I was just thinking about the concept of a light fighter, as envisioned by the Fighter Mafia. This was basically:

1. A single engined platform
2. Has decent range and sustainment
3. Is cheap and focused on maximum sortie generation
4. Has minimal electronics, focusing on cheap, light and effective and nothing “good to have”

This fighter was envisioned to work along with a heavier and superior fighter (say like the F-22 / F-15) and with other support assets such as tankers, awacs, ground based radars, EW aircraft.

This makes a lot of sense in terms of not trying to replicate every capability into every platform. We aren’t building cruisers or destroyers. For God’s sake, we are building a fighter aircraft. Major sensors can be off board. Every fighter does not need to have a heavyweight radar, or giant EW units. These can be designated to AWACS and EW aircraft.

Should such a fighter do CAS or tactical bombing? Should such an aircraft do deep penetration strikes? The answer in both cases, is a resounding NO!!!

Deep penetration in a peer to peer conflict is today, best done by a UCAV.

For CAS, tactical bombing and deep penetration, you need the ability to sustain long loiter times, at least 4-6 hours. Very often at low level. These mean the aerodynamics of a modern fighter are not compatible at all. What you end up doing is trying to make a compromise, and the adage, a camel is a race horse designed by a committee comes into play.

Can such a plane play a supporting role in tactical bombing missions or in providing top cover for a deep strike? Yes it can. But it must first and foremost be designed for an air superiority mission, without compromise.

The US understands the role of the heavy air superiority fighter. It understands the importance of off board sensors such as AWACS, EW, ELINT, tankers.

But somewhere it lost its way with understanding deep strike. This was best done by a relatively low cost UCAV. Somewhere it lost its way with understanding CAS. Its not about dropping munitions from 10,000 feet. To do proper CAS you need to be down there with your MK1 eyeball to spot hidden tanks, artillery, etc. A UAV is never a substitute. If you want UAVs to do the spotting then they can do the firing too. But guess what? No grunt on the ground has ever wanted that over an A-10 above their heads with giant loiter and firepower.

Somewhere down the line, the USAF thought overcoming S-400s, and a sophisticated IADS was best done by a trillion dollar all-in-one product rather than a cheap and expendable UCAV. Or something with superior kinematic performance to reduce the NEZs.

And somewhere down this mad bureaucratic settup, people started calling the Fighter Mafia a group of mad men living in the past. Yet, they provide papers from way back in the 60s and 70s that appear most visionary and forward-looking, while not negating the experience of the past. Otherwise history becomes something like two corporations, Boeing and LM, wrote up some pamphlets and powerpoint slides, and based on this, we have today’s air warfare philosophy, strategy, methodology”. And the USAF worked closely with them, having a revolving door of employees along with the Pentagon, and all these good ol’ boys came up with war as we know it, despite never meeting a peer air force in the last 70 years.

Soviets? They don’t know a thing. Swedes? Meh… Israeli and Pakistani air forces that think BVR can be negated? They don’t even count. Let’s put all the money in the world and build a Swiss army knife of a turd instead. Disagree? Well, you’re either 1) Mad, 2) Foreign or 3) Living in the past, and we are just going to make up a scarecrow and beat it with nonsense.

That’s not what Sprey wrote, Yama. He said they should be separate roles, night attack / night fighters should be a separate procurement.

In his time, thermal imaging and sat nav were probably not thought of. Today night flying is relatively simple and wouldn’t require a heavy weight radar on a fighter to be effective (data link).

I think the problem is people don’t actually read his paper thoroughly. He is incredibly visionary, talking back then about LPI, distributed aperture, netcentric warfare, LO, and so much more.

If the Fighter Mafia represented one end of the spectrum, the JSF crowd represented the opposite end – everything can be built into a pissy fat gold-plated swiss army knife that costs $1 trillion. And… errr… no fighter can challenge this plane or…. errr… we will call you names.

But if we didn’t think him mad, the JSF crowd would never have been able to get away with what they did. Think about that.

Brilliant paper by Pierre Sprey. Great read. I think a lot of what he says is bang on. still. If a light fighter were to be designed with his principles today, it would be as follows:

1. A single turbo jet engine, optimized for supercruise.
2. Stealth with minimal internal or semi-recessed anti-aircraft missiles
3. Passive sensors (no active radar on the aircraft is needed). RWR, MAWS, IRST, etc). Data-linked to off-board sensor platforms.
4. A simple, no frills design, possibly even a simple delta.
5. Production in numbers.

Pierre Sprey, although reviled, is probably on the money when it comes to where real combat effectiveness lies. And the impossible situation fighter development has reached with the 5th generation. Perhaps the 6th generation should be what he envisioned. Would be mighty effective against the gold-plated 5th gen planes.

PS: An interesting question in my mind is if a distributed aperture can be “a radar without a radar”, providing an LPI like ability without actually even being a traditional radar.

PPS: The last generation of turbojets were designed by China. Would be interesting as a concept to see if that gen could be “taken to the next level” to create a supercruising turbojet.

It does look a bit like the Tejas because of the delta but it most reminds me of a cross between the Mirage 2000 and the Rafale. A 5th generation version is what I envision the next Pak-China joint venture should roughly look like –

A delta design keeps costs down and simplifies an optimal high-high flight profile.
A LERX or even better LEVCONS like the PAKFA
No internal weapons bay but stores would be carried on the fuselage caved in a way as to avoid radar reflection from most frontal angles.

I would really like to see your figures Paralay. I see you have used the classic method developed during WWII and looks to me you are using the standard Russian / Soviet method. You are keeping Su-27 as the standard I assume.

I think it may be interesting to factor the following in:
1. Logistic efficiency & Servicibility (should include operational costs, turnaround time)
2. Combat Efficiency (this should include things like range, payload, aircombat effectiveness, electronics & avionics)