Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

> Even today, the remaining Lightnings at Thunder City are apparently STILL 
> faster than an F-15 to 10 000 feet... says something for all those old 
> fuddy-duddies with their pocket protectors, eraser shields, pencils, and 
> their aircraft they designed on paper, by hand, with no CAD support 
> whatsoever.

They sent people to the moon and brought them back without CAD support, 
didn't they?

But today's jet fighters would be even a lot faster, if the mission 
profile of jet fighters hadn't changed since those days.

Back then, the task of those jets was pretty straightforward: Scramble 
from their bases to intercept high-flying strategic bombers ASAP, fire a 
set of missiles at them, and pray that there'll be life after an all-out 
nuclear war.

With the advance of ICBMs, the huge nuclear bombers of early cold war 
days became obsolete, and so did the pure interceptor fighters.

At the same time wars like vietnam showed that speed wasn't all that 
mattered, and that a sane balance between maneuverability and speed was 
needed for any other purpuse jet fighters might be useful for.

Nowadays supercruise is sort of standard, i.e. the ability to fly a tad 
above sonic speed when cruising. Apparently it still allows to optimize 
aerodynamics for subsonic maneuverability.

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