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Fuel Fractions Of Some Modern Fighters

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posted on Jul, 10 2005 @ 11:40 PM
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We have been discussing fuel capacity of the F/A-18 Hornet (or its lack of) and I thought I would throw out some figures for jets in service. Fuel Fraction is a figure calculated to express the internal fuel as a fraction of aircraft weight (assuming a clean configuration). As a rule of thumb for modern fighters with afterburners a fraction of 0.25 is considered a minimum. Less than that it will not hhave enough legs for dog fighting or even spending a meaningfull time on station.

Super Hornet F/A-18E 0.31

F/A-18C Hornet I could not find a site with the data but have heard its as low as 0.22

F/A-22A Raptor 0.45

F-14D Tomcat 0.26

Boeing F-15C Eagle 0.30

F-16C Fighting Falcon 0.26

JAS 39A Gripen 0.26

MiG-29M Fulcrum 0.27

MiG-31 Foxhound 0.40

Su-30 Flanker 0.29

Dassault Rafale M 0.31

EF2000 Typhoon 0.29

Chengdu F-7MG 0.27

AV-8B Harrier II 0.32

Most of this was taken from: www.airtoaircombat.com...



[edit on 7/10/05 by FredT]



posted on Jul, 11 2005 @ 03:43 AM
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Great post. Some good information there. I'm not sure what the C/D Hornet is, but the pilots have all told me that 45 minutes to an hour is the longest they can go without refueling. Not sure what that comes to in fuel fractions though.

Not sure what this would translate to, but here are a few figures for the A/B and C/D Hornets

F/A-18A/B
Fuel: 1670 US gallons internal. A total of three external 330 US gallon drop tanks can be carried, raising total fuel to 2660 US gallons.

F/A-18C/D
Fuel: 1670 US gallons internal. A total of three external 330 US gallon drop tanks can be carried, raising total fuel to 2660 US gallons.

For the F/A-18E/F for comparison
By enlarging the wing area and adding a fuselage plug, 3000 pounds of additional internal fuel can be carried, which is 33 percent more than the capacity of the standard Hornet. A fleet air defense F/A-18E/F carrying four AMRAAMS, two AIM-9s and external tanks would be able to loiter on station for 71 minutes at a distance of 400 nautical miles from its carrier, as opposed to only 58 minutes for the F-14D.



 
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