Most of this is the same old same old, no real reason to rehash yet again.

I do find the wing loading chart somewhat amusing as it shows the F-4 beating the F-16 and the F-15 beating the F-22. (It also leaves off the F-35C :eagerness:)

Seems to suggest there just -might- be more to maneuverability than wing loading….

If we follow Shaw’s simple formula, then a missile that has lost speed so it is only able of pulling 20g,
can at best engage a fighter doing max 4g at 30.000 ft.
If OTOH a fighter can pull 8g at 30.000 ft, then the missile has to be capable of at least 40g.
For starters, no BVR missile can do that, but they can plink down a fighter doing 4g,
a cutting edge WVR missile can take down an 8g fighter at 30.000 ft at point blank range.
It was never disclosed at what altitude an amraam could pull 30g, but i’m betting it was at low alt., since it looks twice as good on paper.
ed: to expand on BIO, T-50 need much less safety margins while bypassing defenses.

:very_drunk:

Spare us this “BVR missiles don’t work” theorizing… we have thoroughly debunked it over and over and over again.

Everyone thinks they are right. That does not mean that everyone wants others who disagree to be dead. If a Christian minority lives in a Muslim majority country, my understanding is that that community can practice her own laws within their community. That is respectful and the proper thing.

And what happens when a Muslim decides to convert to Christianity? Or decides that the “Prophet” Muhammad was just a 7th century warlord with no special insight into the workings of the universe?

Islam is not a religion but a complete way of life. It is an economic system, a political system, a social system, a legal system. In the lands that are majority Muslim, it is fair for Muslims to demand those systems to come into place. We have even won elections to that effect but in every case, by Western support of small secular elites, who control the post-colonial army and administration, we’ve been thwarted.

That is exactly the problem. Once the Christian world was characterized by the same primitive worldview that placed the Church at the center of public, private, and political life. Over a long and painful process it has for the most part found ways to move forward. 1,000+ year old texts are no way to run a society.

Who or what many Islamists say or think, you don’t really know. You just know what the media tells you or how it portrays small numbers of highly extreme people, who may even be in the pay of another (for instance Adam Gadhan).

Sure… :rolleyes:

We all know the PR version, and we are also all familiar with the newspaper headlines.

A Muslim by definition cannot be an extremist – the Quran clearly states:
“We made you to be a community of the middle way, so that (with the example of your lives) you might bear witness to the truth before all mankind.” (Qur’an, 2:143)

Oh good, I guess all you need to do is call up all those guys killing people in the name of Islam and let them know it is time to knock it off. :eagerness:

I just think that this forum would be the better without these periodic jibes at Muslims, in this very thread you have examples of how excellent the secular and Western views are – calling to destroy the Ka’aba and the Vatican and calling to turn the Middle East into glass. Those statements here are not made by Muslims, so you can see first hand who the extremists are.

Britain, Germany, US and the West in general has done far more harm to humanity than anything we Muslims may or may not have done. http://www.ae911truth.org/en/about-us.html

I did not start this non-aviation related controversy, but we will not stay silent when you attack and insult us, and attempt to marginalize us by labeling us in your own preferred hues.

Britain, Germany, the US, and the West in general is the primary reason the modern world we know today exists at all. From space flight, to antibiotics, to the internet, to automobiles, aircraft, etc etc, all were primarily the product of scientific and engineering progress in the West, Russia, and Asia. That isn’t to say that anyone is without fault, but the idea that the world would be better off without the West’s contributions is ludicrous.

My favorite part:

The smaller AGM-88 anti-radar missile and AIM-120 air-to-air missile are the American analogues of the new Russian weapons. Both several feet shorter and hundreds of pounds lighter than their Russian counterparts, the U.S. munitions reflect a specifically American air-warfare philosophy. American stealth jets including the B-2 bomber, the F-22 and the still-in-development F-35 carry relatively small, lightweight weapons with short ranges.

This is a Massive Ordnance Penetrator:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]220425[/ATTACH]

Here it is in a mock-up B-2 bomb bay:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]220426[/ATTACH]

That is 30,000lbs (13,600kg) of “relatively small, lightweight” bomb. :rolleyes:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/05/aviation-week-suspends-bill-sw/

Yep. Nothing to see here.

Bill has become a lot more careful with the “attorney speak” where things “might happen” or “maybe won’t” He makes sure to post under names that are not his on forums. Forums where he hasn’t already been outed and crushed before withdrawing that is. So while “Bill Sweetman” has been very careful with a kind of passive-aggressiveness that a even a mother-in-law would find extreme at his professional publication, “Low Observable” has been much more direct and upfront in his criticism of the JSF.

That bit about the mother-in-law could have cost me a keyboard had I been drinking while reading your post. Note that I never said that it certainly would have wrecked my keyboard, only that it might have. :eagerness:

As long as we are talking about things that are “technically defamatory.” I would like to point out that technically, everything Low Observable says, is what Bill Sweetman says as they are one in the same. Pseudonyms aside. Technically the law does not see a difference from your internet handle, (or any other aliases) and the person actually posting. So I would be careful about getting “too technical” there, Bill. Though I would love to see you seek restitution for the technical defamation, and force the whole thing to played out in court with all evidence available publically about who really said what between you and your internet personalities, and if Fed did in fact break the law.

Are LO and BS are the same person? I suppose they might be. Naturally I am not saying that they are, just that that is one theory that is out there. 😎

I would suggest that it would make a lot of sense if they were given the one’s fascination with trying to salvage the reputation of the other. Of course I am not going to say they are the same guy.

You can’t say that I said that.

:eagerness:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lamesauce

I am well aware of Mr Sweetman’s existence, as it happens. I don’t think he has ever said or written that the JSF exhaust would melt decks, which is why I asked for a direct quote and citation and why I am not surprised that your only response is bluster.

As for you, Jackster, learn to read. I did not say that JSF critics had not advocated cancellation, but that they had not predicted it (which is what your original snark hinged on). Clearly some of the realists have called for the project to be scrapped, and indeed if the real story had been told in 2008-09 it should have been.

Continuing with the farce where we don’t know who you are for a moment…

BS is generally fairly careful how he words things such that he can imply the sky is falling without quite going on the record saying so.

On the subject of melting decks BS contributed this blog post a couple years ago:

http://www.aviationweek.com/blogs.aspx?plckblogid=blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckpostid=blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7post:998c67ea-dd8f-4e3d-b5d0-78a1ea894d49

Gore goes on to list the “unrelenting tide of good news” about the F-35. He does this by getting the good news wrong and leaving out the bad news.

“The STOVL variant, the F-35B, is about to emerge from the probationary period imposed on it by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.” The probationary period was two years, imposed ten months ago. The Pentagon could rescind it, but I don’t see any signs of that happening, or of more F-35Bs being added to the LRIP stream.

And Gates’ words at the time — that the F-35B was “experiencing significant testing problems (that) may lead to a redesign of the aircraft’s structure and propulsion” — still don’t sound quite like “show me it can land on a ship and you’re good to go”.

“Remember the critics who warned that the exhausts from the STOVL JSF would melt deck plates?” No, Dr Goure, I don’t remember anyone saying that. Could you remind us, with sources? The Navy and DARPA have spent money, and indeed continue to spend money, because of concerns that the combination of exhaust heat and blast could cause fatigue over a ship’s lifetime and force costly repairs.

Test data from last month might have shown those concerns to have been overestimated, but we don’t know that yet.

[Emphasis added]

So here we see BS operating at his finest. He doesn’t say the F-35 will melt decks, only that we don’t know yet that it won’t. The insinuation is clear.

Here is BS’s original, now infamous, blog post where he compared F-35Bs to “anti-runway weapons.”

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%253A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%253A27103ee8-d867-4e32-a619-92297fa29cf3

In operations around Marjah in Afghanistan, the Marines have been using AV-8B Harriers as they were designed to be used, flying the jets from runways that are too short or ill-prepared to accommodate a conventional fighter. Kimberly Johnson is reporting on this for DTI’s April issue.

…

But a Navy report issued in January says that the F-35B, in fact, won’t be able to use such forward bases. Indeed, unless it ditches its short take-off, vertical landing capability and touches down like a conventional fighter, it won’t be able to use land bases at all without some major construction efforts.

The newly released document, hosted on a government building-design resource site, outlines what base-construction engineers need to do to ensure that the F-35B’s exhaust does not turn the surface it lands on into an area-denial weapon. And it’s not trivial. Vertical-landing “pads will be exposed to 1700 deg. F and high velocity (Mach 1) exhaust,” the report says. The exhaust will melt asphalt and “is likely to spall the surface of standard airfield concrete pavements on the first VL.” (The report leaves to the imagination what jagged chunks of spalled concrete will do in a supersonic blast field.)

…

This follows the revelation that the US Navy is worried about the exhaust damaging ship decks.

Lockheed Martin pooh-poohs the report, saying that it was based on “worst-case” data and that “extensive tests” conducted with prototype BF-3 in January (after the report was completed) showed that “the difference between F-35B main-engine exhaust temperature and that of the AV-8B is very small, and is not anticipated to require any significant CONOPS changes for F-35B.” [I do find it amusing that BS described the refutation of the report by the people with the hard data as “pooh-poohing.”]

What do “very small” and “significant” mean? In VL mode the main engine on the F-35B is producing some 15,700 pounds of thrust, while a Harrier’s aft nozzles deliver about 12,000 pounds of thrust. (The fore-aft split is roughly equal.)

But the F135’s overall pressure ratio is almost twice as high, which would point to a much higher jet velocity (which LockMart doesn’t mention), the JSF nozzle is much closer to the ground, and the Harrier has two nozzles, several feet apart.

So maybe the F-35B is not shaping up to be the best anti-runway weapon since the RAF retired the JP233. However, it may still not be what the Marines got when they first acquired the Harrier in the early 1970s.

So here we go again, “maybe” the F-35B isn’t shaping up to be the best anti-runway weapon since the RAF retired the JP233… maybe. Maybe there will be “chunks of spalled concrete in a supersonic blast field.”

He can claim he didn’t say the F-35B would melt decks and spall concrete. He can write a blog post where he goes on and on with a simplistic leading argument about the F-35B’s increased thrust, etc, compared to the Harrier and then conclude by saying the F-35B “maybe” isn’t shaping up to be an anti-runway weapon. :rolleyes:

For another example of a critic claiming that F-35s would melt flight decks see here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/17/darpa_chilled_landing_pads_for_osprey_f_35b/

It’s now official. The new generation of high-tech hovering aircraft – namely the famous V-22 “Osprey” tiltrotor and the upcoming F-35B supersonic stealth jump-jet – have an unforeseen flaw. Their exhaust downwash is so hot as to melt the flight decks of US warships, leading Pentagon boffins to look into refrigerated landing pads.

Naturally the above wasn’t contributed by a critic… or not a critic that counts anyway… because we know no critics claimed the F-35 would melt decks. :rolleyes:

Another example of a critic being wrong, and from BS again no less:

So whatever the F-35B propulsion and structural problems are, they have to be solved without adding weight. At the same time, changing materials and redesigning components will further reduce commonality between the B and the other two versions, putting upward pressure on costs for what is already the most expensive version.

I suggest the sharp brake that Gates has put on production does not speak to a high level of faith that it can be done. It suggests that the decision to put the STOVL jet on probation, rather than sending it directly to meet Old Sparky, may have been driven by concern that killing both the F-35B and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was a political impossibility, and by a desire to minimize political impact on the entire JSF program.

The next developments to look for: the outcome of the review of Marine Corps force structure, and the scale and type of resources that will be made available to fix the F-35B.

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a90d01128-ff7f-4d64-9f22-ac75779e6fc5

Once again, BS doesn’t -quite- say he thinks that the F-35B can’t be fixed and will be cancelled, but he “suggests” as much and argues that the only reason it hadn’t yet been cancelled was because of politics. :eagerness::rolleyes:

Sorry but starting with a better airframe (F-14) would have allowed a better lifetime upgrade and enhancement path. Instead of a SH, imagine an F-14 with a integrated weapons bay integrated into the tunnel between the engines, conformal tanks where the externals were and Aim-9 pods under the gloves and honestly tell me what the more capable platform would be.

Yes, the boat has sailed and there is no going back, but the wrong plane was chosen.

Wrong plane? Absolutely not… the Navy needed a lot of things from a new fighter, and one of the biggest was low cost.

What you are saying is the equivalent of saying that the USAF should never have developed and bought the F-16 and should have just bought F-15Cs for air to air and F-15Es for everything else. “Wrong plane” That never could have happened of course because the F-15 is just far too expensive to have been bought in the necessary quantities and it doesn’t particularly matter anyway because not every mission requires an F-15.

Your argument against the F-14 would also lead to the F-15 and F-22 also being no longer needed as the role they were designed for no longer exists either.

Exactly, and that is why the F-22 program was cut short. It is an amazing plane, but most of its reason for existence has disappeared. It seems likely with the PAK FA and J-20 that we will see a 6th generation fighter to replace the F-22 and the remaining F-15Cs but right now there is just no pressing need for more F-22s.