hopsalotAs a matter of fact he do, here
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?113735-missile-flight-theoryed: funny how the active seeker out-ranges the launch range on that BVR missile dont you think ?
the active seeker may as well be switched on at launch
Did you miss the part where they said “if launched at sea level?”
It should be common sense that launching higher and faster will result in longer ranges. If you launch at sea level, with an Astra… then apparently you might as well go active off the rail.
Of course an AMRAAM isn’t an Astra, and it would be only under some truly bizarre circumstances that you would be attempting a BVR shot from sea level…
As for the data in that table, I see no reason to doubt its veracity as it is plausible enough.
What you have to remember though is that it takes time and distance to turn a jet around. You can’t simply pivot around in space and head the other way. At speed and altitude it would take 10+ seconds to complete a 180 degree turn, and you can only start that turn if you have sufficient situational awareness to know you have been fired on. A DAS/MAWS type system could provide that (but may not provide it immediately for longer ranged shots) but few aircraft operating today feature these.
In most cases the first unambiguous warning you would expect to receive would be when the missile’s seeker went active. By that time it will have covered most of its flight and it may be too late for you to turn away and cover any distance. When missile manufacturers talk about no escape zones that they are really saying is : “With certain reasonable assumptions this is the distance within which a target will be unable to escape the missile even if it takes evasive action the moment the missile is fired.”
For every second evasive action is delayed the effective no escape zone grows. (meaning if you play with assumptions about when a target commences its evasive actions a missile’s NEZ can be larger)
hopsalotReally?
Of those 170 missiles fired, would you share with us how many were fired within their WEZ/NEZ, how many were fired to achieve mission kills, how many passed within their lethal range(or failed to, not due to being fired outside of their WEZ/NEZ), resulting in multiple missiles that would’ve achieved kills (but weren’t counted)?You’d be taken more seriously if in your range scenarios, you distinguished such things as the altitude/speed of the launch aircraft/target, what aspect the shot was (head on, oblique, tail). You may also want to note that if the target aircraft is manuevering wildly, it’s also losing energy due to bleeding airspeed. Lastly, you’re also taking for granted, that the target aircraft is aware of the inbound threat, which might not necessarily be the case, so you’re in effect giving the target all of the benefit of the doubt, while giving the launch aircraft every penalty possible. Modern AAMs are designed to engage 9g targets, if fired in their NEZ. The NEZ extends beyond the duration of the motor burn.
Desert Storm was 20+ years ago and wasn’t even fought with the current generation of missiles. It is interesting to look at how the allied forces achieved total air dominance over what was at the time hyped as an “experienced” Iraqi airforce that had scored numerous kills during the course of the Iran-Iraq War, but 1991 is history.
Allied Force is more recent, but even that was better than 10 years ago. (I do find it amusing that people here try to quibble over whether or not a damaged Mig-29 counts as a kill. If you damage your opponent, forcing him to return to base rather than accomplishing -his- mission of destroying the aircraft bombing his country, you won the day. )
The clear trend is that missiles are becoming more effective and that BVR combat is making up an ever increasing portion of the total fight. During Vietnam BVR engagements were more of a theoretical capability than a practical one. By 1991 BVR engagements were the exception to the rule, but made up a significant portion of the total fight. By 1999 with a new generation of missiles BVR shots had become routine with devastating effect. (scored where it matters, accomplishing the mission)
Naturally around here you still see people that still haven’t gotten the memo…
hopsalotIn AIM-120C-5 cases magical max range of 105km drops to 32km (20 miles) against fighter aircrafts.
Naturally you have a source for this… 😎
hopsalotHe’s making the mistake of taking a limited amount of raw data, and then trying extrapolate. If you fire 2 missiles at a target, the best Pk you’re going to have is 50%, even if both pass within lethal range, simply due to the numbers game, rather than the actual effectiveness. The only way to really know the effectivness, is to exclude all shots outside of the WEZ/NEZ, and then look at how many missiles that were fired within the WEZ/NEZ passed within lethal range. You also need to factor in, that missiles are sometimes fired outside of their envelope, to achieve a mission kill, or to put a foe on the defensive, to set up the kill shot. You can’t hold these tactics against the statistical Pk of the missile itself.
Yes, with most Russian SAMs for instance it is standard procedure to fire two missiles at each target. Even if they killed every single target they engaged that would produce a PK of 50% according to the math typically applied on the internet to BVR missiles.
Also, some shots are taken with certain assumptions. (If he doesn’t turn he will eat a missile…) The goal is either to make the target turn or die. The missile can accomplish its mission without killing its target, and it did not somehow fail.
Finally, who on earth got the idea that any weapon “works” 100% of the time? Take your pick of missiles, you never expect to achieve an exchange rate of 1 missile per target.
hopsalotComplete nonsense !
What if the target was turning away then ?
then this missile will be heading in the opposite direction as to where it has to go for intercept point.
An S-weave is an energy depletion strategy. The idea is to get the missile to continually adjust its aim point during the course of its flight bleeding off its energy at an increased rate.
If the missile/launch aircraft targeting you considers only the very most recent reported location, speed, and heading data it will indeed be continually recalculating its intercept point and the missile will waste its energy nudging its nose from side to side, and to an increasingly greater extent as the distance closes.
If on the other hand the missile/fighter consider not merely the target’s most recently updated information but also its track data it is trivial to distinguish a slow weave from a meaningful change of heading. A modern missile is not targeting a specific point in space during its midcourse but an area where it expects the target to be. That area can be updated in flight of course, but the logic doing so will be smart enough not to update it continually as the target weaves. (besides, the fighter executing the weave will almost certainly only do so only after it has turned away, placing the missile behind it, and will attempt to keep the missile more or less behind it throughout the scenario… the last thing you want to do while trying to deplete a missile’s energy is help it by shortening the distance.)
As the distance between the missile and the target closes and/or when it goes active it will transition to more or less traditional guidance. By that point a slow weave will be essentially meaningless as a survival strategy.
hopsalotHas the laws of physics changed that much since the 60s?
Missiles will always have to over compensate the targets movements, energy management has likely improved but drag works the same way today.
This has nothing to do with the “laws of physics,” which is why I thought providing you with an analogy would help.
We are talking about the intelligence of the algorithms and computers guiding a missile. An Iphone obeys the same laws of physics as any electronics of the 1960s, but with vastly different results. Similarly modern missiles have gotten a great deal smarter than their ancestors of decades past.
Where an older missile would only consider a target’s instantaneous location and velocity, with the benefit of much greater computing power a modern missile(or its launching aircraft) need only expand its consideration to consider not simply the target’s most recently reported direction, but also a range of previous values, allowing it to recognize and ignore maneuvers like an S-weave. (and target a reasonable intercept point along the target’s path, which would be refined in the final seconds of its flight)
The target mover vertically as well by mixing zig-zags, yo-yos and so on. Energy management has improved, but we are talking about a few seconds in the end game. If the target can make the missiles entry vector just half a degree off it will become impossible to get a hit.
You can use any buzzword you like in an attempt to refute it but the facts are what they are. If the missiles angle is just slightly off or if the reaction is just a little bit late or if the entry vector isnt perfect the target has very good chances of out maneuvering it, especially after burnout. But after burnout it is also quite possible to succeed in out maneuvering it anyway, even if it’s trickier.
Please note that I am talking about high Pk envelope (backed up by actual historical performance) and a lower Pk envelope (also backed up by statistics).
Buzzwords? I have made an effort to keep this simple. You quite simply don’t seem to understand or want to understand that trying to dodge missiles is a losing game. What was viable against an SA-2 is suicide against a modern missile. If you can put a missile on your 6 you can certainly out-distance longer range shots. Similarly if you have sufficient situational awareness you can dodge missiles that have nearly expended their energy. That said, you are greatly underestimating the effective range of modern missiles.
I am in no way saying its impossible to get the kills, only that a target with good situational awareness and high performance kinematic performance will be a very hard target once over 50% of the missiles agility is gone. Add to that the missiles rapid loss of speed if the target plays his cards right and it’s very clear why thrust is so important.
It’s no coincidence why Meteor has a booster + ramjet or MICA NG is getting a second boost for the end game or why Nudelman in the 60s used thrust in turning to improve the missiles turn performance and range. I am not disproving anything from the air forces, I just show how they numbers are broken down.
Meteor’s great advantage is speed not maneuverability. Certainly being able to carry more speed farther conveys maneuverability advantages, but an AMRAAM at Mach 2+ is more than maneuverable enough to get the job done.
Some may say that as long as the missile has a speed over mach 3 the turn performance is good enough to be challenging for the target. If that is the definition of a good BVR engagement range in exercises then so be it. Historically that is enough to get a desired Pk of 25%, and 25% is ok if you get the first shots off and can get away from the situation afterwards.
The historical Pk of missiles has been so thoroughly abused by a handful of amateurs with agendas it is almost impossible to have a meaningful discussion about it. Real air forces have fired thousands of missiles in testing and have a very good idea how they behave… and every single one of them worth noting places a huge emphasis on BVR combat…
hopsalotAbsolutely. The range will be increased, but its the “low Pk” part of the envelope that gets extended. Get it? The agility is lost and the loss of speed in every turn is huge once propulsion is gone. The missile will still fly, and if the target makes one steady turn it is easy to lead it without bleeding too much energy even at range. But if the enemy engages in yo-yos, zig-zags etc the situation is totally different.
If you look at this chart you will see what I mean. The range drops from 255km to 80km just because of target maneuvering. The reason? Energy bleed and loss of agility, because the radar is still the same.
It might surprise you to learn this, but the S-200 is a thoroughly obsolete system. You might as well be using 1960s era AIM-7s as stand-ins for modern AMRAAMs, and in a sense you are.
As a system of 1960s-1970s vintage the S-200 is essentially an analog system that employes only simplistic guidance algorithms. Modern missiles are more than smart enough not to go weaving all over the sky because a target starts an S-weave…. all it takes is a computer smart enough to differentiate the path a target is actually taking and its vector at any given moment. A target executing an S-weave will present a dumb missile with a multitude of different intercept points causing it to continually maneuver to adjust its own path, while a smart missile will see that despite its weaving the target’s path still offers one reasonable intercept area to target. The missile will arrive in that intercept area without having wasted a bunch of energy jittering all over the sky because of the S-weave, with more than enough retained to execute any necessary terminal maneuvers.
An analogy, since one appears to be necessary, would be to imagine yourself running to intercept a person on a football field. You would presumably head for an intercept point rather than simply running directly at whatever your target’s current location is. What if your opponent started an S-weave? Are you going to find yourself twitching back and forth as you try to update where you think he is heading? … of course not. You will recognize that the various little turns and jukes he may be making are of little consequence in terms of his actual path. That is the difference between your ~50 year old missile and a modern one. If you attempted an S-weave against a modern missile all you would do is hurt your chances.
Speaking more generally now. You seem to think your back of envelope calculations can somehow disprove the collective knowledge, experience and test results of the world’s leading air forces. Try going to Red Flag sometime and explaining your theories of what the AMRAAM, MICA, etc’s real effective range is. Do you honestly think you just cracked open some mystery that the various defense contractors and design bureaus around the world have not yet grasped?
hopsalotSo I stumbled across a link to an advertorial from Lockheed Martin. Only the image accompanying the link wasn’t quite scaled correctly.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]217369[/ATTACH]
*snicker*
Cool story…
hopsalotF-35A completes 1st in-flight missile launch
6/6/2013 – EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — An F-35A conventional takeoff and landing aircraft completed the first in-flight missile launch of an AIM-120 over the Point Mugu Sea Test Range, June 5.
It was the first launch where the F-35 and AIM-120 demonstrated a successful launch-to-eject communications sequence and fired the rocket motor after launch — paving the way for targeted launches in support of the Block 2B fleet release capability later this year.
hopsalotIf you consider that SAAB continued to promote Gripen in India even after the MMRCA decision, Canada must really be sown up in advance…
The Gripen has no realistic shot in Canada.
The F-35 wins on performance, long term prospects for continued support/development, and US/NATO commonality/compatibility.
The F-35’s weaknesses are cost and immaturity. (Plus the unfounded concerns about single engined safety, etc)
The Super Hornet is second in performance, second in long term prospects for continued support/development and second for US/NATO commonality/compatibility. It is also the most mature of the potential jets and quite cheap.
The only way the Gripen could win would be if Canada prioritized cost over all over factors, picking the smallest, cheapest, least mature, and least US/NATO common airframe.
hopsalotLook Bill, it’s fine if you want to come here and make legitimate complaints regarding the F-35, infact that should be encourged as the anti F-35 guys are somewhat struggling to bring up decent debating points. The problem comes when people such as yourself quite literally make cr*p up for the sake of it as you did in then post I responded to.
We all know the US has some huge defence programs aside from the F-35. Super Carriers, strategic bombers, destroyers, AFV’s, MBT’s, BMD to name but a few, oh and lets not forget the ‘super secret bomber that YOU yourself seem to think the USAF is working on. That’s why to claim the F-35 has left the Pentagon skint is clerly utter rubbish. If you don’t like being called out for bad posts then don’t do it, it’s that simple.
Indeed, there are serious systemic problems in US arms development and procurement, yet the F-35 “anti-fanboy” crowd would have you believe that somehow the F-35 has destroyed the US military. The programmatic issues the F-35 has experienced are serious and certainly worthy of criticism, but they are also sadly not particularly atypical.
Now that the F-35 has pushed through the worst of its growing pains and is on the edge of reaching IOC and demonstrating its abilities in the hands of its actual operators it is time for the anti-fanboys to move on to their next target.
It happens like clockwork, most recently with the C-17 and Osprey, but with numerous programs before them as well.
hopsalotGiven the way defence budgets have been heading since 1991, 25% is huge. It probably means 25% less flying hours or the equivalent reduction in airframes or some other capability or service such as school or hospital.
And bear in mind USAF will have huge economies of scale thanks to a large fleet (even if it’s in hundreds of aircraft and not thousands). This means greater expertise which in turn leads to greater efficiency as well as buying power for fuel, lubricants, spares etc which means lower prices.
I suspect while the US will have an up to 28% increase in flying costs over F-16, smaller operators will have a much greater increase.
Given that the F-35 has a global maintenance and support system all F-35 operators will share in the economies of scale. When it comes to fuel, etc, any operator of a meaningful number of fighters is going to be buying fuel in bulk.
25% is a meaningful increase, but it is not a crippling expense hike and is reasonable in light of the increased capability offered by the F-35.
As someone who works in government preparing budgets, I much prefer a whole of picture approach than assumption ladden window dressing that assumes away key costs and in the end only serves to promote certain interests.
Too often government services got stung with this kind of window dressing.
It is not possible to price aircraft without assumptions. I would not take this most recent cost estimate as a best case scenario. This is the official USAF estimate based on how they anticipate operating the F-35.
hopsalotF16s at the end of their service life are pretty expensive to operate. The brand new and shiny F16s cost less to operate since they “just work”. My guess is that they take current costs (for the now old F16s) for the comparison.
They are using current costs, but the major driver of the “high” number is what is included in the cost, not the age of the aircraft.
There are a lot of different ways to calculate costs per flight hour. At one extreme you are looking at the cost of fuel, lubricants, tires, and little else. At the other extreme you would include all personnel costs associated with maintenance, facility costs, all spare parts, engine overhaul, necessary pods, etc etc.
To some extent CPFH is also dependent on how many hours you assume you are flying. In calculations that include fixed costs (facilities for example) higher assumptions for flight hours will result in lower CPFH. (Even though total costs will be higher.)
Bottom line, using the USAF’s assumptions the F-35 costs roughly 25% more than an F-16, which falls safely into a manageable range for most operators. Using a different set of assumptions (as presented by Bogdan earlier this year) the F-35 costs about 10% more than an F-16.
hopsalotObligatory‘s comment is perfectly on topic. If you want to bomb Iran, F-35 is ideal. If your interests lie elsewhere, the value proposition is less clear. Take Canada: top of the requirements list is air intercept, and slightly below that is hunting down cruise missiles. F-35 does not handle either of these tasks as well as even the far cheaper Gripen NG, let alone the more comporable Typhoon (or Raptor, MiG-31, Su-35, but those aren’t in the discussion) and yet does not offer the features that one would normally desire to offset such deficiencies, such as maturity, significantly lower acquisition and operating expenses, etc.
Again with this simplistic business…
Canada has been performing its peace-time air intercept missions with F-18s for decades, an aircraft the F-35 will handily outperform in that role and all others.
Canada’s requirements are about much more than simply flying out and IDing an occasional Russian bomber in the far north. Canada wishes to maintain an at least semi-credible capability to support the US and NATO because Canada understands that in a true crisis that is who will be coming to their aid.
What you seem to miss in the midst of your various anti-US ranting is that the US’s allies WANT to be US allies for good reasons. They understand that in the rare scenario where a serious war does break out the US is likely the only nation on earth both willing and able to come to their aid in a meaningful way. You and others have questioned why Canada, Japan, Korea and others prioritize their ability to interoperate with the US to the extent they do, but it should be obvious. If Canada is ever forced to defend its territory in all likelihood it will be doing so with the full weight of the US behind them, a force with a value far beyond any trivial savings that might be available by cutting corners on a new fighter today.
So yes, F-35s are more than capable of policing Canada’s airspace. In a true crisis those same F-35s will likely form only small part of a force including hundreds of US and NATO F-35s, F-22s, F-15s, F-16s, etc.
hopsalotWhile it has been known for sometime that Boeing and the US Navy intend to fly a modified F/A-18F Super Hornet equipped with conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) and a weapons pod later this summer, some new details are emerging.
When the modified Rhino–as the Super Hornet is affectionately known–does fly in late August or early September over the Navy’s Atlantic range with the new hardware, those CFTs and weapons pod will not be functional, says Mike Gibbons, Boeing’s F/A-18 program manager. The idea is to test the aerodynamic qualities of those representative shapes, he says.
Mark Gammon, Boeing’s Hornet advanced projects chief, also notes that the aircraft will have a mock-up of an internally-mounted infrared search and track system mounted along with a slew of radar cross-section enhancement measures.
Gammon, who has worked on the Hornet since the first days of the original F/A-18A classic model jets, says that the CFTs won’t add any cruise drag at high subsonic speeds, but it will have a negative impact on drag at transonic speeds–but the company has done a lot of engineering work to try mitigate that. In fact, Gammon notes, at low airspeeds, sometimes overall drag with the CFTs is actually lower than a clean aircraft’s.
Configured with the CFTs and weapons pod carrying four AMRAAMs, the jet performs roughly the same as a Super Hornet carrying four external AIM-120s.
Anyways, Boeing showed off this brand new real F/A-18F equipped with mockup CFTs, weapons pods and other hardware.
Isn’t there already already a thread for this? http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?123756-Your-favorite-Super-Hornet-Block-III-Upgrade/page8
You should also provide a source for the text in your post:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2013/05/fa-18f-cft-weapons-pod-mockup.html
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