A more efficient engine resulting in increased range? But what will be the trade-off?????

I think at this stage it can be done without tradeoff. The F135 engine is still new so there is likely room for some improvement without sacrifices.

I’m surprised they aren’t re-engineering a more boxy, faceted outline for Gripen. Flatter belly, with angled intakes rather than the current rounded square inlets. More angles to break up reflections. I can only guess the exhaust will get the uneven sawtooth treatment. I’m curious what this new landing gear arrangement will look like in production. They aimed for bigger drop tanks, but will they get the drag reduction found in the F-35A program?

I think the boxed design is pretty well done. There are few reflection angles and it is smooth enough to still be very aerodynamic.

Considering it will keep the weapons on the outside I think there is no need for further enhancements. It is stealthy enoungh. After all, whats more important, having a (potentially) marginally better RCS or increasing internal fuel by 40%?

And why bother with a flat belly if you are to carry external weapons under it? If they would use a weapons pod, well… it still wouldnt matter because there is a stealthy pod under it.

And change materials used in the airframe. They could still achieve Mach 1.8 without the excess Mach 2.5 capability.

That too. Lower cost, no actual penalty. It would be different if they had an armed speed of mach 2+ (like the F22).

Gripen ng classified information made available for Finnish representatives.

http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/nyheter/saab-finland-far-tillgang-till-information-om-gripen-di_4456403.svd

Lol at SVD… They claim T50 (Pak FA, not golden eagle) are also rumored to be a candidate…

Either way. Good news for SAAB. Lets hope it isnt a Norway 2.0

ok
Agm-84 have RCS around 0.1 m2, so let assume a small UAV have RCS equal that ( even though UAV often have bigger wing, size)
now if Giraffe 8a can detect target with RCS = 0.1 m2 from 200 km, it will detect target with RCS = 0.01 m2 from around 100 km,

So you are saying that the strategy employed by the F35 is to go head on against all emitting radars?

I hope this will make you reconsider throwing around unverified best case scenarios as a general rule.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]236253[/ATTACH]
From http://www.intechopen.com/books/aeronautics-and-astronautics/the-assessment-method-for-multi-azimuth-and-multi-frequency-dynamic-integrated-stealth-performance-o

It isnt perfect but it should give you an idea on what a near perfect RCS shaped aircraft reflects (look up the X-45 if you havent). Most of the time the reflection is at 0,01 sqm (with valleys down to <0,0001 as well as higher than 10sqm.

Claiming that the head on RCS is to be expected in any situation is naïve to say the least. Especially in situations where multiple emitters are to be considered.

This thread is not about the F35, and the F35 thread is not about the Gripen.

we dont have the flight graph of Rafale , Eurofighter ,Gripen or F-35 yet so my point still stand

Ok, this is from elements of power.

At low alt the differences between fighters is quite small. But none the less thie is what RNAF have to say.

OK, la oss si det slik: Med blanke ark og fly som er likt konfigurert, svinger Gripen krappere og stiger raskere enn en F-16, det er tross alt et nyere fly. Men erfarne norske flygere har også klart å utmanøvrere Gripen.

Ok, lets tell it straight. With “blank sheets” and similarily configured aircrafts, the Gripen turns tighter and climbs faster than a F16, after all its a newer fighter. But experienced norwegian pilots have still managed to outmaneuver the Gripen.

unless you have some flight manual that show otherwise , it not easy to design an aircraft that superior to another for the entire flight envelope
an example of this :

Similarily Gripen has been succesful in beating Typhoons (like in meat Grinder for SwAF and Czech AF in later excercises). But those are exceptions to the rule, just like when the F16 or Gripen can win duels with Typhoons.

When it comes to agility while carrying heavy loads the Rafale is quite a beast. I’d put Gripen C half a step behind Raffie and Taffie because of their performance while loaded and at high alt, and I’d put Gripen a half or a full step ahead of the F16. As stated above (elememts of power, as well as Andraxxus charts) the F35 will roughly match the F16. The problem it has is that while others can jettison fuel tanks and fly “clean” in the endgame, the F35 has to fly with whatever it has in the tanks as well as the penalty of being huge to begin with.

yes but they made many F-35 and tested most part of it’s flight envelope and avionics suite while we still dont have any Gripen-NG ,it’s avionic havenot been tested either

39-7 is the aircraft that has been flying since 2008 and several news are out regarding the avionics tests, stuff like the AESA and EWS over performing and so on.

The twin seater has also been supercruising while armed (mach 1,2+). This is more than most current F35 blocks are allowed to go with afterburner…
http://jyoutouhei548.up.seesaa.net/eecfd3aa.jpg

what coding language is Rafale , EF-2000, Gripen’s avionics written in ? and why are they superior to C++?

There is nothing wrong with C++ other than the compilers and that for some reason LM design the avionics as a single system block (probably because of a desire to increase performance and not risc any interface bugs between modules). To quote Bjarne (the designer of C++)

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.

Now add a thousand engineers of various competence levels designing one single system and you start to understand the problem. Also building everything as software blocks makes the entire system really hard to manage and debug. Gripen C OTOH gets upgrades for the threat library or FCS upgrades without having to wait for the MS* packages.

There are no warnings anywhere, everything looks ok but stuff just dont work (look at ALIS for a prime example). And since the software is so fkn huge it takes a genious to find the little hardcoded bug.

Others, like Gripen, have smaller codebases and code separation. For instance the EWS works separately from the FCS and weapons control (at least initially). This meant few clashes and the smaller codebase meant easier bug fixes.

Now, Gripen E will have a much larger code base. And this is handled by physically separating the code and have the system use internal APIs for communication. This means that users now can develop their own apps, and if they mess something up the fighter is still flyable and it can still use its basic functionality. This also makes bug testing much easier.

we never know anything for sure about modern, top of the line weapon

yes , fighter producer try to reduce aircraft RCS to improve survivability
F-16C RCS is around 1.2 m2 clean
Dassault’s claim that the Rafale’s RCS is 1/10th of the Mirage 2000 RCS => Rafale RCS is about 0.5-0.3 m2 clean
EF-2000 was claimed to have RCS = 1/3 Rafale => around 0.1 m2 clean
According to Airforce’s Monthly magazine the Gripen’s RCS(with full A2A loadout) is 1/3 that of an F-16 => around 0.4 m2 with weapon
F-35 was declare to have RCS equal a golf ball => around 0.0014 m2 clean
but i rounded everything because that make calculation easier

what i was trying to say with that assessment is that F-35 was designed to hide from really big and powerful ground radar ,it wouldnt be a big deal for it to hide from fighter radar
example :

The question still remains. Did the previous 100 times RCS-reductions make modern fighters invincible? Yes or no.

DAS give many advantage compared to normal HMDS
1- give more accurate guide to HOBS missiles
2- give pilot warning and accurate location of enemy’s missiles or Flak
3- night dogfight ?
( it true that the system still have some bugs at the moment though )

Just give me one situation where this is needed (apart from when you have a missile and you enemy doesnt), in which case DAS or no DAS – You just need to point the nose a bit and fire.

Also, Rafale has already demonstrated 180 degree off boresight lock on in various excercises so the capabilities arent exactly new.

actually PAWS-2 is just a missiles warning sensor that can be put on fighter or helicopter , connecting to aircraft it can detect missiles launch , give warning and deployed countermeasure ( chaff , flare , DIRCM ) , however like i said it cant deploy DIRCM if the aircraft itself dont have laser turret , so Gripen-E dont have DIRCM , neither are EF-2000 or Rafale
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/elisra-to-boost-gripen-missile-warning-suite-393897/
http://defense-update.com/products/p/paws.htm

http://www.gripenblogs.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=793

PAWS-2 is an IR based combat-proven Missile Warning Systems designed to strengthen tactical aircraft safety and survivability. It provides warning to aircrew in the presence of hostile missiles and automatically activates onboard countermeasures such as flares, DIRCM, etc.

Is SAAB a good enough source for you?

EDIT: I think this is starting to get off topic. But now you have sources for every claim I have made and I think that even if you have a different conclusion than I have you will find that in principle our differences lie not in the facts (not anymore at least), but rather in our expectations. I have seen leaps like the F35 before and the result has not been the revolution everybode was hoping fore. The competition has a wierd way of catching up faster than expected.

I think its time for the US to start fielding a replacement for the AIM-120, this is an issue that extends beyond the F-35. That said, even with modern ECM the odds aren’t very appealing to whomever has to evade the incoming missiles.

It depends on range and how early the system detects an incoming threat (right away nowadays).

Evading incoming missiles is not something that is particularily difficult (historically), and every time a new ECM or countermeasure is tested against the latest missiles available the results are usually 90-100% successful.

This is one example of marketing vs reality.

Stinger offers a high explosive hit-to-kill, blast-fragmentation warhead. Stinger has nearly 300 combat kills and a success rate of over 92 percent in more than 1,500 live fire tests by U.S. and allied forces.

And as the Falklands showed

Falklands 1982.
Seacat – 10 % – leading 5 years
Sea dart – 27% – leading 10-15 years.
Blowpipe – 1-2% – leading 5 years
Stinger – 17-33 % – leading 20 years.
Sea wolf – 50 – 62 % – leading 20 years.
Rapier – 5 – 15 % – leading 10 years.

The Stinger was pretty new at the time of the war.
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?117432-historical-kill-percentages-of-SAMs&p=1904859#post1904859

This if anything shows the importance of staying current. And the missiles one gets in the inventory are usually 5 years old at the time of purchase and then stockpiled a couple of years before actual use.

Vastly inferior? I’d say its performance is inferior to the Typhoon and Rafale in some respects but I think you’re overestimating what a single F404/F414 can do for a Gripen. Attrition and quantity? None of the Eurocanards are particularly cheap as the numbers do show.

It is vatly inferior to Rafale and Typhon while being “only” inferior to Gripen. If we are kind and say it equals the F16 (F16 at full internal fuel, no EFT) then it still is quite a long way behind the Gripen A and C in terms of kinematcs. The Gripen E will be even better performing.

There is always a big difference between what is being tested and what is actually in the field. By the time Block 3F is fielded Typhoon operators will be lucky if they have just have gotten the CAPTOR-E. Likewise the bulk of the Chinese and Russian fighter fleets are still using old mechanically scanned radars. This isn’t going to change that quickly. It’s also very unlikely that nobody in the F-35 program is thinking ahead about incorporating GAN-related radar and EW/ECM upgrades into the aircraft.

You mean in 2017/2018? I dont know, but the Gripen E will be delivered with fully functional GaN based EWS along with the new AESA (which is of a more advanced model than the one in the F35).

Sure, the F35 will be among the most advanced at delivery (in terms of avionics, not to mention stealth). But it wont be the relative technological marvel that it would have been in 2008.

Another problem is costs. Austria and South Africa are in my mind prime examples of many future F35-fleets. They are buying systems that are too expensive for their budgets and thus upgrades, training and actual capability suffers.

What is this based on? Historically this hasn’t been true for the Eurocanards. Meanwhile to the east economic conditions aren’t going to help the Russian’s upgrade programs. As long as the customers and funding is there I don’t see any reason why the F-35 should lag behind in regards to upgrades.

I have my eyes focused on the Gripen. Every 2,5 years there is a major upgrade for Gripen (with small upgrades in between, stuf flike improved threat library in the EWS). If my memory serves me correct this is also true for the Rafale.

Abysmally low? What numbers are you thinking of here? I’ll agree that against the latest ECM probability of a kill isn’t as high as it was say, a decade ago, but I wouldn’t bet on evading AMRAAMs with ease.

The hitrate is good if you fire on targets up to 18nm away with a BVR missile and the enemy has no RWR, chaffs or jammer. In that case the Amraam has almost 50% succesrate in hitting targets (if it also is leading 20 years technologically, see reference below to trailing/leading).

The main problem in BVR is that yout have long kill chain.
1 Guidance from launching aircraft. This requires active radar from a fighter within the formation/group launching the missile.
2 Missile seeker is easily jammed and needs to correlate information with guiding ac to be able to handle jamming.
3 The missile has to get close to targets within the sustainer range

For instance. Responding to a detected launch by sending a LOAL capable missile in that direction makes part 1 a very risky venture. Sending out 2 counter missiles (one to “hunt” for the active radar and one to chase the estimated position of the launch point) will stop anything but a very suicidal attacker. (See Operation Allied Force for reference on SAM vs SEAD).

This effectively destroys point one in the kill chain and this is one of the reasons why active seekers are so popular in modern missiles. (And why the Israelis specifically added this feature to Python 5).

Now one is left with relying on the built in seeker in the missile which is MUCH easier to jam. This despite various HOJ features. And most likely the fighter is outside the range of the missiles radar at this point anyway.

For an unguided (ie without updates from external source) missile to find its target after losing it once will cost energy. Most likely the loss of energy will be too high for it so the hit is unlikely (as is evident in the Israeli/Arabic wars, Falklands, Allied force etc). Unfortunately there arent many AA missile standoffs to look at, but there are plenty examples of SAM-systems (with better radar systems) vs fighter jets where the kill probability in good cases is 20% and usually is below 1%.

(Once again, Allied Force is a prime example as is Desert Storm, the Falklands, The Israel/Arab wars).

This is statistically what a disturbed kill chain looks like.

In all, more than 800 SAMs were reported to have been fired at NATO
aircraft, both manned and unmanned, over the course of the 78-day
air war, including 477 SA-6s and 124 confirmed man-portable infrared
missiles (see Figure 6.1 for a depiction of reported enemy SAM
launches by type).19 A majority of the fixed SAMs were fired without
any radar guidance. Yet despite that expenditure of assets, only two
NATO aircraft, an F-117 and an F-16, were shot down by enemy fire,
although another F-117 sustained light damage from a nearby SA-3
detonation and two A-10s were hit by enemy AAA fire but not
downed. 20 There also were two reported cases of short-range
infrared (IR)-guided missiles hitting A-10s, one of which apparently
struck the bottom of the aircraft, defused itself, and bounced off

The HARM-missiles where roughly just as effective. The difference there is that the air targets where moving while the ground targets where fixed.

Yet once you’re WVR you’re up against extremely maneuverable all-aspect HOBS missiles with IIR/UV seekers that are nearly impossible to fool (without DIRCM). Couple these with helmet mounted cuing systems and the sustained turn rate of your fighter is irrelevant. It’s going to be a very costly fight for both sides once this happens.

How many missiles are the F35 carrying? The WVR-missiles are present on both sides, the difference is that an agile fighter that doesnt need to use HOBS can double the effectie range of its missiles. The whole idea behind shooting a fighter behind your back is based assuming you have missiles and your enemy not having them. Ie, the premise is faulty. This is also a feature all modern fighters have, so its not unique to the F35.

The problem with the statement “impossible without DIRCM” is that most modern fighters (Israeli F16s, Gripen, Rafale etc) have both DIRCM and flares.

This is true of every fighter to some extent or another. Even a fighter with unmatched stealth, performance, and avionics isn’t going to be very effective if it’s lobbing AIM-7Es at the enemy.

And still, that is how the reality looks. Take this for example:
First you have a few years of testing, and then they pass, get ordered and about a year later they are delivered.

Deliveries of the AIM-120C-5 began in July 2000

But that is first deliveries, this is when the customers en massé get them:

In 2006 Poland received AIM-120C-5 missiles to arm its new F-16C/D Block 52+ fighters.
In early 2006, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) ordered 500 AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles as part of a $650 million F-16 ammunition deal to equip its F-16C/D Block 50/52+ and F-16A/B Block 15 MLU fighters. The PAF got the first three F-16C/D Block 50/52+ aircraft on July 3, 2010 and first batch of AMRAAMs on July 26, 2010.

And so on.

This means that the missiles are +15 years old when most users get them. Lets say Poland does fight a war in 5 years. Do you think it will be using Meteor or the then 20 years old Aim 120C-7?

Lets just say that the enemy has an EWS from 2014 (like Gripen C, MS18), what do you think the odds are of actually hitting that target in BVR based on the reality of previous wars?

A missile system (like SA-6) used when it is less than 5 years old, had a kill probability of about 2% over the course of the war (1973). In the beginning it was highly succesful because the Israeli RWRs didnt pick up the signal but after changed tactics it was no longer getting any kills. (Hirsh Goodman, W. Seth Carus)

So my criticism isnt about the F35 in itself. It is a mix of relying on the weak link (the missiles), a weak kill chain, low “bang for the buck”, and pretty much no endgame.

Oh, and to the defence of the missiles. The poor performance is usually due to attacks on the kill chain and adapted tactics. If the enemy would fly with jammers off within 20km of the SA-6 the killrate would be very high (as it was initially).