eagle1What part of this is unclear?
31 elite fighter pilots who have flown the F-35 were surveyed and the information was actually made public. What exactly is your standard of proof? Can you show me a similar report about any other fighter in the world today?
Newer aircrafts are always praised as great by their pilots with superlatives…look at Tejas with IAF…common stuff.
Honestly I am unconvinced, I need to see it with my own eyes. The F35 looks like a thick short wing sausage as it needs to accommodate fuel and bombs inside its body. It just does not look maneuverable, you cannot have it all, there are compromises to be made. And if it is then soon we will see it but I doubt it. From what I’ve seen it is far behind 4th gen jet during displays…let see of progress are made but for now it was rather poor…Again I need to see it, not reading another report with an agenda. If it is actually maneuverable they should show it !
eagle1F35 has indeed excellent stealth and an exceptional sensor package…no doubt. However despite the later reports I remain unconvinced by its maneuverability. Those reports are not all neutral and often pieces of PR.
Sufficient for a tactical aircraft but I don’t believe it will be able to match 4th gen aircrafts. No wonder it remains very shy at air shows after all those years…the few public demonstrations completely fall behind other 4th gen aircrafts.
eagle1One thing which should be also taken into account for 4th gen + aircraft is the effectiveness of DFRM defensive jamming (with GaN antenna soon) which works “all around” for these aircrafts and not only in the frontal emishphere. Actual performance is not known and remain a very speculative area of discussion, that’s for sure, but one cannot make an thorough analysis without talking about it.
I am not implying it would beat stealth overall but it should not be forgotten in a fair and complete assessment when it could have quite an impact in survivability. Otherwise this was a good read except the mistakes which implies that the author knowledge of other programs is rather limited.
eagle1I am impressed with F35 sensors & stealth but still unimpressed by its maneuvrability and this video does not bode well. Unimpressive….Just large turn with started at relatively high speed to get a confortable margin with its energy bleeding. Far behind the F16 and other teen fighter in terms of maneouvre’s agressivity. I am yet to see a tight, agressive full air demo of the F35 with maneuvre succeding each other without “dead moments” to regain energy…
eagle1Ewellent video TomacatViP. Loved the vintage feel !
Last catapult launch from the CdG aircraft carrier :
eagle1I am convinced that the F35 brings a lot in terms of stealth and Situational Awareness but I am frankly unconvinced it is a proper maneuverable aircraft compared to other 4th gen aircrafts.
Probably it can have a decent initial instantaneous turn rate and attain high AoA hoping for a quick win (its only modest chance) but it will then loose all its energy and fall like a brick (it looks like a stealth brick actually).
The fact that after all those years we can’t see it flying a proper demo is quite telling. It is also very rare to see videos where it maneuver…And the few one I’ve seen are not promising: falling like a brick after a modest roll.
So frankly unconvinced by this report which is probably a PR exercise to restore a reputation on this field.
They should stick to F35 obvious strengths : stealth and a superior sensor package…Taking this advantage into consideration it doesn’t even need to be very maneuverable to ensure superiority. F35 maneuverability is “sufficient” to be called a tactical fighter but no need to pretend its ultra maneuverable.
eagle1I would suggest to take the issue differently, to take some height rather than comparing this or that particular element.
We all know rafale and typhoon have different emphasis in their design…
The question boils down to which design is better suited to its time. The rest is all but Nerd discussions.
My view is that rafale is a better compromise given the Warsaw pact is gone. Its ability to carry heavy loads with lot of fuel makes it very relevant for its size. On AtA missions, it is performant enough. The cherry on the cake is that it is also Navalized.
It is mature and up to date, deliver what is promised now which in the real world is extremely valuable, probably less for dreamers.
That are the genuine reasons I would give the rafale an edge before talking about subsytems.
eagle1And again this is a normal safety design feature. Aluminium bends while carbon fibers are pulverized in case of hard hit. Exposed areas, espeially close to engines (air intakes) are in aluminium.
eagle1This new layout looks very good operationaly. To be perfect typhoon Gmbh would need to work on bigger drop tank. Now that flexibility is here, time to get more persistence or range to fully leverage this new config.
eagle1Lukos loves to be humiliated and asks for more !
eagle1There is no need to argu, if the french air force is still using low altitude penetration it means they still consider it effective.
This will be more survivable against modern ground based radars that are now able to detect so called LO aircrafts at very long ranges, not even talking about other anti stealth detection means.
eagle1mig 31-bm,
You havenot shown anything to support your assessment that grounds radar will be able to track F-35 hundreds of kilometer away
Smart-L a very big sea based radar , can only detect target with RCS = 0.001 m2 from 65 km , and to double range you have to increase power by 16 times
not to mention Stealth aircraft like F-35 can jam enemy’s radar by their APG-81 or NGJ as well , and as we already know , stealth make jamming significantly more effective
Yes I have provided solid evidence to support this idea,
Since an E-scan radar can track an F35 at 60 Km as stated by EADS a modern state of the art ground based radar will be able to detect the F35 HUNDREDS of kilometers away.
Stealth was a silver bullet in the 90’s but this period is gone. Evolution in radar technology and other anti stealth techniques suddenly makes that metal golf or baseball ball visible at long ranges. Detection or tracking, a LO aircraft will be detected and engaged at long ranges nowadays and in the coming years.
Stealthy UCAVs can claim to achieve much higher all around stealth (Neuron, Taranis, X47 etc…) and gain some time before radar technology continues to evolve. This is the reason for the French air Force to combine rafales with stealth UCAV in the future around 2025-2030.
In the 2020’s F35 survivability against modern AESA GaN ground based radar will have nothing exceptional and won’t survive to this kind of threat. Back to basics and back to low level !
Stealth is still interesting but this is not a silver bullet anymore, especially for manned aircrafts like the F35. It is just one part of the survivability equation. nothing less nothing more.
Better to have it but it won’t make you survive alone today and in the coming years.
eagle1mig 31 bm,
No , a radar know what it send out ,at what direction , using what frequency , using what waveform , coding , an ECM system doesn’t , thus it will required alot more time for processing , not to mention that the ECM system have to modify the signal it received as well
That’s wrong,
Nowadays converting a anagogic signal into a digital one is very fast. You don’t necessarly need a database which will be used for simpler more predictable threats.
This require less processing than the radar which has to deal with multiple wavelenghth plus the target which needs to be tracked.
eagle1EADS = European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company , so wouldnt be a surprise if he talk down the F-35 a bit ( in fact he got the number for Apg-81 count wrong as well , it is 1676 rather than 1400
I simply don’t care about EADS talking down or not, this is not the issue. You can take 50 Km instead of 59 Km if you want…Fact is if a E-scan radar on a fighter jet is able to track an F35 at such distance (60 or 50Km I don’t care) the a ground based radar with 10 times or more the amount of modules and a much higher power supply and processing power will be able to track an F35 HUNDREDS of kilometers away. Period.
Stealth was a silver bullet in the 90’s but this period is gone. Evolution in radar technology and other anti stealth techniques suddenly makes that metal golf or baseball ball visible at long ranges. Detection or tracking, a LO aircraft will be detected and engaged at long ranges nowadays and in the coming years.
Stealthy UCAVs can claim to achieve much higher all around stealth (Neuron, Taranis, X47 etc…) and gain some time before radar technology continues to evolve. This is the reason for the French air Force to combine rafales with stealth UCAV in the future around 2025-2030.
In the 2020’s F35 survivability against modern AESA GaN ground based radar will have nothing exceptional and won’t survive to this kind of threat. Back to basics and back to low level !
eagle1mig 31 bm,
actually , it is opposite , the radar will have significant advantage because the radar know what waveform , pattern , frequency it use ,thus it can use a filter while the Jammer have to process all signal and guess
That’s wrong like everything else.
The radar which is supposed to change its waveform to dodge jamming also needs to process the signal return.
But instead of getting signal returns on one optimized wavelength, it will have to process “thousands” of different returns on different wavelengths.
If that radar has to deal with many echoes in the same time his processing power will be saturated very quickly.
Conversely RWR can convert an anagogic signal from the enemy radar into a digital jamming response at a much quicker rate. This doesn’t require a huge power processing compared to ECCM but rather high sensitivity and accuracy in the signal interception and jamming response.
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