Dear Mr Farley....if your feeling bored.

[RansS9]

Call me cheeky call me presumptuous call me what you like (many do) but if your bored sat in front of a computer seeing as much fog out of the window as I am, just for a laugh, you might want to visit Hawker Harriers.

An obvious site of Harrier worship from a skilled builder of planes for the PC simulator X-Plane. You might have an opinion on his statement of the P1216 having the potential "to match and beat" the F16.

Have a good weekend TIM.

[John Farley]

Tim

I won’t call you anything as I have no reason to. As it happens I am not bored, I am in front of a computer and I am shortly off by road to Boscombe for an ETPS association social function in near unlimited viz. Sorry about your Wx.

I am also not a politician so I will answer your question regarding the P1216/F16 issue rather than talk about something quite different that would suit my purposes better (but would need me to mention an ISBN number).

Since the F16 was/is a conventional takeoff and landing aircraft and the P1216 was aimed at STOVL operations it is clear the 1216 would have had the advantage over the F16 in terms of operating site flexibility. However given the inevitable design constraints involving weight and shape that come with building in STOVL capability, I don’t see how it could have matched the F16 in overall up and away capability – always assuming the two design teams had equal design expertise in the up and away business.

JF

[RansS9]

So another case of "Horses for Courses" and"Swings and Roundabouts". Great looking aircraft.

Thanks TIM.

[Agaricus bisporus]

but if your bored

gawdelpus!

[Double Zero]

Hello Mr.Farley,

Trust it went well at Boscombe...

Re. the P1216 - in it's many forms, including forward swept wings ( I read that carbon fibre can be manufactured so as to ' grow ' inwards under load ie avoiding wingtip divergence, which seems an aerodynamic advantage IF it works at the same ratio as aerodynamic loading...).

Another big 'if ' is that although the thing would obviously have a thrust to weight ratio a lot better than 1:1, if the design team got it right, and the aft vectored nozzle could push up as well as down, surely it would give even an F-16 a run for it's money, or perhaps F-15 re. weight despite power etc ?

I rather fancied the proposal with sliding shutters instead of draggy forward nozzles, but where the vertical mode control came in wasn't mentioned.

The plans looked to me like a sexier, ' Thunderbirds ' version of the F-35, some delta with canards, but of course stealth was not as far as I know on the agenda in those days, and as above I don't recall internal weapons carriage.

Though virtually every of the many times I visited Boscombe I was informed that a fully loaded Buccaneer was faster than a fully loaded Phantom, and a loaded Tornado could just about strike the Isle of Wight from there if trying to be speedy, etc...

BTW, for RansS9, I hope I'm able to say without being shot, what you're looking for is ' A View From The Hover ' by John Farley ( who I had the great pleasure & honour of working for, alongside for UK Ltd, though that seems about as far away as Camelot now ) ' Flyer Books, ISBN 9 780953 275205.

[RansS9]

Thanks for the replies.

Purchased said book shortly after release. Excellent but then I expected it would be having followed the authors' regular columns in a popular GA magazine. Was the forward sweep version one of those designs easier to imagine than to realise ? And waiting on advances in materials and construction?

I do hope stealth is a passing fad, "Thunderbirds" (that I was brought up on--the original version !!) look much sexier than stealth birds. Alas not all progress is forwards.

TIM

[Double Zero]

RansS9,

I do remember a comedian referring to 'invisible' stealth aircraft approaching target, " we can't pick any aircraft but sensors show a guy in sitting position at 30,000' doing mach 1.5 - Over ? "