If you're into fighter jets...

[vanir]

Okay so I did a bunch of pretty detailed research and got all excited playing Lock On, then sat down and wrote out a mini history of modern fighter jets basically covering the 70's-90's period. Info comes from a variety of engineers and primary sources with only a touch of personal speculation where noted.

 

I dunno, nobody might be interested, this might seem a weird place to post such a thing but it didn't really seem appropriate for Entertainment forums since they're fanart/fanfic/RPG etc.

 

It's not that long, in word format, here:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/a2dfbcc/n/jet_fighters_zip

 

It can be a bit tech-heavy if you're not into this sort of thing. And I do make the Cold War a clear backdrop so it might get up your nose if you're Americentric or Russocentric about aeronautical engineering. Also sorry, poms and frenchies might feel left out but hey, blame the Cold War technologies.

 

Cheers.

[Prime]

Interesting that you should post this. I'm currently going through Ace Combat 6, so I'm back into jet aircraft fandom. I grew up an aircraft fanatic so you are covering an era I used to know quite well. My grandfather was a WW2 pilot and he always had aviation books and magazines around and crazy stories. F-14s and 15s and 18s for the win! I look forward to seeing what you have put together.

[vanir]

Thanks Prime, let me know what you think (or if the link is broken). A lot of it is about the Foxbat but this model was at the centre of the driving forces behind the designs of the early 70's, new fighter doctrines and what we have today.

 

Which model/s did your grandfather fly?

 

 

 

 

One of the very disturbing things I noticed was the tremendous chasm between claimed performance figures and engineering specifications for popular models. Naturally it appears I would speculate due to the American privatisation culture for defence industry, American defence industry contractors have much more invested in salesmanship than Soviet OKB development centres, which receive subsidisation (ie. guaranteed income contracts) irrespective whether designs achieve their goals (hence subsequent witchhunts when they don't). By comparison American defence contractors tend to publish performance specifications for specially prepared test vehicles, where Soviets tend to use preproduction models not really very far removed from regular service examples, simply because they don't need to secure export sales or compete for gvt contracts. That said, Soviet designs tend to be more single minded, where American ones may be more adaptable and certainly more carefully mooted and developed. Yanks exaggerate, but do often build better stuff to exaggerate.

 

For example according to my research (including pilot testimony):

 

Aircraft claimed top speed actual top speed (conditions)

 

F-4 2.23 Mach 2 Mach (clean dash)

F-15 2.5+ Mach 1.78 Mach (normal max loaded)

F-16 2.0+ Mach 2 Mach (wingtip AIM-9 only)

F/A-18 1.8 Mach 1.1 Mach (low alt, air-air load)

MiG-21MF 2.2 Mach 2.0 Mach (clean dash)

MiG-23M 2.35 Mach 2.0 Mach (loaded)

MiG-25P 2.8 Mach 2.35 Mach (normal max cruise loaded)

MiG-25RB 2.8 Mach 2.83 Mach (max dash loaded)