Even though f35 may have smaller rcs than a f117 from the front and perhaps even the sides, i do remember reading articles which said rcs is relatively large at the rear, as it was deemed too expensive to pull off whatever they did on f22, plus the effective engine thrust would be somewhat diminished – something they could afford on f22 with ample power reserve but not something applicable on single engined f35.

Anyway, if all that is true – wouldn’t it make f35 a dangerous plane to fly deep strike missions? Especially if enemy sensor network is covering the whole country in every direction. The moment the f35 passes by a radar, it starts showing its ass. Not only would it make it hard for f35 to escape unharmed after it has fired its weapon deep inside enemy territory, but with radars looking on the rear of the threat axis it may get harder to even get to the target, if we’re talking about multi hundred km deep strikes.

We can try to guess the weight of EF or we can go with data given on the official website. So lets do that. 11 tons. Add a pilot, 50% internal fuel load (2500 kg), a2a armament. More or less 4 more tons for a total of 15. Without afterburner, we have 120 kn gives little over 12230 kg.

But T/W ratio means nothing for either supercruise (or max speed) or range.

To calculate max speed we need to know plane’s ceiling in certain mission, exact amount of lift it can generate. Then get air density for that altitude. Then find out the frontal surface area of the plane, then the aerodynamic drag coefficient, all the possible induced drag values. Combine all those into a figure of force working against the plane. We need to know the thrust engines can effectively give the plane at given altitude and air conditions. Then finally we can get max speed and max supercruise speed values.

Too many variables to be precise though when looking at some planes from the past it does suggest EF can achieve the quoted 1.2-1.5 mach (depending who you ask and what payload that includes) mach.

Range, like speed, depends on drag. If we had no air there wouldn’t be any drag but we wouldn’t have any lift either. Flying too low causes too much drag. As we get higher less air means less lift at same speed so we need to increase that speed. All these fighters have more or less similar sweet spot – speed and altitude for longest flight endurance which will give greatest range.

What i find peculiar is that quoted figures of internal fuel are not that much different between EF (5 tons) and Rafale (4,5 tons). Rafale probably induces tad less drag, perhaps its engines are rated ever so slightly for slower speeds – possibly negating the half a ton of fuel difference. So where does the discrepancy in range come from? I say from news sources and PR because facts indicate that actual range of two planes must be very, very close and can not possibly be as different as we sometimes see quoted around.

Nothing is guaranteed. Of course there’s always a possiblity for a wild miss or one in a million kill. But all things being equal, two modern and capable missiles have, with their hit probabilities combined an extremely good chance. IF we’re talking about right conditions. That includes close enough range so it doesn’t happen that missiles run out of fuel.

The closer missile is to its target, the more chance target has to get out of its field of vision with a quick manouver, in theory. In practice though, time needed for a plane to significantly change trajectory compared to reaction time of the missile is not something that’d very favourable for the targeted plane.

Lets forget about all the things that would fool the missile, as it has been said from the beginning of the thread that’s not the issue here – lets also disregard possible malfunctions. In a typical situation we have a plane going at high subsonic speed, head on. enemy launches its missiles. Lets stick to purely defensive manouvers as they’re the issue here. Plane gets illuminated, theres possible missiles coming towards it. Knowing he’s too close too make the missile bleed off all its energy, he is left only with waiting too see if he’ll pick up the SARH missiles on its sensors, be it radar or IR sensors. Only if he can tell the position and the estimated time of arrival of the missiles can he hope to time his manouver well enough to avoid a hit. So assuming he stays focused, and assuming he knows within a fraction of a second when he should manouver his plane, he can perhaps avoid the first missile, while still relatively high on energy. But theres second missile (or even third if you will) coming and targeted plane has turned, bled off its speed, its unable to change its position on the sky as quickly. Not to mention that during the manouver pilot most likely loses the awareness of where the second missile is. Radar contact is probably out of question as plane is probably not facing it, and various IR sensors do not give all 3 dimensions of the position of the missile, let alone accurate speed. So second missile has much greater chances. And in the end, it doesnt even need a direct hit. It wouldn’t be programmed for a direct hit anyway. Proximity fuse would detonate some distance from the target and 40kg fragmentation warhead would fill a nice portion of the sky with deadly shrapnel.

In the case of ARH missile, there’d be added warning of missile’s own radar, so in a way – for this specific scenario – it’d even be slightly better for plane to face such missiles. Again, like the IR sensor, RWR doesn’t really give you precise location and speed of the missile.

In the case of short ranges and IR/IIR missiles, odds are even worse for the plane. Not only is there no warning from the missile itself (there is some, the engine plume, but its somewhat smaller signature for smaller, slower sidewinder than it is for bigger faster amraam) but there doesn’t have to be any illumination radar beam of any sort once its launched and due to its slower speed and size such missiles are even more agile. And yes, new generations have really big fields of vision. Warhead is 3-4 times smaller though but i woulnd’t say that’s much of a problem in the grand scheme of things.

This is all providing missile itself is tracked. Without that, pilot doesnt know when or where to turn, and by making a wrong manouver it can just bleed all its energy and get itself into perfect kill position for the missile. Thats where decoys come in but here we’re not discussing that.

On a side note, i actually think patriot/s300 series would have slightly harder time of hitting a target than something in the amraam class. Though they are faster and in that sense they might give plane less time to detect them and react to them – they are also bigger targets for both radar and IR sensors – potentially negating the less time advantage i first mentioned. Furthermore, precisely because of such great speed, combined with relatively small control surfaces for its size (compared to amraam class) their manouverbility would be lower than amraam’s. In their defense one has to mention the big warheads, in 80-150 kg class, designed to detonate in front of the plane and create a wide area hail of fragments. As for guidance, it basically comes down to command guidance via datalink, quite like for the amraam. Only difference comes in the final stage where amraam gets to use its own radar while TVM guidance relies on ground stations.

Yes, missiles can predict trajectory, to a certain extent. Of course if youre flying straight – they dont know if youll start turning left or right next milisecond. But lets say you start getting in a turn for example, it knows its harder for you to change your trajectory out of that turn in a short moment – and it can position itself to wait for you as you get out turn. Theoretically. In reality of course, proximity fuses and area covering explosions are the means of choice for killing a plane, warhead permitting.

it really would be nice if usaf came out and officially said just which plane is stealthier. cause over the last decade or so there’s just been bunch of conflicting claims. first that f117 is stealthier than f22 then lately that has been reversed in majority of assesments. b2 vs f22 has also been thrown around a lot, some say one is stealthier, others say differently. but not a single official word. Only thing we officially do know from usaf is that frontal rcs of f22 is a marble while f35 is a golf ball. Would be nice if they came out and gave similar comparable illustrations for f117 and b2.

sadly, with big offset deals for economy investment being almost a standard nowadays, present in all recent sales, its next to impossible to assertain exact prices. I seem to remember that south african sale of gripens had a relativelly small offset deal, that pricetag per plane should therefore be a bit more precise.

A question. what’s with some allegations that aesa provides somewhat better range than regular slotted array, all other things being equal? same surface area, same wavelength, same processing power for same resolution and clutter filtering, etc. any truth to that and if so how and why?