SiegeTank wrote:MariusRoi wrote:I'd like to remind San Dorado that their "F-111XL" is less capable than the B-58J and is likely to cost more (supercriuse at mach 1.5? please, I'm doing almost a whole mach number faster (mach 2.5).
I thought the B-58 could only supercruise at Mach 2 for something like 30 minutes whilst using its afterburner? Is my data off or have you modified your Hustlers?
And how is my plan going to cost more? If it is, I might consider buying new bombers from anyone, it's just that I have a hard time seeing how modifying existing planes is going to be more expensive than buying (let alone designing and building) all-new ones.
The real B-58 could never supercruise, it needed afterburners for supersonic speeds. The modified J79 engines were rated for up to 2 hours on afterburner (most engines are only meant to sustain a few minutes at a time) but on a typical mission fuel consumption would only allow the plane 20-30 minutes of burner.
With new engines you could make a B-58 truly supercruise on dry thrust, but you only going to reach mach 2.5 with something like four F119 class engines if not even more and that is not even remotely cheap. The B-58 overall cannot help but be more expensive then an F-111 given that it has four instead of two engines and is 75% heavier. When it was new the B-58 was very expensive, about 12 million dollars at a time when an F-4 Phantom (worlds most expensive fighter) was 3.5 million. The far larger B-52 meanwhile was around 15 million, which gives a good idea of why B-58 was canceled.
B-58 also has to carry its weapons in that external pod thing which is just really freaking annoying in terms of finding a way to hand a worthwhile conventional payload off the plane. The F-111 isn’t that much better off with its 4,000lb capacity internal bomb bay, but since it’s smaller and cheaper one ought to expect less from it. Maximum payload actually favors the F-111 as well, but at tremendous cost in flight performance.
Just because I have it handy, made it myself, here are the maximum take off weights of various bombers and attack planes, including several unbuilt projects since 1945.
600,000lb MTOW Bomber (Tu-160 606klb)
485,000lb MTOW Bomber (B-52H 488klb)
475,000lb MTOW Bomber (B-1B 477klb)
415,000lb MTOW Bomber (Tu-95MS 414klb)
385,000lb MTOW Bomber (T-4MS 379klb, B-1A 390klb)
375,000lb MTOW Bomber (B-2 376klb)
275,000lb MTOW Bomber (Tu-22M 277klb)
230,000lb MTOW Bomber (B-47E 230klb)
190,000lb MTOW Bomber (T-60S 188klb?)
175,000lb MTOW Bomber (B-58 177klb, Tu-16 174klb)
140,000lb MTOW Bomber (FB-111H, increased to 156klb by inflight refueling)
130,000lb MTOW Bomber (T-54 134klb)
115,000lb MTOW Bomber (FB-111 114klb, T-6BM 120klb)
100,000lb MTOW Bomber (Su-34 99klb, Su-24MK 96klb, F-111F 100klb, TSR-2 102klb)
85,000lb MTOW Bomber (F-15E 86klb)
75,000lb MTOW Bomber (Mirage IV 73klb)
60,000lb MTOW Bomber (Tornado GR.4 61klb, A-6E 61klb, Buccaneer 62klb)