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Could the FGR2, unmodified, have been a more viable means of tackling such targets? “For certain, I’ve been higher in an F3 and faster in an F3 at height than I have in an F-4, standfast the F-4J”, comments Mark Manwaring. “I think also the performance of the SuperTEMP [the latest standard of BAe Skyflash] long-range missile for the F3 meant it would not have given the F-4 much of an advantage, if any, at very high altitude. Obviously, that was in the early ’90s. If you then fast-forward to the late ’90s, when the F3 got AMRAAM [the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile] and ASRAAM [Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile], then under those circumstances the F3 would have been far superior against high-level supersonic targets.

“There is no doubt, the [Tornado] had a smaller wing and the [RB199] engines were optimised for performance below 20,000ft, so it wasn’t a natural aircraft above 30,000ft — it did struggle. At altitude, it was power-limited in terms of acceleration to transonic speeds. However, once it was at Mach 0.9, with the wings swept back to 67°, and then the ramps started to schedule in the engines, it would very quickly accelerate to Mach 1.6. With that momentum, the aircraft was very capable of getting up to the mid-40s in order to loft a Skyflash up to a target that could have been up to the mid-60s.
So, the shortfalls of the F3 would have been most evident against a relatively short-notice, high-level, supersonic target in the head-on environment, which might not have allowed sufficient time to accelerate, climb and achieve the Skyflash firing solution.”

There was, ‘Manners’ feels, a potentially better solution than the FGR2 for the high-altitude requirement. “Of the two F-4s we operated, the J would have been the perfect aircraft for a high-level interception. Bear in mind the Spey was also optimised for low-level performance, but probably below 30,000ft instead of 20,000. But the J, with its J79s, was beautiful. It was poor at low level, and actually underpowered for a max-weight QRA take-off with three tanks, a gun and eight missiles… But once you got it high, it was lovely. Coming back from Wales, we would often very easily go up to flight level 460,

ironclaude a écrit : ↑

ven. oct. 14, 2022 10:42 pm

Ah oui, ça avait été un exploit des Anglais : acheter des Phantom remotorisés avec des moteurs Rolls-Royce, moins performants et plus chers que les Phantoms d'origine et que les moteurs US

Et ils étaient partis pour refaire la même bêtise avec le F-35, puisqu'il y a eu dans les cartons un "alternative engine" à un moment du programme et que ça a été le morceau de sucre agité sous le nez des British pour qu'ils fassent le beau et achètent des F-35. Bon, une fois les Anglais engagés, Lockheed a arrêté de promouvoir le moteur Anglais ( à quoi sert le pouvoir si on ne peut pas en abuser ?)