Pierre Sprey's Ideal fighter

[Tirak]

He doesn't understand much about modern aircraft or technology. He praises the F-15 for being a purely air to air fighter despite becoming a superb strike aircraft in later variants. He didn't want the F-16 to even have a radar however it has become an exceptionally good performer in both air to air and air to ground combat. And he thinks a MIG-21 will win the F-35 in a dog fight. :lol:

 

Like many others on this forum, the only reason he and the general media hold the A-10 in high regard is for its ineffective 30mm cannon. The sheer weight and size can be utilized for more important things.

 

Now the one point I do slightly agree with is why does the F-35A have the smaller wings of the B and not the larger wing size of the C? I suppose the wings are the same between the A and C and they wanted to only manufacture two wings instead of three.

 

The larger wing is heavier, more complex and hinged. Its benefits are primarily felt at very low airspeed, i.e. landing on a carrier. A larger, more complex wing would drive up cost, increase weight and provide little tangible benefit in the flight regimes the Air Force will be operating. Given that the F-35A will be the most produced variant, the cost saving is rather significant.

[Bushmanni]

Larger wing will increase drag and weight which in turn reduces acceleration, top speed and range (not good for BVR). It will also increase turning capability which is nice for dogfighting. Wing size is a trade-off between multiple variables and you need to make a compromise that suits your needs (ie. mission). Even if you built a simple larger wing just for the A model it most likely wouldn't make the plane better at its intended mission as the current size is already a product of a thorough trade-off analysis.

[VincentLaw]

Larger wing will increase drag and weight which in turn reduces acceleration, top speed and range (not good for BVR).

To the contrary, a larger wing should reduce drag at subsonic speed. The increase in weight will be more than offset by the increase in lift which will allow the airplane to fly at lower angles of attack and have less drag. The extra lift is not necessary at high speed, so it will reduce the max speed as you said, but it should increase the range.

 

The main drawback of the F-35C wing comes from its folding mechanism, which reduces the max G. The larger profile probably also makes it less stealthy.

Edited November 13, 2015 by VincentLaw

[Exorcet]

The main drawback of the F-35C wing comes from its folding mechanism, which reduces the max G. The larger profile probably also makes it less stealthy.

 

Assuming the F-35A was shaped optimally for transonic+ speeds, the C wing probably also hurts high speed maneuverability. The larger AR certainly grants better range and agility at low speeds, but those speeds are probably not where the F-35 wants to fight.

[Capn kamikaze]

Just got to love how the guy still to this day claims to have designed the F-16 when in reality he sat at a table and basically outlined some very broad criteria, while it was Harry J. Hillaker and his team at GD who actually did the designing of the F-16.