Regarding “Advanced EOTS”, Lockheed director of business development for missiles and fire control Don Bolling says the proposed multispectral sensor will allow Lightning II operators to detect air and ground targets with greater clarity and at longer ranges, via short-wave infrared, high-definition television, infrared marker and image detector resolution enhancements.

…

Bolling told reporters following an EOTS factory tour in Orlando, Florida on 24 February that the next iteration will be cut into the same production line, if chosen by F-35 customers. Advanced EOTS promises better performance “than any pod currently [fielded] or currently envisioned”, he claims.

“By the end of the year, we’ll have a prototype system completed and then hopefully, in the new year, we’ll have identified a path to fly it on a surrogate platform and be able to show that high-fidelity imagery,” Bolling says.

Lockheed announced the new targeting sensor in 2015 and hopes the sensor upgrade will be included on a list of new capabilities being considered by the F-35 Joint Programme Office for the Block 4 project, which starts in 2019.

Advanced EOTS uses high operating temperature mid-wave infrared or “hot mid-wave” technology that has been matured under a US government-sponsored Vital Infrared Sensor Technology Acceleration (VISTA) programme. The technology boosts sensor performance and reliability by replacing expensive “cryocoolers” – according to Lockheed.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lockheed-prepping-advanced-eots-and-legion-pod-for-f-422810/

This is an interesting illustration of the advantages of a program with the F-35’s scale and resources. The F-35 will be operational with its second targeting pod faster than some of its competition got their first…

The jamming aircraft would still need to record, analyse, decrypt and then transmit a very precise out-of-phase pulse in the time it takes the transmitter to switch its pulse frequency or waveform. Doable against older generation radars perhaps, but against the newer PESAs and more specifically frequency agile AESAs…? I remain sceptical.

Pulse duration isn’t a function of antenna type, so that isn’t really a concern, but you are correct that the receiving aircraft would have to be able to recognize the signal it is trying to jam, which by itself is non-trivial.

Many of the same tactics that one might employ against a DRFM jammer could be employed against an active cancellation system.

You will see that I was skeptical of the viability of active cancellation if you read the ECM pod thread, and I certainly remain so… but not so much as to think the engineers that went to the effort of flight testing a system didn’t have a clue what they were doing.

I still believe that if active cancellation could be made to work it would take the form of a system that would have very narrow applicability, that would be used to address a specific RCS hot spot under very specific conditions. (which is certainly what the articles I cited described)

This is not a case where one could hope to hang a pod under their favorite 4th generation jet and achieve stealth. More like a scenario where the maker of a LO supersonic missile knows that from directly head on its ramjet intake produces a strong return, which could be mitigated if…

I repeat, that was a statement of the head of RuAF. Believe it or not.

I find it kind of amusing that some have such a hard time accepting the possibility that the PAK FA’s max speed will be ~mach 2.

Look at other recent designs, whether Eurofighter, Gripen, Rafale, F-22, F-35, or Super Hornet… not one of these designs claims a top speed above mach 2, and it certainly isn’t because the design teams couldn’t have produced such a design if it had been specified. (every single one of these designs is replacing fighters that at least on paper were faster)

Regardless of their theoretical top speed, 3rd and 4th generation fighters didn’t operate above (or generally even near) mach 2. At the same time producing a mach 2+ fighter required significant design trade-offs.

If indeed the PAK FA has a top speed of mach 2 it would be perfectly consistent with the decisions made by essentially every other design team since the early 1980s.

That’s all cool and funny… unfortunately does not help your or Jessmo’s arguments even a tiny bit..

What argument have I presented exactly? That multiple experienced pilots from multiple nations, all with firsthand experience flying the F-35, have described it similarly and that not surprisingly they describe a very different aircraft than the “bomber” some fanboys here wish the F-35 were?

Meanwhile your argument, as near as I can tell, is “nyah nyah nyah, I can’t hear you… If it wasn’t on video it didn’t happen!” :rolleyes:

You have already demonstrated a superhuman ability to resist education even in the face of overwhelming evidence. You seem to take it as a point of pride that you can remain stubbornly wedded to your original position long after it has been comprehensively proven wrong… good for you? Nobody needs you to believe. This isn’t a religion and the fact of the F-35’s capability is not dependent in any way on your willingness or ability to understand it.

Oh .. Who cares?

I mean this type of discussion had some merit a couple of years ago. Not so much now. The plane has been produced in sufficient numbers and people from all over the world are beginning to train on it.

Soon Air forces will begin receiving their “training” F-35s .. We will then know.

You realize that is what this is, right?

We have had reports from Dutch pilots as well.

It is getting harder and harder for the F-35 haters to call everyone a liar, there are just so many of them…

See here for a Dutch pilot’s account of his impressions of the F-35:

Air combat manoeuvring

But did the Dutch F-35 pilots perhaps have a hard time ‘killing’ Dutch F-16s in simulated air combat manoeuvring (ACM) over Edwards? After all, the inability of a US F-35 to finish off a F-16 – either because it lacks sufficient maneuverability or thrust from its Pratt & Whitney F-135 engine – was much reported.

“The F-35 will have a large advantage going into the visual arena against fourth generation or aircraft like the Su-35, due to its advanced sensors, stealth and datalink capability and resulting increased situational awareness. We have already seen this during testing at Edwards”, says ‘Gladys’, one of the RNLAF pilots at Edwards.

The visual fight will most likely already be decided before the adversary knows it’s in a dogfight, continues Gladys. “Even so, slow-speed and high angle-of-attack performance is much better than many fourth generation fighters like the F-16. High angle of attack testing has been an eye-opener for previous F-16 pilots, who are not used to very good slow speed performance. Straight line acceleration is also much better. At higher speeds, the F-16 has the sustained turning advantage (as it does over many aircraft like the F-18), but only when fighting in training configurations without any missiles or bombs. When flying in combat configs, even the high speeds sustained fight becomes much closer.”

http://airheadsfly.com/2016/01/26/dutch-lightning-testers/

What about this account and the Norwegian account are inconsistent? Here are two totally different pilots, from two different air forces, saying some awfully similar things about how the F-35 flies in BFM. Of course when this first report was posted the usual suspects around here called this pilot a liar as well:

Why do all F-35 jocks sound like brainless zombies?

You have to be pretty far gone not to hear the heavy hand of approved PR in the above. I guess after years spent regurgitating corporate press releases, some folks have lost the ability to tell the difference.

Pilots are asked for their personal opinion of an aircraft. If they are instructed in what to say about the F-35, they are not expressing their opinion and what they say loses all value. This is a form of deceitful distortion promulgated by factions that do not want informed judgement to reach the public domain. Now that the deceit has been exposed, the effect is to call into question anything positive said about the F-35 by US pilots.

All from the thread where the link was originally posted: http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?134882-F-35-News-Multimedia-amp-Discussion-thread-%282015%29-Take-two&p=2288942#post2288942

Well, if anything, the FBW controls on F-35 works just fine, such auto correct anti spin recovery is flat out an important tool.

Sergey Bodgan, Sukhoi chief test pilots said the exact same thing about the Flight control system on Su-35S and T-50.
Its about flight safety for the pilots.

Video or it didn’t happen…. /MSphere

:rolleyes:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/air-force-f35-drops-first-weapons/index.html

I thought they had dropped bombs already? Or were those not real bombs they dropped in the past?

Previously it was test assets, now it is (soon to be) operational USAF aircraft.

Look.. let the bird show it.. then we’ll talk..

No irony at all that the same poster that promotes the Gripen NG, which hasn’t even flown, refuses to believe the expert testimony of a real live pilot, a fellow Norwegian no less. ..