F-35 internal fuel, range

[spazsinbad]

OH don't be too cynical now. There are several versions (that I have) of BANSHEE flight manuals/NATOPS (only so named around the mid 1950s IIRC) which can vary slightly. The Vampire Trainer Dual Seat had a throttle with which one learnt to control the engine and not to remain/stray into unwanted RPM territory (an RPM range also applies to the BANSHEE in one manual). I've mentioned that some Vampire GOBLIN engines were so bad at RAAF Pearce that they could only be flown by an instructor/student but never solo student, because engine would thrash itself to death very quickly if in the BAD rpm.

Especially eventful was opening the throttle from idle during a touch and go (A/C needed to be flared with engine idle) I think 60% RPM was 'nogobelow' during a landing approach because the engine was entirely controlled by one's left hand with OVERfuelling from too quick accel being a constant threat. Everyone overfuelled but quickly learnt NOT TO DO IT. For one the instructor would be furious to bash one's helmet mightily whilst one also had to keep the nosewheel from hitting the runway because it would then SHIMMYlikeSHIT! causing unreasonable consternation by all concerned because one had (HILARIOUSLY NOT!) the engine grumbling loudly with the aircraft vibrating alarmingly from the shimmyshimmy.

I flew only single engine jets so shutting down the engine - except if ON FIRE! for reals - was just ludicrous.

[addition: NATOPS started May 1961]

Methinks the described engine relight procedure was reliable whilst significant fuel saving warranted the shut down. Have a gander at cruise/etc charts from above manual attached below. Looks like more than 100NM gained on single engine.

[outlaw162]

And I thought B-727 cruise charts were confusing.

There's a certain logical fallacy in those max range numbers.

For example look at the sea level numbers.

The recommended IAS for max range at sea level on two engines is 292 kts giving 3200 pph, or 1600 pph per engine.

The recommended IAS for max range at sea level on one engine is 259 kts giving 2110 pph for the operating engine.

Comparing those figures is apples to oranges.

The real comparison would be two engine fuel flow per engine at 259 kts compared to the single engine fuel flow of 2110 pph. The two engine fuel flow per engine at 259 KIAS is going to be less than 1600 pph per engine. If it's down around 1000 pph per engine, you gain nothing by shutting down an engine. (except the requirement to restart it eventually)

I taught performance in a number of aircraft, but I'm still impressed here by the USN fuzzy math.

F-35, or Viper, or Vampire with a mere one engine certainly simplifies performance calculation, plus it makes engine shutdown/restart decision making reasonably straight forward....and the Lighting/Lightening/Lightning has an onboard computer to do all the calcs anyway.

[spazsinbad]

Yeah. I ain't goin' to be flyin' no BANSHEE (but I like name) so my scrutiny was NIL, the VAMPIRE onboard disputer was...? ME

BTW didn't USAF fly the BANSHEE along with CANUCKians? Anyway I thought the total of URLs I have for various flight manuals of the BANSHEE persuasion should be gathered for those scrutinising the tables. What I do like about said BANshe is 'she' could genuflect before the LSO (if required) with a kneeling thingo for the use of. Anyhoo….

F2H-1 Banshee Pilot’s Handbook (Older Copy) [NATOPS].pdf (61Mb)
https://www.filefactory.com/file/p2sp20 ... der%20Copy).pdf

F2H-2_2N_2P Pilot's Handbook [NATOPS].pdf (16Mb)
http://www.filefactory.com/file/35g0wxz ... ndbook.pdf

F2H-3 and -4 Flight Manual 1954.pdf (12Mb)
https://www.docdroid.net/0QgZOC8/f2h-3- ... manual.pdf

F2H-3 and -4 Flight Handbook 1957.pdf (4Mb)
http://www.filefactory.com/file/2oo826q ... ndbook.pdf
______________________________________

http://aviationarchives.blogspot.com/20 ... dbook.html

[spazsinbad]

As one does on a high heat summers day in Oz I'm indoors looking for mah pages about sensor fusion to find this li'l gem.
First Found here: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=21808&p=292001&hilit=Kerr#p292001

Lockheed Martin defends JSF’s close-in capabilities
13-Feb-2009 Julian Kerr JDW Correspondent Fort Worth, Texas; Jane’s Defence Weekly

"...Discussing maximum mission radius, Mazanowski presented an air-to-air mission profile in which all the aircraft took off with a weapon load, remained at high altitude and returned after about a minute of combat. All but the F-35 and Su-30MKI were carrying three external fuel tanks.

Under this scenario, the Rafale had a maximum mission radius of 896 n miles, the F/A-18 816 n miles, the F-35 751 n miles, the Eurofighter 747 n miles, the Su-30MKI 728 n miles and the Gripen 502 n miles.

According to Mazanowski, the JSF joint programme office required the modelling to assume an F-35 engine at the end of its life with 5 per cent fuel degradation and a 2 per cent reduction in thrust. The counterpart aircraft were given the benefit of the doubt wherever platform and systems performance were not clear – as, for example, in the assumption that all five would have active electronically scanned array radars operational within five years...."

Source: https://www.scribd.com/doc/261728653/lo ... pabilities

[marsavian]

Under this scenario, the Rafale had a maximum mission radius of 896 n miles, the F/A-18 816 n miles, the F-35 751 n miles, the Eurofighter 747 n miles, the Su-30MKI 728 n miles and the Gripen 502 n miles.

In these examples:

The Rafale carries 3 x 2000l EFT giving 21 klb total fuel
The F-18E carries 3 * 480gal EFT giving 24 klb total fuel
The Typhoon carries 3 x 1000l EFT giving 16.3 klb total fuel
The F-35 carries 17.3 klb fuel with 5% fuel degradation factored in
Su-30 MKi carries 21.2 klb fuel
Gripen C carries 3 x 300gal EFT giving 11.3 klb total fuel (Gripen E would have 15.4 klb total fuel with 2 * 450gal + 1 * 300gal EFT)


Conclusions in comparison to F-35:-


Rafale goes 19% further with 21% more fuel so even with three big subsonic EFT its radius/fuel is similar.

Typhoon goes about the same radius with 94% fuel even with 3 slim EFT.

F-18 goes 9% further with 39% more fuel.

Su-30 MKi goes 97% of the radius with 23% more fuel.

Gripen C goes 67% of the radius with 65% of the fuel including 3 slim EFT.

Gripen E will NOT reach the radius of F-35A even with 3 EFT (probably around 80-85%)

Gripen/Rafale/Typhoon with three EFT have similar drag to a clean F-35.

Clean, the drag of these airframes are probably as follows:

Typhoon < Gripen < Rafale < F-35 < F-18 < Su-30 MKi

[Gums]

Salute!

Anybody flying these attack planes envies the Stubbie that can fly out 600 n.m. on internal fuel and come home after delivering very accurate ordnance. Maybe keeping a AAM for fighting back out. And the bad guys can't pick you up on radar until you have already released your weapon.

It's unheard of, folks, even back in WW2 with piston motors.

Those other planes mentioned in the comparisons have ridiculous RCS, and they need all those external tanks that take up a rack which could have a MER or something else.

I'll take my Stubbie.

Gums sends...

[spazsinbad]

Usually IE 11 is used for webwerk. Today using EDGE I see the middle paragraph of quote above missing? WTF. I'll post again. The missing middle paragraph above appears in FireFox. I dunno. Now it is back in EDGE. ??? also seen in IE 11. WEIRD.

"...Discussing maximum mission radius, Mazanowski presented an air-to-air mission profile in which all the aircraft: took off with a weapon load, remained at high altitude and returned after about a minute of combat. All but the F-35 and Su-30MKI were carrying three external fuel tanks.

Under this scenario, the Rafale had a maximum mission radius of 896 n miles, the F/A-18 816 n miles, the F-35 751 n miles, the Eurofighter 747 n miles, the Su-30MKI 728 n miles and the Gripen 502 n miles.

According to Mazanowski, the JSF joint programme office required the modelling to assume an F-35 engine at the end of its life with 5 per cent fuel degradation and a 2 per cent reduction in thrust. The counterpart aircraft were given the benefit of the doubt wherever platform and systems performance were not clear - as, for example, in the assumption that all five would have active electronically scanned array radars operational within five years...."

[hornetfinn]

I tried to find out what kinds of weapons each aircraft could carry with their fuel loads. Correct me if my findings are incorrect. Each one is assumed to carry targeting pod.

Rafale with 3 2,000l EFTs:
- Zero 2,000lb bombs or heavy cruise missiles like Apache
- 2 1,000lb bombs or anti-ship missiles like Harpoon or Exocet
- 7 500lb bombs or air-to-ground missiles
- 6 MICA missiles

EF Typhoon with 3 EFTs:
- 2 heavy cruise missiles like Storm Shadow or Taurus
- 4 anti-ship missiles like Harpoon
- 4-6 LGBs or JDAMs (probably depends on their size)
- 8 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 ASRAAM

JAS Gripen E with 3 EFTs:
- 2 2,000lb bombs or missiles
- 4 NSM, but no RBS-15 anti ship missiles
- 4 SDBs or similar (twice that without centerline EFT)
- 4 air-to-air missiles (say 2 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 AIM-9X/IRIS-T)

Super Hornet with 3 EFTs:
- 2 2,000lb bombs or heavy missiles
- 6 1,000lb bombs or missiles
- 8 AMRAAM and 2 AIM-9X

F-35A without EFTs
- 6 2,000 lb bombs
- 2 NSM and 4 heavy cruise missiles
- potentially up to 32 SDBs
- potentially up to 12 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 AIM-9X/ASRAAM

Su-30MKI without EFTs
- 3 1,500kg bombs
- 8 500kg bombs
- up to 32 light bombs like 100 kg OFAB-100-120
- up to 6 RVV-AE/SD and 4 R-73

I don't know how much each loadout reduces range but it seems clear that carrying 3 heavy EFTs will restrict weapons carriage capability a lot. Rafale can theoretically carry a lot of stuff, but in reality is restricted to lighter weapons or give up a lot of fuel and range. F-35A/C can carry about the same as the much bigger Su-30MKI.

If we did the same scenario with say 4 2,000lb class weapons or similar heavy loadout, F-35 and Su-30MKI would likely have clearly the longest range. All others would give up two EFTs to be able to do that. Comparatively worst loadout for F-35 would be large numbers of 500lb bombs. Most of these aircraft could carry about similar number of them and it would signficantly affect F-35 stealth, although probably not totally eliminate the advantages as it doesn't need to carry EFTs or targeting pod.

[mor10]

Usually IE 11 is used for webwerk. Today using EDGE I see the middle paragraph of quote above missing? WTF. I'll post again. The missing middle paragraph above appears in FireFox. I dunno. Now it is back in EDGE. ??? also seen in IE 11. WEIRD.

spaz, Microsoft has released a completly new version of edge that uses the same engine as Chrome. I have used it in beta for a few months, but it is now available to all Windows 10 users. I recommend it.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge

[spazsinbad]

Thanks. I'm wondering why it was/is not updated with all the other Win10 updates. This is the first I've heard of such an EDGE: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/hub ... EdgeLegacy "The new Microsoft Edge was launched in January 2020" & "Microsoft Edge Legacy is the EdgeHTML based browser that is currently the default browser on Windows 10 PCs. The new Microsoft Edge is based on Chromium, and was released in January 2020. It's available on Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows 10, and macOS. Downloading the new Microsoft Edge will replace the legacy version of Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 PCs. Last Updated: 16 Jan 2020" https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4533505

Installed OK - seems to be much faster with text BIGGA etc.

[mozza]

I tried to find out what kinds of weapons each aircraft could carry with their fuel loads. Correct me if my findings are incorrect. Each one is assumed to carry targeting pod.

Rafale with 3 2,000l EFTs:
- Zero 2,000lb bombs or heavy cruise missiles like Apache
- 2 1,000lb bombs or anti-ship missiles like Harpoon or Exocet
- 7 500lb bombs or air-to-ground missiles
- 6 MICA missiles

EF Typhoon with 3 EFTs:
- 2 heavy cruise missiles like Storm Shadow or Taurus
- 4 anti-ship missiles like Harpoon
- 4-6 LGBs or JDAMs (probably depends on their size)
- 8 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 ASRAAM

JAS Gripen E with 3 EFTs:
- 2 2,000lb bombs or missiles
- 4 NSM, but no RBS-15 anti ship missiles
- 4 SDBs or similar (twice that without centerline EFT)
- 4 air-to-air missiles (say 2 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 AIM-9X/IRIS-T)

Super Hornet with 3 EFTs:
- 2 2,000lb bombs or heavy missiles
- 6 1,000lb bombs or missiles
- 8 AMRAAM and 2 AIM-9X

F-35A without EFTs
- 6 2,000 lb bombs
- 2 NSM and 4 heavy cruise missiles
- potentially up to 32 SDBs
- potentially up to 12 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 AIM-9X/ASRAAM

Su-30MKI without EFTs
- 3 1,500kg bombs
- 8 500kg bombs
- up to 32 light bombs like 100 kg OFAB-100-120
- up to 6 RVV-AE/SD and 4 R-73

I don't know how much each loadout reduces range but it seems clear that carrying 3 heavy EFTs will restrict weapons carriage capability a lot. Rafale can theoretically carry a lot of stuff, but in reality is restricted to lighter weapons or give up a lot of fuel and range. F-35A/C can carry about the same as the much bigger Su-30MKI.

If we did the same scenario with say 4 2,000lb class weapons or similar heavy loadout, F-35 and Su-30MKI would likely have clearly the longest range. All others would give up two EFTs to be able to do that. Comparatively worst loadout for F-35 would be large numbers of 500lb bombs. Most of these aircraft could carry about similar number of them and it would signficantly affect F-35 stealth, although probably not totally eliminate the advantages as it doesn't need to carry EFTs or targeting pod.

Yeah i have to correct you on some points, first Rafale can carry Meteor too and F-35 can't (it's a project like the EFT but nothing real for now they are too busy trying to make the things works like it should) secondly Rafale can carry 2 heavy payloads Like Cruise missiles or heavy bombs even with 3 EFT and the Eurofigther can't, he has to sacrifie one of his 3 wet point to carry a cruise missile and i think it's the same for the Gripen and finally Rafale has 5 wet points so he can theorically carry 5 EFT plus 4 or 6 AAM which give him more range (btw i don't know why someone want to do that).
Oh and i don't even mention the CFTs and the last 2 hard points on the wings than even French air force don't use because it's considered as an overkill and just mean more fatigue on the airframe in regard to the considered sufficiant current payload capability..

I just post some pictures to proove it:





2CFT, 3 EFT, 2 cuise missiles, 2 AAM:

[eagle3000]

I tried to find out what kinds of weapons each aircraft could carry with their fuel loads. Correct me if my findings are incorrect. Each one is assumed to carry targeting pod.

Somewhat too late, but here's my correction:

Rafale with 3 2,000l EFTs:
- 2 2,000lb bombs or heavy cruise missiles like Apache or anti-ship missiles like Harpoon or Exocet
- 4 1,000lb bombs
- 6 500lb bombs or air-to-ground missiles
- 8 MICA missiles or 4 MICA and 4 Meteor (though the outer wing pylons for 2 MICAs are not cleared yet, French AF has no requirement for it)

EF Typhoon with 3 EFTs:
- 0 heavy cruise missiles like Storm Shadow or Taurus or heavy anti-ship missiles like Harpoon
- 4 medium/light anti-ship missiles like MARTE ER or possibly NSM
- 4 1,000 lbs LGBs or JDAMs
- 8 500 lbs LGBs or JDAMs (required twin launcher not developed yet https://www.ainonline.com/sites/default ... eapons.jpg)
- 6 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 ASRAAM (inner wing pylons not cleared for AAMs)

JAS Gripen E with 3 EFTs:
- 0 2,000lb bombs or missiles
- 2 1,000 lbs bombs or missiles
- 2 NSM or 2 new RBS-15 (with reduced weight of 600 kg to fit under outer wing pylons)
- 6? SDBs or similar (put a question mark here because 4 SDB is more than the limit of 600 kg, not sure if 3 is possible)
- 4 air-to-air missiles (say 2 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 AIM-9X/IRIS-T)

Super Hornet with 3 EFTs:
- 2 2,000lb bombs or heavy missiles
- 6 1,000lb bombs or 4 missiles (someone correct me if I'm wrong but no missiles are cleared for twin rack carriage)
- 8 AMRAAM and 2 AIM-9X

F-35A without EFTs
- 6 2,000 lb bombs
- 4 JSM and 2 heavy cruise missiles (heavy cruise missiles like JASSM don't fit internally)
- potentially up to 32 SDBs
- potentially up to 12 AMRAAM/Meteor and 2 AIM-9X/ASRAAM

Su-30MKI without EFTs
- 3 1,500kg bombs
- 8 500kg bombs
- 28 250kg bombs
- up to 32 light bombs like 100 kg OFAB-100-120
- up to 8 RVV-AE/SD and 4 R-73

[Corsair1963]

Under this scenario, the Rafale had a maximum mission radius of 896 n miles, the F/A-18 816 n miles, the F-35 751 n miles, the Eurofighter 747 n miles, the Su-30MKI 728 n miles and the Gripen 502 n miles.

In these examples:

The Rafale carries 3 x 2000l EFT giving 21 klb total fuel
The F-18E carries 3 * 480gal EFT giving 24 klb total fuel
The Typhoon carries 3 x 1000l EFT giving 16.3 klb total fuel
The F-35 carries 17.3 klb fuel with 5% fuel degradation factored in
Su-30 MKi carries 21.2 klb fuel
Gripen C carries 3 x 300gal EFT giving 11.3 klb total fuel (Gripen E would have 15.4 klb total fuel with 2 * 450gal + 1 * 300gal EFT)


Conclusions in comparison to F-35:-


Rafale goes 19% further with 21% more fuel so even with three big subsonic EFT its radius/fuel is similar.

Typhoon goes about the same radius with 94% fuel even with 3 slim EFT.

F-18 goes 9% further with 39% more fuel.

Su-30 MKi goes 97% of the radius with 23% more fuel.

Gripen C goes 67% of the radius with 65% of the fuel including 3 slim EFT.

Gripen E will NOT reach the radius of F-35A even with 3 EFT (probably around 80-85%)

Gripen/Rafale/Typhoon with three EFT have similar drag to a clean F-35.

Clean, the drag of these airframes are probably as follows:

Typhoon < Gripen < Rafale < F-35 < F-18 < Su-30 MKi

[Corsair1963]

Gripen/Rafale/Typhoon with three EFT have similar drag to a clean F-35.

I would like to see you even try to support such an "absurd" claim....

[Gums]

Salute!

Yeah, Corsair, show me by flying at 420 or 480 knots CAS and compare fuel flow with same loadout of weapons but no tanks. Oh yeah, hit the target 300 miles away, hold for 5 or 10 minutes at mil power and then come back.

Then there's the increased RCS from all the baggage.

BEAM ME UP!!

The Viper was and still isn't as much weight-limited as drag limited. Ditto for the Sluf back in its day, although a heavy load greatly influenced our take off roll due to Newton's Laws about force moving a mass. We just needed a bigger motor.

Gums sends...