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Significance of the "Leaked" F-35 vs. F-16 Report ?
I have seen the leaked F-35 test pilot report of his dogfight with a standard service configured F-16D Block 40 discussed everywhere from the Huffington Post to Mother's Weekly, but there is only one source I trust for expert opinions - this one.
So, without injecting my own unprofessional thoughts on the significance/insignificance of this encounter I would hope that I can encourage you to pitch in with your take. For reference, here is what we know in addition to some questionable editorial comments. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/tes...ht-cdb9d11a875 |
an ex-f-16 pilot has an opinion
Why The "F-35 v F-16" Article Is Garbage | Fighter Sweep Is the F-35 the worst fighter ever? | Fighter Sweep |
You're kidding, right?
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You trust the WIBbler?!!!???
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Oh my! (Am I infringing copyright?)
Sorry, Fons - you ask a simple question and get two citations, one of which rendered judgment without the inconvenience of reading the leaked report, and a pure ad hominem dismissal. But basically, if you believed the stories of how the F-35 was better in all respects than anything else (except F-22 in A2A), prepare to be disappointed. |
Perhaps he knows the test pilot or he read the article from last April? LO, You can slag off an ex-F-16 and current FA-18 pilot if you like. But it doesn't have any currency with me. http://aviationweek.com/defense/f-35...hter-maneuvers
Why would anyone be disappointed with testing and recommending improvements on early Flight Control Laws, LO? I haven't seen anyone credable say that the F-35 isn't second to the F-22 and claim another platform is second in A2A. As the pilot said. http://fightersweep.com/2574/f-35-vs...ting-thoughts/ http://fightersweep.com/wp-content/u...68120698_n.jpg The report is available to read and it is self-evident what is stated. http://aviationweek.com/site-files/a...0Maneuvers.pdf CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS -The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a turning fight and operators would quickly learn that it isn't an ideal regime. Pitch rates were too slow to prosecute or deny weapons. Loads remained below limits and implied that there may be more maneuverability available to the airframe. Rl: Increasing pitch rate and available Nz would provide the pilot more options, especially considering the inherent energy deficit. -Though the aircraft has proven it is capable of high AOA flight, it wasn't effective for killing or surviving attacks primarily due to lack of energy maneuverability. Perhaps, with a faster AOA onset, there may be some advantages to choosing higher alpha when fighting a bandit. R2: Consider increasing alpha onset. -The high AOA blended region was not predictable primarily because it seemed too close to the ideal fighting AOAs and not intuitively "high" to the pilot while he remained focusing on the bandit rather than the displayed AOA. R3: Consider increasing the beginning of the blended region to 30 degrees or greater. -Significant anti-spin control authority has been demonstrated on this and other high AOA flights. The effect is abrupt, responsive, and powerful whereas pilot input seems to be sluggish and gradual. R4: Consider increasing pilot yaw rate control authority. -HMO and canopy configuration is detrimental to visual lookout. The combination should be evaluated to see if it can be improved. HMO BST FAULTs can prevent weapons employment during maneuvering. R5: Improve HMO Boresight performance to account for dynamic maneuvers and consider improving rearward visibility by creating more space for helmet motion. |
The recommendations are all well and good. They may alleviate the effects of the deficiency in energy maneuverability (by making some high-AoA maneuvers use less energy) but they do not reduce or eliminate that deficiency.
I'm aware that Lemoine is a pilot, but his secondary defense of the F-35 - that it will win in BVR without having to maneuver aggressively - is based on no better information than anyone else has, and an apparent faith in secret-squirrel capabilities that he imputes to the F-35 alone. On the other hand, he appears conflicted: We have sold out our fighting capability on many levels for the F-35. |
Although it's not clear what he's referring to. Most pilots can't help thinking in 4th gen, as this FA-18 pilot found when he transferred to the f-22.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0 |
think outside the box?
Very interesting and informative talk.
Certainly makes me much more comfortable when i think about the F-35 now. Great link, thanks. |
A few quotes from David "Chip" Berke (a USMC pilot with F/A-18, F-16, F-22, F-35 and Typhoon experience.)
4th Gen Rule 1: "Speed is life and more is better" 5th Gen Rule 1: "Info is life and more is better" If you are measuring an airplane by speed and agility, you are misunderstanding the capabilities of an airplane in a 5th Generation fight. The Raptor has more speed and maneuverability than any other fighter. Yet the LEAST impressive feature of the Raptor is its speed and manueverability. Speed and maneuverability are the LAST thing I am concerned about in a 5th Gen fight. Innovation takes time and it is painful and expensive, but it is absolutely essential in a 5th Gen fight. And when talking 5th Gen, that means 2020 to 2025, not today. We aren't there yet operationally. If you are thinking in 4th Gen terms, you are old, you are behind, you are late, and you will lose. It is not just about the role, it is about the potential. The F-35 facilitates an entirely new war fighting ecosystem in the same way that the iPhone created an entirely new mobile device ecosystem. If you think of the iPhone as a phone that happens to play music and access the internet, you are old, you are behind, you are late, and you will lose. If you think of the F-35 as a fighter that happens to be stealthy and interconnected, you are old, you are behind, you are late, and you will lose. F-35 must be viewed is a sensor/collaborator/shooter platform. 4th Gen air warfare is about airplane dominance. 5th Gen air warfare is about spectrum dominance. F-35 is an overwhelming advancement in breadth and depth of spectrum. Stealth means access, not just reduced detection, so that WE dictate access, not the threat The presence of 5th Gen fighters makes 4th Gen fighters more lethal and survivable. F-35's innovation is not what it does by itself, but what it contributes beyond the aircraft. It is critically important to understand what it means to be part of a 5th Gen ecosystem. Equally important is understanding what it means to be excluded from it. ======= That last line may be why so many nations are buying F-35, even though it's expensive. They understand what it means to be excluded from the 5th Gen fight and really want to be part of that fight. My personal bottom line summary: You cannot use 4th Gen rules nor a 4th Gen pilot mindset to fight a 5th Gen fight. Do so and you are old, you are behind, you are late, and you will lose. May I suggest that we seem to have lots of folks here permanently stuck in a 4th Gen mindset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0 |
@a1bill:
From the recommendations listed in your post, I gather that some of the performance improvements suggested can be achieved by tuning the FBW system and the associated control rates/gains, rather than a redesign of the airframe? Am I reading that correctly? |
Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50
(Post 9065014)
@a1bill:
From the recommendations listed in your post, I gather that some of the performance improvements suggested can be achieved by tuning the FBW system and the associated control rates/gains, rather than a redesign of the airframe? Am I reading that correctly? Hopefully correct and not some LM pr misinformation... |
Surely the test was done for a reason. Doesn't this make all the "you are old and stuck in your ways" stuff a bit irrelevant? Why bother to test or improve something that doesn't matter?
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Hopefully correct and not some LM pr misinformation... |
F35 Performance
Has anyone else seen an interesting dichotomy between this thread and the T-X thread? Here we are discussing the future mainstay of the USAF FJ fleet and how terrible it is in terms of manoeuvrability. On the other thread we are discussing how the USAF has asked for a training aircraft that can sustain 6.5G at 15000' (in a descent).
If the F35 is as terrible as we are led to believe why do they need a trainer to do any more than about 3G?! Rather than just sh1t stirring without offering my own thoughts, here they are. I don't think a 5th gen fighter needs to be the bees knees in a dogfight but it wouldn't do any harm to have that ability up your sleeve should you need it. I do not think the F35 is the white elephant everyone wants to believe it is. Once it has achieved maturity and we actually get to see more of what it is really capable of, we will probably all be talking about what an awesome machine it is. As always though, I could be wrong. It has been known. Very rarely. BV:ok: PS. I would still prefer that we had bought the F35C but that is water under the bridge now. |
Surely the test was done for a reason. Doesn't this make all the "you are old and stuck in your ways" stuff a bit irrelevant? Why bother to test or improve something that doesn't matter? |
This inevitably makes me wonder what type of noises will be coming out of the UK once their squadron F-35 pilots start to engage in exercises with the squadron Typhoon pilots.
That should prove interesting. |
That's a tremendous video link.
WWW |
Originally Posted by Fonsini
(Post 9065455)
This inevitably makes me wonder what type of noises will be coming out of the UK once their squadron F-35 pilots start to engage in exercises with the squadron Typhoon pilots.
That should prove interesting. |
Asserting that concern over apparently inferior energy maneuverability is old hat is just that - assertion. It's a pretty radical claim, and can't be made real with verbiage about iPhones and information dominance. Indeed, if it's true, then the YF-23 should have been chosen over the YF-22, the JSF should have been made a tailless delta, and we should actually be building a fighter that looks like an X-47.
It's funny, however, that the "maneuvering is irrelevant" line only popped out in public in 2008, after the F-35A had packed on an extra 2700 pounds of ugly surplus fat in its early development stage. |
LO
I'm going to choose, for now, to believe the assertions of the Marine with the stellar CV rather than the naysayers with less stellar cvs..... |
Goodonya mate. It's your choice.
PS, who was right back in 09 or whatever, when LM and the JPO and the rest said that the project was abso-diddley-utely on schedule and cost? |
Everyone should go easy for a week or so, there may be hurt feelings. Now that the plane that we all were told that was going to be cancelled on a weekly basis, is IOC.
If a F-35 pilot finds himself in a one on one dogfight. He has made so many mistakes to get there, he deserves to die. But a 1 VS 1, guns only, turning dogfight would be better with the F-35C. |
Doesn't this make all the "you are old and stuck in your ways" stuff a bit irrelevant? Why bother to test or improve something that doesn't matter? I think it might be worth noting that iPhones were far faster and more powerful in general than other phones of the era BTW. Much higher performance, not less. |
LO
I never saw a video of the that Marine saying all was right in the program at that time. I distrust LM as much as the rest of you. It is knowledgable operators I trust. t43562 iPhone certainly has some metrics you could use to make it seem bad in comparison to older generation phones. At the time, "faster" was not even a metric associated with phones. Phones made calls. What had speed got to do with it? It is only in hindsight that we realised what faster even was. Battery Life? If he is right about the revolution in Gen 5, then iPhone may indeed be a very clever analogy. |
Battery Life? If he is right about the revolution in Gen 5, then iPhone may indeed be a very clever analogy. |
Originally Posted by a1bill
If a F-35 pilot finds himself in a one on one dogfight. He has made so many mistakes to get there, he deserves to die.
The pilot **deserves** to die because he got caught in a WVR fight? What is a pilot? A convicted criminal? What if he is forced to fight defensively (escort eg.), or the time to respond is very short, or the A.O. is very small, or...? What if he tries to disengage (even from BVR), but the problematic S.E.P. doesn't make it easy for him? Your rhetoric is completely inappropriate and offensive. Now, before this degenerates into another 'but, but, but, F35 ... 188:1 ... kill ratio" debate, I'd like to point out that I don't know how will the F35 fare in air combat and it may yet achieve an unprecedented effectiveness. However, at this point it's rather clear that its S.E.P. being what it is, won't help winning many power demanding fights and I just can't understand why 'Die-hard V6.0' fans (and for some reason LM, as well) are still insisting on its superlative flight performance? |
it was paraphrased, but would the quote help?
What's the operational impact of reducing the F-35's performance specs? - The DEW Line “The advantage of the F-35 is a result of being a 5thgeneration platform and an evolution in technology. Stealth characteristics and sensor fusion will enable it toget in to a target relatively undetected, have the ability to strike a groundasset or engage an enemy and exit the scenario without the threat even knowingit was there,” Toth says. “We will continue to work, as the system comes online,to develop tactics that take advantage of the 5th generation capability muchlike specific tactics were developed for the F-22, different from fourthgeneration platforms.” Those tactics will inevitably emphasize beyond visual range combat. “Between [the AIM-9X], DAS[distributed aperture system] and the helmet, you deserve to die if you take this thing to the merge,” |
Originally Posted by a1bill
it was paraphrased
They speaks volumes of people telling them, but not in a positive way. |
Isn't this a bit of a strawman argument though. I don't have any experience to claim but I do read a lot that it's energy that matters But in a 5th Gen fight, rule #1 changes. It becomes "info is life and more is better". That's the whole point of 5th Gen. It purposely changes the rules. Hopefully in your favor. "Failure" would be quite a bad thing even if you take away "Abysmal", surely? |
I can't really see why other aircraft can't acquire information too, however. e.g. the Gripen. And no matter how much you improve and integrate the systems on the old airplane, you still don't have stealth (and not just RF stealth). If you want the whole 5th Gen enchilada, you have to buy a true 5th Gen airplane, not a 4th Gen airplane with some 5th Gen systems. Having said all that, I'm a USN guy and I'm an advocate of USN putting many 5th Gen systems in the Super Hornet, especially MALD (the high bandwidth datalink) and an upgraded HMD to display all the new data now available to the Hornet. And keep in mind what Berke said: the presence of 5th Gen aircraft makes 4th Gen aircraft more lethal and more effective. That's why USN will for the next few decades have more Super Hornets than F-35s. I'm reasonably confident that those older Hornets will have many F-35/5th Gen systems back fitted into them. |
And (predictably) the cost (acquisition and support) of Gripen NG is MUCH higher than the cost of early Gripen.
Not according to Saab or the Swedish air force, who have consistently stated that the E is less costly than the C/D, but if you have evidence for the above, please produce it. (Comparing full-package export deals to earlier domestic sales does not count.) And keep in mind that the F-35 program paid for the development of those info systems. Yes, Lockheed Martin handed out fat contracts to Saab for integration, core avionics and EW, and to Selex for the radar, IRST and IFF - evidence for which you will now supply, I'm sure. Saab has bought comms hardware from Rockwell Collins, but RC does not play that role in F-35. But at what cost? And when will it deliver? One-third, and much more quickly. |
What is 5th Generation
This debate could be seen as what is the definition of 5th Generation.
Putting the, when eventually working, sensor and integration suites from an F35 into an F15 or F18 would, subject to radar installation etc, give a plane with very good Situational Awareness, in a proven airframe with a proven set of weapon systems. If it is the SA that gives the new 5th Generation plane the advantage that it has, a solution such as this would in my view by a far more economic and fit for purpose solution for a country looking for an air policing solution. I personally fail to see the attraction of a fairly slow, invisible to attackers radar, with a small internal weapons carriage capacity air defence interceptor. Surely an F15 fitted out with an F35 style sensor suite, integration engine and communications suite would be not far off an F22, or have I missed a total trick? |
5th Gen Mindset v 4th Gen Aircraft.
Surely it is cheaper to remove the 5th Gen functionality and then fight with more capable 4th Gen aircraft. By that I mean if the "game-changer" of the F-35 is its "interconnectability" then opponents will be better off spending money denying that ability and then defeating it with better handling aircraft. |
Not according to Saab or the Swedish air force, who have consistently stated that the E is less costly than the C/D, but if you have evidence for the above, please produce it. Source: Kleja, Monica (11 December 2012), "Svensk Gripen E påstås dyrare än schweizisk" [Swedish Gripen E allegedly more expensive than the Swiss one], NyTeknik (in Swedish) (SE). NOTE: that was a 2012 estimate. Nearly three years have passed and nothing in the military airplane world gets cheaper with time. If anyone truly believes a manufacturer can put a more powerful engine, a much more advanced radar, more fuel capacity, more strength, more weapons, etc, etc into a fighter not only for free, but for "less" cost, then it would appear that someone has truly drunk the kool aid. Yes, Lockheed Martin handed out fat contracts to Saab for integration, core avionics and EW, and to Selex for the radar, IRST and IFF I was referencing the F-35's systems. The Gripen E moves in the 5th Gen direction, but it is still far from a 5th Gen fighter and farther still from a non stealthy F-35. It remains a 4th Gen fighter with more advanced 4th Gen systems, just as Typhoon Tranche 2, Block 15+ is still very much a 4th Gen fighter. If someone was going to turn a Gripen into a non-stealthy F-35 as was suggested, they'd need to put the F-35's systems into that airplane. And development of those systems was paid for by F-35. And the price of those systems plus the cost of integrating those system in the Gripen would take lots of money and quite a bit of time. I am confident that there is no way this could be done at "one-third" the price and "much more quickly" than the F-35. |
By that I mean if the "game-changer" of the F-35 is its "interconnectability" then opponents will be better off spending money denying that ability and then defeating it with better handling aircraft. |
Ken - The quote you cite about increased costs is found nowhere in your link, which is a Swedish media source citing a Swiss TV station in a campaign that was rife with disinformation. Your quote is from Wikipedia and, moreover, does not specify that the increase was over earlier Gripen versions, which was your original claim.
Sigh. Oh my, &c. |
Figures released by Saab show a 60% reduction in Gripen NG development costs when compared with the original estimate. Gripen E development is also currently being undertaken to a 60% cost level when compared with the 2009 estimate for the programme.
Saab aims to bring this down still further to 50% by the time most of the development is completed in 2016/17, and according to Saab, the Gripen E will have cost EUR1.5 billion to develop - 30% to 50% cheaper than the Gripen C/D was. They call this 'breaking the cost curve', though having not independently audited their figures I can't vouch for their provenance. |
Saab aims to bring this down still further to 50% by the time most of the development is completed in 2016/17, and according to Saab, the Gripen E will have cost EUR1.5 billion to develop - 30% to 50% cheaper than the Gripen C/D was. |
Surely an F15 fitted out with an F35 style sensor suite, integration engine and communications suite would be not far off an F22, I personally think USN should at least look into such an upgrade, and who knows, maybe they will. On the other hand, if USN developed such an upgrade, that could be used against them to cut off funding for USN's F-35C buy. And USN is keen on getting at least several squadrons' worth of F-35s because they really want to get a stealth jet on their carriers. Maybe once the USN F-35 buy is locked in they'll look at upgrading their Super Hornets. Who knows? |
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