WI Canadair built CF-5XL airplanes?

riggerrob

WI Canadair developed a (fictional) version of the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, with a delta/cranked arrow wing similar to the experimental F-16XL?

OTL Canadair-built CF-5 fighters were forced on the RCAF by politicians. Federal politicians needed to buy more votes in Quebec by keeping the Canadair factory busy aft r CF-104 production finished.

OTL RCAF struggled to find a combat role for CF-5 and eventually mainly used it as a lead-in trainer for supersonic fighters (CF-101, CF-104 and CF-18).
CF-5’s biggest limitation was its short range, too short for Arctic patrols. In the fighter-attack role, CF-5 could barely deliver a full bomb load to the end of its own runway!

OTOH the F-16XL could carry double the bomb-load or double the fuel-load of contemporary F-16 variants.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

The f16xl was unstable, and required fly-by-wire controls. Those were cutting edge when it was built in 1982, iirc.
Getting a cf5xl probably means waiting that long - by which time the production line has surely been closed completely.
Moreover, the extra cost would surely negate the whole point of buying a cheap plane like the cf5.

Note, too, that the US never put the f16xl into operation, so clearly the advantages can't be nearly as wonderful as you're trying to make them.
 

Orcbuster

Yeah this would essentially be a completely new airframe with no commonality to the CF-5 in terms of systems while also retaining the many many glaring weaknesses of the F-5 airframe such as weak thrust to weight ratio and still rather low payload and shit radar and A2A options.

It would be an enourmous failure.
 
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riggerrob

F-16XL was never adopted by the USAF because they wanted to buy more F-15s.

As for needing fly-by-wire stability augmentation ... all that generation needed electronic stability augmentation.
Oh!
And thousands of deltas were built before fly-by-wire was invented: Convair, Mirages, etc.
 

Orcbuster

riggerrob said:
F-16XL was never adopted by the USAF because they wanted to buy more F-15s.

As for needing fly-by-wire stability augmentation ... all that generation needed electronic stability augmentation.
Oh!
And thousands of deltas were built before fly-by-wire was invented: Convair, Mirages, etc.
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Yes, all around vastly superior airframes to the F-5.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

riggerrob said:
F-16XL was never adopted by the USAF because they wanted to buy more F-15s.

As for needing fly-by-wire stability augmentation ... all that generation needed electronic stability augmentation.
Oh!
And thousands of deltas were built before fly-by-wire was invented: Convair, Mirages, etc.
Click to expand...
Delta wings? Sure. Forward swept wings? Nope.

Also what do F16s and F15s have to do with each other? If an f16xl costs as much as an f15, well then, duh, of course the air force won't buy them. But they continued to build F16s - indeed they're still being built today. If the xl version was that great, why isn't THAT the variant currently being built?

Thirdly. In addition to electronics, the forward swept wings needs REALLY strong, stiff a d light materials which weren't available when the CF5 was still in production.
 
ShockTrooper262

ShockTrooper262

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Also what do F16s and F15s have to do with each other? If an f16xl costs as much as an f15, well then, duh, of course the air force won't buy them. But they continued to build F16s - indeed they're still being built today. If the xl version was that great, why isn't THAT the variant currently being built?
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The F-16XL and the F-15E were both apart of the Enhanced Tactical Fighter program and the F-15E performed better than the XL so instead of producing both, the XLs sensors got rolled into later F-16s while the F-15E was procured. The main reason for the XL losing was the XL would have required much more effort, time and money to put into full production. Additionally, the Strike Eagle has two engines, which gives it more thrust and capacity to carry more weapons and/or armor. Furthermore, engine redundancy can be very useful for an aircraft whose mission involves operating within the reach of anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles, in addition to the standard threats of fighter aircraft and interceptors.


The XL however did carry the same number of AGM-65s as the A-10, though the F-15E carrier more standard bombs, rockets, AtA missiles and such for the USAF to declare it the winner.
 

tomo pauk

riggerrob said:
WI Canadair developed a (fictional) version of the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, with a delta/cranked arrow wing similar to the experimental F-16XL?

OTL Canadair-built CF-5 fighters were forced on the RCAF by politicians. Federal politicians needed to buy more votes in Quebec by keeping the Canadair factory busy aft r CF-104 production finished.

OTL RCAF struggled to find a combat role for CF-5 and eventually mainly used it as a lead-in trainer for supersonic fighters (CF-101, CF-104 and CF-18).
CF-5’s biggest limitation was its short range, too short for Arctic patrols. In the fighter-attack role, CF-5 could barely deliver a full bomb load to the end of its own runway!

OTOH the F-16XL could carry double the bomb-load or double the fuel-load of contemporary F-16 variants.
Click to expand...

Delta wing equals more internal volume, that can equal more internal fuel. That in return means that whatever is hung outside is bomb/rockets, since there is no need for drop tanks. Delta wing will also be of greater area than the 'classic' wing, so the wing loading is under control while carrying such a big payload.
What also needs to be done is a major increase in engine thrust, talk at least 25%? I'm not sure what Western jet engine can be installed on the basic F-5 airframe that can provide such a jump in thrust.
 

Orcbuster

tomo pauk said:
Delta wing equals more internal volume, that can equal more internal fuel. That in return means that whatever is hung outside is bomb/rockets, since there is no need for drop tanks. Delta wing will also be of greater area than the 'classic' wing, so the wing loading is under control while carrying such a big payload.
What also needs to be done is a major increase in engine thrust, talk at least 25%? I'm not sure what Western jet engine can be installed on the basic F-5 airframe that can provide such a jump in thrust.
Click to expand...

Again, this isn't a delta variant of the F-5, this is an entirely new fighter grossly inferior to most other products on the market at the time of its arrival. Its existence makes no sense.

How do you justify the development of this thing?
 

tomo pauk

Orcbuster said:
Again, this isn't a delta variant of the F-5, this is an entirely new fighter grossly inferior to most other products on the market at the time of its arrival. Its existence makes no sense.
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You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

How do you justify the development of this thing?
Click to expand...

I'm sending the memorandum in 96 printed pages, plus extra 28 charts and diagrams to you.
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
tomo pauk said:
since there is no need for drop tanks
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If I had a dollar for every time someone said "there's no need for drop tanks," I'd be a billionaire by now. Military and civilian leaders have said that since WWII, and every time they've been proven wrong. At the operational level, drop tanks are part of the standard load out, regardless of how far away the target is. Why? Safety. They give the pilot that extra bit of fuel just in case he needs to go to burner for whatever reason. So despite what the designers may think, your theoretical F-5XL will still have drop tanks hung on it by ground crew, reducing it's payload in comparison to other fighters that can already carry more ordinance
 

tomo pauk

Orcbuster said:
I'm just asking for one good reason for this thing to exist.
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Have Canadian industry make something that is much more useful than F-5, on Canadian taxpayer's money.

SsgtC said:
If I had a dollar for every time someone said "there's no need for drop tanks," I'd be a billionaire by now. Military and civilian leaders have said that since WWII, and every time they've been proven wrong. At the operational level, drop tanks are part of the standard load out, regardless of how far away the target is. Why? Safety. They give the pilot that extra bit of fuel just in case he needs to go to burner for whatever reason. So despite what the designers may think, your theoretical F-5XL will still have drop tanks hung on it by ground crew, reducing it's payload in comparison to other fighters that can already carry more ordinance
Click to expand...

The 'regular' fighter-bombers carry drop-tanks as mandatory piece of payload, since the internal fuel is always limited. The 'F-5XL' will have far less need to carry drop tanks since it can have much bigger internal tanks.
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
tomo pauk said:
The 'regular' fighter-bombers carry drop-tanks as mandatory piece of payload, since the internal fuel is always limited. The 'F-5XL' will have far less need to carry drop tanks since it can have much bigger internal tanks.
Click to expand...
Uhhhhh, yeah, no. It will have much bigger tanks compared to the OTL CF-5. But considering that the CF-5 had just enough fuel to deliver a full bomb load to the end of the runway, that's not a real high bar to cross. Even if we double internal capacity and give the aircraft aerodynamic improvements, you're still talking a combat radius of under 300nm. In OTL, the F-5E, which had a larger internal fuel capacity than the F-5A that the CF-5 was based on, only had a combat radius of 120nm with 5 minutes or less at max power.

Compare that to the baseline F-16C Block 50. With four thousand pound bombs and two sidewinders, it has a combat radius of 295nm using a high low high mission profile. And it does that on 7,000 pounds of internal fuel. The baseline F-5E carried around 4,600 pounds of internal fuel (I couldn't find the numbers for the CF-5, so used the F-5E instead). But since this is for the XL, we've doubled it. In other words, you're going to burn 2,000 pounds more fuel for the same mission as a bog standard F-16. Why is anyone doing that?
 
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