The difference is that these developments happen over time instead of trying to get everything at once, and of course with a far smaller defence budget.

Most problems from a waterfall project are the following.

1 Since the end result is carved in stone the deveopment isnt very flexible. A result of that is that the JSF is stuck with the APG 81, a very capable radar, but behind the new competitors. Many others, like the Vixen 1000E offers 200 degree scan sector instead of 120 degrees just to name one thing.

2 Since all systems have to be ready at the same time delays are guaranteed. The delays make the system less competitive when finished. The only way to go forward is to release a system with bugs and problems and work on fixing them later (like the LRIP aircrafts that arent allowed to fly supersonic).

3 Modularity is only partially a part of the JSF programme. This will drive up the costs for future upgrades and make some upgrades impossible.

So the F35 pilot will have a front row view of his impeding doom? :p 😀

Depends on the situation. Once detected it’s a close call whether i would prefer to sit in a F35 or a MXY-7 Ohka

Nope. The distance (600 Nmiles) that LM allegedly did not achieve, is for 2 x 2000 lbs. The 673 Nmiles (728 Nmiles) is for another flight profile.

Again this is for another flight profile, namely “surveillance mission”. This usually means 2-3 hours. So, there is 673 Nmiles + a coulpe of hours.

According to the source: http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:193f1ee3-bac2-4a8d-b0b0-c42c84351a6a

No low-altitude penetration – just a drop below the cloudbase to ID a maritime target. Smaller 500-pound bombs and two fewer missiles – with maximum external fuel.

This pic only lists the weapon systems and avionics.

In the same summary they state that the range is 610nm with 2x900lbs missiles. If we include 15 min on station (yes, as always im generous) we get close to 670 nm x 2 for total range. And that is congruent with this:

The F-35 has a radius of 673 nautical miles on internal fuel alone and 728 nautical miles using external tanks.

And there it goes again.
Lightly armed with drop tanks (in plural) the F35 can fly a total distance of 1456nm while Gripen NG with 2 drop tanks and heavier weapons load can fly over 1670nm and the Rafale over 2000nm.

Read the summary yourself.
http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FD/Temadokumenter/JSF_RBI-svar.pdf

Oh, I almost forgot. The actual F35 range (since they missed the range requirement) is under 1’395nm.

lower drag clean yes , with all weapon , pod may be ,but they are supercruise aren’t they so they be hotter => easier to detect from far , and rafale , su-35 , f-22 , EF-2000 all have 2 engine so tend to give more ir signature i think
and a little bigger target dont give you that much improve in range , i mean how much is the f-35 bigger than rafale ? 10 % ? 20 % ?
last f-35 is designed to work in transonic region , so it’s drag in that region may be not as high as people think ,

I simply count fuel fraction. Despite having the most energy efficient engine the F35 has among the highest fuel fractions among jets.

And for the skin temperature… if you only supercruise to the CAP area and then go into subsonic loitering @ altitude the jet will cool down pretty rapidly.

You can count on it.
How many pixels do you define as an identified target (need to fill >50% of the pixel to be valid)? (FOI counts 6 pixels across as an identified object)
According to the tan and sin/cos calculations, how much does it change the distance?
Head on a clean F35 is about 50-70% larger in cross section than a lightly armed Gripen.

are you sure with those number :confused: , i have check but even with internal fuel it reached combat radius of about 1100 km :confused:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

This is exagerated by 10-16% since the F35A struggles to have a combat radius of 584nm and the F35C doesnt go further than 615nm on internal fuel. If it is true that the F35 with external tanks (in plural) can reach 728nm it would be ~1350km radius, if we remove the lost range on internal fuel we get 1185-1243km depending on version.

So I was actually pretty generous in my assumption of the range performance and gave the F35 80-135 km extra, as I always do to avoid hurting anyones feelings.

Just to give better understanding of how Lockheed measures combat radius…

In all likelihood, the F-35 (no matter how it is loaded) will have better SA, be more survivable, and will be able to prosecute it’s mission better than a similarly armed 4th gen fighter.. period.

This is what is said about one of the fighters i mentioned.

Effort will also be expended on reducing the aircraft’s radar cross section (RCS) through modifications to the air-intakes and wing leading edge and the use of composite materials and new surface coatings. RCS reduction measures are not new to the Gripen programme. “From the very start we have worked with this issue,” explains Lehander. “After the latest changes we have made, [reducing RCS] is nothing more to do with the aircraft, it is the weapons.”

F35 with internal weapons has the RCS advantage and is most likely to have a first shoot capability.

F35 with the same external weapons has a very marginal edge in first shoot capability.

F35 carrying larger missiles, like AARGM, has no advantage over the modern 4,5 gen fighters.

And no, the F35 can’t perform any mission better, just try some of these.

* Deep strike 1400km away from the main base.
[INDENT](oh, I think only the 4,5 gen fighters and drones can do this…)[/INDENT]
* Intercept a supersonic jet (at 1,5-2 mach) that isnt flying straight towards the airfield.
* Participate in Baltic Air Policing or similar missions.
[INDENT](I think cost is the big issue here)
[/INDENT]* CAP
* Quick response to any threat
* CAS

As previously stated. The F35 is magnificent in some aspects but if one actually thinks its better at everything then its time to sober up.

An interesting point in the Saab seminar was that Saab envisions the Gripen(my guess the F version) as a command unit/fighter escort for a unit of 4 UAV(neuron in the pic) bombers. Equipped with a surveillance pod and extra fuel. For strike missions.

Interesting contrast to the F-35 fleet. You might say its a whole other doctrine.

The same offer was made to the Netherlands.

Stealth drones for deep strike missions and to be used as external sensors and standoff platforms. Maybe as far away as 100 km.

With beamed datalinks it sure will be interesting. See page 40 here http://www.jsfnieuws.nl/wp-content/DutchAirForceAssociation_Gripen_2009.pdf

Gripen NG with UCAV´s
• Extending the reach and payload capacity of the manned fighter which acts as
Command & Control, i.e. UCAV as an intelligent, reusable stand-off platform. One
fighter may control several UCAVs

They have built several stealth drones with the datalink integration (in TIDLS) (Like the Filur, Sharc and now jointly the nEuron)

…But there will not be an F version, a least not in Swiss/Swede service,
and so unlikely elsewhere

There wasnt supposed to be a B version either… look how that turned out. If the D+ standard is enough then it sure, there won’t be an F version.

FYI, ATD-X Shinshin was RCS measured in France, because only the US ad France had such RCS measuring facilities.

I guess this one doesnt exist then…

Its just a small underground facility with a tiny completely shielded room that measures 35x15x12 meters.

Thats enough to test a full sized Rafale in the basement. If you want more distance you just leave the doors open (and get a little more noise).

There are also several outdoors test sites around AMPA.

This is how it looks when they do testing for isolated parts like the radome.
http://htka.hu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Stealth-radom.jpg

Gripen design based on similar concept to Lavi/J-10. there is nothing more in Gripen that cannot be in those designs. and those design is no longer pursued in Russia.

Ehh, the J10 is developed from J9 which was a “Chinese Viggen”.

Gripen was built to be a modular system that was:
1 Being omnirole.
2 Have a low maintenance footprint
3 Being cheap to manufacture and thus smaller (and lighter) than its predecessors (Draken and Viggen)
4 Being easy to upgrade with continous upgrades during the life cycle instead of block upgrades.
5 Being a high performance airframe

The J10 is not based on the same principles. Just start with the basics, is it in the same weight class as the Gripen or is it closer to a Hornet in weight?

What about using GPU’s instead of CPU’s to do the hard work? I see SAAB has been looking into as we can see in this link

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fuu.diva-portal.org%2Fsmash%2Fget%2Fdiva2%3A292558%2FFULLTEXT01&ei=1tkMUbuKBoKq0AWr1IGoCw&usg=AFQjCNGla1UVcuHYnAlcMkv_eA4jM0_uNw&bvm=bv.41867550,d.d2k

I’ve no idea what it all means though as i’ve not had the time this morning to study whats been written in the link.

Thanks a lot.

So they are looking at the GTX-series that in the GTX 260 delivers 715 Gflops and in the GTX 280 delivers 933 GFlops per card. And with at least 1 card per SM x 6 SMs one can assume 4,2-5,6 TFlops in the first delivered system. The F35 wont stay at the 2 TFlop rating but this is whats coming.

More computing power is always nice to have, but not all problems are fundamentally about computational power.

Which would you prefer, the Hubble Space Telescope or a backyard telescope hooked up to a supercomputer?

Physics is physics and all the computational power in the universe won’t change the fundamental drivers of radar performance.

Getting to the bottom line… better processors can help, and AESA’s are a big leap forward from earlier radars, but radars in general are not going to improve with computational power.

Its a tough one. But there are some physics of distortion in the atmosphere that comes in the way etc. This is a better one.

Would I rather have this kind of camera lens for 200’000-2 000 000$ for my EOS camera?

Or 360 10$ imaging chips with 360 30$ lenses hooked up to a 12TB/S and 13,8 GPixel capable system, like Argus?

Thanks to the computing power a lot of distortion can be filtered out, targets can be tracked and I can record everything. So a “bad” system can have a performance boost.

Radars today have a dynamic noise sensitivity to avoid false warnings. Everything above the noise level gets tracked and if there is a lot of jamming (like white noise) then the bar is put at a higher level, shortening the effective range of the radar.

But the array itself sees almost everything. It sees the noise and the returns from below the threshold. With a CPU/GPU that can analyse the white noise its quite possible to track even the smallest returns that shouldnt be noticed because of the “ignore” threshold. The problem has been, and will be, to reduce the false echoes. If you just increase sensitivity today you could possibly get 50% longer range, but have over 1000 returns instead of 4 targets. (Just an example figure)

And thats where filtering and post processing comes in (the targets above threshold deisplayed with almost no delay, the targets in the noise zone take a litle longer to filter out).