You see, such example as you describe above is not realistic at all.
The F-16C does not go on any regular A2A mission with 3 DT strapped on, no sir. It can rely on tankers.. but really, these are teoretical figures at best.
The F-16C is not designed with a long range intercept role.. good luck with that and three DT strapped on..
The F-16 is not meant to do the same A2A missions as the Flanker, end of story.

You seem to forget than not all Air-forces have the means to have dedicated planes like the F-15 or the Su-27 doing their A2A missions.

Take Turkey and Greece for example. NATO members, neighbours and rivals.

They both conduct A2A missions with F-16s. And they both use 3 DT on the F-16s with 2 AiM-120s and 2 AiM-9s/IRIS-T’s ..

this is not about US vs Russia only ..

JPO won’t and can’t. JP cannot spend that extra money, and Lockheed Martin is hard pressed with the current testing schedule and cannot allocate resources to external ordinances testing.

The supercruise isn’t a feature of the F-35 and Lockheed is not claiming supercruise.

What F-35 does, every other supersonic capable fighters do. What, you thought a jet would instantly fall back to subsonic speed once the pilot turns off AB?

The word “cruise” implies -sustained- ..speed. Or am I wrong there?

The AWACS would only need to know the general location of the F-35 in order to vector interceptors. The AWACS would not even be concerned with targeting as that would be the job of the x-band radars on the interceptors (or an IRST).

I agree, but I think you are missing my point, the inherent problems in lower bands mean AWACS may not even be able to tell the interceptors how many F-35s are in the vector.

F-35s will be detected by AWACS just fine. It’s the X-band radar lockon delay that the F-35 pursues, not the detection avoidance by the enemy AWACS and destroyer low-band radars.

F/A-18E/F, Typhoon, F-15 AESA, Su-35, and PAK-FA all have better and more powerful radars than the F-35 does. The very fact that the F-35B and C do not have internal gun shows that the marines and the navy have no intention of doing dogfights in the F-35. The F-35 is really an A-35, a replacement for the Harrier, the F/A-117 and the A-6. Nothing more.

Well, Harriers carry AMRAAMs but no airforce/navy would send out Harriers to kill enemy fighter jets. It’s strictly for self-defense like the lizard’s tail, buying enough time to escape from incoming enemy fighter jets on the interception path.

AWACS do not fire missiles nor carry interceptions.

What kind of binary logic is this? Any asset upon which the enemy has a hard time deploying weapons against is invaluable !!

The F-35 is the little brother (i.e. smaller rifle) to a sniper (F-22) .. only a sniper can kill another sniper…

I wonder that too since there is no such animal as an “export grade” F-35.:rolleyes:

Given that it comes nowhere close to the RCS optimized shaping of the F-35, the Fibermat infused RAM composite panels, or the completely buried engine… it’s paint-on RAM must be super-uber 9th gen RAM to make up the difference. 😉

I think what Boeing are probably trying to pitch is that they have taken measures to decrease the aircraft’s RCS and by doing so they have decreased the head on range it can be positively detected.

remember that a few dB less here and there take away Km in detection range.

VLO it isn’t .. but who knows, it might be tempting enough for people who will NEVER invade another country.

😉

Not that it makes a difference, a mildly LO plane will never be a match in the detection arena to a VLO plane.

flat nose, bay, canted tails is some of the things stealth jet has. su47 only has a bay, a curved but not s duct. su47 duct is more like the american f5.

Guess what, you can’t see the compressor face in the MiG – 21 either, how is that for a stealthy feature ?

and neither could you see the engine on the F-5, or the MiG-23, that is not a stealth feature on its own right.

I’m not sure how you define “kid” – but yep, same person. Probably the most qualified “kid” on the forum.

All those companies have a damn good reason for continuing with the status quo and continuing to encourage the idea that BVR combat does work, while pretty much all evidence points to it being a marginally effective tactic at best.

[I will preempt where this will probably go by pointing out that producing evidence of kills from an AMRAAM does not constitute evidence of a BVR kill. Even including that, AMRAAM and Sparrow kill ratios, regardless of whether the launches were WVR or BVR against vastly inferior opposition are pathetic.]

For instance, how much profit do you think General Dynamics made on each F-16A? How much do you think that jumped with the -16C?

Do you think the Tomcat would ever have been designed if BVR was not a concept the airforce were told would work? Or the F-15? Or the F-22? Or the Eurofighter? Or the Flanker? Or the PAK-FA? That is a helluva lot of money.

There is little point even mentioning the obvious incentive the missile companies have in proclaiming just how good a complex and very expensive BVR weapon “is”.

The emperor is naked. Obviously a lot of people are going to have difficulties dealing with that.

About the only benefit of BVR (aside from a few marginal kills) would be forcing the other guy to maneuver and eat up KE leaving them at a disadvantage when you do get WVR.

hehehe – you regard aviationweek and flight as industrial publications?

Tantamount to comic strips.

For… is it the 3rd time now? If you understood PDR, CDR and TRL gates you wouldn’t need a source – you’d have rubbed your 2 brain cells together and realised how daft you are being.

Even in your own sources Pratt have pointed out they will bring the F-135 “replacement” engine to PDR… at the same time they are testing out the combustor and compressor… even you can figure out what that means.

Clue: You can’t test sub-systems before going through your CDR – as you have nothing to build. Therefore the F-135 “replacement” engine will not be built or tested – it is digital only.

The TRL6 – that is, demonstration/validation of concept at a sub-system and system interaction level, will aim to run a full engine deck that answers all questions over interaction between the various sections of the engine. Which will be getting fed back into the software tools used to design the F-135 “replacement”.

I don’t need any.

Again with the “kid”.

But yep – it would be most enlightening to all airforces and many fanbois just how poorly even the most modern AAMs would perform when confronted with modern aircraft evading with the aid of modern counter-measures.

Of course, if a pilot could be given the same situational awareness in a simulator and fly the aircraft via remote control (using projected images from cameras for external vision)… then the testing could be done without the hand-wringers having heart attacks. Of course… the bean counters might object – not realising the results would save them from throwing away a helluva lot of money.

I second that, BVR is a capability that hasn’t yet born any fruit (bad expression I know) ..

The only time that BVR seems to work is when an F-22 is doing the firing, for obvious reasons. And even then a BVR shot from an F-22 against a Russian made plane of latest incarnations would most likely cause the target to start cranking as the launch flare would be most likely picked up.

Most recorded firings of BVR missiles have been successful well within VR.

I was under the impression that the major difference between western made radars and russian made radars was not so much given performance but the flexibility in various modes of operation.

For example I remember seeing (but I have never verified this, How could I?) that russian Su-27s for example never had TWS or RWS or something along those lines. Forgive me my memory does not serve me right now.
Other goodies like that were alleged to be missing also, like target prioritisation etc. Monolithic displays that didn’t help the pilot as much as the western ones etc etc etc.

**Warning .. this is from memory, I am not even sure I remember correctly.