Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: -sudz- on May 09, 2001, 10:47:00 AM
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I saw Tales of the Gun last night on the History Channel about the evolution of the gun in aircraft. It wasn't very enlightening but it did mention that recently the US and Germany did some training exercises pitting F-15s,-16s, and -18s against some German piloted Su-29s.
I was wondering if anyone heard about this and, if so, what were the conclusions of pilots regarding the Su-29 as an advesary.
Thanks,
-Sudz
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Twin engine jet fighter vs. a light unarmed aerobatic plane!?
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With respect,
Pavel Pavlov,
Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS
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Originally posted by Boroda:
Twin engine jet fighter vs. a light unarmed aerobatic plane!?
I think he meant the Su-27. Or maybe the MiG-29. They flew mock fights against both. The results showed that both were formidable opponents in expert hands.
In fact, one retired admiral seriously suggested buying Su-27's as replacements for the F-14 when its phased out, because the Navy has no immediate plans for a follow-on Air Superiority fighter, and he felt the F/A-18, as good as it is, could not fully replace the Tomcat. A Navalized Su-27 re-equipped with American engines and avionics would do the trick.
- Yoj
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D'OH! I guess it was the MiG-29, the one with the infrared sensor to the left of the cockpit.
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YUp they had a battle out in Vegas between german Mig 29's and american counterparts. Su-27 is awesome but look at its successor and you will see why the F-22 is not up to par on a few things.
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Air & Space magazine did an article on this a couple of years ago. Here's what I remember: The Hornets could turn inside the MiGs but the MiGs had better rate of climb and acceleration. So in a visual range fight, the MiG was the B&Z plane to the T&B of the Hornet. However the MiGs got hammered in long range (beyond visual range) engagements because of their avionics. But they did fine if they "lived" long enough to get close to the Hornets.
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The doctrine of US airforce places much more importance on guided weapons as opposed to the guns.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d:
The doctrine of US airforce places much more importance on guided weapons as opposed to the guns.
miko
Once within 30 miles the mig starts to gain an edge, after that it starts to drastically switch to the Mig. One thing many must note when some of the test that were done they were with "export version" of Mig.
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Originally posted by AG Sachsenberg:
YUp they had a battle out in Vegas between german Mig 29's and american counterparts. Su-27 is awesome but look at its successor and you will see why the F-22 is not up to par on a few things.
True, but not a really fair comparison. The F-22 is not intended to establish superiority by dogfighting. Its advantages are supercruise and invisibility. Its limited thrust vectoring probably allows it to deal with a visual range fight with current generation fighters, but if it works the way it should, it ought to be able to avoid those for the most part. There is nothing that can compete with the Su-37 for maneuverability, but the Su-37 is as easy to spot on radar as any current fighter, and can't cruise supersonic.
Like all fighter engagements, F-22 vs Su-37 would go to whoever better applied proper tactics to his plane's strong points.
- Yoj
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Ah so the AH equvalent would mean that the F-22 is the cv hugging dweeb who let's the 88's take out the engine oil of my 109, and if it fails, runs to cv acks to try to do the same, and if that fails too, gets turned into a burning wreck by my 109 (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif).
Sometimes I wonder if the US don't place *too much* importance to technologiical gadgets. It's fine when you got the time to maintain and control them, and got a controllable situation, but I wonder if it doesn't have some drawbacks too? (usually things tend to have drawbacks as well as good sides, i've experienced (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif)))
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Von Santa
Staffelkapitän 9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
"If you return from a mission with a victory, but without your Rottenflieger, you have lost your battle."
- D. Hrabak, JG 54 "Grünherz"
(http://stsantas.tripod.com/stsanta.jpg)
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The Mig-29's are assigned to JG77 I believe and are on the phase out list as the Typhoon gears up for release into the Staffeln.
As Sachsenberg stated, they were export models the the old GDR and have cheap radar equipement. Those test are quite a few years old, but if I remember well, the Mig pretty much owned the F-16 in VR and BVR fighting.
When it comes to stealth, I think it's highly overated. Stealth is usefull against country's that do not have a fully integrated radar capability. There's been several reports in defense circles that some country's have made great gains in radar tech that have basically cut stealths effectiveness down to about 30%.
Plus remember that the F22 has it's missle bay's..usw housed inside the plane. Once it's fighting time, it blows it's stealth cover. Against ill-equiped nations it'll reign supreme, versus a modern equipped air force....well i have my doubts.
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Funked,
Read a similar article about F-18 vs Mig29 engagements. The Helmet mounted sight of the Mig was considered a major advantage, although there were several issues regarding limitations on the Mig. The cockpit workload was considered very large, so much so it was doubtful that it could even perform a BVR engagement. Also, the radar signature was huge, apparantly far larger than expected, as it was on the Su-27. The C/D models of F18 were much smaller radar targets and even the early A/B models were better. The summary came to the conclusion that the Mig would hold the advantage in a close quarters dogfight within 10 miles or so if not just for the short range missiles is possessed and the helmet mounted sight. It had to get close but would most likely be shot at by AMRAAM/Sparrow before then (most Mig's were rather under equipped in the self defense equipment as were earlier Su-27's. Very few chaff/flare launchers or ECM).
The Su-27 is a fantastic plane, but it also has some issues. Early versions had many of the same pilot workload issues as the MiG-29, as well as very large radar signature. I guess the large intakes that led right on to the faces of the engines made it possible to use blade count from radar returns to id Su-27's at long range. More seriously, the actual combat load weight of the Su-27 was very misleading. Airshow performances were always performed at minimum weight, sometimes without radar installed (some ballast installed to compensate). Wing loading numbers were VERY good at light loadout, but the average weight of a russian missile, and the total fuel load for combat made the wingloading numbers change dramatically. The Saturna engines were thirsty, and while it carried all the fuel for long range that meant carrying a lot of weight. The actual maneuver limits placed on it in it's combat configuration were more than what was shown at airshows. They were still impressive, don't get me wrong, but considered more comparative to planes like the F-15 than the AH N1K (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
Didn't the US buy a bunch of Mig-29's from a eastern block country not more than a year or two ago? The Germans had several after reunification that were used in dissimilar ACM training, but I thought the US has several of their own now. Not sure if they are just stored or in use.
As an additional note, the Mig29 SMT, and other similar upgrades (they have several versions on offer) offered a western style cockpit and avionics. Several countries felt this overcame a number of the pilot workload issues and thus the market for Mig-29's, and upgrades, is considered substatial.
-Soda
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I worked with a guy that took the F-16's over (was "lead"). I believe he said they took 8 aircraft but it might have been 4.
I don't think he'd agree with a lot of what has been said here.
I wasn't there, so I won't quote him here. No point in starting another flamefest. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
[This message has been edited by Toad (edited 05-09-2001).]
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Originally posted by Soda:
Didn't the US buy a bunch of Mig-29's from a eastern block country not more than a year or two ago? The Germans had several after reunification that were used in dissimilar ACM training, but I thought the US has several of their own now. Not sure if they are just stored or in use.
-Soda
Yes they did - last I heard they were being actively flown as "Agressor Squadrons" in training exercises, but that was a while ago, and they may now be mothballed.
- Yoj
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Originally posted by Wingnut_0:
The Mig-29's are assigned to JG77 I believe and are on the phase out list as the Typhoon gears up for release into the Staffeln.
As Sachsenberg stated, they were export models the the old GDR and have cheap radar equipement. Those test are quite a few years old, but if I remember well, the Mig pretty much owned the F-16 in VR and BVR fighting.
When it comes to stealth, I think it's highly overated. Stealth is usefull against country's that do not have a fully integrated radar capability. There's been several reports in defense circles that some country's have made great gains in radar tech that have basically cut stealths effectiveness down to about 30%.
Plus remember that the F22 has it's missle bay's..usw housed inside the plane. Once it's fighting time, it blows it's stealth cover. Against ill-equiped nations it'll reign supreme, versus a modern equipped air force....well i have my doubts.
Maybe so - but what "modern equipped air force" is it likely to face in the next 50 or so years? Britain? France? Sweden? Even Russia can't afford to upgrade to Su-37's (and I hear they can get a good deal on them), and it has no foreign market for the plane. Export sales don't offer much threat anyway - look at the MiG-29 in Iraqi hands. Good airplanes but mostly marginal pilots. Personally, I can't think of any place likely to have to money and inclination to field a credible state of the art force before a successor to the F-22 is developed.
- Yoj
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Yoj
Yes they did - last I heard they were being actively flown as "Agressor Squadrons" in training exercises, but that was a while ago, and they may now be mothballed.
I understood that the Mig's the US bought were early A/B models and they didn't really feel it necessary to fly them again. They had the German models to go up against which were to a slightly more common, and modern standard. The A/B models the US bought were nuke delivery capable though, part of the reason the US picked them up.. airframe hours were high, and the version of engine used had a VERY, by western standards, short mean time between overhauls. Thus the US wasn't claiming to want to get them flying again. Then again, I'm sure the airframe had lots of usefulness other than just as a practice ACM plane.... radar signature testing, alloys analysis, etc.
Toad:
I don't think he'd agree with a lot of what has been said here.
I'd be interested in hearing any stories, not in a any "flame" sorta way. I think the Mig 29 and F-16 were probably a closer match than the Mig-29 vs F-18 debate. The early F-16's were far more maneuverable than the later versions. The thrust never really kept up to the addition of weight for capability. Had a nice comparision of the two aircraft one year at an airshow I was at.. they performed immediately after one another. The F-16 appeared more maneuverable, and certinaly showed a much smaller profile as a target. I would have thought any F-16 vs Mig-29 encounter in combat would have resembled a knife fight...
a rumour I had heard about the early Mig-29's, if one engine quit in flight, the relative position of the engines in early models, and limits on the flight controls, would often create flat spins. With the engine pods spread apart, a sudden engine stall could create massive yaw rates that were uncontrollable once started and required a lot of altitude to recover from. Many Mig29's were lost to this early in their careers, along with a few pilots I'm sure. Along with this rumour was a note that standard practice at one point for an engine flameout at low level was to eject without trying to save the aircraft...... just a rumour, sounds fishy to me, but who knows.
-Soda
[This message has been edited by Soda (edited 05-09-2001).]
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Yoj:
Maybe so - but what "modern equipped air force" is it likely to face in the next 50 or so years? Britain? France? Sweden? Even Russia can't afford to upgrade to Su-37's (and I hear they can get a good deal on them), and it has no foreign market for the plane. Export sales don't offer much threat anyway - look at the MiG-29 in Iraqi hands. Good airplanes but mostly marginal pilots. Personally, I can't think of any place likely to have to money and inclination to field a credible state of the art force before a successor to the F-22 is developed.
You're probably fairly accurate with this statement. The russians have several designs in the "pipe" including their forward swept wing design Su-37 (or whatever designation they have given it now), and the Mig 1.44. They are having problems enough replacing their aging trainer force and seem to add most of their aircraft from prototypes of designs accepted into service. News from places like Checnya (sp?) has the russians trying out prototypes in combat, partly to assess their design, partly because they are the most servicable in the inventory (since they have budgets for spares).
Wingnut_0:
Plus remember that the F22 has it's missle bay's..usw housed inside the plane. Once it's fighting time, it blows it's stealth cover.
Ever seen footage of the weapons bay doors open and close on an F-22... it's fast. The AMRAAM that hangs out is quite small, frontally, and the doors from the weapons bay help sheild the missile from radar returns off angle. Average detection range for a small (very small) missile target by a fighter sized radar isn't very good. It's somewhat doubtful you'd get a good return from the weapons bay, and if you did it wouldn't be enough long enough to really do anything to. Standard BVR attacks had the shooter first setting up off-angle from the target at the limits of his radar gimble anyway. That way you shield the weapons by with the door (which is coated in serious RAM you can imagine). A slight roll of aircraft would actually completely block any view of the weapons bay to a target.
-Soda
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Hah, my P-38 with AMRAAMS can kick BOTH their tulips (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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Nobody here mentioned the fact that in air to air missile technology the Russia is still somewhat ahead of us. Sindwinder 9X is just coming into operational use. Russian equivalent has been in service since late 80s.
Also in medium range missiles Russians matched AMMRAM's excellence while back.
As for Sparrow, if i'm not mistaken it still requires an active lock on target to track. Somehow i doubt it would prove to be useful over enemy territory with modern and well set up airforce.
Soda, i can't say that i share your enthusiasm over F18s. I served 4 years in Cecil Field ( before they moved all east coast 18s to Ociana ) and i'm yet to see an 18 fly without 2 or 3 droptanks.
Navy is twitching their noses cause that bird has no legs whatsoever. E model while enlarged the tanks by 1/3 also got the gas gulping F14 engines.. and nothing really changed (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Bartlomiej Rajewski
aka. Wing Commander fd-ski
Northolt Wing
1st Polish Fighter Wing
303 (Polish) Squadron "Kosciuszko" RAF
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
315 (Polish) Squadron "City of Deblin" RAF
Turning 109s and 190s into scrap metal since 1998
Northolt Wing Headquarters (http://www.raf303.org/northolt/)
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Carrier planes are always going to have range problems.
Soda, thanks for the info. The MiG-29's (from Moldavia) are at WPAFB except for at least one which is on display at Nellis. I wouldn't be surprised if the Red Hats had one at Groom Lake too.
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Funked,
As I understand it (and particularly during the early part of F-18 deployment) the short cycle time of the F-18 created a major problem in the scheduling of carrier strikes.
I think this has been less of a problem lately simply because the F-18 has assumed a greater role and thus it has the predominant cycle time. They still have to schedule the other aircraft around it but there are fewer "others".
The new "extended range" versions accomplish longer flight times with (I think) three bags of gas. This cuts the weapons loadout however and limits them to subsonic until they dump the tanks.
(I think. I'm not a squid and I don't keep up with it all that much but I seem to recall some of my amigos stating this gripe on the long all-nighters.)
So the F-18 has changed carrier aviation, no question. Is the net result better or worse...that's the question. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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The US planes are good .. but how good are they IN the field ? I mean not like in the Gulf where they were operating from basically unnoposed airfields ..
I've been close up to both MIG 29 and SU 27 and what's awesome is the Russian engineering pragmatism .. where you don't need High-Tech there is no hightech .. just rugged prooven design ..
IMO maintenance and ruggedness wise these A/C are far more durable and "surviveable" than any western design ( you can even operate them from grass strips without problems).
DW6
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Originally posted by fd ski:
Nobody here mentioned the fact that in air to air missile technology the Russia is still somewhat ahead of us. Sindwinder 9X is just coming into operational use. Russian equivalent has been in service since late 80s.
Also in medium range missiles Russians matched AMMRAM's excellence while back.
As for Sparrow, if i'm not mistaken it still requires an active lock on target to track. Somehow i doubt it would prove to be useful over enemy territory with modern and well set up airforce.
Soda, i can't say that i share your enthusiasm over F18s. I served 4 years in Cecil Field ( before they moved all east coast 18s to Ociana ) and i'm yet to see an 18 fly without 2 or 3 droptanks.
Navy is twitching their noses cause that bird has no legs whatsoever. E model while enlarged the tanks by 1/3 also got the gas gulping F14 engines.. and nothing really changed (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
I would like to see the test that show the russians have better missles then the allied counterparts. And where did the Russians get the technology for their current "state of the Art" missles? Little clue money was involved in a certain few transactions.
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Last I heard, and I don’t keep up with this stuff very good, the F15 had an Air to Air kill ratio of 139 to 0.
That's a bunch of opportunities for someone to get lucky.
PC
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Fat Drunk Bastards
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Originally posted by fd ski:
Nobody here mentioned the fact that in air to air missile technology the Russia is still somewhat ahead of us. Sindwinder 9X is just coming into operational use. Russian equivalent has been in service since late 80s.
Also in medium range missiles Russians matched AMMRAM's excellence while back.
As for Sparrow, if i'm not mistaken it still requires an active lock on target to track. Somehow i doubt it would prove to be useful over enemy territory with modern and well set up airforce.
I would like to know just what Missile systems the Russians have that can match US missile technology. I am a Missile tech in the USAF and I know a "little bit" (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) about what we got. First, if you are close enough to use AIM-9m or X you are pretty close. Max range is 2 miles. First stage of the RM burns very quickly. The AMRAAM OTOH is a true fire and forget missile with an effective range of over 40 miles. A pilot can choose 4 seperate target and launch 4 missiles and they will not track the same target. They have some really amazing technology. The AIM-7 (sparrow) is an aging system. It uses a Passive radar homing system. This means that it track on reflected radar energy that has to come from an outside source. Either the originating fighter platform, or a different wingman, or even AWACS can provide the source (whic is ideal for the fighter pilot, he can bug out and evade). The WSEP excercises I have attended in FLA where they livefire these things have proven that the AIM-120 (AMRAAM), and the AIM-9M have well over a 90% hit rate against drones.
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Originally posted by -ammo-:
I would like to know just what Missile systems the Russians have that can match US missile technology. I am a Missile tech in the USAF and I know a "little bit" (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) about what we got. First, if you are close enough to use AIM-9m or X you are pretty close. Max range is 2 miles. First stage of the RM burns very quickly. The AMRAAM OTOH is a true fire and forget missile with an effective range of over 40 miles. A pilot can choose 4 seperate target and launch 4 missiles and they will not track the same target. They have some really amazing technology. The AIM-7 (sparrow) is an aging system. It uses a Passive radar homing system. This means that it track on reflected radar energy that has to come from an outside source. Either the originating fighter platform, or a different wingman, or even AWACS can provide the source (whic is ideal for the fighter pilot, he can bug out and evade). The WSEP excercises I have attended in FLA where they livefire these things have proven that the AIM-120 (AMRAAM), and the AIM-9M have well over a 90% hit rate against drones.
Was wondering the same have a few friends on langley that are missle techs. And These new Russian missles have how much combat experience? (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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fd_ski:
Soda, i can't say that i share your enthusiasm over F18s. I served 4 years in Cecil Field ( before they moved all east coast 18s to Ociana ) and i'm yet to see an 18 fly without 2 or 3 droptanks.
Navy is twitching their noses cause that bird has no legs whatsoever. E model while enlarged the tanks by 1/3 also got the gas gulping F14 engines.. and nothing really changed
Agreed, though you can drop those droptanks when you show up to battle, like you can in AH. The Su-27 had the fuel internal and while it was possible to dump some, it took time to do so, more time than you had. If you took too much fuel (like on a long CAP or patrol) you ended up having to fight with all that extra fuel. The difference was startling, thrust to weight while light in a Su-27 was something akin to 1.3:1, heavy it was .8:1... a huge difference to account for in thrust. Wingloading numbers were also massively different between light and heavy configurations. You can imagine that acceleration numbers probably had similar declines. The original Su-27, up until the Su-30 versions didn't have A-to-A refuelling capabilities so they had to load up with internal fuel. Even now the relative servicable rate, and numbers, of tankers is low and it would be assumed that in most cases the Su-27 would use internal fuel for the entire flight. (btw, at max internal fuel the Su-27 has a terrific range, far more than it has been given credit for).
The Navy was also pissed about the bring back capabilities of the F-18's, or so I've read. Dumping a smart bomb in the ocean isn't a very good way to save money. The E models are supposed to help stop this practice. The E model helped address growth capabilities in the airframe regarding computing power also.
Amazing they consider the E model an F18 at all, the dimensions are totally different, as are the designs of major portions of the internal and external structure. What was supposed to be just an enlarged C model turned out to be a new plane, with the same basic shape as the old one....
Russian missile technology is substantial. It's hard to tell if they are ahead or not, although they do have many designs with claimed capabilities that are only now beginning to be implmenented in western designs like the 9X, ASRAAM, AMRAAM or IRIS-T. I suspect the latest western designs have probably leap-frogged over the russian designs, but for a while the russian designs were most likely superiour.
On a side note to the missile debate, western ECM was considered substantially more effective than eastern designs. Many/most russian fighters barely had provisions for chaff/flare launchers, or had relatively few expendables. Russian fighters did not have internal ECM capabilities or have provisions for many expendables (chaff/flares). More recent upgrades have addressed this problem substantially.
The russians did have significantly better "rough field" support for their aircraft. US, and most western designs excluding sweden, are runway only designed. This could have been a significant issue had it come to a real war between the two during the cold war. Again, rough field performance depended on what you had to work with though, take-off weights couldn't be near maximum and while it was possible to takeoff/land on grass, it was not considered that safe.
-Soda
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Ammo, good site there:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/ (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/)
Tell me what comparable to A11 Archer did US field OPERATIONALY 15 and 10 years go.
The quality of the missles above coupled with the targeting systems that russians have DEPLOYED over 10 years ago mean that no matter how manouverable, the Western fighter will have a missle coming after him at any angle, while he himself has to manouver the Russian jet into part of his front aspect.
Soda, problem with F18s is a fact that once he drops those tanks he migth not be able to make it home, eseically considering that disengaging with the low speed that it has migth not always be an option either.
During my Persian Gulf deployments our F-14 squadron kept practicing bomb drops, while i though was perculiar. It turns out that Navy feels that 14 can carry out the fighter bomber mission better then 18 since 3 drop tanks heavly limit it's load out.
Kinda sad for the "do it all" aircraft (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Bartlomiej Rajewski
aka. Wing Commander fd-ski
Northolt Wing
1st Polish Fighter Wing
303 (Polish) Squadron "Kosciuszko" RAF
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
315 (Polish) Squadron "City of Deblin" RAF
Turning 109s and 190s into scrap metal since 1998
Northolt Wing Headquarters (http://www.raf303.org/northolt/)
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Ski I hope that is not your only source on Russian missles. Tha A-11 report on that page is very skeptical to say the least. Sounds to me like it was written by Popular Mechanics.
I bet that 'WIG' aircraft is out there transporting troops to the frontline (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif) Sorry had to pull that from an old Arty in that mag lol.
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fd_ski,
No doubt that running out of gas would be a HUGE problem, although in that case there are several options that could occur. You could tank and refuel (maybe), divert to another closer field, or possibly have to rtb and call off the mission. In the Su-27 your options are to run (thus calling off the mission or maybe not being able to defend the target), or fight at high weight. The heavy weight setting on the Su-27 (apparantly built right into the flight control software) had a hard limit of only +5G's in that condition. I wouldn't want to fight like that against any 9G capable opponent. Typically in an attack profile if you get attacked you're going to have to ditch your A to G ordinance anyway so the mission is off, it's now a survival exercise.
The BombCat or SuperTomcat idea has been around a long time. Before they even thought about creating the F18E series there was quite the support for the F-14 bomber. the range was good, and with upgrades it could have new computers/software to give excellent bombing capacity. Problems included the relative airframe hours of remaining F-14s in service (without starting new production which hadn't been done in many years), the bring back weight of a loaded Tomcat (considering the 6 Phoenix loadout was not return capable) and the re-engining program that would be required (note: the majority of F14's are not D models with uprated engines and digital databuses, they are B's and B+'s). the F14 was also a large radar target which would have been a problem to reduce (because of shape issues) and presented a large carrier footprint on deck. They had hoped the F18E would be much smaller allowing more to be carried. F-14's were also tasked with air-defense and pulling them away from that role would lead to a general lack of long range airdefense (a decision still made in the coldwar) since the F-18 wasn't quite up to the interceptor tasking (no AMRAAMs yet).
AG Sachsenberg,
I'm sure the russians make a fine A-to-A missile. They basically spent a fortune on missile technology in the 70's and 80's, moreso than the western countries did. Thus the US stayed with the old AIM-9 design series but added all kinds of revisions. The capabilities of the russian missiles was considerable though, and they advertized some of them quite widely with no acutal western equivalent. The high off-boresight abilities, hyper agility, etc, were all missing in the AIM-9 series (though the isreali Python and possibly South African missiles had some of these capabilties). The AMRAAM is certainly a VERY capable missile with numerous uses to draw some conclusion on it's effectiveness (which seems good). The western airforces ALL realised they had a problem with the AIM-9 series, that's why they all have introduced new missiles into their inventories (or are doing so right now). IRIS-T for Germany/Canada/Others, ASRAAM for UK/Australia, AIM-9X for US (and others I'm sure)... etc etc. Ya have to think that each nation realised the AIM-9 series (in current form) had lost or was losing any advantage it had to Russian designs. All these new designs claim similar capabilties as the russian claims since the early 90's which tends to point to the fact that they are good ideas and everyone has adopted them.
Interesting discussion, I'm more of a modern aircraft buff than WW2 aircraft. I don't really like modern flight sim games though, tend to be too point, shoot, and wait for results.
-Soda
[This message has been edited by Soda (edited 05-10-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Soda (edited 05-10-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Soda (edited 05-10-2001).]
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WEll put soda. I will comment later when I have time :-) I use to study the USSR military very heavily in the 80's and 90's. And was fascinated by what they made. Sometimes sceptical on what you read online (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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AG Sachsenberg,
Have to agree on not believing what you read, best to get angles from lots of sources and try to deduce the fact from fiction. That was usually almost impossible in cold war days, but more has come out in recent years to pull together fact and fiction.
It's interesting looking at what we know the Russians did do in the 70's/80's in terms of research though, they definitely took a risk laden approach. They experimented with new ideas for old concepts or whole new ideas. Things like Wing-in-Ground-Effect airplanes, shkval high subsonic torpedos, laser range finders/aiming on aircraft guns. It would be interesting to know what sorts of things they tried and flat failed on, I'm sure the stories might be pretty spooky. I bet their "black" programs would draw interesting comparisons to the US ones.
-Soda
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AG, are you yet again argue for a sake of arguing only ?
Information on A11 was avaiable from all sorts of sources for well over 10 years, including Janes and Air Force publications.
Not exacly anything secret, and if you "studied" Russian projects so much you should have heard of it eh ?
Did you bother checking what fas.org was ?
Mind you , not the "allthetopsecretinfoonrussianm illitaryyoucan'tfindanywhereelsecauseitsfrickingclassified.com" but it sums up most info pretty well.
Soda, i think what bothers me the msot is the pricetag of the new F18s. Initial ones went for 250Mil + and production ones were supposed to be 50 Mil per piece ( this is from 1998, migth have changed ). When i was making 16K as an E-4 in the navy, i always wished they would buy russia birds that are cheaper and upgrade them, and hopefully give me the change (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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Bartlomiej Rajewski
aka. Wing Commander fd-ski
Northolt Wing
1st Polish Fighter Wing
303 (Polish) Squadron "Kosciuszko" RAF
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
315 (Polish) Squadron "City of Deblin" RAF
Turning 109s and 190s into scrap metal since 1998
Northolt Wing Headquarters (http://www.raf303.org/northolt/)
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fd_ski,
The F-18E's have ended up far different from what they were originally proposed. Quite literally they were intially proposed as mere up-sizing of the C/D model. In the end though they were almost total re-works. The internal structure, wings, elevators, nose, winggloves and central fuselage box were almost totally new. Only the tails were upsized version of the old plane, and even they were different internally. There were some advantages though, a lot of aerodynamic testing had been done on the shape, as well as flight software that needed to only be tuned, not completely re-written. Of course, the wing drop issues at high AoA and some weapons seperation problems appeared that weren't expected and delayed (cost $$) to the program.
The actual cost, not including development aircraft, for a new build F-18E is actually quite a good deal. I heard a price in the range of 35 million a copy, or within 10% of the price of a new F-18C. *Note: this number could be misleading since initial production E models will not have the full avionics, ECM, or definitive radar packages. Other aircraft in production compare well in price to this with Rafale and Eurofighter costing significantly more for what is likely similar performance. Then again, those two are not expected to enter service in their planned final configuration either so electronics costs will mostly likely be higher. The US would never buy an aircraft not designed and build in the US of A... national pride wouldn't allow it. Only the Harrier is an exception and it's pretty clear the Marine versions are siginificantly US now in design.
I really think the Navy got screwed with the cancellation of the A-12 attack plane. They scavenged what they could and tried to quickly make a decision about what to do. they'd already committed to retire the A-6's, half were already artifical reefs (ok, that's an overexageration (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) ). Why not address the range problem as the Mig-29, F-15E, or F-16 block 60 have done, conformal fuel tanks. The only reason I can think of is bring back weight would have been even worse. Looking at it that way it makes you wonder if there wasn't just a desire to get a production line running again and starting making airplanes. While everyone else is looking at producing the next generation of fighters the F-18E is mearly a warmed over design based back to the 70's.
Be glad the Navy isn't buying naval F-22's, those would set you back 200+ million per copy, the prototypes closer to a billion apiece. that would mean Canada could afford an airforce of 2 F-22's... though maybe only 1 pilot.
-Soda
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Hmmm... Very interesting stuff about F18 limitations. I watched a few documentaries in Discovery Wings but they were of "the best since sliced bread" variety and I'd heard before from a couple of guys who used to work with F18s far from complimentary remarks. Was really confused - stuff is clearer now (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
And where did the Russians get the technology for their current "state of the Art" missles?
Oh puuleeeaaase not another homegrown f(*&%g expert on "Darn Ruskies stole this and that" crap - sometimes I think that some of you guys are just as brainwashed as hardline communists (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/frown.gif)
They developed it, OK? Crafty little buggers as they are. They didn't have an ally to come visit, promise full cooperation, take all the documentation from and then to tell them to piss off like the Yanks did. In a barn, with simple tools and a few swear words they created all this non-fly-by-wire stuff that takes your breath away at airshows. Simple, uncomplicated folk (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif).
As for the combat record of any modern fighter/missile - can't recall last conflict with equally armed adversaries, can you? Do remember a few scandals about this wonderweapon or that failing to deliver during tests after zillions spent on R&D though...