Is the Phantom a dogfighter?

[Temetre]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb Top Jockey:

And then comes the Mirage 2000C : with empty weight around 7.600 kg ... and an almost unbeatable low wingloading.

True, the mirage 2000 is something else, and delta wings are a bit of an exception

[Dragon1-1]

Well, guess what type of wing the MiG-21 has...  Although Mirage ups the ante by also being a tailless delta, giving it amazing nose authority.

8 hours ago, Smyth said:

Wut? VPAF operated only a tiny number of MiG-21F-13, which did not last very long.

Actually the "Fishbed-C" is the one all the Phantom drivers remember fighting, and that might be because the -PFM only started arriving in 1968, at the tail end of Operation Rolling Thunder. Before, it was the F-13 and -PFL, about 30 of each, the latter of which had no gun and therefore no business getting into dogfights.

I admit, I was thinking of the pre-1968 period, in 1972 it was a very different sky. Then again, I guess in context of the Phantom we're getting, a -PFM (which, BTW, did have a gun, although not from the very start) would be more appropriate, because in Rolling Thunder it was mostly about F-4Ds and Thuds.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Dragon1-1

[Bremspropeller]

The -21 wasn't meant by it's design team to be an air superiority fighter (neither was the F-4), so switchology is a result of that. Their thinking, which is more or less mirrored by your approach is "set switches at the right time and go on with the flow". That's a very GCI centered approach.

Vietnam showed both sides, that this approach doesn't work, when you're jumped by an opponent out of the blue. If your first indication of a fight is a "BREAK!" call, or your buddy going way up in entropy, then going inside the pit to find a switch should not be number one on your priority list.

I think (not sure, some Fishbed-priest probably knows, though) the bis and MF already did reflect some of the experiences in the field and had their switchology optimized to some degree. The F-4 also went through several cockpit mods and quality of life upgrades that came directly out of the SEA experiences.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Bremspropeller

[zarusoba10]

9 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

I think (not sure, some Fishbed-priest probably knows, though) the bis and MF already did reflect some of the experiences in the field and had their switchology optimized to some degree. The F-4 also went through several cockpit mods and quality of life upgrades that came directly out of the SEA experiences.

I was just reading the Weapon Delivery Manual for the F-4E and read that there is a ”CAGE switch" added during production that, when pressed, overrides the previous mode for the sights, radar, and armament and optimizes the three systems for close air-to-air combat.

[WinterH]

Well, while I usually find fighter generations to be a marketing meme, it is still sometimes useful I must admit. This is one of those cases in my opinion: in my observation, the focus on agility and pilot ergonomics/workflow/cockpit visibility as primary design goals from get go is a 4th gen thing for the most part.

Things like MiG-21 and F-4 weren't necessarily designed to be super agile from the start, and they sure as hell weren't designed with cokpit visibility and ergonomics in mind either. For the former, they did prove to be agile (at least for their time) as a side effect of having lots of power and wing area on relatively small-ish airframes, and for the latter, it was a period where avinoics were developing very rapidly, so with updates being literally tacked on, it became progressively less user-friendly in their cockpits.

MiG was designed to be fast, very quick to climb, while also relatively light, and as an aside the design that provided these also ended up being fairly agile. Phantom was also designed to be fast, and also to carry a lot, big engines and the big wings ended up giving it its agility. But in this generation speed/acceleration/climb rate were usually the main design goals.

We can see as time progress, both actually started getting some more dogfighting oriented upgrades: slats for the Phantom, strakes and emergency afterburner for MiG-21 etc. F-5 is an outlier. Nortrop leaned closer to "light, simple, agile" mantra, and wanted do make a Western answer to seemingly light and agile MiGs. US military didn't really care much for the idea, but the bird became an export success. Looking at its design, great visibility out of the canopy, high lift devices such as leading edge slats, leading edge root extensions etc are features I consider associated with so-called 4th gen, and clearly it was designed to be agile from the begining. But bad to so-so avionics and weak engines held it back as well, so imo things like MiG-21s and F-4s retained some competitiveness with it anyway. On the other extreme, we have MiG-23 which went full "speed-acceleration-climb-also big radar plz" and both Soviets and its customers seemed to regret that pretty quickly. Soviets drastically lightened the 23 and progressively added extra aerodynamic fetures to make it less dangerous to fly and more agile in a dogfight setting. By the time of MLA and especially MLD they did mostly achieve it, but arguably too little too late.

Finally, other likely opponents from the period would be Mirage III, Mirage F1, and Kfir. With its tailed design, high lift devices, and decent engine, I was expecting the F1 to be more agile, but I was surprised to be proven wrong about its agility, I do expect a well flown slatted F-4E, especially when light, to be able to do just fine against it. Mirage III and especially Kfir will probably be better dogfighters, but we'll see. Of course, F-4, even E with its less than sophisticated radar, will have a decent bit of advantage over Mirage III before merging, but that comes with "situation allowing" disclaimer of course.

But my expectation, only considering a WVR dogfight:

Vs MiG-21Bis, F-5E: Ballpark, they have advantages, you have advantages, can go either way. Though, both will probably be easier to fly well than F-4.

Vs Mirage F1: In my opinion F-4 will be the better dogifghter. Though, a well flown Mirage can probably still win, and it probably won't be easy to fly the F-4 well enough for its potential to make a difference. Also, F1 simply has a better cockpit/workflow.

Vs Kfir: I expect Kfir to perform considerably better up close, but we'll see

Vs Mirage IIIE: Probably it will be mostly similar with MiG-21 and F-5 situation, perhaps Mirage will be a bit more agile, but it will not have great missiles to back that up.

Vs MiG-23MLA: People love debating this to death. Personally, my money is on the MiG BVR and on the Phantom up close. Yes, Flogger MLA has technically some advantages on paper, at certain parts of the envelope, and at certain wing sweep angles. But that's too many "at certains" and I belive it will be even harder to get the best out of than F-4. And its canopy visibility situation is at least as atrocious, possibly worse.

Other things beyond these: let's say Phantom pilot is at 10/10 of their potential, and 4th gen pilot is more 6-7 out of 10, I expect the 4th gen to win great majority of engagements. And someone here said "including likes of Mirage 2000", don't know if that was a typo on their part, but that's one jet I ain't even attempting to go against in an F-4 when it releases. Just no... I can even happily suffer trying to fight Vipers, Hornets, Eagles, Tomcats etc every now and then, but not THAT... NO...

[Temetre]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Dragon1-1:

Well, guess what type of wing the MiG-21 has...  Although Mirage ups the ante by also being a tailless delta, giving it amazing nose authority.

I was noting that the Mig-21 is one of the exceptions in wing surface. However, delta wings arent magic and it took a while till planes really figured them out. They have more drag, which negates some of the additional lift delta designs usually offer.

Seems like the Mirage 2000 is one of the first to master the delta in an agile fighter, also thanks to FBW and modern tech. Pilots IRL actually described the 21Bis especially as pretty heavy in feel, and in DCS, where it probably overperforms, it still has massive drag and speed loss when it actually utilizes the wing for harder turns. Even the emergency afterburner cant balance that out.

Hence calling a Mig-21Bis "agile" is just very far out there, if you consider anything beyond ITR. Its kinda miserable against any actually agile planes. I dont got the F-5, but heard even that one just flies circles around the Mig-21Bis, despite its weak engine. Only thing the Mig can try is the vertical. The area where the Mig-21Bis might be good is compared to other 2nd/3rd gen fighter who are just really bad at dogfighting. But thats more like a "one eyed among the blind" thing, rather than being a good dogfighter in itself.

vor einer Stunde schrieb Bremspropeller:

I think (not sure, some Fishbed-priest probably knows, though) the bis and MF already did reflect some of the experiences in the field and had their switchology optimized to some degree. The F-4 also went through several cockpit mods and quality of life upgrades that came directly out of the SEA experiences.

Compared to the first versions, afaik one of the biggest practical differences in our F-4E is in fact having "dogfight switches" similar to F15E/F16, as well as a (improved?) boresight radar acquisition mode (AAC).  

vor einer Stunde schrieb zarusoba10:

I was just reading the Weapon Delivery Manual for the F-4E and read that there is a ”CAGE switch" added during production that, when pressed, overrides the previous mode for the sights, radar, and armament and optimizes the three systems for close air-to-air combat.

Yup thats the one, its like a dogfight switch and IIRC comes with a new boresight mode.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Temetre

[Temetre]

vor 58 Minuten schrieb WinterH:

Phantom was also designed to be fast, and also to carry a lot, big engines and the big wings ended up giving it its agility.

Tbh that part im very curious about. I originally believed that as well, but from what Ive learned it doesnt seem to hold up as much, at least compared to the likes of a Mig-21Bis. 

For once, big wings usually add to agility (if the plane can use them efficiently at AoA), and their drawback is drag. Something very visible on the Mig-21, in fact. But the F-4E has more powerful engines with a higher T/W ratio, which is the tool to overcome drag and quite relevant in a dogfight. The pre-slats F-4s issue seems to be more the instability at high angles of attack, rather than basic aerodynamic capabilities.

And after all, heavy weight, big wings and powerful engines is also the F15/F14. Later SU-27, and the Mig-29 isnt that small either (neither is the Hornet). Extremely powerful dogfighters. The Mirage 2000 is probably the only truly small fighter in DCS that really plays way out of its league in a dogfight. And the F-5 apparently, ahead of its time but making compromises (eg in engines).

Edited November 7, 2023 by Temetre

[WinterH]

In case of 4th gen fighters huge root extensions, lifting bodies, and lots of high lift devices, and sometimes also FBW muddy the waters a lot, so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison of just wing area and/or wing loadings.

Mirage 2000 though, kind of shows that a wing with lots lift and lightweight with good TWR still can do it just fine. Though with a helping of FBW and almost full span slats. Still, it lacks gigantic root extensions and AFAIK has no lifting body features either. It also has some of the least thrust among the engines of its contemporaries. Yet, it's one of the most agile by some margin. Not sure if quite up to in DCS level of margin but still, shows that good TWR and a good wing alone can work wonders up to late cold war and a bit beyond.

Edit: F-16 and MiG-29 both have relatively small and AFAIK somewhat highly loaded wings, but make up the difference with lots of high lift features and power, 29 isn't really that big tbh. Same goes for the 'ol F-5 tbh. Rather small wings, but multiple other high lift features to make it turn well and keep lift at higher AoA. But it doesn't have the power to keep it up for much, and when the speed decays those small wings begin to become bit of a liability. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by WinterH

[Bremspropeller]

Neither the 21bis, nor the F-4E are the initial design iterations of the jets. Those would be the MiG-21F and F4H-1.

The F4H-1 was designed to defend the carrier in anyweather and dropping some dumb bombs onto the target when neccessity arose. The -21F was essentially a MiG-19 with an engine that wouldn't explode every time you looked at it the wrong way. Well, not quite, as the R-11 also had it's fair share of teething troubles that needed resolving.

The F-4 came to the fleet without any engine-trouble, as the F-104 had mostly solved those two years earlier. What's amazing about the initial F-4H-1 was it's capability of carrying eight (!) missiles from a carrier in all weather, possibly reaching Mach 2 and on the return trip land at ~120KIAS on the boat.

That is a technological achievement that isn't credited enough today. People tend to look more at it's records (all with tweaked jets), which I believe isn't really the amazing part of the early Phantom-story.

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Bremspropeller

[Temetre]

vor 18 Minuten schrieb WinterH:

In case of 4th gen fighters huge root extensions, lifting bodies, and lots of high lift devices, and sometimes also FBW muddy the waters a lot, so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison of just wing area and/or wing loadings.

Mirage 2000 though, kind of shows that a wing with lots lift and lightweight with good TWR still can do it just fine. Though with a helping of FBW and almost full span slats. Still, it lacks gigantic root extensions and AFAIK has no lifting body features either. It also has some of the least thrust among the engines of its contemporaries. Yet, it's one of the most agile by some margin. Not sure if quite up to in DCS level of margin but still, shows that good TWR and a good wing alone can work wonders up to late cold war and a bit beyond.

Edit: F-16 and MiG-29 both have relatively small and AFAIK somewhat highly loaded wings, but make up the difference with lots of high lift features and power, 29 isn't really that big tbh. Same goes for the 'ol F-5 tbh. Rather small wings, but multiple other high lift features to make it turn well and keep lift at higher AoA. But it doesn't have the power to keep it up for much, and when the speed decays those small wings begin to become bit of a liability. 

Its all quite diluted. Tbh my kinda takeaway from that is still that something like "light fighters are more agile" doesnt really add up. Sometimes they are, but often they arent. In reality every aircraft is a massive sum of compromises and design goals.

Lift/drag/weight/thrust and all the other fun stuff is a bunch of competing variables.

And yeh apparently the Mig-29 has actually relatively high wing load. Who knows, maybe it overperforms in DCS too.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Temetre

[Top Jockey]

52 minutes ago, Temetre said:

Its all quite diluted. Tbh my kinda takeaway from that is still that something like "light fighters are more agile" doesnt really add up. Sometimes they are, but often they arent. In reality every aircraft is a massive sum of compromises and design goals.

Lift/drag/weight/thrust and all the other fun stuff is a bunch of competing variables.

And yeh apparently the Mig-29 has actually relatively high wing load. Who knows, maybe it overperforms in DCS too.

 

I know we are somewhat off-topic ...

But regarding the bold ... come on - the MiG-29's BFM performance already is kind of a disappointment to me in DCS, throwing down my previous expectations (gained from previous less detailed sims and mídia).

Not questioning if its performance in DCS is more or less close to Real Life ... but on some aspects it does disappoint me - even the much heavier Su-27 supposedly has better turning characteristics.

Not saying it isn't like IRL, but man ... the much vaunted Fulcrum came short on my previous expectations.

Also, already once mentioned: in DCS the delta-winged Mirage 2000C is able to sustain turn higher G's than the Fulcrum in similar circumstances.

edit

Regarding wing loadings, if we start with empty weights, the MiG-29's wing loading is actually lower than F-14 A/B, and even slightly below several F-16C variants.

Throwing in some fuel and perhaps 2 x IR missiles, will it change THAT much ?

Edited November 7, 2023 by Top Jockey

[Dragon1-1]

The MiG-29A actually has a lower wing loading than the Hornet. It's high compared to, for example, the MiG-21F, but fairly low compared to its contemporaries. I'm not convinced the one we have in DCS is all that good when it comes to FM.

3 minutes ago, Temetre said:

Tbh my kinda takeaway from that is still that something like "light fighters are more agile" doesnt really add up. Sometimes they are, but often they arent.

They are usually plenty agile in the initial iteration. See MiG-21F (I never claimed the Bis was particularly agile, it's really a bad example of what the rest of the MiG-21 family is like), F-16A, Mirage III, F-5, MiG-29A. 

Now, what is also true is that light fighters are vulnerable to bloat. If they endure for long enough, later iterations of light fighters tend to lose their turning properties and become more energy fighters, as wing loading increases with weight, while wings usually stay the same. Here the Mirage is a notable exception, gaining a lot of thrust, but managing to keep the light weight. This is why the later Mirages are dogfighting monsters. Larger fighters suffer less from bloat because they tend to grow proportionally less in mass, and they are designed to fight with thrust (two circle and vertical), meaning their fighting style benefits the most from bigger engines.

[Bremspropeller]

Lighter also often means laden with less troublesome electronics that provide a marginal gain in capability at the cost of incresed MX effort and possibly a lower in commission rates. Think A-6A or early F-4Js.

What jet is going to project more air power? The one with more powerful and complicated systems/missiles and more range that can be over the battleground once a day (or less, factoring in availability), or the jet that is less complicated, less capable but "up" all the time, flying two to three sorties a day?

It's also interesting to see how that equation shifts with different theaters of operations. If you look at SEA, the MiG-21 was a pretty good aircraft for the defensive operations conducted by the VPAF. In the Middle East, where arab air forces were trying to establish larger scale offensive operations, the lack of an aircraft with similar capabilities of an F-4 greatly hurt them.

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Bremspropeller

[Kalasnkova74]

49 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Lighter also often means laden with less troublesome electronics that provide a marginal gain in capability at the cost of incresed MX effort and possibly a lower in commission rates. Think A-6A or early F-4Js.

What jet is going to project more air power? The one with more powerful and complicated systems/missiles and more range that can be over the battleground once a day (or less, factoring in availability), or the jet that is less complicated, less capable but "up" all the time, flying two to three sorties a day?

It's also interesting to see how that equation shifts with different theaters of operations. If you look at SEA, the MiG-21 was a pretty good aircraft for the defensive operations conducted by the VPAF. In the Middle East, where arab air forces were trying to establish larger scale offensive operations, the lack of an aircraft with similar capabilities of an F-4 greatly hurt them.

 

 

The high density light fighter vs fewer but “gold plated” question is IMO a false dichotomy. The truth is a capable air force needs both, in concert with quality training & tactics. Missing any one of these four elements = risk. 
 

If an air force does not invest in sustainment and development of higher technologies, it will lose to the opponent who does. Science holds no passport, and the only way to find the next generation of workable technology is to sift through the litany of ones that don’t. You can model and project, but ultimately combat is the final test of a plan or technology. We didn’t fully understand the practical shortcomings of AIM-9Bs or AIM-7s until we used them in combat. If we never fielded them in the name of using simple technology, another nation - say, France- would have learned those lessons instead. That means fielding higher technology weapons like the F-4 (in its day), F-14, F-22, NGAD and the like. Keeping your nations military industrial complex up to date is a defensive necessity too. Yes, there’s corruption at work there…but it’s a zero sum game. If your military industry lags behind the rest of the region or world , your military becomes irrelevant (see modern day Iran). 
 

The flip side of that requirement is you DO need higher density, simpler aircraft also because at the end of the day, not all the gold plated stuff is going to work. When bugs need to be sorted, a higher density aircraft is needed to carry the missions. This requirement tends to be brushed aside when generals motivated by status and budget allocate money to exclusively finance the gold plated science projects.

The balance of which equipment to include will change based on the national budget of the buyer, training requirements, and operational area.

Finally we have quality training and tactics. These are another two elements generals like to shortchange in favor of financing the gold plated stuff. Unfortunately for their egos and career ambitions, without these pillars nothing else matters. An air force can operate with ineffective equipment, misallocated resources, embargoed logistics and even mismatched technology IF their tactics and training on what they have is on point. But if a nation sends people to battle with high *or low tech* kit they’re not trained in using , it will end badly for that nations military.  
 

Obsolete tactics will also undermine any other advantage brought to the fight. See the USAF’s welded wing formation in Southeast Asia , a formation the Air Staff knew even before Linebacker was obsolete and dangerous during the Cold War. Rigid USAF bureaucracy and dogma (mere wingmen shall not independently shoot in battle!) ignored the findings. Many Air Force officers and families paid the price. 

The Israeli Air Force in the Cold War was a good example of this balance done right, as they had the then-cutting edge F-4E flying and fighting alongside the less expensive yet still effective Mirage & A-4. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Kalasnkova74

[Dragon1-1]

54 minutes ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

(see modern day Iran). 

Iran is actually a bad example. They rely mostly on imported Russian tech (some of which they re-exported back to Russia, hilariously enough) and locally produced copies of the same. As a regional power, they're actually pretty relevant. There's another approach working for them here: mooching off someone who's better at military tech than you are. This is being adopted through the world as tech becomes ever fancier and development costs skyrocket.

Also, the US is perhaps the foremost example of "high-low mix" at work. See the F-15 and F-16, the F-14 and the F/A-18, or the F-22 and F-35. The Phantom didn't really have a "low" counterpart (the F-5 almost fits, but it wasn't used as such by the US), although it served alongside many older single seaters. 

It's also not just about availability, but the costs. You can have many more "low" fighters, which may not be quite the match for "high" fighters, but they can beat them by numbers, and you can put them everywhere you need them to. They can't necessarily do much more than defend from peer enemy's "high" fighters, but they can tie them down for long enough for you to move your own good stuff where it needs to be. This is the thinking that informed the original F-16 design. A cheap, lightweight fighter that would hold the fort until the F-15s could come in, and then move to being a bomb truck escorted by them. 

[Kalasnkova74]

22 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This is the thinking that informed the original F-16 design. A cheap, lightweight fighter that would hold the fort until the F-15s could come in, and then move to being a bomb truck escorted by them. 

Small point to note here- originally the USAF Air Staff had no plans to acquire the F-16 after the LWF competition. The combination of NATO Allies lobbying for a replacement of their aging F-104s & the Navy’s financial problems with the F-14 prompted the Secretary of Defense to move forward with the F-16. 
Since the USAF Air Staff viewed the F-15 as all that was needed for the air superiority role , General Alton Slay convened a committee to transition the F-16 into mainly an air to ground mission. This is why the F-16A never got the AIM-7 despite being tested for it in development: the Air Staff didn’t want a Senator asking for cuts in the F-15 buy because of the F-16 sharing the same BVR capability. 
 

Ideally , the force composition would have been a high/low mix of F-15s and F-16s -each having similar capabilities (note also the F-15A used basic CCIP/CCRP bomb capability). The IDF/AF model for these aircraft is a good example of that composition . But the Pentagon had different ideas, because $$$. So instead of the “hi/low” mixture, it was mostly just hi (F-15)with a side of BVR later in the Vipers career. 

The USN did fulfill this with the F-14/F-18 combo, and does so now with the F-35/ Super Hornet mix.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Kalasnkova74

[Temetre]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Dragon1-1:

The MiG-29A actually has a lower wing loading than the Hornet. It's high compared to, for example, the MiG-21F, but fairly low compared to its contemporaries. I'm not convinced the one we have in DCS is all that good when it comes to FM.

They are usually plenty agile in the initial iteration. See MiG-21F (I never claimed the Bis was particularly agile, it's really a bad example of what the rest of the MiG-21 family is like), F-16A, Mirage III, F-5, MiG-29A. 

Now, what is also true is that light fighters are vulnerable to bloat. If they endure for long enough, later iterations of light fighters tend to lose their turning properties and become more energy fighters, as wing loading increases with weight, while wings usually stay the same. Here the Mirage is a notable exception, gaining a lot of thrust, but managing to keep the light weight. This is why the later Mirages are dogfighting monsters. Larger fighters suffer less from bloat because they tend to grow proportionally less in mass, and they are designed to fight with thrust (two circle and vertical), meaning their fighting style benefits the most from bigger engines.

That just feels conrtradictory. So you argue light fighters start agile but lose the agility? But what about big fighters tehn, do they just keep the agility because they can? 

The resulting logic would be "big fighters tend to be more agile than light fighters", which is the opposite from what you said.

Additionally, F-18 and Mig-29 are 11 tons empty weight or so. So those are light fighters, like the 5.5 ton early Mig-21, but not like the 12 ton F-15A?

 

That just feels like it backs up the idea that light fighters arent more agile than heavy fighters.

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Temetre

[Bremspropeller]

1 hour ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

The high density light fighter vs fewer but “gold plated” question is IMO a false dichotomy. The truth is a capable air force needs both, in concert with quality training & tactics. Missing any one of these four elements = risk. 

If we're talking from a standpoint of nearly unlimited cash, then that is certainly correct. Finding a mixed middle ground is always going to be better than artificially polarizing and deciding in favor of one option. Most countries won't be able to look through that lense, though, and it becomes a game of money-allocation and going down the way of the threat-path most likely to occur. Or even a question of what you can attain at all and at which (political) cost. That may turn out to having been an expensive bet 20 years down the line, when there's too much "Hi" in the mix or when circumstances fundamentally change. Like today.

At the bottom line, your level of spending is basicly determined by the acceptable losses of a potential enemy. Turns out, you can beat a highly sophisticated coalition of forces (!) by just outlasting them while having no air force at all - *cough* Afghanistan */cough* - if the other side isn't willing to pay the high price required for a victory.

I'm trying to look at it from the perspective of "Generic Air Force" rather than the USAF's perspective: If you need to train a greater number of maintainers to a higher level to make systems work, those ppl won't be available for other applications (opportunity cost) and industries and at some point you'll have to think about the value of throwing people towards a system that's too expensive to run in a possibly low intensity conflict with a neighbouring country that's in turn facing the same challenges. Suffering an insurgency? A mix with too many sophisticated jets won't do you any good, since the HCMT campaign has shown that neither dumb hi-tech (Arc Light "monkeybombing") nor smart hi-tech (Igloo White) approaches will lead to any meaningful long term success. The portugeese experience using G.91s wasn't all that bad in comparison - safe for the increasing threat by manpads later in the campaigns.

Then of course, there's the polar opposite of air forces that mainly consist of said country's arristocracy and where the 3.5 serviceable fighters serve the sole purpose of looking good during the annual parade.

 

The discussion is becoming pretty tangiental as to whether the F-4 is a useful dogfighter, but I find the topic to be fascinationg nonetheless.

[Temetre]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Dragon1-1:

Also, the US is perhaps the foremost example of "high-low mix" at work. See the F-15 and F-16, the F-14 and the F/A-18, or the F-22 and F-35. The Phantom didn't really have a "low" counterpart (the F-5 almost fits, but it wasn't used as such by the US), although it served alongside many older single seaters. 

  Also that one I wanna interject. The US never has seriously executed the high/low mix idea. That was mostly about politics.

High/Low was a strat to sell the F-16 politically, but after just ~10 years theres the F-16C, which has bunch of expensive avionics and capabilities. Its maybe a "mid" tier, and the F-18 is more expensive than that.

Additionally, the F-16 mainly turned into a short to medium range strike (and SEAD) aircraft, while the F-15C is the primary air superiority aircraft. F-15E is for more specific, higher end strike missions. Those aircrafts had very different roles.

The F-35 is just a very expensive plane. I dont think it was ever considered low, and these days its definitely high.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Temetre

[Dragon1-1]

4 hours ago, Temetre said:

That just feels conrtradictory. So you argue light fighters start agile but lose the agility? But what about big fighters tehn, do they just keep the agility because they can? 

The resulting logic would be "big fighters tend to be more agile than light fighters", which is the opposite from what you said.

Additionally, F-18 and Mig-29 are 11 tons empty weight or so. So those are light fighters, like the 5.5 ton early Mig-21, but not like the 12 ton F-15A?

That just feels like it backs up the idea that light fighters arent more agile than heavy fighters.

Read what I said again, I addressed why big fighters lose less from their original turn performance. Big fighters, when they evolve, tend to gain proportionally less weight. Compare the F-18 and F-14. The Hornet is about 11T dry, the Kitty is nearly 20T. Imagine you slap a 1T ECM suite on both. The Hornet has now gained a little less than 10% in weight, while the Tomcat is only 5% heavier. The wings, of course, stayed the same, meaning wing loading increased proportionally in both aircraft. The smaller fighter will lose proportionally more performance. It won't usually start losing one circle duels with its heavier counterpart, but the advantage will be less clear.

As for weight, light fighters are defined more by role and design than raw weight. What was considered heavy in the 60s would be pretty lightweight in the 90s, but would have much larger wings, and the wing loading difference will hold. So, the 11T MiG-29 should be seen as light compared to 16T Su-27S, same with my Hornet and Tomcat example. Accordingly, the light fighter had lighter armament, shorter range, but also lower costs and, yes, an advantage in the turn fight context, particularly with regards to ITR (although Russians buck that trend by Su-27 being phenomenally agile). 

4 hours ago, Temetre said:

 Also that one I wanna interject. The US never has seriously executed the high/low mix idea. That was mostly about politics.

Again, you're looking at the aircraft we have in DCS, and at things that these fighters evolved into. The F-16A and F-15A team-up was a classic high-low mix, as was the F-18A and the F-14D. Sure, the "low" was so popular that it proven popular to expand them and evolve them, at the cost of their lowness, so now we have the definitely high end F-18E (admittedly more of a redesign, ironically itself the high part of the F-18E/F-18C hi-lo pair of the mid-2000s) and the all-purpose, SEAD focused F-16CM. That, however, happened organically, and was by no means part of the original design. Things that happened because someone went "hey, we've got a nice, cheap fighter, why don't we add X feature to them?" do not really belong in a discussion on design.

The F-35 is a high part of the duo for anyone who doesn't operate the F-22 Raptor. It is extremely expensive, but how you seen the price tag on the Raptor? By and large, the F-35 was an attempt to make a better F-16, with similar broad international appeal, multirole capability and lower cost than the F-22. 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Dragon1-1

[JB3DG]

9 hours ago, WinterH said:

In case of 4th gen fighters huge root extensions, lifting bodies, and lots of high lift devices, and sometimes also FBW muddy the waters a lot, so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison of just wing area and/or wing loadings.

Mirage 2000 though, kind of shows that a wing with lots lift and lightweight with good TWR still can do it just fine. Though with a helping of FBW and almost full span slats. Still, it lacks gigantic root extensions and AFAIK has no lifting body features either.

 

Almost correct. Root extensions are basically just the first few feet of a delta wing applied to a more regular wing. Delta wings and root extensions apply a common phenomenon. Large vortices that stick to the wing at high AoA. Read about Chuck Yeager's testing of the XF-92, the predecessor of the F-102 and F-106. He was able to land it at under 70kts thanks to this feature. Controlling how it develops is a large part of creating a delta wing design, which comes in the form of shaping the delta, or adding root extensions on a more conventional wing, or with the use of canards.

[VIKBELL]

   We have great sim to prove the metal of the MIG-21 and the Phantom ,   until the MIG-23 comes out which more a match  plane for plane.    I am looking forward to in6 to 8 month point we see the Phantom ACE's figure it out.

[Dragon1-1]

7 hours ago, VIKBELL said:

   We have great sim to prove the metal of the MIG-21 and the Phantom

It's mettle, and we really don't. MiG-21bis and DMAS F-4E is not quite the iconic matchup, which was MiG-21F-13 and F-4D. Hopefully the latter will happen one day, but the setup we'll be getting soon will actually be an 80s arrangement contemporary to the F-14.

[WinterH]

1 minute ago, Dragon1-1 said:

It's mettle, and we really don't. MiG-21bis and DMAS F-4E is not quite the iconic matchup, which was MiG-21F-13 and F-4D. Hopefully the latter will happen one day, but the setup we'll be getting soon will actually be an 80s arrangement contemporary to the F-14.

That's a bit of an overstatement. First off, DMAS is going to be the second, later addition to the module, we'll first have DSCG, and MiG-21Bis vs that is a pretty iconic matchup that happened IRL over Middle East a few times AFAIK, or something close enough did.

F-4E we are getting is roughly a 1974'ish bird, with a few potential later weapon variants being an option too like later Sidewinders.

F-4 = Vietnam War meme needs to die imo. But even then, there too the MiG would probably be more PF/PFM than F-13, and F-4 can be anything between C to E.

Finally, even if it was DMAS, in air to air engagements, there's little difference between the two, if anything DMAS is probably less suited being somewhat heavier and slightly draggier with inclusion of TISEO. DMAS was more intented as a strike capabilities upgrade over earlier F-4E's. By then, Air Force already had a good helping of F-15s and F-16s to do air combat.

The F-4E DSCG we are getting and the MiG-21Bis is a pretty good matchup, and is close enough for great majority of historical scenarios, real or what-if alike.

[Bremspropeller]

In the Middle East, there were lots of Ms (a gutless pile of dung at those latitudes) and some MFs, but mostly PFs, FLs, PFMs and F-13/F-7 around.

I think there were no bis at all until way after '73.