http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/09/25/

Andrew Hoehn, Director of RAND Project Air Force, made the following statement today:

“Recently, articles have appeared in the Australian press with assertions regarding a war game in which analysts from the RAND Corporation were involved. Those reports are not accurate. RAND did not present any analysis at the war game relating to the performance of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, nor did the game attempt detailed adjudication of air-to-air combat. Neither the game nor the assessments by RAND in support of the game undertook any comparison of the fighting qualities of particular fighter aircraft.”

so . . . is this supposed RAND report a fabrication? and if so, who fabricated it?

The F-35 will be a good fighter

quoted for posterity 😉

and of course the F-35 has a lot of flight testing to do with actual combat systems on board. Still a ways off.

well yeah, not scheduled to be in service for a few years yet, that’s sort of a given

And of course there is a lot to discover :dev2: in real flight testing.

good thing it has the largest flight test program in history

Consider too that the AMRAAM has about a 50% kill rate in combat vs. aircraft that didn’t have proper jamming gear or working radars. What will the PK of the missile be vs. a first team player?

1. amraam has come a long ways
2. what will be the PK of any opponent vs it?

Given what we currently know, the F-35 if it gets into WVR will be less than parity vs. a big SU.

why’s that?

Then of course there is the fantasy that the F-35 will somehow be great against double-digit Ru-Tech SAMs in the coming years. An interesting claim as the jet doesn’t have the height or super-cruise ability of an F-22.

neither of which are particularly effective against good SAMs (we gave up the height+speed battle with the SR-71)

And well while we are talking survivability… the Buick-of-Stealth won’t be the antenna farm AN-ALR-94 quality of an F-22.

. . . which you really wouldn’t be using in stealth mode anyways (LPI mode uh-huh)

And while nose-on the F-35 will be stealthy. Depending on the export-customer combat ability of the aircraft might be inhibited some.

1. maybe, maybe not
2. which stealthier alternative would you propose?

I am all for the F-35…. if it proves itself.

this must be an impostor, who are you and what have you done with our ELP!

However the hype coming out of LM/Pentagon is amusing at best. “Please buy our product”…

Just remember, the goal of LM is to make money.

just like every other defense contractor in the world . . . .

however to make money they must make sales

and to make sales, they must convince the buyer that their claims are credible

given the massive buy-in from the Pentagon, it’s safe to assume they must find LockMart’s claims at least somewhat plausible

lobbying is great, but will only get you so far without the tech to backup your talk

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080919/laf037.html?.v=101

Setting the Record Straight on F-35
Friday September 19, 3:46 pm ET

FORT WORTH, Texas, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — U.S. Air Force analyses show the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT – News) F-35 Lightning II is at least 400 percent more effective in air-to-air combat capability than the best fighters currently available in the international market.

The Air Force’s standard air-to-air engagement analysis model, also used by allied air forces to assess air-combat performance, pitted the 5th generation F-35 against all advanced 4th generation fighters in a variety of simulated scenarios. The results were clear: the F-35 outperformed the most highly evolved fighters in aerial combat by significant margins.

“In all F-35 Program Office and U.S. Air Force air-to-air combat effectiveness analysis to date, the F-35 enjoys a significant Combat Loss Exchange Ratio advantage over the current and future air-to-air threats, to include Sukhois,” said Maj. Gen. Charles R. Davis, F-35 program executive officer.

Recent claims that Russian fighters defeated F-35s in a Hawaii-based simulated combat exercise are untrue, according to Maj. Gen. Davis.

“The reports are completely false and misleading and have absolutely no basis in fact,” Maj. Gen. Davis said. “The August 2008 Pacific Vision Wargame that has been referenced recently in the media did not even address air-to-air combat effectiveness. The F-35 is required to be able to effectively defeat current and projected air-to-air threats. All available information, at the highest classification, indicates that F-35 is effectively meeting these aggressive operational challenges.”

The Pacific Vision Wargame was a table-top exercise designed to assess basing and force-structure vulnerabilities, and did not include air-to-air combat exercises or any comparisons of different aircraft platforms.

Other erroneous allegations about the program were recently made in a letter distributed and written by industry-watchers Winston Wheeler and Pierre Sprey.

“It’s not clear why they attacked the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program,” said Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin executive vice president of F-35 program integration. “It is clear they don’t understand the underlying requirements of the F-35 program, the capabilities needed to meet those requirements or the real programmatic performance of the JSF team.”

<br />
Here are the facts:<br />
-- The F-35 is a racehorse, not a "dog," as Wheeler/Sprey suggest. In<br />
stealth combat configuration, the [B]F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all<br />
other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed[/B],<br />
loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius. This allows<br />
unprecedented "see/shoot first" and combat radius advantages.<br />
-- The high thrust-to-weight ratios of the lightweight fighter program<br />
Wheeler/Sprey recall from 30 years ago did not take into consideration<br />
combat-range fuel, sensors or armament, which dramatically alter wing<br />
loading, thrust-to-weight ratios and maneuverability. We do consider<br />
all of this in today's fighters.<br />
-- The F-35 has the most powerful engine ever installed in a fighter, with<br />
thrust equivalent to both engines today in Eurofighter or F/A-18<br />
aircraft. The conventional version of the F-35 has 9g capability and<br />
matches the turn rates of the F-16 and F/A-18. More importantly, in a<br />
combat load, with all fuel, targeting sensor pods and weapons carried<br />
internally, the F-35's aerodynamic performance far exceeds all legacy<br />
aircraft equipped with a similar capability.<br />
-- When the threat situation diminishes so that it is safe for legacy<br />
aircraft to participate in the fight, the F-35 can also carry ordnance<br />
on six external wing stations in addition to its four internal<br />
stations.</p>
<p> Other important facts:<br />
-- External weapon clearance is part of the current F-35 test program.<br />
-- The government has already proven that no other aircraft can survive<br />
against the 5th generation stealth that only the F-22 and the F-35<br />
possess; it is impossible to add this stealth to fourth-generation<br />
fighters.<br />
-- The F-35's data collection, integration and information sharing<br />
capabilities will transform the battlespace of the future and will<br />
redefine the close air support mission. The F-35 is specifically<br />
designed to take advantage of lessons learned from the F-117 stealth<br />
aircraft. Unlike the F-117, the ability to share tactically important<br />
information is built into the F-35, along with stealth.<br />
-- F-35 is developing, testing, and fielding mature software years ahead<br />
of legacy programs, further reducing development risk. The F-35's<br />
advanced software, already flying on two test aircraft with remarkable<br />
stability, is demonstrating the advantages of developing highly-common,<br />
tri-variant aircraft. The software developed span the entire aircraft<br />
and support systems including the aircraft itself, logistics systems,<br />
flight and maintenance trainers, maintenance information system and<br />
flight-test instrumentation.<br />
-- Rather than relying exclusively on flight testing, the F-35 is retiring<br />
development risk through the most comprehensive laboratories, sensor<br />
test beds, and integrated full-fusion flying test bed ever created for<br />
an aircraft program. Representing only 25% of our verification plans,<br />
still the F-35's flight test program is comparable in hours to the<br />
combined flight test programs of the three primary U.S. aircraft it<br />
will replace.<br />
-- The F-35 is one aircraft program designed to replace many different<br />
types of aircraft around the world -- F-16, F/A-18, F-117, A-10, AV-8B,<br />
Sea Harrier, GR.7, F-111 and Tornado -- flown by 14 air forces.<br />
-- In addition to 19 developmental test aircraft, the F-35 is producing 20<br />
fully instrumented, production-configured operational test aircraft. No<br />
program in history has employed this many test vehicles.

“Simply put, advanced stealth and sensor fusion allow the F-35 pilot to see, target and destroy the adversary and strategic targets in a very high surface-to-air threat scenario, and deal with air threats intent on denying access — all before the F-35 is ever detected, then return safely to do it again,” said Burbage.

The F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5th generation stealth fighter. Three F-35 variants derived from a common design, developed together and using the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter program in history. Two F-35s have entered flight test, two are in ground test, and 17 are in various stages of assembly, including the first two production-model jets scheduled for delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2010.

more info on Pacific Vision

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.singapore/msg/415f6409333a8bde

If you are refering to “Pacific Vision”, you need to understand that
with any fighter aircraft, it can be operated in a manner that puts it
at an advantage or a disadvantage. One of the basic parts of the art
is to operate your aircraft to obtain the best from it.

Pacific Vision had engagement scenarios that took away the advantages
of the JSF in low observability and BVR engagement by requiring visual
ID of targets before engagement. A similar set of parameters in the
development of the F-15 in the early seventies also assessed no
advantage to the F-15 versus the MiG-21.

These are not real world scenarios and do not reflect the merits of
the aircraft. In the real world, the JSF has the capability to
identify the MiGs and Sukhois in this scenario BVR and destroy them
long before they are even aware that an engagment has commenced.

The JSF is not intended for close in ACM in the air superiority role.
As its name suggests, it is a strike fighter, not an air superiority
fighter. Nonetheless, in the real world, against the adverseries in
Pacific Vision, you could reasonably expect the adverseries to be
destroyed before they knew what was happening. This is very
different from the Pacific Vision scenario, which only looks at close
range dog fighting. Double-Inferior is a fair description for it in
that role.

But that is not the aircrafts role, and the ability of the JSF to
destroy such adverseries long before they get to that range means that
only limited conclusions should be drawn from Pacific Vision.

Beyond that, your assertion that the JSF “will be the main line of
defence of Singapore sky” is mistaken. The JSF is being purchased
for the strike role, whilst the F-15SG is for the air superiority
role. The JSF is intended to be a second tier in the air defence
strategy, not the first tier.

Nonetheless, its real world capabilities make it a powerful addition
to Singapores Air Defence.

Remember, it was never intended to be a dog fighter – the scenario in
Pacific Vision is the equivalent of someone with a gun going against
someone armed with a knife and then deciding to drop the gun so that
they can have a knife fight. Sensible people don’t do that in the
real world.

Cheers,

Paul Saccani

anyone have additional info on this?

New Aussie fighter ‘clubbed like seal’

http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-aussie-fighter-clubbed-like-seal-20080911-4e6b.html

The JSF jets, for which Australia is likely to pay $16 billion, were comprehensively beaten in highly classified simulated dogfights against Russian-built Sukhoi fighter aircraft, it has been reported.

The war games, conducted at Hawaii’s Hickam airbase last month, were witnessed by at least four RAAF personnel and a member of Australia’s peak military spy agency, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, The West Australian said.

somehow i feel we’re not being told the whole story

1. full GAO report

http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/311344.htm

2. Pentagon to give GAO the finger?

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004267.html

Senior Pentagon and Air Force officials who have read the full 67-page report about the tanker bid by the Government Accountability Office think they can still grant a contract before the end of the Bush Administration. John Young, the Pentagon’s acquisition czar, has reportedly drafted a letter for the four congressional committees that oversee defense spending and policy informing them of the Pentagon’s decision to go ahead and award the contract to Northrop Grumman.

😮

if they try this, i’ll give their odds of success as slightly higher than china establishing full diplomatic relations with taiwan as a free and fully independent country