F/A-18 Super Hornet

[Steven Jaime]

This is not a measuring contest.

If you have something valuable to add to the discussion, you are more then welcomed.

Are you the Mod?

[Doktor]

Should I be?

This is not a chat room, nor a place where people hold measuring contests.

[Steven Jaime]

Should I be?

This is not a chat room, nor a place where people hold measuring contests.

Ok got it

[Chogy]

Steven, welcome to WAB. This forum is different from 98% of the other military/aviation forums out there in that we rarely embrace the "Hornet vs. Su-30" sorts of threads that abound on the others. While aircraft and missile metrics are interesting and can be fun, they really don't tell the true story about how a force is employed in combat.

What we see in an airshow bears little resemblance to real world combat. Airshow maneuverings (cobras, etc) are designed to sell aircraft to foreign heads of State, and to wow the citizenry.

Even 25 years ago, we realized that advances in sensors and weapons has essentially relegated the "dogfight" to an honored place in history. The purpose of the turning fight, as developed as it was in WW1, was to get on the enemy's tail and employ a gun on him. This held true up through the Korean war. But we no longer need to do this. Did you know there hasn't been a U.S. AA gun kill since Vietnam, excluding an A-10 killing a helicopter? And that throughout Desert Storm, most fights were over within 270 degrees of turn. Employment was high-speed dashes, acquire, short, sharp turns, fire, get out..

There are some excellent threads here that discuss this evolution in detail. One among many...

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/mil...actor-war.html

The history of the turning fight has immense inertia; designers still seek hyper-maneuverability, and the F-22 still has a gun. Fortunately, more forward-thinking engineers and military men realized that the turning fight could be offloaded into the missile. Let it do all the work! Besides, the human body has a tough time dealing with 25+ G's.

[Steven Jaime]

Steven, welcome to WAB. This forum is different from 98% of the other military/aviation forums out there in that we rarely embrace the "Hornet vs. Su-30" sorts of threads that abound on the others. While aircraft and missile metrics are interesting and can be fun, they really don't tell the true story about how a force is employed in combat.

What we see in an airshow bears little resemblance to real world combat. Airshow maneuverings (cobras, etc) are designed to sell aircraft to foreign heads of State, and to wow the citizenry.

Even 25 years ago, we realized that advances in sensors and weapons has essentially relegated the "dogfight" to an honored place in history. The purpose of the turning fight, as developed as it was in WW1, was to get on the enemy's tail and employ a gun on him. This held true up through the Korean war. But we no longer need to do this. Did you know there hasn't been a U.S. AA gun kill since Vietnam, excluding an A-10 killing a helicopter? And that throughout Desert Storm, most fights were over within 270 degrees of turn. Employment was high-speed dashes, acquire, short, sharp turns, fire, get out..

There are some excellent threads here that discuss this evolution in detail. One among many...

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/mil...actor-war.html

The history of the turning fight has immense inertia; designers still seek hyper-maneuverability, and the F-22 still has a gun. Fortunately, more forward-thinking engineers and military men realized that the turning fight could be offloaded into the missile. Let it do all the work! Besides, the human body has a tough time dealing with 25+ G's.

Thanks,

So are you a former Hornet pilot?

[Chogy]

No, I flew the F-15C. Fought Hornets (the original) many times.

[Steven Jaime]

No, I flew the F-15C. Fought Hornets (the original) many times.

Ahh, so how was it like fighting the C/D Hornets while flying the F-15C?

[Chogy]

I did not fight the newer Hornet variant. The original excelled at high AOA, but was a bit draggy and underpowered. We simply avoided the slow fight with them, or let our missiles do the slow fighting instead. ;)

[TopHatter]

Are you the Mod?

Welcome to the forum Steven.

As you have probably noticed by now, the WAB can be and is self-regulated by the Senior Contributors when needed, as the Mods can't be everywhere at once.
Speaking of the Senior Members, do please remember that you are the newcomer there. Telling them if they can't handle something that they should "get out" is not a good idea.

A suggestion for enjoying your time here, read this post carefully. It's a great way to get a feel for the ebb and flow of the board.
http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/wab...val-guide.html

[Steven Jaime]

I did not fight the newer Hornet variant. The original excelled at high AOA, but was a bit draggy and underpowered. We simply avoided the slow fight with them, or let our missiles do the slow fighting instead. ;)

Ahh, ok the Super Hornet had many improvements, like going into high AoA. Yes the Hornet virants have that drag problem but the conformal fuel tanks wil make the Super Hornet not draggy and create adding lift. But what do you mean underpowered?

[GGTharos]

That's no improvement. The hornet was always capable of high AoA - it's quite a desireable feature for a carrier-based aircraft. The improvements are in avionics, communications, payload, and range as compared to older variants. Performance hasn't changed much otherwise.

CFTs are neat, unfortunately superhornets don't need fuel tanks to lose .3-.4 mach ... they just need missiles and possibly a targetting pod. Add a fuel tank and they'll be lucky to break the sound barrier while lubed up and being pushed by another hornet down-hill. And that's what under-powered means.
Underpowered also means not being able to hold sustained turns as at high a g as another, more powerful aircraft. It means not climbing as well and not accelerating as well. In other words, it is a classic low T/W fighter compared to most other fighters.

Ahh, ok the Super Hornet had many improvements, like going into high AoA. Yes the Hornet virants have that drag problem but the conformal fuel tanks wil make the Super Hornet not draggy and create adding lift. But what do you mean underpowered?

[zraver]

I did not fight the newer Hornet variant. The original excelled at high AOA, but was a bit draggy and underpowered. We simply avoided the slow fight with them, or let our missiles do the slow fighting instead. ;)

The navy had the F-14 for interceptors duties then.

[YellowFever]

Which brings up a question that I had that wasn't hashed all the way when we discussed this earlier.

Seeing as how the bug (super or otherwise) isn' t nearly the interceptor the Tomcat was, how is the Navy compensating for it's shortcoming compared to the F14?

Tactics? (cap further out from the carriers? Positioning escorts further out? Etc....)

Or did the advancement of technology (longer ranged sensors and sams) pretty much negated the need for the Tom?

[GGTharos]

The SM-6 is coming into play, which can deal with over-the-horizon threats. The superbug itself will be far more capable than the tomcat with the AIM-120D. No, it won't get there as fast, but F-14's already flew pre-positioned CAPs anyway. It's not as simple as talking about the speed of the airframe, although that is a factor. Of course, the tomcat also had a much larger radar dish - but the superhornet has a lot of sensor fusion/network capability that the tomcat didn't, and air to ground capability that the tomcat didn't. So the question probably came down to which fighter to equip with all this instead of updating both designs.

Which brings up a question that I had that wasn't hashed all the way when we discussed this earlier.

Seeing as how the bug (super or otherwise) isn' t nearly the interceptor the Tomcat was, how is the Navy compensating for it's shortcoming compared to the F14?

Tactics? (cap further out from the carriers? Positioning escorts further out? Etc....)

Or did the advancement of technology (longer ranged radar and sam) pretty much negated the need for the Tom?

[TopHatter]

Seeing as how the bug (super or otherwise) isn' t nearly the interceptor the Tomcat was, how is the Navy compensating for it's shortcoming compared to the F14?

I think one of the biggest reasons why the long-range interceptor capabilities of the Tomcat were allowed to lapse was a lack of mission. There wasn't any massed regiments of Backfire bombers standing by to pounce on the CVBG's anymore.

Otherwise it's likely that the DoD would've chosen one of the myriad Tomcat upgrade proposals that Grumman put out.