any link to prove that?

Yes, already given in a previous thread.

***

Nice try to invent something to make the competition look worse than it is and your beloved pet toy looking better than it is.

Not at all.

By the way here is 1000nm ‘combat radius’ for the Rafale: 8 Mica + 6600 L in 4 drop tanks (that is two 2000 L + two 1300 L).

Now just try & make up how a Rafale can match that on a strike mission.

***

Hey don’t blame me, I just posted what I read from a respectable aviation magazine. Maybe you should write in to them & tell them they’ve made a mistake? Or tell them its trash? You never know, LM/DoD might read your words & hire you because you seem to know more than a lot of people around. (That last bit was sarcasm in case you didn’t notice btw.) :rolleyes:

Yes blaim you for posting the same trash which has been posted several times already. Everyone knows the latest cost projections are based on JET II projections.

Especially pathetic is how like so many other the high end of the projection is cited

***

Now back to the amount of testing that the F35 has actually completed. Got an answer on that?

Quite a lot actually. Sure flight testing is significantly behind schedule due to delays in delivery of the flight test aircraft but take a wild guess what will happen in that reguard as all 13 flight test aircraft are delivered by the end of this year…

***

I like to think that I do, yes. On the other hand, you seem to have difficulties grasping the conclusion that follows from the point you’ve established here – that the lengthwise distribution of cross sectional area may be compromised. Which could lead to increased transsonic drag. I only repeated because it appeared that you had not understood the potential implications, but after reading your above reply I won’t bother again.

No you do not. I made the point about the F-35 being roughly the size of the Rafale but that that does not mean that they have the same drag.

Sorry but lengthwise distribution of cross sectional area may be compromised which could lead to increased transsonic drag is nonsense. Just look at the fighters I listed…

Yes, what about them?

‘Distribution of cross sectional area’ much like the F-35….According to your line of thinking they must all be draggy, slow, fuel guzzling POS but they aren’t.

It is a bit of a trick to compare F35 and Rafale front profile actually. If you look at the side profile, the Rafale canopy sits on top of the fuselage, and it iself tapers all the way to the back.
The F35 however has a hunchback profile all the way back to somewhere between the tails, where it tapers abruptly. If you look at LM video of the plane they allways hide this detail, to make it look less ugly/bulky.

So the F35 is far from a teardrop design. This may matter less in the supersonic regime, as there are other factors that come into play.

No it is no trick. A ‘teardrop canopy’ in not the most aerodynamic (a long tapered spine behind the canopy would be as if not more aerodynamic) but is preferred for fighters as it provides much superior visibility (something that is a non-issue for the F-35 due to EOTS). Again, the F-35 does have more volume than the Rafale but the amount of space it takes on the ground (footprint) & the size of the ‘hole’ it ‘cuts’ through the air (frontal cross section) are similar to the Rafale.

I don’t know what images/videos you are looking at but LM is certainly not hiding what the F-35 looks like.

My guess howerver is that the F35 will be less of a player in sustained turning.

Less than what? A combat loaded F-35A ‘almost exactly matches’ the acceleration & turning abilities of a clean Bock 50 F-16C.

***

Found something about the price of the F-35 in the Combat Aircraft Monthly magazine. May 2010, vol. 11 European edition, page 14, news section.

I’ll just quote/write out the first paragraph & get to the point:

The average unit cost of the F-35 joint strike fighter (JSF) is now $95 million-so said US Undersecretary of Defence for Acquisition Ashton Carter when he spoke to senators on March 11. That’s nearly double the $50 million price tag for the ‘affordable’ fighter as given in 2002, and doesn’t factor in the increased funds allocated by defence secretary Robert Gates for the test program. In current dollars, the price is actually up to $112 million, and even that is a conservative estimate.

How many times does this trash have to be posted?

The numbers came out on Mar 11 & are $80-95 million (FY2002 dollars or ~$96.36-114.43 million in FY2010 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator) average unit total production cost which translates to an average unit flyaway cost of ~$68-80.75 million (FY2002 dollars or ~$81.91-97.27 million in FY2010 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator). And they are not ‘conservative estimates’ but estimates based on JET II.

***

Old Willy was right about that one. The P-47 was a brick, and like any brick, it had momentum on its side. So you can say that it was good in a dive (and maybe a zoom climb) But that was all she had.

Many an axis pilot was shot down believing that BS.

Now on to the comparizon between the F-35 and say the Rafale. The Rafale can loose bulk and weight by dropping external tanks. The F-35 can only loose weight. However, if the F-35 drops fuel, it will still have to use the AB more than the Rafale, to counteract the bulk. This means that the F-35 will run out of fuel quickly. So it is more like the Mig-21 in this respect, actually.
The Mig was only good when the can was lit, and it ran dry in a snap.

No the F-35 will not have to use AB more than the Rafale.

So you allready know the taktics to use against it. Use agressors to run it dry, make it ditch, bomb the airfield. Or simply go bomb something else.

So in my opinion, the F-35 is a bomber, it will do a good job if it has the luxury of doing it in a straight line. Compromises were made to get the aircraft down in price. Sadly they are connected to the agility of the platform as a fighter.

This may be ok for you if you are American, and have the F-22 to fly top cower. I am Norwegian however, and the prospect of having the F-35 performing national defence against the Pak-Fa, is less than glorious.

Here is hoping potential adversaries are as ignorant/misinformed as you. 🙂

***

This goes only so far. Unless you believe there are several cubic metres of empty space in a Rafale or Typhoon airframe, total internal volume of the F-35 must be significantly larger. If you then cram all of that into the same length, span and a similar *maximum* cross sectional area, your lengthwise distribution of area will look substantially different. Simply put, the Eurocanards taper more gently while the F-35 must maintain its maximum (or close, anyway) cross sectional area for a greater part of its length. That’s not a big concern at subsonic speeds, but as soon as wavedrag enters the equation it could become one.

Do you even bother to read what is posted? I made the point that the F-35 has more volume but does so is roughly the same space (length, wingspan & frontal cross section).

Again, at low speeds bulkiness is not such a great liability, which incidentally explains why the F-35 has been outperforming its chase planes in early tests. At high transsonic speeds, where the F-16 is reputedly very good, the picture may be different.

Ever seen a Mirage 3/5, Mirage 2000/4000, (even the Rafale), F-102/F-106, F-104, F-4, Mig-21, Mig-23, Mig-25/31, Saab 35, Saab 37, Saab 39, et cetera…

***

We can just agree that the range/endurance is not exceptional as it was the case for the P-47 by the way.

LOL…range/endurance with internal fuel equal or greter than any light/medium weight 4th/4.5 generation fighter with two drop tanks.

***

The higher volume may limit range and endurance, but not as severe as claimed by you, at least when operated in the 20s and above.

Quite the opposite. It is that higher volume which gives it much superior range and endurance.

***

The only problem with the platform is the constantly escalating cost, but this should have been foreseen for such a demanding requirement and specification.

where you are right, on the other hand, is the escalating costs.. that’s no speculation, it’s real.. the speculation starts when someone tries to figure out how much more these costs will escalate…

No the cost escalating is speculation. In reality LRIP costs have been below projections.

***

To put it across bluntly the T-50 really does look like it is “hand me your ass time” to anything with F-35 written on it.

To deny this even as a possibility is severe faliure of reason.

Spoken like someone still living in the 20th century.

***

considering the “front section”, according to these drawings, simply through a area measurement in photoshop it comes out that:

Typhoon has 11% less frontal surface
Rafale has 7% less frontal surface
Super Hornet has 25% more frontal surface.

however, if you’re to measure the frontal surface of an aircraft for what counts (transonic area rule), I doubt that the F-35 will be very happy with that.. it’s easy to see that there’s no section reduction at the wings section, which means it has a pretty nasty “peak” that will increase its drag in transonic.. it will overcome that drag through high thrust, but that means it will gulp fuel as if there was no tomorrow…

basically, it has to stay subsonic

Ever seen a Mirage 3/5, Mirage 2000/4000, (even the Rafale), F-102/F-106, F-104, F-4, Mig-21, Mig-23, Mig-25/31, Saab 35, Saab 37, Saab 39, et cetera…

***

It’s widely believed that the extent of stealth with the F-35 is much smaller than the one on the F-22 but the RCS of the F-35 won’t be that much worse than the one of the series T-50, I think.

It is widely known that the extent of stealth of the F-35 results in a frontal RCS about an order of magnitude larger than the F-22. As for the T-50/PAK FA… it is at best on par with the F-35 (I have no problem accepting that it can be).

***

er, it was stated on these boards already, the F-35 has a combat radius of ~600 nautical miles clean and ~750 nautical miles with external tanks, similar to the Typhoon, The rafale has a combat radius of over 1000 nautical miles with external tanks, which is over 30% more than the F-35 with external fuel.

F-35:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II

Typhoon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon

Rafale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale

now, while it has comparable range as the typhooon when both use external fuel, it doesn’t come clos to the rafale. “Clean” it can’t beat any of these in the range department if the other use external tanks.

Nice try but the ‘1000 nm strike mission’, that is ‘radius of action’ which includes the range of the Scalp/Storm Shadow.

this is incredible… you don’t realize that one can’t just bolt on a new pair of wings and let go, do you? If you change some rivets you have to do the testing to prove it didn’t alter the design beyond what would need a new certification.

Changing wings, cockpit, engines and I don’t know what else requires an almost complete flight test program not unlike a flight test program with a completely new airframe. On one side, they add a few “options” (EADS) and on the other they rebuild a new aircraft, from old parts, could I say… (Boeing).

Quite the opposite, nobody is saying that no work needs to be done just not as much as the EADS/KC-30 Kool-Aid drinkers would have everyone believe. All of the airframe ‘changes’ from 767-200ER/KC-767A/J to 767-200LRF/KC-767AT/NG consists of parts from currently flying 767s (every single one of which was manufactured & assembled on the same production line) just not all together in a single airframe. The fuselage of all 767s are identical except for fuselage plugs fore & aft of the wings which stretch the -300 & -400 (all new 767s since the introduction of the -400ER have larger windows & 777-like interiors), the wings are identical except for winglets on newer aircraft (-400 does have larger flaps & longer landing gear) – there are in fact ‘old’ 767-200s & 767-300s which have been retrofitted with exactly the same winglets as on new build 767-300F (the same as on the proposed 767-200LRF/KC-767AT/NG).

Just to put this into perspective here is the history of the 767-400ER development (more ‘airframe change’ than the 767-200LRF/KC-767AT/NG).

March 20, 1997: The 767-400ER design and production planning got under way with the announcement from Delta Air Lines of its intent to order 21 airplanes.

Jan. 9, 1998: The 767-400ER Program achieves firm configuration of the airplane design.

Aug. 26, 1999: Ceremonial rollout celebration of 767-400ER for employees.

Oct. 9, 1999: First 767-400ER successfully completes a 5-hour- and 5-minute first flight.

June 2000: After 1,150 hours of flying, a flight-test program that began in October 1999 with the first flight of the 767-400ER is completed.

July 20, 2000: The 767-400ER receives certification approval from the FAA as well as type design approval for 180-minute ETOPS.

Aug. 11, 2000: The first 767-400ER for Delta was delivered

That is less than 41 months from design and production planning (or 31 months from configuration of the airplane design – about the stage the KC-767NG would be at upon award of the KC-X contract still expected this summer) to delivery of the 1st 767-400ER airliner. Delivery of the 1st production KC-X is scheduled for 2015…

***

And up is down, yes is no, and war is peace

No, up is up, down is down, war is war, peace is peace & the KC-30 failed to complete the IFARA evaluation missions using real world data – it was only after altering the data so that enough KC-30s could operate in theater to do so was it able to obtain a score.

Also, the KC-767AT has the same fuel capacity as the KC-135R yet if you believe the final IFARA scores (which I don’t) 19 KC-767AT could do the job of 34 KC-135R & despite its greater fuel capacity it would take 18 KC-30.

Come back when you can bother to document your claims.

Oh wait, that would disrupt your gameplan to bother with such trifling details.

I already have & your continued ignoring of that just (& not just this specific point but a number of other as well) proves my point that providing it again would be a waist of time.

Still ignoring the plain results of IFARA I see.

Quite the opposite. IFARA proves my point.

Um, what?

1.0 is defined as the effectiveness of the KC-135

KC-30 was well above 1.0

Only after altering the model data so that the KC-30 could complete the evaluation missions.

OK, I see what you’re trying to get at.

Basically you’re trying to pretend that since the KC-30 isn’t 100% complete, it is no different than the KC-767.

Which is a load of horse manure and you should be intellectually honest enough to admit that there is a SIGNIFICANT risk gap between the two programs.

KC-30 has to add new stuff to an existing airframe. KC-767 has to do that PLUS create a new airframe out of a mishmash of parts (hence the ‘paper airplane’ part)

KC-30 is a paper tanker based off a real airplane

KC-767 is a paper tanker based off a paper airplane

Only a Boeing lackey could fail to see the difference

I am not pretending anything. Neither the KC-767s flying today nor the KC-30 flying today meet all the KC-X requirements – both require development to do so.

Boeing does not have to create a new airframe – it has however chosen (for the 2nd time) to propose a new varient of the KC-767 that builds on the existing KC-767 airframe with parts from other existing 767s flying today – somehting Boeing has proven quite capable of doing.

If you want to insist on a risk gap between the two bidders then the greater risk is definitely with EADS (even more so now that NG has dropped out). Boeing fitting all FAA certified parts of different 767 varients is small potatos compared to the other development work both/either side must to do to meet all requirements.

***

Pcfem:

You and I are basically saying the same thing.

Correct but while the basic points you are making are correct the details of what you are saying to make them are not.

When I said that no one said it was wrong, I was trying to express that in the GAO decision they did not say that the wrong aircraft was chosen or that the selection was wrong in the sense that it should be awarded to Boeing (in fact, they actually did not overturn the award, but such a ruling meant that as soon as it went to court USAF would lose badly). What they were saying was that the selection that was made could not be justified under the RFP and under the published rules of the evaluation. You cited the fixed-wing refueling issue, which was one of the things that prevented the selection from being justifiable. An even bigger one regarded the organic depot-level maintenance requirement. EADS/NG’s response to that should have disqualified them on the spot.

The GAO did say the selection was wrong – and anyone/everyone can read the ruling & see that. The GAO does not have the authority to ‘overturn’ a selection & give the contract to the protesting bidder. If fact the GAO made a point that its ruling “should not be read to reflect a view as to the merits of the firms’ respective aircraft” as that is the job of the solicitor & not the GAO. I challenge anybody to show another more strongly worded GAO ruling &/or that cites more egregious ‘mistakes’ in its evaluation/selection.

As do most, I agree the current solicitation is set up to deliver an unprotestable award. It differs from the original in that it is clearly focused on the tanker mission and while in the original some credit was given for exceeding the RFP in certain areas and “extra” stuff, here it is clearly stating that anything above the criteria as specifically required will not be used to evaluate the bids unless they are within 1% of each other, and even then the weighting given will be minor. A price award is pretty much unprotestable unless you can show that the price by the winner was incorrect or fraudulent (“Their price did not include wings”).

The previous RFPs were clearly focused on the tanker mission & as I stated before the core requirements this time are essentially the same as the last (some clearification, some OBJECTIVES now MANDATORY, some additional requirements). This RFP does however (agruable more clearly) make the point as to how little ‘value’ is given to exceeding the requirements.

Spinning am I? Speak for yourself. And also, I wasn’t questioning the F-35’s air-to-air capabilities. Try to read more carefully, not what you want to read.

Yes you are spinning. You are spinning the fact that as a multi-role fighter the F-35 was designed to have significant air-to-ground capabilities (in addition to its air-to-air capabilities) to make the false claim that it was designed as an attack aircraft rather than a fighter.

wheeee!

the Boeing spin machine on full speed!

watch that spin machine go!

No spin at all.

BOTH NG and Boeing complained about the fixed price aspect

Because no shouting please have development which is needed to produce a tanker which meets all the requirements.

And neither tanker fully meets all the requirements because neither is fully developed yet

no shouting please

A point I have been making since 2002.

However, the proposed tankers (in the proposals, you know) from both sides will meet all the requirements

I agree that is possible.

I’m referring to loaded weight/SL wet thrust. Off the top of my head, ballpark figures:

Rafale- 1.1 (much higher for 9t engine)
Eurofighter- 1.21
F-22- 1.23
Gripen- 0.98 (much higher for NG)
Super Hornet- ~1.0
F-35- 0.85-1.0 region

Now, as I said, the F-35 doesn’t have to carry weapons externally (well, unless it wants >4 missiles), so it has the benefit of “clean” drag- how draggy the airframe is may be another problem in itself. The Typhoon carries missiles semi-recessed- if you look how they are mounted they are held very close to the fuselage, almost like they are mounted conformally. And of course, it all varies greatly by mission, fuel, altitude, etc… so things are not set in stone/black and white so to speak, and these are very “ball-park” figures. Unfortunately, it seems the F-35 does have a bit of a weight problem- manifesting itself as a poor thrust/weight and poor wing loading. Decent FBW, unstable design, and low drag may be helpful in mitigating these issues to some extent, but we won’t be able to judge just yet, I don’t think.

A F-35A loaded with 4 AMRAAM & 15,000 lbs of internal fuel has a T/W ratio of 1.0. The F-35A does not have a weight problem nor poor T/W ratio nor poor wing loading.

***

F-35 has to pay two kinds of penalty. One for stealth where its shaping represents a compromise between stealth and aerodynamics. In other words, there might have been more effective solutions but they had to clear the way to less effective ones that were more stealthy. S-ducts would be a good example of something that is stealthy but not necessarily an optimum in terms of aerodynamics.

Another type of penalty is internal weapons carriage. The airframe needs to be larger an bulkier than one that doesn’t have this requirement. This problem is similar to the first one – it’s trade-off stealth for aerodynamics, again.

The dark side of both penalties is that they cannot be jettisoned or got rid of in any other way.

The F-35 has roughly the footprint (length & wingspan) & frontal cross section of the Rafale…

***

Which one, then? F-16 or F/A-18? There is a rather big gap between agilities of those two aircraft, you know.

Both. 🙂

***

The 55 deg AoA, agility equal to F-16/F-18 claims et al are likely more hypothetical than established. It has to be practical and functional first (proven), not merely in extrapolated test research or design requirement claims, right? Let’s wait 3-4 yrs and see, agreed? By then there will (hopefully) be a youtube vid released of high-performance, near-mature, ‘envelope’ flying.. Cheers.

Actually, while the actual aircraft have yet to demonstrate their flight performance it has been verified by highly accurate flight simulation. A number of pilots who have flown the F-35 have commented on how it flew exactly as the simulator.