LokeBut QWIPS detect not only IR the can detect CO2 on far distance and a F-35 burn much fuel and produce some tons of CO2. Fuel x ~3 is the CO2 emission.;)
How would A QWIP detect CO2?
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LokeOliver Hazard Perry class frigates
Displacement: 4,000-4,100 tons full load
Dimensions: 455 x 45 x 22 feet/138.6 x 13.7 x 6.7 meters
Wanshan, thanks for interesting info.
I assume the 6.7m is the “height” of the ship? How is this measured? (Apologies for asking such naive questions)…
How many decks (“floors”) does the Perry class have?
I think I have seen a picture of a Perry class (Adelaide?) with MK41 (I presume tactical length? which is 6.76 m long) sticking up quite a bit above the deck.
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LokeAnd you honestly think the Gripen in any varient is going to be good for the next 50 years? :rolleyes:
I suggest you read what I wrote — in particular the part you deleted.
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LokeCheaper products generally are cheaper in quality too so its of no suprise. Why this needed a commision to figure out is beyond me.
I would not use the term “cheap quality” for Gripen. Unlike other 4. gen jets it is hardly ever grounded due to technical problems. Furthermore it meets or exceeds all the requirements.
Gripen NG will do it’s job very well in today’s environment, of that I am convinced.
It is not a 5. gen jet however. Neither is Typhoon, Rafale or SH.
OT: In a Norwegian thread I suggested that Norway should buy or lease Gripen NG and immediately start development of a 5. gen jet in collaboration with other countries. Sweden and Norway would not be able to do that themselves however if a larger country (Japan, for instance) would get involved I think it would have a high probability of success. It would be a jet more like the F-22 than the F-35. That would address any a2a deficiencies the F-35 may have when meeting more capable future 5. gen jets. Unlike most on this forum I do believe people outside the U.S. is capable of developing advanced technologies, if they get the money to do so.
Oh, well, I will just cross my fingers and hope F-35 will beat all future threats the next 50 years or so…
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LokeNot surprised that it is cheaper !!
According to the the Norwegian evaluation committee Gripen would be more expensive than F-35 — Saab and the Swedish DoD never agreed to the estimates made by the Norwegians — after several rounds of discussions it seems Norway and Sweden agreed to disagree on that.
it is important for Saab to be able to show that the Norwegian price estimates were completely off. I am Norwegian however like the Swedes I don’t understand how our DoD can claim Gripen NG would be much more expensive than F-35 (and the difference was HUGE, I’m sure Signatory can dig out the numbers if you’re interested.)
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LokeIt is not so much that “stealth aircraft” can’t be detected, it’s more important to realise that they won’t in all likelyhood be detected until they are already within the NEZ of their weapons and you, not being able to detect them until you are that close means you will have radar guided missiles going active against you, before you even know the “stealth” aircraft is there.
Looking at a basic scenario, assuming no off-board support (which is unrealistic, but serves the purpose of the discussion). A BARS radar equipped Sukhoi can detect an F-16 sized fighter at 140k’s (for arguments sake. It might be somewhat more or less).
An F-35 however has a radar cross section, approximately 1/8th of an F-16.
Your Sukhoi then won’t be able to detect the F-35 until it gets within 17.5k’s or so. The AIM-120D however has a 100k range and a shot at even 40k’s means the Sukhoi will be right in the “sweet spot” of the AMRAAM’s capability and the Sukhoi pilot will have no idea of any threat until the AMRAAM’s radar goes active…
My point was, what happens when the opponent has an a/c with RCS equal to or lower than the F-35 — PAK FA is supposed to be able to match the F-22.
In such a scenario I would think that both a/c will have difficulties detecting eachother, until they are VWR. Now, if F-35 is “weak” in VWR then that’s not a good thing at all.
Of course you can argue that PAK FA will use it’s radar whereas F-35 will be networked and operate w.o. transmitting radar signals — however do you really believe that will be a realistic scenario? Non-US 5. gen jets will be networked just like current jets. F-35 will have a hard time detecting PAK FA until it is very very close (unless Russia and India fails in their goal of developing a true 5. gen a/c). Basing a military strategy on the failure of others could be dangerous.
My point is, F-35 will beat any 4.5 gen jet, including the SU-35 — however how will it deal with future 5. gen fighters? They are not here now, but they will be developed well within the lifetime of the F-35.
And again, this is not an issue for the US but for the rest of the Western world who does not get access to F-22 but needs to rely on (often small) numbers of F-35 in the future.
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LokeSo what will happen if, some time after 2020, the F-35 meets a stealthy PAK FA? If Russia (heavily supported by India) manage to build a stealth a/c then isn’t there a good chance that those rare WVR can become more common again?
An F-35 cannot shoot down a PAK FA if the F-35 cannot detect, then track the PAK-FA. And the PAK FA would have the same issues with the F-35.
As others have pointed out, whereas the U.S has F-22 to handle future threats like PAK FA, the rest of the world does not… and F-35 is the only game in town. Hopefully it will perform well against the PAK FA also in VWR.
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LokeRafale is also going against F/A-18E/F Block II Super Hornet and JAS-39C/D Gripen in the Brazilian fighter acquisition project and against Eurofighter Typhoon and JAS-39C/D Gripen in the Swiss evaluation.
OT: I believe Saab is trying to push Gripen NG (39 E/F) to Brazil, not the C/D.
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LokeIt is a monumental task to lower the RCS of an aircraft (in realistic warfighting configuration) to any practical degree (as compared to the strenght of the opp. sensors) therefore it is quite a futile effort to try . Stealthy combat is always a battle between your “Cloaque and his Sensors” and it is always going to be a loosing battle for any 4 generation design to out do “His sensors” specially when it is much more productive (cost wise) to upgrade sensors and/or weapons for the other guy.
I dont see a point in even trying to reduce (to a practical and combat useful value) the RCS of either a Blk60 or SH (in combat conditions with tanks , weapons etc) , if that is what is needed then simply buy the F-35 or one of the european 4.5 gen aircrafts.
I believed the SH had quite low RCS, comparable to the eurocanards?
Anyway, the low RCS of the SH could be a significant advantage, at least when facing 3-4. gen fighters. Remember the Red Flag pilot? One of the more interesting things he said (IMHO) was his comments on the Bison: A combination of low RCS and clever Israeli “jamming techniques” made the Bison invisible for the F15-F16, “until the merge”. That, to me, is quite significant.
Unless the F16 block 60 has an RCS as low as the SH (which I strongly doubt), I’d put my money on the SH. I bet it has techniques similar to what the Bison had.
As a sidenote, it is rumored that also Rafale and Gripen employ similar techniques. The Swedish AF had several excercises with the RNAF the last few months, and I’ve been told the Norwegians had huge problems detecting the Gripens — until it was too late.
Perhaps more advanced RADARs will not be fooled by such tricks?
Indian tender was mentioned in this thread; I would guess that with the potential opponents India is facing, such techniques would be useful for a long time to come. OTOH, the F16 bl. 60 will probably also do an adequate job for the Indians, so other things like costs may be decisive to them. Single-engine F16 may be cheaper to maintain than double-engine SH? Or am I wrong?
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LokeWhat would a Gripen do? Or a Rafale? (Remember they’ll be lugging tanks and external stores.)
I don’t know how those a/c would resolve such a situation — but that’s besides the point. Norway will buy F-35 not Gripen or Rafale. Therefore the questions was, how can F-35 resolve it?
Most likely all intercepts will be peace-time intercepts also in the future, just like they have been in the past. AFAIK, Norwegian F-16 were scrambled 32 times in 2008.
I am just curious as to how to deal with those intercepts in the future — presumably it has absolutely no significance, other than the possible loss of face if it turns out the new super planes are left far behind when they try to keep up with the Russian machines ?
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LokeF-35 is a strike aircraft that’s sure, so what about it’s interception capability? It look quite important since most F-35 buyers will never heve F-22?
Let’s check that scenario:A group of Su-35Bm is advancing Norweigan airspace flying at 52000 feet with cruise speed 1.1Mach. Norweigans detects Su-35s 350km faraway from the F-35 base. F-35 equiped with 4 x AIM-120D and SU-35s carrying 6 long range 2 short range missile. And F-35s are scrambled to intercept them…
Question is can F-35 intercept Su-35s in that altitude and while it has 1.1 Mach?
OK, this is probably another silly question but… how would you let the F-35 deal with a peace-time intercept ? Meaning, the objective is not to fire missiles but simply track the SU-35.
Something like this, but facing a future SU-35 instead:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/sep/06/russia.military
Would it not seem a bit silly if the F-35 flew to “intercept” the SU-35, and then for the SU-35 to just take off and leave the F-35 in the dust?
Or would the F-35 be able to keep up with the SU-35?
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LokeOK, some have touched on this but appearantly too many still do not get it.
The 2009 USAF estimate that indicates an average unit cost of $83 million for the 1,763 USAF F-35A is in THEN YEAR DOLLARS. That means the 2010 unit price is the projected 2010 price IN FY2010 DOLLARS, the 2020 unit price is the projected 2020 price IN FY2020 DOLLARS & the 2030 unit price is the projected 2030 price IN FY2030 DOLLARS. So PLEASE stop this nonsense that it indicates that the average unit cost is $83 million is CONSTANT (FY2008) DOLLARS.
The FACT is that the DOD has PUBLICLY stated that the fly-away cost for the 1st 368 export F-35A is $58.7 million (FY2008 dollars). That is known to be the price quoted to Australia, Canada & Norway (most likely Israel & anyone/everyone else as well). Yes there is a lot that can happen between now & when export customes actually pay for their F-35s that can change what price they ultimately pay BUT that is true for ANY & ALL weapon system & is NOT unique to the F-35.
Now I know there are those who simply can not believe that the F-35A can/will cost $58.7 million but that is THEIR problem & DOES NOT change the fact that that IS the most current OFFICIALLY QUOTED fly-away price.
The fly-away cost for F-35 quoted to Norway: 18 billion NOK for 48 a/c. Depending on what exchange rate you use that would be around 54 – 58million USD pr a/c.
The costs to get a fully operable system of has been estimated to around 50 billion NOK. TCO for 30 years has been estimated to 145 billion NOK, around 22 billion USD. Norwegian DoD claims that they cannot estimate TCO for Gripen but believes TCO of Gripen would be 20-30 billion NOK above. Now, one of the reasons why the Swedes were upset was that they calculate LCC(? but not TCO?) for Gripen to be 55 billion NOK. Contrast this to the 165-175 billion NOK TCO that Norwegian DoD has estimated for Gripen.
The Swedes in part does not understand why the difference is so big, and they also react to the fact that Norwegian DoD on the one hand can estimate very accurately all costs for F-35 (and those costs look quite low) but cannot do the same for Gripen.
Anyway, there is a meeting later today that probably will clear some of the misunderstandings. It will be interesting to read about the conclusion from that meeting…. A lot of the info will of course be classified, but I am sure we will learn enought to keep a lively debate for days (and weeks?) to come…
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LokeThere seems to be a fair amount of speculation and some accusations in this thread. People are free to think and say almost whatever they want, of course, but I don’t see why some people have the need to come up with unfounded accusations.
Internal and external evaluations confirm that the F-35 is the only aircraft which meets the requirements set by Norway. RNoAF fighter pilots seem to be very pleased with the choice. I trust these people. Blame me as much as you want.
Although your comment may be relevant for some posts it completely misses the point for other posts in this thread.
As a Norwegian I am not proud the way this “competition” was arranged. I find it unethical, and I would not be surprised if the Swedes decides to take this to court. However the reason is not what you state above. The point is this:
Norway stated early in the process (and repeated it several times in the media) that both a/c met the requirements (a list of approx. 1000 requirements in total). Specifically, “stealth” was not a requirement. The Swedes took this at face value and believed they had a chance of winning. This does of course not imply that they would win(!) but that they had a possibility of winning.
Enter the press conference. One mentions the 1000 requirements only in passing. Then one presents the scenarios that decided who will win the tender. In 2 of the 3 national scenarios, Gripen did not pass, F-35 did. Why? Once scenario required to bomb targets within the “kill zone” of double-digit SAMs — and make it back home. Another scenario was on BVR a2a fights with a stealthy PAK FA — with ESW disabled.
In the press conference the leader of the evaluation committe said (my rough translation) “Stealth was not a requirement. If it had been a requirement then it would not have been a competition. And that would not have been very smart”. Indeed, it would not have been very smart — Saab would not have submitted a tender if they knew about this. The point is this: stealth was not an explicit requirement, but everybody who knows this field would realize that since those scenarios were pivotal in choosing the winner stealth was very much an implicit requirement. I.e., this looks very much like a fake competition. We all know that a non-stealthy a/c would have a low probability of surviving very close to a double-digit SAM, and we all know that a non-stealthy jet with no ESW could have a hard time in a BVR encounter with a stealthy jet. If you make it a requirement that the a/c must survive in those environments then you basically say that you require a stealth jet. Which is fine, apart from the fact that the Norwegian government did not mention anything about this initially because “then it would not be a competition.”
In non-military tenders it is not allowed to arrange fake competions, it is not allowed to “change the rules” during the competion to favor one offer over another one. I do not know if this is also the case for military tenders. If it is, then I would not be surprised if the Swedes take this to court.
As others have mentioned there are also some question marks around the price calculations — however for this I think we need to await further information.
Note that in the above I do not say anything about which a/c is “better” or which is “better suited for Norway”. This is about the process.
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LokeCan anyone post/report the recent report in Norwegian paper that said Gripen could not face evolved Russian threat of PAKFA (report has CGI of PAK-FA).
It basically said something of JSF being a better choice? Thanks.
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=534207
google translated:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D534207&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=no&tl=en
It is interesting that they say that Gripen NG would be adequate for the next 5-10 years, this probaby means that NG would be good enough to meet SU-35, but found insufficient to meet a 5. gen plane.
European aviation industry has failed… Being better than SU-35 and F15/16/18 does not cut it in the future.
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LokeI am not a regular reader of this thread so my apologies if my comments seem misplaced…
According to leaks from the Norwegian evaluation one of the main reasons why F-35 won and Gripen NG lost in Norway was a future PAK FA.
Simulations between a future PAK FA and 4.5 gen. Gripen showed that the 4.5gen plane did not do very well.
F-35 however did pretty well against the PAK FA.
So you may say that PAK FA has claimed it’s first victim: Gripen NG in Norway.
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PS
The Swedes are furious and have asked why the simulations did not take into account Gripens EWS… oh well. I guess it was just turned off that day? Besides, the effects of EWS is probably hard to simulate?
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