LowObservableA megapixel staring IR that covers one-sixth of a sphere – you’ll find the resolution in there if you do the math. An IR telescope with a scanning mirror is a different kettle of fish.
As for seeker range: The radar range equation is not your friend because seekers are not intended as long-range devices. Received energy at the transmitter varies with the fourth power of range, and stealth gets very, very difficult to do as the range closes in. And don’t be surprised to see more dual-mode seekers coming along with more compact IR systems and GaN AESAs.
LowObservableThe F-22s will not turn and run away. However, they will withdraw to refuel or RTB to rearm.
LowObservableVN – Should be even easier to match the Eurocanard costs at that production rate. That’s almost 15 times higher than the Rafale’s rate of production.
What they actually need that rate for (and it is a prerequisite for just hitting the SAR targets, not the basis for further cuts) is to dilute their monstrous overhead. All airplane production rates are low by the standards of most manufacturing. Airplanes and engines are largely hand-assembled from parts that predominantly come from a supplier base that feeds all the primes, and higher production rates do les than you’d think for costs.
Your bold assertion of the F-35’s air-to-air capabilities is a courageous response to amateur critics who say things like:
The problem is, with the lack of F-22s, I’m going to have to use F-35s in the air superiority role in the early phases as wel….I’m going to have some F-35s doing air superiority, some doing those early phases of persistent attack, opening the holes, and again, the F-35 is not compelling unless it’s there in numbers…Because it can’t turn and run away, it’s got to have support from other F-35s. So I’m going to need eight F-35s to go after a target that I might only need two Raptors to go after.
And from Lukos’ link:
The cost of the U.S. Air Force model of the plane, which accounts for 27 of the 43 aircraft, will go down by nearly 4 percent, said one of the sources.
LowObservableGiven the huge developement cost of the F-35, one can expect that it would have capabilities that the others wouldn’t have.
Given the price tag of Chivas Regal you’d expect it to be better than average Scotch, but it’s not.
LowObservableDoes that mean a single F-35 can triangulate between DAS and EOTS?
How in the name of elementary school geometry do you think that might happen?
LowObservableEODAS has the range equal to or better than other IRST systems and points in all directions continuously and has the further advantage of a built-in targeting pod for ID. It’s backed up by probably the 2nd best radar presently available and the most modern state-of-the-art RWR and EW suite. Everything is easily viewable and targetable via the HMDS reducing workload. The aircraft is also the least detectable aircraft ever made and has equal or better performance than an F-16 with a mission payload and longer range.
Objection! Asked and answered. Every one of these points has been thrashed out and evaluated with the aid of evidence, and refuted, placed in context or stamped firmly as “not proven”.
Meanwhile: Fedaykin? Fedaaaaaaykin?
LowObservableFirst I’m reading about ‘160 jets per year’. Most sources say the $75M is the cost of an aircraft ordered in 2018 and delivered in 2020 (in 2014 dollars). That’s associates to a production run of around 120 units per year (LRIP 11 will reportedly be about 110 units).
The honest-looking schoolmarmish lady who runs the program for LMT has a presentation that says differently. 160 jets in the 2018 buy year.
As for the F/A-18 rate and cost – everything is inter-related. As you see, it is less costly than the F-35 at much lower rates. There’s no clear, level-field comparison because the F-18 is the only other aircraft currently priced under the same assumptions and ground rules as published figures for the F-35.
It would be interesting to see what the F-18 offer to Denmark looks like compared to the F-35.
LowObservableBuitreaux – But if they’re going to do Kfir Block 60 as interim aircraft, how long do they intend to fly them? It would put an Argentine JAS 39E very far in the future.
The idea of a de-Anglicized Gripen E seems a little absurd, for the simple reason that Argentina is the only additional market to which it could possibly provide access. The 24 aircraft would carry the entire non-recurring burden.
LowObservable//waits patiently for Fedaykin to berate Lukos for lack of civility, with all this stuff about drugs.
VNomad – You can spit a long way, apparently. The lowest projected cost for an F-35A that I have seen is $75m, URFC with engine, 2019 delivery, then-year, 160 jets per year. That includes promised but not guaranteed cost reductions.
The URFC for a Super Hornet in 2012 – the actual cost paid, off a far smaller production run, for a larger and carrier-capable airplane with two engines, and about half the run being two-seaters – is $54 million, or $62 million. Not huge in itself – but then not quite apples-to-apples and with a ton of factors favoring the F-35. The F-35C has a 2019 flyaway unit cost of $119 million. The FY2013 cost for the F-18 was $61m, or $68.5 m in 2019.
I shall await with interest a guaranteed, sign-on-the-dotted line price for the F-35 that is anywhere near that of Gripen, along with the 35 per cent cost reduction (from where? to what?).
LowObservableGood Lord, Oblig, you did that while I was writing the post. Great minds think alike – it’s just a pity that tiny minds think alike too, and that there are so many more of them.
LowObservableOf course nobody is backing away from the total planned AF numbers. They don’t have to. The final total makes zero difference to the actual future-years unit cost, and not much difference to operating cost, and the great majority of those 1763 aircraft don’t get ordered until 2025 or later, long after today’s decisionmakers have retired. The generals who will testify to Congress about the need for the last MYP are putting in hours on their first fighter squadron, the politicians who will listen to that testimony are serving time on school boards or in Senate staff jobs, and the world might look as much like today’s predictions as our world today looks like the expectations of 1992.
Neither are comparisons of the U.S. and Greek economies revealing. What matters is that Pentagon procurement and operations are in a pincer between rising personnel costs and a budget ceiling, the latter imposed by government debt, social spending obligations and the tax burden. In that environment, where do I find $8.8 billion a year, just for an O&S increase?
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-778
Note too that the GAO numbers for legacy aircraft are wartime, and F-35 projections are peacetime.
Some F-35 fans, at this point, start talking about how defense spending is essential and social programs must be cut &&. I say that if you want to slash social security and Medicare to pay for F-35s, please run your Congressional campaign on that platform and see how far you get.
LowObservableI would suggest that unless you have looked at the latest GAO report on F-35 sustainment, alongside some of Todd Harrison’s work on the budget at CSBA (neither requires an economics degree to understand), you really shouldn’t run your yap in public about the costs of the program.
Procurement is only part of the issue, although the situation (viewed globally) is bad enough even if the current targets are met: While the Marines get the most expensive fighter aircraft in the world, with a 3000-lb./450 nm capability and no gun, the USAF can’t afford to put AESA on its F-16s to keep them minimally credible (against such things as DRFM jammers) until the F-35 arrives.
Also, I like the F-35 cost two-step:
Shill: “The F-35 has a fourth-generation price tag”
Critic: “Er, no it does not [produces detailed budgetary estimates], not even at 3-4X the production rate of anything else, not even if the cost reduction promises materialize.”
Shill: “HMDS, TDP yada yada”
Critic: “Ya got about $2 million there. Try harder.”
Shill: “It’s still better value”.
LowObservableCan you people get your stories straight?
I didn’t mention it because it’s restating the obvious.
EODAS is only meant to track planes in the WVR (0-10’ish mile) range-band.
For once I tend to believe this. However, Lukos says F-35 has a better IRST system than its competitors:
Sow how does a combo of short-range EO-DAS and EOTS (which is no better at air-to-air than Sniper/Lantirn, as irrefutably evidenced by the IRST installs done on TDP-equipped F-15s and F-18s) add up to a better IRST?
It’s entirely understandable if it does not. The F-22 philosophy was clearly to use a combination of ESM, LPI/LPD radar and offboard to do air-to-air, and was certainly considered to be effective in the JSF planning days.
LowObservableThere’s altogether too much here to deal with for the rest of the day, and frankly tomorrow is not too good either.
Just quickly, however –
Spud. If EOTS is needed over EODAS for ID, why does LM specifically say it is used for search and track?
Lukos. Plasma. Really. There’s no evidence outside one paper, and some good reasons to do with air pressure that it is not true. (Note that all known plasma uses have been on very high flyers.)
Mercurius – 1. I’m sure the good Col. was correct in his experience, but that doesn’t necessarily encompass the latest and greatest outside the U.S., particularly at IOC/FOC. (This is a very common issue, by the way.) Why don’t you track him down via a LinkedIn search and ask him again? . 2 School bus is a figure of speech insofar as most likely warzones don’t have them. However, distinguishing military from noncombatant movers is a genuine challenge. By the way, if you don’t have comprehensive recording onboard, that’s a legal problem.
LowObservableAs you point out, RCS is wavelength dependent. There is, oddly enough. a reason why a B-2 does not look like a scaled-up F-35, and why almost every UCAV looks like a baby B-2. There is also a reason why Russia and China are building new VHF radars and everyone and his aunt will sell you a digital-upgrade P-18.
If EO-DAS is that good, why do you need EOTS at all, let alone advertise an IRST function? Why do actual missile-tracking tests use wide-aperture infrared turrets? Could it be that one data point (and, by the way, having detected the rocket at launch the algorithm would have a pretty good idea of its track, and was then looking upwards at a very cold background) does not an operational capability make?
And that ground based AESA will have a range and as RCS reduces, it’s effective range also reduces. Furthermore, hiding a small RCS with jamming techniques is easier than hiding a large one.
Oh really. I’d never have guessed. [sarc]
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