FBWNo doom here, but it is also not entirely positive if Australia also cuts its order… are they really considering to do that?
I believe the article was referring to the number of aircraft in the initial contract. Australia has been pretty firm on the order of 100 F-35 according to the government white papers. Other sources have suspected that order to slip to 75-72. Either way the first order for 14?, has been committed.
FBWhttp://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/f-35-fighter-purchase-reasonable-report/story-e6frfku9-1226862761303
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/24/lockheeds-troubled-f-35-fighter-jet-wins-big-s-kor/
A bit of positive press coming in… Cue the birds of doom
FBWThe idea that Gripen is a ‘6th generation aircraft’ is one of those headline-grabbing claims, around which an argument or discussion is constructed, such that even if one disagrees with the claim, the discussion is nonetheless productive as it casts the subject matter in new relief
Good point, though I’ve no doubt on here it will end up as a semantics argument about “sixth-gen” in regards to the Gripen NG.
FBWand finally and most importantly… the document of course also confirms that the ACIG / Iranian claims were rather wildly “optimistic”… I don’t know why you refuse to even entertain the thought of “reassessing” the ACIG “Data” in light of the new information… perhaps by eliminating pure “iranian pilot claims and their mate said its true” and “list of iraqi pilot POWs as claimed by the Iranians”…
I mean you would also find it ridiculous if the Iraqis claimed more kills than Iranians lost aircraft… even more so if the claims are 300% more than the actual losses. So why not treat the Iranian side with the same level of healthy skepticism when it comes to claims?
First, I’m not at all interested in the air to air claims from the Iran-Iraq war. The documentation on both sides was poor.
the Iraqi figures were compiled in late 1991 after a comprehensive inspection of all military assets by the secretariat, its only just that they were publicised after 2003 when the US captured the archive of documents from the presidential secretariat which was top secret.
The document in fact shows that the Iraqis lost MORE aircraft in 1991 than what the US even claimed! Just that they lost them mostly on the ground and in HAS and thus the US only got a full account of the Iraqi losses when this document became known
I’ve no doubt that the ground kills were more than claimed, U.S. BDA could only guess how many aircraft of what type were in the hardened aircraft bunkers they destroyed. The air to air kills are a different matter. First of all, the U.S. had the electronic eye of AWACs tracking the engagements. Second, there was wingman verification. Lastly, as in all wars, there were gun cameras. The Iraqi airforce was unable to exercise any concerted command and control during the war, so I doubt they were able to accurately tally anything postwar.
In all wars there are overclaims of kills. The coalition claims during the Gulf War varied little post conflict, they are solid. Here is a link that discusses the kills by Cesar Rodriguez and Craig Underhill. You can see that the in this case a spec ops team combed the crash site of the Mig-29. Not to mention this is a great read!
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/03/the-last-ace/307291/
Finally here is a RAND study from the Gulf War, now I have given you four sources for the kills in Desert Storm.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2009/P7837.pdf
FBWThere’s been discussion of “creeping VLs” to reduce peak thermal and mechanical loads, but no such operations have been seen on released video.
Considering that SRVL will be the take-off procedure for the RN and U.S. LHD/LHA, what impact will this have operationally? The Marines already have a landing pad developed: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20111206/NEWS/112060311/Corps-preps-F-35-landing-pads-hangars
I’m more curious about the AM2 landing Mats, according to a study, they are good for 700* C
FBW[QUOTE=sheytanelkebir;2124684][QUOTE=FBW;2124087]
IRAQI RECORDS. A quite comprehensive breakdown of Iraqi losses was discussed and analysed over on the iraqi military forum. http://iraqimilitary.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=71
The numbers are coming from the Iraqi presidential archive from 1991 which was documenting Iraq’s losses in 1990, but included “pre-1991 war” figures for 1990 which were used to deduce estimated losses from the 1980-88 war. Even at the “worst case” scenario no more than 150 FIXED WING Jets were lost. Total losses including army aviation helos / PC7s were in the 250-280 aircraft range.and further updates are coming all the time on both the Iraqi Military forum and the “Former Iraqi Airforce” Facebook page where Iraqi records are slowly opening up along with pilot and officer records. In fact the books of former High ranking Iraqi Armed Forces officers discussing the 1991 war speak of the “low losses” due to careful deployments and SEAD during the war with Iran vis a vis the 1991 war which they openly admit devastated and completely destroyed the Iraqi Airforce (so they’re not just trying to sugarcoat the events or something – unlike the outlandish stuff that came from ACIG ).
It’s not just ACIG, the one document is from the Air war College discussing the F-15C underutilization during Desert Storm (and claims 29 kills). Those kills during Desert Storm have been well documented. I’m not buying that 20 years later, former Iraqi airforce personnel are able to tally the their losses accurately.
FBW[QUOTE]
the above numbers are simply bogus (at least in relation to events involving Iraq).
– – – Updated – – –
ok, lets start…
Iraq lost 23 planes in total.
The F14A+ was shot down by what? don’t tell me S75!
Iraq lost 145 or so fixed wing combat aircraft in the iran war IN TOTAL. and Iran started the war with 77 F14s and finished the war with 58 airframes… losing 19 airframes in total (ok some were in accidents… but the Iraqis did claim 12+ kills against them).
wonderful… already more kills than Iraq’s total losses…
so the Iraqis lost 46 airframes? really? they lost only 17 including accidents…. which coincidentally is LESS than the number of F14 airframes that Iran lost in the war despite flying maybe 10% of the number of sorties that the Mirages flew…
hmmm. I think its closer to 5.
wow, 12 kills? really? even though the only kill the Iraqis seem to remember is the I-HAWK site shooting down a superfrelon…
got 2 kills in the battle of H3… and they had the bloodied helmets of the israelis too, until the americans decided to steal it and give it to Israel after 2003…
really?
so now the kill tally against Iraq is something like double the number of airframes that Iraq actually lost 1980-88… and we haven’t even mentioned all the other types (SU22, Su25 etc…)ok
iraqi losses:
MiG23BN – 13
MiG23ML – 6
MiG23MF – 3
MiG23MS – 2 = that is about 25 in total…should be slightly less, and the 23 also has a “kill” not acknowledged.
Not sure where you are getting the numbers of claims for the Iraq war, there are certainly more than your numbers: F-15 kills according to several different sources:
http://www.rjlee.org/air/ds-aakill/
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_217.shtml
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA398080
FBWFor most fighter aircraft the “top” speeds listed are a bit of a joke. As we’ve all posted: pylons, stores speed limitation, fuel burn, make them unachievable in a combat ready configuration. Acceleration and climb are a different story as they do have tactical implications (though also impacted by above considerations). Many of the F-22 pilot comments came out of the claims that the F-22’s performance was lesser than or equal to the F-15. That argument was based on assumptions of the aircraft’s thrust to weight ratio, wing loading, calculated drag. The pilots were vociferous that those claims were wrong and that the F-22 outperforms the F-15 by a significant margin. As for where the truth lies, no idea, the numbers for true thrust etc., not likely to be released any time soon. Those who have flown it and flown against it in exercises have been impressed by it’s performance.
FBWNonsense claim. A pilot in a real mission has to take care of his fuel state always and will avoid the use of the burner whenever possible. Without the related height every claim is useless. At heights below 30000 feet the F-15 or F-22 are both limited well below Mach 2. Just in the Tropopause or Stratossphere you can go to speeds of Mach 2+
Max Mach 1,8 for a F-15C is a value with the central ET kept.
Pilot in question was investigated for OPSEC violation (posting his experiences in F-22 on a Forum), so I doubt his claims are nonsense. Secondly, he was not referring to a mission profile (he was a test pilot out of Edwards).
FBWF-16 Block 50 data on first page comes from flight manual. Somewhere in the F-35 thread there are more acceleration charts for F-16’s. Block 50 flight manual is online.
FBWhttp://www.janes.com/article/35119/saab-to-offer-gripen-c-d-upgrades-pushes-exports
http://www.air-cosmos.com/defense/saab-veut-rendre-le-gripen-plus-furtif.html translation:
New-build airframes incorporating structural changes and new materials, new radar and avionics, new engines.
Sounds like a lot of R&D specific to Gripen-E, as well as a lot of build cost.
I would love to know for all the Gripen NG lovers out there how SAAB has calculated the cost for an aircraft that does not exist outside of prototype form: what the development costs are, and the operating costs are for an aircraft that does not exist. There is not one Gripen NG that has all of the components yet flying. And again, I love to Gripen, but come on, the Gripen C is not analog to the other Eurocanards, they are Far more advanced in avionics and performance. The Gripen NG may close the gap, but more like the F-16 block 60.
FBWFurthermore, Bogdan is talking about per-unit prices without all the added contract stuff and one time initial costs associated with fielding a new aircraft.
The $200M “contract” prices that the article talks about come with a bunch of other stuff.
Using that logic, Australia spent $191M for each Super Hornet that they have, because they purchased 24 aircraft for $4.6 billion.
Obviously we all know that the SH’s per unit price is not $191M.
It is similar to comparing the ToT of the Rafale deal with India, there is no such thing as a “fly away” price with aircraft these days. You are buying a very expensive logistics train, Simulator, spares, weapons integration. Bottom line, I’ve posted previously: F-35 for Japan and Korea is going to cost 190 million U.S. per F-35. Rafale is 160 million for India and rising. ToT means nothing unless there is a economic benefit for the partner nation. There is not another program out there that offers the same benefit for the partner nations as the F-35: U.K. tier 1; Italy, Turkey, Japan, Israel, Canada, Australia, Italy, Netherlands, Norway: all getting a piece of the production pie.
FBWL-M is not making money on the F-35….yet. However, the support and maintenance of thousands of F-35 is going to be worth it for them. Fact is, government has held back funds, made Lockheed pay out of pocket for late deliveries, and manufacturing errors before.
This article gives some insight:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/24/lockheed-martin-corporation-execs-spill-the-beans.aspx
withholding payments:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-28/pentagon-to-withhold-lockheed-f-35-payments.html
FBWIIRC it was one line in a Northrup Grumman video that said that “maneuverability is irrelevant” in regards to WVR combat and tracking via EODAS. I have never heard a LM employee, or anyone else connected to the program say that it or speed was irrelevant.
Yes, you are correct, It was the NG video, not LM.
FBWYeah, umm, that might’ve been the case fifty years ago, but it’s not an accurate characterisation of those who’re suspicious of the recent attitude of many Americans that speed and agility are irrelevant*. The proposed alternatives to F-35 are not F-16A but rather a variety of solutions according to customer requirements and circumstances, ranging from Gripen E/F to evolved Rafale/Typhoon/Super Hornet to medium-weight VLO designs that haven’t had their performance compromised by extraneous requirements (J-31, AMCA, KF-X) to UCAVs and F-22E!
The truth is, nobody is going to follow the path laid down by F-35: not the Russians, Chinese, Europeans, Indians, Japanese, Turks, or Koreans. F-35 is a very strange aircraft emerging from a unique set of circumstances the United States found itself in in the mid-1990s and the assumptions that followed from that — assumptions that don’t, as it turns out, actually bear much relation to the world the aircraft will find itself operating in. Decades from now, we’ll look back at the variety of manned VLO platforms in service and F-35 will stick out like a sore thumb.
But hey, it’ll do wonders against Iran.
* An attitude that we can expect to vanish as soon as the F/A-XX requirements firm up, much as it vanishes today whenever the F-22 is conjured from the ether.
I’m not sure anyone other than the one quoted LM official has said that “speed and maneuverability are irrelevant”. The simple truth being that there just isn’t much further maneuverability can be pushed, and to what advantage?
Speed can and will be increased (or at least cruise speeds), but you will pay a high price in materials that need to be developed. There are several problems facing designers right now: RAM is heat sensitive, in the sense that radar absorbing properties decrease with higher temps, and the materials can be damaged. Second problem is cooling, the lack of cooling vents/ limits of heat exchange with fuel in a LO airframe. The development of variable cycle engines that can efficiently operate at higher alt. temps.
Thankfully, the F-35 is NOT like the F-16A. It will have utility from IOC, the early block F-16’s was a day fighter that in reality would have been used as a not very successful light bomber/Strike aircraft.
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