The MIG41

reply to post by Zaphod58


That's bastard fast man! What kind of altitude does she need to achieve to theoretically top mach 6?

reply to post by andy06shake


Operational ceiling is planned for 100,000 feet or higher.

reply to post by Zaphod58


That kind of altitude and velocity pretty much places any future SR-72 into the sub orbital bomber category does it not? I mean once she's up there at 100,000ft doing about 4600 mph, she could pretty much strike anywhere on the planet(within her orbital path) with in a very short period of time or i'm I wrong?

_Del_
reply to post by AlphaExray

 

The thing about using lower frequencies for stealth detection (like VHF or UHF) is that the the resolution of the paint is frequency dependent. Telling me that an airplane is somewhere within that 32 miles of cubic airspace is useful as a search or warning tool, but useless for providing targeting data to a SAM, for example. For targeting data, we need higher-frequencies. And at X-band, we're right back to stealth being a useful tool again. Lower frequencies are also more susceptible to clutter and jamming. It's not as simple as saying, "An OTH radar can detect a stealth aircraft". It is true, but it doesn't tell us what "detect" means.

You're bang on. Nice to see someone who knows their physics. I think Pierre Sprey was being overly simplistic when he said battle of Britain radars could target stealth aircraft, but the point he was making is that they are visible. In today’s complex battle field scenarios, outside of say undeveloped rural areas, you have frequency saturation. Echos upon echos from all walks of active radars, overlapped with Doppler, magnetometer and satellite arrays. Advanced computing allows for multi layer analysis, leading to heightened threat awareness, but the ideal means of response remains direct threat engagement. Sams are Sams; they have come a long way, but they are still outpaced by aeronautical developments. The simple point is that the selling point of Stealth has justified the use of substandard epoxy based composites airframes at a ridiculously overpriced rate. It hurts for me to put down the material given that it is my mentors technology, but we realized back in the 80's their limitations. When we gave composites to the US government for the use in their stealth program, it was under the guise that it would make aircraft construction better and far less expensive, not the monstrosities they have become now.

One of our original work-ups for the 1983 presentation through the Celanese corporation to then secretary of defence was a proposal to make a prototype f-4, which we named the F-4X. It was to be a Mach 3 capable aircraft, with the engines incorporated into the design layup. We had forecast that with the right tooling, a group of five men could produce an airframe in five days, at a materials cost of under $150 000.00, excluding avionics and weapons systems. Now planes cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and they are made with substandard multilayer machine layups, with no z-axis strength, lots and lots of machining, and need to be refrigerated. It is painful to watch.

It still makes me sad to hear people talking about state of the art and putting up pictures of planes that were flying in the early eighties.

AX
FTNWO

reply to post by andy06shake


That'd still not into the orbital range, but it puts it out of range of pretty much every weapon system around, for now anyway.

reply to post by UxoriousMagnus



This is a fighter jet yes, not an anti-armor jet like the A-10...

Almost all modern aerial dog fighting involves missiles.

reply to post by Hijinx


Most likely it is intended to be a intercepting missile truck. Get there fast, volley some wicked AA missiles, get out.

AlphaExray
Propulsion would probably be plasma based, compressor bypassing with most likely cold hydroxy, through a variable venturi carbon carbon blast can.

Could you explain this technology more? I don't understand any of it.

reply to post by mbkennel


Plasmas a pretty slow propulsion system on it's own no?

reply to post by Sammamishman


The true dog fight is long over. In reality almost all aerial combat is beyond visual range, and even then you'll be lucky to ever see your target.