FBWI can remember the reasoning of US fans from the beginning of the stealth era. At that time, speed was trumpeted as the decisive factor in aerial combat because high sustainable speed (supercruise) enabled increased kinetic range of weapons. That was in say 2004-2008. When the F-35 came, this theory was confirmed by ideas that the F-35 had kinematic abilities similar to the F-22, furthermore supported by claims coming directly from the LM house. Sweetman was named an idiot and Kopp a moron. It is only after ~2011 when it slowly became clear that the F-35 was a far cry from an “almost F-22 for half the money” promise – it could not supercruise, had hard time to get over the transonic region, had the KPPs regd. acceleration shifted twice and barely reached M1.6 only upon having depleted all available fuel.
A claim that the F-35 was intended to be exactly what it is today can only be applied on those who don’t know better.. but my memory is still working fine and I know exactly the people who were claiming the exact opposite just few years ago..
@ Msphere you should be embarrassed with this post…. you’ve been on here long enough.
First off, your transonic acceleration claims are an outright lie, 8 seconds slower than the KPP (for the A) which was written based on the F-16 block 50. The only numbers out there are from the Australian Parlimentary hearing that gave the F-35 acceleration from mach .8 to mach 1.2 with full internal weapons @ 63 seconds. Get it through your head, just because they missed their goal by 8 seconds does not mean the aircraft accelerates slowly. EVERY pilot who has flown it has remarked on the aircraft’s acceleration.
As for your barely reaches mach 1.6 having depleted all it’s fuel, they you must have pulled out of your a**, the aircraft flew to Mach 1.67 years ago. Had you followed it, the recent DOT&E report had a remark about the test aircraft being limited to Mach 1.6 until the engine fix was implemented. There has never been any other information released so the rest you made up, period.
Supercruise? Where was the claim that it was supposed to? The testing has revealed the aircraft can maintain roughly mach 1.2 without AB, though the quote is vague. That is not sustainable super cruise as I’ve explained on an earlier post as aircraft flying at that speed may still be experiencing high wave drag until clear of the trans sonic region at roughly mach 1.2-1.4 depending.
FBWIf the Rafale contract reports are correct that’s 7.7 billion for 63 built off the shelf with spares and support contracts being negotiated later.
Over 122 million per fighter without the additions that the MMRCA deal would have included. This is either a disaster of a contract (what the hell did the months of negotiations achieve beside massive cost escalation?) , or more hopefully, the news wrong and there is more to the deal than being reported.
Edit- News just reported joint news conference: deal is for 36 jets.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/10/india-france-rafale-idUSL5N0X73NG20150410
FBWCan’t see this as anything but a huge win for Dassault. More production in Merignac, less (if any) built by HAL with Dassault on the hook for liability. As details are still sketchy, it is impossible to say what the final deal will be but…..
If the deal is for only 63 Rafale total (ostensibly a scrapping of the MMRCA deal), then it is a total fail by India, adding another aircraft type and supply chain for paltry return.
One would hope this is but one part of a total contract package, and that there is more to come in the way of ToT and production in India for the total 126-180 Rafale eventually.
Either way, Dassault has a big win if early reports are to be believed.
FBWThere was no issue with your listing fighters proposed with AESA. You went off the rails on “while it was supposed to be a big advantage, with delays it took, pretty much everybody will have it once the F-35 becomes really operational”
The number of aircraft fitted with AESA sets will surely grow. I don’t share your optimism that there will be multitudes of AESA sets flying on non-US platforms by the time the F-35 reaches FOC, or for many years after that.
Production of new AESA equipped fighters (J-20, SU-50 (Pak-Fa), Gripen E/F, Mig-35, etc) won’t be ramping up until early to mid 2020’s.
Current AESA fighters will be ramping down or continuing their slow production, J-10B, F-18 E/F, Rafale. As the U.S. government’s experience with the F-15 Apg-63 (v3) has shown, refitting a current fighter fleet with AESA is wickedly expensive, hence slow. I don’t expect to see masses of Rafale, Typhoons, et al. retrofitted with AESA prior to the 2020’s if at all.
FBWF-15
A/F-18
Rafale
Gripen NG
Mig29/35
Possibly Typhoon (don’t know where they are with AESA integration on it)
and so on…while it was supposed to be a big advantage, with delays it took, pretty much everybody will have it once the F-35 becomes really operationnal
The thing is:
There are No production Gripen N/G and won’t be until roughly 2018 (same year the US will be fielding 3F software with full war fighting capability)
There are how many (6-8?) Rafales flying with AESA. That number is also not going to grow all that quickly.
There are zero production Mig-35’s in existence
There are less than 100 F-15’s flying with APG-63 (v2) or (v3), or APG-82
There are 1 or 2 Captor-E’s flying (that whole upgrade situation borders on criminal, but that’s a different story)
There is no list that goes on and on….. again please research and stop distorting facts to fit your agenda.
FBWReading between the lines, it comes off as a scare tactic to get congress to pony up money for the cancelled AESA upgrades to the F-16.
FBWThere is no formula. Its sustained turning performance is crap.
But, due to fairly large elevators located very far aft, its instantaneous pitch rate will be decent. Its roll rate and roll acceleration will also be good due to a short wingspan and single engine.
Aside from that…
When you actually do some comparisons, the 35’s sustained turn performance isn’t crap. It needs to be compared to the fighter/strike platforms it’s replacing. It ain’t on the level of a dedicated air superiority platform for sure. Many would argue sustained turn performance just isn’t as important as it was in the era of rear aspect missiles.
But this isn’t the F-35 thread and every thread does not need the debates about the merits of that one platform.
FBWit is the reality that is hard on the F-35
The F-35 with the immature systems it will have to cope with long after the end of 2015 won’t be a usable combat platform in any way for some time to come. between the need to reset systems every now and then, the inability to fly in bad weather, inability to pull more than 3Gs safely (a cessna 172 is cleared up to 4), one has to ask: what sort if combat can you consider it to be capable of?
Rubbish post, be honest or at least research your criticisms:
1. The 3g limit was imposed when they they were searching for the cause of the engine fire, the restrictions were relaxed as the rub in procedure was established and implemented fleet wide by Feb of this year.
2. Limited capability IOC in 2015-16, not much different than the limited capabilities that Rafale/Typhoon had during their introduction. The Marines are getting what they asked for at IOC, no different than the Rafale going to the Aéronavale with the capabilities they wanted at inception.
3. Three years to full combat capability from IOC is not a long time, in fact, by modern standards it is impressive. When did the RAF Typhoons get full multi-role capability?
Again, reasoned criticism of a program, especially one with a difficult history like the F-35, makes perfect sense. Exaggerated, made up, or incorrect information does not add to the discourse.
FBWShould Future Fighter Be Like A Bomber? Groundbreaking CSBA Study
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/04/should-future-fighter-be-like-a-bomber-groundbreaking-csba-study/
Entire report downloadable at the link
Two interesting points, the author is now an analyst with NG, and also the co-author of the F-35 RAND study oft quoted by APA and others.
The same man who came up with “Can’t turn, can’t run”, is now saying build them big, slow, and tailess? Interesting departure:
Looking forward, these changes have greatly increased the proportion of BVR engagements and likely reduced the utility of traditional fighter aircraft attributes, such as speed and maneuverability, in aerial combat.
Interestingly, a few of his conclusions seem in direct contradiction to what the navy has been saying they want out of the F/A-XX project. It’s as if there are two divergent trains of thought on the future air dominance platforms.
FBWFor the interested, the USAF FY ’16 Budget breakdown is available at the airforce financial management site:
http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/budget/
Interesting tidbit, an AMRAAM D costs 978,000 for FY ’16 and goes down from there.
FBWas a matter of fact a drop from M2 to M1.85 is a negligible effect on performance,
below 10% which is universally considered threshold between significant/insignificant
…and that was while carrying a drop-tank too
Wrong again my befuddled friend. That’s with ( 4 aam) + pylons no DT, and the speed drops from aroud Mach 1.95 to under Mach 1.8, and I explained why top speed is impacted less than acceleration which was impacted markedly.
Taken right from flight manual, your assumption does not hold up to facts, drop it. External stores have a negative impact on performance, one that has been explained with real examples over and over by many different posters. If you fail to grasp this perhaps you should change your sign in name to ” oblivious”.
FBWhttp://breakingdefense.com/2015/04/tough-choices-for-dod-on-long-range-strike-bomber/
Have to say I’m rooting for NG. Don’t think that investing all of the U.S. defense aerospace industries’ aircraft design and production in Boeing/LM’s mitts for the long term is in the best interest of the taxpayer.
FBWActually, a clean F-16C airframe has a drag index of 7 😉
I agree that DI 50 is a good starting point. Less than that is also possible, though unlikely in a real loadout. So at DI 50, top speed is Mach 1.85 vs 1.6 for the F-35. That, imho, is a valid comparison. Now, since the F-35 is not thrust/drag limited at Mach 1.6, it will still have some reserves at that speed. The question is: more than the F-16 at Mach 1.6? I think not, I bet an F-16C @ DI 50 will out accelerate an F-35 from lets say M 0.8 to M 1.6.
It takes an F-16C-52 ~110 seconds @ 30.000 feet, the F-16C-50 needs ~85 seconds if I’m not mistaken. Unfortunately, we probably won’t have solid F-35 numbers for some time.@ hopsalot: great, some data for the -402 engined Hornet. Do you have more?
Most likely, I was responding to a misguided idea that external weapons have a negligible impact on performance. Not specific to any discussion about F-35.
Trying to keep F-35 out of this thread as it evokes too many arguments, in too many threads.
FBWAny thoughts on if this impacts Rafale negotiations?
http://m.thehindu.com/news/national/defence-ministry-plans-changes-in-offset-clauses/article7066445.ece/
FBWPAK-FA is made of composites. so it will be light. and it will be cheaper considering labor, material and energy rates.
http://www.ruaviation.com/news/2013/11/19/2054/
wages in west are inflated due to huge financial and media/e-commerce sector.
Ah, no wonder western fighters are slower and more expensive: it’s the eBay satcomm terminals and Disney advertising banners they tow.
-eyeroll ( don’t use emoticons)
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