Okay, I believe I said in my first post that let’s assume that it is as good or better than F-16/F-18, but the real question is – Is that good enough? Shouldn’t it be at least as good as Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, Su-35 family, J-XX, etc? in terms of performance.

The assumption here is that there’s huge disparity between these types and the F-35. The only thing that can be said without reservations is that the theoretical top speed is higher on those aircraft, and that the Typhoon has a higher cruising speed. It soon degenerates into speculation, when any other performance metric is compared. Even if the F-35 is slightly less agile, none of these planes will be flying circles around it, so if we’re talking WVR, then HMS/HOBS will make that a very dangerous environment for all of these aircraft. The point of the F-35 though, is that with its superior situational awareness, it’ll enjoy greater freedom at determining when, where, or if it wants to fight.

T-50 addresses this. Near F-22/F-35 LO, improved SA, comparable leathality envelopes, and high maneuverabilty.

I’d agree on improved SA and maneuverability. It’s LO level and lethality haven’t been validated, in a production form, and from the sound of it, it’ll have a higher RCS than either the F-35 or F-22. It might have advantages in costs though, but even that remains to be seen.

I am comfortable with the F-22’s trade off of some performance for better LO, but it’s SA is now already getting dated due to long development time. I

Even the Block 20s still enjoy large advantages over anything else flying, and the Block 30/35s have an even more comfortable lead. In terms of the F-35, you have to look at the synergy of what it brings to the table. Even legacy fighters regularly get kills in exercises vs. the Typhoon, Rafale, Flanker, and the F-35 will be superior to these legacy fighters at the merge. Now add being VLO, and superior SA to the mix, not to mention superior numbers of platforms. I don’t think the picture is nearly as gloomy as you might think.

@wrightwing

why we do not go by what is fact and myth.

Fact: T-50, F-22 and Su-35BM supercruise.
Myth:F-35 supercruises, this is just pure urban legend.

If you’re going to compare the F-35 with the Su-35, and use LM’s supercruise definition, then the Su-35 doesn’t supercruise either, and the T-50’s cruise speed is still unknown(especially with the current engines).

Fact: thrust vectoring is used at supersonic speed as pitch and yaw control

Ok, I have no arguments with this.

Myth:supersonic agility is not needed

Your fact and myth aren’t directly related to the same argument, and demonstrate nothing with regard to making claims about a particular aircraft.

Fact:stealth means LOW observability, stealth targets are detected by radar
myth:Stealth means radar can not detect stealth aircraft at all.

No one claims that stealth means invisibility. It does mean greatly reduced detection/tracking/engagement ranges.

Fact:missiles miss long range missiles have an average 50% kill rate, short range missiles also fail do not have 100% kill rate they have similar kill rates.

Bogus argument. No one has claimed 100%, and long range missile’s probability of kill will be directly related to whether they were fired within the envelope. Missiles fired outside of the NEZ will likely miss. Those fired within the NEZ, will likely have a better than 50% chance of hitting a target. While we’re discussing facts/myths, let’s also discuss hard and soft kills. Just because a missile doesn’t kill an opposing fighter, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t successful in accomplishing the mission(i.e. keeping that fighter away from a strike package, so it could achieve its goal).

Fact: In a fight between two fifth generation fighters in example F-22 versus T-50 their radars will detect each other at 90-40km range
Myth: No they will detect each other at 5-15km.

If it’s a fact, I suppose you’d be so kind as to provide the source. What is a fact, is that the F-22 will be able to see the T-50 first, if we’re discussing a 1v1 situation. What’s also a fact is that the T-50 won’t see the F-22 on radar at 40-90km.

Fact maneouvrability and supercruise help to avoid missiles and give better range to missiles carried.

No issues with this statement.

Myth: F-35 does not supercruise niether has thrust vectoring control, but still can do maneouvres like the Su-35 and Su-30MKI and can scape missiles easily like the Su-35BM, F-22 can and T-50 do.

This is full of inaccuracies. If the M1.5 standard is used, then the Su-35 is no supercruiser. Thrust vectoring or not, no airshow maneuvers are going to occur at combat speeds(much less at supersonic speeds). Here are a couple of facts/myths for you-
FACT- you don’t know what the F-35’s max cruise speed is, or what its agility level is.
MYTH- thrust vectoring is required for a plane to be agile.
FACT- situational awareness is more important than agility
MYTH- enemy planes loiter supersonically, while the F-35 helplessly flounders about subsonically.

Speculation: F-35 max speed at dry power, T-50 max supercruise achieved up to august 2010. Max supercruise achieved by Su-35BM.

What speeds have the T-50 and Su-35 achieved in dry thrust? To my knowledge, the T-50 hasn’t flown supersonically yet, and the Su-35 hasn’t exceeded M1.5 in dry thrust, much less while carrying weapons.

Need verification IRBIS E detects targets at 90km, yes it needs verification only by Western observers not by Russian observers.

The Irbis can detect targets at 90km(if the target isn’t smaller than .01m^2).
I hate to use this source, but I think if you look at this graph, you’ll see what I’m getting at-

http://www.ausairpower.net/Irbis-BARS.png

What you’re ignoring is what modes might be used to achieve that(i.e. it’s not TWS, which means that the field of view will be much narrower). You’re also ignoring RCS, and lumping all targets into one category(i.e. Irbis detects small targets at 90km; the F-35 is a small target, therefore the Irbis must detect it at 90km). You’re also ignoring the fact that it’s not a given that 100% of targets will be detected at the max detection range, and that tracking ranges will be smaller than detection ranges.

You should know best. It’s the AEGIS-hugging US fanboy. :rolleyes:

I suppose you could point us to the claims you’re referring to? I’ve never seen anyone claim anything like 100% probability of kill from AEGIS defenses. On the other hand, in any thread discussing S-300/400 and their related shorter ranged systems, it’s a given that not only will stealthy planes be seen at great distances, but they can’t hope to deal with the SAM battery, as every weapon will be shot down(from the fanboy perspective), and every square inch of X country will be covered by radar/missile/interceptors.

No mention about achieving this at full dry thrust, looks like the aircraft indeed won’t supercruise. 😮

No mention of afterburners either.

Looks like you have not read my response, at all. So let me repeat it once again:

Once again, without mixing the term supercruise here, F-35 has not exceeded M1.0 without afterburner. Speeds of M1.5 were not even attempted as we speak.

To sum it up – I don’t care whether you use M1.5 or M1.0 as threshold for supercruise, F-35 has demonstrated neither one so far.

Thanks. I like it, too.. 🙂

That’s not the point though. The point is that folks use LM’s claim to say absolutely that the F-35 will not be able to exceed M1 in dry thrust, which is by no means settled. They refuse to acknowledge that different definitions are used by the other manufacturers too.

Once again, without mixing the term supercruise here, F-35 has not exceeded M1.0 without afterburner. Speeds of M1.5 were not even attempted as we speak.

Come on- if you can’t see that’s it’s disengenuous to say that Russian/European fighters supercruise below M1.5, but then say that the F-35doesn’t supercruise because it doesn’t do it above M1.5, then I don’t know what to tell you. LM/DOD use M1.5 as the cut off. Other manufacturers use M1.

Naturally Lockheed isn’t going to say that the Eurofighter is superior in any way. They’re trying to sell fighters too.

Nice circular argument.:rolleyes:

@MSphere
The design philosophy of the F-35 is very different to the one applied to the T-50 or F-22.

The F-22 and T-50 are twin engined fighters that are supposed to outrun the opposition by sheer speed aka supercruise, outmaneouvre the opposition by going into the poststall envelop and increase agility with thrust vectoring.

The F-35 is not like that, the idea that close combat is dead, is what really is behind in the F-35 design philosophy, the F-35 designers think that with HMS, HMD and missiles like the AIM-9X there is no need for the F-35 to be very meneouvrable because they think no one can out maneouvre an AIM-9X and a HMS.

You’re completely misinterpreting what is being said about the F-35, if you honestly believe this. This has more to do with the weapons and tactics, than the airframe’s capabilities, unless you believe that a fighter that is more agile than F-16s/F-18s, can’t turn, etc… when necessary. The whole point of this selling point, is that a foe has to turn. The F-35’s pilot has the option not to.

This sounds more logic, if we consider theoretically both aircraft keep what their manufactures claim, the JSF will detect the SU-35 at longer ranges, but and here is the but, an AIM-120D fired at 130km away is detectable by the IRBIS E, this means at least 90-100 seconds of warning for the Su-35 and this enough time to implement counter measures.

This is a HUGE assumption to say the least.

The Su-35 has at least a supercruise in the region of mach 1.2-1.4 and has superior top speed and ceiling, its radar has superior coverage in azimuth and it has thrust vectoring for supersonic speeds, translate this into an ability to avoid the AIM-120 and the kill rates for the AIM-120D will fall drastically at 130km away.

This statement demonstrates a profound misunderstanding about what thrust vectoring can/cannot do. At supersonic speeds, there aren’t going to be any airshow maneuvers performed, and TVC isn’t necessary to achieve a high degree of agility.

other factor is the AIM-120D has to be vectored by the F-35 for at least some part of its flight path, turning for the F-35 will expose its less stealthy sides specailly its rounded jetpipe but continuing on a head on engagement will mean getting close to the 90-100km range dectability of the IRBIS E where the Su-35 can fire you a plethora of AAMs, to put it in context with 100 seconds of warning the Su-35 can fire you a missile at the F-35 but the F-35 can not supercruise niether has thrust vectoring to avoid the missile

There are a lot of errors and assumptions here. First of all, the F-35 that fires the missile, won’t necessarily be the one guiding the missile(i.e. third party targeting). The F-35 won’t necessarily be firing the missile from a directly head on attitude, in relation to the Flanker. It might not be so easy to see anything(missile or F-35), due to the EA/ECM, which would be occurring.