The only thing a MiG-29 out of WVR range is… is a very fun AMRAAM target.

The main reason Israel wants the JSF is because of Egypt.

Even if no one ever talks about it from obvious reasons,
the Israeli intelligence is very concerns about the built-up or might already saying, very strong egyptian army.

A revoloution in Egypt by the ” Islamic Brothers ” is not science fiction, and in case it will happen, the most dangerous threat Israel can ask for, and will probably drag a war after very short time between the two.
Israel have to stay with the upper hand no matter what.

And please,
Stop giving the Chinese as reason for everything.
It wont happen again and you know it well, its not a very mature way to explain your arguments.

The old saw of the IDF being under-gunned gets boring quick, especially when you compare F-16 forces (IDF with a better suite of A2G ordnance ), and the fact that we gave them ( but no one else in the region ) a nice stack of JDAM kits and then our bought and paid for congress has to listen to Israeli lobbying crying that we want to sell Egypt Harpoons. We give a lot of foreign aid to both but we make sure that Egypt doesn’t get to pick from the top drawer like Isreal does. Reason #58 why the average man on the street in Cairo can’t stand us. Our diplomacy and actions are world class stupidity. :rolleyes:

MiG-19 is one of my favorites. Simple, and a powerful gun. However, romance aside, people that are experts on this have commented on low airframe life and/or other engineering quarks of which I forget.

Saw that. Pretty amusing article. Some in the IDF are under the illusion that they are a JSF partner as opposed to a JSF component provider.

Hi Swerve, I can see where that would look that way. However the idea of passing off information sharing to buddies isn’t all especially new. The Gripen, as good as it is, wasn’t the first with that concept. All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles. The network JSF will ride on will be much more in-depth and versatile.

As for how the JSF is used… yes it all depends on the customer. RAAF for example did the right thing, for bedding down JSF when it arrives. The Wedgetail and UAVs, and some other things. They are committing to an NCW environ of their own choosing. Where, the way they bought their Wedgetail, and the sensor array that makes it up,…. it won’t just be an AWACs like aircraft. It will do that mission. But It will also do air battle management ( air to air and air to ground command and control ), including the on board sensors with upgrades, given that it is a high tech AESA/MESA what ever you want to call it, can in the future do air to ground sensor work should they choose to spend the money. It has that potential, just don’t know if that will ever be funded. That is how versatile that sensor platform is, and oh btw the same array system can jam and inhibit communications and radar of various flavors. Finally the ability to have some sort of weaponization of the array as a direct attack weapon in some forms. Although no one is sure yet how you do that without risking killing the crew. The system that is on that jet will be stunning as more ways of learning what it can do are discovered. Similar along the path of discovery the Super Hornet is on now with AESA. Two platforms I’m not overly fond of: Super Hornet and JSF … yet I have always been a believer in the network…weapons on the platform….sensor array….. and the people running it. I don’t really care what jet it is attached to. You could lash up something with Gripen_AESA or Eurofighter_AESA and a J-UCAS like UCAV with a platform of Wedgetail or similar and have a stunning NCW combination. I don’t think it can be helped that some customers ( Belgium or similar ) buy a JSF yet don’t have a dense C2_ISR setup like above backing it up unless they are part of a joint operation. Depending on what a joint EU force lashes together for their network just depends on ever shrinking funds. Politicos will see a JSF Squadron delivered and may not know that it could be even more effective with solid air battle management networks backing it up. UK and some others are working this, but the network will depend on several diverse forces learning how to use it. There it will have to be all joint with not many having all the needed toys in their toy box. Most will have to share. However, military spending and the EU don’t go together well in my opinion. The list is long of things that are needed. Even if there is no Fulda Gap threat anymore, I don’t see how all of these things will be cobbled together to where everyone is happy. The tea leaves from the EU politicos on the topic of more military spending, just doesn’t look too good. More reason to consider, given the unit cost, if JSF is such a good idea?Guess that is for the customer to decide. I hope they are right.

*Predator B in both UAV and UCAV configs.
— Before you can kill it, it is best to have it under near 24/7 surveillance, what ever the “it” is. Optical packages, Synthetic Aperature Radar packages, and a optical/hellfire package as needed.

*Something like an ATR 42 or 72 rigged up as a SIGINT/COMINT/ELINT package. A good handful of these. Again to know what is going on.

*SPARKHAWK or similar- SIGINT/COMINT/ELINT packs on helicopters. Ditto.

*SU-25s and Mi-24s, Mi-8/17s worked over by the Israelis with NVG gear. Basically a whole night friendly aviation battalion. Include a fast turbo-prop two seat trainer of your choice with NVG ability to act as a night forward air controller. A company of Specfor grunts as part of this unit.

*Some type of 2 engine transport of undetermined type. Almost anything is better than nothing.

*Flying conditions in that area include a lot of hot-and-high work ( hello La Paz at 13,000ft elevation 😀 ) So whatever your airframe choices are, it will depend on that.

*All of the platforms/players would communicate on a cheap yet encrypted cell-phone-by-any-other-name wireless network so everyone can email-PM-voice-video each other as needed. This would include a ground command center. Where some of the repeater nodes would be airborne as needed.

*Fighters, don’t care, but something inexpensive and Chinese wouldn’t be a bad thing.

*Lots of cash to pay for HUMINT info as needed.

*”Consultants” and “Contractors” with various professional skills and nice resumes to match, that can do all kinds of black bag jobs that the Specfor nighttime snatch and grab and hard hit work doesn’t quite suit. If various bad actors like the drug cartels get too upity, go into a “Los Pepes” mode, right away to break them.

*A new VIP Gulfstream for me to get around in on “business” matters. 😀

So in order to use F-35 in its most optimum manner one requires additional netcentric assets ala J-STARS or UAV’s etc?

My next question then is, how does the aircraft fare on a stand alone basis, i.e. the user doesn’t have all the additional assets?

So what additional capabilities would a stand alone F-35 have to an existing F-16/F/A-18 user who does not operate a whole heap of EW/C3 assets?

AWACS is one thing. More important for strike warfare is a ground surveillance aircraft JSTARS , or the jet the UK is working on, or the RAAF Wedgetail 737 which should be made to order for something like JSF. Those are real powerplayers in air battle management where JSF sensors and JSF strike ability will make it really powerful.

Teamplay among it’s peers with no other platform support is doable. As the F-18F with AESA is proving now…. A netcentric AESA jet is it’s own little JSTARS in some forms. Using methods to aquire targets of opportunity or pre-planned targets, it can hand off those target cords to other aircraft to kill or kill it alone. Where AESA isn’t just a sensor, but also a sensor that can do post strike photography if you will to evaluate strike results and beam that imagry to other players on the network if needed. Where AESA is also a high bandwitdth transceiver to send images, streaming video or other data. Again where AESA in the F-18F is showing it is a workshare sensor that can do air to air and air to ground attack setups at the same time. It will also have the ability to inhibit communications in various ways and/or even jam. Finally, if I haven’t forgotten anything, it may have limited ability in the future as an energy weapon of sorts. What that will be is yet to be seen.

One other thing in your comparison is that for the JSF, running nap of the earth attacks like the jets you mention is pretty much dead. There is no need for it for the JSF M.O. That by it self was additional workload that a two person crew helped out having in legacy methods/designs of attack jets.

This isn’t an actual comparison between the capabilities of these various aircraft but more of a question as to behind the design philosophy of the F-35.

Now I am going to make a few assumptions based on my limited knowledge of the F-35:

a.) It is a single seat aircraft
b.) It is predominantly a strike aircraft but still has A2A capabilities.

Now up until now the most capable strike aircraft have been mainly 2 seaters: the F-16I/F-15E/Tornado IDS/M2000D/F/A-18D etc. These aircraft still retain an A2A capability (more limited in the Tornado).

The advantage of a two seater is obvious – one is a pilot while the other is a Weapons Systems Officers. So basically one guy concentrates on flying the aircraft while the other concentrates on weapons delivery.

So does the single seat F-35 offer the same strike capabilities as the dual seat dedicated strike aircraft?

Netcentric warfare takes some of the manual workload off of a one crew aircraft. Example…. where a JSTARS just pipes in cords. for precision guided munitons to the strike aircraft with less manual keypunching when possible. Any strike where a GPS/INS weapon is used, vs. a laser weapon, is less workload on the bomb run. Even some laser bomb strikes have been further aided by GPS/INS cords leading up to the bomb run. It just all depends. Also a tri-sensor ( in terminal phase ) weapon like SBD II ( whenever that is fielded ) will be less workload for moving targets with helmet cueing setup.

The helmet cueing has growth room in it. It isn’t just for air to air. JSF will be using the helmet cueing system heavily to visualize locations of ground targets , based on geo-map locations updated over the network and/or it’s own sensors. Where it’s own sensors make itself a valuable network node, for other concerned network users ( decision makers/shooters ). Where netcentric off board sensors, as well as it’s own onboard sensors, give it incredible situational awareness. In some situations, your wingman, will be your “second crewman”, doing sensor overwatch while you do an attack run.

Or so it goes on paper and in computer sims so far. Flight testing will be the proof of how much work that will need to be a reality. Probably a lot of sleepless hours for the software pukes.