Improve That Design: How Aircraft Could Have Been Made Better (Cold-War Edition)

[XBe02Drvr]

If you couldn't inhibit a lock, then preventing the missile from blowing you up seems to make sense.
That's a pretty smart move, actually!

It would take BIG BRASS ONES to motor along fat, dumb, and happy, snapping pics and depending on the electronics to preserve your bacon, but that was the mission. Besides, dodging SAMs required an agile aircraft and good enough cockpit all-around visibility to visually track the missile, neither of which applied to the Vigilante.
The RA5's speed meant that most missile launches would end up as tail chases, and visibility aft was nil. Successfully dodging a SAM required waiting until the missile was close enough so it couldn't track a turning target with a small course correction, then pulling hard into its direction of approach, thereby exceeding it's high speed turn capability. Remember, it was designed as a BUFF killer.
The warhead's firing circuits were designed to recognize a sharp doppler shift as the closest point of approach and trigger detonation. When the SA2 was designed the Soviets still didn't have a proximity fuse that was up to the task, or so the story goes.

 

[Zipper730]

The RA5's speed meant that most missile launches would end up as tail chases, and visibility aft was nil. Successfully dodging a SAM required waiting until the missile was close enough so it couldn't track a turning target with a small course correction, then pulling hard into its direction of approach, thereby exceeding it's high speed turn capability. Remember, it was designed as a BUFF killer.

I'd almost swear the missile was designed to take out high altitude threats (which included the B-52, but also the U-2, B-57, and B-58). While I figured that the RA-5's high speed would produce tail-chases for most launches, I didn't consider rear visibility was poor for the plane.

As for ECM, I'm not sure what changes were made post 1962.

The warhead's firing circuits were designed to recognize a sharp doppler shift as the closest point of approach and trigger detonation.

That, I didn't know. I was under the impression that it simply used a command detonation signal.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I'd almost swear the missile was designed to take out high altitude threats (which included the B-52, but also the U-2, B-57, and B-58).

That's true, it was. Also the B70. It was out of its comfort zone in Vietnam, but still performed quite effectively, and evolved to expand its effective envelope.

I was under the impression that it simply used a command detonation signal.

I believe it had that too, but the distance between launch point and intercept point can make timing of that signal for optimum destructive effect problematical.

 

[Zipper730]

That's true, it was. Also the B70. It was out of its comfort zone in Vietnam, but still performed quite effectively, and evolved to expand its effective envelope.

I didn't know the B-70 was included in the list. I thought the SA-5 was built to handle that one.

I believe it had that too, but the distance between launch point and intercept point can make timing of that signal for optimum destructive effect problematical.

So in the event the command-detonation signal couldn't work, the onboard detonation system would do the job?

BTW: Would an aircraft capable of Mach 4 @ 95000' with the ability to withstand routine maneuvers of 2-3g have been able to shake the SA-2 loose with jammers equal to the B-52D's either pre/post Vietnam?

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I didn't know the B-70 was included in the list. I thought the SA-5 was built to handle that one.

If the B70 had been deployed on it's original projected schedule, it would have been there before the SA5 was operational.

So in the event the command-detonation signal couldn't work, the onboard detonation system would do the job?

By the time the launch site could determine the doppler detonator had "failed" it would be too late to achieve any destructive effect. At that point it would be just a deliberate destruct to protect friendlies below.
You gotta realize the intercept geometry of a SAM against an agile hard turning target is not what the designers of the SA2 envisioned. The rods of the warhead expand outward from the detonation point in a conical pattern, and if any of them from a distant "near miss" are to reach the target the detonation must occur somewhat before the point of closest approach. This is something that would be difficult to determine from a launch site miles away and thousands of feet below electronically, and impossible manually. This was most reliably the point where the rate of decrease of the doppler value reached a certain threshold, detonating the warhead, something that's not difficult electronically.

BTW: Would an aircraft capable of Mach 4 @ 95000' with the ability to withstand routine maneuvers of 2-3g have been able to shake the SA-2 loose with jammers equal to the B-52D's either pre/post Vietnam?

Who cares? This kind of blue sky "what if" is too esoteric for the likes of me. My apologies, but I see no point in it.

 

[Zipper730]

If the B70 had been deployed on it's original projected schedule, it would have been there before the SA5 was operational.

I thought there were concerns about its development before the B-70 first flew, though the SA-5 wasn't operational until 1966-67.

Correction: A few words make a real difference

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I thought there were concerns about its development before the B-70 first flew, though it wasn't operational until 1966-67.

The B70 was never operational.

 

[NVSMITH]

Two items:
1) I know this was done at least once: convert the C-123 to turboprop.
2) When I was at HQ USSOCOM there was a wood model, about 1:48 I guess, of a C-130 seaplane. I couldn't tell if it was amphibious; couldn't tell if it was someone's idea of a joke.

 

[Zipper730]

The B70 was never operational.

I know that, I was talking about the SA-5

 

[swampyankee]

Two items:
1) I know this was done at least once: convert the C-123 to turboprop.
2) When I was at HQ USSOCOM there was a wood model, about 1:48 I guess, of a C-130 seaplane. I couldn't tell if it was amphibious; couldn't tell if it was someone's idea of a joke.

IIRC, there was a Lockheed proposal for an amphibious variant of the C-130. The DoD didn't bite.

 

[davparlr]

BTW: Would an aircraft capable of Mach 4 @ 95000' with the ability to withstand routine maneuvers of 2-3g have been able to shake the SA-2 loose with jammers equal to the B-52D's either pre/post Vietnam?

I don't know but I would suspect that pulling 2 to 3 gs at 95k ft would be problematical for any aircraft. Maybe someone who is knowledgeable of the SR-71 or aerodynamics could say?

 

[nuuumannn]

IIRC, there was a Lockheed proposal for an amphibious variant of the C-130. The DoD didn't bite.

Pictures and information in this heavily ad laden article:

A C-130 Hercules Amphibian Makes Too Much Sense To Be True

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I don't know but I would suspect that pulling 2 to 3 gs at 95k ft would be problematical for any aircraft. Maybe someone who is knowledgeable of the SR-71 or aerodynamics could say?

The air's pretty thin up there and the coffin corner pretty narrow. It would depend on the aerodynamic details, but for any plane that would also be competitive at lower altitudes, the margin between stall and mach limit (the "coffin corner") would likely be so narrow at straight and level flight that any kind of attempt at aggressive maneuvering would lead to disaster.
Aircraft that have reached those altitudes have done it as a zoom climb/ballistic trajectory, not sustained level flight.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Have someone in British aeronautical design understand the area rule (from the 1940s for god's sake) so that the Scimitar is supersonic.

To fly your latest naval fighter in 1956 with a top speed of 740 mph and a rate of climb 6,751 ft/min is abysmal. By then the supersonic MiG-19 (902 mph, 35,000 ft/min) was well in service, and the MiG-21 (already flying in test form. The Scimitar was introduced in 1957, the same year as the USN's F-8 Crusader (1,227 mph, 19,000 ft/min). What the hell was Vickers-Supermarine smoking to think their Scimitar was competitive with what was coming out of the USSR and USA? Hell, even France was flying the superlative Mirage I in test form by then.

Two carrier aircraft, both launched 1957, one served into the 1990s, the other quickly tossed.

 

[jetcal1]

From my perspective?
The Navy should have made all the C-9 squadrons fly this puppy:

(Boeing Image)

 

[Graeme]

Have someone in British aeronautical design understand the area rule (from the 1940s for god's sake) so that the Scimitar is supersonic.

In a short article by Bill Gunston he assures the reader that the Scimitar's fuselage was area-ruled and gives reasons why the development was so slow. In photos the fuselage certainly looks obese but I had a look at a silhouette from 1961 and certainly not a "coke bottle" waist, but I think I can discern a pinched in area.
But then my eyes are crap. See what you think...

 

[Admiral Beez]

In a short article by Bill Gunston he assures the reader that the Scimitar's fuselage was area-ruled and gives reasons why the development was so slow. In photos the fuselage certainly looks obese but I had a look at a silhouette from 1961 and certainly not a "coke bottle" waist, but I think I can discern a pinched in area.
But then my eyes are crap. See what you think...

View attachment 594485

I see what you're at, but Vickers had a true area ruled version proposed, which suggests they knew they'd screwed up, akin to the Convair F-102 and F-106.

 

[NVSMITH]

Pictures and information in this heavily ad laden article:

A C-130 Hercules Amphibian Makes Too Much Sense To Be True

-The model I saw at HQ USSOCOM was the C-130 with a seaplane hull. I can't imagine a Hercules on floats.
-What next, folding wings and catapult it off a supertanker?

 

[GreenKnight121]

But way more damage on impact!
That's correct, I've never seen it up close and personal. That said, I didn't know the F-8 had an intake that was too small.

Not too "small", but designed to be just large enough to provide the required air-mass flow (181 lb/sec) required by the J57. In the later F-8 models (-E and the refurbished earlier models) the higher-powered J57s required 200 lb/sec - the intake was no longer quite adequate, and actually limited the max power output of the engine.

Increasing the cross-sectional area would require redesigning the whole front fuselage, see the redesign of the Phantom's intakes when the Brits fitted it with 210 ft/sec Speys instead of the original 170 lb/sec J79s (which changed the aerodynamics and lowered the top speed despite the more-powerful engines).

 

[Zipper730]

I don't know but I would suspect that pulling 2 to 3 gs at 95k ft would be problematical for any aircraft.

From what I found off an online site, 85.5 knots would be the approximate IAS/CAS for 95000 feet at Mach 1, so Mach 4 would be 342 kts, which does seem a touch slow. That said, even if your stall speed was 185 to 200 knots that would yield 261.6 to 346.4 knots as a stall speed in theory. That said, stall speeds vary with mach number, so...