F-14 vs F-15 vs F-16

[drgondog]

Ofcourse, the wing merely sweeps back and forth, it doesn't alter shape

It changes shape and AR, it doesn't change area... the one advantage of the swing wing is to improve the AR and L/D in low speed and enable the safe carrier landing and take off. The disadvantage is weight and complexity.

 

[drgondog]

You are correct, Matt; in fact, my understanding of current ROE is that there should never BE a merge to begin with. In theory, the enemy assets should be "taken out" before they ever become a real threat to any US assets, which means, preferably, BVR battles with AMRAAM's and, in a worst-case scenario, AIM-9's M-61's. AFAIK, no US F-15 has been forced to participate in a "knife fight" with an adversary a/c (though I'm sure the Israelis have), so we really don't know how a US F-15 (or F-14 of F-16) would perform "in the merge" with an adversary a/c, we can only speculate. So far, US tactical doctrine has worked to minimize losses.

This is dead on.

I had a conversation with a Eurofighter wing CO at DM in April. They were over for joint exercises and frequently engaged with both the F-15 and F-22. He felt he had a slight edge on the F-15 simply because he had a better radar and with that - there should be no knife fights unless the missles failed and the Eurofighter was perhaps superior in the knife fight.

He was totally frustrated by the F-22. 'You can't kill what you can't see'

 

[renrich]

Interesting but perhaps not relevant. February, 1973. F14A versus F4J with slats. (1) Starting position, F4J astern of F14 1000 ft, both AC at mach 1.25 and 35000 ft. (2) 7.4 G break by F14 forces F4J to overshoot. (3)F14 reverses early as F4J goes wide. Initiation of scissors. (4) Second reversal as F14 establishes ACM superiority and forces F4J out in front. (5) F14 reverses back into a shooting position- just 15 seconds after the initial break. Incidently, I have a good friend who has 2000 hours in the F100 and was an IP at the Fighter Weapons School. I mentioned to him after my flight in an L39 that I could not understand how fighter pilots could see well to the rear quarters because of being strapped in so tight. He replied that it was a problem and that a friend of his who was the best at ACM that he knew either loosened or disconnected all the staps while in ACM.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I've flown in the rear of L-29s and 39s, F-4s, T-33s and Fougas and for the most part its hard to look around if you're hard strapped in, especially if wearing a chute. I like the back of the 29 better than the 39 and in the 29s I've flown in both the front and rear, it pretty easy to adjust the seat belts so you could move your torso.

The F-4? I always felt clostophobic but got used to using peripheral vision. In the F-4 you also have leg straps that secure your legs in case of ejection, they add no comfort.

 

[SoD Stitch]

This is dead on.

Thanks for the compliment, dd.

He was totally frustrated by the F-22. 'You can't kill what you can't see'

And I've heard the same sentiment expressed by F-15 "Ego" drivers fighting against the F-22 at Red Flag excercises; the F-15 pilots were frustrated because their radars never detected the F-22 until it was too late. This is a quote from 64th 65th AS (Agressor Squadron) pilots: "'The thing denies your ability to put a weapons system on it, even when I can see it through the canopy', said RAAF Sqn Ldr Stephen Chappell, F-15 exchange pilot in the 65th AS. 'It's the most frustrated I've ever been.'
According to Lt. Col. Larry Bruce, 65th Agressor Squadron commander, Agressor pilots turned up the heat on the F-22 using tactics they believe to be modern threats. For security purposes, these tactics weren't released; nonetheless, they said their efforts against the Raptors were fruitless. 'We even tried to overload them with numbers and failed', said Col. Bruce. 'It's humbling to fly against the F-22.'"

 

[drgondog]

Thanks for the compliment, dd.



And I've heard the same sentiment expressed by F-15 "Ego" drivers fighting against the F-22 at Red Flag excercises; the F-15 pilots were frustrated because their radars never detected the F-22 until it was too late. This is a quote from 64th 65th AS (Agressor Squadron) pilots: "'The thing denies your ability to put a weapons system on it, even when I can see it through the canopy', said RAAF Sqn Ldr Stephen Chappell, F-15 exchange pilot in the 65th AS. 'It's the most frustrated I've ever been.'
According to Lt. Col. Larry Bruce, 65th Agressor Squadron commander, Agressor pilots turned up the heat on the F-22 using tactics they believe to be modern threats. For security purposes, these tactics weren't released; nonetheless, they said their efforts against the Raptors were fruitless. 'We even tried to overload them with numbers and failed', said Col. Bruce. 'It's humbling to fly against the F-22.'"

SoD - a recently retired friend - Col Kent Laughbaum, flew F-15's and F-16's and wound up his career this year as 355th FW CO - the hog farm at DM.

It was interesting to see the same frustration at the 355th O club when hosting the Eurofighter wing Brits at Roll Call. I asked him later and he said basically that nobody has laid a glove on the 22 even in a knife fight when it was in visual.

There is universal respect for it from everyone who tests against it.

 

[parsifal]

Again, I am not trying to be too flippant about this, and i am the first to acknowledge the superior knowledge of nearly all the members here when it comes to technical aspects, but there are couple of things being intimated here that i have to try and respond to

My apolgies also if I am misunderstanding you guys as well

Anyway, it seems to mee that it is being suggested that close combat (a "merge"????) is not the the way to use modern combat aircraft, implying that such skills are not really needed. Wasnt that the thinking that led to the deployment of the F-4s wothout gun armament over North Vietnam, and attracted a great deal of criticism as a result. If close in dogfighting is "obolete, why is it still practised to near exhaustion at the various fighter schools around the world include the US top gun school, and our equivalent here in Australia.

And from the conversations I have had in the past with F-14 jocks, the Tomcat could be configured to dogfight very effectively.....

To be honest, I dont know which of the three planes are, or were better. They each had diffeerent primary roles incidentally. What i am sure of is that in its day, the Tomcat was not considered second rate or a failure, on any grounds, but certainly not in the air....

I have attached a couple of excerpts from my kiddies books on the Tomcate, dealing with some aspects of its engineering and effectiveness. Have a look and see what you think....

 

[SoD Stitch]

Anyway, it seems to mee that it is being suggested that close combat (a "merge"????) is not the the way to use modern combat aircraft, implying that such skills are not really needed. Wasnt that the thinking that led to the deployment of the F-4s wothout gun armament over North Vietnam, and attracted a great deal of criticism as a result. If close in dogfighting is "obolete, why is it still practised to near exhaustion at the various fighter schools around the world include the US top gun school, and our equivalent here in Australia.

The "merge", or "knife fight", is a tactic of last resort; as I said earlier, if everything goes according to plan (enemy target acquired, identified, and dealt with accordingly), this should not be permitted to happen. HOWEVER, that being said, the armed forces (in particular the USAF) learned (the hard way) that they cannot depend solely on defeating enemy air assets from long distance (i.e.: BVR); hence, the necessity for agility (or superagility) in any a/c required to acquire and maintain air superiority, especially over enemy territory. The USAF became quite complacent in the late '50's/early '60's, and were convinced that any opponent could be dealt with "at range", using long-range (for the '60's) missles; in theory, the two adversary a/c shouldn't even see each other, let alone get involved in ACM. The armed forces aren't going to make that same mistake twice, hence the emphasis upon designing modern fighter a/c capable of "supermaneuverability".

I am no expert on the current DACT excercises (perhaps someone else here can add more details), but my IMPRESSION is that, even at these excercises (such as Red Flag), many of the "kills" take place at BVR, so close-in ACM actually doesn't happen all that often (unless you watch "Top Gun"!).

 

[Matt308]

Anyway, it seems to mee that it is being suggested that close combat (a "merge"????) is not the the way to use modern combat aircraft, implying that such skills are not really needed. Wasnt that the thinking that led to the deployment of the F-4s wothout gun armament over North Vietnam, and attracted a great deal of criticism as a result. If close in dogfighting is "obolete, why is it still practised to near exhaustion at the various fighter schools around the world include the US top gun school, and our equivalent here in Australia.....

Since I introduced that lexicon into this thread I suppose you want me to reply, Parsifal. I have never stated that close combat, furballs, or knife fights were obsolete in the modern fighter operational scenarios. Rather, what I am asking is what are the parameters for this silly discussion to rank fighter airplanes? At the beginning of the thread there were no boundaries upon the environment upon which you must assign a ranking. In modern combat that is not only silly, its a plain stupid question.

I liked your Grumman comic of an F-4 vs an F-14. But 30 years later, tactics, data dissemination and force projection doctrine are night and day different, Parsifal.

The order of battle in a modern airforce involve more than just a 'gun armed supersonic fighter' in a head-to-head encounter. Look at the latest tactics employed with the USAF, where target information is given by UAS stealth aircraft via datalink to F-15s and other assets. Situational awareness of threats, blue forces and reserve assets are conveyed via netcentric comm links. In the latest exercises, these types of operations result in the ability to convey target data to multiple fighter assets while allowing passive observations of enemy forces. The ability to link this type of data affords blue forces to employ defensive tactics minimizing ground defences, engage enemy aircraft with ECM and launch missiles all without emitting RF energy. This is transformational.

While Link16 was implemented in the F-14D, the ability to uplink broadband information to the Tomcat was severely limited. And I find it interesting that nobody took heed to Adler's comments about maintenance. If you ask me, that was the deal killer for Navy. If your maintenance hours are so cost prohibitive as to prevent operational use, where does that leave you?

 

[Matt308]

And where is Soren? This is his thread isn't it?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I liked your Grumman comic of an F-4 vs an F-14. But 30 years later, tactics, data dissemination and force projection doctrine are night and day different

BINGO

The F-14 was a bomber killer - it was everything the Soviets were looking for with the MiG-25.

 

[SoD Stitch]

The order of battle in a modern airforce involve more than just a 'gun armed supersonic fighter' in a head-to-head encounter. Look at the latest tactics employed with the USAF, where target information is given by UAS stealth aircraft via datalink to F-15s and other assets. Situational awareness of threats, blue forces and reserve assets are conveyed via netcentric comm links. In the latest exercises, these types of operations result in the ability to convey target data to multiple fighter assets while allowing passive observations of enemy forces. The ability to link this type of data affords blue forces to employ defensive tactics minimizing ground defences, engage enemy aircraft with ECM and launch missiles all without emitting RF energy. This is transformational.?

This is the key, especially as it applies to the F-22; the Raptor was designed from the outset to be able to rapidly share information with other blue assets instantaneously. The tactics used to employ F-22's is totally different from the way previous fighters (even the F-15) were employed; a flight of four F-22's typically have a spacing of five miles (sometimes further) from each other, and each a/c can "see" what the other a/c sees. During a hostile engagement, the adversary may be actively tracked by only a single F-22, but that information is instantly relayed to the other three Raptors in that flight so, essentially, the target is being tracked (and engaged) by a total of four a/c at once; the enemy a/c will never be aware of the other three Raptors until it's too late.

For a good discussion on the evolution of new tactics for the Raptor, go here:

The Raptor Arrives | Military Aviation | Air Space Magazine

While Link16 was implemented in the F-14D, the ability to uplink broadband information to the Tomcat was severely limited. And I find it interesting that nobody took heed to Adler's comments about maintenance. If you ask me, that was the deal killer for Navy. If your maintenance hours are so cost prohibitive as to prevent operational use, where does that leave you?

I had a friend who used to be an F-14 mechanic on-board the Connie and, IIRC, he said that towards the end of it's operational life (he worked on the A), the a/c required 10 maintenance hours for every one hour of flying time. Naval aviation mechanics typically worked on an a/c throughout the night trying to get it ready for the next day's mission; basically, if the a/c was on-board, it was being worked on. That is unacceptably high, even for a valuable asset like the F-14.

 

[parsifal]

were that military endeavours as predictable as we would all like. But often they don't work out that way. In a perfect world air threats would be removed at range, before the "knife fights" as you put it begin. I can tell you from experience that things can often turn out differently.

Whilst the jargon is different, and no doubt the technology, the theories you are touting are not new at all. Back in the 70s and 80s we were busily installing and utilizing the latest NCDS systems, mostly for air warfare and ASW, but the system had applications in many areas.

NCDS allowed the full integration and control of weapon systems and sensors across a wide range and spectrum. Just as an example, it allowed our Ikara equipped ASW frigates to see what our Sea King underwater detection systems were seeing. We could launch an Ikara at the target from over 70 kms away, with the frigates own systems totally blind, and allow the helo to provide the necessary data to the ships computers, that steered the missile onto the target. At the time the Ikara system had the highest kill to launch probability of any system in the world.

NCDS was American technology, with similar uses found in the E2 Hawkeyes, and other platforms. We all thought it revolutionized warfare, in much the same way as you guys are sprouting how things are so different now.....it wasn't till years later that I realized that this sort of advantage (the optimum integration of military force and detection) had been sought by military forces since the ancient times.

The point I am making is that it is very dangerous to become complacent that somehow the black box will take care of it all. It is also wrong to suggest that the F-14 was somehow divorced from that combat integration concept. it isn't, in fact the combination of hawkeye AWACs, ship based NCDS systems, and the F-14 weapons platform was an extremely potent team for its time.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

the F-14 weapons platform was an extremely potent team for its time.

And I think we all agree - just saying the F-15 was better in the air-to-air role.

 

[drgondog]

Bill,

The F-14 features a variable camber wing as-well, LE flaps. The reason we can safely assume that the F-14's wing is more efficient is the much higher AR of the wing.

And as to Span-loading:
"Aspect ratio and planform are powerful indicators of the general performance of a wing, although the aspect ratio as such is only a secondary indicator. The wingspan is the crucial component of the performance. This is because an airplane derives its lift from a roughly cylindrical tube of air that is affected by the craft as it moves, and the diameter of that cylindrical tube is equal to the wingspan. Thus a large wingspan is working on a large cylinder of air, and a small wingspan is working on a small cylinder of air. The smaller cylinder of air must be pushed downward by a greater amount in order to produce an equal upward force; the aft-leaning component of this change in velocity is proportional to the induced drag. Therefore a large downward velocity is proportional to a large induced drag."

Mostly true and irrelevant to the discussion or the context in which you presented it.

Aerodynamically speaking, in the discussion of wing wakes, separation and related phenomena, it is useful to study the field properties of the field vorticity vector and with the concept of an instantaneous pattern of streamlines, drawn at a given time, everywhere tangent to that vector.

This concept leads to the idea of a vortex line and a vortex tube, the 'arrows' along such lines and tubes being directed according to the right hand rule of spin of fluid properties.

This concept led to the first two vortex theorems of Hemholtz - and while stated for the vortex field are purely geometrical in nature.

Net - you are confusing the notion of 'cylindrical tube of air' with a relevance to tip vortices and downwash?

If you believe that the smaller 'cylinder'/wingspan creates a 'stronger push down' I would invite you to a.) follow a J-3 on final approach and then b.) tuck under a 747 and tell us the results of your investigation.

Had you related lift load and AR per se you could have led into a discussion about increasing/reducing tip vortex strength - all other things being equal.

BTW - for an inviscous fluid (no friction), a stream tube, by Helmholtz's Second Theorem - must never end in the fluid itself but must close unto itself, end at a boundary or go to infinity. In other words the vortex line starts along the lifting line span wise to the tips, transition to a vortx tube at the tip and remain in decreasing strength at that point as the aircraft proceeds to its final destination, land, lose lift and close the vortex line at that point.

You experience this (the vortex, and a strong one depending on the strength of the lifting line) if you land short of that ship's point of touch down, but do not if you land past the point where the other ship 'lost lift'. After a minute or so the real world friction/viscosity dissipates the vortex.

 

[renrich]

The question about the Tomcat's maintenance record is certainly revelant. However, I have a question about that record. It seems like most of the poor availability record is based on testimony about the period of time from around 1991 to 2007. At that time the Tomcat had been in service almost 20 years or more. Another factor which plays a role is the service the AC endured. An assumption is that the Tomcats flew a lot of hours since they were spread around mainly on carriers which also saw a lot of service. Those hours included a carrier cat launch and landing every hour or two or three. Those evolutions put a lot of stress on the systems in the AC. No question that the Tomcat was at least a half a generation ahead of the F16 and 15 that probably had more reliable electronic and electrical systems which I understand was where most of the maintennace issues lay. How would the 15 and 16 have stood up in carrier ops which they were not capable of anyway? Were the maintenance problems with the Tomcat long standing or recent due to the AC being worn out? Perhaps a more relevant question anyway is how would the Tomcat have done in ACM with the Mig 29 and SU27?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The question about the Tomcat's maintenance record is certainly revelant. However, I have a question about that record. It seems like most of the poor availability record is based on testimony about the period of time from around 1991 to 2007. At that time the Tomcat had been in service almost 20 years or more. Another factor which plays a role is the service the AC endured. An assumption is that the Tomcats flew a lot of hours since they were spread around mainly on carriers which also saw a lot of service. Those hours included a carrier cat launch and landing every hour or two or three. Those evolutions put a lot of stress on the systems in the AC. No question that the Tomcat was at least a half a generation ahead of the F16 and 15 that probably had more reliable electronic and electrical systems which I understand was where most of the maintennace issues lay. How would the 15 and 16 have stood up in carrier ops which they were not capable of anyway? Were the maintenance problems with the Tomcat long standing or recent due to the AC being worn out? Perhaps a more relevant question anyway is how would the Tomcat done in ACM with the Mig 29 and SU27?

The F-14s maintenance woes wasn't a matter of its age or operation, it was not designed "maintenance friendly." Routine maintenance, changing filters and engine changes were a bitch from what I was told. As far as more reliable electrical and avionics? I doubt that in fact the F-14, from what remember was initially wired with "Poly X" wire and a good portion of the F-14 fleet had to be rewired when the aircraft was brought into depo status.

The F-14A and later D had FMC problems and the Navy recognized it.

Naval Institute Proceedings Magazine: A J.O. Looks at TacAir Readiness, by Lieutenant Patrick Porter

 

[renrich]

Re the visibility question when I was in the L39 rear seat I was strapped in with a parachute and could not look around much over a 180 degree arc. Course, I am not as flexible as I used to be. LOL I don't see how the GIB in an F4 was much use at all visually.

 

[Soren]

And where is Soren? This is his thread isn't it?

Hey can't a man take a break for a weekend ?

Anyway I think it was been pretty solidly proven by now that the F-14 is the better turn fighter of the three. However as noted dogfighting is a thing of the past atm, unless getting a missile lock is impossible (Which could be the case in the future, making the gun the dominant weapon again).

That having been said, the F-14's superiority in the horizontal is ofcourse not the reason I rate it as best, that would be because of its radar long range attack capability. In a BVR fight the F-14 has the edge.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The F-14s maintenance woes wasn't a matter of its age or operation, it was not designed "maintenance friendly." Routine maintenance, changing filters and engine changes were a bitch from what I was told. As far as more reliable electrical and avionics? I doubt that in fact the F-14, from what remember was initially wired with "Poly X" wire and a good portion of the F-14 fleet had to be rewired when the aircraft was brought into depo status.

The F-14A and later D had FMC problems and the Navy recognized it.

Naval Institute Proceedings Magazine: A J.O. Looks at TacAir Readiness, by Lieutenant Patrick Porter

My friend has confirmed the same thing. He has said it hand nothing to do with age, but was just not maintenance friendly at all.