Pardon the Boys ELP. They just associate everything you say with Kopp, likely because almost every article or post you publish has links back to APA.
Why do they dislike Kopp so, well, because he takes the worst of all possible F-35 “facts”, the best of a Mig/Su, and makes up the rest.
I will give you a classic example:
Lets start with a pic from Kopp’s site
Looks impressive, does it not? But wait, the devil is in the details. Here are the problems I have with it.
1. In the top pic, Kopp would have you believe that the F-35 can be detected from great distances. How is that supposed to work? Without radar (at least he got that right), the IRST has nothing to queue it. ESM queuing you say, yeah right. Not against LPI APG-81.
But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say that, somehow, the F-35 pilot was retarded and left his radar on non-LPI mode and it gave the IRST a decent sector to scan. How good is that IRST anyways?
According to Viktor Sumerin, NII PP deputy general designer
Now since Kopp was so kind as to show a head-to-head engagement, we must assume that the F-35 was detected at 15Kkm. But the F-35 is hotter you say? Ok, 20 km. Question, what would happen to that flying barn door of a fighter called an Su-30MK if he got with 100km in an ever closing engagement with an F-35? He would never see the 20km mark that’s what.
2. See anything wrong with the lower pic? I do, a big one. Mr Koop wants to send the RAAF’s newest fighters into combat with missiles that are over 15 years old at least. Hows that? Easy, he lists that AMRAAM as a “C” model (no Blk listed). How can this be since the F-35 will fly with the “D” model at least. Well, it’s just another attempt to put the F-35 into a bad light, even if he had to make up facts to support the picture. Also notice that he did not put a block on the Aim-120C? Was it a C5, C6, C7?
Funny thing is that it does not matter. Hows that? Simple, because by what we have learned in #1 above, an Aim-9X, Aim-132, or Aim-120C5 could take him out long before the F-35 was detected.
Do you see where I am getting with this Eric? People don’t trust you because you put too much faith in people like Kopp who are the laughing stock of internet.
I have read many of your pieces and like a lot of what you have to say, but when you have articles that only (or mainly) quote people like Kopp it is a major disappointment.
And speaking as a fellow “Eric”, I hate to see our name be-smudged.
“#1 above, an Aim-9X, Aim-132, or Aim-120C5 could take him out long before the F-35 was detected.”
Interesting theory. That somehow the F-35 is invisible to 2nd and 3rd gen IRST. Hmmm.
What people don’t “trust” are people making claims of a jets prowess that only has 2 percent of its flight testing done.
Any criticism of the F-35 is somehow not good because it involves going against the Lockmart spin game.
Nice try- No extreme super-cruise combined with extreme altitude means that something that only depends on stealth is going to have serious problems.
Lets see… what is the combat PK of the AMRAAM?… or any air-to-air missile. Note that the AMRAAM so far has only been up against 3rd stringers.
Part 2 of that is that an F-35B or C may have left the deck that day without its gun. Good luck.
BTW I do not totally agree with Kopp on everything. The basis though for opposing argument is sound.
And remember, the export friendly design of the F-35 was never supposed to go-it-alone as in the advertisements. The F-22 and the F-35 are supposed to work together.
What you will have with the F-35 is a jet that will have really excellent situational awareness of that which is going to kill it. The 4 or 8 times better than legacy claimed in the adverts is nonsense until we have significant amounts of test flying.
HOBS no matter what you are flying brings WVR into the 1-1 kill range. Not so good. Worse if the guy coming into the merge carries more HOBS missiles than you do.
Before the merge? …Yeah keep dreaming the AMRAAM as 100% PK.
When you wish upon a star, it shows how gullible you really are.
The “balanced” survivability claims in the Super Hornet briefs—minus the sales hype—pretty much says it all.
The Block II avionics are fine tuned to the limited L.O. observable qualities of the airframe. For example, the fused defensive system has a much better idea of how vulnerable the airframe is to various threats and responds in a much more reasonable manner. This means just enough jamming to get the job done, just enough radar emissions when needed (balanced with the passive detection system) and so on. It isn’t a be-all-end-all, but with this, the defensive avionics do less work. Add to this if you have the more advanced ALE-55 towed decoy vs. the earlier ALE-50, the on-board defensive system can use the ALE-55 as an off-board jammer.
Certainly the aircraft came out in a time when the people making it thought that RuTech threats of the future would consist of half broken down MiG-29s and first gen Big Su’s run mostly by second stringers. So, the weak airframe performance of the jet was given a pass. And well warts aside, the aircraft is about as good as it gets for ease of flying and just as important-flying safety. This is the aircraft you want your little son or daughter to fly because it is even safer than the legacy Hornet (eliminating a few depart controlled flight nasties from the legacy).
The Block II is a huge leap ahead of the Block I. For example, the on-board jamming system on the Block I was basically a rejected design that was rebadged and put in the jet to save a buck.
So, what do you want to fly out of Kabul in a permissive air environment? Probably these things. A small package of 10-12 two seat Block II’s with the following-
Sharp Recon Pod (3)
ATFLIRs (Rover capability a given) 12
Tanker kits (4)
And what ever munitions, would give you a good on-call Joint CAS package that would have nice coordination with the back-seater and a ground FAC (JTAC). You would probably find that the duty tanker(s) would help other Joint partners that needed a sip if they got a little too low on gas before getting back to a bigger tanker.
The Sharp pod would be good for map updating in the area of interest. ATFLIRs are more expensive than LITENING or SNIPER, but they work good now and are fused to the Supers avionics.
Anyway, you get the idea. The story of the aircraft is quite amazing. So many faults and yet a good portion of redemption. It is still a strike aircraft with some limited air-to-air ability that could get seriously run down vs. the wrong threat. After all, just about every fighter design since the 1960s can contempt of engage it. So for this, it might not be the best thing for you to have standing air sovereignty alert—unless you are Luxembourg. A Typhoon in that respect, would make it look silly.
Some interesting slides comparing the APG-79 to the legacy 73. And some other things.
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