CRIKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! - ATAR POWERED PHANTOMS WAS AN OPTION FOR THE RAAF

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DropBear KC-135's 11/22/2005 7:17:22 AM

And purchasing a couple would have been a no-no, apparently? Curious.

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DropBear RE:CRIKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! - ATAR POWERED PHANTOMS WAS AN OPTION FOR THE RAAF 11/22/2005 8:44:03 PM

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AussieEngineer RE:KC-135's 11/22/2005 10:59:43 PM

Apparently so. I can't believe they even suggested Atar powered F-4s though. Avon powered phantoms though, they would have been as good as Avon powered miracles.

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DropBear RE:KC-135's 11/22/2005 11:35:48 PM

One wonders just how good the Avon Miracle would have been compared to a F-106 toting P&W J75. 26,500lbs - now that is serious oomph!

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DropBear F404 powered Miracle - what if... 2/3/2006 1:15:08 AM

Now there is a thought! Haven't worked out the measurements yet though.

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doggtag RE:RB.199 powered Miracle - what if... 2/3/2006 2:56:51 PM

How 'bout this one, DB? Logistical concerns aside, the RB.199 (almost an additional 1000pounds thrust over an Atar 9K50) had an integrated thrust reverser (at least as far as the Tornado was concerned) that, if the engine were turned 90 degrees, could've effluxed (vented) to the sides rather than up and down like the Tornado, allowing the Mirage-acle incredibly short landing roll-outs (with full brakes and flaps). Now if we just slap a RATO bottle or two under the tail for take-offs (some early Mirages actually had an integral-mounted (I believe liquid-fueled) rocket booster just there under the tail), you could've gained a few extra thousand pounds of thrust for a reduced take-off run, too. Elderly airframe design aside (M2000 is a much improved design), modern avionics (here I go again) could still make it a favorable aircraft, along the lines of the South African Cheetah and Israeli Kfir (which overcame the Mirage's shortcomings by saddling a J79 instead). Choice be mine (dammit, DB, you got my brain working again!), I opt for my "Miracle 21" to have my ever-favored F-20-shaped radome, F404 engine pushing 18,000pounds (assuming no reduced landing behavior is required), scrap the two 30mm DEFAs for either a single BK27 (better velocity & ROF) or Rafale's M931 (much better ROF), keeping the full ammo capacity for both previous guns, but feeding only a single now. The other route, were ground attack the concern, would be a semi-conformal 5-barrel 25mm, stuck on as was the 20mm Vulcan under the F-4's nose, although a Mirage-acle would've had to mount it close to the original gun bay, but slightly offset from the nose landing gear bay (similar of Gripen's 27mm). ...an even more interesting notion would've been an Oz J79 Miracle to augment J79-powered Phantoms. Or would you have preferred Speys?

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DropBear RE:RB.199 powered Miracle - what if... 2/4/2006 12:56:08 AM

The reason I thought about this was that a modern turbofan would have alleviated the main problems with the Miracle, they being range and unreliability of the Atar. The rest of the jet was quite sound. I actually like the Miracle as adesign and platform but have hated it due to the crap engine. Had a GE J79 fitted snuggly that would have sufficed.

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Aussiegunnerreturns RE:KC-135's 2/4/2006 3:51:23 AM

"And purchasing a couple would have been a no-no, apparently? Curious." If they had have stuck with an F-4/KC-135 combo it would have increased the striking range of the RAAF well beyond that of the F-111 due to the possibility of multiple refills. It would have substantially decreased the total number of bombs we could put on the ground, out the the F-111's maximum range though. Its an interesting question, would the extra range or extra firepower have been more valuable? Also, I wonder if the F-4/KC-135 combo would have been cheaper than the F-111's in the long run?

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AussieEngineer RE:RB.199 powered Miracle - what if... 2/4/2006 5:34:51 AM

"scrap the two 30mm DEFAs for either a single BK27 (better velocity & ROF) or Rafale's M931 (much better ROF), keeping the full ammo capacity for both previous guns, but feeding only a single now." 2 guns is better than 1, doubles your rate of fire and gives you redundancy.

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doggtag Is 2 guns better than 1? 2/4/2006 9:08:55 PM

->"2 guns is better than 1, doubles your rate of fire and gives you redundancy. " ---- So why then do US-built aircraft carry only one (albeit one with six barrels)? Since the A-4 and F-5, everything else carries the M61 (GAU-8 in A-10), and only the Apache is the only single-barrel-gun-armed aircraft currently in US inventory. Most others now using single-barrel weapons are only using single guns now: Tornado ADV (IDS still uses 2), Gripen, Rafale, MiG-29 family and Su-27 family all use a single gun. As for redundancy: M61s and other rotary cannon can eject dud rounds that don't fire, and the newer single-barrel weapons have automatic (normally pneumatic) reing for jams/misfires. As for any ideas on a single gun off to either side of the centerline causing any yaw from firing: all current aircraft with offset cannon (F-15 and F-16 being prime examples) have software written into the flight computer code to automatically make minute fly-by-wire yaw corrections to compensate for any gun recoil. So redundancy really then is over-rated. And except for the 2 BK27s in the Tornado IDS (Interdictor Strike, the ground attack models), most other aircraft carrying 2 guns do so because they have a lower rate of fire than current singles (BK27-1700 to 1800rpm, Rafale's 30mm M791-2500rpm, ADEN 30mm-1150 to 1350rpm, DEFA 552&553-1200 to 1500rpm), so maybe the idea was to get more rounds out in the time alloted. Also, most of the two-gun aircraft were designed before flight software was written to compensate for offset guns, so recoil balance necessitated two weapons if they were not along the centerline. And except for US aircraft with their Vulcan guns, most other new jets are willing to sacrific a single gun in an effort to save even just a few extra hundred pounds of weight between the gun and its feed chutes. Rafale started with 2 M791 guns (which for the longest time I always misnamed the M931), but I believe now the French have considered that one is sufficient (although I could be wrong here, also). Rates of fire are adjustable: US weapons use sheer horsepower to drive rotary cannons: the 7-barrel GAU-8 in the A-10 requires 77horsepower for gun drives and feed mechanisms. But single-barrel guns use the revolver principle (like a wheel gun), with most commonly a 5-chambered revolver cylinder. France's M791 uses 7 chambers, which allows such a high rate of fire (2500rpm) from a single-barrel weapon. Keep in mind also: simply for the fact a rotary cannon rotates all its barrels every firing cycle, it can sustain fire for longer bursts because its gatling principle allows greater cooling between shots per barrel: a GAU-8, at its earlier 4200rpm setting, fired 70 shots per second, or 10 per second per barrel, equating to 600rpm per barrel per minute. Single-barrel revolvers can only burst-fire at such high rates (1350-2500rpm), as they must avoid over-heating the barrels and mechanisms, which could lead to catastrophic weapon failure should a round cook off accidentally. So sensibly, if surface attack which may require a lot of strafing is your concern, then gatling rotary weapons are the more sensible gun choice. But if air-to-air is the primary concern, the quicker rate at which single-barrel guns reach their maximum rate of fire is more preferrable: a 20mm M61 takes .5 sec to reach its full 6000rpm ROF. In that half second, at jet combat speeds, aicraft can move several hundred feet. The idea is to get (even using lead-computing) the most number of rounds into the reticle's center in a given time. Single barrel guns do it faster per barrel, but rotary cannon can do it longer. Notice also that most US aircraft have minimally 500 rounds or so for the 20mm M61. But most single-barrel-gun aircraft barely carry 200 rounds per gun, with 150-180 being more common: hardly a fair argument when giving a gun a 20-40 shots per second firing rate. This is why single-barrel guns also fire bursts: it takes far fewer 27-30mm rounds to do the damage that several more 20mm shells are required to do. The GSh-301 (30mm) used in the Flanker family, like most other single-barrel weapons, fire a limited burst of only a half dozen or so rounds in tenths of a second, wheras Vulcan 20mm weapons may expend more than 2 dozen rounds or more per burst. Another thing about single-barrel weapons is that they pretty much have a set dispersion (ideally, none, preferring a very low MOA at range). But Vulcan-type weapons can be configured by slightly varying the convergence of each barrel in the cluster to disperse their combined shells into a given area at a given distance (like how WW2 multi-gun aircraft synchronized their weapons to converge at certain ranges). This is more useful on area targets (ground). The above is why I suggested, for ground attack, a Miracle be armed with the 5-barrel 25mm cannon as on the Harrier II and JSF (which originally was considered to possibly have a US-produced BK27 model). Personally, I think the weapon would've been an ideal replacement for the two 20mm guns in A-4 Skyhawks, also, were it kept longer in USMC inventory.

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DropBear RE:Is 2 guns better than 1? 2/4/2006 9:27:51 PM

So sensibly, if surface attack which may require a lot of strafing is your concern, then gatling rotary weapons are the more sensible gun choice. Or you could pop the canopy and get the F-111 Navigator to wave his arm around in the slipstream and madly fire off ("getting his gun off" is usually left till he is home with the wife/girlfriend)a few short sharp bursts of his Glock G17 JAP. link Heck, if Biggles could lob Cooper bombs from his Camel with one hand I say go the tonk G17/Pig style.

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DropBear RE:Is 2 guns better than 1? 2/4/2006 9:31:07 PM

Personally, I think the weapon would've been an ideal replacement for the two 20mm guns in A-4 Skyhawks, also, were it kept longer in USMC inventory. Scooters!!! link link

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AussieEngineer RE:Is 2 guns better than 1? 2/4/2006 10:22:18 PM

It's only an extra 100 kilos, why have one when you can have two. Considering that the Miracle has space and mountings for 2 guns already it makes sense to simply pop in 2 new and better guns.

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DropBear RE:Is 2 guns better than 1? 2/4/2006 11:53:28 PM

Would you want to get in a dog fight if you were flying a M1110? I'd stick with AAMs

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doggtag RE:Is 2 guns better than 1? 2/5/2006 12:04:56 AM

->"It's only an extra 100 kilos, why have one when you can have two. Considering that the Miracle has space and mountings for 2 guns already it makes sense to simply pop in 2 new and better guns. " ---- Beats me why all the fuss. I don't design the aircraft, I just marvel at them. On some aircraft, weight is at a premium, so even the loss of one gun's worth of kg might be necessary. Space can also be a deciding factor: perhaps the size of the Gripen dictated just one gun instead of two (yet the Tornado Air Defense Variants, which boasted a slightly longer fuselage than the ground attack models, opted for a single BK27 instead of the two in the IDS). The Israelis modded some of their Scooters with a pair of 1800rpm DEFA 554s (30x113mm) w/150rpg in place of the two original 20mm Mk12s (20x102mm) w/200rpg. However, had the 30mm guns used the much-longer 30x173mm as does the A-10, the shells probably wouldn't have fit (DEFA and ADEN guns used the same 30x113mm as does the Apache's M230 Chain Gun). So I am just guessing that the aircraft designers do have certain constraints that must be adhered to (space also being at a premium when centers of gravity must be maintained and avionics, fuel, and other systems have to fit also): or else why did the decision to go from 1950s cannon-armed Hunters and Vantours with 4 30mm cannons switch to just two BK27s in the Tornado IDS or two DEFA 553s in Mirages come the 1970s and 1980s? And moreso, why do only US-designed aircraft retain large-capacity magazines (500+ rounds...) as opposed to Euro designs only holding 150-200 rounds per gun: were the Europeans not expecting their aircraft to endure as long? link US experience has shown time and again that aerial gunnery (vs air or ground targets) has its advantages. Apparently European forces have decided otherwise, perhaps choosing to be overly-dependent on bombs, rockets, and missiles, and perfoming shorter-duration missions than US-designed platforms, thus negating the necessity/desire for larger gun capacities...? ...or maybe US pilots still have that macho attitude and need to boast of gun kills to satiate their manliness, so our aircraft designers satisfy that need with an excessive number of rounds.

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