HotshotThe biggest problem with the F-35 is that it won’t be able to carry WVR missiles with TVC before another 10 years or so in the internal bays. For penetration missiles it could not carry 2 external AIM-9Xs for stealth reasons. So the important question is, how effective would the AMRAAM be in WVR? Can the F-35 quickly point to a target, even while losing energy, to put it in the engagement cone of the AMRAAM? How effective would the AMRAAM be at close range? What kind of engagement angle are we talking about? The AIM-120C-7 has been improved for WVR, have the other versions been upgraded too?
HotshotCompare on PPP then. Compare in terms of number of aircraft.
http://www.globalfirepower.com/aircraft-total.asp
http://www.globalfirepower.com/aircraft-total-fighters.asp
http://www.globalfirepower.com/aircraft-total-attack-types.asp
http://www.globalfirepower.com/aircraft-helicopters-attack.aspHow many Su-35s has Russia got relative to the number of F-22s? How many J-16s? Not that that’s even a like for like comparison.
Which weapons systems are better? Where’s the evidence of equivalence? What is this based on?
The US have the advantage now but Russia and China are rebuilding their inventory. The number and quality of their planes will quickly increase. Note also that the US pilot training has decreased significantly in the last years, and aircraft availability is low on some airframes types. If the USAF avoids a fighter shortfall of hundreds of planes in 10 years, you can expect the readiness to be low for a lot of old planes.
Did the naval F-23 get built? Were the trailing edges of the canard and wing parallel? Why didn’t the F-23 have canards? There’s your answer. Not just LM cool aid, look at other stealth proposals, no canards. The J-20 is a polished MiG-1.44.
That smells BS from LM. Several JAST and JSF proposal had canards. The Chinese could have built pretty much any airframe they would have wanted. And the J-20 is a polished Mig 1.44 only in the eyes of a LM fanboy.
HotshotCould you please point me to an instances where I said that capabilities are cut because there is no need anymore? While you are digging that up could you also clarify, who ‘expected’ the PAKFA and J-20 to be less stealthy than they have actually turned out to be, and also share what those initial expectations were, and how stealthy they are in reality.
That’s exactly what I said. Two reasons they are cut is due to cost or schedule. I’ve actually said it on more than one occasion.
AHAHAHAH too good!! 😀
HotshotOh okay, $600bn.
Compare it to say the RuAF. How many old planes in there? 180+ F-22s and several dozen F-35s – that’s more stealth fighters than most European nations have fighters in total. Also about 500 F-18E/Fs with AESA, which are hardly old, 100 EA-18Gs, several hundred Eagles with AESA too. How many cruise missiles? A few thousand maybe.
More a case of what they need relative to current threats. Right now, nobody else has stealth fighters, so job done. In 4 years maybe the first enemy stealth fighters will be entering service and then they’ll have probably several hundred F-35s with IRST and DAS, so again, requirement covered and enemy threat countered.
Err… everyone would have predicted that was the aim. How stealthy is it with those canards? Don’t see any other stealth fighter with them. Jet nozzles, non-stealth design. Rear of canards not aligned with rear of wings. PAK-FA – that IRST bubble on ts own has the frontal RCS of several hundred F-22s. What’s the point in an internal weapons bay when that’s on the outside of your aircraft? Non-aligned surfaces, those nozzles. I think it’s yet to be proven that they even are VLO. LO maybe.
Don’t forget to take into account that wages are a lot higher in western countries, and probably the highest in the US. So you can’t compare directly the expeditures of the US and Russia and China. Also it is not because you have a lot of money that you don’t waste a lot. When money is tight you spend more wisely the little you have.
The US is dominant now, but it may not last for ever. The competitors are developping weapons systems that are equivalent and sometimes better ( because the US is cancelling and delaying so many programs ), and their military budget, in particular in the case of China is increasing rapidly.
How and btw, concerning the canards, why did the naval F-23 proposal and the J-20 now have canards if it’s so catastrophic for stealth? I think you are drinking the LM kool aid…
HotshotAHAHAH You crack me up!! 😀
You live in lalaland if you think that capabilities are cut because there is no need anymore, and not because of budget constraints and cost overruns.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-j-20-stealth-fighter-vs-japans-f-15-who-wins-14112
The J-20 appears to have a nose cone large enough to conceal an advanced active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, giving it the ability to detect distant targets and attack them with radar-guided missiles. Newer prototypes appear to be equipped with an infra-red search and track system and an electro-optical targeting system for air-to-ground attacks.
http://su-27flanker.com/2015/03/29/chinese-stealth-chengdu-j-20/#
The J-20 made its first flight on 11 January 2011, and is expected to be operational in 2017–2019.
HotshotSo there was a need in the 90’s for an IRST ( given that it was in the requirements ), but there is still no need for the near future now, knowing that the Russians and Chinese are designing planes that have small or very small RCS, and that these airplanes will soon enter serice. This is ridiculous. Fact is that they will continue to go with what is THE MOST PRESSING, given the fact that the plane is hugely expensive to upgrade.
YOU say that there is no need for an IRST relatively quickly against the PAK-FA and J-20, but the argument doesn’t hold water. Obviously an IRST would be of great help against these planes.
If there was not so much waste in the DOD, they could do a lot more than they actually do.
HotshotThe US defense budget is much less than 700 billions now. Take into account the huge amount of waste and you end up with the current state of the USAF, which is constituted for the most part of old planes in significantly smaller numbers, and most of them not significantly upgraded. And also the USAF will face a fighter shortfall of several hundreds planes within a decade or so.
They go by priority obviously, but sometimes they are forced to chose between a HIGH priority and a MEDIUM priority, so obviously they chose the HIGH one.
Who would have predicted 10 years ago that the J-20 would be VLO? Even the PAK-Fa has surprised western analysts. So there is clearly a need for an IRST when these planes enter service, which should not take long now.
HotshotLOL! You have a way of sayings things that is rather funny! You think that it is all a matter of requirements, and that requirements are always met with actual programs. The reality is that sometimes the money is so tight that it takes a very long time to meet even the most basic requirements.
Just check what this F-22 pilot says here regarding the helmet:
“We’ve been screaming for years that the F-22 needs to have the capability fielded, and fast,” the Raptor pilot says.
Basically the F-22 pilots have wanted a helmet desperately since the beginning.
So NO, the USAF doesn’t fund anything it wants, even things that would be a great capability. The F-15 and F-18 are receiving IRSTs , even those that are receiving the AESA radar, because they are so much easier to upgrade and the upgrade path of the F-22 is already full because the plane is hugely expensive to upgrade.
Fact is the PAK-FA and J-20 will soon be coming online, it won’t happen in the late 20’s.
It is also rather funny that the F-35 proponents repeat that the F-35 will have the advantage of having an IRST? Why would it be an advantage if there is no need for one?
HotshotOk.
HotshotBetween what the USAF wants and what it can afford there is a big difference. The pilots have have wanted an HMS and 9X for a long time and they won’t even have them for a couple of years. If they are putting IRSTs on F-15s and F-18, it is because there is a need. The F-22 being a primary fighter, it is hard to argue that it doesn’t have the same need. The USAF does what can be afforded with the limited funds available.
HotshotIs that a suface launched LRASM?
HotshotThe PAK-FA and and even more so the J-20 turned out to be stealthier than expected, so the need for an IRST is likely to become urgent as both will soon enter service.
There are a lot of things that the USAF would like to afford but can’t, it’s not just a matter of requirements.
HotshotThe difficultly wasn’t why it went away. They tested multiple assemblies locations and the window assemblies were tested in 1996.This was not the problem. US fighters before and after the F-22 have had IRST’s and GE (Now LMEM) was the industry leader in the US in that domain . If they need an IRST, I’m sure Lockheed could revive its plan and sensor as long as there is still SWaP to install one. During the ATF, Lockheed Martin had developed the sensor enough to begin testing it in the lab.
With the ASISST awards they have given Northrop an opportunity to get back into this field for the NG systems, so you could potentially have two competitors for an IRST if you wanted something in the future (without NG having to go out to SELEX like they do today). However, as I had mentioned earlier, this if considered, will be a far out capability for the F-22 so forget about an IRST in the next 10 years given other more important priorities for Increment 3.3 and beyond.
For the long term the USAF is working on staring IRST, so maybe it would make more sense to replace the MLD sensors with IRST staring arrays if it’s possible. But for the short term they could look at an off the shelf system with minimum mods for stealth. Think like what the Japanese did for their F-15s.
HotshotNo. ATF had an IRST requirement and so did the N-ATF. Those were your two main air-dominance platforms for the USAF and USN and everything in terms of studies and ‘thinking’ during the 80’s, and 90’s came out of these programs. The reason why these capabilities were not adopted had nothing to do with ‘requirements’ but with trading certain things away during the program’s execution (and not inception). AIm-9x integration was deferred and so was the HMS which would have required time and money given the HMS”s of the time requiring cockpit mapping.
I am under the impression that the physical integration of an IRST wouldn’t even be the hardest part, even that some sort of saphire window is required. The F-22 software and all the fusion is likely to be the most difficult. If that’s true, maybe they could have a minimal capability with no fusion, it would be better than waiting for ever for an IRST. They could also look at foreign IRSTs, the skyward for instance is very compact and is dual band.
HotshotYak-28P and Tu-28 were good examples of bombers turned interceptors.
No one however sported missiles in an internal bay.
Missile performances are not indipendent from the ones of their own carriers, so velocity but also the operating of the plane carrying them is to be taken into consideration.
Some bombers are fast but their own climb rate and turn ratio usually sucks, so better an heavy, long range fighter like F-14 and Mig-31 at this point.
I agree. Unless the goal is to intercept targets at very long range, it would be better to mount long range missiles on heavy fighters. Possibly a 250km missile on early F-15s and F-14s converted to UCAVs. The fighters could still impart them a supersonic and high altitude speed at launch. A heavy bomber would have to launch a heavier missile to stay further from the threat, that means an even larger and more expensive missile. And old F-14 and F-15 are almost expendable at this point.
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