i havnt seen it mentioned, but there is another very good reason to stay high: Range,
a fighter takes a horrendous penalty in range by flying low

Especially if they get shot down or get a bullet in the gas tanks.;)

There’s just little point in giving an aircraft a sophisticated EW suite and then putting it in a situation where it’s useless.

I find it almost impossible to agree with you on anything regd. Typhoon vs rest of the world. I do like Typhoon a lot but IMHO it isn’t the aircraft you’re claiming it to be..

Pffft. Why’s that exactly, because I suggested that in a few years it may be superior to the Rafale, which everyone knows is impossible in the eyes of some.

You are comparing Jaguar A raids (for the matter, Al Jaber raid resulted in.. 0 loss), flying manual VISUAL terrain following, with outdated INU.. with Mirage 2000D, and even better, Rafale, equipped with avionics and electronics capable of automatic TF, with dead accurate INUs (even more with radar (and GPS if available) correction), and capable of performing automatic delivery with either dumb boms or PGM.
Are you sane ?

I’m looking at all stats from Desert Storm. How many low level raids were conducted over Libya? None. The reason is quite simple, why put yourself in a position where any numpty with an MG can hit you?

A DDM detected launch triggers automatic countermeasure dispensing in automatic modes. Not mentioning the second pair of eyes in the backseat which helps a lot.

Which won’t work against a missile being optically guided via the launcher, or being guided by laser and stands a very low probability of working against modern dual waveband, or amplitude filtering IIR seekers. Which is yet another damn good reason to avoid low-level flight, shorter range missiles tend to have a far higher Pk and are relatively resistant to countermeasures.

Throwing numbers out of your hat in a completely different context. i see you’re not getting better, lukos.
May I remind you that typical speed of a low-level run for Mirage 2000 & Rafale are between mach 0,92 – 0,96 ? And even closer to Mach 1 when aircraft has delivered its weaponry, resulting in less drag.
Furthermore, an aircraft flying high above and behind a low and fast flying aircraft will be unlikely to get a shot at it.

Yes but the missile has to turn to go upwards, whereas a VL MICA is already facing in the correct direction, so overall I imagine the kinematic range is similar.

Do you even imagine yourself targetting an aircraft in just a couple of seconds, flying at 580 knots ? Very difficult, even more in a hilly terrain.
On the other hand, a hi-flying aircraft gives you a hell lot of time..

Not if the launcher is on top of the hill, or a building and IIR missiles lock damn near instantaneously and the latest ones take a fraction of a second to hit Mach 3+, so if they’re working in conjunction with vehicles using advanced optical tracking, you could end up running headlong into a missile at a closing speed of 1 mile/s from 2 miles away or less. Good luck avoiding that. E.g.:

https://www.thalesgroup.com/sites/default/files/asset/document/STARStreak_05_12.pdf
http://defencejournal.com/jan99/starstreak.htm

Unjammable death delivered in seconds.

700 nm + 30 min on station CAP -> >900+ nm combat radius

And how much time is the F-35 spending on station in its stated combat radius, was it carrying bombs or just AAMs?

Is it fair to assume that the RAF is giving up on low level penetration once the Tornado is retired? Relevant to the extent that they are a close ally who are no longer convinced of the validity of the tactic (when did they last operate in an offensive environment at low level)?

I think the last time they used it was Desert Storm and the results were undesirable. It was a cold war tactic intended to avoid being confronted by several dozen squadrons of superior fighter jets not weighed down by bombs, which then makes the danger of high altitude worse than low altitude. The idea was also aimed at attacking missile sites before they could retaliate which, however unlikely, was even less likely at altitude. Given up completely I guess would depend on the adversary but logically there’s no good reason for using it after the F-35 has been introduced. Low altitude flight just poses so many more dangers, even without MANPADS and AAA, you still have terrain and bird strike to worry about, or even just crap being blown about by the wind. Even assault rifles and .50cal MG fire becomes a danger at 200ft, I could even add helicopters to that list, either via their own weaponry or simple by collision. Then you have all the mini-drones that are now around, not to mention cruise missiles potentially coming the other way. The enemy would need to have a very, very strong airforce and a fail-safe way of detecting stealth fighters for it to even be considered I imagine.

There is no people on the outside of this bus so its very aerodynamic. (hehe)
http://www.carsbase.com/photo/Neoplan-Starliner_mp608_pic_38526.jpg

There is people sticking out from this motorcycle so its less aerodynamic and draws more fuel (LOL)
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/sites/motorcyclistonline.com/files/import/header_images/122-1301-01-o%2Bmotorcycle-communicator-systems%2B.jpg

I’m over doing this a bit here but this is to get the point.

Just look at the f-35 for gods sake, everything is “inside the shell” but it does mach 1.6 at maximum power (43,000 lbf 191 kN) DOUBLED gripens horsepower. ITS also aerodynamic as hell, BUT IT IS FAT AND BIG.( i know, a girls dream)

You’re overlooking the aspect of engine design. The F-35 engine is designed for fuel economy at subsonic cruise, not supersonic performance. As for the Gripen, what speed does it do with two 2k JDAMs, 2 AAMs and a targeting pod? I’m betting less than Mach 1.67, especially if you start adding drop tanks to give it the same fuel fraction, except it’ll need to be a higher fuel fraction for equivalence because they’re external.

In fact it only states Mach 1.6 as the top speed of the Gripen NG here in their own pdf.
http://flygteknik.mcistockholm.se/filer/mandag/SessionA-Aulankl.13.00/A6_PETER_NILSSON_Gripen_NG_Flygteknik2010_FOR_PUBLISERING.pdf

FLIGHT TESTS
FLIGHT TEST COMPLETED
187 flights performed
RESULTS
Speed Mach 1,6
Super cruise Mach 1,2+

Again the obsession with “G”. Turn rate expressed in degrees per second is more important than pulling maximal “G”. An aircraft at 350kts will have a smaller radius than the aircraft at 600kts pulling more gees. An aircraft at it’s corner speed will outturn an aircraft pulling the same amount of G if it’s well above it’s corner speed.

The NASA studies on the X-31 vs. the F-18 were interesting. The X-31 had worse turn performance and less power, yet won the majority of the engagements due to it’s ability to “cut the corner” on turns using TVC at slow speeds.

Winning a turning engagement more nuanced than who can pull the most g, or more accurately sustain the most g. An energy fighter is going to want to stay fast and only trade energy for position (use the vertical), a fighter like the Super is going use the turning fight to bleed energy from the opponent to where the Super has the advantage in lower corner speed and nose pointing.

There was an interesting article in “Combat Aircraft” I believe. It talked about exercises between the Typhoon and the Hornet. Basically, the Typhoon pilot was talking about avoiding the first turns of the Hornet and using the superior power of the Typhoon, not to get into multiple circle turning fight.

Yep, another important factor is being able to regain energy following ITR manoeuvres and using superior thrust to climb whilst turning. It’s far from one-dimensional.