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Subject: And now for something completely different...RAAF chooses EE Lightning over Mirage.
Volkodav    5/24/2009 4:55:42 AM
The Lightning was a contender for RAAF how serious a contender I don't know. The main choice always seemed to be between the Mirage and the Lockheed Starfighter with the Phantom and Lightning being only bit players. The Lightning was apparently ruled out due to it's lack of ground attack capability, not that the Mirage was a wiz in the air to ground department either. The RR Avon and Ferranti Airpass radar of the Lightning were actually considered for the baseline Mirage III EO as they would have offered significantly improved performance. Imagine now that the RAAF had selected an evolved derivative of the Lightning. Would we have used it in Vietnam? What modifications and improvements would it have incorporated? What upgrades would it received during its life? What weapons would it have been certified for,i.e. Sidewinder, Paveway? What would the sale to Australia have meant for the program as a whole and then for the British and Austrlaian aviation industries?
 
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Herald12345    Using the Hun.   5/28/2009 1:02:44 PM

Data from Quest for Performance

General characteristics

  • Crew: 1

  • Length: 50 ft (15.2 m)

  • Wingspan: 38 ft 9 in (11.81 m)

  • Height: 16 ft 2¾ in (4.95 m)

  • Wing area: 400 ft² (37 m²)

  • Empty weight: 21,000 lb... (9,500 kg)

  • Loaded weight: 28,847 lb (13,085 kg)

  • Max takeoff: 34,832 lb (15,800 kg)

  • Powerplant: 1× P&W J-57-P-21/21A turbojet

    • Dry thrust: 10,200 lbf (45 kN)

    • Thrust with afterburner: 16,000 lbf (71 kN)

  • ZLD coefficient: 0.0130

  • Drag area: 5.0 ft² (0.46 m²)

  • Aspect ratio: 3.76

Performance

  • Max speed 750 kn (864 mph, 1,390 km/h)

  • Range 1,733 NM (1,995 mi, 3,210 km)

  • Service Ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m)

  • Climb: 22,400 ft/min (114 m/s)

  • Wing load: 72.1 lb/ft² (352 kg/m²)

  • TWR: 0.55

  • LDR: 13.9

Armament

  • Guns: 4 × 20 mm (0.79 in) M39 cannon

  • Missiles:

    • 4 × AIM 9 SIDEWINDER or

    • AGM_12 BULLPUP

North American F-100C Super Sabre

Last revised November 27, 1999





The F-100C fighter-bomber was the first fully combat-capable version of the Super Sabre, and was the first version of the Super Sabre to serve with the USAF in really large numbers.

In October 1952, even before the YF-100A had taken off on its first flight, the USAF asked NAA to look into the possibility of developing wings for the Super Sabre that could carry fuel. In July of 1953, the USAF asked that the new "wet" wing could be made sufficiently strong enough to carry additional external ordinance. This concept eventually emerged as the F-100C fighter-bomber version of the Super Sabre.

On December 30, 1953, the USAF revised the original F-100A production order and stipulated that the last 70 planes on that order be completed as fighter-bombers under the designation F-100C (company designation NA-214). On February 24, 1954, the Air Force ordered an additional 230 F-100Cs.

In order to provide a prototype for the F-100C project, the fourth production F-100A (serial number 52-5759) was taken out of the test program and modified. However, because of the difficulty in incorporating integral fuel tanks in an already-constructed airframe, 52-5759 remained a dry-wing aircraft. It flew for the first time on July 26, 1954. This aircraft was delivered with the short vertical tail of initial F-100A aircraft, with the taller vertical tail being fitted later.

The F-100C introduced wing modifications that added hard points on the lower surface that could be fitted with removeable pylons that could hold either fuel tanks or weapons. These six underwing stations could ac
 
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doggtag       5/29/2009 12:05:25 AM
Reading of the wet wing modification to F-100C, I wonder how well that injected material around the mounting hardware (screws, nuts, bolts, rivets) would've fared under Australian conditions (summers? maritime?) as compared to what the US experienced with them (Viet Nam? Southern US deserts?)...
Could this have thus rendered them an even greater maintenance nightmare in Australian service?
 
Was that material anything like the goo they use to patch aerial tanker aircraft?
That stuff isn't permanent, and requires a good amount of elbow grease (manual labor) to remove and replace when leaks start...
Almost sounds like a totally new wing design was in order...which then would've had people saying, "for all this money, we should've bought [insert other aircraft here] instead!"
 
As long as Australia would've possessed the day's equivalent of an air dominance fighter to keep those Mig-19s and -21s out of the picture, the Sabres would've been plenty capable (2x30mm, ~2000kg externals?) of ground attack and close air support...
Shucks, a Sidewinder-equipped Sabre would've been more than a match for a lumbering Badger, even if it would've had to work a good bit to initially catch it.
Those late-model Falcons (entry here... suggests 11km with 13kg warheads) should've been easily upgraded to be plenty capable against Badgers, Beagles, or any other over-water bomber types, and readily slung under Sabre wings as needed.
 
It might have been an interesting prospect to have seen the Falcons, past their prime as an AAM, having their nose IR seekers (or RF assemblies) replaced by some EO or laser seeker system to become quite capable ASMs, capable of attacking numerous surface targets.
Judging by what Hellfires do with 20-28 pound warheads, the Falcon as an ASM would've been nothing to smirk at.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Dropbear ... you are kidding right!?!   5/29/2009 8:07:07 AM
What are you thinking, the F-100 was an absolute dog!!! It had no radar, the highest loss rate of any USAF type at the time, it didn't have competitive handling compared to the transonic fighters that it replaced but it didn't have a sufficient speed advantage to compensate. They didn't keep it in Southern Vietnam as glorified airborne artillery as soon as they could stop sending them North for nothing!!!
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Doggtag   5/29/2009 8:11:08 AM

Shucks, a Sidewinder-equipped Sabre would've been more than a match for a lumbering Badger, even if it would've had to work a good bit to initially catch it.
Not if the Badger conducted a low level with pop up (like the Vulcan's in the Falklands) raid at night. Remember that we didn't have radar equipped Sabres, which is why we had Bloodhound's at our bases until we got the Mirages. I don't know how the Bloodhounds would have held up if the Indo's had have used chaff though.
 
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doggtag       5/29/2009 1:17:38 PM



Shucks, a Sidewinder-equipped Sabre would've been more than a match for a lumbering Badger, even if it would've had to work a good bit to initially catch it.

Not if the Badger conducted a low level with pop up (like the Vulcan's in the Falklands) raid at night. Remember that we didn't have radar equipped Sabres, which is why we had Bloodhound's at our bases until we got the Mirages. I don't know how the Bloodhounds would have held up if the Indo's had have used chaff though.


Yeah, OK, I see where you're going with this.
But the other side of that coin is, how effective would the Indos have been in planning and executing a night attack raid, over that distance, against a worthwhile target along the Australian coast (probably only using free fall dumb bombs, and maybe unguided rockets?) that kept them a safe distance from any fighters, or air defense sites, that could've even remotely put up any kind of response?
Would the Indos have been kamikaze suicidal in the mission and not cared of returning home, or would they have made the endeavors to get their aircraft and crews back as safely as possible?
And would there have been any better ability to bloody their noses on the way out?
Without the air cover of their MiGs, those bombers would've been sitting ducks on their way out as soon as the first fighter stumbled upon them.
 
Unless it was a surprise attack, I'd imagine any escalation of force that led up to such a strike might have seen a greater amount of radar surveillance systems moved between Australia and the most likely avenues of approach that an Indonesian strike package might have flown in on, along with sufficient air defense assets to counter them.
This could be another interesting what if thread: what were the systems available to Australia (aircraft, radars and missile batteries, air defense guns, and ships, combined arms tactics) that would've been employed, at what timeframe would such a potential strike have taken place, and what would be the most likely targets along the mainland worth the Indos attacking?
Nevermind the exact reasons why it happened, rather than how it would go down best-case worst-case for each side.
 
As for the instance in the Falklands, let's face it: it's not like the Argies had their top-notch air defence elements escalated around the islands to the same extent that someone like the US, UK, or Australia would escalate to to protect its own turf.
They were on a quick land grab, and certainly weren't expecting the British to commit as fully as they did in the short amount of time they did, or at least hoped to have been able to establish themselves to a more capable defense for what was coming, the best-case for them would have been in only being able to hold out longer before capitulating as they did, which only would've meant losing more men and materiel than they did, which they obviously didn't really seem to care to fully commit to in the first place, hence their short-lived occupation.
And let's face it: Argentina's land-based fighters just didn't have the at-station endurance at that distance to provide extended CAP missions to have detected and engaged/destroyed or warded off those bombers had they found them, a situation they certainly hadn't even considered was going to happen (a world-record long range bomber strike conducted via multiple inflight refuelings).
 
The biggest threat that Badgers and Beagles might have posed against Australia would've been with antiship missiles against vessels that, as the Eilat vs Styx incident showed us, might not have been up to the task of withstanding (no CIWS or widespread use of large-scale ship defense EW and decoy systems back in those days).
(...unless someone for some reason or other slipped the Indos a tactical nuke...after which it would've escalated beyond a contained incident between Indonesia and Australia.)
 
Food for thought.
 
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DropBear       5/29/2009 1:26:19 PM
What are you thinking, the F-100 was an absolute dog!!! It had no radar, the highest loss rate of any USAF type at the time, it didn't have competitive handling compared to the transonic fighters that it replaced but it didn't have a sufficient speed advantage to compensate. They didn't keep it in Southern Vietnam as glorified airborne artillery as soon as they could stop sending them North for nothing!!!
 
Quite serious. I did say it would have been interesting to see it purchased at an earlier date than that of the Miracle selection. So as to provide continuity of  knowledge in transonic/supersonic performances before more advanced platforms could be chosen (ie the F-4, which was not available for selection when the Miracle was picked).
 
I could see the RAAF using an F-100C version of the Slick Chick program to good advantage in the same way that we later modded the Pig to R/F.
 
Had we (big if) gone down the path of being a nuclear nation during the early days of the Cold War, then the Hun had universal wiring for such weapons.
 
One can't forget their involvement in ZELL. Ok, so it may have been somewhat of a gimmick, however, it may have been a handy option had we lost the ability to launch jets from the north of Oz along conventional runways (not that there were many in the 1960s anyway!).
 
Not sure about the claim it didn't have competitive handling. The Thunderbirds used it more than any other mount up til the advent of the F-16. It was also deemed agile enough and sound as an air defence fighter that the Ohio ANG had aircraft deployed to Kunsan to counter the growing Pueblo Crisis. 
 
Yup, it came sans radar. Pretty much like many other jets at the time. The ones that did had extreme cases of thermionic overload. The early incarnation of the French Cyrano wasn't all that flash anyway. I still think that as a mud mover, the AN/AJB-1 LABS was a decent bit of kit for the day.
 
They were used throughout Nam as both fast FAC, close support and as RESCORT aircraft (the latter role eventually being turned over to the mighty SLUF). They were also one of the last platforms to leave Nam when the Yanks bugged out.
 
The F-100A may have been a dog, however, the design matured into a worthy mud slogger and no aircraft has been able to lay claim to a perfect gestation and maturation process anyway.
 
Was it the worlds greatest strike fighter? No, but it was a step above our Avon Sabre and would have plugged the gap nicely until the F-4E arrived (my personal pref being the F-4J/S).
 
Each to their own.
 
 
 
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Herald12345       5/29/2009 1:26:46 PM



Shucks, a Sidewinder-equipped Sabre would've been more than a match for a lumbering Badger, even if it would've had to work a good bit to initially catch it.

Not if the Badger conducted a low level with pop up (like the Vulcan's in the Falklands) raid at night. Remember that we didn't have radar equipped Sabres, which is why we had Bloodhound's at our bases until we got the Mirages. I don't know how the Bloodhounds would have held up if the Indo's had have used chaff though.


Agreed. At least the Draken's air intercept radar worked with the Swedish version of SAGE . Since FALCON was a dog  missile to go with the dog USAF aircraft, I would have gone all NAVY and tried the SPARROW and SIDEWINDER wired into Draken. The FALCON in Vietnam was misused. It revealed cryo-cooling defects in the IR version and was not well designed as a SARH to use the aircraft radars of the day (antenna mismatch).
 
The problem was that the FALCON inherited aqs a ROCKET a WW II tech start and was handicapped by those limitations it started with. It was designed to knock down Tupelovs as a stern chaser and was in most variants a HTK missile.
 
SPARROW was over ambitious when designed, but at least it was intended to kill Mach II targets and it does at least 9% of the time..
 
As for an A2G missile, I wonder.....with a 13 lb warhead, I regard FALCON as fairly PUNY.
 
Herald
 
 

 
 
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doggtag       5/29/2009 3:08:58 PM

As for an A2G missile, I wonder.....with a 13 lb warhead, I regard FALCON as fairly PUNY.

 

Herald

A typo on behalf of Designation-Systems-Net...?
To quote their chart:
Specifications
Note: Data given by several sources show slight variations. Figures given below may therefore be inaccurate!
Data for GAR-1D/2A/2B/3A/4A (AIM-4A/C/D/F/G):
 
GAR-1D (AIM-4A)
GAR-2A/B (AIM-4C/D)
GAR-3A (AIM-4F)
GAR-4A (AIM-4G)
Length
1.98 m (78 in)
2.02 m (79.5 in)
2.18 m (85.8 in)
2.06 m (81.1 in)
Wingspan
0.508 m (20 in)
0.61 m (24 in)
Diameter
0.163 m (6.4 in)
0.168 m (6.6 in)
Weight
54 kg (119 lb)
61 kg (135 lb)
68 kg (150 lb)
66 kg (145 lb)
Speed
Mach 3
Mach 4
Range
9.7 km (6 miles)
11.3 km (7 miles)
Propulsion
Thiokol M58 solid-fuel rocket
Thiokol M46 dual-thrust solid-fuel rocket
Warhead
3.4 kg (7.6 lb) high-explosive
13 kg (29 lb)(?) high-explosive

 
And from Wiki's AIM-4 Falcon entry... (yes, I know, Wiki),
we get:
In 1958... Hughes introduced a slightly enlarged version of the Falcon, initially dubbed Super Falcon, with a more powerful, longer-burning rocket engine, increasing speed and range. It had a larger warhead (28.7 lb / 13 kg) and better guidance systems. The SARH versions were GAR-3 (AIM-4E) and the improved GAR-3A (AIM-4F). The infrared version was the GAR-4A (AIM-4G). About 2,700 SARH missiles and 3,400 IR Super Falcons were produced, replacing most earlier versions of the weapon
 
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Herald12345       5/29/2009 3:39:22 PM



As for an A2G missile, I wonder.....with a 13 lb warhead, I regard FALCON as fairly PUNY.



 



Herald






A typo on behalf of Designation-Systems-Net...?

To quote their chart:

Specifications

Note: Data given by several sources show slight variations. Figures given below may therefore be inaccurate!

Data for GAR-1D/2A/2B/3A/4A (AIM-4A/C/D/F/G):










































 
GAR-1D (AIM-4A)
GAR-2A/B (AIM-4C/D)
GAR-3A (AIM-4F)
GAR-4A (AIM-4G)

Length
1.98 m (78 in)
2.02 m (79.5 in)
2.18 m (85.8 in)
2.06 m (81.1 in)

Wingspan
0.508 m (20 in)
0.61 m (24 in)

Diameter
0.163 m (6.4 in)
0.168 m (6.6 in)

Weight
54 kg (119 lb)
61 kg (135 lb)
68 kg (150 lb)
66 kg (145 lb)

Speed
Mach 3
Mach 4

 
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Aussiegunneragain    Doggtag   5/29/2009 4:49:37 PM
I don't see that it would be that hard for the Indo's to plan and execute an effective night raid using dumb bombs. The closest airbase is 400-500nm from Australia and the Badger could easily cover that with a worthwhile bomb load and return home. Remember they had 20 of them so even if they each only carried say 6 x 1000lb class bombs a raid of say ten is going to make an aweful mess of our one airfield or port (both in Darwin) at the time.
 
You also have to remember that at the time our air defence radar network were probably worse than Argentinas in the 1980's, so any low level raid would have come as a tactical surprise. If Sabres ware airborne before the bombing they might have gotten lucky and stumbled across a TU-16, but I'd place my money on the Sabre force being worn down by bombing before the TU-16 force being worn down by interception. The TU-16's was also well armed with guns of their own so the Sabres would have been putting themselves at risk by closing close enough to perform a night shoot down.
 
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