Yes, however intake ramps are designed to function at supersonic speeds on most of these aircraft - on the Tornado for example they should be most effective between Mach 1.2-2 (this is consistent for most aircraft). Don’t forget that the primary purpose of intake ramps is to break the shockwave and compress+decelerate the air before it reaches the engine - they would serve no functional purpose below Mach 1.
It makes no logical sense in any regard for the engines to suddenly lose effectiveness as the aircraft passes Mach 1, before Mach 1.2-1.3 where they actually begin to deploy intake ramps on most aircraft.
The purpose of intake ramps is to retain (and in most cases increase) the power of the engines at high speed and/or allow the engines to function at high speed by compressing the air optimally for the engine’s function. They do not have an “optimal” speed, but they do have a minimum (where they are not deployed) and a maximum (which is often far beyond the limitations of the aircraft, and will simply result in a compressor stall due to the engine ingesting supersonic air)
If you would like, I have some excellent information on both Concorde and the F-14A (early variants) which both use variable intake ramps. I can demonstrate my point.
I took a second look at this image and realised that the aircraft used for the record climb is actually a trainer variant, which, while it may be missing the fuel tank underneath, is still similarly draggy due to the side by side cockpit seating. Not entirely sure why they chose such a variant for a record but I suppose it’s for the sake of the video?
Intake ramps will be impacted by indicated air speed tho.
Going mach 2 by at IAS 800 is similar to the engine intake as going IAS 800 at mach 1.01.
And yes, the engine of Tornado IDS is indeed most effective between mach 1.2 & 2, when the indicated airspeed is in that 600 - 910MPH range.
I am not saying that IAS is the only factor, as that’d be ignorance.
On top of that, the variable intake can only attempt to get the air at the engine inlet as close to the speed as possible. There is only so much variation you can have.
I don’t know more about IAS impact on variable air intake & engine performance to speak further on this issue.
I’ve stated the limits of my knowledge.
You have to prove the variation is larger than it currently is. & for now, Tornados maintain their maximum speed of 2400KPH, mach 2.3, with relative ease.
That is simply not how variable intake ramps work. Air is air, and as long as you go faster the engine will be getting more air and therefore be able to produce more thrust. The purpose of intake ramps is to adjust for the effects of MACH, the IAS is irrelevant.
The amount of air the engine will receive is of course affected by IAS, but the purpose of intake ramps is to allow the thrust to continue increasing past Mach by keeping the air below Mach while you are flying supersonic. They do not react to IAS. There should be no reduction in thrust when crossing Mach for this reason.
If you can prove that, for whatever reason and directly to the contrary of any of my sources and basic aerodynamics, that the engines will receive less air while at higher speed I will consider your point but I simply do not see the logic here.
Here is an image demonstrating my point (apologies for the blue lighting)
You said it, above mach the intakes have to slow the air down.
Slowing the air down too much would lead to lower engine performance.
Aircraft airspeed =/= the speed of air entering the engine after being slowed down by the intake system.
If at certain aircraft speeds the variable intake system slows the air down too much then the engines bring in less air.
There’s also channel losses at different speeds as well.
I’m not disagreeing with the sources you provide at all, nor am I disagreeing with aerodynamics.
Incorrect because the amount of air entering the engine is not a factor of its velocity. The deceleration of incoming air causes compression - this is how Concorde could achieve a supercruise at Mach 2 - a compression ratio of approximately 85:1.
The intakes cannot delete air (sounds obvious, but gotta say it). at higher speeds, more air will enter the engine and the intake decelerating it just means that the air entering the engine will be at a higher pressure.
Thrust is relative to the velocity of exhaust air, which is a factor of two things. Exhaust nozzle design, and the velocity of the exhaust air. The velocity of the exhaust air is DIRECTLY related to how much fuel the engine burns, which is limited by the intake air. More air into engine = more fuel burned = higher combustion chamber pressure = faster exhaust air = more thrust.
Don’t forget that the engine’s first stage is a COMPRESSOR, which slows down the air to compress it for combustion anyways! If velocity was important it would not need this!
That’s a flawed assumption. The Lightning T.5 apparently performed very similarly (some sources even say it had superior performance) to the fighter variants of the Lightning, due to the larger cockpit acting as a form of area ruling, meaning it actually reduced drag (welcome to the counter-intuitive world of aerodynamics).
The T.5 does however have a different wing to the F.6 (T.5 has the straight wing and F.6 has the kinked wing), so that further illustrates that you cannot compare that video to the Lightning we have in game.
What is going on here is that Gaijin know the top speed the F.3 (and other aircraft) can sustain in level flight at all altitudes, according to the manual. They then adjust the thrust curve of the engines to make the aircraft match it’s claimed real world performance. If the aircraft is capable of accelerating past the speed it should be able to achieve them Gaijin tweak the thrust at those speeds to stop it from happening.
That is how they do it for pretty much all aircraft.
Yes, that would be a problem. but I think it will be within the margin of error.
because that was for military use, if the difference between data and actual performance was large, it could not have been used.
However gaijin seems to have an aversion to taking into account the fact that a lot of these manuals are usually very conservative, and will state that the limits of the aircraft are below what it can actually achieve. I have learned on many occasions that the manuals exist to do two things - get the aircraft in the air, and keep the airframe in one piece. They rarely teach the pilot what the true limits of the aircraft are and this is consistent for all manuals I own.
What I am saying is, sure, the manual may say that the maximum authorised speed is lower than the claims I’ve presented, but if thrust kept increasing instead of having an unexplained and entirely illogical decrease those claims may actually end up surprisingly accurate.
Mach 1.4 would be 933kts though, which is well past the 800kts limit where bits start falling off the airframe. And we have at least got anecdotal information from pilot interviews, that going past 800kts does cause damage.
Although it should be noted that this was with an entirely clean aircraft, and all damage was to the recessed pylons (I believe this would be prevented if the aircraft was carrying a weapon load - iirc the Phantom had a similar issue where it would be more draggy when not loaded with sparrows.)
The pilot in the video I sent specifically stated that the damage was the loss (or damage) of the lining of the recessed pylons. Not fuselage warping or wing damage.
Either way this is not usually a consideration in war thunder - don’t forget the Harrier GR.7 can still pull 18.4G without permanent damage somehow.
That entirely depends. It is entirely possible the aircraft was simply never expected to fly that fast when not loaded with sparrows - I seriously doubt the recessed pylon lining is the same strength as the actual aircraft body.
933 is pushing it though - I have never claimed or seen claims of such a high speed. I have however seen 870 and 900.
Mach 1.4 is only achievable at -800 ft/sec SEP, which means that you would need to be in a dive to reach that speed. The SEP graph is just showing the SEP under different conditions, not which speeds can be safely reached.
SEP = 0 is level flight speed, which looks to be a bit of Mach 1.1 at sea level, which is what you would expect.
