The Best of the Best....Air superiority Fighters

Ooh stealth spy, where to begin?

I know;

The sukhoi with a stable airframe is anyday more agile than any delta winged unstable airframe

The Sukhoi Su-30, I presume you mean, is more manouverable, the video posted here the other day showed that. The point I was making was about agility by purely aerodynamic means rather than TVC, which is what gives the Sukhoi its advantage.

Understand one thing, a naturally stable airframe cannot be more agile than an unstable one unless it has TVC, thats the point of making it unstable. A stable airframe wants to fly in a straight line, thus making rapid manouvres is something it has to be made to do. An unstable airframe however wants to be flinging itself all over the place so a rapid manouvre is acheived that bit more quickly. That may be over simplified but its basically how it works. without TVC the Sukhoi would be easy meat for the Typhoon, however it has TVC so it isn't. That was sort of the point I was making.

Also you claim that the Typhoon is slightly more stealthy, I thought that the Flanker family wasn't stealthy at all whereas the Typhoon RCSD is 1/5 that of a (smaller) F-16. No it isn't invisible to radar, that discussion has been done to death on here, but it means it wont be be seen by the Flankers advanced radar until well after the PIRATE has despatched a Meteor in its direction, at least thats the theory.

How is 2 pilots an advantage? This always slows down the decision making process. The RAF is going from 2 seat Tornado F.3 to single seat Typhoon in the A2A role for a reason.

Originally posted by Stealth Spy
f-22
Su-30MKI
EF-2000.

The Su-30MKI is 4and half gen.
Its radar , menuverability, 3-D TVC is better than the F-22's.

Its better than the Ef-200 in all areas.

also it costs only USD 22million per unit !!!

more info on : vayu-sena.tripod.com...

Stealth Spy, you really need to get your facts straight, buddy.

It's radar is inferior is to the F-15, therefore it's far inferior to the F-22's APG-77 second gen AESA radar. The Su-30MKI utilizes 2D axisymetrical thrust-vectroing nozzles steerable +15/-15 degrees along the pitch axis. The F-22's are steerable +20/-20, both are 2D.

And give that link a rest, you've used at least a dozen times.

[edit on 29-12-2004 by Hockeyguy567]

The sukhoi with a stable airframe is anyday more agile than any delta winged unstable airframe.

besides even if the ef gets its TVC soon, it still cant be half (exaggerated!)as agile as a sukhoi.

true, the ef is slightly more stealthy than the sukhoi, but that hardly makes a difference in long range combat simply because of the 5+ gen radar on the MKI. besides its not invisible to the MKI's radar, it may show up with a negligible RCS reduction, thats all.

Have any proof of just how agile a Typhoon with TVC is? It's already dirty in and out of supersonic... I'm sure one wouldn�t want to mix it up even with a conventional Typhoon.

Anyhow, CAPTOR already is being hyped as easily outperforming the N011M in range and features... That coupled with arguably superior missiles, a RCS of ~1/5 that of an F-16, its superior avionics and its IRST jammer would be more then a handful for the MKI to handle...
Anyhow, even with current mechanical radar the Typhoon should have no trouble picking up a huge Flanker from many, many kms away.

As for the SU-30's radar...

The Su-27SK is equipped with a Phazotron N001 Zhuk coherent pulse Doppler radar with track-while-scan and look-down/shoot-down capability. The range of the radar against 3-square-metre targets is over 100km in the forward hemisphere and 40km in the rear hemisphere. The radar has the capacity to search, detect and track up to ten targets with automatic threat assessment and proritisation.

www.airforce-technology.com...

sounds pretty decent to me, what are the capabilites of the AN/APG-77? it begun flight testing in june of 2004...no data is available on this site below.

www.airforce-technology.com...

I'll get you the Raptors radar specs later... I was just watching some discussion on both radars a few days back and further looked it up. Basically it�s more reliable, more versatile, more feature rich, and longer ranged then the N001M.

The JSF/FA-35s radar would be more of a match for the N001M with the Flankers radar having the upper hand in range, though, it doesn�t matter because the N001Ms range is useless when fighting stealthy adversaries...

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The Su-30MKI utilizes 2D axisymetrical thrust-vectroing nozzles steerable +15/-15 degrees along the pitch axis.

whf? Su-30MKI got 3D TV Engines, not 2D.
su-37 has 2D, but su-30 has 3D which makes it more maneuverable that su-37


and, i always thought that su-30 three wing scheme was UNSTABLE:

In terms of aerodynamic layout, the aircraft is an unstable integral tri-plane; wing + horizontal tail + canard. Stability and control are assured by a remote control system.

Originally posted by titus

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The Su-30MKI utilizes 2D axisymetrical thrust-vectroing nozzles steerable +15/-15 degrees along the pitch axis.

whf? Su-30MKI got 3D TV Engines, not 2D.
su-37 has 2D, but su-30 has 3D which makes it more maneuverable that su-37


and, i always thought that su-30 three wing scheme was UNSTABLE:

In terms of aerodynamic layout, the aircraft is an unstable integral tri-plane; wing + horizontal tail + canard. Stability and control are assured by a remote control system.

As far as I know the Su-30Mki has imitated 3D TVC. It's nozzles are pointed inwards the nozzles point up and down but are also vectoring thrust from their slight inward stance giving it ~a 3D effect...

Originally posted by ChrisRT

Originally posted by titus

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The Su-30MKI utilizes 2D axisymetrical thrust-vectroing nozzles steerable +15/-15 degrees along the pitch axis.

whf? Su-30MKI got 3D TV Engines, not 2D.
su-37 has 2D, but su-30 has 3D which makes it more maneuverable that su-37


and, i always thought that su-30 three wing scheme was UNSTABLE:

In terms of aerodynamic layout, the aircraft is an unstable integral tri-plane; wing + horizontal tail + canard. Stability and control are assured by a remote control system.

As far as I know the Su-30Mki has imitated 3D TVC. It's nozzles are pointed inwards the nozzles point up and down but are also vectoring thrust from their slight inward stance giving it ~a 3D effect...

No, the Su-30MKI/MKK thrust-vectors only from the pitch axi, it does not have yaw vectoring, therefore it's only 2D.

Your correct Hockeyguy567,
Su-MkI has 'axisymmetric two dimensional thrust vectoring', which equates to 2D TVC.
It is the Su-37 (testbed/demonstrator) and the F-22 that have true 3D TVC.
Axisymmetric & Thrust Vectoring Nozzles




seekerof

[edit on 29-12-2004 by Seekerof]

I heard about 5 years ago the US govt. was working on an aircraft camouglage using fiber-optic technology. The fiber optics were supposed to be able to take the image of surrounding airspace from one side of the aircraft and send it to the other; hence vaguely invisible. Does anyone remember this or have information on it?

existence,
This is off the original topic but what you are refering to is better known and classified as "Active Camouflage".

Active camouflage has its roots in the diffused lighting camouflage first tried out on Canadian Navy corvettes during World War II, and later in the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the United States.

The modern version began with a United States Air Force program which placed low-intensity blue lights on aircraft. As night skies are not pitch black, a truly black-colored aircraft might stand out to the naked eye. By emitting a small amount of blue light, the aircraft appears to blend into the sky more easily.

Active camouflage is rumored to have taken a new turn with the development of the Boeing Bird of Prey, which apparently took the technology to a higher level. However, as the Bird of Prey was a black project, specific information is sketchy.

This technology is poised to develop at a rapid pace, with the development of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and other technologies which allow for images to be projected from oddly-shaped surfaces. With the addition of a camera, while not allowing an object to be made completely invisible, theoretically the object might project enough of the background to fool the ability of the human eye or other optical sensors to detect a specific location. As motion would still be noticeable, an object would merely be more difficult to hit, and not undetectable under this circumstance. This has been demonstrated with videos of "wearable" displays where the camera could see "through" the wearer.

Active camouflage

Try the links at the bottom of the page or copy and paste the titles of the articles into any search engine and you will find more information on this.






seekerof

[edit on 30-12-2004 by Seekerof]

What? Good try,but the EF2000's CAPTOR radar has a longer range and blah blah blah,so does the AN/APG-77 or the AN/APG-73 or AESA radars. The MKI still is 3rd on my list, but it is still utlizing the basic flanker airframe from the cold war.

The Su-30MKI, along with the Mig-29 Fulcrum, are beautiful aircraft. Two of my favorites.
Still, that F-22 is one awesome 'lady', and if looks could kill....woooowzers...
One of my favorite pics:
Beautiful....




seekerof

The -27 Flanker UB 2 seater is my favorite aircraft,with that you'll expect the nose to touch the ground. Its the sexiest plane yet,but its a little old now. The -29 Fulcrum is also one sexy plane.

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567

Originally posted by ChrisRT

Originally posted by titus

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The Su-30MKI utilizes 2D axisymetrical thrust-vectroing nozzles steerable +15/-15 degrees along the pitch axis.

whf? Su-30MKI got 3D TV Engines, not 2D.
su-37 has 2D, but su-30 has 3D which makes it more maneuverable that su-37


and, i always thought that su-30 three wing scheme was UNSTABLE:

In terms of aerodynamic layout, the aircraft is an unstable integral tri-plane; wing + horizontal tail + canard. Stability and control are assured by a remote control system.

As far as I know the Su-30Mki has imitated 3D TVC. It's nozzles are pointed inwards the nozzles point up and down but are also vectoring thrust from their slight inward stance giving it ~a 3D effect...

No, the Su-30MKI/MKK thrust-vectors only from the pitch axi, it does not have yaw vectoring, therefore it's only 2D.

Jeez!!! That is exactly what I said I said that it can 'mimic' 3D TVC because its nozzles are pointed inwards slightly...

Call it 2.5D.

Originally posted by W4rl0rD
What? Good try,but the EF2000's CAPTOR radar has a longer range and blah blah blah,so does the AN/APG-77 or the AN/APG-73 or AESA radars. The MKI still is 3rd on my list, but it is still utlizing the basic flanker airframe from the cold war.

Actually, the N001M in the Flankers are better...
It's just that the EF-Typhoon has an extremely small RCS and the Flanker has such a big RCS that the Typhoon has a good chance of picking up the Flanker at a greater range then a Flanker with advanced radar picking up an extremely small Typhoon at range...

This is going to be crappy but think of it like this... A fat man in an orange vest standing behind a tree shooting at a cute, small chick in camouflage. Both have a sniper rifles but the fat guy has a better scope. The fat man will still have trouble finding the girl while at the same time the fat guy with a florescent vest sticks out like a Phantom at a Raptor meet...

Hi people, i read up to about page 5 or so and I got angry at the amount of people who said the Typhoon and the Rafale are the same, NO! they are not,

Eurofighter Typhoon specs.
1) It has Two Eurojet EJ200 turbofan engines, each delivering 60kN (13,490lb) in dry power and 90kN (20,250lb) with reheat
2) Max. speed Mach 2
3) It can produce 180 kn (40,000 lbs) of total combat thrust
4) Its G-limits are +9g to -3g
5) Weight when empty: 10.995 kg
6) Max. take off weight: 23,000 kg (50,700lb)
7) Range: 600nm (1112km)
8) Its dimensions are:
Wing span 10.95m (35ft 11in)
Wing aspect ratio 2.2
Overall length 15.96m (52ft 4in)
Overall height 5.28m (17 ft 4 in)
Wing area 50.0sq m (538sq ft)
9) Low weight and high thrust means it can reach 36,000ft (10,970m) in under 2 minutes from a standing start

Rafale specs.
1) Powerplant: two 86.98 kN (19,555 lb st) SNECMA M88-3 afterburning turbofans
2) Dimensions: length 15.30m (50 ft 2� in); height 5.34m (17 ft 6� in); wing span (over AAMs) 10.90m (35 ft 9� in)
3) Performance: max level speed at 11.000m (36,069 ft) Mach 2.0 or 2125 km/h (1,321 mph); service ceiling 16,460m (54,000 ft)
4) Weights: empty, equipped 9670 kg (21,319 lb); Max Take-Off Weight 21.500 kg (47,399 lb)
5) Mach 2 speed, but to my knowledge the rafale doesnt have a "super cruise" ability like the typhoon has

Just some stuff I threw together in litteraly 5 minuets,



Above: A Typhoon




Above: a Rafale

Now you tell me what is so similar, they have delta wings, yes, so do mirages which thr French have, concorde had them, nothing new to copy, we know they are effective, the Rafale is smaller, not as powerfull, and not as beautifull as a Typhoon, it has a limited load, cant "super cruise" and its engines , even though they get to mach 2, they are in esence crap. So please, next time you say they are the same, just think, they dont look alike, which is why people keep saying they are the same, and they certainly dont perform the same. Anywho, sorry about that people, something I thought needed to be said, other than that, you seem to have very good lists of 5 great aircraft, Hockeyguy567 has a great list, sorry for this long post, I dont always post things this big....

Of currently operational fighters, I'd have to say
1. F/A-22
2. Typhoon
3. Su-30MKI
4. Rafale
5. F-15C (AESA equipped)

Originally posted by rajkhalsa2004
Of currently operational fighters, I'd have to say
1. F/A-22
2. Typhoon
3. Su-30MKI
4. Rafale
5. F-15C (AESA equipped)

Now this is a list! I do think that the AESA F-15C and the Rafale are pretty close. In a BVR fight, with the Su-30MKI and the F-15C with AESA I would also give the Eagle the edge. Dogfight between teh two? hands down the Su-30

The MKI is fitted with The Al-31FP engines (i.e. TVC retrofit on Al-31s), which operate in both axis.. These are derivite of the AL-37FU that's on the Su-37. They do not have full "3-D" TV in the sense that the Raptor does, however, it is not simply operate in the vertical plane, as someone stated earlier. This, plus that both nozzles can swivel independantly of each other that, with certain canard positions, thrust and aircraft position, give it 'virtual' 3-D thrust vectoring capability.

In common nomaclanture, its designated as "3-D."


Thanks Fred,

I think it would be wise to state the costs of each of these aircraft. Surely that is as much a factor as avionics, weapon load, etc. in the practical sense.

I think the following are accurate.

1. F/A-22 -- $256.8 million
2. Typhoon -- $85 million
3. Su-30MKI -- $34 million
4. Rafale -- $50 million
5. F-15C (AESA equipped) -- $42 million (without AESA)

I'm not sure what the per-unit cost of the AESA upgrade on the F-15C would be.

I think, in terms of bang-for-the-buck, arguably the MKI is the best. This low per-unit cost is due mainly to the labor cost-savings of the Indian industry and other factors, which other nations cannot compete against in monetary effeciancy.

However, any country operating the Raptor, despite high cost, is guaranteed complete air dominance. But while MKI is the most potent for dollar cost, economies of scale come into play for the other aircraft: money isn't always everything...

-Raj