From: raymond@jupiter.ame.arizona.edu (Raymond Man)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Tornado F3 replacement
Date: 24 Jan 93 15:56:30 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson


From raymond@jupiter.ame.arizona.edu (Raymond Man)

This was my mail to (Paul Griffiths) on the subject, I thought
I might as well post on the net. I know many may consider this as
noise, but the group may turn moderated soon and this could be
my last chance before "professional correctness" may deem my
articles unpostable. Anyway, my writings are not as cryptic as
"the Worm is Dead"*, so I hope some netters might enjoy this post.

[mod note -- Gee, I thought sci.military was moderated :-)

Steve]

_________________________________________________________________
About the Harrier, let me first make it clear I AM a Harrier lover
and I admire Sir Camm & Sir Fozard. But let's be a little more
objective. If a pilot wins over F-14/F-15 in a Harrier, it just
because he is a good pilot and his opponents less so. If you
allow me first ignore VIFFing* for the Harrier, you can see that,
although it is a nice little aeroplane to fly, with its small
wings, single engine and dragy intakes cannot not be in the same
league with the modern fighters (F-14/15/16/17/18 and F-20 too).
In terms of armourment, neither its ADEN nor Sidewinders can be
on pars with the Vulcan and Sparrow. However a good pilot compensate
his short in range by surprising his foes and jumping on them from
nowhere. The very large F-14/F-15 tend to give themselves away
visually while the small Harrier is hard to spot. But then these
can be taken advantage of only by good pilots. Given average pilots,
the performance of the F-14/F-15 will give an edge.

Now VIFFing, I am not sure how many can master this black art and
almost by definition those who can are good pilots. The increase
of performance by VIFFing is actually slight: at most it adds an
extra g to the turning, which at high energy is 6-7 g already.
The difference between the wing loading of the F-15 vs the Harrier
ensured a margin way larger than that already. So the actual
benifit might come from the fact that for an opponent who is not
familiar with VIFFing, the lack of visual clue to him when the
Harrier starts the maneuver might throw him off. But then it just
come back to the point of a good pilot vs an average, not very
experienced pilot.

V/STOVL extracts a large price in the performance of an aircraft
due to the added weights, complexity and aerodynamic compromises.
However, in certain applications, the tactical advantage from that
well worths it. So I believe V/STOVL has a big future, but don't
believe it will dominate over non-V/STOL designs.

The song that V/STOVL will take over has been sung over and over
many times and I have heard it since the early '70s. Just look at
the number of prototyes built by US alone and one will be amazed
that no single US V/STOVL jet survived to production. With so many
paper planes and lift concepts studied now, one may think that we
are about to enter V/STOVL age. But the future to a person looking
forward in the '60s was probably just as bright.

If the British Sky Hook project comes to successful conclusion, I
shall be far more optimistic. Right now I am just a bit skeptical.

*"the Worm is Dead" was a reference to the demise of the NASA logo.
*VIFF (Vector-thrust In Forward Flight)
-- 
Just call me `Man'. 
"And why take ye thought for "    --   Matt. 6:28
raymond@jupiter.ame.arizona.edu
Newsgroups: sci.military