hopsalotJust worth a look…
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hopsalot(Reuters) – The U.S. Navy made aviation history on Tuesday by launching an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time
…
The bat-winged X-47B stealth drone roared off the USS George H.W. Bush near the coast of Virginia and flew a series of pre-programmed maneuvers around the ship before veering away toward a Naval air station in Maryland where it was scheduled to land.
“This is really a red-letter day. May 14 we all saw history happen” said Rear Admiral Ted Branch, the Atlantic naval air commander. “It’s a marker … between naval aviation as we’ve known it and the future of naval aviation with the launch of the X-47B.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/14/us-usa-navy-drone-idUSBRE94D00M20130514
hopsalotIsraeli F-16A pilots claim three Mi-8s, three Gazelles, twenty two MiG-21s, fourteen MiG-23s, one Su-22M and further eleven unknown MiGs.
Hard to say how many of these claims are confirmed..
F-16s have shot down a few drones as well. (Unmanned, but I think worthy of counting as a ‘kill’ given that they are military aircraft and aircraft like helicopters, transports etc are counted as kills.)
US 2009: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/16/iran.iraq/
Israel 2013: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/IAF-shoots-down-drone-which-flew-south-from-Lebanon-311098
Israel 2012: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4289188,00.html
hopsalotI think to dub them as ” affordable compared to the F-35″ is really under-estimating the Inherent RISK involved with these 2 projects. Both the nations are attempting something that is quite complex (5th gen fighter development) and a big step up from what they are used to do within the aerospace industry. If they are executed 100% as planned, and fairly close to the design goals, yes they would come in cheaper, however the RISK associated is HUGE for both nations. The F-35 10-15 years from now, would be filedided , had its chinks sorted out, and the production lines would be running at full capacity… So the CAPABILITY and COST combined with TIMELINES (IOC 2025, 2030 etc etc) would matter a lot as far as exportability is concerned…I would add the AMCA to the list as well. The main benefit obviously is to the indegenous aerospace industry, which i understand : my argument is only towards the export prospects vis-a-vis the F-35.
I second Bring_it_on’s point about the F-35 being a fully mature aircraft by the 2030s. Even if all goes smoothly for these prospective programs they will be in their early stages at a time when the F-35 will have fully hit its stride. The odds that they will be able to appreciably under-cut the F-35’s price is quite low and the F-35 will be a far more mature product.
hopsalotWell…..the RAF admits they are getting a less capable jet and giving up capabilities for the sake of being able to operate off a carrier. http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130509/DEFREG01/305090014/UK-Watchdog-Faulty-Data-Drove-F-35-Choices-New-Carriers
Admitting? Was that ever somehow in question?
Besides, operating from a ship is a capability.
hopsalotStealth coatings on F-35 ‘easier to maintain’ than on older jets
This is big news. One of the major goals of the program was to build a stealth aircraft that could stand up to the day to day grind normal aircraft are subjected to. The USAF’s previous stealth aircraft have proven to be maintenance nightmares. If the F-35 has finally broken this pattern then it is a major accomplishment.
The F-35’s improved materials are also being back-fitted onto the F-22:
The U.S. Air Force is testing an improved radar absorbent coating from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program on the newest F-22 Raptor stealth fighters.
“Some of the [low observables] coatings system and gap-fillers that the F-35 had an advantage on, we have incorporated into the Raptor,” Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin’s vice president and general manager of the F-22 program, told Defense News.
The new materials do not alter the F-22’s radar cross-section but are more durable than the current coatings and should reduce maintenance, according to Lockheed Martin.
‘More Robust Materials’
“[The F-35 program] had some more robust materials that were more durable and we were able to pull those back on to the F-22,” Babione said. “So our system is better, and the life-cycle cost of the F-22 is reduced.”
Dan Goure, an analyst at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, VA, told Defense News that retrofitting the F-22 with the F-35’s coatings would save significant maintenance time and costs.
“It’s not going to transform the airplane, but what it’s going to really do is make it much cheaper to operate the F-22 fleet, which is terribly important given its small size,” he said.
Despite Lockheed Martin’s statement that the F-35-derived coatings would not alter the F-22’s radar cross-section, Goure said: “I would be very surprised if this wasn’t an improvement in stealth characteristics.”
hopsalotAnother epic fail….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/10/navy-jets-cant-land-hot-weather
No other comment.
You have to love the British media. 😀
hopsalotIraq Signs $830 Million Deal for More F-16s
This is shaping up to be a good year for the F-16. Who knows how much longer the production line will be open.
hopsalot:highly_amused:
You just be smoking some really powerful stuff that you deluded yourself to think that *you* have the right to paint *your* bigoted opinion as what the whole world opinion is? :rolleyes:
That is what most of his posts seem to consist of.
hopsalotThis seems similar to the situation in Kargil over 10 years ago. Back then, the Indians used land and airforce to expel the invaders. So what’s different now? :dev2: I guess bullies know when they are beaten.
Indian media of course are as hysterical as ever…
It is a very similar situation to what is happening all around China’s borders… (and in some areas of the SCS that aren’t even near China for that matter)
hopsalotAnother story:
WASHINGTON — Israeli aircraft bombed a target in Syria overnight Thursday, an Obama administration official said Friday night, as American officials said they were considering military options, including carrying out their own airstrikes. American officials did not provide details on the target of the Israeli strike. The Associated Press quoted Israeli officials on Saturday as saying the target of the raid was a shipment of advanced missiles bound for the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon. While saying the shipment did not include chemical arms, the official described the missiles as “game changing,” an apparent reference to the capability of the missiles.
In late January, Israel carried out airstrikes against SA-17 antiaircraft weapons, which the Israelis feared were about to be moved to Hezbollah.
http://online.wsj.com/article/APad7397cc1b244f3cbf68591e2fd848a7.html
All those shiny new air defense systems Syria bought aren’t exactly covering themselves in glory…
hopsalotFrench Defence White Paper outlines future air fleets:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/french-white-paper-sets-equipment-course-for-2025-385408/
Of note is combined AF/Navy fighter fleet of 225 aircraft.
That would seem timply the next Rafale purchase is 50 a/c (180 ordered +45 new + 5 attrition).
It really is a shame what is happening to European defense forces.
Peace is of course a good thing, but as Europe draws inward other forces will fill the void. It will also prove more and more difficult to maintain an industrial base without new projects and meaningful numbers of orders.
hopsalotThe difference is that weight per se does not add drag. If for instance you replaced a section that was made of more dense material, it would be heavier but it would not induce more drag, ceretis paribus.
Actually, yes, more weight does induce more drag.
If you compare two aircraft identical other than their weight, the heavier aircraft will have more drag due to greater induced drag. (The heavier an aircraft is, the more lift it needs to maintain level flight.)
For example, a clean Su-27 with a full fuel load will have more drag than later in the same flight after it has burned off a significant portion of its fuel load.
hopsalotI think the ball is in your court. The ony thing you are capable of doing is to be rude, and wrong.
You are the one claiming it to have datalinks on par with MADL, you are the one claiming superior sensors, you are the one claiming it is cheap, you are the one claiming it has better weapons.
It turned out that it didnt have the best weapons, nor most stores/pylons, that it covers half UHF-Ka bands with its sensor suite (when others go for VHF-Ka), that is is more expensive than many others and so on. Basically you managed to come up with nothing, being wrong about everything and at the same time be rude.
Have fun with chinabot.
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Ah yes, the last refuge of the kiddies. :applause:
When reality refuses to conform to what you wish it would… ignore it.
hopsalotI beg to differ, this is the only apples to apples comparison that exist with various fighters,
it has also never been debunked, tho naturally as is explained it is estimates, where F-35 is the least known
That is not an apples to apples comparison, nor is it a useful one. For most of the jets the costs listed are essentially fuel costs, if that, but for some (F-35) it includes essentially everything. Take for example the F-16 costs of $7k per hour… that is roughly a third of what the USAF calculates it spends.
Picking on the Gripen now… at military thrust the F404 produces ~11k lbs of thrust and consumes 0.81 lb/(lbf�h). (Meaning it consumes roughly 9k lbs of fuel per hour at military thrust.)
Converting that 9k lbs of fuel into gallons yields roughly 1300 gallons of fuel. At current market prices (~$3 per gallon) that means it costs roughly $3900 to fuel an F404 for an hour of flight at military thrust. Again, that is just fuel.
Now in actual operations you aren’t going to be running the engine on military thrust all of the time… some of the time you will be cruising at more efficient thrust settings and some of the time you will be in afterburner.
The bottom line is that the Janes estimate for the Gripen(and most of the aircraft in that comparison) is extremely minimalist, including little more than fuel, tires, etc.
It does not reflect what a force would actually pay to maintain a capability.
Meanwhile the higher numbers on that chart, particularly those for the F-35 are more or less all inclusive, and inflated at that.
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