On 17 Aug 2003 13:57:45 GMT, (Pechs1) wrote:

jrweiss- Hmmm... Are you talking 450 KIAS or 450 KTAS?

I doubt the T-2 will do 450 KIAS level in any configuration. Getting another
50
KIAS would likely require more thrust than any pair of J-85s could produce.
BRBR

I donno...the max was 385KIAS(??, it was 10 years ago)...and that was pretty
easy...I think an extra 65 knots was in there somewhere...

This is the T-2 with the Hershey-bar wing, isn't it? Roughly the same
airplane as the T-33 Shooting Star?

I hate to sound pessimistic, but I don't think you could get 450 KIAS
out of that airplane going downhill with the wind at your back. Drag
counts R us.

Those early jets weren't designed to go very fast. They were still
too much like the heavy-metal prop planes that had preceded them.
Designers were still fiddling around, leery of shock travel and
control reversal. If you look at some of the early jets, you'll see
that the optimization hadn't started yet. Antennas were big, noses
were blunt or rounded instead of pointy, wings weren't swept,
cross-sectional area changed abruptly, and so on.

Heinemann's Hotrod, the A-4, was one of the early operational aircraft
to look like a 'modern' jet airplane. Pointy nose, area rule, good
forebody flow, delta wing, good drag count reduction. Everyone was
working toward the same goals, of course, and a lot of aircraft of the
period had all those features. I don't know what made Heinemann's
design so good, but I've always suspected it had something to do with
the limitations inherent in the airplane being relatively small.

I was at a symposium where Heinemann and Kelly Johnson talked about
their aircraft and their design process. Both of them had been real
fans of the NACA, using the latest research results in their designs,
but they both said it took them a while to believe the new design
concepts. They both said that good airplanes looked _good_, but what
looked good changed. This was about the time of the F-14 and F-15
became operational, maybe five years later, and square inlets still
looked odd to many of us.

IIRC, the A-4C, which was a very
clean machine, supposedly could do 540 KIAS. The SuperFox would likely go
faster if the dorsal hump was absent. BRBR

The hump made the jet a little more stable at really high speeds(less 'dog
walk')...I had 3 A-4Ms with a lot of the stuff removed, but still had the
hump...great self starting jet...Sat up higher in the cockpit tho, for some
stuff under the seat, not as comfy as the A-4E/F/F+

It's good to know that design really works. We don't want you pilots
to have to compensate for a loose airplane, particularly at high
speeds. That can be dangerous, even. Directional stability is
important.

Mary
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer