Modern Propeller Fighter Aircraft

[Comrade Jenkens]

I've always had a fascination with post war propeller fighters such as the La-9 and the Spiteful and I was wondering, what would a theoretical modern day fighter aircraft look like? Would it be much better than those just after WW2 or would the modern technologies allow it to be a massive step up in terms of capability?

What do people think?

Edit: I know that such a thing would be completely useless and impractical in real life.

[K^2]

We don't have prop fighters anymore, but we still have prop fighter trainers.

T-6 Texan

T-6 Texan II

There is just no contest. Better aerodynamics, better materials, and a turboprop in place of a four-stroke. Take a look at the capabilities at the end of the page. Texan II has higher cruise speed, higher ceiling, longer range, and is still cheaper to build and operate than the original Texan was. If a modern fighter had to be built with prop propulsion, it'd be beyond reach of any WWII fighters. Throw in modern electronics, and even without missiles, modern planes would be able to go against WWII equivalent without losses.

By the way, the old Texans are still a lot of fun to fly. They might not have the power or the speed of the modern equivalent, but they are still way more agile than you'd ever think such a machine could be.

[TheSaint]

Take a look at the "Thunderscreech" for an example of why there are no modern propeller-driven fighters.

[luisair]

Well, there is the Embraer EMB 312 Tucano and 314 Super Tucano, Build in Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano

Its a CAS, Light Attack aircraft, used for intercepting illegal drug transports.

[Nibb31]

Pilatus PC-21, Embraer Super Tucano, TA-6... There are quite few of them...

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/pc_21/images/pc-21_1.jpg

Edited January 13, 2014 by Nibb31

[Comrade Jenkens]

I've noticed that all of them are slower than WW2 aircraft? Then again these seem mainly for ground attack.

[mdatspace]

I've noticed that all of them are slower than WW2 aircraft? Then again these seem mainly for ground attack.

They are. Slow speeds are good for ground attack. How do you hit a target accurately when you are going over the speed of sound? The answer is simple: You don't.

[Comrade Jenkens]

I'm just wondering about theoretical air to air fighters. Found a few nice looking concepts on google.

[PakledHostage]

I've noticed that all of them are slower than WW2 aircraft?

The one-off Scaled Composites Pond Racer was a noble attempt to build an aircraft that was faster than WWII fighters for use in the annual Reno Air Races. The Pond Racer was commissioned by Bob Pond because he was concerned that each year at the Reno Air Races, valuable and historic aircraft were being crashed and destroyed. It crashed in 1993, killing the pilot. No replacement was ever built.

[rpayne88]

We don't have prop fighters anymore, but we still have prop fighter trainers.

T-6 Texan

T-6 Texan II

There is just no contest. Better aerodynamics, better materials, and a turboprop in place of a four-stroke. Take a look at the capabilities at the end of the page. Texan II has higher cruise speed, higher ceiling, longer range, and is still cheaper to build and operate than the original Texan was. If a modern fighter had to be built with prop propulsion, it'd be beyond reach of any WWII fighters. Throw in modern electronics, and even without missiles, modern planes would be able to go against WWII equivalent without losses.

By the way, the old Texans are still a lot of fun to fly. They might not have the power or the speed of the modern equivalent, but they are still way more agile than you'd ever think such a machine could be.

T-6 is used in primary flight training for both the USAF and USN. Regardless of rather you are flying fighters, bombers, transports, even helicopters, you fly the T-6 first.

[Guest]

In air to air combat, any prop fighter would be easily outclassed even by a primitive jet. Just look at late WWII German jets and how they compared to Allied fighters. However, in ground attach, speed is much less of an advantage, and propeller-driven designs are cheaper. While it's very well possible to hit a pinpoint target with a supersonic, high altitude jet and a guided bomb, a big ol' cannon is cheaper, less complicated and much more destructive to morale. To say nothing of what the mere sight of a slow aircraft going for a strafing run does to enemy (and friendly, too! Troopers love those things when they're on their side) morale.

For strafing runs, you don't need speed, but rather good agility and good flight characteristics at low speed, plus a lot reliability in case of damage. The people being strafed usually take offense and shoot at whatever's strafing them, if they're not running in terror. With a low flying aircraft, they actually have a chance of hitting it, too. So it'd better be able to survive that. Jets are more fragile than turboprops, and work better at higher speeds, making them less advantageous for CAS duties. Not to mention they're cheaper.

[PakledHostage]

Jets are more fragile than turboprops, and work better at higher speeds, making them less advantageous for CAS duties. Not to mention they're cheaper.

Erm... What about the jet powered A-10 "Warthog"? It is probably the most formidable CAS aircraft out there.

[rpayne88]

Erm... What about the jet powered A-10 "Warthog"? It is probably the most formidable CAS aircraft out there.

The airframe of an A-10 is almost indestructible (somewhat of an exaggeration.) Its engines, like all jet engines are remarkable fragile. Something as simple as a spring getting sucked off the ramp into the engine is enough to destroy it. Never mind a bullet. If a bullet went up the tail pipe or in through the intake, the engine is gone. However, since it is located in nacelles, it has protection from side impacts.

Even if it did lose an engine, its got another one that will keep it up and can fly with half a wing, an engine, and a tail missing.

[PakledHostage]

Its engines, like all jet engines are remarkable fragile.

But that is kind of besides the point. Turboshaft engines are susceptible to foreign object damage as well. The A-10 is arguably the most highly regarded CAS aircraft, despite any vulnerabilities that it may have. It represents a strong counter-argument to Dragon01's belief that turboprops make better CAS aircraft than jets.

[K^2]

Could be a weight class difference. A10 is massive for a CAS plane. And it's much easier to build a turbofan with good thrust-to-weight for a larger plane than for a smaller one. Though, with advances in VLJ tech, I would bet that even the lightest of CAS are going to be turbofans in the near future.

[Capt. Hunt]

The other advantage to prop powered CAS planes is they suck a lot less gas then jets.

The ultimate reason why we don't see propeller fighters anymore is that there really is an upper limit to the speed you can get out of a prop driven aircraft, even with a turboprop. They just can't compete with modern fast jets in the air-to-air arena. We saw a lot of these deficiencies in the early days of Korea, even the most modern prop planes, like the F-51, F-82 and the F4U-4 couldn't keep up with MiG-15s.

[K^2]

The ultimate reason why we don't see propeller fighters anymore is that there really is an upper limit to the speed you can get out of a prop driven aircraft, even with a turboprop.

Not really. You'd certainly start having problems in hypersonic regions, but you can build a prop plane to match the Mach 2 supercruise of modern fighters. It's just going to be very difficult to design (impossible without modern computers), awkward to control, less efficient, less maneuverable, and prone to all sort of failure modes that aren't even an option with a jet.

Thing is, the faster you go, the smaller amount of air you should be pushing for a given amount of fuel burned. A high performance turbojet is already something like 2:1 after you take stoichiometry into account. Running a prop from a turbine at these ratios just doesn't make much sense. A turbojet is lighter, more reliable, and ultimately, more efficient. At lower speeds, however, the more air you push, the higher the effective I_SP of your engine. So your best options are a turboprop or a turbofan. Both have their own advantages and drawbacks.

[magnemoe]

Could be a weight class difference. A10 is massive for a CAS plane. And it's much easier to build a turbofan with good thrust-to-weight for a larger plane than for a smaller one. Though, with advances in VLJ tech, I would bet that even the lightest of CAS are going to be turbofans in the near future.

Probably I know it is some turboprop CAS planes, yes they are an class below the A10 who is very heavy armored and carry an massive gun.

However mos CAS missions are against rebels of taliban capabilities and below, they don't need to rip up tanks and chances of running into 30 mm radar controlled AAA fire is limited.

GW2 showed that even Apache gunships get problems then running into heavy armed conventional forces, they to are an weight class below the A10.

In short an turboprop CAS plane, armored to take 12.7 to 15 mm machine guns, with two engines if one get shot up would be an excellent plane fighting rebels, no its not something you would bring against some serious enemy however if you are an tiny country you will lose that fight anyway.

[Ignamious]

The A-10C uses a Turbofan... not that it's much of a difference it's still technically a jet engine... but a turbo prop is also technically a jet engine... but instead of the exhaust coming out the rear, it's used to drive a prop shaft... so the only non jet planes would be piston driven... even if it has a prop. All technicalities but something to think about. also... the rounds used now are bigger then WW2... and more powerful. The A10C's gun's fire a bullet the size of a fist. secondly computers can gimbaling can help with stability of strafe runs. The A-10C actually has a two phase trigger, partial pull activates computer stabilization and spin-up. and full fires the gun. in the COMZ there are tanks with "a hole in it" from the A-10C. not 20 holes... 1 big on like a lance right through it.

Control is an issue as discovered with the P-38 " Lightning" called compressibility. basically the air creates a shockwave preventing it from bitting into the air allowing the control surfaces to work. in WW2 some planes had an upper limit to speed, if they exceeded it the wings could rip off. (i can't remember the plane it's been a while since training) but all planes have upper G limits.

and a single bomb striking a single target "One strike, One kill" is cheaper then 10 bombs from 15 planes. 1 Jet fighter with Guided munitions is more deadly then a squadron of Prop driven fighters doing strafing runs. and cheaper. Remember the pilot is worth more then the plane, something the ****'s didn't realize. in WW2 the US would only allow the pilots so many missions, when they were done they would train the next generation. Better pilots = more kills and less loss. the **** didn't do that. They lost the good pilots in combat. but up until the 1943 they had better planes, but more losses.

[Nuke]

i dont think gatling guns work the way you think they do. the feed system is mechanically linked to the gun barrel assembly, so its synced up to the gun rotation. they fire as soon as a round passes the firing position, the barrel lined up with the aircraft centerline (the gun is offset for this, and to make room for the nose landing gear). the firing rate actually ramps up till the gun reaches its maximum rpm, and down again as it slows. its one of my major pet peeves that every movie and video game gets this wrong (they dont 'charge up', that would lead to jamming). there are fire rate settings, but i think sop is to just used the lowest setting, which is still pretty damn insane.

you want weird, look at russian gatling guns. they are gas powered so they have much more aggressive spin up rates than the a-10's hydraulic system, and they can operate to 10k rounds a minute. what makes em really wierd is they require pyrotechnic cocking charges to initiate the spin (which limits the weapon to a set number of firings). i think they may also require breaks to stop the gun's rotation, less they eat all the ammo/melt and explode.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Nuke

[toric5]

not to mention that the earlier planes they were mooted on had problems with the guns recoil slowing their speed to below stalling. (the warthog actually could not fire with one engine due to this. the single gun produces mere recoil force than a single engines thrust.)

[K^2]

That's at the maximum rate of fire, which is almost never used.

[Ignamious]

Actually the maximum rate of fire for the A10c of 4,200 RPM is not used anymore. Its fixed to 3,900 thanks to a TCTO in 2003. But your right, the barrel doesn't spin up. I was mistaken on that.