J-20... The New Generation Fighter III
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
- Start date
- Status
plawolf
Lieutenant General
If you hit anything bigger than a sparrow with your car windscreen at 70mph, chances are it will crack or worse. If a fighter doing 700 knots hits something with its canopy, the canopy would suffer damn sight worse than just some cracks.
For fighters like the F2, F18 and F35B/C that will be operating largely in a coastal/naval environment, not only are the chances of a bird strike increased, but sea birds tend to be a lot more hefty than their land based cousins (kinda similar to naval fighters vs land based fighters, no?), so it a naval plane suffer a bird strike, the forces involved are very likely to be much greater than land based fighters, thus, for the US Navy at least, they set a higher strength requirement for their fighter canopies than the USAF.
Not even the US currently has the technology to manufacture single-piece canopies that meet those requirements, and that is one of the main reasons why the F35 has gone with a two piece solution when very little expense seemed to have been spared for the rest of the plane.
So while I think cost would be a factor, technology and material sciences matter more. After all, the PAKFA is designed for the same missions and mission profiles as the F22 and J20, so if the other two has gone with single canopies, why would be the Russians decide otherwise other than because they didn't have the technology to make a single piece canopy?
actually all windshields put on fighters has to pass bird strike. pass meaning no catastrophic loss but will crack.
but technology can not deal with probability.
its much more expensive to replace a single peice then the windscreen in front.
actually the japanese engineers took a look at the f-16 design and they chose a two piece instead precisely because of cost.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
That is off of a Harrier, and against a fairly small bird. A subsonic aircraft. Imagine what the results might have been if the same bird hit a plane at supersonic speeds.
You also have way too much faith in safety measures and material science.
There is a test for bird strike, but that is always tested to a certain limit, and no fighter canopy anywhere in the world can claim to be totally impregnable to a bird strike with any bird on earth at any speed. Since at the higher end of the weight and speed spectrums, those birds will be hitting with many times the kinetic energy of fighter borne cannon shells.
Just do a simple google search if you want to see just how much damage a bird can do to a plane.
What I said is a matter of public record - the US Navy require that their fighter canopies pass a tougher test than the USAF, for the reasons already listed before.
How that limit is decided is a compromise between many factors like materials available, visibility, weight, and yes cost, but cost would only ever be one of many factors, and should never be the main, never mind sole factor if you are building a half decent plane.
As for the Japanese F2, well, have you considered the possibility that the Japanese chose the two-piece solution because they would have had to import the canopy from the US if they wanted F16 style ones? For a plane that was supposed to be as much made in Japan as possible, that might have been a compromise the designers were willing to make.
Besides, this account supports my view that the F2's canopy has been strengthened compared to that of the F16's.
"Other FSX structural-design changes include radar-absorbent material (RAM) applied to the aircraft's nose, wing leading-edges and engine inlet, the use of titanium in the tail and fuselage, the addition of a braking parachute and a two-piece canopy reinforced against large bird strikes."
That was just a random article I came across while trying to verify if the F2 canopy was made in Japan or imported. But I am sure you will be able to find other, similar accounts with a simple search if you still don't believe me.
MiG-29
Banned Idiot
СВЕРХЗВУКОВЫЕ РЕАКТИВНЫЕ ИСТРЕБИТЕЛИ
МиГ-21Ф-13 (length:15,76)
“Мираж-111С”
F-104G
SAAB-35D
F-5E
Размах крыла, м
7,154
8,2
6,68
9,4
8,14
Длина самолета, м
15,76
13,83
16,69
15,35
14,69
I didn't have patience to read your reply, I assume it is very good.
you don't have to lecture me friend.
my first job ever in the industry was shooting de-frozed chickens at canopies with gas guns.
anything and everything in aeronautics on the saftey side is related to probabilities, one can not makeevery thing 100% good but usually accepts a 1/10^x number, where x is usually is related to cost/performance.
...
btw, USAF think F-16 has much better reliability than a twin engined F-15. why? a failure in one engine is a mission loss regardless. two engines means there are components now that is twice likely to fail.
think about it.
see you later.
The J-7 is listed with a different length than the mig-21.
MiG-29
Banned Idiot
DIMENSIONS
Length 14.855m (J-7II);
15.591m (J-7C);МиГ-21Ф-13 (length:15,76)
14.885m (J-7E)
Soo...we have to figure out which J-7 it is? Bloody useful. Why not just use the JF-17.
We also don't know whether the probe length is included...
- Status