[ridenrain]

Considering very few here has flown in a fighter or served in the Air force, I'm not the only one playing armchair general. As long as it's not the Typhoon, I'll be happy with the F35 or the super hornet.

[Regina]

ridenrain ridenrain:

Considering very few here has flown in a fighter or served in the Air force, I'm not the only one playing armchair general. As long as it's not the Typhoon, I'll be happy with the F35 or the super hornet.

I drove a P-51D fighter..........does that count?

[ridenrain]

I flew a glider as an air cadet.
You sir, are a god to me.

[EyeBrock]

SigPig SigPig:

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

A good point sand.

Inter-operability is a key factor. Flying into US bases with the C130 over the years has shown me that. Any times we had tech problems we could get parts quickly. Not so with the British made VC10 transport.

From the posts I've seen, the Super Hornet makes the most sense.

The Super Hornet does make the most sense in terms of parts and ease of transition and maintenance, but in terms of quality it is a bad aircraft. It is a larger Hornet with engines that didn't keep pace with the increase in weight. IOW it's inferior to what we use now, which makes no sense when we are looking for a 21st century aircraft.

I beg to differ.
The very early versions had the same engine as the late variant F18's but the current Super Hornet has the GE 414 engine which generates 35-40% more thrust than the F18's GE 404. It can carry 40% more weight and has a 35% greater range than the F18.
It also has the latest electronics and ECM gear, plus it comes in at the price of $50,000,000. Pretty cheap compared to the JSF.
It also has an inbuilt AAR tanking ability, which would be very useful.
It is a jack of all trades and master of none, but do we need a super-dooper super-expensive fighter?
Something that can do the job and has demonstrated that would be capabable enough for our needs would be nice.

I think it would be worth thinking about.

Oh, costs of a Typhoon = $200 million

Cost of a JSF is now expected to hit $70-80 million a unit and the F22 is reported to be $350-400 million per aircraft.

[Regina]

ridenrain ridenrain:

I flew a glider as an air cadet.
You sir, are a god to me.

Thanks

[Regina]

SigPig SigPig:

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

A good point sand.

Inter-operability is a key factor. Flying into US bases with the C130 over the years has shown me that. Any times we had tech problems we could get parts quickly. Not so with the British made VC10 transport.

From the posts I've seen, the Super Hornet makes the most sense.

The Super Hornet does make the most sense in terms of parts and ease of transition and maintenance, but in terms of quality it is a bad aircraft. It is a larger Hornet with engines that didn't keep pace with the increase in weight. IOW it's inferior to what we use now, which makes no sense when we are looking for a 21st century aircraft.

Definitely not an inferior aircraft since it can carry and do more. It has great all around capabilities and is more suited for what our country and military needs. I highly doubt we need a stealth fighter while patrolling the arctic or coastal borders. When was the last time a Canadian aircraft was in a true dogfight?

[EyeBrock]

I think the Super Hornet's 'buddy AAR' ability would be perfect for Canada. Air Command routinely do 2 or 3 ship dets up north for the QRA.
You could send 2 up with a third as a tanker for extended patrols.

Plus the learning curve for air and ground crews would be that much easier, even though it's basically a totally different aircraft.

We could get 20 years plus out of these aircraft.

[Canadian_Mind]

I like the chat about the Hornets capabilities. For this I ask what rules out F-15Es or the new F-15SEs?

It's hard to compare certain aspects of both aircraft, because my only source I can find is a rush is wiki, but here are some tidbits:

Range are:

F-18E: 3330km ferry, 722km combat

F-15E: 3900km ferry, combat unknown

Speeds:

F-18E: mach 1.8 @ 40 000 feet

F-15E: mach 2.5+ @ unknown feet (guessing 50 000, which is standard)

Service ceiling:

F-18E: 50 000+ feet

F-15E: 60 000 feet

Thrust - Weight ratio:

F-18E: 0.93

F-15E: unkown for baseline eagle with 23 000 pound engines, but the F-15Ks the Koreans bought (F-15Es with upgrades, including the engines), has a T/W ratio of 1.29, more than an F-22.

I couldn't find wing-loading information, however, the F-18E has a wing area of 500 square feet and has a baseline weight of 30 000 pounds, and the F-15E has a wing area of 608 square feet, and has a baseline weight of 31 000 pounds. While this isn't accurate without the combat weights of both aircraft, the baseline weight gives the F-15E a 16% improvement over the F-18E.



I also found out in research found that it is highly probable the F-15Ks the Koreans ordered cost 100 million apiece because of the substantial upgrades they recieved from the typical baseline F-15E, which would cost around 50-60 million for the US to buy from itself. Such upgrades included infared systems, engine upgrades, a different flight/weapons system, different armaments, etc.

[EyeBrock]

I don't think Air Command need mach 2.5, and that's a lot of wasted fuel!

[Winnipegger]

The Super Hornet is just a Hornet bulked-up: 30% bigger aircraft with 30% more bomb load. If we don't go to a new, latest generation up-to-the-minute top-of-the-line fighter jet, then we may as well stick with what we got. It's cheaper.

[EyeBrock]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

The Super Hornet is just a Hornet bulked-up: 30% bigger aircraft with 30% more bomb load. If we don't go to a new, latest generation up-to-the-minute top-of-the-line fighter jet, then we may as well stick with what we got. It's cheaper.

It's also old and not up to job anymore. the CF18's are 25 years old. That's timex for a combat system.

[Winnipegger]

RCAF requirements for an all weather interceptor, specification AIR 7.3, 1953:

$1:

* Crew of two (It was considered unlikely even a fully automated system would reduce workload enough to allow a lone crewman).

* Twin engines (no single engine then available could lift the fuel load needed for the long-range missions the RCAF demanded).

* Range of 300 nautical miles (556 km) for a normal low-speed mission, and 200 nautical miles (370 km) for a high-speed interception mission.

* Operation from a 6,000 foot (1830m) runway.

* Mach 1.5 cruise at an altitude of 50,000 feet (15,000 m).

* Maneuverability (2 g turns with no loss of speed or altitude at Mach 1.5 and 50,000 feet).

* The time from a signal to start the engines to the aircraft's reaching 50,000 feet and Mach 1.5 to be less than five minutes.

* Turn-around time on the ground was to be less than ten minutes.

The Avro Arrow was built to not only meet, but exceed these requirements. Now which modern aircraft can meet all of them. I'll make it easy, let's start with a stringent requirement: which ones can supercruise at mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet?

reference: http://www.globalaircraft.org/planes/cf ... o_arrow.pl

[Canadian_Mind]

The arrow was indeed a magnificent aircraft, but I doubt that even with the full 64 000 pounds of total thrust the iroquois engines were capable of producing that it would have been able to supercruise at mach 1.5. The idea of supercruising wasn't around at the time.

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I don't think Air Command need mach 2.5, and that's a lot of wasted fuel!

I don't think the aircraft would be going at mach 2.5 the whole time. But the one time I ever did get a chance to talk to a F-18 fighter pilot (was on a tour of Comox airbase with the cadets, we got to see the F-18s), he said that top speed does wonders for producing standoff, and that the F-15 was the best western fighter for this. You could outrun a Sidewinder missle and the Russian equivilent pretty much point blank, because both only go mach 2.5, and with the longer range missles you don't need to be as far away to be able to outrun them in a pinch. If you needed to get out of a dogfight you just cranked the engines and went. The enemy wouldn't be able to catch up to you if you did this, and couldn't shoot you down with a short range missle. The only aircraft that could catch you are interceptors, which brings up the question of why you didn't defeat your opponent in the dogfight?

Personally I like the idea of a jet that can outrun enemy missles if it can't hide from them (stealth fighters), or out-turn them (euro-fighter, Mig 29, Su 35).

[EyeBrock]

Ah the Arrow. Nice but not the aircraft for the job any longer, neither is the TSR2.

Lets talk real world winnpegger. Not an RCAF Air Staff Target from over 50 years ago. That's ancient history in the fighter aircraft world.

If we had got the Arrow, it would have been scrapped 20 years ago at best.

[EyeBrock]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

The arrow was indeed a magnificent aircraft, but I doubt that even with the full 64 000 pounds of total thrust the iroquois engines were capable of producing that it would have been able to supercruise at mach 1.5. The idea of supercruising wasn't around at the time.

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I don't think Air Command need mach 2.5, and that's a lot of wasted fuel!

I don't think the aircraft would be going at mach 2.5 the whole time. But the one time I ever did get a chance to talk to a F-18 fighter pilot (was on a tour of Comox airbase with the cadets, we got to see the F-18s), he said that top speed does wonders for producing standoff, and that the F-15 was the best western fighter for this. You could outrun a Sidewinder missle and the Russian equivilent pretty much point blank, because both only go mach 2.5, and with the longer range missles you don't need to be as far away to be able to outrun them in a pinch. If you needed to get out of a dogfight you just cranked the engines and went. The enemy wouldn't be able to catch up to you if you did this, and couldn't shoot you down with a short range missle. The only aircraft that could catch you are interceptors, which brings up the question of why you didn't defeat your opponent in the dogfight?

Personally I like the idea of a jet that can outrun enemy missles if it can't hide from them (stealth fighters), or out-turn them (euro-fighter, Mig 29, Su 35).

Ok, nice idea but lets counter the threat. How many dogfights have Canadian aircraft been in since Korea 55 years ago?

If you want to have a ruffy-tuffy squadron of very expensive dog-fighters, something else is gonna suffer.

Let's just buy a half decent kite that will meet our needs for 25 years or so.