I’ve been coming to terms with the changes made to the F-111A recently, and although it pains me to admit it MiG_23M may have been right and the turning rate of the F-111A was a bit too much fun. However the fix of reducing thrust and increasing the drag coefficient has severely hurt the planes performance, especially compared to the ubiquitous F-4 that beats it to bases and then commences to dogfight. After reviewing the engine thrust parameters it seems that the F-111A is inline with other airframes that consider thrust reductions of powerplants when installed into their respective aircraft. All jets except one notable example that is, the F-4 Phantom Menace.
So I took a moment to do some quick math and created this report that was summarily closed with little direction (does a report referencing in-game disparities require outside primary sources?). Am I completely wrong in my line of thinking that all F-4 Phantoms maintain too much thrust if is accepted that thrust is reduced an abstract amount (leaving room for balancing tweaks) for engines installed in aircraft?
Thrust is reduced when an engine is placed in a plane due to the mechanics (and aircraft) around the engine. At the same time, thrust will be more in an airplane when it flies through the air and gets more air pressed into the engine when compared to static tests on a test bench.
F.e. you can have an engine with a thrust of, say, 10,000 kgf measured on a test bench, when placed in an aircraft it may be reduced to 9,200 kgf static thrust (when standing still), but when flying at mach 0.9 (or whatever number), due to ram air, thrust may be increased by 25% for a total of 11,960 kgf.
Same engine, 3 different measurements.
Also when you break mach, you will have somewhat reduced engine thrust again…
Thrust in a jet engine is variable, and not a static number.
I agree, that is precisely how War Thunder treats jet engines in most supersonic afterburning aircraft from my cursory search. Except the F-4 Phantoms for some reason which seems odd.
Might be able to find some data in the flight manual, f.e. below. I don’t think you’ll find data on actual engine thrust during flight because, hell, how would you measure that. So it’s best to go with charts related to top speed and other metrics (f.e. RoC).
Your two charts here illustrate the issue perfectly, airspeed restrictions on the aircraft are 750 knots at sea level so long as engine temperature and RPM limits are not exceeded. However the engine operating envelope maximum is 1.18 mach at sea level. I would take this to mean that a clean F-4 (or with only 4 Aim-7 missiles it also mentions) should have a maximum sea level speed of 1.18 mach. My only issue is I am missing the second half of my argument because I cannot find sources that list the F-111A maximum allowable speed at sea level, just maximum engine RPM and Temp at sea level.
