Specifically, it compares their capabilities as air superiority fighters, that is, fighting other fighter aircraft, which is generally a harder task than shooting down aircraft which are not fighters.
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2 What makes a good fighter? 3 DERA study 4 Combat performance 5 Further reading |
For conciseness, this page will consider only fighter aircraft in manufacture in 2000 and those that are planned to be manufactured later in the decade. Older aircraft are likely to be less capable than the aircraft in this survey. The aircraft included are:
Talk here about maneouvrability, acceleration, performance.
Aircraft included
What makes a good fighter?
Performance
| Thrust/ Weight Ratio | wing loading kg/m² | notes
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|---|---|---|---|
| Rafale F2 | 1.04 | 320 | |
| Typhoon | 1.18 | 311 | |
| F-2 | 0.89 | 430 | |
| MiG-29SM | 1.13 | 411 | |
| Su-27 | |||
| Gripen | 0.94 | 341 | |
| F/A-22 | 1.27 | 320 | max takeoff wt; thrust vectoring |
| F-35A | 0.83 | 446 | thrust vectoring
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Notes:
Mention avionics. Abilities of radar. Various weapon systems: missiles - infra red - radar (semiactive v. active) - long and short range weapons - fire and forget
''Stealth. How distance at which a plane can be detected related to radar cross section
(IIRC detection range is proportional to (radar cross section)^0.25 )''
It is a truism that "amateurs talk about tactics, dilletants talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics". The best fighter in the world is useless unless it is available where it is wanted, when it is wanted.
The more an aircraft costs to buy, the less units of it can be afforded. Another aspect of availability is that some exporting nations limit who they will sell aircraft to for political motives. Generally, the USA tends to be the most fussy about who it will sell to, and Russia and China the least fussy. Information about aircraft costs is hard to get hold of. Because of inflation, one must also include the year that a cost refers to; figures are in USD unless otherwise specified.
Stealth
Logistics
Cost and Availability
Range and runways
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Notes:
How many hours of servicing does the aircraft require per hour of flight?
Britain's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (now split into QinetiQ and DSTL) did an operational evaluation comparing the Typhoon with some other modern fighters in how well they performed against an expected adversary aircraft, the Sukhoi Su-35.
The study used real pilots flying the JOUST system of networked simulators. Various western aircraft were put in simulated combat against the Su-35. The results were:
The "F/A-18+" in the study was apparently not the current F/A-18E/F, but an improved version. All the western aircraft in the simulation were using the AMRAAM missile, except the Rafale which was using the MICA missile.
One must bear in mind that the full details of the simulation haven't been released, making it hard to verify whether it gives an accurate evaluation of the capabilities of these aircraft (for instance, whether they had adequate knowledge of the Sukhoi and Raptor to realistically simulate their combat performance).
Evaluations based on qualitative and quantitative comparisons between the aircraft are all very well, but actual combat results are what matters. A list of all combats involving these aircraft:
DERA study
F/A-22 Raptor 10.1 : 1
Typhoon 4.5 : 1
Rafale 1.0 : 1
Su-35 1.0 : 1
F-15C 0.8 : 1
F/A-18+ 0.4 : 1
F/A-18C 0.3 : 1
F-16C 0.3 : 1
These results mean, for example, that in simulated combat, 4.5 Su-35s were shot down for every Typhoon lost.Combat performance
Further reading