3 ms·

How did they improve so massively from the F-4 to the F-15 to the F-22?

11 points by Gravityloss 4y ago

pGuitar 4y ago
That's a bad chart....
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  Why do you think so?
  - pGuitar 4y ago
    I was a bit harsh but I did find it odd that it is hard to find out what the numbers are, precisely
foxyv 4y ago
A huge part of this was computers. The AWG-9 and the Phoenix missile changed everything about air combat. The APG-63 and AMRAAM sealed the deal on the F-15. The rest was just improvements through massive economic investment during the cold war era.
bediger4000 4y ago
> So, the reason, at some level, is government committing large sums of money over a long term into engine research and development. That's a rather bold statement about a government that's had a 42-year hardcore ideology of free markets, and shifting DoD to civilian contract labor. Not to mention that the US government is constitutionally constrained to budgeting yearly.
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  It's not exactly news. The air force also used to own a lot of aircraft factories [1]. They still have the famous plant four, from building B-24 Liberators to now building the F-35. Private contractors do the operations. Does it make sense to pretend to be all private if you have (mostly) one customer. I guess the contractor who won the competition for the new program could always buy the factory from the previous one's manufacturer, but does it make sense? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Air_Force_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Air_Forc...
CobaltFire 4y ago
Edit: I just realized this is a self-promotion to drive clicks to the posters blog @dang This “article” is simply taking some numbers from Wikipedia and tossing them in a word salad with a single excel chart. The difference is the computing power available increased, allowing for better solutions. The money being available is also a key factor. It’s not terribly complicated; we iterated on ideas, tried new things, and had far more computing power and more mature tools. That affected the materials science that this all relied on in similar ways.
lahvak 4y ago
I don't know, F-4 was a darn good camera! Never heard about F-15 and F-22.

11 points by Gravityloss 4y ago

pGuitar 4y ago

That's a bad chart....

Gravityloss 4y ago
Why do you think so?
- pGuitar 4y ago
  I was a bit harsh but I did find it odd that it is hard to find out what the numbers are, precisely

foxyv 4y ago

A huge part of this was computers. The AWG-9 and the Phoenix missile changed everything about air combat. The APG-63 and AMRAAM sealed the deal on the F-15. The rest was just improvements through massive economic investment during the cold war era.

bediger4000 4y ago

> So, the reason, at some level, is government committing large sums of money over a long term into engine research and development. That's a rather bold statement about a government that's had a 42-year hardcore ideology of free markets, and shifting DoD to civilian contract labor. Not to mention that the US government is constitutionally constrained to budgeting yearly.

Gravityloss 4y ago
It's not exactly news. The air force also used to own a lot of aircraft factories [1]. They still have the famous plant four, from building B-24 Liberators to now building the F-35. Private contractors do the operations. Does it make sense to pretend to be all private if you have (mostly) one customer. I guess the contractor who won the competition for the new program could always buy the factory from the previous one's manufacturer, but does it make sense? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Air_Force_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Air_Forc...

CobaltFire 4y ago

Edit: I just realized this is a self-promotion to drive clicks to the posters blog @dang This “article” is simply taking some numbers from Wikipedia and tossing them in a word salad with a single excel chart. The difference is the computing power available increased, allowing for better solutions. The money being available is also a key factor. It’s not terribly complicated; we iterated on ideas, tried new things, and had far more computing power and more mature tools. That affected the materials science that this all relied on in similar ways.

lahvak 4y ago

I don't know, F-4 was a darn good camera! Never heard about F-15 and F-22.