There are all kinds of options to put more fuel in a single engine plane if its designed at the outset for this. Saying it needs to be fat is just not correct. Fuel is dense and does not require that much space volume wise. You can stretch the fuse a bit and carry a lot of extra fuel.
I am responding to the claim that single engined aircraft by definition are slimmer and more aerodynamic and don't need as much fuel or maintenance compared with a similar twin engined design.
F-16 only has 3200kg of internal fuel capacity and 7700kg of weapons payload capacity.
What loadout can an F-16 fly with having weapons only at 7.7 tons?
Like many aircraft someone has worked out the max weight ratings for all its weapon points and added them up, but achieving such a payload is simply not practically possible.
Why would Russia want a long range medium fighter? Well because Russia is HUGE.
This is the stupidity I am fighting against... you want a fighter to protect an area... extra range is nice but it comes at a cost in terms of weight and also drag... internal fuel is the best compromise because it does not increase drag but it sure does ruin that nice power to weight ratio you had as a fighter.
Having Flankers operating from one airbase does not mean it can cover the airspace 2,000km in any direction, while a Fulcrum operating from the same airfield only covers 1,000km radius... very simply in western Russia there are going to be other air fields and other units all over the place and the 2,000km radius circle around that Flanker airfield is going to serious overlap all the airfields nearby.
If there is a target detected 1,500km from your airfield you are not going to send an Su-35 to check it out... you are going to look at the closest airfield to the target which might be a Fulcrum airfield that is 300km away from the target and you are going to send them.
The Flanker might have the range to get there but it wont have the time... if you are going to buy Flankers and base all your military airfields 2,000km apart then any idiot can map a flight path that goes between them so launching flankers all the time but to reach the target before it goes past they will have to go supersonic which means their 2,000km range flight radius just became a 1,000km flight radius if you are lucky.
Thinking a Flanker can actually protect twice the volume of airspace is just bullshit... in fact having shorter ranged fighters is better because they wont get called away to do jobs thousands of kms away from what they are supposed to be protecting.
Also Russia cannot rely on a global fleet of 700 fuel tankers like the USA.
Russia doesn't need that bullshit... except a very rare one off ferry transfer with external tanks and inflight refuelling stops which could be airborne but could just as easily be air field landings too.
They have fighters to protect their bases and the surrounds and they have longer range fighters for longer ranged missions... they don't all need long range that is just dumb to expect lighter cheaper simpler fighters to be able to fly as far as their heavy fighters...
The result of trying gives you F-16s with conformal tanks and needing inflight refuelling and under wing tanks all the time.
F-16 is relatively cheap compared with other fighters actually.
Yeah, real cheap... tell Venezuela and Iraq how cheap they are...
The F-5 was cheaper because it did not have a lot of things. Like, it had no radar, or a primitive radar at best.
Cheap and simple go together... you can't have one without the other.... example F-35.
The F-20, if you wanted one, would have to be brand new. That made it horribly expensive to acquire.
The F-20 was too expensive for the customers who already had F-5s.... why do you think that is a contradiction to what you said?
The F-16 was probably the most successful fighter in sales in those two decades.
A lot of offers they could not refuse though... here is 1 billion in US military aide... what sort of US military fighter plane are you going to spend it on... no you can't spend it on anything else...
The Mirage was the best prior to that. Before that the MiG-21. Notice anything common among these aircraft?
There are no cheap simple single engined fighters any more?
And don't say Gripen... it is not that cheap and with all the American parts too subject to sanction anyway.
If anything the F-5 is the exception to the rule. It proves it can be done but without mass production and attention to making it cheap to manufacture and operate as a design point it won't happen.
The MiG-21 is still in use you know?
You can see today the Gripen as a single engine fighter which allegedly has low cost of operation which has managed to have relative sales success even with the US and other HATO nations giving 2nd hand F-16s. But they still need to be creative with their sales methods like leasing aircraft. Otherwise they can't compete with 2nd hand F-16s with a low acquisition cost even if it supposedly costs less to maintain.
Politics will kill Gripen sales.... anyone who can afford it and can get permission from the US for the engines and other parts will likely be offered F-16s for a much better price... and sanctions if you pick Gripen instead.
The performance of the Gripen seems to rule it out anyway...
There is and has been talk in the AF and government of such a plane for ages, as well as previous programs like the LFI. You have actually no proof they don't have interest, just your opinion.
The only single engine aircraft they operate are the Yak-152, and An-2... and drones.
This is exactly what they are doing. A light A2A focused fighter is going to be similar be it manned or not, so you create the two versions and get the best return of the investment. It is smart.
The Su-57 and S-70 pairing is a twin and single pairing... why not continue that success and have a twin and single manned LMFS coupling too?
No long range but decent range.
They have long range fighters.... why handicap your lighter fighters by demanding design and weight increases to extend range... another factor that screwed the F-35...
What is all this aggressive shit?
In design there has to be compromise... everyone wants good range, but you also want light weight and simplicity, but then you need capability or there is no point if it dies in the first 30 seconds of any fight.
You say you want light weight and single engines and canards but you want a light weight plane with the performance and range of a medium but you don't want a medium you want a light to keep costs down.
I wonder why I find it frustrating to convey this to you when you clearly already know it...
Design is all about compromises but your design choices don't match your claimed design goals.
If you do not differentiate a strike platform from a fighter you have a problem Garry. It should be pretty obvious what purpose the S-70 serves.
If you think a 5th gen fighter and its 5th gen drone is only capable of one sort of mission then you have the problem.
5th Gen fighters are described as omnirole fighters... not multirole where it can be loaded up for any mission you choose, but omnirole, which means an Su-57 loaded up with AAMs can fly with two S-70 drones equipped with long range SEAD weapons and two more drones armed with strike weapons like guided glide bombs and they can all take to the air and fly together and deal with enemy radar and enemy ground targets and enemy aircraft in one mission, but if you think the S-70 can only carry a guided bomb like some Russian F-117 then that is OK too.
Change light by medium and you are right. Big AFs use the heavy fighters to guarantee performance and complement them with light ones for numbers, it is countries with lesser air forces that have to rely on a compromise solution in form of medium fighters which are normally neither as capable as heavy ones nor as cheap as the light ones.
Countries can buy any types their suppliers allow... just look at Flanker sales to see that...
Not a purpose built A2A platform, by any stretch of the imagination.
Why would you think a drone designed to operate with a 5th gen heavy fighter would only have one mission type... launching R-77s and R-37s hardly requires super manouver performance... altitude is normally what it needs most along with any speed you can manage, but its flight range requirements mean supersonic speed become less useful...
Are you joking? The Harrier was a mess and the F-35B is simply on another category. Do yourself a favour and take a look at the specs please...
The specs came from the same marketing department that said it was stealthy and its job would be to fly over S-300 and S-400 missile sites and drop cheap guided bombs to destroy them. The Harrier on the other hand has seen some combat and in terms of air to air wasn't half bad... though as I have probably mentioned before an F-4 Phantom would have been better in terms of air to air weapons and speed and ability to defend a fleet of ships.
I notice you question Rostec because it has no government money, but now you say the government was wrong when they wanted STOVL. Either way, who disagrees with you is wrong, be it government, Rostec or whoever. OK I get it.
A government doesn't know what it wants... they get told all sorts of shit like after WWIII starts the only aircraft flying will be VSTOL because all the runways will be destroyed. VSTOL fighters are brilliant because they can take off from anywhere so you can locate your airfields right up near the front line so a VSTOL fighter can be on target in 5 minutes and will be on call all the time because it will be so close to the fighting... any 20 square metres of highway ashphalt will do to operate from, while a conventional aircraft might operate 100km away and take half an hour to get to the combat area to support the troops.
In urban combat your VSTOL fighters could operate from supermarket carparks and enemy fighters will be gone because after 5 hours all the airfields will be gone so even if they are not shot down they wont be able to operate.
We know it is bollocks now because they tested it and found it was bollocks... VSTOL aircraft are fragile and terribly prone to damage... their side mounted engine nozzles attract even the shittiest and most useless MANPADS like SA-7A and Redeye that normally wont lock on anything except the tail end of aircraft they are not fast enough to catch... but they can catch hovering VSTOL fighters...
Supermarket carparks are horrendous places for FOD... plastic bags in particular but any old rubbish will ruin the best and most expensive engine in a second.
We know the Russian government had a requirement for another stealth aircraft... we know that contract was delayed until the PAK FA went in to serial production and we know that has now happened.
This report suggests to me that in addition to the LMFS project that Rostek want to make a light plane, with the view to perhaps achieving all your proclaimed ideals and selling it internationally... if this was the LMFS programme then what is the point in making this announcement... they already have the contract and should now be getting the funding... I rather suspect that this is something different that they might want to piggy back on the existing LMFS project but make it lighter and for export and then if it does work out cheaper and simpler they might sell this to the government instead, but this news is perhaps for India and for Turkey and perhaps even Brazil to say... do you want do you want to get in at the ground level of a new affordable fighter that wont be super stealthy but will be competitive perhaps even against medium 4th gen fighters... that is cheaper to operate than the Su-57 and F-35 if the latter is even an option...
some like Turkey will have their LHD and soon will have no planes for them. Plus Russia plus China it justifies, I think, the development, considering it is just a version of a plane you are going to design either way.
You are suggesting Russia should take on the burden and cost of making their new lighter 5th gen fighter a VSTOL fighter because Turkey might buy it and China might buy them too? And when China orders two and Turkey waits till development is finished and decides it is too expensive so they will just make drones instead, how is Russia going to feel having screwed up the design of its lighter 5th gen fighter to pander to the needs of other countries that don't give a shit?
I have seen programs with a way worse business case for sure.
But the scary thing is that the business case for the F-35 is actually much better than for this because the US has the money to piss away on it and the control of the allies to force them to buy this shit... something the Russians can't and wouldn't do anyway.
This allows to improve the UDKs and gives them a bit more of capability so your fleet can take care of more missions and your carriers are not tied to almost trivial roles like avoiding provocations on low intensity conflicts.
No it doesn't... it dilutes the capacity of the UDKs by removing space for helicopters and armour and ground troops, so they can carry shit planes with short range and limited performance but lots of space for the fuel they will waste and the ordinance they will need to operate with.
It makes rather more sense to not bother with Harrier type support and stick with F-14D like support with bigger better aircraft... Su-57s.
VKS sees no problem in having both fixed and rotary wing aircraft, contrary to what you argue.
They have never bothered with rotary wing fighters like the Ka-52K is... if they expect a new model Harrier on the way why bother?
I am sure the command will know when a carrier is needed. Some assets with good A2A capability on board an UDK just raise the bar against provocations and gives better capability overall. VMF is not going to have that many carriers to park them everywhere.
Anywhere there is a UDK operating outside of Russian ground and air based support it will likely also have a few cruisers and at least a carrier...
You are faster to be dismiss than to understand it seems.
No... please continue to waste your time telling me how you are going to polish this turd... maybe just freeze it solid and the surface ice crystals reflecting the light will make it appear to be shiny...
I have not reduced the size of any of those, even when it could be actually done. The further you move the lift fan to the front, the longer its torque arm and therefore it will be able to balance the plane with less thrust, that means, you can produce a bigger portion of the total lifting thrust at the main engine and make the frontal propulsion assembly smaller. That is a main limitation of the F-35, look how far forward the main engine was brought in order to be able to balance the plane.
So if you make the front and rear extended out further... by say 500 metres, then by that logic you just need a very small spring to keep the plane in the air... right?
That sarcasm is just showing you don't understand a bit of what is proposed here, and that is sad.
What... a UCAV doesn't need a cockpit, but moving the fan forward improves the design you say so swap the cockpit for the fan and then replace the cockpit with an extra fuel tank and you are done...
I wonder what the specs are for using an electric hybrid set of lift fans for a VTOL plane. Its pretty obvious that future jet fighters will need a lot more electrical capacity for lasers, EM cannons etc. What would the weight be for a 25,000 KWH generator and 2x 12000 HP electric lift fans? You will eliminate the gearbox and shaft. Could a flying wing fighter work using lift fans to augment manuverability? So many cool options.
Azipods as used on ships would allow rotating fans taht can be used for vertical takeoff and horizontal flight so lift engines don't simply become dead weight during normal flight... the use of four engines... two electric at the front that just shift air without fuel being added so cold air, while the two jets at the rear that can also be rotated could use jet fuel and run hot and provide electricity for the front engines... once you are airborne you could angle them back steadily to increase forward flight speed and take the lift requirements from the engines onto the wings and in full forward flight all four engines can operate... in forward flight the front electric engines could suck air and blow it into the intakes of the rear engine to increase air flow speed through the bypass air ducts of the rear turbofan engines...
There are lots of clever things you could do...
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
