Thrust Vectoring
- Thread starter Malo83
- Start date
Kestas
Staff member
Pros and cons.
It makes it a real foe in a dog fight.
It really complicates the aircraft and makes it heavier.
It makes it a real foe in a dog fight.
It really complicates the aircraft and makes it heavier.
Dog fight?
Modern jets fire and forget missiles at each other from a long way away.
It allows to turn tighter and pull the nose up when you're in a two circle fight. That gives you one chance to get the bandit in your crosshairs at the expense of your kinetic energy. If you're good enough that you only need 1 chance....
The problem with lobbing BVR missiles at each other is, can you disengage from the fight when you run out of misslies if the other party wants to continue? in the end it becomes WVR and dogfighting
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That was the conventional thinking in 1958, when the US Navy bought the F-4 without an internal gun.
Modern jets fire and forget missiles from a long way away.
But that presumes you know the nature of the engagement. A presumption that 65 years of combat since then has proven consistently false.
Without knowing how the engagement will happen, you cannot presume a long range missile fight.
It’s the reason the F-22 Raptor has thrust vectoring and can maneuver post stall.
Post stall maneuverability is a huge advantage in being able to put your nose, and a weapon, on an adversary sooner.
This isn’t an Airshow stunt, it’s a combat capability.
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Just got to thinking those manoeuvres can also be used BVR, when radar notching. If your plane travles 90° in front of an emitting radar, that has difficulty tracking you. But if you can travl at 90° yet point the nose towards the enemy (like a cobra performed sideways) you could lock and fire while being "untrackable". Only for a very short time though, but you could return to radar notching after firing.
https://eurasiantimes.com/british-typhoons-preparing-for-ultimate-clash-with-russian-jets/
RAF training for dogfighting again, something they haven't really done in 20 years. But they're not putting all their eggs in the BVR basket it seems, even though they have F-35 and MDBA Meteor missiles. They also go on about the radar power of the SU-35, maybe they are not quite sure the F-35 is undetectable at a safe distance anymore.
Just confirms what Astro said above: Without knowing how the engagement will happen, you cannot presume a long range missile fight
Even modern "dogfights" tend to be miles away. I know combat movies make it seem like planes are right on top of each other like they had to be with gun fights. However, just look at declassified video of air combat and they're really just dots in the distance. I heard that the minimum arming distance for the latest Sidewinder is more than 1.5 miles, and that's mostly for use within visual range.
No, they try to get on top of each other, to get within the minimum range of the enemy's missiles and deny the missile shot. Performance figures for currently used missiles are classified, but the minimum range is likely under half a mile.
The soviet R-60 has a minimum engagement range of 250m. the French Matra Magic 300m, the Mica 500m.
The soviet R-60 has a minimum engagement range of 250m. the French Matra Magic 300m, the Mica 500m.
Do tell…
”Dots in the distance” - “miles away” - based on what?
How often have you turned your fighter in BFM with another?
Used helmet mounted cuing?
Taken a simulated gunshot?
Fired live 20mm at an airborne target?
Read the classified specifications on a modern missile?
Jackson_Slugger
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Thrust vectoring is nice, but maybe invest more into things like GPS so your pilots aren't taping Garmins to the HUD...
The Russian miltiary isn't even up to Part 91 standards.
I hope they can afford to build a lot of those planes... Oh wait.
Jackson_Slugger
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The Ukraine claims they haven't entered airspace over Uk held territory since early in the war. They just fire missiles and run. It seems the Ruskie AF is built more to impress the brass than to win, or even survive, wars...
Don't they only have a dozen or so of their most recent planes?
Jackson_Slugger
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Of fighters? They have a 100 to 150 or each combat type like the Su-34, but always knew they'd be outgunned by NATO in general and especially the US. That's why the Russians have invested so much into the S-300/400 and S-500 (maybe, we'll see) SAM systems that are very capable and focus more on "area denial" than air superiority, but no one expected them to completely poop-the-bed against the Ukraine, especially since they use pretty much the same weapons systems...
I think the Su-57, their "Gen 5" plane is down to under a half-dozen
My bad if I'm incorrect or misinterpreted anything. However, a lot the popular conception is that pilots are typically right on top of each other like we see in movies, which obviously look better when planes are in the same shot. I remember seeing some of the unclassified video from Desert Storm showing a missile shot way in the distance. And of course your favorite RIO. I interpreted these kinds of things as being "miles apart" but that was just my description.
Paramount had a huge challenge when they decided to make ‘Top Gun.’ Real-life air-to-air combat doesn’t lend itself to the silver screen in that it’s super technical, very chaotic, and generally takes place at ranges that would prevent two jets from being in the frame at the same time. So, of course, writers Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. and the late-great director Tony Scott had to take some liberties to make the dynamic world of fighter aviation into something that might entertain movie-goers.
There's unclassified information on the Sidewinder. Is this information incorrect?
Recent models of the AIM-9 are configured with an annular-blast fragmentation warhead, the WDU-17B by Argotech Corporation. The case is made from spirally wound spring steel filled with 8 lb (3.6 kg) of PBXN-3 explosive. The warhead features a safe/arm device requiring five seconds at 20 g (~200 m/s²) acceleration before the fuze is armed, giving a minimum range of approximately 2.5 km (1.6 mi).
I owe you an apology - I was unreasonably short in my response. My rhetoric came off as harshly critical. I am sorry.
The AIM-9 minimum arm range is, well, not quite what wikipedia says. I can't comment further. Sorry.
A fighter maneuvering at a mile away, to me, looks like a fighter a mile away. I can see the airframe, cockpit, vapor trails coming off the wings on a humid day, etc. Small, but detailed.
Same fighter looks like a dot to a HUD camera.
So, even though the camera captures other fighters as dots in a two circle fight, they don't look like dots to me, and that's what I was objecting to. Part of being successful in air combat is maintaining sight of the opponent. It's true that lots of camera footage looks like dots, but while some engagements, and turns, happen at radii of several thousand feet, many times, you are much, much, closer, for example, in a one circle, slow speed fight.
I've also pressed the 500' envelope (minimum range for air to air combat) and tracked with a gun sight - the other airplane appeared HUGE in front of my airplane. Dramatically large, in fact. Easy to move the pipper around the airframe, even canopy/cockpit.
The nature of off-boresight weapons has really changed the game. Yes, using minimum range to arm is now a tactical consideration (jam the shot by getting too close) but the weapon coming off the rail and guiding before the nose is pointed has caused a dramatic shift in fighter combat tactics.
I've been stymied on previous posts by the challenge of describing how fighter tactics work. It's too hard for me to describe in a post - like trying to describe how to play chess in one post, perhaps.
This is a great book that covers the basics: https://www.amazon.com/Fighter-Combat-Maneuvering-Robert-Shaw/dp/0870210599
But it's 30 years out of date, now, with new, sophisticated weapons and new, super-maneverable airplanes.
It’s all good. I’ll admit that I got a bad impression of what those cameras captured.
However, I got that 1.6 mile arming estimate from a DoD hosted website. Not sure what the deal was with it though.
