Msphere is claiming ignorance and yet this topic has already been brought up before:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?129627-F-35-News-Multimedia-amp-Discussion-thread-(3)&p=2174431#post2174431

Note that:

1. Msphere claims ignorance of updated F-35 SAR combat radius figures. Yet previously another poster specifically told him it was out of date and cited the newer version, and his responded specifically to the citation by saying that he’s not accepting the updated SAR’s “613 nm” estimate until Lockheed Martin’s website’s spec sheet figure of “>590 nm” is updated. Now he’s claiming he was unaware of updated figures because he doesn’t keep up with the program forcing other posters to repeat the same information again. Simply spreading outdated figures.

2. Once again claiming that the combat radius includes the range of sensors. Once again cluttering up the thread by repeating these claims.

Yep, he has been doing this for years actually. He has 3-4 debunked arguments he like to roll out and does so over and over again. Each time he gets corrected, and plays dumb, says he doesn’t see the slide that was posted in response to his question the day before. Says he isn’t aware of newer figures when they have been provided to him over and over again. Says he doesn’t understand how different flight profiles affect range, when of course that has also been explained over and over again. Says the F-16 has longer range, even though he has been corrected over and over again.

He is either trolling or has suffered some kind of brain injury.

The F-35 Is a $1.4 Trillion Dollar National Disaster

Articles like this are why people have lost faith in the media…

A long rant filled with untrue or misrepresented information and at the very bottom what do we find? The author is from POGO and we all could have skipped trying to read his garbage in the first place.

Just take a look at their recommendations here to get an idea where they stand on military modernization:

http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/defense-budget/2003/us-military-transformation.html

Correct. EOL performance and reserve fuel is likely on top of this.

Yes, and the profile itself will include some reserve fuel as no combat mission is going to be planned around returning to base on empty.

It will be stated as something along the lines of… “arrive at base with sufficient fuel for approach and one missed approach before reaching emergency fuel.”

Allright. This a is as good of an answer is i can get at present time.
My point was not to try and compare the Sukhoi with F-35 if that was what FBW insinuating.
But rather how much drag penalty LM had to swallow with their F-35 design, nothing more nothing less.

Drag=/=range.

Whether or not there is a drag penalty at all will depend greatly on the mission. Ironically perhaps given the numerous range discussions we have had here it is at long range that the F-35’s advantages are the greatest relative to an F-16.

Look at it this way, in a very short range mission an F-16 could operate clean… or perhaps with a single centerline tank.

When we start talking about these sorts of extreme range missions where an F-16 would need both conformal fuel tanks and large wing tanks it is paying a huge drag penalty. The F-35 meanwhile remains clean… the scenario gets worse if you add a targeting pod, etc into the mix.

Basically in comparison to a clean F-16 the F-35 obviously pays a substantial drag penalty. Compared to an F-16 carrying enough fuel to fly a long distance mission, plus a couple bombs and a targeting pod… the advantage goes to the F-35 by a wide margin.

The same is true of course for the Su-27/30/35 family. By going with a large internal fuel capacity the design actually pays a penalty in short range flight profiles relative to what a similar design might have achieved with less internal fuel included… but in longer range missions it has an advantage.

Sure.. it depends on altitude, speed, climb rate, humidity, throttle settings and whatnot.. but I have serious doubts any reasonable mission planner would dare to send the bird even towards a 700nm distant target.. the outcome would be utterly unpredictable and there is next to no fuel reserve for dealing with any unexpected threats/problems.. I could imagine to use such extreme figures without EOL for calculation of ferry range, but never for combat radius.. USAF know damn well why they are using their own strike profile for the KPP..

…and what makes you think that would leave no fuel reserve? Because that is what you want to believe?

Does the newest F-35 range projection say anything about fuel reserves when returning to base?
One Would think this is a common static among all AirForces in their pre-flight planning routines.

Any combat profile will include fuel for start-up, taxi, and takeoff. Fuel for the actual flight to the mission area. Fuel for combat, and fuel to return to base. It will also include a fuel reserve to account for contingencies because it is a bummer when your plane gets real quiet 10 miles from home. Exactly how much fuel is reserved for each of these will depend on the service and various assumption. (which is one major reason why it is so difficult to make a proper apples to apples comparison)

its coming from L.M, in their response to norwegian request for information on how far does F-35 go,
guessing binding means L.M is held accountable if they deviate from truth,
so this is the most honest spec that can be had from L.M

…again, the slide specifically said internal air to air configuration, showed a picture of a clean F-35, and there are no drop tanks available for the F-35 anyway.

The Norwegian presentation was older, and a completely different mission profile, flown at less efficient altitudes.

This has been explained to you at least 10 times at this point.

No, they already say that the F-35 has a radius of over 700 nm “in low observable combat configurations” such as here: https://www.f35.com/global/participation/canada

I know Obligatory is now going to claim that it assumed the F-35 was using stealth external fuel tanks or was hooked up to a stealthy tanker or the cold Canadian air let the F-35 fly farther, but reported ranges for the F-35 have been pretty consistent for years; somewhere over 600 nm radius for air-to-ground missions and somewhere around 700-800 nm radius for air-to-air missions where a more optimal flight profile is assumed, all on internal fuel only. This is in contrast to Obligatory using a single website quote that is 200 km more than every other source (including every official Saab presentation) for his claim of the Gripen’s radius, and Msphere continuing to claim that the radius of the F-35 is 584 nm even though that’s taken from a SAR which is not only 5 years old, but just happens to be the lowest combat radius ever quoted in any F-35 SAR:

<br />
SAR F-35A F-35B F-35C<br />
2005 644 509 701<br />
2006 625 498 642<br />
2007 606 503 641<br />
2008 (no SAR for this year)<br />
2009 610 481 651<br />
2010 584 469 615 <-- this is the one Msphere chooses to cite<br />
2011 584 469 615 <-- this is the one Msphere chooses to cite<br />
2012 603 455 610<br />
2013 613 456 610<br />
2014 614 456 610<br />
2015 625 467 630<br />


Not above a bit of cherry-picking, are we? I don’t know why the posters who keep making the same misleading arguments every couple months about the F-35 are allowed to keep posting about it. At least try to find a new argument or new data instead of just repeating the same claims and getting slammed for it every time, cluttering up the thread. The F-35 thread would be only 1/5 the size if people would just stop posting the same stupid claims about it and other people having to correct them for the sake of random people happening to read the thread and not knowing its history.

The estimated combat radius for the F-35 has been increasing every year since then as they start adding back margins as they get more definitive test results (not to mention make engineering changes, since the F-35 is still in development), yet Msphere is still stuck in 2011. It’s also assuming a strike profile, which seems to always be lost on those people who compare these numbers with optimum cruise profiles for their favorite planes.

I’m not going to bother to repeat the stuff about the F-16 that others have already said, other than to note that we’re comparing the F-35 on internal fuel only with an F-16 configuration which is devoting nearly 9,000 lb of its payload (i.e. over half of its payload) to fuel, doubling its fuel carried at takeoff. This is the type of argument used to claim that the F-35 is shorter-ranged than the F-16, really?

It is just classic trolling. I think once upon a time some of the posters here were genuinely interested in learning about the F-35, and/or didn’t understand what it offered. At this point we have several posters who are basically pure trolls. They post dubunked junk, get corrected… disappear for a few days, and then bring it up again. The whole idea is to get as much disinformation out there as possible and/or waste other posters’ time.