LastOfGunfightersIt seems like the Air Force largely abandoned the use of the attack “A” designator instead using the fighter “F” designator for fighter-bombers and strike aircraft. Of course those aircraft had some self-defense capability against enemy fighters while the F-117 was helpless if detected.
What should the aircraft’s designation have been? Tough to say. But even by Air Force standards calling it a fighter doesn’t make much sense. Of course the designation isn’t all that important when the aircraft is still a secret to the world.
LastOfGunfightersAm I to believe that specialized jamming pods like the AN/ALQ-188 are only for show then? I rather doubt that.
LastOfGunfightersDon’t know why you say the Fulcrum is becoming a Flanker. The former finally achieving a decent range still doesn’t turn it into a significantly larger aircraft.
LastOfGunfightersthe pitch rate wasnt fast enuff to keep the pointy end at target, while recovery was slow too,
all in all betting on this card isnt compelling, due to poor lethality with regards to pitch rate
in combination with poor survivability stemming from slow recovery
The pitch rate “sluggishness” issues seem to be ones that could be addressed by changes to the flight control software. The pilot himself points out that the software was less than ideal and suggests changes the pilot suggested himself. Recovering from such a maneuver isn’t going to be any slower than doing so in an F/A-18.
Yes high AoA isn’t something to bet everything on, but just getting into a dogfight should already be a “last resort” in this day and age. It’s better than having no cards to play and F/A-18 pilots supposedly perform respectably in ACM even if their aircraft is lacking in several areas.
I really don’t see anything to suggest that the flight performance of the F-35 doesn’t lie somewhere between the F-16 and F/A-18.
Speaking from an American perspective I strongly believe F-22 production and improvement should have continued. When viewed in the context of supplementing the F-22 in achieving air superiority the F-35 is easily up to the task. I don’t like the F-35 being shoehorned into the job of the F-15 and F-22 however.
LastOfGunfightersNot really. Question still remains – how does the F/A-18E/F with a weaker EM profile manage to go to high AoAs?
Exactly. My thought is that perhaps the test pilot doesn’t place much value on high AoA maneuvers due to his career which was focused around the F-15 (and to a lesser extent the F-16). He would have been trained to fly to the strengths of those aircraft and that doesn’t include high AoA maneuvers which rapidly bleed off energy. I’d imagine the F/A-18 community has a different view on the utility of high AoAs. Yes he has flown the Super Hornet but his 2,000 hours in the F-15 have probably shaped his views on air-to-air combat.
LastOfGunfightersWasn’t the test pilot a career F-15 pilot (who always had a lot of experience in the F-16)? Neither of those aircraft is very impressive in the high AoA realm. Their strengths are sustained performance and energy management.
The F-35 by comparison seems to be a lot closer to the F/A-18 in that it can do high AoA maneuvers (which of course cost a lot of speed/energy) yet it doesn’t match the F-16 in sustained turns nor does it have the raw acceleration the F-15 has.
Now are F/A-18s “unable to dogfight” and do F/A-18 pilots always lose? Neither seem to be true, so how does “F-35 can’t dogfight” have even the slightest bit of truth to it?
LastOfGunfightersso whats new exactly ? Americans being arrogant and bitch slapped by euro pilots flying either similar aircrafts or inferior
http://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=287&t=63009
remember all the time, during air=air engagements above here between the US F15Cs and Dutch F16s versus Sea Harriers, 90% of the engagements had the F-15Cs defeated and the pilots made up lots of excuses on the radio to “Freddy”, the GCI controller and really did not like a foreign type/pilot successfully engaging them in their mighty F-15C’s.
I can just imagine the same going with the USAF F-22 pilots. I wonder what their reactions were or if there was any excuses. I used to love listening to the F15 pilots grumble about being whacked by Sea Harriers nearly everytime they came down for DACT.http://www.16va.be/mig-29_experience.htm
Even against the latest Block 50 F-16s the MiG-29 is virtually invulnerable in the close-in scenario. On one occasion I remember the F-16s did score some kills eventually, but only after taking 18 ‘Archers’. We didn’t operate kill removal (forcing ‘killed’ aircraft to leave the fight) since they’d have got no training value, we killed them too quickly. (Just as we might seldom have got close-in if they used their AMRAAMs BVR!) They couldn’t believe it at the debrief, they got up and left the room!
What rubbish. The reason you hear about incidents like this is because they are not the norm. Sea Harriers beat F-15s 90% of the time? Sure… sounds like unsubstantiated chest-thumping to me, just like how Cope India (according to the Indian Air Force) consisted of MiG-21s shooting down the entire USAF with minimal losses.
Considering how Typhoon, Rafale and Super Hornet pilots brag like they just blew up the Death Star when they finally score a kill on a F-22 in WVR it speaks more about the F-22’s capabilities and reputation than anything else. Evidently it is a pretty big deal for them.
LastOfGunfightersIt makes as much sense over Afghanistan as every other fast moving does. Big difference is the better sensors. If you want to build an aircraft around counterinsurgency operations like Afghanistan it would be useful there but a flying target against an enemy that had ’60 era air defense systems or better.
LastOfGunfightersSo now the F-35 is now the only aircraft which loses range depending on how much external stores are being carried? How’d everybody else manage to ignore physics so drag and weight have no impact on range? Lockheed incompetence I tell you!
LastOfGunfighters“USAF” (or any other military organisation for that matter) and “best for the nation” don’t belong in the same sentence. If USAF had its way the US military budget would be $3 trillion/yr and USAF would get 80% of it.
By that logic no government agency wants what is best for the nation because they all want a bigger piece of the budget pie.
LastOfGunfightersI’ll give blackadam the benefit of the doubt and assume he was on drugs when he wrote this absolute nonsense.
The greatest flaw of the F-22 is that we ended production too early with too few aircraft built. Its other weaknesses (lack of helmet mounted sight for example) can largely be corrected. It would be great if it had some more internal fuel to work with but it still beats the F-15C in that regard.
It’s inaccurate to say that the F-22’s engine nozzles are “fixed”. Chances are they are still less efficient than a variable asymmetric nozzle but they still adjust for the thrust of the engine.
LastOfGunfightersI have a proposition.
Like never..
We should have however.
Gates evidently wanted to have one monumentally stupid decision above all the rest during his career as SecDef.
LastOfGunfightersmig-31bm do you happen to have a link to a full copy of that study? It looks to be trying to design a successor to the F-111 (as a long range strike/interdiction aircraft).
LastOfGunfightersEnvision the F-23 but larger. The engines would be advanced variable cycle turbofans based off programs like ADVENT and AETD. It would be capable of supercruise speeds of at least Mach 1.8. Sensors would include AESA radar with conformal arrays (like the configuration once planned for the F-22) and systems similar in function to EOTS and DAS. An EW suite along the lines of the AN/ASQ-239 or SPECTRA would be included as would DIRCM.
Primary armament would consist of 10-12 missiles featuring the technologies planned/tested in programs like JDRADM and DARPA’s T3. Key features being ramjet propulsion, greater agility, multi-mode seeker, and secondary function as an anti-radiation missile. Maybe it’s foolish to still include a gun at this point but for now I’d say it will have a GAU-22/A.
The aircraft would feature room for growth including space for either laser DEW or a stand off jammer set for an electronic warfare variant. The second crewman in the two seaters would frequently be tasked with communicating with controlling semi-autonomous UCAVs operating in coordination with other air assets. In this role the aircraft could function as essentially a miniature-AWACS.
I’d say no to the prospect of TVC just because the advantage it provides is more than likely outweighed by the extra weight and complexity. With HOBS missiles, 360 degree sensor coverage, and the prospect of directed energy weapons the days of the traditional dogfight definitely seem numbered. Further IR signature reduction efforts could be included instead. I’ll have to look into the prospect of fluidic thrust vectoring however.
As for a naval variant I fear the answer would have to be yes because of how much this would probably cost. I can’t imagine the Congress going along with two separate “sixth generation” fighter programs. The downside is that it would be a big aircraft for carrier operations. A-5 Vigilante big. I’m not certain how easy it would be to incorporate folding wings on such a design either.
I’m wondering if it would make sense to forgo the single-seat variant altogether in favor of more two-seaters.
LastOfGunfightersI wonder why the spent 2 billion dollars on the low-level flight capability, then outright canceled it.
How was the B-2’s low level capability “cancelled”? As far as I know the aircraft retains that capability. The reason it isn’t regularly used is because only 21 B-2s were built and that sort of mission can be quite taxing on an airframe versus just cruising along at high level. The Soviet Union also collapsed which is the main reason production was cut to such a low number.
If I recall the low level capability requirements were primarily driven due to the concept of using the ATB to hunt mobile ICBMs.
Sign In
