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Fred J. McCall

(Harry Andreas) wrote:

:In article , "Howard C. Berkowitz"
wrote:
:
: In article , Fred J. McCall
: wrote:
:
: "Typhoon502" wrote:
:
: :Thomas Schoene wrote:
: : Strike and cold-nose (i.e., no radar) aren't compatible options anymore.
: : You need radar ground-mapping modes at a minimum, and realistically
: : also some air-to-air modes for self-defense. At that point, there's not
: : a huge amount of unique Sparrow or Phoenix support left in the system.
: : But you have to ADD distinctive strike capabilities, such as a laser
: : designator and FLIR (e.g. LANTIRN) to match the A-6's TRAM sensor turret.
: :
: : OTOH, a ground-up redesign of the F-14 like the Super Hornet (ASF-14,
: : roughly) might have allowed significant savings.
: :
: :How much of the maintenance issues were related to the swing wing?
:
: Very few.
:
: :Theoretically, do you think a redesign of that scale would have
: :retained the swinger or was it an outdated solution?
:
: The alternative would be a redesign much more extreme than what was
: done with the Super Bug, since the alternative to achieve everything
: the swing wing brought to the table would be aerodynamically unstable
: flight.
:
: There actually were early Tomcat designs with fixed wings that looked
: a lot like those on the F-15. They went with the swing wing instead.
:
: Fred, was the flight control computing needed to support unstable
: designs available at the time of design of the F-14? Do I hear you
: saying that once decent flight control systems were available, the
: swing wing lost its justification?
:
:not Fred, but...
:
:The design period of the F-14 was mid 60's, long before there was enough
:computing power to support unstable FBW designs. IIRC it was actually
:before the very idea.
:
:The swing wing idea has more to do with top speed/approach speed
:than with manuevering and stability.

The F-16 technology demonstrator stuff actually started in the
mid-1960s as well. The difference was that the F-14 was one of the
most capable and expensive fighter aircraft being developed and the
F-16 was a technology demonstrator program. You will decline risks
doing the former that you might decide are acceptable doing the
latter.

The Air Force would not have bought the F-16 if there hadn't been the
preceding technology demonstrator phase to prove out the fly-by-wire
stuff.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney