Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
First off, let me compliment you on the incredible work and excellent analysis.
However, something has occurred to me while reading the F-35 sustained turn rate articles. In the first part, you make the assumption to load all aircraft with 60% fuel. This is a very fair metric to start with, and great for making assumptions. But the F-35 was built to have the range of an F-16/18/AV-8B with drop tanks. So would it not make sense to try and account for this disparity? It would raise the F-35's turn radius by a bit, but likely not as much as the later comparison with an F-4 and F-35 loaded with the same amount of fuel. The idea being to give the most realistic picture possible.
Here is what I've come up with. An F-16 loaded with 60% fuel is 4,200 lbs (assuming 7,000 lb total internal capacity). However, the capability to have 2x370 gal and a 300 gal fuel tank can raise it's total capacity to 14,000 lbs. Thus meaning it's only carrying 30% of it's total fuel capacity. Thus an F-35 equivalently loaded at 30% is 5,550 lbs. Using the F-18C as a metric, with 10,860 lbs of internal capacity. 60% of which is 6,516 lbs. The F-18C can carry 3x330 gal fuel tanks assuming a weight/gal of about 6.73 (what the weight from the F-16 comes out to be) the total fuel capacity is about 17,460 (I took 6,600 from the drop tanks, low balling in for the F-18C works against the F-35 in this instance). which gives 6,516 as about 37.32% of it's total internal capacity. Which would mean the F-35's internal fuel load would be about 6,904 lbs.
If any of these numbers are wrong, then I apologize. But I hope I may still get my point across. I feel this would be more accurate than just applying a 60% fuel load across the board (or an equal fuel loading) for weight comparison purposes given the same mission.
Thank you for your time, and I hope you find this helpful.
Feb 19, 2016, 12:51:12 AM
Posted to The F-35 and the Infamous “Sustained G” Spec Change: Part 3