F-104 Turbofan Performance

I think a RAAF F-111 pilot claimed that number also. It was on an interview I believe? Either way the -111 could move.


Funny thing is Navy guys that flew both Tomcat and Phantom said the F-4 was faster. I think the F-4B was the fastest (maybe RF-4 too) out of the Phantom family.

Too bad we never had enough F-111 airframes to have rebuilt them around F110, or God forbid the F119. Electronics shrunk dramatically where you would have shed a lot of weight in an upgrade. The big nose would have been a good home for the AN/APG-63(v), and AMRAAM could have been added for self defense. F-15E never had the legs or internal bay of an F-111. Surely the F-111wasn't any worse against radars, and with more military thrust it could have gone places with far fewer support asserts. Probably could have kept the Sparkvark flying to add some flexibility.

I've always been a fan of both Eagles and Aardvarks, so it really doesn't hurt my feelings F-15E came about. I grew up around F-111s and just had a soft spot in my heart for them.

I came across this site and if the author is correct, the F414 is the closest engine to a turbojet. The EJ200 is perhaps the best engine pound and inch per pound and inch into today's modern world of engines.

https://defenseissues.net/2014/12/06/fi ... mparision/

The F-119 is simply out of this world but only due to its overall larger size. Based on this link, it appears the F404 is actually quite a poor engine.

I went over the Thrust/Weight and other sections, and they are as hilariously wrong as the Thrust/Drag section; the author is a complete freaking idiot.

The author states the CTOL F-135 (the F-135-100) as weighing in at a ridiculous 6,444 lbs, yet gives the very similar F119 an accurate weight of 3900 lbs.
The author must have been completely clueless to not know the F119 and F135 are closely related engines (so they should have similar weights), but instead he quoted some shitty sources for the F135 weight, without realising those sources weren't using 'dry engine weight' standard of measurement.


Here's more accurate T/W figures:

EJ200; 2180 lbs weight, 20,200 lbf thrust = 9.27 T/W
F404; 2282 lbs weight, 17,700 lbf thrust = 7.76 T/W
F414; 2445 lbs weight, 22,000 lbf thrust = 9.00 T/W
F119; 3900 lbs weight, 35,000 lbf thrust = 8.97 T/W
F135; 3750 lbs weight, 43,000 lbf thrust = 11.47 T/W
AL-31F; 3460 lbs weight, 27,560 lbf thrust = 7.97 T/W
AL-41F-1S; 3536 lbs weight, 32,000 lbf thrust = 9.05 T/W

So F135 is the best engine for both Thrust/Drag and Thrust/Weight.


Near as I can tell, the author is stupidly biased against the F-35, so does everything he can to make the F-135 engine look bad.
The rest of the article isn't worth wasting time on; somehow the stupidity just gets worse as it goes on.

F-135 is F-119 core with enlarged fan, plus the power requirement from the lift fan, it needs one more stage of low-pressure turbine to dive it.

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=14070

The inner structures are almost identical

http://www.pw.utc.com/products-and-serv ... 119-Engine
http://www.pw.utc.com/products-and-serv ... 135-Engine

If you ignore the thin duct around the core and nozzle, it almost looks like a pure turbojet. But keep in mind that disclosed drawings, numbers of rated thrust, weight, ect, are just notional.

Too bad we never had enough F-111 airframes to have rebuilt them around F110, or God forbid the F119. Electronics shrunk dramatically where you would have shed a lot of weight in an upgrade. The big nose would have been a good home for the AN/APG-63(v), and AMRAAM could have been added for self defense. F-15E never had the legs or internal bay of an F-111. Surely the F-111wasn't any worse against radars, and with more military thrust it could have gone places with far fewer support asserts. Probably could have kept the Sparkvark flying to add some flexibility.

I've always been a fan of both Eagles and Aardvarks, so it really doesn't hurt my feelings F-15E came about. I grew up around F-111s and just had a soft spot in my heart for them.

There was the FB-111H that would have used a pair of F101s (B-1B engines). They'd also looked at TF30 variants of up to 30k+ lbs of thrust for standard F-111s.