More Delays for the Joint Strike Fighter Program

[xt828]

Is the Su-30 really that much worse than the others?

[Kyler]

Is the Su-30 really that much worse than the others?

Depending on which model of the Su-30 you are talking about they can be more agile than either the Eurofighter or Raptor. It does have the range with being such a huge aircraft. All currently models lack an AESA radar which is being worked on for the Su-35 Terminator that is in testing. Though it won't ever be stealthy but does carry the largest AAM missile payload of any fighter aircraft currently. Russian AAM are some of the best in the world, so it is now slouch and must be taken seriously. It is one of the reasons the Australian & Japanese have been pushing so hard to allow the US to sell them Raptors.

In my opinion the best fighter aircraft in the world is the F-22 Raptor, followed by India's Su-30MKI, than the Eurofighter.

Only time will tell if the Sukhoi PAK-FA will be a good aircraft. I think the Russians are way too optimistic about the time it will take to develop the aircraft. It will be a close aircraft to F-22 if its done correctly, but won't have the true stealth, communications, radar, and range capabilites of the Raptor.

In reality the F-35 will not be able to compete against any two engined 5th & some 4.5 gen aircraft in close in air to air combat. It wasn't designed too. It was designed to be stealthy ground pounder that could protect itself if need be. The F-35 is designed to use its stealth to protect itself by making an enemy aircraft close the distance to get the kill. Though there is a big problem, the F-35 is not as stealthy as the F-22 and won't have the speed, range, and weapons to defend it self in a real dogfight. The F-35 won't supercruise, doesn't have thrust vectoring nozzles, only 6 AAM in air combat configuration, in other only 4-2 AAM with bombs while in clean stealth configuration.

I would really like to see a reduction in the amount of F-35C's the USAF purchase, and see them purchase more F-22's. Though Gates has already killed the F-22 so it pretty much too late.

[TimothyC]

I would really like to see a reduction in the amount of F-35C's the USAF purchase, and see them purchase more F-22's. Though Gates has already killed the F-22 so it pretty much too late.

The USAF is buying F-35As not Cs.

And while the F-22 is going out of production, LockMart is storing all of the tooling in a precise and managed manner. In theory, it could be brought back.

Currently 4.5 gen aircraft like the F-16E/F $80 mil, F-15E/F/S/K models $80-100 mil, F/A-18E/F/G $60-70 mil, Su-30 $30-45 mil, MiG-35 ?$40-70mil?

Fth Gen aircraf, F-22 $150-180mil, Eurofighter $100 mil, Rafale $60-80 mill, Gripen $40-60 mil (Not NG Model, Cost???)
F-35 $128 mil per most recent GAO estimate, Su PAK-FA ???

So if you have a non-stealth 5 gen aircraft that cost are very comparable to 4.5 gen aircraft.

The Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen are all 4.5-4.75 gen fighters. The only 5th gen fighters are the F-22, the F-35, PAK-FA, J-XX, and the Indian AMCA.

[Sea Skimmer]

Once they have a twinned internal AMRAAM launcher you’ll be able to hang sixteen air to air missiles on F-35 which beats any possible load out on any existing Su-27+ model. This assumes no triple launch rail ASRAAM pylons are used too. If you had those then on paper you could have 20 air to air missiles on an F-35, though only six would be BVR which is still better then an F-15 and equal with an F-22 . Really awful no? For the moment ASRAAM capability is on the back burner to simplify reaching IOC.

Even without the twined internal launcher you can still equal any of those Russian airframes with fourteen weapons. Lack of air to air missiles or any other weapon is not a valid criticism of the F-35 anymore so then you could condemn the entire F-15 program because the first ones produced didn’t have track while scan radar. However I doubt anyone would ever bother to do any of this because you’ll probably run out of fuel for combat before you run out of missiles. DAS pretty much makes a close in dogfight obsolete, because the enemy has no practical manner in which to get into a turning fighter before you can shoot him first. A reaction jet control system has even been proposed for AMRAAM to let it immediately turn around upon launcher to hit crap behind the launch jet. I doubt that will be funded anytime soon, but it wouldn't be very expensive to do it. One on one comparisons are pretty pointless anyway, its the networked group of F-35s you've got to beat and that's way harder then defeating it one on one.

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, how come the F-35 gets such a nice warload while they can't even give that stuff to the F-22?

Do you have a picture or a diagram of that twinned launcher?

[Jim Raynor]

In reality the F-35 will not be able to compete against any two engined 5th & some 4.5 gen aircraft in close in air to air combat. It wasn't designed too. It was designed to be stealthy ground pounder that could protect itself if need be. The F-35 is designed to use its stealth to protect itself by making an enemy aircraft close the distance to get the kill. Though there is a big problem, the F-35 is not as stealthy as the F-22 and won't have the speed, range, and weapons to defend it self in a real dogfight. The F-35 won't supercruise, doesn't have thrust vectoring nozzles, only 6 AAM in air combat configuration, in other only 4-2 AAM with bombs while in clean stealth configuration.

The F-35 will not be a slouch in air-to-air. It's not as stealthy as the Raptor but from what little has been released it's still going to be very hard to pick up. That's a big deal, as it will give the F-35 the first shot at beyond visual range. If close range dogfighting is anticipated, some F-35s can be armed with AIM-9X Sidewinders, with high off boresight capability. That's backed up by the F-35's Distributed Aperture System (DAS), which provides infrared tracking with full spherical coverage around the aircraft. According to Northrop Grumman, the DAS will allow the F-35 to launch AIM-9Xs at targets behind it. These features are supposed to offset maneuverability advantages enemy aircraft might have.

According to the chief test pilot Jon Beesley, the F-35's aerodynamic performance is about as good as a clean F-16:

In terms of aerodynamic performance, the F-35 is an excellent machine, Beesley said. Having previously been only the second man ever to have flown the F-22 Raptor, Beesley became the first pilot ever to fly the F-35 in late 2006. As such, Beesley is intimately familiar with both programs. According to Beesley, the four current test pilots for F-35 have been most impressed by the aircraft's thrust and acceleration. In the subsonic flight regime, the F-35 very nearly matches the performance of its' larger, more powerful cousin, the F-22 Raptor, Beesley explained. The "subsonic acceleration is about as good as a clean Block 50 F-16 or a Raptor- which is about as good as you can get." Beesley said.

The aircraft flies in "large measure like the F-22, but it's smaller, and stiffer" than the Raptor however, Beesley explained, adding that the aircraft handles superbly. The reason for the similar flight characteristics, explained the test pilot, is because the man who designed the flight control laws for the Raptor, is also the same man who is responsible for the flight control software for the F-35. As Beesley explains, the flight control laws of modern fighters determine to large extent the flight characteristics of a given aircraft. Beesley said that the aircraft is so stable and so comfortable that the test pilots find themselves inadvertently drifting too close to their wingmen in formation.

What Beesley expects will surprise future F-35 pilots is the jets' superb low speed handling characteristics and post-stall manoeuvrability. While the F-22 with its thrust vectored controls performs better at the slow speeds and high angle of attack (AOA) flight regime, the F-35 will be able match most of the same high AOA manoeuvres as the Raptor, although it will not be able to do so as quickly as the more powerful jet in some cases. Turning at the higher Gs and higher speed portions of the flight envelope, the F-35 will "almost exactly match a clean Block 50 F-16 and comes very close to the Raptor", Beesley said.

While supersonically the F-35 is limited to a seemingly unimpressive Mach 1.6 in level flight, Davis explains that the JSF is optimized for exceptional subsonic to supersonic acceleration. Transonic acceleration is much more relevant to a fighter pilot than the absolute max speed of the jet, Davis said. Davis, who was previously the program manager for the F-15 Eagle, explains that while the Eagle is a Mach 2 class fighter, it has rarely exceed the threshold of Mach 1.2 to Mach 1.3 during it's entire 30 year life span. Additionally, the time the aircraft has spent in the supersonic flight regime can be measured in minutes rather than hours- most of the supersonic flights were in fact during specialized flights such as Functional Check Flights (FCF). "I don't see how that gets you an advantage" Davis said, referring to the Mach 2+ capability. Beesley said that in terms of supersonic flight that the F-35 is still more than competitive with existing designs.

Comparisons to the F-22 Raptor are unfair as "supersonically, the Raptor is in a class by itself. It lives there," Beesley explained. "In many ways the Raptor is the first true supersonic fighter," Beesley added, referring to that aircrafts' much publicized and unique supersonic cruise capability.

Beesley explained that the F-35 is different from legacy fourth generation fighters such as the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, or even more modern aircraft such as the Eurofighter, in that the primary weapons load is stored internally. This arrangement means that there is no added drag to the airframe from externally carried weapons, fuel tanks, or sensor pods as in older aircraft types. The outstanding handling, acceleration, and the maximum speed of the aircraft is useable in a combat configuration unlike in legacy fighters. Beesley said that recently he flew an F-35 test flight with a full internal load of two 2000 lbs JDAMs, and two AIM-120 missiles. The aircraft "felt like it had a few thousand pounds of extra fuel" but otherwise Beesley said there was practically no degradation in the aircrafts' performance.

[Jim Raynor]

Man, how come the F-35 gets such a nice warload while they can't even give that stuff to the F-22?

Do you have a picture or a diagram of that twinned launcher?

The twin launcher isn't around yet for either of them. The F-35 also has larger weapon bays than the F-22. However I'm no expert on the details and I'm not sure if these twin launchers could be installed on the F-22.

The F-22 has fallen out of favor with the leadership. Its numbers are too small and it's harder to justify spending money on upgrades for it. There are still plenty of upgrades being planned, but they're years away. Ironically, the air-to-air specialist F-22 doesn't even have high off boresight AIM-9X capability yet. That's another thing which they're holding off on.

[Sea Skimmer]

Man, how come the F-35 gets such a nice warload while they can't even give that stuff to the F-22?

The F-22 was never really expected to use external stores except for a narrow range of scenarios, and its wings turned out weaker then expected so only two of four external pylons can really be used. All air to ground capability in the F-22 is an afterthought which is why the main internal bay cannot hold 2000lb bombs, they barely squished in 1000lb bombs.

The F-35 on the other hand was intended to only be stealthy, with two 2000lb bombs (thus each one is the same as an F-117, look what a few dozen F-117s did to Iraq in 1991) on day one of a war, and then use its large external payload to blow the crap out of the enemy once his best defenses are laid waste. Different intended mission profiles for different planes. Still an F-22 can haul 10,000lb external, if they ever bother certifying the wing pylons for more then drop tanks and AMRAAMs. That may or may not happen with so few in service. Currently the USAF only intends to use a max of two 600 gallon tanks and four external AMRAAMs max for defensive combat air patrol sorties.

Do you have a picture or a diagram of that twinned launcher?

The launcher specifically no, though the AFRL has been talking about one for well, as long as I've paid attention to crap like this. But it was a feature locked out of the system design and development stage which ends in 2011. Now that we are nearing the date Lockheed itself is talking about the launcher as appearing around 2020. They did put out this concept art a few months ago, quality is low because its a still from a video.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2479/f35sixamraams.jpg

It should actually be possible to make eight AMRAAMs fit internally, but it'd be hard to design a way to release them cleanly and would be dependent on the strength of the bomb bay door station, which is unknown at the moment. The real future will be all new air to air missiles with no fins and purely thrust vector control. Then each one would just be a six or seven inch diameter tube and you could pack in a dozen of them if you wanted. Using purely TVC does have limits, its heavy and it means once the motor burns out you have zero control, but that problem can be worked around as long as you don't demand super long missile range. The USAF is currently working on concept definition for what it would like a future missile like this to do. Among other things it wants a missile that will kill planes and radar stations in the same weapon.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't think I'm "pushing" for Russian hardware - I hope it gets ordered by Russia itself to arm... Russia, yeah. But I'm not entirely convinced all or, in fact, any other nations should get our hardware, not at all. Sadly enough, foreign contracts nowadays play a big role in keeping Russia's defence industry alive, but I don't think it should stay that way.

Sometimes I go "yeah, let Russia arm Venezuela" or whatever, but that's not because I think about Russia's military industries getting money - usually it's because of geopolitical considerations. I just find it convenient when nations opposed to America can get some top-grade weaponry, it is in some ways satisfying.

As for the JSF program, that was waay too big to just run smoothly, I believe. And it is no big deal if some nations back out and America suddenly axes parts of that program. Perhaps if other nations' orders were so critical to your defence program, that means this program was meant more for selling your shit to people than for defending your own nation.

[Sarevok]

Perhaps the US military should not have put so much stake on one single aircraft building project. If there were another competing idea under development in parallel they could now cancel the JSF without worry.

[Vendetta]

JSF did have a competitor aircraft, Boeing's X-32.

It's not practical to maintain development of a fighter aircraft with no guaranteed buyer though, so as soon as the F-35 was picked as the winner of the Joint Strike Fighter contract X-32 died.

[Sea Skimmer]

Perhaps the US military should not have put so much stake on one single aircraft building project. If there were another competing idea under development in parallel they could now cancel the JSF without worry.

Umm, no. The US military never fucking wanted one aircraft to do everything. The Clinton administration very specifically ordered all three services to do it at the same time they ordered most of our aircraft manufactures to merge.

[Kyler]

The Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen are all 4.5-4.75 gen fighters. The only 5th gen fighters are the F-22, the F-35, PAK-FA, J-XX, and the Indian AMCA.

No they are all 5th Gen aircraft, though they all the have the capabilities of 4.5 aircraft. Remember all European 5th Gen programs were started during the Cold War and were intended to replace all the 4th Gen aircraft. Since the end of the Cold War many of those countries wanted to save money and not buy 5th Gen aircraft but instead updated their currenth 4th Gen aircraft. So if the Cold War had lasted another decade you probably would not see hardly any 4th Gen aircraft serving in the forces that field the Eurofighter, and Rafale. Sweden has already replace all their Viggen fleet with the Gripen.

[TimothyC]

The Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen are all 4.5-4.75 gen fighters. The only 5th gen fighters are the F-22, the F-35, PAK-FA, J-XX, and the Indian AMCA.

No they are all 5th Gen aircraft, though they all the have the capabilities of 4.5 aircraft. Remember all European 5th Gen programs were started during the Cold War and were intended to replace all the 4th Gen aircraft. Since the end of the Cold War many of those countries wanted to save money and not buy 5th Gen aircraft but instead updated their currenth 4th Gen aircraft. So if the Cold War had lasted another decade you probably would not see hardly any 4th Gen aircraft serving in the forces that field the Eurofighter, and Rafale. Sweden has already replace all their Viggen fleet with the Gripen.

5th Gen fighters, are by definition Stealth Fighters with superior AESA radars and LPD data-links. By those standards, The Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen all fail to be 5th Gen fighters.

The Three European 4.5/4.75 gen fighters are roughly equivalent to a late model F-15 (SG/K/SE), or a Super Hornet. You will note that those five planes all have roughly the same cost (75-110 million USD), only slightly less than a true 5th gen fighter (125-150 million USD).

[Siege]

Of course the per-airframe price does not factor in the cost of maintenance, spares, etc. which I imagine might be higher for 5th generation stealth fighters loaded to the brim with top-notch electronics.

[TimothyC]

Of course the per-airframe price does not factor in the cost of maintenance, spares, etc. which I imagine might be higher for 5th generation stealth fighters loaded to the brim with top-notch electronics.

Except the US 4.5+ Gen planes are loaded with similarly complex electronics. Yes, the airframe maintenance on an F-35 might be more expensive than a Typhoon or a Super Hornet, but not by much.

[UnderAGreySky]

I despise the "Generation" definitions when they descend into fractions. It's all right when you're distinguishing between eras when the plane was first designed - say F-16A v/s F-35. But when you start talking 4.5/4.75/5... just... don't. Discuss them on their capabilities and not in the least the environment they operate in (I'd take a Su-30 in an AEW&C-backed fighter over a Typhoon without one).

The Three European 4.5/4.75 gen fighters are roughly equivalent to a late model F-15 (SG/K/SE), or a Super Hornet.

What are the maintenance times? Does it take one hour to change an engine or six? Will it have 85% availability or 95%? The reason IAF Squadron Leaders (spoke with a couple) preferred a squad of Mirage 2000s over MiG-29s in a war combat scenario for even A2A is because though the Fulcrum comes out on top most of the times in WVR you'd have your Mirages up 90% of the time and not 65%. So how is it to maintain the Eagle over a JSF?

[Kyler]

5th Gen fighters, are by definition Stealth Fighters with superior AESA radars and LPD data-links. By those standards, The Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen all fail to be 5th Gen fighters.

The Three European 4.5/4.75 gen fighters are roughly equivalent to a late model F-15 (SG/K/SE), or a Super Hornet. You will note that those five planes all have roughly the same cost (75-110 million USD), only slightly less than a true 5th gen fighter (125-150 million USD).

Your definition is based on the US perspective. Go tell a Eurofighter, Rafale, or Gripen pilot that they are flying a 4th Gen aircraft and their liable to smack you across the back of your head. When these programs began the US owned stealth. No other countries research into stealth capabilities even came to close to US. The Swedish invented data links for fighter aircraft, so their 4th gen Viggens and 5th Gen Grippen had them before even the US. The Eurofighter & Rafale were intended to have AESA from the get go, but Europe’s development has again been much slower. Tranche 3 Eurofighter will have the capability to be up graded with AESA, and the French are just starting to retrofit Rafales with their AESA. The Gripen was not designed to have it, but the new JAS-39NG will have it. Full aspect stealth is an extremely expensive option for aircraft that’s why the Eurofighter & Rafale have front aspect stealth only.

[MKSheppard]

The Swedish invented data links for fighter aircraft.

No they didn't. That honor goes to the late F-106 Delta Dart and the SAGE system.

[Jim Raynor]

What is this front aspect stealth you're talking about on the Eurofighter and Rafale? Both of them hang missiles, bombs, and fuel tanks under their wings, and I hear that canards aren't good for RCS either. Modest RCS reductions are not "stealth." The Super Hornet has RCS reductions too.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Yeah, IIRC, nearly every '4.5' Generation aircraft uses RCS reducing shaping, even Block 60+ F-16 and the F-15E.

[Kyler]

The Swedish invented data links for fighter aircraft.

No they didn't. That honor goes to the late F-106 Delta Dart and the SAGE system.

I forgot about the F-106, you are correct. The Swedish AF was the first to use datalinks on a large
scale through out their combat aircraft. Thanks for the correction.

[Kyler]

For those interested in a better understanding the limitations of the F-35 capabilities as a fighter aircraft I recommend
Dr. Carlo Kopps "Assessing JSF Air Combat Capabilities"

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2008-08.html

His insights are definitely worth reading

[JointStrikeFighter]

Sparky's best friend.

[K. A. Pital]

I think not just every "4,5" generation has RCS-reducing shape, but all 4 gens have it. At least the MiG-29 and Su-27 had the shape of the clean airframe designed with lower RCS in mind, and I believe so were some of the other 4 gens.

Oh, and Kopp? He's not as bad as Sparky. His plane stuff sucks, but his radar pages are pretty good, now that I think about it.