On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 03:13:36 GMT, Scott Ferrin
wrote:


I think it has more to do with the government/military original
specifications, I would think it goes something like this..

Military "We'd like a M2.5 aircraft..."

Manufacturer "Ah but they would require a variable inlet more
development work and thats more expensive!!"

Military "so how fast can you go without all the extra expence?"

Manufacturer " about M2.0"

Military " Ok close enough"

These figures are then carried through the life of the program, even
when those figures are exceeded by a large margin..


cheers



A/C top speeds are illusory ... sometimes I think they're based more on what
comes from marketing than engineering. The F-14 was attributed with 2.34
(it attained 2.41 ONCE in flight test and was artificially limited to 1.88
in the fleet ... though it got there easily enough). The F-18 has a 1.8
claim ... I know NO ONE who's seen close to that (so maybe once in flight
test?).


Sometimes I wonder if the marketing guys just go something like "well
it's got a thrust to weight of X, it's got them there fixed intakes so
it's automatically less than two, and it's not quite as streamlined as
an F-16, let's slap '1.8' on it and call it good".

Any 4th generation aircraft with fixed intakes is automatically
assigned 2 or less and if it's got variable intakes they'll give it a
2.2 or a 2.35. Those seem to be the magic criteria but I doubt
they're based on anything but numbers pulled out of somebody's
backside.

John Cook

Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.

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