HotshotI wish this myth would be put to bed once and for all!
I am utterly sick of reading it trotted out as fact when the truth is so different!
The RAF did not procure the Hawk T1A wired for the 30mm Aden cannon and AIM-9L Sidewinder with the intention to shoot down Russian deep strike aircraft!
The T1A was procured wired for cannon and Sidewinder to allow the replacement of the Hawker Hunter with the RAF tactical weapons unit, the RAF TWU was set up to provided weapons tactics training.
Once the RAF had procured 89 Hawk T1A some bright spark dreamt up the idea of a “Mixed Fighter Force” where the appropriately wired Hawk could be used as point defence fighters to support the Phantom and Tornado F.3 if WW3 started. It was only ever a concept and every trial to see if it was practical found it to be a flawed concept as the subsonic Hawk actually hindered the Supersonic Phantom and Tornado.
Nevertheless this myth gets trotted out as gospel truth every time the Hawk T1A gets mentioned!
I read that in a book written in the 80’s by the NATO air commander in chief in Europe. He would probably not have talked about it if it was a stupid idea. Equipping the hawks with sidewinders is extremely inexpensive, if they had been used using the proper tactics with control from other planes or ground radars they might have shot down a few aircraft.
Of course an aircraft powered by an F404 has 2-3 times more power and can carry a lot more. And the hawk is so small that it’s probably impossible to even fit a radar.
HotshotYeas, but that was the UK, not the USA. Many Soviet aircraft could reach the UK & in a conventional war attacks on RAF/USAF bases in the UK were expected – indeed, everyone would have wondered what was wrong if there weren’t lots of them. The Hawks would have been accompanied by radar-equipped supersonic fighters, & could have been vectored on to targets by them & ground control. It was also expected to be a target-rich environment, & one where anything flying west, except in specified corridors & with IFF switched on, was an enemy, so hardly any filtering out of friendlies would have been needed, & no civilian traffic at all. Oh, & we’d be fighting for the survival of our country. They were seen as a last-ditch supplement to the front line fighters: more missiles in the air.
How much of that would be true of USAF bases in the USA now? Approximately nothing, I think.
That will change if the Chinese field intercontinental bombers with cruise missiles, that’s what I’ve been saying all along.
They weren’t Hawk 200s. They were RAF Hawk T1A combat trainers, which I think were roughly equivalent to the first export model, the Hawk 50, but fitted for a gun pod & a pair of AIM-9L.
They were never expected to chase anything down. They’d have had plenty of targets coming straight at them.
The T-Xs wouldn’t be chasing anything. they would be waiting for the missiles to come at the base to defend and would shoot them down in multi target in look down shoot down.
HotshotI wonder why they didn’t increase the motor size directly on 5th gen missiles. The missile would have better range after the 90+ degrees turn and the datalink can be better exploited for BVR. The MICA-IR was the right idea from the start.
HotshotThere is absolutely no reason to try to make trainers combat capable, but a combat capable version might make sense down the road.
Something like the FA-50 is more than capable enough to do routine air policing and some light attack missions in permissive environments.
In the 80’s the RAF had the intention of using its hawks with sidewinders to try and shoot down the russian deep strike aircraft. The idea of using trainers as close in fighters is not that farfetched. Basically you try to fight with everything you have.
HotshotCool. We all know how great having small trainers with IRST’s hunting cruise missiles (at 50km from base armed with 8 missiles each :stupid:) could be if only those amateurs in the USAF bothered to read about it here and actually field something like this.
If they knew how to read properly they would know that noone has suggested to hunt cruise missiles with IRSTs.
You certainly know how to turn a thread into a nonsensical discussion. :stupid: :applause:
HotshotI am sorry to have heated the debate and for the time lost by some to give back a sense a of reality to others.
I was not envisioning any serious air to air role for the T-X past that of checking airliners and maintain air presence in time of crisis. This is why I named that an Homeland security fighter, a plane tasked as a force multiplier in a 911 scenario.
It should be obvious also that you are not going to engage a large fleet of cruise missile with a Mach+ trainer (dash speed). There is a reason why sensor persistence and xMach missiles are the object of large procurement. An AlphaJet for example would have had a great deal of luck to catch any ALCM86 and those are now 40years old and not particularly stealthy as per today standards.
A T-50 for instance is almost twice as big as an alphajet, they’re hardly comparable.
HotshotThere is a big difference between an F-15 and a T-X. Difference in the size of the sensor, in the range/payload etc etc etc. A short legged T-X won’t be able to go after the carrier leaving just the weapon and that too quite close to base. On top of this the main issue with hunting cruise missiles has to do with sensors and not the shooters..I can put a missile on it easily if I know where it is and a tiny T-X is not going to help. IBCS needs airborne sensors and a SHORAAD system and that will alleviate the currently patchy anti-cruise missile homeland defense plan that was always ‘rushed’. USAF will continue to go after shooters and leakers with F-15’s and F-16’s and with newer fighters, but the aim would always be to get great BLOS/OTH sensor coverage, and get everything networked.
For efficient and cost effective anti-cruise missile defense you need airborne sensors that are affordable, netted and persistent not dozens if not hundreds of tiny trainers with a tiny AESA radar and a couple of missile buzzing around trying to find LO cruise missiles. There is a reason why no such fantasy requirement has even been suggested outside of this thread.
Or you could simply have an airborne sensor with many times the TOS.
You could have the T-Xs ready to take-off on each base. Or you could have them in the air just above the base to defend. They could land to do a hot refueling and would be back in the air very quickly. You don’t use the T-Xs for long range interception obviously, you use them as a close in defense systems capable of shooting down cruise missiles within 50 km of the base to defend. A couple of T-Xs could carry up to 16 missiles with dual launchers, maximum performance would be useless for that role.
HotshotOut of curiosity, could the M2000 have been converted to a close coupled canard? The Flanker got canards, as well as some mirage-5, so it is not impossible.
HotshotThere is currently no plan to use the trainer, either those existing or those planned as cruise missile defense platforms. This is something not even being looked at or being suggested. The Chinese bomber does not change that calculus. If the cruise missile defense mission becomes more pressing, far better solutions are available to them than to have short legged trainers on alert or worst – constantly patrolling upon indication from EW radars.
Far more cost effective like what? The USAF would have a reduced inventory so most of the other planes are likely to be deployed. And the anti cruise missile capability is one of the missions of the AESA esquipped F-15s and F-16s, so it is obviously not completely useless.
Lasers? They would be a good addition but that doesn’t mean an extra layer of defense would not make sense.
The T-Xs could wait on station at each base, they could take off in a matter of minutes to shoot down incoming missiles in look down shoot down. If they have link-16 they can even guide missiles launched from ground launchers.
If the Chinese build intercontinental bombers, they could launch massive cruise missiles attacks like the USAF can do, so I don’t see how that doesn’t change the problem.
BTW the SABR is scalable, so they wouldn’t have to redesign a brand new radar for the T-X.
HotshotI think that adding an attachement station would have a minimal impact on the design and the cost. And it’s always useful to have a station that can carry any type of pod.
The super hornet pod may be a bit too big for the T-X. Of couorse it could be mounted on a smaller tank.
This being said, if the Chinese develop a stealthy intercontinental bomber, the USAF might have to defend the CONUS from cruise missiles so an AESA radar would be needed I guess. Integrating a radar would be much more complicated obviously.
HotshotWhat bases will they be defending? The T-X requirements are for ADVANCED PILOT TRAINING and not for anything else. If you want the same design to serve an additional role they will have to bake in a demand for it which would mean more aircraft on top of the current requirement for pilot training.
In case of large scale war, the operational squadrons would be deployed abroad, so there wouldn’t be much need for trainers at that time. Also the USAF inventory will decrease in the coming decade due to the F-35 delay, so the trainer could pick up the slack for air policing.
And why does each state have an air national guard then?
Should it have a radar with the ability to counter cruise missiles attacks, possibly yes, but of course that would cost more. That is an interesting possibility. That would capitalize on the advanced cockpit also. Personaly I like the idea of the IRST pod for air policing while the fighters are deployed.
HotshotOr have half of the T-Xs equipped with radars to lower cost, the other half would be used as AMRAAM launchers for the others. To defend a base against cruise missiles, they could be loaded up with dual launchers ( 8 per plane ).
HotshotAnyone who thinks he can launch 100 AMRAAMs from a B-52 is on crack. Anyone who wants to launch AMRAAMs by hands is on well I don’t know DMT or something and should stop immediately!
HotshotIt could if the target was within IRST range, but really the added accuracy going from the best non-interferometric to interferometric RWR isn’t big enough to make a significant difference in IRST detection range (because that depends on the IRST itself) and once the IRST has it, you’ve immediately got bearing accuracy in the microradians regardless of the RWR system. And if you are within IRST range, and you already got radar lock before firing the missile, why not cue the IRST then and forget the RWR? It still doesn’t give you very good range accuracy though, hence why you still need the radar. And it isn’t just about target lock either, there’s the RF attack and RF cyberwarfare function to consider. The swash-plate gives you more scope to maintain the desired course whilst still jamming.
Couldn’t the IRST take more time to scan the small area given by the RWR? Same thing as when a telescope or camera uses a longer pose.
HotshotIf the plane has both a RWR and an IRST, maybe the IRST can be used to get a more precise target location. The IRST could be cued to the RWR, I take it that would increase the range versus a standard scan, because the IRST can concentrate its search in a relatively precise direction.
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