Chapter 115 TF-30 Does Not Cough

The Tomcat pilot had to take care of his fighter plane like a nanny. If he was not careful, the Tomcat fighter plane would become irritated like a child, roaring and panting from time to time.

The later U.S. Navy Secretary Lehman, who was once a Tomcat pilot, once complained privately: "The TF30 and F-14 are arguably the worst engine and fuselage combination!"

Even though there are sensors in the Tomcat's air intake to monitor airflow conditions, accidents still frequently occur due to compressor stalls, and there have even been several fatal accidents where blades fell off and penetrated the casing, causing crashes. Although Pratt & Whitney has been continuously improving and strengthening the casing to prevent it from being penetrated by broken blades, reliability has improved slightly. However, this original design problem cannot be changed, and Tomcat pilots have to be careful. Often, when flying at high altitude and low speed, or when turning on and off afterburners or launching missiles, the compressor will suddenly stall...

This was also after the United States introduced the British Spey engine, improved it, gave it the number TF-41, and intended to use this engine to replace its own TF30 engine. However, the F110 engine was already mature at that time, so the Americans decided to use the F110 engine to improve the Tomcat, which became the F-14D Super Tomcat. Unfortunately, this was 84 years later.

The Tomcat fighter plane is a precious cat and must be carefully served. And now, whether the pilot of the Tomcat fighter plane in front of him wants to get rid of himself or take himself to a low altitude, it is a stupid suicide act!

The altitude was dropping rapidly, and soon it reached an altitude of about one thousand meters. Andre needed to operate his fighter carefully. The aerodynamic control surfaces of the MiG-25 fighter were too large, and the amount of control must be reduced at this time, otherwise excessive aerodynamic torque would occur.

William in front also realized that he had successfully pulled the opponent to a low altitude. He believed that he had led the MiG-25 into a trap. Now, he only needed to do a few simple moves to get behind the opponent and launch his Sidewinder missile.

It's time! William pulled the joystick back, and the Tomcat quickly recovered from its dive and tried to return to level flight. At that moment, the air intake blocked a large amount of airflow due to the aircraft's maneuvering, and the air entering the rear engine decreased rapidly. The sensor quickly sounded an alarm, saying that the air intake volume changed too quickly and exceeded the engine's tolerance!

As if a strong wind hit a windmill, the TF-30 compressor was hit by the irregular airflow, and its speed increased and decreased. The compressed airflow also became irregular, and the blades at the back could not work properly. The entire engine started to suffer uncontrollably asthma like an old man.

Sometimes fast, sometimes slow! In this drastic change, the combustion chamber at the back suddenly went out, blown out by the strong wind from the front!

Then, the front receiver made a sound that made people's ears tremble. Several blades could not withstand such a huge change and were torn apart! The blades that rotated thousands of times, after being torn apart, were faster than bullets!

Wherever it went, cracks broke apart.

The hydraulic oil pipe was broken and a fire broke out instantly.

"Engine failure!"

"Engine off!"

"The engine is on fire!"

"catapult!"

The radar operator in the rear cabin pulled the red pull ring of the Martin-Baker GRU-7A ejection seat. With the sound of the top cover being broken by the blaster gun overhead, the rocket of the ejection seat ignited, the seat pushed open the canopy, and flew out in thick smoke.

William in the front cabin ejected as well. This was also a fixed ejection sequence. He had to try his best to control the aircraft first to create a chance for the radar officer in the rear cabin to eject.

Soon, the huge ejection overload made him dizzy. In the air, the man and the chair separated, and the parachute opened. He opened his eyes and saw that his Tomcat fighter had already fallen. In the sky, the iron fighter turned gracefully and flew past him.

The red five-pointed star on the wing was so eye-catching, and William felt the piercing pain of the strong wind blowing on his face.

Damn it, I was defeated after only two rounds of fighting with the Soviets. It wasn’t because my skills were not good enough, but because of that damn engine!

At that time, the turbofan engines of the United States were still imperfect, not to mention the TF30 of the Tomcat fighter, even the F100 engine was immature, and the poor performance caused a large number of F-15s to fail. However, when the Americans overcame various defects and thoroughly understood the technical performance of the turbofan engine, various abnormal engines came out, such as the later F119, which was simply abnormally powerful!

Andre pushed the joystick and turned out from low altitude, watching the Tomcat fighter level off in a dive. The overload was only about 4G, but the change in airflow was too obvious. Sure enough, the Tomcat fighter's engine could not handle it. The data he had was correct.

As long as the MiG-25 fighter can avoid the attack of the Phoenix missile at a long distance, it will not be afraid of fighting with the Tomcat when it gets close, because the opponent's engine is too weak!

This time the opponent used the long-range PDSTT mode. In this mode, most of the radar energy was directed to our fighter, triggering the radar warning receiver, which allowed us to be prepared in advance. If the opponent used the TWS mode, that would be the killer mode, silent and would not trigger the radar warning receiver at all. The Iraqi Falcon Mohammed Rayer was later killed by the Iranian Tomcat fighter in this way.

"032, that's great! You shot down another American fighter plane, and it's a Tomcat!" Just as Andre entered the return route, a voice came from the headset.

At high altitude, another MiG-25 fighter did not leave. Although Alexander of 027 received Andre's order to return, he still stayed and locked the American Tomcat fighter with radar at high altitude. If Andre was in danger or more American fighters flew over, he would join the battle to protect Andre.

As a result, Andre killed his opponent with a single dive, which impressed Alexander greatly.

"I didn't shoot it down. The enemy fell down by themselves. There's something wrong with their engine." Andre said on the radio: "027, the formation returns!"

TF-30, this is a terrible engine, when will you stop coughing? Haha.