Tu22mRegd. the IR supression, there was a talk about it a while ago and no one can contributed any useful data regd. how it works, how effective it is or what the outcome on the detection range can be. Given the recent surge in performance, sensitivity and availability of starred focal plane arrays (quadrupling their size every 2-3 years) I have serious doubts that techniques like freon injection, fuel cooling or ceramic nozzle layers can even remotely hope to outweigh this development speed.
You havent heard about it because it is close to BS.
The actual IR suppression from fuel comes from cooling the hull around the engine and avionics, not from cooling the exhaust.
Cooling of exhaust gases with fuel, ie letting the exhaust pass a heat exchanger in the hot section would cool the fumes for <1/300th of a second assuming it runs on dry thrust. With afterburner going the effect does not exist. But cooling fumes would make them smaller and lower the pressure in the engine giving lower exhaust speed -> lower net thrust. Also the time is too short for any cooling.
Using fuel to cool down parts of the engine isnt anything new, for instance Gripen has used it for a long time http://techworld.idg.se/2.2524/1.174315/reaktionsmotor-12—bade-vacker-och-stark
Alla kritiska delar genomflyts därför av kylmedium. Intressant nog används flygbränslet som kylmedium, för det kommer från vingtankarna, som är kalla.
A coolant thus flows through all critical parts. Interestingly enough the fuel is used as a coolant, since it comes from the wing tanks, who are cold.
Sure, one could rebrand it as IR suppression if spin and BS is the forté of the manufacturer. In the case of Gripen it uses huge heat echangers behind the cockpit leading the heat over the back of the aircraft.
Additives in the fuel will only make cooling of the jet go faster once it leaves the nozzle. So instead of having a tail of 30 meters it will have one of 28 (probably even less but it doesnt matter). Looking at IR footage we can clearly see that what matters is near the airplane, and thats stuff that the F35 does not tackle.
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Tu22mSu-27 was specifically built to topple F-15, i think that is the intent again,
maneuverability is the obvious priority, but this time around its supersonic maneuverability
It is also cheaper to let the opponent make the first move.
Tu22myes IR sensors surely light up the room, F-35 is broadcasting its position in 6 different directions with DAS
bye
IR sensors are passive, but the aircraft itself is emitting.
Tu22mJust to be accurate, as it could lead to confusion and misunderstanding . In the occurrence this is not a manufacturer statement or claim ,but an operator opinion at a given point of time . The exact quote being : “I am personally convinced that the rafale is the best fighter plane in the world”.
Yes, you are correct. It was more an example of being me being biased and pro Rafale.
Tu22mWhy is the SA of an F-35 “much superior” (if indeed, better at all) than the Rafale/Typhoon/Gripen NG.
I accept it will be better than an F-16C Blk 50 or a F-15C, but compared to aircraft that have actually received (and are/will receive) updated avionics/software…
It is superior because LM brochures say so, why would they lie? It is just as true as the statement that Gripen NG is the worlds most advanced fighter aircraft or that Gripen is “perfectly balanced”. In some specific aspect those claims may be true (for instance GaN based AESA-jammers and datalinks) but in others…
At least thats SAABs statements http://saab.com/air/gripen-fighter-system/gripen/gripen/Proud-to-be-brazilian/the-fighter/
Or maybe the Rafale is just the “best fighter in the world” http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/rafale-is-the-best-fighter-plane-in-the-world-air-chief-marshal-denis-mercier-2/
If my fav manufacturer says something is the best, then surely they must be right? 😉
Tu22mALTERNATE INTERDICTION profile is this one :
Thanks for the totally nonsensical spamming MiG-31. I will now visit the most useful link on the forum.
– The Yugoslav successors are all either members of the EU or applicants/aspirants to EU membership, which pretty much nixes the prospect of armed conflict against the majority of European states.
But they where the same United States of Yugoslavia before. Surely they have grown up since the wars and accepted to live in the United States of Europe for now, but tides can turn quickly. Do note that they lived in peace before as well.
– Transnistria & Chechnya aren’t nations.
Chechnya was its own nation for a while, it’s been an on/off situation regarding that. Currently they are a part of Russia. From wiki: “Following the First Chechen War with Russia, Chechnya gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. ”
Ok, Transnistria is a bit of a borderline situation. They use their own currency, have their own army etc and will act as a support for Russia in invading Ukraine during the expansion of the conflict.* As such they either run the risk of having enemy aircraft in their airspace, or Moldova runs that risk.
– Ukraine and Georgia are valid examples that just go to prove the original point. While political & economic realities preclude such an order, nobody can say that the F-35 is ‘overkill’ for either of them.
The F35 is definately overkill for Georgia and Ukraine.
Ukraine has/had about the same GDP as Hungary. So either they would afford say 12 Gripens or 4 F35 or a larger number of leftover MiGs.
Georgia has about half the GDP of Latvia or a third of Lithuania. The best airforce of the Baltic states can afford one L39. Luckily they still had some left over Su25. But the F35?? With a lifetime cost of an F35 for 30 years of ~$420 million each or $14 million per year, the Georgian airforce could afford 13 x F35s if they dismanteled 50% of their entire army. They could afford 6 x F35 if they throw our 25% of their army.
Somehow I feel that it isoverkill. Second hand F16s or Gripens would be great, buying the Eurofighters from Austria would probably be pretty good as well.
In reality costs matter.
F35 costs, 700m * 0,6:
Testifying before a Canadian parliamentary committee in 2011, Rear Admiral Arne Røksund of Norway estimated that his country’s 52 F-35 fighter jets will cost $769 million each over their operational lifetime.[102] In 2012, the total life-cycle cost for the entire U.S. fleet was estimated at US$1.51 trillion over a 50-year life, or $618 million per plane.
From Wiki
On the other hand, if you’re comfortably situated in some other part of Europe such as Switzerland (or a secure part of Asia, like Sri Lanka), then rejecting the F-35 makes perfect sense but ordering another fighter jet can only be driven (internal) political/nationalist factors rather to meet some military/security need.
I think that speaks more about a lack of deductive reasoning from your part than anything else. But hey, if you think investing in the F35 is a great idea for a country that can only afford 4-6 of them (and thus having one airbase) then go for it. In my heart i wish you are the defence minister of Belarus or some other banana republic.
* The conflict is constantly expanding and will continue to do so until Ukraine admits defeat and surrenders to the will of Putin. Until then the war will slowly grow. Transnistria (or Moldova?) will become more and more important, and as such there is risk
Tu22mi really cant see where is the extra 200 km range you mentioned in the graph
Must have misread this “the Rafale can perform a 1,000-nm-radius strike mission, carrying both heavy air-to-surface weapons and air-to-air missiles”.
Either way, I believe that pulling 3 x 4G turns is within the scope of what the Rafale and Gripen can perform in the “combat” part of the mission. Or fly 57nm at intermediate thrust.
Tu22mIn the last few decades, how many countries have had their capitals menaced by hostile aircraft? So why the advocacy for half measures? Why not call for (and I’m not being facetious here) the countries facing a benign threat environment to abolish their air forces altogether?
Just looking at Europe we have:
Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo comes to mind (1999)
Ukraine is on the verge (2015/2016).
Georgia got pretty beat up in 2008.
Slovenia (vs Yugoslavia) may be on the list if we go back to 1991.
Transnistria (not technically a country, but is something in between), Moldova are their threat. Still ongoing, had a war in 1993(?).
Cechnya (when they where sort of separated from Russia), conflict still ongoing but started ca 1992.
(So about 6-8 countries in Europe with real threats and bombings?)
The Baltic states get air policing from Nato and neighboring countries so they don’t really need to think about it too much. But without friendly neighbors they would need their own airforces.
If any of these bullet points are applicable to a country where you live, then it is a pretty high risc that uninvited military fighters will cross your borders.
1 Having been part of the USSR/Warsaw Pact or Russia
2 Being an arab country
3 Being an african country
Then we have the regular stuff. Like any of these incidents showing that Russia wants to poke its neighbors. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/full-list-of-incidents-involving-russian-military-and-nato-since-march-2014-9851309.html
Sure, it’s not menacing but the trend is more and more aggressive behavior. It’s hard to say what the Russians would do if say, Denmark or Sweden just abolished the airforces. My guess is that the Russians would “accidentally navigate over their capitols”. Just like they accidentally invaded Ukraine or kidnapped estonian border guards. Every country that is located within Flanker Range from Russia should have their own airforce.
Tu22mthey missed it really tiny bit though ( like 10-20 nm) , and they haven’t take into account the range from 7% reserved fuel for testing
Its roughly the same for all. 5 min with intermediate thrust is the Navy standard, in the case of F35 it would mean 125KN (or 96 KN depending on how you count). That gives ~90km of flying in a straight line, less if you want to add a turn. In the mission profile for Rafale and Gripen there is still 200 km left in excess range left on top of the 1700km in the mission profile with 3 x EFT.
In the flight profile you quoted with 610nm range it is the same mission as “10.4.2.9 ALTERNATE INTERDICTION” where combat is 3 x 4g turns, but instead of sea level its @ 25kft.
http://www.aviation.org.uk/docs/flighttest.navair.navy.milunrestricted-FTM108/c10.pdf
If you respond, please keep it factual and concise. Otherwise I will just ignore your post.
Tu22mMost of the figures given for the F-35’s range seem to refer to the “usual” configuration with two JDAMs versus a pure air-to-air loadout. Eventually (Block 4/5) it will be able to carry six air-to-air missiles internally
In the Norway presentation they gave the figure of 610nm with two internally carried 900 lbs bombs + 2 AIM120 (each weighing 335 lbs).
http://s146.photobucket.com/user/sampaix/media/F-35-Misson-Profile.jpg.html
Thats the F35A, combat is just pulling a few turns on max dry thrust (Rafale has the equivalent of >200nm cruise left in that profile. Not sure what optimum cruise alt is, but 30kft seems to be pretty close to that).
According to this paper the optimum cruise alt for the F35A is 20kft and 31kft for the F35C http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/F35AndrewsS03.pdf
In pure optimum cruise (with 2 x 500 lbs bombs +2 x 335 lbs missiles the total flown range is 2 x 728nm, ie with no combat and possibly with a drop tank according to the Norway presentation)
So the range figures are at the high end for fighters, but nothing game changing. Especially considering that the F35 fails to meet the requirements for range.
Tu22mAnd what altitudes are this mission occurring and what munitions are being carried. What about the specifics for that Rafale range?
Same as for the F35. Optimal cruise and short combat/loiter in target area with 6 missiles.
..oh, the F35 would need external stores to match that weapon load and mid air refueling to match the range.
Tu22mF-35 on internal fuel can reached around the same distance that rafale, Typhoon, F-18, Gripen would need 3 EFT, it wouldn’t be exactly fair to compared their wing loading, T/W if they carry similar percentage of fuel would it?
Politely said, that is BS.
The range of the F35 is roughly 600nm according to Lockheed Martin with maneuvering (590 with 2x2000lbs bombs, 610 with 900lbs load.*). Gripen NG + Rafale both can reach over 920nm + maneuvering with three drop tanks and missiles.
Ie you want to compare the F35 with fighters equipped for over 50% longer endurance and still call it fair…
Gripen NG with 2 drop tanks (similar to the excercise load for the F16 in this scenario) still has a combat radius of 655nm or 9% longer range than te F35. So the F35 with 70-80% fuel vs a 4th gen fighter with a centerline tank is probably the closest comparison, unless we are talking about fighters in the same weight class (like the F15) or larger fighters (like the Flankers).
The F35 vs an F16/Rafale is a comparsion to a fighter <70% of the weight of an F35A, assuming the F35A to be the norm the upper band in the comparisons should then be 19 tonnes. That is, it should also be compared to the Flankers. And suddenly the F35 would need external fuel. If the F35 is to be compared to the Grippen then the upper bound is about 26 000 kg.
So to keep comparisons fair, at least compare fighters that weigh sort of the same. Because fuel and range usually is a product of airframe size -> internal volume -> weight.
In the case of the F35 the closest match is the F15C and F15E (the F35A falls in the middle).
One could also test it the other way around, normalizing all comparisons to the fighter with the shortest range (instead of just the F35) to get less biased comparisons.
*Not sure if that is the actual or estimated difference by LM but thats their official numbers. In reality they fell short of their benchmark. 600nm is a reasonable number with l
Tu22mInterceptor? IIRC, those TF30 engines were optimized for lower altitude performance, they were pretty lousy on higher altitudes (like the engines of the Tornado). Granted, both the F-14 and Tornado F3 were still put into service as interceptors with those engines, but still..
Still, the operational ceiling was 66 000 ft, and mach 2.5 isnt typically low level performance. 😉
But yeah, the primary goal was low level strike missions.
Tu22mThis was a qualitative comparison vs. the F-16, in which it didn’t fare well. But, then, the F-35 is not supposed to be an F-16, its more like a F-111 lite.
I think thats the closest comparison to make. Personally I would have liked to see the F35 being more of a redesigned F111 for the modern era, unfortunately size restrictions make that impossible.
Looking at the specs for the F111 i have to admit that it is pretty impressive.
Top speed of mach 2.5 (about one mach faster than the F35), range on internal fuel of 2500nm (about twice that of the F35) etc. As n interceptor and striker I think is is fenomenal.
Tu22mThese are all public domain. BAe, Thales etc are all 5-10 years ahead of this.
No, impossible. The F22 is designed in the future, thus it is impossible to catch up with it. It doesnt matter what your puny “public domain” proofs to the contrary shows.
However, LPI does shorten the effective range of RWR.
But, I don’t see how this is related to the inability of the F35 to shake off an F16.
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