Sferrin

They didn’t forget about an HMD/HMSS. They had to abandon integration because of technical difficulties.

Is it significant? Well it’s the best way of achieving HOBS engagements, and every fighter pilot I’ve spoken to is astonished at the lack, and aver that the only explanations are that:

1) The F-22 will avoid close in engagements

or

2) With AIM-9M, HOBS is impossible anyway.

I think I know the difference between disinformation and an honest admission of a failure.

DM

I don’t know why ‘Dozer’ says what he says, and why he has posted stuff that’s demonstrably false, and that contradicts what the programme manager has said on the record. Frontline pilots grasp of programme detail is sometimes sketchy, and I don’t necessarily think that he’s deliberately lying. Scuttlebutt might have suggested to him that things were happening on the helmet, just as I spoke to a Typhoon pilot today who was convinced that work was ongoing on ALARM for Typhoon. I certainly wouldn’t accuse Dozer of talking out of his posterior, I’d just place more trust in what the programme manager says, on the record. And while “decisions on things like this go back and forth all the time” without funding they aren’t happening.

We’ve all seen the kill ratios achieved by F-22s in ONE, Red Flag, etc. and it’s clearly impressive. But open sources like Av Week have described some of the tactics that caused the aircraft problems, and it’s clear that while the aircraft is impregnable when RoE allow it to dictate the terms of engagement, if RoE dictate closing to visual range for an identification, for example (this would usually be against an incoming enemy, head on) many of its advantages would disappear.

Or the RoE might be that the F-22 can’t fire unless threatened. And the HOBS-equipped aircraft might avoid threatening the Raptor until the moment the missile leaves the rail.

These are RoE that would negate the F-22’s stealth advantage (because the aircraft becomes visible) and not it’s stealth capability, so you still wouldn’t hang ASRAAMs under the F-22’s wings.

I don’t assume that the F-22 is going to simply confront the enemy on equal terms head-on – whenever possible it will do that and destroy the enemy at the maximum range possible using the longest range weapon it has available (just as Typhoon will attempt to do, and just as the F3 tries to today). But I do acknowledge that this won’t always be possible.

Nor has there been any real explanation of how much close in fighting has been attempted during these exercises – most of the reports would seem to indicate that what little WVR stuff there has been has been against ‘leakers’ or regenerated threats after a classic BVR start.

The range at which Raptor becomes visible on radar is highly classified, but there have been indications that it varies a great deal according to aspect. Co-altitude, head on, the Raptor will be detected later than if the enemy has a major height differential. And then you have IRST, and radars on other platforms, ground based radars (remember the bizarre claim that Raptor’s plume was more visible than the aircraft at high supersonic speed). Put simply, there’s less room for complacency than you affirm.

You assume that Raptors will always operate in their optimum formation, and will always see the enemy first and will always have RoE that allow them the first shot. Often that will be the case, but not always. They won’t always have the choice. They may be transiting through a narrow corridor of airspace, or through a gap in enemy AD radar coverage. One of the Raptors may have gone tech or been shot down.

More than any other aircraft, Raptor doesn’t need close-in armament at all. But if it needs a gun and IR-homing short range AAMs at all, then it needs a helmet too, and it would need a helmet for air-to-ground, even if it didn’t for air-to-air.

The F-22’s official demo is impressive, but it shows nothing that the MiG-29 and Su-30 haven’t been showing for years, while what you call “swinging its airframe all over the place just to make a spectacle” looks to me like an unequalled demonstration of controllability and nose pointing. The MiG-29OVT and Su-30 (and bear in mind that there are already TV ‘Flankers’ and will soon be ‘Flankers’ with OVT type 3-d nozzles) should be no real problem for the F-22 if it fights on its terms, and not theirs. The F-22 enjoys dominance over either over much of the envelope. But I’d say that the F-22 pilot who got into a situation where he had to try to match that kind of post stall manouevring would be most unwise, and probably walking home.

And if you think the OVT demo is boring, you haven’t seen it. I don’t think it’s terribly relevant, personally, but it is jaw-droppingly, mind-bendingly impressive, and it demonstrates a level of agility in one (relatively unimportant) area of the envelope that even the X-31, let alone the F-22, can’t match.

“Oh yes it can” isn’t an argument. “It doesn’t really matter, because no Raptor pilot will ever let himself be sucked that slow” has merit, however.

If my arguments are “absolute, it-must-be-this-way-and-no-other type” then it’s because they are based on what the real experts say – not on my own layman’s opinion (which is worthless). When programme people say, clearly, in black and white terms, what is and isn’t happening in their programme, then I take that as absolute, while what senior fighter and ground attack pilots say about the utility of the HMSS are equally persuasive.

Scorpion,

The point was made that Rafale would be a useful aircraft for the RN.

It would. It’s less compromised than a Typhoon (N) would be. It would bring advantages.

But politics, economics, and a Tranche 3 looking for something to do make it inconceivable that it would be selected.

And we can have a mature discussion about that.

It’s equally true that Typhoon would be a useful aircraft for the Armée de l’Air, since it’s a better aircraft in some roles and in some respects.

It’s equally impractical, equally politically unacceptable, and equally unviable.

But we can’t have a mature discussion about that idea, because many of the French posters will leap in and deny that Typhoon has any advantages over their beloved, perfect Rafale.

So it’s kind of fun to point those advantages out, especially when a publication as well-respected and as heavyweight as Defence Analysis points one of them out.

We’re lucky to be living at a time when some really great aeroplanes are entering service in Europe, civil and military.

European industry is doing well.

The Rafale is a bloody good aeroplane.

The French are naturally proud of it – like the Swedes are proud of the Gripen.

But they do get a bit carried away sometimes, and a lot of them are unwilling to admit any weakness, failing, or inferiority, or they will say that they will acknowledge weaknesses and then fail to do so.

So I’d say that while the Rafale is a bloody good, bloody impressive aeroplane, it doesn’t quite live up to the hype put about by the more nationalistic French Rafale fan boys.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t many ways in which the Rafale hasn’t set new standards, and hasn’t done better than Typhoon.

It has. In several ways and in several areas.

In the area of programme management, focus, getting and keeping public and political support, Rafale makes the Eurofighter programme look like a joke.

And the aeroplane itself has some impressive features – and the French did a great job in getting it into service with a wide variety of useful weapons.

And while it can hold its head up among other land-based fighters, the basic aircraft proved adaptable to the carrier role with astonishingly little modification.

Low speed agility is as impressive as anything out there (to the extent that comparisons with Typhoon will rely on the alpha and g limits set by the users, so close are the two aircraft in that area).

But there are areas where Rafale lags Typhoon. MMI is one such area, supersonic maneouvrability is another. Outright performance and radar performance, too.

And this has shown in a number of export competitions, where Typhoon was preferred by the evaluation teams. The only proven, undisputed victory of Rafale over Typhoon came in the Netherlands – which was an early, economic evaluation, and in which the actual aircraft and their performance and capabilities were not evaluated, and in which the unflown JSF emerged triumphant!

Sean,

You need to read what I wrote.

I’m talking about the requirement for in-area assets to be providing the data required to cue the UAV’s sensors – which means that operation isn’t ‘fully remote’ and fully autonomous.

I should have made myself clear.

Sens,

Your faith in UAVs is touching, but your ignorance of modern TacR capabilities against Time Sensitive Targets is horrifying.

If the object is to shorten the kill chain, tactical FJ recce and manned high altitude recce will achieve that more often than UAVs will, and that’s been shown in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SFerrin,

A helmet isn’t the only way of designating all off-boresight weapons – but it is the easiest, quickest and best way.

And while you can lock and launch a big, sophisticated, costly missile like Mica using MIDS, you can’t do so with AIM-9.

It’s like a HUD and HOTAS – you can achieve everything without one, using conventional head down instruments and switches scattered across the panel and consoles, but a HUD and HOTAS allow you to manage the systems ‘heads out’ and more quickly and easily.

And with AIM-9 you either designate the target in the HUD, or use HMSS to slew the seeker.

Satorian,

You said: “I’m very sure that if something is technically possible and then, perhaps even some time later, deemed necessary, then it will be done, independently of current funding status.
Kind of like the Typhoon and AESA. Unfunded for the longest time, pretty much everybody just expected it to happen anyway, putting faith into the judgment of the fielding parties.”

There’s a huge difference between something that’s a recognized need but which is abandoned, unfunded and on which no work is being done, and something (like AESA on Typhoon) that is a recognized (potential) need, and on which work was undertaken by industry at its own risk, building on long-running and fully funded technology demonstrator programmes.

Dork,

If the pilot has to “maneuver into firing position” then the systems are not doing the job that an HMSS can do.

“Armed with HOBS capability alone–without an HMSS–there would be no need to point the nose of the aircraft, anyway.” I don’t believe that RoE and fratricide concerns would allow anyone to fire a close-in weapon at an unseen target. There’s simply too much chance of it being your wingman.

“It might be a core piece of equipment for them, but not for the F-22.”

“Even professionals can be sucked in by dogma if they haven’t had the chance to thoroughly think things through from a different perspective.”

Right. Because a spotter is more likely to ‘get it’ than a professional fighter pilot.

Avoiding dogfights is the whole point of any fighter – close in is fun in peacetime, but it’s intrinsically unpredictable and dangerous. Of course it’s “better to just sneak up on them from where they can’t see you and shoot them in the back.” That’s been the name of the game since the days of von Richthofen.

“Once you’re in a dogfight, you’re more or less at parity, and the other guy will likely have HMSS, too.” Right on! And the HMSS suddenly tips the balance from parity to enemy superiority in this environment. You were at parity before – but he’s got a better HOBS capability than you have.

“Pilots of other fighters keep forgetting that they can’t locate the F-22 before it moves into position to kill them.”

It’s LO, chum, not invisible. RoE may well dictate that the aircraft has to get near enough to be seen, and WVR, the advantage of Stealth is lost.

“Why would the F-22 pilot even give the Su-30 pilot a chance to shoot at him? How does the Su-30 pilot locate and fire at the F-22 with a Sidewinder coming at him (and the F-22 moving out of range)?” In the WVR environment, who says that the F-22 always gets the first firing opportunity? This is the whole point. He has a shorter range close-in missile than ASRAAM, Mica, AA-12, etc, with a smaller off boresight capability and no helmet. And he’s not more agile than Su-30, and (from what we’ve seen) not much more agile than Rafale and Typhoon (certainly a helmet would give these aircraft back their advantage).

Air-to-ground.

Better to have one than not. Any air-to-ground aircraft will often need to be working with a FAC, perhaps against moving, mobile and/or time sensitive targets. If you don’t have a helmet, your eyes have to be talked on to the target, whereas with a helmet your eye is rapidly cued on – something that can save 15 minutes in real world scenarios! Again, not having a helmet is a really significant disadvantage.

You get Lock Before Launch with the missile on the rail by telling the missile where to look (what direction to look) as it comes off the rail.

You can do this from inside a bay – it’s planned for ASRAAM on JSF, for example – but it’s difficult and it may be effectively impossible for some weapons. (I don’t think that there will be LBL from inside the bay for 9X on JSF).

Integration of -9X on F-22 remains unfunded. There’s no indication that LBL will be possible from inside the bay.

In any case, you can get a lock at very high off boresight angles using the missile’s own seeker. But not if the seeker can’t be cued outside the HUD slice….

The actual online quote was:

“Integration was abandoned because of technical difficulty. To add it in today would be very costly with the integrated avionics architecture. We do not expect to ever have a HMCS in the F-22 under the current buy of only 183 aircraft.” and confirmed that their were “difficulties mapping the F-22 cockpit for a head tracking system.”

The quote was given to two journalists (Bob Dorr and Johnny Lake) who submitted a combined list of questions to Colonel Sutter. The US journo spoke to Sutter, the Brit to Lawson. I’ve spoken to Lawson and to both journos. The journos confirm that they were told that integration of the helmet was abandoned because of technical difficulty, and that even if the mapping problem was solved, integration would still be unlikely because of cost and integration issues. That was what I gathered from Lawson, and from what I read of what Sutter has said.

Flight Daily revealed another possible reason for the non-appearance of the helmet:

No Helmet sight for Raptor pilots

Lockheed confirmed that there are no plans for a helmet mounted sight or display system for pilots of its F-22A Lightning II ‘Air Dominance’ fighter. Lockheed sources suggest that the aircraft’s other sensors could achieve the same job, though they refused to elaborate on how this could be achieved, and no-one Flight Daily News spoke to could imagine how this was possible. A basic helmet mounted sight can be used to cue sensors and missile seekers onto off-boresight targets (those outside the field of view of the head up display), obviating the need for a pilot to ‘point’ the nose of his aircraft (and thus the missile seekers) at the target. It will often provide targeting cues, ‘telling’ the pilot which way to look to find a target. A full helmet-mounted display adds more comprehensive symbology, allowing the pilot to see essential flight and tactical information wherever he is looking, often overlaid on a FLIR or synthetic picture of the outside world, providing impressive night vision capabilities.

The news that pilots of the World’s greatest fighter will have to do without an aid that MiG-29 and Su-27 pilots have been taking for granted since the late 1970s has been greeted with astonishment and incredulity by the pilots of other leading fighter types, who view the helmet as a core piece of equipment.

Lieutenant Colonel Picco Danielle, commanding officer of the Italian Air Force’s 9 Gruppo (part of the Eurofighter Typhoon-equipped 4° Stormo), explained to Flight Daily News that although Eurofighter pilots would get their full-featured Head Equipment Assembly (an all-singing, all-dancing helmet mounted display system) he would personally have liked to have had an interim helmet sight, and could only say “No Way?” when told of the F-22A’s lack of such a basic piece of equipment.

Other pilots suggested that the decision could only be explained if “Raptor pilots never, ever expect to engage in a close-in turning fight” – pointing out that this would severely limit their options given some rules of engagement.

Other analysts questioned whether the F-22A’s lack of a helmet sight might indicate some insoluble problem with mapping the Raptor’s cockpit, and others questioned whether the inability of the AIM-9X to lock before launch, from inside the F-22A’s internal weapons bay, made a helmet sight pointless.

And if an F-22 comes up against (say) an Su-30 which has a helmet and a HOBS missile, in circumstances in which WVR engagement is required (or when RoE dictate it) it will be disadvantaged by comparison with the enemy, and not just “compared to what it could be.” The F-22 has broad parity in agility with the TV ‘Flanker’ (and having seen the MiG-29OVT’s displays, perhaps less than parity at some points in the envelope) and if the enemy can launch at a target 90° off boresight while you can’t, you’re badly disadvantaged.

This is a REALLY serious omission.

Nor have you grasped the significance of the HMSS in the air-to-ground role. It gives you another ranging option (you might not want to use radar and don’t have a laser) and one which doesn’t require you to nose point.

It allows new targets/turn points etc. to be entered into the nav system quickly and without putting them in the HUD.

It can be used to cue the pilot’s eye to the exact target position of a pre-briefed target, or of a new target notified by a FAC or a wingman. If a target’s in the system, the helmet can display an arrow directing the pilot’s eye straight onto it.

Nothing else is as quick and straightforward, and that’s why with its JDAM and SDB capabilities, and its CAS and BAI secondary roles, even the simplest HMSS would be useful for Raptor, even if you weren’t thinking of any air to air application.

It’s not about viewing “SAR imagery on an HMDS when the situation calls for it,” – it’s more fundamental than that – it’s about getting eyes on to a time sensitive target as quickly as possible. It’s about helping to avoid blue on blues. It’s about not warning the enemy that a pair of EPWs are about to be whisting down his chimney by pointing the nose at him.

Because to get beyond the present limitations you need a step change in several areas, and there’s no sign of one in any of them.

1) Airspace management and co-ordination, regulatory changes to allow autonomous UAV operations in multiple airspace categories.

2) Bandwidth

3) Control. There needs to be a ‘virtual human’ panoramic view from the ‘virtual cockpit’, and for the operator to have the same SA in his box as he would if he was in the cockpit

4) Mindset. Even when the issues above are addressed and when UAVs CAN could undertake a wider spectrum of roles, force commanders have to believe that they can do so BETTER than existing manned platforms.