The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

Good question.

The Russians don't use single engine aircraft (anymore) for a good reason: Mechanical Redundancy. If an F-16 loses engine power it's a brick. If a Mig-29 loses one engine, it can make it back home provided nothing's shooting at it.

When you have as much airspace to cover as Russia the last thing you want to have your pilots do is have a three week vacation in the Siberian wilderness walking home because they had to punch out in the middle of nowhere because of engine failure. Two engines gives a higher tolerance for faults (and battle damage).

Why not three engined fighters? Triple Redundancy!

That would actually be cool.

The thing to remember about those "odd old designs": back before The '80s there were no supercomputers. Every design had to be built and flown, someone had to climb into the cockpit of that shiny new prototype.

Hence a lot of test pilots in government service back then made Ron Swanson look like a hippie...

Tom: Try again. It has significantly less to do with mechanical redundancy and a lot more to do with just how big and how much power you can honestly squeeze out of a single engine. Also plenty of multi-engine craft have experienced single engine failure and met Mr ground at alarming speeds. Just because you have multiple engines does not mean you have mechanical redundancy. At best that is a happy side effect not the primary purpose.

Funny thing about the Russians they used Single Engine craft for a long time. I doubt they found too many issues with single engine given how long the fielded them and even keep some in inventory as reserve craft. It is also notable that the many multi-engine craft are notably heavier then their single engine counter parts.

Or better yet lets just look at how big high thrust single engines get. You could get a ton of thrust out of the big engines but they tend to be rather large and often nearly as heavy as the single engine craft we are talking about. Never mind trying to mount that on an aircraft would not be a very feasible design. Many of the designs only used one engine because they didn't really need a second one. But time and tech marched on and the various powers that be wanted to lift heavier payloads, fly larger and heavier aircraft, and fly faster off of a craft with certain weight, for all of that you need more thrust. It is a lot easier and much more aerodynamically feasible to use a couple of smaller lower power engines to achieve that.

It has nothing to do with "being smart" and again everything to do with an attempt to balance various design aspects. They have been flying for many decades and will likely continue to do so for a long time yet.

So the Lifetime channel is airing a documentary about Aaliyah, an R&B singer who died in a plane crash back in 2001 (the pilot wasn't properly certified on the type of plane he was operating, the result of him having forged records to suggest he was, and they ended up overloading the plane to the tune of about 700 pounds). The plane barely made it past the end of the runway before it crashed and burst into flames.

Ah small general aviation aircraft. Most owners and operators get a bad case of "Get There-itis". And these aircraft are at the mercy of the wind. Sadly this also got Riche Valens.

edited 17th Nov '14 10:52:38 PM by TairaMai

Well, the pilot may have also had a slight case of cocaine and alcohol usage going on too. All signs seem to point to him being entirely at fault here. Naturally, the airline he worked for got sued since he died in the crash and they settled out of court.

And there was the crash that took Lynyrd Skynyrd: Convair CV-300

edited 17th Nov '14 11:00:49 PM by TairaMai

That's why I said you are more likely to be able to get back home. Yes there are situations where losing just one engine on a multi-engine craft loses just enough stability to go splat. However there are plenty of times where losing one isn't a big a deal as in single engine craft. As mentioned if an F-16 loses its engine it's a brick, that's not a guaranteed effect if you lose one on a twin engine craft like a Mig-29.

It's apparently been a design requirement for Russian combat aircraft since 1975 to be twin engine or more. None of their currently fielded (or proposed replacement) front line aircraft are single engine.

They gotta know something we don't. Amusingly the same is occurring worldwide. Most new aircraft designs sans the F-35 are twin-engine. Hell being single engine is being regarded as a drawback of the F-35. What does the world know on the matter that we either don't or are too bullheaded to admit?

See, the American single engine fighters fly with the invisible Freedom engine.

The unassailable self-confidence of the pilots keeps them airborne. If the pilot believes the engine works, then it shall.

edited 18th Nov '14 5:31:54 AM by Achaemenid

Sounds about right. Tom, you Americans are too optimistic, that's your problem...

No, it's even simpler than that. ALL American pilots are either Orcs, who think painting pretty pictures on their planes will make it not just fly, but fly faster, or they are loyal subjects of the Imperium who trust in their aircraft's Machine Spirits and the workings of their local Chapter of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Source:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tech-priest

You know, from what I've read that stuff about Orks having some sort of unconscious psychic field that makes their tech work isn't actually true; in canon it's some techpriest theorising because he's got no other ideas for how it works.

Hey, The Red Baron painted his plane bright red. The 99th Fighter Squadron painted the tails of their planes red, and they're reputed to have never lost a bomber under their protection^note They did lose a few, but that's their reputation..

Clearly it works.

It is a thoroughly annoying bit of fanon that will not go away and has no real basis in any canon. Ork tech works because their Meks have an innate understanding of how machines work, their gestalt psychic field just makes it work better (and probably helps along the more advanced bits like tellyportas). End-fucking-of, none of this "stick-firing-bullets" rubbish.

...sorry, this is the aircraft thread, isn't it?

edited 18th Nov '14 10:23:43 AM by pagad

So, what you're saying is that all US pilots are Orks then?

I am ok with this

Tom: Nothing magical to know you are trying to create a myth to suit a non-existent narrative. All of the Soviet craft designed from then forward are often notably heavier then the older designs, need more lift capacity, and/or or more speed. Pretty much every design has heavier weapon loads or needs to go faster there is only so much a single engine can really do and only so much performance you can squeeze out of individual engines of reasonable size.

Again it really is simple as looking at the engines the craft have. Two smaller lower power engines rather then one big high power engine. What gives you more thrust a single 16,000lb engine or two? You need a lot more engine in physical size alone to get the same effect.

Take a look at the f-22. Two smaller 26k lb of thrust engines. To get their combined thrust out of a single engine you are looking at using some of the big heavy engines found on air liners like the 767 mounting Rolls-Royce RB 211 engines. That would not make for a good aerodynamic design and eats up a lot more weight than two smaller engines.

Hmm. However it came about, the Russians do not use single-engined combat aircraft in any front-line role now. It's all twin-engined or above. From Frogfoots all the way up to the Blackjack that holds true. Even the Yak-130 Mitten trainer, (which is extremely cute), has twin engines, and that's not exactly huge.

Got interested and looked it up, even all their helicopters have two engines. The Hind, Havoc and the Ka-50/52 thing.