It would probably be .97 full AB at sea level
Would it though? like i said they weigh more than 4 times what an aim120 does. So its going to be more weight than 8 aim120 plus the dual rack. mach .8 or .9 sounds more plausible to me considering the hornet sits at about mach .95 with 10 aim120 and 2 sidewinders. The overall drag might be lower though due to the lack of double pylons tho.
Pylons drag aren’t modeled at all in the game though
I mean yeah, i was more thinking about irl. I find it to be an interesting thought experiment. The missile has more than enough range, but it would be a very slow vulnerable hornet if something manages to ambush it. Then again how likely is it to be ambushed without the naval radar picking you up in the open ocean. Or even an AWACS.
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Eurofighter and Rafale would just get further reduced drag since they’re meant to hit certain speeds with a loadout, but otherwise the gap would get larger between 5th gens and other 4th gens yes.
Do you have the F-18 currently? What does it do with full air to air loadout ingame currently at say 50% fuel?
depends on alt admittedly, but they average about mach 1.1-1.3 in my experience. That’s with a full loadout. The super hornet is about the same too, just with more missiles. At high alt you can push either of them to like mach 1.6-1.8 but it takes a long time. I will say that im referring to the f18c late and the f18e. The early hornet i have spaded but i dont play it much tbh.
Just went and tested it, it gets to about mach 1.13-1.15 at about 2k alt. you could push it to about mach 1.2 i assume, but you’d have to be flying in a straight line for a while. at least in the f18c late. my super hornet isnt spaded so i cant test that one properly.
If the AIM-120D really had better guidance and energy efficiency, we should see it outperform the AIM-120C-5 in real engagements.
But in dev server tests, they perform almost identically — which suggests the “improvements” aren’t actually modeled in a meaningful way.
That said, we’ll have to wait and see how it behaves on the live server tomorrow. Maybe there are changes not fully reflected in the dev server.
More weight doesn’t necessarily mean more drag, you have to account for double pylon mass + 2 AIM-120 mass & drag combined
More weight means you need more lift which usually slows a plane down with increased overall drag afaik. Then again the hornet already has a ton of lift in the first place.
Which one, C or E?
Superhorny in 12+2 missile loadout and 50% (3348kg) of fuel, ±100m ASL achieves peak thrust at about 1250kmh TAS, 10500kgf/each. Acceleration up to 1mach is “solid” then hits the wall. Speed seems to peak at 1297kmh/1.06mach
To follow up Ruskies_Turtles, Superhorny at 2000m ASL effectively peaks at 1300kmh TAS 1.08mach, any kmh extra past that take great effort, after something like minute of flying perfectly straight it settled at 1327kmh/1.1mach
At altitude (9000m ASL), you’re looking at 1600kmh TAS 1.47mach after nice and long wait to get up to speed. Acceleration past 1200kmh is really not good, so in practice anything past 1300 will make you happy.
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Lmao that’s horrible. I really wanna see what USN fanboys see in the Hornet/Super Hornet when it can barely, if ever, achieve its maximum speed.
I still don’t understand how exactly that’s even possible. It can get up to Mach 1 in no time at all but after that… nothing? It makes me appreciate the consistent (for the most part) acceleration of Eurofighter and/or Rafale at Mach 1.5+
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You are ignoring factors of safety.
If 9G is quoted as the level Aviation standards
Even as a base requirement the safety factor is 1.5.
9G then takes the maximum level to 13.5G
Pilot is really the only limiting factor.
Because it looks cool and does its job pretty well, tho i miss Tomcat’s raw speed sometimes.
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The F-14D was the superior option(and had better growth potential), It only died because it was expensive, and needed comparatively bespoke maintenance towards the end which was mostly due to the fact that new airframes hadn’t been produced in a decade or two and by the time operations began Kosovo all crewmembers were younger than the airframes they flew and as such wear accumulated.
The issue for the Navy / USMC is that it’s never really had the capital to have a High / Low fighter mix like the USAF does.
Which is why the delay to the F/A-XX, in favor of the F-47 is such an issue. It’s sub par Hornets & F-35’s all the way.
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Aircraft never was designed with speed in mind though, just “good enough” and “cost effective”?
At the same time, Superhorny with load above can technically supercruise (1.01mach) without afterburner above 4km alt, something you can’t say about any other US jet except F-15E/I.
And when you don’t gain much from afterburner, you might as well enjoy military power and fly on min fuel in usual ARB or even Sim, while being relatively slow makes notching missiles rather easy, as you don’t trigger angle gating.
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Hopefully with CCA they can drive down low end costs and get that capability with F/A-XX + CCA + F-35C’s upgraded
the yf17 was the first super cruise US aircraft iirc. it should have less drag imo