CL-704 VTOL

14 lift engines and one thrust engine. It should never have gone from cocktail napkin to drafting paper. Waste of paper.
 
14 lift engines and one thrust engine. It should never have gone from cocktail napkin to drafting paper. Waste of paper.
Best i can make out, the lift engines were @2,000 ft-lbs thrust each and the main engine had 12,000+ to 20,000+ ft-lbs. I don't really see the problem here.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Best i can make out, the lift engines were @2,000 ft-lbs thrust each and the main engine had 12,000+ to 20,000+ ft-lbs. I don't really see the problem here.

Imagine how much time it takes to take care of one engine. Now imagine a dozen plus. Good god...the money and man hours that would cost...
 
Instead of 14 dedicated lift engines, how about just one?

P1154art.jpg
 

MacCaulay

Banned
The Harrier actually doesn't use a lift engine but vector-thrust.

Which makes one wonder if that whole concept would have taken off like it did without the Falklands War.

The fighter community (and the Argentine Mirage pilots in particular) were freaking out that the RAF and RN Harriers were just going to stop in midair and sidestep their missiles, then turn and fire on the departing Argentine fighters. The fear was a good thing, because I recall reading somewhere the Harrier model they went south with could go vertical for something less than one minute.
 
Which makes one wonder if that whole concept would have taken off like it did without the Falklands War.

The fighter community (and the Argentine Mirage pilots in particular) were freaking out that the RAF and RN Harriers were just going to stop in midair and sidestep their missiles, then turn and fire on the departing Argentine fighters. The fear was a good thing, because I recall reading somewhere the Harrier model they went south with could go vertical for something less than one minute.

according to my google-fu it wasn't used in the Falklands and it seems the whole name didn't originate untill after the Falklands.

http://www.airtalk.org/image-vp199841.html

The concept of VIFFing is particular to Harrier. Yak's don't and F-35 won't.

Is that important?

Wouldn't the loss of energy be a bad thing in 99 out of a 100 cases?
A bit like why the Cobra manoeuver would seem irrelevant.
 
The use of VIFFing, like the Cobra manoever or John Boyd's Flat Plate will have no influence unless it is practised. Overshoot tactics require timing that only comes with practise. Every tactic has a counter tactic. Can VIFFing counter a rolling scissors? Try it.

The use of ACM is not relevant to primary strike aircraft, but it's what fighters do. Regarding the relevance of the Cobra Manoever, although it is said to be worthless by Western military tacticians, the list of western aircraft now said to be Cobra-capable is growing to include Raptor, Gripen, Typhoon, and Rafale. Lots of new battle-iron performing useless manoevers. Maybe it can even break radar lock by minimizing doppler signature, like the Russians claim.
 
The problem with lift jets is that once you get moving they are just dead weight, eating into fuel and weapons loads. I think re-start is also a problem, a Pegasus coming in to land has been running smoothly for some time. But lift jets have to be re-started from cold and with so many the chance of failure of one to re-start is greatly increased, and in a flight of 4 planes I think it would be a near certainty.
 
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