skyhawk77 wrote:
its a fact the gripen goes down 1st asap
Sure.
Back it up Skyhawk.
I've done calculations on the two official empty weights avaliable on the Gripen. The true weight of the Gripen is of course a secret, but the same goes for the JF-17.
Here's a comparison just for fun. If you see something that is off, please let me know.
Gripen
Wingloading: empty 188.7kg/m²-225.2kg/m² JF-17
Wingloading: empty 262.7kgm²
Gripen
Wingloading: max weight 463.6kg/m² JF-17
Wingloading: max weight 520.5kg/m²
Gripen
Wing Aspect Ratio: 2.34/2.76 Not sure how it works here for an unstable delta/canard fighter. As the canard adds to the total lift they are added in the total wing area(the left figure). But how does it work when turning? The canard surely isn't the main lifting force here. The main wing will do that job. So I calculated the aspect ration minus the canards as well(right number).
JF-17
Wing Aspect Ratio: 3.10
Gripen
Thrust to Weight Ratio: Empty 1.4/1.2, fueled up 1.0/0.88, MTOW 0.59JF-17
Thrust to Weight Ratio: Empty 1.34, fueled up 0.98, MTOW 0.68
Drag is of course important, but numbers on that is not avaliable to us.
I've heard from several sources that the Gripen has very low drag. And I would guess that the Gripen has lower drag in comparison to the JF-17.
The Gripen has fully movable canards which can be trimmed to give as low drag as possible. The slim tailless aft fuselage gives minimal drag also. The JF-17 has two huge fixed LERX's, and two large elevators causing great drag. The JF-17 fuselage is also alot less slimmed in comparison to the Gripen fuselage. The lack of wing twist on the JF-17 should give it a poor and un-even stall behavior. Is the wing of the JF-17 just a slightly modified MiG-21 wing I wonder?
The JF-17 appears to be stable, whereas the Gripen is unstable. The JF-17 needs to kill lift in order turn, the Gripen has positive lift on all surface during maneuvers.
So, I believe that when it comes to dogfighting, the Gripen would walk all over the JF-17. No match here IMO. The Gripen has shown superiority in maneuverability and agility over the F-16, F-18, and the F-15 in several excercises.
Skyhawk, fill in for the JF-17, here. I'm gonna blab about the Gripen for a while.
A hot engine change can be made in 45 minutes by a team of three.
10 maintenance hours per flight hour, includes all depot level maintenance.
Twice as reliable as its competitors.
Twice as easy to repair.
Enough ground equipment to support four Gripens can be carried by a single C-130 Hercules.
The Gripen can be refuled and rearmed in less than 10 minutes.
An airborn time of 60 seconds is possible when on high alert with the APU running, all systems fully avaliable 10 seconds after take off. The F-16 needs 3-4 minutes, and its INS and radar will not be fully avaliable.
Gripen mean time between failures(MTBF) is proven to be 7.6 hours. USAF best MTBF is 4.1 hours.
The Gripen costs less than 2000$ per flight hour.
Airframe life is 8000 hours.
On a CAP 385km from base, a Gripen can stay on station for two hours carrying 2X AMRAAM, 2X AIM-9 and 2X droptanks.
When carrying 3X 1000lbs GBU-16 on a LO-LO-LO strike profile, the Gripen has a mission radius of 648km. With 2X GBU-16's and extra fuel tanks radius increases to 833km.
Ferry range is 3500km according to Col Jan Jonsson of the Swedish Air Warfare Center.
The Gripen can accelerate from M 0,5 to M 1,1 in 30 seconds.
The Gripen can sustain M 1,1 using dry thrust, while carrying a droptank and AAM's.
The Gripen can operate from 800m long and 9m wide roadstrips. Take off and landing distances can be down to 400-350 meters.
What have you got for me, Skyhawk?