aurcovInterestingly your opinion could also be taken to mean that what the F16 has spent the vast majority of it’s life doing doesn’t count as combat, yet it gets held up, probably rightly, as a world beating success….or would you dispute that?
Hardly: the F 16 had 72 kills and 0 loses…Except the F 15, there is no other modern fighter that has comparable record.
Umm, checking the book Debrief: a complete history of U.S. aerial engagements 1981 to the present by Craig Brown (a very good book btw) the number of wvr to bvr engagements comes out in favour of wvr by almost 3 to 1. Maybe you’d like to re-visit and re-evaluate the above statement. Facts are a bitch eh…
Facts are a bitch, indeed! So, you counted aerial engagements from 1981? Why don’t you consider the aerial engagements from WWI up to now? In this case, you will obtain a WVR/BVR ratio of 10,000/1 :diablo: For an accurate picture, try to count this ratio from 1991, when, for the first time, USAF/USN had a decent BVR weapon (latest Sparrow variant). See the attached graph (red: cannon kills, blue: WVR missile kills and green: BVR missile kills) “Slightly” different, don’t you agree?:diablo: Cannon kills culminated in Vietnam, WVR missiles in Bekaa Valley and Falkland and from 1991, BVR dominated.
aurcovThat claim is a wild guess.
A F-16C or EF with with two bombs and two AAMs could not be outperformed by a F-35A, when on internal fuel like the F-35A over the target area.
How often did you see an F 16 in a real war without external fuel tanks?
In some configurations maybe but not necessarily in all. Can a F-35 carry 8 AAMs still achieve mach 1.8 or supercruise? Comparisons should be fair.
Probably it will supercruise; and no it will do “only” 1.6M, but how often a fighter do 1.8M?
aurcovExample:
the F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed, loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius.
This is a statement of LM some people here seem to take it for granted though not a single detail is given. No data, nothing…
I think is is an accurate and fair statement; but people do not read it with atention: the key words are combat-configurated! While a clean EF or even a clean F 16 would outmaneuver, outclimb and outacelerate an F 35, a combat-configured F 35 will do better than a similar EF or F 16.
Why I think is fair statemen? Because the LM guy said:
The conventional version of the F-35 has 9g capability and matches the turn rates of the F-16 and F/A-18.
Some will say: big deal! But he adds:
More importantly, in a combat load, with all fuel, targeting sensor pods and weapons carried internally, the F-35’s aerodynamic performance far exceeds all legacy aircraft equipped with a similar capability.
aurcovSo how many people here came up with such marketing slogans like “nothing comes close”?
I didn’t say that I read those here; but the other poster said that the F 35 wasn’t tested in real war. I replied that the EF wasn’t either. Still people have no trouble to believe whatever EF consortium claims (or Russians for that matter), while in the same time labeling as a marketing BS whatever LM, AF or F 35 test pilots say.
aurcovFactually you are making an inaccurate statement. The weapons system in it’s final form does not exist yet and has not been tested in combat, thus it has no track record for you to base your assertions upon. You can state that the system potentially has advantages, but until the system has been combat tested and proven to out perform existing products that do have track records you cannot state that it out performs them, merely that it has the potential to do so in your opinion.
Hmmm…so the F 35 wasn’t tested in combat…that means that EF, Grippen or Su 30 were? Yet no one doubts the claims of the companies that produce them (“no one come close”… “the wings of your nation” bla, bla, bla). OTOH, the claims of LM (a company that produced planes like P 38, SR 71, F 104, F 117, F 16, F 22) must be BS…
Hmm like the F-22
production continued…while the time between software failures wasn’t meeting targets, right up till they changed the targets!! etc etc.
By the time the F 22 was declared operational (IOC in dec. 2005), all these failures were resolved.
aurcovCome on . . . 300 propellor-driven aircraft against how many F-51, F-80, F-84, Meteor, F9F, etc? Apart from a week or so at the start of the war, the UN forces always had a large superiority in overall aircraft numbers.
The F-80, F9F, F-51 etc. had already established air superiority over Korea a couple of weeks after the start of the war, & held it for 4 months before the MiG-15 entered the war & swung the tide temporarily against them. The KPAFAC is estimated to have lost 70% of its strength in the first month of the war, & the rest soon afterwards.
Assume for a moment that the F-86 was unable to establish air superiority over communist-controlled territory, but the MiG-15 was still forbidden to fly over UN-controlled territory. The US & allied air forces would still have had complete command of their own airspace. The situation in UN airspace would have been unchanged: night raiders only. Over N. Korea, the difference would have been that daylight bomber raids would have been costly, perhaps not possible, & fighter-bombers would have suffered more air-air losses when they ventured past the front line, thus reducing their ability to help ground forces.
We are circling around the tail: with or without F 86, the fact is that US (UN) forces did achieve air superiority; without it, the Korean War would ended with more UN loses. The point is that against a competent and well equiped foe, a good fighter is mandatory. Anti-IED, body armor or COIN aircrafts would have a logic only in Iraq/Afganistan type conflicts.
aurcovThe Sabres were tremendously successful, & the low air-air losses of UN aircraft (of all types) over Korea are testimony to that. Their success was great enough not to need exaggeration or embellishment, e.g. by crediting them with achievements that were, in fact, ordered by Stalin. MiG-15 pilots were strictly forbidden from flying over UN-controlled territory. Stalin was more concerned about the USA getting its hands on a MiG-15 than he was about lost opportunities to attack UN ground forces, or protect Chinese & N. Korean troops from UN CAS.
UN forces did suffer losses to air attack, but only slight. Overall, they had more combat aircraft in the theatre than the UAF, & as long as the F-86 could keep the MiG-15 off the backs of everything else, the rest of the UN (mostly US) air forces could easily deal with the remaining UAF forces.
I’m not trying to exagerate the F 86 succes. If the MiG 15 was not autorized over the UN controlled territory, the +300 propeller fighter-bombers and bombers (Yak 9, Il 10, Tu 2) were not. Without the F 86 controlling the sky, these would have attacked at will US (UN) ground forces, but, except some night attack by Po 2 biplanes (!), they could not.
aurcovThe enemies of the US in the last decades had an airforce? That is some real news.. :rolleyes:
Grenada air force
Panama air force
Iraq air force (Mk1)
Serbian air force
Afghanistan air force
Iraq air force (Mk2)A truly impressive list of opponents.. I am pretty confident that even our tiny Slovak air force with a handful of fully combat capable Fulcrums would be able to crush most of those (with the exception of Iraqi Mk1 which at least had many functioning aircraft in inventory)
In 1991, Iraqi AF could hurt the US ground forces (and more generally disrupt US plans), if air superiority hadn’t be established early in the conflict.
Also, I see that you don’t mention Korea: it was a war where US fought in inferiority: they had less than 200 F 86 against a communist force of 800-900 MiG 15 (half operated by Russian WWII veterans) and a large number of propeller fighter-bombers. Yet US ground forces were unharmed.
The air superiority obtained not only did spare US ground forces, but helped them a lost with CAS. It’s one of the reason the US lost so few men compared with their enemies.
aurcovHere’s the real reason, It will only be a waste of money if you don’t buy something else you need!!.
What do you think you need more?
Tankers.
Transport aircraft.
Armoured Humvees.
Coin aircraft.
Body armour.
Anti IED support equipment.How many US troops have been lost due to enemy air action in the last 50 years?, how many to ground forces?
This is where you will find the answer.
Cheers
It would be true if US future enemies would be Taliban or al qaeda. If a war broke with some serious enemy, I doubt that anti-IED would help.
BTW, did you ask youself why so few US troops have been lost to enemy air action in the last decades? Because USAF rulled the sky!
aurcovExactly what kind of capable enemy has the Eagle actually fought against? 😀
The Eagle fought against the enemy they faced; the Eagle pilots didn’t exactly chose their opponents during the morning briefs. However, among victims you can count a number of high speed, high altitude MiG 25 (a plane that the Eagle was designed to kill), and a number of MiG 29, aside a large number of MiG 21, Mig 23 and a few Mirages…Keep in mind that most of the kills were in ’80 and in 1991 Gulf War. In those days, those planes were the nowadays Su 30, or Rafale.
aurcovThe total range of the F-35A is 1200 nm on internal at subsonic, which is no more than Mach 0,8 at height. When someone has better data he can post that. By the way a capability demonstrated by a F-16A in the 70s. 😀
The typical yardstick to measure the range capabilities of a design is the ferry range without air-refuelling.A F-35A does burn 36 tons of fuel per hour in full AB at low level,
still 18 tons at medium heights and not below 9 tons very high up.
No way! What matters is the combat radius (flying in + fight (which you seems to ignore when computing the range of the F 35 if the result is 1200 Nmiles!)+flying out! In this respect, the F 35 with 675 Nmiles, inclusding 20 min. of dogfight (see the presentation for Norway) is more than OK. In fact only the big Su is (slightly) better.
And F 16 A with 675 Nmiles???? Maybe with 3 ETs…
aurcovWell it does if it has to go up against aircraft that because they are faster can decide when and how to enter the fight on their own terms. Having said that the F-35 is a strike fighter no matter how much over-hype is going on.
The F 35 can go 1.6 M. True, in AB, but with over 8 t of fuel, it can afford to. How many A/C went over 1.6 M in recent wars? BTW, unless those ennemy A/C are VLO, it is the F 35 that “can decide when and how to enter the fight”…
The radius is “only” 675 Nmiles on internal fuel? Big deal! What’s the combat radius of an EF with internal fuel? 300 Nmiles? 😀 OK let’s be kind, 350 Nmiles! :D:D.
aurcovhttp://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2008/0131ae_f35flipper.html
I am impressed, when that chase planes did fly in what configuration?
When LM is intrested in real news, they can give some hard data verified by flights so far. Otherwise advertisement claims on and brain off. 😀
As you may see in the attachement, in some test flight, the chase plane was clean. Also, the chase plane was a modified F 16 with a ~33,000 lbs. F 132 (used to test the F 16 blk. 60 engine for UAE).
Some quotes from http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/2007/articles/apr_07/flighttest/index.html:
I continue to be impressed with the performance of the aircraft. The F-16s flying chase don’t have near the fuel capacity or payload capability as the F-35. The Lightning II does very well in comparison. For example, the F-35 often forces the chase aircraft into afterburner when it is in military power.
Another strong impression is that the airplane wants to fly a lot faster than we are allowed to fly at this point in the flight test program. Most of the time we fly at about thirty to forty percent of available thrust. This airplane can go out to high subsonic speeds very easily without using afterburner.
And we are testing these weapons in a large envelope. The F-35 can maneuver post-stall like an F/A-18. So we have a lot ahead of us. But we are certainly up to these challenges.
Funny, people still consider the F 35 a kinematic fiasco.
BTW, when did other (non US) companies data about test flights?
aurcovBefore doing such nonsense claims you have to compare the fuel fractions.
The F-35A is at 0.38 at 100% internal.
The Typhoon is at 0.** at 100% internal and is at 0.** at with ETs.
The former US claim was that the ETs could be dropped after half way out and the internal is still enough for one hour of flight time at least.
That all in mind to reduce drag and dead-weight, when going into combat.
See the F-15, F-16 and F-18 about that. That was called tactical flexibility.To stay stealth all the time the F-35A has to sacrify that tactical flexibily.
But the USAF had changed their mind about that to correct the shortcomings in their overweight stealth-fighters and did add some ETs to restore range and by the tactical flexibility, when not in urgent need of stealth. :diablo:
You misunderstod me. I was not discussing the advantages or disadvantages of carrying a huge internal fuel load vs. a modest internal+external tanks. I just said the the other poster (Crobato) compared apples with orages: the combat radius of F 35 (int. only) with EF and F 16 (int+3 tanks). BTW, USAF didn’t “changed their mind” about ext. tanks on stealth planes: even the YF 22 had provisions for drop tanks (and pylons).
aurcovAnd even from real-life we know those numbers are wrong. They present the F-35 as worse than the F-16, yet we know that the non-weight-optimized AA-1 F-35 is routinely out-running and out-climbing its F-16 chase planes
Yet they present the gap between the ‘superior’ F-16 and the F-35A as being larger than the gap between F-22 and F-15! (slide 79)
it doesn’t even begin to pass the sniff test
Note that in the same slide 79, the F15E appears to be superior to the EF…
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