- which bear no resemblance to a failed turbine disk. And have about twice the muzzle velocity, which makes huge difference in penetrating a modern armour systems. Ditto their far greater density, vs. nickel alloy.
OTOH, your "A couple thousand kg of armour could likely contain..." seems too charitable. High-bypass jet engines are big. Beyond that, I'm more optimistic about mitigating shocks and such.
A critical parameter here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A380#A380F The freight variant was to have a 6,400 mile range carrying 150t of payload. So we could squander 25t per engine on disk containment and shock mitigation, and still have a 50t payload. Or a 3-digit passenger headcount.
Bottom line, there is no real-world difference between your "nearly useless" and my "disastrously uneconomical". Neither one will be designed, let alone built.
For the A10, I'd say military priorities would always block full disk containment - because every pound used for that is a pound they don't have for more weapons or munitions or range or armour or fuel or runway length or electronics or whatever. And over most of the 360 which disk fragments could exit a warhog's engines, there's nothing critical which they could hit.
Good counterpoints all, I think. I’m impressed that we could write off 50t and still have an airplane. That seemed so preposterous that I did not consider it, honestly. Turns out big stuff is big.
Now we can go to the running of the bulls with our respective napkin backs, and see who attracts the bull!
Comments
Yes. But when the goal is kinetic penetration of modern armour, they don't use artillery shells. Instead -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour-piercing_fin-stabilized...
- which bear no resemblance to a failed turbine disk. And have about twice the muzzle velocity, which makes huge difference in penetrating a modern armour systems. Ditto their far greater density, vs. nickel alloy.
OTOH, your "A couple thousand kg of armour could likely contain..." seems too charitable. High-bypass jet engines are big. Beyond that, I'm more optimistic about mitigating shocks and such.
A critical parameter here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A380#A380F The freight variant was to have a 6,400 mile range carrying 150t of payload. So we could squander 25t per engine on disk containment and shock mitigation, and still have a 50t payload. Or a 3-digit passenger headcount.
Bottom line, there is no real-world difference between your "nearly useless" and my "disastrously uneconomical". Neither one will be designed, let alone built.
For the A10, I'd say military priorities would always block full disk containment - because every pound used for that is a pound they don't have for more weapons or munitions or range or armour or fuel or runway length or electronics or whatever. And over most of the 360 which disk fragments could exit a warhog's engines, there's nothing critical which they could hit.
Good counterpoints all, I think. I’m impressed that we could write off 50t and still have an airplane. That seemed so preposterous that I did not consider it, honestly. Turns out big stuff is big.
Now we can go to the running of the bulls with our respective napkin backs, and see who attracts the bull!
100t actually - 25t per engine, of which there are four. And the plane could still carry 50 tonnes of cargo/people.
That’s wacky, for lack of a better word. It’s like a whole flying apartment building.
Thanks, but I think I'll be running with the chickens. ;)
That sounds interesting. Not necessarily better. Who was it that said quantity has a quality all its own?