hopsalotThere is no such thing.. But this term can be used for common understanding in order to differentiate the new design from “4th gen” MiG-29 series.
If we take Mirage 2000 for a 4th gen fighter, then Rafale must logically be 5th gen.
Ah yes, there is no such thing… everyone but you is confused.
:highly_amused:
hopsalotRemember when we didn’t think that PAK-FA was an attack aircraft?
Who is “we?”
hopsalotI read about that but I wasn’t sure whether it had happened yet. Good to know.
HERNDON, Va., 28 April 2012. The U.S. Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) a $52.8 million, 27-month engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract to upgrade its electronic attack (EA) pods. The program has a potential value of $480 million including EMD, a low-rate initial production phase (LRIP) and five production options.
…
The new electronic warfare pod is expected to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) by 2014.
The upgrade was supposed to reach IOC last year. I am not aware of an announcement that it had done so.
Did you not read hopsalot’s post? They just updated the jammer, so it’s the most up-to-date jammer out there. Those 40 year-old designs also have modern avionics in general, like AESA/SAR, in the case of the F-16. And as for the A-10, not so long ago people were saying it was better.
Given that the pod in question just completed a significant update and that the US are world leaders in EA it would stand to reason that the upgraded pod would be pretty capable, but it is essentially impossible to make a meaningful direct comparison between these types of systems because the information just isn’t available. Also, USAF F-16s don’t have AESA radars.
hopsalotRemember when people used to claim there was no such thing as a 5th generation fighter?
hopsalotWhat exactly was your opinion based on? The Rafale is not a VLO aircraft, therefore it would suffer the same issues as an F-16.
Not much older than Rafale’s Spectra suite and combat proven in Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force.
http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/ANALQ131/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/alq184/
Actually the ALQ-184 was just upgraded, so fanboy trolling aside one might assume it is a pretty modern system.
hopsalotIf no F-35 was shot down, then such exercises ain’t worth a rusty penny. Normally you want to be honest to yourself and exploit the strengths and weaknesses of your design by putting it into all thinkable scenarios and test it up to the limit..
If they reported one had been “shot down” then of course you would be complaining about that. Lets not pretend there was an outcome you would have been happy with.
hopsalotThis might be the most pissed-of editor’s note that I have been given the opportunity to read :rolleyes:
That is a pretty amusing if embarrassingly error riddled little screed.
Here is the full comment:
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The British government has been widely ridiculed for having invested billions of pounds to build two new, large aircraft carriers which, because of the widespread incompetence at ministerial and departmental levels, were not fitted with the “cats and tramps” needed to operate fast jets.
These ships are, basically large helicopter carriers fitted with “ski jumps” that allow them to operate STOVL fighters – in other words, only the Lockheed F-35B that the UK is acquiring at huge cost and in small numbers.
As the F-35 program is very much overdue, the Royal Navy faced the embarrassing prospect of operating its huge carriers – the largest ships it has ever bought – to carry transport helicopters.
By dangling the prospect that the ships might operate MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors, MoD clearly hopes to reduce the level of embarrassment, and give the ships some semblance of an air component until the F-35s arrive.
In the meantime, deploying US Marines and other Ospreys on HMS Ocean is another sign that, having sold off its Harriers to the very same Marine Corps, the Royal Navy is scrambling to find aircraft – in fact, anything but transport helicopters – to give its “flat-tops” a martial air, and to disguise the fact that successive UK governments have sunk billions of pounds to buy carriers with nothing to carry.)
Some quick corrections…
The British government has been widely ridiculed for having invested billions of pounds to build two new, large aircraft carriers which, because of the widespread incompetence at ministerial and departmental levels, were not fitted with the “cats and tramps” needed to operate fast jets.
“Cats and traps” are not necessary to operate fast jets, as demonstrated by the Harrier, Mig-29K, Su-33, F-35B… (note the Mig-29k and Su-33 do need the traps half of that pairing…)
These ships are, basically large helicopter carriers fitted with “ski jumps” that allow them to operate STOVL fighters – in other words, only the Lockheed F-35B that the UK is acquiring at huge cost and in small numbers.
Calling these ships “large helicopter carriers” is simply ignorant as they were designed from the start with the F-35 in mind. It is also false to claim only the F-35B can operate from them as the Harrier certainly could have done so if not sold off…
As the F-35 program is very much overdue, the Royal Navy faced the embarrassing prospect of operating its huge carriers – the largest ships it has ever bought – to carry transport helicopters.
The F-35 is overdue, but will nonetheless go operational ahead of the UK’s new carriers, the first of which is scheduled to be commissioned in 2016 and actually “delivered” in 2017. (The F-35B meanwhile is scheduled to go IOC in the next few weeks.) Claiming that F-35 delays have resulted in the Queen Elizabeth having to go operational as a helicopter carrier is false. The only thing that has prevented the UK from buying F-35Bs in time for their new carrier is the UK.
By dangling the prospect that the ships might operate MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors, MoD clearly hopes to reduce the level of embarrassment, and give the ships some semblance of an air component until the F-35s arrive.
Helicopters aren’t an air component? And if they aren’t, why would an Osprey count?
In the meantime, deploying US Marines and other Ospreys on HMS Ocean is another sign that, having sold off its Harriers to the very same Marine Corps, the Royal Navy is scrambling to find aircraft – in fact, anything but transport helicopters – to give its “flat-tops” a martial air, and to disguise the fact that successive UK governments have sunk billions of pounds to buy carriers with nothing to carry.)
Again, given that an Osprey is basically a very sophisticated “transport helicopter,” what distinction is the editor trying to make here?
hopsalotwhy so insanely costly..
whats the cost of A400M, in fly away price?
No recent price estimate is available for the A400M; a recent news story in the Telegraph Online puts the program’s acquisition cost at $3.26 billion for 22 aircraft, or a unit cost of about £140 million; or about $192 million. If confirmed, this would make the A400M very competitive compared to the C-130J.
These aircraft are not cheap…
hopsalotThere’s no SPECTRA installed..
Explains how they got the picture…
hopsalotPARIS: France displays Fokker 100 with a lot of Rafale inside
Does SPECTRA make it invisible?
hopsalotYou are one and a half year late, that comment would hold water in 2013, not anymore.
Two Western fighter designs not called “35” have already got enough orders to get them into the “late twenties”, the Gripen till 2027, the Rafale till 2028, the chances of neither of them getting more orders for the next decade and a half are near zero. And whatever substitutes the Eurocanards will be flying in the beggining of the thirties. The days when Richard Aboulafia confidently predicted that LM would end up being the sole western provider of tatical fast jet firepower are trully dead.
That really doesn’t do much to change things. At a production rate of 11 per year the Rafale is barely more than a rounding error. Even combined with the Gripen NG total Western output of 4th generation designs will have fallen to a small minority of the market by the early 2020s.
hopsalotMaybe but there has been a anti F35 hate storm raging across the internet for at least 15 years. The opposition would have been just as strong five years ago as it is today.
The main source of F35 opposition is not about the actual F35. It’s about the likely outcome that the F35 will hold a near monopoly of western fighter market by the mid 2020 time period.
That may not happen but fear of that outcome is always under the surface. What you see now is simply people dusting off the old anti F15, F18, F16, B1 media attack plans of the 1980s and trying to see if maybe it will work this time. It sort of did actually work against B2 and F22. Against the F35 it will likely fail once the price per plane drops to 90 million range and the only choice buyers have is buy F35 are spend more for another plane.
It is important to remember that while the F-35 did suffer from serious programmatic and management issues, a big chunk of its critics are either anti-military in general (POGO and the like) and work to smear the F-35 as part of a broader anti-military agenda… or they are just opportunists in the press who are looking for sensational click-bait headlines and that will simply move on to the next program soon.
hopsalotYemen’s dominant Houthi group and its army allies fired a Scud missile at Saudi Arabia which the kingdom says it shot down on Saturday, in a major escalation of two months of war.
In the first use of the long range ballistic Scud in the conflict, the missile was fired early Saturday morning at the city of Khamees Mushait in the kingdom’s southwest and was intercepted by two Patriot missiles, a statement by the Saudi military said.
The area is home to the largest air force base in southern Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, but there are no oil facilities in the vicinity.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/06/us-yemen-security-saudi-idUSKBN0OM05T20150606
It wasn’t that long ago that ballistic missile defense was a pretty exotic capability.
hopsalotChina is working on J-18 a hovering “jump jet” that looks a lot like the Pentagon’s F-35B.
Ah yes… the Daily Beast.
When you absolutely must know what a clueless idiot thinks, but can’t be bothered to make your way to the local bar.
hopsalotI am surprised nobody has quoted this one yet:
Full story: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/opinion-after-a-100bn-spend-it39s-time-for-f-35-to-413138/
but then again; who am I to complain? the US taxpayers after all pick up most of the bill…
What is there to say? This is just the media trying to get in a few last shots while they can. We are at a sweet spot in a sense, most of the development money has been spent, but few aircraft have been produced and at inflated prices. The long-lead items for the next LRIP batch were just ordered, 90+ aircraft… prices are falling and the first squadron is going operational this year.
It becomes a heck of a lot harder to bash a program once real operational pilots are taking it to exercises and testifying to its performance. It also gets harder when prices are falling and every year or two another set of new capabilities is being delivered.
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