Fictional inventory of modern airforces

[butch4343]

If we are looking for fictional air forces , have the Shah of Iran last a bit longer or at least his heir last a bit longer that OTL, prehaps till 1985.

Then you would have had the Imperial Irannian Air Force , with more F14s (145 I believe) than they have in the OTL, a large buy of F16s to replace the F5s in the inventory and the first of the F18 Hornet buy starting to be delivered to Iran. Add in to the mix the 8 E3s that ended up being delivered in the OTL to Saudi Arabia and you have a pretty effective airforce in place for the 1980s. You also have the added 24-36 Sea Harriers that were intended to be embarked on an invincible class carrier as well to add into the mix.

If that happens then on the Iraqi side what would you have by 1985, Mirage 2000 , with seed money going into the Mirage 4000 program along with Saudi Arabia's investement. Iraq even in the late 1970s was starting to move away from the USSR for its aircraft, whilst the Mig-21 was much loved by the Iraqis , the Mig-23 wasnt well recieved and the SU-17/20/22 even less so, the only real large scale purchase for Iraq in the 1980s would perhaps be Mig-29s. In addition to this I believe that Iraq had made overtures to PANAVIA in regards to a purchase of Tornados, the role later being filled by SU-24s .

 

[Uruk]

In basic terms its a case of bigger is better. The lightning is almost twice the weight of the draken, meaning things like it has a bigger radar for longer range and more powerful weapons, which would make a massive difference with a mid life update. The lighting is famously fast climbing and accelerating, which would give great advantage is air to air combat and likely more important than turning circle. The lightning has about 2800l of fuel per engine while the draken has about 3500l of fuel, so the draken has about a 2 hour flight endurance compared to 1.5 hours of the lightning.

They were planing to upgrade the Lightning to Sidewinders that were standard armament of the Draken (together with Falcons) not to mention that it stayed in service OTL in all user countries to the end of the Cold War, so I dont agree.
If we really go alt history Sweden and Finland do a joint Project in the 70´s and do the Mod 4 Draken

 

[tomo pauk]

In basic terms its a case of bigger is better. The lightning is almost twice the weight of the draken, meaning things like it has a bigger radar for longer range and more powerful weapons, which would make a massive difference with a mid life update. The lighting is famously fast climbing and accelerating, which would give great advantage is air to air combat and likely more important than turning circle. The lightning has about 2800l of fuel per engine while the draken has about 3500l of fuel, so the draken has about a 2 hour flight endurance compared to 1.5 hours of the lightning.

Bigger might be better, but Lighting was not appreciably bigger than Draken (that have had a bigger wing, actually). That meant that aircraft is basically two engines with as tight airframe wrapped around them. Meaning that not just the Lightning has small fuel tankage per unit of thrust, but the allocated volume for the electronics is also limited. Size of radar's aerial is limited due to the layout of intakes (MiG-21 sharing the same problem).
From 1960s on, great advantage in air to air combat is with the side that has better missiles, electronics onboard, and better support from surface- and airborne-based radars and jammers, plus a better tactics and training - so we see Sea Harriers trashing both Skyhawks and Mirages.
Draken was from day 1 outfitted with excellent electronics, that the Swiss wanted so bad in their Mirages that price of resulting fighters almost doubled.

At the end of the day, Lightning combined shortcomings of a small aircraft (lack of range, not much of a radar/missile/bomb truck, lack of easy upgrade options) with shortcomings of big aircraft (weight, twice the number of engines -> high cost to own and operate) resulting in the fighter being far from a commercial success.

 

[Riain]

I find it interesting that aircraft performance is considered to be an important reason why aircraft are purchased and upgraded. A look at the defence policy of Britain in the early 60s will provide a better set of reasons why the lightning was not a commercial success than its supposed shortcomings. Britain in the early 60s was struggling to balance her world role with new responsibility of the welfare state, NHS and other things that drew heavily on the public purse. This meant that the lightning didn't get developed to its potential and Britain wasn't seen as a valuable strategic partnership. Instead it was seen as a country that made sweeping decisions like planes being obsolete then overturning this decision, or developing advanced aircraft to flight stage and then cancelling them.

In that environment it is difficult to convince a country to buy the worlds fastest climbing fighter, that is comparable in range to its contemporaries but has a bigger more advanced radar and weapons than most.

 

[Hammerbolt]

I find it interesting that aircraft performance is considered to be an important reason why aircraft are purchased and upgraded. A look at the defence policy of Britain in the early 60s will provide a better set of reasons why the lightning was not a commercial success than its supposed shortcomings. Britain in the early 60s was struggling to balance her world role with new responsibility of the welfare state, NHS and other things that drew heavily on the public purse. This meant that the lightning didn't get developed to its potential and Britain wasn't seen as a valuable strategic partnership. Instead it was seen as a country that made sweeping decisions like planes being obsolete then overturning this decision, or developing advanced aircraft to flight stage and then cancelling them.

The UK's management of it's aircraft industry post WWII was a complete and utter disaster...

 

[Rufus Shinra]

The UK's management of it's aircraft industry post WWII was a complete and utter disaster...

No political will to keep a sovereign armaments industry while more and more parts of it were trusted over to the US, believing the "special relationship" wasn't one-sided (ask Rolls-Royce how the F136 engine it was supposed to design for the F-35 is going). Cue 70 years later with little realistic prospect for leading any serious program while the local know-how dwindled away.

 

[Pretaporter]

In an ideal world they would have realised early on in the programme that combining the trainer and ground attack roles in the same aircraft was leading to one which was lacklustre at both and split them.

Not always the case, such as with the Hawk.

That may be rubbish at its ground attack role, for all I know, but the trainer must be absolutely outstanding for the US to drop their NMH rule and buy a load.

(Well, I think the US ones were literally made there, under licence, but y'know what I mean.)

I thought I recognized these babies!

Dah . . . dah . . . dah . . . dah . . . dum dum dum dum!

It's Destiny Angel and her mates.



View attachment 459254


View attachment 459255

Brilliant!!!!

Not only advanced aircraft, but advanced recruitment too.

SPECTRUM saw the light that there's no reason women cannot be fly-by-wire fighter pilots way before NATO did!

Indeed, superior pilots in general, which is why no man made the grade for the Angel

 

[WILDGEESE]

Not always the case, such as with the Hawk.

That may be rubbish at its ground attack role, for all I know, but the trainer must be absolutely outstanding for the US to drop their NMH rule and buy a load.

(Well, I think the US ones were literally made there, under licence, but y'know what I mean.)




Not only advanced aircraft, but advanced recruitment too.

SPECTRUM saw the light that there's no reason women cannot be fly-by-wire fighter pilots way before NATO did!

Indeed, superior pilots in general, which is why no man made the grade for the Angel

Correct.

Watched a program in the early 2000's called "EQUINOX" Episode "G-LOCK"

Women (through gritted teeth) are just as good as men in the cockpit.

The real bonus though is they can pull more G's than a man, around 2 to 3 on average due to the fact that women have most of their muscle mass in their thighs where as men it's in their arms and upper body.

It's all to do with these exercises pilots do to keep the blood in their heads similar to the Kegel's that post birth women do.

Hilarious seeing the male pilots only hitting 6/7 G's until they did the 'funky chicken' when the women where going straight up to 10.

 

[Simon]

... must be absolutely outstanding for the US to drop their NMH rule and buy a load.

It's rare but they do on occasion buy, or more accurately license produce, foreign designs. Off the top of my head you had the Canberra, the Harrier, the PC-9 etc. Possibly even more as well that I just haven't seen mentioned.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

It's rare but they do on occasion buy, or more accurately license produce, foreign designs. Off the top of my head you had the Canberra, the Harrier, the PC-9 etc. Possibly even more as well that I just haven't seen mentioned.

The US does it more often than you would think - they are not that shy that they cannot look at a 1st in class weapon system and use it.

Just off the top of my head and granted there may be differences to the legacy weapon regarding the US version but teh point is still valid!

The last 2 main tank guns were British and German - the L7 105 Rifled (used on the M60, early M1s and the Current M1128 Mobile gun system) and the Rheinmetall L/44 120mm (M1A1+)
The Current LMG is a Belgium design - the Minimi
The Current GPMG and Tank coax - the M240 aka the FN MAG is also Belgium
The current side arm the F9 is a copy of the Italian Beretta 92F
The light artillery - M119 105mm gun is a copy of the British L118
The 84mm Charlie G MAW is well a copy of the Swedish Carl Gustav 84mm AT weapon
The US Navy Goshawk trainer is effectively a BAe Hawk
M252 81mm Mortar - a copy of the British L16A2

 

[Zen9]

So I've sort of dealt with how the Lightning could go in it's own thread.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-other-lightning-ee-wank.467133/

Though for the RAF the Type 571 single engine delivers a lot of what's needed for the variety of missions that GOR.339 covered. Less the all singing TSR.2 than a sort of British Viggen. With variants built for the different roles. This could easily cover the MRI mission and remove the need for the Jaguar.
This would sweep the latet F104 out of the picture and considering the timing call into question the Viggen itself.

 

[JudgeKing]

It's rare but they do on occasion buy, or more accurately license produce, foreign designs. Off the top of my head you had the Canberra, the Harrier, the PC-9 etc. Possibly even more as well that I just haven't seen mentioned.

Here's an expanded list of foreign aircraft used by the United States:

Spoiler: List (spoilered for size)

Aeritalia G.222 - C-27 Spartan
AgustaWestland AW139 - MH-139
Alenia C-27J Spartan II
Antononv An-26
Bombardier Global Express - E-11A Sentinel
British Aerospace Harrier - AV-8 Harrier
British Aerospace Hawk - T-45 Goshawk
British Aerospace 125 Jet Dragon - C-29
CASA C-212 Aviocar - C-41A
CASA/IPTN CN-235 - C-144/HC-144 Ocean Sentry
Canadair CL-13 Sabre
Canadair Challenger 604 - C-143A
Chengdu J-7
De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver - C-127, L-20A/B, U-6A/B
De Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter - U-1A/B Otter
De Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou - CV-2/C-7 Caribou
De Havilland Canada DHC-5 Buffalo - AC-2/CV-7A/C-8A Buffalo
De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter - UV-18 Twin Otter
De Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash-7 - RC-7B/EO-5C
De Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash-8 - E-9A Widget
Diamond DA40 - T-52A
Dornier Do328 - C-146 Wolfhound
English Electric Canberra - B-57/RB-57 Canberra
Eurocopter EC145 - UH-72 Lakota
Fokker F27 Friendship - C-21A Troopship
IAI Kfir - F-21
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
Mikoyan MiG-29
PZL M28 Skytruck - C-145 Skytruck
Pilatus PC-6 Porter - AU-23 Peacemaker/OV-12/UV-12 Chiricahua
Pilatus PC-9 - T-6 Texan II
Pilatus PC-12 - U-28A Spectre
Shenyang J-5
Short 330 - Short C-23A Sherpa
Short 360 - Short C-23B Sherpa

 

[tomo pauk]

I find it interesting that aircraft performance is considered to be an important reason why aircraft are purchased and upgraded. A look at the defence policy of Britain in the early 60s will provide a better set of reasons why the lightning was not a commercial success than its supposed shortcomings.

Performance was a factor, but, by the start of 1960s, EE Lighting is just another Mach 2 fighter. Yes, it will out-climb just about anyone, but it will not out-climb a missile that countries were also buying from 1950s on. Shortcomings of Lighting are not supposed, it's a simple math. Just like it was a simple math that made Vampires and Hunters being commercial successes, unlike the Javelin or Sea Vixen.
Granted, the 'wobbly' nature of British government towards it's aero industry will not help the matter.

Britain in the early 60s was struggling to balance her world role with new responsibility of the welfare state, NHS and other things that drew heavily on the public purse. This meant that the lightning didn't get developed to its potential and Britain wasn't seen as a valuable strategic partnership. Instead it was seen as a country that made sweeping decisions like planes being obsolete then overturning this decision, or developing advanced aircraft to flight stage and then cancelling them.

In that environment it is difficult to convince a country to buy the worlds fastest climbing fighter, that is comparable in range to its contemporaries but has a bigger more advanced radar and weapons than most.

We have a 'non-power' country of Sweden exporting it's aircraft, as well as France, not a bigger power than UK, grabbing the market for Mach 2 fighters with Mirage III and it's derivatives. After all, UK have had plenty of funds and plenty of smart people to design & develop three different 4-engined jet bombers and three different 2-engined fighters post ww2 (just service-types, plus prototypes), so let's not blame it on the NHS and welfare state.

Any sources to prove that Lighting have had comparable range to it's contemporaries, as well as for it's radar and weapons being that advanced?

 

[Hammerbolt]

Here's an expanded list of foreign aircraft used by the United States:

Chengdu J-7
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
Mikoyan MiG-29
Shenyang J-5

You can add the Mig-15 to this list. And this should be called "more or less secretly bought/stolen/bribed away"
As for the Kfir, it was leased to work as an Aggressor.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

This is the RAF's plan for the period from March 1964 to March 1975 at 6th March 1964.

It is part of National Archives File 20/11708/68770.

 

[Khanzeer]

Was F 101 ever used in interceptor role by Taiwan?
Could it possibly be a better choice for them than f104 ?
Can a modified for A2G version of f101 be a competitor of f104 in Europe?

 

[Barry Bull]

MiG-31 Firefox in Soviet service.

Designed to be the future replacement for the MiG-25 and provide the Soviet Union with a huge edge in any air battle against NATO, the MiG-31 represented a quantum leap forwards in capabilities.
It is believed that the Soviet Union became aware of the US F-19 ‘Spectre’ through the Volkers Spy Ring and rushed to develop a counter, using a great deal of stolen data to help speed the development of their own aircraft.

Wanting an aircraft that could intercept the SR-71 and D-21 drone combo as well as counter the F-19 the Soviet Union threw vast amounts of resources and money into the problem. Using much of what was learned from the MiG-25 to create one of the most advanced aircraft to ever take to the skies.

Utilizing two massive Turmansky RJ-15DB-600 turbojets as well as a still unique arrangement of six solid fuel boosters that, whilst mainly used in take off could be used in conjunction with the main engines. Although considered 'inelegant' by Western standards, the RD-15DB-600's had a clever air intake system. This helped accuratly control the engine breathing, especially at high altitude and this resulted in some truly jaw dropping performance. With the engines and SRB’s engaged the MiG-31 was capable of a short, very high altitude dash at Mach 4.02. This came at the cost of massive fuel consumption but also could push the aircraft to a maximum altitude in testing of over 131,000 feet. The MiG-31 would more normally ‘cruise’ at Mach 2.3, still far faster than most Western aircraft and a 'normal' operating altitude was anywhere from 95,000 to 105,000 feet.

To be able to survive the heat of such high speeds, most of the fighters’ frame was made of Titanium and SS-118 (a stainless steel/nickel compound used in MiG-25 construction). Still heat was a problem, and this led to the crafts unique shape, and every effort was made to reduce drag. This included internal weapons bays and seamless angular slanting for much of the hull. This was only partially effective, and the aircrafts frame was still a giant heatsink and this destroyed its stealth capabilities as it could be easily tracked by heat seeking missiles.
The Soviets still applied a form of radar absorbent material, and combined with its angular frame, it was quite stealthy. But, nowhere near as stealthy as the F-19. Still it reduced the range at which it was detected, making it the Soviets first 'stealth' aircraft. The MiG-31 is not a manouverable craft. In one memorable incident a MiG-31 was tracked by AWACS and it was said that 'it needed all of Siberia to turn around'.

As an interceptor the MiG-31 was armed with six AA-9 ‘Amos’ and eight AA-11 ‘Archer’ missiles in addition to a GSh-6-23 cannon. The ‘Firebat’ has been described as an exhausting aircraft to fly and even with its then revolutionary voice activated controls for its weapons and defensive ECM, the MiG-31 is still only piloted by the most experienced and well-trained pilots. Prospective MiG-31 pilots undergo several years of training before being assigned to the aircraft.

Fortunately for the West the sheer cost of the MiG-31 proved to be its downfall. Turf wars between the navy and airforce who wanted the titanium for their Alfa submarines or MiG-31 respectively. As well as the difficulty in casting Titanium in the right shapes, and the cost of the metals all combined to slow the production of the fighter.
In the end the V-PVO was able to equip two squadrons with the aircraft and a total of 165 would be produced before the fall of the Soviet Union. Although often compared to the F-19 ‘Spectre’ the MiG-31 ‘Firebat’ is a different aircraft. The USAF fighter is very stealthy and was designed to operate in the SAM dense skies of a battlefield over Europe. The MiG-31 is a dedicated interceptor, designed to shoot down NATO bombers attacking the USSR. The F-19 and its F-117 ‘cousin’ are also multi-role aircraft whilst the MiG-31 cannot carry any air to ground ordinance. Whilst its performance numbers are highly impressive, the MiG-31 was simply too expensive, too revolutionary to produce in any numbers, and too limited in its role.

The MiG-31 remains in service today despite being introduced in 1988, with squadrons based near Murmansk, Moscow, Vladivostok and Kiev. It wasn't until 2008 that a MiG-31 appeared in the West with one making an appearance at the Paris airshow. This gave Western Journalists and pilots their first ever official closeup of the MiG-31. It also dispelled many of the rumors that had swirld round the craft, including such fanciful ideas as 'thought controlled' flight assistance.

Hope this is okay

The RCS wold be high with such huge vertical stabilizers. Shaping of the aircraft has been established as more effective in reducing RCS than use of RAM.

 

[Barry Bull]

The lighting is famously fast climbing and accelerating, which would give great advantage is air to air combat and likely more important than turning circle.

Hasn't such argument been significantly countered by John Boyd?

 

[Barry Bull]

I find it interesting that aircraft performance is considered to be an important reason why aircraft are purchased and upgraded. A look at the defence policy of Britain in the early 60s will provide a better set of reasons why the lightning was not a commercial success than its supposed shortcomings. Britain in the early 60s was struggling to balance her world role with new responsibility of the welfare state, NHS and other things that drew heavily on the public purse. This meant that the lightning didn't get developed to its potential and Britain wasn't seen as a valuable strategic partnership. Instead it was seen as a country that made sweeping decisions like planes being obsolete then overturning this decision, or developing advanced aircraft to flight stage and then cancelling them.

In that environment it is difficult to convince a country to buy the worlds fastest climbing fighter, that is comparable in range to its contemporaries but has a bigger more advanced radar and weapons than most.

While politics is and was an issue, high speed high altitude interceptors were and are going to have a limited marketw as most countries' air force need more versatile multi role aircraft than an interceptor with some strike capacity.

 

[Riain]

Hasn't such argument been significantly countered by John Boyd?

I thought Boyd's argument was to have as much energy as possible, and the Lightning had plenty of that by virtue of its exceptional power to weight ratio.

While politics is and was an issue, high speed high altitude interceptors were and are going to have a limited market as most countries' air force need more versatile multi role aircraft than an interceptor with some strike capacity.

The limited ground attack capability of the Lightning was not due to design, but to lack of development.