pfcemGuess we can chuckle at Beesley too, then, because if he’s anything like this guy he obviously has no freaking clue what his aircraft can and can’t do.
On the contrary. Beesley has stated that he can feel the weight difference between a combat loaded & a less heavily loaded F-35 but that the difference in flight performance is not major. Given that all the additional fuel & weapons on the F-35 is carried internally that makes sense as the only difference is weight (which could be something like 5,000-10,000 lbs depending on what the fuel carriage difference is on an aircraft that weighs ~37,500 lbs at take-off with ~10,336 lbs of internal fuel).
But with the Typhoon & all 4th generation fighters for that matter you have not only the additional weight of the fuel & weapons but the additional drag of the weapons and both the weight & drag of the external tanks & pylons used to carry them.
Now like with the F-35, the weight of the fuel & weapons alone has some noticable effect in & of its own (although not necessarily significant/major depending on what the weight difference is) but anyone who thinks that the drag of all that extra stuff hanging off an aircraft has no effect of flight performance is smoking some nasty stuff. How is the ability to drop external tanks is such a supposed advantage if having them there in the 1st place has no effect on performance?
I especially love how the same people who want you to believe that two drop tanks & eight AtA missiles loaded on to a Eurofighter Typhoon has little or no effect want you to also believe that the F-35’s “bulky” appearance must mean its aerodynamics are horrible.
As a matter of fact it should be quite clear by the growing use of CFTs & conformal/semi-recessed weapons & their known less effect on performance than ‘traditional’ external carriage just how idiotic it is to believe/put forth the notion that external stores has no effect on performance.
pfcemI spoke about the entire aircraft as a weapons system, not about flight performance alone. I’m well aware that with todays tools designers are able to predict the handling characteristics and flight performance of an airframe quite closely. But that is related to the aerodynamics them self. These computations don’t take into account FCS laws (though they should be programmed accordingly), engine performance or airframe stucture. These are other important factors for the overall flight performance! So instead of shouting BS you should start using your brain.
Nice try.
Go back to post #21 & follow along…
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Yes. I assume exactly that. I also assume he is lying not for his own pleasure but because he is forced to..
You clearly have no idea what it means to be a test pilot.
pfcemI thought the $50 Million was the fly away cost for the last batch of Super Hornets offered to the USN……….:confused:
May have been misreported somewhere that way but consider this…
FY2007 the DOD/USN procured 34 F/A-18E/F for $2,590,067,000; thats $76.18 million each.
FY2008 the DOD/USN procured 24 F/A-18E/F for $2,112,973,000; thats $88.04 million each.
How could the cost possibly have been reduced so much in such a short time at the end of a production run?
And then there is the Australian deal of $6 billion (Australian dollars IIRC) for 24 F/A-18E/F.
How can that be if the flyaway is ‘just’ $50 million USD?
pfcemStarting production on a largley untested aircraft involves a risk you fanboys play down for whatever reasons.
Stop the BS.
I am not in any way disputing the risks the F-35 has to overcome.
But those risks have nothing to do with the fact that the flight performance of modern aircraft is designed, wind tunnel tested, computer simulated & known well before flight testing begins much less is completed.
***
You’re still confusing yourself with programme costs versus unit flyaway costs, especially if you are using vague sources which possibly includes payments which arn’t made to the prime contractor.
No you are confusing bare airframe production cost with flyaway cost.
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When a detailed look does show, it is not an big issue till Mach 0,8 or a striker in the cruise. Going supersonic does bring a clean F-16 to the same level.
The best think is, when the ordonance is dropped, the F-16 is clean again, when a F-35 is stubby always. 😉
No the F-35 is clean always…except of course when you choose to make it dirty.
The F-35 does have small advantages in design load conditions and some disadvantages, when the ordonance is dropped. As long as stealth is of prime importance it does not matter much, when not the F-35 is just the second best choise. See the SH about it, which is still procured.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
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You missed the point. The ~ 5G was because of the altitude, not because structural limit…
And is combat loaded as opposed to clean with a half a load of fuel…
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By the time of the potential purchase, Brazil and India will be producing much better RAM materials then the current american.
The worse thing the F-35 will bring, is make the world react to the current american technology and advantage.
Complete & utter conjecture with zero basis in fact.
Internal carriage of weapons was not discovered yesterday.
Thats right. The advantages of internal weapons has been know & utilized for white some time…
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Agree — however how “non-agile” and draggy F-35 will be remains to be seen… Only LM (and a few others) know the truth. Perhaps their marketing is far from the truth, perhaps not. What is true however is that the F-35 engine will be extremely powerful. So for sure it will have a decent acceleration.
No, how agile & ‘draggy’ the F-35 is has been seen, just naysays choose to ignore/dismiss it.
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All this talk of clean and loaded.
Has Lockheed Martin done ANY work with any weapons/ weapons loads yet?
AA-1 has flown a number of flights with fuel & weight equivalent to a combat loaded F-35A (as in two ‘2000 lb’ JDAM + two AMRAAM + ~15,000 lbs of fuel at take-off).
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That’s just Beesley’s claim. He must have gotten a load of money for this 🙂
No Beesley gets paid to fly the plane & gets paid the same whether what he says is positive or negative about it.
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Well that’s what i’ve been asking: can it be confirmed that F-35 had a combat load that Mr Beesley claim is similar to F-16 ?
Btw is there any independent source on F-35 agility instead of Beesley/APA ?
I couldn’t find a source provided when APA claim it’s worse then even the F-4, tho i expect them to have some source or else they are digging their own grave.
What would be an ‘independent sourcei & how could said source possibly “independently” have gotten its informantion?
edit: Ok the very first post in this thread actually had something substantial that seem to verify APA’s claim
If one accepts all the design and performance promises currently made, the F-35 will be overweight and underpowered. At 49,500 pounds air-to-air take-off weight and 42,000 pounds of engine thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight ratio for a new fighter. With only 460 square feet of wing area, wing loading will be a whopping 108 pounds per square foot. That makes the F-35 even less maneuverable than the appalling F-105 “Lead Sled” that got wiped out over North Vietnam.
LOL
At 49,500 lbs a F-35 would have to be carrying 22,836 bs of fuel & weapons and since it has an internal fuel capacity of 18,307 lbs that would mean 4,529 lbs of “air-to-air” weapons (thats the weight of 13.5 AMRAAM). More realistic would be something like 12,000 lbs of internal fuel + 4-6 AMRAAMs for a take-off weight of ‘just’ 40,004-40,674 lbs at take-off.
The F135 is officially rated at 28,000 lbs of dry/military/non-afterburning & 43,000 lbs of wet/afterburning thrust. Of course the F135-600 for the F-35B has an official hover thrust rating of 39,400 lbs but recently demonstrated 41,100 lbs…
Wing loading (based only on wing area) is not an accurate representation of the lift produced by an aircraft. Not to mention that the “108 lbs/sq ft” is at take-off with a full load of fuel & 4,500 lbs of weapons…
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How pathetic does it sound to compare the F-35 against aircraft 2 (two) generations older. F-16 and F-18 are two generations older in terms of conceptual design and production/material technology.
It is like the French comparing the Rafale to some newer version of the F1, or the Brits to compare the EF to an avionics updated Jaguar…..
Not pathetic at all given that the F-35’s primary reason for being is to replace the F-16C & F/A-18C…
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So, if you were test pilot working for LM, and discovered some flabby performance, would you advertise it?
Absolutely. It is your job to be even more critical of the aircraft than anyone else. Your job, your life, the lives of your fellow pilots & your nation’s national security depends on it.
How many independent pilots, or at least from the co partner countries, have flown it?
None. But what will people like you say when some do & say that same thing about the F-35’s flight perfomance as those that already have?
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Also a jet that weighs 28,000lbs empty with 40000 pounds of thrust and flies with an externally clean airframe, particularly in testing with (in general) no stores whatsoever, is NOT going to have “flabby” performance.
26,664 lbs empty weight
18,307 lbs internal fuel capacity (but it does not always have to carry a full load)
28,000+ lbs of dry/military/non-afterburning & 43,000+ lbs of wet/afterburning thrust
[I put a “+” on the thrust numbers because that is its official rating but given that an engine that does not meet theses numbers would not be accepted & the F135-600 exceeded its hover thrust rating you can bet actual numbers to be higher]
pfcemSome people over at Defencetalk claimed recently that the fly-away of Gripen NG is almost twice the price of Gripen C/D. I was surprised about that…
Norway was offered 48 Gripen NG for 20 billion NOK — this was a fixed price, and with todays exchange rate it would be 67 million USD per plane. I always thought this was a package price that included a lot of things&stuff, but the experts at dt say that’s not correct.
F-35 was estimated at 18 billion NOK; however this is just an estimate, and furthermore a “favorable” exchange rate was used (5.27 they say) which means that the fly-away of F-35 was estimated to 71 million USD in January 2008.
So only slightly more expensive than Gripen NG.
Anyway, if the fly-away of NG really is around 60-70 million USD, I wonder about it’s chances… I thought even SH was around 50 million or so?
Signatory, where are you?
L
No, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is not $50 million. The $50 million being circulated around is for a bare airframe, not for a flyable aircraft.
Depending on the yearly production rate flyaway cost it is $75-90 million.
pfcemThat’s valid points, and i’ll leave it at that cause my post was a throw away response to aurcov’s throw away junk.
NG still has an edge in endurance tho.
Yeah right. :rolleyes:
First you say it is a valid point.
Then you say you will leave it at that.
And finally you repeat the lie what you just agreed was valid debunks.
pfcemExcellent article.
Authors pretty much covered it all and I’d just add one point;
Check the list of aircraft, the F35 has been scheduled to replace. There are VTOLs, attack aircraft, fighters, CAS platforms.
Now, who can expect for a SINGLE plane to outperform each superspecialized aircraft like A-10, F-15, etc… in their own area of expertise??
…apart from LM, that is…
So, the author’s point (and my personal when it comes to F35), is it’s a wrong concept, in spite some very modern technologies and materials applied in its construction.Cheers, Cola
LOL
How ignorant &/or disingenuous it must be to neglect that the two aircraft the F-35 is intended most to replace (in numbers & priority) are the F-16 & F/A-18…
And it has been known/demonstrated since WWII that fighters make for quite credible attack aircraft…Much the reason why dedicated attack aircraft have, for the most part) gone out of fashion.
Not to mention that there is in fact an F-35A, a F-35B & a F-35C…
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Knock it off, dude, you are getting beyond pathetic with constantly repeating the same nonsense. Back it up by something better than powerpoint slides with LM logo in the lower right corner or shut up, I got enough of this crap. :rolleyes:
Already have in provious threads. No need to repeat it here.
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After just 2% of the test programme being passed you speak about reality? Quite brave Mr.
Could we plase stop this nonsense….
How is it that the F-15, F-16, Fulcrum, Flanker, Gripen, Typhoon & Rafale all turned out to be such good performers?
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It would be interesting to know how the authors come up with a price tag of $200 Million.
Most likely in their disingenuousness they are quoting the average for the total program cost of 75 Israeli F-35s if all options are exercised (which includes a lot more than just the procurement cost of the aircraft)…
Kind of like taking the $6 billion (total program cost) Australia is paying for its 24 F/A-18F & claiming that that means the F/A-18F costs $250 million each. 😉
pfcemThe GAO report from end of May 2009 offers official program of record numbers from December 2007 as reported to congress in March 2008.
In Dec 2007 USD:
Program unit cost: 122m
Average procurement cost: 104mDOD data:
Procurement prices by year:
2009: 246m
2010: 236m
2011: 203m
2012: 170m
2013: 153mWhen did the UK plan to procure more F-35 than the current test aircraft?
Nice try, but.
They are not “official program of record numbers”. They are GAO estimates (the GAO’s estimates for weapons systems cost are almost always higher than DOD/manufacturer estimates).
They are not in 2007 USD, they are in then-year dollars extrapolated to the end of the current planned procurement program. And I guarantee that those being procured beyond 2030 are bringing that average up quite a bit as in theory the constant dollar cost should level off somewhere in 2014-2016 but you can bet that inflation will continue to rise (or at least you should know that the estimates are based on a constant average rate of inflation).
For example, 2009 USAF budget documents put (again then-year dollars) the average flyaway cost for its 1763 F-35A at $83.131 million. Take a wild guess what the price in 2015 or 2020 must be if the average with procurement going through 2035 is “just” $83.131 million. Here is a hint…The quoted to partner nations & publicly announced in Apr 2008 flyaway price of the F-35A as $58.7 million in FY2008 dollars falls right in line with these numbers. More specifically a constant average inflation rate of 3% makes $58.7 million in FY2008 dollars to be ~$70.1 million in FY2014 (~$130.3 million in FY2035 dollars) & a constant average inflation rate of 4% makes $58.7 million in FY2008 dollars to be ~$74.3 million in FY2014 (~$169.3 million in FY2035 dollars)…
Of course the F-35B & F-35C are going to be somewhat more expensive than the F-35A but the US plans to only procure 680 of them (combined) vs 1763 F-35A.
pfcemHarsh criticism for the ambiguous F-35 from the jdw.janes.com.
According to Pierre Sprey and Winslow Wheeler the aircraft is going to be too expensive but hardly capable. They also point the risk of getting 513 pieces with only 2% of the tests fulfilled and having 83% of the flight characteristics via computer simulations (!!!)
The two authors, estimate the final price of the aircraft might reach $200m.
A piece.OTOH, the capabilities of the fighter are far from impressive.
Stealth characteristics are compromised, and at the same time, WVR potential are “disastrous”. !!Of course nothing new here. Some of us are writing in this very forum, all the above, many years now.
What make the criticism so important is the names of the authors.
Pierre M. Sprey is a member of the design team of the F-16 and Α-10 and
Winslow T. Wheeler is director of Straus Military Reform Project of the Center of Defence Information.
no carlo kopp.
Old news.
Sprey & Wheeler are a couple of senile old men forever lost in the early 70’s & trying despirately to rekindle their “glory days” when they were ‘the man’. Air combat has long passed them by.
They are simply rehashing the same proven to be wrong arguments about the F-22 & applying them to the F-35.
Once full rate production gets going the F-35 will be well under $100 million even in then years dollars.
WVR a combat laoded F-35A has the flight performance similar to a clean F-16 Block 50. Hardly potentially “disastrous”.
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If I’m not totally wrong, those guys belong to the so called fighter mafia. And they didn’t have to say anything positive about any US fighter programme in the last 20 years.
BINGO!
It is wasn’t designed by them, they claim it is a POS.
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The possibility of all the fighter mafia guys being correct, after all, is completely absent according to you ???????????
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Yes.
Their facts are wrong, their understanding of air combat is decades old, et cetera…
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For the USAF, don’t think the maneouverabily issues will be anything great, as am sure it will be heading in with the F-22, but for any export nations, where the RCS will be larger ( around the size of the eurofighter is the rumour), and it will be their main attach aircraft, this will start to be a major concern. Losing that advantage, and then becoming a liability at shorter ranges could help the Eurofighter in places like Japan.
Yes even for the US, F-35 maneouverabily is an issue. That is why one of the designed goals of the F-35 is to match or exceed the flight performance of the F-16C & F/A-18C.
Sorry, there is no way in hell export F-35 have RCS on the order of the Eurofighter. Contrary to what the naysayers want people to believe ther will not be that much difference between the RCS of US & export F-35s. Possibly as much as an order of magnitude at most which would still be an order of magnitude smaller than the Eurofighter. And given that the F-35 was designed with all-around stealth vs just frontal reduced RCS for the Eurofighter the difference is likely to be greater from non-frontal aspects.
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Compare and contrast to F16 block 60s which are quite pricey at $25 million per copy…
Dream on. You would be lucky to get a new bare F-16 airframe for $25 million.
Flyaway for Block 50/52 is $45-50 million.
pfcemWhat’s the range of the NG at supersonic speeds?
Longer then F-22.
Not if both aircraft fly the same speed.
Comparing the range of the F-22 at ~Mach 1.75 vs a Gripen NG at ~Mach 1.25 is disingenuous at best.
pfcemHi, first post, was wondering if you provide a link for this as it’s above anything I’ve seen suggested thus far
Top speed of 1600 mph comes from chief test pilot Paul Metz, you can do an internet search of ‘F-22 Paul Metz’ & find dozens of links referencing it as well as a lot more that he has said about it. This has been out there since 2005.
Supercruise of Mach 1.78 comes from the DOD, you can do an internet search of ‘F-22 revealed Mach 1.78’ & find dozens of links referencing it as well as additioanl recently revealed public information about the F-22. This has been out there since Feb 09.
and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-22-specs.htm
seems to disagree.
I would be one of the 1st to tell you that for the most part globalsecurity.org is a good source of information but…
Thrust 35,000 lbst
No, 35,000 lbs thrust class. Word from those in the know is that it is ~39,000 lbs.
Empty Weight 31,670 lb (14,365 kg)
Was just a design goal very early in the program (as in when it was the ATF rather than the F-22).
Maximum External Stores 5,000 lb (2,270 kg)
The F-22 has four external hardpoints. Each of which is rated at 5,000 lbs.
Speed Mach 1.8 (supercruise: Mach 1.5)
No idea how/why those numbers are given.
Supercruise KPP THRESHOLD was Mach 1.6+.
Top speed KPP THRESHOLD was Mach 2+.
And the F-22 significantly exceeds those two KPP THRESHOLDs.
pfcemJust would like to point out that in order to “chase down” or “out run” a low-level intruder, an interceptor does not have to drop down to said intuder’s altitude…
pfcemAnybody who uses the term “LOL” to counter arguments by professionals (=me) makes himself visible as first class idiot.
I wasn’t “countering”, I was (& still am) laughing at the absurdity of your BS.
pfcemWell its extended in a useless way then. The only reason it could be used in the F-22 is to make up (or at least try to make up) for a lack of HMS.
Tell that to the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale & super-Flanker pilots who are more than happy to talk your ear off about how their aircraft’s extended flight envelope vs the F-15/F-16 allows them to best said F-15/F-16…
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Really? Do they give a warranty about that or is it just a clue, which is not enough and to replace the real specification work?
Good God man. How is it possible the F-15, F-16, Mi-29, Su-27, Gripen, Eurofighter Typhoon & Rafale came out as good a performers as they did?
Where did all that delays come from, which did not show-up in the computer simulations? 😉
Well 2 years of delay came from the not-so-bright idea of someone that low cost was of the upmost importance even over weight & so when the F-35 came in over weight, they had to scrap the cost was of the upmost importance even over weight BS & “redo” the F-35 using more lighter (& more expensive) materials.
Other delays have come from restructuring the program with ever changing budgets & yes unforseen (or at least unincluded in estimates) developement issues.
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I dont think Eric has Much beef with the JSF , what he is laying down are the PROBLEMS that are inherent to any high risk Development program specially one which is key to Both A) The outcome of the force structure of the USAF/USN / USMC , and B) Vital to the performance of the Aerospace supplier (LMA) .
Oh no, Eric quite clearly does have much beef with the F-35 & he is disingenuously siting inhearent risk to virtually all military systems developement as arguments against the F-35.
These are Valid arguments , having been through the troubles on the F-22 , we know we will see similar kind on the F-35 (Delay in integration dates , Delay in meeting MTBF deadlines etc etc) , Even though lessons learned have been factored in from the raptor and other programs , the JSF is also inherently more complex at the integration level (The problem is not making each components (Be it AESA , DAS and what not) it is putting them together and having the right software to extract optimal and desired performance form the amulgamation of those components. That effort is far greater then that of the raptor , but having been with LM as a partner and having hands on expereince with the program uptil a few years ago i can say that LMA and USAF have planned very thouroughly and i would say so far , they have done better then they did on the F-22 program . But the inherent HIGH RISK still remains , and will do so till we are to the fag end of Limited production and we have the jet at tactical hands.
No, simply pointing out that the F-35 still has quite a ways to go before IOC would be valid. Using that it has quite a ways to go before IOC as arguments that it is a POS & doomed to failure is not.
pfcemReally don’t know what to say except “…pfcem, oh man…” and please, don’t quote me anymore and skip my posts. Thx
Then get a clue & stop posting such nonsense as a slight buffet between 20 & 40 degrees as proof of an AoA limit. Especially given that the very next sentense in the source states “At no AOA is buffeting a problem“.
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Whats the point of having no AOA limits?
Extended flight envelope…
Getting slow in WVR is not too clever you know!
Getting WVR is not too clever period.
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The trouble with pfcem is that he can’t tell the difference between stalled and non-stalled flight.
I know full well the difference between stalled & non-stalled flight. You OTOH don’t seem to know the difference between a slight buffet & an AoA limit.
It’s appalling for a person that actively participate a forum such as this one…
Talking to yourself while posting is not helping…
and I’m not sure whether the rest of his posts regarding prices and such has any meaning, or are pure gibberish?!
They are the facts as they stand.
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Apart from being in the same knowledge class with pfcem, are you perhaps payed by LM or US to “advertise” F35? (no need to elaborate. Yes or No will sufice)
With such nonsensical posts as to claim that a slight buffet is proof of an AoA limit, you have a long way to go before ascending to my knowledge class.
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That’s not the same…Mach buffets occur due the uneven pressure on the aircraft surface and that causes vibrations (this is short version). Airframe configuration and uneven air density are mainly responsible for those pressure differences.
Now, wing going to stall is rather more complex topic.
It is the same in that an aircraft experiencing buffeting while passing through transonic speeds is no more proof that said aircraft is not capable of exceeding transonic speeds into supersonic speeds as an aircraft experiencing buffeting at 20-40 deg AoA is proof that said aircraft is not capable of controlled flight beyond 40 deg AoA.
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