BEagle
I hesitate to stick my oar in amongst all these fighter tactics and historical wizzes. Yes, we had much fun splashing Lightnings and F4s at Waddo and Mirages at Butterworth and Darwin! I have forgotten the "g" limit on the Vulcan (2.5?), but I used to get the co to chant the "g" while I craned my neck. If you inadvertently pulled a bit hard you could usually get the Crew Chief to square the accelerometer, put if you picked up someone's turbulence while pulling the limit, the nasty little fatigue recorder down the back went ape and OC Eng was on the blower PDQ. We had no pressure jerkins in my day, so FL450 was supposed to be the limit. But if you wanted to sort out the Mirages you had to go for it. Max continous cruise (wire locked thrust limiters) with luck gave you about FL550 if I remember rightly (as long as the rear crew did not moan too loudly!). "Splash one F4" on the Fighter Control frequency usually drew some ripe banter! At CFS Type Sqn in 57 I used to fly the ex-fighter jocks in the Canberra T4 and the ex-heavy guys had a go in the Hunters. Now that was an interesting experiment! The ex-heavies used to try and mix it and were a bit put out to find the Canberra in their "six".
I am a bit confused between "agility" and "performance". To me the former means sustained turning ability and rate of roll and the latter means acceleration, level and diving speed and rate of climb. In WW2 the P47 "Jug" (the archtypical flying brick) did good work (in the right hands)against the ME109s and FW190s. But the golden rule was one pass only and keep on going down hill. Same with the Meteor against the Vampire or Sea Hawk, although we always had suckers who would get into a turning match and get hammered by the No 2, if he knew his job. (The 14 Sqn Kiwis did and the FAA Sqns often did not).
The faith in the OR staff of those who say that F3 was "intended to be a BACKFIRE buster" and ask about the "Op Analysis on which it was based" is touching. But the reality was more like "we can only afford one airframe to do the strike/attack and AD jobs, so this is what you are going to get - shut up and think of how you can use it". At Strike in 70/71 some of us tried to push for an up-dated Buccaneer for the Strike/Attack job and on "off-the-shelf" American fighter. F16 or F18 seemed to be the favourites. I even took soundings on using spare Vulcans with an AI radar instead of H2S and with a battery AAMs as a long-endurance BVR bomber-buster. DO NOT ROCK THE BOAT was the response from on (very) high. The future of the British aerospace industry (and my post-retirement directorship) are at stake! By 1974 when I did the Air Warfare course the likely capability of the ADV (in comparison with the F14,15,16 and 18) was becoming pitifully clear and the fighter jocks on the course were complaining loudly (but not too loudly in the presence of high-ranking visitors). In 75/76 I was in the bit of OR which was sponsoring R&D into future FCSs, FBW, and unstable platforms. We used to ponder questions such as the degree of redundancy needed in the computers and the desirability of emergency overrides for the "g" and Alpha limiters. We consoled ourselves with the thought that the Sovs might be able to do good airframes, but they couldn't do the avionics to exploit them fully. I suspect very strongly, BEagle, that the RAM J,K and L designators were highly speculative projections of industrial capacity. When were FULCRUM and FLANKER identified, given given configurations and named ? I do know but I don't propose to say here. I also know that when FULCRUM was first displayed there were some red faces around Whitehall.
My opinion (which is worth bugger-all!): Performance and agility are both goodies. If you have to compromise, weight it in favour of performance, which gives you the initiative in engagement/disengagement. But I know little of the capabilities of current missiles, sensors and target acquisition kit (helmet-mounted thingies!)
(Edited for spealing by FV)
[ 19 August 2001: Message edited by: Flatus Veteranus ]