Cold war European combat aircraft alternatives? (1 Viewer)

[tomo pauk]

French trying to beat the F-4 Phantom with just 1 engine in the 1960s?
1st thing - we need an actual engine, since the Atars as-is will not cut it. Making the spin-off from the Atars might do the trick, though, something like the Bristol turning the Orpheus into Pegasus with some parts of Olympus (a very condensed history by your's truly). A ~4500lb engine at 4.5:1 t/w ratio = 20250 lb of thrust, or about 50% better than what the Atar 9C gave in the Mirage F1. The resulting aircraft might be about size and weight of a MiG-23; I'd prefer it's a fixed wing design.
A 2-seater, 4 SARH missiles as an initial loadout, as good a radar and other electronics as the industry can make. Later have it carry bombs & other ground-attack weaponry.

Offer also the dedicated ground attack version, as the Dassault was doing historically anyway. Can be a single-seater.

 

[Ascent]

The Jaguar was a good aircraft but it was underpowered. Part throttle reheat to allow it to mid air refuel?

 

[tomo pauk]

The Jaguar was a good aircraft but it was underpowered. Part throttle reheat to allow it to mid air refuel?

Jaguar is/was a very good aircraft, IMO. Indeed the engine thrust was lacking, for all the things id was tasked to do.
(very toxic from the French to note that the navalized Jaguar was problematic in the engine-out situation, and then adopt the Super Etandard that had no engine-out abilities what so ever; I'm not counting the pilot ejecting as a solution to this problem)

The low-powered engines choice stemmed from the initial design being supposed to do just the training? Possible candidates to the engine replacement if it stays 2-engined are not that great. I'm partial to the RR making the turbofan spin-off from the Viper engine. A turbofan with t/w ratio of 7:1 was very much within the scope of any jet-making engine company of the late 1960s (design) /early 70s (production and use). Even just 6:1 would've been great.
Use the RB.199 as the parts donor?

 

[bf109xxl]

Saunders-Roe SR.177. Another if only airplane .Germany showed interest in the SR.177 but opted for the F104 instead.

I seriously doubt that an aircraft with such a power plant, which included a rocket engine, could in principle be operated normally and used as a front-line fighter or fighter-bomber. And it must be acknowledged that the F-104 could be adapted for a wider range of tasks. It is unlikely that the Saunders-Roe SR.177 could become a real alternative, even if there was interest in it.

 

[Ascent]

Jaguar is/was a very good aircraft, IMO. Indeed the engine thrust was lacking, for all the things id was tasked to do.
(very toxic from the French to note that the navalized Jaguar was problematic in the engine-out situation, and then adopt the Super Etandard that had no engine-out abilities what so ever; I'm not counting the pilot ejecting as a solution to this problem)

The low-powered engines choice stemmed from the initial design being supposed to do just the training? Possible candidates to the engine replacement if it stays 2-engined are not that great. I'm partial to the RR making the turbofan spin-off from the Viper engine. A turbofan with t/w ratio of 7:1 was very much within the scope of any jet-making engine company of the late 1960s (design) /early 70s (production and use). Even just 6:1 would've been great.
Use the RB.199 as the parts donor?

I never worked on the Jag but I did train on them. The Adour and Jaguar fuel systems were interesting.

 

[bf109xxl]

The Jaguar was a very well-balanced aircraft with sufficient thrust-to-weight ratio and high maneuverability - further increases in combat load would have simply killed its maneuverability, turning the Jaguar into something resembling a Tornado. It was precisely its high maneuverability that allowed the Jaguars to evade anti-aircraft fire during ground attacks in Desert Storm - the A-10 and Tornado were less successful in this regard.