ELPSH brings additional baggage that isn’t on a spec sheet. The engines in burner don’t kickout 22,000lb. With the intakes the way they are it is closer to 17-18k. That along with the drag/weight makes for it’s anemic performance. Where it is a good strike jet and can do carrier ops, The F-15E/K etc when you pull off the CFTs ( which is a valid idea for a country setting it up for air defense ) is a screemer. So where you can use an F-15K for air domination, you will be missing some skillsets with the F-18E/F. Of course not with the very excellent avionics, but with the weak airframe performance which means that a big player SU, can go right around it and not engage. Many other aircraft have the option to disengage. SH just doesn’t have as many options as a big “real” air domination jet.
As for strike ability in weapons carry- Advantage F-15E/K etc The CFT jet just did tests with 12 GBU-38 ( 500lb JDAM )….. on the CFTs alone.
F-18E/F is a lot easier for line maintenance, the current AESA that is getting done is about the best there is in A2A, A2G sensor gear…. in the whole world. While F-18E/F has been band aid fixed alot ( fixes for wing drop…. now another mod coming out to fix that ( improve ) things ). The 500 hour barrel refirb disaster and some other fixes like canopys and other things…. Assuming that is all band aid fixed, it should have a cheaper cost of ownership. F-15E/K etc still is not fly by wire. The flight controls are various electric assist over an analog way of doing things, control rods, cables etc. So while you can get a “new” one, there is some legacy tech in it that dates to the 70’s.
The nose gear on F-15 strikers is still kinda weak. The fighter only nose gear even weaker.
All in all it is a mixed bag. One has great avionics and a new car smell and the other you can get with a new car smell but has a lot of legacy old ways of maintaining it and only brings the advantage of some A2A airframe performance and better layout to carry more weapons. Again, if India is looking at SH, they will be well off as they will have SU-30s to beat down in a fighter sweep kind of way, any big players. Once that is taken care of, F-18E/F in small numbers is great at plinking a lot of stuff in near any weather. Add good ground forward air controller training with that to the ground troops, and the F-18E/F is very killer in CAS.
ELPThe gun issue works adversely to weight issues. An operational test at the end of last year was handled with kid gloves. One was almost dumped at the end of last year because of icing issues.
( Ice, ice baby… http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2005/10/v22_osprey_ice_.html )
Including work arounds deciding if the thing needed de-ice gear. Not good. The program is riding on borrowed time. Expect to see another one dumped in a spectacular fashion soon. ( I seriously hope I am wrong but I don’t think so ). Lots of money for one airframe. Guns assumes a hot LZ. Not such a hot strategy taking $75 Million per aircraft into trashfire…. Considering that helicopter-like work means you are going to lose airframes, we are going to be spending a lot of money.
They look cool. Sound cool. But that is about it. The industry loves it though because it is big money. Be great to see it cancelled. It would take a lot of body bags to do that though.
ELPPlenty of fodder to write about at the Sydney Morning Herald. Cup half full or half empty depending on who is quoted.
ELPIn wartime they will pump up the carrier wing and put more aircraft on deck.
Nice progress on the AESA stuff for sure.
ELPF-104 was a good jet,… if you were a skilled-high hour pilot that took it on. Low hour pilots suffered hard. Had amazing performance numbers and contempt of engagement for the day.
ELPAlso regardless if a Litening pod is on it or not, ALR2002 isn’t working out so hot. BAE-Australia over promised.
ELPAustralian Defense is having a bad summer…. er I mean winter. 😀
They keep ordering things without testing them and/or making a bad decision of some sort. Bottom line the Litening tests on the Hornet were not finished before they decided on them. The electronic warfare thing at about 200million ( going for some vendor team that is having trouble delivering a product vs. off the shelf ), Dr. Gumley of DMO coming out and saying that defense procurement as a whole isn’t going by the book when purchasing things.
And now JSF. With less than 1% of the flight testing done they are going for that. Instead of something proven with knowns. I wish them luck. I think the story goes when the F-111 was selected that it too was bleeding edge tech. They had to refuse it because of bad wings. For the few years it took to sort all that out they had to lease F-4s for a while. For one of the oldest air arms on the planet, they need a system of purchasing stuff that makes sense. For a country of such small population, a few hundred million here and there in waste starts to add up to real money. It is cool that they buy some American kit for their use, but that doesn’t mean they have to try and be as dumb as we are when we procure things. :p
Here is the thing on the ECM system being cobbled together and not doing so well….
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/07/21/1153166591334.html
Litening pod problem
ECM system problem
F-18 problem
Yikes
Australian word for the day… 😀
kafuffle
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: disorder, commotion; also written curfuffle, kerfuffle, gefuffle
Etymology: Gaelic cur `twist, bend’ + fuffle
ELPFB-22 was a good idea. Where in-theater it’s sortie rate the first few nights of a war would put lots of PGMs on critical targets. Where super-cruise in an Allied Force ’99 scenerio means faster there and back time. A force of F-22 and FB-22 has more value than that of F-22 and JSF. Where after large SAMs and airpower are killed off, I don’t need a stealth jet for the sake of stealth. Especially the buick of stealth fighters: JSF. After the two big threats are gone. F-18 and F-16 can do what ever they want, when they want dropping sub 4 meter cheap PGMs from 30~40k. F-16 and F-18 are still in production so we can have that and a new car smell.
No matter. All water under the bridge. Congress and industry ( which owns congress ) decides the airframes with the idea of the sale being what is important and not the best value to the taxpayer, or best idea for needed national defense.
Add to that USAF senior leadership has some serious faults. Where you have some senior leaders that think it is OK to have yet another uniform change during a time of reduced budget and fighting a war…where I have lost count how many uniform changes we have had since the end of the cold war. Too many PowerPoint warriors that don’t give value added killing power to the fight. The recent forceshaping news of downsizing 30 generals and a few hundred O-5 and O-6 was welcome . We have too many of them. So I expect less smart decisons from the top recently. Not deploying J-UCAS and killing EB-52 being just a few of many recent dumb decisons.
We have less dollars to go around and HQs are wasting money on uniform changes and expensive touchy-feely conferences. All in a time of war. Not good.
ELPUgly but cool. One of my favs.
ELPActually, situations exist where 4th generation – 4.5th generation jets can be enough of a deterrent to the U.S. Air force – especially if the U.S. military is not willing to commit a large amount of resources to the battle.
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Unlikely. Any other reason could be a deterrent to us using force ( example; the idea that we get into enough ill advised expeditionary warfare in the first place. ) However a nations air force won’t be the deciding factor. If we need to kill it off, it will happen. I exclude China from this as that scenario forgets the notion that China/U.S. direct force-on-force is a dumb idea in the first place for any number of reasons.
ELPThe US government’s move to sell 36 more advanced F-16s to Pakistan could not have come at a worse time for IAF, which is in a tailspin with its fighter squadrons dwindling rapidly.
Apart from indigenous ‘Tejas’ Light Combat Aircraft being nowhere near operational, the much-delayed IAF project to acquire 126 multi-role combat aircraft is also still to take off.
“The US government’s approval to sell F-16s to Pakistan is certainly of concern to us. We will obviously have to factor the changed balance of power in our planning,” said Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, in an exclusive interview with TOI on Wednesday.
At the same time, he added, IAF is “adequately capable and prepared to give a dominating response to the provocative intentions of any adversary”.
IAF plans “to retain its capability to dominate during any air operations” with faster induction of Sukhoi-30MKIs, upgrades of existing fighters and acquisition of “force-multipliers” like three Israeli ‘Phalcon’ AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) and six more air-to-air refuellers (it already has six IL-78s, said ACM Tyagi.
The $5-billion American package to Pakistan, incidentally, also includes an upgrade for 34 F-16s already present in Pakistan’s combat fleet, apart from a deadly munitions package, including beyond-visual range missiles.
In addition, Pakistan is also going to acquire a large number of JF-17 ‘Thunder’ fighters jointly developed with China.
In contrast, the Indian RFPs (request for proposals) for the $6.5-billion contract to procure 126 MRCA are yet to be issued to the contenders — Russian MiG-35, French Rafale, Swedish JAS-39 Gripen, Eurofighter Typhoon and, of course, the American F/A-18 “Super Hornets” and F-16 “Falcons”.
It will take another five-six years for the actual contract to be signed and another four-five years after that for the fighter deliveries to commence.
IAF, obviously, is worried. The number of its fighter squadrons (each has 12 to 18 jets) will touch a never-before low of 28 next year from a high of almost 40 two decades ago.
This has happened due to the delay in acquiring replacements for ageing MiG-21s, which constitute 45% of the around 700 IAF fighters and are being gradually phased out with MiG-23s.
Consequently, IAF is now even exploring some quick-fix solutions like procuring some additional Mirage-2000s or MiG-29s as a stop-gap measure. On his part, ACM Tyagi says several measures are being taken “to arrest the draw-down of combat strength”.
“First, the delivery time-frame for Sukhoi-30MKIs being manufactured by HAL has been compressed. Seven Sukhoi squadrons will be operational by the end of 11th Plan,” he said.
Second, the RFP for 126 MRCA is likely to be sent out shortly. Third, IAF is upgrading its Jaguars, Mirage-2000s, MiG-27s and MiG-29s. 🙁
No sad faces. 😀 The number of advanced SU-30 is so much as to be dominating in a big way. Just two squadrons of those things being around an area of influence can deal out a lot of pain. Would be nice to see a simplified fleet. SU-30, Advanced MiG-35, LCA, Carrier MiG-29s and that would be enough. Let everything else retire in time. I’m not the biggest LCA fan but it is practical and would be nice to see a push ( more funding ) to get large numbers of these in service on a faster timeline. Get it done.
ELPRemember in most of the recent fighter competitions US made planes have won not due to the superiority of their aircraft but cause of politics.
Or in superiority of a totol A2G system with diverse combat proven weapons ( F-15 deal for Sing and Korea ) The total A2G package including the awesome combat crew simulator is unmatched. The K with 12 GBU38s on the CFTs alone is a killer. Add all the other things and you have a total ( proven ) system.
ELPFrom what you have said it seems that for India the best Idea would be to get the AESA radars and fit it into the later batches of the Su-30MKi’s
Or have the EA-18 prowler varient of the F/A-18 as it doesnt seem to be good for much.
Or how would 50 F/A-18s with AESA, each embeded within a Wing of Mig-35’s/Su-30Mki’s work? as a force multiplier.
Well, AESA as a system is in F-18E/Fs and works well. No cobbling together trying to figure it out somewhere else on another platform. I would think SU-30 breaking down any airpower and F-18E/F ( in AESA form ) doing unmolested strike would be good. It is pretty good. Whether that fits into IAF plans of course is a whole other thing.
As for the comment that the SH should do everything the Navy asks of it… Consider in exercises that when regular Hornets did BARCAP against Bombcats that the F-14 could do contempt of engagment, keep out of reach and drive right around the Hornet and press on to the target. It wasn’t going to get cut off. The SH is no faster than a regular Hornet in certain regimes. At the end of the day it is a limited jet against a fast player. Blanket statements saying the SH will do what is asked of it means not asking it to do things other fast jets could do.
ELPThanks.
ELPWhat about BVR with the latest AMRAAMs and an AESA?
That isn’t going to help a slow airframe chase anything down or even cut it off on an intercept. Example: An F-14, F-15, Big SU, can cut things off or refuse to engage most aircraft. If an F-16 refuses to engage an F-18E/F thats all there is too it.
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