Try Read Flag. 😀

It lasted only two days up to the point the French detachement had demonstrated enough abilities to adapt their ECMs and make F-22 lock-on a lot more difficult for them, they weren’t engaged/targeted from this point on.

LPI doesn’t mean undetectable and recent ECMs just need enough processing power to be able to discernate a signal from the others.

Before you ask this is “Squadron radio” repports, no links there but companies like Thales who sells LPI AESA radars to the US DoD certainly knows how to detect and jamm them.

Just a thaught.

And by the actions the French took during Red Flag it appears the purpose for sending the Rafale was to gather EW data on the other participants rather than actually participate…

Funny thing is with a keen as the European arms manufacturers are to put the F-22 &/or F-35 into a less than stellar light you would think IF they had actually gained anything of benifit they would shout it from the mountain to how well the Rafale’s EW systems performed. 😉

How much are the canopies?

$182,205

The F-22 was conceived at a time when the F-35 didn’t exist…so now with the advent of the F-35, the numbers are just not needed.

Dream on. The F-35 is to replace the F-16 (& a number of other aircraft in many services) and we will be lucky if we get enough of them quickly enough to do that much less replace the F-15C that the F-22 is for.

They aren’t needed also because there isn’t anybody else in the world that remotely compares.

The F-22 was not created for TODAY’S threat, it was created to replace the F-15C & to ensure US air dominance for decades to come.

Could someone actually make the CASE for…more F-22s? 187 F-22s, with the superiority they provide over existing and near-future platforms (and the fact that the F-35 already exceeds it in many aspects) will still represent the most powerful fighting force in the world. Nobody is going to have anything comparable for at least 15 years…similar or better platforms are already going to enter service in the USAF…technology is moving too fast and the F-22 can’t adapt as easily.

So what’s the case for saying “we need more”?

Could someone actually make the CASE for not more F-22s? The USAF has already made the case for needing AT LEAST 381 F-22s (plus 186 “Golden Eagle” F-15Cs that are supposed to somehow last beyond 2025).

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That is the problem. They cancelled the F-22 because it is too expensive and it became expensive because they decided to buy so few. Today need does not define what is purchased, only the short term costs decided what is ordered for the armed forces.

No the F-22 was NOT ‘cancelled’ because it is too expensive.

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hmm lol cant be that dead.. see below

Pentagon Contract Announcements

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued October 29, 2009)

Lockheed Martin Corp., of Fort Worth, Texas was awarded a $474,200,000 contract which will provide for the issuance of full production of four F-22 Lot 10 air vehicles, alternate mission equipment, production engineering support and work in process through Aug. 11, 2009 for 16 shipsets of raw material aircraft fuselage titanium.

478 AESG/PK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is the contracting activity (FA8611-09-C-2900,P00007).

The four FY2010 Lot 10 aircraft is what brings the total procurement up to 187.

But even the 187 number is misleading since it includes six Production Representative Test Vehicle (PRTV) II aircraft & two EMD aircraft. Plus one was lost in a crach last on March 25 meaning that (when the 4 Lot 10 aircraft enter service) we actually only have 178. And we will NEVER have all 178 operational at the same time.

No boy what you see are NOT KPPs: Designed Maximum Mach doesn’t translates into KPP even in L-M jargon.

End of story.

Wrong. In fact due to the Mach 1.6 KPP THRESHOLD, all of the LM lead team JSF designs had a ‘Designed Maximum Mach’ of Mach 1.8 or greater (IIRC the final design’s was Mach 1.83) – which is likely why you will see some sources give a max speed of Mach 1.8 rather than (as typical) regurgitate the Mach 1.6 KPP THRESHOLD.

AGAIN instead of implying everyone esle “misrepresents” anything try to figure what Designed Maximum Mach means in relation to KPP.

Please.

I know what it means & how it relates to KPP.

KPP (Key Performance Parameter) THRESHOLD: MINIMUM acceptable performance.

Designed Maximum Mach: Designed MAXIMUM performace.

How they relate is that an aircraft designer tasked with designing an aircraft with a given top (dash) speed KPP THRESHOLD will design an aircraft with a Designed Maximum Mach GREATER THAN the KPP THRESHOLD to ensure that the design exceeds the minimum acceptable performance the customer requires. In the case of LM & the JSF, LM chose a design with a Designed Maximum Mach of >Mach 1.8 vs the KPP THRESHOLD of Mach 1.6.

Doesn’t make your case; both aircrafts are pictured in military power.

Good God man! You posted that you “have to be shown a picture of a F-35 chase aircraft in CLEAN configuration“. I posted one. So just as I posted, now you have. Case closed, end of story.

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Thank you for that link, because the youtube caption did look strange at first.
I did learn from you, the LM has a F-16D with a -132 in the meanwhile. 🙂

LM also has a F-16C with a developmental F100-PW-232…

Yeah sorry, I wanted to say pre-seventies but missed the suffix. Many if not all those X-projects you named there have a nice spot in the history books. They caused lots of drama. Think of running in circles with the fighter mafia or congressional investigations for example. And before you try to jump me again, I know the X-projects I’m referring to were in the sixties, but the resulting planes mostly started flying in the early seventies. :rolleyes:

But who is comparing the cost of the F-22 &/or F-35 to the cost pre-seventies aircraft?

I dont. Sorry.

You HAVE to be smoking something if you think what you posted.

We are not talking about YF-35 but the latest variant, (CTOL), (STOVL) and (CV) two of which are not meeting this goal.

Good God man. The ‘latest’ F-35 (A, B & C) design comes FROM the X-35. THE VERY ARTICLE YOU LINKED TO STATED THAT THE 9 g REQUIREMENT WAS MET BY INCREASING THE WING AREA!

I’m afraid it is nowhere near as simple as that.

Yes it is.

Their Maximum Structural loads were reduced.

Not such that THE ‘latest’ production F-35 (A, B & C) airframe is not a full 9 g airframe. You are confusing weight reduction with structural waekening. In fact MUCH of the ‘overweight’ issues were due to less expensive (but heavier) materials being used in order to reduce cost. With all the time & cost resulting from that, it probably would have been less costly to have just used the higher cost (but lighter) materials to begin with. Of course that matters little to the bean counters who demanded low cost (even at the expense of weight).

And as a matter of fact; in all version, wingskin is thinner, wingspar and beams are less numerous, i don’t know what you understand by Maximum Structural Loads but from a 9 g version with a standard of 1.6 if you take metal of it, it have to show somewhere.

I undertrand quite clearly. THE ‘latest’ production F-35 (A, B & C) airframe is STILL a full 9 g airframe.

So are T1 Typhoon with a lower Maximum Strructural Load than the international standard (1.5 vs 1.6).

What does that have to do with the fact that THE ‘latest’ production F-35 (A, B & C) airframe is STILL a full 9 g airframe?

I doubt so.

Doubt all you want.

Is that so?

Yes it is so.

There are a lot of documentation you havent seen yet.

There is a lot of documentation that all but a relative few will ever see. But the point is that THE ‘latest’ production F-35 (A, B & C) airframe is STILL a full 9 g airframe so the F-35B being limited to anything less than that is NOT becasue of a ‘weak’ airframe.

And if this is not related to Maximum Structural Loads what do you think is?

You missed the point completely. The Maximum Structural Loads of current USAF F-15C are compromised by having already exceeded their designed 4000 flight hour life. When they were new, they did not have the compromised Maximum Structural Loads they have now.

Not now, but over a long period of time and numerous flight cycles this sort of things shows.

Designed Max Structural Load is directly linked to aircraft lifespan through flight cycles which often happens to be even more demanding than thaught.

This also mean that the International standard for 1.6 above 9 g and 6000 flight hours CAN show itself barely enough to avoid issues such as those seen on the F-15 fleet.

But that is due to fatigue, not a ‘weak’ airframe.

As foir the aerodynamic issue here it is.

WHICH WAS FOUND DURING WIND TUNNEL TESTING AND CORRECTED EVEN BEFORE FLIGHT TESTING!

Well, other fighters were/are bought under different procurement policy. You see, back in the seventies the government put out the fighter they needed to tender, sort of. Then companies bid for a contract after having developed, tested and produced a suitable aircraft. So when one company was awarded the contract their aircraft was already priced including R&D basically. Of course the R&D investments were paid for after a certain amount of procured units. So most of the younger iterations of those aircrafts can be offered cheaper or, more realistically, include new R&D costs for upgrades that have been made.

Anyways, the point is that R&D belongs to the whole project and you have to pay for it. For old planes this was included in procurement costs. For this one it is an additional budget item. It still belongs to the F-35. Every dollar spent on R&D increases the whole project’s price and eventually, when the program will have ended you will be able to calculate the total price per unit by adding all costs the project created and dividing them by the number of procured aircrafts.

Not true. The development/procurement of US military aircraft in the 70’s was much the same as it is/was for the F-22 & F-35. The DOD sends out a RFP to industry for the development & procurement of a new military aircraft. From the responces from inductry, the government selects two for initial development & competative “fly-off” to determine which would get the full development & procurement contract. That is how the TFX became the F-111, the A-X became the A-10, the VFX became the F-14, the FX became the F-15, the LWF/ACF became the F-16, the VFAX became the F/A-18, the ATF became the F-22 & the JSF became the F-35. The ‘deference’ is that the relative complexity of the F-22 & F-35 requires more systems developement.

So if you are now trying to fool the tax payers by telling them “procurement cost is only $70 million” while you are completely ignoring R&D you can bet your a*se, that you will never actually get close to that price ever. Even if you produced 100’000 units…

The only people trying to fool anybody are those comparing the TOTAL PROGRAM (development, procurement & sustainment) per unit cost of the F-22 &/or F-35 to JUST the procurement cost of other aircraft.

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From what i can understand, they lost it there.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/1999/11/10/58045/jsf-changes-revealed.html

10/11/99

I believe this article to be accurate, from then on it is an endless story of discovery of issues and atempts to sort them out with a minimal amount of work creating yet more aerodynamic issues (deleting the LEX to gain weight and getting two good strake vortexes to beat the fins up because they can’t expend outward anymore is funny, get the fin heavier too).

I was wondering as a “newbie” where exactly was the gain slicing in the good parts instead of making the whole thing lighter, loosing a good aerodynamic to gain nothing but g limitations at the end.

Problem all these changes and the fact that they did find the aircraft overweight way too late at structural design stage, lead of a serie of decision i think were simply bad design management from the start, why not trying to design the previous shape lighter structuraly?

As a result, the aircraft missed one if not more KPPs (one or two more 9.0 g versions?) and ended-up being structuraly restricted instead of being able to meet all original or earlier requierements and give a 9 g version to everyone.

I don’t know if they can trust the pilots to restrain themself and not pull the hell out of their aircrafts because it’s what they need, in some case even to survive a fight.

If F-15 can break up in flight today, such Max structural load decision could have catastrophic consequences in the future and for those expecting yet another F-16, hang on you are getting yet another A-7, at least the NAVY and USN are.

What are you smoking? Did you even both to read the article you linked to? The YF-35 met the 9 g requirement by increasing the wing area.

Since then only the STOVL F-35B has been in any danger of missing any flight performance requirements & that was resolved through a two year weight reduction program.

The F-35 airframe is NOT structurally limited. It remains a full 9 g airframe. In fact its 9 g flight envelope it likely to be similar to, if not larger than, the F-16. The F-35C is only ‘soft’ limited to 7.5 g (just as the F/A-18) in order to save stress/fatigue on the airframe to compensate for the harsh life of carrier operations but CAN ‘at the flip of a switch’ take full advantage of its full 9g flight envelope. There MAY be something about the F-35B’s STOLV system which limits g cabability but I have not seen any explanation as such.

The F-15 can break up in flight today because the ENTIRE F-15C fleet has already exceeded its 4000 flight hour design life. They have been inspected & cleared (with flight restrictions) for 8,000 flight hours but obviously there are problems with having done that. This is an issue the F-35 may have if/when it too reaches or exceed its designed flight hour life & for safety early production aircraft may be limited unil flight testing has been completed but by FOC any pilot switching from a F-15, F-16 or F/A-18 to the F-35 will not have to worry about breaking their aircraft performing any maneuver they do with their previous ride.

Given the above, why do you advocate buying a design that is going to be 30 years old when in service as opposed to a 20 year old design?

The KC-X (KC-45) will be built at the same time & will be in production after all commercial sales of the parent airframe have ended reguardless of whether it ends up being a 767 or A330. And of course depending on exactly what variant of the 767 & A330 are bid this time the 767 could in fact be the NEWER design (it was in the last solicitation). 😉

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WRT to the age of the KC-135’s, they were extensively rebuilt when they got the CFM56 engine upgrade in the 1980s, and are even now receiving CNS/ATM mods. At the time they were upgraded, USAF said they would fly until the year 2040. Now, they intimate that they have a crisis keeping these airplanes flying. A rather predictable ploy for funding IMHO.

These pampered, over-maintained, under-flown airplanes with 25,000 hours on them have had a very different life than one flown by PanAm in the 1960s, for example, which might have accumulated 65,000 hours in 12-14 years.

But since then operations tempo has increased over that projection (which was based solely on how many flight hours the airframes have remaining vs the average per year hours the aircraft were projected to fly) & the 136 KC-135Es have been retired, further increasing the number of hours the remaining 415 KC-135Rs fly each year. And since then corrosion issues have been discovered which may force the grounding of the fleet well before the airframes reach the end of their flight hour lives.

EDITED. Moderator notes are not up for debate
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I will comment on my conclusion of the draft RFP.

I don’t like it. The core (373 mandatory) requirements are for the most part the same as the requirements of the last round BUT by making them a simple pass or fail & the ‘selection’ being based on adjusted cost (for which the additional non-mandatory requirements only come into play if the opposing bids adjusted costs are within 1% of each other) comes off as being more intended to avoid a protest then selecting the right tanker.