On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:24:14 -0500, "John Carrier"
wrote:


"Wolfhenson" wrote in message
. com...
I have recently red that instantenious rate of turn of Vietnam vintage
supersonic
fighters is less than 15 deg/sec. What are the excat figures for F-4,
F-105 and
F-8? Please include speed and altitude.


Well, I don't have any pubs or tacmans available, so we're going on memory,
but you number is maybe a bit low for a hard-wing F-4, real close for the
F-8, definitely too high for the 105.

Corner speed (6.5 G) for Phantom was about 425KIAS, 370 for F-8, 105 was
higher. Ed Rasimus should be able to give you some data there.

Corner velocity, by definition, is the minimum speed at which you can
generate maximum allowable G-load. So, the corner for the F-4 relates
to 7.33+ G at most weights. We usually used 420 KIAS for the F-4
hard-wing. The max G, of course, could be considerably reduced based
on stores retained--even empty fuel tanks.

For the F-105, which had a max allowable G of 8.2, the speed was
higher--generally considered around 480 KIAS. But, the fact of the
matter was that drag rose so fast at high G that you couldn't sustain
for very long--airspeed bleed off put you below corner very rapidly.
(One reason why an F-105 driver only felt comfortable in the 540-600
KIAS region!).

Generally, the sustained turn rate was around 14-15 degrees/second for
the F-4 hard-wing and about 12.5-13.5 for the F-105.

The real issue with the 105 in air/air was that if an opponent could
come up to your speed, he couldn't turn with you. If you slowed to his
speed, you'd be the main course for lunch.

Ignoring momentary pitch rates (which can be phenomenally high) current
fighters can exceed 20 degrees/second.

That is SUSTAINED!!!! The idea of holding 9 Gs for a while still makes
my vision dim sitting at the computer.


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