Quote from: Weaver on January 14, 2024, 03:49:14 PMMeeting RAF requirements would mean buying F-15Bs with a radically re-worked back seat station.

Which means Air Force could have gotten Strike Eagle earlier and Phoenix hauling Eagles for USAFE & TAC

Oooo...57th FIS/FS F-15D as an alert bird with 4 AIM-9s and AIM-7/120s and a pair of 54s on the wing pylons.

Quote from: sandiego89 on January 15, 2024, 06:35:29 AM

Quote from: McColm on January 14, 2024, 10:11:31 AMFlying at 150 feet at Mach 2 is no easy task so a maritime strike version of the TSR.2 would be a no-no. The USAF has used F-15s during NATO exercises to attack HMS Liverpool around the coastal waters of Gibraltar, however the Buccaneer was built for such a mission. So it couldn't meet the Mach 2 speeds but was very effective when flying at low levels......
 

McColm, no one is going Mach2 at low level.  Mach is highly dependent on density altitude and the air is too thick for most aircraft to get anywhere close to those kinds of speeds down low.  The Mach2 speeds could only be obtained at high altitudes where the air is much thinner.  The TSR-2 could perhaps have approached Mach 2 at altitude, but the envisioned low profile was more like .95 Mach at 200 feet or maybe up to Mach 1.15 or so briefly.   Not even a XB-70 or SR-71 could reach their high mach numbers down low.   

There have been a host of Mach2 capable aircraft (B-58, F-104, F-105, Tornado, F-4, RA-5C, Tu-160, B-1, Mirage V...) that later used a low profile, but this was usually high sub-sonic.   Their Mach2 capability was clean and up high, and rarely used.   So a high subsonic aircraft like the Buccaneer was about on par as these "Mach2" aircraft down low, and surprised more than one "fighter" down low.   The Buccaneer, F-111, F-105, A-6 excelled down low.   

If the TSR-2 worked, it would have been acceptable in low level maritime roles.         

IIRC Tornado and F-111 could do about mach 1.1 at low altitude for quite a while if they had the peacetime clearance. The Tornado was built like a brick outhouse specifically in order to survive the low-altitude turbulence without eating all it's airframe life.

The spec for TSR.2 was something like Mach 2+ at 30,000ft, 'supersonic' at 200ft.

I read a piece by a former Buccaneer squadron leader who said that one of the most satisfying experiences of his career was sitting in the back of a USAF F-4E at Red Flag and watching one of his pilots in a Buccaneer pull steadily away from the Phantom (at <cough splutter> dozen feet altitude) while his 'driver' called it every unreapeatable name under the sun...

Quote from: scooter on January 15, 2024, 06:47:20 AM

Quote from: Weaver on January 14, 2024, 03:49:14 PMMeeting RAF requirements would mean buying F-15Bs with a radically re-worked back seat station.

Which means Air Force could have gotten Strike Eagle earlier and Phoenix hauling Eagles for USAFE & TAC

Oooo...57th FIS/FS F-15D as an alert bird with 4 AIM-9s and AIM-7/120s and a pair of 54s on the wing pylons.

The economics of Phoenix are interesting and somewhat counter-intuitive, as the RAF found out. It costs a fortune, it eats your peacetime training budget at a rate of knots, and it doesn't neccessarily gain you as much as you think when you're defending a continent, in comparision to spending all that money on more cheaper interceptors with more cheaper Sparrows. Where it shines is when you're defending a multi-billion dollar point target like an aircraft carrier, of course, and that was the use case that lead to the USN funding it in the first place.

Quote from: Weaver on January 15, 2024, 07:50:07 AM

Quote from: scooter on January 15, 2024, 06:47:20 AM

Quote from: Weaver on January 14, 2024, 03:49:14 PMMeeting RAF requirements would mean buying F-15Bs with a radically re-worked back seat station.

Which means Air Force could have gotten Strike Eagle earlier and Phoenix hauling Eagles for USAFE & TAC

Oooo...57th FIS/FS F-15D as an alert bird with 4 AIM-9s and AIM-7/120s and a pair of 54s on the wing pylons.

The economics of Phoenix are interesting and somewhat counter-intuitive, as the RAF found out. It costs a fortune, it eats your peacetime training budget at a rate of knots, and it doesn't neccessarily gain you as much as you think when you're defending a continent, in comparision to spending all that money on more cheaper interceptors with more cheaper Sparrows. Where it shines is when you're defending a multi-billion dollar point target like an aircraft carrier, of course, and that was the use case that lead to the USN funding it in the first place.

Interesting point on the AIM-54. I wonder though if it's range would have still been seen as an advantage worth the cost at the time. In the early 70's the Skyflash/Sparrow was pretty limited and there was the omnious Soviet supersonic bomber (aka Backfire), plus Soviet super fighters like the Foxbat being developed so maybe the extra range/speed would have been worth it. I've actually got a Whif idea on the backlog for a RAF version of the F-15(PH). Ever since I saw a diagram of the prposal as a kid back in the 80's I've been faciniated by the idea.

Quote from: HarryPhishnuts on January 15, 2024, 09:48:51 AM

Quote from: Weaver on January 15, 2024, 07:50:07 AM

Quote from: scooter on January 15, 2024, 06:47:20 AM

Quote from: Weaver on January 14, 2024, 03:49:14 PMMeeting RAF requirements would mean buying F-15Bs with a radically re-worked back seat station.

Which means Air Force could have gotten Strike Eagle earlier and Phoenix hauling Eagles for USAFE & TAC

Oooo...57th FIS/FS F-15D as an alert bird with 4 AIM-9s and AIM-7/120s and a pair of 54s on the wing pylons.

The economics of Phoenix are interesting and somewhat counter-intuitive, as the RAF found out. It costs a fortune, it eats your peacetime training budget at a rate of knots, and it doesn't neccessarily gain you as much as you think when you're defending a continent, in comparision to spending all that money on more cheaper interceptors with more cheaper Sparrows. Where it shines is when you're defending a multi-billion dollar point target like an aircraft carrier, of course, and that was the use case that lead to the USN funding it in the first place.

Interesting point on the AIM-54. I wonder though if it's range would have still been seen as an advantage worth the cost at the time. In the early 70's the Skyflash/Sparrow was pretty limited and there was the omnious Soviet supersonic bomber (aka Backfire), plus Soviet super fighters like the Foxbat being developed so maybe the extra range/speed would have been worth it. I've actually got a Whif idea on the backlog for a RAF version of the F-15(PH). Ever since I saw a diagram of the prposal as a kid back in the 80's I've been faciniated by the idea.

Well the only time an AIM-54 was fired against a Foxbat it missed, although that was thanks to the MiG-25 pilot being smart about using kinematics to run it out of fuel, rather than a guidance failure.

The very, very valuable point target argument was why the Royal Navy liked the idea of the RAF having Tomcats, indeed at one point they proposed a mixed force, with 50-ish Tomcats funded by the RN in exchange for them being exclusively tasked to providing top cover for the RN in the North Atlantic and North Sea, and the rest being whatever else the RAF wanted. It fell on deaf ears, of course.

Skyflash was GOOD. Basically, when advances in digital electronics made it possible to shrink the Sparrow's guidance package, two paths forwards became apparent. The USAF, mainly concerned with taking out as many WarPac fighters as possible before the merge and loss of the F-15's technical advantage, opted to move the warhead in front of the wings and fit a longer motor. The RAF on the other hand, faced with a relatively small number of Soviet bombers but with plenty of room for sophisticated ECM, opted to keep the AIM-7E's short motor and aft warhead and use the space for MUCH better guidance (Italy made much the same choice with Aspide). The Skyflash's monopulse seeker was WAY ahead of the AIM-7E's, so much so that when another round of miniaturization made it possible, the USAF chose a monopulse seeker for the last version of the Sparrow.

A nuclear warhead for the AIM-54 isn't completely out of the question:

QuoteThe Nuclear Weapons Databook Volume I: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities, by Thomas Cochran, William Arkin, Milton Hoenig (published by NRDC) has multiple mentions of a nuclear warhead project for the AIM-54, under study from FY82 through at least FY84 (detailed on pg 245).

Nuclear AIM-54, Secret Projects Forum

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