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I'm sure you could lump those in there as well. There has to be some
*formal* convention where this is spelled out no? Isn't *he* the optimist! ![]() Wll, common sense would dictate, the way people (important people) throw these terms around, that you would be able to open a book and read what attributes make up a 3rd generation fighter. For example, I thought Look-Down/Shoot-Down radar technology was an attribute of a 4th generation fighter? BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
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In message , BUFDRVR
writes I'm sure you could lump those in there as well. There has to be some *formal* convention where this is spelled out no? Isn't *he* the optimist! ![]() Wll, common sense would dictate, the way people (important people) throw these terms around, that you would be able to open a book and read what attributes make up a 3rd generation fighter. For example, I thought Look-Down/Shoot-Down radar technology was an attribute of a 4th generation fighter? The cynic in me says "the Marketing Department define it and the highest generation is what they're trying to sell; the next generation down is anything they can't underbid". So, some US marketeers would have you believe that the only 4th or 5th generation fighter is the F/A-22. Others would insist the F-35 counts too. Eurofighter would claim that supercruise (also a contentious definition), sensor fusion, networked capability et al is the definition so they qualify, and then Dassault complain that the Rafale ought to be in there too... then LockMart go back to muttering that only stealth makes a top-generation fighter and the argument starts over again. Does going supersonic count as a generation shift? That might or might not take you from F-86/MiG-15/Hunter to F-100/MiG-19 territory. Third generation got more significantly multirole and had some all-weather capability as routine, rather than handing the mission over to aircraft like Starfires (F-4s, MiG-23s). Then you get into "what's the next step"? A F-15 is a clear step up on a F-4 in ACM, but (in the -A and -C mods) is single-role: the F-4 is all-weather, BVR and Mach 2, the Eagle is "same but better" except it doesn't multirole. Does that qualify as a generation or an increment? Similarly, is there really a generation between a F-86 and a F-100, given that both were designed as guns-only dayfighters (and both could carry Sidewinders once available... and the F-86 was developed into an all-weather interceptor while the F-100 wasn't). Or for that matter, the MiG-21/Lightning/F-104/Mirage crowd... which added speed but not much other capability. -- When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. W S Churchill Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk |
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