TooCool_12fwhat I call “the nonsense” is the contradiction between two speeches said in the same video (we learn/we make the best in the world), not the particular value of this or that aircraft…
If it was that simple to “make the best aircraft in the world”, one has to wonder what were the americans and other europeans doing during last decades? or even better, if it’s so easy and cheap, why the F-22 or the F-35 cost so much?
What’s more, even on paper (which is what one has to consider right now, since gripen NG is nowhere near completion), the only thing the gripenNG has “ahead of others” is its price (and the difference is much smaller than the “1/2” or “1/4” ratios you can hear from the same guys that made that video)…
TooCool_12fOne of the things that I can’t understand with statements like:
One thing is clear from my point of view: Saab needs this sell much more than Dassault, for this reason they seem to be much more willing to accept Brazilian industrial participation then the French or the Americans.
The french propose the whole technology transfer… that means, brasil will build its own aircraft.. completely and independantly.
It doesn’t come with some “magic button” to the brasilian worker just pushes it and an aircraft comes out… it means brasil will learn everything there is to know about the aircraft. They’ll have the knowledge they actually lack given to them on a plate… and be free to do whatever they want with it after that… Once they build their own fighters, they can make as many as they wish, no? And if they have the factories and the resources, they will be able to fix their own price for these.
And one final thing.. I just saw a SAAB comercial:
basically, the guy says “we’ll learn to make modern fighters” and in the same time he says “we’ll make an aicraft that will be at least a decade ahead of any competition… the best in the world”
sounds like a kid in his first year in high school saying “now that I’m with the big guys, I’ll make my PhD before the end of the year”…
talk about nonsense… 😀
TooCool_12fI may be wrong but it seems to me that the RAF has the Typhoon…. the F-35 is supposed to equip the RN
TooCool_12fActually, what can be read here and there, the point FAb is making is “Gripen = cheapest solution..
and in the same time, the report is said to be 30000 pages long…
30000 pages to say this one is cheapest, that one costs more seems a bit of an overkill to me…
As it’s a leak, one can even wonder whether the “rating” we see is the “overall one” or only the “costs one”. For all we know, the leak may have been just a couple of pages (I seriously doubt the journalists read the 30000 pages of the report)
What’s more, the report is said to have been edited by a different entity (commission for coordination for combat aircraft or something like that) and then endorsed by the FAB… that may be the beginning of the clue for the “costs and profits” perspective that seems to be the major thing we talk about (who is in that commission? what interests this or that participant may have in FAB, embraer, or, eventually, other, foreign interests?).
In the end, the argument “they can’t sell the rafales as they could sell Gripens is strange to say the least… on one hand, they have french proposition in which they get complete technological transfer (meaning, they built the rafales 100% in Brasil and can sel them and/or develop variants to sell, etc… on the other hand, they have an aircraft that has some part, like the engine, made using US technology and for which they’ll probably need US approval if they want to sell it to other countries (would be funny to see the reaction if, for example, Brasil sells fighters to Venezuela… if it’s the Gripen, will the US agree to sell engines to Chavez?)
TooCool_12fNot me. I don’t know how hot the F-3B jet exhaust is, nor how serious a problem the heat from it is, which is why I’ve avoided arguing about it, & stuck to the lift fan thing.
BTW, LM claimed back in the 1990s that one of the reasons for adopting the lift fan was that it has a lower exhaust temperature than direct lift. :diablo: The roll posts use bypass air, which is relatively cool. The only potential source of problems is the main engine exhaust. LM says that the lift-fan approach removes energy from the hot turbine section of the main engine, which, in turn, lowers the main engine’s exhaust temperature – but AFAIK that could still leave the main engine exhaust hotter than is desirable. Is it? I don’t know.
What I find plain silly is the attempts by some people to argue that the lift fan itself (& read back – it has been argued here) could be a source of overheating of decks. It’s producing less pressure than a Pegasus, at lower temperatures. Doh!
as you said, it could go both ways… it’s still the combustion that produces the energy to spin the lift fan as well (so you get the compression, heat, etc…), the only way to know for sure is to monitor the exhaust temperatures at the nozzle, but while it seems obvious PW and anyone else involved in building the F-35B have that data, the interesting question is: is that data available somewhere for the public? As long as we don’t have the real temp readings we can argue until the cows come home without getting anywhere
TooCool_12fI’d rather say:
Common: same part
Cousin: similar (probably part that are built “common” and then modified somewhat to suit particular needs, fixations, etc..)
Unique: part built specifically for that aircraft type
TooCool_12fMy point is you don’t know WTF you are talking about and should go do something a about it.
cool, now why don’y YOU apply YOUR OWN SUGGESTION to YOURSELF…
go back and read a bit about aircraft, for example, “how the thrust is generated”, apply that to the aircraft we talk about here and then… well, maybe stop posting BS all over the place or calling people idiots, while they did things in aviation you can’t even dream of achieving
TooCool_12fso, I give you numbers and you ask me to go read about it? Where do you think I found that data?
PW F135 has to produce about 40000lbs of thrust, and about about half of the 40000lbs of required thrust come directly in the form of hot exhaust gases, so, what’s your point?
TooCool_12fno, I wasn’t answering precisely the article, but the fact that says the ship decks may not support it (which I read about and heard long before seeing the article quoted at the start of this thread)
Il lift fan blows the air from above teh aircraft directly underneath it, so I seriously doubt it would melt anything by itself. However, the column on heated gases underneath the aircraft seems to be the problem that may cause concern to eventual users. You have a very thorough analysis by a high ranking RN officer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0jgZKV4N_A
😀
TooCool_12fabout the question “why harrier doesn’t melt decks”, it has probably to do also with the fact that harriers front nozzles which support over half the (little) weight of the aircraft are fed by low pressure compressor, which means, their exhaust gases are relatively cold. The rear nozzles are fed by 650°C burned gases.
Overall, it produced little less than 24000lbs of thrust in latest versions
The F-35, being much heavier, has an engine that produces up to 40000lbs of thrust, and the maximum turbine inlet temperature is over 2800°F (around 1600°C).
So, why the harrier did not melt ships decks and the F-35 may do so? I don’t know, but maybe the 1000°C difference in temperature of burned gases may be a beginning of the reason for that difference…
TooCool_12f@ wrightwing
don’t wanna spend half hour writing, so I’ll try to be short (for a change 😀 )
Talking about “generals who don’t care about F-22 performance”… every service tries to get more of its own items… If you read any pilot’s biography (ones who got in touch with “higher spheres” you notice the same thing. There are competent officers who do what they consider best for the service and their “fellow aviators”.. but there are also many, much more numerous in fact, people who think about their careers, politics etc… soemtimes called “desk pilots”
it’s not a flaw specific to the USAF.. it happens everywhere around the world, be it in politics, armies, private companies, etc… Call it human nature if you like
as for the raptor being a target, I don’t talk about “right now”.. today, it is the worlds best, no aircraft can contest that (not that I know of anyway), but aiming for dominance for the next several decades is quite optimistic for a machine that uses techniques that can’t evolve with new threats to come. You can’t adapt the RAM materials to match longer wavelengths radars, for example. As russians are already developing, from what can be read, airborne L-band radars for fighters, if they reach operational state, the stealthy nature of F-22s design may be seriously jeopardized. That’s why I point out the more flexible (and in the end, I think, more future-compatible path of developing ECM based systems to achieve “reduced RCS” results
For the meteor, I’ve read a couple of days ago that french DoD budgeted Meteor equipment for the next year…
TooCool_12fThe point is that the USAF is the final customer, and if they’re going to the trouble trying to “sell” it to the budget deciders, you can bet that they believe it works, as they’re the ones who will have to use it. They’ve had the first hand opportunity to operate it, so if they were dissatisfied, you can believe they’d be saying so to LM. There are plenty of examples of equipment getting the axe, because it didn’t perform as advertised. You didn’t see the services asking for even more of whatever system had problems, and trying to retire other equipment in order to be able to afford even more of them.
Actually, what USAF gets is asked by people with lots of stars on their uniforms working at the pentagon.. and they spend good amounts of time trying to get more than the guy from the next office… SAC generals want more bombers, TAC want more fighters and strike aircraft, etc… the latest toy in town is the F-22 so they’ll do whatever they can to get as much as any aother.. and if you believe they’ll all only think about “what’s good for the service”, you must be living in wonderland
You can increase your computing power, but the F-22 won’t be resting on its laurels either, and it already starts out with a kinematic advantage. A fresh design with higher performance would be needed, along with the newer avionics and weapons, to reduce it to a plane like another.
AS I said slightly lower, you can go for a costly solution in developing a new fighter, or take a shorter way by creating a missile with long range. No fighter can outrun a missile flying at mach 4+ in its direction.. avoid maybe, but is you start manouvering to get out of the way, you’re on the defensive… not easy to counterattack
The target aircraft will have to be aware of the F-22, prior to being able to utilize their ECM suite. If they’re flying around emitting, then the ALR-94 will triangulate their position from hundreds of miles away, and allow the F-22 to fire passively.
Why do you want them to emit anything? if they know they face fighters with very low RCS, they’ll use IR search (Rafale, Sukhois from thirty years, and probably the typhoon as well, all have integrated front sector IR detectors… no need for radar to see an overheated nose and leading edges of an aicraft flying supersonically in the freezing cold of teh background at FL600) and, what’s more, they can also rely on ground based radars or awacs working with lower frequency radars which will “see” the more or less stealthy designs more easily to locate for them, even approximatively the threats. You talk about the F-22 firing without locking with its own radar.. but that can work both ways, and in the end, the one that has missiles with greater range has the advantage.
Whether it’s the Meteor, R-37, or what have you, it doesn’t matter what the theroetical maximum ranges are. You can’t fire at the Raptor until you know it’s there, and you can believe that Raptors aren’t going to be flying around with a lot of emissions broadcasting their positions.
see point above…
That’s great, but the F-22 would’ve seen them from far greater distances already, either with their on board systems, or third party sensors.
that’s possible.. but how far, neither of us knows (and if anyone does, he can’t talk about it)
There’s a lot of ifs involved there. What guidance method will the Meteor be using for this BVR shot(especially if the Raptor is operating in EMCON)? It’s seeker won’t detect the Raptor until it’s right on it. IR alone can’t guide a missile(there’s no laser range finder that’s going to reach out to Meteor ranges), and if the Rafale/Typhoon emits(and they’ll be well within the F-22’s weapons range before, they’re able to detect it with their radars), to try to provide any targeting info, then they become the beacons.
Lots of ifs? there’s only one that quote: does spectra perform as it is expected to do… and that data is classified. You expect the raptor to operate in a zone it has complete control over… yet, it is not just a homeland defence fighter. it’s meant to go out and clean the skies from enemy aircraft in an offensive… meaning, operate above enemy territory.
Anyway, anything we may say for now is that the raptor is supposed to dominate in that area… but it remains just that, a supposition. Based on various data and claims we all hear, but the ony way to know (as opposed to believe) is to see results (if they ever become public) of confrontations in years to come.
There’s no such thing as an absolute and invincible weapon… never has been and certainly never will… there’s only constant progress, and never on one side only
TooCool_12fI think everybody agrees that the F-22 today is THE reference fighter in A2A 😉
TooCool_12f1. The Su 35s Price atm is comparable to that of the F 18 SH and less than that of Rafale and Typhoon. While I do not expect the PAK FA to be as expensive as the F 35, it may well match the Typhoon in-terms of price.
2. Well the Rafale fans were quick to give a HUD shot of the Typhoon in its crosshairs, I am sure if that happened in BVR they would be alteast bragging about it and we woulda seen a HUD shot if it happend in WVR.
3. Just go to the Merry xmas for Rafale fans thread and see the report there, they were bragging that the F 22 only beat the Rafale once. :p
4. What will you ask for when the F 35 claims a kill in exercise in future, It has no HUD.
nobody, for the moment, wants to show everything he can do in BVR so such confrontations won’t take place any soon… as for “rafale fanboys bragging”, for years in all forums F-22 / 35 and typhoon fanboys were bragging against the rafale which was, basically, a useless piece equipment in air-air, when compared with their favorite toys (even if there was no confrontation to speak of which would show anything in one way or another)… somewhere behind the latest Su-27 versions… when there was an article saying that it was an excellent aircraft, most of these armchair pilots went to say that the author couldn’t judge a plane as he wasn’t qualified… they who spend most of their “aeronautical time” in front of their computer saying that a combat veteran from the ’80, test pilot (commanding an RAF test flight squadron) in the ’90 with over 6000 flying hours was incompetent because their favorite fighter is better.. they know it… talk about bragging
In UAE the rafale outdid everything else in air-to-ground, , beat the Typhoon in WVR and was almost on par with the F-22 in WVR too (1 defeat for six encouters), but when the french make it public, it’s bragging? well, maybe, but a well deserved one… 😀
TooCool_12fpfcm.. a couple of thoughts:
I prefer sources which have a clue what they are talking about. When it comes to the F-22 & the F-35 the USAF/DOD & LM are the only credible sources.
considering that LM is selling (or, more precisely, trying to sell) the F-22, I wouldn’t consider it “a credible source”, just as I wouldn’t take for granted everything dassault says about the rafale, or BAe about the Typhoon… see my previous posts about it
Except that they don’t have accurate enough data to make such determinations – they are simply guessing where as the USAF/DOD & LN/Northtop have the ACTUAL DETAILED DATA & have actually measured the RCS of the actual airframes to veryfy the data is accurate.
They have the data, but that doesn’t mean they don’t arrange the results to suit their agenda.. see my answer right above that quote
It did not happen overnight. People a lot smarter than you had forseen it happening eventually & thus the F-22.
smarter, I don’t know.. but you definitely failed to understand the meaning of what I wrote: I did not say the F-15 suddenly became a second grade fighter… I pointed out the fact that the USAF who all the time (even against teh similar models as India has) claimed F-15s superiority suddenly started to explain that they couldn’t beat them. and that such change, strangely, appeared just at the moment when they were lobbying for the F-22. The meaning of that is simple:
They wanted the F-22 which resulted in downplaying the F-15 and boasting about F-22 real or supposed or “out of fantasy land” qualities… You do not believe somebody who wants to sell you something, period (and USAF and LM were selling together the F-22 to the budget deciders)
Nobody is saying the F-15 has become a pile of crap (overnight or otherwise) just that is has lost its advantage over likely threats. The F-22 is meant to regain & maintain that advantage for decades to come.
That’s wishful thinking, actually… with computer power increasing, radar technologies improving, missiles technology advancing, the F-22 will become a plane “like another” much sooner than that… more about it a bit later
Where has anybody said “VLO aircraft knocking off gen 4s from a hundred miles out”? The fact is the range of the AMRAAM is greater than the range at which current fighter radars are capable of targeting the F-22. Thus the F-22 IS capable of engaging threat aircraft at ‘stand-off/safe’ range (which is still typically <100km/50nm rather than YOUR mythical ‘hundred miles’).
Problem with it is that the F-22 will have to get a lock too… and modern ECM suites may as well cause the radar of the F-22 to have problems in locking from far away. What’s more, the latest european missile, meteor, is given for a range between 60 and 100 miles, and that, combined with active radar and IR versions of the missile may cause some serious problems for the F-22… after the last last exercises in UAE it was said that the rafales identified “visually” their air targets at ranges of up to 40km (meaning they had an identifyable shape on screen). without ever having to start their radar. If the F-22 tries to lock on them, and SPECTRA does its job in preventing it, the radar beam will be like a beacon giving the rafale’s OSF the direction in which to look for a target. As soon as it detects IR signature of the F-22 (supersonic flight at high altitudes is like a lighthouse at night, you can see it from extremely long distances with proper IR equipment), it will be in range for the meteor and able to shoot… and that’s just one scenario in which the F-22 may experience problems
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