Panavia Tornado (UK versions) - Technical data and discussion

This is not realistic behaviour. What I suspect instead, as someone mentioned earlier, is this may simply be a leftover of the prop days and as the aircraft approaches it’s top speed, the engines begin to lose thrust because they are being treated like incredibly powerful propeller engines, not jets.

Don’t forget that, again, intakes cannot delete air. Faster = more air intake 100% of the time.

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It is realistic behavior tho.
F-16C’s engine has lower thrust closer to the aircraft’s top speed. I posted an illustration by General Electric in another thread, but I think I deleted it when it was flagged as off-topic.
I found a graph showcasing that Turbo Union’s engine has a peak fuel consumption in-between lower speeds & top speed, which would suggest a peak thrust as well; However, I did close that tab & felt that wasn’t evidence of a peak thrust.

Variable air intakes can control how much air enters the intake, as well as air pressure.

The F-16 does not have variable intake ramps.

Maybe not, but the F-14B does. In every vehicle the engine in within, it loses thrust [to varying levels] at higher aircraft speeds.
Which suggests that the intake isn’t allowing enough air through to continue feeding the engine.
Which makes a lot of sense for these aircraft whose doctrine changed from high top-speeds to efficiency from mach 0.7 - ~1.8.

I have no information on the F-14B (the books I have on the F-14 are before it even entered service) but the F-14A should not be experiencing a thrust decrease. Variable ramps cannot adjust the amount of air entering the engine - spill doors can, but this is mostly to avoid killing the engine when throttle adjustments are made.

Beginning your argument on the assumption that Gaijin’s implementation of this is correct is not particularly good.

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The auxiliary intakes only open at low speeds in game, with no relation to manoeuvres. I have no idea if this is realistic but comparing with other jets I’d say it’s an oversight, any thoughts?

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I’m not sure this is true. The engine could be inefficient at certain speeds, resulting in increased consumption.

You can certainly submit a report. I’ll have a look in the manuals this evening to see what speeds the intakes open if youd like?

Yes, that’d be great, but I don’t have the f3 yet and I would have to use the marineflieger for screenshots

No worries then I’ll sort it out.

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Here’s what the manual says:

My interpretation is that they work like the intake doors on the Harrier: when the aircraft is moving at low speed the intake doors are sucked open by the engines, as the aircraft speed increases more air is forced into the intakes so the pressure inside becomes equal to (or greater than) the pressure outside and the doors spring closed.

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Thanks!

I’m not sure in the case of the Tornado, but I don’t think it’s as simple as the ramps controlling air flow mass. the ramps are there to create shockwaves and slow down supersonic air before it enters the compressor.

This is about the auxiliary doors, not the ramps no?

Sorry, people were talking about intake ramps further up.

To my knowledge
The whole purpose of variable air intakes is to reduce the speed of airflow to subsonic speeds since jet engines generally do not like supersonic airflow

There were issues with EE Lightnings where engines flamed out due to supersonic airflow because of damage to variable nosecone, that’s why the limit was introduced for them. They could fly faster but for safety reasons weren’t allowed to (IIRC)

On some jets like F-15 you have variable inlet ramps and as seen above from post by @Flame2512, Tornado too has variable inlet ramps
F-16 uses design of intake to produce shockwave which disrupts the airflow and causes it to reduce to subsonic speeds
But I’m not knowledgeable enough on the other matter but I assume if air is less denser at higher altitudes, the drag is reduced, jet flies faster and more air is yet available for jet… Or something like that, I don’t know really.

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Figured you british mains and your Tornados might like this, my suggestion for the backseater in 2 seater aircrafts to finally start doingsomething instead of being a complete waste of space was finally open for discussion: Mouse designated radar lock for 2 seater jets

Should make playing the Tornado more ergonomic if it gets approved and implemented ingame :)

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Appreciate the effort and optimism, but it isn’t going to happen. Russia doesn’t utilise many two seater jets that would benefit from it.

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Also something i’ve noticed, what is the RP cost for modules on the Tornado? We’re sat there with 29k RP for 9Ls, a rank 2 mod, and the F-16C has 7Ms at Rank 2 for 17k RP, and 9Ls at 19k RP

How is that fair???
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And it’s not as if they’re the only ones who have favoured treatment
The french on the M2K 5F can get their top lineup of missiles for 32k RP, the F-16ADF in US tree gets theirs for 72k, whereas we get ours for 185k RP.
For context, the MiG-29SMT gets it’s missiles all unlocked for 197k RP. and they’re a whole lot better.

Why is this the case? Is there some extra RP requirements because it’s a British end of the line jet?

The more modules to research the cheaper it is

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