New answers tagged fighter
1
Actually, this has been done with one military aircraft: the Harrier. Since the Harrier can vector it's thrust nozzles downward for vertical takeoff or landing, it can also move those nozzles downward while in fast forward flight.
The pilot moves the exhaust thrust downward while in forward flight, and the aircraft takes a sudden leap upward. It was used ...
2
Listed under Benefits on the Wiki page link edited into your question:
The benefit of this setup is increased specific impulse over that of a rocket. For the same carried mass of propellant as a rocket motor, the overall output of the air turborocket is much higher.Emphasis added
Since most "jet fighters" use jet engines (or low-bypass turbo fans)...
5
Wings are the most efficient known way of creating force perpendicular to the direction of flight. At the cost of relatively little force in the aft direction (the drag) a wing can create a lot of force perpendicularly (the lift, which is tilted to the side to make turn). They do it by using a lot of air as the reaction mass, which is the reason why wings ...
2
Well, where is this extra underwing burst of thrust going to come from? You'd have two basic options: A) add some extra engines under the wings with the exhaust nozzles pointed down, B) use the existing engine(s), and run some ducting from the engine to under the wing, with some valves to open and close to control the thrust. Also, getting a very quick &...
-1
Be an adversary. Private companies now run 'Adversary" flying training where they own and operate private fighters to fly against pilots in fake engagements
-1
Most aircraft guns are not radar guided (except [CIWS systems] on naval vessels1). Fighters use HUD or illuminated visual reference, because the range of typical cannon rounds is insufficient compared to a missile; radar makes little practical use.
However in the 60's/70's B-52 bombers had a tail gun with an M61 cannon and radar aperature.
A 20x102mm round ...
14
There are three components to an air-to-air gun solution, that must be taken into consideration by the engineers designing the gunsight mechanics, and well understood by the pilot utilizing the system.
Lead for Target Motion or Velocity Lead (Lm). This is the same thing as is utilized by a skeet shooter. You must aim the barrel of the gun where the target ...
10
On the JA37D, it would auto-steer
On the D-version of the fighter variant of the Saab 37 Viggen, it would help in steering
The last version of the fighter variant of Viggen had an auto-steer mode, where the "steering automat" would give yaw and pitch corrections to aid in firing the cannon. This was — of course — dependent on data from the radar.
...
5
In reviewing the book titled "Fighter Pilot Gunnery" from 1943, it is critical for a fighter pilot to know his own air speed, the bullet velocity, and the speed, direction, and range to the target. With this information, the pilot can aim the plane to where the bullet and the target will intersect. With radar, the target information is essentially ...
79
F-16 engineer here.
This is from a great article about fire-control radar in fighter jets:
For guns kills, if the aircraft has a radar lock on a target, it can
accurately gauge range to the target, and provide the pilot with the
appropriate corrections for lead and gravity drop, to get an accurate
gun kill. Without the radar, the pilot simply has to rely ...
0
Guns are fixed in all modern fighter aircraft, and can only be aimed by aiming the entire aircraft. This is normally done with the aid of a Lead Computing Optical Sight (LCOSS). There are three components to an air-to-air gun solution, that must be taken into consideration by the engineers designing the gunsight mechanics, and well understood by the pilot ...
Top 50 recent answers are included