 •F-86F KfirC2 J_ J- 05 06 07 06 09 10 1-1 1-2 1-3 1-4 1-5 Combat thrust/weight ratio The epitome of the air-superiority fighter, the F-IS is expensive but unexcelled in performance R-29B used on standard Soviet AF aircraft. This down grading brings wing loading and T/W ratio into the Mirage F.lC-class. Out in a class of its own is the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The wing is so simple that you wonder if someone forgot to finish the design. An absence of high-lift devices, dogtooth leading edges or other trimmings keeps the wing light, compensating for the large area (15 per cent bigger than that of the F-4). As explained earlier, the "nodding" intakes cope with high AOA, while the large upper ramp generates lift ahead of the centre of gravity. This offloads the tailplane, so reducing trim drag. Eagle is a classic design which must make the Mikoyan bureau green with envy, but it is very expensive. As with Rolls-Royce cars or Leica cameras, you get what you pay for if you can afford the down-payment. France's "private venture" Mirage 4000 is still an un known quantity. The Dassault designers have used a tall fin to cope with the keel area of the broad twin-engined fuselage. Intake-mounted canard surfaces may be movable to trim the aircraft at high AOA. If you can assure the Swedish Government that you aren't planning to start a war, you might just be able to buy the JA37 Viggen. This aircraft is a perennial loser, on the export market, having been defeated by the F-16 within Nato and by a US presidential edict in India. This is no reflection on its quality. Viggen is an eminently sensible fighter capable of operating from short strips and being serviced by conscripts. It is built like a Swiss watch but, apart from the huge GAU-8 carried by Thunderbolt lis, the standard KCA 30mm cannon is the world's most lethal bit of fighter-borne artillery. Dark horse in this weight class is China's Spey-powered fighter. Contrary to published reports, this is not a MiG-23 copy but an all-new design. Shenyang engineers are re ported to be developing two rival aircraft, one with a swept wing and the other with a delta. A competitive fly- off will presumably follow. The heavyweights MAINSTAY of the RAF's intercepter strength in the decades to come will be the Panavia Tornado F.2(ADV), an interesting exception to the rule that strike aircraft should be developed from fighters and not vice versa. Having a two-man crew, Tornado is well equipped to operate in bad weather and in the presence of sophisti cated electronic countermeasures. Present USAF, SovAF, Swedish and French thinking favours single-seat designs, relying on electronic data-processing to handle much of the workload. Only the RAF sticks to the well proven two-seat formula, claiming that no matter how advanced the electronic number-crunching, two heads are better than one. This approach could well pay off if ever the Soviet Air Force deploys strike aircraft as sophisticated as the Tor nado IDS. Asked how well a Soviet "ADVski" could cope with a strike Tornado, an RAF officer close to the pro-
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
