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Senior member Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 466

Quote:

terms of thrust to weight ratio the F-35 is roughly 68~70% the F-22's weight with roughly 57% the installed dry thrust.

But the frontal profile of the F-35 seems to be more like 80% of that of the F-22, according to your own drawing (http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-8200.html).

Time will tell for sure..

Thanks a lot for the explanation!

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Viperalltheway wrote:

Quote:

terms of thrust to weight ratio the F-35 is roughly 68~70% the F-22's weight with roughly 57% the installed dry thrust.

But the frontal profile of the F-35 seems to be more like 80% of that of the F-22, according to your own drawing (http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-8200.html).

Time will tell for sure..

Thanks a lot for the explanation!

Yes, the frontal profile is ~80% of that of the F-22 whereas the weight is only ~68~70%. However, the F-35 is also a smaller aircraft with significantly less surface area (skin drag). Thrust is ~57% dry or ~61% with A/B.

Nobody expects the F-35A to cruise at, or near, Mach 1.72 like the F-22 reportedly does. However, it may cruise in the Mach 1.2~1.4 bracket. I stress MAY because we don't know at this point. It is important to note that most 4th generation fighters like the F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 are ALL supercruisers in the sense that they are all able to sustain greater than Mach 1 on military thrust whilst clean or carrying minimal external loads. Nobody advertises that because marginal supercruising (Mach 1.1~1.25) is not the same as Mach 1.5~1.8 and unlike the latter does not afford the significant battlefield mobility advantages. In addition, most of these aircraft will have trouble attaining supersonic cruise on dry thrust when carrying realistic warloads of external weapons. The F-35's inherent advantage is that if it does match or exceed 4th generation performance when it comes to cruise speed, it will at least be able to exploit it most of the time because it can fly most of its missions with no external stores.

Senior member Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 466

That would be true particularily on the way back from the target, once the bombs have been dropped and less fuel remains. An stealth aircraft flying at Mach 1.3 or so is certainly not easy to catch.

It could be particularily interesting to have that quick egress capability because the enemy defence is more likely to be alerted once the targets have been hit..

Enthusiast Joined: May 31, 2007 Posts: 29 Status: Offline

I love it when people post topics like these, very interesting. Im schedualed for supersonic aerodynamics for my fall semester... I'll see if I can't learn any additional facts that I can add to this board later on. Raptor One, thanks for your explanation regarding 2D vs 3D aerodynamics... great post!

Enthusiast Joined: May 31, 2007 Posts: 29 Status: Offline

I love it when people post topics like these, very interesting. Im schedualed for supersonic aerodynamics for my fall semester... I'll see if I can't learn any additional facts that I can add to this board later on. Raptor One, thanks for your explanation regarding 2D vs 3D aerodynamics... great post!

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2848

Might also want to consider reading what "Bring it on" says in post #8 dated 4 June in the following forum thread. Interesting....

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http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=71036

Enthusiast Joined: May 31, 2007 Posts: 29 Status: Offline

Thats cool stuff... One concern of mine was that the Raptor lacks HMS, I guess it kind of seemed incomplete as a package w/o it. Good to know that it really didnt play that big of a role in WVR exercises.

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Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 vs F-22 -- Mach Angle analysis of their planforms