More Delays for the Joint Strike Fighter Program

[Kyler]

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.

There is nothing stealthy about either the original Fulcrum or Flanker. Neither aircraft were designed to have lower RCS than Western counterparts, but they were designed to be the best fighter aircraft in their respective classes. The Su-35 & MiG-35 have incorporated newer composite materials but no serious efforts have been made too increase their stealthiness besides the use of RAM coatings in some areas.

[adam_grif]

I was always amazed when people in the media kept throwing around the idea of the F-22 as a replacement for the F-111 instead of the F35. Why would you replace a bomber with an air-superiority fighter, even assuming Congress would lift the ban on their sale?

[Kyler]

F-22 was given its bomber capabilities to help better sell it to Congress so they wouldn't kill the project. Testing of the SDM is professing, and with the F-22 ability to supercruise it give the bombs a hell of an increase in range and kinetic energy when hitting a target. The F-22 was the reason why the F-117 was retired early, the USAF didn't want to retire the Nighthawk for a few more years but budget cuts wouldn't let them keep them around. Luckily all the Nighthawks are stored in type 1000 storage for quick return to service if needed.

Never heard someone say they need to replace F-111's with F-22's. Only place I could even possibly see that is Australia since they are the only country operating the type. The Aussies have been after the US to allow the export of the F-22 to counter China's, Vietnams, India's, and Indonesia's Flankers.

[Shroom Man 777]

Actually the Nighthawks were shredded by heavy machinery. You can see pictures of forklifts and hydraulic crab-claw things disemboweling the F-117s.

EDIT:



Sauce

Graph me, Shep.

[Jim Raynor]

Shroom, those pics made the military fanboy in me cry.

Never heard someone say they need to replace F-111's with F-22's. Only place I could even possibly see that is Australia since they are the only country operating the type. The Aussies have been after the US to allow the export of the F-22 to counter China's, Vietnams, India's, and Indonesia's Flankers.

Kopp's one of the people arguing that the Aussies need to get the F-22 instead of the F-35, and he thinks that the F-111 should be replaced with the FB-22. Never mind that the FB-22 doesn't exist, and US law bans all exports of the F-22.

[Kyler]

Actually the Nighthawks were shredded by heavy machinery. You can see pictures of forklifts and hydraulic crab-claw things disemboweling the F-117s.

EDIT:



Sauce

Graph me, Shep.

Shroom, thanks for the post, the last article I had read they were being stored. It is a shame they were destroyed.

[K. A. Pital]

There is nothing stealthy about either the original Fulcrum or Flanker. Neither aircraft were designed to have lower RCS than Western counterparts, but they were designed to be the best fighter aircraft in their respective classes. The Su-35 & MiG-35 have incorporated newer composite materials but no serious efforts have been made too increase their stealthiness besides the use of RAM coatings in some areas.

What is "stealthy" about the Eurofighter as proposed?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Jesus christ, I never thought I could see a plane being scrapped that could be described as morbid, but that's it.

[Shroom Man 777]

Wiki:

Although not designated a stealth fighter, measures were taken to reduce the Typhoon's radar cross section (RCS), especially from the frontal aspect.[141][142] An example of these measures is that the Typhoon has jet inlets that conceal the front of the jet engine (a strong radar target) from radar. Many important potential radar targets, such as the wing, canard and fin leading edges, are highly swept, so will reflect radar energy well away from the front sector.[143] Some external weapons are mounted semi-recessed into the aircraft, partially shielding these missiles from incoming radar waves.[141] In addition radar absorbent materials (RAM) developed primarily by EADS/DASA coat many of the most significant reflectors, e.g. the wing leading edges, the intake edges and interior, the rudder surrounds, strakes, etc.[141][144] The Typhoon does not use internal storage of weapons. External mounting points are used instead, which increases its radar cross section but allows for more and larger stores.[145]

The Eurofighter operates automatic Emission Controls (EMCON) to reduce the Electro-Magnetic emissions of the current mechanically scanned Radar.[141] The Captor-M was the first NATO-Radar with three rather than two working channels, one intended for classification of jammer and for jamming suppression.[146] The German BW-Plan 2009 indicates that Germany will equip/retrofit the Luftwaffe's Eurofighters with the AESA Captor-E from 2012.[147] The conversion to AESA will give the Eurofighter a Low Probability of Intercept Radar with much better jam resistance.[148][149] These include an innovative design with a gimbal to meet RAF requirements for a wider scan field than a fixed AESA.[150] The coverage of an fixed AESA is limited to 120 degree in azimuth and elevation.[151]

According to the RAF, the Eurofighter's RCS is better than RAF requirements. Comments from BAE Systems suggest the radar return is around one quarter of that of the Tornado it replaces.[152] The Eurofighter is thought to have an RCS of less than one square metre in a clean configuration by author Doug Richardson, although no official value is available.[143] This compares with the estimated RCS of the Rafale of 2 square metres,[153] the 20 square metres of the Sukhoi Su-30MKI,[154] the 1 square metre of the Su-35BM[155] and the American F-117 of 0.025 square metres.[153] The manufacturers have carried out tests on the early Eurofighter prototypes to optimize the low observability characteristics of the aircraft from the early 1990s. Testing at BAE's Warton facility on the DA4 prototype measured the RCS of the aircraft and investigated the effects of a variety of RAM coatings. Another measure to reduce the likelihood of discovery is the use of passive sensors, which minimises the radiation of treacherous electronic emissions. While canards generally have poor stealth characteristics,[156] the flight control system is designed to minimise the RCS in flight, maintaining the elevon trim and canards at an angle to minimise RCS.

[Simon_Jester]

One thing I've heard mentioned (by Stuart; I can find the link if need be) is the idea that you hit diminishing returns with stealth at a certain point. The goal of not showing up like a flare on radar is laudable, but eventually the cost of making the plane more and more invisible is not justified by the advantages, because the enemy just starts relying on other means of detection and ignoring their radar.

I don't know where the more modern 'non-stealth' fighters such as the Typhoon are relative to that line.

[tim31]

Never heard someone say they need to replace F-111's with F-22's. Only place I could even possibly see that is Australia since they are the only country operating the type. The Aussies have been after the US to allow the export of the F-22 to counter China's, Vietnams, India's, and Indonesia's Flankers.

Don't know if you caught this, but Adam Grif is from Australia. Certain elements of the Australian media have made noise about only getting the F-35 instead of the F-22, but these journalists come across more like they've been fed a line by armchair milwankers and ran with it for a story. I remember a conversation with a neighbour who had read such an article and was inviting me to join him in tutting the Department of Defence for wanting to buy a fighter that 'can't even reach Indonesia!' But why would the Australian Defence Force need long range strike capability? Oh ho yes, and there's the Super Hornets and Airbus tankers the RAAF is procuring. Nevermind.

[thejester]

Never heard someone say they need to replace F-111's with F-22's. Only place I could even possibly see that is Australia since they are the only country operating the type. The Aussies have been after the US to allow the export of the F-22 to counter China's, Vietnams, India's, and Indonesia's Flankers.

Don't know if you caught this, but Adam Grif is from Australia. Certain elements of the Australian media have made noise about only getting the F-35 instead of the F-22, but these journalists come across more like they've been fed a line by armchair milwankers and ran with it for a story. I remember a conversation with a neighbour who had read such an article and was inviting me to join him in tutting the Department of Defence for wanting to buy a fighter that 'can't even reach Indonesia!' But why would the Australian Defence Force need long range strike capability? Oh ho yes, and there's the Super Hornets and Airbus tankers the RAAF is procuring. Nevermind.

Kyler should probably introduce himself to the hilarity of Airpower Australia. The sole reason for the existance of the organisation is to convince parliament that we need to buy the F-22.

[Sarevok]

One of the big criticisms of the F-35 is costs. How does the F-35s projected price compare to that of future adversaries the Europeans, Russians and Chineese companies are building ? If the adversary also ends up as 100 million dollar plus per copy suddenly the F-35 dont look too bad.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Kyler should probably introduce himself to the hilarity of Airpower Australia. The sole reason for the existance of the organisation is to convince parliament that we need to buy the F-22.

I've often wondered about that particular site. They seem to have a particular fixation with stealth, implying that anything without a full stealth capability (aka the F22) is worthless. They also produced an extensive article on the capabilities of the Chinese air defence network, claiming that it was totally impenetrable to non-stealth aircraft (aka the F22).

[Sarevok]

Uh no. APA are HUGE fanboys of F-22. Their whole reason for existence is the F-22, how awesome it is and why Australia should try its best to gets hand on it rather than the medicore F-35.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Uh no. APA are HUGE fanboys of F-22. Their whole reason for existence is the F-22, how awesome it is and why Australia should try its best to gets hand on it rather than the medicore F-35.

Completely mucked up my own argument. It should say that they regard the F-22 as being the ultimate in stealth aircraft, and that anything with any less stealth capability is worthless. Also, if they don't get it, they won't be able to penetrate China's air defence network.

Sorry about that.

[open_sketchbook]

Idiot question from somebody who doesn't know modern air combat. Everyone is throwing absurd amounts of money at building these super fast, super stealthy uberplanes with a billion and a half features on them. What I'm wondering is, wouldn't it make a hell of a lot more sense to make some kind of cheap-ass mass produced missile bus with everything chopped off it but the ability to lock on with and fire as many missiles as possible, and overwhelm quality with quantity? I mean, when two of these latest generation fighters meet, they're both going to fire missiles from a million miles away and then they're both going to blow up, so wouldn't it make sense to focus on getting more planes in the air and giving them cutting edge targetting, missiles, decoys, and ejection seats?

I'll admit I don't understand very much about modern air-to-air combat, but as far as I know fighters just lock onto each other from crazy absurd ranges and let loose with missiles at one another. I'm not seeing where being all sleek and manuverable with super patriotic stealth doodads helps much in that situation, and I'm wondering if there is a real reason for it or if it's just a holdover from when planes actually did dogfight.

[weemadando]

I was impressed by an article in The Age the other day where the author advocated the point that Australia is at best a mid-level power and shouldn't be wasting time and money on a bleeding edge program when we can get Superbugs off the shelf right now for cheaps and then look at JSF in 10 years when it's actually operational (and when the US might have also lifted trade restrictions on F-22 tech).

[Simon_Jester]

Idiot question from somebody who doesn't know modern air combat. Everyone is throwing absurd amounts of money at building these super fast, super stealthy uberplanes with a billion and a half features on them. What I'm wondering is, wouldn't it make a hell of a lot more sense to make some kind of cheap-ass mass produced missile bus with everything chopped off it but the ability to lock on with and fire as many missiles as possible, and overwhelm quality with quantity? I mean, when two of these latest generation fighters meet, they're both going to fire missiles from a million miles away and then they're both going to blow up, so wouldn't it make sense to focus on getting more planes in the air and giving them cutting edge targetting, missiles, decoys, and ejection seats?

The object of the game there is to allow you to lock onto an enemy before they lock onto you, and blow them up before they get their shot off.

The reason people go for radar cross section reduction (and, more specifically, high-end stealth systems) is that it makes you much, much harder to get a lock on. An F-22 can lock on an F-16 from fifty miles away or whatever; the F-16 sometimes has a hard time locking on the F-22 even when the pilot can look out of the cockpit and SEE the F-22.

Ditto for the advanced electronics, the infrared detectors and the networking gear. That lets you pull complicated moves like:

You have two planes, one out of missile range of the target and one in missile range. The one out of range gets a lock, which means firing up its radar, which means that it can now be seen by the target... But it doesn't matter, because the target isn't in range of the plane using its radar, and therefore can't shoot it. Then the plane that has a lock passes the targeting data on to the other plane, which is in range... and promptly launches one of its own missiles to blow the enemy plane up, without the enemy ever figuring out that it's there, because the guy who took the shot never tipped off the target by firing up his own radar.

On top of this you have all kinds of complicated avionics needed to make the planes stable in flight (stealth aircraft are aerodynamically unstable, and need computers monitoring the flight controls to keep them from crashing).

You have the desire for extreme speed and maneuverability, because that makes it harder for the enemy to get a shot off. The bubble within which they can shoot you down shrinks because if they fire while you're moving too high and too fast, their missile will run out of gas before it catches up with you, or you'll be able to turn hard enough to break the missile's lock on you.

Summing up, the reason people don't just build cheap but numerous missileer fighters is threefold.

One, missile performance is limited, and the higher-performance a given target is, the harder it is to kill. Missiles remain heavily dependent on the launcher's sensors to tell them where the target is, and on the launcher's performance to put them into a position where they can physically reach and hit the target. Therefore, a high-performance fighter with good sensors will make more effective use of its missiles than a low-performance fighter with bad sensors.

Two, in missile combat, expensive features like "missiles cannot get a lock on my plane" become really valuable, because they make the difference between losing one fighter to shoot down one fighter and losing zero fighters to shoot down one fighter.

Three, in missile combat, things like coordination between friendly aircraft become even more important, not less important... which gets expensive.

[open_sketchbook]

Thanks for the explanation! I wasn't aware that active vs passive radar actually mattered so much in fighter combat.