muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B. Muller) (01/22/90)
From: muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B. Muller) >>From: munnari!batserver.cs.uq.oz.au!anthony@uunet.UU.NET (Anthony Lee) >Just a quick question, I was reading this book about warships and there >was a mention that because of the short endurance (range) of the >F18s, additional tankers had to be carry on each aircraft carriers. >This meant fewer attach A6 attack planes can be carried. >What I don't is, why used the F18s, surely the F14s are a lot better >for one thing the F14s could carry 6 phoenix missiles whereas the F18s >could only carry 2 sparrows. >cheers Anthony There are a number of reasons that the F/A-18 is used. First of all, it is much less expensive than an F-14, just as the F-16 is cheaper than the F-15. Second of all, it has the designation F/A for a reason; it is suppossed to be an attack plane that can easily defend itself, whereas the only mission the F-14 is used for is to defend the fleet. *-------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Mark Muller Undergarduate at Purdue University * * muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu Aeronautics & Astronautics Engineering * *-------------------------------------------------------------------------*
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (01/24/90)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B. Muller) > [F-18] is much less expensive than an F-14, just as the F-16 is cheaper > than the F-15.... Ho ho. That was the idea, all right. It didn't work out that way after the USN and USAF got through adding goodies and design changes to the F-18 and F-16 respectively. How the numbers work out depends on how you do the accounting, but at one point the F-18's official price actually exceeded that of the F-14. The F-16 has never gotten that bad, but the disparity in cost between it and the F-15 is a lot less than it was supposed to be. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu