wrightwingF35 has problems matching, let alone outfly anything, except maybe F18 and that’s not something to brag about. Late Russian models, European fighters and even latest Chinese models are sadly out of its grasp, at least according to released data.
F16 sold in 4500+ pieces, because customers got primarily an interceptor, with secondary AG capabilities and believe it or not 😀 that’s actually a correct way to build an AF.
In case you missed it on the last page, I’ll post it again.
Internal Vs. External
The F-35 was designed with an entire air campaign in mind. For “first day of the war” operations when stealth is of supreme importance, the F-35 can carry two 2,000-pound bombs (two 1,000-pound bombs for the F-35B) and two radar guided dogfight missiles internally. Critics of the F-35 have complained that this loadout is far too light for sustained combat. However, in stealth configuration, all F-35 fuel is internal, as are all sensor and targeting systems. On legacy aircraft such as the F-16, fuel, weapons, targeting pods, etc., are carried externally and their weight and drag severely hamper performance. With a full internal load of fuel and weapons, the F-35 is as agile as a “clean” F-16 carrying no weapons.
So in other words a plane that will easily turn and accelerate with an F-16, point its nose as well or better than an F-18, but with 5000lbs of weapons and full fuel.
wrightwingGuessing as always. When was that interview? Sofar no production F-35A does fly! Was it the old F-16D chase plane with central ET or the new stronger one without? Do preproduction test-planes operate with a fuel weapons-load? Did that example even carry the full fuel load for a time-limited test flight? Many important details, when just a true believer is not bothered by that. Just informed people or combat pilots are aware that a higher thrust-setting is in need to keep position in general and a chase plane is just forced to do so for obious reasons.
I never saw an inlet flying alone. Your meaning is, that an inlet was tested in a wind channel up to that speed to verify some computer estimates. Every wing design is a compromise. To get the best values in one area you do suffer in the other two ones the three main ones in mind. The max design speed of Mach 1,6 has to be demonstrated in the tropopause. To get an usefull range and endurance from the F-35 you will hardly push it to that edge of the envelope. We still have to learn what values will be accepted in the end. The F-35 is over-time and over-cost already and none will get a headache, when it does come out at ~Mach 1,5.
No, there’ve been chase planes was with the 32,500lb thrust motors having to use afterburners to keep up with an F-35 using dry thrust, with a 5000lb internal load, and ~13,000-14,000lbs of fuel, that was climbing.
wrightwingDenmark is well inside the NATO and the EU and has to face nothing at first.
In the NATO there is not shortage of high tech items compared to ordinary ground forces. Catherine Ashton will deal with politics outside Denmark at first.The speed of the F-35 is limited by the inlet-system and the wing-design, whatever thrust is installed. But some people do never learn the basics.
The gearbox does limit the speed of your car or the allowed speed of the installed tyres, whatever does set the limit f.e.To stay fair, for national air-policing a good climb-rate is more important than speed at first.
The inlet system on the F-35 has been tested at M2 though. How is the wing on the F-35 more limiting than that of an F-18?
wrightwingLOL, ok this is getting ridiculous…
Why EU buys F35?
Because of promised profit by LM and nothing else. F35 is an economically and politically motivated program and none of the JSF participants doesn’t need it, except USAF of course. This article pretty much puts things into perspective and has been posted on this forum before, but has been conveniently avoided…So far, JSF program has been a joke and LM has a combat capable aircraft yet to deliver, in spite of promising prognoses.
The thing is every country first needs to secure its own aerospace and then think of offensive actions. F35 is by no means sufficient in the former role, but designed for latter.
So “our” Denmark, will have the ability to successfully(?) perform “stealth” strikes against Germany(?), Litva(?), Russia(?) or France(?), but will at the same time defend its own aerospace with M1.6 interceptor?
LOL, so much about military justification of F35 purchase.
So your main argument is that for isolationist foreign policies, it’s not necessary to have an aircraft that’s survivable against modern air defense systems. All you need is something that’s fast, right? Forget about joint operations, or defending national interests, which might involve operations outside of one’s home airspace. It’s comical that you keep using the M1.6 figure by the way, considering the F-35 is less draggy than an F-18, and has more thrust.
wrightwingIf that was true, then right now we would find ourselves in the middle of the largest PR campaign aimed at debunking the *as good as F-16 Block 50* myth and showing the bird in true colors. The fact that we aren’t indicates that F-35 is nowhere near being able to outperform the F-16 in terms of flight performance..
There are debunking campaigns out there. I just posted a link from Air Force magazine, and there are quite a few others out there too. Do you suppose that the nations that are interested in the F-35 vs. alternatives might have some reason they’re enthusiastic, after having been privy to briefings, etc…
If people didn’t feel that the plane offered significant capabilities unavailable elsewhere, you’d see 10 or 15 nations looking at Typhoons, Rafales, etc…
wrightwingThat isn’t the point. There have been stories and claims by test pilots (not sure if it was Beesley, again) that described how the chase aircraft on afterburner had problems to cope with the Raptor on full military thrust. How come is that when suddenly all of them are similar?
We will probably never be able to prove which one performs how under given conditions but the real point is that even claims of test pilots are not to be trusted and that even these are clearly contradictory if you put them all together. If you fanboys are still taking them as Holy Bible, then OK, your problem but I most certainly won’t. End of story.
There’s also stories where a combat loaded F-35(~5000lbs internal weapon load), in dry thrust, and in a climb, caused the clean chase plane to use afterburner to keep up. They’ve even said the biggest differences are in the supersonic regime, with regard to the F-22 comparision. What they haven’t said though is what similar equates to(i.e. the X can do 85 percent of what Y can do, etc….at this speed/altitude/weight…..).
wrightwingBeesley has had a difficult PR role here because he has lived in difficult times. First years everything was concentrated on creating a marketing image of an F-22 decisively outperforming anything else in the sky. So far it was an easy job. But now, after F-22 has been put to stop and any abroad sales restricted to zero, there are potential customers banging on LM’s gate wanting to operate the flying wonder and LM are now concentrated on trying to make them satisfied with a 2nd class substitute. In order to that they need to create an image that F-35 is not at all that far from the F-22 – thus they need to put those two close together which also means remove the F-22 from the pedestal.
I think they are only two possibilities:
1. LM was lying during the F-22 campaign – the bird is nothing really exceptional and F-35 indeed clomes close
2. LM is lying in the F-35 campaign, the F-22 is indeed a class of its own and compared to that the Lightning II is a lemon which, of course, no customer wants to hearI personally incline towards option #2 if you ask me..
What about option number 3. The F-22 is exceptional as is the F-35, but LM was still trying to sell the USAF F-22s, so hyping the F-35 would’ve been counterproductive.
wrightwingWell there you have it: F-35 is specifically similar to F-22 and at the same time it is specifically similar to F-16, all in subsonic naturally.
Ergo F-22 is similar to F-16.
Well subsonic, the Typhoon, Rafale, Gripen, Flanker, and Fulcrum are probably “similar” too. Supersonic, none of them compare to the Raptor.
wrightwingShow me where he said it was combat loaded, else it’s just a technical misunderstanding of yours, only assisted by your wishful thinking.
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2009/July%202009/0709Fighter.aspx
Internal Vs. External
The F-35 was designed with an entire air campaign in mind. For “first day of the war” operations when stealth is of supreme importance, the F-35 can carry two 2,000-pound bombs (two 1,000-pound bombs for the F-35B) and two radar guided dogfight missiles internally. Critics of the F-35 have complained that this loadout is far too light for sustained combat. However, in stealth configuration, all F-35 fuel is internal, as are all sensor and targeting systems. On legacy aircraft such as the F-16, fuel, weapons, targeting pods, etc., are carried externally and their weight and drag severely hamper performance. With a full internal load of fuel and weapons, the F-35 is as agile as a “clean” F-16 carrying no weapons.
wrightwingIIRC in the interview where he stated the F-35 performs as good as a clean F-16 blk 50. With regards to the acceleration in the high subsonic regime he claimed that the performance is just short of the F-22.
So the fact that in one flight regime, a clean F-16’s performance is close(just exactly how close is unknown), one can extrapolate that the F-22 is only a marginally better performer? I’m pretty sure that’s not the point Beesley was trying to make.
wrightwingBut there is absolutely no way you or anybody else can be sure that the eventual production variant will be lighter.
Thus until an in service airframe has achieved the claimed performance it hasn’t happened. Contary to the shouty ones claims.
The production weight model is already in flight testing.
wrightwingSo you agree no real production aircraft has done it.
When they have then you can make that claim.
Until then it is just fanboy marketing hype.
No, a heavier than production aircraft has done it, so one can extrapolate that a lighter variant’s performance won’t be degraded.
wrightwingOTOH, The performance of the F-22 is only marginally better than that of the F-16, Beesley has clearly said that.
When did Beesley ever describe the F-22’s performance as only marginally better than anything?
wrightwingI did not say that the reason for a possible invasion will be an economical weakness.
And you are not missing “the obvious”.
It’s more of a feeling/intuition and I cannot support that with arguments. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m not. We’ll see what’ll happen in the future..
So sorry, I’m going to end this offtopic talk since it will only end in a flamewar/bashing.Just disregard my previous post and please stay on topic 😉
IT–
Exactly what country is going to invade the USA, and by what means? There’s no Navy that’s going to get near the coast, without being sent to the bottom.
wrightwingHmm! The F-22 could have been carrying reflectors but them again it may not have been anyway the physics still shows the F-22 would still be detectable at a decent range with an L-band radar and a powerful X-band radar. This could have happened and could have happened without the radar reflectors as I’m sure the USAF would always like to gather data on the aircraft as well as foreign radar systems. The F-22 design is designed to help hide it from enemy fighter radars rather than far more powerful ship based radars. Not to mention you could always look for the moving hole in the clutter like the lovely radar operators onboard Type 42’s in the Gulf in 1991.
The F-22 isn’t just designed to hide from fighter radars. It’s designed to hide from S-300/400s, AWACs, etc…
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