[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by peterjim13

Sharing an interesting read from LISTVERSE.

Their article on Weapons that backfired has the famous Sabre and Starfighters. It talks about how US dumped these paper tigers on to countries like Pakistan, Jordan, Spain etc and had them suffer.
......They even talk about how indian fighters were far better than the ones of the century series with Pakistan and how they couldnt achieve superiority in the air during the 1971 war.

To put it politely the Lockheed Starfighter was not one of this fine company's best products. It was the first production aircraft ever to be able to fly at Mach 2.0 sustained and to its credit had an acceleration and initial climb rate (50,000 feet/minute) that became normal only 35 years later. Its bane was its wing. A brief on fighter wings first - swept wings increase speed & acceleration + large wings improve maneuverability hence the popularity of delta shaped wings. Further the thinner the wing the faster the acceleration and lower the drag beyond Mach 1.0. The flip side is that thin wings reduce stability and control at low speeds and low altitudes. The Starfighter had the smallest thinnest wing to be fitted to a supersonic jet fighter. The wing area measured 196 sq feet - compare that to 249 sq feet of the Mig-21, 303 sq feet of the HF-24 Marut and 376 sq feet for the French Dassault Mirage. This means the wing has lesser area from which to generate lift and hence the aircraft needs to fly at a higher speed to avoid falling out of the sky. The wing span at 21 feet was less than the wing span of the Gnat fighter which was the smallest and lightest jet fighter to see operational service! Further the wings were barely 2.5 inches thick at the maximum and the wing edges at 0.41mm were sharp enough to cut! So with very little of wing area to support the aerodynamic weight and the extreme thin-ness led to very high landing speeds of 330 kmph +, very poor maneuverability at trans-sonic and sub-sonic speeds and poor stability at low altitudes. All of these led to very fine limits to the flight envelope and accidents while landing or flying on lo-lo practice missions. Germany lost 30% of her Starfighter fleet to accidents and Canada lost 46% of its fleet of 235 aircraft to accidents. Many of these accidents turned out fatal due to downward ejecting seats in the early models. It would not have made it to the 10 worst weapons list had it not been for a greedy US Government and greedy Lockheed who sold it vigorously with lubrication to unsuspecting US Allies. Eric Hartmann the top scoring fighter ace of all times with 353 confirmed victories in World War II served in the post war West German Air Force and protested strongly against inducting the Starfighter. But such was American pressure that he was boarded out of the West German Air Force for speaking up. My heart goes out to the young pilots of all nations, many barely in their twenties, who died needlessly at the altar of commerce and real politik.

The three contemporaries were:-


The American Starfighter showing its super thin wing to good effect. Here in West German Luftwaffe colours. 2578 built.



The French Dassault Mirage III in Israeli colours. The French addressed the challenges of mixing Mach 2.0 and maneuverability through a large tail-less delta wing. The Israelis made the Mirage world famous in the 1967 Middle East war. 1422 built.



The British Lighting. The least successful of the four contemporaries. 337 were built.



The Russian Mig-21 seen here in the final 'Bison' upgrade variant in IAF colours. The Russians went for a tailed delta wing configuration which turned out the most practical of the lot. 11,496 built. The Mig-21 was in terms of maneuverability and reliability steps ahead of the Starfighter. In 1971 the Mig-21 versus Starfighter record was 4 - 0 in favour of the Mig.

[Jeroen]

Just another anorak fact; the losses on the f104 differed considerably Airforce to Airforce. German Airforce lost nearly half, Spanish Airforce lost none.

To a large degree all the contemporary planes mentioned suffered from similar operational limitations, but not the sometimes horrific accident rates.

None of these so called fighter were really any good in air to air combat. They were ok in air to ground and interception. They, to some extent were ok bombing. To be honest, in those years, Im not so sure if air to air combat was a big thing for western air forces. At least not in Europe i would imagine.

Jeroen

[peterjim13]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

To put it politely the Lockheed Starfighter was not one of this fine company's best products..

All my questions and queries answered to the point. Thanks so much sir.

We have been great in selecting military hardware. Starting from independence, though most of our hardware was imported, they all had its purpose and they served well.

A question to you Narayan Sir, "have we (IAF in particular) made some purchases that really didnt help the purspose or say, were technologically backward, like Pakistan and Century Series fighters"

The second part of the question would be the Mi-35 helicopters, i do not know whether they were ever used in any actual war scenario in India. Though these were known as tank hunters, they would have fared well in low altitude wars. But i have heard that they didnt help in the Kargil war due to lower service ceiling 10,000 ft, and instead we had to use Mi-8s modified with rockets pods for attacking enemy posts at about 13,000 - 15,000 ft.

The new Apaches we are buying would work on both the scenarios, so Mi-35 on a border conflict would help only in 1/4th of our total international border right.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by peterjim13

A question to you Narayan, "have we (IAF in particular) made some purchases that really didnt help the purspose or say, were technologically backward, like Pakistan and Century Series fighters"

The second part of the question would be the Mi-35 helicopters, i do not know whether they were ever used in any actual war scenario in India. Though these were known as tank hunters, they would have fared well in low altitude wars. But i have heard that they didnt help in the Kargil war due to lower service ceiling 10,000 ft, and instead we had to use Mi-8s modified with rockets pods for attacking enemy posts at about 13,000 - 15,000 ft.

Of all aircraft bought by the Indian Armed Forces or license manufactured/ assembled by India the two I would have wished we had never wasted our money on are the Ilyushin IL-14 and the Avro HS 748. Of the remainder aircraft that have entered service since 1947 some were moderate, some were good and most were excellent choices for their roles and their times. Being non-aligned we were not compelled to buy one or the other type. Also with two adversaries to our north & west who meant business and with our limited budgets the IAF had to be very thoughtful and sensible about what they selected. With the exception of Krishna Menon, the controversial Defence Minister in 1962, we have not really had Ministers forcing the Armed Forces to buy this or that and the decision of selection has been left to the professionals (contrary to perceptions).



The Avro HS748 was a twin turbo-prop light transport that was selected by Krishna Menon to be license built in India even before the prototype had flown in the UK and without consulting the IAF -- he ordered it straight off the drawing board against the written and strongly expressed advice of PC Lal. PC Lal was threatened by Krishna Menon with termination and was served his marching orders for standing up to Menon. A few weeks later the 1962 debacle occurred and Parliament asked for Menon's head and PC Lal was reinstated. PC Lal rose to be the Air Chief and did his nation proud in 1971 by leading the IAF to victory. The Avro was underpowered and did not fly well in hot and high environments. Further its use as a military cargo was hindered by a cargo floor 6 feet above the ground -- to be useful the cargo floor should be at truck bed height with a roll on - roll off ramp. Otherwise it is a rugged aircraft and flies on with the IAF as a utility transport. Interestingly Fokker F27 with exactly the same two engines was not underpowered because of a better designed lighter airframe and one of the best designed wings in the business. Total bought, 72



Ilyushin IL-14: Came into our service in 1955 as a VIP transport and numbers grew to 29 partly to address the shortfalls of the Avro HS 748. The cure was worse than the disease. The aircraft was very noisy, oily and smoky. Mercifully they were withdrawn in 1979. In typical Russian style of that era they carried a crew of 5 - pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator and radio operator.



The Gnat almost made it to this list. Some may not like to hear this but in the first 7 years of service it was plagued by reliability of its hydraulics and controls and suffered a high number of crashes on landing. In 1964 the Air Force was actually thinking of curtailing production and withdrawing the Gnat. The reliability issues were solved one by one only due to painstaking work by HAL and the IAF Maintenance Command. However its performance in close combat in 1965 gave it a fresh lease of life and a popular reputation which was further augmented in 1971 starting with three victories in an afternoon at Boyra, West Bengal. Today no one would think of the Gnat in these negative terms but in 1959 to 1966 it gave us a lot of headaches.



The Mi-35, it has been reported in the Indian press, had challenges in hot and high environments. I do not know how true this is or whether this was well placed mis-information. The Mi-35 equivalents in Soviet service flew quite well in their infamous occupation of Afghanistan (1979 to 1988) in similar but not as bad an environment and were much respected by the adversaries. A lot of incorrect information and biased reporting floats in our press on aircraft. Having said that the fact that the IAF limited its Mi-35 acquisitions to low double digits indicates they are not tickled pink by it.


The list above covers only aircraft introduced after 1947 and whose numbers were in at least double digits. I am not commenting on aircraft in main line service as I don’t feel that would be appropriate.



This is the Tupolev Tu-22M a supersonic long range heavy bomber which the Soviets tried very hard to force us to buy in the late 1960s/1970s. Our trials indicated it was a big lemon but the pressure continued till the IAF force shut the door on the discussions. It indeed turned out to be one of the worst aircrafts the Soviets ever designed. Even in the communist era Soviet pilots would refuse to fly it - so dangerous was the machine.


Several aircraft picked by the IAF proved to be golden hits by father time. My ten favourites on this list would be:-

English Electric Canberra - Light bomber

Hawker Hunter - Fighter bomber

Mig-21FL & bis - Fighter bomber

Sepecat Jaguar - deep penetration strike aircraft

Mig-27 - tactical strike aircraft

Mirage 2000 - interceptor & multi-role

Mi-4 - piston engined transport helicopter

Alouette Cheetah - light high altitude armed transport and forward air
controller

An-12 - medium transport

Hawk Trainer - advanced armed jet trainer

PS: Peter, Don’t call me Sir….. you should hear what my wife calls me sometimes

[peterjim13]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

PS: Peter, Don’t call me Sir….. you should hear what my wife calls me sometimes

Excellent. This should have gone on to LISTVERSE.

Even I had doubts on the Avros, was not qualified to comment on this. Trust IAF completes its replacement with C295 soon. If that works out, this will be the first Military Aircraft Manufactured in India for our use without HAL in the loop.

[directinjection]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Attachment 1355468
The French Dassault Mirage III in Israeli colours. The French addressed the challenges of mixing Mach 2.0 and maneuverability through a large tail-less delta wing. The Israelis made the Mirage world famous in the 1967 Middle East war. 1422 built.

Mr Narayan, the plane looks virtually identical to Mirage 2000. I remember Salamander's Encyclopedia of Air Warfare describing the Mirage 2000 as a "faster and more advanced" version of Mirage III. I'm curious to know whether air forces operating Mirage III ever attempted to upgrade their Mirage IIIs to Mirage 2000, if indeed the latter was merely an improved version of the former? The idea came to my mind considering that our IAF is spending a whopping Rs. 345 crore per plane to upgrade its Mirage 2000s to Mirage 2005/2009 standard. PAF used to operate Mirages and to get an upper hand over IAF, could have attempted to upgrade them to Mirage 2000s which India acquired to counter PAF's F-16s. Any thoughts?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Interestingly Fokker F27 with exactly the same two engines was not underpowered because of a better designed lighter airframe and one of the best designed wings in the business. Total bought, 72

Several aircraft picked by the IAF proved to be golden hits by father time. My ten favourites on this list would be:-

Sepecat Jaguar - deep penetration strike aircraft


Hawk Trainer - advanced armed jet trainer

thank you for buying Dutch. Here's a picture of the Dutch Airforce Fokker F27 I posted a few days ago in a thread about the Dutch National Military Museum.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attach...m-p3200195.jpg

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attach...m-p3200197.jpg

My brother in law served in the RAF as an engineer (Radar and weapon systems ) for about twenty years before he went 'commercial'. Apparently the RAF was never that pleased with the Jaguar and was glad to see it go. I always thought it look unusual but pleasant.

After he left the RAF he actually was part of Hawk team that put the Indian deal together. So he was based here in Delhi for a considerable time. He always speaks very fondly of the Hawk. He thought it was a great little plane. Note that although often referred to as a trainer, it is actually an extremely capable proper fighter than can handle multi role missions.

And of course, last but not least, the famous Red Arrows fly Hawk

Jeroen

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by directinjection

Mr Narayan, the plane looks virtually identical to Mirage 2000. I remember Salamander's Encyclopedia of Air Warfare describing the Mirage 2000 as a "faster and more advanced" version of Mirage III. I'm curious to know whether air forces operating Mirage III ever attempted to upgrade their Mirage IIIs to Mirage 2000, if indeed the latter was merely an improved version of the former? The idea came to my mind considering that our IAF is spending a whopping Rs. 345 crore per plane to upgrade its Mirage 2000s to Mirage 2005/2009 standard. PAF used to operate Mirages and to get an upper hand over IAF, could have attempted to upgrade them to Mirage 2000s which India acquired to counter PAF's F-16s. Any thoughts?

Dear directinjection, first the history and sequence as below and then the question of PAF's Mirage's. You are right that the PAF's Mirage III's look very similar to the IAF's Mirage 2000. But they are chalk and cheese fortunately as described below.




Photo - Mirage IIIC: Dassault, the French aircraft company, came up with the Mirage III which was a first generation Mach 2.0 fighter with a large tail-less delta. entered service in 1960. This had a early Cyrano radar that offered some all weather and night intercept capability somewhat akin to the Mig-21M (predecessor of the Mig-21bis)The original armament comprised of the Magic Matra 530 heat seeking missiles and two 30mm cannons. This straddled the period 1960 to 1970. The next upgrade was the Mirage IIIE with improved avionics - radar, navigation and weapons delivery. External looks were virtually identical. The Mirage III was in production from 1960 to 1977. Most were powered by a 6200 kgf Atar turbojet, topped at Mach 2.0 at high altitudes and claimed a high altitude attack radius of 1200 kms with minimal bomb-load of 800 kgs (this sounds like the theoritical range without reserves.





Photo - Mirage 5: The next variant was a dedicated ground attack aircraft without the nose mounted radar hence the sharper nose with better view over the nose while landing. It had simplified avionics, greater fuel and a lower procurement cost. It retained the shortcomings of tail-less deltas ie the need for long runways and excessive speed bleed off in tight maneuvering turns. These deficiencies Dassault then tried to rectify through the Mirage IIING (Nouvelle Generation) described in the next para. The Mirage 5 entered service in the late 1960s and continued in production till 1977.





Photo - Mirage IIING: Dassault developed this variant as a private company venture with fixed canard foreplanes (see photo), a modern Cyrano IV radar picked from the Mirage F.1 (which was a successor to the Mirage III), laser range finders, new nav-attack suite, a more powerful 7200kgf engine and a few other improvements. This was also positioned for a while as the Mirage 2000 in the early 1970s. That could be what the Salamander book is referring to. Later it was marketed as the Mirage IIING (more on this in the next para). They didn’t find takers for the IIING but some customers, such as Peru & South Africa, took partial upgrade kits for a part of the modernization of the avionics and refurbished the old airframes with this upgrade. Only Switzerland went in for substantially the whole upgrade including the canard foreplanes. These foreplanes dramatically improve both the sustained turn rate as well as reduce the take-off run.





Photo - Mirage 2000: In the early 1970s the French Air Force (Armee de l'Air) laid out specifications for a 'Super Mirage' in the 20 tonne class which did not progress beyond the drawing board. Immediately thereafter Dassault started branding (for a brief period) the improved Mirage IIING as the "Mirage Delta 2000" but soon reverted to the "Mirage IIING" nomenclature after the title 'Mirage 2000' got reserved for a brand new clean sheet of paper design which we today recognize as the Mirage 2000. The Mirage 2000 even when it entered service in the mid-1980s was two generations ahead of the earlier Mirage III or Mirage 5. It has nothing in common except the looks with delta wings a Dassault favourite. The upgraded Mirage 2000 of the IAF would be 3 generations or more ahead of the Mirage III - they have different airframes and different engines. A little bit like the Audi A3 and Audi A8 having similar looks!!



Pakistan today is the last major (if not only) user of the Mirage III/5 family. The youngest airframe would be 38 years old and the oldest maybe 45 to 50 years old. They went in for an avionics upgrade to keep the machines relevant. From whatever I have read on this upgrade (titled ROSE) it is the best that can be done on an aircraft designed in the 1950s and is a lot lesser than the Mig-21 Bison upgrade the IAF implemented a decade ago. The Pakistani upgrade is not comparable with the upgrade of the IAF Mirage 2000's currently underway and the PAF cannot convert their Mirage III's to the Mirage 2000 nothing is common except the brand name. The French build superb aircraft but follow baffling nomenclatures. The name Mirage has been used for 6 completely different types of aircrafts each with multiple sub-types designed and produced at different times between 1956 and 2004. I hope I have not added to the confusion.


The Mirage 2000 upgrade is expensive. The fact that the INR is at Rs 62/USD versus Rs 15/USD when the aircraft were ordered in the early 1980s adds to the sense of expense. In Kargil our Mirage 2000's proved to be very reliable and good at flying at high altitudes within the mountain ranges. The French had offered license assembly to us in 1986 but for reasons I do not know we let the offer lapse.

[Jeroen]

Interesting. Im surprised that you could upgrade the Mirage with the canards. i would think that require major modification to the airframe. You are going to load up the airframe with very different forces then originally designed. Both mechanically due to the forces those canards will exercise on the airframe as well as dynamically as you can pull more Gs. Maybe it was over designed to start with?

Very important for the Swiss to improve short field take off, as they operate from short runways to start with due to the mountainous terrain, but also they take off from their national motorways!

Jeroen

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Interesting. Im surprised that you could upgrade the Mirage with the canards. i would think that require major modification to the airframe. You are going to load up the airframe with very different forces then originally designed. Both mechanically due to the forces those canards will exercise on the airframe as well as dynamically as you can pull more Gs. Maybe it was over designed to start with?

The canard foreplanes on the Dassault upgrades were completely fixed and not dynamic like for example the Su-30MKI in the photo below. They generated lift ahead of the centre of gravity and reduced take off run by about 1500 feet. And yes it did improve tight turning. The aircraft must have had some over design as is common I suppose with military fast jets.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The canard foreplanes on the Dassault upgrades were completely fixed and not dynamic like for example the Su-30MKI in the photo below. They generated lift ahead of the centre of gravity and reduced take off run by about 1500 feet. And yes it did improve tight turning. The aircraft must have had some over design as is common I suppose with military fast jets.

How does that work then? Did they make any change to the wing? Getting continuous lift aheead of the CG means, if you don't change something else as well, you need to dial in nose down trim or push your stick forward all the time?

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

How does that work then? Did they make any change to the wing?

I really don't know. And now the Swiss have retired their Mirage III's so the secret has gone with them!!

[torquecurve]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

How does that work then? Did they make any change to the wing? Getting continuous lift aheead of the CG means, if you don't change something else as well, you need to dial in nose down trim or push your stick forward all the time?

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I really don't know. And now the Swiss have retired their Mirage III's so the secret has gone with them!!

A quick note on delta winged aircraft of all types - The delta wing is an almost perfect compromise in which you will get 'almost' all that a more optimised wing design will get you at 'almost' all flight regimes. Due to the wing area it provides good lift with small size.
Remember the F14 /Mig23/27, all these used a moving wing. The reason being increased lift and endurance in subsonic regimes (allowing short take offs) while giving extremely good trans and supersonic ability. This allowed these aircraft to be operated out of short airfields while also being able to carry higher loads than otherwise they could have. The trade off was higher need for maintenance and limited dog-fighting ability. So these aircraft also came with heavy hitting power and longer range weapons.
This was also the time when the initial wind tunnel testing was starting to show what a wing could and couldnt do. Wing design was optimized.
The other option to these was the delta wing. If you look at it, it is the simplest design. Most paper planes that we made as children had delta wings. Simply because they provide a larger surface area. One aspect is the lift factor will be slightly higher at the back than the front (aircraft like to be nose heavy - if you flying a cessna, you would set the trim to slightly point the nose downwards while maintaing a forward flight). Most load is also at the front of the aircraft (as a glider - no engine). If you balance the lift provided at the rear of the aircraft with the weight in the nose, and shift the CG forward of centre you will get a aircraft which has static stability allowing it to even glide if required.
Most twin surface delta wings (e.g. Mig21) have moving tail planes making a twin delta design with the main delta wings placed closer to the CG, allowing the use of a smaller wing with the tailplanes doing some of the lifting as well. This allows an overall smaller design, which can be faster - in a straight line. Then you have the Saab Viggen which had massive delta foreplanes to shift the CG slightly off centre, allowing it to have a shorter take off roll.

Now comes pure delta - Mirage type aircraft.
This is a pure delta tailless design which trades off sustained turn rate (STR)for speed. However this also has a problem of lift bleed when in a turn as the vortex created 'leaves' the wing which means you start losing lift unless you have a highly powerful engine pushing it. In a turning fight, if it turns too tight, the wing might stall as a whole, which might put the aircraft in a spin. This to a certain extent is avoided by energizing the air ahead of the leading edge, which is done by using canards. This will allow you probably to increase the STR by increasing the angle at which you will have a wing stall.

The swedes used this to good effect. However this is NOT required in newer generation aircraft.

From being statically stable, that is effectively being able to glide without an engine, Aircraft starting being designed to be Unstable! The idea was to have aircraft which had CG shifting behind the actual centre, which meant it wanted to point its nose up at all times! This concept led to the Mirage 2000 and F16 type of fighters. These were also amongst the first fast jets to have basic controls in the circuits of computers rather than the pilot. The Delta wings moved behind slightly, wing geometry was changed to energize the flow earlier allowing these aircraft to have excellent STR. If you observe the F16 wing, you will see that the aircraft has a wing starting almost near the cockpit allowing the vortex to energize earlier.
The Rafale builds on this concept and uses moving canards which allow design optimization by diverting the flow over the wings even at higher angles of attack, where we don't have wing washout.
Then you have the three surface designs - the Su30MKI. This has a longitudinal tri plane configuration. Simply has three lift surfaces. If you observe the pic that Narayan Sir has put, it is a typical high angle of attack regime, you will observe that the canard is moving away creating a lifting surface while the main wing is almost at the edge of losing lift due to high AoA. This also is aided by the two dimensional thrust vector control which means that thrust is still being added in almost same vector as the canard surface, ensuring that the wing flow over the wing is not affected.

To put it in automobile perspective
Manual Transmissions- 3 speed - Simple delta aircraft (Mirage3)
Manual Transmissions - 5 speed with o/d - Simple delta aircraft with canard or small fixed foreplane or lifting tail - Allowing more flexibility and efficiency. - Mig21/Mirage5
Automated Manual Transmission - 5 speed with some control in circuits of computer which takes data from multiple sensors - F16/Mirage 2000
CVT Automatic transmission - Infinite ratios - Su30MKI

Sorry for the long jargon filled post. Most of this is from what I remember. Experts may correct.

[TractionAvant]

There is an HF-24 Marut on display at Kamla Nehru Park in Pune.

Kind regards

Aditya

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by TractionAvant

There is an HF-24 Marut on display at Kamla Nehru Park in Pune....Aditya

Dear Aditya, thank you for sharing. Unlike many other countries we take little care of our monuments and show scant respect to our soldiers or their symbols. The photo below is of a Marut HF-24 donated by the IAF to the Deutches Museum, Germany. Dr. Kurt Tank's widow had requested for one airframe and the IAF obliged. What a contrast in the state of maintenance between the one in Pune and the one in Germany. It reminds me of Francis Quarles' short poem -

Our Gods and soldiers we like adore
Only at the brink of danger, not before
After deliverance, both are alike requited
Our God's forgotten and our soldiers slighted