The Heavy Fighter Thread

Heavy Fighters are mostly used in Interceptor and Dogfighting roles, They are the best and most powerful fighters ever built but they can be costly to run and maintain.

Here are some of them:

F-105 Thud, Sukhoi 15 Flagon, BAC Lightning, Sukhoi 27+, Mig 144, F-4 Phantom, F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-111 Aardvark, YF-23 Black Widow, FB/F-22 Raptor,
FB-23

[edit on 26-7-2006 by Browno]

I'm not sure where this is going, but I'll add a couple -
MiG-25 Foxbat
Saab Viggen


[edit on 26-7-2006 by Snoogans]

And the point of these three threads is what exactly? Just to put together a random list of fighters?

No Zap, to score a helluva lot of points

Heavy Fighters are mostly used in Interceptor and Dogfighting roles, They are the best and most powerful fighters ever built but they can be costly to run and maintain.

Here are some of them:

F-105 Thud, Sukhoi 15 Flagon, BAC Lightning, Sukhoi 27+, Mig 144, F-4 Phantom, F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-111 Aardvark, YF-23 Black Widow, FB/F-22 Raptor,
FB-23

[edit on 26-7-2006 by Browno]



Can I ask what is your point of this threads about the individual standard fighters? Why did you put down FB-22 and FB-23? These jets haven't proven the point and its going to be way heavier than heavy fighters. It is the future bombers now currently in development... Basically, this thread is pointless.

Oh by the way, just like what Seekerpof did say before, these two prototypes, YF-23 Black Widow II, are now collecting the bird dropping somewhere else in NASA's hangars over there in Florida.

Browno,

>>
Heavy Fighters are mostly used in Interceptor and Dogfighting roles, They are the best and most powerful fighters ever built but they can be costly to run and maintain.
>>

This is actually a misnomer. 'Heavy Fighter' usually was used in connection with what the Germans called a 'destroyer' concept and what the Allies later came to term an 'all weather' or 'night' fighter.

As such absolute range and payload ability (usually including 2-crew manning concepts), along with reliability of engines and systems at specific combinations of altitude and rpm setting was generally more important than absolute performance and indeed, most of the heavy fighters (Me-110, P-38, Mosquito) were used either _very_ selectively against threats which could not match the types performance in one specific envelope point (the 110C 'Zerstorer' was faster than a Mk.1 Spit below 6,000ft, the P-38 could use BnZ tactics to destroy Pacific and Mediterranean targets without being 'catchable' to force a dogfight). Or as covert intruders and escorts where night and/or lowlevel conditions provided a modicum of protection against dedicated lightweight fighters that would otherwise maul them very badly.

With the possible exception of the Lightning, NONE of these types could even potentially be considered 'dogfighters' and indeed saw some of their best use in striking airfields where the Axis fighters were coming in to land or taxiing. The alternative being the loitering direct defense of bomber streams or sea convoys under questionable weather conditions and at extended radii using AI equipped blind-intercept gear that a single seater would have had a hard time accomodating and could not bring to a longrange fight.

Later on, as jets brought supersonic capabilities with large nuclear payloads and heavy avionics (AI/GMR/TFR) became the norm, the assumptions of dogfighting capability disappeared entirely and weight of the fighter became proportionate to the grotesquely increased rates of fuel consumption and consequent volumetric enclosure of skin required to push all that metal through the air, over radii that could allow at least the nominal protection of the 10,000ft runway required to launch a 50-70,000lb jet from. Especially as AAMs and more advanced AI radar began to solidify the 'infront of the nose' killing zones, 'multirole' (employment if not designation) began to be possible yet the true definition of heavy fighter was more definitively split between Strike and Interceptor missions.

As such, a more appropriate listing might be:

(Nuclear) Strike
F-105 Thud,
F-111 Aardvark,

Pure Interceptor
BAC Lightning,
Sukhoi 15 Flagon,
F-14 Tomcat,

OCA Air Superiority
Sukhoi 27+,
MiG 1.44,
F-15 Eagle,
YF-23 Black Widow,

Multirole
F-4 Phantom,
FB/F-22 Raptor,
FB-23

With the possible exceptions of the F-15, Su-27* and F-22*, _none_ of these airframes are particularly well suited to 'dogfighting' and given the purely aerodynamic prototypical nature of three of them; all can be defined as being payload centric (pylons and fuselage carriage defined) rather than truly performance driven platforms such as the 'day fighters' of old would have been defined by.

Notes:

Nothing which presents a 500-800 square foot wing area in planform should be 'flat plated' in maneuvering combat because this will only benefit the side which has smaller fighters in making nose-on pointing selections from outside a hawked fight.

The Phantom does not perform well above 20,000ft. Yet it will take particularly early model MiG-21s which are noteably quite agile here, at any altitude below 10,000ft. F-4s have been noted to 'escort' B-52s operating at 35-40,000ft using their missile systems and the very predictability of the bomber tracks to compensate for their own physical envelope shortcomings.

The Lightning is a fair energy fighter but does not have the weapons system or fuel to exploit it's capabilities against any but the most cooperative of targets. Thus while it's 42,000lb gross weight is fairly hefty, it truly belongs in something more akin to a 'lightweight interceptor' classification category similar to the F-5 or MiG-21 series.

OCA or Offensive Counter Air is now fully prosecutable solely based on the performance of the airframe's weapons systems. As such, the utility of 'heavy fighters' under daylight/CAVU conditions when facing lightweight point defense interceptors has grown past the initial vulnerabilities of their 'gunzo' or Guns Only WWII progenitors.

*The Su-27 and F-22 as well as the F-14 are what could be termed 'fuel fighters' with two specific threshold performance (acceptable G and G-onset/axis) levels thanks to a bloated internal fuel fractional loads for extended radii. At the higher weights, they are in no way truly dogfighters and should never be employed in the face of either S2A or A2A fires where they could be engaged before burning down to a lighter weight. This poses probably the most significant limitation upon conventional signature airframes in terms of needing all the gas they can get to maintain supersonic sprint capabilities to extend their missile poles into if not over Area Defense (SAM based) defenses while still retaining adequate egress and recovery margin to make tanker or home plate.

The F-22 is one of the first weapons systems which can win or disengage from all combats _by choice_ without commiting to WVR engagement thanks to a combination of LO, sophisticated 2DSAR mapped signature recognitive radar (EID) and a multiple fire and forget onboard weapons suite which does not impose a midcourse guidance closure penalty. It is thus unlikely _by cost and inventory numbers_ to be considered a dogfighter, because it's principle mission as an 'enabler' to other platforms will require it to carry and employ IAMs, even during D1/R1 missions when threat air is most likely to be present in numbers. This reflects both the weighted emphasis placed upon S2A fires as the highest threat out there and the types new designator as 'COE' autonomous operations platform IMO.

One of the key factors which is often not mentioned is that Heavy Fighters gain more than lightweight ones do from coordination with airborne battle management
platforms. Particularly in the middle missile age where NCTR technologies and datalinks remained largely restrictive by weight from employment by the smaller types and A/B time was a function of external fuel loads dropped on sprint up.


CONCLUSION:
A good working idea for what a heavy fighter is and how the design came to be optimized that way through various generations of employment (WWI->Present Day) can be had from _All Weather Warriors_ by Mike Spick.

KPl.

These threads that have spammed the forum have one purpose only, points.

I see no point to having so many threads dedicated to putting aircraft into different categories. Same goes to your comparisons thread.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by Pazo
No Zap, to score a helluva lot of points

my thouhts exactly. This is like saying the clouds are white.

Browno has a fetish for theese type of threads, think he likes typing lists, specially if they contain the words f-14 tomcat and f-4 phantom.

Originally posted by buckaroo
Browno has a fetish for theese type of threads, think he likes typing lists, specially if they contain the words f-14 tomcat and f-4 phantom.

It's called posting on topic, and not idle banter about members... Then there's my other fetish...

A reminder to all, please stay on topic, and post within the Terms & Conditions Of Use.

Thanks.

fine ,
I add to this brilliant thread , one of the most succesfull "heavy" fighters in history the p-38 lightning.

Also the dehaviland mosquito.

[edit on 27-7-2006 by buckaroo]

[edit on 27-7-2006 by buckaroo]

I like P-38 Lighting too. But its category as heavy fighter in piston engine class. It is not jet. Can you try to picture P-38 airframe with jet engines?

Originally posted by OneMyrmidon
I like P-38 Lighting too. But its category as heavy fighter in piston engine class. It is not jet. Can you try to picture P-38 airframe with jet engines?

I don't need to picture it. I just type "DeHaviland Vampire" in Google and lots of pictures come out

The P-38 Lightning is a nice plane but not as nice as the P-61 Black Widow!



The XP-67 Moonbat looks stealthy for a plane of the time, Did it ever deflect radar beams?
www.collectaire.com...

Originally posted by Pazo

Originally posted by OneMyrmidon
I like P-38 Lighting too. But its category as heavy fighter in piston engine class. It is not jet. Can you try to picture P-38 airframe with jet engines?

I don't need to picture it. I just type "DeHaviland Vampire" in Google and lots of pictures come out

I know what Vampire looks like and its pretty too heavy fighter for its engine's thrust. Ok, let me brighten the picture for you, Pazo.... Try to picture P-38 Lighting with TWO jet engines to replace the piston engines, let say, with BAE Hawk's jet engine. Typically, it'll have to be redesigned airframes to fit these engines, just make P-38 a little bigger than its originally, think F/A-18C evolve into F/A-18E. I like Vampire fighter's little unconventional design for its era.

Originally posted by OneMyrmidon

I know what Vampire looks like and its pretty too heavy fighter for its engine's thrust. Ok, let me brighten the picture for you, Pazo.... Try to picture P-38 Lighting with TWO jet engines

Gee, you really think you are in the position to brighten the picture for me, thanks If you insist that it should be with TWO engines, try the DeHavilland Sea Vixen, it doesn't look as much as a P-38 as the Vampire but it is clearly influenced by it and has two engines. And if you want to see something in between, try DeHavilland Venom. It has one engine, but better thrust than the Vampire. You have lots of jet clones of the P-38, I can't think of another prop fighter that has influenced jet planes as much.

The DH jet fighter family was not influenced by the P-38 at all. the only previous influence that De Havilland took for the Vampire was their own DH 2 fighter of 1915.

Both the Vampire and the DH2 were small, light single seater manoeverable short range fighters that adopted a pod and boom design to alleviate practical problems in their design. In the case of the DH 2 it was the need to fire a gun from the cockpit, in the Vampires case it was avoiding the loss of thrust that a full length fuselage caused for early jet engines.

Not one bit of the previous description however applies to the P-38 which was a big long range escort fighter which could just as easily have had a single fuselage if Lockheed had *really* wanted to as its engines, pilot and gun were all mounted completely conventionally. Twin boom fighters were around long before the P-38 was created and several were designed in the UK during the 1930's.


As for the Vampire being too big and heavy, OneMyrmidon, are you joking? it was the lightest possible airframe with its short 'pod' centrebody and long slender booms, almost as small as a mk.1 Spitfire, and it had the same performance as the Lockheed P-80 but with greater manoeverability and heavier armament.



[edit on 1-8-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
The DH jet fighter family was not influenced by the P-38 at all. the only previous influence that De Havilland took for the Vampire was their own DH 2 fighter of 1915.
[edit on 1-8-2006 by waynos]

Hey, C'mon waynos, I don't pretend to know more about British planes than you, but looking at DH-2 pictures.... The Vampire looks a lot like P-38 eventhough technically not a heavy fighter, but I couldn't find any resemblancies to DH-2, bloodline, ok, but to say it was influenced by the 1915 plane, it's like saying the F-16 was influenced by the P-38, it was, but they have nothing in common. On the other side, the P-38 and Vampire have a lot in common, from 250 metres away, you probably couldn't tell the difference.
The guy said "Can you picture a P-38 with jets..." I think I was spot on

About Myrmidon's comment on Vampire T/W, I think this would have been better left with 'no comment', but you like to have your t's crossed... which is nice.

Pazo, I do see your point but the key word is 'influence'. That is not to say that the Vampire is 'based on' the DH 2, that clearly would be ludicrous as you have pointed out, even though the Vampire does have a plywood fuselage nacelle! See what you think of this explanation and get back to me if you want

The influence present in the Vampire design comes from the fact that DH, faced with trying to produce a small jet fighter powered by a 3,000lb thrust engine and mindful of the loss of thrust incurred by mounting it inside a full-length fuselage, like Gloster had done with the Whittle prototype, were perfectly aware of their own DH 2 short nacelle fighter from WW1 and were fully aware that this type of layout was ideal for their needs. The Vampire, conceptually though not physically, was the DH 2 reinvented for the 1940's.

The long slender booms of the Vampire were the natural evolution of such a layout and although they were used on the P-38 too, that is not where DH got the idea from. Airspeed, a company wholly owned by De Havilland, had designed a fighter ( the AS.47) with this feature before the war, which was similar in concept to the P-38 as a heavy twin, and many other companies had also prepared designs with twin booms, among them Gloster, Boulton Paul, Vickers and Westland. If you look at the planform of the AS.47 you can see it is identical to the much smaller Vampire even down to the wing shape and wing/boom junction.

Airspeed AS.47


The first example of 'P.38-like' slender parrallel booms I am aware also dates from WW1 in fact, the German AGO C.II bomber/light spotter. So there is no evidence whatsoever that the P-38 influenced the DH jets but plenty of evidence that shows that such a design feature was commonly known to designers if not commonly used.

The designs of the P-38 and Vampire are also fundamentally different in that the booms of the P-38 accomodate the engines, undercarriage and the turbo units while the booms of the Vampire serve no other purpose than carrying the tailplane at the required distance behind the wing (in common with every other previous twin boom design including the DH.2 in fact).



[edit on 1-8-2006 by waynos]