On 8/25/04 8:57, in article , "Ed
Rasimus" wrote:

Highly unlikely. First, consider how often fighter pilot's sit around
discussing with their spouses the preference for number of engines on
their jet. I've tried two wives and never discussed engine count with
either. It isn't a hot topic.


Ed, I agree with you that the spouse thing is bogus. I do remember
(however) seeing a PR video (perhaps also bogus) touting interviews with old
fighter pilots and their desires as inputs to the F-14's design.

Second, two versus one isn't all the reliability advantage it's
cracked up to be. There's the problem of increased complexity and
increased probability of a critical component failure. There's the
system maintenance cost and the greater incidence of an aircraft being
unavailable for an engine problem. While two engines are great in a
training environment, they don't offer that much more in combat (at
least in that historic time frame.) My experience with both single
engine and two engine airplanes over North Vietnam was that an F-4
that suffered battle damage to an engine usually lost the other engine
shortly thereafter due to fratricide from the breaking up engine.
(There are exceptions to every generality of course.)


I disagree with the one engine is as reliable as two issue. I was in the
room when a former COMNAVAIRSYSCOM VADM recited the phrase that the JSF
would be single engine because the Navy could save 5% program cost (still a
lot of money) and that the single JSF engine would statistically be as
reliable as the 2 F404's in the Hornet today... which is great until you FOD
that motor on the cat launch.

Additional complexity? Yes. Better redundancy? Most definitely. That
engine is a critical piece potentially single point failure. You lose it,
life is bad (especially in the carrier environment where you don't have the
luxury of a perpetually ready deck and a precautionary or SFO approach).

Look at the number of Vipers lost to engine failure and the number of
Hornets lost to engine failure. I bet we've lost more F-16's.

But, third, and most likely issue is take a look at the immediate
predecessor from MacD--the F-101. Taken side-by-side there is a clear
generational development picture. Two engine, two place, big radar,
interceptor, etc. Add a bigger wing with BLC for lower wing-loading,
eliminate the T tail and droop the slab to correct pitch-up and you've
got a Voodoo become Phantom.


Good family tree review.

Competition currently between one and two engine drivers is usually
related more to mission and performance rather than dependability of
motors.


In my experience these days it's mostly cost driven.

--Woody


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org