Reminds me irresistibly of a cross between the Su-27 (podded, widely spaced engine placement, fixed wing, front fuselage) and Tornado ADV (inlet position, wind screen, tail fin, wing moving surfaces)!
circle-5 said:Painting of the Fairchild-Hiller (Republic) F-15 by Keith Ferris. Learning from the lessons of the F-4 in Vietnam, the Air Force wanted engines separated for survivability, and a large bubble canopy for enhanced visibility. Republic design engineers took these two requirements to the extreme.
Document courtesy Mike Machat
Source: http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/History/Aircraft/Canberra/Canberra02.htmlThe Canberra T.4 was used for initial qualification training, Instrument Rating Tests (IRTs) and various checks for trainee and operational pilots. A critical regime that the trainee needed to be properly trained in was “engine out” or “asymmetric” handling. The Canberra was designed in an era when engine-out flight characteristics were not as stringently specified as with modern aircraft. This resulted in single engine safety speed ( i.e. the speed at which the aircraft could be safely controlled with one engine out and one engine on full power) which was high by modern standards. For the B.2 and the T.4 there is a 45 knots gap between the single engine safety speed and the speed at which it the Canberra lifted off the ground. In contrast a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet has a safety speed that is below its stall speed, which means it is fully controllable with 2 engines out on one side and full power on the engines on the opposite side (the worst situation) at any time that it is flying. Whereas for the Canberra after liftoff, if there were problems with one engine before the safety speed was reached, engine power on the good engine had to be reduced to keep the aircraft in control. All this was counter intuitive to Canberra novitiates, since the aircraft had lost half its power already, was close to the ground and needed to climb away. This situation usually called for ALL the power one could muster. Without a simulator to practice this regime safely in an earthbound building, the Canberra T.4 was the torture machine that the pilot learned how to save his and his QFI’s life in!
aim9xray said:That's what he said!
Because the latter was better than the former according to the USAF, TAC (now ACC) and DoD. -SPMichel Van said:I have a question: Why has the Fairchild-Hiller (Republic) F-15 lost against McDonnell Douglas F-15 ?
PaulMM (Overscan) said:Well, a little more detail in this document:
http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120516-036.pdf
Fairchild ranked second, with a strong technical proposal, let down in a few other areas. Its low "logistics" rating probably relates mainly to production plans where Fairchild and Rockwell both proposed building new manufacturing plants, and McDonnell-Douglas didn't. Rockwell's design was highly regarded aerodynamically but overall weaker in all areas, specifically in management, an overly complicated avionics proposal and higher cost.
It's believed McDonnell-Douglas were added last to the 3 issued contracts after Fairchild and Rockwell and their earlier proposals weren't great, but after they lost VFX (which was their primary focus) they put massive effort into FX and came out on top.
Pioneer said:It’s a costly irony that the ‘USAF argued it could afford neither the delay nor the estimated $600,000 cost of prototyping; which probably had little to do with the perceived (and in truth the incorrect and perceived threat of the ‘Mach 3 ‘Foxbat’, and probably more to do with the political want and threat of Dr. Enthoven’s want for the USAF to study a smaller, lighter-weight fighter (which would have been the LWF/ACF competition?).
Pioneer said:I have a gut feeling the Fairchild design would have been seen to be better than the McDonnell Douglas FX submission, which I’m adamant had more to do with USAF/McDonnell Douglas fraternisation than really wanting to acquire the best air superiority fighter for its service!
But I guess that's sadly the real politics/career agenda of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex
Regards
Pioneer
And as big a fan as I was of the F-105, I think the Republic entry would have had them as well.
Pioneer said:It's interesting to note, that in the book, it denotes - 'In late 1969, however, McDD, in a highly controversial and politicized decision, was selected to build the F-15...........
There were evidently several obscure reasons why Fairchild Republic lost the F-15 contract. First, there is no question that McDD had a stronger political lobby.
Second, it was rumoured that, several months before the contract was awarded, the FBI traced a major leak of information directly from [Fairchild] Republic's F-15 programme to the Israeli Consulate in New York and thus a number of Air Force generals may have been ill disposed towards [Fairchild] Republic on grounds of security.
Finally, weeks before the F-15 decision was announced, Grumman won the contract to build the F-14 fighter for the Navy, and for geo-political reasons it is doubtful that the Pentagon would have awarded two major aircraft contracts to corporations whose principle factories were but nine miles apart.'
So some interesting insight into the reasoning of the layout of the Fairchild-Republic FX design submission - alas still no official designation
Lets hope we can find more on this beautiful design!!
Regards
Pioneer
Also, while the three body design does have the advantages listed, it also has the disadvantages of high friction drag (More surface area), more interference drag (More intersections), and thrust line issues in engine out situations. The last can be overcome, but at a cost, such as a larger vertical tail. Also, such designs typically need more roll control power and damping due to the engines being placed away from the center of mass laterally. Though I really like the design as well.
Pioneer said:Also, while the three body design does have the advantages listed, it also has the disadvantages of high friction drag (More surface area), more interference drag (More intersections), and thrust line issues in engine out situations. The last can be overcome, but at a cost, such as a larger vertical tail. Also, such designs typically need more roll control power and damping due to the engines being placed away from the center of mass laterally. Though I really like the design as well.
Funny you should mention this issue Sundog!
In the same book, it states:
"....the company's [Fairchild-Republic] design group having begun to investigate the concept of separating the engines in podded nacelles ('three-body concept') because of the known difficulties experienced in the installation of high-performance engines in the fuselage where unfavourable flow disturbances adversely affected the efficiency of the powerplants. This consideration, plus the promise of reduced wave and after-end drag at high speed, provided the initial impetus; ....."
Regards
Pioneer
Pioneer said:So we still don't have a manufacturer's designation for the Fairchild-Republic/Fairchild Hiller FX design proposal/submission?
Regards
Pioneer