wrightwingBetter post!
External stores would not make much difference in an WVR fight, assuming the F-35 is carring the same load of ATA stores. Then, as posted previous the HMS, ASRAAM/IRIS-T, IRST, superior acceleration etc… will take care of the F-35 in WVR. Now there is alot of specualtion, of course, anything could happed in a WVR fight, but you have to look at reality and what we know!
The external stores would make a difference in WVR. You’d suffer more drag penalties in sustained turns. Your roll rate would be slower. Your acceleration would be slower. The F-35 with combat load, flies like a clean late model F-16(not a combat loaded F-16). That’s the takeaway here.
The typhoon, as does the Rafale and gripen, uses 100% sensor fusion. You want to explain how the Situational awareness is vastly superior?
The F-35 has far greater passive SA due to the DAS, and significant ESM suite. I’m not sure how its EOTS compares with the Typhoon/Rafale, etc…
The APG-81 would be another area where the F-35 would enjoy advantages in SA
wrightwingTo operate missions with external stores the much cheaper F-16 is still good enough. 😀
As long as it doesn’t have to operate around S-300/400s. The F-100 would be good enough against insurgents, but I wouldn’t want to enter well defended airspace in one.
wrightwingThe Russians have more money right now to spend than America LOL.
Not with oil prices down they don’t.:rolleyes:
wrightwingF-15A and C have been limited to 7.33 Gs since the beginning.
The As were 7.33, and the Cs were 9g.
wrightwingThat’d definitely be a double-brown-bagger. 😮
Not as bad as a 2 seat F-32 would’ve been though.:eek:
wrightwingThe good ol’ paralay/saturn drawing. You know, I really like that design. It has it’s Sukhoi heritage while being truly fifth gen. 🙂
It looks like cross between the F-22 and F-23 though,with it being larger rather than smaller than the Raptor, which seems to be the general understanding.
wrightwingWell, considering the structual problems they have had over the last couple of years. I don’t know if they could have taken the power of the F-110-GE-132???:confused:
It was my understanding that they’ve inspected the fleet to see if it was an inherent problem, or limited to certain Blk/Lots. Now that the -Cs are no longer grounded, I think that isn’t as much of an issue(i.e. the ones with problems being retired). That would certainly help keep the Eagle’s talons sharp(along with the APG-63 (v)3, etc…
wrightwingThe F-16E is the last batch of F-16s in the Fighting Falcon production, already the F-35 is going to replace it.
The F-110-GE-132 can still re-engine earlier blocks of F-16s.In the general race for ultra powerful engines the americans are still leading that technological race.
It’d be nice if the F-15Cs that will remain in service, got the -132 engines as well.
wrightwingWe may even get a chance to see how effective its ejection seat is, at an airshow.:cool:
wrightwingWhat’s the power difference between the two? The thought the 132 made somewhere in the 32,000 lbs mark…………….
29,000lb(-129) vs 32,500lb(-132) thrust would be the ball park difference in thrust rating.
wrightwingPFCEM
No-one would deny the extraordinary capability of the F-35 as a ‘day one, kick down the door’ bomber, but when operating with external stores, the F-35 becomes a slow, draggy aircraft, with few advantages over Typhoon/Rafale/Gripen NG/F-15SG, etc., and some disadvantages.
What exactly are the speed/range trade offs when the F-35 is carrying external stores? I haven’t seen any figures published, where comparisons have been made.:rolleyes:
You list a number of areas where you deny specific Typhoon advantages, using DOES NOT and WILL NOT in caps for emphasis. In every case you are wrong, despite your caps.
1) The Typhoon DOES offer better air defence capability.
It’s faster, faster climbing, quicker accelerating, with better supersonic agility, longer radar and missile range (especially at azimuth limits). It has a helmet sight, an excellent IRST, and better MMI, with DVI. There are, of course, scenarios, in which F-35 stealth would be a decider….
I don’t doubt that the Typhoon has a faster top speed, but we simply don’t know what the other performance aspects of the F-35 are yet. According to the test pilots, it accelerates and climbs very well.
As for avionics/MMI being superior, I’m a bit skeptical. The Captor may have some azimuth advantages due to the MSA being able to swivel. There’s no way it has a faster scan rate over the available azimuth/elevation ranges, that the F-35 has. What’s the Captor’s LPI capabilities vs. the APG-81? EA/Jamming? Detection/tracking range/number of simultaneous tracks/simultaneous targetting of A/A and A/G targets?
The F-35 also has a helmet sight, along with the DAS/EOTS passive IR systems, and an extensive ESM system, for passive engagements/ISR.
2) The Typhoon DOES offer greater combat persistence.
It carries more AAMs than F-35, and can stay on CAP longer.
It does carry more AAMs, if the F-35 is in stealth configuration. What’s its relative survivability vs. the F-35 though, in terms of using all of those AAMs(aside from perhaps ripple firing)? If the F-35 is in non-stealth configuration, it can carry more, and it starts off with a lower RCS(and powerful self protection ECM abilities).
8) The Typhoon carries more useful mixed loads, and has a better A-A capability, and so WILL promise better swing role capability.
9) The Typhoon WILL carry a large number of weapons that JSF can not carry internally, and so cannot carry in the only configuration where it offers any advantage over non-stealthy platforms.
The Typhoon WILL be able to defeat the threat of a developed ‘Flanker’ more often, with a better exchange ratio than JSF.
None of your advantages address survivability. Flexibility is nice, but you have to survive long enough to take advantage. What are the Typhoon’s survival rates vs. the F-35 when operating in areas where S-300/400, etc.. are present? The Typhoon relies more heavily on stand off weapons in this situation. I also think you’re prematurely maligning the F-35’s raw performance, when you say that’s its only advantages are when in stealth configuration.
The Typhoon is a fantastic plane, with a lot of great capabilities, but it has a lot of limitations too. It’ll be a much better plane(than current specs) if and when it gets to the Tranche 3 standard. As is, its A/G capabilities aren’t even as good as the Rafale, much less what the F-35 will have.
wrightwingJust out of curiosity- I hear a lot of criticism about the frontal drag of the F-22/F-35, due to them having internal bays(though I have yet to see any drag coefficient #s produced, relative to legacy designs). Would it not stand to reason that if the PAK FA has weapon bays large enough to accomodate 8 tons of weapons, to includes missiles the size of the KS-172, that it’d have a huge drag penalty(or is this critique only applicable to US aircraft?)
wrightwingEAST HARTFORD, Conn., November 25, 2008 – Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine successfully completed its first supersonic flight, reaching a top speed of Mach 1.05, or about 680 miles per hour. The first supersonic flight is a significant program milestone demonstrating the capability and performance of the F135 engine. 😎
What a achievement in 2008?! Did exspect someone something less from present technology? 😮
In 1947 that could have been claimed as a real news. 😀
I don’t think the important takeaway here is that the F-35 was able to achieve M 1.05. It’s a testing milestone, with future tests being conducted at even higher speeds. The transonic to supersonic region is the trickiest area though, therefore you’d want a good knowledge base on the characteristics in this flight regime.
wrightwingActually the PL-12 has seriously closed the gap if the AFA video is correct, and the PL-12 mod is almost right there with the C7. Also there are new SRAAMs in development.
http://www.sinodefence.com/weapons/missile/pl12.asp
“The PL-12 has possibly adopted the AMR-1 active radar seeker developed by CAAAM in the late 1990s. Unconfirmed reports suggested the AMR-1 development was assisted by Russian Agat Bureau, the designer of the R-77’s seeker. There is also report suggesting that the PL-12 contains some elements of the Israeli Derby MRAAM technology. The PL-12 is powered by a Chinese-designed motor giving a maximum range of 70km and speed of Mach 4. The missile was claimed to be more manoeuvrable than the Russian R-77, and approach the U.S. AIM-120A in general performance.”
There’s a BIG difference between the A, and the C7(or D for that matter). There’s no mention of how the missile performs in heavy ECM, what the reliability is, etc…
wrightwingwith less drag is just speculative if you do not have a graph, personally i do not think the F-15 has more drag, its design is optimised for Mach 2.5 and like the MiG-25 they do have lower thrust to weight ratio, so it means with lower thrust can achieve higher speeds.
To put it in context a MiG-25 weighs as much as a F-22 at max take off, but only has a TWR of 0.66:1. far lower than a F-22 nevertheless it can fly at Mach 2.83 at high altitude.with this you can understand that depending in some factors, the drag generated by fighters like the F-15 and F-16 can not be considered draggier, specially when they had not compromises in speed and range due to stealth
A- the F-15 may(or may not) have lower drag in a clean configuration. Throw on some drop tanks/external stores, and whatever advantage it had disappears.
B- the F-22’s top speed isn’t thrust limited
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