F-302

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McAvoy
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F-302

Post by McAvoy »

In the middle of a re-watch of Stargate SG-1 and eventually Atlantis.

One thing that caught my attention that I have missed before is the F-302 and its giant wings. Specifically how close they are to the ground. In one shot, the wings are about a foot or so away from scraping the ground. I can tell you planes do in fact bounce around a little even when they are moving around on the ground. Runways and flight lines are not perfectly flat.

A 302 would easily damage one of its wings. It also brings up another thing, landing. Upon landing the landing gear absorbs the impact with hydraulic struts that will push up into itself before coming back down. In other words, the 302 way it is designed would smash its wings into the runway upon landing.

Obviously it was designed by someone with no experience in aircraft design, or anything connected with aircraft. They designed it to look somewhat like a Death Glider. Fairly certain other science fiction series would have put more thought into it.

Those wings are just massive and I could buy into them being that big as way for them to carry fuel or whatever, if they paid attention to the small details.

The other thing the wings are massive which take up space and in fact is one of the driving forces in making the Prometheus and Daedalus much larger than some background information. But even then, the Air Force could have learned a old lesson from the Navy in designing 302 wings that can fold up. But then again, it should have been the Navy manning those ships anyway.
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AlexMcpherson79
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Re: F-302

Post by AlexMcpherson79 »

a fair few SG-1 fanfics have these issues brought up, individually, with most also mentioning th at the silhouette is too much like the goa'uld Death Glider, and one used the idea that the designer, seeing the DG design, figured "the aliens must know what they're doing" and iterated from that, when they, well, shouldn't have.

The F-302 suffers from trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, really, and has, for it's sheer bucking size, a TINY weapons payload, four missiles. To compare:
F-14 Hardpoints: 6x Under-fuselage, 2x under nacelles, and 2x on wing-gloves. Loading Configurations excluding the Phoenix: 2+6 or 4+4 of AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-7 Sparrow. To Note... the SIDEWINDER, is a SHORT RANGE missile and the Sparrow (which it carries more of!) is a MEDIUM RANGE missile. so in a 4+4, it not just matches the f-302 in sidewinders, but can out-range it before you get that close with four more missiles! The Phoenix is a LONG RANGE missile, and it's designed to carry up to SIX of those, though a most common loadout was 2+2+3 of Sidewinders, Phoenix and Sparrows.

F-15 Hardpoints: 6 under-wing stations via two pylons with side-mounted rail pairs, four under-fuselage stations and a centreline-station. Could theoretically carry four sidewinders (side-rails on underwing pylons) and four sparrows (under-fuselage) or eight AMRAAMS. Don't know if the wing pylon hardpoints themselves can have missiles, though there are pictures of bombs and fueltanks there. So, vs F-302, again Double the capability, probably more due to the lack of medium range missiles on the F-302 vs on the F-15.

F-16 only carries 2 Sparrows, but can carry six of sidewinders, or amraams, (or a mix). hm... EIGHT Missiles. Again. I keep seeing this number.

F/A-18C/D. 9 hardpoints - 2 wingtip, 4 underwing, 3 underfuselage. Carries 2 sidewinders on the wingtops AND either, eight sidewinders in double-racks under wing, or eight AMRAAMS in doubleracks... and... holy shit TEN SIDEWINDERS in one version? or just 2, but EIGHT medium-range AMRAAMS! MORE than DOUBLE the F-302 capabilities! AND it carries 2 Sparrow OR 2 AMRAAMS, I presume in the under-fuselage stations port/starboard. .. well this shows TEN AMRAAMS and two sidewinders on the wingtips in this photo.

The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet now... 2 wingtip, SIX underwing pylons, and the 3 under-fuselage. now it states up to TWELVE AMRAAMS (though it doesn't state load configuration possibilities, on wikipedia, unlike on the C/D page). I think the outer wing pylons are single-missile. So you get, wing to fuselage to wing.... - = = - - = = - (= for double rack).

The F-22 has eight INTERNAL hardpoints across four bays - two side bays for a single sidewinder each, and two 'main' bays in the belly that can carry SIX AMRAAMS. matching the capability of the F-15, or for the non-stealthy 'also with under-wing external pylons', BOOM, match the F/A-18.
And the F-22 was already done by the start of SG-1, so...

The F-302 should really have been a "space version" of the F-22, except like the F-14 and F-15E/F, a Two-seater. Internal munitions bays to store missiles.... due to, you know, SPACE, the Missiles are ejected into space THEN they are triggered, like some weapons are simply dropped from a pylon BEFORE the rocket motor ignites. (not all fire the rockets at the pull of the trigger). Dorsal and Ventral bays - so say, two bays either side of the cockpit, carrying three each, and two ventral bays for missiles, again, three each. Their mount rails maybe extendable so they COULD do a 'rocket motor fires whilst still technically touching the spacecraft'. Like what we see with the missiles that are fired from the planes in the film Stealth. Here we go, TWELVE missiles... and that MATCHES to aircraft of the REAL world so not that farfetched. really not farfetched. Then theres EXTERNAL hardpoints to consider - they use INERTIAL DAMPENERS so their payload limits really should be just "how many can we physically fit!"

Lets take the F-22... and scale the design up a bit. The Cockpit now fits entirely within the 'nose' area, whichno longer as the hump from the glass canopy. It's built almost symmetrical in terms of dorsal to ventral, so it's difficulkt for the enemy to begin to judge which is 'up' and which is 'down' on it. The Air-intakes are PURELY for atmospheric flight, and retractable coverings deploy during pure space-flight. The engines are literally designed to be part-jet for atmospheric, and part, not, for spaceflight were it's a bit more reaction-control and the like.
WIDER than it is LONGER. The Vertical Stabilisers fold flat in space-flight, Those bays on the F-22 are now bigger, and mirrored onto the top surface, so the 2 side bays are now four side bays which each fit two (OR THREE) space versions of the Sidewinder, as short-range homing missiles. so this is 8 to 12 SRM's. (Short Range Missiles). The main bay of six becomes two bays of nine each? space versions of the AMRAAM, so basically, 18 MRM's.
On the one hand, I do like the designs from Stargate - the Prometheus, Daedalus, the F-302... I just think they were not well-thought out.
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Re: F-302

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For the record I worked on the F-14 before they retired and transitioned to the F/A-18E/F. By extension I also helped out with the 'Legacy' Hornets, F/A-18A through D. Though two seater versions of the Legacy Hornet are rare. Also the Super Hornet is called a Rhino and the G version is a Growler that replaced EA-6B Prowler.


Anyway yeah the 302 is huge and very underarmed. Hell, they are big enough to carry two Gatlin guns and not cannons. Like I said obviously whoever designed it for the show just has no Aviation experience or knowledge.

The 303 Prometheus is another example. It was designed without much thought. The older CGI model was pretty crude even during its time. It's only until they redid the model for the one episode where it was eventually destroyed that it got far more detailed.
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