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LowObservable
5th Aug 2015, 13:58
Errrm - the N-156 was conceived from the outset as a low-cost fighter. The trainer just got sold first.

Where do these young fellows learn history?

The V-22's an interesting case. Yes, it "works" and it does some unique things that helos can't - and so it should, when you compare both its cost and payload to a CH-47.

However, over the period where the merchants of transformational, revolutionary change directed a bazillion dollars into V-22 and Comanche, the Europeans built two major companies around good conventional helicopters and booted the U.S. out of much of the global market.

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 14:25
The victors of Agincourt and Crecy would beg to differ. Would they really? Depends on how you look at it.

Let's see if this not so young guy learned his history better than the "young fellows."

At both Crecy and Agincourt the British forces beat a much larger French force, and both were won essentially by the English long-bow, a long-range weapon that depended on the attacking forces avoiding the merge. Archers are (generally) sitting ducks if infantry manage to reach them. Indeed Henry's archers at Agincourt were protected by palings (pointed sticks driven into the ground) to prevent fast cavalry from reaching them. It is notable that operating a long bow is very different than operating a sword and requires a totally different mindset. And the tactics used by a force heavy in archers and light in infantry is significantly different than the tactics used by a force with mostly infantry.

In short I believe Henry V and his commanders understood the value of long-range weaponry very well and knew very well how to use that weaponry correctly in a 15th century fight. Perhaps better than 4th Gen fighter guys understand a 5th Gen fight.

Did I get my history right?

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 14:33
Errrm - the N-156 was conceived from the outset as a low-cost fighter. The trainer just got sold first.
I don't see anyone on this thread claiming otherwise.

Where do these young fellows learn history?Hey!!! Who you calling young???! ;-)

Lonewolf_50
5th Aug 2015, 14:54
That bad press didn't come out of nowhere Lonewolf ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_V-22_Osprey ), and the fact that the media has changed its tune since the V-22 went operational and proved itself shows that it is not being disingenuous but is instead judging the aircraft on its merits, as it should.
With respect, Mel, a member of the bad press (name of Axe) whose blurbs were linked to our PPRuNe V-22 threads by a few of the usual axe grinders and Osprey haters is the kind of crap I am talking about. This style of "reporter" never stops dredging up 3, 5, 7, year old issues (many of which were resolved as the program moved forward) as the "evidence" that there was still something wrong with the V-22.

I will not further derail this F-35 discussion with V-22 stuff, but the styles and attitudes of some of the press who follow military aircraft acquisition aligns very well with the term disingenuous.

Snafu351
5th Aug 2015, 15:05
There's whole lot of myth re the longbow.
Effective, yes. Effective as the myth portrays it, no.

melmothtw
5th Aug 2015, 15:08
Love how a thread on the F-35 has ended up discussing the longbow!!

Lonewolf, I'd draw a distinction between Press and Bloggers.

Rhino power
5th Aug 2015, 15:32
Apologies if this news has already been posted, with the amount of bickering on here these days, things tend to get missed in the melee... :ok:

Marines Declare F-35B Operational (http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/2015/07/31/f35-operational-marine-corps-joint-strike-fighter/30937689/)

-RP

Lonewolf_50
5th Aug 2015, 15:37
Love how a thread on the F-35 has ended up discussing the longbow!! What, the Apache/AH-64D? :cool:

Lonewolf, I'd draw a distinction between Press and Bloggers. In the year 2015, they all tend to meld into one big stew. :( Not saying that makes me happy, but it seems to be the current state of play, and it requires one to be very careful about one's sources.

As Rhino pointed out, Marines declare IOC. What that means may initiate another discussion.
"I am pleased to announce that VMFA-121 has achieved initial operational capability in the F-35B, as defined by requirements outlined in the June 2014 Joint Report to Congressional Defense Committees," Dunford said in a statement. "VMFA-121 has ten aircraft in the Block 2B configuration with the requisite performance envelope and weapons clearances, to include the
training, sustainment capabilities, and infrastructure to deploy to an austere site or a ship. It is capable of conducting close air support, offensive and defensive counter air, air interdiction, assault support escort and armed reconnaissance as part of a Marine Air Ground Task Force, or in support of the Joint Force." The Marines plan on buying 420 total jets, a mix of 340 B and 80 C models. The first F-35B deployment is scheduled to take place in 2017, with the unit known as VMFA-121 moving to Iwakuni, Japan. Although the jets will be operational, they are not in their final form. More capability, including the use of the plane's gun, will come down the line with software update 3F, which will drop in 2017.
So, if they want a flying gun, call in the Vipers aka AH-1Z (Not the F-16s).
Let's hear it for the unappreciated attack helicopter guys ...

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 16:09
There's whole lot of myth re the longbow.
Effective, yes. Effective as the myth portrays it, no. Agincourt myths? The battle of Agincourt was probably one of the if not the best documented battles of the middle ages.

Love how a thread on the F-35 has ended up discussing the longbow!!
Agreed!! And looking at just the numbers it would be difficult indeed to argue that the longbow did not play a significant role. Henry V had 7000 archers and 1500 infantry arrayed against 8000 to 10,000 infantry and 1500 cavalry. The French also had 4000 archers and 1500 crossbowmen, but failed to use them. Their tactics failed to exploit their weaponry to best advantage and because of that, despite being numerically superior (by more than 6 to 1), they lost the battle.

Yes, the terrain influenced the outcome tremendously, but that can be viewed as being part of the tactics. The chosen battleground favored the English forces, which were heavily weighted toward archers who become light infantry at the merge, with light infantry having an advantage on a muddy battle field.

Courtney Mil
5th Aug 2015, 16:16
Speaking as open source press myself Courtney, I think that's a little harsh. As 'open source' implies, we are no more privy to confidential or classified material than anyone else, including yourself. If we've got it dramatically wrong, then that's likely down to others in more informed positions being disingenuous. Not that we don't try to get it right, but without flying the damned thing ourselves we have to take a certain amount on face value.

Mel,

I did try to be clear and choose my words carefully there. I deliberately said OFTEN and certainly never meant to imply "always". There has been plenty of honest reporting, but the stuff that commonly gets picked up on is the bad news, especially if it is written in a sensationalist fashion.

Certainly no offence intended.

melmothtw
5th Aug 2015, 16:17
Seeing as we're talking about the longbow now...

There's whole lot of myth re the longbow.

The chosen battleground favored the English forces

The biggest myth is that the longbow was an English weapon wielded by English archers. It was in fact a Welsh weapon wielded in the main at Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers, by Welsh archers (albeit in the service of the English army).

http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/the-welsh-longbow/

Now stand by for epic thread drift....

No real offence taken Courtney. I get as frustrated as anyone with some of the cr@p the press can turn out at times - don't even get me started on the Daily Fail!!

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 16:29
I did try to be clear and choose my words carefully there. I deliberately said OFTEN and certainly never meant to imply "always". There has been plenty of honest reporting, but the stuff that commonly gets picked up on is the bad news, especially if it is written in a sensationalist fashion.

May I offer an insight?

The above talks about "bad news" that is "written in a sensationalist fashion." I believe that good news can be (and often is) also "written in a sensationalist fashion."

Is it possible that the sensational claims made of the F-35 and attributed here repeatedly as LM "lies" and "PR" is actually a product of sensationalist press, bloggers, and fanboys? I believe it is, because when one looks at the actual statements made by the actual folks running the program, they've been pretty consistent that the F-35 was optimized for the air-to-ground role and that compromises were made in its air-to-air performance from its very inception.

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 16:41
The biggest myth is that the longbow was an English weapon wielded by English archers. It was in fact a Welsh weapon wielded in the main at Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers, by Welsh archers (albeit in the service of the English army).

You got me there! My American background failed me in that respect. In the US there was lots of competition between the Virginians vs the New Yorkers vs the Vermonters vs the Bostonians, etc etc. But in the end we (generally) always saw ourselves as Americans first, and Virginians, New Yorkers, etc second. It keeps escaping me that "English" is not the same as "Welsh" nor the same as "British". (English and Welsh are surely both British, right, or have I got that wrong? And Ireland and Scotland are also British?)

melmothtw
5th Aug 2015, 16:41
But you have to ask yourself Ken, where did the press, bloggers, and fanboys get their information from? None have flown the aircraft, so all opinions must be formed by external sources - ie; those that are building and funding the aircraft.

I know that many will find it hard to believe, but journalists generally don't just make stuff up (we wouldn't last very long in our jobs if we did). Whether we are overly negative or optimistic about the programme, or somewhere imbetween, our views are being shaped by information that is being imparted by others. So now ask yourself, who would have a vested interested in over-inflating the F-35's capabilities, if that is indeed what has been going on?

You got me there! My American background failed me in that respect. In the US there was lots of competition between the Virginians vs the New Yorkers vs the Vermonters vs the Bostonians, etc etc. But in the end we (generally) always saw ourselves as Americans first, and Virginians, New Yorkers, etc second. It keeps escaping me that "English" is not the same as "Welsh" nor the same as "British". (English and Welsh are surely both British, right, or have I got that wrong? And Ireland and Scotland are also British?)

Now that's not a can of worms I want to open Ken (see the many Scotland independence threads on this forum to find out why). But to answer your questions about the relations between the constituent nations of the UK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 16:48
But you have to ask yourself Ken, where did the press, bloggers, and fanboys get their information from?Well, it seems to me that the press, bloggers, and fanboys (both positive AND negative) get their basic information from the same source. Some sensationalize that information in one direction, and others in another direction. Surely, this cuts both ways. Or am I missing something?

So now ask yourself, who would have a vested interested in over-inflating the F-35's capabilities, if that is indeed what has been going on? If over-inflating capabilities sells newspapers (or magazines or blogs or whatever) there would be "vested interests" doing exactly that. By the same token, if making sensationalist negative charges sells newspapers (or magazines or blogs or whatever) there would be "vested interests" doing that. Surely, this cuts both ways. Or am I missing something?

melmothtw
5th Aug 2015, 16:59
Well, it seems to me that the press, bloggers, and fanboys (both positive AND negative) get their basic information from the same source. Some sensationalize that information in one direction, and others in another direction. Surely, this cuts both ways. Or am I missing something?

There appear to be two F-35 programmes - one which is briefed by LM and the JPO where everything is on budget and ahead of schedule; and another which you'll find in GAO and POGO reports and the like, where costs are spiraling out of control and the aircraft isn't fit for purpose.

I'd suggest that the tack taken by the particular journalist, blogger, or fanboy in any particular story depends in a large part on where they have got their information from - LM/JPO etc or the GAO/POGO etc. Leaving one to draw the conclusion that is the former that is putting out the information that is leading the stories that might be over-hyping the aircraft's capabilities.

If over-inflating capabilities sells newspapers (or magazines or blogs or whatever) there would be "vested interests" doing exactly that. By the same token, if making sensationalist negative charges sells newspapers (or magazines or blogs or whatever) there would be "vested interests" doing that. Surely, this cuts both ways. Or am I missing something?

I think if this did sell newspapers in the way that you suggest, we'd all be doing it a lot more about other platforms besides the F-35....and we're not.

Anyhow, its 6pm here and I need to grab my supper. Will pick this up another time. All the best....

LowObservable
5th Aug 2015, 17:00
Is it possible that the sensational claims made of the F-35 and attributed here repeatedly as LM "lies" and "PR" is actually a product of sensationalist press, bloggers, and fanboys?

No. See p9 and p22. And note that the June 2007 date precedes any export contracts, and is earlier than 99.9 per cent of the public criticism of the project.

f-35 lightning ii a new generation of fighter f-35 free pdf download (http://freepdfs.net/f-35-lightning-ii-a-new-generation-of-fighter-f-35/ca3eb44df1dd84fedf5e9457e3f25d0b/)

The acquisition and O&S cost numbers on p22 are particularly amusing.

Courtney Mil
5th Aug 2015, 17:33
So they did claim it is three times better at air-to-air than "legacy" aircraft. Page 9 doesn't quite bear out the F-15's kill ratio.

Royalistflyer
5th Aug 2015, 17:41
Well the RAAF did it in 1942 and it did not go well for them.

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 17:44
Now that's not a can of worms I want to open Ken (see the many Scotland independence threads on this forum to find out why). But to answer your questions about the relations between the constituent nations of the UK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

So the bottom line is that folks in Britain view themselves as English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish first, and British second? Even though all have British passports. Interesting.

Army Mover
5th Aug 2015, 17:54
So the bottom line is that folks in Britain view themselves as English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish first, and British second? Even though all have British passports. Interesting.


It gets worse than that, but you're pretty much on the button there.

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 18:26
So they did claim it is three times better at air-to-air than "legacy" aircraft. Could a LM statement, "three times better at air-to-air", be sensationalized into "three times better in a close-in turning fight"? And may I respectfully point out that there's quite a difference between the two statements.

KenV
5th Aug 2015, 18:46
I think if this did sell newspapers in the way that you suggest, we'd all be doing it a lot more about other platforms besides the F-35....and we're not.Two comments:

1. They'd all be doing it? I don't ascribe this behavior to "all" the press. I believe most of the press is more responsible than that.

2. Extreme high visibility programs like the F-35 tend to generate what I will call a feeding frenzy. Irresponsible press make sensationalist claims, the claims go viral, and the responsible press picks it up. This happened with the end of the world in 2012 "prophecy" (based on a Mayan calendar!!), with the vaccines cause autism frenzy, with the Y2K tech apocalypse, with the silicon breast implant frenzy, the Alar-tainted apple frenzy, and many more too numerous to mention. The V-22 (another big, hi viz program) attracted its share of feeding frenzies. As did the M-1 Abrams tank, way back in the day. Even Space X vs ULA/EELV generated a feeding frenzy. F-35 and V-22 are unique in that the programs went on and on and on and so did their feeding frenzies.

Or maybe I'm seeing this all wrong.

melmothtw
5th Aug 2015, 19:23
I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle Ken - the F-35 is certainly a high profile programme that attracts more than its fair share of attention, but a lot of the bad attention is self-inflicted with unrealistic timelines, underestimated budgets, and over-optimistic expectations.

LowObservable
5th Aug 2015, 21:00
Could a LM statement, "three times better at air-to-air", be sensationalized into "three times better in a close-in turning fight"?

Well, no. But actually, nobody has said that, or claimed that LockMart that. What Flynn did say was:

If one were to overlay the energy-maneuverability (E-M) diagrams for the F/A-18, F-16 or Typhoon over the F-35's, "It is better. Comparable or better than every Western fourth-generation fighter out there."

I think the fact that you place media criticism of your pet project in the same category as anti-vaxxers and the Mayan Apocalypse says much more about you than it does about the media, BTW.

Or maybe I'm seeing this all wrong.

:D

a1bill
5th Aug 2015, 21:55
CM, yes, they say they re-evaluate as it progresses and more in known. It started at 3 times, then 4 times and now 4 vs 8 red air is 6:1 LER. They said they get an even better LER when they use piloted sims. I haven't seen it said what the full system sims are giving.

LowObservable
5th Aug 2015, 22:04
Or as someone put it, proof positive that the F-35's performance can be improved via software.

The software in this case being PowerPoint.

a1bill
5th Aug 2015, 22:07
LO, I don't think anyone would say that the F/A-18, F-16 or Typhoon have the same EM. As it is well known that they don't. I think the included word, comparable needs to be taken into account. They are saying the EM is closest to the FA-18. I would put the FA-18 as comparable to the F-16 or Typhoon in EM.


The sims are run by USAF, USN and the partners. I wouldn't discount their professional assessment.

O-P
5th Aug 2015, 22:18
a1bill,


I'll give you a choice of F-18 or F-16, I'm taking the Typhoon, post 3-9 line kills only. We are just testing the EM, not the weapon system. 100 000 cases of beer to the winner.


Outwards turn for combat "GO".


I'll PM my address so you can FedEx the beer!

Frostchamber
5th Aug 2015, 22:20
I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle Ken...

Yes. In my experience that's normally where it's to be found.

There does seem to be a bit of a lynch mob mentality at times in this thread (albeit with some honourable exceptions) towards anyone who has the temerity not to tuck in behind the approved local orthodoxy that the F35 is and will remain a lemon. The task of teasing out the truth isn't helped by ad hominem attacks on those with whom one disagrees, however wrong people may think they are.

a1bill
5th Aug 2015, 22:38
O-P, I know the f-16 and FA-18 have different EM, but there are pilots of both that have said they have not lost to the other. So I think it can be said to be comparable. I haven't seen the EM specs of the Typhoon, but it had recent physical modification to improve it considerably.


Going by the DACT squabbles, it doesn't seem to be F-22-like above the others.

Rhino power
5th Aug 2015, 23:25
I haven't seen the EM specs of the Typhoon, but it had recent physical modification to improve it considerably.

The LERX and fuselage strake mods were test items only, none of the partner nations have signed up for the mods, yet, despite what appears to be significant aerodynamic performance gains from what are little more than bolt-on parts!

-RP

a1bill
6th Aug 2015, 05:28
I would think if they want to go post merge and get into guns only dogfight, they will get the advanced EM. It's interesting that it wasn't funded by the partners as a requirement.


IN FOCUS: Lockheed claims F-35 kinematics ?better than or equal to? Typhoon or Super Hornet - 2/7/2013 - Flight Global (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-lockheed-claims-f-35-kinematics-better-than-or-equal-to-typhoon-or-super-382078/)
as a refresher to the hub-bub from a few years ago: my opinion is it's what you cherry pick from the news conference and it's nice to read the full transcript which is conveniently forgotten most of the time. This includes this article.


"The F-35 (http://www.flightglobal.com/landingpage/Lockheed%20Martin%20F-35.html) is comparable or better in every one of those metrics, sometimes by a significant margin, in both air-to-air, and when we hog-up those fourth-generation fighters, for the air-to-ground mission," says Billy Flynn, "that the F-35 can go out on any given day, and we have, gone to the red line of the airplane" with a full internal weapons load. Going to the limits of the aircraft's envelope with a full load of weapons is "inconceivable in any of the other fourth-generation airplanes, including Typhoon


You maneuver the airplane much like an F-22 or a lot like I maneuvered the prototype F-16 20 years ago with thrust vectoring," Flynn says. "You maneuver the airplane back and forth with amazing controllability at the highest degree of angle-of-attack, and that is not the case with the only other Western airplane that can go to high AOA, the F/A-18." The one other exception is the Raptor, which Flynn does acknowledge as having better high AOA performance than the F-35 due to its thrust vectoring capability. The Typhoon, by comparison, has a 25° AOA limit. In the F-35, Lockheed made the decision to limit the AOA to 50°, but test pilots have flown the aircraft well past that.

The high AOA limit gives the F-35 "great" instantaneous turn performance. "We knew that 50°, from our years of research, is about as far as you need to go to take advantage of the aerodynamic performance" of the jet, Flynn says. "There is no reason to be there [at extreme AOA]; you're not going to get much more capability at 75° than you would at 50°." The limiter will allow an F-35 pilot to fly with "reckless abandon", which Flynn says is not possible in a Hornet because an F/A-18 can depart from controlled flight.


Even with the reduced transonic acceleration times mentioned in the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation 2012 report, the F-35, including the C-model which had its specifications reduced by 43 seconds, still out accelerates competing aircraft in a combat configuration, he says. ( LO's part quote) If one were to overlay the energy-maneuverability (E-M) diagrams for the F/A-18, F-16 or Typhoon over the F-35's, "It is better. Comparable or better than every Western fourth-generation fighter out there,"

LowObservable
6th Aug 2015, 13:03
The statement...

"It (E-M) is better. Comparable or better than every Western fourth-generation fighter out there,"

... is still hard to reconcile with the infamous WiB report, that describes E-M as being inferior to that of the F-16 Block 40. It was also (at the time of Flynn's statement) rather difficult to see how the F-35's E-M would be "comparable" (and when you say "comparable or better" you are not implying "measurably worse", are you?) to that of the Typhoon, which has 20 per cent more wing, 5000 lbs less OEW and roughly equal thrust.

As for the other comments - alpha, controllability/stability at high alpha and instantaneous maneuver: They do seem to mesh with the WiB report, with the difference that in "unscripted" situations, maneuvering in response to an unpredictable target rather than performing test points, the limiters and lack of E-M both made alpha, controllability and instantaneous maneuver harder to exploit.

And let us not forget the B will fly exactly as an A, with the addition of some 3000 pounds of empty weight.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 13:55
I think the fact that you place media criticism of your pet project in the same category as anti-vaxxers and the Mayan Apocalypse says much more about you than it does about the media, BTW.

Interesting opinion, especially considering that:
1. F-35 is nowhere near a "pet project" for me. So the opinion appears based on yet another (false) assumption.
2. I never remotely suggested that anti-vaxxers and the Mayan Apocalypse are "in the same category" as media criticism of the F-35, so yet another (false) assumption.
3. You are expending as much or more time, effort, and electrons attacking me personally than disagreeing with my opinions.

So given 1 & 2 above, and especially #3, may I ask what that "says about you"?

Now, to return to the subject matter at hand,

I asked, Could a LM statement, "three times better at air-to-air", be sensationalized into "three times better in a close-in turning fight"?

To which you replied: Well, no. But actually, nobody has said that, or claimed that LockMart that. What Flynn did say was:

If one were to overlay the energy-maneuverability (E-M) diagrams for the F/A-18, F-16 or Typhoon over the F-35's, "It is better. Comparable or better than every Western fourth-generation fighter out there."

So in reply to the above I make the following comments:
1. "Comparable or better" covers a very large envelope of possibilities.
2. Having "comparable or better" E-M diagrams is not the same as saying that F-35 is either 3 times better or even marginally better in a close-in turning fight.
3. This latest frenzy is about claims made that the F-35 test with an F-16 proves:
a) that the F-35 has "abysmal" maneuverability and
b) that Flynn's claims were all a pack of "lies".

It is my contention that both a) and b) are false because:
1. The test was not designed nor intended to test the F-35's maneuverability, so drawing conclusions about maneuverability based on that test is a non sequitur
2. No one has produced or claims to have compared any E-M diagrams that show the F-35's diagrams are not "comparable or better" than the aircraft Flynn listed.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 14:13
The statement...

"It (E-M) is better. Comparable or better than every Western fourth-generation fighter out there,"

... is still hard to reconcile with the infamous WiB report, that describes E-M as being inferior to that of the F-16 Block 40. It was also (at the time of Flynn's statement) rather difficult to see how the F-35's E-M would be "comparable" (and when you say "comparable or better" you are not implying "measurably worse", are you?) to that of the Typhoon, which has 20 per cent more wing, 5000 lbs less OEW and roughly equal thrust. I agree, that statement is "hard to reconcile" on several points. That being said, we must look at the full context of Flynn's statement, which included:

The F-35 s comparable or better in every one of those metrics, sometimes by a significant margin, in both air-to-air, and when we hog-up those fourth-generation fighters, for the air-to-ground mission.

F-35 can go out on any given day, and we have, gone to the red line of the airplane" with a full internal weapons load. Going to the limits of the aircraft's envelope with a full load of weapons is "inconceivable in any of the other fourth-generation airplanes, including Typhoon.

Clearly Flynn is not comparing two clean, unloaded aircraft. He is comparing an F-35 with a full internal weapon load against other aircraft "hogged up" with external weapon loads. Is this a "fair" or even "reasonable" comparison? Maybe. Maybe not. The article discusses the implications of that difference at some length. And it did NOT conclude that Flynn's claims were "lies". Nor that the F-35's maneuverability was "abysmal".

And related to the current discussion specifically, it does not remotely imply that the statement, "three times better at air-to-air" is either false, or is not achievable in either simulated or real world conditions.

LowObservable
6th Aug 2015, 14:45
I never remotely suggested that anti-vaxxers and the Mayan Apocalypse are "in the same category" as media criticism of the F-35, so yet another (false) assumption.

If you did not want to group F-35 criticism with anti-vaxxers &c, you probably should not have listed them in the same paragraph and described them with the same highly loaded word.

It's this "but, but I didn't say that", when you very obviously did, in plain language, that raises my suspicions about what type of structure you live under.

a1bill
6th Aug 2015, 15:59
LO said, And let us not forget the B will fly exactly as an A, with the addition of some 3000 pounds of empty weight.


It also has about 5000 pounds less fuel and 1000 pounds less internal bomb. It might be time to drop that cherry pick.

If you are suggesting that the current FCS sucks and it's like flying on a piece of elastic and badly needs some development money spent to tune it. However it's as safe as houses and doesn't depart controlled flight. I'd agree and is what I took from the report

Lonewolf_50
6th Aug 2015, 16:03
To return to our thread's topic:


F-35 still not cancelled.
Some nations are unhappy with extended timelines and cost
USMC declares IOC
F-22 is a better dogfighter, and was always the Hi in the Hi Lo mix.
F-22 is not for sale and isn't the topic of this thread
F-35's performance in a shooting war remains to be seen.
Insofar as the US forces, it's the gal we are gonna bring to the dance for the multi role FJ, ship and shore based, as the older airframes eventually get too long in the tooth.
Like it or not.
Expensive or not.
Imperfect or not.
As the groom realizes walking away from the alter, we are committed.

Flashback:

There we were, in the Med, 1985. I was in CIC on AW (a cruiser, air defense commander for our BG) and we had the darnedest time managing the fighter grid because F-18A deck cycle times (and refueling coordination) wasn't as generous as the F-14's that we were used to dealing with. It seemed that them Hornets were always out of gas, or near to it. :ugh:

Learning curve for the whole BG in the operational sense, but a frustrating operational characteristic of a good jet. C/D and E/F weren't quite that challenge thanks to a number of factors to include more folks getting used to the Hornet's operational quirks. This is "here we are at the dance, let's do a waltz and a polka" operational growth.

F-35 will doubtless encounter similar operational growth development. And in this day and age, great public gnashing of teeth and rending of garments will accompany such as bit of the adaptation process dribble out into the public domain.

Get yourselves a lot of popcorn, ladies and gentlemen, this is a long movie.

Courtney Mil
6th Aug 2015, 16:28
A1bill and LoneWoolf, I concur with the above.

The discussion about the claims made by LM, JPO and test polite has seen a distinct shift of positions as some of the old claims have started to emerge out of the archives. LM have wisely removed those claims from their website, but they live on in carefully rephrased statements, modified to compatible, equal to or better, etc, which are still open to debate, especially as they now include caveats such as Gen 4 jets being "hogged up" vs F-35 carrying only internal weapons.

I am not criticising F-35 here, simply the arguments being fielded.

There was a very interesting post by a newcomer, glaaar, a few pages ago now, that raises some pertinent points, most of which went largely unnoticed (apart from the Arguments about WVR manoeuvre and some other stuff) in the fog of longbows, British nationalities and press reporting. I would commend a scan of it. If we don't want the F-35 to get into turning fights, the stuff about the longer range air-to-air battle should be relevant to any discussion of its capabilities.

The points I've been making for some time now are the ability to manoeuvre at range and to accelerate and climb for energy at launch and to defeat incoming aams without exposing areas of higher RCS.

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/424953-f-35-cancelled-then-what-362.html#post9071284

FODPlod
6th Aug 2015, 18:00
...The discussion about the claims made by LM, JPO and test polite has seen a distinct shift of positions as some of the old claims have started to emerge out of the archives. LM have wisely removed those claims from their website, but they live on in carefully rephrased statements, modified to compatible, equal to or better, etc, which are still open to debate, especially as they now include caveats such as Gen 4 jets being "hogged up" vs F-35 carrying only internal weapons...

How far do you need to go back? This is from LM's website of seven years ago, accessed via the extremely useful internet archive wayback machine:Setting the record straight on F-35 (http://web.archive.org/web/20090104060109/http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2008/0919ae_f-35settingrecordstraight.html)
Here are the facts:

• The F-35 is a racehorse, not a "dog," as Wheeler/Sprey suggest. In stealth combat configuration, the F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed, loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius. This allows unprecedented "see/shoot first" and combat radius advantages...

I'm not disputing that LM has gilded the lily on occasion, possibly in the same press release, but curiosity led me to check out your specific accusation.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 18:01
There we were, in the Med, 1985. I was in CIC on AW (a cruiser, air defense commander for our BG) and we had the darnedest time managing the fighter grid because F-18A deck cycle times (and refueling coordination) wasn't as generous as the F-14's that we were used to dealing with. It seemed that them Hornets were always out of gas, or near to it.

Aaaah, yes, the good old days. I remember those same times with the Phantoms still in the mix, and the pilots, seeming constantly low on fuel, calling "Tanker Posit! Tanker Posit!"

And if memory serves, the A-7s, also still in the mix, had carrier cycle times better than the Hornets and similar to the Tomcat's. Two big drivers for Super Hornet development was to increase carrier cycle times and bring back, which were accomplished. I'm curious as to whether the F-35 will have the Super Hornet's or the Hornet's carrier cycle times. If the latter, then it'll be deja vu all over again.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 18:19
If you did not want to group F-35 criticism with anti-vaxxers &c, you probably should not have listed them in the same paragraph and described them with the same highly loaded word.

I regret getting baited into yet another tit for tat with you, but here goes.

May I offer that making an analogy between two disparate objects is far far far removed from putting those two objects "in the same category". I also made an analogy between swords vs rifles and swords vs long bows. No reasonable person without an axe to grind would conclude that I was placing rifles and longbows "in the same category" as F-35's. The operative word there appears to be "reasonable".

It's this "but, but I didn't say that", when you very obviously did, in plain language, that raises my suspicions about what type of structure you live under. If the "plain language" you are referring to is English, we've already concluded that there's a BIG problem between your usage of English and mine. I'll not say who's usage was "right" and who's was "wrong" in that discussion, but I will remind you that my usage was in 100% conformance with the dictionary definitions.

I will now redouble my efforts to avoid getting baited again.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 18:37
LM have wisely removed those claims from their website, but they live on in carefully rephrased statements, modified to compatible, equal to or better, etc, which are still open to debate, especially as they now include caveats such as Gen 4 jets being "hogged up" vs F-35 carrying only internal weapons. "As they now include caveats...?"

May I offer that way back in 2008, well before flight envelope expansion, essentially the exact terminology used by Flynn was used by the F-35's deputy program officer, Maj Gen Davis:

The F-35 is a racehorse, not a "dog," as Wheeler/Sprey suggest. In stealth combat configuration, the F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed, loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius. This allows unprecedented "see/shoot first" and combat radius advantages.

So from my perspective, these allegedly "new" caveats have been around for quite some time.

Edit: Ooops. I see that FodPlod beat me to this quote.

Lonewolf_50
6th Aug 2015, 19:12
And if memory serves, the A-7s, also still in the mix, had carrier cycle times better than the Hornets and similar to the Tomcat's. IIRC, some A-7 were configured to carry buddy stores (for AAR). FWIW one of the things that bugs me of developments over the past decades is that we don't seem to have replaced the AAR capability of KA-6D. It's simply lost. :mad:
Seen some video of V-22 tanking F-18s and other stuff ... have not sorted out if F-35 will buddy store or leave that to a different platform. Might not be worth the development dollars ...

NITRO104
6th Aug 2015, 19:15
Originally Posted by Maj Gen Charles R. Davis, F-35 program executive officer 19 Sep 2008
Here are the facts:

• The F-35 is a racehorse, not a "dog," as Wheeler/Sprey suggest. In stealth combat configuration, the F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed, loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius. This allows unprecedented "see/shoot first" and combat radius advantages...

Well, you can argue that neither of the 4th gen can get into 'stealth configuration' in the first place, which renders this claim a priori true, but the innuendo behind the claims is quite clear.

Just This Once...
6th Aug 2015, 19:42
Ignoring the stealth bit but it was quite an exaggeration to suggest that the F-35 with (in the future) 4 x AIM-120 was ever going to out perform a Typhoon with say 2 x AIM-132 and 4 x AIM-120. Even if you added more fuel and a couple more missiles it would leave an F-35 in the dust.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 20:04
IIRC, some A-7 were configured to carry buddy stores (for AAR). FWIW one of the things that bugs me of developments over the past decades is that we don't seem to have replaced the AAR capability of KA-6D. It's simply lost. Every Super Hornet has a buddy store capability and I understand that every Super Hornet squadron has at least 2 AAR buddy stores, with most of the crews qualified to tank both as tanker and receiver.. That was part of the plan for the Super Hornet: it would replace F-14s and KA-6s. And with the advent of the Growler, its replacing the Prowler. Maybe the Super Hornets will be the tankers for F-35 as well.

The biggest gripe I have is that the Phoenix missile got retired with the Tomcats. AMRAAM is in no way a replacement for the Phoenix and now USN has no long range air-to-air weapon. Aegis and the SM-2/3 is supposed to fill the gap, but I have my doubts.

Courtney Mil
6th Aug 2015, 20:04
Jeez, KenV. I try to put your ridiculous shifting arguments to one side and move the debate along to talking about F-35 and its future capabilities and you still just want to pick holes in sentences and continue to nit pick about who said what. Please give it a rest.

KenV
6th Aug 2015, 20:11
Jeez, KenV. I try to put your ridiculous shifting arguments to one side and and move the debate along to talking about F-35 and its future capabilities and you still just want to pick holes in sentences and continue to nit pick about who said what. Please give it a rest. I will not be baited into a tit for tat with you.

Dominator2
6th Aug 2015, 20:16
KenV,

I am not sure why you think that the Phoenix is such a great missile and should have been retained? Yes, you could fire it at great range but it was VERY slow. I understand that if fired at long range and the Tomcat then followed in and fired an AIM7 at 8 miles, the AIM7 got to the target first? OK for fleet defense 30 years ago but not a missile for the 2020s?

Lonewolf_50
6th Aug 2015, 20:25
Ignoring the stealth bit but it was quite an exaggeration to suggest that the F-35 with (in the future) 4 x AIM-120 was ever going to out perform a Typhoon with say 2 x AIM-132 and 4 x AIM-120. Even if you added more fuel and a couple more missiles it would leave an F-35 in the dust.
FWIW, I think that folding in the stealth bit was the point that holds that whole assertion together. Why do you think ignoring stealth is a relevant reply to that?
The first rule of all air combat is to see the opponent first. General Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe.
This makes sense: see him first and begin to dictate the terms of the engagement? Seeing has become a multi sensor activity, which includes many sensors as well as the Mk I Mod 0 eyeball." The whole "stealth" sales point supports seeing first ...

At the esoteric level, this is the principle of war called "Initiative" but on the more practical level it's the first step (Observe) in Boyd's infamous OODA loop. You get inside of his decision cycle by starting the engagement before he sees you with any sensor.
(Long ago memory of a picture in a squadron office ... what two MiG 21's looked like from a mile away, head on ... two little black dots on the picture ... )

How stealthy is stealth? Well, there's a can of worms to open ... :}
What if both sides are "stealthy" eh?
How stealthy is your stealth, today?
More cans, more worms, and now we get to some very interesting problems in getting the drop on one's opponents ... does that mean stealth is moot, or just another factor or measure of effectiveness?

The rest of the Galland quote .... Like the hunter who stalks his prey and maneuvers himself unnoticed into the most favourable position for the kill, the fighter in the opening of a dogfight must detect the opponent as early as possible in order to attain a superior position for the attack. This remains true if the fight begins BVR.

See also:
One of the secrets of air fighting was to see the other man first.
— Air Vice-Marshal J. E. 'Johnnie' Johnson, RAF.

LowObservable
6th Aug 2015, 20:58
LW50 - at a certain point your stealth goes away. The question is whether you can decide the combat (1) before it does or (2) soon enough to disengage.

Royalistflyer
7th Aug 2015, 09:04
The name of the game surely hasn't changed since Adolf Galland made his remarks.

If you see first, you can shoot first.

Today that requires that you have armament that can reach the opponent at the moment of first sight.

In the past it was said that the F-22 could detect a Typhoon far earlier and had missiles with greater range.

I assume the F-35 would have had similar capability.

Surely the ability to see first and reach the target trumps in close dogfighting which is extremely rare. It has been said on this thread that if you allow yourself to get into a gunfight, you weren't doing your job in the first place.

So one wonders about the usefulness of stealth - is it worth the cost? Surely more advanced sensors and air-to-air missiles can carry the day? After all, the object of the exercise hasn't changed since WW I it isn't to engage in heroic one-to-one combat, it is to prevent enemy aircraft from attacking ones own ground assets. If the strike aircraft can detect at greater range and fire at greater range, it doesn't need to be a first class dogfighter.

Courtney Mil
7th Aug 2015, 09:47
Royalistflyer,

I'm confused :confused:

I'm sure I've missed something there, but you seem to have answered your own question. If your premis is If you see first, you can shoot first, that is the point of stealth - to stop the bad guys seeing you first, if at all. If stealth achieves that, then yes it is worth it. Even if the enemy has a bigger stick it's no use to him if he can't use it.

As for close combat, you are right that it isn't a place you ever want to be in a real shooting war, even if your aircraft is really good at manoeuvring. You may win the close fight, but while you're doing it you are very vulnerable to his mates and so you want to kill the enemy at range or run away before it's too late.

That said, you may not always be able to avoid the merge and if that happens you better be able to fight WVR (and have weapons left). Clearly if you have good HOBS and enough weapons, manoeuvre isn't everything, but its importance does not go away. At that stage, stealth becomes less significant, but again its importance does not go away. All the above is what makes F-22 (for example) so effective - good stealth, good manoeuvrability and plenty of weapons.

As I have said many times before, the same agility (turn, accel and altitude) is also important pre-merge both for chucking your spears further and for making the other guy's work harder.

If your point is that good enemy sensors could defeat your stealth then, yes, you are exactly right. But he needs to have an effective way of doing that, which may rely on external systems and, therefore, significantly complicate his situation and create other vulnerabilities to attack.

Hempy
7th Aug 2015, 09:50
Royalistflyer,

Which is all good and well if you are considering that both forces are airborne and hurtling towards each other at altitude. "I'm a stealthy Gen 5, I'll see him first..

There are a thousand scenarios where this may not be the case. WVR combat is as necessary as BVR. This thing needs a redesignation to A-35 tbh.

p.s CM beat me to it

Courtney Mil
7th Aug 2015, 10:05
Humpy,

If you want to rename in such a fashion, you still can't lose the "F" even if that just refers to a pretty effective self-escort capability. After procuring AIM-120, the first time we stuck even just a couple of guys toting slammers into a bomber package, Red Air had to completely change its game plan and the results were very different from sending in just a bunch of bombers. That difference is amplified many times if Red can't even see them at range and the whole package can shoot. Ah, happy days of low level COMAO!

The same would be true (hopefully for the RN) using F-35 as fleet defence. It may not be the best fighter in the world (no, I'm not getting into that argument at the moment), but having it there with A-A mx as a hard to see part of an integrated AD system is still going to make a very big difference. Dare I say it, better than Sea Harrier and infinitely better than the thing that followed it, i.e. nothing.

So, if you really feel strongly about it, F/A-35 might be more appropriate.

Courtney Mil
7th Aug 2015, 10:17
OMG! My previous post just made me realise THE WORST THING ABOUT F-35. And this is seriously bad.

All this stealth and stuff means that our packages will no longer be forced to low level! Imagine spending all your airborne time being a medium level bomber! No more Death Star Valley or Mach Loop! Unthinkable! Still, the Welsh will be happy.

Davef68
7th Aug 2015, 10:17
Hempy,

Remember the old USAF doctrine is that anything that isn't Bomber is a Fighter. (e.g. F105, F-111). There are some old soaks at the bar that still think the A-10 should have had an 'F' designation.

Courtney,

Isn't that what the mud movers have spent the last 25 years on operations doing? :-)

Courtney Mil
7th Aug 2015, 10:28
True, Dave, but this could be the final nail in the coffin of licensed :rolleyes:ism.

KenV
7th Aug 2015, 12:44
KenV, I am not sure why you think that the Phoenix is such a great missile and should have been retained? Yes, you could fire it at great range but it was VERY slow. I understand that if fired at long range and the Tomcat then followed in and fired an AIM7 at 8 miles, the AIM7 got to the target first?

The Phoenix climbed to 80,000 to 100,000 ft and then cruised there at around Mach 5. I personally don't see that as slow. And once in the terminal area it dived down to increase its speed for the final intercept.

OK for fleet defense 30 years ago but not a missile for the 2020s? Let's accept that the Phoenix is old and was designed specifically for the fleet defense mission. My point was, nothing has replaced it (certainly not the AMRAAM), so now there is no fleet defense missile system at all, other than the ship mounted Aegis/SM-2/3. Apparently USN is no longer worried about Bears or other large aircraft launching volleys of supersonic anti-ship missiles. I'm not convinced that threat no longer exists. Especially since India has developed the Brahmos anti-ship missile. It has awfully impressive performance and while not yet exported, its probably just a matter of time before it is.

LowObservable
7th Aug 2015, 13:19
India has developed the Brahmos anti-ship missile.

//Cue uncontrollable laughter in Russian

KenV
7th Aug 2015, 13:21
There are a thousand scenarios where this may not be the case. WVR combat is as necessary as BVR. This thing needs a redesignation to A-35 tbh.

Agreed. But compromises in air-to air performance must be made. Do the designers compromise the BVR or the WVR? If the platform is primarily intended for the air-to-ground role, yet more compromises need to be made. Do the designers compromise air-to-ground capability (as the F-22 did), or do they compromise some aspect of air-to-air to keep the air-to-ground optimized?

On F-35 the decision was to compromise air-to-air in favor of air-to-ground. That being said, which air-to-air regime should they compromise, BVR or WVR? The decision was to compromise the least probable air-to-air regime, which was WVR.

As for the redesignation to A-35, as long as USAF controls the program, that will never happen. USAF has a long and proud history of avoiding the "A" designation. At best it would become F/A-35. For a short while the F-22 was F/A-22, so there is a small bit of history there.

KenV
7th Aug 2015, 13:26
All this stealth and stuff means that our packages will no longer be forced to low level! Imagine spending all your airborne time being a medium level bomber! No more Death Star Valley or Mach Loop! Unthinkable! Still, the Welsh will be happy.

I'm guessing that it will be just a matter of time before stealth is compromised and low-level penetration again becomes important. These things seem to have a habit of going around in circles.

melmothtw
7th Aug 2015, 13:47
The Phoenix climbed to 80,000 to 100,000 ft and then cruised there at around Mach 5. I personally don't see that as slow. And once in the terminal area it dived down to increase its speed for the final intercept.

Is that really true Ken (a genuine question)? Mach 5 is where hypersonic officially begins, and I've never heard the Phoenix being classed as a hypersonic weapon before. Indeed, the DoD has only recently got to those kind of speeds with the developmental WaveRider, so I'd be surprised to learn that a comparable missile had been in service decades before.

No more Death Star Valley or Mach Loop! Unthinkable! Still, the Welsh will be happy

Not a bit of it Courtney. The 'Piss-off Biggles' farmer aside, we'd be quite gutted ;-)

O-P
7th Aug 2015, 13:53
Courtney,


The Welsh happy, really! It's never gonna happen!

melmothtw
7th Aug 2015, 14:01
The Welsh happy, really! It's never gonna happen!

I don't know, there's a Welshman looking pretty happy here.

http://i1373.photobucket.com/albums/ag380/garethjennings1/1Jiffy-Pic_zpsd0zwgwes.jpg (http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/garethjennings1/media/1Jiffy-Pic_zpsd0zwgwes.jpg.html)

KenV
7th Aug 2015, 14:06
Is that really true Ken (a genuine question)? Mach 5 is where hypersonic officially begins, and I've never heard the Phoenix being classed as a hypersonic weapon before.

From Raytheon AIM-54 Phoenix (http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-54.html)
When an AIM-54A is launched, its Rocketdyne MK 47 or Aerojet MK 60 solid-fueled rocket motor (in an MXU-637/B propulsion section) propels it to a speed of Mach 4+.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix
The Phoenix has several guidance modes and achieves its longest range by using mid-course updates from the F-14A/B AWG-9 radar (APG-71 radar in the F-14D) as it climbs to cruise between 80,000 ft (24,000 m) and 100,000 ft (30,000 m) at close to Mach 5. Phoenix uses this high altitude to gain gravitational potential energy, which is later converted into kinetic energy as the missile dives at high velocity towards its target.

KenV
7th Aug 2015, 14:23
//Cue uncontrollable laughter in Russian

BrahMos Aerospace was formed as a joint venture between Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) of India and Joint Stock Company “Military Industrial Consortium” "NPO Mashinosroyenia" (earlier known as Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPOM of Russia). The company was established in India through an Inter-Governmental Agreement signed on February 12, 1998, between The Republic of India and The Russian Federation.

glad rag
7th Aug 2015, 14:26
£££-35

$$$$$$$$$-35

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€-35

Yeah....:E

glad rag
7th Aug 2015, 14:27
KenV, I think you need to stop and think about LO's post first...

melmothtw
7th Aug 2015, 14:28
From Raytheon AIM-54 Phoenix
When an AIM-54A is launched, its Rocketdyne MK 47 or Aerojet MK 60 solid-fueled rocket motor (in an MXU-637/B propulsion section) propels it to a speed of Mach 4+.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix
The Phoenix has several guidance modes and achieves its longest range by using mid-course updates from the F-14A/B AWG-9 radar (APG-71 radar in the F-14D) as it climbs to cruise between 80,000 ft (24,000 m) and 100,000 ft (30,000 m) at close to Mach 5. Phoenix uses this high altitude to gain gravitational potential energy, which is later converted into kinetic energy as the missile dives at high velocity towards its target.

Well, everyday's a school day....

GlobalNav
7th Aug 2015, 15:52
The wiki article also notes the wonderful combat effectiveness of the AIM 54. How many dollars per kill? Happily it hardly ever needed to be used in anger, and as the years go by, the need seems to be growing.

LowObservable
7th Aug 2015, 16:45
Norman Friedman observes in his book Network-Centric Warfare that Phoenix at max range launched into a steep ballistic profile. This created an unmistakable smoke column, from the target's perspective, that cued the target to perform evasive maneuvers or use its jammers and chaff.

According to Friedman, the result was that many people doubted whether the missile's maximum kinematic range was very useful, and this was why the two AAM candidates were the ramjet-powered Macs design and the pulse-motor + booster (three-stage, in effect) rocket from GD-Pomona.

Courtney Mil
7th Aug 2015, 17:19
LO, does Friedman cover operational use? My understanding is three launched in anger for zero kills: two missile failures and one evaded.

glad rag
7th Aug 2015, 17:34
Ballistic flightpath rings a number of bells here as well.

Awesome weapon system esp in the later stages of it's development A/G, who'd have thunk it.

:sad:

Lonewolf_50
7th Aug 2015, 18:16
LW50 - at a certain point your stealth goes away. Aye, at the merge :8 if not slightly before.
The question is whether you can decide the combat (1) before it does or (2) soon enough to disengage. Yes indeed, true for any platform.

As more of the F-35 Operational Eval and Tactics development gets underway, I expect the operators will start to fill in the blanks on this. I also think quite a bit of it won't get out except in trickles.

As to the Phoenix: it's where the A-6 is, in our history books.

LowObservable
7th Aug 2015, 19:14
CM - I don't think there is anything operational.

I was a bit disappointed when they canned AAAM in 1992. The GD candidate was nuts - semi-active + inertial midcourse and EO/IR terminal, and launched out of a tube.

Courtney Mil
7th Aug 2015, 21:22
I also think quite a bit of it won't get out except in trickles.

Absolutely. I would hope that is the case. Too much out there already.

LO, the Phoenix successor was, as you say, nuts. So what next, an expanded range AMRAAM or Meteor? Oh, and the long range RoE, the thing that prevented F-14 taking Phoenix to the fight in the Gulf.

Bevo
7th Aug 2015, 22:19
I had the pleasure of having one of the AAAM demonstrators mounted on an F-14 at NAS China Lake when I was stationed with VX-4. Also, note the AIM-54C mounted on the forward station. We (VX-4) were putting time on the missiles prior to operational test launches of the "C"

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r209/TurboBob/Military/MewithACIMDMissle-Resizedagain_zps97d4624d.jpg
Most of what has been said about the AIM-54 is correct relative to long range shots. Remember the missile weighed in at 1,000 lbs!! The A-Pole for those shots was closer than one would like operationally. Also, the AIM-54 almost always pulled-up initially at launch doing an MBAM (main beam avoidance maneuver) to avoid the AWG-9 main radar beam which could interfere with the missile data link.

The fuze on the Phoenix was VERY sophisticated as it was designed to be used against targets ranging from sea skimming cruise missiles as well as large bombers and high speed/high altitude targets.

I was part of a detachment of three F-14s which flew from Eglin AFB (my previous home base). The purpose of this det. was to test the then new AIM-54C Phoenix missile which was undergoing operational testing. The target for this test was an AQM-81A Firebolt. For our intercept the Firebolt was launched from the vicinity of MacDill AFB and was at 97,000 ft. and Mach 3. We used three F-14s to ensure that at least one of us would have an opportunity to launch a Phoenix (I was designated at the number #2 shooter). We climbed to 40,000 ft. and GCI provided us information on the target at 140 nm. We accelerated to Mach 1.5. The lead F-14 got a radar track at 90 nm. (two minute from launch) and we started our pull-up at approximately 65 nm. with a missile launch at approximately 40 nm. When the AIM-54 launched we were topping out at 50,000 ft. and the target was still almost 50,000 ft. above us which was a slant range of 8 nm vertically (this was the highest I had been in a F-14

Fox3WheresMyBanana
7th Aug 2015, 22:49
...and?!

...or is it so classified you would have to shoot us before you told us the result? ;)

I managed to hit a low level cruise missile (simulated) with a skyflash, but I always wondered how the high level stuff would work. We planned on a pairs launch, and prayer.

Courtney Mil
8th Aug 2015, 07:39
Yeah, Bevo. I agree with Fox3, where's the rest of the story? Do tell!

LowObservable
8th Aug 2015, 13:40
That was as far as he got before

http://www.productioncars.com/send_file.php/vauxhall_omega_black_sedan.jpg

Bevo
8th Aug 2015, 15:46
The Rest of the Story:

The fuze performed correctly but because of the high closure speed the warhead did not destroy the target. The target flew through the detonation (with a few holes in it) and continued on till it ran out of fuel and deployed its parachute recovery system. We later had a chance to see the recovered target back at Eglin. The test resulted in a slight change to the warhead design which was later incorporated.

Willard Whyte
8th Aug 2015, 16:24
That was as far as he got before

Haven't they used these since SDSR '10?

http://images.clickedit.co.uk/3760/36965701.jpg?width=460&height=345

Heathrow Harry
8th Aug 2015, 16:53
If they've got any of those Phoenix left in store thay can sell them to Iran.....

Radix
9th Aug 2015, 10:27
............

LowObservable
9th Aug 2015, 14:21
The aero characteristics of the F-35, stability/instability, body lift vs. wing lift... all fascinating issues.

What follows is pure bar-napkin speculation...

Actually, you can figure out the CG of the F-35B quite easily because it has to be balanced in vertical flight with light fuel and 3000-some lb in the weapon bays, and we know the relative thrust of front and rear nozzles. With that load the CG is well forward of the wing half-chord line, and will move a little (not a lot) farther aft with full tanks.

The F-35A has to operate over a much larger CG range because there is >5000 lb of fuel right behind the cockpit and it will have up to 5000 lb in the weapon bays, all forward of the CG. This might suggest that it has quite high positive stability when fully loaded - otherwise it would have extreme instability when light.

Another interesting issue is wing lift versus body lift. The A/B versions have relatively small wings compared to body width; the C has a much larger wing. Indeed the C's actual wings (measured from the body side) are 2X the area of the A/B, driven by approach speed. Even though the C is heavier, this does suggest a pretty high approach speed for the A and the B in CTOL mode.

And while there will be body lift at high g and alpha, the question is how efficient this is. You don't have the body leading-edge shape of an F-22, let alone a Sukhoi.

The spanwise lift distribution implied by the "poor man's flow viz" here is interesting:

http://www.barnorama.com/wp-content/images/2012/03/funny-pictures-509/31-funny-pictures-509.jpg

Courtney Mil
11th Aug 2015, 08:10
A slightly brighter mood from Flightglobal.

OPINION: Why the F-35B's IOC milestone matters - 8/10/2015 - Flight Global (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/opinion-why-the-f-35b39s-ioc-milestone-matters-415474/)

MSOCS
11th Aug 2015, 08:56
Compared to the more rigid and consequential status of full operational capability, IOC is more symbol than substance.

I would wholeheartedly agree with that statement and enjoyed the article so thanks for posting CM.

My view is that the IOC process and event itself has given LM a consolidated list of things to improve upon (a good thing) and the IOC evidence indicates that a great deal of progress has been made since those dark days in 2010. The USMC are now able to use their F-35B in the so-called "Basic" war fighting role; not without some effort, but it at least passed the bar that the Marines set. I also understand that the bar was not exactly a low one either.

PhilipG
11th Aug 2015, 09:28
As a matter of interest is it clear what criterion the waiver was granted for? I am assuming it is something to do with ALIS or a maintenance capability metric?

ORAC
11th Aug 2015, 09:43
As a matter of interest is it clear what criterion the waiver was granted for?

I think its in english, but I'm not too sure...... Page 9.

Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft (F-35) - As of FY 2016 President's Budget (https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CD0QFjAEahUKEwjpy5W-3KDHAhVFuBQKHcRhAeM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rijksoverheid.nl%2Fbestanden%2Fdocument en-en-publicaties%2Frapporten%2F2015%2F04%2F14%2Fselected-acquisition-report-sar%2Fselected-acquisition-report-sar.pdf&ei=K8HJVamKDMXwUsTDhZgO&usg=AFQjCNFAeMnf2BN2rVWDZxgsR1Ca5rmwww&sig2=pSlAy5jjO1aH7J-awxdIbw&bvm=bv.99804247,d.d24)


"In March 2012, in conjunction with the Milestone B decision, certification was made pursuant to section 2366b of title 10, United States Code (U.S.C.). However, at that time, the MDA waived provision (3)(c), which certifies that the JROC has accomplished its duties pursuant to section 181(b) of title 10, U.S.C., including an analysis of the operational requirements for the program. The JROC accomplished the bulk of its duties under section 181(b); however, because the IOC dates remained "TBD" by the Services, a waiver has been in place. In June 2013, the Services sent a joint report to the U.S. Congress detailing their IOC requirements and dates; however, until the USD(AT&L) certifies that this provision has been satisfied, the waiver remains in place. The Department will continue to review the F-35 program at least annually until the certification requirement for this provision is satisfied"...........

PhilipG
11th Aug 2015, 10:02
It seems that Sir Humphrey Appleby has an American relative.

Courtney Mil
11th Aug 2015, 10:32
Thanks, ORAC. It does look like English words, but arranged into a random order so that no one is bothered by any actual meaning. So, what is the waiver for?:confused:

t43562
11th Aug 2015, 10:37
Thought this was interesting, given that the see-through cockpit is a much talked about feature of the F-35.

L7j1daOk72c

ORAC
11th Aug 2015, 10:57
As I read it, the JROC is required to have performed an Operational Requirements Analysis of the programme. See here (https://dap.dau.mil/policy/Documents/2015/JCIDS_Manual_-_Release_version_20150212.pdf). As the IOC for the models is TBD this cannot be concluded, so a waiver is in place.

As an example, from the first diagram in the link above, one requirement is the analysis, relating to the USD(AT&L) referenced is......

"In consultation with the CCMDs and USD(ATL):

Establishing an objective for an overall period of time within which an operational capability should be delivered to meet each joint military commitment"

Courtney Mil
11th Aug 2015, 10:58
They should have given the F-35 contract to Land Rover. They must be good, mine can carry more JDAMs than JSF, until the block three software is ready and they can waive a waiver!

On_The_Top_Bunk
12th Aug 2015, 07:08
Thunder without Lightning


The High Costs and Limited Benefits of the F-35 Program


A rather interesting report at nsnetwork. Maybe it has already been posted but the search couldn't find it.


http://nsnetwork.org/cms/assets/uploads/2015/08/F-35_FINAL.pdf

FODPlod
12th Aug 2015, 08:28
Different circumstances I know but one wonders whether Barnes Wallis' bouncing bomb would ever have made it off the drawing board if subjected to similarly anachronistic assumptions and raw exposure to the press and poo-pooing armchair experts:


High risk strategy.
Dependent on unproven technology.
Involved use of radical tactics.
Dismal track record of development trials.
Inadequate historical data.
Required expensive airframe modifications.
Required extensive and risky crew training.
Diverted vital resources (funding, R&D, frontline aircraft, skilled personnel and production facilities) from main effort.
Limited (almost one-off) short-term application.
Extremely hazardous in operation resulting in losses of entire aircrews.

glad rag
12th Aug 2015, 08:38
Interesting point of view there foddy.

t43562
12th Aug 2015, 08:58
Different circumstances I know but one wonders whether Barnes Wallis' bouncing bomb would ever have made it off the drawing board if subjected to similarly anachronistic assumptions and raw exposure to the press and poo-pooing armchair experts:

High risk strategy.
Dependent on unproven technology.
Involved use of radical tactics.

That does seem an unfair comparison. The complaints about the F-35 have happened long long after it got off the drawing board. What was the bouncing bomb timeframe anyhow - 2 years perhaps? How long has the F-35 saga been and how much has the criticism really mattered to it anyhow? It seems to have had solid support.

And if one is going to make comparisons: after all that effort were those radical bouncing tactics copied by anyone? Were they ever used again?

The Tallboys might be a better example.

FODPlod
12th Aug 2015, 09:28
...The Tallboys might be a better example.

I read the linked report in On_The_Top_Bunk's post (#7350 (http://www.pprune.org/9079560-post7350.html)) but the phrase that particularly caught my eye was "The High Costs and Limited Benefits of the F-35 Program". It immediately struck a chord in light of historical revisionist controversy concerning the Dambusters' Raid.

I think the concept, development and operational deployment of Barnes Wallis' Tallboy earthquake bomb were less radical than for his Upkeep bouncing bomb but I remain open to persuasion.

t43562
12th Aug 2015, 10:39
I think the concept, development and operational deployment of Barnes Wallis' Tallboy earthquake bomb were less radical than for his Upkeep bouncing bomb but I remain open to persuasion. One could see it that way but the thing is that other people wanted tallboys afterwards and they were used again and again and on various targets from ships to sub pens. There are still penetration bombs to this day - not that I really know if they are "successors" to the Tallboy. So possibly it was less radical than the bouncing bombs but much more enduring and more widely useful.

Does that really say anything about the F-35? I don't know. From the outside it doesn't seem like the F-35 has had a hard time with money, only with self-created problems. It is only somewhat special purpose but if it sucks money out of other things then one might end up with war of some unexpected kind for which it is no particular use or at least ill-suited and no money to get something different.

LowObservable
12th Aug 2015, 11:24
FodPlod - That's an interesting comparison. I'm not aware of the "revisionism" surrounding Operation Chastise - but even from reading Brickhill it was apparent that a handpicked squadron was effectively annihilated and that the weapon technology was never used again.

More often (in fact, over and over and over again) F-35 supporters like to cite the early criticisms leveled at weapons that turned out to be successful. The favorite example is the F-16, which was zinged early in its career for radar and AAM limitations compared with competitors (F/A-18) and potential adversaries (eg MiG-23).

One big difference is that the criticisms were acknowledged and addressed and corrective action was undertaken - by 1980, the F-16C/APG-68 was well under way, and AMRAAM was a live program with requirements including compatibility with the tip rails of the F-16. Another (more luck than judgment) was that the AIM-9L/M turned out to be much more useful than most people had predicted, and filled the gap until AMRAAM turned up (behind schedule).

From my recollection of talking to GD people back in the 1980s, they felt that the F-16 would have had a much shorter career were it not for the C/D. Israel was the only customer for new A/Bs outside the US and the EPAF four, and the F-16 lost the big Australian and Canadian orders.

KenV
12th Aug 2015, 13:01
And if one is going to make comparisons: after all that effort were those radical bouncing tactics copied by anyone? Were they ever used again?

The 5th Army Air Force used a similar bouncing bomb technique called "skip bombing" with great success for bombing ships in the Pacific theater. I understand that Australia and Russia used this technique with great success also. The difference is that the skip bomb tactic used conventional bombs released from conventional bombers, mostly B-25s. But B-17s and A-20s were also used by the 5th. The Aussies and Russians used A-20s and other aircraft.

ORAC
12th Aug 2015, 14:03
KenV, that was Highball. Never saw active service in the Pacific.

The Highball incident (http://napoleon130.tripod.com/id725.html)

Heathrow Harry
12th Aug 2015, 15:06
KenV is correct - they did use conventional bombs (tho I suspect a lot of people got as low as they could and dropped the bombs early and claimed it was deliberate skip bombing when it worked)

Highball was a British development of Wallis' Upkeep planned principally to hit the Tirpitz by bouncing over the torpedo nets around the ship - it was never used in action

Wander00
12th Aug 2015, 15:37
Bouncing canon balls off the sea goes back to Nelson's day - apparently made the impact more effective

KenV
12th Aug 2015, 16:34
KenV, that was Highball. Never saw active service in the Pacific.
The Highball incident (http://napoleon130.tripod.com/id725.html)

No, I'm not talking about Highball. I'm talking about skip bombing against shipping, not dams, and which was performed by the 5th AAF in the Pacific from late 1942 thru 1945. The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in early 1943 for example used skip bombing along with mast height bombing extensively and successfully.

KenV
12th Aug 2015, 16:48
KenV is correct - they did use conventional bombs (tho I suspect a lot of people got as low as they could and dropped the bombs early and claimed it was deliberate skip bombing when it worked)

Skip bombing and mast height bombing are similar and sometimes used together. Mast height bombing was generally done at similar altitudes, but at higher speed (265-275 MPH) than skip bombing. When used together, the first bombs were deliberately released early to skip across the water and strike the sides of the ship, and the following bombs were released later to drop directly onto the ships.

Skip bombing required different fusing than mast height bombing. Skip bombs required delayed fuses and mast height bombs required contact fuses. If a delayed fuse bomb was used for direct bombing against unarmored transports and merchant ships, they would pass through the ship before detonating. If contact fused bombs were used to skip bomb, they would detonate when they first struck the water. So the crews could not "accidentally" do one when they were trying to do the other.

ORAC
12th Aug 2015, 17:03
8zBp1NCbAr0

KenV,

Highball was anti-shipping. A smaller ball shaped bomb carried in the UK by the Mosquito.

Same basic principle of a spinning bomb as for the dams, to drive itself downwards, but in the case of Highball it was designed to rotate down to the keel and, on the fuse detecting it had reached the bottom and descent had stopped, to detonate and act in the same way as a torpedo - blast to lift the hull and create a void so that the ship would break its back as it came down again with only support at the bow and stern.

Wokkafans
12th Aug 2015, 18:03
KenV, that was Highball. Never saw active service in the Pacific.

The Highball incident (http://napoleon130.tripod.com/id725.html)

Video of the A-26C accident in your link. Having seen the extent and height of the water splash and bomb bounce in the Mosquito Highball films a low drop such as this was never going to end well. :sad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCGpzRzY7fY

LowObservable
12th Aug 2015, 18:59
Yikes. Under two seconds from weapon release to water impact. That seems much lower than any of the Lancaster or Mosquito releases. What did they think was going to happen?

Think Defence
12th Aug 2015, 20:22
Thought I would dip my toe into the toxic world of writing about the F-35 :)

The F-35B is worth it, but - Think Defence (http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2015/08/the-f35b-is-worth-it-but/)

Lonewolf_50
12th Aug 2015, 21:06
Thought I would dip my toe into the toxic world of writing about the F-35 :)

The F-35B is worth it, but - Think Defence (http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2015/08/the-f35b-is-worth-it-but/)
Enjoyed the article, and this gave me a good chuckle:
Yet to be discovered tribes in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest could not have failed to notice the untrammelled hype that surrounds the F-35 in general, and the STOVL F35B in particular. :D

MSOCS
12th Aug 2015, 23:08
TD, from my perspective you are more on the money than any article on F-35 for UK that I've read, and for a very long time. For that you should be congratulated and I applaud your insight, analysis and balance.

Thanks for a good read!

:ok:

Royalistflyer
13th Aug 2015, 04:59
Very good article TD ...... makes me think a lot ........also makes me pin a lot of faith on Typhoon updates and service life extension.

Frostchamber
13th Aug 2015, 09:54
Very good article TD ...... makes me think a lot ........also makes me pin a lot of faith on Typhoon updates and service life extension.

Which reminds me - the AMK / EFEM mods for Typhoon look like a bit of a no brainer in terms of the performance uplift they offer - but I'm not sure they're yet part of the approved / funded upgrade path. On the face of it the cost/benefit case ought to be fairly compelling, so any views on the prospects for this package?

Heathrow Harry
13th Aug 2015, 11:36
the benifits are compelling but we're trying to cut costs to the bone sooooo.......... defer

KenV
13th Aug 2015, 12:09
TD, thanks for a great article. Loved it.

I'd like to discuss further the whole concept of F-35 concurrent development. It has without doubt proven to be enormously expensive and disruptive to the F-35 schedule. But the alternative appears to be even more expensive and require even more time. Take the F-16, for example. The A/B model was a great day fighter with no BVR capability and very limited air-to-ground capability. How many A/Bs were built at great expense just so they could end up in the bone yard when the C/D was developed? How long and how much money did it take for the A/B to be developed into the definitive C/D?

The F-15 had a similar development cycle with A/Bs relegated to the boneyard and the C/D being the definitive version of that aircraft. (Followed later by the E. And later still by the SA, K, and SE.) And Gripen followed a similar path with the C/D being the definitive version of that aircraft and the E now completing development.

Typhoon followed a similar development path. Tranche 1 aircraft were limited in capability and RAF seemingly can't wait to get rid of them and no one apparently wanting to buy them even at ridiculously discounted prices. Will they end up in a boneyard, or will they just be cut up and turned into beer cans? Would it have been "cheaper and faster" to skip the Tranche 1s and go directly to the Tranches 2s? That effectively appears to be what they are trying to do with the F-35. The operative word there is trying. We still don't know if they'll be successful, but the signs are positive.

The bottom line is that if we look at the TOTAL cost and time to develop the definitive version of the jet, F-35 may not be all that bad and may even prove to be a great success, concurrent engineering and all. With heavy emphasis on "may." We're clearly still learning how to do all this.

Just This Once...
13th Aug 2015, 12:26
I'm not sure the F-16 analogy holds true. There are still F-16s in service that were built in the 1970's that have gone through a midlife update with capability enhancements that exceed the original F-16C.

The F-16C did not replace USAF F-16As on a one-for-one replacement either as the early F-16Cs replaced other types first. Force reduction measures had a heavy hand in delivering F-16As to the boneyard or to see them exported to other countries.

KenV
13th Aug 2015, 15:30
I'm not sure the F-16 analogy holds true. There are still F-16s in service that were built in the 1970's that have gone through a midlife update with capability enhancements that exceed the original F-16C. Indeed. So the F-16C became the definitive version of the F-16, whether as a new build or as an upgrade. It looks to me that F-35 is using concurrent engineering to try to avoid/bypass that early low capability version (whether its called "A" or "Tranche 1") and go directly (sort of) to the later higher capability/definitive version. Again, "trying" is the operative word. It's still unclear if they will succeed. But if they do it would appear that the early investment (in the from of cost over runs) will have been well worth it.

GlobalNav
13th Aug 2015, 18:31
Just saw the media announcement celebrating the latest release of the HMD.

Been speaking to some fighter pilots with some knowledge of the program and hear concerns about having room to turn one's head to desired angles etc., plus weight/mass, pulling G's and so on. All factoring into the ability to stay aware and maneuver the jet. I suppose the latest version has reduced the issues with display dynamics.

LowObservable
13th Aug 2015, 23:05
As JTO says, even the early F-16A/Bs were able to be upgraded into very effective aircraft, using newer technology than the initial F-16C/Ds.

Hype about "they can't get rid of them fast enough" is an inaccurate way to describe the UK Typhoon history. The fact is that the 1998 production contracts were only marginally smaller than the Cold War figures originally envisaged, and don't reflect today's force numbers, while the contractual structure makes it very difficult to cancel later aircraft, and easier to retire older ones.

The future of the F-35 is likely to be more like that of the F-22, with slow, expensive and marginal upgrades aside from catching up with the state of the art in weapons technology.

david parry
14th Aug 2015, 07:00
$400,000 a bone dome :rolleyes: Rockwell Delivers First Gen 3 Helmet for F-35 (http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/strike/2015/08/12/rockwell-delivers-first-gen-3-helmet-f-35/31538101/)

kbrockman
14th Aug 2015, 10:27
Navy May Cut F-35 Orders As Buying Plan Is Reviewed.
BY GILLIAN RICH, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
08/13/2015 02:21 PM ET

The Navy may only order as few as 12 of the F-35C variants each year vs. the current plan to order 20 of the stealth jets annually during the 2020s.

"I think the current realities of the budget and other priories inside the Navy may drive something between those two numbers, but we're still on the path to (initial operational capability) for our first squadron in 2018," said Naval Air Forces Commander Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday, according to Flightglobal.


Navy May Cut F-35 Orders As Buying Plan Is Reviewed LMT BA - Investors.com (http://news.investors.com/business/081315-766433-navy-may-cut-f35-orders-buying-plan-under-review.htm)
&
US Navy considers reduced annual F-35C buy - 8/13/2015 - Flight Global (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/us-navy-considers-reduced-annual-f-35c-buy-415654/)

LowObservable
14th Aug 2015, 11:56
As I said in 2012...

What's gradually changing is that, a couple of years ago, to talk too loudly about whether Hornet/Growler is a better investment for the Navy, at least for the next 10-15 years, was not career-enhancing. Now that a lot of Hornet/Growler people are rising to flag rank, it's different.

From this post: http://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/424953-f-35-cancelled-then-what-15.html#post7526946

By the later 2020s, SLEPed Rhinos will be the most numerous type in the fleet.

glad rag
14th Aug 2015, 12:10
$400,000 a bone dome :rolleyes: Rockwell Delivers First Gen 3 Helmet for F-35 (http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/strike/2015/08/12/rockwell-delivers-first-gen-3-helmet-f-35/31538101/)

Yes but it's a special bone dome. Cost is now irreverent to this program because they've got them by the short and curlys...

You have to hope that the capabilities don't come at an increased risk to the operators health... short or long term..

Lonewolf_50
14th Aug 2015, 13:30
Do you get a free bowl of soup with that hat?

Courtney Mil
14th Aug 2015, 16:18
No soup, LoneWolf, but they do get a "my hat's bigger than yours" patch to wear on their flight suit, just for when they're in other people's bars.:E

glad rag
14th Aug 2015, 18:09
No soup, LoneWolf, but they do get a "my hat's bigger than yours" patch to wear on their flight suit, just for when they're in other people's bars.:E

hmm I forsee a problem in the bar...


cYxnp6ml8mE

Think Defence
15th Aug 2015, 13:43
Thanks for the comments everyone

Much appreciated

Courtney Mil
15th Aug 2015, 23:34
TD, nice to see a well balanced article on the subject for a change. Good work and thank you for the well considered analysis. :ok:

glad rag
16th Aug 2015, 09:44
"Perhaps they could be gifted to the Baltic states?"

:ok:

Hempy
16th Aug 2015, 09:52
"Perhaps they could be gifted to the Baltic states?"

:ok:

Yes, that made me giggle. Especially as it was directly preceded by;
and push the Tranche 1’s out of service as soon as possible if they are costing us a disproportionate amount of money to maintain.

I'm sure the Baltic states can afford to maintain them when the UK can't!! :D

KenV
17th Aug 2015, 17:50
$400,000 a bone dome :rolleyes:

Yes but it's a special bone dome. Cost is now irreverent to this program because they've got them by the short and curlys...Keep in mind that the bone dome replaces a color holographic HUD in the F-35. I don't know what the price of the HUD and fancy helmet are in a Typhoon, F-16, F-18, etc, but I would not be surprised if together they come close to or are maybe even more expensive than the F-35 bone dome.

BEagle
17th Aug 2015, 18:37
Rubbish, KenV.

The JSF needs that absurdly expensive pilot helmet because without it, view from the cockpit behind the 3-9 line would be very, very limited.

:rolleyes:

MSOCS
17th Aug 2015, 19:51
That's not the reason BEagle. You're wrong on that assertion.

ORAC
17th Aug 2015, 19:57
Keep in mind that the bone dome replaces a color holographic HUD in the F-35. I don't know what the price of the HUD and fancy helmet are in a Typhoon, F-16, F-18, etc, but I would not be surprised if together they come close to or are maybe even more expensive than the F-35 bone dome.

Mayhap, but an aircraft only needs one HUD, and it's integrated and harmonised and doesn't need regular calibration. But now you have a separate helmet for each pilot, plus spares for the accidents that occur carrying them around on debts, from Ops to HAZ etc etc. And each has to recalibrate the aircraft system every time you climb into it from the last one.

Numbers wise I'd estimate a threefold increasing in numbers, and a major calibration problem on an ongoing basis.

LowObservable
17th Aug 2015, 20:40
Actually, the HMDS would have been easier and cheaper if it hadn't replaced the HUD.

If you have both, you don't have to make the HMDS tracking system gunsight-accurate, and you can easily put a high-rez image on the HUD for tasks such as landing, where you want lots of clear texture cues. So you don't need a special new-tech camera in the HMDS, or at least not as badly.

And - well, you have both, in case one breaks.

The reason that there's no HUD (as I understand it) is that they really wanted the big wide-screen display. In 1995-2000 this was not compatible with a HUD because the optical chain got in the way. With new waveguide combiners, this is no longer a problem.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCq6R6rUUAAGi1A.jpg

a1bill
17th Aug 2015, 23:32
KenV, I think there comes a time that regardless, there is just a knee-jerk criticism to every announcement for the F-35. It tastes of sour grapes by most.


LO, the pilot has a full HUD in the HMD, why would he need a HUD as well?

PhilipG
18th Aug 2015, 07:42
What sort of support infrastructure needs to be in place to ensure that all the required helmets are available? Having a broken HMDS takes that pilot out of the game and hence their F35?
Will it be the case that each FJ pilot will have their own helmet at $250,000 each or will the helmets be pooled?
Just seems an incrementally expensive way of organising life.

Hempy
18th Aug 2015, 07:47
F-35. A million individual parts just looking for an excuse to fail...Given the critical nature of the helmet, where is the redundancy??

PhilipG
18th Aug 2015, 09:33
The thought of a fire sprinkler system going off by mistake in the crew changing room on a carrier, in the Gulf say, and all the helmets on board getting soaked and thus in need of a lot of TLC at a base facility, would create a few red faces, as a swift withdrawal was undertaken with no air cover, unless of course every pilot had two expensive helmets, that should never be stored in the same space.

Engines
18th Aug 2015, 09:45
LO,

If I might gently offer an alternative narrative for the HMDS/HUD issue.

You're quite right that the original large display system technology (projector tubes) was changed, but as far as I remember the replacement was a flat panel display system. This was enabled by rapid advances in the technology of the panels. Good job too, because the original projector system was, in the view of many on the programme, a 'dog'.

As an aside, the changes to the cockpit were also part of an effort to fix some serious issues with the original display generation architecture - the very rapid effort to solve these was led by a simply excellent Brit at Fort Worth.

The original adoption of the HMDS was not, as far as I remember, driven by the size of the large cockpit displays. It was a combination of explicit requirements within the JORD, plus a desire to take advantage of a series of technology demonstration programmes that had been run by the USAF and the USN. One of the main aims was to allow the pilot to be 'heads out' as far as possible.

The HMDS is a key part of a determined and structured effort to get a very large amount of information effectively presented to the single pilot. That meant a fairly fundamental review of the balance of information presented between the HMDS and the main cockpit displays.

BAe people played a large part in that, with their recent experience on Typhoon proving very useful, once the US security 'goons' had been put back in their box. People with Sea Harrier experience also played a part, as they were used to using clever ways of getting lots of info to a busy pilot. Overall cockpit design also included a lot of very good Brit input, by the way, as did the 'Pilot Flight Equipment' (PFE) adopted for the jet.

I expect a chorus of 'but the Typhoon cockpit is rubbish' comments - I can only report what I saw happening.

Management of the HMDS will need to be different from that used for legacy helmets. They have been managed for many years as items of 'aircrew equipment', and maintained by personnel in Survival (or Safety) Equipment (SE) sections. A pool of items have been held by stations, and smaller pools by squadrons at sea. They have been set up for individual aircrew, but can easily be adjusted if required. They've also been relatively low tech affairs, and the skill sets of SE personnel haven't included maintenance of complex avionics.

The advent of NVGs placed a serious strain on that concept, and in my view (my view only) the HMDS will need to be handled by the main avionics support system, with the SE handling only fit and issue. The helmet and the display systems will probably be handled as sub assemblies, possibly with a need for harmonisation when assembled . Again my view, but I think a pool of items (helmets and display assemblies) will be used. Yes, they'd better not get soaked, but then that applies to just about every item of electronic equipment on a carrier, including the jets. The helmets are required to be able to resist being sprayed with water. You don't see many water sprinkler systems in an avionics shop, by the way.

Hope this helps, best regards as ever to those polishing the visors,

Engines

ORAC
18th Aug 2015, 10:57
Washington political opposition continues to grow.......

Report: F-35 Inferior to Older US, Foreign Fighters (http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/08/11/report-f35-inferior-to-older-us-foreign-fighters.html)

WASHINGTON -- The F-35 Lightning II passed a major milestone last month when the Marine Corps declared it operational, but the accomplishment has not silenced critics.

A Washington think tank released a report Tuesday that found the 5th-generation jet – billed as the world's most advanced fighter – will be outmaneuvered in dogfights with current Russian and Chinese jets as well as the U.S. aircraft it is slated to replace. The report comes after details were leaked last month on a test flight where the F-35 was bested in most aerial maneuvering by an F-16.

"The F-35 will find itself outmaneuvered, outgunned, out of range, and visible to enemy sensors," according to Bill French, a policy analyst with the National Security Network, a progressive think tank that claims to challenge overly militarized conservative defense policies. "Staying the present course [on the aircraft program] may needlessly gamble away a sizable margin of American airpower at great expense and unnecessary risk to American lives."

The think tank has an advisory board that includes Sandy Berger, the national security advisor to President Bill Clinton, and Richard Clarke, a senior White House advisor to several administrations. A call and email request for comment were not immediately answered...........

Thunder without Lightning: The High Costs and Limited Benefits of the F-35 (http://nsnetwork.org/report-f-35-thunder-without-lightning/)

a1bill
18th Aug 2015, 11:22
Orac, I guess that will show them. A think tank said it's inferior. Do you think the F-35 will be cancelled now?

ORAC
18th Aug 2015, 11:35
No, but I think its in a price "death spiral" as with the B-2 and F-22.

The Pentagon said a couple of years ago there will be no more money than originally budgeted, so as slippages and prices go up, then numbers go down, which means unit price goes up.... The reports on USN review of purchase numbers are the leading edge of the spiral, as are the reports of reducing numbers of USAF FJ wings.

Not sure how many will end up be purchased, but I'd guess at about a third to a half the original requirement.

Courtney Mil
18th Aug 2015, 11:45
To be fair, these new articles seem to be spouting forth the same stuff all over again without offering anything particularly new or surprising. The "leaked document" has been wrung through pretty thoroughly and, again, the WVR manoeuvre shouldn't have come as much of a surprise - we even had our very own rehearsal of it here a couple of years ago. None of these "kill the programme" articles seem able to suggest an alternative, so how helpful are they, especially if you look more than a few years ahead?

I still wonder - for reasons I've stated here many times - if this was the right basket for all our eggs, but it's here now and there is little in the way of another way forward for now.

a1bill
18th Aug 2015, 11:59
Orac, They have cut a lot of the original LRIP numbers and the sequester has cut a lot from programs. What about the initial 3 year multi buy later this decade. The about 450-500 units, just may be the start of a hole in your guess.


CM, The eggs for the carriers are in the basket. There is no Euro apatite for a gen 5 joint development. I don't see other options, other than the F-35A or a F-35 V2.1

a1bill
18th Aug 2015, 12:36
Engines, perhaps I should read more but I haven't seen criticism of the Typhoon cockpit. The last I saw critical about the Typhoon, was from the designer of the F-15 and F-16 [sic]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQSs2kN2GpQ

LowObservable
18th Aug 2015, 12:45
The issue from now on is how we manage what has come out of the program, which is (at best) an aircraft more expensive to acquire and operate than most of the aircraft it replaces, and that (for the USAF) doesn't come close to filling the gap left by the 150 F-22s that were chopped to pay the F-35 bills.

(That was back in 2009 when Dr "Smartest Guy In the Room" Gates was assuring us that we wouldn't see a single Chinese stealth airplane before 2020.)

CM - There is not much new in the report but it is a competent summary of the current status. It could (I think) be a bit harsher in terms of the realism of Marine Corps plans, which seem to be based on the notion that the F-35B's logistics footprint will be equal to or smaller than that of the AV-8B.

Engines - To be clear, I was talking about the HUD optical chain. My understanding (for a long time) has been that the optrickery beneath the HUD combiner has always demanded a lot of space, which is why current cockpits mostly have three screens with the center one being lower. The Up Front Control and the Rafale's HLD (alias "What The Butler Saw Machine") are there to put something useful in front of the HUD box.

Optical waveguides make the HUD much smaller and more compact. The photo I posted was Elbit hardware that is planned to be adapted for the Brazilian Gripens.

And yes, there was a requirement for an HMD with a video capability, but not having a HUD has imposed some difficult requirements. The optical waveguide technology + more relaxed requirements results in much less costly video-capable HMDs.

ORAC
18th Aug 2015, 13:13
None of these "kill the programme" articles seem able to suggest an alternative, so how helpful are they, especially if you look more than a few years ahead? CM, equally to be fair, the paper recognises it is too late to cut the entire programme, and that it doesn't know the answer - what it asks is that alternatives be looked at.....

"Conclusion

Despite plans for the F-35 to replace most of America’s fighter and attack aircraft, the platform is ill-suited to cost-effectively counter near-peer foreign militaries. The aircraft lacks the maneuverability, payload, likely ability to generate sorties, and range to effectively compete with near-peer competitors despite its lifetime costs of $1.4 trillion.

The aircraft’s survivability depends largely upon stealth characteristics that are already at risk for obsolescence against adversaries who over the next 50 years will only continue to upgrade their radar and infrared detection systems. Given the critical failings of the F-35 program and its exorbitant costs, the aircraft should be regarded as a bad bet. As such, proceeding with the full program buy of nearly 2,500 units–or any large-scale buy that approaches that number–should be avoided.

It is not too late to change course. While the outcome of the DOD’s review of its total F-35 requirement is not yet clear, the program does not enter into full-rate production until 2019. Policymakers should take this opportunity to engage in debates about the future of airpower that have the potential to provide alternatives to a full-scale F-35 program.

Airpower analysts are outlining new options to help counter near-peer adversaries. While that debate is outside the scope of this study, those options include unmanned systems, prioritizing effective munitions over expensive aircraft, and returning to a quantitatively driven approach to airpower featuring large numbers of comparatively inexpensive platforms. While these are some options, Congress and DOD should begin a dialogue and study the full range and timetables, costs, and benefits of potential alternatives to the program.

Whether this opportunity to seriously reassess DOD’s commitment to the F-35 will be seized remains to be seen. But, by staying fully committed to the F-35 program, the United States is investing unprecedented resources in the wrong aircraft, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.".........

a1bill
18th Aug 2015, 13:31
Orac, What you are suggesting is that the umpteen air forces and governments with the classified data, are wrong. While the guessers on the internet are right. That's a big leap of faith.


LO, aren't most planes dearer than the ones built 30 years ago. Although dearer is subjective, as the F-35 is cheaper than some 4.5gen, isn't it?

Engines
18th Aug 2015, 13:49
Gents,

I'd like to come back here and respond.

a1bill, I was referring to a number of posts here on Pprune criticising the Typhoon cockpit. Like you, i've not seen anything really objective.

LO, the original requirements for the HMD were driven by lots of things. The JORD requirement was to deliver an IR imaging plus target tracking capability over a full 360 bubble around the aircraft, without the structure interfering. The requirement for what has become the monocular video camera arrived later.

The whole helmet/HMDS combination was identified as a system risk right from the start. The management of that risk was compromised by US DoD insistence on providing support to US based small businesses - these promised all sorts of things, but didn't deliver. There was a huge reluctance at senior programme level to take a proper look at European development, particularly the work being done by BAe at the time. The problems were only made worse when the helmet and display encountered (entirely predictable) problems during ejection trials.

Finally, the BAe design got a brief look in, when the programme was forced to look for an alternate supplier for the helmet. In my view, that was only used by the DoD to force the domestic suppliers to get their act together, which they apparently did. Once they did, the BAe helmet (practically current Typhoon) was ditched.

As ever, politics will often have major influence on US aircraft programmes. Nobody much likes it, but it's pretty much a fact of life.

Best Regards as ever to those managing the risks,

Engines

LowObservable
18th Aug 2015, 13:51
Orac, What you are suggesting is that the umpteen air forces and governments with the classified data, are wrong. While the guessers on the internet are right. That's a big leap of faith.

We know for certain that most of those governments don't know some of the answers and made a "big leap of faith" themselves, when they signed on to the program on the basis of JSF cost and schedule estimates that were moonshine, and with few mature programs to compare JSF against.

In most cases, today, they have access to JSF data (but on a restricted basis - I doubt, for example, that any foreign lawmaker has access equivalent to the US Congress' classified sessions) but they don't have access to the same data on alternatives, since nobody is going to hand over the crown jewels or brief at any high level of access unless there's a real competition under way.

And with the exceptions of Denmark, Japan and Korea, any such real competition has been studiously avoided (see the desperate measures of the Harper government in Canada and the mock-evaluations in Norway and the Netherlands). Denmark is undecided - although I suspect Nordic peer pressure may carry the day. The F-35 lost fair and square in Korea, until the upper levels of government (who of course were not the ones who had reviewed all the classified data) changed the rules retrospectively. And Japanese procurement of anything is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, locked in a filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD.

LO, aren't most planes dearer than the ones built 30 years ago. Although dearer is subjective, as the F-35 is cheaper than some 4.5gen, isn't it?

According to real-money, head-to-head bids in Korea, it costs substantially more than the Typhoon and F-15SE.

And as I have sometimes had to remind people, if all the military experts were always right, we'd have seen the Queen, the Kaiser and the Tsar getting together a few months back to commemorate the end of the European War of 1914.

a1bill
18th Aug 2015, 14:20
LO, Australia bought the F-111 and Hornet, we know about price jumps and delayed delivery. On a percent basis in constant year dollars, the F-35 may be less of a rise or as delayed as the F-111. That makes the F-35 a model programme in comparison.
.

ORAC
18th Aug 2015, 14:25
The RAF ordered the F-111 as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111K)......

KenV
18th Aug 2015, 15:19
Airpower analysts are outlining new options to help counter near-peer adversaries. While that debate is outside the scope of this study, those options include unmanned systems, prioritizing effective munitions over expensive aircraft, and returning to a quantitatively driven approach to airpower featuring large numbers of comparatively inexpensive platforms. While these are some options, Congress and DOD should begin a dialogue and study the full range and timetables, costs, and benefits of potential alternatives to the program.A few questions regarding the above:
1. Who are these nameless and faceless "airpower analysts".
2. How does one "prioritize effective munitions over expensive aircraft"? Are they talking about using cruise missiles to deliver a warhead instead of an airplane?
3. When was the last time USAF/USN/USMC relied on "a quantitatively driven approach to airpower featuring large numbers of comparatively inexpensive platforms"? Even if we go all the way back to WW2, the US relied heavily on expensive aircraft, and relied heavily on them for every war thereafter. So how do we "return" to the use of cheap airplanes if we've never relied on them in the first place?

On a related note, we used cheap tanks in WW2 to great effect. Indeed, one could argue that our massive numbers of cheap tanks ultimately beat the much better German tanks. But that came at a huge cost in American (not to mention Brit) lives. Such losses are no longer acceptable.

a1bill
18th Aug 2015, 16:17
LO, I don't know how you came to that conclusion. On the Eurofighter forum, they are talking 85-90 million euros
eurofighter @ starstreak.net ? View topic - Typhoon for South Korea? (http://typhoon.starstreak.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2034&start=170)


Orac, I think it worked out with the Tornado for the UK, although there was a muddled to get there.


KenV, it's just clickbaiters being dramatic. It's hard to get noticed among the din of publications otherwise.


Why does everyone forget about the Russians in WW2? They lost a lot of cheap tanks. There is a school of thought that they won WW2 for us on the eastern front.

PhilipG
18th Aug 2015, 17:05
Talking about Tanks, it could be argued that the Sherman tank was a bit like the T34, a number being needed to take out a Tiger or Panther Tank, F22 or F35?

I am not sure what aircraft are the T34 and Shermans here? Mig 35 and Typhoon?

KenV
18th Aug 2015, 17:28
KenV, it's just clickbaiters being dramatic. It's hard to get noticed among the din of publications otherwise. Agreed. I just asked the questions to point out the obvious, which some folks seem to have missed resulting in them taking such "analysis" seriously.

Why does everyone forget about the Russians in WW2? They lost a lot of cheap tanks. There is a school of thought that they won WW2 for us on the eastern front. All the allies lost a lot of cheap tanks. And a whole lot of tank crews. The Russians might still find such losses acceptable (which seems doubtful), but we in the West no longer do. So no cheap equipment for us any more. And there's zero doubt that the Eastern front made the Western front possible.

KenV
18th Aug 2015, 17:38
Talking about Tanks, it could be argued that the Sherman tank was a bit like the T34, a number being needed to take out a Tiger or Panther Tank, F22 or F35?

I am not sure what aircraft are the T34 and Shermans here? Mig 35 and Typhoon? As I stated in my original post, no one has "gone cheap" with airplanes. Every force that has used air power with any degree of success has NOT "gone cheap" and has instead created fleets of expensive platforms. The idea of "cheap air fleets" seems to be a myth with zero examples to support it.

And one reason for that is the crew. It takes YEARS to train a pilot and years of experience before that pilot is any good. Even if we could buy a very large number of airplanes cheaply, we could not train enough pilots to operate them and could certainly not replace those pilots when they got shot out of the sky, even if we could replace the airplanes. The Japanese made that mistake in WW2. They did not have an effective pilot training pipeline and while they could replace their aircraft losses after Midway, they were never able to replace their pilot losses.

glad rag
18th Aug 2015, 18:39
The idea of "cheap air fleets" seems to be a myth with zero examples to support it.

A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) | Info, Budget/Costs, Retirement, Specs (http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/A-10-Thunderbolt.html)


F-35 Lightning II JSF | Info, Variants, AN/APG-81, Costs/Budget, Specs (http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-35-Lightning-II-JSF.html)

"coughs"

PhilipG
18th Aug 2015, 18:49
Ken,
I think that I was trying to say that if it is taken as read that 5th generation planes are so much better than 4th or 4.5 generation aircraft, with an 8:1 kill ratio over non 5th generation, then you are as I read it suggesting that any country not training pilots for 5th generation is wasting time, as they will be pure cannon fodder, albeit expensive cannon fodder?

Lonewolf_50
18th Aug 2015, 18:51
From a friend who has a reserve friend somewhat familiar with the program ... the helmets are apparently form fitted, and get locked up in a box once you leave. No more having your helmet hanging in your helmet bag in your locker ... as I understand this second hand source, as we do now with form fit helmets you don't have helmets in a pool.

I like the comparison Engines made with the NVG kits and the challenges they posed to the flight equipment support concept. Seems very apt.

Biggus
18th Aug 2015, 18:58
If I could stay off topic for a brief while.....

I don't think it fair to compare the Sherman and T-34, at least in terms of anything other than them both being mass produced, and therefore "cheap". The T-34 was a far better tank than the Sherman. When the Germans first encountered the T-34/76 in 1941 it came as a shock. With its sloped armour and 76mm gun, compared to German tanks with vertical armour and 50mm guns, it outclassed everything the Germans had. It was the encounter with the T-34 that led the Germans to develop the Panther and Tiger in the first place.

By the time that Shermans reached European shores, the T-34 had moved onto the T-34/85, which had a 85mm gun that was certainly capable of taking out Panthers.

So, in June 1944 the Allies had poorly armoured and armed Shermans, while the Russians had better armoured and armed T-34/85s.

The Allies relied on Tank destroyers, and in the Brits case Shermans armed with a 17pdr gun, "Fireflies" to take out German tanks.

As for the Russians effectively winning the second world war, they pretty much did. The much vaunted "North African" campaign never involved more than a handful of German Divisions. As for the invasion of Europe, I read somewhere once that at least 5 times as many German divisions were destroyed on the Eastern front compared to in the West. This link shows where the bulk of the German forces were deployed.

Number of German divisions by front in World War II (http://www.axishistory.com/axis-nations/134-campaigns-a-operations/campaigns-a-operations/2085-number-of-german-divisions-by-front-in-world-war-ii)

I should point out that:

I'm not Russian

I'm not trying to bash the Americans (or indeed the Brits).

I'm not trying to denigrate the contribution made to the war effort by Americans, Brits, French, Poles, etc, etc...

I'm just trying to stick to the facts, which are that the Russians broke the back of the German armies - a fact that is rarely acknowledged in the West

ORAC
18th Aug 2015, 19:41
The Russians didn't win the war in Europe, the Americans did. Why?

The Germans vs the rest was the start, but in 1945 it wad the USA vs the Russians (aka the race for Berlin). The question being, could the Russians have kept going through the Allies to the Channel?

Fact, the Russians knew the USA had the bomb, but would they use it? In the short period after Trinity they invade the Kuril Islands and were sweeping south, after Hiroshima they stopped - now they knew the USA would use them and their conventional superiority in Europe meant nothing.

Engines
18th Aug 2015, 19:49
Lonewolf,

Thanks for coming back and making a very good point about form fit helmets that I'd completely forgotten about. Yes, those inners will be unique to a person, and not in a pool.

I think that as things like HMDS become more widely used (and they will) then the lessons learned with NVGs will have to be applied. A few years ago, it quickly became apparent that getting NVGs properly serviced, fixed and set up was well beyond what the SE trade had been trained to do. So, we had to stop treating NVGs as bit of 'flight equipment' and start treating them as avionics kit. So that's what we did.

The avionics 'guts' of future helmets are a very big step along the same path, in my view, every bit as complex and dependent on maintenance as the black boxes and software fitted in the aircraft.

However, I'm hopeful. People at the front line (and those devising support systems) are intelligent, adaptable and ingenious. Honestly, sorting out how to maintain and service these items isn't rocket science.

Best Regards as ever to those in the workshops

Engines

downsizer
18th Aug 2015, 19:53
Engines,

Who is "we" when you mention 'gogs and the SE trade? Do you mean the RN, the RAF or both?

LowObservable
18th Aug 2015, 21:07
Cheap or expensive is always relative.

The USAF has a force-structure goal of 1900 fighters in inventory, of which 1100 are primary-mission aircraft (that is, available to operational units). The divestment of the A-10 and other planned cuts would leave them 334 aircraft short, according to 2014 testimony.

http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Davis_04-08-14.pdf

The question is whether and when the USAF will be able to buy back fighter squadrons that it cuts today.

Those cuts are very closely linked to the growing fleet of non-combat-ready F-35s, which are drawing heavily on money and maintenance people. So the costs of the program are already drawing down the numbers in the force.

Also, both the F-16 and A-10 were, in their day, explicitly planned as lower-cost than, say, the F-111 and F-15; so while they were not in absolute terms cheap (like a MiG-21) they were relatively so.

The Navy denominates its force structure in TacAir squadrons, with a goal of 40 squadrons to maintain 10 CV Wings with 44 strike fighters. (Growlers not included.) Without a Super H life extension the Navy needs to add >3 F-35 squadrons annually in the 2020s to hold at 40 squadrons, which is unaffordable at $150m APUC.

The result is that the math works like this: each year, the Navy needs to cut X number of F-35Cs from its nominal buy (20 aircraft) until it has enough money to SLEP enough F-18s fast enough to fill its squadrons. Fortunately the equation closes because you can SLEP several F-18s for the price of one F-35C.

Engines
18th Aug 2015, 21:10
Downsizer,

Sorry, my bad. Age creeping up on me. I meant the RN and their SE trade. I was one of the Air Engineering team at a Naval Air Station coping with the issues as we learnt more about NVGs, many of which had been introduced 'at the rush' for various ops. I know that the RAF and the Army had similar (but not the same) issues when NVGs arrived.

One thing we did learn was that while getting kit via Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) can be great in the short term (and I've done many tens of them) problems can arise if the kit isn't properly brought into service later on. NVGs were a good example of that. Nobody gets promoted sorting out the 'dull and dirty' stuff downstream.

Apologies once again

Best Regards as ever to those sorting out the stuff

Engines

KenV
19th Aug 2015, 12:52
Ken, I think that I was trying to say that if it is taken as read that 5th generation planes are so much better than 4th or 4.5 generation aircraft, with an 8:1 kill ratio over non 5th generation, then you are as I read it suggesting that any country not training pilots for 5th generation is wasting time, as they will be pure cannon fodder, albeit expensive cannon fodder? "Any country"? Absolutely not. For many nations a 4th gen fighter would be ideal. It is unlikely that nations like Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, and many others will have a need for a stealthy tactical aircraft designed to defeat integrated air defenses or engage in combat with 5th gen opponents. In similar fashion, back in the day a simple day fighter like an F-5 or F-16A was "good enough" for many air arms while the top tier air arms were acquiring sophisticated F-4s, F-14s, F-111s, F-15s, F-18s, Tornados, MiG-31s, Su-24s, etc, etc.

KenV
19th Aug 2015, 13:06
I'm not sure what the hand wringing is about concerning the F-35 HMD. All the 4+ gen aircraft (basically any aircraft that has HOBS missiles) already have HMDs. The procedures and logistics are already in place to issue, fit, maintain, service, calibrate, etc etc such helmets. The F-35's HMD is just a further development of this already well established concept that enables the elimination of the HUD. Why is this so terrible? What am I missing?

KenV
19th Aug 2015, 13:12
Quote:
The idea of "cheap air fleets" seems to be a myth with zero examples to support it.
A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) | Info, Budget/Costs, Retirement, Specs (http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/A-10-Thunderbolt.html)
F-35 Lightning II JSF | Info, Variants, AN/APG-81, Costs/Budget, Specs (http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-35-Lightning-II-JSF.html)
"coughs"

Is the above suggesting that a cheap A-10 is the ideal platform to replace the expensive F-35? If so, that's a mighty interesting suggestion. Reasonable? Not so much.

downsizer
19th Aug 2015, 14:27
Downsizer,

Sorry, my bad. Age creeping up on me. I meant the RN and their SE trade. I was one of the Air Engineering team at a Naval Air Station coping with the issues as we learnt more about NVGs, many of which had been introduced 'at the rush' for various ops. I know that the RAF and the Army had similar (but not the same) issues when NVGs arrived.

One thing we did learn was that while getting kit via Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) can be great in the short term (and I've done many tens of them) problems can arise if the kit isn't properly brought into service later on. NVGs were a good example of that. Nobody gets promoted sorting out the 'dull and dirty' stuff downstream.

Apologies once again

Best Regards as ever to those sorting out the stuff

Engines

Interesting, I wasn't aware of many issues with the RAF SE fitters and NVGs, hence why I asked, but I'm sure there must have been some.

LowObservable
19th Aug 2015, 17:46
You might not get a cheaper aircraft to substitute for all your F-35s, but you could certainly get a cheaper substitute for some of them. Depending on relative O&S costs, that might well outweigh the disadvantages of a less common fleet and less flexibility.

Courtney Mil
19th Aug 2015, 17:50
Horses for courses, LO. As opposed to making Dobbin do it all.

a1bill
19th Aug 2015, 21:01
Although it didn't work out that way. Australia wanted to get away from having two fast jet platforms, with the purchase of the original 100 to replace the f-111 and fa-18ab. It's more cost effective to have one platform. UK is headed in that thinking too isn't it?

KenV
19th Aug 2015, 21:15
USN has been necking down to as few jets as is reasonable. The Hornet (classic and Super) effectively replaced the F-4, A-7, A-6, KA-6, and F-14. And the Prowler has been replaced by the Hornet based Growler, and the Viking retired without a replacement. USN is buying F-35 so they have a "first day of the war" stealthy jet, but for the foreseeable future there will always be more Super Hornets than F-35s.

ORAC
19th Aug 2015, 21:36
Although it didn't work out that way. Australia wanted to get away from having two fast jet platforms, with the purchase of the original 100 to replace the f-111 and fa-18ab. It's more cost effective to have one platform. UK is headed in that thinking too isn't it? No, it was never planned that the F-35 would replace the Typhoon - too many eggs in one basket. It was presumed the F-35 would replace just one GR4 sqn (http://ukarmedforcescommentary.********.co.uk/2012/10/fast-jet-fleet-of-future.html) in 2020, alongside 5 Typhoon sons. However, with the slippages in the F35 it is possible that the early F1s might be extended and the later tranche 3 jets being used to provide the 6th squadron.

That would allow a cut in the F35 procurement to equip a single F-35B OCU/wing for maritime ops.

LowObservable
19th Aug 2015, 21:57
It's not cost-effective if you standardize on something ridiculously expensive, so that you end up doing counter-insurgency CAS or homeland air defense with something that's designed to go up against S-400s.

Look at it this way: Suppose you need a family wagon and something to haul the boat, but you want something that's fun to drive. You can buy a Porsche Cayenne GTS but for the same money you can buy a Ford Explorer and an MX-5. What's cost-effective?

Aircraft support & logistics, too, have become much more efficient with computer networks, supply-chain-management tools and worldwide delivery. Result: savings from commonality may not be as important as they used to be.

a1bill
19th Aug 2015, 23:59
They say they need x numbers of "ridiculously expensive" platforms anyway. Coming second in an air campaign costs about the same and isn't much fun.


They can park those "ridiculously expensive" and buy another fleet of something else and all the expenses that go with that. If they can afford it.
Among the platforms doing CAS, The USA are doing CAS with F-16, F-15, FA-18, B-1, B-52.


I would speculate that the logistics is why Australia wanted to go with one platform and why they initially wanted to retire the FA-18e after 15 years in 2025, to be replaced with F-35. It may be why with the addition of the extra 12 growlers to 36. It has become cost effective to keep them.

KenV
20th Aug 2015, 17:02
The USA are doing CAS with F-16, F-15, FA-18, B-1, B-52.

Don't forget the Warthog (at least for now). Not to mention the Apache. And on occasion C-130 gunship.

KenV
20th Aug 2015, 17:17
Aircraft support & logistics, too, have become much more efficient with computer networks, supply-chain-management tools and worldwide delivery. Result: savings from commonality may not be as important as they used to be. It's not just about savings, at least not for USN. For USN, space on board the carrier is a huge deal. By having just Hornets aboard, the carrier only needs to stock parts, tools, and trained mechanics/specialists for one jet engine type, rather than 3 or 4. Not to mention the parts, tools, and trained mechanics/specialists for landing gear, flight controls, hydraulic systems, pneumatic systems, avionics systems, environmental systems, fuel systems, structures, etc etc etc for one type of jet rather than 3 or 4 types. This is a huge deal for a carrier.

APG63
21st Aug 2015, 08:58
The "fitted helmet" issue is being slightly over-stated here. It's only the liner that is moulded, it can be removed and replaced. This can be done at unit level (and, hopefully, on board ship). In fact it will need to be because the liners do deform over time. It's not that big a deal.

ORAC
21st Aug 2015, 11:14
It's not that big a deal. Why do I get icy tingles down my spine when someone says something like that about the F-35.

My mind drifts back to $74,165 aluminum ladders (http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/news/vw-18804_1_nut) and $284 door rings (http://nation.time.com/2011/09/09/back-to-the-1980s-over-priced-pentagon-spare-parts/)....

Courtney Mil
21st Aug 2015, 12:19
I think he was commenting on the helmet fitting issue, not its price tag.

PhilipG
21st Aug 2015, 12:32
Is this helmet a one size fits all outer, so that all the attachments are interchangeable with size defined by the liner?
This would suggest that there may be a maximum and minimum head size for an F35 pilot.

Courtney Mil
21st Aug 2015, 12:44
Philip,

If certain pilots flying their new wonder jets from the past are anything to go by, there is no maximum head size. :E

PhilipG
21st Aug 2015, 12:59
Courtney, believed head size of F35 pilots is of course infinite....

I do detect a head size limitation design parameter here, I am assuming, no doubt erroneously, that all the special display bits that take over the role of the HUD are a one size solution. Looking at various motorcycle helmets in my house, the outside is rather larger for the one worn by the rider with a large head size..... Hence my thoughts that no big heads can be F35 pilots. Could of course be that only big headed pilots need apply as a small headed pilot would have too much liner to pad out the helmet, it would vibrate too much....

Courtney Mil
21st Aug 2015, 13:43
I guess there is a limit to any flying helmet. Traditionally done in a number of sizes with enough adjustment/liner-fit in each one to fill in the gaps.

Even the optics need some adjustment to allow for inter-ocular distance and the like. Also needs careful calibration between different helmets and aircraft.

oldmansquipper
21st Aug 2015, 15:23
Courtney M.

In my day, Helmet fitting was the squippers way of "getting one back" on those who were particularly obnoxious.

And from my time as EA, I understand helmet re-fitts were much more common on Harrier Sqns than on other aircraft types for some reason...

;)

Courtney Mil
21st Aug 2015, 15:25
Kept having to move up a size, eh?

BEagle
21st Aug 2015, 15:37
Back when we had such a unit, the School of Refresher Flying used to get very hacked-off with the number of pilots who arrived from North Luffenham with a helmet so tight that flights were often terminated early due to the pain suffered by the refresher student.

The Squippers' helmet testing rig was frequently mis-employed as a 'helmet stretcher', which helped a bit. But the fault was with the Luffenham chamber-minders and their quackery insisting on ridiculously tight fits.

I was at Luffenham doing my pre-Vulcan AMTC course when Tim Webb and the late great 'Puddy' Catt turned up having flown over to Wittering in the Brawdy Meteors after having been pinged for a 'mid-tour AMTC refresher'. I told Puddy that I was surprised at the immaculate condition of his bonedome, to which he replied "I don't use it for flying, old boy - it's one I've acquired just to keep the docs happy! My comfy one is sitting safely in Winston's cockpit!".

Typical Pud!

CoffmanStarter
21st Aug 2015, 15:44
Nothing wrong with a cloth 'inner' and Mk1a Size 3 Broad 'outer' ... But it might look a bit out of place in the F-35 :cool:

Engines
21st Aug 2015, 16:41
PhilipG,

Perhaps I can help. The F-35 is no different from any other combat aircraft in that there was requirement for a wide range of sizes of pilot to be able to fly it. Actually, the 'anthropometric range' defined for the F-35 was extremely wide.

That requirement includes a range of head sizes, and the helmet designers were required to meet it. You make a good point that the outer 'shell' containing the optronics and displays for the HMD has to fit a range of helmet shell sizes, and so it is designed to do that. It also had to meet very tough requirements for mass and centre of gravity.

So, there isn't any intrinsic limitation on head size on the F-35.

Hope this helps

Best Regards to all those fitting the headgear

Engines

PhilipG
21st Aug 2015, 17:02
Engines,
Thanks for the clarity.
Philip

The Sultan
21st Aug 2015, 19:57
From Avweek

Israel insists it will undertake the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of its on-order fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35 combat aircraft, going against the airframer’s strategy of creating regional sustainment centres for the Joint Strike Fighter.

If they get their way past history shows they will sell the data to China in a week.

The Sultan

Frostchamber
21st Aug 2015, 22:09
What appears to be a fairly definite statement about the fitting of the gun in the first sentence of this item today on the RN website. Is that a decision that's been taken? I must have missed it... http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2015/august/21/150821-f35-gattlinNavy?s next-generation stealth fighter lets rip with Gatling gun | Royal Navy (http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2015/august/21/150821-f35-gattling-gun)g-gun

glad rag
21st Aug 2015, 22:34
On the jump jet version of the Anglo-American aircraft, which is being bought by the UK, the same gun is being installed – but it will be fitted externally, on the F-35's centreline.

How can you install something when it's" fitted externally"? :confused:

Ref
Navy?s next-generation stealth fighter lets rip with Gatling gun | Royal Navy (http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2015/august/21/150821-f35-gattling-gun)

KenV
26th Aug 2015, 13:24
How can you install something when it's" fitted externally"? :confused:

I guess it all depends on one's definition of "install". Perhaps using this author's definition of "install", one also "installs" a Sidewinder, a Maverick, or a JDAM. Personally, I always thought a gun was "mounted", not "installed".

Courtney Mil
26th Aug 2015, 15:16
Install verb

Place or fix (equipment or machinery) in position ready for use.

KenV
26th Aug 2015, 15:46
Install verb

Place or fix (equipment or machinery) in position ready for use.
So using that definition, it is certainly possible to "install" a gun (or missile, or bomb or whatever) externally on an aircraft.

Obba
26th Aug 2015, 18:12
Link provided for some very nice clips of the following.
Not sure why only one clip has seemingly embedded itself in. The site URL has options to view the others.
I'll try and C&CV those in. Sorry for the mix up.
EDIT: Looks like the only good 'one' is the one embedded.


F35
F22
Super Hornet
Typhoon
Rafale


LiveLeak.com - Top 5 Fighter Aircrafts and the Beautiful F-35 B Stealth Lightning VerticalLandings


Nr.1 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II)
Nr.2 Lockheed Martin / Boeing F-22 Raptor (http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/f22_raptor.htm) (USA)
Nr.3 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet (http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/fa_18_ef_super_hornet.htm) (USA)
Nr.4 Eurofighter Typhoon (http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/eurofighter_typhoon.htm) (European Union)
Nr.5 Dassault Rafale (http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/dassault_rafale.htm) (France)

Obba
27th Aug 2015, 04:10
Looks extremely maneuverable.


LiveLeak.com - Most advanced 5th generation Russian combat plane T-50 shown to public

a1bill
27th Aug 2015, 06:32
It looks like it's early days in the FCS, too.
Because Higher/faster/dramatic airshow makes the best fighter plane. http://www.pprune.org/forums/images/smilies2/eusa_clap.gif

Staying with the Russian/Indian theme. The su-30 still looks pretty.

DBVafIdbsqk




still, once they sort out the F-35 FCS, it should look ok, too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWji8AcOYGA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlFJHWfHaTY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfWHHuLILs0

Hempy
27th Aug 2015, 10:21
Because Higher/faster/dramatic airshow makes the best fighter plane.

At least it's being displayed at airshows!

Where's the 'T-50 Cancelled, then what?' thread?

KenV
27th Aug 2015, 13:34
Interestingly, unlike the F-22, the T-50 is designed to be a multi-role fighter and have both air-to-ground and air-to-air capability.

PhilipG
27th Aug 2015, 15:37
Ken,

I believe that the F22 was initially design brief was for a multi-role fighter / attack aircraft. Many of the features that would have helped it achieve a better A to G role were deleted from the final spec.

That is not to say that the F22 cannot do air to ground as was shown when it was used to strike an ISIS command and control facility in Raqqah on 23rd September 2014.

KenV
27th Aug 2015, 16:39
Ken,

I believe that the F22 was initially design brief was for a multi-role fighter / attack aircraft. Many of the features that would have helped it achieve a better A to G role were deleted from the final spec.

The Raptor had an F/A-22 designation for about two years, maybe less. And that was quite late in the development cycle when Congress was looking at cutting off its funding because it no longer had an enemy to fight when the MiG 1.44 project died. Adding ground attack (late in the game) was a way to justify its continued funding. And dropping a pre-programed SDB on an ISIS command compound isn't much of an achievement, but you're right, it was an air to ground mission.

LowObservable
27th Aug 2015, 20:00
As for the T-50 video.... Apparently not everyone got the "air combat maneuvering is dead" memo.

Courtney Mil
27th Aug 2015, 20:03
KenV,

I should have paid more attention at the time. Now I know. Thanks.

Radix
27th Aug 2015, 21:07
............

KenV
27th Aug 2015, 21:31
However the missiles will have difficulty locking-on to a LO jet like the T-50.Maybe, maybe not. The T-50, unlike the MiG1.44 is primarily stealthy in the forward hemisphere, much like a Super Hornet. Indeed, it even uses a Super Hornet-like engine intake duct radar blocker rather than a serpentine duct with RAM as is used in the F-22 and F-35. T-50 is advertized as having a .1 to 1 meter forward aspect radar cross section. That's not bad, but not all that stealthy either. The EASA radar in the F-22, F-35, F/A-18, Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, Su-35 etc, can detect an object with that size RCS at considerable range. And the passive sensors on many aircraft would likely pick up the T-50 at considerably greater range. I'm pretty sure that an AMRAAM's terminal homing radar is capable of locking onto an object with that size RCS, and that assumes it's intercepting head-on. From above and/or the side the RCS would be greater.

Willard Whyte
27th Aug 2015, 23:46
'm pretty sure that an AMRAAM's terminal homing radar is capable of locking onto an object with that size RCS

We're all jolly glad we can count on your assurances Ken, jolly glad indeed.

FODPlod
28th Aug 2015, 09:31
We're all jolly glad we can count on your assurances Ken, jolly glad indeed.

We, kemo sabe? Don't mistakenly assume that we all agree with your patronising sarcasm. Some of we are trying to rise above that.

a1bill
28th Aug 2015, 10:05
LO: As for the T-50 video.... Apparently not everyone got the "air combat maneuvering is dead" memo.

Was it just a throw away line LO?
I don't know how the T-50 will be when it finishes development*, the FLS is sorted and it gets it's new engines. I wouldn't use that video to sing it's BFM praises. It would be interesting, if one of the pilots here reviewed it for us.

*don't they plan to have a dozen built by 2020?

Courtney Mil
28th Aug 2015, 11:01
It's hard to review a fighter based on a single video, especially from a display that majors in slow speed handling, but one or two things are immediately apparent. Most obvious is the quite remarkable ultra-high aoa handling that the Russians seem to do so well and have been for a long time - it clearly demonstrates LO's line about air combat manoeuvring. But more than that is the confidence they have in that handling to be doing it at low level, with a prototype. Roll and yaw control, even what looks like beyond 90 degrees is amazing although roll rates don't look that snappy at slow speed.

The other thing that is very clear is the SEP available, especially if those aren't the production engines. And that, in my opinion based only on the vid, is where there is a difference between T-50 and F-35, demonstrated in this video in two ways: the ability to accelerate in the vertical even at high aoa and the energy manoeuvrability available to be able to accelerate very rapidly from virtually stationary to conventional flight. Regaining energy does not appear to be an issue; again this points to LO's comment.

I think we did see an example of higher speed sustained g, but it's hard to guess at the parameters there. We also saw its ability to generate in excess of 90 degrees of pitch without simply stopping in the sky; nose authority like that wouldn't go amiss in a knife fight in a phone booth.

What the video doesn't show is off bore site weapons capability, how its acceleration continues at higher speeds, how additional weight affects what we saw there or whether it has any un-fighter-like g limits. I think I know the answers to those, but you only asked for comment on the vid.

Usual caveats about judging from videos and about any other platform and systems capabilities apply.

glad rag
28th Aug 2015, 11:23
We, kemo sabe? Don't mistakenly assume that we all agree with your patronising sarcasm. Some of we are trying to rise above that.

FP..
It is noticeable that your posts are becoming increasingly belligerent whilst most of the "normal combatants" have declared something of a truce...

http://www.jonrb.com/pix/Cease-your-current-activities-According-to-my-time-piece-there-is-a-necessity-for-mallets.jpg

KenV
28th Aug 2015, 15:16
As for the T-50 video.... Apparently not everyone got the "air combat maneuvering is dead" memo. Indeed. The T-50's high AOA and slow speed handling is nothing short of eye-wateringly spectacular. Those canted vectored thrust nozzles really work exceptionally well, as apparently do the leading edge vortex controllers, both features unique to the T-50. There are clearly some compromises made in stealth, but none in maneuverability. F-35 went the opposite direction, compromising maneuverability in favor of stealth. We'll have to wait and see which compromise direction turns out to be the better choice.

On the other hand.....

according to the article linked on another thread ( How To Win In A Dogfight: Stories From A Pilot Who Flew F-16s And MiGs (http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379) ) LtCol Spanky Clifton is not enamored with thrust vectoring nor such slow speed maneuvering in combat. According to him, once you get in a close-in visual fight the old rules still apply and rule #1 is that speed is life (and more is better).

Since India is co-developing the fighter the T-50 will become, it'll be interesting to see what happens when IAF sends its fighters to operate in joint exercises with/against Typhoon, F-22, and F-35.

Courtney Mil
28th Aug 2015, 15:37
Ken,

Spanky's premise, with which I agree totally, is that once you use any significant amount of off-axis thrust vectoring, you slow down awfully quickly and become a strafe panel in the sky. This big thing here is that those engines in the prototype appear to produce so much thrust that energy loss isn't such a big problem and it appears to be able to accelerate rather well, even when pulling hard. In my opinion, the T-50 seems to offer the option of trading energy for extreme manoeuvre with the knowledge that you can regain it quickly, or it can do sustained, higher-energy, high g. Nice to have an option you don't have to use, but can without taking the rest of the day to get back up to fighting speed.

Mach Two
28th Aug 2015, 15:47
once you get in a close-in visual fight the old rules still apply and rule #1 is that speed is life (and more is better)

Not quite. Speed is life. But if you want to turn (i.e. in a visual, turning fight), you need to be at corner velocity. Much above that and you're g-limited with an ever increasing radius and decreasing turn rate as you get faster. Your oppo arcs you and you catch a rocket up the jet pipe.

KenV
28th Aug 2015, 15:54
Nice to have an option you don't have to use, but can without taking the rest of the day to get back up to fighting speed.

Agreed. And the new (higher thrust) engines will reportedly improve the already stellar ability to regain energy, improving that option even further.

Clearly, the Russian designers have a different philosophy and thus have taken a different approach and emphasized different features than the designers of the F-22 and F-35. And that is largely because USAF has decided to put so many oof its eggs in the stealth basket. It'll be interesting to see which philosophy (stealth vs super maneuverability) wins out once the T-50 is fully developed, goes into production, and starts flying against F-22 and F-35.

And speaking of production, the Russians and Indians don't seem to be enamored of concurrent engineering. It appears that they're building test aircraft and fully wringing them out before committing to production. Yet another philosophical difference.

Courtney Mil
28th Aug 2015, 16:04
Ken,

Thanks for the come-back. You have completely changed the basis of my post, the purpose of which was "review the video". My comparison between the T-50 and F-35 was purely about the former's manoeuvre capability; nothing to do with stealth, which has the bigger RCS. If you read my caveats you will see that I deliberately excluded any platform and system capabilities (which includes stealth) that could, potentially, make a big difference to whether either aircraft even arrives at the merge. Agreed?

KenV
28th Aug 2015, 16:21
Not quite. Speed is life. But if you want to turn (i.e. in a visual, turning fight), you need to be at corner velocity. That's generally true, but there are countless other variables at play. Turning fights are brutal absorbers of energy. Once you get to turning really hard speed rapidly bleeds off and maintaining corner velocity is difficult. And thrust vectoring tends to make that worse. This is where sustained turn rate comes into play. How much G can you sustain in a turn without losing altitude. It's very easy (indeed you're almost certain) to find yourself trading altitude for speed in a turning fight. So while the thrust vectoring gives you exceptional control of nose pointing, it comes at the price of speed (or altitude). And (theoretically at least) with HOBS weapons and HMDs, nose pointing is not nearly as critical anymore.

NITRO104
28th Aug 2015, 16:34
Not quite. Speed is life. But if you want to turn (i.e. in a visual, turning fight), you need to be at corner velocity. Much above that and you're g-limited with an ever increasing radius and decreasing turn rate as you get faster. Your oppo arcs you and you catch a rocket up the jet pipe.
Although, I completely agree on academic and conservative levels, I think the question of pulling angular distances in the traditional sense in a HOBS environment is rather a not so clear cut point.
In a HOBS fight you may want to keep the distance from the shooter, not so much be at a corner speed but rather at high speed, to both rapidly engage the target and defeat the incoming missile.

I suspect, both F22 and Typhoon were designed to operate in supersonic with that in mind.

KenV
28th Aug 2015, 16:36
Ken,

Thanks for the come-back. You have completely changed the basis of my post, the purpose of which was "review the video".

I was not commenting on nor replying to your review of the video. I was making an entirely independent comment on the video. I apologize for any misunderstanding I may have created.

If you read my caveats you will see that I deliberately excluded any platform and system capabilities (which includes stealth) that could, potentially, make a big difference to whether either aircraft even arrives at the merge. Agreed?
Yes, I totally agree, and I also agree with the many other insightful points you made in your review. I apologize if I gave the impression I was attempting to counter or otherwise refute your commentary. I was not. Your commentary was spot on and I could not have said what you said any better. That was one reason I took a different approach in my commentary. You'd covered that ground very well, and I wanted to explore some different ground. Mea culpa if I gave the wrong impression.

peter we
28th Aug 2015, 18:16
However the missiles will have difficulty locking-on to a LO jet like the T-50.


Not least because they will be rare as rocking horse s***. Russia have cut their order to 16. How effective will it be when out numbered 10:1 against the F22?

KenV
28th Aug 2015, 20:05
The F-35 is an electron vacuum cleaner much like the F-22. The problem is sharing all that data with 4th gen aircraft because the F-35's MADL is not compatible with 4th gen aircraft. But it looks like they're developing some effective work arounds by using aerial refuelers as data repeaters. (and by they way, one reason why the KC-46 has 25+ miles of extra wiring.)

Tests show F-35s can share data with older aircraft - Reuters News 08/28/2015
Two weeks of joint testing of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet at a California air base by the Royal Netherlands Air Force showed that the new stealthy jets are able to share a significant amount of data with older warplanes, the pilot in charge of Dutch F-35 testing told Reuters.
Colonel Albert De Smit, commander of the Netherlands operational test detachment, said the testing sought to validate that the new fifth-generation F-35s could share useable data with older F-16s and aerial refueling aircraft via the Link 16 system.

He said the results showed that during combat, the F-35 could help relay key targeting, surveillance and other data to less capable F-16s and other planes, in much the same way that the U.S. Air Force's F-22 fighter jets work with older aircraft.

"The amount of information that we can share is very promising," De Smit said in a telephone interview this week. "It provides fourth generation aircraft with information that they normally would not have ... It looks like they're going to be able to execute a better mission" if used together with F-35 jets.

He added that it could take months to fully evaluate the results of the tests, which involved two to three Dutch and British F-35s, as well as Dutch F-16s, refueling planes and a small fleet of A-4 Skyhawks posing as enemy aircraft.

The Netherlands is one of the eight countries that joined the United States in funding development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and its military is a formal part of the F-35 operational test community, along with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, as well as Britain and Australia.

The Netherlands already had two F-35 A-model jets, which are being used for the testing, and it plans to order 37 more in coming years. The planes due to go into service in 2019.

GlobalNav
28th Aug 2015, 20:20
"Not least because they will be rare as rocking horse s***. Russia have cut their order to 16. How effective will it be when out numbered 10:1 against the F22?"

I'm afraid the F-22 fleet is too small as well, considering the costly research and development. And to think politicians and certain manufacturers argued for the "less expensive option" - the F-35. I guess we do this "one-size-fits-all" nonsense once every 40 years or so.

Courtney Mil
28th Aug 2015, 21:02
No worries, Ken. And thanks for the "Rare bit of good news" post. The link issue has always been one of my concerns about the programme.

A1Bill, is that the kind of thing you were after?

Rhino power
29th Aug 2015, 08:37
Could prove to be interesting...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/08/27/as-it-fights-for-its-life-the-a-10-will-face-off-against-the-f-35-in-close-air-support-test/

-RP

Hempy
29th Aug 2015, 09:41
Oops!

Earlier this week, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force’s Chief of Staff, said it would be a “silly exercise” to compare the A-10 and F-35’s ability to provide CAS. In a statement Thursday, he backed away from that comment, saying he did not understand that the testing would be part of a formal Pentagon test and evaluation program.

Career dissipation light blinking? :\

glad rag
29th Aug 2015, 10:49
The F-35 is an electron vacuum cleaner much like the F-22. The problem is sharing all that data with 4th gen aircraft because the F-35's MADL is not compatible with 4th gen aircraft. But it looks like they're developing some effective work arounds by using aerial refuelers as data repeaters. (and by they way, one reason why the KC-46 has 25+ miles of extra wiring.)

Tests show F-35s can share data with older aircraft - Reuters News 08/28/2015
Two weeks of joint testing of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet at a California air base by the Royal Netherlands Air Force showed that the new stealthy jets are able to share a significant amount of data with older warplanes, the pilot in charge of Dutch F-35 testing told Reuters.
Colonel Albert De Smit, commander of the Netherlands operational test detachment, said the testing sought to validate that the new fifth-generation F-35s could share useable data with older F-16s and aerial refueling aircraft via the Link 16 system.

He said the results showed that during combat, the F-35 could help relay key targeting, surveillance and other data to less capable F-16s and other planes, in much the same way that the U.S. Air Force's F-22 fighter jets work with older aircraft.

"The amount of information that we can share is very promising," De Smit said in a telephone interview this week. "It provides fourth generation aircraft with information that they normally would not have ... It looks like they're going to be able to execute a better mission" if used together with F-35 jets.

He added that it could take months to fully evaluate the results of the tests, which involved two to three Dutch and British F-35s, as well as Dutch F-16s, refueling planes and a small fleet of A-4 Skyhawks posing as enemy aircraft.

The Netherlands is one of the eight countries that joined the United States in funding development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and its military is a formal part of the F-35 operational test community, along with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, as well as Britain and Australia.

The Netherlands already had two F-35 A-model jets, which are being used for the testing, and it plans to order 37 more in coming years. The planes due to go into service in 2019.

You left Rafale of your list of "electron" suckers there Ken...:ok:

LowObservable
29th Aug 2015, 12:41
Having had the opportunity this week to see the T-50 display live, I can only suggest that it has been taking gymnastic lessons from the Su-35S. Building on CM's comments, not only do the Russian operators and engineers clearly believe that maneuvering is far from irrelevant, but there seems to be a view that (at least in some circumstances) forward speed is not everything.

"Bells" and helicopter turns provide very rapid changes in direction. Sure, you lose energy - but both the T-50 and Su-35S appear to be able to regain it very quickly.

I'd also be very careful about thinking of the T-50 as an F-22 analog, let alone automatically thinking that different is worse (why should a curved duct + blocker be less efficient than a full-LOS-blocked duct?). It apparently has a full active EW system and (the evidence gets clearer every day) is emphatically not a pure air-to-air fighter.

Generally speaking, the Russians appear to be tooling up merrily to fight a different kind of war from the one that the F-35-centric Western forces expect. Our best hope may be that the wheels fall off their economy again before it comes to that.

Hempy
29th Aug 2015, 14:20
Well hopefully the F-35 is better than the T-50 at something. The T-50 is a twin, has almost twice the wing area, packs about 30,000lbs more thrust, has over twice the range and travels Mach .7 faster..

Heathrow Harry
29th Aug 2015, 16:30
and probably costs about half the F-35 as well...............

a1bill
30th Aug 2015, 02:08
CM, It just shows what I don't know. I'm not seeing the intricacies of the craft that you see. I look at the SU-30 video I put up and then look at the PAK-FA video. It looks to my uneducated eye, that it has a ways to go.

Courtney Mil
30th Aug 2015, 08:43
A1bill, I have to say that I haven't tried doing a side-by-side comparison between the various types, but if you're noticing differences in performance, three things occur to me.

First the T-50 is a a fairly early prototype with the wrong engines - impressive as they appear to be. Second, the display may have been to show that slow-speed, high-aoa awesomeness. Third, you may be seeing some of the costs of the stealthy form - the trade-off between aerodynamics and low RCS. Most likely a bit of all three.

ORAC
30th Aug 2015, 11:38
FlightGlobal: MAKS: Is Russia developing an F-35-hunting UAV? (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/maks-is-russia-developing-an-f-35-hunting-uav-416065/)

Russia could be working on a low-observable, F-35-hunting unmanned air vehicle that uses deeply-integrated electronic warfare systems to stay hidden from radars. The tip-off comes from electronic systems producer KRET, (http://kret.com/en/news/3811/) which has a curious UAV model on display at the MAKS air show in Moscow.

According to the company’s first deputy chief executive officer Vladimir Mikheev, this aircraft model is more than just a sleek promotional display – it is an advanced military UAV being developed by the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET) is a subcontractor on the project, he says, providing the fundamental communications, radar, electronic warfare and self-protection systems, as well as the ground control station.

Speaking via a translator, Mikheev tells Flightglobal that the company is involved with two military UAV projects – one in development and one in the concept phase – but both ventures of UAC. He declines to name the project and does not say which UAC design bureau is in charge, but confirms some of its key capabilities.

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=63435

Mikheev says the UAV has been designed to detect stealth aircraft in the same vein as China’s ambitious “Divine Eagle” project, which he claims is based on technology “borrowed” from Russia and the USA. Such aircraft aim to detect low-observable US combat aircraft using X-band and UHF radars, specifically the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35 and Northrop Grumman B-2. But airborne surveillance is just one of the UAV’s capabilities.

Mikheev says KRET is providing a deeply-integrated electronic warfare system that not only provides a protective electromagnetic sphere around the aircraft to counter air-to-air missiles, but also cloaks it from radars. The unmanned aircraft closely resembles Northrop’s carrier-based X-47B demonstrator, but adds two lift fans on each wing and vertical stabilisers.

Mikheev says the UAV’s avionics, radar and electronic warfare systems are derived from those being produced for the Sukhoi Su-35 multirole fighter and the Kamov Ka-50 attack helicopter. KRET is also deeply involved in the Sukhoi T-50/PAK FA fighter project.

In an article published on KRET’s website on 2 August, Mikheev says Russia has been competing with the USA in the realm of electronic warfare “for our entire lives”, and about five years ago the company decided it needed to bring in the next-era of electronic warfare systems. “Today we are talking about 15% to 20% annual growth in the direction of electronic warfare systems,” he says.

It remains to be seen whether this UAV project is just marketing or a mature development programme with similar goals to China’s Divine Eagle UAV. It would come as the stealthy F-35 enters serve as the West’s primary “first-day-of-war” combat jet.

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=63485

Bastardeux
30th Aug 2015, 15:53
The development of that and the divine eagle are, in my mind, an indication of things to come. Like I said, the development of stealth countermeasures was always going to be an inevitability; it makes me even more sceptical that we should be hinging the future of our air combat capability on it.

Courtney Mil
30th Aug 2015, 16:59
And the obvious question is, "What's the West in a similar way to counter their growing stealth capability?"

Maybe stealth against stealth means we will all end up alive at the merge!

Turbine D
30th Aug 2015, 19:03
ORAC,

Thanks for the UAV article, perhaps it will awaken some sleeping people up. In any business, shortened time to market for a new advanced product is the real edge, something that has eluded the participants in the everlasting but continuing development of the F-35. The counter play to whatever technology advantage the F-35 possesses can't be a surprise coming 15 years or more after the F-35 conception, can it?:(

peter we
30th Aug 2015, 19:09
I see the Russians have stepped up from computer rendering to persex models with flasing LED's.

What is the West to do to against this major advance in Russian model making?

Courtney Mil
30th Aug 2015, 19:21
Perspex model? I thought that was the finished product.

SARF
30th Aug 2015, 20:47
Once the whole stealth UAV blah blah etc etc ends in aerial stalemate we get back to , infantry, tanks, artillery, and trenches

Courtney Mil
30th Aug 2015, 21:39
Are you being serious, SARF?

Stealth is simply a part of the ECM/ECCM/ECCCM, etc battle that has been going on about as long as we've been using the EM spectrum. This is just another page in that book.

glad rag
31st Aug 2015, 09:00
I do understand the scepticism shown here to the above report. Those super tanks that were reported a few months ago??

However, a wise man [OK RAF Rgt instructor] once "told" me, never underestimate your enemies.

It would not be beyond reason to discover the [-]Soviet[/-] sorry, Russian, Empire to have taken a completely tangental approach to countering western LO aircraft design and COST.

peter we
31st Aug 2015, 09:37
That approach includes inventing aircraft and their abilities so the West will spend billions in countering them.

The reality is that Russia has a defense spend that a bit less than UK and France combined. The demands of its large territory complely overwhelm it.

Given its military starting point (lets call it a country stuck at 1975) of almost nothing, hugh infrastructure costs and collapsing demographics, I'm more inclined to laugh at the ridiculous claims coming from Russia, than be scared.

They don't have the people or money to do 90% of their projects. Potemkin village comes to mind...