Air Force Question Thread

[shehbazi2001]

Murad sahib...please dont call me as SIR.....I am too young for you........plus u r our senior on this forum......

 

[shehbazi2001]

For the information of forum members I want to clarify that F-16C is less maneuverable than F-16A, as the thrust-weight ratio of the former is less than the latter........wing loading may have also increased.......and thats what I saw in a text book of aeronautical engineering......

and thats why A model was used by US Aggressor squadrons...

I mentioned it because somewhere on the forum I saw a post saying that F-16C would be more agile than its A model.

Hereby I don't mean that A is better than C. We definitely need C now.

 

[Myth_buster_1]

The 3 fuel tanks and 2 sidewinders are a standard configuration, The smoke trail to civilians it looks like the plane has some big time fault but no. When the Actual fight starts trust me the last things is looking for a smoke trail. The smoke trail is useless for the enemy planes who have the capabilities of BVR. Now if the same plane enters a dog fight which is a 90% chance that he will the smoke trail would be the last thing on both the pilots Friend or Foe.
Plus the smoke trail vanishes after a certain hight.

Sir.. at that time when i saw these planes.. i was pretty much close to the air base i could get from the highway.. wright after it took off, some thin trail of smoke was visibel...

 

[shehbazi2001]

I just had a query about functioning of radar altimeter.........we know that radar altimeter measures height from ground by sending waves downward and noting the time of return of waves.

and I read somewhere that after a certain height perhaps, the barometric altimeter is not used.

The question is that if the aircraft gets inverted in level flight or when its diving, or climbing, would the radar altimeter give correct reading? and if it gives correct reading, then how it is possible?.....

 

[x_man]

Radar altimeter or radio altimeters are generally effective till 2500 feet only…above this height RA are not useful and pilot solely relies on his baro altimeter (BA)……..Whenever a pilot needs very accurate height information above the ground level (remember that BA is generally set to read altitude from the sea level) ….. He will use RA instead of BA…..

For example, you want to fly a Hi- Lo-Hi profile to carry out a Lo level bombing attack at an airfield.......So you will take off , climb to initial hi altitude and proceed to waypoint, all the way maintaining height on your BA……….once you descend to lo level , now you will switch on your RA and rely on it , you will need to set the height on it that you want to maintain ( lets say 230 feet)……if you go below 230 feet, it will alert you with a beep……so all the way you maintain your height now on RA…carry out the attack….head back home…..and as you start to climb , you will once again start to refer to your Barometric altimeter…….

The commercial aircrafts once carrying out Instrument landing or ILS approach with autopilot engaged also use Radio Alt heights…..they are not allowed to carry auto landing, if their RA is unserviceable….

Remember that whenever you are referring to your RA, the BA doesn’t go off …..It will continue to give height info….

As far as your query regarding getting inverted etc, so you are right….RA will give erroneous readings and one will need to rely on BA only in such situations..….

 

[shehbazi2001]

Thanks x for the detailed reply.

I had made a mistake that after a certain height BA is not used.....in fact it is RA that is not used after certain height.ok.

 

[niaz]

The black smoke of the JF-17 Thunder means that the combustion of fuel in the combustion chamber of the jet engine is incomplete.

If u look at the pictures of Mig_29, it also leaves a smoke trail. The same was the case with F-4 Phantoms. Then the engine technology improved and the combustion of fuel was COMPLETE and we saw no smoke in the exhaust.

This smoke is unburnt carbon in the exhaust. The fuel is not fully burnt.

The smoke trail was also the problem with SIDEWINDER untill its AIM-9M version, which has smokeless rocket motor, and this makes it harder to detect.

I would like if all the AIM-9Ls are upgraded to M version too.

A long time ago I was working for the National Engineering Laboratories at East Kilbride near Glasgow. I am also an avid bridge player. My bridge partner happened to be an aeronautics engineer working at the Rolls Royce Engine Repair and Overhaul factory located practically next door. I therefore had the occasion to visit it a few times and had the chance to look at the Spey Engine (a low by pass turbofan) at various stages of assembly and testing.

You are correct the about smoke being indicative of part of the fuel not completely burnt. It depends a lot on the air intake and the air compressor of the engine. In order to get maximum thrust, a lot of fuel is injected in the combustion chamber and if there is not enough oxygen available from the air, some of the fuel will not burn and instead exit in the form of atomised carbon which is smoke.

The problem is easier to resolve in larger turbines but in a minitiarised form as in the aircraft engine, it is extremely difficult, the size of air intake in the engine is a design compromise and cannot always be corrected.

IMO manufacture and design of aircraft's power plant is far more complex than the fuselage and wings.

 

[shehbazi2001]

Many of the aviation-historians are still angry with UK that why UK gave jet-engine samples to Russia (immediately after WW2 I thihk). Russia developed it further and used it in Korean War with Mig-15s.

The jet engine technology is limited to just a few companies in the world. Alongwith aerodynamics, I also chased the mirage of jet-engine right from my first year of engineering but the result is that there are many things that we dont find in the books.......

Someone interested in understanding jet-engines should read the books written in 1950s, as they are almost pure. After that?????????

key design tricks are restricted to those companies that design and manufacture jet engines.

In many of the colorful "cut-away" drawings of jet engines....there are errors......and the publishers were told to publish the wrong engine drawings in the books.

One of the publishers then revealed it. I read it myself. I am editing this post to include the details of that publisher, otherwise I may appear as conspiracy theorist. You should study the volume 10 of the series "Modern Fighting Aircraft" published by Acro Publishing. Volume 10 is about Panavia Tornado.

India has established since 1950s, the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) and they are working on "Kaveri" jet engine for LCA since 1986 and have apparently fixed 2009 for starting production.

Niaz, the miniaturized word should only be used for the jet engines of the cruise missiles and jet drones.....the aircraft jet engines are big.......some like GE90 of the commercial aircrafts are too much big.......

Research on jet engines is going at very fast pace now, first to reduce its noise, second to reduce fuel consumption and third to reduce its weight.

A jet-engine with a high thrust-to-weight ratio will in turn give high thrust-to-weight ratio to aircraft.

By 2020, the acceptable noise levels are going to be halved.....now the noise is not only generated by jet engine, its also generated by wings and fuselage, especially any holes, keys, slots etc on them.

So it is expected that in 2020, PIA may again be banned over Europe and america and be forced to change its aircraft or at least engines for complying with reduced noise regulations. So PIA should keep in mind this 2020 deadline while making purchases now.

 

[shehbazi2001]

Alignement of Guns

Like we know about WW-2 fighter that their guns on both wings had a focus point ahead of the aircraft. The focus length was left to pilots. Some pilots preferred that all guns should aim at a point at close range and other wanted a more distant focus point. For close focus points, the bullets from all 4 or 6 guns would target the same area/point in space at say 500 feet ahead from own fighter, which had a devastating effect.

I want to know that is it the same practice with jets like F-7s,Mirages and A-5s? and is it still left to the choice of pilots? ..........of course the fighters with a single gun are out of this discussion.

 

[shehbazi2001]

Air-to-Air Gunnery at different Aspect Angles

In an episode of Dogfights called "Desert Aces", the leading jet ace Giora Epstein says that no matter how many fighters are up in the air against you, only one can be at your tail. And only that one can kill you.
While that may be true in 1967 and 1973, now I think these things have changed.

I know that with AIM-9L and all modern heat-seekers can take shot even from front or from High Off-Boresight Angles (HOBA).But what remains is the gunnery. Can gun be used at aspect angles other than tail-chase? and more importantly does the PAF train for other than tail-aspect gun shooting?

 

[shehbazi2001]

Air War at Night

1) Night Interceptions
2) Night air combats
3) Night dogfights

In 1965 and 1971, we heard of night interceptions only. These interceptions were related to Canberras. It follows that INTERCEPTION means when u engage a BOMBER (I want to understand it) and not a fighter. Also "interception" is used for Martime Patrol Aircraft/Surveillance/ECM aircrafts. Is it correct?

While night air combat is a possibility with BVRs (took place in Balkans), logically it seems that night dogfight is rare because dogfight is mostly after visual contact. Some night dogfights took place during Korean war but still I dont know of a night dogfight of PAF?...........Does PAF train for dogfight at night with and without GCI / AWACS.....?

 

[shehbazi2001]

Strategic and Tactical

We know that there are medium bombers and there are heavy bombers. The heavy bombers like B-52,B-2,B-1 are called strategic bombers. B-57 was not strategic bomber.Fighters are never called as Strategic even if they can drop a nuclear weapon, like the F-105 ThunderChief.

So what characterises a weapons system as "Strategic".........the range or destructive power...........Is the range of Su-27/30 short for being called as strategic? I discussed this with my class-mates of armed forces at Defence and Strategic Studies Dept of Quaid-e-Azam University, but we could not conclude......

 

[blain2]

Air-to-Air Gunnery at different Aspect Angles

In an episode of Dogfights called "Desert Aces", the leading jet ace Giora Epstein says that no matter how many fighters are up in the air against you, only one can be at your tail. And only that one can kill you.
While that may be true in 1967 and 1973, now I think these things have changed.

I know that with AIM-9L and all modern heat-seekers can take shot even from front or from High Off-Boresight Angles (HOBA).But what remains is the gunnery. Can gun be used at aspect angles other than tail-chase? and more importantly does the PAF train for other than tail-aspect gun shooting?

Shehbazi,

AIM-9L is not an a true HOBS AAM. It definitely provides frontal aspect engagement opportunities though.

 

[Blackpearl]

Strategic and Tactical

We know that there are medium bombers and there are heavy bombers. The heavy bombers like B-52,B-2,B-1 are called strategic bombers. B-57 was not strategic bomber.Fighters are never called as Strategic even if they can drop a nuclear weapon, like the F-105 ThunderChief.

So what characterises a weapons system as "Strategic".........the range or destructive power...........Is the range of Su-27/30 short for being called as strategic? I discussed this with my class-mates of armed forces at Defence and Strategic Studies Dept of Quaid-e-Azam University, but we could not conclude......

I think, now a days, the distinction between a true strategic and tactical aircraft is gone. I mean, it all depands what type of mission is being performed by the aircraft.
The definition of strategic and tactical goes like this.
Strategic : Attacking industries, power generation houses, fuel dumps, government buildings, telecommunication exchanges, railways, seaports, harbour and so on.

Tactical : Attacking enemy forces, command posts/complexes, field headquarters, logistics depots, bridges, etc.

So we can see that it is the type of target which describe the nature of the mission.

Now consider F-16 a tactical fighter and B-2 strategic Bomber.
An f-16 with two AIM-9L, two drop tanks and a single MK-84 (2000 lbs) bomb is tasked to target a main grid station, so performing a strategic mission.

A B-2 Bomber, with carrying a dozen MK-82 (500 lbs) bombs attacking an enemy supply column of fuel bowsers along a road ( convoy leading to forward line troops), so B-2 is a on a tactical mission.
During USAF operation in Afghaniustan, many of us must have seen videos of B-52 raining MK-82s over Tora Bora mountasin, supposedly sheltering Talibans, the front line soldiers. So bomber was on a tactical mission.

 

[Muradk]

Air War at Night

1) Night Interceptions
2) Night air combats
3) Night dogfights

In 1965 and 1971, we heard of night interceptions only. These interceptions were related to Canberras. It follows that INTERCEPTION means when u engage a BOMBER (I want to understand it) and not a fighter. Also "interception" is used for Martime Patrol Aircraft/Surveillance/ECM aircrafts. Is it correct?

While night air combat is a possibility with BVRs (took place in Blakans), logically it seems that night dogfight is rare because dogfight is mostly after visual contact. Some night dogfights took place during Korean war but still I dont know of a night dogfight of PAF?...........Does PAF train for dogfight at night with and without GCI / AWACS.....?

shehbazi:
There are 2 way for Night Interception .
Ist we call it POORMANS way Intercection. The radar controller or GCI guide you to the plane, He sets a block which is the hight you will maintain , 99% you dont see **** because they turn off their Anti Collision Beacon , so when the Radar controller say he is 5 mile away you turn on your targeting sitting wait for the tone and fire.

2nd way is doing it your self like in Mirage III , F-16 you have your own radar find the sucker and shoot him down.
in 1971 war we shot a canberra, between Mianwali and sagodha in the night. Thanks to the radar controllers excellent experience.
There are no dog fights in the night, iF the bandit pull's up or down he will loose or gain couple of thousand ft and there is no way you can go head to head with him.
ACM is not something that you learn quickly. You will not become an ace by
the end of the ACM block of instruction. You will, however, learn several
concepts that will take years to perfect: 1) speed is life—never reach a point
where you end up out of airspeed and ideas; 2) know your aircraft to make
the enemy fight your fight, not vice versa; 3) your game plan and your
reactions in an engagement must be executed automatically; 4) the best
fighters press the edge of their operating envelope all the time.

Balkans was a fluke